Good News Notes: “Pterosaurs were the first vertebrates to evolve flight and include the largest flying animals in Earth history. While some of the last-surviving species were the size of airplanes, pterosaurs were long thought to be restricted to small body sizes — wingspans 1.6-1.8 m (5.2-5.9 feet) — from their Triassic origins through the Jurassic…
Category: history
Rediscovered in a basement, his prewar opera heads to Germany
Good News Notes: “Later this month, Jan Agee will leave her Davis home, get on a plane, and fly 6,000 miles to Germany just to attend an opera. And she isn’t even an opera fan. But she is a fan of this one. “Grete Minde” is a three-act opera composed by her grandfather, Eugen Engel,…
Norway blows up hydro dam to restore river health and fish stocks | Rivers | The Guardian
Good News Notes: A dam that has blocked the Tromsa River in Norway for more than 100 years was blown up with dynamite this week, freeing migratory routes for fish. “It’s a big step,” said Tore Solbakken of Norwegian angling club Gudbrandsdal Sportsfiskeforening, who has campaigned for five years to have the old hydropower plant…
Archaeologists Have Unearthed a 4,000-Year-Old Board Game. Now They Just Have to Figure Out the Rules
Good News Notes: “Archaeologists in Oman have found 4,000-year-old stone board game at a Bronze and Iron Age settlement site near the village of Ayn Bani Saidah in the northern Hajar mountains’ Qumayrah Valley. “Such finds are rare, but examples are known from an area stretching from India, through Mesopotamia even to the Eastern Mediterranean,”…
Daredevil breaks slackline world record walking between two hot air balloons at 6,100ft
Good News Notes: “A daredevil has broken the slackline world record after walking between two hot air balloons more than a mile above the ground. Rafael Zugno Bridi, 34, balanced precariously on the narrow inch-wide slackline among the clouds over Praia Grande in his native Brazil. The adrenaline junkie was barefoot 6,131ft in the air when…
Mammoth Tusk Found on Ocean Floor Offers Clues About Ancient Creatures
Good News Notes: “To the untrained eye, it may have looked like a giant wood log. In reality, scientists had spotted something unusual off the California coast two years ago: a 3-foot-long mammoth tusk. A research team at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute discovered the tusk in 2019 while exploring an underwater mountain roughly…
They accidentally found hidden paintings dating back to Renaissance
Good News Notes: “Restorers in England made “the discovery of a lifetime” by accident when they found paintings dating back to the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. Likely dating to sometime between 1540 and 1580, the paintings feature swirls, birds with teeth and tiny men in hats. The paintings were found behind wall plaster being removed during…
‘It could be a big tree in 1,000 years’: tiny seedlings of giant sequoias rise from ashes of wildfire
Good News Notes: “Ashtyn Perry was barely as tall as the shovel she stomped into barren ground where a wildfire last year ravaged the California mountain community of Sequoia Crest and destroyed dozens of its signature behemoth trees. The 13-year-old with a broad smile and a braid running to her waist had a higher purpose that, if…
Bandicoots return to Sturt National Park after more than a century
Good News Notes: “Locally extinct bandicoots have returned to Sturt National Park after more than 100 years. The nationally threatened species – known by local Aboriginal people as ‘talpero’ – once ranged across inland Australia, including the area now managed as Sturt National Park. The small, native marsupials became extinct in the region after ecosystem changes…
Seljuk sarcophagi unearthed in Turkey’s Bitlis excite researchers
Good News Notes: “Archaeological excavations and restoration work at the Seljuk Meydan (Square) Cemetery, in the Ahlat district of eastern Turkey’s Bitlis, have unearthed two “sanduka,” a type of sarcophagi placed over the original graves of distinguished people in the Turkish-Islamic tradition. The sandukas were discovered as part of the “Eyewitnesses of History Stand Up” project,…