| TGIF, QuickTake readers! Start your weekend in high spirits with these 10 uplifting stories from the past week.  1. John Lewis became the first Black legislator to lie in state. Later, Barack Obama eulogized the civil rights icon as the "founding father of a better America" at his funeral in Atlanta's historic Ebenezer Baptist Church. 2. The mystery of Stonehenge's boulders may have been solved. Scientists traced the origins of 50 of the 52 megaliths to a site 16 miles away after using X-ray scans to analyze the chemistry of the huge rocks. 3. Virgin Galactic flaunted SpaceShipTwo's sleek interior. The space tourism craft's passenger cabin has 12 windows to gaze at Earth and was designed for riders to experience out-of-seat weightlessness.  4. Banana trees could cut Covid-19 waste. Eco-friendly Abaca fiber is more water-resistant than an N-95 mask and could replace plastic used in millions of face masks—and decompose within two months. 5. A med student tackled White skin bias in medicine. Realizing his textbooks lacked representation for people of color, Malone Mukende created a handbook for diagnosing conditions on Black and Brown skin.  6. The WHO unveiled its first digital health avatar. Her name is Florence and she was created to warn the world's 1.3 billion tobacco users about the dangers of smoking and to combat Covid-19 misinformation. 7. Australian scientists keep naming bugs after Marvel characters. The "super species" include critters with features akin to Deadpool, Thor, Loki, and Black Widow. There's even a "white-mustachioed" Stan Lee fly.  8. Women will control $30 million of wealth within a decade. Aging baby boomers who'll inherit assets as they outlive their spouses and more financially savvy younger women are driving the remarkable shift. 9. Octavia Spencer urged more casting of people with disabilities. 30 years after the ADA was enacted, she pushed studios to uphold "authentic representation" rather than hiring non-disabled actors in those roles. 10. A teacher is pedaling knowledge to his students. After Covid-19 shut Guatemala's schools, Gerardo Ixcoy turned a tricycle into a roving classroom with virus barriers, a whiteboard, and a solar-powered speaker.  Have a great weekend! We're taking a short summer break and will be back in your inbox on August 10. In the meantime, follow us on Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook. Thanks for reading!
-Andrew Mach | 
Post a Comment