Eddy's Good News: Braille Lego bricks, and material that’s five times lighter yet four times stronger than steel

Virgin Radio

31 Aug 2023, 10:33

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:

Thursday 31st August 2023

Amazing tech news, as scientists get the most unlikely and brilliant inspiration to invent a material that’s five times lighter than steel and yet four times stronger than steel. 

Say hello to a team of scientists from the University of Connecticut who were inspired by watching Iron Man films! One of them said: “I have always wondered how to create better armour for Iron Man. It must be very light for him to fly faster. It must be very strong to protect him from enemies’ attacks”

And you’ll be shocked when I tell you what this stuff is made of. They combined DNA with glass. And I know you’re thinking - as I did - that glass is the easiest thing to shatter ever!? That’s because of the imperfections within it. Fact: a flawless centimetre of glass can withstand ten tonnes of pressure, that’s more than three times the pressure that catastrophically imploded the ocean gate submersible near the Titanic earlier this year. 

Flawless glass is actually one of the strongest things there is and, for its density, this material is the strongest thing known on the planet. The applications for it are endless, from the roll cage of an F1 car to the frame of a skyscraper. Even the way they invented it was inspired by Robert Downey Jr in iron man, it’s Nano technology that has made this possible and they think they can make it better and stronger too!

It’s impressive how many times Lego have featured in good news stories here over the years and they’ve done it again, as they make braille bricks available for everyone. 

Think about how hard it would be for a blind or visually impaired person to build that magnificent Millennium Falcon out of Lego. So the Great Danes started making bricks that had braille identification on them and they’ve been donating them to charities, organisations and schools and universities since 2020. 

These ground breaking bricks proved so popular that they were inundated with letters from all over the world in support of these brilliant blind bricks, so they’ve just announced that they’re making them generally available with braille in English and French from next month and with more languages expected later this year. 

Good news from here in the UK as research has just been released showing the healthiest places to live in the UK.  

The rankings were based on a meticulous analysis of 12 distinct criteria: air quality, adult smoking rates, alcohol misuse, the prevalence of cancer, diabetes, drug misuse, healthy eating habits, high blood pressure, kidney and liver diseases, adults with mental health problems, obesity rates, and physical activity levels.

Looking at the nation’s health metrics in this was, it was easy to see, for example the link between clean air and overall health, places where the air was cleaner scored commendably higher, the data also reinforced the overall importance of diet and exercise. Places where people ate more fruit and veg, and/or tended to get more exercise were, unsurprisingly much higher rated in overall health. 

So the top ten healthiest places in the U.K. are 

• Harrogate

• Waverley

• Sevenoaks

• Richmond Upon Thames

• Tunbridge Wells

• Richmondshire

• Eden

• Derbyshire Dales

• South Lakeland

• South Hams

The big takeaway from this was that Derbyshire Dales and South Hams had the highest consumption of fresh fruit and veg and they came out at number 1 and number 3. That tells you all the bottom line on the power of plants!