Eddy's Good News: Joshua Trees of the Mojave desert and a valentines day miracle

Virgin Radio

19 Feb 2024, 15:53

Every day during his show on Virgin Radio Anthems, 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 2pm and 6pm (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:

Monday 19th February 2024

The famous Joshua Trees of the Mojave desert in California, they're awesome and ancient organisms that inspired the title of an awesome U2 album, but they have taken a real battering lately, and through history.

Lately, obviously because of the raging wildfires that have got worse and worse because of global heating, but these fellas have had a rough ride because it’s so difficult for their seeds to spread. Many thousands of years ago, the giant ground sloth used to eat them and spread their seeds everywhere. Now they only have wind and rodents, which is why they’re so much rarer. But they’re getting a surprising boost from camels!

The National Parks service are in the middle of a huge Joshua Tree replanting drive and they’re using Bactrian camels, because they’re desert experts and their big padded feet hardly disturb the sandy soil and vegetation. Together, they’re planted 3,500 seedlings, and they’re not stopping anytime soon.

Via: goodnewsnetwork.org

Spare a thought for Charlotte, Valentine’s Day was hard for her last week because she’s been single for over eight years, not even a date to speak of. That’s because she has been in a tank at North Carolina Aquarium all this time because Charlotte is a stingray.  But this year she decided she wasn’t going to wait for that special someone to celebrate the day of lovers, and managed to miraculously get pregnant without a man in sight for miles.

This Valentine’s Day miracle is technically called “parthenogenesis” a kind of asexual reproduction seen in birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish—but not mammals. Lacking any genetic material from a male, the female’s egg fuses with another cell known as a polar body, triggers cellular division, and voila—an embryo appears. It’s incredible, and CHarlotte did it.

They thought she was getting overweight and she was, but not because they were overfeeding her. Great quote from the aquarium: ““We were all like, ‘shut the back door, there’s no way’”. But there clearly is and Charlotte will be a mum to at least four ray pups in the coming weeks!

Via: goodnewsnetwork.org