2020 Has Good News Too, And I Illustrate The 30 Best Stories

A small Facebook group made to connect fans of Bristol punk band IDLES has grown into a huge support network for thousands of people. Over the past three years, "AF Gang" has grown to more than 30,000 members and become a judgment-free community where members can talk openly about their problems. If somebody posts about their struggles with their mental health or a difficult family situation, they can find dozens of members commenting to support them and offer advice. Jonathan Murray, from Liverpool, said the group practically saved his life. "I've struggled with my mental health for years," he said. "I've tried counseling and I'm on medication, but I still feel like I'm on my own and I've got no one to talk to. Rather than speaking down to me, it's like we were one big group. They tell you to just go with the flow and let it happen. The band's music and lyrics made me feel like I wasn't alone. Through the group, I met people going through the exact same." Idles formed in 2009. Their second album, Joy as an Act of Resistance, was released in 2018 as a rallying call for unity, covering topics including toxic masculinity and racism. Bass player Adam Devonshire called the AF Gang group "a wonderful thing." "It's started to open up a discussion and allow people to open up and show that it's OK to talk about your problems," he said. "A very large number of young males are told and conditioned not to open up and not to discuss things and there's a high suicide rate because of it. I hope it can be replicated in other places. It seems to have been a very positive change for a lot of people in the group."

“Hello Pia, I’ve read your story in the papers. You sound like a badass. I am an artist from the UK and I’ve made some work about the migrant crisis, obviously, I can’t keep the money. Could you use it to buy a new boat or something? Please let me know. Well done. Banksy.” This was the email that Pia Klemp—the captain of several NGO boats that rescued thousands of people over recent years—got in September 2019. While initially, she thought it was a joke, it turned out Klemp was chosen by the British artist due to her political stance on the migrant crisis. “I don’t see sea rescue as a humanitarian action but as part of an anti-fascist fight." Soon, Pia assembled a crew of European activists with long experience in search and rescue operations and acquired a vessel which she named Louise Michel, after a French feminist anarchist. Painted in bright pink and featuring Banksy's artwork, the Louise Michel set sail in secrecy on 18 August under a German flag. The 31-meter motor yacht, formerly owned by French customs authorities, is smaller but considerably faster than other NGO rescue vessels. Louise Michel currently sails in the central Mediterranean where, on Thursday, it rescued 89 people in distress, including 14 women and four children. It is now looking for a safe seaport to disembark the passengers or to transfer them to a European coastguard vessel. With a top speed of 27 knots, the Louise Michel would be able to “hopefully outrun the so-called Libyan coastguard before they get to boats with refugees and migrants and pull them back to the detention camps in Libya”, said Klemp. The planning of the mission was carried out in secrecy between London, Berlin, and Burriana, where the Louise Michel had docked to be equipped for sea rescues. Fearing that media attention could compromise their goals, Banksy’s team and the rescue activists agreed to release the news about the boat only after carrying out the first rescue.

It would be absurd to ignore this global event, and good news about it doesn't drop every day, but we've managed to find a few glimpses. Here we go: Dutch scientists from Erasmus MC and Utrecht University found an antibody able to block infection of SARS1 and SARS2. An antibody is the organism's response to an antigen, which is found in vaccines. While an antigen is far from being manufactured and approved, the antibody can be used in medicine to prevent further COVID-19 infections. This will eventually happen after it passes human trials, which will take several months. On the same subject: The first clinical trial for a coronavirus vaccine started today in Seattle, US, as the first subject received an experimental dose. A team of Canadian scientists has successfully isolated and grown copies of the coronavirus—a major step in developing a viable vaccine, and a breakthrough in the study community. CureVac, the company Trump tried to buy a few days ago, is focusing on an mRNA-based vaccine, which can work out faster if successful. Although these are real stories from verified sources, it's better to take everything with a grain of salt. Studies don't end overnight and human trials always take a year, so patience is the word here. Meanwhile, don't lose hope, stay home, wash your hands, and keep scrolling because there is good news to illustrate. That won't change.

In an effort to give its young residents a new start and help them get into work or education, the city's municipal credit bank will cancel some of their debt. The creditors will be given €750 as an incentive to pass the debt on to the municipality bank, and more debt could be canceled if the young Amsterdammers engage in training or educational programs.

Dutch scientists have recently created venom-producing glands from the Cape Coral snake and eight other snake species in the lab, using stem cells, opening the way for mass antivenom production. At the same time, scientists in India have sequenced the genome of the Indian cobra, one of the deadliest snakes in the country. These are major breakthroughs in an industry where venom extraction is very slow and very dangerous, but nevertheless crucial in medicine. Snakebites kill around 200 people a day, so a lab-made serum that doesn't depend on catching live snakes is, for many, a dream come true.

2020 may have put concerts & festivals on hold, but it sure didn't pull the plug on new music. Some of the biggest rock bands took this gap year as a reason to go back into the studios and make new music. And some of them even released new records, such as the likes of Nine Inch Nails, Metallica, The Strokes, IDLES, and Eels. So it's safe to say 2021 is gonna bang some heads.

The last week has been full of groundbreaking discoveries in physics and astronomy, but one of them combined both fields. Scientists on the International Space Station have observed the fifth state of matter in space for the first time, offering unprecedented insight that could help solve some of the quantum universe's most intractable enigmas. Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs)—the existence of which was predicted by Albert Einstein and Indian mathematician Satyendra Nath Bose almost a century ago—are formed when atoms of certain elements are cooled to near absolute zero (0 Kelvin, minus 273.15 Celsius). At this point, the atoms become a single entity with quantum properties, wherein each particle also functions as a wave of matter. BECs straddle the line between the macroscopic world governed by forces such as gravity and the microscopic plane, ruled by quantum mechanics. Scientists believe BECs contain vital clues to mysterious phenomena such as dark energy—the unknown energy thought to be behind the Universe's accelerating expansion. (The artwork above depicts the microgravitational understanding between Bose and Einstein.)

According to a recent study published in the Journal of Animal Ecology, birds are capable of learning good eating habits from watching others, even without being present to experience the smells and sounds. The study was conducted by Dr. Liisa Hamalainen, from the University of Cambridge, on 2 types of birds, blue tits and great tits. She made 2 types of food items out of almond flakes, some of them soaked in a bitter solution, and placed a cross or a square on an outer wrapping. The birds' reactions were then filmed and shown to members of both their own and other species. Upon eating the bitter flakes, the birds reacted with a comical disgust, making a great show of their distaste, whose meaning their viewers recognized. Both blue tits and great tits got the message and steered well clear of the bitter flakes, confirming that the educational video worked.

Astronauts from ISS baked the first cookies in a special zero-gravity oven in a first-of-its-kind experiment to study cooking options for long-haul trips. The first cookie was undercooked, while the second took 75 minutes to bake and another 25 to cool, releasing a fresh scent in the ISS. As a result, five cookies were sent to earth for "testing."

Brazilian ultrarunner Fernanda Maciel completed a stunning mountaineering double in the Alps in a single day, setting a new female Fastest Known Time (FKT) on the Gran Paradiso, and climbing the Matterhorn. After suffering frozen eyes in an accident on the Matterhorn three years ago and losing her flatmate in an accident there last year, Fernanda overcame her fears to complete the feat just one day before a landslide trapped 25 climbers on the mountain. "I was super scared, but these mountains represent a physical, emotional, and spiritual challenge for me." Climbing without a rope in solo style, Maciel reached the 4,061 m summit of Gran Paradiso in just two hours and 40 minutes, completing the round route in just four hours and three minutes to better her own previous FKT. She then transferred to Cervinia, in Italy, and climbed the 4,478 m Matterhorn summit on a difficulty IV-rated route. The former lawyer, Ultra Trail Vice World Champion, and jiu-jitsu champion has set her sights on the fastest known times on some of the world's biggest mountains. She was the first woman to run up and down Aconcagua, the highest mountain in the Americas, and also holds the female FKT on Kilimanjaro.