Good News Notes: “Scientists have discovered two new snail species the size of a grain of sand—the tiniest known land snails on Earth. “It’s amazing how small they are—we wouldn’t have expected that,” says Adrienne Jochum, a researcher with Natural History Museum Bern in Switzerland. The new record-holder’s diminutive nature is reflected in its scientific name, Angustopila…
Tag: Earth
Newly discovered rainfrog species named in honor of climate activist Greta Thunberg
Good News Notes: “A new species of rainfrog was officially named in a scientific article published on Monday. The new species, Pristimantis gretathunbergae, has been named the Greta Thunberg Rainfrog and described in a new article in thePensoft scientific journal ZooKeys. The new rainfrog species was discovered by an international team headed by Abel Batista and…
Indonesia leads the way in restoring coral reefs, scientists say
Good News Notes: “With wide-scale deforestation, some of the world’s most polluted cities and rivers, and wildfires so vast they often blanket neighbouring countries in smog, Indonesia is one of the world’s most high-profile environmental offenders. But when it comes to coral reefs, the rapidly industrialising Southeast Asian nation is doing more to restore the…
Halloween Gone Eco: Thank Ghouls
Good News Notes: “Let’s be honest, we’re all currently haunted. The human impact on this planet is catastrophic, and we live in the aftermath of our misguided decisions. But hope is not lost! And while we slowly work to repair—to put the ghosts to rest, as it were—we must consider all the aspects of our…
Experts Optimistic Coral Reefs Will Survive
Good News Notes: ‘“Coral reefs are amazing and beautiful, and we must conserve them,” Sam Purkis, chair of the department of marine geosciences at the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, told VOA. Although coral reefs only cover 0.1% of the ocean floor, they are a lifeline for the planet. With…
Project Vesta: Cutting-edge technology battles climate change by using olivine sand to pull carbon dioxide from atmosphere
Good News Notes: “In the battle against climate change, a San Francisco nonprofit has developed a cutting-edge technology that uses olivine sand to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide emissions of all human activity around the world has surpassed 40 billion tons per year. Governments are now encouraging, and in some cases, requiring…
NASA is learning how to farm on Mars and the moon
Good News Notes: “Whether from continent to continent or coast to coast, people have always made their big moves together with plants. Traveling away from Earth would be no different. Our success on other worlds will rest, in part, on the supple stems of plants. “Plants are things that we take with us as explorers,”…
China Launches Astronauts to Space Station
Good News Notes: “There will soon be two places in orbit where astronauts live. On a clear, sunny Thursday morning in the Gobi Desert, China launched three astronauts to rendezvous with the country’s nascent space station. They waved to cameras in their capsule as their trip to space began. Twenty-one minutes into the mission, the…
A Clever Robot Spies on Creatures in the Ocean’s ‘Twilight Zone’
Good News Notes: “THE GRANDEST MIGRATION on Earth isn’t the journey of some herbivore in Africa or a bird in the sky, but the vertical movement of whole ecosystems in the open ocean. All kinds of animals, from fish to crustaceans, hang out in the depths during the day, where the darkness provides protection from predators. At night, they…
Ex-Reddit CEO raises $30M to offer ‘reforestation in a box’
Good News Notes: “Over the past 4.5 billion years (give or take a few hundred million), the Earth has cultivated many perfect examples of circular economy principles — including the natural patterns through which water is withdrawn from rivers, springs, streams, lakes (and so forth) through evaporation and returned through rainfalls both gentle and stormy. …