Eddy's Good News: Learning to speak porpoise and the most tomatoes grown on one stem

Virgin Radio

5 Apr 2022, 09:56

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:

Tuesday 5th April 2022

Amazing news from here in the UK and a first time report that looks into how one species can completely change its language to better communicate with another.

Say hello to David Nairn who’s been studying Clyde Porpoises and found a common dolphin in a family that live in the Firth Of Clyde. Kylie, as she’s been nicknamed, was probably separated from her pod during a storm and has been adopted by a pod of porpoises, a different species, who have a different language. While dolphins use a complicated system of whistles and clicks, many of which we can hear, porpoises don’t whistle at all. They exclusively use high frequency clicks that human ears can’t hear.

In his studies of their language David has discovered that Kylie has changed her natural language - she’s speaking in fluent porpoise and she’s more than just understood, she’s a highly valued member of the family and high in the pecking order, even trusted to babysit calves. Speaking of which, watch this space for news of a possible dorpoise because the male porpoises are queuing up for a dolphin date!

Via goodnewsnetwork.org

Impressive news from here in the UK as a green fingered gardener gets a taste for breaking records with his plants. Say hello again to Doug Smith, from Hertfordshire and I say again because he’s the guy I told you about a while back who grew the biggest sunflower in the UK. He’s clearly very good at growing oversized plants so this time Doug focused his mind on tomatoes and amazingly got the nod from the Guinness Book Of World Records last week when he grew the most tomatoes on a single stem: How many? 1269 individual tomatoes, weighing in at an impressive 14lbs.

The 43 year old dad from Stanstead Abbotts put a lot of scientific research into the venture, he even sent soil samples to a lab to make sure the plants got exactly what they needed, then about 4 hours a week tending to the plant in an 8’x 8’ greenhouse in his garden. Next the IT manager plans to usurp a Coventry man who currently holds the record for most tomatoes on a single plant which stands at 1355. He’s not that far away so watch this space...

Via goodnewsnetwork.org

Monday 4th April 2022

Wallet boosting news from the UK now as we meet the man who can fill his car for £7!!

Say hello to Alex Orchin who’s a 31 year old petrolhead who happens to own a Peel P-50, the smallest car ever made! You may recall seeing Clarkson shoe-horn has massive gut into one of these things and drive it around the office, he even got it in the lift! Well Alex saw this too and became obsessed with the tiny car whose vital statistics are 134cm (53 inch) long, 98cm (39 inch) wide, and 100cm (39 inch) high with a 1.3 gallon fuel tank.

He thought he’d never get one because the ultra rare originals are over £100,000 but there is a much more affordable reproduction from the Isle Of Man and he managed to get his hands on one of them.Last year Alex drove the length of the UK in it and it took him a while, it has a top speed of only 23 mph! He loves pootling about and doing errands in it but any major shopping is sadly impossible, you can fit one small carrier bag by the handbrake - that’s it!

Via goodnewsnetwork.org

Mindblowing news from the USA and the study of an amazing bacteria that not just eats methane, but turns it into a usable fuel - methanol!

Say hello to the bio-boffins at Northwestern University who’ve been studying this elusive stuff called methanthropic bacteria which eats up 30 million tonnes of methane, a dangerous greenhouse gas, every year. Scientists have long been impressed with how this bacteria can turn a harmful gas into a useful fuel but therein is the rub. They don’t understand how it manages to do that because up till now they’ve only been able to get into that cell by killing it. But thanks to a new process called Cryo-Electron-Microscopy they’re now able to get right in there while it’s alive and working. This is a huge deal because if they learn how it works then they can engineer bacteria that will be able to swallow the methane in fracking sites and even clean up oil spills in a completely natural way.

Via goodnewsnetwork.org