Quote of the Day: “Somewhere between perfect success and abject failure is a sweet spot that maximizes long-term progress.” – Adam Alter
Photo by: Pim de Boer (Church of the Rock ‘Temppeliaukion kirkko’ in Helsinki, Finland)
With a new inspirational quote every day, atop the perfect photo—collected and archived on our Quotes page—why not bookmark GNN.org for a daily uplift?
A family was strolling along an eroded beach at sunset when they discovered a trove of eight huge dinosaur footprints.
Vicky Ballinger and her two kids were stunned by the sight in East Sussex, England, after high tides and heavy rains had worn away the sand, exposing the rock underneath.
The area from Bexhill-on-Sea to Fairlight has become known for its track casts and prints of dinosaurs.
“I grew up in Bexhill and I’ve never seen these ones before,” says Vicky.
“I believe they are iguanodon footprints. They’re not T-rex tracks (because) they weren’t in England.”
Vicky went to the local Bexhill Museum with her discovery, and they’re investigating further this week. She also uploaded her video to YouTube (see below).
“The kids loved that they could see the track of a dinosaur and walk where it walked. It was very exciting.”
LOOK: New Dinosaur With Rows of Bristles On its Head Like a Toothbrush Has Been Discovered
In 2018, more than 85 footprints from the Cretaceous period made up of at least seven different species were uncovered by the cliffs between Hastings and Fairlight—including the fine detail of skin and scales.
Another fossil discovered on Bexhill beach was confirmed as a ‘pickled’ dinosaur brain.
The Bexhill site dates back to around 140 million years ago and contains the remains of dinosaurs that used to roam in the freshwater surroundings of the period.
“It’s quite beautiful to find these amazing dinosaur footprints when we came on a walk.”
CHECK OUT: Newly Discovered Giant Dinosaur Species May Be Closest Known Relative of T. rex
Over the years, the fossils of several dinosaur species have been found including Iguanodon, Megalosaurus, Baryonyx, Polacanthus, and the tooth of a Velociraptor-type animal, many of which are on display at the Bexhill Museum.
Check out her lovely video below…
SHARE THIS AMAZING SIGHTING With Paleo-Pals on Social Media…
A man was stunned recently to discover his doppelganger seated next to him on an airline flight—and not only do they look alike, they found out they had the same names, hobbies, and even a mutual friend.
Mark Garland arrived at the check-in desk at Heathrow airport for a flight to Bangkok, Thailand, when staff informed him that he had “already checked in”.
After 40 minutes, staff finally figured out that there were two Mark Garlands on the flight.
“I said, ‘Look I’m Mark Garland’, showing him my passport, and he started laughing and opened his passport and showed me his name.”
But having identical names was just the beginning.
When they came face to face, they realized they looked remarkably similar, both wearing black and donning shaved heads.
“I go to the desk and there’s a bloke who looks just like me.”
Then, the 58-year-old arrived at his seat to find the other Mark Garland seated right next to him.
The bus driver from Trowbridge, Wiltshire, spent 11 hours chatting with his new pal, a 62-year-old builder who lives just 34 miles away from Mark in Bristol—so close that sometimes Mark gets on the other Mark’s bus route.
Both of the men have four kids, but are currently single, and they even has a friend in common, a colleague of the younger Mark drinks with Mark the elder at his local pub.
Perhaps most bizarre, both men absolutely love Thailand, having visited more than a dozen times each.
“We were so shocked by how strange it was,” said the younger man. “We both kept laughing and smiling about it, it made me happy.”
WATCH: Irishman Whips Out Fiddle to Entertain Passengers in Flight–and People Dance a Jig in the Aisle
The other man agreed. “It was crazy. I have never known anything like it.
“I was thinking ‘what is going on!’ I thought someone was winding me up.
Their personalities matched up well, too. After getting through the line for boarding, they both burst out laughing when they see they were seated next to each other.
“He’s like me, I’ve got a character, and I love winding people up. We’re the same.”
The pair were both going on 3-4 week vacations to Thailand on March 2, when they discovered the lucky coincidence on the EVA Air flight.
“I just found it astonishing that he lived so near—right up the road. I told him I’d been to Thailand 13 times and he told me he’d been there 83 times.”
“It’s crazy. What are the odds on that?
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By the end of the flight, the two Mark Garlands were solid friends and the bus driver even “had a little nap” on his new friend’s shoulder.
They’ve vowed to stay in contact and are due to meet up for a beer in Thailand.
“I’ve made a friend for life.”
SHARE THE FUN With Your Doppelganger Friends On Social Media…
A baby left completely paralyzed after being diagnosed with botulism was saved by a remedy found thousands of miles away in the US.
The parents rushed their six-month-old baby to the hospital in Birmingham, England, when he “went floppy” in the middle of the night.
Their pediatrician had already told them to keep a close eye on the infant because he showed a lack of energy and unwillingness to eat. So when he became limp they went straight to hospital—but Thomas’s condition initially stumped doctors.
“Everyone said just how strange Thomas was presenting and that his symptoms didn’t match up,” said mom Alba.
Thomas was eventually diagnosed with botulism, a toxin that can be found in dust, soil, and honey—which is why, for decades, doctors have advised parents not to give honey to babies under the age of one, because it is known to sometimes contain botulinum spores.
He was transferred to intensive care, where he was intubated and put into an induced coma.
“Seeing him like that was terrible. It was just so frightening,” Alba said in a statement. “The next few days were horrendous for us. He was completely paralyzed and we didn’t know if our little boy would wake up again.”
Dr. Amitav Parida, consultant pediatric neurologist, was the first to suggest that it might be botulism, the disease caused by botulinum toxin, which is also the chemical used in the production of Botox.
Only 20 cases of the condition, which can be deadly, have ever been reported in Britain.
Dr. Parida said it was something none of them in the hospital had ever seen before, but laboratory tests confirmed they were right.
In fact, it is so rare that staff at Birmingham Children’s Hospital had to order the medicine to be rushed from California—the only place in the world that creates the human antitoxin. It travelled more than 5,000 miles in under 48 hours, after rapid customs approval was given.
Thanks to the speedy delivery, Thomas received the antitoxin treatment needed to cure him in time.
Thomas is now back at home and recovering well, after being held in the hospital for another five weeks.
“Every day, we saw some progress. It was such a relief for us,” recalled Alba.
Now he has regained most his movement and is thriving with his family.
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Dr. Parida noted that—like almost all cases of infant botulism—the source of the botulism could not identified.
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Our partner Rob Brezsny, who has a new book out, Astrology Is Real: Revelations from My Life as an Oracle, provides his weekly wisdom to enlighten our thinking and motivate our mood. Rob’s Free Will Astrology, is a syndicated weekly column appearing in over a hundred publications. He is also the author of Pronoia Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How All of Creation Is Conspiring To Shower You with Blessings. (A free preview of the book is available here.)
Here is your weekly horoscope…
FREE WILL ASTROLOGY – Week of March 9, 2024
Copyright by Rob Brezsny, FreeWillAstrology.com
ARIES (March 21-April 19):
“Everyone has talent. What is rare is the courage to follow talent to the dark place where it leads.” So wrote Aries author Erica Jong. Is that true? Is it hard to access the fullness of our talents? Must we summon rare courage and explore dark places? Sometimes, yes. To overcome obstacles that interfere with ripening our talents, there may be tough work to do. I suspect the coming weeks and months will be one of those phases for you, Aries. But here’s the good news: I predict you will succeed.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20):
In October 1879, Thomas Edison and his research team produced the first electric light bulb that was viable enough to be of practical use. In September 1882, Edison opened the first power plant on the planet, enabling people to light their homes with the new invention. That was a revolutionary advance in a very short time. Dear Taurus, the innovations you have been making and I hope will continue to make are not as monumental as Edison’s. But I suspect they rank high among the best and brightest in your personal life history. Don’t slack off now. There’s more work to be done—interesting, exciting work!
GEMINI (May 21-June 20):
I watched as the Thai snake charmer kissed a poisonous cobra, taming the beast’s danger with her dancing hands. I beheld the paramedic dangle precariously from a helicopter to snag the woman and child stranded on a rooftop during a flood. And in my dream, I witnessed three of my Gemini friends singing a dragon to sleep, enabling them to ramble freely across the bridge the creature had previously forbidden them to traverse.
CANCER (June 21-July 22):
The horoscopes you are reading have been syndicated in publications all over the world: the US, Italy, France, Japan, Canada, Mexico, Australia, Netherlands, Russia, Cambodia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Venezuela, Ireland, and Finland. Yet it has never appeared in a publication in the UK, where there are over 52 million people whose first language is English—the same as mine. But I predict that will change in the coming months: I bet a British newspaper or website will finally print Free Will Astrology. I prophesy comparable expansions in your life, too, fellow Cancerian. What new audiences or influences or communities do you want to be part of? Make it happen!
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22):
Author Jean-Dominique Bauby wrote, “Today it seems to me that my whole life was nothing but a string of small near misses.” If you have endured anything resembling that frustration, Leo, I have good news: The coming months won’t bring you a string of small near misses. Indeed, the number of small near misses will be very few, maybe even zero. Instead, I predict you will gather an array of big, satisfying completions. Life will honor you with bull’s eyes, direct hits, and master strokes. Here’s the best way you can respond to your good fortune and ensure the arrival of even more good fortune: Share your wealth!
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22):
Virgo advice expert Cheryl Strayed wrote some rather pushy directions I will borrow and use for your horoscope. She and I say, “You will never have my permission to close yourself off to love and give up. Never. You must do everything you can to get what you want and need, to find ‘that type of love.’ It’s there for you.” I especially want you to hear and meditate on this guidance right now, Virgo. Why? Because I believe you are in urgent need of re-dedicating yourself to your heart’s desire. You have a sacred duty to intensify your imagination and deepen your willpower as you define what kind of love and tenderness and togetherness you want most.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22):
Author Adam Alter writes, “Perfect success is boring and uninspiring, and abject failure is exhausting and demoralizing. Somewhere between these extremes is a sweet spot that maximizes long-term progress.” And what is the magic formula? Alter says it’s when you make mistakes an average of 16 percent of the time and are successful 84 percent. Mistakes can be good because they help you learn and grow. Judging from your current astrological omens, Libra, I’m guessing you’re in a phase when your mistake rate is higher than usual—about 30 percent. (Though you’re still 70 percent successful!) That means you are experiencing expanded opportunities to learn all you can from studying what doesn’t work well. (Adam Alter’s book is Anatomy of a Breakthrough: How to Get Unstuck When It Matters Most.)
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21):
Sometimes you Scorpios are indeed secretive, as traditional astrologers assert. You understand that knowledge is power, and you build your potency by gathering information other people don’t have the savvy or resources to access. But it’s also true that you may appear to be secretive when in fact you have simply perceived and intuited more than everyone else wants to know. They might be overwhelmed by the deep, rich intelligence you have acquired—and would actually prefer to be ignorant of it. So you’re basically hiding stuff they want you to hide. Anyway, Scorpio, I suspect now is a time when you are loading up even more than usual with juicy gossip, inside scoops, tantalizing mysteries, taboo news, and practical wisdom that few others would be capable of managing. Please use your superpowers with kindness and wisdom.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21):
Here’s a little-known fact about me: I am the priest, wizard, rabbi, and pope of Parish #31025 in the Universal Life Church. One of my privileges in this role is to perform legal marriages. It has been a few years since I presided over anyone’s wedding, but I am coming out of semi-retirement to consecrate an unprecedented union. It’s between two aspects of yourself that have not been blended but should be blended. Do you know what I’m referring to? Before you read further, please identify these two aspects. Ready? I now pronounce you husband and wife, or husband and husband, or wife and wife, or spouse and spouse—or whatever you want to be pronounced.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19):
“You don’t have to suffer to be a poet,” said poet John Ciardi. “Adolescence is enough suffering for anyone.” I will add that adolescence is enough suffering for everyone, even if they’re not a poet. For most of us, our teenage years brought us streams of angst, self-doubt, confusion, and fear—sufficient to last a lifetime. That’s the bad news, Capricorn. The good news is that the coming months will be one of the best times ever for you to heal the wounds left over from your adolescence. You may not be able to get a total cure, but 65 percent is very possible. 75 percent isn’t out of the question. Get started!
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18):
A psychic once predicted that I would win a Grammy award for my music. She said my dad and mom would be in the audience, smiling proudly. Well, my dad died four years ago, and I haven’t produced a new album of songs for over ten years. So that Grammy prophecy is looking less and less likely. I should probably give up hope that it will come to pass. What about you, Aquarius? Is there any dream or fantasy you should consider abandoning? The coming weeks would be a good time to do so. It could open your mind and heart to a bright future possibility now hovering on the horizon.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20):
I invite you to entertain the following theory: Certain environments, companions, and influences enhance your intelligence, health, and ability to love—while others either do the opposite or have a neutral effect. If that’s true, it makes good sense for you to put yourself in the presence of environments, companions, and influences that enhance you. The coming weeks will be an excellent time to test this theory. I hope you will do extensive research and then initiate changes that implement your findings.
WANT MORE? Listen to Rob’s EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES, 4-5 minute meditations on the current state of your destiny — or subscribe to his unique daily text message service at: RealAstrology.com
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Quote of the Day: “We waste time looking for the perfect lover, instead of creating the perfect love.” – Tom Robbins
Photo by: Hannah Busing (cropped)
With a new inspirational quote every day, atop the perfect photo—collected and archived on our Quotes page—why not bookmark GNN.org for a daily uplift?
Tandem cycling may improve the health and well-being of people with Parkinson’s, according to a new study.
Pedaling on a bicycle built for two people can also be beneficial for the patient’s carer, particularly in terms of mental and emotional resilience.
The new findings have offered new potential avenues for improving the quality of life both for people suffering from the complex neurodegenerative condition and for those around them.
Researchers from the University of South Carolina in the US studied 18 participants—nine with Parkinson’s and nine care partners—as they took part in a tandem cycling program over two months.
The pairs exercised on stationary tandem bicycles indoors twice a week while also using a virtual reality platform which allowed them to visualize themselves cycling along scenic, real-life, outdoor routes.
Results, which will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology’s 76th Annual Meeting, showed that the participants with Parkinson’s had improved overall function after the program.
This included improved mobility and walking speed, and decreased disease progression and disease burden.
They also reported ‘fewer difficulties in daily living,’ with an average five-point drop recorded when it came to a test measuring challenges around relationships, communication, and social situations or interactions.
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For carers, an improvement in resilience was noted, with more people indicating ‘stronger’ responses to resilience questionnaires than those completed before the program.
This meant more people answered questions about challenges with positive answers such as ‘I usually come through difficult times with little trouble’ and ‘I tend to bounce back quickly after hard times’.
This group also demonstrated a decrease in depression, which the research team believes could help reduce ‘the care partner burden’.
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“Our study found that a unique cycling program that pairs people with Parkinson’s disease with their care partners can improve the physical, emotional, and mental well-being of both cyclists to improve their quality of life,” said corresponding author Dr. Jennifer Trilk.
“It is just as important that care partners also receive care, so that is why we included them as the cycling partner.”
She noted that the initial study was small and so in the future the team will look to use larger test groups to confirm their findings.
SHARE This Story With Anyone You Know Caring For A Parkinson’s Patient…
In an incredibly rare event, the New England Aquarium aerial survey team sighted a gray whale off the New England coast last week, a species that has been extinct in the Atlantic for more than 200 years.
Aquarium scientists were flying 30 miles south of Nantucket on March 1st when they sighted an unusual whale. The animal repeatedly dove and resurfaced, appearing to be feeding.
The aerial survey plane circled the area for 45 minutes, allowing observers to capture additional photos. After the encounter, the observers reviewed the images and confirmed their suspicions: It was a gray whale.
“I didn’t want to say out loud what it was, because it seemed crazy,” said Orla O’Brien, associate research scientist in the Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life at the New England Aquarium.
While the whale was on a dive, O’Brien showed the photos to Research Technician Kate Laemmle, who was also in the plane.
“My brain was trying to process what I was seeing, because this animal was something that should not really exist in these waters,” said Laemmle in a press release. “We were laughing because of how wild and exciting this was—to see an animal that disappeared from the Atlantic hundreds of years ago!”
Gray whales are regularly found in the North Pacific Ocean and are easily distinguished from other whale species by their lack of a dorsal fin, mottled grey and white skin, and dorsal hump followed by pronounced ridges. The species disappeared from the Atlantic Ocean by the 18th century, but in the last 15 years, there have been five observations of gray whales in Atlantic and Mediterranean waters, including off the coast of Florida in December 2023.
Aquarium scientists believe the gray whale seen off New England this month is the same whale sighted in Florida late last year.
The Washington Post, reporting on the sighting, dug up a colonial official’s writings from 1729 that described a “scrag whale” off the coast of Massachusets as the last time a grey whale was sighted in the area, though they are common off the coast of California.
FIRST-TIME GLIMPSES: Scientists Amazed By Sighting of Extremely Rare Jellyfish Only Seen Once Before (WATCH)
To explain the strange sightings, scientists point to climate change. The Northwest Passage, which connects the Atlantic and Pacific through the Arctic Ocean in Canada, has regularly been ice-free in the summertime in recent years, partly due to rising global temperatures.
The extent of the sea ice typically limits the species range of gray whales, experts say, as the whales cannot break through the thick winter ice that usually blocks the Passage. Now, gray whales can potentially travel the Passage in the summer, something that wouldn’t have been possible in the previous century.
“This sighting highlights how important each survey is. While we expect to see humpback, right, and fin whales, the ocean is a dynamic ecosystem, and you never know what you’ll find,” O’Brien said. “These sightings of gray whales in the Atlantic serve as a reminder of how quickly marine species respond to climate change, given the chance.”
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The Post heard from Leigh Torres, a marine biologist from Oregon State U., who said that he thought the most likely explanation was that the grey whale spotted in the aerial survey was a young juvenile who “took a wrong turn.”
“I consider gray whales to be ‘risk takers,’ meaning they show up and feed in places that we often don’t expect or consider ‘normal,’” she said. Such behavior sometimes provides “good adaptation to changing conditions, like finding a new feeding area or food type,” she added.
SHARE This Wild Sight With Your Friends From The Mid-Atlantic…
While more of the world’s population are enjoying battery-powered electronics than ever before, concerned governments and manufacturers are running around seeking to secure reliable supplies of minerals used to make them.
Graphite is an indispensable resource for mass battery production, and a firm in New Zealand has discovered a way to synthesize this critical mineral with woodchips.
The company claims that with just 5% of all the wood byproducts from the lumber industry, they could meet half the total global projected graphite demand for EV and power grid scale batteries by 2030, and by preventing the burning or decomposition of this wood waste, the process actually removes 2.7 tonnes of CO2 and equivalents for every tonne of biographite produced.
CarbonScrape has already secured $18 million in funding from the giant Finnish-Swedish forestry firm Stora Enso as well as and Hong Kong-based battery producer Amperex Technology Ltd.
Their production method is called thermo-catalytic graphitisation, which first produces a charcoal that is than turned into graphite.
Graphite is used for battery anodes, for which high-purity graphite is required, and for which the biographite is graded.
“The production of ‘traditional’ synthetic graphite uses fossil fuel-based feedstocks, such as coal tar pitch and petroleum coke, and fossil fuel-powered processes,” CarbonScrape CEO Ivan Williams told Euronews.
MORE INNOVATIVE MATERIALS: Lithium Discovery in Crater in Nevada Could Be Biggest Deposit Ever Found
“Consequently, it emits 35 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions for each tonne of graphite it produces.”
The environmental impacts of mining for graphite need not be overelaborated here, and it’s enough to point out that by harvesting existing waste streams, i.e. woodchips, CarbonScrape is contributing to a more circular economy in the very non-circular domain of natural resource extraction.
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CarbonScrape is also eager to point out that the production of biographite can take place either near lumber mills or near battery factories, elimating yet more carbon by reducing unnecessary transportation.
The financing received from Finland and Hong Kong will go to fund commericial biographite plants in the US and Europe.
SHARE This Green Solution To A Black Supply Chain Problem…
A 20-year restoration project on the island of Sicily has led to the reconstruction of a 26-foot (8-meter) tall statue of Atlas, the god who holds up the world in Greek mythology.
38 of these massive statues once held up the Temple of Zeus, built in the Golden Age of Ancient Greece and the largest Doric-style structure ever conceived. Located at a place called the Valley of the Temples near Agrigento, it was never finished before the city was captured by the Carthaginians.
Rather than letting the sandstone components of the Atlases lie around, restorationists and sculptors re-assembled some of them to form one of those 38 statues and mounted it in front of the remains of the Temple of Zeus as a guardian.
“The Atlas will become one of the highlights of the Valley of the Temples,” said Francesco Paolo Scarpinato, a cultural heritage assessor, in a joint statement with the Sicilian governor, Renato Schifani. “We can finally introduce this imposing work to the international community.”
Dating back to the 5th century BCE, the ancient Greek city-state of Agrakas had created one of the period’s most prosperous urban areas, crowned by a flurry of temple building from which the Temple of Zeus was to be the most grand.
Fortunes rise, but often fall, and conquered by Carthage, Rome, and eventually by an industrious Italian state looking to build a few more cities, Agrigento and its temples became archaeological rubble.
In 1818, a young British archaeologist named Cockerell discovered that large sandstone blocks lying about the Valley of the Temples were not, in fact, part of the temples themselves, but of a then-unknown number of massive human sculptures.
MORE ITALIAN ARCHAEOLOGY: 2,000-Year-Old Home Found Under a Seaside Playground May Be Pliny the Elder’s Villa
His research and surveys showed that the 38 Atlases were frozen in between the large Doric columns in the act of holding up a massive roof that was never built.
Now today, a giant steel plaque is the mount for the remade Atlas, whose pieces are secured to shelves. The project was initiated in 2004 as part of a collaboration between the Valley of the Temples archaeological park and the German Archaeological Institute of Rome. Together, they described and catalogued 90 components from 8 different Atlases.
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“The work we have carried out on the Atlas and the Olympian area is part of our mission to protect and enhance the Valley of the Temples,” said Sciarratta. “Bringing these stone colossi back to light has always been one of our primary objectives.”
Agrigento is an amazing part of Italy to visit today. Along with the Valley of the Temples, there are several fantastic beaches, and the city itself is old, multicultural, and gorgeous.
SHARE This Inspiring Rebuild With Your Friends In Need Of A Summer Destination…
Quote of the Day: “Forgiveness is not something we do for others; it is a gift to ourselves.” – David Whyte
Photo by: Євгенія Височина
With a new inspirational quote every day, atop the perfect photo—collected and archived on our Quotes page—why not bookmark GNN.org for a daily uplift?
An American YouTuber with millions of subscribers recently visited the Cree Nation in Canada with a big surprise—he speaks their language.
Ari Smith, aka, Xiaoma, is an American polyglot who travels to countries and surprises locals by speaking their language to them on camera. With his immense following, and incredible aptitude for languages, a Cree cultural leader thought him a perfect ambassador for their people’s spoken word.
“We had this language program that we’re we just launched called repeataftermecree.com where we teach 52 weeks of Cree. And I was wondering, how do I promote this, how could I get it out there?” said Patrick Mitsuing, the president of Powwow Times.
Mitsuing discovered Smith’s capacity for speech (the New Yorker can speak 50 languages to varying degrees of fluency) and invited him to take the Cree course and follow it up with a visit to the nation.
Smith’s work on YouTube has a clear entertainment bent, but his superpower for learning new languages is something he’s also used for humanitarian purposes—learning indigenous languages and traveling to where they’re spoken in order to raise awareness that some of these timeless tongues, with all their hidden knowledge and poetry, are disappearing.
Cree is notoriously difficult even among indigenous North American languages, but in the 23-minute video of his trip to the Cree lands, Smith surprises multiple passersby with some Cree chit-chat he learned from the course, taught by Patrick’s brother Vernon, and the responses vary from surprise and mirth to emotionally overwhelming.
At the end of the visit, which included dog-sledding and other activities, Smith gives a speech to some “very skeptical” elders of the Cree race. Just like the strangers on the street, some of the elders thought it was cool and funny, while others were deeply moved.
“The elders at first were kind of like ‘who is this weirdo with the camera?’…” Ari recounted to CBC News. “And then when I started speaking Cree, they were kind of like, ‘oh OK, that’s pretty cool.'”
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At the meeting with the elders, the topic of discussion—over rabbit stew and moose meat—was how to bring Cree language and culture to young people, and Mitsuing said that social media in the way that Smith uses it has to be part of the program.
“The comments that I’ve seen from his videos, from his shorts and reels that he did from this content. I see a lot of the young Indigenous, not just young but even older crowds saying ‘man, if he could learn, I could learn, man if he’s doing it, I could do it,'” Mitsuing told CBC.
OTHER INDIGENOUS LANGUAGE STORIES: 89-year-old had to ‘Speak Up’ to Save Believed-Extinct Language of Indigenous People Who Revered Silence
Technology is a way that indigenous languages can live on. Most people will choose to learn languages online today, and courses like repeataftermecree, or Inuktitut—taught through the media business Allurvik, out of Nunavut, are a way that not only allow the younger generation to carry on the torch, but preserve the language, its writing, and its instruction in case of darker days.
WATCH Smith’s visit below, starting with him surprising people on the street…
SHARE This Incredible Talent On A Mission To Save The Cree Language…
The FBI’s most recent Quarterly Uniform Crime Report data for Q3 2023 shows that nearly all crime in the US is going down; some to pre-pandemic levels, some to multi-decade lows.
This includes a violent crime average, as well as murder, rape, aggravated assault, robbery property crime, burglary, and larceny, with quarterly data showing the largest percentage declines ever recorded for the violent crimes.
It rubs against the public perception of rising crime in America driven, some suspect, by more widely distributed media content than ever before. This is particularly true for larceny, or petty theft and shoplifting, which got out of hand in San Francisco after a 2020 law removed it as a misdemeanor crime.
Videos of shoplifters brazenly robbing places like Rite Aid and Niemen Marcus were fodder for social media virality, and paired with riots across the US in the summer of 2020, it gave the impression that American cities were taking on the character of Kurt Russell’s Escape from New York.
Freelance crime analyst Jeff Asher believes those images are why Americans aren’t aware that crime is falling fast, all kinds of crime, nearly all over the country.
“Detroit is on pace to have the fewest murders since 1966 and Baltimore and St Louis are on pace for the fewest murders in each city in nearly a decade,” Asher writes on his Substack. “Murder is down 13.4 percent in cities under 100,000 with data in the sample and it’s down 12.6 percent in cities with 250,000 or more.”
Asher begs caution since the Unified Crime Report looks backward in a lag, and we won’t know for sure what kind of year 2023 was like until the final quarter is accounted for.
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“The quarterly data shows violent crime down in big cities, small cities, suburban counties, and rural counties, pretty much across the board,” writes Asher. “To put some of this in perspective, a 4 percent decline in the nation’s violent crime rate relative to 2022’s reported rate would lead to the lowest violent crime rate nationally since 1969.”
There are some caveats though. The FBI’s data was collected from agencies covering up to 78% of the American population, and the cities of Chicago and Los Angeles—no strangers to crime of all sorts—were not included as they reported no data.
Auto theft has risen in major population centers, and this is tempering what might otherwise look like near-record declines in property crime across the country.
Also buried in the FBI’s data are some interesting numbers on crime from counties that lie on the United States’ southern border.
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Eight cities—Brownsville, McAllen, Laredo, Eagle Pass, and El Paso in Texas; Sunland Park, New Mexico; Yuma, Arizona; and San Diego, had a homicide rate of 4.2 per 100k inhabitants, compared to a 6.2 national average.
In particular, El Paso, a city of 677,000, remains one of the safest communities of its size, according to an analysis by Axios.
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Wine is typically the first example in an analogy about something that gets better with age, but scientists suggest that birds are just as good.
That’s because migratory birds learn from previous experiences to shorten their annual journeys as they get older, reveals a new study about the very mysterious behavior of avian migration
Researchers observing white storks in Germany and Austria found the clever birds plot more direct routes and even develop shortcuts as they age, whilst younger birds take more time to explore.
The study, from scientists at the University of Wyoming (UW) in the US and the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behaviour in Germany, suggests experimental learning is an important aspect of successful migration.
Whilst genetics and social behavior are important factors in shaping animal migrations, information gained through individual experience also appears to help.
The fascinating new migration study, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, involved the technically sophisticated tracking of more than 250 white storks spread across five breeding areas in southern Germany and Austria between 2013 and 2020.
The tracking data not only pinpointed the migration pathways of the storks but also measured the timing and pace of individual storks, as well as estimating the amount of energy the storks used while flying.
The research team, which also involved researchers from the University of Konstanz in Germany, found that young storks tended to take their time exploring new places during migration.
However, they also noticed the birds’ migrations become increasingly shorter as they age.
“As the birds age and gain more experience, older individuals stop exploring new places and instead move more quickly and directly, resulting in greater energy expenditure during migratory flight,” said lead author Dr. Ellen Aikens, who has a joint faculty appointment with UW’s Haub School of Environment and Natural Resources.
“During spring migration, individuals innovated novel shortcuts during the transition from early life into adulthood, suggesting a reliance on spatial memory acquired through learning.”
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The researchers found that individual storks incrementally straightened their migration routes to find more direct ways to travel between their destinations during the spring migration to summer breeding and nesting grounds.
Dr. Aikens added that the findings could have implications for a variety of other species of migrating animals.
“Although information has largely been overlooked as a currency shaping migratory behavior, gaining information and using it to incrementally refine migration behavior through learning could play an important role in saving both energy and time,” she said.
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“The landscapes that animals move through are complex and dynamic, requiring that migrants learn where and when favorable conditions that facilitate movement occur and how to exploit them efficiently.”
Though Dr Aikens’ team doesn’t dispute the importance of genetics and ‘culturally-inherited information’ in animal migrations, they say the new findings point towards individual experience being another key factor.
“Whether the first migration is guided by genetics or results from following informed individuals, learning within a lifetime represents an additional and complementary mechanism shaping animal migration,” she concludes.
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NASA’s Crew-8 spacecraft recently docked with the International Space Station on its mission to deposit three US astronauts for a sixth-month stay, and their arrival was recorded with a video of a pile-on group hug in microgravity.
Yet there was another passenger on board—Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin.
It isn’t editorializing to say that US-Russia relations are the worst they’ve been since the worst days of the Cold War. Yet despite their differences, there’s one long and grand tradition they have always shared: peaceful cooperation and coexistence in space.
In the video, thrilled that their colleagues made it to the ISS safely, and thrilled, one would imagine, with the mere presence of new faces, Crew-8 mission commander Matthew Dominic is mobbed by NASA Crew-7 mission commander Jasmin Moghbeli and Soyuz-24 mission flight engineer Marina Vasilevskaya.
The three-astronaut group hug begins to float up toward the ceiling when Dominic realizes just in time that they would all get a nasty bump on their heads if he didn’t stop them.
Dominic then moves to greet Soyuz-24 mission commander Oleg Kononenko, while the rest of his crew follow behind hugging those wearing the red white and blue and the white blue and red.
NASA astronauts Dominick, Michael Barratt, and Jeanette Epps arrived in the Crew capsule Endeavor with Grebenkin for a six-month stay to relieve the Crew-7 mission team that arrived in the Crew Dragon spacecraft Endurance.
The mission was the fifth flight for the Endurance, and is the first SpaceX Crew Dragon to reach that milestone. Currently, the craft is rated for a maximum of five flights, but Space News reports that the company has sat down with NASA to study extending that certification to as many as 15 flights based on performance.
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Astronauts have a unique way of seeing the world, figuratively and literally. Looking down on our home from low-Earth orbit day after day, they realize (and they all say they do) that space is an incredibly harsh environment, and everything we humans have and need is concentrated on this single planet with no alternative.
As regards US-Russia relations, you can see in the video what they think of the current tensions, and perhaps we should all take a leaf out of their books.
WATCH the micrograv group hug below…
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Quote of the Day: “It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages.” – Friedrich Nietzsche
Photo by: licensed via fotolia
With a new inspirational quote every day, atop the perfect photo—collected and archived on our Quotes page—why not bookmark GNN.org for a daily uplift?
Scientists say an 11th-century Islamic astrolabe, bearing both Arabic and Hebrew inscriptions, is one of the oldest examples ever discovered, and one of only a handful known in the world.
They say the astronomical instrument was adapted, translated, and corrected for centuries by Muslim, Jewish, and Christian users in Spain, North Africa, and Italy where it was discovered.
Dr. Federica Gigante, of Cambridge University, first came across a newly uploaded image of the astrolabe by chance on the website of the Fondazione Museo Miniscalchi-Erizzo, in Verona. Intrigued, she asked them about it.
“The museum didn’t know what it was, and thought it might actually be fake,” she told the press. “It’s now the single most important object in their collection.”
“When I visited the museum and studied the astrolabe up close, I noticed that not only was it covered in beautifully engraved Arabic inscriptions but that I could see faint inscriptions in Hebrew,” she said. “I thought I might be dreaming, but I kept seeing more and more. It was very exciting.”
Dr. Gigante is an expert on Islamic astrolabes and previously a curator of Islamic scientific instruments. She says astrolabes were kind of like the world’s first smartphone, a computational device that could be put to hundreds of uses.
The instruments provided a portable two-dimensional model of the universe fitting in the user’s hand, enabling them to calculate time and distances, plot the position of the stars, and even forecast the future by casting a horoscope.
She identified the object as Andalusian, and from the style of the engraving, and the arrangement of the scales on the back, matched it to instruments made in Al-Andalus, the Muslim-ruled area of Spain, in the 11th Century.
“The Verona astrolabe underwent many modifications, additions, and adaptations as it changed hands,” she said. “At least three separate users felt the need to add translations and corrections to this object, two using Hebrew and one using a Western language.”
“This isn’t just an incredibly rare object. It’s a powerful record of scientific exchange between Arabs, Jews, and Christians over hundreds of years.”
One side of a plate is inscribed in Arabic ‘for the latitude of Cordoba, 38° 30′,’ while the other side ‘for the latitude of Toledo, 40°.’
Dr. Gigante suggests that the astrolabe might have been made in Toledo at a time when it was a thriving center of coexistence and cultural exchange between the Abrahamic faiths. The astrolabe features Muslim prayer lines and prayer names, arranged to ensure that its original intended users kept on time to perform their five supplications.
The signature inscribed on the astrolabe reads in Arabic: “for Isḥāq […]/the work of Yūnus.”
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She said the two names Isḥāq and Yūnus—Isaac and Jonah in English—could be Jewish names written in the Arabic script, a detail that suggests that the object was at a certain point circulating within a Sephardi Jewish community in Spain, where Arabic was the spoken language.
A second, added plate is inscribed for typical North African latitudes suggesting another era of the object’s life. It was perhaps used in Morocco, which hosted a large Jewish diaspora for centuries, and contains Jewish sites that today are still marked by pilgrimage and celebration.
Hebrew inscriptions were added to the astrolabe by more than one hand. One set of additions is carved deeply and neatly, while a different set of translations is very light, uneven, and shows an insecure hand.
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“These Hebrew additions and translations suggest that at a certain point, the object left Spain or North Africa and circulated amongst the Jewish diaspora community in Italy, where Arabic was not understood, and Hebrew was used instead,” said Dr. Gigante.
Other Hebrew inscriptions are instead translations of the Arabic names for astrological signs, for Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius, Pisces, and Aries.
Dr. Gigante, whose findings were published in the journal Nuncius, says that the translations reflect the recommendations prescribed by the Spanish Jewish polymath Abraham Ibn Ezra in the earliest surviving treatise on the astrolabe in the Hebrew language written in 1146 in Verona, exactly where the astrolabe is found today.
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Twelfth-century Verona hosted one of the longest-standing and most important Jewish communities in Italy, and Ibn Ezra warned his readers that an instrument must be checked before use to verify the accuracy of the values to be calculated.
Dr. Gigante suggests that the person who added the Hebrew inscriptions might have been following such recommendations.
The astrolabe features corrections inscribed not only in Hebrew but also in Western numerals. All sides of the astrolabe’s plates feature lightly scratched markings in Western numerals, translating and correcting the latitude values, some even multiple times.
Dr. Gigante believes it is highly likely that the additions were made in Verona for a Latin or Italian language speaker.
In one case, someone lightly scratched the numbers “42” and “40” near the inscription reading ‘for the latitude of Medinaceli, 41° 30′,’ though Dr. Gigante points out the original Arabic was actually more accurate for this latitude.
The astrolabe is thought to have made its way into the collection of the 17th Century Veronese nobleman Ludovico Moscardo before passing by marriage to the Miniscalchi family. In 1990, the family founded the Fondazione Museo Miniscalchi-Erizzo to preserve the collections.
“This object is Islamic, Jewish, and European, they can’t be separated,” Dr. Gigante confirmed.
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An AI-powered application developed by physician-scientists at the University of Pittsburgh in the US could decrease unnecessary antibiotic use in children by diagnosing ear infections via smartphone.
The only thing worse than your child getting an ear infection is wrongly believing they have one and administering a redundant course of antibiotics which obliterates their developing gut microbiome.
Around 70% of children develop an ear infection before the age of one, the most common of which is acute otitis media (AOM).
However, AOM is often confused with other issues such as fluid behind the ear, which can lead to infections being incorrectly diagnosed and incorrectly treated.
The study’s senior author Dr. Alejandro Hoberman, a professor of pediatrics, explained that an underdiagnosis of AOM results in inadequate care, while overdiagnosis results in unnecessary antibiotic treatment, which can compromise the effectiveness of currently available antibiotics.
To develop the new AI tool, Dr. Hoberman and his research team built and annotated a training library of 1,151 videos of the tympanic membrane, also known as the eardrum, from 635 children who visited outpatient pediatric offices at the University of Pittsburgh’s Medical Center between 2018 and 2023.
“The eardrum is a thin, flat piece of tissue that stretches across the ear canal,” explained Dr. Hoberman. “In AOM, the eardrum bulges like a bagel, leaving a central area of depression that resembles a bagel hole.”
“In contrast, in children with otitis media with effusion, no bulging of the tympanic membrane is present.”
Two trained experts with extensive experience in AOM research reviewed the videos and made a diagnosis of AOM or not AOM, which the research team then used to teach two different AI models
The completed AI tool works by looking at a video of a patient’s eardrum and assessing its shape, position, color, and translucency to make a diagnosis.
Results, published in the journal JAMA Pediatrics, revealed that diagnosis was 93% accurate, with low rates of both false negatives and false positives.
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Previous studies of clinicians have revealed a diagnostic accuracy of AOM ranging from 30 to 84%, depending on the type of healthcare provider, level of training, and age of the child being examined.
“These findings suggest that our tool is more accurate than many clinicians,” said Dr. Hoberman. “It could be a game-changer in primary health care settings to support clinicians in stringently diagnosing AOM and guiding treatment decisions.”
He added that another benefit of the tool, which makes a diagnosis by assessing a short video of the eardrum captured by an otoscope connected to a mobile phone camera, is that the videos can be stored and used to further improve diagnosis.
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“The videos we capture can be stored in a patient’s medical record and shared with other providers, meaning we can show parents and/or students what we see and explain why we are or are not making a diagnosis of ear infection,” he added.
“It is important both as a teaching tool and for reassuring parents that their child is receiving appropriate treatment.”
Hoberman hopes that the newly developed technology could soon be implemented widely across healthcare centers.
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It’s never a bad time to take a moment and thank our lucky stars for pediatric medicine. These beautiful twin boys were each born with a different form of congenital heart defect, and despite dozens of procedures, they’re healthy and living their best life; playing Rugby on the weekends.
Benson and Albert Tass were each born with heart valve problems and had to be operated on immediately after their mother, Maria, gave birth to them at Queensland Children’s Hospital (QCH).
Dr. Nelson Alphonso, a pediatric cardiologist performed the operation which saw Benson and Albert taken from their mother immediately. The poor woman wasn’t afforded even a moment to hold her newborns before they were rushed away.
Dr. Alphonso performed open-heart surgery on both infants; a cardiovascular reconstruction with a bovine pericardium. Benson went into sepsis, and had to be washed out with three liters of water. A month passed, and Maria admitted she was “sad all the time” but then, a phone call arrived early on Christmas morning from QCH.
They “came out on top,” said Maria, who was finally able to visit the hospital and hold her boys.
“I have many patients who are twins and one is perfectly fine with no congenital heart defect,” Dr. Alphonso told ABC News, Australia. “So to have two twins at the same time with a related heart defect is very unusual.”
OTHER INFANT MEDICAL CARE: World’s Smallest Baby, Born the Size of an Apple, Finally Leaves Hospital as Healthy 5-Pound Infant
More than 2,800 children have received lifesaving heart surgery at QCH, which opened the very year Albert and Benson were born.
Dr. Alphonso said that of this number, 40% weren’t even a month old at the time.
The twins have undergone countless tests, scans, and procedures since that discordant entry into the world, but mother Maria and father Farron do everything they can to ensure they are able to live their best lives.
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This has included playing Rugby 7s on the weekends for years.
“I try to let them live their best life, and experience life as much as they can, but also protect them as much as possible,” Maria told ABC.
It won’t be long now before the twins are set for their first return to QCH since the surgery for a check-up with Dr. Alphonso, who hasn’t seen them since they were tiny infants.
The mortality rate of children with congenital heart defects in Australia has fallen so low thanks to the success of institutions like QCH, that now research and funding is focused on morbidity.
Dr. Alphonso admitted that the field has rapidly advanced over the last decade, and that the majority of the pediatric department’s focus is now tailored towards reducing the complications as much as possible.
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The war in Ukraine recently passed the two-year mark, and more than 15,000 animals impacted by the war have been saved by PETA Germany and the Ukraine-based Animal Rescue Kharkiv (ARK).
Stories about Ukrainian zoo animals, such as these lions and this Asiatic black bear, have made it into the headlines over the course of the conflict, but thousands of other domesticated animals have been saved as well—sometimes out from under shelling.
ARK’s dedicated teams are providing upwards of 40 tons of food per month to cats, dogs, horses, donkeys, and other animals; offering free spay/neuter surgeries to 150 animals every month; and helping maintain refuges for animals in Kharkiv.
With their partners in Germany, many of these animals are getting second or third chances at life through international rescue programs. All the links below contain what may be considered tear-jerking or occasionally graphic scenes.
PETA is understandably proud of the work that ARK, whom they support, is doing, and posts regular updates anytime animals are saved. Many of their stories and videos—like this rescued pregnant dog and her 8 puppies—involve soldiers and civilians going out of their way in desperate times to care for and shelter animals abandoned during shelling or other violent flare-ups.
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Not all rescues involve crossing lines of fire—this swan was stranded on razor-thin ice with a blood-stained wing, and ARK members used an inflatable boat like a sled to reach him—the boat served as part-stretcher part-lifeboat in case the ice broke under their feet.
Nearly all of the animals rescued need immediate medical treatment for shrapnel injuries, broken bones, or infections. ARK’s hospital treats a staggering 100 to 130 animals per day, like this goat named Alaska who suffered a broken leg, for war-related injuries or deprivation.
MORE RESCUE OPERATIONS: Ukraine Girl Bereft Without Her Cat is Reunited Thanks to Kind Strangers in 5 Countries and 7,000 Miles–WATCH
“Animals don’t wage wars, but they’re victims of them, left to suffer without food, water, or veterinary attention for grievous injuries unless someone who cares comes to their aid,” says PETA President Ingrid Newkirk. “PETA urges everyone to consider the animals impacted by conflicts and the heroes putting their own lives at risk to help them.
Readers interested in contributing to this life-saving work can donate to the PETA Germany Compassion Fund which goes directly you Ukrainian partners like ARK.
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