Congratulations, you've made it through the week!

  Have a Happy Thought: A fun fact you all learned at some point in your life is that SCUBA is an acronym – meaning it is a word made up of the first letters (or sounds) of other words. Can you remember what it means? Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus. And we humans think we are so smart for coming up with this concept. Turns out, some other air-breathing animals also take pockets of air with them when they go underwater. (as in: not just holding their breath) 1.     Diving-bell spiders (Argyroneta aquatica). These live in freshwater across the Eurasian continent, and take air with them so they can live out most of their lives underwater – they even hunt and breed underwater! But since they still need to breathe air, they spin a silk canopy and trap air bubbles that naturally form along their body hairs under the canopy. And when they need to venture out to hunt, they basically create a smaller air bubble and carry it around like a backpack. ...

Have a Happy Thought: This year-end post is inspired by a social media trend that has definitely helped my mental health: #ShareGoodNewsToo   2025 was a bad year for disease. As in, humans made great progress in controlling or eliminating some diseases that have plagued us for millennia (or in some cases, before we even became humans). Image: World Health Organisation   The World Health Organisation has tracked (and helped make) some great gains in global health this year: ·       Maldives became the first country to achieve “triple elimination” of mother-to-child transmission of HIV, syphilis and hepatitis B. ·       Brazil also eliminated mother-to-child transmission of HIV, making it the most populous country in the Americas to achieve this historic milestone. ·       Burundi, Egypt and Fiji eliminated trachoma ·       Guinea and Kenya eliminated slee...

  Have a happy thought: Wombats are adorable creatures. They’re marsupials, which are just weird anyway. They can run up to 40km/hr (!!). And the name for a group of wombats is a wisdom . “Wow, see that wisdom of wombats over there?” See? You’re smiling just saying it! Image: JJ Harrison (jjharrison89@facebook.com) - Own work, Wikipedia Creative Commons credit But the best part of the wombat is their bum. Here’s why, in two parts: 1.     These creatures live in burrows, which have really obvious entrances (see photo below). So they have to worry about predators getting into their burrows and to the young wombats (called joeys, like most other marsupial young). So the wombats will dig extra holes, that don’t actually go anywhere. And when a predator (like a dingo) comes, the adult wombat will “escape” down this fake burrow, and when the dingo chases it down the hole, the wombat will **crush the dingo to death against the top of the burrow with its furry wombat bum!** ...

  Have a Happy Thought: If you are a native English speaker, here are a couple of things about our shared language that you probably do, but didn’t know you do:   1.     When you are describing things, you put adjectives in a very specific order. This even has an acronym: NOSASCOMP: a.    Number b.   Opinion c.   Size d.   Age e.   Shape f.     Colour g.   Origin h.   Material i.      Purpose In other words, you can have a pair of lovely, big, old, round, red, Dutch, wooden, school clogs… But you really wouldn’t have huge, pretty, black, one, writing, old, British, round, paper pad.   2.   When you are ending a conversation, you also do this in a very specific order. a.    Summary b.   Justification c.   Positive statement d.   Continuity of relationship e.   Well-wishing While you don’t have to do all o...

Have a Happy Thought: Happy Thanksgiving, to everyone who celebrates this uniquely US-American holiday! One of the central foods in many Thanksgiving meals is Turkey meat. A roast turkey prepared for a traditional U.S.  Thanksgiving  meal. The white plastic object in the breast is a  pop-up thermometer . Credit: Patrick Fitzgerald  from Atlanta, GA, USA -  Flickr.com  -  image description page   Many children, (and to be honest many adults), are confused as to why this bird, which is native to the Americas, shares/shared a name with a country in south-east Europe / western Asia. Well, strap in, this is a story. So, there are these large birds that live in the Americas and were domesticated by about 2,000 years ago. After Europeans stumbled across the “New World”, some of these explorers realised that the domesticated bird was a great food stock, and decided to bring it back to the “Old World”. To Europeans, these birds lo...

  Have a Happy Thought: The universe is full of beauty. Here are some photos taken this year, submitted to the Royal Museums Greenwich Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition. This was one of the harder times for me to choose which images to share with you… they are all so beautiful! Everything below comes from the Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2025 shortlist (but the winners have been announced , in case you want to skip straight to those).     The Arctic Flower by Vincent Beudez. Sjursnes, Tromsø, Norway   Gateway to the Galaxy by Yujie Zhang. Songyang County, China   Into the Past by Jim Hildreth. Moonscape Overlook, Wayne County, Utah, USA   Moonrise Perfection Over the Dolomites by Fabian Dalpiaz. Santuario di Pietralba, Deutschnofen, South Tyrol, Italy   Fireworks by Bence Tóth, Péter Feltóti and Bertalan Kecskés. Sződliget, Pest and Törökkoppány, Somogy, Hungary   Neon Sun by Peter Wa...

  Have a Happy Thought:  Just over fifty years ago, on November 10 th 1975, the Fitz , The Mighty Fitz , The Big Fitz , Pride of the American Side , The Toledo Express , The Titanic of the Great Lakes , otherwise known as The SS Edmund Fitzgerald , sank on Lake Superior during an unexpectedly strong storm. The history of the ship and story of its sinking are well worth a read. What happened afterward is just as amazing. For one, the sinking of such a large ship, with all 29 crew lost, left an indelible mark on the communities in and around the Great Lakes. This tragedy was memorialised in a folk rock ballad, "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald", by the Canadian singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot. It is a beautiful, haunting song to hear – especially knowing that the events that unfold really happened. You can search for the original recording, or and you can listen to this recent cover by a Brooklyn, NY -based bluegrass band the Punch Brothers. The song, ...

  Have a Happy Thought:  The medical progress just within my lifetime will never cease to amaze me. The latest entry: We may now have a blood test for ME/CFS. (That’s Myalgic Encephalomyelitis / Chronic Fatigue Syndrome). This is a syndrome (complex group of symptoms that come from a disease or other mis-working of the body) that has evaded physical testing for a really long time. And because of that, many people who have ME/CFS have been discounted by their doctors or other medical providers. Or by family, friends, coworkers, bosses, etc. And with the rise of Long Covid, which is theorised to be very much similar to ME/CFS, any research into this area is much needed. Enough background, the news: A group of scientists in England have announced a blood test that is highly sensitive (correctly picks up “positive” cases) and highly specific (correctly identifying “negative” cases). (Obviously, being good at both is best – otherwise you’re either missing a whole bunch ...