Here are some recent good news stories from our sister blog that you may have missed:

1. Re-Growing Nerve Cells

Too late to help Christopher Reeve, alas, but this looks like the beginning of the breakthrough he was looking for:

Stem cells nurture damaged spine: study

BOSTON (Reuters) - Human embryonic stem cells can help regenerate damaged nerves in rats, producing compounds that nurture nerve cells and stimulate the growth of new ones, Geron Corp. said on Wednesday.

Geron had earlier reported that human embryonic stem cells had helped replace myelin, a fatty covering on nerves that is vital to function...

2. What a Day for a Daydream

Gaia Vince, Online Deputy Editor for NewScientist.com writes:

It’s the end of the working week, with the promise of the weekend looming ahead in all its glory… and I bet you, like me, have already fallen into the soothing lap of a daydream. Gazing out of the window, the mind wanders aimless, floating free as a cloud, flitting from one notion to another…

Sorry, where was I? Yes, the point of all this random daydreaming – for it turns out, there is a point – is apparently to allow the brain to remain in “standby” mode during a lull in tasks, a bit like a car idling between gears at the lights...

3. Identifying Friendly Intelligence

Here's another brain-related development with some interesting implications:

Are you a giver? Brain scan finds the truth

Altruism, one of the most difficult human behaviors to define, can be detected in brain scans, U.S. researchers reported on Sunday.

They found activity in a specific area of the brain could predict altruistic behavior -- and people's own reports of how selfish or giving they are...

4. Trashing Peak Oil

In 1956, M. King Hubert made a bold and now-famous prediction. He predicted that oil production in the lower 48 states would peak in the early 1970s and decline steadily from that point on. In the years since that decline began -- right on schedule in 1970 -- there have been many attempts to apply Hubert's reasoning to the overall global oil supply, in order to determine when we will reach the peak that will mark the beginning of the end for global petroleum use.

According to Kenneth Deffeyes, a former professor of geophysics at Princeton University, we're going to hit the peak sooner rather than later, and worldwide oil production will have fallen 90% by 2019...

There's lots of good news developing at L2si. So when you're ready for your daily dispatch from a rapidly changing, rapidly improving world, don't forget to stop by.