Congratulations, you've made it through the week!

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...