An artistic discovery, ugly buildings and dino lovin'

View in browser

September 25, 2021

It's officially fall, which means here in Georgia, it's 45 degrees in the morning and 75 degrees in the afternoon. If you've never experienced fall in the South, it goes like this: The first marginally cool day of the season hits, and people immediately break out their cute boots and sweaters and scarves. They switch from iced lattes to hot ones. They talk excitedly about how nice it is outside ... and then they're back in T-shirts and sweating by noon. Can you blame us? We're just so excited for cozy season! All in due time, I suppose.

If there's something you'd like to see here, shoot us an email. Know someone who could use a little Good Stuff? Send them a copy! We hope you love it as much as we do.

Our favorites this week

Get going with some of our most popular good news stories of the week

In plain sight
What amazing things are around you every day, just waiting to be seen in the right light? Tom Ruggio, an art history professor at Iona College in New York, sometimes visits the Church of the Holy Family down the street for a few minutes of reflection. One day, he walked in when the church was lit slightly differently, and he couldn't believe his eyes. In the middle of the church was what Ruggio immediately identified as an Italian Baroque painting. After excitedly taking pictures and conferring with colleagues in Italy, Ruggio confirmed the painting is a work by Cesare Dandini called "Holy Family with the Infant St. John." It's unusual because of the almost cartoon-like eyes, Ruggio said, and it exists as part of a quartet of works. Two other paintings in the quartet hang in major international galleries, and the final is unaccounted for. The question is, how did such a valuable painting from roughly 1630 end up in the church for the last 60 years? That's the next mystery that needs to be solved.

Sister act
Two Japanese sisters have been officially confirmed as the world's oldest living identical twins and the oldest ever identical twins. Umeno Sumiyama and Koume Kodama were born November 5, 1913, making them well over 107 years old. They lived apart from a young age due to bullying, but reconnected later in life, even going on several Buddhist pilgrimages together in their 70s. The pair once joked about breaking the record for the oldest living identical twins, but never expected to do so. Japan is known for its supercentenarians -- a person who is 110 years old or older, and is home to the oldest person living, 118-year-old Kane Tanaka.

Saving grace
When she was a child, Karolina Jurzyk's grandfather Stanislaw Jurzyk often talked about what it was like to live through World War II in Poland. One story in particular stood out: In 1942, when Jurzyk was 12, he discovered his parents had been hiding two orphaned Jewish sisters after finding them in the fields of their family farm. Jurzyk was sworn to secrecy by his father, Stanislaw Sr., since the penalty for hiding Jews under the Nazi regime was often death. No one in the family knew what became of the pair, but the tale came roaring back to life when Karolina's father found an old letter of thanks written in Polish from two sisters: Fela and Jadzia Coleman. Fascinated, Karolina looked up the names and contacted one of their relatives through a genealogy site. Jurzyk says she was moved to tears to learn the sisters (above) were indeed the ones her great-grandfather had saved, and they had both survived the war and gone on to raise families in the US. Now, the families are hoping to get Stanislaw Jurzyk Sr. recognized as Righteous Among the Nations -- an honor given to gentiles who risked much to save Jews during the war.

Sponsor Content by Quicken Loans

Why You Should Refi ASAP

American homeowners should consider the option of refinancing their homes in order to take advantage of near historic low rates. Refinancing now could help homeowners save. Calculate Payment.

You gotta see this

Photo credit: Wang HE/Getty Images

Ugly buildings are the best. So fascinating! So ostentatious! Truly, they are monuments to unrestrained (and perhaps unscrupulous?) human creativity. Chinese architecture website Archcy.com just announced almost 90 contenders for its annual Ugliest Building Survey, and they are incredible. The public poll attracted about 30,000 votes for all kinds of skyscrapers, museums, hotels and sports facilities of varying aesthetics. Among the top contenders: a museum that has been compared to pots of instant noodles, a violin-shaped church, an "upside down" house, and this matryoshka-shaped hotel in Manzhouli. Since the city is near the Russian border, Russian dolls of every shape and size abound -- though this one certainly towers over the rest.

Heroes among us

Decades of war have left many people in Colombia without access to basic things like clean drinking water, indoor plumbing and electricity. Jenifer Colpas, 31, grew up in Barranquilla, Colombia, but didn't appreciate the full scope of the problem until she went to college and learned about the vast social inequities people endure. "Something inside me [was] saying, 'You need to do something about it,'" she says. So she left her information technology job in India and returned to Colombia to volunteer with organizations that helped people in poverty. In 2015, with the help of friends, Colpas co-founded Tierra Grata. The non-profit provides access to clean water, solar-powered lights and electricity, along with eco-toilets and showers, for remote rural communities throughout Colombia. Tierra Grata currently serves 35 communities, and has helped an estimated 10,000 people. "We're covering their basic needs so they can start dreaming," Colpas told CNN.

Wanna get away?

Photo credit: Henry Woide/Airbnb

This may look like a still from some "Winnie the Pooh" live-action remake, but it's an honest-to-goodness replica of Pooh's tree house built at the real site that inspired the fictional Hundred Acre Wood. The "Bearbnb," located in the Ashdown Forest in East Sussex, was designed by longtime Pooh illustrator Kim Raymond. A few lucky people will be able to experience the quaint interiors, inspired by the original depictions in the books by E. H. Shepard. According to Raymond, there will also be "hunny-inspired meals" and, of course, lots of naps.

Hear, hear!

Autumn in orange and black, a Halloween mask, grinning at a make-believe world. It carries more gold in its hand than all the other seasons.

- Jim Bishop, American journalist, in a 1978 newspaper column published in Baton Rouge, Louisiana's Morning Advocate.

Who knew?

We try to keep it clean here at The Good Stuff, but when CNN's Science team publishes an article about dinosaur sex, well, we can't just NOT include it. While not a lot is confidently known about how dinos did it, scientists can get clues from their closest living relatives, including birds. When compared to some fossils, a few similarities emerge: Some male dinosaurs, for instance, probably scratched the ground to show females they were strong and good nest builders. Others likely showed off some flirty frills. But one of the best tidbits from this fascinating article doesn't have to do with dinos at all:

"No fossil has revealed two dinosaurs caught in the act -- the only known vertebrates to be unequivocally preserved mating are a pair of 47 million-year-old turtles that were attached by their genitals as they got buried alive."

Now you know!

Rec of the week

Brought to you by CNN Underscored

'Friluftsliv' is trending: Here's what to know about the design craze

Highlighting fresh air, nature and adventures galore, the viral Friluftsliv design concept aims to bring the outdoor experience into our indoor spaces.

Shameless animal video

There's always time for cute animal videos. That time is now.

Two great things about this video of a screech owl taking a bath at the Cincinnati Zoo. One, the owl's name is Sassafras. Two, the video's on a loop so we can watch it forever. (Click here to view)