The Small Victories That Make a Huge Difference in Our Daily Lives

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Jan 2, 2022

From finding a $20 bill in an old jacket to finally finishing a TV series on the watchlist, the average person has four small wins a day, or 1,460 every year, according to a new survey.

A poll of 2,004 Americans delved into the impact of life’s little successes and found that four in five have become more conscious of their small wins since the start of the pandemic.

87% find these wins to be crucial for powering through the day, according to the survey conducted by OnePoll for TGI Fridays. So much so, 67% have made a conscious effort to recognize and celebrate them more, compared to before the pandemic.

Baby boomers said completing chores, decorating for the season, and other home-related goals, are the most satisfying types of small wins to achieve.

When it comes to self-care, 92% of all respondents have been exploring different methods of maintaining personal wellness—and 87% said recognizing any small wins each day is a crucial form of self-care.

Respondents also listed things such as paying off a bill or hitting a savings goal (56%), and sweet surprises like getting a free cup of coffee or finding a great parking spot (53%) as other small wins worth celebrating.

No matter the achievement, however, 82% said there’s no such thing as a win being “too small” to celebrate.

LOOK: 40 Percent Say Their New Year’s Resolutions Involve Being Greener in 2022, According to Poll

Nine in 10 said these small wins have a positive impact on their mental health and 82% agree they are the key to having a good day.

Best ways to celebrate small wins?

Fifty-four percent said telling friends and family about small successes is the best way to savor it.

Half said treating yourself to a special dinner or a cocktail is another great way to celebrate.

MOST SATISFYING SMALL WINS

hearing new music for the first time
completing self-care activity
finishing watching a TV series
paying a bill off
achieving a savings goal
completing chores
decorating for the season
finding money in old clothes
getting the best parking spot
trying a new food for the first time
achieving a fitness goal
reading a book
learning to cook a new dish
arriving just in time
fixing a typo before hitting send
getting off work early

HOW AMERICANS HAVE PRACTICED SELF-CARE SINCE START OF PANDEMIC

Spending quality time with loved ones – 48%
Not taking anything for granted – 42%
Writing down goals, small wins big successes in a journal – 42%
Exercising/doing yoga – 42%
Spending more time outdoors – 40%
Having more celebrations, even for small things – 40%
Unplugging from social media – 32%

Families Spend Christmas Eve Rescuing 6 Elk Trapped in Frozen River After Falling Through Ice (LOOK)

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Good News Network

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Jan 2, 2022

canoe Rescuing 6 elk trapped in ice Kettle River-Courtesy of Rylee Stuart — Courtesy of Rylee Stuart

More than two dozen people gave up many hours of warm festivities at their homes on Christmas Eve to rescue six elk that were trapped in the ice.

Most of a large herd of elk had made it across the river safely, but 12 had fallen through the ice on the Kettle River near Barstow, Washington.

Rylee Stuart’s husband grabbed a kayak and rallied friends to go back to the scene where he first saw the animals struggling that morning.

“When we got up there, there was a group of people,” Stuart told KXLY-TV Channel 4 News in Spokane.

“They had one [elk] on the way to the shore and they one to the shore already. There were still 10 left.”

Someone had reportedly called the Washington Fish and Game commission for assistance and were told the agency would just ‘let nature take its course’.

These hunters and their families, however, dragged one of the giant animals to shore by hand, then utilized the help of a winch, a 4×4 truck, and plenty of rope, to rescue others.

Half of the 12 animals died but six were saved. One calf was ‘holding on’ after being cradled in blankets by one of the men alongside the river.

“All the women there laid with this last calf…and cried with it, and it kept showing a little bit of improvement,” Stuart said, “until it finally was able to walk.”

LOOK: Wildlife Officers Finally Figure Out How to Remove Tire That Was Around an Elk’s Neck

She said spending Christmas Eve on the frigid river rescue with her family was unforgettable.

“I would do it again in a heart beat,” she vowed.

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“Positive thinking is a valuable tool that can help you overcome obstacles, deal with pain, and reach new goals.” – Amy Morin

Quote of the Day

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Good News Network

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Jan 2, 2022

Quote of the Day: “Positive thinking is a valuable tool that can help you overcome obstacles, deal with pain, and reach new goals.” – Amy Morin

Photo: by Hybrid

With a new inspirational quote every day, atop the perfect photo—collected and archived on our Quotes page—why not bookmark GNN.org for a daily uplift?

Watch 2 Cats Experience Snow For the First Time – Adorably Shaking Their Paws With Each Step

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Good News Network

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Jan 2, 2022

cat first snow-rumble video graphic — Rumble - Shorty and Kodi

These cats got to experience snow for the first time—and no one was sure of what they would do.

It turns out the pair ventured into the white fluff, but with shy caution and some shock.

Named Shorty and Kodi, they displayed plenty of paw shaking and wide-eyed awe.

MORE: Sneaky German Shepherd Steals a Baby’s Pacifier And Gets Caught on Camera (WATCH)

Enjoy the video from Rumble…

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The 2022 New Year’s Horoscopes From Rob Brezsny’s ‘Free Will Astrology’

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Jan 1, 2022

Our partner Rob Brezsny provides his weekly wisdom to enlighten our thinking and motivate our mood. Rob’s Free Will Astrology, is a syndicated weekly column appearing in over a hundred publications. He is also the author of Pronoia Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How All of Creation Is Conspiring To Shower You with Blessings. (A free preview of the book is available here.)

Here is your weekly horoscope…

FREE WILL ASTROLOGY – Week beginning January 1, 2021
Copyright by Rob Brezsny, FreeWillAstrology.com

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19):
Microbiologist Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin in 1928. It was later described as “the single greatest victory ever achieved over disease”—an antidote to dangerous infections caused by bacteria. But there’s more to the story. Fleming’s strain of penicillin could only be produced in tiny amounts—not nearly enough to become a widespread medicine. It wasn’t until 1943 that a different strain of penicillin was found—one that could be mass-produced. The genius who made this possible was Mary Hunt, a humble researcher without a college degree. By 1944, the new drug was saving thousands of lives. I mention Hunt because she’s a good role model for you in 2022. I believe you’ll have chances to improve on the work of others, generating excellent results. You may also improve on work you’ve done in the past.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18):
Catherine Pugh wrote a series of children’s books collectively known as Healthy Holly. Later, when she became mayor of the city of Baltimore, she carried out a scheme to sell 100,000 copies to hospitals and schools that did business with the city. I’d love for you to be aggressive and imaginative in promoting yourself in 2022. I’d love for you to make money from doing what you do best, but always with high integrity and impeccability.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20):
Piscean Vaslav Nijinsky is regarded by many as the 20th century’s most brilliant dancer. He had a robust relationship with beauty, and I want you to know about it. Hopefully, this will inspire you to enjoy prolonged periods of Beauty Worship in 2022. To do so will be good for your health. Memorize this passage from Nijinsky: “Beauty is God. God is beauty with feeling. Beauty is in feeling. I love beauty because I feel it and therefore understand it. I flaunt my beauty. I feel love for beauty.”

ARIES (March 21-April 19):
Historians disagree about the legacy of Jimmy Carter, who was President of the United States from 1977 to 1981. Was he effective or not? Opinions differ. But there’s no ambiguity about a project he pursued after his presidency. He led a global effort to eliminate a pernicious disease caused by the guinea worm parasite. When Carter began his work, 3.5 million people per year suffered from the parasite’s debilitating effects. Today, there are close to zero victims. Will 2022 bring an equivalent boon to your life, Aries? The banishment of an old bugaboo? A monumental healing? I suspect so.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20):
In 2022, I hope you will express more praise than ever before. I hope you’ll be a beacon of support and inspiration for the people you care for. The astrological omens suggest this could be a record-breaking year for the blessings you bestow. Don’t underestimate your power to heal and instigate beneficial transformations. Yes, of course, it’s a kind and generous strategy for you to carry out. But it will also lead to unforeseen rewards that will support and inspire and heal you.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20):
If you search Google, you’ll be told that the longest biography ever written is the 24-volume set about British political leader Winston Churchill. But my research shows there’s an even more extensive biography: about Japan’s Emperor Hirohito, who lived from 1901 to 1989. His story consists of 61 volumes. In the spirit of these expansive tales, and in accordance with 2022’s astrological aspects, I encourage you to create an abundance of noteworthy events that will deserve inclusion in your biography. Make this the year that warrants the longest and most interesting chapter in that masterpiece.

CANCER (June 21-July 22):
One of the 20th century’s most famous works of art was Fountain. It was scandalous when it appeared in 1917, since it consisted entirely of a white porcelain urinal. Marcel Duchamp, the artist who presented it, was a critic of the art market and loved mocking conventional thought. Years later, however, evidence emerged suggesting that Fountain may not have been Duchamp’s idea—that in fact he “borrowed” it from Cancerian artist and poet Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven. There’s still disagreement among art scholars about what the facts are. But if definitive proof ever arrives that von Freytag-Loringhoven was the originator, it will be in 2022. This will be the year many Cancerians finally get the credit they deserve.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22):
Author Carson McCullers wrote the novel The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter. Early in the story, the character named Mick Kelly has a crisis of yearning. McCullers describes it: “The feeling was a whole lot worse than being hungry for any dinner, yet it was like that. I want—I want—I want—was all that she could think about—but just what this real want was she did not know.” If you have ever had experiences resembling Mick’s, Leo, 2022 will be your year to fix that glitch in your passion. You will receive substantial assistance from life whenever you work on the intention to clarify and define the specific longings that are most essential to you.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22):
After careful research, I have concluded that one of your important missions in 2022 will be to embody a perspective articulated by poet Rand Howells: “If I could have but one wish granted, it would be to live in a universe like this one at a time like the present with friends like the ones I have now and be myself.” In other words, Virgo, I’m encouraging you to do whatever’s necessary to love your life exactly as it is—without comparing it unfavorably to anyone else’s life or to some imaginary life you don’t actually have.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22):
If your quest for spiritual enlightenment doesn’t enhance your ability to witness and heal the suffering of others, then it’s fake enlightenment. If your quest for enlightenment encourages you to imagine that expressing personal freedom exempts you from caring for the well-being of your fellow humans, it’s fake. This is equally true about your quest for personal success. If it doesn’t involve serving others, it’s meaningless. In this spirit, Libra, and in accordance with the astrological omens, I invite you to make 2022 the year you take your compassion and empathy to the highest level ever.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21):
Two mating rabbits could theoretically engender 11 million relatives within a year’s time. Although I suspect that in 2022 you will be as metaphorically fertile as those two hypothetical rabbits, I’m hoping you’ll aim more for quality than quantity. To get started, identify two projects you could pursue in the coming months that will elicit your most liberated creativity. Write a vow in which you state your intention to be intensely focused as you express your fecundity.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21):
A blogger named Soracities writes, “The more I read, the more I feel that a good mark of an intelligent book is simply that the author is having fun with it.” Sagittarian author George Saunders adds that at its best, “Literature is a form of fondness-for-life. It is love for life taking a verbal form.” I will expand these analyses to evaluate everything that humans make and do. In my opinion, the supreme sign of intelligence and value is whether the creators had fun and felt love in doing it. My proposal to you, Sagittarius, is to evaluate your experiences in that spirit. If you are doing things with meager amounts of fun and love, what can you do in 2022 to raise the fun and love quotient?

WANT MORE? Listen to Rob’s EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES, 4-5 minute meditations on the current state of your destiny — or subscribe to his unique daily text message service at: RealAstrology.com

(Zodiac images by Numerologysign.com, CC license)

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Beavers Saved From Euthanasia Transform and Replenish Rivers in the Utah Desert

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Andy Corbley

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Jan 1, 2022

beavers released in UTAH-released Emma Doden — By Emma Doden

Beavers and their dams can positively impact essentially any environment they’re placed in, even the scorching heat of the Moab Desert in Utah. And that’s what a university researcher has achieved.

Looking for solutions to drought and wildfires, a Utah State University student began relocating problem beavers captured in other parts of the state into small, struggling waterways around the Price and San Rafael rivers.

Desert hydrology is delicate and fascinating. With far less rain than temperate ecosystems, many remain dry, or small trickles for large parts of the year before coming alive during short rainy periods. Decades of pollution and agricultural runoff means that many of Utah’s small delicate waterways are heavily degraded.

Studies have shown that beaver dams can vastly improve the quality of wetlands and streams leading to better animal life and improved river health. It was for this service that the “ecosystem engineer” was targeted by Emma Doden as a potential rescuer, even if the idea of beavers in the desert “raised a few eyebrows.”

Working by the Price and San Rafael rivers that run through some of eastern Utah’s driest areas, Doden specializes in passive river restoration, which means there is no help from homo sapiens.

“We believed the system could support a lot more beavers,” Doden told the BBC, “and we wanted to supplement it with translocated beavers.”

The translocated beavers would have been euthanized, so the project also gives the animals a second chance after invading urban areas.

Dam fine work

“Beaver dams are gaining popularity as a low-tech, low-cost strategy to build climate resiliency at the landscape scale,” says one study investigating beaver dams effectiveness at protecting against wildfires. “They slow and store water that can be accessed by riparian vegetation during dry periods, effectively protecting riparian ecosystems from droughts.”

Another study found that the ponds which are created on the dammed side of the beaver lodges can store huge amounts of sediment, then distribute it more safely around the river ecosystem.

This is the case, the study found, both in entirely wild areas with no human alterations and those adjacent to intense agricultural regions, meaning that no matter the conditions of sedimentation, beaver dams can help keep waterways clearer.

Sediment runoff from intense agriculture can result in heavily degraded waterways, and even degraded ocean ecosystems as the sediment reduces light, chokes coral, and causes toxic algae blooms.

Doden’s university has a program for catching problem beavers and relocating them to the desert, where they will build dams to provide these benefits.

“The ultimate goal is to get them to build dams,” she said. “The dams are what are going to increase habitat complexity and restore water.”

In the dam-building seasons of 2019, 2020, and 2021, Doden and her team released more than 50 beavers into the area, some of which moved off downstream sometimes as far as 12 miles to build their dams.

LOOK: ‘Mind-blowing’: 3 Genetic Groups of Grizzly Bears Align With 3 Indigenous Language Tribes in Same Zip Codes

Bill Thomas Hamilton wrote about trapping in Utah in My Sixty Years on the Plains, and how the rivers were plentiful with beaver, such that it would take 8 months to “trap out” an area.

Currently, little research exists, Doden says, on dam-building and river restoration in desert environments. But if research in other biomes is any indication, the project should be a resounding success, as millions of beavers used to lodge on Utah’s rivers.

SHARE The Fascinating Eco-Restoration Story on Your Dam Social Media,,,

Habitat for Humanity’s First 3D-Printed Home on East Coast Sold to Single Mom With Touching History

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Andy Corbley

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Jan 1, 2022

3D printed Virginia home-Habitat for Humanity released — Habitat For Humanity - YouTube

When April Stringfield took the keys to her new 3 bedroom house in Virginia, a special bit of history was made.

The new home for April and her 13-year old son is the first one constructed by Habitat for Humanity on the East Coast using 3D printing.

With lumber prices high, Habitat for Humanity saved an estimated 15% per square foot compared to their normal building costs.

The 1,200 square-foot house featuring 2 full bathrooms uses concrete, which retains temperature better than wood, and will save on heating and cooling costs. It’s also more resistant to tornado and hurricane damage.

A concrete-constructed home is also the same type April fondly remembers that her great-grandmother owned—and she’s excited to carry on the tradition.

Amazingly the entire skeleton was built in just 12 hours, shaving off around 4 weeks of building time, using the printer machinery of a Virginia company called Alquist.

There is even a miniature 3D printer that comes with the house that could reprint parts like light switch covers, if she needs a repair.

Many people think Habitat gives homes away, but they actually sell homes to families with low to moderate incomes, issuing a no-interest, 20 or 30-year mortgage that the new home-owners then pay off monthly.

The Habitat Homebuyer Program becomes available to people who volunteer more than 300 hours of service, and who make 45-80% of an area’s median income.

April, who has been employed full time for five years at a nearby hotel, logged her 300 sweat equity hours, and some were spent actually helping the crew on the construction site that would become her first home.

The addition of solar panels and a smart home system based on proprietary technology from Virginia Tech will ensure April and her son enjoy low energy costs while still maintaining comfort.

“I can’t imagine a better Christmas gift,” she said at the ribbon cutting ceremony on the front porch. There was even a tree decorated in the living room.

CHECK OUT: One of the World’s First Communities of 3D Printed Homes is Set to House Mexico’s Poorest Families

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“Celebrate endings—for they precede new beginnings.” – Jonathan Lockwood Huie (Happy New Year!)

Quote of the Day

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Jan 1, 2022

new years fireworks contemplate future river watching-pubdomain-Matt Popovich — Matt Popovich

Quote of the Day: “Celebrate endings—for they precede new beginnings.” – Jonathan Lockwood Huie (Happy New Year!)

Photo: by Matt Popovich

With a new inspirational quote every day, atop the perfect photo—collected and archived on our Quotes page—why not bookmark GNN.org for a daily uplift?

Woman Wakes Up to Find Astonishing Icicle Outside That Looks Exactly Like a Hummingbird

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Dec 31, 2021

Imagine rising from your bed one frosty morning, opening the blinds, and seeing this out the window.

This is just the sight Michigan’s Tammy Shriver was struck with when she looked outside.

Water had been melting from the rooftop of the hemp farmer’s home onto the tree branches below. As a freeze-thaw-freeze sequence took place amid changing winter temperatures, a natural ice sculpture emerged.

“Oh my gosh,” she remembers saying, “That looks like a bird!’

“I grabbed my iPad and just started grabbing pictures on it,” says Tammy, “and then ran outside to get a better angle.”

One problem? Like kids everywhere, her six-year-old granddaughter Kaylinn loves to eat icicles. But she was asked to leave this particular ice bird alone for everyone to enjoy, and, luckily, Kaylinn did just that.

Of course, no ice lasts forever. Sunshine melted the hummingbird into a slightly different shape. A chickadee, perhaps?

Though a sparkling formation is no longer ornamenting a branch outside Tammy’s home, she feels blessed just to have enjoyed the sight for a week. “My grandma liked hummingbirds,” she says, “maybe grandma sent me a hummingbird.”

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Career Oil Exec Dedicates Himself to Capping Millions of Abandoned Oil Wells to Help the Planet

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Andy Corbley

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Dec 31, 2021

well done foundation released curtis shuck — Curtis Shuck

Across the United States, there may actually be millions of old oil wells that emit methane into the atmosphere and pollute local ecosystems; a truly staggering problem that few people knew existed.

One by one, however, the wells are being sealed by none other than a non-profit created by a career oil executive who became concerned by the mess which drilling activities left behind.

“When I saw the condition that was left behind by the industry I was absolutely horrified,” Curtis Shuck Jr., the founder of the Well Done Foundation, told the BBC. “I was embarrassed, as being an industry professional, that in any universe we would have that it was okay to walk away from something like that.”

According to the EPA, there are 2,150,000 unsecured oil wells, some lying mere meters away from people’s homes, across America. They regularly emit more than 7 million tons per year of methane, a natural gas which remains in the atmosphere for only a few years, but which nonetheless carries a noteworthy climate change impact due to its effects on localized warming.

Well Done’s methods are thorough. Relying first on donated money to finance the project, it then works with local government and the EPA to assess and develop the appropriate well-capping methods, which they outsource to local communities, often to those who have lost their oil-industry labor positions when the wells were abandoned.

Afterwards they format a long-term site monitoring project to ensure any lingering effect on the ecosystem is identified and addressed.

MORE: U.S. Suspends Oil and Gas Leases in One of Nation’s Largest Wilderness Areas

The young non-profit has so far conducted 14 well-plugging projects in Louisiana, Montana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, which they say will save the nation the emissions equal to the annual electricity use of 99,000 homes.

They also have well-plugging projects lined up in West Virginia, Texas, Colorado, Wyoming, and California.

(WATCH the BBC video about this story below.)

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Miracle Preemie Baby Born the Size of an iPhone Came Home For Christmas After a Year of Fears That He May Not Survive

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Dec 31, 2021

A miracle premature baby born the size of an iPhone spent Christmas at home after a “rollercoaster” year where his parents feared he may not survive.

Little Myles weighed just 1lb 8oz when he was born 14 weeks premature on June 19.

24-year-old mom Rebecca Grainger was rushed into hospital for an emergency Caesarian section after being diagnosed with pre-eclampsia at 26 weeks.

Myles was immediately placed on a ventilator as he was unable to breathe for himself and endured a 15-week battle for life.

Rebecca was not able to see or hold her boy but dad Warren McKenna was given a quick cuddle before Myles was taken to neonatal intensive care.

Only parents were allowed in the neonatal intensive care unit due to Covid-19 restrictions, and Warren was the only person allowed to visit Rebecca.

The couple were terrified of catching Covid or having to isolate because missing ten days with their baby would have been their ‘worst nightmare’.

For 15 weeks the couple’s lives revolved around the hospital, leaving early in the morning to be there for Myles and often staying until 2am.

Rebecca, from Yoker, Glasgow, said, “That would have been my worst nightmare, knowing I couldn’t get up there for 10 days.”

LOOK: First Neonatal Wearable Could Provide Real-time Detection of Jaundice and Vital Signs

Rebecca said her pregnancy had gone smoothly until 26 weeks in she realized she hadn’t felt much movement from her baby and decided to speak with her midwife.

She was constantly monitored but the baby’s heart rate suddenly dropped, and doctors had to act.

Rebecca said, “I thought, ‘I’m just being a drama queen but I’ll just phone and see.’

“We went up to the hospital and I thought it was going to be 10 minutes in and out.

“But they took me into a wee room and basically said I wouldn’t be leaving pregnant again.

“At this point, I was just traumatized because my pregnancy was going so smoothly and I didn’t feel ill in myself so it was hard to take in.”

Myles was on a ventilator for the first three weeks of his life, and he managed to fight off a blood infection—but his lungs were not getting any better.

A secure video messaging app called vCreate, funded by Glasgow Children’s Hospital Charity, allowed Myles’ parents to receive updates from their baby’s doctors constantly.

Rebecca said, “Our daily routine involved getting up first thing and checking the vCreate where nurses would have sent a picture or video during the night.

“They were so personal and it really helped us.

“The consultant sat us down and said Myles had been on the ventilator for too long so they would give him steroids to wean him off – but there were side effects from both.

MORE: World’s Most Premature Baby Defies 1% Survival Odds to Break Guinness Record

“I remember asking what the side effects would be.

“The consultant basically said, ‘If he stays on the ventilator he could die, but if he is given steroids he could die’, and I remember just thinking, ‘Why is this happening to us?

“We were always told it was going to be like a rollercoaster and at this point I thought, ‘The rollercoaster has crashed.’

“He was like the size of an iPhone, he could really sit on my hand.

“The consultants explained that anything could happen with him, it could go 50/50.

“It was really tough to hear on my own, especially with the fear of the unknown.

“By the time we got to take him home he was 5lb 5oz.

“He’s still tiny but we thought he was absolutely humongous, a baby giant.”

It was a week after Myles’s birth before mum Rebecca was able to hold him, but she said the tot is settling in well at home now—despite having chronic lung disease.

Rebecca said, “The first time I held him was amazing because I got to see his wee face.

“Skin to skin contact came later and was just a whole different feeling.

“That’s when I really felt ‘I’m his mom’.

“When he finally was allowed to meet his extended family there were tears galore. We’ve been blessed with a miracle.”

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Jaw-Dropping Footage of Northern Lights Pulsing Across Entire Canadian Sky–With Southern Lights, Too

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Dec 31, 2021

This primary care nurse calls himself a ‘Therapeutic Photographer’—and his ‘Southern Lights’ video could calm anyone’s anxiety.

Captured near his home in Pinehouse Lake, Saskatchewan, Canada on February 6, the explosion of dancing light was “the BEST I’ve seen so far!”, exclaimed Dre Erwin.

Erwin didn’t need to use time-lapse to capture the entire sky, north to south, leaping in green magnetic waves.

“It’s these moments we all need to focus on—the beauty in life,” writes Erwin online, whose pics can be found at @DreErwinPhotography.

Sit back and listen to the crunching of snow, and be sure to play it past the 1:00 mark—when it really starts getting incredible.

ALSO: Check Out The Greatest Snowflake Photos Ever Taken With Vividly High Resolution

It doesn’t get much better than this…

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The Most Stunning Moments For Animals in 2021 Will Make You Cheer – and Love Them Even More

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Andy Corbley

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Dec 31, 2021

Friendship-Photo-Competition-SWNS-Agora @fdilekuyar — 'Being friend' by @fdilekuyar - The little calf and the little girl have a one-of-a-kind friendship. In Anatolia, children always find a best friend in their animals. Location: Kayseri, Turkey. See SWNS copy SWCAfriends: This heartwarming set of photos show 50 of the world's best images showing friendships from around the world. More than 16,000 photographers conveyed what friendship meant to them through their camera lens by capturing amazing shots. The photos were entered into Agora's competition called The World's Best Photos of #Friends2020 in a bid to bag the $1,000 prize money.

While media outlets talk about the “Age of Extinction” for species, they never seem to include the multitude of good news—and there was a lot from 2021 to be thrilled about.

Wildlife of all kinds have been recovering for decades in great numbers. Some are even ‘coming back’ from the dead and gone. Nations are taking on conservation as a matter of national pride, and poaching is plummeting.

Best of all, humans are have amazing encounters in the natural world that we all get to share online. Here are our top picks for most enticing animal moments…

1) 100-Year-Old Galápagos Giant Tortoise Found on Island is Indeed Member of ‘Extinct’ Species

Galapagos giant tortoise by Andrew Wright

On that most famous of archipelagos, 2021 saw the return of a presumed extinct tortoise after the world waited with bated breath for months to see the results of a DNA test, one that would solve “one of the greatest mysteries of the Galapagos.” (Read more)

2) He Thought it was a Kitten Lost in the Snow – But it was One of The Most Endangered Mammals in Europe

Two hikers in the Cairngorms in Scotland rescued what they thought was a tabby kitten freezing to death in the snow, but after a specialist vet confirmed that it was a Scottish wildcat, one of the rarest mammals in Europe, and the only felid native to the British Isles. They started a fundraiser to support their conservation having formed a bond with the little guy. (Read more)

3) New Zealand is Hearing the Kiwi Call Once Again After 5 Years of Silence: ’It’s Amazing‘

Everyone calls the citizens of Australia’s island neighbor “Kiwis,” after their national bird which actually was seriously at risk for many years. Over the last 60 months, annual audio surveys of kiwi calls have revealed that the haunting sound can now be heard over vast stretches of the island where before they were absent. (Read more)

4) World’s Tiniest Pig at 10-Inches Tall, Once Thought Extinct, Is Returning to the Wild

In the shadows of tigers and elephants, the smallest wild hog in the world held the entire Terai Grasslands ecosystem together. Presumed extinct until 1971, they have been captive-bred back into stable numbers and roam again in the national parks of India. (Read more)

5) Curious Whale Nudges Paddle Boarder in Argentina in Stunning Video (WATCH)

A paddleboarder was out during whale watching season in Patagonia when a young humpback gave her a playful nudge that, a stunning moment that went viral after being captured by drone video. (Read more)

6) Hiker Reaches Top of Summit and Has the Most Beautiful Encounter With Mountain Goats (WATCH)

A hiker alone with his camera and his thoughts climbed a mountain in Montana. Just as he reached the summit, a mother mountain goat and her kid provided an extraordinary encounter. (Read more)

7) Size Doesn’t Matter to a Dolphin Mom As She Adopts a Whale Calf

Porpoises are famous for their friendliness, and a display of this astonished marine biologists who observed the clear and obvious adoption of an orphaned whale calf by a dolphin mother, a behavior that isn’t well understood. (Read more)

8) The Last Known Swinhoe’s Turtle on Earth Was Alone Until This Female Was Found – Researchers Hope for Babies

Giving a whole new meaning to the words “from the brink of extinction,” there was one such Swinhoe’s turtle alive in captivity, and ‘He’ was thought to be the only one on Earth, but with the discovery of a healthy adult female, a chance for a reptile version of Adam and Eve can commence with any luck. (Read more)

9) Once Biologically Dead, London’s River Thames Rebounds – With Seahorses and Seals

Years of steady work has turned the Thames into a river that catches on fire into a bustling marine metro, teeming with seahorses, seals, seabirds, and even sharks. (Read more)

10) Zero Humpbacks Off Seattle Coast 25 Years Ago – Now 500 Return With Record Number of Calves

The background to an astonishing return in humpback whales over the last 25 years that has seen the beasts come close to pre-whaling industry numbers, record calf counts were made off the coast of Seattle. (Read more)

11) First Cloned Endangered Species in U.S. From Genes Frozen 30 Years Ago Gives Hope For Black-footed Ferret

Elizabeth Ann, at the USFWS National Black-footed Ferret Conservation Center

After years of debate, conservationists cloned the black-footed ferret, the first such deployment of this future-tech in the field of conservation sees this species given a clear second chance. (Read more)

12) Watch 2,200 Cold-Stunned Turtles Being Released by Volunteers Back Into the Gulf

turtle hatchlings released stockton university lester block facebook social media

After a shocking cold snap battered Texas in late winter 2021, sea turtles were saved in huge numbers from cold-stunning by volunteers. Thousands of these vulnerable reptiles were saved and returned to the waters of the gulf after rehabilitation with help from an unlikely ally. (Read more)

13) In World First, Key African Species Will be Relocated to Another Continent After it Became Extinct in India

A lucky group of Namibian and African cheetahs will be relocated to the cheetah-vacant plains of India, where they will hopefully restore the populations that once hunted there in the first-ever such carnivore re-wilding project. (Read more)

14) Rare Rhino Species Sees Dramatic Population Growth – From Just 100 to 3,700 Today, as Poaching Falls

Rhinoceros species around the world, such as the greater one-horned rhino and Javan rhino, continue their dramatic recovery. Investments of $20 million worldwide into conservation projects are paying off in many countries. (Read more)

15) Spectacular Coral Event This Year Spawns Hope –And Billions of Babies For Great Barrier Reef (LOOK)

The Great Barrier Reef’s annual coral spawn was a huge success, as if the whole underwater ecosystem was shaking like a giant slow globe, promising billions of polyps to rebuild the reef in the future (Read more)

16) Monarch Population Soars 4,900 Percent Since Last Year in Thrilling 2021 Western Migration

Having registered a barren 2020, the 2021 western monarch butterfly migration was a banner year in which more than 100,000 insects made the journey west of the Rockies to California. (Read more)

Aaaand… Here’s a living curtain call for 2021, courtesy of a graceful deep-sea jelly. Happy New Year!

SHARE the Best Moments for Animals on Social Media to Show Your Thanks to GNN… (Featured Photo credit: @fdilekuyar SWNS license)

“Hope smiles from the threshold of the new year to come, whispering, ‘it will be happier’.” – Alfred Lord Tennyson

Quote of the Day

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Good News Network

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Dec 31, 2021

Quote of the Day: “Hope smiles from the threshold of the new year to come, whispering, ‘it will be happier’.” – Alfred Lord Tennyson

Photo: by Mohamed Nohassi

With a new inspirational quote every day, atop the perfect photo—collected and archived on our Quotes page—why not bookmark GNN.org for a daily uplift?

Medical Breakthroughs And Treatments in 2021 to Beat Cancer, Alzheimer’s, Diabetes & More

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Andy Corbley

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Dec 30, 2021

man with gene editing animation-brain-DNA-Crisper-CC-National Human Genome Research Institute-flickr — National Human Genome Research Institute - CC license

Whether a deadly disease like cancer and Alzheimer’s or a lifelong affliction like diabetes, eczema, or arthritis, 2021 has been a year of breakthroughs and advancements.

Beyond COVID-19 and the developments of the mRNA vaccines created to halt the pandemic, medical researchers around the world continued to focus on the long-entrenched problems that have plagued our health for centuries.

Here are some of the top Health stories from 2021:

Alzheimer’s

Routinely polled as one of the most-feared diseases, Alzheimer’s researchers have hailed several achievements this year.

One fascinating focus has been on prevention, or what contributes to the disease.

An End to Alzheimer’s? The MEND Protocol of Precision Lifestyle Changes Leads to Compelling Clinical Trials

A neuroscientist who authored a book called The First Survivors of Alzheimer’s is not so much focused on drugs as he is focused on brain prevention and is achieving results never before seen in the history of Alzheimer’s treatment. (Read more)

Drug Reverses Age-Related Mental Decline Within Days, Suggesting Lost Cognitive Ability is Not Permanent

The findings of a drug that seemed to restore normal cognition in a variety of cases ranging from traumatic brain injury, to noise-related hearing loss, to neurodegenerative disease seem to suggest, its creators write, that age-related cognitive loss may be down to a physiological “blockage” rather than permanent damage. (Read More)

4 Common Medicines Have Reversed Alzheimer’s in Mice

As seen many times before, sometimes the best new cure is an old drug. Four drugs—two non-steroidal anti-inflammatories, along with two anti-hypertensives, proved effective at reversing Alzheimer’s disease and neutralizing symptoms in mice suffering from various stages of the illness. (Read More)

Cancer

As long as there’s lifeforms, there will be cancer, but that doesn’t mean we can’t learn how to treat it, strike at the root cause, and hopefully turn at least some forms of it from one of the major killers to a minor inconvenience.

Immunotherapy Drugs So Effective that Tumors Disappear in Weeks for Head and Neck Cancer Patients in Landmark Trial

With 12,000 Britons diagnosed with head and neck cancer every year, the results of a phase III trial that saw complete eradication in some patients, and side-effect-free life extension in others, has the country excited. (Read More)

Prostate Cancer Breakthrough: Protein That Stops Tumor Growth is Discovered

Discovering an RNA molecule that regulates a key driver in the growth of prostate cancer cells is noteworthy because prostate cancer is one of the most common in men around the world, and because most drugs work for a short period of time before the cancer becomes resistant to it. (Read More)

Diabetes

Despite the gradual awareness of the harmful effects of sugar and bread on the body, chronic diabetes and juvenile diabetes continues to be a major problem in our society.

Stem-Cell Based ‘Cure’ for Type-1 Diabetes Draws Nearer, With FDA Trials Launched

It turns out that all it takes for this potential cure to rid a patient of a debilitating autoimmune disease is a small piece of adult skin no larger than a housefly. With FDA trials underway, hundreds of thousands of Type-1 diabetics have a chance at a potential cure. (Read More)

No More Pricks: Scientists Are Rolling Out First-of-its-Kind Blood Sugar Test for Pain-Free Delivery to Diabetics

Nearly 500 million diabetics around the world need to mildly stab themselves in order to ensure they are in no danger of going into shock. An Australian med-tech company has a new solution. (Read More)

Arthritis

Afflicting a quarter of all Americans, and the leading cause of workplace disability resulting in $303 billion in lost productivity, arthritis took a step towards a cure in 2021.

New Procedure Could Improve Quality of Life for Millions of People after Knee Replacement Surgery

An alternative to highly addictive painkillers is offering those who undergo knee replacements a large measure of safe relief. Many arthritis patients have knees and hips replaced in the hope of regaining some measure of mobility later in life, but the resulting pain and stiffness can sometimes only be treated with opioids. (Read More)

Cure for Osteoarthritis Could Be ‘No Further Than the End of Your Nose’, Researchers Find

Osteoarthritis is the most common form, and it affects 8.5 million people. Nasal cells come from a special class of adaptive tissues produced in the brain and spinal cord that can be used to relieve chronic inflammation in the knee and lay the groundwork for a therapeutic treatment that spares patients of surgery and prosthesis. (Read More)

COVID

It would seem silly to write a list such as this without addressing the elephant in the room, but as the pandemic petered on through 2021, breakthroughs continued to be made.

Cannabis Compound Inhibits COVID-19 Replication in Human Lung Cells, Study Says

One of America’s most favorite medicines was found, unsurprisingly to some doctors, to have as strong an effect as vaccines in some cases at mitigating the severe symptoms of COVID-19. (Read More)

Two New Nasal Sprays That Kill COVID-19 Virus Are Looking Remarkably Effective

Along with an Israeli nasal spray that prevented infection in 99% of patients, another was found in trials at the University of Oxford which killed 99% of the virus in the nasal passage. (Read More)

New Organs

Some demonstrations of prosthetic internal organs have shocked the world in 2021, providing a glimpse of a sci-fi future for human anatomy.

Man Regains Sight And Sees His Family Again After Becoming First Person Ever to Receive an Artificial Cornea

A bio-tech implant that allowed a 78-year old blind man to see his family again actually binds with the inside of the eye-socket in a way that had never been done before. (Read More)

First Artificial Kidney That Would Free People From Dialysis and Transplants Runs on Blood Pressure

The world’s first legit prototype for an artificial kidney was successfully tested when the blood filter and bio reactor components were demonstrated to work together, offering hope to free kidney disease patients from dialysis machines and transplant lists. (Read More)

Lyme Disease

Naturally Occurring Antibiotic Kills Lyme Disease and Nothing Else: A Potential Breakthrough Treatment

Ticks, as awful as they are, have their place in the Web of Life. Researchers have identified a soil microbe that eliminates Lyme Disease but essentially nothing else, not even the ticks, opening the door to “ecosystem wide” treatment against Lyme Disease. (Read More)

Paralysis

Yale Scientists Successfully Repair Injured Spinal Cords Using Patients’ Own Stem Cells

Stem cells prepared with the patients own bone marrow were used to repair damaged spinal cords and restore mobility and motor functions in more than half of a Yale scientist’s trial. (Read More)

Multiple Sclerosis

Same Technology Behind Pfizer COVID-19 Vaccine is Leading Researchers to Possible MS Breakthrough

An incurable autoimmune disorder that results in progressive motor function loss and neurodegeneration, an MS breakthrough was achieved using the same mRNA vaccines that worked so well originally to stop the COVID pandemic. (Read More)

Eczema

New Treatment For Eczema Could Emerge After Possible Cause Was Identified by ‘Surprised’ Scientists

A monoclonal antibody that reduces the amount of inflammatory molecules that cause a hormonal dysregulation leading to eczema was a treatment generated by this totally surprise finding. (Read More)

Habitual Coughing

Dr. Miles Weinberger and Bethany – Courtesy habitcough.com

Doctor’s ‘Miraculous’ Remedy for Nonstop Coughs is Curing People With a YouTube Video

“Habit Cough” the name for a “cough without a cause” has been cured through a YouTube video relying mostly on the power of suggestion. While this may seem a little sketchy, many people with habit cough have no underlying respiratory condition of any kind, and therefore an ounce of suggestion may beat a cure. (Read More)

SHARE the Inspiring Healing News From 2021 on Social Media…

Major Turning Point in 2021 Saw Global Shipping Take Massive Steps to Reduce Emissions

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Andy Corbley

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Dec 30, 2021

2021 was, among other things good and bad, the year in which the global marine shipping industry took concrete steps towards reducing its global emissions footprint.

Accounting for 90% of the world’s international trade, and 3% of human emissions, marine shipping is among the largest greenhouse gas emitters, and one which could in theory, go green the easiest.

It started in April, when a fledgling Biden Administration pushed the International Maritime Organization to improve on its stated push to neutralize emissions by 2070, towards a complete absence of emissions by 2050, but it didn’t end there.

In October, nine companies committed to zeroing out emissions from shipping their products by 2040, including retailer giants like Amazon, IKEA, Unilever, and Patagonia.

In July, an announcement from Wartsila, a marine technology firm, detailed that two load-bearing tests of engines powered by green hydrogen and an ammonia blend performed as needed to carry the world’s goods across the oceans.

Also, in the summer, Maersk, the world’s largest shipping company, announced that a new fleet of eight ships built to run on sustainable methanol would replace eight older vessels totaling 1 million tons of CO2 savings per year.

MORE: Greening Our Shipping: Wind-Powered Cargo Ships Can Change Future of Freight Cutting Emissions By 90%

Then in November, the COP rolled around, and world leaders arrived in droves to try and hold their nations accountable for the security of the world’s health. Here, 13 world leaders followed Denmark’s lead in committing to a zero-emissions shipping industry through the use of green fuels like hydrogen, ammonia, and methanol.

Meanwhile in the private sector, November also saw the maiden voyage of the Yara Birkeland, a self-driving ammonia-powered shipping vessel that in a single year will eliminate the need for 40,000 diesel-driven truckloads of fertilizer to be moved around the Oslo Fjord.

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Check Out the Greatest Snowflake Photos Ever Taken With Vividly High Resolution

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Andy Corbley

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Dec 30, 2021

3 snowflakes photographer credit-Nathan Myhrvold : Modernist Cuisine Gallery, LLC — Nathan Myhrvold / Modernist Cuisine Gallery, LLC

Once an executive at Microsoft, he turned into a cookbook super-author with his Modernist Cuisine series. Now, Nathan Myhrvold is making a name in photography, shooting the highest resolution pictures of snowflakes ever made.

Nathan Myhrvold / Modernist Cuisine Gallery, LLC

The images capture the ever-unique molecular structure in stunning color and depth. To make them required all manner of specialized equipment assembled together during lockdown as part of a garage project.

Most snowflakes are less than half of an inch wide, and will dissolve quite fast if not in contact with equally frozen material. The melting issue would be one of the biggest challenges for Myhrvold and it ended up requiring a lot of interesting tech.

As a man possessing a Ph.D. in theoretical mathematics and physics from Princeton University, and serving as Chief Technology Officer at Microsoft for 14 years, Myhrvold had no trouble solving the problem.

He got to work building a machine that was part-microscope and part-camera. It ended up standing five-feet tall on a table and weighing 50 pounds. A thermoelectric cooling system, carbon fiber framing, and cool LED lights ensured there was no heat emanating onto the snow flake in focus.

“Light could melt the snowflake, so I found a company in Japan that makes LED lights for industrial purposes,” Myhrvold told Smithsonian. “My camera’s flash is one-millionth of a second and a thousand times faster than that of a typical camera flash.”

There was also a challenge involving how to capture the physical snowflake, one that was solved using, of all things, sapphire crystal, instead of glass because it doesn’t capture and radiate heat as much as glass does.

Ice cold mathematics

In December, Good News Network examined the physics behind the formation of the iconic snowflake shape—the hexagonal kind Myhrvold photographed with his camera.

University of Manitoba researcher and mathematician Ranganathan Padmanabhan explained why a snow crystal is always depicted with six sides and six branches.

“Nature is the Mother of all symmetries. In fact, symmetry happens to be a central organizing principle in Nature’s design,” he said, noting bee honeycomb before explaining that on a molecular level, a hexagon allows for the tightest packing of things into space, meaning that Nature is a thrifty sort.

As the snow crystal falls through the clouds and the sky, it collects water—liquid, vapor, and solid, which upon exposure to differing levels of humidity and temperature, begins to build up as it spins downward in a theoretically unending variation of trajectories and conditions, eventually forming the branches or arms of the snow crystal that essentially prohibit identicality among fallen flakes.

As Myrhvold was capturing them at the end of their journey, the crystal formations had become truly breathtaking, with the arms forming long spikes, spruce-like shapes, and even small squares.

MORE: See the Moment a Bubble Froze Into a Beautiful Sphere At Sunrise Creating a Natural Snow Globe

“Snowflakes are a great example of hidden beauty,” he writes on his website. “Water, which is an incredibly familiar thing to all of us, is quite unfamiliar when you see it in this different view.”

Who knows how many snowflakes he had to subject to this photography before finding the specimens that ended up for sale on his website, but as he revealed to Smithsonian:

LOOK: Artist Creates Breathtaking ‘Drawings’ in Snow By Walking for Hours at a Time

“You have to take many photos in order to get a high enough resolution, because many photos put together allows you to have enough depth of field to see an entire snowflake very sharply.”

For snowflake enthusiasts, these pieces of artwork are available for $850 on Myhrvold’s gallery website, where he also sells his famous images of modern cuisine.

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Exquisitely Preserved Embryo Found Inside Fossilized Dinosaur Egg

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Good News Network

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Dec 30, 2021

dinosaur egg released Julius Csotonyi — Julius Csotonyi

A 72 to 66-million-year-old embryo found inside a fossilized dinosaur egg sheds new light on the link between the behavior of modern birds and dinosaurs, according to a new study.

The embryo, dubbed ‘Baby Yingliang’, was discovered in the Late Cretaceous rocks of Ganzhou, southern China and belongs to a toothless theropod dinosaur, or oviraptorosaur. Among the most complete dinosaur embryos ever found, the fossil suggests that these dinosaurs developed bird-like postures close to hatching.

Scientists found the posture of ‘Baby Yingliang’ unique among known dinosaur embryos — its head lies below the body, with the feet on either side and the back curled along the blunt end of the egg. Previously unrecognized in dinosaurs, this posture is similar to that of modern bird embryos.

In modern birds, such postures are related to ‘tucking’—a behaviour controlled by the central nervous system and critical for hatching success. After studying egg and embryo, researchers believe that such pre-hatching behaviour, previously considered unique to birds, may have originated among non-avian theropods.

MORE: Dinosaur Unearthed in Argentina Could Be the Largest Animal That Ever Walked the Earth

The embryo is articulated in its life position without much disruption from fossilisation. Estimated to be 27 cm long from head to tail, the creature lies inside a 17-cm-long elongatoolithid egg. The specimen is housed in Yingliang Stone Nature History Museum.

Fion Waisum Ma, joint first author and PhD researcher at the University of Birmingham, said: “Dinosaur embryos are some of the rarest fossils and most of them are incomplete with the bones dislocated. We are very excited about the discovery of ‘Baby Yingliang’—it is preserved in a great condition and helps us answer a lot of questions about dinosaur growth and reproduction with it.

MORE: Map Lets You See How Your Hometown has Moved Across 750 Million Years of Continental Drift

“It is interesting to see this dinosaur embryo and a chicken embryo pose in a similar way inside the egg, which possibly indicates similar prehatching behaviours.”

‘Baby Yingliang’ was identified as an oviraptorosaur based on its deep, toothless skull. Oviraptorosaurs are a group of feathered theropod dinosaurs, closely related to modern-day birds, known from the Cretaceous of Asia and North America. Their variable beak shapes and body sizes are likely to have allowed them to adopt a wide range of diets, including herbivory, omnivory and carnivory.

Birds are known to develop a series of tucking postures, in which they bend their body and bring their head under their wing, soon before hatching. Embryos that fail to attain such postures have a higher chance of death due to unsuccessful hatching.

By comparing ‘Baby Yingliang’ with the embryos of other theropods, long-necked sauropod dinosaurs, and birds, the team proposed that tucking behaviour, which was considered unique to birds, first evolved in theropod dinosaurs many tens or hundreds of millions of years ago. Additional discoveries of embryo fossils would be invaluable to further test this hypothesis.

MORE: Club-Tailed Dinosaur Found in Chile Had Weapon Unlike Anything Seen Before: ‘Entirely Unprecedented’

Professor Lida Xing from China University of Geosciences, joint first author of the study, said, “This dinosaur embryo was acquired by the director of Yingliang Group, Mr Liang Liu, as suspected egg fossils around the 2000. During the construction of Yingliang Stone Nature History Museum in 2010s, museum staff sorted through the storage and discovered the specimens.

“These specimens were identified as dinosaur egg fossils. Fossil preparation was conducted and eventually unveiled the embryo hidden inside the egg. This is how ‘Baby Yingliang’ was brought to light.”

Professor Steve Brusatte from the University of Edinburgh, part of the research team who had their findings published in iScience, said, “This dinosaur embryo inside its egg is one of the most beautiful fossils I have ever seen. This little prenatal dinosaur looks just like a baby bird curled in its egg, which is yet more evidence that many features characteristic of today’s birds first evolved in their dinosaur ancestors.”

Source: University of Birmingham

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Couple Unknowingly Buys Real Life Cottage From ‘The Holiday’ Film – Now Tourists Show Up to Share Their Joy

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Good News Network

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Dec 30, 2021

A couple bought the real-life cottage from Christmas romcom The Holiday without realizing —and now have tourists turning up taking photos.

57-year-old Jon Bromley and his 51-year-old wife Cressida live in the house which inspired Cameron Diaz’s rural retreat in the 2006 festive flick.

They had no idea it was the quintessential cottage from the movie when they bought it— until they saw news of the sale in a property magazine.

Now they regularly have movie fans turning up to their home in Holmbury St Mary, Surrey, to take photos and pose outside.

Researchers visited their home but when they discovered it was too far from the cast and crew in London, they recreated it brick by brick in a studio.

Rosehill Cottage is an identical match for the Bromley’s home—down to the picket fence, wooden gate, country garden, and rural track which Diaz famously slips down.

In the movie, newly-single Amanda Woods leaves Los Angeles to spend a two-week holiday in Rosehill Cottage in rural England.

During this mini-break, she meets the landlady’s brother Graham, played by Jude Law, and they fall in love.

Jon said, “It’s one of those getaways where you go and hide yourself somewhere in a little village.

“There’s nothing here but a pub next door, no shops.

“I’m just really proud of it, it’s a very lovely house and we’re very lucky.”

The Bromley’s moved into the £625,000 ($1 million) home in 2019, already happily married and totally unaware of any Hollywood significance.

Sports photographer Jon said, “I came to see it on my own to begin with and just literally fell in love with it straight away.

“Just everything was beautiful—low ceilings, it’s beamed, it’s got a massive inglenook fireplace with a log burner in.

“Then we saw it in Country Life article saying something like ‘the inspiration for The Holiday cottage is back on the market’.

“I thought ‘bloody hell!’

The three-bed cottage also boasts an AGA stove, underfloor heating, and the iconic picket fence as seen in ‘The Holiday.

The landscape garden also contains a flagstone laid terrace and views over the surrounding Surrey hills.

He was told the house receives frequent phone calls from America and people asking to take photos of the exterior.

Jon said, “We had a couple of location scouts.

“There’s a fair few people that come past looking for the house.

“Then you get the odd one who goes past and stops and says ‘I recognize that, is this the Holiday cottage?’ and ‘do you mind if I take some pictures?'”

Jon watched The Holiday for the first time years before moving in, and has stuck it on the TV at least a couple of times since.

MORE: Keanu Reeves Gifts His 4 Stuntmen With $20,000 Rolex Watches Engraved With Fun Messages

He has played extras in movies for ten years and is a big Cameron Diaz fan.

He said, “She’s brilliant, I just thought the whole film was really nicely done.

“On a couple of occasions people say ‘where do you live’ and I’m showing them pictures.

“People say ‘are you joking?’—no I’m not joking!

“It’s just such a beautiful house, its got that The Holiday-feel.”

While neither Jon nor specialist painter Cressida have committed to a home swap, they have had people look after the house while they were away.

But when asked if he believes there was any romance, Jon said “you don’t want to ask!”

Production designer for The Holiday, Jon Hutman said on the DVD commentary he was looking for the “cutest, smallest, most English cottage that we could find” when he stumbled on the real-life home.

The couple can definitely understand why their chocolate box property served as the inspiration for the flick’s remote romantic getaway.

“I’d been with O2 for 30 odd years and literally couldn’t get bloody signal, I’ve now got EE and even that’s not fantastic,” dad-of-four Jon said.

“It snowed last year and it just has that warmth to it when you walk through.

“I’m really proud of it.”

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“I always turn to the sports page first. It records people’s accomplishments; the front page, nothing but man’s failure.” – Earl Warren

Quote of the Day

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Good News Network

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Dec 30, 2021

Quote of the Day: “I always turn to the sports page first. It records people’s accomplishments; the front page, nothing but man’s failure.” – Earl Warren (former Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court)

Photo: by Vienna Reyes

With a new inspirational quote every day, atop the perfect photo—collected and archived on our Quotes page—why not bookmark GNN.org for a daily uplift?