June 2, 2026

The Goldfish that can Drive a Car

Show Notes
Transcript

Johnny Mac shares five good news stories: In the Netherlands, engineer Thomas built a motion-sensing car with a water-tank seat for his goldfish Blub, who drove 40 feet 3.46 inches in one minute to set a world record; Thomas hopes the technology can be useful for mobility issues. In New York, 270 people in Mario costumes gathered at a GameStop on March 10 to celebrate Mario’s holiday and beat the prior record of 230 set in China in 2010. In England, an ancient Phoenician coin used as bus fare in Leeds—about 2,100 years old and showing the god Melqart—was donated to Leeds Museum and Galleries. Archaeologists found a 1,600-year-old Egyptian mummy buried with a papyrus Iliad fragment. In Indianapolis, a friendly dog was spotted running a mini-marathon and was taken to Animal Care Services to locate its owners.

00:11 Goldfish Drives Car
01:05 Mario Costume Record
01:39 Ancient Coin Bus Fare
02:54 Iliad Mummy Discovery
03:18 Marathon Running Dog

5 Good News Stories is a daily podcast with five positive, uplifting news stories to brighten your day. New episodes every day. Follow on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. Part of the Caloroga Shark Media network

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Caloroga Shark Media. Well sometimes these stories. Hello, I'm Johnny

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Mack with five good news stories. In the Netherlands, an

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engineer built a car for his pet goldfish. Blubb. The

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goldfish drove the car for forty feet in one minute,

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which broke world record. Yeah, I wonder what the previous

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record was. Maybe we'll find out. Thomas constructed a four

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wheeled vehicle with a water tank for a driver's seat.

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The vehicle is steered by analyzing the movements of the

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goldfish inside the tank. Thomas said, normally my job is

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quite monotonous. I wanted to create something that would entertain people,

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turning my serious job but as something fun. The object

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is to show people what is possible to achieve with

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this kind of technology, even when it's not necessarily something serious.

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I would love to maybe one day be able to

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help people with mobility issues. Blob the goldfish was placed

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on the car. He drove it for forty feet and

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three point four to six inches. In case you want

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to try and break the record that set the record

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for greatest distance covered in a motion sensing vehicle by

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a goldfish in one minute. Congratulations. In New York at

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a game Stop two hundred and seventy people who gathered

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in Mario costumes to attempt the world record to celebrate

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Nintendo Mario's holiday. They did this on March tenth. You

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know mar one zero kind of looks like Mario. Yeah,

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not quite. I'm with you. The Game Stop director of

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Communications Nicole said, Mario is a reminder of people's childhood

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and a care free time. You know, people still play

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video games well into adulthood. I know that it is

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true because I do. Organizers say they beat the previous record.

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The previous record was two hundred and thirty marios. The

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new one two seventy. The previous record set in China

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in twenty ten. A coin was used as bus fare

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in England. Well it turned out to be ancient. It's

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a roughly twenty one hundred years old and was minted

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by the Phoenicians. James is a cashier for Leeds City Transport.

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His job includes sorting through the fares and removing any

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foreign or invalid coins. Instead of getting rid of them,

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he keeps unusual pieces and kept them in a wooden

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chest for seventy years. He said, my grandfather would come

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across coins which were not British and put them to

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one side. When I went to his house and hand

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me a few. It was not long after the war,

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so I imagine soldiers returned to coins from countries they'd

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been sent to. Neither of us were coin collectors, but

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we were fascinated by their origin in imagery, and to

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me they were treasure. The coin features the image of

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the god Melkart, often depicted similarly to the Greek hero Hercules,

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complete with the lion skin headdress. At the time of

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the minting, Phoenician coins sometimes incorporated Greek imagery to appeal

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to traders across the Mediterranean. Peter donated the coin to

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Leeds Museum and Galleries. It's now part of a collection

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spanning thousands of years. Local councilwoman Salma said, it's incredible

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to imagine how this tiny piece of history, created by

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an ancient civilization thousands of years ago, somehow made its

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way to Leeds. Museums like ours are not just about

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preserving objects. They're also about telling stories like this one

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and inspiring visitors to think about that history that's all

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around us, sometimes in the most unlikely of places. Meanwhile,

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a sixteen hundred year old Egyptian mummy was discovered buried

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with a fragment of papyrus that contained a short passage

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from the Iliad. The papyrus containing the fragment was atop

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the abdomen of a mummy inside a Roman era tomb.

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Spokespeople for the University Institute of Ancient Near East Studies

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that it's the first time in the history of archaeology

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that a Greek literary text has been found deliberately incorporated

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into the mummification process. And congratulations to a dog. A

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dog took part in a marathon in Indianapolis. The Indianapolis

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PDEE shared bodycam footage to show officers observing the five

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hundred Festival mini marathon spotting a dog running alongside the participants.

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An officer asked the dog, were you running the race, buddy?

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The dog did not answer. The dog is friendly and

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was taken to Indianapolis Animal Care Services where they were

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hoping to find the owners. Good Luck to the owners

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and to the dog. Those your five good news stories

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for today.