Platypuses, Fire Vs. Sound, Toodaloo Connecticut Medical Debt, Quantum Power & More…

Good News Friday, 5th June 2026

Photo by Susan Wilkinson on Unsplash

Other articles published this week

[embed]When You’re Tired Of Carrying Every Version Of Yourself Karma, Taoism, and modern therapy show why life feels harder when the past and future keep barging into the roommedium.com

[embed]We’re All Hiding The Biscuits Ram Dass, shame, spiritual performance, and the strange mercy of being loved as we aremedium.com

***Learn more about this article’s writer, Paddy Murphy, here.***

Right, to this week’s good news…

Photo by Michael Jerrard on Unsplash

The platypus returns, looking weird and winning

Good news from Australia, where the platypus, nature’s furry clerical error, is making a proper comeback in Royal National Park. After being gone from the area for more than 50 years, the Hacking River now has 20 known platypuses swimming about like tiny furry mysteries with bills.

UNSW Sydney researchers say the reintroduced population is breeding, spreading, and turning up for visitors, which is more than can be said for half the lads invited to a family barbecue.

Photo by Matt C on Unsplash

Firefighters try putting out flames with sound waves

In California, firefighters in San Bernardino County have been testing a new fire suppression system that uses sound waves instead of water, which is either the future of firefighting or what happens when a disco-biscuited DJ gets a little too close to a science lab.

The system, developed by Sonic Fire Tech, uses infrared sensors to detect flames, then fires low-frequency sound waves at the blaze to disrupt the chemical reaction that keeps it burning. It’s pretty mad to see, video below.

The idea is still in early testing, so nobody should be throwing away the hose and shouting “turn up the bassline ofos” at a chip pan just yet. But the promise is serious: less water damage, no chemical residue, and possible use in homes, businesses, and wildfire-prone areas.

[embed]From: YouTube.com

Connecticut sends medical debt to the great shredder in the sky

In Connecticut, more than 97,000 people are getting the sort of letter you’d usually assume was a scam, a lovely wee note saying some or all of their medical debt has been erased.

Nearly $315 million in bills is being wiped out through a partnership between the state and the nonprofit Undue Medical Debt, which buys old hospital debt for pennies on the dollar and then does the decent thing, burns it like a cursed receipt from the devil’s own pharmacy.

Absolute legends that they are, fair bloody play to them.

Photo by Andrew George on Unsplash

Quantum trick could help tiny devices ditch batteries

Scientists have found a quantum effect that might one day help small electronics sip power from the world around them, instead of begging for batteries like a lad at 2 a.m. looking for a phone charger in the smoking area.

Aye, sounds like something from a sci-fi novel, but the team studied the nonlinear Hall effect, which can turn alternating electrical signals, the kind floating around from wireless and ambient sources, into direct current that devices can actually use.

The magic bit, or the physics bit if you’re wearing sensible shoes, not the usual Converse that I’m usually in, is that tiny defects and atomic vibrations inside a topological material can control the effect, even at room temperature.

It won’t run your toaster or your auld PC yet, so calm the parish, but it could someday help power sensors, wearables, and small chips.

Photo by Carlos Freire on Unsplash

Reading

Last week, it totally slipped my mind to give an update on Roberto Bolaño's 2666.

As I said two weeks ago, it starts out with some literary critics searching out their favorite novelist, and they end up in Mexico, where some awful crimes against women have been taking place.

It’s a massive book, over 1000 pages, and I’m now on Chapter 4, which is called, The Part About The Crimes, and man, oh man,…I’d read online that it was grim, but by Jaysus is it so much more grim than I expected, and I like grim books…

It’s almost endless descriptions of the murders, the victims, and what happened to them, their families, some of the caught murderers, the cops (crooked and not), and the state officials, and a man framed for some of them.

They’re all based on real murders from Ciudad Juárez. It’s not grim in the way it’s written, the language in the book isn’t flowery at all, it’s all rather simple, a bit over simple if I’m being honest — I love a book that needs you to look up words occassionally — but yeah, woah, it’s grim, and I still have two more hours left in what’s supposed to be a five-hour long read, and I’ve still got one more to go after that.

Chapter one was great; chapter two was boring — about an academic who moved to the area in question; chapter three was really good, about a US journalist who has to deal with some underworld characters. This one and one to go.

Unrelated, but here are some interesting articles I stumbled upon this week:

[embed]Santa Maria della Concezione Crypts in Rome The crypts of Capuchin friars decorated with the bones of over 4,000 friars, including an entire "crypt of pelvises."www.atlasobscura.com

[embed]Magic by Return of Post: How Mail Order Delivered the Occult What allowed occultism to blossom in the United States at the turn of the 20th century? Linotype machines, cheap pulp…publicdomainreview.org

[embed]Deep-sea vehicle descends into South Atlantic Ocean and finds mysterious creatures in the darkness… During a deep-sea expedition off the coast of Brazil, researchers filmed an octopus that's almost never seen alive …www.discoverwildlife.com

Music

Who doesn’t love Boards Of Canada? The Scots are finally back after 13 years without releasing anything.

Do I need to write anything about them? I mean, you surely know who they are? If not, well, they use old synths and old educational film samples. There’s a seeming haunting feeling to everything they do as well. I dunno, blame the Scottish weather, or lack thereof.

Here’s probably my favorite track from the new album, it’s called Naraka.

The new album, Inferno, can be listened to in full on YouTube here.

[embed]From: YouTube.com

Hammock have a new album out too. Oh man, what a week, eh? Hammock are class, even if you don’t know them, you’ve more than likely heard their songs on shows like Ricky Gervais’ After Life, Californication, and Nike’s Kobe Bryant memorial video.

Very much from the soundscape and ambient-building-up-to-massive-crescendos school of post-rock, they’re magic. Really, really great band.

Their new album is called The Second Coming Was a Moonrise, and you can get it here on Bandcamp.

Here’s one of my favs from the new album, it’s called We Close Our Eyes So We Can See.

[embed]From: YouTube.com

Woof, that was a long one this week…well, I hope yous all have a mighty weekend. Keep fightin’ the good fight. Mind Yourself.

I’m Paddy Murphy. Thanks for reading my article. I’m a writer and mental health counselor. **Learn more about me here. Social media links here.**

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