🌞 The act young people are doing to save lives

We’ve got a mixed bag of good news stories in today’s newsletter - from blood donation to air fryers and everything in between.

If you think any of your friends need a bit more of the bright side in their life, send them this link to sign up to the Good Newsletter!

Without further ado…let’s get into it!

The movie and cinema business hasn’t had much good news over the past few years - but the release of Moana 2 is bucking the trend in terms of its popularity at the theatre.

It’s predicted to bring in $US175 million in ticket sales in the U.S, alone over this weekend, which would make it the most successful Thanksgiving release since Frozen II.

Another interesting angle to this movie is that it’s one of the first films to feature film composers who rose to fame via TikTok. Abigail Barlow, 23 and Emily Bear, 26, found an audience online after their ‘Unofficial Bridgerton Musical’ went viral at the beginning of 2020, and went on to win the 2022 Grammy for Best Musical Theatre Album for its release.

The pair are working on a musical destined for Broadway - after Moana 2, there’s no saying how far they’ll go.

There’s excitement in the global asthma research and treatment community this week, with a new way to treat serious cases of asthma being hailed a ‘game changer’ for patients.

It stems from the successful results of a trial that compared the effectiveness of administering a steroid called Benralizumab, widely used by doctors to treat severe asthma in low daily doses via a tablet, compared with a one-off high dose administered via a vaccine when an actual asthma attack is taking place.

The study, published in the Lancet Respiratory Medicine Journal, found that giving patients who were experiencing an asthma attack a shot of the steroid greatly increased the speed and quality of their recovery, rather than a course of tablets.

This is the first major development in the treatment of asthma in over 50 years.

Lifeblood confirmed this week that in the past year, almost 5,000 18-year-olds have become blood donors in Australia. That makes this group the largest new donor group by age, which is an incredible feat.

Together, the 18-year-olds have made more than 10,600 donations in the past year. According to Lifeblood, “young adults are essential to Lifeblood’s mission to gain an additional 100,000 new donors in the next year to meet increasing patient demand”.

Did you know? Only 3% of the eligible population donates currently, so Lifeblood is really encouraging the next generation of donors to roll up their sleeves and get involved.

Sometimes the best trips are the ones you don’t overthink.

Feeling like you should have planned a holiday as end-of-year fatigue sets in? If you’re considering a quick getaway before heading back to work, here are some tips to make it happen - it might be less admin than you think!

The average lifespan of a Macaroni penguin in the wild is 8-15 years - which is why the 40th birthday celebration of ‘Best Friend’, the celebrity of SeaWorld San Diego, is such a remarkable feat.

Best Friend (yes, that’s the real name), who was born in 1984, is now SeaWorld’s oldest penguin, and is thought to be one of the oldest penguins in North America.

Watch the staff at San Diego SeaWorld talk about Best Friend on his 40th birthday here!

Alright so this one goes out to all my air fryer girls (yes, it might be niche and yes, I might be speaking specifically about myself).

Anyway! Air fryers have been confirmed as the least polluting cooking method, according to a new study.

The research, led by researchers at the University of Birmingham, found that air fryers produce a tiny fraction of the indoor air pollution emitted by other cooking methods including pan and deep frying.

So how did they figure this out? Well, the researchers cooked chicken breast using five different methods: pan frying, stir-frying, deep-fat frying, boiling and air frying, in a well-controlled kitchen.

They then measured the levels of two things: particulate matter and volatile organic compounds emitted by each method. Through this experiment, they were able to figure out that the pollution levels across both metrics were lowest for air frying.

You’re looking at the winner of the 2024 Oceania Photo Contest. This photo, taken by Daniel Sly, was taken during an early morning dive at Bare Island in Sydney’s Botany Bay. It is a Pot-bellied Seahorse.