Eddy's Good News: Multicellular life on Earth and Daguerreotypes

Virgin Radio

13 May 2024, 17:00

Every day during his show on Virgin Radio Anthems, Eddy Temple-Morris brings you Good News stories from around the world, to help inject a bit of positivity into your day!

Be sure to listen each day between 2pm and 6pm (Monday - Friday) to hear Eddy's Good News stories (amongst the finest music of course), but if you miss any of them you can catch up on the transcripts of Eddy's most recent stories below:

Monday 13th May 2024

​​A team of geologists from Rochester University in Kent have come up with “tantalising” evidence for the origin of multicellular life on Earth.  

650 million years ago there was no life to speak of on earth. Single celled bacteria such as are found in our gut were about it, until Earth’s magnetic field eventually fell off a cliff to one thirteenth what it is now. This caused a rapid decrease in the hydrogen content of our atmosphere and a massive spike in oxygen which is the key factor in allowing life to start blooming in the ocean. 

Generated by the Earth’s molten core, the magnetic field is vital. It does something far more important than make our compasses work or create the Aurora Borealis, it protects the planet from solar winds, streams of radiation coming off the Sun.

This all happened in what they call the Edicarian Period, from 635 to 565 million years ago, during which they’ve found the oldest confirmed fossil evidence of multicellular life on Earth. Game changing creatures that moved - you need more oxygen to do that -  tubular and frond-shaped creatures, including the earliest jellyfish.

Via: goodnewsnetwork.org

We all take photographs for granted but if you lived in the 19th century, before the invention of photography, there was only the Daguerreotype, and the main reason most of us have never heard of or seen one is because they can’t be seen anymore. 

Daguerreotypes are unique, positive images made on thin sheets of silver-plated copper using iodine to make them photosensitive. 

These first photographic images blew people’s minds at the time but they degrade terribly over time and the original daguerreotypes are now all but invisible. 

But thanks to a team of Canadian and US researchers these invaluable images are being brought back to life, by X-rays. 

From 1839-1850 the only photographic images of people were using these magic boxes, and bringing those metal plates back to life will give families and historians a wonderful glimpse of society, fashion and culture that was thought to have been lost forever.

Via: goodnewsnetwork.org