The Antidote: Five happy things to read about today, August 3

We live in unusual times. It all gets a bit much some days. So each weekday we’re bringing you a much-needed dose of positivity to remind you that there’s inspiration, kindness and quirkiness out there too.

Pet pigeon reunited with owner after 6000km journey

After 6000 kilometres and nearly two months, Bob the pigeon has been reunited with his English owner at an Alabama animal shelter in the US.

Bob, a homing pigeon, went missing during a race in the Channel Islands in mid-June. He was supposed to fly to the home of his owner, Allan Todd, in northeast England.

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Instead, Bob was spotted three weeks later in Mexia, in Monroe County in the US – 6000km away from his intended destination.

From Mexia, Bob was taken to the Monroe County Animal Shelter, which sent out an appeal on social media in an attempt to find the then-unknown pigeon’s owner.

The appeal was a success, although Todd did not have the funds at the time to go to Alabama to pick up Bob.

He started a fundraising campaign for travel expenses – as well as for donations to the Monroe County shelter to thank them for taking care of Bob in his absence.

Last week, Todd and Bob reunited. “It was a joyful reunion of Bob and the shelter crew, just a wonderful sight to see him back with his owner,” the Monroe County Animal Shelter said on its Facebook page Sunday. “A owner so dedicated that travelled 4000 miles!!! How could anyone not be impressed at that mission?”

Guard cat saves the day

A US man says his pet cat helped stop a robbery at his Mississippi home, and possibly saved his life, Daily Journal reports.

Bandit, the 9 kilogram pet cat, lives with 68-year-old retiree Fred Everitt. Everitt recounts how Bandit alerted him of the danger when someone tried to break into his home earlier this week.

When the cat first made some noise late at night, Everitt didn’t think much of it, but the feline raced into the bedroom, jumped onto the bed and began pulling the bedding– that’s when the retiree knew something was amiss.

“You hear of guard dogs,” Everitt said. “This is a guard cat”.

Tortoise slows down train in UK

Commuters in the UK are used to all sorts of reasons for train delays and cancellations, whether it be strike protests or leaves on the line, but a new issue arose on Monday (local time) – a giant tortoise on the tracks.

Clyde, a 50kg African spurred tortoise, had done a runner from a pet shop in Norfolk the day before, and had managed to crawl undetected more than 400 metres before ending up on the track.

Teen makes skateboards out of milk-bottle tops

Teenager Neith Absalom was looking for a business idea when he had something of a brainwave.

After discovering that milk-bottle tops weren’t recycled alongside the bottles, he came up with a way for them to be reused.

He started collecting the bits of plastic and melting them down to make skateboards – with the help of a barbecue. Watch how he does it in the video below.

First science paper published from space

Astronaut Jessica Watkins has become the first person to publish a science paper from outer space, IFLscience reports.

Watkins’ paper was published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets, and is part of her post-doctoral research. The research details findings from changes the Red Planet experienced.

“The paper describes the discovery of an unconformity, or a discontinuity in the time of deposition, in a sequence of sedimentary rocks in Gale crater on Mars,” Watkins told IFLScience.

“Luckily, the majority of the paper was already complete prior to launch, because access to resources would certainly be a challenge on-orbit,” Watkins said.