Ospreys are recovering in Britain thanks to "pioneering pairs" who prefer to nest away from the main population, according to new research.

It could be key to increasing the proliferation of the raptors, which first became extinct in the British Isles in 1916 before recolonizing in 1954.

Researchers looked at a rare long-term dataset covering 54 years of recolonization of ospreys in northern Scotland.

They examined the distribution and density of nests, and the patterns of settlement to understand how ospreys spread and what drives spatial recovery.

The study, published in the Journal of Animal Ecology, was led by Bouremouth University PhD researcher Brittany Maxted working with the charity Birds of Poole Harbour, and The Roy Dennis Wildlife Foundation which monitor ospreys in parts of Northern Scotland.

"Ospreys usually like to nest in areas where there are already other ospreys," said Ms. Maxted.

"Most males also exhibit natal philopatry, which means they tend to breed close to their own birthplace.

"Together, these factors lead to very slow population spread for such a large bird.

"However, in Scotland we noticed that a small

85 years ago today, US President Franklin Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill issued the joint declaration of peace and progress that later became known as the Atlantic Charter.

The statement was issued months before the US officially entered World War II, yet it set out the goals for after it was won. READ the Brilliant List of Goals… (1941)

The British-American wish-list for the postwar world included a list: no territorial aggrandizement, no territorial changes made against the wishes of the people (self-determination), restoration of self-government to those deprived of it, reduction of trade restrictions, global co-operation to secure better economic and social conditions for all, freedom from fear and want, freedom of the seas, abandonment of the use of force, and disarmament of aggressor nations.

It became the basis for the Declaration for the modern United Nations.

MORE Good News on this Day:

• US Social Security Act was signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt creating unemployment insurance and pension plans for the elderly (1935)
• Pakistan became independent of British rule (1947)
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England's Chester Zoo reported last week they successfully bred the stunning secretarybird for the first time in its 95-year history—producing five chicks.

The endangered African birds are part of an international conservation breeding program—and the latest success was described by the Zoo as "a landmark breeding breakthrough that we hope will help secure the future of the endangered species".

The arrival of the chicks marks the first time secretarybirds have bred at the zoo in its 95-year history.

The chicks hatched to parents John and Jolene, who arrived at the zoo as part of coordinated international efforts to help safeguard the future of one of Africa's rarest birds of prey.

Across the European breeding program, there are just 79 birds and, in the last year, only three other chicks have hatched elsewhere.

"Our experts believe the techniques developed here in Chester could now help other conservation zoos boost breeding success across Europe," said a media release.

Secretarybirds are among the world's most unusual birds of prey. Unlike eagles and hawks, they also hunt on foot, striding across African grasslands

Fifteen years ago, conservationists began releasing rescued orangutans into a protected forest in Sumatra where no others from their species were living.

Some arrived had been in human care after being orphaned. Others had been rescued from conflict situations or captivity and needed months or years of rehabilitation before they could safely be returned to a forest.

Today, those formerly rescued animals aren't simply surviving—they're thriving. They're having babies, raising families and slowly establishing an entirely new population of critically-endangered Sumatran orangutans in the wild.

The remarkable experiment is unfolding in the Jantho Pine Forest Nature Reserve in Indonesia's Aceh province, where rehabilitated orangutans have been given a second chance at a natural life that many of them nearly lost forever. (WATCH the video at the bottom…)

From Rescue Animals to Wild Mothers

Orangutans aren't animals that can simply be taken from captivity and dropped into a forest.

Young orangutans normally spend years alongside their mothers learning an extraordinary catalog of survival skills: which fruits are safe to eat, where to find food when

For caregivers of children living with chronic or rare lung diseases, monitoring their condition presents an uncomfortable tradeoff: Repeated scans can be valuable, but they can also expose patients to radiation.

Now, a rapidly advancing form of MRI is offering another possibility: detailed images of children's lungs that can reveal not only their structure, but how well they're actually working—all without exposing them to ionizing radiation.

Scientists at the University of Sheffield's POLARIS research group have been pioneering one particularly promising version of the technology, using a specially prepared form of xenon gas.

Their work is already helping doctors identify early signs of lung disease in children with cystic fibrosis without using radiation, and the technique is now being used in patient care at Sheffield Children's Hospital.

Lungs Are Difficult to Scan for MRIs, But There's an Ingenious Work-Around

MRI is already widely used throughout medicine because it produces detailed images using magnetic fields and radio waves rather than ionizing radiation. But lungs have traditionally been one of MRI's toughest challenges because they're mostly filled with air, which produces relatively little of the conventional 'MRI

97-year-old Westel Creager became determined to keep a promise he made years ago.

When his great-granddaughter Haiden was going off to college, Westel told her that if she got into medical school, he'd be there when she graduated—and put on her first white coat.

For her side of the bargain, Haiden Hauret made good on the vow to go to medical school—and she even followed her great-grandfather to his alma mater, the University of Kentucky.

Westel attended 60 years ago, after starting his adult life as a carpenter, but eventually pushing himself to return to school, and pursue medicine.

He was the oldest in his class, but neither optics nor opinions nor anything else could keep him from his goals. He graduated and then went on to a long career serving others, working in emergency rooms well into his 70s.

"He always gave back to low economic areas that were underserved medically," Kristi Johnson, Creager's granddaughter and Hauret's aunt told Newsweek.

"He got his pilot's license and flew his plane with the Good Samaritans into Mexico and treated patients. He also opened

108 years ago today, American cartoonist Winsor McCay released the first long-form animation film, the Sinking of the Lusitania, showing what pure conviction looks like.

Far from being funny, the 12-minute film depicted the huge British steam liner carrying 2,000 passengers when it was torpedoed by a German submarine. An originator of animated cartoons, he was frustrated when his media bosses, the Hearst empire, downplayed the incident in its newspapers, because they wanted America to stay out of World War I. So McCay spent all his spare hours producing the film, which took him 22 months to create. SEE A CLIP and Learn More… (1918)

To tell the tale of "the most dastardly, cowardly act", 25,000 drawings were sketched and photographed for the musical animation which used the latest cel technology (short for celluloid).

It was not until Disney's feature films in the 1930s that the animation industry caught up with McCay's level of modernist technique. The seminal film was selected for preservation by the US National Film Registry for its significance. WATCH 8-minutes of the film…

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