Wednesday, October 21, 2026
A lost dog's happy homecoming, an honest finder of $128,000, new protections for seas and butterflies, and a Mars rover that just can't stop driving.
A 10-year-old Jack Russell terrier slipped out of a cabin near Canyon Village in Yellowstone on September 10 and spent more than a month fending for herself in the park. She has now been found and reunited with her owners, who had traveled from California. Not bad for a senior pup in bear country.
Source: Good News Network →
While stopping at a bank machine in Lewisville, Texas, a passerby spotted a bag stuffed with cash resting on top of the ATM. Rather than pocket any of it, he called the police right away, and the money appears to have belonged to a nearby restaurant's deposit. Every dollar went back.
Source: Good News Network →
A new government decree sets aside about 23,000 acres as the Mount Mabu Community Conservation Area. The remote, rain-soaked mountain forest is home to more than 200 butterfly species and many other rare plants and animals.
Source: Good News Network →
The Channel island of Jersey has expanded its marine protected areas so that roughly 21% of its territorial waters are now off-limits to bottom trawling and other damaging fishing methods. The rules cover some of the most valuable and fragile seabed habitats around the island, giving reefs and sea life room to recover.
Source: Good News Network →
A UK scheme called Wild Power now certifies solar farms that measurably boost nature, using a free scorecard covering habitats, hedgerows and wildlife corridors. One newly certified site in Essex swapped a plain arable field for wildflower grassland, mended hedges and bird and bat boxes, and expects big gains for pollinators and skylarks.
Source: Positive News →
NASA's Perseverance rover has passed Opportunity's long-standing record of about 28 miles driven on Mars. Thanks largely to its self-driving navigation, it did it in roughly five and a half years instead of nearly fifteen. It is now studying some of the oldest rocks in the solar system for signs of ancient habitable environments.
Source: ScienceDaily →
Researchers who followed 13 astronauts found their hearts adapted well to months of weightlessness and coped with simulated Martian gravity without major trouble. Regular exercise in orbit seemed to make a real difference, which is encouraging news for future crewed missions to the Red Planet.
Source: ScienceDaily →
Chemists at ETH Zurich have found a practical method that breaks acrylic glass, the stuff in taillights, windows and sneeze guards, almost completely back into its original building blocks. That makes high-quality recycling affordable for the first time, so old acrylic could become new acrylic instead of landfill.
Source: Good News Network →
A well-known historical story of a train held up by a solar storm turns out to be off by seven years: researchers showed it happened in 1848, not 1841. Fixing the date reshapes the early history of space weather, a field that still matters because big solar storms can disrupt power grids and satellites today.
Source: ScienceDaily →
“Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement; nothing can be done without hope.”— Helen Keller, Optimism (1903)