The day in your ears · 25 September 2026

Welcome to Positive Times, for the twenty-fifth of September, twenty twenty-six. Today we start with a special furnace, then visit an archive and a new place to play. In Madagascar, we find tools supporting farms and families. Finally, a surprise inside a honey jar. There is plenty to discover.

Before Venus, DAVINCI passes the furnace test

How do you prepare a probe to visit Venus? First, you try heating it here on Earth. On September 24, NASA described tests of a development model of DAVINCI. This is not a probe already travelling through space: it is a version built for testing. The tests ran from August 28 to September 10 in Pennsylvania. The model faced six heating cycles, reaching 465 degrees Celsius. Inside, more than a hundred sensors monitored parts standing in for scientific instruments. NASA says the model came through unharmed. Other mission stages remain. The practical result is testing the instruments’ protection from heat. An editorial joke: Venus declined to turn down the heating.

• NASA · NASA’s DAVINCI Beats Heat in Preparation for Blistering Venus Descent

Caltanissetta gives its archives a more secure home

From space, we turn to a town’s memory. In Caltanissetta, on the twenty-fourth of September, the State Archives building was handed over for use by Italy’s Culture Ministry. The records were already there. So this is not a move, but an agreement securing their home. Ownership of the building passes to the state for ninety-nine years, free of charge, through a deed signed on the twenty-third of July. According to the State Property Agency, an annual rent of over a hundred and five thousand euros ends. Around six million euros is planned to improve the building and its services. The handover has happened; that work remains. Our comment: bureaucratic paperwork is helping other paperwork have a future.

• Soprintendenza Archivistica della Sicilia – Archivio di Stato di Palermo · 24 settembre 2026 | L’Archivio di Stato di Caltanissetta è “a casa”: consegnata al Ministero della Cultura la sede di piazza Falcone e Borsellino
• Agenzia del Demanio · Caltanissetta: l’Agenzia del Demanio consegna l’Archivio di Stato al Ministero della Cultura

Casoria’s neighbourhood gains room to play

In Casoria’s Arpino neighbourhood, there is new room to move. On the twenty-fourth of September, Sport Illumina opened with basketball and parkour facilities. Parkour uses body movement to overcome obstacles. Sport e Salute describes a free space open to the community. Young people and local sports clubs attended the inauguration, which ANSA also reported. Here is an example: imagine friends looking for somewhere to play together. An available court gives them a practical option. It does not prove every neighbourhood problem has been solved. Longer-term effects still need to be checked. Our editorial comment is simple: outer neighbourhoods deserve more than a mention at conferences. A basketball hoop occasionally helps too.

• Sport e Salute · Illumina Casoria: quando lo sport Illumina il futuro
• ANSA · A Casoria inaugurato il secondo “Sport Illumina”, spazi per basket e parkour

In Madagascar, sunshine supports farming as six nutrition centres open

On September twenty-fourth, Japan and the World Food Programme opened three solar-powered farming hubs and six nutrition centres in Betioky, Madagascar. The programme connects energy, farming and local services. Serious difficulties accessing food remain. To think about that, here is an example invented by our editors. A class starts a small garden. Buying tools is one step; deciding who uses them and looks after them is another. This is not the same situation as that of families in Madagascar. It simply helps us distinguish a tool from how it is used over time. When reading about new facilities, we can ask: who will use them? Who will follow the work? Which results will be checked? Curiosity need not stop at the opening ceremony.

• World Food Programme · Japan and WFP strengthen nutrition and farming in southern Madagascar
• World Food Programme · Scaling Up of the Rapid Rural Transformation (RRT) Initiative in Madagascar
• World Food Programme · Madagascar

Grainy honey: its sugar is changing arrangement

Our final little discovery takes us into the kitchen. Have you seen runny honey become grainy? It does not automatically mean the honey has spoiled. Glucose, one of honey’s sugars, can arrange itself into small crystals. This is called crystallisation: matter changes its arrangement. The university sources in our reading explain that different honeys change at different speeds; the balance between their sugars matters too. Here is a comparison from our editors: imagine the same toy bricks scattered around, then lined up in rows. It shows the idea of arrangement, not the real shape of molecules. Grains alone prove neither a fault nor a jar’s safety. Here is the useful habit: describe what we see first, then look for an explanation.

• Ohio State University Extension · Kate Shumaker · Question: I have honey... #299672
• University of Arkansas System · Cooperative Extension Service · All About Honey
• University of Florida · IFAS Extension · Honey and Its Uses

That was Positive Times, for the twenty-fifth of September. The episode page has the full readings, sources and this transcript. The little quizzes let you revisit a discovery and add it to your passport. Thanks for listening. Take a new question into your day.