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 between: the clean energy industry from the inside, and what […] The post Podcast Transcript August 21st, 2026—…
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 the maternal RSV vaccination program on […] The post Maternal RSV vaccine cuts newborn ICU admissions in…
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 all the way […] The post How to help an anxious kid through back-to-school season first appeared on The…
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 since Port Arthur. What the buyback looks […] The post Australia’s biggest gun reform in 30 years kicks…
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. Then the clinical trials arrive, and the results […] The post Are algae oil supplements worth taking?…
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 10,000 participants suggests it doesn’t work that way. […] The post Rage workouts don’t calm you down,…
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 policymakers, are less comfortable engaging with […] The post Why the poo taboo has held back a killer…
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 little more smoothly in […] The post 5 phrases to teach kids that will serve them for life first…
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM Air conditioning is making cities hotter, and that’s not incidental. It’s the physics. Every AC unit pulls heat from inside a building and dumps it into the street, which raises outdoor temperatures, which makes more people reach for the thermostat. Researchers at the University of Manchester have been looking […] The post Rooftop rainwater could break cities’…
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM If you’ve put real time into growing and grooming your beard, discovering a film of flakes underneath it can feel so unfair. All that trimming, all those oils, and somehow your skin is staging a revolt. Here’s the thing though: beard dandruff usually isn’t a grooming problem at all. […] The post Beard dandruff remedies dermatologists swear by first appeared on…
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM Cleared tropical rainforests can recover 90 percent of their species diversity within a single human generation, according to new research from Ecuador’s Chocó region, one of the most biodiverse stretches of Pacific coast forest on the continent. The study, published in Nature, pooled data from more than 30 research […] The post Rainforest biodiversity rebounds…
