Quote of the Day: “Just remember, once you’re over the hill you begin to pick up speed.” – Charles M. Schulz
Photo by: Centre for Ageing Better
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Any good gardener knows what a good de-weeding can do for a vegetable garden. As it turns out, it’s much the same for coral reefs.
Following a volunteer “sea-weeding” program launched in Australia, scientists are witnessing compounding coral recovery both in quantity and diversity, and suggest that this simple method has the power to transform degraded reefs overrun by macroalgae.
In a balanced ecosystem, macroalgae is kept in check by the size and health of corals, but as extreme weather events or coral bleaching causes some sections of reef to die, macroalgae has no other neighbor keeping a check on its spread.
Over a period of three years, the joint Earthwatch Institute program led by James Cook University Senior Research Officer Hillary Smith and Professor David Bourne, also at JCU and the Australian Institute of Marine Science, has organized volunteer citizen scientists to help remove macroalgae at two experimental reef sites.
The results of the first three years of work and study have now been published in the Journal of Applied Ecology, and they show a 600% increase in coral recovery rates.
“It’s just like weeding your garden,” Smith said. “Every time we return, the seaweed is growing back less and less, so this method could provide lasting benefit without requiring endless effort.”
The sites were located in the central zone of the Great Barrier Reef at an inshore location called Yunbenun (or Magnetic Island).
MORE AUSTRALIAN MARINE SCIENCE: Weird and Wonderful Discoveries of New Deep Sea Fish Below Australia’s Ancient Underwater Volcanoes
The importance of the study, Smith details, is that a lot of reef recovery efforts globally are powered by expensive, high-tech, and experimental solutions. The study hoped to show that manual de-weeding was just as effective, and thereby encourage organizations or nations that lack the tech or funding of a country like Australia to pursue sea-weeding as a way of protecting their corals.
“We have yet to see a plateau in coral growth within these plots at Magnetic Island, which is characterized as one of the degraded reefs on the Great Barrier Reef,” Smith said. “We also found an increase in coral diversity, so this method is benefitting a wide range of different coral types.”
MORE GOOD CORAL NEWS: 4 Decades of Data Suggests Pacific Coral Reefs Can Acclimate to Warming Oceans and Resist Future Bleaching
Smith said her team are now scoping other locations where the sea-weeding technique could be useful, including the Whitsunday Islands, which are home to a different species of predominant seaweed.
They also want to employ them in French Polynesia, Indonesia, and even Singapore, where experts have identified out-of-control macroalgae spread along coral reefs.
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A strange creature was spotted in a trail cam scampering across the Matadero Creek near Palo Alto south of San Francisco.
Biologists were scratching their heads as they reviewed the footage. It was clearly a mammal, but there are only a certain number of mammals in the area.
“Finally, it hit me in the head,” Bill Leikam, president and co-founder of the Urban Wildlife Research Project, told SFGate. “Could that be a baby beaver?”
In the 21st century, the Bay Area has witnessed a number of mammalian returns and the Urban Wildlife Research Project has typically specialized in documenting the return of the gray fox, but breeding beavers haven’t been recorded in the Palo Alto area in 160 years.
In September 2022, a pair of beavers was photographed on the trail cameras; Leikam believes that it’s possible they have had a baby, because the one that darted past their trail camera was simply too small to be an adult.
Leikam believes the mating pair and their baby are offspring of a group of beavers that were reintroduced to the nearby Los Gatos Creek by CA Fish and Wildlife.
“It’s taken them this long to disperse, have babies, and spread, and spread and spread,“ he said. “It looks like they’re going along the northwestern edge of San Francisco Bay.”
REWILDING STORIES YOU’LL LIKE: 500 Baby Sharks to be Released in Unprecedented Rewilding of the Ocean
Palo Alto Online provides extensive reporting on the various creeks the beavers might expand into if their population naturally continues to grow. Research has shown that from the concrete channel creeks in the Baylands to the natural creeks in the uplands, beavers tend to positively affect their riverine environments.
BEAVERS RECOVERING EVERYWHERE: NASA Became “Beaver Believers” After Using Satellites To Measure Their Impact On US Rivers
By building dams they turn creeks into creeks + ponds, which retain water for longer and fortify the surrounding area from drought. In the winter, meltwater floods blow the dams out, preventing them from becoming so big as to dry up creeks lower down. It’s also documented that various game fish like trout and salmon can leap over the dams no problem.
“The beaver ponds in the uplands will also create habitat for all manner of birds, amphibians, bats, and will serve as an insect cafeteria for trout and salmon. That’s why we refer to the beaver as a keystone species,” said Dr. Rick Lanman, President of the Institute for Historical Ecology.
WATCH the beaver pass by…
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An early van Gogh painting worth millions was stolen during a museum heist in 2020 under the cover of COVID lockdowns, but while the thief was arrested, the painting remained at large.
Now, with the help of private art detective Arthur Brand, the painting has returned to the Groniger Museum, after an anonymous person who was able to take possession of the painting left it on Brand’s doorstep in an Ikea bag.
The painting, The Parsonage Garden at Nuenen in Spring, by Vincent van Gogh is from 1884 and painted in oil on paper on panel. It’s one of his earliest surviving works and clearly was made before he developed his iconic style.
DNA evidence left on the broken glass at the Singer Museum in Laren, where the painting was on loan, was used to confirm the burglar’s identity—a Mister “Nils M.” However the painting was still at large, but no one wanted to cash in.
“We knew that the painting would go from one hand to another hand in the criminal world, but that nobody really wanted to touch it,” Brand told the Guardian. “You could only get in trouble. So it was a little bit cursed.”
With Nils M. in prison for several years and harangued with a $9 million fine for the theft, the subsequent profiting off of it would mean exponentially greater penalties if caught.
SUPER SLEUTH STORIES: Priceless Tapestry Is Made Whole as Missing Piece is Returned, Solving 40-Year Heist Mystery
Smithsonian Magazine reports that Brand has recovered over 200 artworks through his detective work, including two bronze horse sculptures commissioned by Hitler, and works by Picasso, Dali, and even artifacts such as 15th-century Persian poetry manuscripts.
The media has branded him the ‘Indiana Jones’ of the art world, though since his Instagram handle is ‘art detective,’ Sherlock Holmes seems the more apt fictional celebrity comparison.
Apparently, Brand had heard from someone anonymously who could get their hands on the painting and return it, and Brand worked to gain their trust, explain the situation to the authorities, and sanction an unmonitored drop-off.
MORE STOLEN PAINTINGS RETURNED: 101-Year-old Woman Is Amazed After Being Reunited with Her Lost Painting Looted by Nazis
“Mr. Brand, I could turn in the van Gogh, but I don’t want to get in trouble,” the person wrote.
The work will be thoroughly investigated in the near future. The painting has suffered, but is, at first glance, still in good condition. It will be scientifically investigated in the coming months.
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Logging still goes on in British Columbia where nature lovers would prefer it didn’t, but rather than bemoan the decision from afar, photographer TJ Watt goes and looks for the best arguments for forest protection—giant, ancient trees.
Ever since he was 19, Watt has been trekking across the verdant landscapes of his home to look for the oldest trees he can, but on a recent trip to Flores Island in Clayoquot Sound, he has found one of the largest, oldest trees in the country.
“No tree has blown me away more than this one,” he told CBC News. “It literally is a wall of wood.”
Found on Ahousaht First Nation land, the tree is a Western red cedar, sometimes called redcedar because it’s not actually a cedar tree. It’s estimated to be 1,000 years old, with a width at its base of 5 meters (16.5 feet), and a height of 45 meters (147 feet.)
The tree has been nicknamed “The Wall” or “ʔiiḥaq ḥumiis,” meaning “big redcedar” in the Nuu-chah-nulth language
“Unlike most other trees, it actually gets wider as it goes up,” said Watt. “It’s really the highlight of my life to come across something this spectacular.”
OTHER GIANT TREES: Italy is Protecting its Giant Trees Forever – Monumental Trees that Can Live for Centuries
Ancient, large trees like this one are ecosystems unto themselves, and provide the forests they live in with a wealth of genetic information on how to survive diseases, pests, drought, storms, and more, as they continually produce or pollinate offspring.
The Ahousaht Nation is using the giant tree as a reminder to those seeking eco-tourism excursions in the Clayoquot Sound, recognized by UNESCO as a Biosphere Reserve, that the forests hold many awe-inspiring surprises.
This tree is located in a forest that’s ineligible for logging, which hopefully means it will enrich the forest for centuries to come.
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Quote of the Day: “What happens is not as important as how you react to what happens.” – Ellen Glasgow
Photo by: Denis Oliveira
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Oceanographic Magazine is heralding the conclusion of its photo/photographer of the year awards, and the results highlight the otherworldy nature of our oceans.
The winners of the various categories had to beat out thousands of entries and come from all over the Earth, from quiet estuarine seagrass meadows to the blackness of the ocean Pacific.
“The range and quality of submissions entered into this year’s competition is special. From world-class drone images of megafauna to breathtaking underwater images of deep-dwelling ocean wildlife, the full spectrum of ocean life is brought to life like never before,” Will Harrison, editorial director of Oceanographic Magazine and the Ocean Photographer of the Year, said in an email sent to CNN Thursday.
“This is an extraordinary collection of photography from an extraordinarily talented group of ocean photographers: divers, surfers, and sailors uniting to dazzle the world.”
In the category entitled Marine Conservation (Hope), Sylvie Ayer from Florida caught the above image: a manatee comes for a visit with what looks like the light of the Holy Spirit from behind.
“The manatee on the picture came close to look at me and was suddenly perfectly positioned in front of the sun’s rays,” Ayer recounts. “I hope this photo helps raise awareness of the need to protect these mammals.”
The overall contest winner was captured during a nighttime dive in the Pacific off the coast of the Philippines, where spotlights are used to attract marine life.
“Following the Taal Volcano eruption in the Philippines, the water column filled with particles from the stirred-up sediments,” remembers contest winner Jialing Cai. “Navigating through the low visibility and dense fog during a blackwater dive, I found this female paper nautilus. When I pressed the shutter, the particles reflected my light.”
Second place was taken by a diver investigating a large anemone for other inhabitants. Winner Andrei Savin says that anemones are a lot like apartment complexes where other animals live a symbiotic life among their tentacles.
This crab happened to emerge right as Savin had the anemone in focus, and it sat in the middle looking right into the viewfinder.
CNN also featured some of the results, like two octopuses in an interlocking hug, or a marlin turning about-face to look back at the bait ball it just plunged through.
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Everett Kalin was looking for an adventure to celebrate his birthday. For a man of his age, that might entail going out to eat ethnic food, but the 93-year-old Californian had other plans.
“When you hit your 90s, you think, ‘What would be some things I’d like to do?’” he told SF Gate. “… I guess Half Dome was the thing that most popped into my mind.”
Half-Dome—the monumental mass of granite in Yosemite Valley is no place for faint hearts or knackered knees. For those with apposite fitness, it’s a 14-16 hour endeavor that involves gaining and then losing over 4,000 feet in elevation. Toward the top, cables embedded in the rocks require upper body strength to pull oneself up steep inclines.
Despite all that, Everett was determined, and requisitioned the company of his son Jon, 57, and granddaughter Sidney, 19, for the excursion.
Training hard, Everett made ample use of the days leading up to the trek to walk up and down stairs, and around Lake Merritt.
Then the day of the hike came, and Everett admits that he probably underestimated the difficulty of the beginning half, with plenty of steep paths that he described as slick.
Jon and Sidney helped him along every step of the way, even pushing on his backside during particularly vertical bits.
It took the hikers, who decided to go steady, until the middle of the second day to summit Half Dome’s pinnacle, all the while the people passing them on the trails marveled at the determination and spirit of the geriatric hiker.
OTHER INSPIRATIONAL SENIORS: 80-Year Old Powerlifter Can Still Pump 800 Pounds And Inspire Seniors to Hit the Gym
“He’s stubborn as a mule. When he sets his mind to something, he’s going to do it,” Jon said, adding that when they got to the top, “there were tears in everyone’s eyes. It was like paparazzi, everyone taking videos and photos. It was unreal. I’m choking up just talking about it now. The power of seeing him was so much joy and inspiration.”
They almost couldn’t make the summit as the skies were winking with rain and thunder. But the weather held out for three days—enough to finish the whole trek.
MORE GERIATIC CONQUERERS: After Husband Dies 83-Year-old ‘Muddy Mildred’ Runs Her Third Tough Mudder Race to Provide Clean Water
Jon spoke with several rangers along the route, and while some of them had seen some hikers complete Half Dome in their 80s, none of them had ever heard of one doing so in their 90s—indeed Everett might be the oldest.
SF Gate reported that when Everett returned to his home in Oakland, he was absolutely buzzing, and neither sore nor too eager to find another adventure, such was the excitement manifested by the Half Dome hike.
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Like many kids, Lindsey Stallworth from Alabama loves a day out to look for sharks’ teeth. But on one such trip, it was a far bigger, far older discovery that awaited her.
Stallworth was with her high school biology teacher, but it was the young student who noticed some small bone fragments embedded in soft rock. Following them up a hill, they turned up the nearly complete skull of a 34-million-year-old whale.
Stallworth has been looking for sharks’ teeth on her family farm since she was little, and after her first biology class at the Alabama School of Math and Science in Mobile, she learned her new teacher, Andrew Gentry, was a paleontologist.
Showing him a plastic bag of some of the teeth she had found over the years, one in particular caught Gentry’s eye, and he was curious to look in the area where she’d found it.
Not long ago geologically speaking, Alabama was covered in shallow seas, and it’s why Stallworth finds shells and sharks’ teeth nowhere near the beach. She invited Gentry to come along on a fossil hunt on the farm, and it’s where they found the staggering discovery.
“To find one that’s this complete is actually very rare,” Gentry told NBC 15’s Andrea Ramey. “We’re very excited by the fact that we got the majority of the skull out and that there is more of the skeleton left to uncover, which could give us the complete animal.”
MORE PRIVATE LAND DISCOVERIES: Portuguese Man Accidentally Finds 82-Foot-Long Dinosaur in His Backyard
The animal is from the family Basliosauridae, a group of extinct, primitive, toothed whales that may have included the heaviest and largest animal ever to live.
“We didn’t actually know what we’d found at first,” Gentry explained to FOX News. “There was only a small portion of the skull actually exposed on the surface, and we spent about three or four days digging away with very small dental picks and tiny hand chisels until we uncovered more of the lower jaw of the animal.”
It took months to extract the skull from the rock and bring it to the ASMS in Mobile for further examination. The date—34 million years ago—indicates that it’s likely to be a new species of Basilosaurid.
MORE FOSSIL HUNTERS: Canada Schoolteacher Finds Fossil that May Be 300 Million Years Old and Could Re-Write Fossil Record
“I was really overwhelmed, but at the same time I was just full of excitement that I actually get to be here for this project, I get to see it happening in front of my eyes and be a part of it because as a high schooler I didn’t think I’d get to do any of this stuff,” Stallworth told NBC 15.
Next summer, the pair will return to the hill in which they found the intact skull to see if the rest of the skeleton is still entombed.
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If the suicide of Anthony Bourdain, the beloved restauranteur and travel personality taught the country anything, it’s that depression is still poorly understood.
In 2014, a young woman named Trieste Belmont was struggling with depression. Her grandmother had just passed, and she was going through a dramatic break-up.
She was teaching a dance class at this time, but without a driver’s license, she relied on a friend to drive her to and from work every week. One day however the friend didn’t show, and Belmont waited for hours before being forced to walk home.
The route she used went over a high bridge. And when she got there, she stopped for a moment.
“I was just having one of the worst days of my life. And I was looking down at all the cars, just feeling so useless and like such a burden to everyone in my life that I decided that this was the time and I needed to end my life,” Belmont told NPR.
“I was sobbing and crying and working up the courage to just go through with it, because I knew at that moment that it was going to make everyone’s lives better.”
At that moment, a driver, whose face Belmont didn’t see, and whose hand she would never shake, passed over the bridge and hollered out of the window.
“Don’t jump,” they said.
It immediately clicked a lightbulb on in her head; that if a stranger could care enough to speak up, then suicide was not the answer.
THE KINDNESS OF STRANGERS: Utah Man Jumps Into Icy River to Save Woman Attempting Suicide at the Same Spot Where he First Dated His Wife
She enrolled in therapy, and with the help of her friends, family, and therapist, she is far down the road indeed from that dark and fateful day.
Belmont uses the incident as an example to teach others to be kind to people, as it’s never obvious what they’re going through. The smallest kindness is multiplied by the distance, socially, between two strangers.
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Quote of the Day: “I don’t know how to feel, how to think, how to love. I am a character in an unwritten novel.” – Fernando Pessoa
Photo by: Ayom Rohmansyah
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It’s the Kansas state flower and his wife‘s favorite—which made it the perfect gift from her husband on their 50th anniversary.
KAKE-TV News talked to farmer Lee Wilson who sacrificed 80 acres of crops to give his ‘gal’ a gift she’ll never forget.
He said it added up to about 1.2 million sunflowers in total, which he kept a secret for three months after planting them in May, until their big day in August.
“It made me feel very special,” Renee told KAKE-TV in the video below. “It couldn’t have been a more perfect anniversary gift.”
People came from miles around to take pictures and experience the flowers in bloom near the town of Pratt off Highway 54.
WATCH: WWII Veteran Returns For a Dance in Club Where he Met His Wife 74 Years Ago
See the news coverage below…
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For the first time, genetically modified pig kidneys provided “life-sustaining kidney function” during the course of a planned seven-day clinical study—a first step in addressing the critical crisis worldwide of kidney donor organ shortage.
The University of Alabama’s pre-clinical human study at Birmingham also advances the science and promise of xenotransplantation as a therapy to potentially cure end-stage kidney disease—just as a human-to-human transplants can.
“It has been truly extraordinary to see the first-ever preclinical demonstration that appropriately modified pig kidneys can provide normal, life-sustaining kidney function in a human safely and be achieved using a standard immunosuppression regimen,” said UAB transplant surgeon scientist Jayme Locke, M.D., director of UAB’s Comprehensive Transplant Institute and lead author of the paper.
“The kidneys functioned remarkably over the course of this seven-day study,” she said. “We were able to gather additional safety and scientific information critical to our efforts to seek FDA clearance of a Phase I clinical trial in living humans and hopefully add a new, desperately needed solution to address an organ shortage crisis responsible for tens of thousands of preventable deaths each year.”
The peer-reviewed findings published last month in JAMA Surgery describes the pioneering pre-clinical human research performed on a recipient experiencing brain death by the Locke and Heersink School of Medicine team. It comes 19 months after last year’s groundbreaking peer reviewed UAB xenotransplant study in which genetically modified pig kidneys were successfully transplanted into a recipient after brain death.
ANOTHER NEW BREAKTHROUGH: Implantable Artificial Kidney That Frees Patients From Dialysis On Horizon After Successful Trial
The pre-clinical human brain death model developed at UAB can evaluate the safety and feasibility of pig-to-human kidney xenografts, or transplants, without risk to a living human. It is named for transplant pioneer Jim Parsons, an organ donor whose family generously donated his body to advance xenotransplant kidney research, like the latest patient did.
A Critical Need
Kidney disease kills more people each year than breast or prostate cancer, while more than 90,000 people are on the transplant waiting list. More than 800,000 Americans are living with kidney failure and 240 Americans on dialysis die every day. The wait for a deceased donor kidney can be as long as five to 10 years, and almost 5,000 people per year die waiting for a kidney transplant.
Groundbreaking Study Details
The 52-year-old study subject for this research lived with hypertension and stage 2 chronic kidney disease, which affects more than one in seven U.S. adults, or an estimated 37 million Americans. As part of this study, the subject had both of his native kidneys removed and dialysis stopped, followed by a crossmatch-compatible xenotransplant with two 10 gene-edited pig kidneys, or UKidney.
The transplanted pig kidneys made urine within four minutes of re-perfusion and produced more than 37 liters of urine in the first 24 hours. The pig kidneys continued to function as they would in a living human for the entirety of the seven-day study. Also, the kidneys were still viable at the time the study was concluded.
“In the first 24 hours these kidneys made over 37 liters of urine,” said Dr. Locke. “It was really a remarkable thing to see.”
The pig kidneys were serially biopsied throughout the course of the study. Biopsies showed normal histology by light microscopy without evidence of any destruction of red blood cells, low platelets or organ damage due to the formation of microscopic blood clots in capillaries or small arteries.
MIRACLE MEET: Woman Saved After Her Dog Found a Kidney Donor at the Beach: One-in-22 Million Odds
Gene editing in pigs to reduce immune rejection has made organ transplants from pigs to humans possible. The natural lifespan of a pig is 30 years, they are easily bred, and they have organs of similar size to humans. Genetically modified pig kidneys have been extensively tested in non-human primates, and the addition of UAB’s preclinical human research model—the Parsons Model—now provides important information about the safety and efficacy of kidneys in human transplant recipients.
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It’s everyone’s favorite fabric—and over the last decade it’s become way more sustainable.
Better Cotton just published a major annual impact report highlighting significant progress in India that has slashed pesticide and water use, while making improvements to farmers’ livelihoods.
The world’s largest cotton sustainability initiative charted the performance of Indian farmers from 2014 to 2022 and found overall pesticide use decreased 53%—with water usage dropping by nearly one-third.
Enrolled in the Better Cotton Program, almost a million farmers also saw their costs reduced by 15.6% per hectare of land (equal to about 2.5 acres), since the group launched its India operation in 2011.
The report shows a dramatic reduction in the use of pesticides and highly hazardous pesticides (HHPs) by Better Cotton Farmers as a result of the adoption of capacity strengthening trainings on an Integrated Pest Management (IPM) and the delivery of effective awareness campaigns.
HOO’s KILLING IT? California Vineyards That Once Used Only Toxic Chemicals to Protect Vines Now Use Nesting Owls
Specifically, the number of farmers using HHPs was cut from 64% to 10%, whilst those using Monocrotophos – a pesticide classed as highly toxic by the World Health Organization – dropped from 41% to just 2%.
Water usage for irrigation was reduced by 29% between the baseline years and the 2021/22 season. Nitrogen application – which drives greenhouse gas emissions in cotton production when used excessively – decreased by 6% per hectare.
On farmer livelihoods, the total costs per hectare (excluding land renting) decreased by 15.6% and was driven by expense reductions for land preparation and fertilizer expenses. In 2021, Better Cotton Farmers also had an average cotton lint yield per hectare of 650 kilograms, which is 200kg per hectare more than the national average.
As the organization turns its focus from expansion to deepening impact, the report serves to celebrate progress and identify any gaps so they can continue making a positive difference for the cotton-growing communities.
Since the first Better Cotton harvest in India in 2011, the Asian country has also been a pioneering force within the worldwide organization.
RELATED: U.S. EPA Banning a Farm Pesticide Linked To Health Problems In Children
“We’re buoyed by the results in this Impact Report, which demonstrate the environmental, social, and economic benefits of Better Cotton production, and remain committed to driving further improvements at the farm-level,” said Alan McClay, the Better Cotton CEO.
Over one-fifth of the world’s cotton is now grown under the Better Cotton Standard, with 2.9 million farmers in 23 countries receiving training on sustainable farming practices, and 2.2 million farmers earning Better Cotton licenses.
MORE FROM ASIA: Bangladesh Farmers Digging Simple Wells Have Created an Irrigation Wonder–With Rice Overflowing
“We have united the industry’s stakeholders behind our efforts, from ginners and spinners to brand owners, civil society organizations and governments. Everyone who cares about cotton and its sustainable future can now be part of something better.”
PULL SOME THREADS to Adjust Attitudes About Cotton–Share on Social Media…
Finally, after four years of testing and developing, LEGO is selling braille bricks that use the bumps on their iconic bricks to teach the Braille alphabet—and these aren’t only for blind people.
Alongside the Braille bumps on each brick is printed the letters and numbers so that everyone can play while learning a new language, including the sighted. The new ‘Play with Braille’ set makes learning braille more fun and accessible to everyone.
LEGO Braille Bricks are moulded with the same number of studs used for individual letters and numbers in the Braille alphabet, while remaining fully compatible with every LEGO system.
“For blind and partially sighted children, and adults for that matter, it makes all the difference if they can share their journey of learning braille with the people they love the most,” said Martine Abel-Williamson, President, World Blind Union.
“For the blind community, braille is not just literacy, it’s our entry to independence and inclusion into this world, and to have LEGO Braille Bricks made available for the wider public is a massive step forward to ensuring more children will want to learn braille in the first place.”
Until now, LEGO Braille Bricks have only been distributed free of charge by the LEGO Foundation to organizations specializing in the education of children with vision impairment.
LOOK: Monet’s Water Lilies Masterpiece is Recreated Using 650,000 Lego Pieces
Lisa Taylor, mother of two daughters 7 and 4, says Olivia (pictured below, left) first discovered LEGO braille bricks at school.
“They had such a big impact on her curiosity for braille. Before then, she found it hard to get started with the symbols. We can now play with braille together as a family and she can introduce braille to her little sister in a way they both love.
“Braille bricks are accessible for her without being really different for other kids, so she gets to play and learn just like every other child.”
The new set, aimed at kids aged 6+, includes 287 bricks in five colors with two baseplates for building upon. Priced at $89.99 (79.99 GBP), the set can only be purchased online at LEGO.com and comes in a box with braille embossing.
All bricks are fully compatible with other LEGO products and the studs on each brick are arranged to correspond to the numbers and letters in the braille system. Below the bumps, the printed version of the symbol or letter appears.
To get families started, a series of play starters are available on the website that will teach players how to orient, attach, and stack the bricks using well-loved games such as Rock, Paper, Scissors.
CHECK OUT: 600 More Hospitals Get Free LEGO MRI Scanners – to Reduce Anxiety in Young Patients
The LEGO Group has also partnered with the free mobile app Be My Eyes. The popular app connects blind and partially sighted people with companies to help with everyday tasks through a live video call. As part of the partnership, LEGO Customer Service colleagues will provide confidential, live visual assistance through the app covering general product support.
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Quote of the Day: “A successful marriage is an edifice that must be rebuilt every day.” – Andre Maurois
Photo by: Nathan Dumlao
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Last week a heroic bystander jumped into a strong current to rescue a young girl who fell in and was getting swept away.
The seven-year-old girl accidentally fell into the river in Qingyuan City, China, which led to the hero leaping into the water from quite a height.
A video shows the man swimming towards the girl who appears to be face down in the water floating in the current.
Eventually, he managed to grab her and bring her back to the shore—with a school backpack still on her back.
WATCH Amazing Rescue: Pakistani Man is True Hero in Dramatic Cable Car Rescue After Youths Were Stranded 15 Hours–LOOK
Helpful onlookers attended to the child, and thanked the rescuer for his quick actions.
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Snow accumulation atop solar panels causes energy losses of between 5% and 15% every Winter in northern climates around the world, with some heavy snowfall even leading to mechanical loads that damage PV modules.
Keeping solar panels snow-free has been a costly and inefficient proposition—until now.
Materials and engineering scientists at the University of Toledo have developed an ingenious solution that is winning awards and satisfying the demand of 150 solar plant operators in their latest pilot tests.
The product is a novel strip that is applied to only the lower edge of the panel, which causes the melting of the snow without interfering with the absorption of sunlight.
In a video demonstrating Snow-Free Solar, the Ohio innovators say the easy-to-apply strip “does not cause any partial shading or hot spots on the panel and does not invalidate module warranty.” It can, in fact, improve the life expectancy of the panels.
The flexible strip doesn’t require any energy to operate and the coatings are “extremely durable, strongly adhering to the PV.”
“There is no need for power—it is passive,” says Hossein Sojoudi, the Associate Professor and Technical Advisor who founded Snow-Free Solar. “You apply it to the lower bottom and it works from there.”
CHECK OUT All the Latest Solar Power Stories on GNN…
Super easy to install, the job can be done by unskilled labor with no training.
The company isn’t providing technical specs because of ongoing competition in the field, but, so far, “no known failure mode (has) yet to be identified” over several winters of rigorous durability tests conducted by a solar photovoltaic testing laboratory.
“We also showed that our strip coatings are durable during regular cleaning of solar panels.
“Through strategic partnerships, we demonstrated scalable manufacturing of our product with monthly production rate of 60,000 strip coatings,” he added.
They expanded their pilot test partners to more regions and utility companies with thousands of expected installations by the end of 2023.
The data demonstrated more than 3.4% and 5.1% annual improvement in power generation in Massachusetts and Japan respectively.
With additional direct sales to pilot test partners and a payback time of 2 years, they estimate to reach a production rate of 1 million strip coatings by the end of 2024.
“Our solution is a game-changing technology,” said their business adviser Dan Vining.
They will use funds won in the American Made Solar Prize to hire new talent and continue their efforts to reach 28 million utility scale panels in the eleven U.S. states with heavy snowfall.
WOAH: Car Makes Record-Breaking 621-Mile Trip on Single Charge Powered by the Sun
That may lead to an additional $150 million in annual revenue—commercializing their product to “deliver on the promise of solar energy all year long.”
SHINE A LIGHT on This Upcoming Solution With Solar-Lovers on Social Media!
Rom-coms can actually be a great salve for a broken heart, providing empathy and hope during an otherwise difficult period.
2,000 adults in a new poll reported the top reasons such films were seen as having such a positive influence: they provide escapism, get you to laugh again, and they’re relatable.
According to the survey, the top three romantic comedies are: Bridget Jones’s Diary, Legally Blonde, and The Holiday.
The Wedding Singer and Bridesmaids were the next most popular in providing comfort after a split.
Other classics that made the top 10 included the star studded Crazy Stupid Love, How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, The First Wives Club, and Eat, Pray, Love.
62 percent of respondents believed romantic comedies could have a positive emotional impact on the healing process, and nearly one-third of heartbreak survivors reported feeling empowered by rom-coms, having watched them following a break-up.
28 percent said they had been involved in a ‘rom com-like’ romance, and 11 percent even believe such films has changed their expectations on relationships.
CHECK OUT some other good rom-coms from our Valentine’s Day list: Alone on Saturday Night? Watch One of These 14 Great Romantic Comedies
The survey was commissioned by Costa Coffee, which teamed up with cinema chain Odeon in the UK to show the top three rom-coms this autumn to their members, along with a free Maple Hazel beverage from the brand.
“Clearly, watching rom-coms where the main characters move on can help people heal,” said Julia Foye, a spokesperson for the coffee chain. “Our research has shown that these films can have a real positive impact and not only be relatable but put a smile on faces too.
Despite 53 percent believing relationship portrayals in these movies are unrealistic, 28 percent have still compared them to their own lives.
“While some are more realistic than others in the plot, it was interesting to find how effective they were in getting viewers to shed a tear—then move on.”
26 percent have rewatched the films more than they’d like to admit—with 22 percent saying they still frequently cry along with the characters, according to the OnePoll data.
The humor, the resolution with a happy ending, and watching the personal growth of a character were seen as the best elements of the popular film genre.
TOP 10 ROM-COMS TO HELP OVERCOME A HEARTBREAK:
1. Bridget Jones’s Diary
2. Legally Blonde
3. The Holiday
4. Bridesmaids
5. My Best Friend’s Wedding
6. Crazy, Stupid, Love
7. The Wedding Singer
8. How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days
9. Eat, Pray, Love
10. The First Wives Club (An oldie but a goodie: After years of helping their hubbies climb the ladder of success, each wife has been dumped for a newer, curvier model. But the trio is determined to turn their pain into gain.)
Our partner Rob Brezsny 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 September 16, 2023
Copyright by Rob Brezsny, FreeWillAstrology.com
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22):
The Virgo writer Caskie Stinnett lived on Hamloaf, a small island off the coast of Maine. He exulted in the fact that it looked “the same as it did a thousand years ago.” Many of the stories he published in newspapers featured this cherished home ground. But he also wandered all over the world and wrote about those experiences. “I travel a lot,” he said. “I hate having my life disrupted by routine.” You Virgos will make me happy in the coming weeks if you cultivate a similar duality: deepening and refining your love for your home and locale, even as you refuse to let your life be disrupted by routine.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22):
My hitchhiking adventures are finished. They were fun while I was young, but I don’t foresee myself ever again trying to snag a free ride from a stranger in a passing car. Here’s a key lesson I learned from hitchhiking: Position myself in a place that’s near a good spot for a car to stop. Make it easy for a potential benefactor to offer me a ride. Let’s apply this principle to your life, Libra. I advise you to eliminate any obstacles that could interfere with you getting what you want. Make it easy for potential benefactors to be generous and kind. Help them see precisely what it is you need.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21):
In your history of togetherness, how lucky and skillful have you been in synergizing love and friendship? Have the people you adored also been good buddies? Have you enjoyed excellent sex with people you like and respect? According to my analysis of the astrological omens, these will be crucial themes in the coming months. I hope you will rise to new heights and penetrate to new depths of affectionate lust, spicy companionship, and playful sensuality. The coming weeks will be a good time to get this extravaganza underway.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21):
Is it ever morally permissible to be greedily needy? Are there ever times when we deserve total freedom to feel and express our voracious longings? I say yes. I believe we should all enjoy periodic phases of indulgence—chapters of our lives when we have the right, even the sacred duty, to tune into the full range of our quest for fulfillment. In my astrological estimation, Sagittarius, you are beginning such a time now. Please enjoy it to the max! Here’s a tip: For best results, never impose your primal urges on anyone; never manipulate allies into giving you what you yearn for. Instead, let your longings be beautiful, radiant, magnetic beacons that attract potential collaborators.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19):
Here’s a Malagasy proverb: “Our love is like the misty rain that falls softly but floods the river.” Do you want that kind of love, Capricorn? Or do you imagine that a more boisterous version would be more interesting—like a tempestuous downpour that turns the river into a torrential surge? Personally, I encourage you to opt for the misty rain model. In the long run, you will be glad for its gentle, manageable overflow.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18):
According to the Bible’s book of Matthew, Jesus thought it was difficult for wealthy people to get into heaven. If they wanted to improve their chances, he said they should sell their possessions and give to the poor. So Jesus might not agree with my current oracle for you. I’m here to tell you that every now and then, cultivating spiritual riches dovetails well with pursuing material riches. And now is such a time for you, Aquarius. Can you generate money by seeking enlightenment or doing God’s work? Might your increased wealth enable you to better serve people in need? Should you plan a pilgrimage to a sacred sanctuary that will inspire you to raise your income? Consider all the above, and dream up other possibilities, too.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20):
Piscean author Art Kleiner teaches the art of writing to non-writers. He says this: 1. Tell your listeners the image you want them to see first. 2. Give them one paragraph that encapsulates your most important points. 3. Ask yourself, “What tune do you want your audience to be humming when they leave?” 4. Provide a paragraph that sums up all the audience needs to know but is not interesting enough to put at the beginning. I am offering you Kleiner’s ideas, Pisces, to feed your power to tell interesting stories. Now is an excellent time to take inventory of how you communicate and make any enhancements that will boost your impact and influence. Why not aspire to be as entertaining as possible?
ARIES (March 21-April 19):
Aries photographer Wynn Bullock had a simple, effective way of dealing with his problems and suffering. He said, “Whenever I have found myself stuck in the ways I relate to things, I return to nature. It is my principal teacher, and I try to open my whole being to what it has to say.” I highly recommend you experiment with his approach in the coming weeks. You are primed to develop a more intimate bond with the flora and fauna in your locale. Mysterious shifts now unfolding in your deep psyche are making it likely you can discover new sources of soulful nourishment in natural places—even those you’re familiar with. Now is the best time ever to hug trees, spy omens in the clouds, converse with ravens, dance in the mud, and daydream in the grass.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20):
Creativity expert Roger von Oech says businesspeople tend to be less successful as they mature because they become fixated on solving problems rather than recognizing opportunities. Of course, it’s possible to do both—untangle problems and be alert for opportunities—and I’d love you to do that in the coming weeks. Whether or not you’re a businessperson, don’t let your skill at decoding riddles distract you from tuning into the new possibilities that will come floating into view.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20):
Gemini author Fernando Pessoa wrote books and articles under 75 aliases. He was an essayist, literary critic, translator, publisher, philosopher, and one of the great poets of the Portuguese language. A consummate chameleon, he constantly contradicted himself and changed his mind. Whenever I read him, I’m highly entertained but sometimes unsure of what the hell he means. He once wrote, “I am no one. I don’t know how to feel, how to think, how to love. I am a character in an unwritten novel.” And yet Pessoa expressed himself with great verve and had a wide array of interests. I propose you look to him as an inspirational role model in the coming weeks, Gemini. Be as intriguingly paradoxical as you dare. Have fun being unfathomable. Celebrate your kaleidoscopic nature.
CANCER (June 21-July 22):
“Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.” Cancerian author Henry David Thoreau said that. I don’t necessarily agree. Many of us might prefer love to truth. Plus, there’s the inconvenient fact that if we don’t have enough money to meet our basic needs, it’s hard to make truth a priority. The good news is that I don’t believe you will have to make a tough choice between love and truth anytime soon. You can have them both! There may also be more money available than usual. And if so, you won’t have to forgo love and truth to get it.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22):
Before she got married, Leo musician Tori Amos told the men she dated, “You have to accept that I like ice cream. I know it shows up on my hips, but if you can’t accept that, then leave. Go away. It is non-negotiable.” I endorse her approach for your use in the coming weeks. It’s always crucial to avoid apologizing for who you really are, but it’s especially critical in the coming weeks. And the good news is that you now have the power to become even more resolute in this commitment. You can dramatically bolster your capacity to love and celebrate your authentic self exactly as you are.
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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