Eddy's Good News: Old wind turbines used to build bridges and a festival aimed at serving and ex armed forces!

Virgin Radio

14 Feb 2022, 10:02

Every day during his show on Virgin Radio, Eddy Temple-Morris brings you Good News stories from around the world, to help inject a bit of positivity into your day!!

Be sure to listen each day between 10am and 1pm (Monday - Friday) to hear Eddy's Good News stories (amongst the finest music of course), but if you miss any of them you can catch up on the transcripts of Eddy's most recent stories below!

Friday 25th February 2022

Cool news from Ireland as old wind turbine blades are used to build bridges! Say top of the morning to The Re-Wind Network who are coming up with great ideas to up-cycle these massive things and here’s why.

The lifespan of a wind turbine blade is about the same as a small dog, twenty years and they are mostly totally non recyclable. I’ve shared with you at least one story from the Netherlands where they built the coolest looking bike and bus shelters out of these decommissioned blades. Ireland now has an impressive and futuristic looking so-called Blade Bridge designed for pedestrians, cyclists, and emergency vehicles.

The blades were donated by a turbine company in Belfast then transported to County Cork where they provided the main struts for the newest and coolest looking bridge on the Emerald Isle.

Via: goodnewsnetwork.org

Great news from here in the UK and the announcement of a new music and wellness festival aimed at serving and ex armed forces.

Say hello to At Ease festival, I warned you about this last year, and if you missed out on tickets for Carfest South and you want something awesome to do on that Bank Holiday weekend, this is it! It’s a family friendly festival, that’s focused on mental health and similarly to carfest, it’s to make money for charity, in this case two charities, Sporting Force and My Black Dog, so your money is going towards armed forces support and a vital mental health service.

The venue is the magnificent grounds of Euston Park in Suffolk and on the music bill, you’ll find Kaiser Chiefs, Jake Bugg, Natalie Imbruglia, Happy Mondays, Isaac Stuart, as well as Gok Wan’s hands in the air DJ set and great tribute acts like Noasis and Abba Gold. There’s plenty for kids including Horrible Histories and Fireman Sam plus lots of wellness activities, workshops, discussions for all. If you’re from a military family, you might see old friends, you’ll definitely make new ones and have an awesome weekend. At Ease Festival, 26-28 August, tickets went on sale today, there are day tickets and early bird deals - follow the link to get yours!

Via: seetickets.com

Thursday 24th February 2022

Amazing news from down under with the invention of a red plastic film that proves we’ve been doing greenhouses wrong all this time - they should be red-houses!

Say g’day to sunlight scientists at Universities of New South Wales and Western Sydney who’ve been studying how to get the most out of plants you’re growing by changing the colour of light. It turns out there are some parts of the spectrum that are useless to growing plants, but others that they love. Amazingly, if you manipulate the light and push it into the red part of the spectrum, this increases plant yields, improves plant cycles and more controlled harvests. It sounds too good to be true but they’ve tested this out and it works so well they’ve produced a durable plastic film that absorbs the green part of light and makes it red, you can put it over any existing greenhouse, to turn it into a redhouse and reap all sorts of benefits. And before you ask, the dyes are all biodegradable and the plastic is 100% recyclable :)

Via: goodnewsnetwork.org

Great tech news from the USA and China with the invention of cheap solar powered desalination! Say hello and Nihao to aqua-boffins at MIT and in China who have cracked the holy grail of making fresh water out of saltwater.

More and more of the world are experiencing water shortage while getting hotter, so this solution offers a way to exploit the sun to make water!

Scientists have been searching for this for decades, but the problem has always been the most obvious one, salt fouling. Anyone who has a boat, or lives by the sea, knows that salt accumulates and destroys almost everything in its path and, just like hard water clogging up your shower head after time, it ends up blocking or fouling everything.

Traditional desalination involves a wick to draw water, and that eventually gets salt fouled no matter what that wick is made of, but these bright and brilliant souls have invented a wickless system that uses the sun's heat to draw salty water into clean water, diluting it to make it harmless. It’s too complicated for me to explain here but it involves natural convection, thermal radiation, dissolved ions and salt rejection…If you want to know exactly how, follow the link here :)

Via: goodnewsnetwork.org

Wednesday 23rd February 2022

Inspiring news from India as farmers are taught a new way to reduce food waste, vastly increase their yields and conjure nutritious food from stuff that would have been thrown away.

Food waste is a huge problem around the world, but particularly in hot places like India, where many farmers don’t have access to refrigeration. Food goes bad really quickly and gets thrown away, which is doubly heart breaking in a country with so much food poverty. Now say ‘namaste’ to the saviour of Indian food waste: Solar powered dehydrators! Using these simple sun powered contraptions they can take almost all the moisture out of leftover produce in just 4 hours, which extends its life by thousands of percent and preserves its nutrition by between 20-50% more effectively than other methods. Now loads of produce like tomatoes, garlic, onions, ginger, coconut, chillies, and corn are getting a second chance as easy to keep, easy to use, easy to transport food products.

Via: goodnewsnetwork.org

Cool blue-ish news from the Netherlands and a new fizzy pop that’s made from some of the most nutritious stuff on earth and is carbon negative!

Say hello to the guys at Ful, who’ve made a beautiful looking bluey green lemon and ginger fizzy drink made from spirulina, an algae that's been beloved by health food nuts for decades, I put a little in my smoothie every day. The thing about spirulina, aside from its numerous health benefits, is that as an algae, it literally eats CO2, so in the production of this stuff, the factory has - metaphorically speaking - connected their exhaust pipe to the air intake. The algae feeds off the CO2 and they end up with a lovely bluey green fizzy drink that eats more CO2 than it takes to make it! This is the so-called closed loop system that loads of businesses are chasing and this will hopefully inspire people all over the world. And I do love a blue-ish hue.

Via: goodnewsnetwork.org

Tuesday 22nd February 2022

Heart warming news from Norway as a boy finds a giant message in a bottle, in fact messages in a mini ship, launched by students in America. 

Say hello to 10 year old Karel who was walking his dog on a Norwegian beach when he spotted a six foot long boat with an unusual flat sail. When he recovered it, he found it was actually packed with interesting and inspiring stuff put in there by students in Rye, New Hampshire who were studying the ocean. They put a satellite transponder on the little boat, complete with sail and keel, and a waterproof compartment in which they stowed inspiring art and trinkets that meant something to them, plus an explanation to anyone who found it. The transponder stopped working after a few months, but not before they’d built an amazing picture of an epic journey which ended up being over 8,000 miles long and took 462 days.

Karel had the best show and tell ever at school as he shared the stuff, the story and the data and they got in touch with the students who launched the ship, who were delighted and mind blown their little boat made the same journey as the vikings!

Via: goodnewsnetwork.org

Great news from Iceland, one of the last governments that support commercial whaling, who’ve just announced the cancellation of all new whaling permits.

As soon as the last permit expires, all of these magnificent creatures can now hang out around Iceland without fear of being harpooned and how it happened makes for fascinating reading.

It turns out the Icelandic government only kept it going because tourists were duped into thinking it was an age old custom to eat whale meat, in actual fact it’s a thing started by restaurants for tourists in 1948. Now there’s just no demand for it, so despite permits for the slaughter of 400 Minke and Fin whales issued last year, only one whale was killed. The ‘Meet Us Don’t Eat Us’ campaign which sought to convince people whales were worth more alive than dead conducted research which showed 84% of Icelanders had never tried it and didn’t want to. Only 2% said they ate whale more than 6 times a year, meanwhile hundreds of thousands of people flock there every year to watch them, not wolf them.

Via: goodnewsnetwork.org

Monday 21st February 2022

Today’s good news for elephants starts off with bad news for two men from the Democratic Republic of Congo who were arrested in Seattle Washington for the smuggling of illegal ivory into the US.

The reason they were caught is actually down to one elephantine super sleuth: Say hello to Samuel Wasser, who’s spent the last fifteen years building a DNA database of elephants and their tusks. While that may not stop the poaching at source, it’s certainly working on the smuggling and this is how: Tusks are often separated, meaning the left one might get smuggled months after the right one. But because of Sam’s efforts, if authorities find one tusk, they can trace it right back to the park it was poached from to build a really detailed picture of smuggling routes through parks of origin, airports and shipping ports plus nationality of suspects, all of which helps police to build maps which make it much easier to catch them when they smuggle the other one! Also, they can prosecute traffickers easier because they can link poachers to ivory confiscated in the past, DNA cannot lie, even if poachers do :)

Via: goodnewsnetwork.org

Pawsome news from the USA and how doggos can help us understand ageing. Say “woof” to the team of researchers at Princeton University who are in the biggest and most robust study of dogs lifespan ever undertaken.

The dog genome project will look at and sequence 10,000 doggo’s genomes over a long enough period to fully understand the hows and whys of pensioner pooches. It will put paid to the age old rubbish of dog years, seven years for every human one, for starters there are some breeds that really struggle to see a decade, while my friend Aaron’s dog, Wilson, a Lhasa Apso/Maltese cross, lived to see his twentieth birthday! Most dogs in the US and UK have a better healthcare system than most people in the world, so this study into why some die so early will shed a lot of light and not just on the pooches. Scientists hope that the Dog Ageing Project, as it’s called, will be able to help us better understand our own lifespan potential. I’ve a feeling I’ll be sharing some fascinating data from this study…paws for thought, if you will :)

Via: goodnewsnetwork.org

Friday 18th February 2022

Heart warming news from Alaska and a school that righted a wrong to one of their students after six decades.

Say hello to Billy Macon Jr, a pillar of his community in West Anchorage, husband, father, grandfather and business owner, he’s had a wonderful life, but there’s one thing in Billy’s past that has always rankled the 80 year old since 1961. His high school diploma had a big red stamp on it, which reflected the routine cruelty exercised by white people towards black people - which read “this student met minimum state requirements”. This turned the certificate, something supposed to be a symbol of pride, into something shameful, which belittled his education. He never displayed it, but kept it in a box, hidden from all eyes.

So for his 80th birthday, his wife tried contacting the education authorities to see if she could get the diploma he should have received, but they ignored her, so she took to social media with an emotional post which captured the hearts of a lot of people, including the current headmaster of the school he went to sixty years ago. He immediately had a proper diploma made and gave it to Billy at a graduation ceremony thrown just for him, with a recital by the school choir. Billy and his family were blown away. 

Via: goodnewsnetwork.org

Encouraging news from the USA and the discovery of a way to harness ammonia to make clean green electricity.

If you’ve been listening closely to these daily good news stories you might have spotted a story about new ocean crossing container ships that run on this stuff, it was actually chemists at the University of Wisconsin who had the breakthrough on this. Ammonia instead of petrol is nothing new, in World War II they burned ammonia because of fuel shortages, but burning it produces toxic nitrogen oxide, but this process unites the stinky liquid with a metal catalyst to produce electricity and pure nitrogen, which is harmless. 

I’m horribly familiar with the smell and even taste of ammonia, my old chemistry master, Michael McNevin, from Malvern College, a man who would now be sued for endangering his students, used to pour the stuff down the back of anyone who talked in class and on the last day of every term would pour litres of it onto the floor and allow the vapours to fill the room before he’d let us go, but he locked the doors first so we have a queue up to get out of tiny windows while coughing our lungs up.

Via: goodnewsnetwork.org

Thursday 17th February 2022

Fantastic feline news from Japan as a restaurant is saved from closure by the stray cats they adopted during the pandemic.

Say ‘Konichiwa’ to Naoki Teraoka, a model railway themed restaurant in Osaka that like most restaurants struggled to the point of closure during the pandemic, when their customers all stayed home. But even in such adversity, they decided to take in a stray cat who’d been hanging around and called him Simba. Pretty soon they discovered that Simba had a mum who turned up soon afterwards and some cousins or friends, with kittens in tow. Despite their difficult circumstances they took the cats in, then something remarkable happened. They ended up taking pics of the cats lounging around in their model dioramas, of course they looked like giant feline monsters among the tiny scenes, and pretty soon their instagram account went viral. Japanese people loved the whole Catzilla vibe. Soon afterwards the restaurant was packed every day, and it’s now even turned into a cat sanctuary. Diners can interact with the cats and even adopt them! 

Via: goodnewsnetwork.org

Encouraging news from here in the UK and how a bunch of friends and swimming enthusiasts have ended up having a film made about their inspiring lives.

Say hello to the five remaining members of The Sons Of Neptune, swim buddies from Scarborough who started campaigning for water cleanliness in the 1980s. They highlighted that Margaret Thatcher’s government was allowing the dumping of raw sewage in the sea and that it was affecting their health and the health of the environment. They bravely took on the local council, local businesses and even the government, ending up with several of them getting arrested outside the houses of parliament when they took their famous ‘Thatcherloo’ there by boat. Luckily one of them was a lawyer! Their bravery in facing down the government gave rise to Surfers Against Sewage and our beaches are all much cleaner and safer as a direct result of their inspiration. The five members left are all over 80 years old but just as passionate as they ever were about the environment and their story is about to be immortalised in a film, so look out for The Sons Of Neptune, coming to a screen near you.

Via: bbc.co.uk

Wednesday 16th February 2022

Heart melting news from down under as a 12 year old boy who died in a farming accident is discovered posthumously to be a musical genius and has a beautiful orchestral piece he wrote, played by an orchestra, at his funeral.

Kyan Pennell, aged just 12, from Queensland, died earlier this month, tragically, when caught between a trailer and a farm gate when he was helping shut it. While his heartbroken mum was going through his things she discovered an unfinished mini symphony he’d written before the accident.

Kyan was diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome (same as Gary Numan) and ADHD (same as me) and was a great example of someone turning their neurodiversity into a superpower. He used Youtube tutorials to teach himself the piano, spending every waking hour playing, and as it turned out, composing. He taught himself to write music too, wanting more than anything to be a concert pianist when he grew up. When his mum found the musical notation, she had no idea how to read it but used social media to find someone who could perhaps let her know how the music sounded. To her astonishment 16 members of the Queensland Symphony Orchestra saw it, read it, and loved his work so much that they asked to perform it at Kyan’s funeral. You can see him play if you follow the link here.

Via: thetimes.co.uk

Amphibious tech news as Tesla announce their new concept car, in fact an all electric pickup truck that turns into a boat!

Elon Musk loves the James Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me, or more specifically that white Lotus Esprit that turned into a submarine, driven by Roger Moore, so much that he bought the actual one they used and ever since has been working towards a car you can take on the water.

Now say hello to the Cybercat: It’s a 100% electric, futuristic looking pick up truck that has pontoons and hydrofoils which not only collapse and store in the back, but that a single person can install in less time than it takes to launch a boat.1.3 million people have already reserved one of these things and when you see the stats you can see why! Estimated pricing is $22,900 and $32,900 and Cybercat would have a top speed of around 25+ mph (on the water) and a range of 115 miles. This is fabulous news for double-take men everywhere - you know, the guy who’s drinking wine when the car drives out of the water and onto a beach, who then looks at the bottle, then back at the car, then back at the bottle. I love that guy ;)

Via: goodnewsnetwork.org

Tuesday 15th February 2022

We are constantly reminded that the nicest guy in acting is Keanu Reeves, but you’re about to meet the nicest guy in football!

Say hello to Sadio Mané, Africa Cup winner and Player Of The Tournament, with Senegal, who are in a national state of ecstasy at their first ever victory in the tournament. Their president declared a day of national holiday to celebrate and all this joy is made even more heartwarming when you look closer at the Liverpool forward off the pitch. During the tournament he paid for fifty senagalese fans to come to fly to Cameroon, even while he was in hospital with a concussion after the first game he found out a local boy had been brought in after being hit by a motorbike and was in critical condition. Sadio picked up the tab for the boy's medical bill, which his poor parents couldn’t afford. He has previous in altruism too, he’s donated nearly a million quid to build a school, a hospital, and soccer academy in his home village, where he grew up playing football bare-footed. He’s a lovely, humble man that’s always kind to others,  helps pack the team bus, even helps clean the toilets in nhis local mosque. Sadio Mané - we salute you.

Via: goodnewsnetwork.org

Potentially awesome tech news from the US and the invention of an incredible new material that’s stronger than steel, but light as plastic.

Say hi to MIT, Massachusetts Institute of Technology who’ve been studying something called polymerisation, specifically the manufacturing of something really strong but flat, out of plastic. The wall that every scientist had hit was at a molecular level, because polymers are by their nature, three dimensional, spaghetti like structures. It was said to be impossible for them to form two dimensional sheets. But MIT boffins have used a compound called melamine to encourage the polymers to form two dimensional discs which overlay on each other to make an incredibly strong and flat material which is easy and cheap to make. Imagine the myriad uses for something like this - because it doesn’t rust - as a coating on your car, or your house that’s near the sea, or a bridge that’s always rusting. It’s totally waterproof, even gas proof, it’s called polyaramide and it’s coming to change the phone, your car and your house!

Via: goodnewsnetwork.org

Monday 14th February 2022

Stinky news is good news from Java and Sumatra where one scientist has made it her mission to save their national flower - the stinking corpse lily!

Say ‘sugeng enjang’ to Sofi, a botanist from Java who is attempting the so-far impossible to cultivate the biggest flower in the world, which is also the smelliest. The ‘Rafflesia’ is the panda of the floral world, an absolute nightmare to cultivate, people have tried for over 70 years but in that time nobody has done it.

To be perfectly honest there’s not a huge amount of motivation here, I mean if it was a rare and beautiful sweet smelling orchid, I’m pretty sure they would have cracked it by now, but who wants a greenhouse full of metre long, twenty pound blooms with no roots or stems that smell like a giant pile of rotting meat? It sounds absolutely repulsive. They evolved to attract flies, but they can only reproduce if that fly then finds another lily in that area and the putrid petals only last for a week and even if they do manage to have a baby bud, over 90% of them die before they reach adulthood. Sofi was told her dream of saving the funksome flower was impossible, but she now has the world’s first nursery of Rafflesia’s pungent petals which gives a new meaning to the phrase greenhouse gas.

Via: goodnewsnetwork.org

Heartwarming and inspiring news from the USA as a man unites his neighbourhood with pancakes! Say hello to Curtis Kimball, who makes creme brulées for a living in San Francisco.

His missus was worried that he was working too hard and needed to make new friends, so Curtis got proactive and made a flyer that he stuck on lamp posts around his neighbourhood which said ““My wife says I’m getting weird. She says I need to make friends. So I’m making pancakes.”He thought a few people might show up to his Saturday morning pancake day, but what happened was as shocking as it was wonderful as over seventy five people, some of them living just a couple of doors down, showed up with their kids, their dogs, all excited and delighted to have been invited! Just shy of 130 pancakes were consumed, many new friends were made, people in the neighbourhood really came together and loved meeting each other. Now Curtis’s pancake day has become a regular event and a highlight of the week for many!

Via: goodnewsnetwork.org