Your morning antidote.

Sunday Abiodun can often tell an animal is nearby before he sees it — from a broken twig or the way birds suddenly stop singing. For 15 years, he used those instincts to hunt wildlife to feed his family or to sell as bushmeat. Now he uses those same instincts...

BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM Most spice jars get rinsed and recycled. A few get left on the counter until someone throws them away. Almost none get a second life, and professional organizers say that’s worth reconsidering. Clean them first. Professional eco-friendly organ

BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM Balloons have always been made from natural latex, a material derived from rubber tree sap. Natural latex is biodegradable. The rubber tree has been producing it since before the first balloon was invented in 1824. On its own, it breaks down.

Over the last 20 years, Oregon’s wilderness has suffered big time. Salmon have disappeared, wildfires have scoured the hills and drought has parched once-fertile soils. Years of small fixes — a little forest thinning here, a little fish-ladder installation there — have helped, bu

Samantha Cooper once helped power the oil industry. Now she’s fighting to end its hold on our future

Welcome back to The Spark, our monthly celebration of how people just like you are creating positive change, one meaningful step at a time. The Spark is generously supported by Laura Rice. Sign up to Reasons to be Cheerful’s weekly newsletter here and you’ll get The Spark in your

5 baby penguins from a species considered Critically-Endangered have hatched at an aquarium down in South Carolina. The 5 join 2 that hatched in May, and together make up a record nesting season for the organization’s resident African penguins. Hatching at Ripley’s Aquarium of My

Coal power has a huge role still to play in the American energy mix—by turning over its substantial grid infrastructure to renewable energy projects. Energy investment firm Panamint is putting up $1.7 billion to build Big Rooter Power, an enormous solar-storage power complex in R

31 years ago today, Cal Ripken Jr. broke Lou Gehrig’s baseball record when he played in his 2,131st consecutive game. Once considered a near-impossible feat, “the streak,” which continued for 2,632 games, earned Cal the nickname, Iron Man. The televised game, between the Orioles

Coral dying from heat stress has been revived after scientists successfully applied probiotic and post-biotic treatments in open seas for the the first time. Although probiotics have previously been shown to rehabilitate corals in South Florida and in aquarium environments, the r

Forward-thinking gardeners are using leftover builders’ waste to create gardens that are drought-tolerant and full of biodiversity

Richard E Grant struck gold in a charity shop – now he’s fronting a camping to inspire others to do the same

TikTok turned sea shanties into an online craze, but these old working songs are doing more than just filling social feeds

A new mapping tool pinpoints where slugs are likely to strike, helping farmers cut pesticide use while protecting crops

This story has been co-published by Reasons to be Cheerful and the Outrider Foundation. In Los Angeles, in Mumbai, in Kuala Lumpur and in several other cities around the planet, autonomous plastic-eating robots are taking over the waterways. They are, in one form or other, chompi

Welcome back to our weekly behind-the-scenes glimpse at what’s getting our team talking. Tell us what you’ve been reading at info@reasonstobecheerful.world and we just might feature it here. Rolling vistas Utah’s Zion National Park has long been a pioneer in visitor transportatio

BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM In an NHS trial of nearly 1,000 patients across seven hospitals in England and Scotland, an at-home urine test detected 92 percent of bladder cancer cases. When the result came back negative, there was better than a 99 percent chance the patie

BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM There’s a lot tangled up in choosing a fertility clinic. Some of it is practical: where is it, what does it cost, what are their numbers. Some of it is harder to put into words, like whether you feel genuinely seen and supported through a proc

Crossing the climate threshold now looks unavoidable, but temperatures are still shaped by the choices we make now

Why does Brazil have so many supercentenarians? Researchers are trying to find out – and the early findings are in