Textile Waste and Forgeries Cut from Indian Supply Chains with Brilliant Desk-Top Spectroscope

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Dec 11, 2025

FibreSENSE - credit, courtesy of Kosha.ai (2) — FibreSENSE - credit, courtesy of Kosha.ai

FibreSENSE – credit, courtesy of Kosha.ai

An Indian initiative is utilizing a scientific technique known as spectroscopy to prove the authenticity of traditional, handwoven silken garments over forgeries.

Often making headlines in the study of planets and nebulae in our galaxy, the spectroscopy device allows for quick and indisputable textile analysis at the molecular level—giving traditional weavers the authority to market their products with the premium their generational knowledge and renowned abilities deserve.

This unique story comes by way of Bengaluru, where two men working at the cutting edge of technology have set out to help a centuries-old technology.

For the sake of the unknowing, in the Indian fashion world, the Banarasi saree is the most valuable of its kind, and among those, the Kadwa saree, translating literally to “difficult,” stands as the most supreme example of the Indian silk-weaving artform.

A single Kadwa saree can take months to finish. They involve weaving the intricate patterns and images into each line of the handloom rather than stitching or embroidering them on after the fact. Done by hand on traditional looms, filaments of gold or silver are sometimes woven in, and unlike other forms of Banarasi sarees, there are no loose threads on the reverse face.

Vijaya Krishnappa and Ramki Kodipady—the former an software engineer, and the later and electronics engineer—met in 2020 and shared a unique sense of injustice: that weavers of Kadwa sarees were getting pushed out of the market by counterfeiters selling inferior knock-offs.

At the same time, each man on his own saw fast fashion and synthetic textiles as a major contributor of landfill waste, and sought to use technology to alleviate some of the problem.

Vijaya Krishnappa and Ramki Kodipady (left) and a traditional Kadwa saree maker – credit, courtesy Kosha.ai

They launched the start-up KOSHA.ai to market their first flagship device they saw as a solution to both problems.

Called “WeaveSENSE” the book-sized device uses near-infrared spectroscopy paired with AI-driven chemometric modelling to identify the fiber composition of the fabric placed atop it.

WeaveSENSE first bombards the fabric with near-infrared electromagnetic waves, then records how that fabric—and more importantly the materials made to construct it—react to the waves.

The device captures loom-specific signatures, weaving rhythms, and manufacturing timestamps which are together converted into “a tamper-proof digital provenance trail.” A QR code on the final product allows customers to view real-time clips of how their saree or fabric was woven.

“We saw Kadwa sarees being sold for nearly 50,000 [rupees, approximately $553] but the artisans who wove them struggled to earn even a fraction of that,” Krishnappa told the Better India. “Weavers told us that customers simply didn’t believe them anymore. And without trust, their livelihood collapsed.”

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Krishnappa and Kodipady were satisfied with their attempt to prove authenticity, and turned their attention to how their new desk-top technology could aid in textile recycling.

Through an analysis of the light reflected off the material, WeaveSENSE can reveal exactly how the material was made, and how expensive it should be according to that method. The same tech—near-infrared spectroscopy—needed just a little tweak to become FibreSENSE, a parallel device designed specifically to detect with extreme detail the exact material composition of a fiber—either from a finished cloth or as yarn.

“Every fiber speaks a different language,” Kodipady told the Better India. “FibreSENSE is the interpreter. In seconds, it tells you whether a fabric is cotton, polyester, wool, silk, viscose, or a blend, and in what proportion.”

ALSO CHECK OUT: Officer Converts Old Train Car into ‘Hospital on Wheels’ to Bring Healthcare to Remote India

Non-destructive, cost-effective, and immediate, FibreSENSE would allow textile workers to do with 100% accuracy what they used to do just by sense of touch and an educated guess—to determine what kind of thread, yarn, or cloth they were actually using.

“FibreSENSE helps us supply exactly what recyclers or paper-makers need, like 80 to 90 percent polyester, or specific cotton–poly ratios for felt. It has made us more accurate and more confident in what we do,” said Gopika Santhosh at Green Worms Waste Management, in testimony of the project.

COOL USE OF SPECTROSCOPY: Greatest Spectroscope Ever Built Can Tell What 2,400 Cosmic Objects Are Made of Every 20 Mins.

It allowed recyclers and manufacturers to know exactly what they were holding, and therefore exactly what they could do with it. To date, this has saved some 22,000 pounds of textiles from being thrown away due to this confusion. For the saree makers, some 1,200 are now represented by merchants empowered by WeaveSENSE to demand the premium their weavers’ skills demand.

More impact and testimony regarding KOSHA’s products can be found at the Better India.

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Singing with Other People Improves Health More Than Singing Alone

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Good News Network

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Dec 11, 2025

Singing has been linked to numerous benefits for health, wellbeing, disease resistance, and recovery from injury, but when singing in a group, these benefits are seen to be superior to those seen in solo singers.

The research, though not new, still makes for a pretty darn good reason to join a caroling group or church choir for the holidays, or to take New Year’s Eve as an opportunity for some karaoke.

In this era of research into health and wellbeing, with more information available than ever, and expert voices contradicting recommendations at every turn—even those long thought to be made up of ‘settled science,’ it pays to set down some first principles.

Here’s one that serves as an effective guiding light in almost all situations: human health is the most resilient when existing in accord with our species’ evolutionary history.

Homo sapiens is a social animal, with virtually every facet of his lifestyle dependent in nature on his fellow man. Given that social isolation is deadly to our species, it probably shouldn’t be a surprise that harmonizing our voices together makes us feel better than belting out a song on our own.

Some scientists believe humans actually sang before we could speak: that we gradually expanded our capacity for vocalizations by mimicking the tones of nature.

Singing activates the vagus nerve, which modulates our body’s ability to calm itself. The activation is done through long and slow expirations and inhalations needed to sing whole verses and long notes, which doubles up with a thorough activation of numerous neural pathways on both sides of the brain, and a release of feel-good endorphins.

David Cox, exploring this topic for the BBC, wrote that singing also produces other measurable physical effects, including regulation of the heart rate and blood pressure. Singing in groups or choirs, Cox says, has even been found to boost \immune function in ways that simply listening to the same music cannot.

Some of this might be explained by the demands singing puts on the pulmonary system, which has been calculated to be as demanding as a brisk intensity walk. Where there is cardiovascular exertion, there is health and greater physiological alignment, including in the immune system.

MORE EVERYDAY HEALTH: Parents Should Sing More to Their Babies For the Positive Impact on Infant’s Mood–And Their Own

However, science has also shown that complete strangers can forge unusually close bonds after singing together in a way not seen in team sports, for example. This is called the ice-breaker effect, and very much captures the fact that singing can reveal the interior character of a person more than chit-chat can.

“I can’t speak for all the cultures of the world, but in the West, singing seems very much an extension of speech,” said GNN’s managing editor Andy Corbley, who was trained as a singer and worked as a children’s vocal coach before entering journalism.

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“In my work, I found the children who were most eager to tell me about their life outside of classes were also the ones who projected their voice the most in the studio. I had one student who was a selective mute, and who wouldn’t speak with me—couldn’t even say hello—but after 90 minutes of coaching was able to sing the words she ordinarily wouldn’t speak.”

“To my mind, it shows how singing begins with trust: trust in yourself that your words have value and power, and trust that those around you will listen to those words. That’s a very powerful, sort-of, social contract.”

SHARE This Story With Carolers You Know And Get The Band Back Together…

Genetic Mutation Could Pave the Way for Self-Fertilizing Cereal Crops and a Revolution in Agriculture

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Andy Corbley

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Dec 11, 2025

Danish researchers have found a molecular switch that lets plants partner with nitrogen-fixing bacteria instead of fighting them, opening the way to self-fertilizing cereal crops like wheat and barley.

Their new research highlights an important biological clue that could help reduce agriculture’s heavy reliance on artificial nitrogen fertilizer.

Plants require nitrogen to grow, and most crop species can obtain it only through fertilizer. A small group of plants, including peas, clover, and beans, can grow without added nitrogen. They do this by forming a partnership with specific bacteria that turn nitrogen from the air into a form the plant can absorb.

In the industry, they’re known as nitrogen fixers, and crop-rotation methods dating as far back as the 17th century saw clover used to cover fields following harvests to replenish the nitrogen content of the soil.

Scientists worldwide are working to understand the genetic and molecular basis of this natural nitrogen-fixing ability. The hope is that this trait could eventually be introduced into major crops such as wheat, barley, and maize.

If achieved, these crops could supply their own nitrogen. This shift would reduce the need for synthetic fertilizer, which currently represents about 2% of global energy consumption and produces significant CO2 emissions.

That’s where the researchers at Aarhus University come in—who have now identified small receptor changes in plants that cause them to temporarily shut down their immune defenses and enter a cooperative relationship with nitrogen-fixing bacteria.

“We are one step closer to a greener and climate-friendlier food production,” said Kasper Røjkjær Andersen and Simona Radutoiu, professors of molecular biology at Aarhus University and part of the team behind the discovery.

Plants rely on cell-surface receptors to sense chemical signals from microorganisms in the soil. Some bacteria release compounds that warn the plant they are “enemies,” prompting defensive action. Others signal that they are “friends” able to supply nutrients.

Legumes such as peas, beans, and clover allow specialized bacteria to enter their roots. Inside these root tissues, the bacteria convert nitrogen from the atmosphere and share it with the plant. This partnership, known as symbiosis, is the reason legumes can grow without artificial fertilizer.

Aarhus University researchers found that this ability is strongly influenced by just two amino acids within the root protein.

“This is a remarkable and important finding,” says Radutoiu.

The root protein functions as a “receptor” that reads signals from bacteria. It determines whether the plant should activate its immune system (alarm) or accept the bacteria (symbiosis).

MORE ADVANCEMENTS IN FARMING: Potato Blight Warning App to Help Farmers Beat a Billion Dollar Pest

The team identified a small region in the receptor protein that they named Symbiosis Determinant 1. This region functions like a switch that controls which internal message the plant receives.

By modifying only two amino acids within this switch, the researchers changed a receptor that normally triggers immunity so that it instead initiated symbiosis with nitrogen-fixing bacteria in a way the plant’s natural behavior would never permit.

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“We have shown that two small changes can cause plants to alter their behavior on a crucial point from rejecting bacteria to cooperating with them,” Radutoiu explains.

In laboratory experiments, the researchers successfully engineered this change in the plant Lotus japonicus. They then tested the concept in barley and found that the mechanism worked there as well.

“It is quite remarkable that we are now able to take a receptor from barley, make small changes in it, and then nitrogen fixation works again,” says Kasper Røjkjær Andersen.

ROOTING AROUND IN PLANTS: Man Cultivates a Giant Mango Tree with Each Branch Growing a Different Variety of Fruit–and There Are 300

The long-term potential is significant. If these modifications can be applied to other cereals, it may ultimately be possible to breed wheat, maize, or rice capable of fixing nitrogen on their own, similar to legumes.

“But we have to find the other, essential keys first,” Radutoiu notes. “Only very few crops can perform symbiosis today. If we can extend that to widely used crops, it can really make a big difference on how much nitrogen needs to be used.”

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“There’s a difference between a philosophy and a bumper sticker.” – Charles M. Schulz

Quote of the Day

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Good News Network

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Dec 11, 2025

Quote of the Day: “There’s a difference between a philosophy and a bumper sticker.” – Charles M. Schulz

Image by: Matthew Stevens (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

With a new inspirational quote every day, atop the perfect photo—collected and archived on our Quote of the Day page—why not bookmark GNN.org for a daily uplift?

Good News in History, December 11

This Day In History

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Good News Network

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Dec 11, 2025

300 years ago today, the American Founding Father George Mason was born. The Virginia planter, politician, and neighbor to George Washington, refused to sign the US Constitution as a delegate to the Convention. His objections influenced lawmakers, like fellow Virginian James Madison, to write, and later include, a Bill of Rights. Mason wrote the Virginia Declaration of Rights which served as a model for the federal version, which is why he is known as the Father of the US Bill of Rights. It was ratified in 1791, a year before Mason died. READ more about this lesser known ‘FF’… (1725)

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Engineer Powers Entire Home Using 500 Discarded Vapes–Documented in Fascinating Viral Video

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Andy Corbley

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Dec 10, 2025

Chris Doel with his home battery - credit, Anita Maric SWNS — Chris Doel with his home battery - credit, Anita Maric / SWNS

A man has built a rechargeable battery pack big enough to power his whole home using just the batteries from discarded vapes.

British engineer Chris Doel thinks it’s “absolutely insane” that people use disposable vaping pens, as they come with a lithium-ion battery that can be recharged again and again; they’re literally powered with a technology that’s advertised as the alternative to disposable batteries.

The 26-year-old ended up stripping the lithium batteries from 500 thrown away vapes, some of which he collected, and some of which were given to him by a local shop, to create a single battery bank large enough to run his entire house for 8 hours, or his workshop for multiple days.

He kept wiring the batteries together until they totaled 2.5 kWh of capacity, before a test saw him run all electrical components entirely off-grid for eight hours, including the microwave, kettle, and all the lighting.

Doel, who works for Jaguar Land Rover, got the idea after watching friends just toss out the depleted vapes despite them all containing rechargeable batteries.

“Some of my mates were puffing on them. But as soon as they were empty, they’d have a little blinking light, and they’d throw it straight in the bin,” he told SWNS. “The engineer in me was thinking ‘that is just absolutely ridiculous.'”

“None of these components are disposable. They should never really be thrown just straight in the bin, so them being marketed as ‘disposable’ just seemed insane to me.”

Chris picked up several discarded vapes while volunteering at a festival in the city of Leeds, and opened them up. Inside, rather than a disposable battery, they all had fully rechargeable batteries, despite them being marketed as a single-use product.

Doel set up a YouTube channel and began building power banks with these vape cells.

In September 2024, he turned 35 recovered batteries into a portable charger capable of charging up phones and laptops. He then built a battery pack for his electric bike.

“People just wanted to see bigger and better stuff, so I thought ‘surely as big as I can physically get is powering my entire house?’ There’s no argument we are throwing away super valuable stuff if I can literally power my entire house for eight hours with it.”

Doel went to his local vape shop in May 2025 and asked if they would donate some of their returns for his project and walked away with bags containing 2,000 vapes.

Doel explained it was really awkward for them—they still have to pay for them to be recycled, “they were extremely happy for me to just load up thousands of them in a big bag and walk away with them.”

In order to quickly sort them, he used a pump from a C-PAC machine to mechanically vape the vapes and determine whether their batteries were damaged or not.

Chris Doel with his battery inventions – credit, Anita Maric / SWNS

It took him 6 months to extract the rechargeable lithium batteries from the devices before he used a 3D printed case to combine 500 cells wired in parallel into groups, connected in series, to make a massive battery pack.

RECYCLING HEROES: Discarded Plastic Fishing Nets Are Turned into Filament for 3D Printers

He soldered a fuse between each of the former vape batteries to prevent his creation from short circuiting, and is now working on converting it to solar power so he can recharge and run it constantly, or recharge overnight when electricity is cheaper.

His YouTube video documenting the process from creation to powering his house has already racked up over 4 million views.

Fortunately, it became illegal for businesses in the UK to sell or supply single-use vapes In June.

“I think the ban on disposable vapes, even though it’s not the best implementation, has definitely made an impact. There has certainly been a reduction in the waste. But I still think the devices themselves are built to be mass-consumed, and they’re still incredibly cheap,” Doel explained.

“These things last for years and years,” he said, suggesting that refillable vapes just seem to make so much more sense.

WATCH him power his home with batteries below…

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‘Extinct’ Graceful Oryx Thriving in the Saharan Wilds Thanks to Decades of Captive Breeding

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Andy Corbley

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Dec 10, 2025

Even as the final scimitar-horned oryx was felled for meat and leather on the Saharan dunes, a network of zoos, hunting reserves, and even a royal menagerie, guaranteed they would live on in captivity.

Now, 9 years after these graceful antelope were first introduced back into the lands they once roamed, they have become one of the only species in history to go from being “Extinct in the Wild” to “Endangered.”

With reintroduced populations in Chad, Tunisia, and Morocco, the wild oryx has risen in number from a whopping zero to around 600 animals, each bearing a remarkably-high amount of genetic diversity for a species once considered Extinct in the Wild.

The secret to that genetic heritage was a small number of concerned, well-to-do citizens who took action during the antelope’s downfall. These include a group of West Texas ranchers who learned in the 1970s that these animals were going extinct and decided to front up what must have been not-insubstantial funds to transfer some to Texas where they have settled brilliantly, and grown to a larger number (some 12,000, it’s estimated) than ever even existed in Africa.

Other benefactors include the far-sighted Englishman John Knowles, who established Britain’s first zoological collection specifically for breeding endangered animals at the 400-acre estate of Marwell Hall. Here, despite their Saharan birth, the scimitar-horned oryx thrived in captivity.

Marwell is the keeper of the scimitar-horned oryx studbook, a sort of thoroughbred racehorse record for the oryx. As the animals shuffled around various zoos in Europe, the studbook ensured that inbreeding was avoided, and that it lineages with healthy and robust genetic heritage could be tracked.

Today, the studbook lists 3,295 animals in 182 zoos and institutions, and Marwell is now conducting some studies on the US-based oryx for the purpose of seeing how more genes could be introduced to the breeding pool.

Combined with those individuals in Texas and a small herd maintained by royal family of Abu Dhabi, the number and natural diversity meant it was only a matter of time before the species returned to the Sahara.

As it now has; and how. In March of 2016, in one of the world’s largest solitary conservation landscapes called the Ouadi Rimé-Ouadi Achim Faunal Reserve, a cargo plane touched down in Chad with 25 specially-chosen oryx from what the BBC described as a “World Herd”—individuals handpicked from the US, Europe, UK, and Abu Dhabi that would have the highest chance of surviving and breeding.

“The first phase of the operation has been a success. We’ve got the animals back into the wild, they’re breeding, they are pretty secure,” John Newby, who prepared a habitat assessment in the Republic of Ireland-sized Ouadi Rimé-Ouadi Achim Faunal Reserve, told the BBC.

MORE ON THIS ORYX: In World First, Horned Oryx Upgraded from Extinct in Wild to Endangered Owing to Decades of Zoo Work

“So far, 347 oryx have been released, mostly in herds of around 25,” the BBC reports. “In total, there are now somewhere between 550 and 600 oryx free-roaming in Chad, according to research by Sahara Conservation.”

Several dozen can also be found in disparate populations in Tunisia and Morocco, results of earlier reintroduction attempts that have had mixed success.

Phil Robbins, who manages antelopes and other ungulates at Marwell, says the “Wow” moment is always the moment of release: when workers standing atop 25 custom-built release crates lift the doors, and the sword-headed beasts charge out into their ancestral home. That’s the moment for celebration, the moment that turns heads and opens wallets, but it belies this incredible story’s true triumph, which were those few concerned parties who successfully acted in the face of onrushing disaster, and the decades of careful work to get them to that moment.

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Teens May Have Come Up with a New Way to Detect, Treat Lyme Disease Using CRISPR Gene Editing

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Andy Corbley

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Dec 10, 2025

Tick species that spread Lyme disease - credit CDC

From 60 Minutes comes the story of a Georgia science team that carried the Stars and Stripes to Europe for an international science competition and finished in the top ten by using genetic engineering to develop a superior testing and treatment method for Lyme disease.

If the competition were held in the USA—where the burden of Lyme disease is debilitatingly high—maybe they would have won, but as it is, they placed highest out of 14 American high schools, and finished above 390 schools worldwide.

Called the International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM), the competition was held in Paris and welcomed school teams from around the world to submit projects and innovations using synthetic biology—genetic engineering and modification.

There were projects for eliminating household mold, for designing crops to grow on Mars, and eye-drops to treat cataracts, but Lambert High School in suburban Atlanta sought to combat a problem very close to home.

“One of the biggest problems with Lyme is the lack of being able to diagnose it,” said Avani Karthik, a Lambert High senior and team captain of the project. “So a lotta’ people will go years. Like, we’ve met someone who went 15 years without a diagnosis.”

Lambert High is one of the highest achieving academic areas in the state of Georgia, and their big idea, which blew their teacher away with its ambition, was to create a reliable test for Lyme disease using CRISPR.

CRISPR really is one of the biggest innovations of the 21st century, and still is a full decade after it became commonly used in medical research. Using deactivated viruses to “snip” away genes, it’s provided the base for ongoing cures and treatments for disease of various kinds, including the always-fatal Huntington’s disease, type-1 diabetes, carbamoyl phosphate synthetase deficiency, aggressive leukemia, and more.

Karthik and her team aimed to use CRISPR as a way to identify and isolate a protein generated by the bacteria that cause Lyme disease. In a simulated model of blood infection, the team used CRISPR to target specific DNA strands where the protein hides, then gradually remove DNA material surrounding it until the protein is exposed. At this point, a simple at-home test could detect it.

The test strip showed they could detect Lyme as early as 2 days after infection—far sooner than the 2 weeks with existing tests.

Karthik led her team to Paris at the end of October. More than 400 teams, a third of them high schoolers, were competing in iGEM 2025, and despite not winning the grand prize, they finished in the top 10—the only American school to do so, and won a peripheral prize for best software tool

Many of their members put in all-nighters of coding, testing, and research to not only prepare the diagnostic tool with CRISPR, but also design a website that would present their idea—which would also be judged.

CBS News’ Bill Whitaker, leading the 60 Minutes interview, encountered an environment tense with competitive spirit, something that Lambert biology teacher Kate Sharer saw, but questioned.

MORE TEEN TRIUMPHS: 14-Year-Old Wins $25,000 for Origami That Can Hold 10,000 Times its Own Weight

“Like, this project in particular, I warned them, this is very high risk, high reward,” she said. “I can’t imagine any of this working, but I’m happy to help you as much as I can.”

Maybe they didn’t win the grand prize, but they came away with a superior diagnostic tool for a disease that can inflict a lifetime of suffering, and infects half a million Americans.

In that, they can hold their heads higher than most.

WATCH the 60 Minutes Piece below…

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Boy Sent to Christmas Nativity Show as Elvis Instead of Elf After Family Mix-up

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Andy Corbley

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Dec 10, 2025

When 9-year-old Oscar Wilkins heard he’d been given the role of ‘Elvis the Elf’ in the nativity play at his primary school last week, the alliteration left him confused over what to tell his parents.

Coming home, Oscar’s sister said neither he nor the school had been able to communicate the ‘elf element’ to his bemused family; the boy simply told them he had been cast as Elvis.

They then sought out a costume of the Graceland star and only realized the error when he stepped out on stage.

But hardly letting it become an error, Oscar embraced his starring role and found the whole thing hilarious. His older sister Jade Smith said the audience couldn’t help falling in love with the absurdity of it all.

“We asked him if he was sure he meant Elvis and he said yes, ‘with a sparkly costume.’ He did not mention anything about an elf,” she told Southwest News Service, in England. “His letter said a sparkly Elvis costume. It did not say Elvis the Elf so we all just stupidly thought it was Elvis Presley.”

Jade said the family then looked online for a kid’s Elvis outfit and found one that fitted Oscar perfectly.

“We sent him to school in the wrong costume and they all saw the funny side. But did not say it was wrong.”

The two performances on Wednesday and Thursday last week at Penrhiwpeier Primary School in Wales were also in front of his parents Stephen and Sarah Wilkins.

Smith said they only realized their error during the first performance of the show.

FAMILY MISHAPS: Little Boy Calls 911 After Mom Ate His Ice Cream: ‘Mommy Is Being Bad’–But Cops Solve the Case

“We only found out the mistake when we were watching the show and they all walked out—out of 12 kids, they were all dressed as elves except for Oscar,” she said. “It was so funny. A week before they had all met up in costume for a dress rehearsal but didn’t tell us anything was wrong.”

“It was no drama though. Oscar embraced it all and loved that people were all laughing at him. He really enjoyed all the attention.”

“We thought Elvis might come into it somewhere in the storyline but there was no relation to him at all.”

CUTE CHRISTMAS STORIES FROM LAST YEAR: Owl Flies Down Chimney And Perches on Top of Family’s Christmas Tree (WATCH)

Smith said Oscar’s reaction to it all had meant everyone had seen the funny side,
“within seconds we realized what had happened.”

“You never want you child to feel awkward but Oscar totally embraced it and that helped us all see the funny side of it. He’s still got the outfit and has now been introduced to Elvis’ music. He loves older music anyway so we can see him becoming a bit of a fan.”

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“Get up in the morning and look at the world in a way that takes nothing for granted.” – Abraham Joshua Heschel

Quote of the Day

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Good News Network

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Dec 10, 2025

Quote of the Day: “Get up in the morning and look at the world in a way that takes nothing for granted.” – Abraham Joshua Heschel

Image by: Mathieu Odin for Unsplash+

With a new inspirational quote every day, atop the perfect photo—collected and archived on our Quote of the Day page—why not bookmark GNN.org for a daily uplift?

Good News in History, December 10

This Day In History

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Good News Network

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Dec 10, 2025

63 years ago today, Lawrence of Arabia, the great film on the life of T. E. Lawrence, debuted at the Odeon Leicester Square. Widely regarded as one of the best films ever made, Peter O’Toole and Alec Guinness star in the struggles of rebellious Arabians during the First World War, in particular with the battles of Aqaba and Damascus. The film was nominated for ten Oscars at the 35th Academy Awards in 1963; it won seven, including Best Picture and Best Director. It also won the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Drama and the BAFTA Awards for Best Film and Outstanding British Film. READ about the alumni of those inspired by this ten-time Academy Award Nominated film… (1962)

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Endangered Whale That Turned up in Ireland, Shocking Scientists, Migrates to US Stunning More

By

Andy Corbley

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Dec 9, 2025

(left) the North Atlantic right whale when it was sighted in Ireland (right) and when it was sighted in Boston - credit, Naomi D'arcy (left) and Center for Coastal Studies, taken under NOAA permit 25740-03 (right)

(left) the North Atlantic right whale when it was sighted in Ireland (right) and when it was sighted in Boston – credit, Naomi D’arcy (left) and Center for Coastal Studies, taken under NOAA permit 25740-03 (right)

“But where else would one expect to find a right whale with Irish connections if not off Boston?”

They were the words of Padraig Whooley with the Irish Whale & Dolphin Group, spoken in reference to a never-before-seen migratory pattern in the Critically Endangered North Atlantic right whale, as he noticed how it mirrored in humorous parody a pattern ever so common among the animal’s distant mammalian relations on land—Ireland to Boston.

But make no mistake about it, an Irish N. Atlantic right whale emigrating to Boston has never been seen before, and the mere appearance of the individual adult in Irish waters was itself a sighting not recorded in 100 years.

It may have happened before—when thousands of these gentle giants moved up and down the eastern and western coasts of the Atlantic Ocean, but no record of such an event exists.

The right whale was first seen in Ireland’s Donegal Bay in July 2024. According to CBS News Boston, the New England Aquarium says a sighting of a scarred-up right whale in Boston on November 19th was the same animal.

Ian Schosberg with the Center for Coastal Studies, surveyed the animal in the waters about 23-miles off the coast, and didn’t realize at the time the true rarity of the event: for him it was just a delight to make the first NA right whale sighting of the year.

“The next day, when the Aquarium’s catalog team sent over a potential match, I was shocked,” Schosberg said in a statement. “I remembered the Irish whale sighting from July 2024 and how we’d tried to match that to a known individual in the catalog without success.”

The fact that scientists can identify individual right whales isn’t in and of itself something incredible, as there are only 380 or so of these animals left on planet Earth.

Recently, NA right whales, whose populations from the east and the west were thought not to cross the Atlantic except in cases of rare vagrancies, have been making several headline voyages.

The Irish sighting was a once-in-a-century event, but in May of this year, news came out that two whales named Curlew and Koala had spent the several months cruising down from the Mid-Atlantic coast to the tropical Caribbean seas, something described as a “once in a lifetime” event.

WHANDERING WHALES: Majestic Sei Whales Reappear in Argentine Waters After Nearly a Century

Right whales are extremely rare vagrants in the Gulf of Mexico, and there has never been a North Atlantic right whale sighting in Bahamian seas, where Curlew and Koala eventually arrived. Typically this time of year sees these giant baleens going in the exact opposite direction—further north.

Reporting on the Irish whale, CBS News paraphrased researchers explaining that these unusual sightings suggest the animals as a whole might still searching for the right habitat as they gradually return from the brink of extinction.

WHALE-OF-A-STORY: Gray Whale, Extinct for Centuries in Atlantic, Is Spotted in Cape Cod

The three subspecies of right whale are some of the largest baleens on Earth, capable of growing to between 43 and 52 feet in length, and weighing between 89 and 100 tons. While the blue whale may be bigger, the right whale has—by a factor of ten—the largest testes of any animal on Earth, weighing 1,000 pounds each, and measuring to a height of 6.6 feet, and a diameter of 2.58 feet.

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Patients Thought Untreatable with Rare Disease Dramatically Improve with Common Gene Therapy

By

Andy Corbley

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Dec 9, 2025

A single-dose gene replacement therapy is found to transform the capabilities for movement in children over 2 years of age and teenagers with spinal muscular atrophy, according to research published in Nature Medicine.

The effects allowed these minors who could sit but not stand to move like they’ve never done before, including standing up, walking, and even climbing stairs.

The real-world results of this phase 3 clinical trial, involving 126 children and adolescents, could support an alternative to lifelong, repeat-dose treatments for people who couldn’t get access to corrective treatment before 2, when curing the condition is possible.

Spinal muscular atrophy is a rare genetic condition that causes muscle weakness and loss of movement over time. It develops because the body cannot make enough of a protein, called survival motor neuron, needed for healthy nerve cells.

Onasemnogene abeparvovec is a gene therapy that restores production of this missing protein in a single treatment. However, it is currently approved in the US and Europe only as a single intravenous treatment for children under 2 years of age. Therefore, those older than 2 years of age can receive treatments only to slow the disease, and these must be taken regularly, either by injection or orally.

The financial burden for patients and their families is immense, with average 5-year inpatient costs of $116,000, and outpatient costs of $55,000. Around 9,000 people live with spinal muscular atrophy in the USA.

Lead author Richard Finkel at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Tennessee and colleagues assessed the safety and efficacy of a single dose of the same gene therapy—onasemnogene abeparvovec delivered—directly into the spinal fluid of children older than 2 years of age with spinal muscular atrophy.

The year-long trial involved 126 children and adolescents between 2 and 18 years of age who were able to sit but had never walked on their own. The participants were randomly assigned to receive either the gene therapy (75 participants) or a placebo (51 participants). Those who received the active therapy achieved a significantly greater improvement in motor function scores on a validated test (which identified gains in 33 specific skills, such as moving from a lying into a sitting position, walking, and climbing stairs) compared with those who did not.

GENE THERPAIES TO THE RESCUE:

Side effects were similar in both groups and were generally manageable, and the only substantial weakness in the trial was that it lasted 12 months. Longer-term follow-ups would be necessary to establish safety and efficacy.

The findings suggest that the only treatment for spinal muscular atrophy is, in fact, effective in participants older than 2 years of age, but only when delivered directly into the spinal fluid.

Dr. Finkel and his colleagues recommend broadening access to this gene therapy for spinal muscular atrophy to patients beyond infancy, addressing an unmet need in older children and adolescents.

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Scientists Document Over 16,000 Footprints in the World’s Most Extensive Dinosaur Tracksite

By

Andy Corbley

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Dec 9, 2025

The Carreras Pampas trackways - credit, Raúl Esperante

In Bolivia, the largest number of dinosaur footprints ever recorded in a single spot is yielding fascinating insight on how these prehistoric animals moved in a way that bones just can’t.

16,600 footprints, forming dozens of “trackways,” have been so far documented on what would have been the muddy floor of a waterway along what is now the coastline in Bolivia’s Carreras Pampas.

If a skeleton shows what a dinosaur could do, tracks show what they actually did; and while bones may be transported from the location of death through environmental events, a footprint provides perfect evidence of where exactly a dinosaur was at a given time.

These and other aspects of the tracks are why this site in the Torotoro National Park in Bolivia has paleontologists so excited.

The tracks were made by theropods, the bipedal meat-eating dinosaurs that included T. rex. Some were isolated, some moved back and forth, some were made while the animals were swimming or wading, and yet more may show theropods moving in groups.

“Everywhere you look on that rock layer at the site, there are dinosaur tracks,” said study coauthor Dr. Jeremy McLarty, an associate professor of biology and director of the Dinosaur Science Museum and Research Center at Southwestern Adventist University in Texas.

Speaking with CNN, Dr. McLarty said that most of the tracks were traveling north-northwest or southeast, had been made over a short period of time, and may have been part of a long stretch of open country used by these animals in migratory routes to as far south as Argentina.

The tracks can show so much about the animal that made them. The size of the prints can estimate the size of the theropod, while the space between prints can suggest the speed of their movement. As a trackway turns and bends, researchers can estimate the hip flexibility of the dinosaur, while traces of a tail dragging behind or the individual impression of each toe shows various gaits that might infer an injury, a posture, or the type of terrain that was present when the tracks were made.

Of their age, Dr. McLarty and his team estimate they were made between 100 and 66 million years ago at the end of the Cretaceous Period.

MORE DINOSAUR TRACKWAYS:

Several paleontologists spoke with CNN who weren’t involved in the trackway analysis, published in PLOS One, and they expressed their supreme eagerness to learn more about the various theropod species which made the imprints, some of which could have been as short as two-feet tall at the hip, while others might have been three-feet tall.

“Tracks don’t move,” McLarty said. “When you visit Carreras Pampas, you know you are standing where a dinosaur walked.”

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Plant-Based 3D-Printed Surfboards ‘Sensational’ to Ride While Halting Microplastic Pollution

By

Andy Corbley

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Dec 9, 2025

Hunters and poachers have historically made some of the best conservationists—they know the animals, they know their environment.

In that vein, who better to advocate for protecting the ocean than those who have felt its power and seen its beauty over and over and over again?

Surfers are lining up to try out a Swellcycle board, a new line of bespoke, 3D-printed surfboards made from a biodegradable plant material with almost no waste.

Regular surfboards are made from blocks of petroleum-based foam, manufactured from fossil fuels. Craftsmen and board designers then cut, shave, and sand away the foam to shape the board, throwing some 40% of the block’s original weight in the landfill.

Against the rigors of the sand and sea, those blocks of foam begin to wear away, shedding microplastics into the ocean and its life.

“This is the future, I think, of surfing,” said big wave surfer Tyler James, a Swellcycle ambassador, to CBS News Bay Area, which attended a Swellcycle demonstration and test day at a famous surf spot called Steamer Lane.

“It’s so important for surfers to understand that if we want to keep surfing, that we got to care about our oceans, we got to care about the process that’s making our boards.”

The company was founded by Patricio Guerrero, and uses various feedstocks like corn and sugarcane to produce a malleable material called polylactic acid. This is excreted through a 3D printer into a latticework that’s then laminated with a 30% degradable epoxy, producing a semi-hollow surfboard that’s more durable than foam.

MORE SURFING STORIES: Bite-Proof Wetsuit Fabric Almost Entirely Prevents Shark Bite Flesh Wounds

“They’re really fast, they’re really fun,” said surfer Keaton Mayo, who tested a Swellcycle board at a recent test day. “They’re not your traditional board. It was a blast.”

“I thought it was sensational,” said another surfer, named Sam.

3D-PRINTED NEWS: The World’s Largest 3D Printer Is Building Cozy Homes from Wood

Swellcycle works with popular surfboard designers like Spina, Iconoclast, and Tigre Bona, uses almost only solar energy to power its Santa Cruz factory, and reuses the very small amount extra material leftover from the boardmaking process.

The company regularly does demonstration days, the dates for which can be gleaned by following the firm’s Instagram page.

WATCH the story below from CBS News…

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“You don’t do the right thing once in a while; you do them right all of the time.” – Vince Lombardi

Quote of the Day

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Good News Network

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Dec 9, 2025

Quote of the Day: “You don’t do the right thing once in a while; you do them right all of the time.” – Vince Lombardi

Image by: Hugo Jones

With a new inspirational quote every day, atop the perfect photo—collected and archived on our Quote of the Day page—why not bookmark GNN.org for a daily uplift?

Good News in History, December 9

This Day In History

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Good News Network

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Dec 9, 2025

60 years ago today, A Charlie Brown Christmas premiered on American television. The first animated special based on the Peanuts comic strip by Charles Schulz, it was produced on a small budget in six months, using all child actors. The program’s lack of a laugh track (a staple in TV animation, until that day), in addition to its tone, pacing, and unorthodox jazz soundtrack by pianist Vince Guaraldi, led both the producers and the network to predict the project would be a disaster. But the holiday special won an Emmy and a Peabody and became a beloved annual family broadcast tradition. WATCH the iconic dance number, and read the story’s plot… (1965)

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Nearly 3x More Encounters With Endangered Sumatran Tigers in Camera Trap Photos Than in Past Years

By

Andy Corbley

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Dec 8, 2025

a resident female Sumatran tiger grooming one of her two large male cubs in October 2023. Credit Figel et al., 2025, BKSDA-Aceh, DLHK. — A resident female Sumatran tiger grooming one of her two large male cubs in October 2023 - credit, Figel et al., 2025, BKSDA-Aceh, DLHK.

Tigers don’t roam across Asia as they used to, but on one island in Indonesia a population of Critically Endangered Sumatran tigers may have found a habitat that supplies them with enough space, intact forests, and prey to thrive and raise their young.

To examine tiger population densities, researchers working alongside local rangers installed infrared cameras in forests outside the national park system. Their work, in collaboration with the government of Aceh province, resulted in almost three times more images being taken and individual tigers being identified than during previous surveys.

Dedicated protection efforts are the main reason for tigers’ persistence in this ecosystem, which highlights the necessity of such measures, the team said, even though the survey was conducted in provincial forests that reserve less support and smaller budgets than national parks.

Today, tigers occupy just 5 to 10% of their historical habitats. But on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, an important population of critically endangered Sumatran tigers may persevere,

Using infrared cameras, researchers working on the island, have set out to estimate sex-specific population densities and tigers’ movements during three surveys, the results of which were published in a new Frontiers in Conservation Science study.

“We documented a robust tiger population, apparently among the healthiest on the island,” said Dr. Joe Figel, a conservation biologist, who works with Indonesian wildlife and forestry agencies. “For those on the ground, the onus now falls on us to double down and adequately protect them.”

In many ways, the Leuser ecosystem is ideal habitat for Sumatran tigers. Three times the size of Yellowstone National Park, it is the largest contiguous tiger habitat remaining in Sumatra. It’s made up of lowland, hill, and montane forests, of which 44% are classified as intact forest landscape. “It’s also more thoroughly patrolled by rangers than nearly any other place on the island,” Figel said.

Working with local collaborators from communities at the edges of the study area, the team put up cameras in the northern stretches of Leuser, located in Aceh province, and kept them there for three monitoring periods: 34 cameras were installed during March to May 2023, 59 cameras between June and December 2023, and 74 cameras between May and November of 2024.

During the monitoring periods, the team captured a total of 282 sufficiently clear images of Sumatran tigers to allow for the identification of individuals. Analyzing stripe patterns, the team identified 27 individuals from camera-trap images, including 14 females, 12 males, and one tiger of unknown sex.

– credit Figel et al. 2025, BKSDA-Aceh, DLHK.

The relatively high number of tigers suggests there is adequate prey in the area to support tiger presence. Over the study period, female and male individuals were photographed an average of 14 and 16 times, respectively. High densities of female tigers indicate a healthy tiger social system and high-quality habitats, where they can raise about three litters of cubs over a decade.

During the six-month session in 2023, three different sets of cubs were documented. Two tiger brothers photographed together as cubs were later spotted individually as adults.

Inside the Leuser ecosystem lies Gunung Leuser Nation Park, however, the present study was conducted in forests provincially protected by the Aceh government. In Indonesia, provincially protected forests receive far fewer resources than national parks, which are supported and managed by the central government.

MORE INDONEWS: Orangutan Released After 9 Years of Intensive Rehabilitation in Nonprofit’s ‘Jungle School’

The camera traps placed by Figel and colleagues snapped nearly three times as many tiger images as during previous 90-day surveys at other sites in Sumatra, and the team was able to identify many more individuals than reported in earlier studies. Only three previous surveys – all carried out in protected national parks – documented more than 10 tigers in a single survey. Higher tiger density estimates than reported in the present study were only documented in an intensive protection zone in southern Sumatra.

The current study also provides valuable insights for future monitoring of tigers, the team said. The data on tiger movement collected here could, for example, inform survey protocols and optimal camera spacing.

TIGER TAKES: Two Tigers Couldn’t Be Apart–A Love Story Born of Restoring Big Cats in Russia After 50 Years

The high numbers of tiger sightings reported here highlights a success story that is due to a multitude of factors, said the team. “The persistence of these habitats and prey populations are the main reasons for our findings.”

“Thanks to the work, activities, and support of government agencies, local Acehnese and Gayo communities, donors, and other researchers, Leuser has maintained important patches of lowland and hill forests where, in Sumatra, tiger prey densities reach their highest levels,” concluded Figel.

*This story originally appeared in Frontiers and was reprinted.

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Autonomous Montreal Metro Completed with Massive Cost Savings–Sets Example for Canada

By

Andy Corbley

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Dec 8, 2025

Cheap, efficient, new and exciting, Montreal’s new automated light rail transit system which recently opened is a major accomplishment for a country routinely criticized for its public transport.

Taras Grescoe is an expert in metropolitan rail systems around the world, and by his estimation, the Réseau Express Métropolitain (REM) should be a case study for the whole of North America.

As of November 2025, it consists of 19 stations spanning 50 kilometers (31 mi), connecting Downtown Montreal with the suburb of Brossard and the northwestern Montreal suburbs. The West Island branch will open in the second quarter of 2026 and the branch to the Montréal–Trudeau International Airport will open in 2027.

Trains on the network are fully automated and driverless, and the stations are completely enclosed and climate controlled, built with light-colored, locally-sourced timber and glass.

Innovations from train systems around the world have been incorporated into the REM network design. Like in Japan, the train cars feature heated seats. Like in China, safety doors mounted on the platforms reduce injuries from not minding the gap. Like in Europe, the trains draw power from overhead wires.

However, the nature of Montreal’s climate has seen its designers adopt distinctly Quebecoise features, including gas-powered track heaters to prevent the switches from freezing solid, and reinforced arms meant to smash icy buildup along the overhead wires.

But more than the actual construction and design of the train, it was the planning and execution of its construction that make the REM really stand out among what Grescoe described as a sorry state of transportation among major Canadian cities.

Costing CAD$170 million per kilometer to build, REM is about 21.5-times cheaper than New York’s long-overdue Second Avenue Subway, 4-times cheaper than Toronto’s Eglinton Crosstown light rail, and around 6-times cheaper than light rail systems being built in San Francisco and Los Angeles. REM is 5-times cheaper than a mere 5-station long extension of Montreal’s existing Blue Line underground.

The REM network, with the announced (solid line) and hinted (dotted line) route of the Taschereau REM added – credit CC 4.0.

The contractor on the project is CDPQ Infra, the construction arm of the Caisse de dépôt et placement, (CDP) the manager of Quebec’s massive public pension fund. While this is hardly an example of the free market at work, what having CDPQ in charge did was introduce just enough free market economics to change the game in terms of cost savings; it was simply to reintroduce risk.

CDPQ and CDP were financing the project with what in effect is Quebec’s social security system; cost overruns and failure, therefore, would be taken out of people’s retirement accounts. That might seem diabolical, but if the state is financing the project with tax money, public choice economics demonstrates that this introduces moral hazard into the financing equation—too many people have too few incentives to keep costs down.

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CDPQ began the cost savings by utilizing infrastructure such as bridges, existing rights of way, and highways to lay track along. This included the Champlain Bridge over the Saint Lawrence River, which was built some years ago with an empty central corridor for future transit options. It also built through the Mont-Royal Tunnel, and covered other corridors with elevated viaducts.

This lack of tunneling, bridge-building, and eminent domaining-away properties in the path of the railway line has meant that costs stayed down—to be expected, as it was in CDPQ’s interest from the start.

MORE QUEBEC NEWS: ‘We’re supposed to be good men’: Officer Buys Stranded Deaf Man Train Ticket to Get Home

CDPQ holds a 78% equity stake in the REM and will reap revenue from the service, paid out at the rate of 75 cents per kilometer per passenger, for 99 years. It was an investment by the pension plan for the future pensioners, and CDP expects to make 9% return-on-investment over the project’s life, which isn’t bad.

Most pensions funds around the world own some amount of US 30-year Treasury Bills, which at current rates garner 4.82%.

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Arctic Divers Reach Never-Before Explored Ocean Ridge Studded with Volcanoes

By

Andy Corbley

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Dec 8, 2025

dec34134639e755f71be1fbe2bba7a1f869915a6 — The submersible Fendouzhe being deployed off a Chinese icebreaker in the Arctic Ocean. Credit: Courtesy of the Fendouzhe Research Team

The submersible Fendouzhe being deployed off a Chinese icebreaker in the Arctic Ocean. Credit: Courtesy of the Fendouzhe Research Team

One of the most remote and unexplored parts of the planet has been visited by a submersible crewed by Chinese geophysicists and marine scientists for the first time ever.

Having been researched from the surface by Russian scientists, and the western side with robotic submersibles by a US-German team in 2001, no one has ever explored the eastern side of the undersea mountain chain called the Gakkel Ridge.

Stretching from Greenland to Siberia, this underwater ridge sits along a volcanic fault line where repeat volcanic eruptions create new sections of sea floor crust that spread away from the ridge slower than the growth of human fingernails.

On the western side of this ridge, which is easier to reach as it remains under open water, surveys found that it hosted ecosystems clustered around hydrothermal vents—ejections of gas from the volcanic plumbing below that host a bizarre and rich array of life where there’s virtually no light.

These ecosystems are hypothesized as one of the best places to look for signs of alien lifeforms on ocean worlds like the frozen Jovian moon of Europa.

The eastern side, however, has never been reached with a dive vehicle. This year, an expedition organized by the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Ministry of Natural Resources undertook a major endeavor to study the eastern side of the Gakkel Ridge.

It involved an icebreaker ship, as the eastern ridge is located where the sea ice can remain permanent, and a scientific submersible with room for 3 called Fendouzhe. Together the team completed more than 40 dives, including one deeper than 14,000 feet (5,277 meters).

“It’s the last piece of the puzzle,” says Xiaoxia Huang, a marine geophysicist at the Institute of Deep-Sea Science and Engineering in Sanya, China, and the expedition’s chief scientist, in an interview with Nature.

DEEP SEA DIVES: Bizarre Deep-Sea Creature – a ‘Death Ball’ Sponge – Discovered in One of the Most Remote Corners of the Planet

The dive was anything but straightforward. Floating sea ice meant that depending on how far Fendouzhe traveled, it might not be able to surface again. The research icebreaker vessel had to transport it to open areas, and at certain dive depths, the submersible had to use sonar to scan for holes in the ice to make sure it had an escape route. On one occasion the icebreaker had to clear ice to make an opening for the submersible to come up again.

“To be honest, I was never afraid,” Huang said. “It’s really a privilege to have such an opportunity” to study the deep sea in person.

THE FAR CORNERS OF THE WORLD: Potential New Source for Drugs to Fight Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria Found Deep in Arctic Ocean

They targeted geologically interesting areas such as seamounts and cliff faces, while studying a variety of fish and deep sea species, which Huang said were “fascinating” to observe—living as they were in the dark, the cold, the pressure and the rocks.

The samples of the rocks, animals, and water recovered by Fendouzhe are awaiting analysis, and the team were tight-lipped about whether they encountered parallel regions of hydrothermal vents as were discovered on the western ridge.

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