Quote of the Day: “Love is when they give you a piece of your soul, that you never knew was missing.” – Torquato Tasso (Happy Valentine’s Day!)
Photo by: Ilya Shishikhin (cropped)
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?
Two Minutes Earlier, She Got a Friendship Bouquet…
130 years ago today, The Importance of Being Earnest, a play by Irish writer Oscar Wilde, debuted in the St. James Theater of London. It is a farcical comedy in which the protagonists use the age-old theater mechanism of disguises and alter egos to maintain fictitious personae as a means to escape burdensome, Victorian social obligations. Some contemporary reviews praised the play’s humor as the culmination of Wilde’s artistic career, but it also brought about his downfall as a playwright. READ what the local royalty thought… (1895)
When it comes to archaeological discoveries, few things excite as much as a soldier’s helmet. The epitome of looking into the face of the past, they’ve helped historians infer so much about ancient and medieval warfare.
Recently in Denmark, archaeologists became elated when looking through an Iron Age excavation they identified the first Roman Imperial helmet ever found in the country, and just the second in all of Scandinavia.
It was found at Løsning Søndermark, a Danish Iron Age settlement that yielded dozens of artifact weapons which GNN reported on in December 2024. Archaeologists described the find as a “weapons sacrifice,” a strange yet well-documented custom that’s believed to have taken place after battles or the death of an important individual.
The haul included 119 lance and spearheads, 8 swords, 5 knives, 3 arrowheads, an axe head, and a chainmail cuirass—an object of immense value at the time, which would have taken months to craft. Non-military equipment included two oath rings, a bugle of sorts, a horse bridle, and hundreds of flint and pottery fragments.
Also found at the time were “numerous not yet identified iron and bronze objects” some of which must have been the component parts of this ‘Imperial Italic’ class Roman helmet, dating to the twilight of the empire when helmet construction reached an artistic and functional highpoint.
Euro News, reporting on the additional finds, noted that X-ray images on plates of iron revealed them to be parts of the helmet that would have folded down over the cheeks and neck—one of the only points where an enemy could strike to significantly wound a legionary stationed within his battle formation.
Denmark was beyond the borders of the Roman Empire even at its highest point of influence. Rather than belonging to a legionary, the helmet may have been taken as plunder or through trading by Germanic peoples.
The Romans maintained a sort of ‘trade and invade’ policy with the Germans, but never ventured beyond into regions like Scandinavia, the Baltics, or Poland. The Germans however would have been in contact with the inhabitants of these lands, which perhaps is how the helmet ended up so far from the workshops of the Empire.
MORE ROMAN-AGE FINDS: Dozens of Strange 12-Sided Objects from Roman Times Have Been Found—No One Knows What They’re For
The weapons were found in the remains of two separate buildings in Løsning Søndermark, in the municipality of Hedensted, and were often bent in dramatic angles.
In one, the deposits were made during the dismantling of the house. The large, roof-bearing posts were removed, and the weapons were buried in the empty hole. In the second, the offerings were made during the construction of the house, with the weapons and other equipment being tightly packed around the roof-bearing posts prior to backfilling.
WARTIME ARCHAEOLOGY: Finding Any Sword is a Treasure But Four is ‘A Dream’ – We Rubbed Our Eyes
This gave the archaeologists the assurance that the building wasn’t a barracks or smithy, where one may expect to find piles of weapons, and that they were all set together for ceremonial purposes.
Efforts are underway to display parts of the massive find at the Vejle Cultural Museum in early 2025.
SHARE This Continually Unfolding Discovery Of Iron War Gear In Denmark…
What would a bird feeder look like if you adapted it to feed coral reefs? The answer is something like a searchlight.
Scientists at Ohio State have designed one that uses a special kind of light that attracts the microscopic organisms that coral feed on.
The device, dubbed the Underwater Zooplankton Enhancement Light Array (UZELA), is an autonomous, programmable underwater light that underwent early trials with the help of the Coral Restoration Foundation in Tavernier, Florida.
After testing the submersible on two species of coral native to Hawaii over six months, researchers found that UZELA could greatly enhance local zooplankton density and increase the feeding rates of both healthy and bleached coral.
When coral feed on larger quantities of zooplankton, it makes them stronger and more likely to be resilient against certain environmental threats, like heat stress or ocean acidification.
“Coral reefs house one-third of all marine species, yet occupy less than 1% of the ocean,” said Andrea Grottoli, lead author of the published study and a professor of earth sciences at Ohio State University.
The foundation writes that if UZELA proves effective, it could revolutionize coral nursery operations.
“By improving coral health and survival rates, UZELA could help reduce the time it takes for corals to grow to a size suitable for outplanting onto reefs. This would not only enhance the success of coral restoration projects but also reduce the operating costs associated with growing and maintaining nursery corals.”
OCEAN ADVANCEMENT: ‘Huge Environmental Win’: Australia to Protect 52% of its Oceans, More Than Any Other Country
Understandably, artificial lights can disrupt the behavior of other marine animals, so researchers could choose not to use the device year-round. That said, the study emphasizes that corralling zooplankton with this human-made tool doesn’t seem to harm the environment or interrupt the flow of other zooplankton in the surrounding area.
“If you imagine zooplankton in a column floating above coral, instead of being naturally dispersed, UZELA is just pulling them down, but it’s not taking away from the coral beside it,” said Grottoli. “We show that if you put the coral close to the light, they benefit from that concentrated zooplankton, and feeding rates go up 10 to 50-fold.”
MORE CORAL NEWS: Full Recovery for Coral Reef Within 4 Years – The Speed of Restoration They Saw was ‘Incredible’
“The real intent of this project is to inject new technology and energy into coral restoration success. It’s something that can be deployed strategically for high-value reefs, or projects that have already had a lot of investment in them.”
SHARE This Positive News Of An Invention To Fortify Our Reefs…
A tribal-led nonprofit is creating a network of native bison ranchers that are restoring ecosystems on the Great Plains, restoring native ranchers’ connections with their ancestral land, and restoring the native diet that their ancestors relied on.
Called the Tanka Fund, they coordinate donors and partners to help ranchers secure grazing land access, funds needed to install and repair fencing, increase their herd sizes, and access markets for bison meat across the country.
That’s the human part of the story. But as Dawn Sherman, executive director of the Tanka Fund, told Native Sun News, they’re “buffalo people” and these four-legged, 2,000 lbs. “cousins” are equal-part-protagonists.
The return of the bison means the return of the prairie, one of the three great grassland ecosystems on the planet, of which just 1% remains as it was when the Mayflower arrived.
“Bringing buffalo back to their ancestral homelands is essential to restoring the ecosystem. We know that the buffalo is a keystone species,” said Dawn Sherman, a member of the Lakota, Delaware, Shawnee, and Cree.
“Bringing the buffalo back to the land and to our people, helps restore the ecosystem and everything it supports from the animals to the plants to the people. It’s come full circle. That’s how we see it.”
As Sherman and the Tanka Fund help native ranchers grow their operations, everyone is well aware of the power of the bison to transform the environment: just as nations across Europe are, who are reintroducing wood bison to various ecosystems, for all the same reasons.
YOU’LL SURELY LIKE: Absolutely Epic: Watch the Release of a Wild Bison Herd onto Blackfeet Tribal Land
Sherman points out the variety of ways in which buffalo anchor the prairie ecosystem. The almost-extinct black-footed ferret, she points out, lived symbiotically with the bison, and with the latter gone, the former followed—nearly.
The long-billed curlew uses bison dung as a disguise to hide nests from predators. Deer, pronghorn antelope, and elk all rely on bison to plow through deep snows and uncover the grasses that these smaller animals can’t reach.
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Everywhere the bison hurls its massive body, life springs in the beast’s wake. When bison roll about on the plains, it creates depressions known as wallows. These fill with rainwater and create enormous puddles where amphibians and insects thrive and reproduce. Certain plants evolved to grow in the wet conditions of the wallows which Native Americans harvested for food and medicine.
Native plants evolved under the trampling hooves of millions of bison, and that constant tamping down of the Earth is a key necessity in the spreading of native wildflower seed.
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Indeed, Sherman says some of these native ranchers are bringing bison onto lands still visibly affected by the Dust Bowl, and already the animals are acting like a giant wooly cure-all for the land’s ills.
Since 2020, the Tanka Fund, in partnership with the Inter-Tribal Buffalo Council and the Nature Conservancy, has overseen the transfer of 2,300 bison from Nature Conservancy reserves to lands managed by ranchers within the Tanka Fund network.
“[T]he more animals that we can get the more of that prairie we can restore,” said Sherman. “We can help restore the land that has been plowed and has been leased out to cattle ranchers.”
WATCH a video explaining what the Tanka Fund does…
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Firms that conduct exploratory surveys for oil drilling have been sitting on mountains of geologic data that are now used to locate hidden aquifers of water for African communities.
Two-thirds of the African population is affected by water scarcity, but while this basic human necessity costs so little, the costs of finding underground sources are prohibitive for all but large development agencies or governments.
However, a drilling company founded by former petroleum industry men realized that in many regions of Africa where oil is believed to be present, extensive seismic surveys have pinpointed dozens of hidden water wells that the exploration companies weren’t interested in, and that water projects couldn’t afford to search for.
That company, Ruden AS, has spent years collecting this industry data in order to unlock freshwater sources for millions of Africans.
One in particular, now known as the Kimbiji aquifer, will provide 2 million Tanzanians with water for a century.
“Everyone got excited because this was the discovery of an aquifer that no one knew existed,” Elizabeth Quiroga Jordan, a petroleum engineer at Ruden AS, told Euro News.
Fritjov Ruden, from Norway, founded Ruden AS alongside his daughter Helene Ree in 2009. Having worked as an oil explorer turned water driller in Tanzania, Ruden learned that if an oil company fails to find oil after a certain number of feet, they will declare it dry even if it’s filled with water.
Working for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ruden and his daughter were able to convince it to launch a charm offensive on the Petroleum Ministry, where decades of seismic survey data were held by the nationalized oil company. They hoped to use the data to find aquifers, something scientists recently determined were more numerous across Africa than previously thought.
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After 3 years, they received it, and sure enough, it revealed to Ruden that he and his team weren’t drilling deep enough in Tanzania’s Kimbiji Ward, and that a massive aquifer lay 1,800 feet down.
In 2005 they reached it, and water gushed forth. The extensive Kimbiji is estimated to contain a whopping 5,000 cubic kilometers of water, and its annual recharge rate is 2,000 cubic kilometers per year. This holds the power to furnish millions with clean drinking water for generations.
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In Somalia, different oil and gas exploration campaigns have to date drilled for 80 oil and gas wells and more than 30,000 miles of seismic lines have been mapped. Ruden AS is currently exploring this massive dataset to hopefully provide Somalia with what has been provided already to Tanzania.
SHARE The News Of These Hidden Resources Unlocked For Africa…
Quote of the Day: “Men can starve from a lack of self-realization as much as they can from a lack of bread.” – Richard Wright
Photo by: yulia pantiukhina
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?
Happy 75th Birthday to Peter Gabriel, the English singer-songwriter who is one of the most influential progressive rock innovators of all time. At 17, he founded the band Genesis—and later launched a successful solo career, winning six Grammy Awards. WATCH the ground-breaking Sledgehammer video… (1950)
Originally published on Mongabay by Shreya Dasgupta
A tiny lizard found only on one tiny Caribbean island has seen a dramatic 1,500% increase in its population, after just a few years of island restoration efforts.
In 2018, researchers estimated there were fewer than 100 individuals of the critically endangered Sombrero ground lizard (Pholidoscelis corvinus) on the small hat-shaped Sombrero Island, part of Anguilla in the Caribbean. Just six years later, there are more than 1,600 of them, a recent survey has found.
MORE CONSERVATION NEWS: Native Wildlife Flourishing Again After Another Caribbean Island Banishes Invading Rodents
“I am beyond thrilled to see the ground lizards on the road to recovery, and this is a fantastic reward for everyone who has worked hard to restore Sombrero,” Jenny Daltry, Caribbean alliance director at conservation NGOs Fauna & Flora and Re:wild, told Mongabay. “Too many island species have been lost already, and we really need to prevent extinctions whenever we can.”
Today, Sombrero Island hosts large seabird colonies and several unique and rare species. But invading mice, likely brought to the island on ships or other means by people, as well as climate change impacts, have wreaked havoc on the island’s inhabitants.
When mice take over islands, they devour almost everything, from seeds to seabirds, Daltry said.
“By preventing plants from regenerating, the mice deprived the lizards of vital shelter and food, including fruits and insects. No doubt they also preyed on the lizards’ eggs and young.”
With native vegetation in a precarious state, storm surges and hurricanes striking the island further devasted the island’s lizard populations.
To turn things around, Fauna & Flora, Anguilla National Trust, and Re:wild began restoration efforts in 2018. They trapped and removed all the mice by placing bait from June to August 2021. They also developed a “biosecurity plan” in which researchers regularly check the island to ensure it’s still mouse-free.
MORE GOOD ISLAND NEWS: Islanders Remain Dedicated to Conservation Above All, Living on the ‘World’s Best Beach’
Given Sombrero’s remote location, the likelihood of reinvasion by mice is considered low, Daltry said. She added that the teams are also developing “remote surveillance cameras with AI capability” to automatically detect and alert them of invasive species.
While the mice may be gone, the threat from hurricanes fueled by climate change still looms close. While the researchers have been working to restore the island’s native vegetation, the island has lost much of its original soil cover, which will take time to rebuild, Daltry said. With no tree cover yet, any severe hurricane or storm surge in the future “could set back the speed of recovery of the soil layer and vegetation,” she added.
READ NEXT: Rats Finally Eradicated from Caribbean Island as Huge Nature Reserve Rises in Their Place
However, Daltry said she’s hopeful that even the current sparse vegetation provides the Sombrero ground lizards “with vital food and shelter, giving them a much better chance of survival when the next storm strikes.”
“This could make the difference between survival and extinction,” she said. “The big question is whether the recovery of Sombrero Island and its wildlife will be able to keep pace with the speed of climate breakdown.”
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Reprinted under a CC 4.0. license from Mongabay
An English family has been reunited with their beloved Labrador Daisy who was stolen from their front lawn 7 years ago.
Their tireless search and advocacy for their lost family member attracted the attention of British celebrity and even helped steer a law through Parliament, but the ultimate reward for the devotion to their lost dog was the chance to see her again, elderly and slightly battered, but alive and loving.
In 2017, a truck arrived in front of Rita and Philip Potter’s Norfolk house. Two men hurriedly lept out, grabbed Daisy, and stuffed her into the back—a despicable act seen by neighbors.
Ruling out the possibility that Daisy got lost in the woods somewhere, the Potters contacted the police and urged a response. An RSPCA search in Somerset—200 miles and 7 years later—has recovered a 13-year-old Daisy, who was likely the victim of an illegal pet breeding operation.
A quick microchip scan, and Daisy was on her way home.
“We kept a photograph on the mantlepiece and would look at it every day thinking of her, and where she might be,” Mrs. Potter told the BBC. “It is an absolute dream come true that the RSPCA found her and returned her to us—where she belongs—we are so, so grateful,” said Mrs Potter.
Following Daisy’s abduction, the Potters were active in the press and social media trying to ensure anyone who might have seen the dog understood where she had come from. Tom Hardy, the A-list action star from Dark Knight Rises and Inception, shared their post on his X account.
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The Potters then collected 100,000 signatures on a petition for greater government action to fight pet crime. The Pet Abduction Act changed the UK sentencing guidelines, making it a criminal offense with a prison sentence of up to 5 years. Previously, pets were considered property, and abducting them was punished under the UK’s 1986 Theft Act.
During the RSPCA’s investigation, the owner agreed to turn Daisy over to the organization, explaining they had only had her for a few years and didn’t know she could have been stolen. At their facility, a microchip scan revealed Daisy’s provenance and the call to the Potters was an emotional one.
MORE STORIES LIKE THIS: Special Police Unit Tracks Down $27 Million in Stolen Cars Including Crates Full of Snagged Luxury Vehicles
“They were obviously shocked—but elated at the same time,” said RSPCA inspector Kim Walters. “I was a bit choked from listening to them, and clearly how much they loved her, so it was great telling them that we could get her back home soon.”
Now in her golden years, and with several health issues from a half-decade of maltreatment, the Potters look forward to loving, spoiling, and caring for her.
SHARE This Inspiring Story Of Hope And Advocacy With A Happy Ending…
Looking at the number of deforested acres in Colombia, the outgoing environment minister says 2024 will be one of the least damaging years in recent decades.
Considering the level of paramilitary presence in rural Colombia over the past 50 years, it’s an incredible achievement to have seen it fall so low in one of the world’s most biodiverse countries.
Colombia has had problems with deforestation for years owing to the occupation of rural highland forest areas by the revolutionary Marxist guerilla force FARC, and a similar group called the ELN, with which Colombia remains in conflict.
Deforestation is in part driven, it’s believed, by dissident rebels from these and other groups, including drug traffickers, including through building roads, camps, ranching animals, and perhaps supplying the illegal hardwood trade.
In 2023, deforestation rates fell by more than one-third, to 305 square miles, and though there has been a slight uptick since then, Minister Susana Muhamed told reporters that 2024 will be the third-lowest in the 21st century, showing the state can maintain the progress it’s already made.
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Deforestation is not measured by the number of trees felled by men with chainsaws, but also includes weather events and disasters such as landslides or fires. 2024 was originally predicted to see a sharp rise in forest loss amid a strong El Nino weather phenomenon that brought about dryer and hotter conditions, droughts, and fires throughout Colombia by April.
Deforestation had increased 40% in the first quarter of 2024 compared to the same period the prior year, but these trends must have petered out significantly over the following months.
SHARE This Positive Phenomenon In A Troubled, Yet Beautiful Country…
When parsing through images meant to test the camera on a new space telescope, scientists recently recognized a striking and rare phenomenon that had been perfectly captured by the craft.
A galaxy, shining in the distance, was tightly encircled by a halo of white light—also known as an Einstein Ring, and the result of gravitational lensing.
Euclid, named after the Ancient Greek mathematician, was launched into space by the European Space Agency in July 2023, and it began to test its camera systems in September.
In February 2024, Euclid began a survey that will map more than a third of the sky, observing billions of galaxies out to 10 billion light-years in order to create the most detailed 3D map of the universe ever assembled.
NASA has two spacecraft en route to launch for similar purposes, the SPHEREx broad surveyor, and the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, a middle-ground surveyor between SPHEREx and the flagship observatories Hubble and James Webb.
These surveyor telescopes represent the astronomical science community’s desire to understand more about dark matter and dark energy—unseen forces that shape the positions of galaxies throughout the universe, and it only took a few months for Euclid to produce this amazing observation of their effects through space.
“I look at the data from Euclid as it comes in,” explains Euclid Archive Scientist Bruno Altieri. “Even from that first observation, I could see it, but after Euclid made more observations of the area, we could see a perfect Einstein ring. For me, with a lifelong interest in gravitational lensing, that was amazing.”
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Gravitational lensing was predicted by Einstein who stated that light would bend around large objects. In this image from Euclid, a galaxy called NGC 6505 shines with clear light from the center of space. Located 590 million light-years away, it is surrounded by the light from a second, very bright galaxy more than 4 billion light-years away.
As the light from the unnamed, older galaxy arrives at NGC 6505, it bends around and coalesces on the other side (as we see it) distorted. NGC 6505 actually behaves in this scenario like a magnifying glass, providing a much greater amount of light from the distant, unnamed galaxy, than we would be able to see imaging it directly.
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“All strong lenses are special, because they’re so rare, and they’re incredibly useful scientifically,” said Conor O’Riordan, of the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics, Germany, and lead author of the first scientific paper analyzing the ring. “This one is particularly special, because it’s so close to Earth and the alignment makes it very beautiful.”
The ESA press team writes that Einstein Rings are a rich laboratory for scientists. Studying their gravitational effects can help us learn about the expansion of the Universe, detect the effects of invisible dark matter and dark energy, and investigate the background source whose light is bent by dark matter in between us and the source.
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Quote of the Day: “The head never rules the heart, but just becomes its partner.” – Mignon McLaughlin
Photo by: Tim Winkler
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?
24 years ago today, the Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) – Shoemaker spacecraft successfully orbited and landed on the asteroid Eros 433, a first for humanity. The second-largest known near-Earth object, Eros was the perfect target for landing as NEAR Shoemaker could orbit its 13 by 33-kilometer bulk—which it did, for a whole year from February 2000 to February 2001 when it landed on the surface. READ what we learned… (2001)
What if the best course of action in the fight against cancer isn’t to fight at all?
Rather than killing these mutated cells, a new study from Korea presents a treatment wherein they can be changed back to healthy cells at a key moment.
The authors liken the method to the moment just before water reaches 212°F (100°C), when it’s neither truly liquid nor truly gas. There is such a moment when a cell is both cancerous and normal, when it’s possible to turn it back down the path of health with a gentle nudge.
The experiment was performed on a lab-grown tumor in a petri dish, and so has a long way to go before it’s visible in any hospital.
“This study has revealed in detail, at the genetic network level, what changes occur within cells behind the process of cancer development, which has been considered a mystery until now,” Kwang-Hyun Cho, a professor of biology at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology and co-author of the new research, said in a statement.
“This is the first study to reveal that an important clue that can revert the fate of [tumor development] is hidden at this very moment of change,” he added.
The authors write in their paper that recent advances in gene regulatory network modeling have offered insights into controlling cell fates, especially interesting for the ‘critical transitions’ referred to earlier; but modeling the tipping point from cell to tumor remains challenging due to genetic alterations that dynamically reshape networks throughout the tumorigenic process.
Nevertheless, Professor Cho and their partners identified an enzyme hindering the breakdown of certain cancer-related proteins, allowing them to fuel tumor growth. By blocking the enzyme, the lab-grown tumors stopped growing and reverted to a healthy state of normal functioning.
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What other functions does the enzyme have in tumors; what about in healthy cells? Could it be blocked with a pharmaceutical application? These questions will certainly be much on the minds of the study team as they expand on this potentially revolutionary idea of treating cancer.
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A dyslexic Englishman who was never properly taught how to read in school has finally been able to enjoy a copy of a magazine he bought in 1985.
Ted Midgely has learned how to read at 58 years old thanks to the help of a tutor, who told the BBC that adults without the ability to read are actually more common in the UK than one might think.
Midgely was born in Bradford, England, where he struggled in school and was dubbed “lazy” by the teaching staff. It was only when he arrived in middle school that someone reached out to his parents and suggested Ted might be dyslexic.
Leaving middle school, he was moved to another institute for those with learning impairments but struggled, and eventually drifted out of the education system altogether to work in a textile mill.
No one reading needs to feel sorry for Midgely, as despite his inability to read, he had a rewarding career as a mechanic for the specialist motorcycles used in a unique British motorsport called ‘speedway’ in which the riders compete on a dirt oval track with single-gear dirtbikes that have no brakes.
He’s gotten to travel around the world for races, and it acted as the genesis for his desire to learn how to read.
“I got involved with a young chap from Australia called Brayden Elliot and it’s gone really well and I want to become his manager—that’s what I’d like to do,” Midgley told the BBC. “But to do that I need to read emails.”
READ MORE STORIES: CNN Hero: Man Helps Barbers Fill Their Shops with Books to Help Kids Find Excitement in Reading
He has been taking two 30-minute lessons a week from Duncan Livsey, a tutor with Read Easy Derby.
“He’s been brilliant,” Livsey said. “Because Ted’s so positive he’s been so easy to teach—it’s been so rewarding and I get a buzz each time I sit down with him.”
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As well as reading Elliot’s emails, Midgely was able to read something a lot more special: a copy of Speedway Star magazine he bought 40 years ago.
“I had this for so long and I’ve never been able to read it… it was amazing to do it,” he said.
SHARE This Never-Too-Late Story With Your Friends On Social Media…
In a staggering statistic, where it took a whole year to add one gigawatt of solar power in 2004, it now takes one single day.
A gigawatt can power around 200,000 homes in the US, and in another staggering statistic, American businesses and governments funded the installation of 30 in 2024 alone.
Indeed, 90% of all grid additions in 2024 were renewable energy sources, including solar, wind, biomass, hydro, and geothermal.
Solar accounted for 80% of all these additions alone, providing 30 gigawatts of electricity, or around 75% of the total renewable energy supply California has installed in the state’s history.
New solar capacity added in 2024 is almost nine times that added by natural gas and nuclear power combined.
There was also a respectable amount of capacity added by new wind power installations, which added 3 gigawatts to state grids. Additionally, 213 megawatts of hydropower, 51 MW of biomass, and 29 MW of geothermal steam were added, taking the total renewable energy footprint in 2024 to 90.5% of all new power sources.
RENEWABLE NEWS FOR 2024:
Part of this can be explained by the long-term nature of fossil fuel plants, the builders, financiers, and operators of which have been disincentivized for years to initiate the construction of one of these power plants.
By contrast, solar power, even in large amounts, can be installed incredibly quickly.
Solar’s share of US generating capacity is now 10x greater than a decade ago, and renewables have inched up beyond 30% of the total grid mix.
SHARE This Sunny Energy Forecast With Your Friends On Social Media…
A music conservatory has made a remarkable sacrifice in the name of providing the best education in the arts for its students.
Crafted in 1714 and considered one of the greatest violins ever made or heard, the Joachin-Ma Stradivarius violin was owned by the New England Conservatory, but it’s now been sold to establish the largest endowed scholarship at the institute.
Going up for auction at Sotheby’s in New York, it was estimated to fetch between $12 and $18 million, as the brand value is simply ‘Strad-ospheric.’
The name Joachin-Ma is a combination of the violin’s two most illustrious owners: Hungarian virtuoso Joseph Joachim who lived between 1831 and 1907, and Si-Hon Ma, a Chinese-American immigrant from 1948 who died after the turn of the millennium. It’s strongly believed to have influenced a piece by Johannes Brahms.
“Brahms wrote the Violin Concerto [D Major] specifically for this violin, and it was debuted on this violin in the mid-1800s,” Mari-Claudia Jiménez, Sotheby’s Americas president told CBS Boston days before the auction.
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Ma gifted the violin to the New England Conservatory before his death, having received a degree there in 1950. The sale fell short of estimates at $11.3 million, $4 million less than the world record for a musical instrument sale.
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“The sale is transformational for future students, and proceeds will establish the largest named endowed scholarship at New England Conservatory,” said Andrea Kalyn, president of New England Conservatory. “It has been an honor to have the Joachim-Ma Stradivari on campus, and we are eager to watch its legacy continue on the world stage.”
WATCH the story from CBS News…
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Quote of the Day: “Two things can be true at once. Things are bad, AND good things also happened this week.” – Jessica Craven
Photo by: Ross Stone
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99 years ago today, one of the most iconic chefs in the modern era, Paul Bocuse, was born. Bocuse is credited with many things, and it’s difficult to summarize his accomplishments and legacy but to name a few, he has been named “Chef of the Century,” holds the record for consecutive yearly 3-star awards by Michelin at his restaurant, l’Auberge du Pont de Collonges (55-years) and had his name placed upon what is sometimes considered the unofficial world’s best chef award, the “Bocuse d’Or,” or “Golden Bocuse”. He is credited with the formulation of the French nouvelle cuisine, which is less opulent and calorific than the traditional cuisine classique, and stresses the importance of fresh ingredients of the highest quality. READ some of his classic dishes… (1926)
