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Winter Rains Cured California’s Three-Year Drought and Summer’s Record Heat Didn’t Bring a New One

By
Andy Corbley
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NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (CC license on Flickr)
Tropical Storm Hilary (bottom of the picture) moves towards Mexico. credit – Goddard Spaceflight Center CC 2.0.

By late January of this year, a remarkable thing had occurred in the normally thirsty state of California. Aside from splotches of land on the northern and southern borders, the state’s three-year drought had been entirely cured.

Now, as a globally hot summer winds to a close, the US Drought Monitor map for California reads exactly the same as when the spring ‘superbloom’ cloaked the hillsides in flowers.

Winter and spring rains and snowfall had set records in the mountains, and aside from the tragic flooding that cost some residents their lives and thousands in property damage, the understanding was that the days of water rationing were, for the time being, over.

It’s the first time since April of 2020 that no part of the state was considered stuck in “exceptional drought.”

In January and February, officials were quick to dismiss ideas that the precipitation could be a “drought buster” because it would have taken a legendary soaking to replenish underground aquifers and lakes. It kept on raining and snowing.

Then in April, officials cautioned that with conditions of climate change making weather patterns allegedly harder to predict, chances for extremely dry and hot summer months lay ahead.

OTHER GOOD WEATHER NEWS: Deaths by Extreme Weather and Aviation Accidents Have Never Been Lower than Now

However it seems Mother Nature pulled through for the state, leaving California one of the regions worldwide that didn’t see record-high temperatures during the summer. To wit, Tropical Storm Hilary provided even more rainfall, leading city planners and utilities to consider preparing more rainwater catch infrastructure for future wet times.

Los Angeles was able to capture 10,000 acre-feet of water from Hilary’s rainfall, or around 3.2 billion gallons; enough to provide a year’s worth of water to 40,000 households.

GOOD EARTH: In Frigid Maine So Many Heat Pumps Were Sold the State Passed its Clean-Energy Target Two Years Early

Additionally, with September typically representing the peak of southern California’s fire season, the recently added moisture could help delay or prevent what has become an all-too-familiar seasonal disaster.

“It should help some in terms of adding some soil moisture and helping the plants to not be so dried out,” David Simeral, a climatologist at the Desert Research Institute who mapped the latest U.S. Drought Monitor update, told the LA Times. “Hopefully this extra precipitation will push that back even further.”

SHARE This Good CA Climate News With Your Friends… 

‘World’s Loneliest Lion’ Returns to Africa After Years Alone in Zoo–WATCH His First Steps

By
Andy Corbley
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Ruben's veterinary exam in Africa – Animal Defenders International / SWNS
Ruben’s veterinary exam in Africa – Animal Defenders International / SWNS

The ‘world’s loneliest lion’ has returned to his natural habitat after he was abandoned in a private zoo in Armenia for five years.

15-year-old lion Ruben was part of a pride living in the now-closed zoo, but while all the other lions were relocated, Ruben was left behind in a tiny concrete cell for five long years.

Now, Ruben has made a 5,200-mile journey to South Africa where he took his first steps out of his travel crate into the home of his ancestors.

The epic journey was organized by Animals Defenders International (ADI) and Qatar Airways Cargo.

Ruben is now being rehabilitated at the ADI Wildlife Sanctuary in Free State, South Africa.

“Lions are the most sociable of the big cats, living in family prides in the wild,” said ADI President Jan Creamer. “Seeing him walk on grass for the first time, hearing the voices of his own kind, with the African sun on his back, brought us all to tears.”

At first, Ruben’s legs were wobbling due to malnutrition and a “lifetime of no exercise.”

However, Ruben’s resilience has stunned everyone at the sanctuary. He strode from his travel crate and followed a trail of sausages to a giant catnip punchbag—his first toy—and immediately started playing with it.

After not hearing other lions for years, Ruben has already started to get his roar back, his morning calls getting steadily louder as he regains his confidence.

MORE STORIES LIKE THIS: After Fatal Disease Arrives, Zoo Calls in the Only Team of Turtle-sniffing Dogs in the World to Help Out

“His whole demeanor has transformed, his face is relaxed and no longer fearful. His determination to walk is inspiring,” said Creamer. “If he stumbles or falls he just picks himself up and keeps going. He is nothing short of heroic.”

At first, ADI couldn’t find a suitable flight for him out of Armenia, but Qatar Airways Cargo ‘WeQare’ charity initiative stepped in. They moved a larger aircraft with hold doors big enough for Ruben’s crate into the scheduled passenger route out of Yerevan.

OTHER ZOO RESCUES: After Spending Life at Roadside Zoo, Chimps Share Emotional Hug in New Sanctuary Home

“There are a lot of logistics involved in moving animals like Ruben; from the logistics at the airports involved, the process for loading and unloading the animals from the aircraft to ensuring the correct cages and wellbeing of the animals are in place,” said Elisabeth Oudkerk, SVP Cargo Sales & Network Planning at Qatar Airways Cargo.

“It takes a lot of effort from our team to organize such transport—but it is something we are all collectively very proud to be a part of, knowing we helped give back to our planet.”

WATCH Ruben take his first steps (and find a sausage waiting for him)… 

SHARE This Inspiring Story Of Humanity Toward Its Pawed Brethren… 

Look What AI Could Do for Architecture: Giving Rise to a Stunning New Style

By
Andy Corbley
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From art nouveau to neoclassical futurism, Tim Fu designs architecture using AI / timfu.com
From art nouveau to neoclassical futurism, Tim Fu designs architecture using AI / timfu.com

What will be the next great architectural style, the one that shapes the skylines and suburbs of the future? If you’ve never heard of “neoclassical futurism” that’s because it was just invented by an architect with a passion for letting machine learning take up the drafting pencil.

These are computer-generated images above made by a smart machine design program called Midjourney, and they display a mixture of old and new, and maybe a bit of Lady Galadriel’s palace in Lothlorien on the right.

Arguing that AI in architecture is not just a disruptive technology or a useful tool, but a total paradigm shift, renowned architect Tim Fu left his position at the prestigious Zaha Hadid architecture firm to pursue artificial intelligence-driven design and engineering standards for world architecture.

His hope, as he explains in one interview, is to unify current fragmented architectural practices where engineers and designers are compartmentalized and separated, around AI’s ability to automate dozens of tasks simultaneously while seamlessly blending existing architectural styles, or producing entirely new ones.

courtesy of Tim Fu

One of these he has dubbed “Neoclassical Futurism.”

As Western Civilization gradually found its feet again after the fall of the Roman Empire, buildings in the Gothic style began rising from the ground all across Europe. Gothic cathedrals and townscapes dominated the land where stone was plentiful for hundreds of years until it was eventually replaced by the Renaissance, and then eventually Baroque styles.

MORE AI NEWS: 24 Million Miles Ahead of Tesla, Autonomous Semi Truck Logs Accident-Free Milestone on Delivery Routes

“We love Renaissance cathedrals so much, yet we’re building boxes everywhere,” Fu told Dezeen in a long-form interview. “So why not bring back ornamentation, bring back the beauty and the aesthetics that we once held so highly in the classical era, and also allow machines to continue to fabricate and produce feasibly for us and free us up to do the more intricate and beautiful parts?”

courtesy of Tim Fu

Fu is perhaps unique in that he considers the ‘beautiful parts’ as the carving of stone with hand tools, not the artistic design. He says that no machine can carve stone as well as a stonemason, work that in itself is deeply human and one of the first handicrafts ever developed in human society.

At a Venice architectural fair, Fu used Midjourney to create a series of brand new fusion column heads and teamed up with famous stone carver Till Apfel to bring them to life.

“I hope to usher in more ornamentation and move away from the minimalism that was ushered in by the Industrial Revolution,” he explained. “The Industrial Revolution was about human ideation and machine fabrication, AI allowed [sic] us to put the machine at the ideation phase so that potentially we can use human fabrication instead and revert the role of the two.”

MORE CLEVER AI USE: Paralyzed Woman ‘Speaks’ with Brain Signals Turned into Talking Avatar in World First

Tim Fu isn’t the only architect to hold a bullish opinion of AI’s role in the profession. Earlier this year, GNN covered the release of a tranche of images also created with Midjourney by Manas Bhatia, architect and head of the firm Ant Studio.

The AI created a vision of nature-inspired skyscrapers, symbiotic buildings that respirate like plants, with facades like bark and windows covered in trees and climbers.

SHARE This Bold Vision For The Future With Your Friends Interested In AI…

After Taking Vitamin B2 Baby Becomes Solitary Case of Recovery from Rare Genetic Disease

By
Andy Corbley
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Augustine having recovered from Mitchell Syndrome - SWNS
Augustine having recovered from Mitchell Syndrome – SWNS

Vitamin B2, or riboflavin, is a key compound in energy metabolism, cellular respiration, and antibody production, and in the case of a 1-year-old baby from California, perhaps the reason he was able to recover from Mitchell Syndrome.

If that disease sounds unfamiliar to you, that’s because it’s one of the rarest diseases known to medicine. There have been just 20 recorded cases of this genetic disease, and it was only named back in 2019.

Augustine was born a perfectly healthy boy on May 27th, 2022, but at three months he had to be hospitalized with hypoglycemia, and his health afterwards began to deteriorate.

He began to lose his hearing and he also had difficulty moving. At six months, the tot stopped eating altogether. At first doctors said it was just down to teethin, but an MRI scan showed deterioration of the protective covering of nerve fibers in his brain known as demyelination.

Augustine’s mother Kristen and his father Moses, “begged” for further genetic testing, which revealed a genetic mutation of a gene called ACOX1, leading to the diagnosis of Mitchell syndrome aged seven months.

The newly diagnosed neurological illness is caused by a rare genetic mutation which attacks the nerves that control hearing, movement, and vision.

“At the time, the hospital were only aware of three patients with the disorder, who had all passed away, that was incredibly hard to hear,” said Kristen. “It wasn’t until weeks later that I started asking more questions.”

In the course of that asking she found the Mitchell and Friends Foundation, set up after the death of Mitchell Herndon, the first recorded death by this disease in 2019.

The foundation had detailed records of all 20 known patients, some of whom were still alive, and they shared with Kristen that vitamin B2 seemed to have some positive effect for ameliorating the worst of the disease.

“He can sit up, eat and crawl which doctors never expected him to do,” said Kristen. “But there’s no research so we don’t know what will happen—we have nobody to guide us because the condition is so rare.”

OTHER RARE DISEASES: Angel Donor Offers to Match 100K to Give Research into Rare Disease a Big Boost

“Normally when people lose a skill like movement, it’s gone forever; nerve function goes, then eventually brain function,” she explains. “But that hasn’t happened for Augustine.”

Augustine is starting to babble, and even crawling and trying to walk. In May this year, he turned 1 and all of his family celebrated by singing Happy Birthday to him using sign language.

Kristen and the family are learning sign language, which they’re teaching Augustine, but he’ll also have cochlear implants as he gets older.

MORE MEDICAL ESCAPES: Man Paralyzed from the Neck Down from Rare Disease Makes Incredible Recovery, Now Back at the Gym

“He is so sweet, he is interested in everything he loves to explore and is very affectionate, he loves us to wrestle with him and he loves his sisters,” she adds. “He puts his hands on my throat to feel the vibrations when I talk.”

“We can’t predict the future but we have all the hope in the world he will do well and we have to have faith.”

SHARE This Gratitude-Inspiring Medical Miracle With Your Friends… 

“Thinking is the talking of the soul with itself.” – Plato

By
Good News Network
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Quote of the Day: “Thinking is the talking of the soul with itself.” – Plato

Photo by: Joshua Earle

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?

Oprah And Dwayne Johnson Giving $1,200 Per Month To Maui Wildfire Survivors

By
Andy Corbley
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Oprah Winfrey, (left) and Dwayne Johnson (right) consulted Maui community leaders including Hokulani Holt-Padilla (center) - credit The People's Fund of Maui
Oprah Winfrey, (left) and Dwayne Johnson (right) consulted Maui community leaders including Hokulani Holt-Padilla (center) – credit The People’s Fund of Maui

In the aftermath of the most destructive fires in the island state’s recent memory, donations have poured in to help the thousands of affected residents on Maui.

Now, celebrity duo Oprah Winfrey and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson have created a special welfare fund that will provide those directly injured or whose property was damaged by the fires with $1,200 per month out of their own pockets.

Together they created The People’s Fund of Maui, which armed with $10 million in aid money donated by the two celebrities, will ensure those in need are reached directly.

“I have been meeting with people throughout the community that were impacted by the fires over the last few weeks, asking what they most needed and how I could be of service,” Ms. Winfrey said in a press release.

“The main thing I’ve been hearing is their concern about how to move forward under the immense financial burden. The community has come together in so many wonderful ways, and my intention is to support those impacted as they determine what rebuilding looks like for them.”

A variety of Maui residents and community leaders were consulted by Winfrey and Johnson who both hoped to ensure that neither time nor money was wasted in getting aid directly to those who need it.

“As people around the world watched the catastrophic loss and devastation caused by the Maui wildfires, they also witnessed the great spirit and resilience of our Polynesian culture and the tremendous strength of the people of Maui,” Mr. Johnson added in the same release.

OTHER NEWS ON THE MAUI FIRES: A 5-Year-Old’s Lemonade Stand in Seattle Raised Over $17,000 for Victims of Maui Wildfires

Both state and federal government assistance was lagging, according to reports, in the aftermath of the fires, and multiple GoFundMe efforts and other private charities and non-profits managed to raise tens of millions of dollars for the victims of the Upcounty and Lahaina fires.

Civil Beats Honolulu has all the information on how readers can support the recovery and assistance efforts.

SHARE This Generous Donation On Social Media… 

Company Devises Ingenious Method of Repurposing Old Wind Turbines: ‘The perfect time’

By
Andy Corbley
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American Public Power Association
American Public Power Association

With the first generation of wind turbines well into a period of decommissioning, questions about what to do with the massive fiberglass blades is a pressing one for an industry that markets itself as green and sustainable.

While indeed no fossil fuels need be burned to generate electricity with wind turbines, the mounting landfill burden of the blades which are not recyclable is projected to climb to over 40 million tons of fiberglass over the next 20 years.

Some companies though are changing the angle of approach of the problem from how to recycle the blades into raw materials to simply moving them onto other uses—and the company REGEN Fiber, owned by the trucking company Tavero, sees their future as additives in concrete and asphalt.

The primary end-product is a top-performing reinforcement fiber that increases the strength and overall durability of concrete and mortar applications such as pavement, slabs-on-grade, and precast products. The company also produces microfibers and additives from components of the wind blade for use in a range of composite, concrete, and soil stabilization applications.

By preventing decommissioned wind turbine blades from ending up in landfills or releasing combustion byproducts, such as carbon, to the atmosphere if burned, REGEN Fiber’s new and sustainable solution is helping to solve the wind industry’s growing challenge of finding environmentally friendly ways for disposing of wind turbine components.

“With tremendous growth projected in the wind industry and an increasing number of turbines already reaching the end of their approximately 20-year lifespan, REGEN Fiber is entering the market at the perfect time,” Jeff Woods, director of business development at Travero, said in a statement.

Credit – REGEN Fiber, released

“Recycling blades without using heat or chemicals while simultaneously keeping them out of landfills or being burned supports the sustainability goals of both the wind industry and customers receiving the recycled products.”

Large, commercial-scale operations for the recycling of decommissioned blades are expected to begin in the second half of 2023. A new manufacturing facility for REGEN Fiber to recycle decommissioned blades is currently being constructed in Fairfax, Iowa.

MORE UPCYCLING SOLUTIONS: Plastic Waste Can Now be Turned into Soap Thanks to Eureka Moment from Virginia Tech

Once commercial-scale operations in Fairfax reach full production levels, REGEN Fiber anticipates recycling over 30,000 tons per year. of shredded blade materials and byproducts from new blade manufacturing.

Reinforcing concrete, asphalt, and other paving materials is proving an effective place for upcycling non-recyclable products.

CHECK OUT THIS RECYCLING: Robot Named Sorty McSortface Uses Mechanical Claws and AI to Sort Tons of Recyclables in Minutes

When the production of masks exploded during COVID, many people were quick to point out they couldn’t be recycled. The Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology and Melbourne Technical College turned them into road asphalt mixture, with just 1 kilometer of road being able to consume 3 million masks.

Similar to masks, baby diapers can’t really be recycled either, and so scientists at the School of Environmental Engineering at the University of Kitakyuku in Japan found a way to replace sand in concrete mixtures with 40% shredded baby diapers.

SHARE This Intelligence Upcycling With Your Green-Minded Pals… 

Prehistoric Bird Once Thought to Be Extinct Returns to New Zealand Wild

By
Andy Corbley
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Prehistoric takahe bird by Kathrin Stefan Marks (CC license on Flickr)
Prehistoric takahe bird by Kathrin Stefan Marks (CC license on Flickr)

In a massive and historic conservation success story, eighteen takahē birds have been released into the wilds of a nature reserve on Lake Wakatipu.

This is hoped to be followed by seven more in October, and another 10 in the early months of next year as this rediscovered wonder continues its long road to recovery into the third separate breeding population in the wild.

The automobile was still a novel sight in London when the takahē was declared extinct.

This iridescent flightless bird is a symbol of New Zealand’s unique prehistoric past, but it evolved on an island without mammals, and with their invasive introduction came what might have been the bird’s ultimate demise.

However they were rediscovered after the Second World War and ever since conservationists have been taking a proactive approach to ensuring their survival. Eggs located in the wild are taken into care centers to protect them from thieves like stoats, ferrets, and rats.

Conservationists raised chicks in breeding centers by using sock puppets shaped like adult takahē heads, an invaluable technique that eventually gave way to breeding in specially controlled environments.

Trapping the invasive predators has also been an incredibly important contribution to the animal’s steady growth in population of around 8% per annum.

ANOTHER NEW ZEALAND BIRD: Hawaii’s State Bird Soars Back From Brink of Extinction After Only 30 Birds Left on Islands

On New Zealand’s South Island, Lake Wakatipu is the island nation’s longest, snaking through the Waimāori Valley for 50 miles. The surrounding environment of alpine slopes is perfect for the one-and-a-half-foot bird.

“They’re almost prehistoric looking,” says Tūmai Cassidy, of the Ngāi Tahu indigenous group who steward the land around Lake Wakatipu. “Very broad and bold.”

MORE STORIES LIKE THIS: Platypuses Return to Sydney’s Royal National Park After Disappearing for Decades

He says that from the front they appear perfectly spherical, like a miniature Earth mounted on a pair of orange legs. For the Māori, the reintroduction is incredibly special. In the past Māori people gathered the feathers of the bird into cloaks, and the calls of these animals radiating up the slopes from the valley bottom was a cherished memory that may now be able to be relived.

WATCH the animal in its natural habitat, AND the moment they were released…

SHARE This Magnificent Bird And Its Historic Recovery With Your Friends… 

Viral Teen With Record Size Feet Finally Gets Size 23 Shoes Donated So He Can Play Football

By
Andy Corbley
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Eric Kilburn Jr. has been wearing too-small shoes, until now – Photos courtesy of Rebecca Kilburn
Eric Kilburn Jr. has been wearing too-small shoes, until now – Photos courtesy of Rebecca Kilburn

Sports are a proving ground where every challenge becomes an opportunity to grow stronger, a fact that for one very unique Michigan sophomore proved true on and off the field.

Eric Kilburn Jr. was born a normal 8-pound baby boy, but has grown into a well-spoken giant of a young man with what might be the largest feet ever recorded in a human teenager.

His unique growth rate has certainly given the 6-foot-10 defensive tackle at Goodrich High School an advantage, but also created trouble finding shoes that could contain his feet which seemed to grow a size every 6 months.

At 15 years old he was wearing size 22 shoes—the largest which any sporting company had ever needed to make. But soon, even these were too small, and in lieu of constantly suffering blisters and muscle deformations in his feet, Eric’s mother Rebecca was left with no other choice but to order specially-made orthopedic shoes at a cost of $1,500 per pair.

Direct pleas to sporting goods companies fell on deaf ears, but a friend who started a $3,500 fundraiser to get two of these expensive shoes for Eric created something truly special.

The fundraiser was reported on by Hometown Life, and the story quickly went viral, attracting the attention of PR firms of Puma and Under Armour, as well as the king of big-boy generosity—Shaquille O’Neil.

Representatives of the two companies arrived at Goodrich High to measure Eric’s feet, and after a lengthy process donated 4 pairs of cleats and 2 pairs of trainers to the school, who gave them to Eric as a gift in order to maintain his status as an amateur athlete.

“I got my cleats before conditioning practice and it was an immediate difference,” Eric told USA Today, following up on the Homelife story. “It’s insane how much more traction I got. It’s mind-boggling.”

YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE: City of Detroit Surprises Single-Mom Crossing Guard With $50k at a Tiger’s Game Following Viral Tiktok Post

The companies declined to specify whether the shoes were size 23 because there are no industry specifications for shoes that big; and in any case, Eric’s feet are wider than a normal estimate for a size above 22. Under Armour and Puma simply referred to them as “Eric Kilburn-size.”

At the Martians’ first JV football scrimmage this season at Goodrich High School, Mom Rebecca got to watch her son play without any impediments to his mobility, and in the Michigan rain, she wept.

“Just seeing him perform to the best of his ability was a gift,” she said. “It was full circle emotion and just happiness to see him have the same advantages as other kids on the field do.”

MORE BIG TEENS GETTING SUPPORT: Shaquille O’Neal Gives Teen 10 Pairs of New Size 18 Shoes to Pay Forward Childhood Good Deed

The story doesn’t end there, as Shaquille O’Neil, who has helped several very large young men find shoes and suits that fit, sent a care package of shoes and clothes to the family, as well as his personal tailor who measured Eric for two suits; one for prom and another for homecoming lined with purple and red paisley.

Reebok, Shaq’s personal sponsor, sent along the shoes with a letter that said “Eric—Hoping these shoes could be a fit and offer you some relief… Know that we’re here to help and behind you every step of the way!”

MORE SPORTING GENEROSITY: College Athlete Learns His Teammate Donates Plasma to Afford School–So He Gave Him His Scholarship

Shaq wears size 22 shoes, and so unfortunately—and unbelievably—Eric will not be able to make use of them.

Rebecca is determined to pay all this kindness forward, and is in the process of setting up bigshoenetwork.org to help other teens like her son find shoes that fit, with a focus on getting them into households who can’t afford the high price tag of oversized shoes for teen sports.

WATCH the measuring process and hear what the Kilburns had to say…

SHARE This Larger-Than-Life True Sporting Story With Your Friends…

“Perhaps the truth depends on a walk around the lake.” – Wallace Stevens

By
Good News Network
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Quote of the Day: “Perhaps the truth depends on a walk around the lake.” – Wallace Stevens

Photo by: Aaron Burden

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?

Minnesota Teens Hook Wallet Full of Cash on a Lake Then Return it to Iowa Farmer–WATCH

By
Andy Corbley
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Connor Halsa (left) and Jim Denny (right) credit - WDAY News
Connor Halsa (left) and Jim Denny (right) credit – WDAY News

This summer Connor Halsa reeled in the fishing story of a lifetime when he went searching for walleye and got a wallet.

Inside there was $2,000 cash, wet and soggy, but nonetheless cold and metaphorically hard. Still, Connor and his dad agreed immediately they needed to find the owner.

Out on Lake of the Woods, the sixth-largest freshwater lake in the US—over 70 miles of water—Halsa and his dad were planning a ‘drift’ for walleye, and after casting their lines, Connor felt something decently heavy on the other side.

Reeling in fast, he found a brown billfold.

“My cousin opened the wallet up, and he said some words you probably shouldn’t say, and he showed everyone, and we took the money out and let it dry out,” Connor told WDAY 7 news.

Inside was a presumably soggy business card with a number on it and they used that to track down the owner—600 miles away in Iowa. Jim Denny lost it on a fishing retreat, but that was over a whole year ago if one can believe it.

The resort Denny was staying at had to advance him the stay on credit, embarrassing him terribly, and he suspected the wallet jostled itself loose in the choppy waters.

AGAINST THE ODDS STORIES: She Lost Her Father’s Ashes but a Stranger Digs 4 Hours Through Trash to Find Them

WDAY 7 reports that Denny came all the way up from Iowa to Moorhead, Minnesota to reunite with the old billfold and the cash it contained. Young Halsa refused any amount of the cash inside, saying it was what any decent person would do.

“To meet people like that, who are that honest, I tried to get them to take the money, and they wouldn’t do it,” Denney told WDAY. “I would take Connor as a grandson any day, and I would fight for him any day.”

MORE GOOD DEEDS LIKE THIS: Dock Worker Brings Stranded Ferry Passengers Home: ‘You’re All Staying at My House Tonight’

The two also shared a moment to contemplate what the odds were of finding the billfold. Lake of the Woods is 1,679.5 square miles, half the size of Yellowstone National Park, and 210 feet deep in places. The water volume is measured in the tens of cubic miles, and in all that space, Halsa’s line managed to pierce the hide of a wallet just a few cubic centimeters; the phrase one in a million doesn’t even come close.

WATCH the story below from WDAY 7… 

SHARE This Young Angler’s Big Catch And Big Heart On Social Media…

Robot Named Sorty McSortface Uses Mechanical Claws and AI to Sort Tons of Recyclables in Minutes

By
Andy Corbley
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AMP Robotics / YouTube
Amp Robotics released

Conversations about artificial intelligence took off in the media after the debut of ChatGPT this year, but AI had already been coiling its industry-changing hands around all sorts of applications for years, from conceptual art and design to these robot trash pickers, Sorty McSortface and Sir Sorts-a-Lot.

Working all day long at 80 recycling facilities across the US, Amp Robotics’ smart sorting machines pluck contaminants from waste conveyor belts or sort various plastics into bins with the accuracy of a search engine and the mechanical speed of a chameleon’s tongue catching flies on the wing.

Sorty McSortface and Sir Sorts-a-Lot ply their trade at the Boulder County Recycling Center in Colorado where they do a job that the USA has typically been bad at doing when averaged across states.

Very few recycling facilities can manage to produce sorted waste streams of the kind needed to provide companies with high-quality raw materials for reuse.

Along with that, perhaps only 9% of all plastic in America even makes its way into recycling facilities in the first place; rising as high as perhaps one-third of all glass waste.

Amp Robotics’ Cortex sorting machine can pick out 80 separate items from waste streams per minute while recognizing billions of different shapes, sizes, granular specifics, colors, logos, and even SKU numbers among the garbage that would often remain hopelessly entangled.

MORE ROBOTICS LIKE THIS: Robot Medic Can Roll Into Hazardous Environments to Provide Medical Treatment Where Doctors Can’t (WATCH)

It’s already 99% accurate and becomes more accurate every year the waste is being sorted.

AMP Robotics / YouTube

In a brilliant piece by Joe Fassler at The Atlantic, the CEO of Amp Robotics explained that robots like Sorty McSortface and Sir Sorts-a-Lot can read an SKU number of an item moving down the conveyor belt and recognize that as something manufactured by Unilever or SC Johnson for example, and know immediately what chemicals are used in the fabrication of the identified plastic.

MORE ROBOTICS LIKE THIS: New AI-Powered Farming Robot Trundles About Inspecting 50 Acres of Crops per Day for Pests and Disease

Amp Robotics is just one of several companies pioneering various recycling sorting robots, and Fassler details that the industry is set for some incredible advancements including spectroscopy being brought into directly analyze chemical makeups of trash, as well as jets of air to push trash into various bins.

WATCH an explanation of the industry and these robots below… 

SHARE This Huge Innovative Advancement With Your Friends… 

Tiny Italian Town Dug Up an Extremely Rare Roman Temple while Trying to Build Supermarket

By
Andy Corbley
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Credit - Ministry of Fine Arts, Archaeology and Landscapes.
Credit – Ministry of Fine Arts, Archaeology and Landscapes.

While unquestionably quaint and surrounded by gorgeous scenery, Sarsina in Italy’s Emilia Romagna region has never been accustomed to drawing in hordes of tourists.

When it formed part of Rome’s defensive perimeter, it was once a fortified outpost at a strategic mountain pass, and also birthed the famous Roman playwright Plautus.

Little if nothing of that heritage remains today however, and the sleepy town of 3,000 was all set to welcome a new sports complex and supermarket when groundbreakers intending to lay the foundation stumbled upon an ‘extremely rare’ relic of Republican Rome, and returned a spotlight to Sarsina for the first time in almost 2,000 years.

A pagan-Roman temple, known as a Capitolium, dedicated to Jupiter, Minvera, and Juno has Roman researchers very excited, as it’s very well preserved and dates back to the last century BCE.

At 6,200 square feet (577 square meters) in size, the sandstone and limestone blocks that make up its foundation and podium still remain in a state of preservation typical of Roman monumental architecture.

“We have unearthed three separate rooms, likely dedicated to the triad of gods Jupiter, Juno and Minerva,” lead archaeologist at the excavation site Romina Pirraglia told CNN.

Credit – Ministry of Fine Arts, Archaeology and Landscapes.

“The excavations are still underway… and we have already identified an older, deeper layer of ruins dating back to the 4th century BC, when the Umbrian people (an ancient Italic tribe who predated the Romans) lived in the area. The entire temple could be even larger than what we now see.”

MORE ROME STORIES: The Only Piece of Roman Pottery Inscribed with Poet Virgil’s Verse Discovered

Federica Gonzato, superintendent of fine arts, archaeology, and landscapes for the provinces of Ravenna, Rimini, and Forlì-Cesena in eastern Emilia Romagna, described the temple as “extremely rare” and said there will undoubtedly be space for shopping and recreation, but the existing plans will have to be changed to preserve this glorious monument.

“The marvelous quality of the stones has been spared from sacks, enemy invasions, and plunders across millennia thanks to the remote location of Sarsina, a quiet spot distant from larger cities,” Gonzato told CNN. “Temples such as this one (were) regularly plundered, exploited as quarries with stones and marble slabs taken away to be re-used to build new homes.”

MORE ROMAN DISCOVERIES: 2,000-year-old Roman House Uncovered in Malta Reveals Ancient History of Wealthy Society

Gonzato said that the seemingly endless discovery of new ancient buildings and treasures is part of what makes Italy so special. In nearby Ravenna, the Umbri were incorporated as Italian tribal allies of the Roman Republic in 89 BCE, and it was from that city that Julius Caesar marshaled his forces and crossed the Rubicon creek on his march to Roman dictatorship.

It was also the capital of the Western Roman Empire after Rome itself had been sacked. It’s likely that plenty of secrets still lie underground in the area.

SHARE This Amazing Roman-Era Discovery With Your Friends… 

Pole Vaulters Agree to Share Gold Medal in Unexpected Twist at High Stakes World Championship–WATCH

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Andy Corbley
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Pole vaulters Nina Kennedy and Katie Moon – Youtube / NBC Sports
Pole vaulters Nina Kennedy and Katie Moon – Youtube / NBC Sports

After matching each other in normal rounds, two Olympic pole vaulters continued to battle it out over three tiebreaker rounds to see who would get gold at the World Athletics Championships.

However, the tiebreakers proved inconclusive, with both Australia’s Nina Kennedy and American Katie Moon both making it over the 4.90 meter bar, but failing to get over the 4.95 meter one.

So with a kiss and a hug, the two athletes and longtime friends decided to share the gold medal, a choice which in such circumstances can be made if there’s a dead heat between two competitors.

“I didn’t think she’d want to share it, I thought we might have had to keep jumping,” Kennedy said afterwards, according to Olympics.com. “But, you know, I kind of looked at her and said, ‘Hey, girl, you maybe wanna share this?'”

“And the relief on her face — and you could see it on my face — and it was mutual. And yeah, absolutely incredible to share a medal with Katie Moon. You know, we’ve been friends for so long so it’s super special.”

Moon agreed, noting that it had been a long battle and that for four jumps they had done basically the same thing.

MORE STORIES LIKE THIS: Player’s Honesty Costs Him the Match, But Wins Hearts w/ Sportsmanship

The medal is Moon’s second world championship gold and Kennedy’s first.

The last time a gold medal was split was at the Tokyo Olympics, where Qatar’s Mutaz Barshim and Italy’s Gianmarco Tamberi split the gold medal for the men’s high jump final.

WATCH the back and forth and ultimate decision below…

SHARE This Inspiring Moment In Athletics With Your Friends… 

“To see things in the seed, that is genius.” – Lao Tzu

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Good News Network
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Star anise by Mae Mu

Quote of the Day: “To see things in the seed, that is genius.” – Lao Tzu

Photo by: Mae Mu

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Entire Family Shares Same Birthday as Twins Are Born the Same Day as Both Their Parents

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Good News Network
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Scierra Blair and José Ervin with twins – SWNS
Scierra Blair and José Ervin with twins – SWNS

A couple with the same birthday is thrilled after their twins were born—on the same day. The entire family now shares the same birthday.

Scierra Blair couldn’t believe it when her doctor revealed their babies were ready to be born ten days earlier than their due date, and she was told to go straight to the hospital to deliver the twins.

She and her partner José Ervin welcomed the babies, José Jr. and Aria, 30 minutes after midnight on August 18 in Cleveland, Ohio.

The 30-year-olds were told one of the babies were breached, Scierra would have to have a C section.

“At this point it was around 5pm and they were healthy,” recalled José, “so I suggested we wait for a few hours so they could be born on our birthday.”

They met last year when Jose “kept seeing her around” and took it as a sign to speak to her. When she revealed her birthday to be the same as his, José thought she was joking until he saw her ID—then took it as another sign they should be together.

He is “beyond happy” that they can share their big day with their children now too.

WOW: Co-Workers Become BFFs, Then Discover They’re Actually Biological Sisters

“It’s the best birthday gift ever. I truly feel like it was a blessing from god and I wouldn’t have had it any other way.

“To have my son with my name and the same birthday is amazing. The only difference is that I was born in 1992 and he was born in 2023.”

José said the twins and their mother have been resting and doing well.

Sister and brother already seem to have a close bond.

“Last night I saw my son was asleep and laid my daughter next to him.

”She noticed he was asleep and kind of kept trying to wake him up to speak to him.

LOOK AT HIM! Man Buys School Bus So He Can Take All 10 of His Grandkids to School Every Day

“I want them to be best friends forever and really close. This is my family and I feel so blessed.”

DOES ANYONE Else Know a Family Like This? Ask Your Friends On Social Media…

Ocean CleanUp Launches Huge System in Pacific Garbage Patch to Clean a Football Field Every 5 Seconds

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Good News Network
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‘System 03’ is nearly three times as long as the previous system – Pictured surrounding System 2 – The Ocean Cleanup
‘System 03’ is nearly three times as long as the previous system – Pictured surrounding System 2 – The Ocean Cleanup

Last week, The Ocean Cleanup organization that has been tackling the Great Pacific Garbage Patch deployed their System 03 for the first time—nearly three times larger than the previous technology and capable of cleaning the area of a football field every five seconds.

This follows testing of their two smaller systems which succeeded in extracted over 275 tons of plastic from the Garbage Patch since 2021.

The arrival of System 03 marks a huge leap forward for the Dutch CEO Boyan Slat and his team, and their mission of ridding the oceans of at least 90% of the plastic trash by 2040.

System 03 consists of a floating barrier approximately 1.4 miles (2.2 km) long, which is towed between two slow-moving vessels. This barrier suspends a screen extending 13 feet (4 meters) below the surface of the water, where most floating plastic is encountered.

Once the trash is removed, an onboard crew sorts it to ensure the plastic is put to good use, by recycling it into sustainable new products.

Watch a video to see how it works…

Most recently, they teamed up with automaker Kia to incorporate the salvaged plastic into their new electric vehicles, with the first batch delivered to Kia on System 002’s final return to port earlier this summer.

To prove we could turn this trash into treasure, we used our first ocean catch to produce The Ocean Cleanup Sunglasses – made from plastic extracted directly from the GPGP with System 001/B in 2019. These sold out within 18 months and helped fund future cleanups.

ALOHA HAUL: Hawaii Group Sets Record For Largest Haul of Plastic Removed From The Great Pacific Garbage Patch

“By making System 03 so much bigger than our previous efforts (alongside the multiple upgrades we’ve implemented) we can cover a much larger area of ocean in less time and using fewer resources,” says The Ocean Cleanup. “This brings down our cost per kilogram of plastic removed and maximizes our benefit on the marine environment.”

There is even a Marine Animal Safety Hatch on the new model, which is monitored by underwater cameras, letting crew members provide any animals with a clear exit from their plastic Retention Zone.

What about trash flowing out from rivers?

Simultaneously, Slat and his engineering team are also tackling a related issue—a facet that is just as critical to the overall plastic pollution problem: the world’s most littered rivers. By “turning off the taps” and catching plastic along the river’s course, the much more difficult task of capturing it in the ocean can be mostly avoided.

Boyan Slat with his River Interceptor – The Ocean Cleanup

Their Interceptor machines are efficient solar-powered barges that gobble up plastic river garbage. At top performance, the Interceptors can extract 220,000 pounds (100,000 kilograms) of trash per day

Indonesia announced an ambitious goal to reduce plastic litter in its waterways by 70% in three years—and got help from The Ocean Cleanup river barge.

After positive results in Jakarta, the Interceptor was deployed in other locations—Malaysia, the Dominican Republic, Vietnam, and Jamaica—and most recently, in Los Angeles on Ballona Creek which flows next to Venice Beach carrying plastic into the Pacific Ocean.

River Interceptor in Jakarta – The Ocean Cleanup

CHECK OUT THIS IDEA: City Pays Homeless to Learn Job Skills While Beautifying Riverbanks

“It’s very encouraging to see this positive collaboration between our two governments and The Ocean Cleanup continue, ” said Lambert Grijns, Ambassador of the Netherlands in Indonesia. “Despite the scale of the plastic challenge, the endorsement of these innovative solutions and partnerships gives me hope that we can work together to finally solve this problem for the benefit of all.”

Explore the ways you can help on their website.

FLOAT This Amazing News to Ocean Lovers on Social Media…

Top 10 Tips for Getting Over a Breakup – Advice From 2,000 Adults Finds Much Agreement

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Good News Network
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By Kelly Sikkema
SWNS/OnePoll

The best advice to get over a breakup was compiled in a new poll of 2,000 people who have a few opinions on the poignant topic.

A huge majority—77 percent of respondents—believe it’s best to consider a breakup as a fresh start rather than dwelling on the past, and 72 percent agree it should encourage you to push yourself to try new things.

Two of the top tips suggest immediately getting rid of their belongings in your home, and blocking your ex on social media.

Getting lots of sleep, reigniting old hobbies, and getting friends together for a night out were other pearls of wisdom to help deal with the end of a romance.

Seven in 10 think it’s important to have no contact with someone you’re moving on from, while 44 percent see dwelling on a breakup as a waste of time.

While exactly a third of those polled think you need to focus on yourself and not how your ex is feeling, and 24 percent reckon a vacation is the best medicine.

The survey conducted by OnePoll was commissioned by Costa Coffee.

Respondents were speaking from experience too, as on average they experienced three breakups in their adult life.

However, two-thirds also believe a breakup can lead to something better in the end.

As autumn approaches, 26 percent consider the season to be a good time to start afresh.

“Breakups can be tough, but after those initial feelings of loss, it’s often the start of moving on to better things,” commented Sandra Ferreira from Costa Coffee, who said that six in 10 thought a coffee shop was a great location for your next first date.

TOP 10 WAYS TO MOVE ON AFTER A BREAKUP:

1.    Spend more time with friends and family
2.    Focus on yourself and–not how the other person is feeling
3.    Get rid of their belongings in your home
4.    Block or unfriend them on social media
5.    Avoid rebound relationships at all costs
6.    Work on rediscovering your identity
7.    Make as many plans as you can so you’re not alone with your thoughts for too long
8.    Book a holiday
9.    Listen to empowering, upbeat music
10.   Get lots of sleep

Implantable Artificial Kidney That Frees Patients From Dialysis On Horizon After Successful Trial

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Good News Network
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UCSF / The Kidney Project
UCSF / The Kidney Project

Sufferers living with kidney failure can soon look forward to a future without dialysis or a long waits for an organ transplant, thanks to efforts from the University of California in San Francisco that produced an implantable device that mimics the organ’s daily functions.

Their first clinical trial showed that kidney cells, housed within the device called a bioreactor, can work quietly in the background, like a pacemaker, and does not trigger the recipient’s immune system to go on the attack—a major stumbling block for patients who need to take harsh immunity-suppressing drugs after receive donor transplants.

More than 500,000 people in the U.S. require dialysis several times a week, whereby their blood is filtered by a machine. Many seek kidney transplants, but there are not enough donors, and only about 20,000 people receive them each year. An implantable artificial kidney would be a boon.

The device, developed by the university’s Kidney Project, has been successfully implanted and tested in pigs for seven days. The next step will be a month-long trial—first in animals and then humans.

The scientists plan to fill the bioreactor with additional kidney cells that can mimic all the functions, such as balancing the body’s fluids and releasing hormones to regulate blood pressure—then, a full artificial kidney will be born.

LUCKY KIDNEY FIND: Woman Saved After Her Dog Found a Kidney Donor at the Beach: One-in-22 Million Odds

“The bioartificial kidney will make treatment for kidney disease more effective and also much more tolerable and comfortable,” said Dr. Shuvo Roy, a bioengineering professor in the UCSF School of Pharmacy.

“We needed to prove that a functional bioreactor will not require immunosuppressant drugs, and we did. We had no complications and can now iterate up, reaching for the whole panel of kidney functions at the human scale.”

In a study published in the journal Nature Communications, the team details how the engineered bioreactor can connect directly to blood vessels and veins, allowing the passage of nutrients and oxygen, much like a transplanted kidney would. (See the video below.)

Silicon membranes keep the kidney cells inside the bioreactor safe from attack by the recipient’s immune cells.

The team used a type of kidney cell called a proximal tubule cell, which regulates water and salt, as a test case. Co-author H. David Humes, MD, from the University of Michigan, had previously used these cells to help dialysis patients in the intensive care unit with life-saving results.

ALSO CHECK OUT: First Artificial Kidney That Would Free People From Dialysis and Transplants Runs on Blood Pressure

They tracked data from the kidney cells inside the bioreactor and the recipient animals for seven days after transplantation and both did well.

See how it works…

DON’T FORGET to Share The Incredible Breakthrough on Social Media…

“Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things.” – Robert Brault

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Good News Network
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Quote of the Day: “Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things.” – Robert Brault

Photo by: Erik Mclean

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?

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