A woman given something like a terminal prognosis has responded with a simple request for what might be her last Christmas: a Christmas card.
Clare Jones from Swansea, Wales, was told her bowel cancer was no longer responding to chemotherapy. The mother of 3, who was diagnosed in 2022, described herself as a “simple person” who likes simple things, and asked through a post on Facebook for anyone filling out their Christmas cards to “pop one” in the mail for her too.
The response was more than she could have imagined. Her mail slot has been assaulted by hundreds of Christmas cards, containing show and movie tickets, vouchers for a camping holiday, chocolates and more.
“There has just been so much to read,” Jones told the BBC, adding, “the love has been amazing… genuine love.”
The original post was something she admitted she was hesitant to do—the 47-year-old was not sure if it would come off as “cheeky.” It was shared on Facebook over 10,000 times, and Jones plans to read each one of the hundreds of cards all while collecting the postage stamps and mailing them to a cancer charity in the UK that fundraises by reselling them.
“I don’t feel ill, I feel okay. But I’m not going to feel this way for much longer,” Jones said, per the BBC. “I have many people around me who care for me. If love could cure cancer, I would be cured.”
While the first few dozen comments on the Facebook post were from friends and family, scrolling down far enough witnesses a change of tone, with many beginning with “Even though I don’t know you…”
It’s a testament to the human spirit around the holidays. The Cambrian Flying Club offered a 30 minute flight, free of charge, while others said they’d be sending various gifts, and one offered a free Reiki session.
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On Friday, a Georgia fire department undertook an unusual Christmas tradition.
In place of decking the halls, the men and women of the Sandy Springs Fire Department (SSFD) link up with Santa, and rappel down the walls of Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta to surprise infirm kids who can’t leave their rooms.
The event is now in its third year, and this time they brought along Superman and Spiderman to ensure it was a moment the children would never forget.
In 2018, the department thought about doing something that would inspire the pediatric patients, since Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta serves the whole city, but was located so close to their fire station. Rappelling from the rooftop needed a bit of planning, but fortunately Department Section Chief Kyle Sweeney got in touch with the right people, and in 2022, it finally got off the ground, or rather, off the roof.
“It’s a simple interaction, but it has a huge impact,” Sweeney told GNN in an emailed statement.
“For many of us, it’s one of the most rewarding things we get to do all year. Firefighters are used to showing up on people’s worst days, so having the opportunity to bring joy instead is incredibly powerful. It reminds us why we chose this career in the first place.”
One of the team, Cody Minter, took part for the first time this year. His son was diagnosed with cancer in 2024, and though his treatment at the hospital mercifully didn’t last long enough for the family to see the event, they got to see the impact it had on the little patients when they saw Santa, or a local sports mascot, a firefighter, or national guardsmen, appear outside the window.
“Hearing all the stories about it and the impact and joy it brought to the children made me want to be a part of this event with SSFD,” Minter told GNN. “The amazing team at the Children’s hospital we like to call family inspired me to do more. Their dedication and the love they show do not go unnoticed. It inspired me to give back in any way I can.”
On December 19th, heroes real and mythical alike latched the ropes onto their harnesses and descended to the glass windows of the children’s rooms, waving, high-fiving through the glass.
Atlanta was fortunately far south enough so as not to bother Superman there in his tights on the windy rooftop—though he could have asked the impeccably-dressed Santa Claus for his warm winter coat.
“Those moments are unforgettable,” Sweeney said after the event. “You can see the surprise turn into excitement almost instantly. The high fives through the glass, the smiles, and the laughter make all the effort worth it.”
“One of the most memorable parts is bringing Santa along and walking through the hospital afterward to deliver gifts. Many of the gifts are donated by Sandy Springs citizens, which makes it even more special.”
“Over the past three years, seeing this event grow with support from organizations like the Georgia State Fire Marshal’s Office, the Georgia Sprinkler Association, Cherokee Fire Department, Atlanta Fire Department, Georgia Power, Mileshko Photography, The Atlanta Braves. The Atlanta Falcons, and The Atlanta Hawks has been incredible. Every year, it becomes more meaningful, and every year, the reactions from the kids remind us that even small moments can make a lasting difference.”
WATCH a bit of the action below…
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The small and uninhabited islet of Prickly Pear East is not what you might describe as a romantic holiday destination, but for the Lesser Antillean iguana, it has proved to be just that.
Thanks to an ambitious program of cross-Caribbean matchmaking, a new population has been successfully established on the island, with numbers now rapidly increasing.
The Lesser Antillean iguana is a Critically-Endangered species which has disappeared from much of its range across the Eastern Caribbean. The regional population of these lizards is less than 20,000 adults and falling.
Amongst the greatest threats are invasive alien species, particularly the common green or striped-tailed iguana, an imposing lizard that grows up to two meters long, that breeds fast, and that outcompetes the Lesser Antillean iguana.
Researchers have also linked the alien iguanas to the spread of diseases that debilitate and kill the native reptiles. In 2016, with the invasive iguanas multiplying rapidly across the main island of Anguilla, conservationists from the Anguilla National Trust began translocating the last Lesser Antillean iguanas from the mainland—23 in total—to an alien-free islet, Prickly Pear East.
Realizing that such a small population could suffer from inbreeding, the conservation team reached out to the Forestry, Wildlife & Parks Division in Dominica to request some young Lesser Antillean iguanas from Dominica to boost the genetic diversity of the iguanas on Prickly Pear East. The Government of Dominica agreed, and permits were secured.
10 young iguanas from Dominica, chaperoned by their supporting crew of conservationists, boarded a small plane in early 2021 and jetted off to Anguilla to find a mate. The love-hopeful iguanas were released on Prickly Pear East to start their new life and help save their species.
Less than 5 years on, new survey data has revealed that the efforts are paying off, with more than 300 adults and adolescents counted on Prickly Pear East. The island now represents one of only five sites in the world where Lesser Antillean Iguanas are thriving, safe from invasive alien iguanas.
“Thanks to the kind assistance from our friends in Dominica, as well as funding from the UK Government through Darwin Plus, the Lesser Antillean iguana is making a comeback in Anguilla,” said Jenny Daltry, Caribbean Alliance Director, Fauna & Flora and Re:wild. “Prickly Pear East has become a beacon of hope for these gorgeous lizards, and proves that when we give native wildlife the chance, they know what to do!”
With hopes of building on this success, a second reintroduction site for Lesser Antillean iguanas has been established by the Anguilla National Trust on mainland Anguilla with support from Fauna & Flora and Re:wild. Fountain National Park has been encircled by a pest-resistant fence to exclude harmful invasive species, including cats, dogs and common green iguanas. It is hoped that Lesser Antillean iguanas will be reintroduced to this sanctuary in 2026, with some of the founders to be translocated from Prickly Pear East.
The engagement of local communities has been essential to the success of this project from the outset. When the Anguilla National Trust first started its iguana conservation work, Anguillan residents assisted by reporting iguana sightings, allowing the field team to target their search efforts. Local volunteers also helped to care for the iguanas while they were being held in captivity for genetic testing pre-release, and they supported with the translocations in 2016 and 2021, alongside additional volunteers from Dominica.
“This is a love story not just of iguanas trying to re-establish their population, but of Anguilla’s people working to restore a part of our natural heritage,” said Farah Mukhida, Executive Director at the Anguilla National Trust.
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Quote of the Day: “Man becomes man only by his intelligence, but he is man only by his heart.” – Henri Frederic Amiel
Image by: Mayur-gala
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?
39 years ago today, The Voyager landed after 9 days, becoming the first airplane to fly non-stop around the world without refueling—setting a world record that remains unchallenged today. It was envisioned and sketched on the back of a napkin by brothers Dick and Burt Rutan, of the Rutan Aircraft Factory, and Dick’s girlfriend Jeana Yeager at lunch in 1981. READ more… (1986)
Burrowing bees generally prefer to make their nests in the open, but some 20,000 years ago their ancestors lived in a cave where they used the bones of prey animals rather than soft soil.
The groundbreaking discovery was made in a Caribbean cave that narrowly escaped being turned into someone’s toilet.
The island of Hispaniola, divided between Haiti and the Dominican Republic, is dotted with limestone caves. Evidence, including owl bones and eggshells, suggest that giant ancestors of the modern barn owl lived in the cave through many successive generations.
The researchers say that the owls would sometimes cough up pellets containing the bones of their prey, which landed on the cave floor. The bees would then use the bones’ empty tooth sockets as nests, according to study published in the journal Royal Society Open Science.
The American research team that published the study believe a lack of topsoil outside the cave and an abundance of accumulated silt within led to the anomaly.
Cueva de Mono in the southern Dominican Republic is a deposit of many fossils, and the study’s lead author Dr. Lazaro Viñola-López, of the Field Museum in Chicago, repeatedly explored the cave looking for them.
“If you go in at night, you see the eyes of the tarantulas that live inside,” he told the museum’s press. “But once you walk down a 10 meter-long tunnel underground, you start finding the fossils.”
There were multiple layers of fossils, separated by carbonate layers resulting from rainy periods in the distant past. Many of the fossils belonged to rodents, but there were also bones from sloths, birds, and reptiles, amounting to more than 50 different species.
Despite the scientific sensitivity and value, the team one day discovered, having studied the cave for several years, that a local had built a house near the opening and was preparing to use the cave as his septic tank.
The resident’s plans were thwarted, but the scientists decided they weren’t going to wait around for any other wiseguys to damage the layers of paleontological history.
“We had to go on a rescue mission and get as many fossils out as possible, and we got a lot of them,” said Dr. Viñola-López. “We think that this was a cave where owls lived for many generations, maybe for hundreds or thousands of years.”
“We find fossils of the animals that they ate, fossils from the owls themselves, and even some turtles and crocodiles who might have fallen into the cave.”
The discovery of the bees occurred when Viñola-López, who was primarily interested in the bones from the mammals that the owls ate, noticed that in the empty tooth sockets of the mammal jaws, the sediment didn’t look like it had just randomly accrued.
“I was like, ‘Okay, there’s something weird here.’ It reminded me of the wasp nest.”
Several years earlier, a paleontologist had shown him the ancient remains of wasp cocoons which looked a lot like smooth dirt lining the tooth sockets from the cave fossils.
– credit, Lazaro Viñola López via SWNS
To better examine the potential insect nests present in the cave fossils, Dr. Viñola-López and his colleagues CT scanned the bones, X-raying the specimens from enough angles that they could produce 3D pictures of the compacted dirt inside the tooth sockets without destroying the fossils or disturbing the sediment.
The shapes and structures of the sediment looked just like the mud nests created by some bee species today. The researchers believe that the bees mixed their saliva with dirt to make tiny individual nests for their eggs.
“It’s possible that they belonged to a species that’s still alive today—there’s very little known about the ecology of many of the bees on these islands,” he said. “But we know that a lot of the animals whose bones are preserved in the cave are now extinct, so the bees that created these nests might be from a species that has died out.”
Viñola-López said it’s a perfect example of how bees can surprise you.
“Even if you’re looking primarily for fossils of larger, vertebrate animals, you should keep an eye out for trace fossils that can tell you about invertebrates like insects. Knowing about insects can tell you a lot about a whole ecosystem, so you have to pay attention to that part of the story.”
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A mock-up design of Samsung SDI's solid-state battery - credit, Samsung, released
A mock-up design of Samsung SDI’s solid-state battery – credit, Samsung, released
In late October, Samsung announced that it was preparing to take its long-anticipated solid-state batteries to market with a trilateral agreement between itself, BMW, and American battery expert Solid Power.
It was January of last year that industry outlets began to get some of the promises that all-solid-state batteries (ASSBs) developed by Samsung SDI would bring. With an energy density of 500 watt-hours per kilogram, they’re twice as dense as conventional lithium-ion batteries.
Samsung claimed they were smaller, lighter, and safer, capable of driving 600 miles, and charging within 9 minutes. Typically, a lithium-ion battery pack in a modern EV charges from 10% to 80% in around 45 minutes, and has a limit of around 300 miles of range.
“Samsung SDI’s preparations for mass-producing next-generation products of various form factors such as an all-solid-state battery are well underway as we are set to lead the global battery market with our unrivaled ‘super-gap’ technology,” said Samsung SDI CEO Yoon-ho Choi.
ASSB cells use solid electrolyte instead of liquid electrolyte found in a lithium-ion battery. They offer superior safety, as they aren’t flammable, and last for 20 years, or 2,000 charge-discharges, equating to 1.2 million miles.
Under the trilateral agreement, Samsung will supply ASSB cells featuring the solid electrolyte developed by Solid Power to the German automotive group BMW, which will then develop modules and packs for ASSB cells to fit into their next-generation evaluation vehicles, expected in late 2026.
Metal Tech News reported in January that ASSBs will also debut in some smaller Samsung devices during 2026, including the Galaxy Ring fitness tracker, as a way of testing the new power supplies in the real world before incorporating them into smartphones, laptops, and other devices.
Samsung’s ASSBs use a silver-carbon layer as the anode and a nickel-manganese-cobalt material for the cathode. Silver is not only the most electrically conductive metal available, it’s also substantially more plentiful in the Earth’s crust than lithium.
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Vandalur Lake in Chennai before EFI restored it (top) and after (bottom) - credit, EFI, taken as screengrabs.
Vandalur Lake in Chennai before EFI restored it (top) and after (bottom) – credit, EFI, taken as screengrabs.
Recently, an Indian environmentalist and editor was invited to share his incredible work restoring hundreds of natural and man-made water sources all across India with a unique style of landscape engineering.
His nonprofit has cleaned and reshaped more than 600 bodies of water either to a state of nature or to a clean and functioning source for human use.
Often incorporating letters and designs made of soil in the middle of reservoirs, ponds, and spillways, their unnatural shapes fulfil very natural processes like cycling water to prevent stagnation and offering birds firm ground to nest on.
The Environmentalist Foundation of India (EFI) works hard to help water sources big or small, natural or manmade, not only because they often bear the brunt of India’s pollution problem, but because for millennia, water has been a sacred embodiment of spiritual and physical energy for the subcontinent and her people.
It’s easy to convince a nation which worships a river that all water is sacred—necessary to sustain the country’s huge population, rich agriculture, and priceless wildlands.
“Water and nature worship has been an integral part of our cultural evolution,” EFI’s founder, Arun Krishnamurthy, tells CNN.
“We understood that without water, there’s no life. For us, water is God, and water means energy, and thanking water is what most and all celebrations are about.”
EFI has successfully cleaned and restored nearly 75 water bodies just in and around Chennai, the capital of Tamil Nadu—1 of 19 Indian states EFI has worked in.
Their work incorporates a number of landscape engineering methods, like shallow-shored embankments to allow animals to easily descend to the river to drink without causing erosion. Recharge boxes are short innocuous pits dug into the landscape surrounding the water body to catch and funnel rainwater into the underground water table.
Islands are a common feature in the restored water bodies, many of which are shaped like the letter G, or like the constellation Pisces, or as a island surrounded by a moat upon an island in a lake. These attract nesting birds and help channel water from different sectors of the lake, which not only helps to oxygenate the water but prevent it from becoming too stagnant.
“How was the embankment laid? Where was the palm tree planted? How was the canal cut?” Krishnamurthy said, explaining how many of the strategies were taken from their ancestors’ designs. “So taking lessons from the past, adapting it to the present-day challenges is what we are implementing.”
Many of the restoration projects involve the clearing of both waterborne and bankside weeds, which often clump up in horrendous tangles that require hydraulic excavators. Desilting—the removal of the layers of topsoil and dust runoff from nearby roads and agricultural fields comes next, before a double embankment is dug and native vegetation planted around the water body.
This was how the 76-acre Vandalur Lake along the southern beltway road of the Chennai metropolis was restored to a natural paradise of green and blue. The layers of silt at the bottom led to a much lower water infiltration rate into the ground. This lack of water control saw flooding in the nearby towns, and because of the pollution in the lake, the floods brought many waterborne diseases.
That’s just one of 600 mini tragedies of the commons that EFI has helped relieve.
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Bingham Canyon Mine in Utah, one of the world's largest mines, and supplier of half of US copper - Eric Prado Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0,
Bingham Canyon Mine in Utah, one of the world’s largest mines, and supplier of half of US copper – Eric Prado Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0,
Below the soil of a mining concession in Utah, a recent drill survey has discovered what might be North America’s largest-known deposit of so-called “critical minerals.”
Turning up evidence of elements like gallium, lithium, tungsten, and vanadium, the land is already permitted for mining, and extraction work would benefit from existing nearby infrastructure, an exploratory company executive said.
Also referred to as “rare-earth” minerals/elements or “battery metals,” these are periodic table bedfellows that power the highest forms of tech in society, from the computer chips capable of running large AI systems, to the magnets inside nuclear fusion reactors. They’re also critical for batteries in EVs and renewable energy systems like storage and solar panel.
Recently becoming all the rage in discussions about supply-chain independence, critical minerals are found all over the world, but only certain markets have spent the last 20-30 years investing in the infrastructure needed to extract and refine them at high levels.
Ionic Mineral Technologies—also known as Ionic MT—published the results of a drilling survey undertaken in their 4,000-acre Silicon Ridge project in Utah, finding substantial mineralization of a full spectrum of rare-earth elements.
That spectrum appears to be embedded in a geologic feature similar to the one which China has leveraged to become the world’s largest producer of several critical minerals—namely, a softer clay system from which the minerals are easier to extract than hard rock.
Andre Zeitoun, founder and CEO of Ionic MT, calls the discovery a “watershed moment” for America’s resource independence.
“For the first time, we have a domestic, shovel-ready source for a full spectrum of critical minerals, all extractable with a faster, cleaner process than traditional hard rock mining and extraction,” he said in a press release dated to December 12th.
Zeitoun expects a “rapid timeline to commercia production,” as the drill sites on Silicon Ridge sit just a few miles from the 74,000-square-foot processing facility in Provo, where the company is located and where the ores would be processed for sale.
Further, being that the land is already permitted for mining, the treasured wider Utah landscape would be under little additional threat, and existing infrastructure like roads, power lines, and water bodies are all present from previous operations.
The US has been expanding federal involvement in critical minerals under the current Administration, with trade agreements for cobalt and other elements signed with the Democratic Republic of the Congo in conjunction with an attempted peace negotiation between the country’s long-time warring factions.
Refinery capacity—concentrated enormously in China—is being subsidized, and even shares of certain mining operations have been directly purchased by various departments such as Commerce and Energy.
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Quote of the Day: “Civilization began the first time an angry person cast a word instead of a rock.” – Sigmund Freud
Image by: Timothy Eberly
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?
165 years ago today, Giacomo Puccini was born. Considered as the greatest composer of Italian opera in history alongside or perhaps just behind Verdi, his work includes many of the most-performed spectacles in Italian opera, including La Boheme, Tosca, Turandot, and Madame Butterfly. Often regarded as a romanticist who honored 18th-century Italian tradition, Puccini would go on to incorporate different themes and mechanisms into his music, not least of which was the Chinese motifs in Turandot. READ more… (1858)
A fussy five-year-old girl has overcome her phobia of vegetables and now loves Brussels sprouts–just in time for her mother’s Christmas dinner.
Emie Williams would scream and cry if her mom, Hayley, tried to give her anything except crackers, french fries, or other beige-colored foods.
It meant family meals were fraught with conflict—Emie wanting different food and refusing to even taste hot dinners.
“She’d just refuse to eat any vegetable or any meat. We took her for check ups and health visits for advice but they just said give her what she wants because it’s probably a phase.”
But Hayley suspected that she may have ARFID (Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder), believing she had “all the signs”.
Emie’s energy levels dipped, and she would get really tired at the end of the day.
“I explained (to doctors) that if I don’t give her what she wanted then she wouldn’t eat.”
Last month, Emie had a routine health check-up and a blood test revealed she had erratic sugar levels, so Hayley and her husband took their daughter to the hospital where doctors warned them Emie was in danger of developing diabetes unless she changed her diet.
In desperation, Hayley decided to take drastic action and contacted David Kilmurry, who specializes in obsessive eating conditions.
“We were pretty desperate when we contacted David but the results have been amazing,” the mother-of-3 from Coventry, England, told the SWNS news agency.
After a series of two-hour sessions, Emie now counts 30 foods that she willingly eats. Her favorite is Brussel sprouts, which she even enjoys raw.
Emie Williams eating her new favorite food, Brussel sprouts – SWNS
Due to her age, Emie was not hypnotized, but David, a cognitive behavioral hypnotherapist, sat with the youngster and gradually encouraged her to try different foods.
Hayley attended all the sessions and just watched Kilmurry at work.
“He’d do magic tricks and talk to Emie to gain her trust, and then brought out different foods.
“Slowly, she tried more and more until she was really enjoying apples and oranges.
“She’s really taken with Brussel sprouts, especially eating them raw. I can’t wait to see her enjoying her first ever Christmas dinner with all the trimmings.”
Dropping an F-bomb can boost your performance by helping you feel stronger, more focused, and disinhibited, say scientists.
Most who curse like a sailor know that letting out a swear word in a moment of frustration can feel good.
Now, new research by psychologists suggests that it really can be good for your well-being.
The study, published in the journal American Psychologist, shows that swearing can boost people’s physical performance by helping them overcome their inhibitions and pushing themselves harder in strength and endurance tests.
“In many situations, people hold themselves back—consciously or unconsciously—from using their full strength,” said study author Dr. Richard Stephens, of Keele University in Staffordshire, England.
“Swearing is an easily available way to help yourself feel focused, confident and less distracted, and ‘go for it’ a little more.”
Previous research by Dr. Stephens and his colleagues found that when people swear, they perform better on many physical challenges—including how long they can keep their hand in ice water and how long they can support their bodyweight during a chair push-up exercise.
“That is now a well-replicated, reliable finding,” said Stephens. “But the question is, how is swearing helping us? What’s the psychological mechanism?”
Dr. Stephens and his colleagues believed that it might be that swearing puts people in a ‘disinhibited’ state of mind.
“By swearing, we throw off social constraint and allow ourselves to push harder in different situations.”
To test the theory, the research team conducted two experiments with 192 total participants.
In each, they asked participants to repeat either a swear word of their choice, or a neutral word, every two seconds while doing a chair push-up.
After completing the chair pushup challenge, participants answered questions about their mental state during the task.
The questions included measures of different mental states linked to disinhibition, including how much positive emotion participants felt, how funny they found the situation, how distracted they felt, and how self-confident they felt.
The questions also included a measure of psychological “flow”, a state in which people become immersed in an activity in a pleasant, focused way.
Overall, and confirming earlier research, the team found that participants who swore during the chair push-up task were able to support their bodyweight “significantly” longer than those who repeated a neutral word.
Combining the results of the two experiments as well as a previous experiment in an earlier study, they also found that the difference could be explained by increases in participants’ reports of psychological flow, distraction and self-confidence—all important aspects of disinhibition.
“These findings help explain why swearing is so commonplace.
“Swearing is literally a calorie neutral, drug free, low cost, readily available tool at our disposal for when we need a boost in performance.”
Stephens and his colleagues plan to explore whether the boost from swearing works in any context where success depends on overcoming hesitancy.
Study co-author, Professor Nicholas Washmuth of the University of Alabama, added: “Our labs are now studying how swearing influences public speaking and romantic approach behaviors, two situations where people tend to hesitate or second-guess themselves.”
EXPLAIN YOUR BEHAVIOR By Sharing This on Social Media With Other Potty-Mouthed Friends…
First cedar tree on Christmas Tree Lane – Courtesy of Belmont Nursery in Fresno, CA
First cedar tree on Christmas Tree Lane – Courtesy of Belmont Nursery in Fresno, CA
Modern science has mixed with Christmas magic to safeguard the legacy of a 100-year-old holiday tradition in Fresno, California.
The story of Christmas Tree Lane began in 1920 as a way to transform a family tragedy into something much brighter.
According to a historical marker, in June of 1919, 14-year-old William “Billy” Winning died on his family’s half-acre homestead in a tragic machinery accident. In memory of him, Billy’s mother, Mae, decorated a deodar cedar tree in front of the family’s two-story home to honor the boy who always loved Christmas.
The tribute quickly gained considerable attention in an era when few families could afford to decorate with electric lights. As the years passed, other neighbors near the home on Van Ness Boulevard also decorated trees outside their homes in a sign of solidarity and support.
And the movement kept growing. By the 1920s, the number of decorated homes had reached 17 and in the 1930s —with the Great Depression still raging—the abundance of displays had earned the two-mile stretch a nickname: “Christmas Tree Lane.”
Christmas Tree Lane historical marker – Photographed by Lester J. Letson
Today, it attracts 100,000 visitors each year and continues to receive consistent support from community donations. (See the video below that shows the lights display…)
However, in recent years, concern started growing on Christmas Tree Lane. The original tree, decorated in honor of Billy Winning, looked sickly.
The new homeowners kept nurturing the tree as best they could, but something more drastic had to be done. It wasn’t going to make it on its own.
“Three or four years ago we recognized that one of the original trees on Christmas Tree Lane was dying,” Jon Reelhorn, owner of Belmont Nursery told KMPH-TV News in an interview.
The folks at the nursery were asked, ‘can we clone the tree’.
That’s when modern science and the Christmas spirit came together. Cuttings from the original tree were sent to a drafter in Oregon who offered to make a clone of the memorial cedar for free.
Eighty small genetic clones were created from the original tree’s profile. Those saplings were then carefully grown in pots, cared for over the next 3-4 years by the Belmont Nursery in Fresno.
Cloned cedar trees – Courtesy of Belmont Nursery in Fresno FB page
“We are honored to be part of preserving this beautiful piece of our community’s history,” Belmont Nursery said in a Facebook post this year.
The nursery then delivered the cloned cedar saplings to their new home on Christmas Tree Lane, which is managed by the Fig Garden Homeowners Association.
The roots will all be different but, otherwise, the trees will be genetically identical to the one that started it all, a perfect tribute to the tradition that has brought Christmas cheer to so many for over a century.
The Fig Garden Association coordinates the massive light displays and decorations that have made the neighborhood nationally-renowned as one of the first and most impressive such displays in the US. Their video below shows how the Lane comes alive during Christmas every year.
The memorial magic is now in its 103rd year—and will keep growing far into the future.
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Santa has arrived early in Idaho—in the form of a mystery donor who is giving away a million dollars to families in crisis.
The Secret Santa of The Gem State started making Christmas magic a couple of months ago and will continue spreading joy through the end of the year.
One of the earliest gifts was a 2025 Honda minivan and $1,000 for a family that has conjoined twins, which occurs about once in every 50,000 births.
Twin sisters Callie and Carter Torres were not expected to survive more than 24 hours. Instead, they have grown to be 8 years old, defying the odds on a daily basis.
Their medical condition requires a non-collapsible wheelchair and frequent three-hour trips from their home in Blackfoot, Idaho to Salt Lake City.
“Oh my gosh, I can’t even cry right now, I’m in such shock,” the mother, Chelsea Torres, told the East Idaho News.
Another gift was delivered to a new mom who lost her house in a freak accident.
A month after her baby was born in July, a truck ran a stop sign and crashed into Emma’s house. Her living room was destroyed. A wall collapsed, windows shattered, and water lines were ruptured, flooding the entire first floor and basement.
Thankfully, Emma and her new baby were safe, but the family has been displaced ever since. The Secret Santa gave the family a $1,000 gift card for gas and a $5,000 gift card to a housewares store.
“That means a lot,” Emma said in between a deluge of tears. “It’s been really hard…Hopefully, (we’ll be home) before Christmas.”
Yet another memorable gift was awarded to Megan Mabey, a beloved teacher at Hobbs Middle School in Shelley, Idaho. An attic fire ignited in Mabey’s house earlier this month and her home was rendered uninhabitable. Her family has been rotating through hotel rooms and rentals ever since and will be displaced for about six to eight months.
“It’s been hard,” said Mabey, who is known for her kindness, humor, and dedication to making learning fun. The $5,000 check from Santa should make things easier this holiday.
Christmas spirit has surged throughout Idaho with the Secret Santa also delivering cash and presents to a family that adopted four kids after having five of their own, a man who was paralyzed following a spinal stroke, a woman who was dealing with a brain injury following a car accident, and many, many others.
Quote of the Day: “One can’t paint New York as it is, but rather as it is felt.” – Georgia O’Keeffe
Image by: Nighthawks by Edward Hopper, 1942 (cropped)
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Today is the magical Winter Solstice, bringing the longest night of the year to the Northern Hemisphere, and marking the start of more daylight every day for the rest of the season, until June 20. The ancient cultures knew the Sun’s path across the sky, length of daylight, and location of the sunrise and sunset, which shifted in a regular way throughout the year, so people built monuments, like Stonehenge in England and the Torreon in Machu Picchu, Peru, to follow the Sun’s annual progress and predict its movements. READ more from on this day…
Blood-glucose monitor uses light to spare diabetes patients from finger pricks – Credit: Christine Daniloff / MIT
Blood-glucose monitor uses light to spare diabetes patients from finger pricks – Credit: Christine Daniloff / MIT
A new method for measuring blood glucose levels, developed at MIT, could save diabetes patients from having to prick their fingers several times a day.
The MIT team used a technique that reveals the chemical composition of tissue by shining near-infrared light on them—and developed a shoebox-sized device that can measure blood glucose levels without any needles.
The researchers found that the measurements from their device were similar to those obtained by commercial continuous glucose monitoring sensors that require a wire to be implanted under the skin. While the device presented in this study is too large to be used as a wearable sensor, the researchers have since developed a wearable version that they are now testing in a small clinical study.
“For a long time, the finger stick has been the standard method for measuring blood sugar, but nobody wants to prick their finger every day, multiple times a day,” says Jeon Woong Kang, an MIT research scientist and the senior author of the study.
“Naturally, many diabetic patients are under-testing their blood glucose levels, which can cause serious complications. If we can make a noninvasive glucose monitor with high accuracy, then almost everyone with diabetes will benefit from this new technology.”
Some patients use wearable monitors, which have a sensor inserted just under the skin to provide glucose measurements from the interstitial fluid—but they can cause skin irritation and they need to be replaced every 10 to 15 days.
The MIT team bases their noninvasive sensors based on Raman spectroscopy, a type that reveals the chemical composition of tissue or cells by analyzing how near-infrared light is scattered, or deflected, as it encounters different kinds of molecules.
A recent breakthrough allowed them to directly measure glucose Raman signals from the skin. Normally, this glucose signal is too small to pick out from all of the other signals generated by molecules in tissue. The MIT team found a way to filter out much of the unwanted signal by shining near-infrared light onto the skin at a different angle from which they collected the resulting Raman signal.
Typically, a Raman spectrum may contain about 1,000 bands. However, the MIT team found that they could determine blood glucose levels by measuring just three bands—one from the glucose plus two background measurements. This approach allowed the researchers to reduce the amount and cost of equipment needed, allowing them to perform the measurement with a cost-effective device about the size of a shoebox.
“With this new approach, we can change the components commonly used in Raman-based devices, and save space, time, and cost,” Bresci told MIT News.
Toward a watch-sized sensor
In a clinical study performed at the MIT Center for Clinical Translation Research (CCTR), the researchers used the new device to take readings from a healthy volunteer over a four-hour period, as the subject rested their arm on top of the device.
Each measurement takes a little more than 30 seconds, and the researchers took a new reading every five minutes.
During the study, the subject consumed two 75-gram glucose drinks, allowing the researchers to monitor significant changes in blood glucose concentration. They found that the Raman-based device showed accuracy levels similar to those of two commercially available, invasive glucose monitors worn by the subject.
Since finishing that study, the researchers have developed a smaller prototype, about the size of a cellphone, that they’re currently testing at the MIT CCTR as a wearable monitor in healthy and pre-diabetic volunteers.
The researchers are also working on making the device even smaller, about the size of a watch, and next year they plan to run a larger study working with a local hospital, which will include people with diabetes.
Cluster of young stars known as the Christmas Tree Cluster and Collagen fibers and fat cells appearing under a laser microscope Credit: Chandra X-ray Observatory and Nikon Small World contest -SWNS
Cluster of young stars known as the Christmas Tree Cluster and Collagen fibers and fat cells appearing under a laser microscope Credit: Chandra X-ray Observatory and Nikon Small World contest -SWNS
A microscopic ‘Christmas tree’ is a seasonal highlight of a remarkable science project that found eerie comparisons between the vast and the tiny.
Curated by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, the series of pairings reveal stunning connections between the vast universe and the microscopic world that we cannot see with the naked eye.
Dubbed “New Perspectives”, the project takes space-based images and creates side-by-side comparisons with winning images from the Nikon Small World contest, an annual microscopy competition.
Highlights include a cluster of young stars, nicknamed the Christmas Tree Cluster, paired with collagen fibers and fat cells captured under a laser microscope.
Another eye-catching duo (pictured below) compares a section of heart tissue exposed to radiation, with tiny dots and tracks showing the effect of high-energy particles on cells with a bright young star seen in infrared light wrapped in the gas and dust of a stellar nursery.
Heart tissue exposed to radiation with tiny dots and tracks showing effect of high-energy particles on cells, alongside a bright young star seen in infrared light wrapped in the gas and dust Credit: Chandra X-ray Observatory / Nikon Small World contest -SWNS
“Whether we’re studying a galaxy cluster millions of light-years away or a crystal formation at the micro-meter scale, these images remind us of the shared beauty and complexity that define the natural world,” said Dr. Kimberly Arcand, Chandra’s emerging technology scientist who led the project.
Operated by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, Chandra is one of NASA’s “Great Observatories”, which includes the Hubble and James Webb Space Telescopes that have offered unparalleled X-ray images of the cosmos for over a quarter century.
The “New Perspectives” project takes these space-based images and creates side-by-side comparisons with winning images from the Nikon Small World contest, an annual free microscopy competition that announced its latest winners in October.
Developing mouse embryo seen through a high-resolution microscope and Whirlpool Galaxy (M51), a giant spiral galaxy locked in cosmic dance with a smaller companion Credit: Chandra X-ray Observatory / Nikon Small World contest – SWNS
Providing a new way to look at images from science, the goal of New Perspectives is to realize the benefits from looking at our world from different points of view.
Astronomy and microscopy are both fields that are built on the challenge of making the invisible visible. Each discipline relies on light and data to reveal hidden structures, whether across the vastness of space or within the intricacies of living cells.
While their goals differ in scale, the equipment of telescopes and microscopes reflects a shared purpose: to greatly extend human vision. Telescopes (“light buckets”) collect faint light across vast distances with mirrors and detectors, often orbiting in space to avoid Earth’s atmosphere.
Microscopes, by contrast, are more of light funnels, focusing on the tiny, using lenses, lasers, or electron beams to magnify the minute worlds around us.
The endoplasmic reticulum network inside animal cells and Jupiter’s south pole with five giant cyclones encircling a central storm – Credit: Chandra X-ray Observatory / Nikon Small World contest – SWNS
Despite these differences, the two fields can converge through a common visual language.
Astronomy and microscopy remind us that vision is both a tool and a construction. By transforming the invisible into the visible, these disciplines not only advance science but also reshape how we perceive our place in the cosmos and the complexity of life itself.
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A very old jaguar and her senior son are being welcomed to a specially-made retirement home in a UK zoo.
Wild jaguars typically live for around 12 years, but Bonita is already 16 and her son Remi is 11, having already survived cancer.
The two have lived side-by-side in a safari park since Remi’s birth and will remain together after being transported to their new enclosure at Chester Zoo in England.
The move follows months of planning with experts from Europe’s jaguar conservation program.
“Bonita and Remi are truly special animals, and we’re delighted to be able to provide them with a new retirement home here,” said Dave Hall, Chester Zoo’s Team Manager of Carnivores.
“Bonita has been a devoted mother to Remi throughout his life, so ensuring they stayed together was a real priority for everyone involved.
“Remi’s journey has also been a remarkable one. In 2019, a lump was removed from his head following a diagnosis of hemangiosarcoma, a very aggressive malignant cancer, which makes his continued good health today all the more extraordinary.
“Our teams have worked closely with colleagues from across the UK and Europe to make sure every detail of their move and ongoing care has been fully considered —from transport to the set-up of their new habitat.
“It’s fantastic to see them already settling in and exploring their new surroundings side-by-side,” said Hall in a statement from Chester Zoo, which released a video of the cats prowling around their new home.
Jaguars are the largest cat in Latin America and the species is listed as “Near Threatened” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature due to habitat loss through farming and illegal hunting.
Watch Bonita and Remi in their new home…
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