Good News: science’s solution to end nightmares and the largest seagrass meadow yet discovered

This is your weekly good news round-up.

Scientists have found a treatment that might finally put an end to recurring nightmares; camera-equipped sharks have mapped the largest seagrass meadow yet discovered; a new record label is bringing forgotten female composers out of obscurity; Barcelona’s environmentally friendly school ‘bus’; and the green school in South Africa that should inspire you to act on your dreams.

Here are all the details:

1. Scientists have found a treatment that might finally put an end to recurring nightmares

Two techniques have huge potential for helping people who suffer from sleep terror and recurring nightmares.

The first is imagery rehearsal therapy or IRT. In it, people must recall their nightmares and change the negative storyline within them to give it a positive spin.

For about 30 per cent of patients, rehearsing this affirmative dream scenario during the day has been proven to reduce nightmares after two or three weeks.

What about the remaining 70 per cent?

This is where something called targeted memory reactivation comes in, or TMR.

TMR is a process during which a person focuses on learning something (such as the positive nightmare spin) while listening to a specific sound, which is then played again as a cue while the person sleeps.

For those who tested a combination of IRT and TMR, the bad dreams almost completely disappeared, with the average number of nightmares dropping from three to 0.2 a week.

Find out more about the research to end nightmares here, written by Giulia Carbonaro for NEXT, the future-focused section of Euronews.

2. Camera-equipped sharks have mapped the largest seagrass meadow yet discovered

Swimming through the deep like underwater Google Street View cars, a group of eight sharks