Taking a look at recent, positive, uplifting, news stories and yarns, from New Zealand and all around the world, to bring a smile and a bit of cheer.

Mother nature is truly amazing

This story is rather mind boggling and proves yet again just how awesome – in the actual definition of the word – nature is. A lightning bolt in the United States in 2017, recently analysed by scientists, has set the record for the longest ever flash – beating the previous holder by 61km. The figures of the lightning bolt are just incredible – not only was it 829km long – a distance of roughly the space between Melbourne and Sydney – it flew across the sky in what would take a jet plane 90 minutes in mere seconds.

“This lightning storm over the US, captured by NOAA satellites, produced a record-breaking megaflash in 2020. Now another megaflash, uncovered during the reanalysis of a 2017 storm, has beaten that record

“Megaflashes are a single discharge of lightning at least 100 kilometres long. The flashes shoot horizontally through a type of storm called a mesoscale convective system, which is a massive cluster of circulating thunderstorms. Ice crystals, super-cooled water droplets, and hail-like lumps collide and exchange electrons within thunderstorms, resulting in positively and negatively charged regions with clouds. That can generate an electric charge which leaps between oppositely charged parts of a thunderstorm as intra-cloud lightning, or towards the ground as a strike that’s hotter than the sun.” (Source: “‘No safe location’: 829km lightning bolt breaks record for biggest-ever flash,” by Angus Dalton, August 1, www.stuff.co.nz).

5 stars – if ever we needed reminders of just how awe-inspiring our planet is, mother nature will provide them!

Australian stick insect raises the bar

When I came across this story last week I hurriedly sent the link to my brother in Australia, knowing how much big insects challenge him. In a rainforest in Queensland, scientists have discovered a new breed of stick insect that may well be the heaviest insect ever found in Australia – weighing about the same as a golf ball.

“The new species weighs 44 grams (1.55 oz), and is 40 cm (15.75 inches) long. James Cook University’s Angus Emmott, who helped identify the new Acrophylla alta species, said the creature’s large size could be an evolutionary response to its cool, wet habitat.

“’Their body mass likely helps them survive the colder conditions, and that’s why they’ve developed into this large insect over millions of years,” he was quoted as saying in a media release. ‘From what we know to date, this is Australia’s heaviest insect.’

“The new stick insect was discovered in the canopies of the mountainous Wet Tropics region of Far North Queensland, in Australia’s northeast. The remote habitat was probably also why it had remained undiscovered for so long, Emmott said.” (Source: “Meet the new species of giant stick insect that weighs about the same as a golf ball,” August 1, www.edition.cnn.com).

5 stars – this stick insect has to be seen to be believed. It is absolutely huge – and it can fly!

Message in a bottle discovered a century later

Messages in bottles have long been an object of fascination – inspiring, books, films, and the odd popular tune. Recently one was discovered in a wall cavity of a lighthouse in Tasmania, Australia, that was placed there 122 years ago.

“Specialist painter Brian Burford was performing routine maintenance on the seaside structure when the discovery took place, according to Annita Waghorn, historic heritage manager for the Tasmania Parks and Wildlife Service. ‘While he was working inside the lantern room – which is the room at the top of the lighthouse where the lens and lightening mechanism is – dealing with some rust and corrosion, he popped through into the wall cavity,’ Waghorn said.

“It was then that something in the cavity caught Burford’s eye, ‘glinting’ in the light. ‘He was so excited that he gave me a call and said that he found a message in a bottle,’ Waghorn said.

“It turned out that the letter was not just a simple note, but an envelope containing two hand-written pages detailing upgrades made to the lighthouse in 1903.” (Source: “‘He was so excited’: painter discovers 122-year-old message in a bottle inside lighthouse walls,” by Eelemarni Close-Brown, August 2, www.guardian.com).

5 stars – there is something fascinating about messages placed in bottles – discovered either far away from where they were placed in the sea – or in this case – a century later in a wall.