Eddy's Good News

Virgin Radio

22 Dec 2021, 09:27

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 stories right here on our website!

Check here for Eddy's latest Good News stories, or you can see some of the archive below...

Friday 14th January 2022

Bouncy news from down under and a trainee lifeguard who just successfully pulled off her first rescue - and a daring one - but whom she rescued was a first for the many people who saw this happen and who’ve now seen her on TV!

Say G’day to 17 year old Lillian Bee-Young who was on beach duty at Bundjalung National Park when she was alerted to a juvenile kangaroo who had inexplicably jumped into the raging surf from nearby rocks. They think it may have been spooked by fishermen then further stressed by holidaymakers on the beach all gathering to look. It was scared to come back onto the shore and struggling to stay afloat in the raging surf. So Lillian sprung into action, but how do you rescue a drowning roo? Would she have to wrestle it onto her surfboard? She paddled out with good intentions and ended up next to the roo, guiding it back to a quiet part of the beach where it bounced out and into the safety of the trees where it turned and took the applause from everyone on the beach. I’ve put up a link where you’ll find an interview with heroic Lillian and footage of her rescue :)

Via: goodnewsnetwork.org

Pawsome news from Italy and a traveller who adopted a rescue cat and made a special backpack for him so he can climb mountains with her :)

Say hello to Doina Muraschvi and her gorgeous black cat, Bounty. Black cats are still always the last to get adopted because of silly superstition so Doina rescued Bounty and wanted to give him a special life to make up for the fact he’d been so unloved for so long. So she had a special rucksack made so she can take him mountaineering, camping, go on cycling tours and together they have climbed mountains and visited some of the most beautiful sights in Europe without a single meow of disapproval from Bounty. They are serious travellers and some of their trips take over a month…they’ve cycled along the entire length of Italy, from head to heel, an epic five week trip. Doina wants to educate cat owners that moggies aren’t just sofa spuds and you can follow their adventures on their Facebook page and I’ve put a link to that up here :)

Via: facebook.com

Thursday 13th January 2022

More mind blowing news from China and the world of nuclear fusion as that artificial sun I told you about last year has just broken the record I told you about last year and they’ve broken it by ten times!I’ve been keeping you abreast of this amazing and fast developing story in the quest for the holy grail of electricity, free power from fusion, just like the sun and I told you there are several artificial suns around the world all in a race to crack this game changing nut.So last time I reported on this a few months ago plasma boffins had managed to superheat a ball of plasma and sustain it for 101 seconds. It was a huge deal and the scientific community were throwing their hats in the air…but to now blow your mind with how fast we are improving, the Chinese artificial sun has sustained that ball of plasma at 120 million degrees fahrenheit for over seventeen minutes!! We’re talking about Star Trek tech here, the stuff that powers Iron man’s suit and probably the Millennium Falcon too. We are one very big step closer and I can’t wait for the next update which probably won’t be far away!

Via: goodnewsnetwork.org

Life affirming news from the USA and a beautiful example of kindness to strangers that will melt your heart.Say hello to Fallon, a teenage boy from Colorado who lives with a neurological disorder called Williams Syndrome which, like the autism spectrum can be a superpower and Fallon’s is music, he loves it, knows a lot about it and can play the guitar very well.Fallon came into his local guitar shop regularly and always asked to play the same guitar, a blue Van Halen-esq model that has rock god provenance as it’s played and endorsed by Dimebag darrel from Pantera, who Fallon loves. A regular customer was so moved by his clear love for this guitar that she decided to buy it for him, anonymously and asked the shop to give it to him next time he came in. But Fallon’s family coincidentally moved to Texas and nobody saw sweet Fallon for 8 months. But when his family visited their old City Fallon couldn’t resist asking them to take him to his favourite shop to see if that guitar was still on the wall. Of course it was and when they handed it to him and said “it’s yours now”, his mum burst into tears. And it gets better! When Pantera - his favourite band -  found out about this story they posted a picture of beaming Fallon playing the guitar and sent him congratulations.

Via: goodnewsnetwork.org

Wednesday 12th January 2022

Our first news pupdate of 2022 and it’s from the US as we hear of a real life lassie situation and two people’s lives saved by an amazing dog.

Say hello to Tinsley, a beautiful female German Shepherd, who caught the attention of police on a stretch of highway between Vermont and New Hampshire. It's one of those roads with a steep embankment on one side and this dog was on her own and clearly agitated. Police officers tried to corral her to safety but she kept running away, barking and looking down the embankment through a damaged guardrail. The officers twigged there was something happening here and investigated…they soon saw a crashed and overturned pickup truck below, with two injured people who’d been thrown in the crash, lying in the show, all invisible from the road.They sprang into action, rescued the driver and passenger and praised Tinsley’s determination and intelligence. They confirmed that Tinsley’s humans - who already had hyperthermia - would have died overnight in plummeting temperatures. Tinsley has been hailed as a hero by one and all, and treated to venison and extra back scratches. 

Via: goodnewsnetwork.org

Fascinating news of a pawsome nature as a unique study in the US takes a look at why cats love sitting in boxes! We answer the big, important questions here ;) How many times have you seen the instagram picture caption “If I fits I sits” - me, every week without fail, more daily if I’m honest and it’s almost always below a picture of a cat finding a box and just sitting in it, but why is this the case?

Say hello to animal behavioural scientist, Gabriella Smith, from NY who conjured a cunning experiment to look into this phenomenon. She gave a patterned mat to 30 cat owners, which had what looked like random patterns but were actually optical illusions, pacman shapes that according to their angle might form a square with three other pac man shapes. Cats behaviour was monitored and their owners were asked to wear sunglasses so their eyes didn’t influence their moggies - I’ve told you about how observant they are before. Amazingly the majority of cats chose to sit in the two dimensional boxes - they found them, they fitted and they sitted. This proves beyond doubt that cats have what’s called illusory contour susceptibility, in other words, their eyes and brains are wired to find enclosures, probably a throwback to their wild cat ancestors who sought safety and or somewhere from which to pounce on prey.

Via: goodnewsnetwork.org

Tuesday 11th January 2022

Encouraging news from here in the UK and the results of the first robust human trials into the treatment of severe mental health conditions with Psilocybin - the active ingredient in magic mushrooms - have come in.

I’ve shared with you many times over the past several years the promising research into treatment of debilitating conditions like PTSD with natural mushroom psychedelics and now thanks to myco-boffins at the University Of London, we have the results of human trials and as predicted, they are fantastic. No side effects, no permanent damage, just a lot of people now free from PTSD and TRD (Treatment Resistant Depression). 60 subjects were given small doses, 30 were given placebos and they were closely monitored for four months afterwards, looking at attention, memory, planning and their ability to process emotions. A top psychiatrist at the famous Maudsley Hospital in South London said “PTSD and TRD can be extremely disabling, distressing and disruptive, but current treatment options for these conditions are (largely) ineffective” and that these phase 2 trials have shown great promise. When the third and final phase is complete then we’re looking at an official recommendation from scientific advisors that we should make this drug legal and prescribable and I have so many friends who suffer terribly with depression or PTSD for whom this could be a game changer.

Via: goodnewsnetwork.org

Heartwarming and inspiring news from the USA as a student was reunited with his lost wallet in the most wonderful way.

Say hello to the Degnon Family from Maryland who are all over the socials this week publicly thanking a kind man called Juan who made the new year of their son Jake. On the Thursday eve of New Year’s Eve jake had lost his wallet at a local supermarket, he realised this on Friday morning. It was full of college money, Christmas money, his school ID card and bank cards, a treasure trove for anyone who found it. Snow had fallen overnight too, making the search really hard. But on the evening of New Years Eve their doorbell rang and a smiling man called Juan was on their doorstep asking if Jake lived there, wallet in hand. Jake’s mum broke down in tears when she realised everything was still in the wallet and that this wonderful man had driven, through heavy snow, on New Years Eve, to make sure Jake got his bulging wallet back. “What a great human” she’s said of Juan and she even found out who his employer was, and got in touch with his boss to say “You’ have one hell of an employee” :)

Via: goodnewsnetwork.org

Monday 10th January 2022

Inspiring news from Canada as an ice hockey fan spots a cancerous mole on the back of the neck of one of their staff and ended up getting thanked in the most amazing way.

Say hello to Vancouver Canucks assistant equipment manager Brian Hamilton who is a very lucky man because medical student Nadia Popovici was sitting behind him when she noticed something that worried her. She spotted a discoloured mole, it was inflamed, and had irregular borders: all potential signs of melanoma, a type of skin cancer. She alerted him and said “please go to a doctor and get it checked out”. It’s location meant Brian would never have noticed it. The dermatologist confirmed it was worrying, removed it, confirmed it was a malignant cancer and that if eagled eyed Nadia hadn’t spotted it, then it would have been curtains for him in a few years. The Canucks team were so grateful that they had a whip round at the next match and announced on the big screen that they were giving Nadia a $10,000 scholarship towards her medical degree and of course she got a huge hug from Brian. A wonderful end to an inspiring story.

Via: goodnewsnetwork.org

Potentially life changing news from here in the UK and you could become a wildlife ranger on a beautiful and remote island off the coast of Scotland and the job comes with a cottage for you and yours to live in.

Say hello to the Scottish Wildlife Trust who are looking for someone to look after the wildlife on the island of Handa, the successful candidate gets gorgeous beaches, spectacular cliffs and the chance of making new friends, a lot of new friends, in fact about 100,000 breeding seabirds that live there. It’s a tiny island, you can walk around it in about two and a half hours, but it’s an idyllic place and you get a cottage as part of the deal. You’ll need a driver’s licence and a vehicle to get to the nearest village on the mainland, once a week. It’s a six-month fixed term contract from March to September, and pays £17,290. Applications opened last month and are closing on January 17, I’ve put a link up on the Eddy’s Good News page if you’re into the idea of a wild adventure this year….hmmmmmm….I wonder if i could do my show from there….?

Via: scottishwildlifetrust.org

Friday 7th January 2022

Good news from the high seas as figures for how the shipping industry is cleaning and greening are released. Shipping has been the last bastion of filthy diesel engines but 2021 saw them making leaps and bounds in their collective carbon footprint.

It’s a hefty footprint too. It’s 90% of the world’s international trade and accounts for around one in every thirty tons of CO2 produced on planet earth every year making shipping one of the world’s biggest greenhouse gas bad-guys.But they’re aware and they’re trying to change this: In 2021 international giants Amazon, IKEA, Unilever, and Patagonia all promised to go net zero on shipping by 2040. In July marine tech firm Wartsila revealed their new hydrogen based engines are able to cross any ocean and the world’s biggest shipping company, Maersk, announced they would be swapping out eight old skool vessels with shiny new ships that run on sustainable methanol and ammonia, which will save a million tons of CO2 every year. We ended the year strongly too, at the COP talks in Scotland 13 world leaders followed Denmark’s inspiring move to commit to a zero emissions shipping industry. It’s happening…we only hope it’s happening in time. Let’s keep pushing!

Via: goodnewsnetwork.org

Uplifting news from the USA as Dwayne Johnson - The Rock - shocks a fan by giving him his own gleaming pick-up truck!

Good old Dwayne ‘has previous’ with truck giveaways, last year I reported here that he bought a new truck for the man who housed him as a teenager and gave him lifts to wrestling bouts early in his career. This time the Samoan American superstar showed what a good guy he is by doing research into the fans he was shaking hands with at a Meet & Greet and he was particularly moved by Oscar Rodriguez’ story. Oscar, an ex serviceman is now full time carer for his 74 year old mum, leader of his local church and heads up a charity to support victims of domestic abuse. He was so moved that he asked Porsche if they might give him a new Taycan in return for the positive press they’d get. Porsche declined so The Rock, rocked it by just handing Oscar the keys to his own, custom built, shiny new pick-up truck. Oscar was moved to tears. This puts Dwayne at number 2 in the chart of hollywood nice guys with Keanu Reeves at an unassailable No.1.

Via: goodnewsnetwork.org

Thursday 6th January 2022

Now who doesn’t love an uplifting beaver story and I’ve got an absolute corker today from the USA, where beavers bound for euthanasia have been relocated to the desert and are helping transform ecosystems there!

Beavers are labelled as problem animals in many parts of the USA, their talent at damming rivers and streams is often not appreciated, so much so that so called “problem beavers” are captured by their environmental services organisations and killed. But conservationist Emma Doden at a University in Utah had the brilliant idea to take these beavers and relocate them to places in Utah deserts where water is scarce and where streams often dry up and where wetlands are lost to global warming. Relocating the problem beavers and letting them do what they do best has had a transformational effect on places like the Moab Desert, where there are now pools and sustainable wetland where there was - at best - a mere trickle before.

These awesome animals dams are slowing the water, forming ponds and vastly improving the health of loads of animals, the rivers themselves and, of course, the beavers who were heading for euthanasia and now have a second chance and everybody deserves a second chance.

VIa goodnewsnetwork.org

Inspiring news from the frozen north of Canada and China where people are growing tasty veggies all year round and at some nipple stiffeningly low temperatures and they’re doing it without heating!Say Ni-Hao to Dong Jianyi, a chinese agronomist who is helping some of Canada’s coldest places farm fresh veg in a way that rural chinese people have been doing for ages.

In places where electricity is really rare, you have to use your ingenuity and the laws of thermodynamics, to keep your crops from freezing. Dong has been advising Canadian farmers in the growing of all sorts of healthy veg in a plastic greenhouse with a curved roof. At the southern end, which faces the winter sun through the day, a thick clay wall, which captures what little warmth is available at this time of year, which it radiates back into the greenhouse at night, stopping the plants in it from freezing at temperatures which in northern China and Canada can plummet to under minus 30 degrees.

The plants are further insulated at night time by a blanket which they throw over in china, but with these huge commercial greenhouses in Canada - over 10,000 square feet - they use a small electric motor to raise and lower the blanket and that’s pretty much the only power they use, there is no heating, even at their jaw dropping and eyebrow-freezing low of -31F!

Via goodnewsnetwork.org

Wednesday 5th January 2022

At this time of year our timelines are full of highlights of the past year so I thought it would be heartwarming to have a little look back at some of the highlights of good news from the animal world.

2021 was a pawsome year for so many animals. Lots of species showed a bounceback because of Covid related lockdowns or more often because of such strong conservation efforts. A new species of tortoise was found on the Galapagos Islands, NZ is covered in Kiwis again after a five year absence and the world’s tiniest pig at 10 inches has made a comeback in India. A pair of hikers in Scotland rescued what they thought was a frozen kitten and it was a rare wildcat. A dolphin amazingly adopted a lost whale calf while closer to home the Thames, once declared biologically dead, has rebounded so strong that you can see seals basking on its beaches. We’ve cloned rare black footed ferrets, rescued thousands of sea turtles, relocated species extinct in India from Africa and repaired coral reefs with IVF down under. We’ve rescued loads of pooches and one woofer even managed to find and check herself into the doggy spa she missed so much. We had clever corvids, a crow that could swear eloquently and a bumblebee that loved its human mum. All these wonderful stories and more are available for you to browse through anytime on my eddy’s good news page of www.virginradio.co.uk.

Via: goodnewsnetwork.org

A pawsome story from the USA now and some fascinating research into cats which shows that cats are less stressed when they’re adopted by families of children with autism!Now I’ve shared with you plenty of research here which proves that owning a cat significantly reduced *your* stress levels, but what if we turned that around and looked at the stress levels of the cat?

A research team at the University of Missouri have studied how cortisol levels (that’s our stress hormone) were affected in rescue cats. They worried that partnering rescue cats with people that might be prone to sudden outbursts might be detrimental to the welfare of the cat, but rather brilliantly, they’ve found the opposite to be the case! Predictably families benefit from the presence of cats, but who could have predicted that cats' stress and anxiety levels, measured 2-3 days after adoption then regularly for 18 weeks afterwards, went down with time with every family, but reduced even further in the cats adopted by families of kids with autism. Why this is the case remains unanswered, perhaps it’s to do with the fact that both cats and these awesome kids are such sensitive creatures, either way it’s a win win.

Via: goodnewsnetwork.org

Friday 31st December 2021

Wonderfully heart warming news from the USA and a bunch of teens who built a bus shelter for their neighbour in a wheelchair who was getting wet on his way to school.

Say hello to Ryder Killiam, who’s five years old and from Bradford Rhode Island and who’s been in a wheelchair since he was two because of Spina Bifida. Poor Ryder can’t run for the bus if it’s early, like his contemporaries and so has to wait at the bottom of his drive every day 15 minutes early just in case and his teenage neighbours noticed the umbrella he was using in the driving rain of autumn and winter just wasn’t cutting it in the horizontal rain that often comes with high winds at this time of year. So they came up with an awesome solution. They’ve used their woodworking classes at school to build him a bus shelter!! Now Ryder just has to roll down to the pavement where there’s now a custom built shelter that’s even got a sign “Ryder’s Bus Stop” on it. How awesome!

Via: goodnewsnetwork.org

Mindblowing and encouraging news from Spain and 18 out of 30 incurable cancer patients now in full remission thanks to a ground breaking new treatment.

Say ola buenos dias to the Spanish equivalent of the NHS hospital in Barcelona where the blood team have been looking at curing the incurable, specifically multiple myeloma, the second most common blood cancer which starts in the bone marrow. I feel like we are getting close to cracking all kinds of cancer by using plants as medicine and with this new type of gene editing or cell reprogramming. What these blood boffins have done is help your body to fight cancer off itself, by reprogramming the failing white blood cells to be more active and in their human trials, 18 out of 30 patients have gone into remission and the disease hasn’t progressed even over a year later in 70% of cases, which is amazing. This treatment costs about 90,000 euros which given you’d pay about six times that for a two bed flat in Peckham doesn’t sound like a lot for a life.

Via: goodnewsnetwork.org

Friday 24th December 2021

Awesome news from Down Under and virgin coral that’s been grown by IVF is doing really well on the Great Barrier Reef.

Mother Nature is much better at doing her thing than we are, but every now and again, she could use a helping hand and this is particularly true with coral, which is dying worldwide because of increased water temperature and acidification from pollution. Natural coral grows painfully slowly, 1cm every decade, so the bleaching of reefs is a catastrophic problem for marine biodiversity, but thanks to coral coneheads at Southern Cross University in Australia, they’ve planted IVF coral on a bleached reef and it’s coral that’s not just resistant to bleaching but grows faster too. The microscopic eggs they planted there in 2016 are now fully mature coral the size of dinner plates! And the best news is that they’re now reproducing themselves, and that’s 22 large colonies all thriving and having coral babies of their own, giving hope to marine biologists and putting smiles on the faces of snorkeling fans like me :)

Via: goodnewsnetwork.org

Mind blowing tech news for the oceans of the world as plans are unveiled for a floating city that will help tackle ocean plastic and give marine biologists an unprecedented chance to live and work in the middle of the ocean and do it sustainably.

Say hello to the ‘8th Continent’, winner of the 2020 Grand Prix prize for architecture and innovation of the sea. Imagine three huge skyscrapers, which look like tulip heads sitting atop a platform like a giant water lily, from which three enormous tentacles reach out onto the sea and collect marine plastic which is then sorted and recycled using energy created from waves. Designed to be like a living organism that’s fully sustainable this incredible thing will float on ocean currents while being tethered loosely to the bottom of the sea and on it, labs, living quarters, hydroponic gardens, power, recycling and desalination plants and harvesting energy as it moves. It’s absolutely stunning and they’re looking to Elon Musk of Tesla to turn it from a dream into a reality :)

Via: goodnewsnetwork.org

Thursday 23rd December 2021

Keeping things feline today, I couldn't resist sharing a brace of cat stories, so here’s our first pawsome news mogdate as we meet a posse of pussies that guard the paintings of the biggest museum in the world, protecting them from mice.Say “privyet” to the cats of The Hermitage Museum in St Petersberg, the largest art gallery in the world and home to some of the most famous paintings ever committed to canvas and with a collection so huge that only a tiny fraction go up on display. To keep the paintings safe from naughty nibbling rodents, the daughter of Russian King, Peter The Great, installed cats in the museum, by royal decree in 1745, to be looked after by the staff there and treated like royalty. Even to this day, 65 cats are fed, pampered, looked after with veterinary care around the clock and just their presence keeps recalcitrant rats and mice away from the priceless collection. Until only recently, the guard cats were not spoken of in the guide books, but one of the positive changes post Corona virus is that the museum has now started taking in stray cats, offering them a life of luxury in return for just being cats in the basement of a beautiful Russian museum.

Via: goodnewsnetwork.org

Our second cat story of the day, another pawsome news mogdate and some pretty mind blowing news with a test from Japan that’s shown our cats track their owner’s movements at all times.Say moshi moshi to a team of puss professors at Kyoto University who’ve been testing cats mental capacity and they came up with an ingenious test that put 50 cats in individual rooms then played them their owners voices and the voices of strangers, both outside and inside the rooms and by studying their reaction closely they ascertained that moggys keep a mental picture of where their owners are. These mental maps are called ‘abstraction’ and reveal an animal with high brain function. This skill is used for problem solving and hunting, from cat treats in a cupboard to a mouse hiding in undergrowth. Of course cat’s mums and dads are the most important thing in their lives, for food and security, so it’s nice to know we are appreciated enough for them to keep a mental map of where we are. Cats' reputations for being uncaring and aloof, once again, ‘mogated!’

Via: goodnewsnetwork.org

Wednesday 22nd December 2021

Awesome news from the US and a brilliant Corvid update telling the story of a lost pet crow that became a school’s mascot in order to be reunited with his family.

Say hello to the Allen Dale Elementary school in Oregon who all fell in love with a crow that flew into classrooms through an open window and proceeded to squawk and talk! Yes, this crow had a vocabulary of over 40 words - I’ve reported here so many times how clever these corvids are and this one had a potty mouth. Yes, this crow didn’t just talk, he could swear and did, liberally, much to the delight of the amazed schoolchildren who all became besotted with him. He became the school’s mascot and caused a social media whirlwind which ended up catching the attention of the family who taught him to swear in the first place.

Turns out his name was Cosmo and he was rescued as a baby and lived with a family in rural Oregon for years. Cosmo loves children so he ended up finding the school and hanging out with and entertaining the kids. Cosmo has now been reunited with his family who will probably take him back to the school periodically to see his new friends (and swear at them) ;)

Via: goodnewsnetwork.org

A heartwarming and pawsome news pupdate from the USA now and the daring rescue of a lost doggo that got stuck on a perilous mountain ledge for weeks!

Say hello to Jessie Lee, a gorgeous looking border collie cross from Colorado who’d fallen down the side of a mountain in Pikes Peak and ended up breaking her fall on a tiny ledge of a deep ravine. She was spotted by hikers who relayed her position to a local animal rescue organization, who dispatched two officers to the scene, officers Johnson and the wonderfully aptly named Officer Barker, who pinpointed where Jessie was with powerful binoculars then borrowed some climbing equipment, secured a rope to a fence post above the precipice and abseiled down to the imperiled pup. The scariness of the situation became clear as Barker approached the ‘barker’ whose enthusiasm and wagging tail made the ground beneath her start to fall away. The brave officer used a grab pole to get Jessie to him safely, got the woofer onto his shoulders and they were hoisted up by his colleague. The dehydrated doggo was reunited with his family in time for Christmas.

Via: goodnewsnetwork.org