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Total number of posts: 23968
Student Makers: teen volunteers are teaching STEM across three continents
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM In 2022, a group of high schoolers designed 150 LEGO-inspired airplane kits, 3D-printed them one by one, assembled them by hand, and shipped them to a school in Kenya. How is that for a nonprofit origin story? Student Makers was founded in California in Read More...
How Niger restored 5 million hectares without planting a single tree
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM In 1983, an Australian agricultural adviser named Tony Rinaudo was working in the Sahel when he noticed something that didn't fit the picture everyone had of the region. The land looked barren. But beneath the depleted soil, root systems were still alive. Read More...
Podcast Transcript August 21st, 2026— (Guest Interview) Catch up with Kristy: clean energy, leaving California, and embracing the slow life
Episode Description: Many of the long-time listeners of The Optimist Daily's podcast will recognize Kristy Jansen's voice. She’s the former co-host and Executive Director of this show, and she’s back, joining Arielle and Karissa from Mérida, México, to catch them up on what happened in Read More...
Maternal RSV vaccine cuts newborn ICU admissions in half
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM Good news! In the UK, only 63 infants were admitted to intensive care with RSV infection last winter, which is down from 131 the year before. Same 20 hospitals, same surveillance system. The UK Health Security Agency published its first full-year results on Read More...
How to help an anxious kid through back-to-school season
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM If you've ever driven away from school while your kid was still crying at the door, you know the horrible feeling. The half-formed urge to turn the car around. The uncertainty about whether going back would help or just make it worse. The guilt riding shotgun Read More...
Australia's biggest gun reform in 30 years kicks off this November
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM Eight months after a shooting at a Hanukkah celebration in Bondi Beach killed 15 people, Australia is following through. New South Wales starts a gun buyback on November 2, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese confirmed Sunday. It's the largest the country has run Read More...
Are algae oil supplements worth taking? Here's the evidence
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM There's a pattern in the supplement industry that tends to repeat itself. Researchers find that people who eat foods rich in a particular nutrient have better health outcomes. Companies extract that nutrient, put it in a capsule, and start making promises. Read More...
Rage workouts don't calm you down, research finds. Here's what does.
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM Slamming tires with a sledgehammer, pummeling a punching bag, running yourself into the ground when you're furious: the premise behind rage workouts is that intense physical exertion gives anger somewhere to go. A 2024 review of 154 studies covering more than Read More...
Why the poo taboo has held back a killer disease, and what's changing
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM There is a disease that kills more than one million people a year, nearly half of them children under five, and it rarely breaks through in global health coverage. Researchers have a name for that gap: the "poo taboo." People, including journalists and Read More...
5 phrases to teach kids that will serve them for life
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM You spend the first few years of your kid's life repeating words back to them, hoping one will stick. "Mama." "Dada." "Ball." And then suddenly you're coaching them through "please" and "thank you" and "sorry," because those are the words that help life run a Read More...