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Good News Everyone!
Welcome back to another edition of the good news thread. Where I challenge folks to find and post good news. Don't just link to a source of good news, pick one out and share it. Personal good news stories are also welcome!
Even if it's good in the face of bad, even if it's the sort of good that can also remind you that shit's fucked up. For this thread, we focus on the good and we don't let the fact there's still also bad in the world drag us down.
'Extinct' Scimitar-Horned Oryx Thriving in the Saharan Wilds Thanks to Decades of Captive Breeding
Previously considered "Extinct" in the wild, this oryx species has moved up to "Endangered" status!
Happy status graduation, Oryx!
I first learned about the species reading Atwood's Oryx and Crake (2003), where some characters took (their dystopia's) extinct species names as usernames on a game called Extinctathon. It makes me happy whenever I compare our world to theirs and see differences.
That is such a wonderful story. Thank you!
Personal good news: after 1.5+ years laid off, I'm finally employed again! The pay is worse than before (by just a smidge), but I'm working with computer hardware (which is where my interests and experience lie) instead of user support, so that's something of a win.
I have a few reservations about the way the shop is run, but for the time being, I'm just looking forward to getting caught up on bills and maybe building my savings back up. I was mere days away from really hurting on the bills front, so the knowledge I'll have a paycheck coming in again is a balm on my soul.
Hurray!!!! :D
We attach/are assigned so much of our worth and value from work and income it generates, it does have a huge affect on our emotional health. Yay soul uplift!
I'm not really the type to consciously define myself in terms of my career, but I'm also prone to depressive episodes and have heavy-duty childhood trauma associated with financial insecurity, so I can easily spiral without gainful employment. Together with losing medical insurance (which was the main reason I chose to accept lay-off rather than reduction) and thus my anti-depressant meds, I was seriously getting to wonder how bad the wallowing could get.
Thank you for giving me some hope.
Nice! Computer hardware is always fun!!
It can be frustrating as well, especially since the majority of my work has been in repair and diagnostics. But I find immense satisfaction in making broken things work again, so I find it fulfilling.
MacKenzie Scott announced another $7.1 billion in 2025 charitable donations—she's now given away $26.3 billion since 2019
I appreciate how she highlighted the donations of others and that she doesn't put restrictions on her donations. She seems quite genuine in donating her wealth in significant amounts.
I GOT AN A IN A CLASS I THOUGHT I FAILED RAAAAAAH
still waiting on my other grades to come out, but now I finally have time to write the long winded responses to Tildes comments I’ve been putting off hurrah
That... is quite the underestimation! Do tell how you misjudged your performance by that much, ha.
The majority of the grade was wrapped up in a test and a presentation that happened on back-to-back classes, and I was convinced I bombed the test and was uncertain about my presenting skills. The class is on a bell curve, so I guess I did just enough better than the rest of the class to squeak out an A :)
Bell curve! Bell curve! Bell curve!
But in all seriousness great job!
Thank you! I ended up with 2 As, an A-, and a B+. Not as high as I would’ve liked, but I’ve got two more quarters to improve.
NASA is building the Near-Earth Object (NEO) Surveyor to find city-killer asteroids before they can threaten us. I was listening to this on the Science News podcast and they discussed how, despite the cuts to other programs, no one wanted to defund a mission that would protect earth by sighting asteroids that could wipe out an entire city.
Also, I'll plug the Science News Podcast as a font of (mostly) good news.
So we're basically doing Armageddon right? /J
I've heard about it but only a little so thanks!
5D glass storage 'memory crystals' promise up to 13.8 billion years of data storage resilience, which is roughly the age of the universe — crams 360 terabytes into 5-inch glass disc with femtosecond laser
So finally, maybe, there's a solution to long term data preservation at scale. I've often wondered how the Internet Archive manages to hold on to as much as it has, and how fragile our reliance on public volunteer history preservation actually is. If massive capacity, write-once storage becomes affordable (and the retrieval latency problem is solved), maybe we can achieve a trustworthy history of all the online things. No more memory-holed government databases and sites, no more "I didn't say that and you can't prove I did."
Or alternatively there are no financial barriers to recording each individuals every online action for eternity? Sounds like the death knell for privacy tbh. Do we really need to record most of the information or data we do?
Microsoft did the arctic vault project with this I think
New antibiotics hailed as ‘turning point’ in treating drug-resistant gonorrhoea
Not just new treatments for a drug-resistant scourge, but created by a public partnership which will keep prices affordable for people in the low-income countries most affected, and usable in a single dose.
Still more good news!
How a rare drug made from scientists’ blood saves babies from botulism
The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is complete
Expected launch June 2026 on a Falcon Heavy!
Kiwi Pukupuku Chicks Found in Westland | Herald NOW (YouTube, NZ Herald) - very cute footages of chicks for this species, previously assumed extinct on the mainland. They're being protected in a predator free zone right now. The smiles on the faces of the conservation staff are heartwarming as well. BBC text article here