From South Florida comes the story of an intrepid teenager who’s developed a mini curriculum on hurricane preparedness to fit into school lessons.
Having suffered (or perhaps been enriched) from the impact of Hurricane Irma on her community, 16-year-old Elise Raurell created Storm Smart in 2015 as part of her Girl Scout Gold Award.
If it can be believed, Raurell says that South Florida schools don’t teach students anything about what a hurricane can do to a city. Guides on topics like how to prepare emergency kits, or safety information, like not entering standing water if powerlines are down, or keeping away from glass windows—none of it was being, and so Raurell thought she’d do it herself.
Not only that, but the Storm Smart modules allow students to teach other students, and be adopted quickly and effortlessly into any school or classroom.
“Growing up in South Florida, going to public school, I realized that we weren’t really learning anything about hurricane preparation safety, even though it’s super important,” Raurell told CBS News.
Over 500 students have received Storm Smart educational materials so far, some from Raurell herself, but many more from other students stepping up to take on the responsibility of disseminating the information themselves.
“One of the most rewarding parts of this program is seeing students learn the material and then go on to teach their peers about it, and through that learn leadership and teaching skills,” Raurell said.
Thetford Mines industrial test plant - credit, Dundee Sustainable Technologies supplied to the Northern Miner
Thetford Mines industrial test plant – credit, Dundee Sustainable Technologies supplied to the Northern Miner
A Quebec chemical firm has developed a cyanide-free, and generally non-toxic method to extract gold from mineral ores—an option that could potentially relieve companies from a significant portion of current environmental compliance.
The firm, Dundee Sustainable Technologies, also offers a patented chemical process called GlassLock, which addresses one of the industry’s most pressing environmental concerns: arsenic.
The technology can replace cyanide leaching during extraction to isolate the arsenic and turn it into an inert glass. Mixed with common components like silica, recycled glass, and hematite, the arsenic is then vitrified into a stable and insoluble glass product that can be removed and processed far more easily.
Mining companies are not the polluting, Gold Rush-era businesses they used to be. Regardless of where Canadians go around the world to mine, they operate fully-ensconced in the ESG framework of private sector accountability for the ecosystems they work in.
Retreatment of mine waste, pollution control, and reclamation of mining land are costs budgeted for and built into the earliest economic viability assessments of any mining project. Environmental permitting times take anywhere from 8 to 20 years in North America on average while government offices asses any potential harm or risk to air quality, watersheds, and wildlife.
These requirements put enormous risk and burden onto companies looking to supply the market with everything a modern civilization needs to build and produce—from the copper that makes the wires which run through our devices, to the zinc that makes the pipes which bring water through our homes.
In this business environment, Dundee Sustainable Technologies has worked for years from Canada’s strong mining jurisdiction of Quebec to develop cleaner ways to process ores that can both protect the natural ecosystem surrounding mining concessions and relieve the often-small management teams behind mining operations of some of the most stringent regulatory burdens.
Dundee’s gold circuit process uses sodium hypochlorite and sodium hypobromite in ambient pressures and room temperature to extract gold from ore at a fraction of the time of the cyanide-in-leach method. Contact time is short, just 2 hours compared to 36 hours, and the process operates in a fully closed loop. All chemicals are recycled within the circuit for reuse.
Without cyanide and other toxic leaching reagents, mining plans can be designed without “tailings ponds“—basically small manmade lakes that hold and slowly treat effluent and mine tailings from the milling and leaching process. These themselves aren’t necessarily bad for the environment, unless any number of weather events should disturb them—heavy rain, flooding, an earthquake, or a landslide to name a few.
Already, mining companies are using some of Dundee’s methods. Freegold Ventures Limited, a company formed to develop the Golden Summit project in Alaska, one of the largest undeveloped gold resources in the Americas, has included GlassLock in a suite of metallurgical test work as it prepares a mine plan for the roughly 30 million ounces of gold on its property.
In tests, Freegold used GlassLock to recover 95% of the gold contained in the ore while isolating 98% of the contained arsenic as inert glass, reducing the toxicity from 7% to 0.17%. It also was able to remove the need for cyanide leaching, and the resulting gold concentrate would be direct-to-smelter quality.
“The results of this program were extremely positive and encouraging for Freegold as it advances the project through Pre-Feasibility,” the company wrote in a press release.
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The 12,000 piece Sagrada Familia set - credit, LEGO
The 12,000 piece Sagrada Familia set – credit, LEGO
This year will see the Sagrada Familia basilica finally finished in Barcelona, on the 100th anniversary of the death of its charismatic architect, no less.
It will also mark the release of LEGO’s largest entry in its architecture series: the Sagrada Familia.
From New York City’s skyline to the Eiffel Tower and Rome’s Trevi Fountain, the architecture series was part of a very successful swerve towards addressing adult buyers of LEGO, and now the series will mark 100 years since Antoni Gaudi’s death with a faithful interpretation of the world’s tallest and newest basilica in the famous plastic bricks.
The model stands 24 inches tall, and contains 12,060 pieces. Like all LEGO sets, it carries a hefty price tag—this one reads $800.
“Our goal was to honor Gaudí’s vision with the utmost respect, capturing the rhythm of the basilica’s construction, its extraordinary complexity and ambition, and translating that into an immersive building experience,” Lego’s Design Master, Rok Žgalin Kobe, said in a press statement published Thursday.
The interior atmosphere of the basilica is captured with transparent bricks, allowing light to filter into the LEGO set just like the real thing.
– credit, LEGO
Also like the real thing, enthusiasts will have to wait until November to get their hands on the set, as guests to Barcelona will have to wait until November 10th for the public opening.
Construction began on the Sagrada Familia in 1882 under the direction of Antoni Gaudi, who designed 18 tall spindly towers to rise up higher than any church in Europe. Gaudi’s plans were lost after his death in 1926, and construction had to continue in a makeshift interpretation through the Spanish Civil War.
It was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1984, despite being more than 40 years from completion. In 2010, Pope Benedict XVI consecrated the building for worship, while building permission for the structure was officially issued in 2016, having been carried out illegally, albeit unknowingly so, for over 100 years.
In February of this year, it was considered complete when the final tower—honoring Jesus Christ with a 4-armed cross, was completed, and the inaugural mass was held.
The Post Gazette building in October 2015 - Drums600 CC 4.0. SA-BY
The Post Gazette building in October 2015 – Drums600 CC 4.0. SA-BY
There’s been a lot of reminiscing about the founding of the nation this year—a year which also saw the first edition of the Pittsburgh Gazette printed 240 years ago.
Now the Post-Gazette, it was set to become the latest historic newspaper to file for bankruptcy and vanish into the history columns, but a nonprofit founded to protect America’s local papers have saved it.
The Venetoulis Institute is owned by a hotel magnate named Stewart Bainum Jr., and the PPG is the second paper the Institute has acquired following its purchase of the Baltimore Banner in 2022.
“Local journalism is essential to a strong community, but across the country the business model has been under severe strain,” Bainum said in the press release. “We believe there is a path forward — one that combines great journalism with a diversified business model built on scale and exceptional talent.”
Indeed the PPG was hemorrhaging money. It operated at a loss for 2 decades, losing some $350 million. The Institute will be willing to absorb some of those losses going forward, but a restructuring is likely taking place. CBS reported that all 171 writers were expected to reapply for their jobs.
The Post-Gazette was the first American newspaper west of the Allegheny Mountains, and that is where it is set to stay under the new ownership agreement. Limited print editions, which the paper had been running on Thursday and Sunday, are expected to continue.
The paper has won 3 Pulitzer Prize awards for journalism and photography, with its first in 1938 for an investigation into how a then-recently appointed Supreme Court justice had been a member of the Ku Klux Klan, and most recently in 2019 for its coverage of the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting.
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Quote of the Day: “Art resides in the quality of doing. Process is not magic.” – Charles Eames
Photo by: Credit: Jonathan Borba (cropped)
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Happy Birthday to the gospel and blues singer Mavis Staples, who turns 86 years old today. Born in Chicago, she started singing with her family’s band The Staple Singers as a young girl, and her deep-throated voice catapulted the group to the top of the charts eight times between 1971 and 1975, with songs like I’ll Take You There, Let’s Do It Again, and Respect Yourself. WATCH a video about her birthday… (1939)
A Highland Electric Fleets charging station for Durham Schools - credit, Highland Electric Fleets media photo
A Highland Electric Fleets charging station for Durham Schools – credit, Highland Electric Fleets media photo
A Colorado town’s new electric school bus fleet also doubles as a backup battery to help out during peak power demand.
Charging at night, using power to pick up, drop off, and then drop off children again, the buses would normally sit at their charging stations until daybreak calls them out again.
But in Cherry Creek School District, after the last backpack has gone bobbling down the street home, the buses return to their depot to become a supporting cast to the power grid thanks to a clever bi-directional charging system that allows them to use excess energy from their routes to power excess demand from homes.
In most of the world, peak demand will be after work hours when men and women come home, turn on their kitchen appliances, TVs, or air conditioners, and begin to unwind. Being that hundreds of kilowatt hours remain in the school buses’ batteries after taking children home, Highland Electric Fleets has designed them to pay forward their own grid demand by releasing some of those kWh during the late afternoon and early evening.
There are still plenty of hours during the night, when demand is lowest, to recharge before the school day.
“This partnership works to support our environmental goals while delivering long-term operational savings,” Jennifer Perry, Cherry Creek’s interim superintendent, said at the June 3rd groundbreaking for the new bus facility.
The 6 buses and the bus “barn” are being funded by a $2.4 million rebate that Highland Electric Fleets collected from a partnership with the federal government. Cherry Creek wasn’t charged a penny.
Given that diesel prices remain elevated from the war, and given that maintenance on electric vehicles is so much less than in EVs owing to the 95% reduction in the number of moving parts, Perry said that there’s a competitive cost savings in the long-term.
Indeed Highland Electric Fleets have several of these pilot programs ongoing, which will also support healthy communities through the reduction in diesel tailpipe exhaust, and the general mood from the reduction in noise pollution.
Highland Electric estimates that 2 dozen of these buses could help the grid manage the excesses of 100 homes during peak hours, while a couple hundred could support over a thousand.
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Respect cardiologist Dr. Benjamin Levine said last year in an interview that exercise “needs to be part of your personal hygiene, like brushing your teeth or taking a shower.”
That’s because it prevents our muscular repair systems from weakening with age, a new study has shown.
Beginning in middle age, muscle strength and function gradually decline, increasing the risk of falls, fractures, and slower recovery after illness or injury.
The consequences extend beyond individual health. As populations age, muscle loss can increase demands on caregivers and healthcare systems. Preserving muscle function is therefore an important part of maintaining independence and quality of life. By preserving function, and therefore movement, independence is also preserved, and elderly individuals who are independent are more likely to pursue other activities known to support healthy aging like recreational sports.
One of the key regulators of muscle health is a growth pathway called mTORC1, which helps control protein production and muscle maintenance. In aging muscles, this pathway can become excessively active. When that happens, muscles focus more on building new proteins while becoming less efficient at removing damaged ones.
Over time, these damaged proteins accumulate inside muscle cells, placing them under stress and contributing to the gradual loss of strength associated with aging. Until now, scientists did not fully understand what causes this imbalance.
A team of researchers from Singapore General Hospital and Cardiff University identified a gene called DEAF1 as an important factor behind this process.
“Exercise tells muscles to ‘clean up and reset.’ Lowering DEAF1 helps older muscles regain strength and balance, almost like hitting the rewind button,” said Priscillia Choy Sze Mun, a research assistant in the Cancer and Stem Cell Biology Program at Duke-National University of Singapore (NUS) and the study’s first author.
“With millions of older adults at risk of muscle decline, understanding DEAF1 could lead to new ways to protect muscles and improve quality of life.”
The study’s co-authors working in the Duke-NUS laboratory – credit, Duke-NUS Medical School
According to the study, DEAF1 levels rise in aging muscles. As DEAF1 increases, it drives mTORC1 activity higher, disrupting the normal balance between protein production and protein removal. This imbalance accelerates muscle deterioration.
Under normal conditions, DEAF1 is regulated by a group of proteins known as FOXOs. However, FOXO activity naturally declines with age. As a result, DEAF1 is no longer kept under tight control, allowing its levels to increase and pushing muscles further away from repair and maintenance.
“Exercise can reverse this process, correcting the imbalance,” said Assistant Professor Tang Hong-Wen from the program at Duke-NUS.
“Physical activity activates certain proteins which lower DEAF1 levels, bringing the growth pathway back into balance. This allows aging muscles to clear out damaged proteins, rebuild themselves properly, and help them stay stronger and more resilient.”
To test their findings, the researchers conducted experiments in both fruit flies and older mice.
The results were consistent across both species. Raising DEAF1 levels caused muscles to weaken more rapidly, while lowering DEAF1 restored healthier protein balance and improved muscle strength.
The researchers also found an important limitation. In some older muscles, DEAF1 levels become extremely high or FOXO activity drops significantly. In those cases, exercise alone may not be enough to fully restore the muscle’s repair capacity.
This finding may help explain why some older adults experience greater benefits from exercise than others and highlights the importance of understanding the underlying biology of muscle aging.
The findings could also prove valuable for people recovering from surgery, illness, or chronic diseases such as cancer. Researchers suggest that targeting DEAF1 could potentially reproduce some of the beneficial effects of exercise at the molecular level, helping maintain muscle strength even when physical activity is limited.
A cuckoo bee, native to Oregon - credit, August Jackson / Oregon State University
A cuckoo bee, native to Oregon – credit, August Jackson / Oregon State University
According to an inaugural report on the health of bees in Oregon, scientists at Oregon State University have found no incidences of pesticide-related bee deaths since 2021.
This significant achievement underscores the capacity that everyday citizens have to protect pollinators if given correct information, even in a state which hosts one of the most biodiverse and specialized populations of bee species in the country.
Mia Maldonado at the Oregon Capital Chronicle writes that it was down to a pesticide-related mass-mortality event in a parking lot in 2013 that the Oregon state legislature established a Task Force on Pollinator Health to address the causes of the event and others like it linked to pesticide use.
Oregon State was charged with developing a suite of educational materials to help inform private sector businesses and professionals who work with pesticides how to do so in a way that protects bees.
Then in 2018, the issue was expanded with the Oregon Bee Project, an initiative aimed at disseminating those educational materials to as many people as possible. Some 12,000 landscapers and agriculturalists were trained to best understand the risks of pesticides to bees and how to minimize them, while information was also provided to K-12 schools.
Further materials about how to tend a pollinator-friendly garden or landscape were developed in concert with Oregon State, which began working to better understand bee health.
The university also compiled the Oregon Bee Atlas, the largest species inventory of bees in any state of the union which coalesced scientific observations and information on all 567 species of bee in the territory.
For gardeners and land managers, the atlas translates bee survey data into practical guidance. It includes top plant picks for every Oregon county and information that can help communities make more precise habitat decisions.
This incredible outreach operation—which extended to the point of commemorative state license plate issuance that raised $800,000 for the Oregon Bee Project—has paid off in spades, with no bees known to have been lethally-affected by pesticides since 2021.
“Oregon has built one of the strongest bee survey and education networks in the country,” said Andony Melathopoulos, a pollinator expert at OSU’s Extension Service. “The public value is that we can now give people better information for protecting bees, improving habitat and making informed decisions in every part of the state.”
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Renovators recently washing an arch high up on the ceiling of St. Mary’s Basilica in Minneapolis were left stunned when a sheen of gold suddenly began to gleam from beneath a paint layer.
Below the dull, tannish mauve, gold stencil work—hidden perhaps since the previous cleaning in the 1950s—was found to cover the arch and nearby panels, delighting everyone involved in the process, and continuing a famous trend of religious buildings holding hidden secrets.
The oldest basilica in the US, St. Mary’s was finished in 1914. The beautiful cathedral is undergoing its second renovation since then—a $50 million project that has a hard deadline of Easter Sunday next year.
Getting a move on, workers had to erect 15 floors of scaffolding to reach the beautiful ceiling of the nave. In the section just before the altar, while washing a broad arch, workers discovered that the whole archway had been decorated with gold stenciling yet covered up for unknown reasons.
Speaking in an exclusive for the CBS affiliate WCCO, project leader Johan van Parys, the basilica’s managing director of ministries and the director of liturgy and sacred art, said that there was no record of the artwork.
“We don’t know why the stenciling that was originally here was covered over with flat paint. So whether it was an aesthetic choice or financial reason, all the stencil was covered up,” he said. “When we came to this arch we had no idea we’d discover this.”
Medallion panels set in the corners of the ornate ceiling design array contained another secrets, ultramarine blue fields with gold fleur-de-lis designs.
“It was a supremely emotional moment because that which had been hidden for 75 years now could be revealed again,” van Parys said. “The people from 1914 who came here for the first Mass, this is what they saw—and that is what we will see again.”
WATCH the story below from WCCO
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Quote of the Day: “It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere.” – Voltaire
Photo by: Curated Lifestyle for Unsplash+
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Happy 70th Birthday to actor Tom Hanks. Known for both his dramatic and comedic roles (Big, A League of Their Own, Sleepless in Seattle, and You’ve Got Mail), he is one of the most popular film stars in the world—and in 2018 became the highest-grossing actor in the US. Hanks collaborated with director Steven Spielberg on five films, including Saving Private Ryan and The Terminal, and is himself a director, producer, and screenwriter—and, of course, the voice of Sheriff Woody in Toy Story. READ more about Hanks… (1956)
Jacob Allmendinger with grandad Geoff Golliker - credit, Jacob Allmendinger / SWNS
Jacob Allmendinger with grandad Geoff Golliker – credit, Jacob Allmendinger / SWNS
An England fan who used his life savings to take his grandad to the World Cup has been left stunned after a company inspired by their story gifted him the entire $13,000 back.
Jacob Allmendinger sacrificed the cash he had saved up for a house deposit to take Geoff Golliker, 80, on the trip of a lifetime in the USA and Mexico.
21-year-old Allmendinger has been going to matches in his hometown of Hull by his grandfather since he was a little boy, and said he now wants to return the favor.
“We’ve had an amazing trip so far,” Allmendinger told Ed Chatterton writing for England’s Southwest News Service. “We’re still in Mexico at the minute and fly tomorrow to Miami for the quarter final. The Mexico game was a once-in-a-generation game to watch.”
Jacob and Geoff have traveled to New York and Atlanta for the matches with Panama and DR Congo before witnessing the historic 3-2 win at the Azteca Stadium in Mexico City.
They are now on their way to the quarter final against Norway and during their time abroad the pair say they had been stopped in the street by people recognizing them after their heartwarming story went viral through Allmendinger’s social media channels.
Among the viral readers was a US-based online crypto casino called Metawin, which contacted the devoted grandson and vowed to pay back the money if England beat Panama by more than two goals.
An unsolicited social media promise made by a crypto currency casino is not one that any sensible person is likely to take to heart, and Allmendinger was skeptical from the off.
“When we only won 2-0 they said they would still pay £10,000 if we won against DR Congo by any score,” he said. “I didn’t quite believe it, to be honest, until I looked at my bank and it was there. I was just in shock.”
England have the quarter finals against Norway next. The descendants of the Vikings have thoroughly embraced that aspect of their culture as they’ve torn through the competition—including knocking out 5-time winners Brazil—led by the ferocious finishing of Erling Haaland at center forward.
But Allmendinger told the BBC that he’s hopeful, and for good reason.
“The parallels to now and 1966 when we last beat Mexico in the World Cup and then went on to win the whole thing, it kind of gets you giddy for the rest of the trip.”
Whether or not England break the 60-year wait for World Cup number 2, the trip has already been unforgettable—all the more thanks to Metawin.
“I think I’ll save the money until I get back home. I’ll put it in a savings account for now and see what happens after the next couple of months. I could buy a house, anything is possible,” he said.
The young man said he had been bombarded with positive messages from people since his story made headlines.
“I think it just resonates with people,” he said. “I’ve had people reach out who have lost their grandparents and how they wish they’d done something similar. It just makes us cherish this time more, really.”
“We get on like a house on fire. We’re more best mates than grandad and grandson,” said Allmendinger.
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Scientists in Canada have discovered that ancient underground rocks are naturally producing hydrogen gas—and lots of it, and it may be everywhere—and it may be cheap.
The rocks could offer another source of clean energy known for emissions accounting purposes as “white hydrogen,” a largely unexplored and hidden underworld resource with the potential to help power industries and remote communities while reducing dependence on fossil fuels.
How underexplored is white hydrogen? Well extractive industry news outlet Autonocionpoints out that every hydrogen well currently known was found by accident—by geologists looking for something else.
While researchers at the Univ. of Toronto were gathering data from an active mine near the legendary Timmins gold mining camp in Ontario, a micro-cap exploration company MAX Power became the first geologists to break that trend—they went looking for a big hydrogen discovery, and they found it.
About 87 miles (140 km) south of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, the explorers drilled down 1.2 miles through the prairie sediment and bedrock of their Lawson target before punching out an 8 meter chunk of “Precambrian basement” rock which they found rich in signs of naturally-flowing hydrogen from a gas well deep underground.
The sample returned 28% hydrogen concentration, which itself contained a 90% hydrogen-nitrogen mix and none of the poisonous/flammable hydrogen sulphide. It also contained between 8.7% and 4.4% helium, a valuable gas that has been in the news of late because of the disruptions in supply due to the Strait of Hormuz closure.
“After perforation, the well quickly achieved free gas flow to surface, delivering strong initial rates and pressures before being overtaken by a powerful influx of formation brine,” a statement from the company’s January 16th press release on the occasion read.
“We have confirmed the existence of a natural hydrogen system in the subsurface from the first well ever drilled in this country specifically targeting this new primary energy source,” said President and CEO of MAX Power, Mr. Ran Narayanasamy. “Lawson is no longer a concept – it’s a discovered geological system with gas flow, pressure, and the key ingredients required for future commercial natural hydrogen development”.
The Lawson discovery core samples – credit, Max Power, released
A remote power source
At Timmins, the researchers found that boreholes drilled into the rock by miners looking for gold release an 8 kilograms of hydrogen gas each year. According to the study, the gas can continue flowing for at least a decade.
When expanded across the site’s nearly 15,000 boreholes, the estimated hydrogen output exceeds 140 metric tonnes annually. The team calculated that this amount could generate approximately 4.7 million kilowatts of energy per year from just one location, enough to meet the yearly energy demands of more than 400 homes.
“The data from this study suggests there are critical untapped opportunities to access a domestic source of cost-effective energy produced from the rocks beneath our feet,” says Professor Barbara Sherwood Lollar in the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Toronto, the lead author of the study.
“What’s more, this provides a ‘made in Canada’ resource that might be able to support local and regional industry hubs and reduce their dependence on importing hydrocarbon-based fuels”.
Hydrogen already plays a major role in the global economy, which one market analysis firm valued at over $200 billion worldwide. It is widely used in fertilizer manufacturing, which is essential for agriculture and global food production. Hydrogen is also important in methanol production and steelmaking.
Today, most hydrogen is produced through industrial methods that rely on fossil fuels such as petroleum, natural gas, and coal—so-called “grey” hydrogen. These processes require large amounts of energy and release carbon monoxide and CO2. Even “green” hydrogen, which is generated using renewable energy, remains expensive and energy intensive while also requiring transportation and storage infrastructure.
Natural hydrogen, the “white” kind, has received far less attention in comparison. Until recently, most research focused on its role in underground microbial ecosystems and its potential importance for astrobiology and space exploration. Estimates of its energy potential were largely theoretical because scientists lacked direct long-term measurements from real-world sites.
The two most significant real-world sites in operation are in Lorraine, eastern France, and in Mali, where it has been quietly powering a town for a decade. In 1987, a driller boring a water well was left burned and bewildered when seemingly out of nowhere, the air in the well exploded as he leaned over it with a lit cigarette. The outrushing air sparkled ocean blue in the daytime, and gold at night, and the villagers cemented the well in confusion. Eventually in 2012, a local entrepreneur brought oil and gas geologists in to have a look, and the Bourakébougou hydrogen pilot plant was built.
“Natural hydrogen is produced over time through underground chemical reactions between rocks and the groundwaters in those rocks,” says Lollar. “Canada is blessed that vast amounts of its territories, especially on the Canadian Shield, contain the right rocks and minerals to create this natural hydrogen”.
Lollar and her team say that Canada may have a unique opportunity to produce cleaner and potentially cheaper hydrogen without depending on hydrocarbons. They also note that similar hydrogen-producing rocks exist in many other countries, suggesting the approach could eventually be used worldwide. The largest concentrations of natural hydrogen appear in geological regions already associated with Canadian mining activity. These include Northern Ontario, Quebec, Nunavut, and the Northwest Territories.
“The common link is the rock,” says study co-author Oliver Warr, an assistant professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at University of Ottawa. “Natural hydrogen is produced in the same rocks where Canada’s nickel, copper, and diamond deposits are found, and that are currently under exploration for critical minerals such as lithium, helium, chromium, and cobalt. The co-location of mining resources and hydrogen production and use mitigates the need for long transportation routes to market, for hydrogen storage and major hydrogen infrastructure development”.
The study’s authors believe natural hydrogen could help reduce both costs and carbon emissions for Canada’s gargantuan mining sector. Hydrogen generated close to mining operations could provide a local energy source without requiring major new transportation systems. If exploitation infrastructure becomes available and affordable for white hydrogen, it could also save junior mining companies starting up in established mining areas like Timmins, Val d’Or, or BC’s Golden Triangle, from incorporating power access or diesel generators into their mining and exploration plans.
The researchers also suggest that northern communities, which often face high fuel transportation costs, could benefit from nearby hydrogen resources. Using locally sourced hydrogen may lower energy expenses while reducing reliance on imported fuels.
“There is a global race to increase hydrogen availability in order to decarbonize and reduce the costs of the existing hydrogen economy,” says Lollar. “We now have a better understanding of the economic viability of this resource that can be mapped to hydrogen deposits around the world that are both already known and yet to be discovered”. WaL
Jon James the barber - credit, supplied North West Remote Health (2)
Jon James the barber – credit, supplied North West Remote Health (2)
There’s an old saying: cut a man’s hair, and he’s fresh for a month. Teach a man to cut hair, and he’s fresh for a lifetime.
Er, wait—wasn’t it something about fish?
For Queensland barber Jon James, stepping off a small plane onto Mornington Island off the northern coast of Australia, he found a community that knew how to fish, but if he wanted to find the red and white barber’s pole, he’d need to wait for his flight home.
For that reason too, there was a hoard of people waiting for him as he disembarked hoping for a trim, a cut, or a fade.
James was on the island as part of the Fade Wellbeing Barbering Program run by Australia’s North West Remote Health. He was there to run barber workshops among a resilient and deeply rooted community that nevertheless struggles with listlessness and unemployment, and had recently endured the loss of several men by suicide.
James had spent the previous 6 months volunteering at haircutting workshops across Queensland, and despite the remoteness, he told ABC News down under that the locals were naturals.
– credit, supplied by Jon James to ABC News AU
It wasn’t long before the que of people in need of a barber was quickly diverted from the 42-year-old barber, slightly famous on social media for his tattoos and orange hair, to his various new students.
“I couldn’t believe how quickly they picked up barbering,” James said. “They’re like, ‘Let’s go further.’ And then they were doing skin fades straight up, and then they were doing them on their own.”
NWRH had sent James to Mornington Island with 20 professional barber kits to give out to workshop participants when it was finished, but that was after he got approached by a local with a special request.
Someone asked him if he were willing to straighten up the doos for a bride and a groom on their wedding day. James needed a hand from his students, who took care of the wedding guests, while he handled the wedding party who then invited him to attend.
“To be part of that emotionally, and be asked to attend the wedding after, it was incredibly humbling. I’m so grateful that I had that opportunity.”
An 11-year old in Kentucky is credited with saving a man who fell unconscious in an apartment swimming pool last week.
Seeing that nobody was doing anything about the situation, Avory Woolery took the burden of action upon his shoulders—broad in spirit, if not in size.
“No one was doing anything, so I put on my goggles. I went underwater,” Avory told local news.
“I grabbed him up and I just felt really bad because there was no way that I was going to let another man die today. He’s a human being. He should be treated as such.”
Once Avory had gotten him onto solid ground, a friend, or so Avory supposed, came over and began performing CPR until first responders arrived at someone’s calling.
The man was taken to a local hospital, where WKYT reported he remained in critical condition.
Avory’s father said he was so proud of his son for acting so decisively.
“I’m proud of him. Somebody, when I was walking up here, somebody said, ‘Thank you, you taught him how to swim,’” Mr. Woolery said.
WATCH the story below…
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A man from Murcia in Spain couldn’t believe his luck when a gallery told him the painting he found propped up against a wall in Sevilla was an original by 19th century Spanish painter Joaquin Sorolla.
Yet as soon as he saw a police notice about the painting being “stolen,” Andrés Hurtado didn’t waste any time doing the right thing—”fulfilling his obligation” as he would later describe it.
Hurtado was visiting Sevilla with his family when he saw a rather small and nondescript painting of a beachscape leaning up against the garden wall of a house. Assuming it was left for the garbage man, Hurtado took an instant fancy for the beautiful golden frame, and decided to spare it from the landfill.
The painting’s true owners left it against the wall in what is fair to describe as probably a lapse of concentration familiar to many who have tried to pack for a long trip in a hurry.
The family were bringing the painting to a beach house, a little family tradition, but while they were loading their car they were apparently also blocking traffic, and amid a flurry of honking horns, they rushed and left it behind.
“We picked it up because of the frame, not because of the painting,” Murtado, who passed by the house, told Radio Sevilla on Wednesday.
With the help of a little AI magic, Hurtado discovered that the painting he took for the frame was actually an original Sorolla, worth as much as €150,000. Hurtado couldn’t believe it, so he called an auction house in Madrid, which confirmed both the painting and the value.
Meanwhile, the family who lost it was frantically looking for it, not realizing it had been taken over 300 miles back to Murcia. They put up flyers around the neighborhood asking for information about a painting “of great sentimental value,” while discreetly reporting the work as having been stolen to the police.
Hurtado was perhaps getting ready to celebrate, but later the same evening, news reached him that a painting had been stolen from Sevilla, and the picture was of the very thing he’d assumed was garbage.
“‘But it’s the one I have!'” Murtado told El Mundo. “I immediately called the police and told them that the news was not true, that the painting had not been stolen, that I had it and that it was lying in the street.”
To the credit of the police, they told Murtado not to worry about anything, and said to sit tight while they organized for the artwork’s return: he wouldn’t have to do anything.
Overjoyed to be reunited with their painting, the family have since told reporters that they’ve prepared a reward for Murtado.
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250 years ago, the Liberty Bell was rung in Philadelphia to call citizens to hear the newly-signed Declaration of Independence, or at least that’s what is said to have happened. No contemporary account of the ringing is known to exist, but there is historical documentation that when the Declaration was read publicly in Philadelphia, bells around the city were rung in commemoration. What we call the Liberty Bell had been specially commissioned years earlier to ring out across a much larger breadth of the city’s territory, and it would seem the least likely scenario that for some reason, it’s E-flat was silent on this most momentous occasion. READ more from On This Day… (1776)
It’s an early-summer’s night and you left your truck at the bar because you chose not to drive drunk—well someone’s noticed.
That someone is the Montana Barfairies, a volunteer effort that is going viral for tucking $5 gift cards under the windshield wipers of that truck and others like it—a reward for making the right choice and not driving drunk.
By the time you came to collect your vehicle, you see there’s something tucked under the wipers—oh no. But it’s not a ticket, it’s the cost of a coffee or latte to help with that hangover.
“What started as a small act of kindness—leaving coffee gift cards on cars left overnight at Flathead Valley, Montana bars—has grown into a nationwide movement advocating for stronger DUI laws and supporting families affected by drunk driving tragedies,” the nonprofit wrote on their website.
Like most volunteering, it requires a bit of sacrifice. Who wants to get up at 5:00 am on a Saturday morning in Montana in February just to go give their money away to strangers?
Jesse, Beverly, Grace, and Kate—that’s who. These four Bar Fairies racked up 142,000 views on a TikTok video of them rewarding bar patrons who took cabs home from the Whitefish Winter Carnival.
Tim and Kelly left gift cards at 8 vehicles in Polson—”a reward” for their owners being “the smart ones.” They were in turn rewarded with 2.5 million views, as commenters praised their effort, generosity and the brilliance of the idea.
In Kalispell, it was Shannon and Brittainy’s turn. The pair left 20 gift cards on a cold Montana morning, totaling $100 worth of complimentary coffees for community members that cared enough not to take a potentially life-shattering risk.
