Quote of the Day: “When all else is lost, the future still remains.” – Christian Nestell Bovee
Photo by: Hadija
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A devoted single mom was looking for a budget friendly way to give her son a special birthday—so she reached out on Facebook to the local car community and their response left her speechless.
Mikayla Freeman was hoping to urge a few motor enthusiasts to form ‘a car parade’ down their street near Nashville.
“My son’s 8th birthday is Sunday, he’s a MAJOR car guy,” she wrote.
The plea was shared 550 times and Mikayla’s wish was granted.
Within two days, it sparked the generosity of 83 drivers who showed up at noon on a recent Sunday.
With large mylar balloons in the front yard, Tristan was brought outside to witness an endless stream of gorgeous cars tooting their horns and passing birthday wishes and gifts through the open windows.
Over 100 strangers showed up in the LaVergne neighborhood to surprise the 8-year-old. Especially welcome were those driving Challenger Hellcats and McLarens, Tristan’s two favorite cars.
A car videographer Tia May wanted to shine a positive light on the car community, so she filmed the event (see the video below).
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“I was a Veteran who struggled with mental and physical health issues for decades,” she told GNN. “The car community has changed my life in a very positive way.
“I reignited my passion for cars and started to connect heavily with the car community—that’s when everything changed. I met a ton of amazing people, many of which now feel like family.”
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She started racing and shoots footage in “drift cars” for her new YouTube channel.
Watch the caring community make a little boy’s day…
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One rainy day in Bedfordshire, England, Peter Richards and his wife noticed a pair of lads shivering under the eaves of their country cottage after getting a soaking.
Inviting them inside to dry off and have some tea, one of the two young men would eventually give Richards a ceramic sculpture of a black and white cat, which looked similar to their pet “Moggy” at the time, as a way of repaying the kindness from that day.
Now, that child-life sculpture has sold for a small fortune, because its maker was none other than Sir David Hockney, the most celebrated English artist of the 20th century.
David Hockney and his friend Norman Stevens from Bradford College of Art were hitchhiking to London to visit exhibitions at the time of the fateful encounter.
Hockney went on to have a long-lasting friendship with the Richards.
The sculpture, which could be Hockney’s first ceramic creation, is one of six cats produced by the artist in 1955 while still at art school.
It measures about two dozen inches long and demonstrates his incredible skill with three-dimensional forms.
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When the sculpture went up for auction recently, it didn’t quite reach the record for a Hockney work of £91 million, but it did eclipse the previous sale record of £100,000 ($121,000) set by a similar Hockney sculpture in June when it was sold for about $134,000
The piece also came with drawings and plans for the piece, along with letters and cards sent to the Richards by the artist over the years.
Hockney has long had a fascination with cats, and they have been a significant motif in some of his major works.
MORE INTERESTING AUCTION STORIES: The Painting Paid for Grilled Cheese Sandwiches 50 Years Ago – Now Earns the Restaurant Thousands
“This was a fantastic result for the vendor who was present in the room and was auctioning the Hockney items to benefit his grandchildren,” said Mark Stacey, from Stacey’s Auctioneers & Valuers who sold the item.
Peter Richards is in his 90s, said he’d decided now was the right time to sell the ornament to help the younger generations of his family.
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Described as “one of the last great ‘firsts'” the passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific through the Canadian Arctic was, for the first time ever, rowed by an expedition of 3 men and 1 woman.
West Hansen, Eileen Visser, Mark Agnew, and Jeff Wueste, who together styled themselves the “Arctic Cowboys,” set off in July and also became the first to make the crossing with kayaks in a single season, with the team needing just 83 wet, frigid, and largely grueling days to complete the journey of 1,600 miles.
62-year-old Wast Hansen is a legendary endurance kayaker and adventurer. He once paddled the entire 4,000-mile path of the Amazon River from source to sea, a feat he replicated on the Volga years later. Both experiences informed his organizing of this expedition.
This was an altogether different feat, however, and one that has been several years in the making.
The Northwest Passage has been crossed in boats many times before. In 1990, it was traversed by Jonathan Waterman, an explorer who used almost every mode of non-motorized transport you can think of.
In 2018, Hansen was putting the Arctic Cowboys team together and hoped to raise $70,000 for the expedition from sponsors. With just $10,000 accumulated, COVID-19 and weather delayed the trip until 2022, when he made his first attempt along with Wueste and another paddler.
“Primarily, the wind is the biggest concern,” Hansen told Texas Monthly prior to his 2022 attempt. “We’re prepared for snow and ice and rain, but the wind will create choppy waves and difficult paddling conditions.”
Severe weather completely interrupted their trip, and it almost ruined this year’s expedition as well, pinning them down at the entrance of the Passage near Baffin Bay for 2 weeks mostly on account of moving sea ice.
Throughout their voyage they suffered perpetually from the elements, with Mark Agnew, who became the first Scot and the first Brit to make the crossing with a paddle, saying his feet essentially never warmed up the whole trip.
“The biggest challenge was the sea ice,” Agnew told the BBC, saying their early July start meant that a lot of the ocean was still frozen. “We became trapped in the ice a lot. There was this one occasion in particular where we were trapped in the ice and two icebergs began to ram together with us in between. I thought we were going to be crushed to death.”
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According to a blog post shared by Barbara Edington, expedition manager and Hansen’s sister on Monday, the final sixteen miles as the team approached Cape Bathurst on the other side of the remote Northern Territory, were the most harrowing. They involved terrifying 15-foot waves, and a long dark slog through freezing mud and water in the falling snow to find a campsite at the end of the day.
But there was beauty too. They often found themselves looking at beluga whales, narwhals, polar bears, shaggy musk oxen, and caribou. Several times the green of the Aurora Borealis was the backdrop to their paddling.
MORE ROWING CHALLENGES: 23-Year-Old Rows Solo 3,000 Miles Across Atlantic Setting Race Record for Female
At one point a polar bear sat on their tent wall which caused Agnew and another paddler to run outside and begin to scream and throw stones at the beast until it “sauntered off” being previously neither interested in eating them, amazingly, nor in running away.
“It has yet to settle in. I’m still in the mindset of getting the team safely back to their homes,” Hansen, now thirty pounds lighter than when he started, wrote Monday in a text message he sent from a GPS device.
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In England’s North Yorkshire, locals opposed a fracking project vigorously enough to get the whole thing canceled, but the almost 2-mile deep borehole had already been made.
Rather than simply letting it lie as an ugly testament to the picket line, Third Energy converted it into a geothermal heating station prototype that could heat 300 homes in the village of Kirby Misperton if commercially developed.
Every 3,000 feet or so one drills down into the Earth, the rock warms by 54°F or thereabouts. At 2 miles, the rock is very hot, and Third Energy can pump water to those depths to heat it up naturally before drawing it back up to the surface and using it to power home radiators and water heaters.
In volcanically active regions, supercritical water or steam can power turbines to generate electricity. Britain has power stations like this, but in the case of Kirby Misperton, it’s just heating homes and water taps.
However, it’s doing so in a more environmentally friendly way than channeling gas or using electric ventilation and heating oil.
When water is used in homes and loses its heat, it’s pumped back down to the bowels of the Earth to reheat where that force then brings the already-heated water to the surface in a cycle that requires almost no electricity.
“When we were campaigning, we had to say what the solution was,” said Steve Mason, then-head of anti-fracking group Frack Free United, and now director of Third Energy. “You can’t just say ‘No, no, no’ all the time. We need to be telling people this can be done and this is a solution.”
Years of European governments hounding fossil fuel companies with regulations and promises that they will be replaced by renewable energy has driven the price of home heating on the continent and in Britain incredibly high. The War in Ukraine and the destruction of the Nord Stream II pipeline didn’t help either.
Yet despite this, Third Energy’s managing director Russell Howe doesn’t see his firm going back to natural gas or the prices they’re no commanding.
MORE GEOTHERMAL ADVANCEMENTS: The Perfect Energy Source Is Already Here – Endless Geothermal Is Poised for Release From Deep in the Earth
“I think once you’ve seen what the potential is and you see people in the community come and feel the radiator and see the excitement, there’s no interest in the company going back to fossil fuels,” Howe told Sky News.
Per Sky News, there are 680 wells drilled for fossil fuels in Britain that could be converted into these geothermal heating stations.
MORE GEOTHERMAL ADVANCEMENTS: Geothermal Power is Finally a Reality After the Next-Generation Breakthrough of Carbon-Free Energy in Nevada
It has recently been discovered that deep in Britain’s network of abandoned coal mines, water has been heated to useable temperatures by the Earth’s core, and it too can be utilized in home heat pumps.
One such project is already heating a host of commercial real estate and 350 apartments in the town of Gateshead.
SHARE This Gas To Green Story With Your Friends Concerned About The Climate…
Quote of the Day: “To be free is to have achieved your life.” – Tennessee Williams
Photo by: Ken Brown, CC License
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Tai Chi, a traditional Chinese martial art involving sequences of slow controlled movements meant to cultivate one of the three kinds of vital energy, called qi, was found to slow the progression of Parkinson’s disorder in 147 seniors.
Patients who already had the debilitating disorder and who took up Tai Chi also needed lower doses of the required drugs, according to the findings published by the BMJ Journal of Neurology Neurosurgery and Psychiatry.
The disease, characterized by slowness of movement, resting tremors, plus stiff and inflexible muscles, is the fastest-growing neurological condition in the world, with the number of those affected projected to reach nearly five million by 2030 in China alone, and 1.2 million in the US.
There is no cure as yet for Parkinson’s, and while drugs can improve symptoms, they don’t treat all the manifestations of the disease.
Any visitor to China will have undoubtedly seen old folks doing Tai Chi in the park. The slow coordinated movements are a favorite of those trying to keep themselves limber in their silver years, especially in winter.
Previously published research suggests that Tai Chi eases Parkinson’s symptoms in the short term, but whether that improvement could be sustained over the long term wasn’t known.
To find out, Chinese researchers monitored two groups of patients with Parkinson’s for over five years from January 2016 to June 2021.
One group of 147 patients practiced Tai Chi twice a week for an hour, aided by the provision of classes to improve their technique.
The other group of 187 patients continued with their standard care but didn’t practice Tai Chi.
Disease severity was formally assessed in all the participants at the start of the monitoring period, and disease progression, including increases in the need for medication, was then monitored once a year until 2021.
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A variety of other symptoms were also monitored, such as sleep quality and autonomic nervous system activity.
“Disease progression was slower at all monitoring points in the Tai Chi group, as assessed by three validated scales to assess overall symptoms, movement, and balance,” said study author Dr. Gen Li from Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine.
“The number of patients who needed to increase their medication in the comparison group was also significantly higher than it was in the Tai Chi Group. Cognitive function deteriorated more slowly in the Tai Chi group as did other non-movement symptoms, while sleep and quality of life continuously improved,” he added.
The prevalence of complications was significantly lower in the Tai Chi group than in the comparison group.
Dr. Li said falls, dizziness, and back pain were the three side effects reported by study participants, but they were all “significantly lower” in the Tai Chi group.
MORE NEWS LIKE THIS: Get Your Body Moving to Put the Brakes on Early Parkinson’s, Study Says
“Our study has shown that Tai Chi retains the long-term beneficial effect on [Parkinson’s disease], indicating the potential disease-modifying effects on both motor and non-motor symptoms, especially gait, balance, autonomic symptoms, and cognition,” said Dr. Li.
“The long-term beneficial effect could prolong the time without disability, leading to a higher quality of life, a lower burden for caregivers, and less drug usage.”
Tai Chi isn’t as complicated as it might look like. There are fundamental movements that flow in and out of one another to make it seem that there are many different movements when the basics are just eight forms.
As much yoga as there is on the internet, there are also plenty of Tai Chi lessons and practices.
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Buried under the 24-hour news cycles of the last few months, recovery in Lahaina is progressing, one tiny house at a time.
William Fincher, an owner of two restaurants in the historic Maui town which tragically burned down this August, is receiving help from neighbors and friends to build a pair of tiny homes for his family of a wife, two kids, and two dogs.
Fincher lost both restaurants and his home in the fires, but within three or four days, local builder Juan Ricci was ordering materials to help the Fincher family construct the tiny houses. He did it all from his own pocket until the build team, including Fincher, Ricci, and some more friends had to set up a GoFundMe to look for the money.
Javier Barberi, a close friend, told Good Morning America in no uncertain terms that Fincher was Lahaina through and through, and he simply had to stay in order to help rebuild and recover the spirit of the town. Barberi gave Fincher space on his land to build.
With Barberi’s help and Ricci’s instruction, the tiny homes started coming together. Fincher knew a bit about woodshop, but laying insulation, framing doors, and roofing, were all skills he didn’t have. Ricci and his workers provided free labor and instruction.
“He [Ricci] started building these homes out of the goodness of his own heart and paying everything out of pocket. He trusts that the money will come,” writes volunteer Andreas Alfaro on the GoFundMe page which has so far raised $13,000 of its goal of $100,000.
What started as a few guys coming together to support their neighbor in Fincher has turned into a bold grassroots effort to raise money to build small, long-term homes for displaced residents, and pay locals who lost their jobs in the fires to do it, with Ricci providing on-the-job training from 20 years experience building on Hawai’i.
MORE STORIES FROM LAHAINA: A 5-Year-Old’s Lemonade Stand in Seattle Raised Over $17,000 for Victims of Maui Wildfires
“That’s the idea, to raise some money and keep going and start paying the guys that have been working,” Ricci told GMA.
MORE STORIES FROM LAHAINA: Oprah And Dwayne Johnson Giving $1,200 Per Month To Maui Wildfire Survivors
“Lahaina is the best place in the world without a doubt, and now it’s still there,” said Fincher.
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Google doesn’t just use satellite data and machine learning to help you find Vietnamese food in the city you’re visiting, it’s actively protecting developing countries from flooding.
This August, the Chilean areas of Constitucion and Maule witnessed devastating floods that left thousands homeless, but many were able to gather critical belongings and evacuate because Google sent out warnings 2 days in advance of the flooding through their Flood Hub modeling tool.
Riverine floods, when heavy rains cause rivers to overflow their banks, happen all over the world all the time, and are a little like the unsung villain of natural disasters.
It was long thought impossible to predict these foods because of the number of factors beyond simple weather reports and forecasts, such as soil composition, topography, potential infrastructure failings, and so on.
“This was really kind of a moonshot, in a way,” said Yossi Matias, vice president of engineering and research at Google. “Can we use machine learning and other technologies in order to try to predict floods at some level of accuracy that would be valuable?”
The answer is, since Flood Hub was launched in 2018 in India, yes, you can—very well in fact.
The baseline unit of analysis in the tool is thousands of detailed satellite images of waterways that can build a topographical understanding of the river’s course and gather scientific information on flooding rates, soil composition, history of erosion, and so on. This is then treated to a deep-learning program that creates flooding models based on the addition of weather forecasts and rainfall data.
The result is what they call their global hydrologic model, and has been in use across dozens of countries for the last five years, and was recently introduced in the US and Canada. This monsoon season in India and Bangladesh, Flood Hub sent out 45 million alerts.
“It allowed us to provide flood forecasting information even in places where the historical data is quite scarce,” Matias told Adele Peters of Fast Company Magazine, reporting on the tool.
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“For example, [we’re in] 23 countries in Africa, many of which actually don’t have enough data, but because we can learn the patterns of floods and then map them to places that have certain similarities, it allows them to get to the right level of quality that we needed.”
When Flood Hub predicts an oncoming flood, it has a variety of ways to send out alerts. Some countries receive alerts right on their phones similar to the Amber Alert system in the US, but in other cases it’s sent to government departments who may use their own lines of communication, even going so far as knocking door to door, or sending out WhatsApp messages.
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Google has also partnered with a disaster recovery NGO called Give Directly, which is pioneering a platform that allows them to send money directly to people who receive Flood Hub evacuation alerts, giving them funds to afford a relocation.
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With a brilliant idea that could clear two hurdles in one leap for renewable energy sources, scientists at ETH Zurich have discovered a way to use chicken feathers to manufacture a critical component for hydrogen fuel cells.
Hydrogen fuel cells can generate both emissions-free energy and a portable fuel similar to diesel, but at the moment they are manufactured with so-called “forever chemicals” that are toxic in certain quantities and don’t biodegrade in any way.
On the other hand, chicken is an invaluable part of the food supply but comes with 40 million metric tons annually of feathers that are incinerated as a waste product that produces CO2 and other problematic gases as well.
This is where the team at ETH in collaboration with Nanyang Technological University in Singapore has come up with a brilliant solution of using the feathers instead of the chemicals, thereby sparing the environment on both ends in two different ways, and potentially lowering the cost of hydrogen adoption.
“I’ve devoted a number of years to researching different ways we can use food waste for renewable energy systems,” says Raffaele Mezzenga, Professor of Food and Soft Materials at ETH Zurich.
“Our latest development closes a cycle: we’re taking a substance that releases CO2 and toxic gases when burned and used it in a different setting: with our new technology it not only replaces toxic substances, but also prevents the release of CO2, decreasing the overall carbon footprint cycle,” he adds.
Fuel cells create hydrogen fuel by separating the hydrogen from the oxygen in water. At the heart of the fuel cell lies a semipermeable membrane that allows protons to pass through but leaves electrons behind to escape via an external circuit from the negatively charged anode to the positively charged cathode: thereby creating a current that can be harnessed for electricity.
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Chicken feathers are made up of 90% keratin, a protein in our hair and fingernails that Mezzenga et al. converted to ultra-fine fibers called amyloid fibrils by breaking the feathers down in an environmentally friendly way. The fibrils can be used to make the membrane between the anode and cathode of the fuel cell three times cheaper than synthetic materials.
But better still, this fibril membrane can also be used to create pure hydrogen (as in H without the 2 and the O) which doesn’t exist on Earth naturally but which can be used like diesel fuel to power heavy machinery like planes and trains.
MORE HYDROGEN INNOVATION: Researchers Make ‘Giant Leap’ to Produce Affordable Renewable Hydrogen
In this case, a current is sent directly through water as part of a method called electrolysis. Under conditions inside the fuel cell, oxygen this time escapes at the positively charged anode and leaves hydrogen to exit at the negatively charged cathode. The membrane in this case allows protons to pass through even when it’s pure water, which typically isn’t conductive enough for electrolysis.
Per UTH Zurich press, the researchers’ next step will be to investigate how stable and durable their keratin membrane is and to improve it if necessary. The research team has already filed a joint patent for the membrane and is now looking for investors or companies to develop the technology further and bring it to market.
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Quote of the Day: “Where there is no vision, there is no hope.” – George Washington Carver
Photo by: Alex Guillaume
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Students in The Netherlands have designed a solar-powered SUV that doubles as a small camper van to produce the ultimate concept car for off-grid adventure in sunny climes.
Driving it 620 miles (1,000 kilometers) across Morocco, the Stella Terra as it’s called showed a wide variety of advantages over existing electric SUVs.
“Morocco has a huge variety of landscapes and different surfaces in quite a short distance,” says Thieme Bosman, events manager for the TUE team. He told CNN the car was tested “on every type of surface that a car like this could encounter.”
The wide sloping roof has inbuilt solar panels that charge the electric battery while the car is driving. This allowed the creators, students from Eindhoven University of Technology (TUE), to shave off the weight of the battery packs, creating a lighter car that used less electricity to power.
By shaving off weight wherever possible and crafting the Stella Terra’s body panels to have an aerodynamic shape, the car is just 2,645 pounds (1,200 kilograms), about 25% less than similar electric SUVs.
It’s also added up to a longer range of around 710 kilometers (441 miles) on roads, and around 550 kilometers (342 miles) off-road, plus or minus 50 for cloudy or sunny weather, plus or minus a bit more because car makers are notoriously untrustworthy when reporting range.
The team drove it from Tangier through the Rif Mountains, down to Fes and up the high mountain tracks near Midelt, Morocco’s highest town, and back down to the Sahara Desert area where it faced loose sandy tracks.
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When it was time to call it a day, the rooftop solar array expanded outward to maximize recharging in the remaining daylight as well as creating an awning like one would find in a camper van. The seats also fully recline to form a bed.
Early on in the trip the steering system broke, but far from needing a medivac to their laboratory in The Netherlands, they repaired it in a countryside workshop with parts they found.
Bosman and the TUE team are aware that these sorts of concept cars are a major challenge to bring to the mass-produced market. What will the ultimate price point be, who will be interested in buying it, where should it be most marketed, these are all difficult questions that many concept car manufacturers simply can’t resolve satisfactorily.
MORE SOLAR-POWERED CARS: Aptera Solar-Powered Car With ‘1,000-Mile’ Range Gets 7,000 Preorders for Delivery in 2021
“We aim to also inspire not only everyday people, but also the automotive industry, the Ford and Chryslers of the world, to think again about their designs and to innovate faster than they currently do,” says Bosman.
“It’s up to the market now, who have the resources and the power to make this change and the switch to more sustainable vehicles.”
The TUE innovators behind the Stella Terra see it as a potentially great choice for drivers far away from reliable power grids, or for emergency workers in these areas for reaching distant locales over multi-day journeys to transport critical supplies or medical personnel
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LONDON (Reuters) – Madonna kicked off her “Celebration” tour in London on Saturday, with a performance that proved her energy, charisma, and appetite for controversy were little dimmed after four decades of pop super-stardom and a brush with death earlier this year.
The 65-year-old’s greatest hits show was pushed back from its original July start date after she was hospitalized in intensive care for a serious bacterial infection.
“I’m really damn surprised I made it this far. And I mean that on so many levels,” she told fans at the O2 arena.
Wearing the corset and chains that defined her breakthrough, she sang “Into The Groove” and even brought several of her children (ages 11-29) on stage to perform.
1983’s “Holiday” recreated the hedonistic joy of a New York club before the onslaught of AIDS, marked by a tribute to those who had died.
Religious imagery that accompanied Madonna’s rise from pop star to cultural icon was the backdrop to “Like a Prayer”, while “Vogue”, the hit that powered her into the 1990s, saw one of the stages become a catwalk.
IT’S A GAS, GAS, GAS: Rolling Stones Launch Their First Album in 18 Years Performing in NYC With Guest Lady Gaga
Madonna addressed the situation in the Middle East. “There’s a lot of really crazy things happening in the world that are so, so painful to witness,” she said. “But even though our hearts are broken, our spirits cannot be broken.”
On her health scare, she said: “It was a crazy year for me as well. And I didn’t think I was going to make it.”
SWIFTY GOOD NEWS: Taylor Swift is a Hero to Food Banks Across the U.S. at Each Stop of Her Eras Tour
With more than 40 songs in the show, some like “Papa Don’t Preach” were dispatched in seconds, but all of her re-inventions, from Catholic Madonna to Country Madonna, were featured.
The seven-time Grammy Award winner has rescheduled the tour’s North American leg to start in December after her European concerts.
Check out the concert’s video highlights below…
(Reporting by Paul Sandle; Editing by William Mallard)
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Not all heroes wear capes, some like Raquel Radford Baker, drive school buses.
Baker, a veteran driver for Dallas Independent School District, was on a routine route for the kids at Seagoville North Elementary School when one of them, a boy just 7 years old began to choke.
First-grader Preston motioned to Baker that he needed help. Surveillance camera footage showed that he had swallowed something just a moment before. Thinking he needed to throw up, Baker opened the bus door and told him to go let hurl, but Preston gesticulated that wasn’t the problem.
Baker saw the correction that was needed, took Preston off the bus, and performed the Heimlich Maneuver in time.
Preston called her his “hero” and “a bus stop angel.”
Recently, Preston’s mother Gia, and Baker were able to meet for the first time since the incident, and tears were understandably shed.
WATCH the story below from GMA…
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A new report from a non-profit coalition of highway safety offices shows that rates of fatal traffic collisions of drivers under the age of 21 have fallen dramatically.
The most at-risk demographic is now 38% less likely to be involved in a fatal collision, and 45% less likely to be the victim of a fatal collision according to data gathered from 2002 to 2021.
The Governors Highway Safety Association (GHSA) still finds young drivers to be the riskiest cohort behind the wheel, but their report lists a number of factors that have helped and can be further improved upon.
When this author was going through driver’s re-education after lightly damaging the bumper of a car in front of him within the first 12 months of getting his license, a video was shown in the class consisting of the interior footage of a car involved in a serious collision.
A group of four under 21s was inside, and the video showed a very real scenario, when, one minute they were laughing and chit-chatting, and the next, they were all unconscious having slammed into something during the collision.
“Young drivers are the riskiest age group on the road, and the reasons are straightforward — immaturity and inexperience,” Pam Shadel Fischer, author of the GHSA report told the Associated Press. ”Many young drivers simply don’t have the behind-the-wheel experience to recognize risk and take the appropriate corrective action to prevent a crash.”
Education was cited by the GHSA as one of two major factors that have influenced the drop in fatal collisions, particularly when parents were involved. The other one was staggered privileges.
MORE POSITIVE TRENDS: Deaths by Extreme Weather and Aviation Accidents Have Never Been Lower than Now
These programs topped the list of effective solutions, and consist of placing limits on driving privileges that phase out as the driver ages. These could involve driving at night, driving on Interstate Highways, or having other passengers in the car.
In Maryland and New Jersey, the report adds, these programs extend even until the driver’s 18th and 20th birthdays.
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Quote of the Day: “Maybe that’s enlightenment enough—to know there is no final resting place of the mind.” – Anthony Bourdain
Photo by: Katerina Kerdi
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Britain’s deep coal mines have become a surprising source of green energy, one that’s been heating the town of Gateshead successfully for 6 months.
The scheme is believed to be replicable in areas with extensive abandoned mine works, and offers a kind of renewable redemption for a nation with a long history of dirty energy.
Gateshead Council’s mine water project launched in March 2023 and now has a large central heat pump that provides low-carbon heating to 350 high-rise buildings, an art gallery, a college, an industrial park, and several office buildings.
As oil and gas gradually replaced coal, Britain’s hundreds of miles of coal mining tunnels were gradually abandoned over the decades. Inundated by flood waters that became heated by the Earth’s core, Britain suddenly had a semi-naturally occurring geothermal energy source to harvest.
At certain depths, mine water can sit at over 100° Fahrenheit, or precisely 45°C. The renewable energy use here involves pumping the water into home heat pumps which further raises the temperature.
The super-hot mine water then heats the interior space and home water supply. After the heat is expended the water is sent back down to the mine where it’s naturally reheated. Huge advantages come with this kind of heating, including the fact that the water isn’t affected by the winter or the summer, and the water can also be used to cool homes.
“Recovering heat from mine water below the ground within abandoned coal mines provides an exciting opportunity to generate a low carbon, secure supply of heat, benefitting people living or working in buildings on the coalfields,” Gareth Farr, head of heat and by-product innovation at the Coal Authority, told Euronews.
MORE ALTERNATIVE ENERGY SOURCES: Engineers Have Just Finished Drilling the First Geothermal Well in the UK to Use Renewable Energy
The authority owns and manages the disused coal-mining infrastructure on behalf of the UK government, and their water resources amount to about two billion cubic meters, or half the amount of water in Loch Ness.
“With many millions of people living upon abandoned coalfields in Great Britain, the potential for mine water heat could be significant.”
OTHER GOOD BRITISH ADVANCEMENTS: Britain’s Royal Mint is Salvaging Gold from E-Waste – Recycling Precious Metals for Green Investors
While the Gateshead project is the largest in Europe, it’s not the only such setup, nor was it the first. Reclaimed coal mine water projects for heating have been established in The Netherlands and Spain, as well as across the Atlantic in Canada.
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A recent generation of captive-bred Scottish Wildcats that were released into Cairngorms National Park are thriving in their natural habitat.
The Saving Wildcats project was in charge of the release that saw 19 wildcats re-enter the wild this summer, tracked via GPS collars.
Solitary hunting cats have high mortality rates in winter months, and it’s not expected that all 19 will survive the winter. Already one has succumbed to an infection.
However, the breeding and reintroduction program, supported by the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland (RZSS), NatureScot, Forestry and Land Scotland, and the Cairngorms National Park Authority, has another thirteen kittens growing up in captivity in conditions that mimic the Cairngorms for future releases.
The iconic species was declared “functionally extinct in the wild” due to habitat loss and interbreeding with domesticated cats, but a herculean effort by various conservation groups has given the cat a rosier outlook in the decades ahead where they hope to reintroduce 60 juveniles between 6 and 8 months old.
In addition to reintroductions Saving Wildcats is working closely with landowners who have wildcats on their territories to ensure they are free to roam and unenticed to mate with domestic cats.
PEOPLE HELPING WILDCATS: Adorable Photos Show a Newborn Litter of Critically-Endangered Scottish Wildcat Kittens
“The time is now to give the ‘Highland Tiger’ the best chance of survival and I am thankful for the work of our team members, partners, and supporters in making this happen,” said David Field of Saving Wildcats in June when the first reintroductions took place.
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“I am also particularly grateful for the support of our local community in the Cairngorms as, without their engagement, we would not have reached this exciting milestone.”
Visitors who happen to glimpse this feline in the wild are urged not to share the location of the sighting.
WATCH the story below from the BBC…
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A chance social media post by an eagle-eyed amateur astronomer sparked the discovery of an explosive collision between two giant planets, which crashed into each other in a distant space system 1,800 light years away from planet Earth.
The confidence he had in what he saw led to an international team of astronomers being formed to investigate his claims that the light curve of an observed star showed the system doubling in brightness at infrared wavelengths some three years before the star started to fade in visible light.
The study, published in Nature by the team on the amateur’s tip-off, reports the sighting of two ice giant exoplanets several tens of Earth masses in size colliding around a sun-like star, creating a blaze of light and plumes of dust.
Its findings show the bright heat afterglow and resulting dust cloud, which moved in front of the parent star dimming it over time.
“To be honest, this observation was a complete surprise to me,” said co-lead author Dr. Matthew Kenworthy from Leiden University. “When we originally shared the visible light curve of this star with other astronomers, we started watching it with a network of other telescopes.”
“An astronomer on social media pointed out that the star brightened up in the infrared over a thousand days before the optical fading. I knew then this was an unusual event.”
Bristol University which first covered the story released no information about who the amateur was, what training he had, or if he was associated with an institution.
The network of professional and amateur astronomers studied the star intensively including monitoring changes in the star’s brightness over the next two years. The star was named ASASSN-21qj after the network of telescopes that first detected the fading of the star at visible wavelengths.
The researchers concluded the most likely explanation is that two ice giant exoplanets collided, producing the infrared glow detected by NASA’s NEOWISE mission, which uses a space telescope to hunt for asteroids and comets.
“Our calculations and computer models indicate the temperature and size of the glowing material, as well as the amount of time the glow has lasted, is consistent with the collision of two ice giant exoplanets,” said co-lead author Dr. Simon Lock, Research Fellow in Earth Sciences at the University of Bristol.
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The resultant expanding debris cloud from the impact then traveled in front of the star some three years later, causing the star to dim in brightness at visible wavelengths.
Over the next few years, the cloud of dust is expected to start smearing out along the orbit of the collision remnant, and a tell-tale scattering of light from this cloud could be detected with both ground-based telescopes and NASA’s largest telescope in space, known as JWST.
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The astronomers plan on watching closely what happens next in this system.
“It will be fascinating to observe further developments,” said co-author Dr. Zoe Leinhardt, Associate Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Bristol. “Ultimately, the mass of material around the remnant may condense to form a retinue of moons that will orbit around this new planet.”
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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 October 21, 2023
Copyright by Rob Brezsny, FreeWillAstrology.com
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22):
I’m not enamored of Shakespeare’s work. Though I enjoy his creative use of language, his worldview isn’t appealing or interesting. The people in his stories don’t resonate with me, and their problems don’t feel realistic. If I want to commune with multi-faceted characters dealing with fascinating dilemmas, I turn to French novelist Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850). I feel a kinship with his complex, nuanced understanding of human nature. Please note I am not asserting that Shakespeare is bad and Balzac is good. I’m merely stating the nature of my subjective personal tastes. Now I invite you to do what I have done here: In the coming weeks, stand up unflinchingly for your subjective personal tastes.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21):
As much as I love logic and champion rational thinking, I’m granting you an exemption from their iron-grip supremacy in the coming weeks. To understand what’s transpiring and to respond with intelligence, you must partly transcend logic and reason. They will not be sufficient guides as you wrestle with the Great Riddles that will be visiting. In a few weeks, you will be justified in quoting ancient Roman author Tertullian, who said the following about his religion, Christianity: “It is true because it is impossible.”
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21):
As a Sun-conjunct-Uranus person, I am fond of hyperbole and outrageousness. “Outlandish” is one of my middle names. My Burning Man moniker is “Friendly Shocker”. So take that into consideration when I suggest you meditate on Oscar Wilde’s assertions that “all great ideas are dangerous” and “an idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea.” Oscar and I don’t mean that interesting possibilities must be a risk to one’s health or safety. Rather, we’re suggesting they are probably inconvenient for one’s dogmas, habits, and comfort zones. I hope you will favor such disruptors in the coming days.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19):
Some people might feel they have achieved the peak of luxury if they find themselves sipping Moët & Chandon Imperial Vintage Champagne while lounging on a leather and diamond-encrusted PlumeBlanche sofa on a hand-knotted Agra wool rug aboard a 130-foot-long Sunseeker yacht. But I suspect you will be thoroughly pleased with the subtler forms of luxury that are possible for you these days. Like what? Like surges of appreciation and acknowledgment for your good work. Like growing connections with influences that will interest you and help you in the future. Like the emotional riches that come from acting with integrity and excellence.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18):
There are over 20 solutions to the riddle your higher mind is now contemplating. Several of them are smart intellectually but not emotionally intelligent. Others make sense from a selfish perspective but would be less than a blessing for some people in your life. Then there are a few solutions that might technically be effective but wouldn’t be much fun. I estimate there may only be two or three answers that would be intellectually and emotionally intelligent, would be of service not only to you but also to others, and would generate productive fun.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20):
Naturalist John Muir didn’t like the word “hiking.” He believed people ought to saunter through the wilderness, not hike. “Hiking” implies straight-ahead, no-nonsense, purposeful movement, whereas “sauntering” is about wandering around, being reverent towards one’s surroundings, and getting willingly distracted by where one’s curiosity leads. I suggest you favor the sauntering approach in the coming weeks—not just in nature but in every area of your life. You’re best suited for exploring, gallivanting, and meandering.
ARIES (March 21-April 19):
JooHee Yoon is an illustrator and designer. She says, “So much of artmaking is getting to know yourself through the creative process, of making mistakes and going down rabbit holes of research and experimentation that sometimes work out—and sometimes don’t.” She adds, “The failures are just as important as the successes.” I would extend this wisdom, applying it to how we create our personalities and lives. I hope you will keep it in mind as you improvise, experiment with, and transform yourself in the coming weeks.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20):
Sometimes, we droop and shrivel in the face of a challenge that dares us to grow stronger and smarter. Sometimes, we try our best to handle a pivotal riddle with aplomb but fall short. Neither of these two scenarios will be in play for you during the coming months. I believe you will tap into reserves of hidden power you didn’t realize you had access to. You will summon bold, innovative responses to tantalizing mysteries. I predict you will accomplish creative triumphs that may have once seemed beyond your capacities.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20):
Gemini novelist Meg Wolitzer suggests that “one of the goals of life is to be comfortable in your own skin and in your own bed and on your own land.” I suspect you won’t achieve that goal in the coming weeks, but you will lay the foundation for achieving that goal. You will figure out precisely what you need in order to feel at home in the world, and you will formulate plans to make that happen. Be patient with yourself, dear Gemini. Be extra tender, kind, and accommodating. Your golden hour will come.
CANCER (June 21-July 22):
Some astrologers say you Crabs are averse to adventure, preferring to loll in your comfort zones and entertain dreamy fantasies. As evidence that this is not always true, I direct your attention to a great Cancerian adventurer, the traveling chef Anthony Bourdain. In the coming weeks, I hope you will be inspired by these Bourdain quotes: 1. “If I’m an advocate for anything, it’s to move. As far as you can, as much as you can. Across the ocean, or simply across the river. Open your mind, get up off the couch, move.” 2. “What a great way to live, if you could always do things that interest you, and do them with people who interest you.” 3. “The more I become aware of, the more I realize how relatively little I know, how much more there is to learn. Maybe that’s enlightenment enough—to know there is no final resting place of the mind.” 4. “Travel is about the gorgeous feeling of teetering in the unknown.”
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22):
Author Iain S. Thomas writes, “The universe is desperately trying to move you into the only spot that truly belongs to you—a space that only you can stand in. It is up to you to decide every day whether you are moving towards or away from that spot.” His ideas overlap with principles I expound in my book, Pronoia Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How All of Creation Is Conspiring To Shower You with Blessings. There I propose that life often works to help dissolve your ignorance and liberate you from your suffering. I hypothesize that you are continually being given opportunities to grow smarter and wilder and kinder. In the coming weeks, everything I’ve described here will be especially apropos to you. All of creation will be maneuvering you in the direction of feeling intensely at home with your best self. Cooperate, please!
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22):
“Never do anything that others can do for you,” said Virgo novelist Agatha Christie. That’s not a very Virgo-like attitude, is it? Many astrologers would say that of all the zodiac’s signs, your tribe is the most eager to serve others but not aggressively seek the service of others on your behalf. But I suspect this dynamic could change in the coming weeks. Amazingly, cosmic rhythms will conspire to bring you more help and support than you’re accustomed to. My advice: Welcome it. Gather it in with gusto.
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
(Zodiac images by Numerologysign.com, CC license)
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