Two meteor showers are visible in the late July skies, and they happen to peak at the same evening in a rare case of perfect timing.
Especially visible in the Southern Hemisphere, but also visible farther south in the Northern Hemisphere, the α-Capricornids and the Southern δ-Aquariids will light up the night of July 30th-31st with a combined total of 30 shooting stars per hour.
Better still, the event will take place during the waxing crescent Moon, so moonlight won’t obscure the view. The Moon will set in the evening, and the night sky will be perfectly dark.
In order to find them, look for the constellations they take their names from. Valerie from Space Tourism Guide generally recommends finding Capricorn first, as it’s easier to find in the south-southeastern sky. Once you find Capricorn, the much more active Southern δ-Aquariids, radiating from the constellation Aquarius, can be spotted slightly more eastward.
Aquarius is difficult to find, but because there are far more shooting stars appearing to originate there, it will be easier to find that way. With the two radiating points occurring nearby, you likely won’t know which meteors belong to which shower.
Starwalk describes the α-Capricornids as slower and noticeably bright, so perhaps that can be a clue.
One thing to keep in mind when trying to see this rare double shower is that the further north one lives on the Earth, the closer the meteors will be to the horizon. For those in the northern United States, a clear horizon line will be necessary, unobscured by trees, hills, or cities.
The further south one travels, the higher in the sky the meteor showers will be.
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Credit - Giulia Squillace and Getty for Unsplash +
credit – Giulia Squillace and Getty for Unsplash +
Getting in fights, texting too much in class, skipping school—they are the kinds of stories that the parents of most high schools will have heard of before, and know the ending of.
But at Morse High School in Maine, detention is enforced with an altogether different approach—a hike.
Misbehaving students can, of course, choose normal detention, but ever since school counselor Leslie Trundy started offering hiking detentions, the children overwhelmingly pick that.
“Playing video games in class,” said Wyatt Wells; “Yelled at a teacher,” said Nicholas Tanguay; “Probably, like, skipping class,” said Elsie Nelson-Walling.
They trundled along behind Trundy who got the idea for hiking detention from an outdoor education conference she attended last fall.
Parenting experts will likely always be split between those who favor sternness and discipline and those who favor forgiveness and freedom. Both methods have their celebrity flag carriers and innumerable examples of success and failure.
Unsurprisingly then, some parents have prevented their kids from attending Trundy’s hiking detention, believing that it misses the point of punishment. Trundy herself isn’t making any claims yet, but some of her students seem to be getting the point.
Nicholas Tanguay, who yelled at his teacher, says that the walking, heavy breathing, and sense of accomplishment were together a focusing and calming influence that day, and without admitting he felt his mental health improved, said that he believed it’s true that nature and walking can improve a person’s mentality.
Sona Kipoy wasn’t in detention, Smith reports, but just came along in order to “find herself.”
“So you can just find yourself, yeah, I guess finding yourself in a forest is easier than in the city,” Kipoy, a child of immigrants from the Democratic Reb. of the Congo, said.
Trundy said she’s eager to start the program next year, and see if any of her attendees this year prove to be role models for future freshmen.
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Paleontology may be entering another great era of discovery: characterized by serial misidentification in decades past.
For an example one need look no further than the newly-dubbed “Dragon Prince of Mongolia,” a small tyrannosaurid from the earlier days of the lineage’s evolution.
It had been sitting in the drawers of the Mongolian Academy of Sciences since the 1970s, having been labeled an Alectrosaurus.
University of Calgary Professor Darla Zelenitsky, the lead author of the paper describing the new animal, foresees many new discoveries coming out of museum collections in the same manner.
“It is quite possible that discoveries like this are sitting in other museums that just have not been recognized,” Zelenitsky said in an interview with AFP.
It was Ph.D. student Jared Voris who first recognized something was wrong with the labeling when he found the two partially-complete fossil skeletons in the drawers.
The new species has been named Khankhuuluu mongoliensis, or Dragon Prince of Mongolia. It is a “prince” rather than a “rex” (king) because of its smaller, fleet-footed build. Weighing around the same as a show jumping horse, the animal represents not only an earlier stage of Tyrannosaurid evolution, but also a diversification in the lineage that reflects the connectivity between North America and Eurasia at the time the animal lived.
About one-eighth the size of Tyrannosaurus rex, K. mongoliensis lived 86 million years ago under the shadows of larger predatory therapods.
Described by Professor Zelenitsky as “really messy,” the understood history of T. rex was muddled by missing links between Asia and North America. In their study presentingK. mongoliensis, the authors use it as a link to explain how Tyrannosaurids evolved across the two continents.
By the time of the Cretaceous period, the Earth’s continents largely resembled those we know of today. Then as now, a land bridge connects Asia and North America via the Bering Strait, and an early group of Tyrannosaurids migrated across to North America and began to diversify.
This would have either been K. mongoliensis or another, unknown relative. Following the diversification, a population then crossed back into Asia which led to two subgroups of Tyrannosaurids, one that was very large and contained individuals like Tarbosaurus bataar, also found in Mongolia; and another one that was much smaller and contained members like “Pinocchio rex,”which was around the same size as K. mongoliensis.
One member of the large group then crossed over to North America again, and by 66 million years ago had become Tyrannosaurus rex, one of the largest predatory land animals to ever live.
The enigmacursor skeleton being cleaned – credit, the Trustees of the London Natural History Museum, released.
More mislabeling
On June 25th, just a week after the paper announcing the K. mongoliensis discovery, the Natural History Museum of London released a statement explaining that a new species of ‘mystery’ dinosaur that used to dash along North American riverbanks, had been identified after the museum bought a fossilized specimen.
Following years of study beginning in 2021, the skeleton that had been bought as a Nanosaurus was actually found to be nothing of the sort. After careful examination, it has been renamed Enigmacursor, for “mystery runner.”
It had been found on private land and put up for auction as a Nanosaurus, basically a species that was first found in 1877, never well-documented, and which acted like a “wastebin taxon.” A wastebin taxon in biology refers to a genus or subfamily into which lazy or perplexed biologists in the past have placed species they weren’t able to properly identify.
The name “Nanosaurus” or ‘tiny lizard,’ is the sort of broad description that lends itself to that practice.
“It just goes to show how much paleontology has changed in the past 150 years,” said Professor Susannah Maidment who co-led the examination into Enigmacursor. “When Nanosaurus was named in 1877, there weren’t that many named dinosaurs so the few characteristics that its fossils preserved would have been unique.”
“Now, however, we have found hundreds of small dinosaurs from all over the world and know that the fossils of Nanosaurus just aren’t that useful, let alone enough to name a species with. As a result, it made sense to put them to one side and name Enigmacursor as a new species instead.”
Living on floodplains and sandy riverbanks during the Late Jurassic, between 152 and 145 million years ago, Enigmacursor relied on its speed to avoid larger predators and to catch food. It was given the species name mollyborthwickae in honor of the woman whose donation allowed the museum to purchase it.
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TWA 7 is blocked in this image by the black circle, while the planet glows in orange - credit, NASA, ESA, CSA, Anne-Marie Lagrange (CNRS, UGA), Mahdi Zamani (ESA / Webb)
TWA 7 is blocked in this image by the black circle, while the planet glows in orange – credit, NASA, ESA, CSA, Anne-Marie Lagrange (CNRS, UGA), Mahdi Zamani (ESA / Webb)
Since its debut in 2021, the James Webb Space Telescope has dazzled viewers with its infrared images of galaxies, nebulae, stars, and even our own solar system’s planets.
Now, the most expensive telescope ever made has unveiled a new trick—a coronagraph, which allows it to block the light of a star and see what small objects are orbiting it. In this case, it performed the first direct photographing of an exoplanet in human history; probably.
The image found a faint source of infrared light in a disk of debris orbiting TWA 7, a red dwarf star around 111 light years from Earth. With the outstanding chance of the object being a background galaxy at more than 0%, the researchers can’t say for certain it’s a planet, but they suspect very much that it is—around the size of Saturn and sitting at a comfortable 120° Fahrenheit.
Though astronomers have detected well over 5,000 exoplanets so far, each one has been done through indirect methods, such as the “transit method.” The transit method sees an astronomer train a telescope on a star, and monitor for predictable drops in the level of light from the star that would indicate a planet orbiting it. The transit method can also work through measurements of gravity since passing planets’ gravitational fields can cause their host stars to “wobble.”
By contrast, the coronagraph will be much more straight forward, and TWA 7 b will likely be the first of many that the Webb telescope will discover.
One can think of the coronagraph as an on-demand eclipse service. The instrument positions a disk inside the lens of the imaging device to perfectly eliminate the star’s light from entering the sensor within a degree of micrometers. With the pollution of the star’s light gone, small things—in this case an exoplanet—can be seen.
“Our observations reveal a strong candidate for a planet shaping the structure of the TWA 7 debris disk, and its position is exactly where we expected to find a planet of this mass,” Anne-Marie Lagrange, lead author of the study and an astrophysicist at the French National Center for Scientific Research, said in a statement released by NASA on the discovery.
The source is located in a gap in one of three dust rings that were discovered around TWA 7 by previous ground-based observations. The object’s brightness, color, distance from the star, and position within the ring are consistent with theoretical predictions for a young, cold, Saturn-mass planet that is expected to be sculpting the surrounding debris disk.
These visible rings or gaps are thought to be created by planets that have formed around the star, but such a planet has yet to be directly detected within a debris disk. If TWA 7 b is confirmed to be such, it would mark a major moment in astronomy.
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Quote of the Day: “To find out what one is fitted to do, and to secure an opportunity to do it, is the key to happiness.” – John Dewey
Photo by: Jordan Madrid
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?
There is no shortage of people in the world who see a burning building that isn’t theirs and choose not to risk their lives to help: Tomasz Zareba is not one of those bystanders.
The Dublin truck driver helped save a man from a harrowing fall when the second-story window was his only escape route—and he earned the gratitude of the fire brigade for his timely intervention.
It happened on Monday that the interior of a building in the center of the Irish capital was consumed in flames by the time that Mr. Zareba, who is originally from Poland, was driving by in his semi-truck.
“I saw the flames coming up from the window and one guy was lying on the [sidewalk]. He had blood on his face, and I think he might have broken both his legs when he jumped from the building,” he told the BBC.
“Another guy was screaming from the window. He didn’t know what he was supposed to do because he had flames behind him, and the long drop below him.”
A video posted on Instagram showed that Zareba reversed his truck and got as close to the window as possible to allow the man to leap onto the rooftop of the trailer. (NOTE:You have to click on the video a couple times to see the life-saving leap captured by user @ThisIsDublin…)
“I waited another 20 minutes because the road was blocked and then the fireman came over and said, ‘Grand job buddy, thanks for that’ and I went on to finish my deliveries for the day.”
Mr. Tomasz Zareba
Zareba works as a deliveries driver for Eurospar, a continent-wide grocery chain, whose Ireland-based subsidiary told BBC they were thrilled to see one of their drivers display such a commitment to their community.
Girls at the US Space and Rocket Center’s Space Camp / Nichelle Nichols as Lt Uhura on Star Trek
Girls at the US Space and Rocket Center’s Space Camp / Nichelle Nichols as Lt Uhura on Star Trek
Alabama will be the site of a new training camp for the next generation of female astronauts—funded and named in honor of one of the profession’s great pioneers.
Okay, maybe not exactly, because the Nichelle Nichols Space Camp honors someone who pioneered an idea rather than a profession—an idea that color barriers didn’t exist in outer space.
Passing away in 2022, African American actress Nichelle Nichols was the first black woman to star in a primetime American TV show when she took the role of Lieutenant Nyota Uhura on Star Trek. As a bridge officer, it wasn’t just that she had plenty of screen time in the show, but she was one of the highest ranking characters according to the show’s plotline.
As Whoopi Goldberg later put it “I just saw a Black woman on television; and she ain’t no maid!”
Indeed there was nothing typical nor token about Nichols’ character. Uhura was a polyglot, translator, and communications expert high up in the chain of command, and her portrayal resulted in a generation of African American women watching someone who looked like them explore space.
To that end, she became something of a space influencer—with few impacts likely to be greater than this new weekend-long experience for young women aged 14 to 18 at the US Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama.
Organized by the Nichelle Nichols Foundation, the Space Camp will be organized around two structures: the first being the internationally-recognized excellence of the Space and Rocket Center program which mirrors astronaut training done by NASA, and the second being an additional structure of activities to mirror the finest concepts contained within the Star Trek canon.
These include coursework on the concept of “Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations,” the bedrock of philosophy from the show’s Vulcan aliens, and a series of mission scenarios similar to those undertaken aboard the Enterprise, specifically a first contact scenario, which was the responsibility of Uhura in the show.
The camp is a fitting legacy for the recently-deceased actress, who was the direct inspiration for Sally Ride, the first female American astronaut, along with so many others who had encountered Nichols during her STEM advocacy work with NASA.
All of that might not have happened if it weren’t for a chance conversation with none other than Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Nichols, according to multiple sources, planned to leave Star Trek in 1967 after its first season, but changed her mind after talking to Dr. King, who explained it was his favorite show along with his three children, and that her character signified a future of greater racial harmony and cooperation.
The casting was totally open, Dr. King pointed out—if she didn’t play Uhura, they didn’t need another black woman—they could replace her with anyone, even an alien.
Nichols took up the mantle of barrier-breaker onboard the Enterprise, thanks to creator-director Gene Roddenberry. In the 1968 episode “Plato’s Stepchildren,” Lt. Uhura and Captain Kirk kiss, which became one of the first scripted interracial kiss scenes in American cinematography. But there’s more.
The original intent was to film a scene that ended in a kiss, and one which ended without, and then allow the network to decide which one to air. Nichols and William Shatner agreed, it has since been learned, to flub every non-kiss take, and thereby force the network’s hand to include the kiss.
The Space Camp costs $2,000 to attend, but financial assistance and scholarships are available for eligible participants.
WATCH a promotional video of the camp below…
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Tawnya Shimizu, a nurse who saved a man's life on the roadside - credit, supplied to the media
Tawnya Shimizu, a nurse who saved a man’s life on the roadside – credit, Shimizu supplied to the media
From Ottawa comes the story of a runner who woke up in the hospital with a burning question: who saved his life?
Tommy Chan went for a five kilometer run on May 20th, but he doesn’t remember anything several days either side of that. All he knows is what the doctors told him: he suffered post-run cardiac arrest.
A bit of detective work revealed at least where he was when he collapsed: a running app called Strava told him he finished his 5K around Bronson and Carling at 7:50 p.m. A smartwatch that is attached to the app to track his heart rate has a telling lapse just after that time.
Paramedics, meanwhile, told him that they had responded to a call about a man suffering cardiac arrest near that location around one hour later. He had been resuscitated with a defibrillator, but not before bystander CPR was administered; deep bruising and a broken rib being two souvenirs of the kindness of strangers.
Rewinding to May 20th, and Tawnya Shimizu was on a walk with her daughter when she saw a commotion just next to her car. A man, it appeared, had collapsed.
“I could hear the 9-1-1 operator giving directions on CPR and counting out the timing,” she told CBC News Ottawa. “So my daughter was immediately like, ‘Mommy, you’re a nurse. You need to help!'”
Rushing over and entering “work mode” she introduced herself to the crowd and the operator, and began to administer CPR, a lifesaving procedure that stands for cardiopulmonary resuscitation.
First responders arrived, used the defibrillator, and rushed Chan to the hospital, leaving Shimizu in a heap of adrenaline that subsided while her curiosity rose in tandem. She was wondering what would happen to him.
Chan, weeks later, posted a account of the event online with the header “Did you save my life?” and the word made it back to Shimizu, who was able to get in touch with Chan, learn that he had in fact survived, and even plan to meet together in the coming days.
“The biggest thank you,” Chan told CBC when asked what he would say. “I don’t know what else to say. Like, I can’t believe you were at the right place at the right time. So I don’t know how I can never repay you.”
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Don Tomas waving with thanks - credit, Beryenis Lopez
Don Tomas waving with thanks – credit, Beryenis Lopez
For anyone who suggests that social media has been a net-negative for society, tell them to spend 3 hours reading GoFundMe stories.
GNN has reported on literally dozens of these internet crowdfunding efforts that have changed people’s lives, and the latest one comes from the sizzling South Florida summer heat.
Don Tomas is a local ice cream seller who pushes a cart because he can’t afford a van. Recently, a resident in a community Tomas frequents saw him pushing his cart down a divided highway miles from anywhere, and decided to just hand over some money as a thank you gesture for that work ethic.
Captured on TikTok, this simple gesture of kindness went viral, garnering 20,000 shares, 6,700 comments, and close to a million likes.
“I always get ice cream from him, omgg I didn’t know he walks that far there’s no way,” said one commenter.
“He’s a beloved part of our community, and he deserves to have better conditions. I’ve created this GoFundMe in hopes we can raise enough money to give to him for transportation and maybe a new ice cream trailer.”
The fundraiser has amassed $30,000 of its $35,000 goal.
“Despite his age and everything going on around us, Mr. Don Tomas maintains a hard-working man!”
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Quote of the Day: “We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men.” – Henry Melvill
Photo by: Jacek Dylag
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?
A coalition of Japanese researchers and institutes have established that a pathway exists through which humble vitamin C can actually regenerate skin cells.
As we age, our skin naturally becomes thinner and more fragile due to a decline in cell production. The researchers found that vitamin C works throughout our life to counteract this aging process.
Using a 3D human skin model, they showed that C boosts thickness in the epidermal skin layer by activating genes linked to cell growth through DNA demethylation. These findings suggest that vitamin C may help prevent age-related skin thinning and support healthier, stronger skin in aging individuals.
The epidermis is the outermost layer of skin, and also the most susceptible to thinning during aging. As our first line of defense against pathogens, this loss of protective strength is problematic.
About 90% of the cells in the epidermis are keratinocytes, which originate from deeper layers of the epidermis and migrate upward, ultimately forming the skin’s protective barrier. To combat aging’s impact on skin, numerous studies have emphasized the benefits of vitamin C, a vitamin well known for its role in skin health and antioxidant properties.
Research led by Dr. Akihito Ishigami, Vice President of the Division of Biology and Medical Sciences at Tokyo Metropolitan Institute for Geriatrics and Gerontology, has found that vitamin C helps thicken the skin by directly activating genes that control skin cell growth and development.
“C seems to influence the structure and function of epidermis, especially by controlling the growth of epidermal cells. In this study, we investigated whether it promotes cell proliferation and differentiation via epigenetic changes,” explains Dr. Ishigami, according to a release from his university.
To investigate how vitamin C affects skin regeneration, the team used human epidermal equivalents, which are laboratory-grown models that closely mimic real human skin. In this model, skin cells are exposed to air on the surface while being nourished from underneath by a liquid nutrient medium, replicating the way human skin receives nutrients from underlying blood vessels while remaining exposed to the external environment.
The liquid medium contained concentrations of C comparable to those typically transported from the bloodstream into the epidermis. On assessing its effect, they found that vitamin C influenced a thicker epidermal cell layer without significantly affecting the stratum corneum (the outer layer composed of dead cells) on day seven.
By day 14, the inner layer was even thicker, and the outer layer was found to be thinner, suggesting that vitamin C promotes the formation and division of keratinocytes. Treated samples showed increased cell proliferation, demonstrated by a higher number of Ki-67-positive cells—a protein marker present in the nucleus of actively dividing cells.
Importantly, the study revealed that C helps skin cells grow by reactivating genes associated with cell proliferation. It does so by promoting the removal of methyl groups from DNA, in a process known as DNA demethylation.
When DNA is methylated, methyl groups attach to cytosine bases, which can prevent the DNA from being transcribed or read, thereby suppressing gene activity. Conversely, by promoting DNA demethylation, vitamin C promotes gene expression and helps cells to grow, multiply, and differentiate.
DNA methylation is one of the most consequential processes in human aging, and one of the ways that scientists can measure someone’s true biological age, independent of their chronological age.
Vitamin C is an interesting topic in the field of nutrition. Many doctors and registered dieticians will encourage people to try and get all their minerals and vitamins from food, but research has shown that today in America, an orange contains about one-eighth of the vitamin A of an orange grown in the 1950s. There are reasons to suspect similar declines to be measured in vitamin C.
Other research has shown that vitamin C is 30% less abundant in American produce now than it was 70 years ago. There are also nine types of vitamin C, and foods rich in one variety may not be rich in another.
Vitamin C recommendations can range from 90 milligrams per day for a man, to 120 for a breastfeeding mother. However, these are the minimal requirements to stave off known diseases, and optimal health, such as the skin regeneration found in the study, may require substantially more.
Additionally, depending on how the food is prepared, vitamin C absorption may not be the measurable content of the food item itself. Among commonly consumed produce, bell and chili peppers contain the most amount of vitamin C per calorie. One analysis didn’t have oranges in the top 50 items, and lemons only just made it into the ranking.
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A southern Italian hamlet referred to as a ghost town is now attracting thousands of tourists by commissioning artists to paint more than 140 murals on the sites of shops and homes.
It seems fitting that the birthplace of so many of the world’s great artists should leverage painting as a means of recovery—why should Rome and Florence have all the beauty?
Stornara, in the Puglia region has suffered from a fate befalling many towns in Italy. A generation experiencing rising standards of living had fewer children, and those children, now grown up, are moving to the cities, leaving the small towns “crumbling” in their absence.
Local artist Lino Lombardi grew frustrated to see his hometown crumbling around him and became determined to make it a destination worth visiting.
In 2017 he created Stramurales, an annual street art festival that sees artists from around the world come to paint murals in the town. Six of the now 140 vibrant murals were created at the first festival in 2018, and now thousands of people visit every year.
Revenue through tourism has increased by 25% since 2020, and eight new businesses have opened, including two restaurants, three B&Bs, and an art-supplies shop. More importantly than a temporary tourist-season boom, the town’s population has stopped declining and begun to grow again as young families move back, locals say.
– credit Luciano Magaldi Sardella via SWNS
“Suddenly there were loads of people turning up with cameras and guidebooks,” remembered Antonio Maglione, who had been on the brink of closing a cafe he owns in the town. “I had to quickly learn to say ‘welcome’ in five different languages.”
“The murals saved my business, but more than that, they saved our community.”
That sense of provincial entrapment is powerful in Italy, and 45-year-old Rita Gensano spared no mercy for her home when speaking with Britain’s Southwest News Service about returning in 2017 to look after her parents, having previously lived in Turin for 20 years.
“When I first returned it felt like a sacrifice, it was like walking into a ghost town,” said Gensano, now a local tour guide. “I had left it full of life and laughter but when I returned it felt like it was dying.”
“But actually it has become something extraordinary which I have been fortunate to be a part of.”
Other struggling towns have appealed for help from organizers following Stornara’s success.
“Our community has painted itself back to life, one wall at a time,” Lombardi, 57, told SWNS. “At first people thought I was crazy, but I couldn’t just watch the town fade away.”
– credit Luciano Magaldi Sardella via SWNS
“I started looking at the walls as blank canvasses which could be turned into something beautiful. We never planned to be a case study, but if our experience can help other communities that’s even more meaningful.”
The 140-plus paintings spread throughout the town’s streets and historic squares are inspired by Stornara’s agricultural past, migration, and the townsfolk, among other themes.
Tree cover along Fort Lauderdale's New River - credit Tamanoeconomico CC 4.0. BY-SA
Tree cover along Fort Lauderdale’s New River – credit Tamanoeconomico CC 4.0. BY-SA
In a creative use of big data, a survey has found that of the 3,119 US counties, 1,836 experienced growth and expansion of tree cover, with a high concentration among prairie and Mid-West areas.
Additionally, among counties that had thinning forests, the mean tree loss was lower than the mean increase among counties that saw expanding forests; in other words, when measured by county, the US has seen net forest growth over the last 2 decades.
Tree cover in human civilization performs several functions. Woods, however small, have the effect of increasing biodiversity in the area, of retaining soil and preventing erosion and runoff into waterways, shading and reducing average air temperatures, offering the obvious recreation opportunities, and helping to calm people.
Lawn Starter published an analysis of tree cover data county by county which found that increases in tree cover weren’t limited to rural areas. For example, Lea County, New Mexico, is one of the 25 largest counties in the Lower 48 by land area, and it experienced a 1,600% increase in forest canopy—the highest registered in the analysis.
However 14 of the 25 most populated US counties also gained tree cover, including Kings County, New York, Broward County, Florida, and Wayne County, Michigan—home to Brooklyn, Fort Lauderdale, and Detroit, respectively.
Both Palm Beach County and Miami-Dade County also gained canopy—and significant amounts of it.
The counties containing prairie urban centers like Boise, Omaha, Lincoln, and Wichita all gained forest cover. Denver, Indianapolis, Seattle, Columbus, Philadelphia, and Nashville also gained some forest cover.
The analysis was conducted between 2000 and 2020, and found a mean increase of 8.15% across all counties that gained forest cover. That’s a major positive for living in a changing climate, since reforestation gains throughout the 20th century have insulated the southeastern region of the United States from increases in average temperatures seen in other regions, GNN reported last year.
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Krizanac training to hold a tennis - credit, Lisa Burth, courtesy
Krizanac training to hold a tennis – credit, Lisa Burth, courtesy
When 29-year-old Luka Kriszanac arrived back at University of Penn. Medicine and got to see his surgery team, it was all smiles and handshakes.
That’s more remarkable than it sounds, since the surgery he underwent was a “vascularized composite allotransplantation,” or in layman’s terms, a double hand transplant.
He is one of five people who have undergone this procedure at Penn Medicine—the center of the world’s most advanced knowledge base on the transplantation of the human hand.
An undiagnosed case of strep throat turned into a deadly sepsis infection when Kriszanac was just a 12-year-old boy in Switzerland, and not only were both his legs amputated, but also his hands.
“Regaining hands after 17 years, I don’t think there is a bigger dream than that,” he told CBS News, adding he wants that the family of the donor to know “they changed not just my life but my family’s life forever, and for that, we are deeply grateful.”
After learning about U. Penn’s hand transplant program, Kriszanac began working with a team to evaluate his suitability for a transplant in 2018. L. Scott Levin, Chair Emeritus of the Department of Orthopedic Surgery and professor of plastic surgery and Benjamin Chang, associate chief of plastic surgery, would play the leading roles in the surgery team following the years’ long wait for a donor.
“You do 1,001 activities every day with your hands. Prosthetics cannot simulate or replace that. Our team is very proud of the many things we’ve done as ‘firsts,’” Levin, who has participated in several successful transplantations, told U. Penn press.
“The first child. The first transatlantic vascularized composite allotransplantation. The first in a patient with no lower extremities. The first woman to have hand transplants who later gave birth to a baby.”
Running into a delay from the government restrictions on hospital activities during the pandemic, the wait continued into the 2020s, until finally in 2024, the Gift of Life program connected Kriszanac, Levin, and Chang, with a suitable donor.
That’s harder than it sounds, since not only do the hands have to have a similar genetic and blood profile to the recipient to prevent rejection, they have to be of a similar muscle and bone density, of a similar skin color, and from a donor of a similar age.
Last autumn in the middle of the night, a 10-hour marathon surgery began with one team focusing on preparing Kriszanac, and another addressing the deceased donor who was also there in the operating theater.
Waking up around lunchtime, Kriszanac was astonished with the results, and today through rehabilitation work, is able to prop his head on his hands at a desk, use a finger to push up his glasses, type on a smartphone, hold a cup or a ball, pick up food and eat it, and even feel hot and cold temperatures.
Despite this, Kriszanac will be in contact with U. Penn likely for the rest of his life, such is the length of rehab and risk of complications. It means that the Swiss man has a unique relationship with these professionals across the Atlantic, even after moving back to Zurich with his family.
“When we take this on, we are their doctors and caregivers forever,” says Levin, reflecting on the relationships the hand transplant team builds with their patients. “If they have a problem with rejection or another medical problem, we’re the first to hear about it, and we spring into action. And everybody on every team has that level of commitment, from transplant to nutrition, to coordinators to nurses and therapists.”
Returning to Philadelphia for the first time in June, the air was one of gratitude and joy.
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Photo by: Vincent van Zalinge
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A woman who went to Iran as a tourist just weeks before the country descended into war says it was not the culture she expected.
Chiara Herlemann, who is originally from Germany, travelled across the Middle Eastern country for ten days at the end of May.
Before getting on the plane, Chiara says she was quite nervous about whether the trip would be unsafe after reading about Iran in online news reports. But, she was incredibly surprised when she arrived to find the country a welcoming and friendly destination.
“I was very nervous to go and a lot of my friends were warning me that it was really dangerous,” she told SWNS news agency. “Every time I saw something about Iran in the news it was just some blurry pictures that looked like North Korea.
“When I got there, I was so surprised.”
“Everything was so different from what I expected. The people were so friendly. The men were helping me with my bags and making sure I was okay.
The 28-year-old who now lives in London stayed in Kashan, Isfahan, located in the center of the country.
Chiara Herlemann visits Iran / SWNS
“People seem quite content there. They are getting on with normal life, picnicking, children were playing in ponds. There was no haggling or catcalling. It was just normal.”
Chiara works remotely for an investment company which means she can work while she travels the world.
Her favorite places to visit are those considered “unusual for tourism” so that she can “see what they are really like behind the headlines.”
About Iran, the frequent traveler says that there are a lot of misconceptions, especially surrounding their attitudes towards women and their support for the government.
“There are definitely misconceptions. Mostly about women’s rights and people being supportive of the government. They are not extremists. The population is separate from the government.
Iran popup book store – Photo by Chiara Herlemann / SWNS
Visiting for the first time, she was shocked to see that not many of the women covered their hair.
“I was surprised that most of the women are without head scarfs. That was always in the news that women aren’t allowed to show their hair, but it was very different from what I thought.
“It is known as an Islamic country, but it doesn’t really feel like it, it was very westernized.
“As a woman you have an instinct when something isn’t right, and there wasn’t a single moment where I felt like that.”
Chiara says her favorite parts of the trip were the “kind people” and the food, with her favorite sight being the Blue Mosque.
Iran market scene – by Chiara Herlemann / SWNS
She also noticed how much the country had been impacted by international sanctions placed upon them. Upon arrival, Chiara says that she had to switch sim cards as hers wouldn’t work in Iran due to these sanctions.
But, she said, everyone was still very kind towards her and that the measures have made the country “completely independent.”
The tourist was back home by the time the war between Israel and Iran kicked off on June 13.
The frequent social media user posted her experience to TikTok in a video with over 400,000 views captioned “POV: you landed in a country with a level 4 travel warning.”
Commenters on the post appear divided on the topic, but many wrote that they would also now like to visit the country because of how beautiful it looked.
Chiara says that she would love to come back one day, with hopes to visit the south where people can drink and women can wear bikinis… “Iran is so big. I wish I had more time there.”
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Video grab of student twirling university president at graduation-SWNS
Video grab of student twirling university president at graduation-SWNS
A video captured the moment last month when a graduating student lifted the university president clear off the ground and spun him around during his formal graduation ceremony.
As he received his diploma in Guangdong, China, the student shook the president’s hand, then suddenly picked him up and twirled him around with a big grin on his face.
SWNS news agency
Immediately, the crowd roared with cheers of approval.
The stunned president burst into laughter, while rows of students clapped with joy at the unexpected celebration.
Escape Tampa Bay 2BD in tiny home community - SWNS
Escape Tampa Bay 2BD in tiny home community – SWNS
A tiny home village in Tampa Bay, Florida, now houses more than 60 people in beautiful buildings—with some as small as 8.5ft wide—and they’re all hurricane resistant.
Escape, a company that manufactures tiny homes in the US, built the development known as Escape Tampa Bay, in a park-like setting with four different neighborhoods.
The 45 homes hold up to two bedrooms, plus kitchen, bathroom, and laundry—and the costs are as little as $156,000 to buy, and $1,400 per month to rent.
Dan Dobrowolski, the company’s founder, built the homes in 2020 in a bid to address the deepening housing affordability crisis.
“Even though it’s a tiny house, you still have a large area where you can go outside and walk just like you’re in a normal neighborhood,” said the 66-year-old. “We intentionally designated the entire central part of the development as a large park, so it’s very green, very quiet, and you have space.”
Unlike mobile home parks or RV sites, Escape Tampa Bay is built with permanent infrastructure like underground utilities and fiber optic internet.
Escape Tampa Bay community of tiny homes – SWNS
There are also shared amenities on-site, including a pool and a workspace area, as well as secure-entry doors in the units.
What about hurricanes?
In October last year, the Escape Tampa Bay development took a direct hit from Hurricane Milton. The local county of Hillborough issued for the first time in history an extreme wind warning of over 115 miles per hour and they experienced a once-in-1,000-year rainfall event with 13-15 inches of rainfall in a few hours.
1BD tiny home in Escape Tampa Bay community – SWNS
There was reportedly zero total damage to the homes here—with no leaks or window damage at all, according to the company and this walk-around video.
The neighborhood offers long-term housing at lower costs than typical rentals in the region, with monthly rent averages around $1,400—below current market rates in the area, where rental prices have been climbing amid high demand and limited availability.
Homes in the community range from 200 to 600 square feet, with some of the earlier models reaching 800.
Dobrowolski, who purchased the land to develop the community, says he sees this type of housing as one possible answer to the wider affordability problem.
“People all talk about the affordability crisis in housing,” he said. “Especially if you’re a working person – cops, teachers, mechanics—they’re priced out.”
1BD tiny home in Escape Tampa Bay community – SWNS
“Beauty is important, and we’ve shown that affordable housing doesn’t have to mean sacrificing neighborhood quality or design.
Most residents own their homes, although the company offers some units as rentals with leases. Some homes have been resold, with recent prices as low as $89,197 plus a $595 monthly lot fee. Some owners also rent their units privately.
A stranded puffin has been rescued after being found more than a hundred miles away from its natural coastal habitat.
The seabird was blown off course before landing in a garden in landlocked Hereford, England, where it was found by a concerned homeowner who took it to a veterinary office.
It is believed the lost puffin was trying to make its way back to the cliffs of Skomer or its nearby Island in Pembrokeshire, Wales—110 miles (177km) away.
Vets for Pets Hereford reported on Facebook Wednesday that the exhausted bird was weak and underweight, but they managed to nurture it back to health by feeding it a specialized formula designed for fish-eating birds.
“We were surprised, to say the least,” said Dr. Elliot Goodwin, the head surgeon. “Puffins never venture this far inland unless they’re disoriented or have been blown off course.
“It’s likely she was returning to her nesting site in West Wales and lost her way. Although she is not injured she is very tired from her inland holiday.”
The staff nicknamed the bird ‘Lovely Oona’—inspired by Puffin Rock & Friends animation—and she’ll be transported back to West Wales and released into the wild once she regains her full strength.
On that note, yesterday she started on solid food, after the office put out the call for a specific small sardine-like fish the staff couldn’t find.
“A lovely man called, and is bringing us some frozen Sprats,” they wrote in a Facebook update. And when Oona immediately ate two of them, they updated again: “We are over the moon.”
“It was a full team effort, from diagnosis to feeding and nutrition, everyone brought their expertise to the table,” said Dr. Elliot. “Even though we’ve treated many exotics before—including, lynx, meerkats and goshawks—this was our first puffin.”
“As you can imagine, we get phone calls about all sorts of wildlife and sometimes people get a bit confused, so we didn’t quite believe it was going to be a puffin but, sure enough, she came in with a puffin.”
They warned that the colorfully-billed birds usually travel in small groups, so encouraged residents to be on the lookout for other puffins that might have lost their way.
Credit: Vets for Pets Hereford / FB
Puffins are a lot smaller than people realize, with healthy adults weighing less than a pound (14 ounces). Normally weighing 400 grams, Oona weighed just 218.
Dr. Sasha Norris, of Herefordshire Wildlife Rescue, said seabirds blown off course usually don’t make it—so Oona’s been very lucky.
Living exclusively in coastal areas, and making their home on clifftops and islands, puffins are listed in the UK as a species of high conservation concern, but there are 580,000 breeding pairs here.
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Quote of the Day: “Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.” – Vincent van Gogh
Photo by: Getty Images 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?
