Quote of the Day: Ask yourself: “What deeper resource is this adversity calling on me to bring forth?” – John Welwood
Photo by: Maahid Photos
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?
After a 100-year-old Californian lost her beloved dog, the “sad and quiet” senior was cured of her melancholy by the introduction of a senior chihuahua.
Without letting her advanced age stand in the way of her love for dogs, Johanna Carrington, originally from Germany, explained to her daughter Debbie she was looking to get collared once more, but Debbie was worried she didn’t have the mobility to care for a dog.
Fortunately for Johanna, a special animal shelter in San Francisco had a unique “Seniors for Seniors” adoption program to help senior citizens enjoy the mental health benefits of animal companionship by adopting out senior dogs and cats.
A little chihuahua named Gnocchi with a reserved personality and no teeth was available at Mutsville Shelter after being rescued from a dog hoarding situation and seemed the perfect fit for her mom.
After assurances from Johanna’s caregiver Eddie that he would take the still-active pooch for walks, Gnocchi’s name was changed to something equally-Italian, Gucci, and brought to his new home.
“After she lost her other dog, it was kind of sad here,” Debbie Carrington told TODAY’s Jen Reeder. “It was quiet and sad, and then Gucci brought joy into the house. Laughing about him running around and doing funny things, and then also him sleeping on her lap with her while she’s in her recliner or sleeping in her bed, it’s just making her very happy.”
Johanna, who is due to celebrate her 101st Birthday with Gucci in a few days, couldn’t have a dog as a child growing up in an orphanage in war-torn Germany. Having never touched a cigarette nor a drop of alcohol, she attributes her many years to being surrounded by animals; including at one point eight Pekineses.
MORE SENIORS AND ANIMALS: This Hero Dog-Lover Keeps Seniors and Their Pets Together With ‘Peace of Mind’
“He came to the house like he’d been here before. It was remarkable,” Johanna Carrington said. “He saw me sitting on my chair, jumped up on me and sat on my lap. He made himself very, very comfortable. He was just our baby right away.”
She showers him with oodles of toys, and gives him back massages while they watch TV at night.
WATCH the story below from Today…
SHARE This ‘Seniors For Seniors’ Adoption Story With Your Friends…
Microbes that can eat plastic at low temperatures, making them more cost-effective than current ones, have been found in the Alps.
Several microorganisms capable of destroying plastic polymers have already been discovered. As a result, businesses have latched onto bioengineering the enzymes found in various bacteria and fungi as a means to tackle plastic pollution.
But the industry has been limited by the need for heating since already-discovered ones require artificially high temperatures to work, making the process costly and not carbon neutral.
Now, the Swiss Federal Institute WSL found the most effective performers were two fungi in the genera Neodevriesia and Lachnellulam, which were novel and that worked at just 15 degrees Celsius, or 60 degrees Fahrenheit.
They are capable of digesting biodegradable polyester-polyurethane (PUR), and two commercially available biodegradable mixtures of polybutylene adipate terephthalate (PBAT) and polylactic acid (PLA.)
But the study went far further, finding a total of nine fungi and eight bacteria species from multiple genera that were able to digest PUR, and a total of 14 fungi and three bacteria managed to eat mixtures of PBAT and PLA.
SIMILAR STORIES: ‘Superworm’ With Appetite for Polystyrene Could be Key to Mass-Scale Recycling
PUR is most commonly used in artificial textiles, while PBAT is used quite widely in industries for packaging, and PLA is found in biomedical applications like drug delivery products and sutures.
“Here we show that novel microbial taxa obtained from the ‘plastisphere’ of alpine and arctic soils were able to break down biodegradable plastics at 15°C,” said first author Dr. Joel Rüthi, from WLS. “These organisms could help to reduce the costs and environmental burden of an enzymatic recycling process for plastic.”
“It was very surprising to us that we found that a large fraction of the tested strains was able to degrade at least one of the tested plastics.”
OTHER INVENTIVE SCIENCE: Simple Bacteria Spray Can Solve India’s Air Pollution and Also Enrich Local Farmers
During the hunt for a microbe capable of digesting in the cold, the team studied 19 strains of bacteria and 15 fungi growing on plastic that had been left behind or intentionally buried in Greenland, Svalbard, and Switzerland.
In Switzerland, waste was picked from the summit of Muot da Barba Peider from the valley Val Lavirun, both in the Graubünden region.
Scientists let isolated microbes grow as single-strain cultures in a dark laboratory. At 15 degrees Celsius, molecular techniques were used to identify them.
MORE PLASTIC NEWS: Scientists Develop Breakthrough Method for Recycling Industrial Plastics at Room Temperature in 20 Minutes
In total 59% of strains, including 11 fungi and eight bacteria, could digest PUR at 15 degrees in the study published in the journal Frontiers in Microbiology.
“The next big challenge will be to identify the plastic-degrading enzymes produced by the microbial strains and to optimize the process to obtain large amounts of proteins,” said co-author Dr. Beat Frey, also at WSL. “In addition, further modification of the enzymes might be needed to optimize properties such as protein stability.”
SHARE This Story With Your Friends Stressed About Microplastics…
Leaping with joy, the Calgary Zoo proudly announced last week the birth of a Critically-Endangered lemur pup that will hopefully play a part in keeping its remarkable species on the globe with us.
Born to parents Eny and Menabe, the pup is a black-and-white ruffed lemur, of which maybe 10,000 remain in the wilds of Madagascar.
Calgary Zoo has a Species Survival Plan for the animals in which the few numbers they breed in captivity will be used strategically to boost genetic diversity in key areas.
“With black-and-white ruffed lemurs being critically endangered in the wild, this pup already plays an important role in the survival and well-being of its species,” said Typhenn Brichieri-Colombi, conservation research, and strategy advisor at the Wilder Institute/Calgary Zoo.
Exciting news!🎉 A critically endangered black-and-white ruffed lemur pup was born last month to lemur parents 'Eny' & 'Menabe'. While the family is not viewable at this time, all are doing well. Eny is displaying great early mothering skills! 💚 Read on: https://t.co/PExRFapCwd pic.twitter.com/6KqH3nDv28
— Calgary Zoo (@calgaryzoo) May 11, 2023
Father Menabe, who is now 8 years old, has been in Calgary since 2017, and met Eny, his mate, in 2021 when she was flown there from the Czech Republic after zookeepers realized they could make a good match.
At the moment, the public cannot come to meet the family, as they are bonding behind the scenes and will not return to their enclosures until May 19th.
With endemism at 90%, Madagascar is one of the most biodiverse places on Earth. Thousands of plant and animal species evolved in total separation from the rest of the African continent, developing strange features and strategies to thrive in their environments.
MORE ZOO NEWS: Critically Endangered Dancing Lemur Born in UK is ‘Landmark Moment for Species’ After Parents Sent From US Zoo
There are officially 21 species and 6 subspecies of lemurs alive today. There have been many more in the past, including some extinct ones the size of gorillas.
SHARE This Adorable Little Bugger With Social Media…
The largest explosion ever seen has been captured by astronomers—more than 10 times brighter than any known supernova, and 3 times brighter than the most radiant tidal disruption event, where a star falls into a black hole.
The explosion, known as AT2021lwx, was detected in 2020 in Hawai’i and California and has currently lasted over three years. For a frame of reference, supernovae are only visible for a few months.
“We came upon this by chance,” explains study author Dr. Phillip Wiseman, “as it was flagged by our search algorithm when we were searching for a type of supernova.”
It took place nearly eight billion light years away when the universe was around six billion years old—less than half its current age of 13.7 billion years.
“Most supernovae and tidal disruption events only last for a couple of months before fading away. For something to be bright for two-plus years was immediately very unusual.”
It is believed the incredibly powerful boom was caused by a vast cloud of gas thousands of times larger than our sun, that fell into the jaws of a supermassive black hole.
Fragments of the cloud were swallowed up, sending shockwaves through its remnants that are still being detected today.
Such events are very rare, typified by the think dusty ring left behind in the aftermath, and nothing on this scale has been witnessed before.
The only other event of comparison, strangely enough, got spat out to the news media just a few months ago—a gamma-ray burst known as GRB 221009A. While this was brighter than AT2021lwx, it lasted for just a fraction of the time.
NEW DISCOVERIES IN SPACE: Hubble Sees a Possible Runaway Black Hole Creating a Trail of Stars
Once the scientists calculated the distance of the explosion, they realized the overall energy released was far greater.
“Once you know the distance to the object and how bright it appears to us, you can calculate the brightness of the object at its source. Once we’d performed those calculations, we realized this is extremely bright.”
The only things in the universe that can match it are quasars, supermassive black holes with a constant flow of gas falling in at high velocity.
MORE ASTROPHYSICS: Unprecedented Gamma-Ray Burst is ‘The BOAT’ – Brightest of All Time in Human History
“With a quasar, we see the brightness flickering up and down over time,” said co-author Professor Mark Sullivan. “But looking back over a decade there was no detection of AT2021lwx, then suddenly it appears with the brightness of the brightest things in the universe, which is unprecedented.”
The team is now setting out to collect more data on the explosion by measuring different wavelengths, including X-rays which could reveal the object’s surface and temperature, and what underlying processes were taking place.
“It could be that these events, although extremely rare, are so energetic that they are key processes to how the centers of galaxies change over time,” said Dr. Wiseman.
SHARE This Little Big Bang With Your Friends…
Quote of the Day: “Before we can receive the unbiased truth about anything we have to be ready to ignore what we would like to be true.” – Ann Davies
Photo by: Matteo Catanese
With a new inspirational quote every day, atop the perfect photo—collected and archived on our Quotes page—why not bookmark GNN.org for a daily uplift?
A California woman who recently overcame homelessness is now a millionaire after winning the $5 million prize in a lottery scratch-off game.
Lucia Forseth had no housing in 2017, but she battled back to overcome the challenges within a few years.
But this month Ms. Forseth can put any doubt behind her, becoming a multimillionaire thanks to a lucky Scratchers ticket.
“I only bought one ticket,” Forseth told the California Lottery. “I closed
my eyes and picked that one—and it won!”
Forseth went to a Walmart Supercenter in Contra Costa County to get an oil change for her car, and said she scratched the top-prize winning ticket right outside.
“I first thought I’d won a free ticket, but I checked, and it said I won $5 million!”
WOW-WEE MOMENT: Man Who Had Heart Surgery Wins $1Mil Lottery on a ‘CashWord’ Ticket in Get-Well Card – the Winning Word was HEART
The fact that she bought a ticket called ‘2023’ has deep meaning for Forseth.
“Six years ago, I was homeless. This year, I am getting married, getting
my associate degree, and I won $5 million.”
“You never think you have a chance to win it. It is just random. Being homeless just six years ago, I never thought it would happen to someone like me.”
LOOK AT HER: Irish Woman Who Won $145M Lottery Has Given Over Half: ‘I’m Addicted to Helping People’
Forseth says she plans on buying a house and investing the rest of her
newfound fortune.
WISH SOME LUCK on Your Friends By Sharing the Turn-Around on Social Media…
Do you own an Australian Shepard, Border Collie, or Corgi? According to a new poll, you might just own America’s most spoiled dog.
A full sixty percent of the 2,000 dog owners surveyed swear that they own the “world’s most spoiled dog”. One common link: two-thirds of them are talking about a herding dog, like the three named above.
Non-sporting dogs like Bulldogs, Boston Terriers, and Shiba Inus came in second place for the nation’s most luxuriated breeds, earning 64% of the vote. In third place with 59% are terrier breeds like Russell terriers, Scottish Terriers, and Staffordshire Terriers.
Similarly, 79% of herding dog owners claimed their dogs live like royalty at home. An overwhelming majority (96%) said they spoil their pets in a wide variety of ways and 37% treat their dogs so well, they’d take the chance to switch bodies with their pups for a day if they could.
When asked what they would do for that day, respondents said they’d play all day long (47%), sleep in until noon (42%) and sleep where they usually wouldn’t be allowed to (37%).
LOOK: Pooch Determined to Be in Family Portrait Leaps into Shot for Best Photobomb Ever
People’s penchant for giving their dogs a life of luxury can be explained by four in five who treat and talk to their dogs as if they were human. Many talk to them as if they were children (32%), and others speak as if they were babies or adults (18% for each). Many dogs get treated to meals being prepared by hand in the kitchen.
Commissioned by Solid Gold and conducted by OnePoll, the random double-opt-in survey found two-thirds of terrier owners love giving their dogs extra treats throughout the day, while 29% of toy breed owners love to serve their pups the finest bottled or filtered water in their bowl.
A third of women (32%) admit they likely treat their dogs more luxuriously than themselves, and another third treat them better than their kids and significant others (16%).
“Most of us will make the claim our dog is ‘the’ most spoiled dog, but there’s a clear trend pointing towards smaller breeds as being the most doted on,” said Yvethe Tyszka, vice president of marketing at Solid Gold.
Ahead of Mother’s Day, the survey also revealed the “dog mom” persona, honored by 75% of women surveyed. They believe dog moms should be celebrated on Mother’s Day—just as much as human moms.
CHECK OUT: Stray Dog Crashes Couple’s Wedding – and Becomes Part of Their New Family
The only challenge with that is trying to convince their fur babies—so accustomed to being spoiled themselves—to turn the tables and deliver extra of love and affection for their ‘dog moms’ this Sunday.
WHAT TO DO IF YOU WAKE UP AS YOUR DOG
-Play all day long – 47%
-Sleep in until noon – 42%
-Sleep where I usually don’t sleep – 37%
-Beg humans to play with me – 34%
-Bark at a stranger – 32%
-Roll around in the nearest patch of grass – 32%
-Chew on my favorite toy – 32%
-Demand to be carried everywhere – 29%
-Beg for pets – 23%
-Get as dirty as possible – 22%
HERD SOME LOVE to Other Dog Moms By Sharing With Friends…
Rebecka Peterson can add ‘Teacher of the Year’ to her ongoing classroom ritual of naming one good thing that happened each day.
The Tulsa, Oklahoma math teacher brightens every day with a love for her students and a steadfast determination to show the joy that can exist in a classroom.
She does this through her One Good Thing blog, where she writes daily about something good that happened in her class at Union High School, and encourages her students to do the same in their hand-written journals.
In a video tribute Wednesday morning, First Lady Jill Biden, a teacher herself, praised Peterson for sharing the “beautiful and positive experiences” that come with teaching.
Rebecka was named the top teacher in her state and one of five finalists to be named the nation’s best by the Council of Chief State School Officers, which funds the National Teacher of the Year program to identify exceptional teachers, recognize their work, and engage them in a year of professional learning.
“Since Rebecka was named the Oklahoma Teacher of the Year, she has traveled all over the state to report on more stories of hope, creativity, and joy in classrooms,” said Oklahoma Education Association President Katherine Bishop.
“She is truly passionate about the power of teachers and what it means to be a leader for your students and the community.”
The year-long program is also meant to empower teachers to participate in policy discussions at the state and national levels.
“Her ability to tap into students’ joy and form authentic bonds and her dedication to making learning truly accessible embodies what it means to be an outstanding educator” said NEA President Becky Pringle.
CHECK OUT: Teacher Shares Brilliant Band-Aid Lesson to Teach Kids About Fairness – And it Goes Viral (WATCH)
Additionally, the former college mathematics teacher was recognized as one of six state-level finalists for the Presidential Awards for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching.
HONOR and SHARE The ‘One Good Thing’ Idea With Teachers on Social Media…
Take a sweet Mothers Day moment to check out how this doting river otter takes her baby to the water’s edge for its first swimming lesson.
The video shows a 13-year-old North American river otter Tilly teaching her four-month-old pup to swim—and although completely normal, the techniques can look quite drastic to humans.
Mo was born to the rescued otter in late January and only took his first dip in April, with a lot of help from his mum.
Becca Van Beek, zookeeper at the Oregon Zoo explained that, shockingly, swimming doesn’t come naturally to river otter pups, they have to be taught by their mothers.
“So far Tilly’s been an amazing teacher. It might look kind of scary to a casual observer, but it’s a very natural behavior.
“Baby otters are extremely buoyant, so Mo has built-in water wings for his swim lessons.
“This is how baby otters learn to swim in the wild and it’s exactly what we’ve been hoping to see.”
Mo, named after the Molalla River in Clackamas County, is the first river otter to be born at the Oregon Zoo.
Both Tilly and the pup’s father, B.C., are rescue animals who had a rough start to life.
LOOK: Lonely Otter at Sanctuary Finds Love Through Online Dating Site Built Just For Him
Due to habitat loss, river otters are considered rare outside the Pacific Northwest so Mo’s birth was especially important.
DON’T Forget to SHARE The Mother’s Day Love on Social Media…
Quote of the Day: “Only a mother can walk with the weight of a second beating heart.” – Ocean Vuong, Time Is a Mother (Happy Mother’s Day!)
Photo by: Alex Pasarelu
With a new inspirational quote every day, atop the perfect photo—collected and archived on our Quotes page—why not bookmark GNN.org for a daily uplift?
A tiny implant has placed a big target on the back of breast cancer tumors in mice, according to the results of a new study reported by South West News Service and New Scientist.
In the small study, a self-charging battery enabled a new class of medications to kill the tumors—and it took just two weeks to obliterate them, while leaving healthy tissue alone.
Salt water injected into the surrounding area causes the battery to consume oxygen, which singles-out the cancer cells and creates a condition called hypoxia.
By creating a hypoxic environment, the battery significantly boosts the efficiency of HAP cancer medications (hypoxia-activated pro-drugs) that seek to exploit this trait by only killing hypoxic cells. Previously, no HAPs have been approved for clinical use due to limited evidence of their effectiveness.
“After 14 days, the Tumors in the five mice that received both the working battery and HAP treatment had decreased by an average of 90 percent,” said lead author Professor Fan Zhang, of Fudan University in Shanghai, China, “with four of these mice experiencing complete tumor disappearance.”
Conversely, the tumors in the other mice groups either remained the same size or continued to grow.
The Chinese team placed the device inside the armpits of 25 lab rodents with breast cancer. Other groups received no treatment, HAP drugs only, a non-functional implanted battery, or just the working battery.
POPULAR: Seafood Delicacy That May Hold Cure for Cancer is Named Mollusk of the Year
The battery can operate for up to 500 hours within mouse tissue, producing very low voltage electricity.
“The battery can cover the Tumor and persistently consume the oxygen within it for more than 14 days, which is much longer than previous agents that worked for, usually, not more than two days,” explained Prof. Zhang.
“Hypoxia-activated prodrugs aim to take advantage of this feature by only targeting hypoxic cells—minimizing damage to healthy cells and reducing side effects.”
CHECK OUT: Protein Changes in Blood Could Become New Test for Catching Breast Cancer Up to 2 Years Early
Reacting to the study published in Science Advances, Cambridge University Prof. Randall Johnson said he believed inducing hypoxia in a tumor may increase the risk the cancer will spread.
“While this didn’t appear to occur in these mice, the costs and benefits of the battery’s use in people needs to be assessed before any human treatment.”
SHARE With Cancer Researchers By Sharing the News Social Media…
The Colorado General Assembly has passed unprecedented and groundbreaking legislation known as The Colorado Wild Horse Project, a new law that adds state protections for the rights of mustangs and burros to reside in their homes, instead of being traumatically and expensively rounded up.
The move comes as a response to last year’s tragedy when 145 horses died during a flu outbreak in a holding facility that was later found to be in breach of 13 policies.
The bill’s sponsors included the Colorado House Majority Leader, Rep. Monica Duran (D), and the House Minority Leader, Rep. Mike Lynch (R), reflecting the vast bipartisan support in the General Assembly where SB23-275 was passed by an overwhelming majority of lawmakers—an indication of how important wild horses and public lands are to a broad swath of Americans.
CHECK OUT: Rescued Horses in Puerto Rico are Now Living the Perfect Life Thanks to Strangers Across the Sea
Nationally, the US Congress unanimously passed the 1971 Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act to protect America’s wild equids. But in 2004, many of the protections that the law provided were repealed when Senator Conrad Burns (R-Montana) attached a rider to the massive 3,000-page Omnibus Appropriations bill.
“We are thrilled state legislators have honored Colorado citizens’ overwhelming support for wild horses,” said Ginger Fedak, a Colorado resident and Senior Campaigner for In Defense of Animals. “With (its) passage, we can lead the way for other states and national legislation to rebalance the rights of mustangs and burros to live on our public lands.”
Wild horse advocates have been campaigning for more humane, practical, and affordable solutions to wild horse roundups and warehousing for years. Colorado will be the first state to put some of these into practice on a state level.
SB23-275 prioritizes retaining healthy wild horse herds in Colorado’s four Herd Management Areas (HMAs), thereby reducing costly and destructive removals. The legislation also aims to improve the poor quality of expensive holding facilities where wild animals were being confined in perpetuity.
The new law also provides more staffing and resources for fertility control measures in the state’s herds.
A working group of various stakeholders experienced in wild horse issues will seek to find new areas for hundreds of the captured mustangs to live in sanctuary-type settings or be suitably adopted by horse farms when they adaptable to domestic life.
Funding for this new program will get a start-up of state funding of $1.5 million, after which private funding and support will be utilized.
WATCH: This Determined Bull Thinks He’s a Show-Jumping Horse!
After state legislators, including those with ranching interests, passed the bill last week by a margin of 58 to 7. Governor Polis, who is a strong proponent of improved wild equid management over roundups and removals, is likely to soon sign the bill into law.
“We hope Colorado can lead the way to a better, more humane approach to caring for these cherished wild horses,” says Ms. Fedak. “We stand with our allies, ready to help Colorado’s innovative new plan work and show by example how we can save our wild herds of mustangs and burros.”
GALLOP This Good News to Horse-Loving Friends By Sharing on Social Media…
INTERESTING: New DNA From a Tooth Confirms Famous Wild Ponies in Maryland Descended From Spanish Shipwreck
In a world dominated by news of destruction and disaster, millions of people across the globe are turning toward positive news platforms—and the BBC World Service recently spoke with a pair of female pioneers in the good news space.
Kim Chakanetsa hosted The Conversation with Good News Network founder Geri Weis-Corbley and Anuradha Kedia, co-founder of The Better India. Anuradha and her husband focus their multi-lingual media platform on creating a positive impact across India.
Produced by Abbie Bulbulian and Jane Thurlow, the podcast episode explores how we define good news and the effects it has on society.
SHARE the Interview With Anyone Who Needs a Diet of Good News…
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 May 13, 2023
Copyright by Rob Brezsny, FreeWillAstrology.com
TAURUS (April 20-May 20):
A famous football coach once said his main method was to manipulate, coax, and even bully his players into doing things they didn’t like to do. Why? So they could build their toughness and willpower, making it more likely they would accomplish formidable feats. While this may be an approach that works for some tasks, it’s not right for many others. Here’s a further nuance: The grind-it-out-doing-unpleasant-
GEMINI (May 21-June 20):
Most of us have an area of our lives where futility is a primary emotion. This may be a once-exciting dream that never got much traction. It could be a skill we possess that we’ve never found a satisfying way to express. The epicenter of our futility could be a relationship that has never lived up to its promise or a potential we haven’t been able to ripen. Wherever this sense of fruitlessness resides in your own life, Gemini, I have an interesting prediction: During the next 12 months, you will either finally garner some meaningful fulfillment through it or else find a way to outgrow it.
CANCER (June 21-July 22):
Many of us Cancerians have high levels of perseverance. Our resoluteness and doggedness may be uncanny. But we often practice these subtle superpowers with such sensitive grace that they’re virtually invisible to casual observers. We appear modest and gentle, not fierce and driven. For instance, this is the first time I have bragged about the fact that I have composed over 2,000 consecutive horoscope columns without ever missing a deadline. Anyway, my fellow Crabs, I have a really good feeling about how much grit and determination you will be able to marshal in the coming months. You may break your own personal records for tenacity.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22):
Why do migrating geese fly in a V formation? For one thing, it conserves their energy. Every bird except the leader enjoys a reduction in wind resistance. As the flight progresses, the geese take turns being the guide in front. Soaring along in this shape also seems to aid the birds’ communication and coordination. I suggest you consider making this scenario your inspiration, dear Leo. You are entering a phase when synergetic cooperation with others is even more important than usual. If you feel called to lead, be ready and willing to exert yourself—and be open to letting your associates serve as leaders. For extra credit: Do a web search for an image of migrating geese and keep it in a prominent place for the next four weeks.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22):
I boldly predict that you will soon locate a missing magic key. Hooray! It hasn’t been easy. There has been luck involved, but your Virgo-style diligence and ingenuity has been crucial. I also predict that you will locate the door that the magic key will unlock. Now here’s my challenge: Please fulfill my two predictions no later than the solstice. To aid your search, meditate on this question: “What is the most important breakthrough for me to accomplish in the next six weeks?”
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22):
Losing something we value may make us sad. It can cause us to doubt ourselves and wonder if we have fallen out of favor with the Fates or are somehow being punished by God. I’ve experienced deflations and demoralizations like that on far more occasions than I want to remember. And yet, I have noticed that when these apparent misfortunes have happened, they have often opened up space for new possibilities that would not otherwise have come my way. They have emptied out a corner of my imagination that becomes receptive to a fresh dispensation. I predict such a development for you, Libra.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21):
Kissing is always a worthy way to spend your leisure time, but I foresee an even finer opportunity in the coming weeks: magnificent kissing sprees that spur you to explore previously unplumbed depths of wild tenderness. On a related theme, it’s always a wise self-blessing to experiment with rich new shades and tones of intimacy. But you are now eligible for an unusually profound excursion into these mysteries. Are you bold and free enough to glide further into the frontiers of fascinating togetherness?
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21):
Antonie van Leeuwenhoek (1632–1723) worked at a variety of jobs. He sold cloth. He was a land surveyor and bookkeeper. He managed the household affairs of his city’s sheriffs, and he supervised the city’s wine imports and taxation. Oh, by the way, he also had a hobby on the side: lensmaking. This ultimately led to a spectacular outcome. Leeuwenhoek created the world’s first high-powered microscope and was instrumental in transforming microbiology into a scientific discipline. In accordance with astrological omens, I propose we make him your inspirational role model in the coming months, Sagittarius. What hobby or pastime or amusement could you turn into a central passion?
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19):
I wonder if you weren’t listened to attentively when you were a kid. And is it possible you weren’t hugged enough or consistently treated with the tender kindness you deserved and needed? I’m worried there weren’t enough adults who recognized your potential strengths and helped nurture them. But if you did indeed endure any of this mistreatment, dear Capricorn, I have good news. During the next 12 months, you will have unprecedented opportunities to overcome at least some of the neglect you experienced while young. Here’s the motto you can aspire to: “It’s never too late to have a fruitful childhood and creative adolescence.”
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18):
As I’ve explored the mysteries of healing my traumas and disturbances over the past 20 years, I’ve concluded that the single most effective healer I can work with is my own body. Expert health practitioners are crucial, too, but their work requires my body’s full, purposeful, collaborative engagement. The soft warm animal home I inhabit has great wisdom about what it needs and how to get what it needs and how to work with the help it receives from other healers. The key is to refine the art of listening to its counsel. It has taken me a while to learn its language, but I’m making good progress. Dear Aquarius, in the coming weeks, you can make great strides in developing such a robust relationship with your body.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20):
Can we surmise what your life might be like as the expansive planet Jupiter rumbles through your astrological House of Connections and Communications during the coming months? I expect you will be even more articulate and persuasive than usual. Your ability to create new alliances and nurture old ones will be at a peak. By the way, the House of Communications and Connections is also the House of Education and Acumen. So I suspect you will learn a LOT during this time. It’s likely you will be brainier and more perceptive than ever before. Important advice: Call on your waxing intelligence to make you wiser as well as smarter.
ARIES (March 21-April 19):
All of us are always telling ourselves stories—in essence, making movies in our minds. We are the producer, the director, the special effects team, the voice-over narrator, and all the actors in these inner dramas. Are their themes repetitious and negative or creative and life-affirming? The coming weeks will be a favorable time to work on emphasizing the latter. If the tales unfolding in your imagination are veering off in a direction that provokes anxiety, reassert your directorial authority. Firmly and playfully reroute them so they uplift and enchant you.
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)
SHARE The Wisdom With Friends Who Are Stars in Your Life on Social Media…
Quote of the Day: “Let every dawn be to you as the beginning of life, and every setting sun be to you as its close.” – John Ruskin
Photo by: Di Chap, CC license
With a new inspirational quote every day, atop the perfect photo—collected and archived on our Quotes page—why not bookmark GNN.org for a daily uplift?
A farmer was understandably giddy to film the adorable moment when his bumblebee-sized baby ‘king’ quails stampeded through his home.
Bernard Henry raises birds on his farm as pets and recently hatched a baker’s dozen of the small species which he now keeps in his home, and watching them charge about is too cute to handle.
The 29-year-old man from New Milford, Connecticut has been hatching birds as a hobby for a decade, but specifically “loves” quail.
Henry let the quails fluff up in the incubator for a few days and transferred them to a small heated pen in his house.
“These tiny ones in the video are called button or king quail and are the smallest species of quail that I raise,” said Henry. “They’re the size of bumblebees when they hatch!”
He now has 60 quails in total on his flower farm, as well as 90 other birds including pheasants, chickens, ducks, and peafowls.
“I name a few of my favorites but it’s hard to name them all,” he said. “Some of my favorite little quail are called Boots, Dash, Jet, Quinn, Finn, Jake, and Daisy.”
MORE STORIES LIKE THIS: In This Family, The Dogs Take the Horse for a Walk – WATCH
Bernard’s videos are a hit online where they have garnered over 35 million views on TikTok.
“I love that everyone’s just as obsessed with these tiny creatures as I am. In person, it’s even more incredible to see just how small these little birds are when they first hatch,” he said. “Videos and pictures sometimes don’t do them justice.”
“I try and compare them to everyday items like the tip of an iPhone charger or a water bottle cap to try and show my followers just how microscopic button quail chicks are!”
Bernard’s gang of 13 quails is set to increase in numbers as he plans to more than double the amount of chicks during the next hatch.
He gets up every morning to feed and let out the birds and animals so they can roam freely over an acre of land, while supplementing their diet with feed. For so many birds, he spends about $200 a week on food.
WATCH the stampede below…
SHARE This Adorable Video With Your Friends Who Need A Pick-Me-Up…
A rural Saskatchewan winter is nothing to take lightly, and if there’s any farming to be done it better be in a greenhouse.
Or does it? It turns out that an old schoolhouse will do just fine for one farming couple, who provide fresh veggies to the whole town.
In Hudson Bay, June and Jan Nel run a hydroponic farm equipped with a drive-through window where they grow and distribute romaine, butter, baby romaine, red romaine, green oakleaf, red oakleaf, muir, and batavia lettuces, as well as kale, dill, basil, cucumbers, arugula, swiss chard, tomatoes, radishes, and parsley.
They do it in the old community school in the town of 1,504 after immigrating there from South Africa.
After arriving, the derelict schoolhouse next to their home was open for alternate-use plans, which is when Jan got the idea to start a hydroponics business. He made the pitch to the town and got approved to move in.
“I think when my husband first said ‘let’s grow lettuce inside an old school building,’ I did not really think that it would become what it has,” said June, who runs Let-Us Grow Hydroponics alongside Jan.
“I didn’t really realize how the community would love it and embrace it, and how much I would enjoy doing it.”
Most of the year, the town about 180 miles northeast of Saskatoon has its produce trucked in. The food distribution centers of Canada, Jan and June learned during the government-imposed lockdowns and travel restrictions during COVID-19, have only around 3 days’ worth of produce on hand.
MORE INDOOR FARMING: Startup Builds 3 Huge Indoor Farms in Appalachia Turning Coal Country into Agricultural Hub
At the moment they’re growing in a few classrooms and the library, but they hope to take up more space after seeing just how ecstatic the community has become over their drive-through veggie bags.
Hydroponics can supplement food insecurity to a limited degree. They can only grow certain kinds of plants, and exclude staples like beans and potatoes. Furthermore, complications with pests, temperature, and nutrients can arise extremely quickly and wipe out indoor crops much faster than field-grown ones.
MORE CANADIAN NEWS: Chinese Method For Growing Veggies Year-Round in Frigid Canada Really Works–And Has No Heating Costs
But the success is there, and the Let-Us Grow Facebook page is filled with row upon row of lettuce bursting with vibrant greens and reds, as well as cucumbers stacked like lumber.
Future plans involve a cafe and conference room, to share the joy, tastes, and knowledge of hydroponic farming in rural Canada.
WATCH the story below from CBC.
SHARE This Town-Transforming Business With Your Friends…
“I was ecstatic to have this outcome,” said Detective Inspector Jason Shepherd. The experienced policeman knew that someone reported missing for 8 days in Australia’s rugged outback has a slim chance.
“It is miraculous,” he told ABC News, just 30 minutes after having prepared a statement that mother-of-4 Rikki Mitchell had not been found and, that the rescue crews and homicide detectives were nearing the end of their search.
Then the 38-year-old woman from Queensland turned up on the Flinders Highway, covered in cuts and scrapes, but alive.
The ordeal started when Mitchell and her partner of 7 months were traveling from Townsville and Charters Towers in north Queensland, and they decided to stop at a rest area.
Her partner decided to go visit a friend nearby for a quick hello while she decided to do a bit of swimming and walking at a swimming area near the rest stop.
As unlikely as the story already sounds, this is surprisingly typical of stories of people getting lost in wild country. They underestimate how easy it is to become disoriented and get lost at distances of mere hundreds of yards from parking lots, campsites, or roads.
MORE SURVIVAL STORIES: Missing Texan Trapped for 3 Hours in Her Submerged Car Saved by Passing Fisherman–Learn How to Save Yourself Too
“It’s common knowledge that if you’re out in the bush in the heat [with] little food and little water, that you can become disoriented quite quickly,” Detective Inspector Shepherd said on this point. “I would imagine that she’s then probably headed off in the wrong direction.”
The report leaves out any details of the events between that moment and the moment of rescue 8 days later, when she “borrowed” an ATV she found on a ranch property she probably didn’t know she was on, and drove it until she heard the sounds of Flinders Highway, and ran into the ranch owner who knew the search was taking place in the area.
Rescue teams report her being covered in light scrapes and her feet were cut open and bleeding, but no major injuries besides.
MORE AUSTRALIAN NEWS: Instead of Demolishing its Tallest Building, Australia Holds Contest to ‘Upcycle a Skyscraper’ Saving Tons of CO2
Shepherd said that while she obviously was not a trained survivalist, she must have known a thing or two to have lasted so long in the heat without a ready source of fresh water and food.
About 20 emergency service personnel partook in a search that was difficult from the start. Because it was a rest area, footprints were everywhere, and so the few tracks they were able to follow out into the bush led nowhere.
Everyone was so happy to hear the mother-of-four was safe, and the story is a poignant reminder—whether you’re in Appalachia or the Bush—of how easy it is to accidentally walk oneself into a survival situation.
SHARE This Harrowing Yet Happy Ending With Your Friends Down Under…
The island of Korcula is something Croats are exceptionally proud of—and rightly so. It is said to be the birthplace of Marco Polo, and it’s the oldest part of the world where documents can prove that slavery was abolished (1214 CE).
Along with its stunning natural beauty, Korcula has a secret—a truly ancient past where a ‘stacked stone’ road was found underwater dating to a period 5,000 years before the Roman Empire.
At the submerged Neolithic site of Soline, an astonishingly modern-looking road of stacked stone was found under deposits of sea mud. It connected an artificial island associated with a people known as the Hvar Culture, with the coast of the island of Korcula.
The road was four meters broad, or about 12 feet. The date 7,000 BCE was determined via radiocarbon dating of preserved wood from buildings of the Hvar culture’s settlement.
Other underwater sites ringing Korcula have yielded stone axes and flint tools. The whole research endeavor was conducted by an all-Croat team of archaeologists from several museums and universities in the country.
To grasp the magnitude of this discovery, it’s necessary to watch the video below of the divers. But putting this find into its proper context almost necessitates a brief re-writing of the history of civilization.
Unsurprisingly, the confirmed oldest ‘constructed’ road, excluding blazed tracks shared by humans and animals together, dates back to 4,000 BCE to probably the world’s second-oldest city of Ur, part of ancient Sumeria. Much of Ur’s history was borrowed from the even-older Sumerian ‘capital’ of Eridu, so we can be generous and go back a few hundred years more.
Brick roads begin appearing in India about 3,000 BCE, which is also around the time they begin appearing in Greece.
MORE PREHISTORIC HISTORY: Evidence of Amputation in Prehistoric Times Shows Patient Surviving for a Decade–Proves Medical Expertise Existed
But Korcula road, featuring sophisticated stone-stacking and some sort of material to encase the stones in their positions, was made around 1,000 years before Ur and Eridu, to an epoch where agriculture and animal domestication were still developing or state-of-the-art technologies.
Korcula is already one of Croatia’s top tourist destinations. It seems that the ancients, just like us today, found its beauty irresistibly captivating.
WATCH a diver cross the road below…
SHARE This Unbelievable Discovery With Your Friends…
