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These ‘Invisible’ Solar Panels Appear Just Like Historic Italian Terracotta Roofs and Can Help Green Historic Buildings

By
Andy Corbley
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Invisible Solar, released by Dyaqua
Invisible Solar, released by Dyaqua

In the historic Italian city of Vicenza, Veneto, a typically-Italian family business of artisans is handmaking not-so-typical solar panels.

Designed to be indistinguishable by the naked eye from regular terracotta roof tiles, “Invisible Solar” tiles are made to improve the energy efficiency of heritage buildings without compromising their historic appearance.

They make each tile out of a non-toxic and recyclable polymeric compound they themselves developed, and the tiles allow for sunlight to pass into a hidden bank of photovoltaic cells without the human eye being able to tell they are translusent.

This gives them the appearance of regular handmade clay tiles that cover most of the roofs in Italy and almost all of the roofs in their native, UNESCO-listed Vicenza.

The company is called Dyaqua, and their founder, Giovanni Battista Qualiato says that just like regular roofing tiles, Invisible Solar can be installed by roofers without any special training or equipment.

Vicenza panorama CC 3.0. Alessandro Vecchi

In 2015 Invisible Solar was mentioned by the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism (MiBACT) as a solution to improve energy efficiency in cultural heritage across the country, and they are already installed in Pompeii.

READ MORE: Inflatable Floodgates in Venice Named After Moses Save the City for a Second Time

“They look exactly like the terracotta tiles used by the Romans, but they produce the electricity that we need to light the frescoes,” said Gabriel Zuchtriegel, director of the Pompeii Archaeological Park.

“Since we needed an extensive lightning system, we could either keep consuming energy, leaving poles and cables around and disfiguring the landscape, or choose to respect it and save millions of euros.”

A pilot program will see Invisible Solar terracotta tiles installed in the Portuguese city of Evora, and the Qualiato hope that soon there will be an interest in Dyaqua’s other products, because the same technology and materials that allow them to make solar panel terracotta tiles allows them to mimic natural stone, concrete, and wood exteriors, in not only the roof of a building, but also their walls and courtyards.

MORE FROM ITALY: Italy Bans Cruise Ships from Entering Historic Venice City Center

About 90 square feet (9 square meters) of tiling will generate about 1 kilowatt hours of electricity, which isn’t much, but it does offer the choice between some solar power on historic buildings, and no solar whatsoever.

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Labeled a Replica by Chicago Museum, It Turns Out to Be 3,000-Year-Old Warrior’s Sword

By
Andy Corbley
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The 3,000 y.o. Bronze Age sword at the entrance to the exhibit - Credit: Field Museum Chicago
The 3,000 y.o. Bronze Age sword at the entrance to the exhibit – Credit: Field Museum Chicago

Nearly 100 years ago, the Chicago Field Museum acquired a bronze sword from Europe, but it was thought to be a well-made replica.

Now a new analysis has revealed that the sword is the real deal, dating back 3,000 years to the Bronze Age, and likely belonging to a warrior in the upper strata of society.

While preparing for First Kings of Europe, a special exhibition opening at the Field Museum in March 2023, Hungarian archaeologists working alongside Field Museum scientists asked to see the “replica” sword that had been retrieved from the Danube River in Budapest, Hungary in the 1930s.

János Gábor Tarbay, a Hungarian expert in Bronze Age metal artifacts thought it could be real as soon as he saw it. A team at the Field Museum on Tarbay’s recommendation then used an X-ray fluorescence detector, an instrument that looks like a ray gun, to compare the sword’s chemical makeup to other known Bronze Age swords in Europe.

Their contents of bronze, copper, and tin were nearly identical, and the newly-authenticated sword will be installed in the Field Museum’s main hall as a preview for the new exhibition.

MORE ARCHAEOLOGY NEWS: Rare Bronze Age Coffin Has Been Accidentally Discovered in a Golf Course Pond Along With Perfectly Preserved Ax

Found at the bottom of the Danube, it may have been thrown in as part of an ancient ritual 3,000 years ago to commemorate lost loved ones or a battle.

“It’s a very specific ritual tradition from this time period that speaks to the evolution of a ruling warrior class that was starting to emerge at that point in time,” Bill Parkinson, a curator of anthropology at the Field who helped create the upcoming First Kings of Europe exhibition, told Hyper Allergic.

MORE FROM THE BRONZE AGE: Historians Stunned: Uzbekistan Nomads Supplied a Third of the Bronze Used Across Ancient Mediterranean

“Usually this story goes the other way round,” he adds in a press release. “What we think is an original turns out to be a fake.”

Had this sword been known to be authentic earlier in the planning of the exhibition, it would have been included in the Bronze Age era section of the show, which will showcase items from southeastern Europe, spanning thousands of years.

SHARE This Clever Discovery With Someone Who Might Like This New Exhibit!

Incredible Drone Video of a Moose Shedding Its Antlers – WATCH

By
Andy Corbley
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credit: Derek Burgoyne
credit: Derek Burgoyne

Derek Burgoyne puts the phenomenon at 1 in a million.

He accidentally found a bull moose with his drone and clicked record 16 seconds before the great beast, shaking the loose snow from its body, shed its antlers on the spot.

“Never in my wildest dreams would ever imagine catching this on film,” Burgoyne told CBC news. “This is winning the lottery when it comes to wildlife photography for sure.”

Working as a woods operation supervisor in Canada’s New Brunswick province, Burgoyne has captured a lot of footage of moose engaged in various activities. He’s recorded moose cows with their calves, groups of moose bedded down together, and even a pair of bull moose jousting during the rut.

It’s an endearing coincidence for him to have caught such a split-second moment in a moose’s life, because ever since he was a child he’s gone out into the forest looking for shed moose antlers.

“What they’ll often do after being bedded in the snow is they’ll shake their body to rid themselves of the snow and water,” Burgoyne explains. “As he shook himself, I was recording, and you seen what happened.”

MORE FROM THE ANIMAL KINGDOM: Adult Elephants React to Birth in the Herd Just Moments After Adorable Baby is Born (WATCH)

Derek posted it to his YouTube channel Adventure in the Wild, where he sometimes shares these experiences he records during the course of his work.

Because the area was one he was working at, the lucky man got to retrieve the shed antlers, which were 17 points at a 45-inch ‘spread.’ No doubt they will maintain a place of honor among his extensive shed collection.

WATCH the video here, from CBC, or without the story from Derek’s YouTube.

SHARE This Unbelievable Lucky Footage With Your Friends… 

“You have to create your life. You have to carve it, like a sculpture.” – William Shatner

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Good News Network
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Quote of the Day: “You have to create your life. You have to carve it, like a sculpture.” – William Shatner

Photo by: Miriam Espacio

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?

Critical Discovery Highlights Weaknesses of Asteroids, Should Earth Ever Need to Destroy One

By
Andy Corbley
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Artistic rendering of the asteroid Itokawa
Artistic rendering of the asteroid Itokawa

Recent surveys of the composition of an asteroid as old as our solar system has revealed a key strength that humanity must work around if it should ever need to defend our planet from a possible impact.

“Rubble pile” asteroids are immune to impact weaponry, the study revealed, and shows that instead planetary defense programs must focus on shockwaves that move them off course.

We’ve entered into the age of planetary defense. Recent NASA budgets have allowed it to create a Planetary Defense directorate, and the administration has proven it can divert the course of potentially-destructive asteroids with the success of its recent DART mission.

Courtesy of the Japanese space agency JAXA, and their Hayabusa 1 mission that sampled an ancient asteroid called Itokawa, an international team at John Curtin University, Australia was able to determine that asteroids can live for billions of years despite being formed very loosely.

Itokawa is about 1.2 million miles from Earth, and about the size of the Sydney Harbor Bridge. But it isn’t its size that gives it durability, but rather its composition.

“Unlike monolithic asteroids, Itokawa is not a single lump of rock, but belongs to the rubble pile family which means it’s entirely made of loose boulders and rocks, with almost half of it being empty space,” lead author Professor Fred Jourdan, Director of the Western Australian Argon Isotope Facility, Curtin Univ.

“The survival time of monolithic asteroids the size of Itokawa is predicted to be only several hundreds of thousands of years in the asteroid belt.”

MORE ON ASTEROIDS: NASA Celebrates World First: Smashing a Spacecraft into an Asteroid to Practice Saving Humanity

“The huge impact that destroyed Itokawa’s monolithic parent asteroid and formed Itokawa happened at least 4.2 billion years ago. Such an astonishingly long survival time for an asteroid the size of Itokawa is attributed to the shock-absorbent nature of rubble pile material.”

Like Rocky Marciano, Itokawa has endured countless impacts but is still standing. To wit, Professor Jourdan called it a “space cushion.”

The team’s self-stated goal was to figure out if rubble pile asteroids could be blown to dust at the slightest knock because of their loose composition. On the contrary, their cushioned surfaces allows them to absorb impact forces, and so the team estimates that the number of rubble pile asteroids in the asteroid belt must be much higher than previously thought, and that any future Earth-endangering asteroids will probably be rubble piles.

RELATED: Work Set to Begin on Asteroid Hunting Observatory—NASA’s New Mission to Protect Earth from Disaster

The good news is that this informs how we might save ourselves in the future from being crushed by one—a close-by nuclear explosion, detonated near, but not on, the asteroid, to send it flying away from a collision course with Earth.

Their paper was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, entitled “Rubble Pile Asteroids are Forever.”

There are no currently-known asteroids that threaten Earth, but geology teaches us we’ve been hit countless times, and occasionally with curtain-closing consequences.

SHARE This Cool Random Space Fact With Your Friends On Social Media… 

More Physical Activity is Related to Less Respiratory Infections in Children

By
Andy Corbley
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Robert Collins - Unsplash

Scientists have found that higher levels of physical activity measured by steps taken per day and hours spent playing sports reduced young children’s susceptibility to upper respiratory tract infections (URTIs.)

A secondary finding of note was that the study also took into account whether the house had smokers, pet hair, which vaccines the children had received, whether they had siblings, and what their sleep patterns were like, none of which had any association with susceptibility to URTIs in either direction.

We’ve all heard from our parents or grandparents about how much they played outside compared to the young ones today. Indeed they often make it seem like the doors to their house were locked between the end of school and dinner time.

Scientists from Poland wanted to see what kinds of exposure and activities reduce children’s susceptibility to URTIs, and their results make our grandparents sound all the wiser.

104 Polish children aged 4-7 from Warsaw had their physical activity monitored with pedometers between the fall-winter school year of 2018 and 2019. Their parents filled out scientific questionnaires regarding various details mentioned above, as well as the perception of URTI symptoms such as coughing or a runny nose.

The authors found that as the average daily number of steps taken by children throughout the study period increased by 1,000, the number of days that they experienced symptoms of URTIs decreased by an average of 4.1 days.

MORE ON HEALTH: Teacher’s Powerful Exercise of ‘Leaving Emotional Baggage at the Door’ Has Totally Changed Her Classroom

Additionally, children participating in three or more hours of sport per week tended to experience fewer days with respiratory tract infection symptoms than those not regularly participating in sports.

“Children who achieved a higher number of steps in the first days of observation had fewer days with symptoms of infection in the following days, than the less-active children,” the authors wrote.

The authors did not identify associations between URTI symptoms and sleep duration, siblings, vaccinations, or exposure to pet hair or smoking, despite many of these being hypothesized as reducing or increasing the incidence of URTIs.

MORE ON KIDS: Relief For Kids With Peanut Allergy: Immunotherapy Puts 74% Into Remission in Breakthrough Study

While the study seems an obvious one, especially if you ask your grandparents, the increased prevalence of screens in households decreases the time spent in physical activity and increases the likelihood that children aged 4-7, who are already at a high risk for URTIs, will suffer from infections of increased duration and severity, and at greater frequency.

The authors recommend instilling the values of physical activity or sport from an early age, and by participating in physical activity, if possible, as a family.

SHARE This Story With Any New Parents You Might Know… 

Minnesota Snow Sculpting Team Takes First Over Artists From Germany, Finland in World Championships–LOOK

By
Andy Corbley
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World Snow Sculpting Championship's Facebook Page
World Snow Sculpting Championship’s Facebook Page

In Stillwater, Minnesota, the hometown team of snow sculptors just walked away with 1st place in the World Snow Sculpting Championships, beating several nations and winning $4,000.

Siblings Dusty and Kelly Thune and friends made up the team, monikered the “House of Thune,” who carved a raw expression of adversity and challenge called “Journey.”

The team used custom homemade tools to sculpt their work of art from 10 tons of snow.

“It felt pretty surreal being up there on the stage,” snow sculptor Kelly Thune told FOX 9 on Sunday. “There were so many pieces this year that I thought deserved to win it, that I didn’t expect it.”

“When you hear the People’s Choice get an award, and then you hear third place, second place, and you think ‘aw man, ours didn’t make it,’ but then they said our name and we just about lost it,” said Kelly’s brother Dusty.

Teams from Finland, Turkey, Germany, Ecuador, Canada, and Argentina represented their nations at Stillwater with some captivating pieces of seasonal art, but it was the home team that took the grand prize.

“Journey” captures the adversity faced by everyone in moments of their life, but particularly one of their team members, who suffered a loss of $80,000 in property as well as a significant amount of his life’s work, after a fire consumed his art gallery in preparation for the contest. The team set up a GoFundMe to try and help him recover.

MORE FROM THE ARTS: Check Out the Winners of the Stone-Stacking Championship in Europe – LOOK

For another two weeks or so, all the sculptures will still be at the tournament grounds in Stillwater, weather permitting, and offer a great reason to get out of the house during such a cold winter up north that has had so many people sheltering and snuggling in their homes.

WATCH local news cover the subject… 

CELEBRATE Team USA’s Big Snowy Win On Social Media… 

Paleontologists in India Have Hit on an Epic Find: Hundreds of Bowling Ball-Sized Titanosaur Eggs

By
Andy Corbley
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Harsha Dhiman et al, 2023, PLOS ONE, CC-BY 4.0
Harsha Dhiman et al, 2023, PLOS ONE, CC-BY 4.0

Indian paleontologists recently uncovered a find of titanic proportions—a series of sauropod nests or “clutches” that contained 256 dinosaur eggs in total.

The eggs yielded a trove of insights about sauropod reproductive strategies, and turned up 6 new species of dinosaur in the same dig.

Located in the sedimentary bed of the Lameta Formation in the Dhar district of Madhya Pradesh, central India, paleontologist Harsha Dhiman uncovered 92 dinosaur clutches filled with eggs that averaged around 6.3 inches in diameter. They were made by Titanosauria, a clade containing many long-necked dinosaurs.

Titanosaurs were the largest land animals to ever live—they could reach 100 feet in length, and it appears they were cognizant of their massive bulks because their clutches were all placed in close proximity.

This was among the many deductions made of the legendary find—these massive animals nested like birds, laying their eggs and positioning their clutches together as a colony, and more or less leaving them to fend for themselves.

MORE ON DINOSAURS: ‘Impossible Fossil’ Preserves the Exact Moment the Dinosaurs Died: ‘It’s Absolutely Bonkers’

“Closely spaced nests would not have allowed them to visit the nests to maneuver and incubate the eggs or feed the hatchlings,” paleontologist and the study’s co-writer Guntupalli Prasad told CNN, “as the parents would step on the eggs and trample them.”

Dhiman et al., 2023, PLOS ONE, CC-BY 4.0.

Much like birds, the eggs were determined to be laid sequentially. Some of the eggs had defects, such as eggs that were embedded within other eggs, and the authors note that this is the first ever recorded discovery of egg-in-egg pathology in reptiles or dinosaurs.

Around the clutches were also a wealth of fossilized bones, such that 6 new Titanosaurids have been tentatively discovered, adding to the 3 found in past excavations of the Lameta Formation.

READ ALSO: At Long Last, Paleontologists Find Remains of a Swimming Dinosaur—’a Cretaceous Cormorant’

The authors propose that some of the clutches were preserved because they had been overcome with water. Based on the characteristics of the sediments and minerals around them, it seems they were perhaps made near to a water source that flooded the nesting site.

Their research on the subject was published in PLOS One.

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“Into each life some rain must fall.” – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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Good News Network
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Quote of the Day: “Into each life some rain must fall.” – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Photo by: Aline de Nadai

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?

Inspired By Daughter’s Life-Saving Kidney Donor, Father Returns the Favor and Becomes a Donor

By
Andy Corbley
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Courtesy of Jones Family
Courtesy of Jones Family

A Welshman decided to donate his kidney to an unknown patient after his daughter received a donated one in a potentially life-saving procedure.

When Arfon Jones’ daughter Seren became seriously ill and had to have both her kidneys removed, he did what any father would do and signed up to be a donor.

However the surgeons determined that his kidney would not match, and for months Seren sat on a dialysis machine 10 hours a night.

In April of 2022, Arfon received a call that a suitable donor had been found.

“Without the kidney I wouldn’t be alive today, possibly,” said 19-year-old Seren.

It was while Seren was awaiting a transplant that Arfon learned more about how to be a living organ donor, and that a normal person can lead a healthy life with just one kidney.

“After Seren got her new kidney, she was told that I could get off the living donor list and that’s when I had a very strange experience,” Arfon told the BBC.

“It was as if I heard a voice telling me ‘there is someone else who needs your kidney’ and I just felt that I had to stay on the list.”

SIMILAR: This Crew of Street Veterinarians Treat the Pets of L.A.’s Homeless Residents of Skid Row

Arfon became a kidney donor at 70-years-old just before Christmas, remarking he had given someone a very nice present. He doesn’t know their identity as it wasn’t a friend or family member, but he knows they’re doing well.

One-third of all kidney donations in the UK come from living donors, who provided they follow basic healthy habits of eating well, exercising regularly, and getting proper amounts of sleep, can lead long and healthy lives.

SHARE This Man’s Good Health Karma With Your Friends… 

Artwork Found in Shed Covered in Bird Droppings Turns Out to be Early Van Dyck Now at Auction for $3 Million

By
Andy Corbley
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A Study for Saint Jerome by Anthony van Dyck –Courtesy of Sotheby's
A Study for Saint Jerome by Anthony van Dyck –Courtesy of Sotheby’s

An oil sketch done by Dutch Master Anthony van Dyck is going up for auction soon, after being found discarded in a farm shed covered with bird droppings.

Bought on a hunch for $600 in 2002 from an estate auction, it’s predicted to sell for $3 million when it goes up at Sotheby’s.

While it was found far from the Flemish painter’s home of Antwerp, the farmhouse lay in the town of “Kinderhook” New York, a town settled almost certainly by his countryman. Albert B. Roberts believed it to be a work by a Dutch master of some repute, and bought it for “the excitement of the chase.”

A Study of Saint Jerome is one of only two known live model works completed by the painter Anthony van Dyck. Artnet reports it was “likely created between 1615 and 1618, when the young painter was working as an assistant in Peter Paul Rubens’s Antwerp studio.”

It depicts an elderly man with a long beard slouching on a chair, an interesting dichotomy of sinewy muscle and flabby skin characterizing him as a farmer or laborer. It gives art historians a chance to see a little more of van Dyck’s work as a young man, and thankfully, the bird droppings had landed only on the back paper.

Then-87-year-old Roberts exhibited the painting in 2019 at the Albany Institute of History & Art, the same year he had it authenticated by art historian Susan Barnes.

SIMILAR: The Painting Paid for Grilled Cheese Sandwiches 50 Years Ago – Now Earns the Restaurant Thousands

“I’ve devoted the last 30 years of my life to the search for art that I like to call ‘orphaned’ art, that for one reason or another has been neglected, overlooked, perhaps lost in the shuffle of the art world in different countries,” he said at the time.

Now deceased, some of Roberts’ pieces of ‘orphaned’ art are making up a Sotheby’s “Old Masters” collection.

MORE LIKE THIS: 101-Year-old Woman Is Amazed After Being Reunited with Her Lost Painting Looted by Nazis

Anthony van Dyck became a court painter for Charles I of Britain, whose house revered him for his skill at portraiture. The king knighted van Dyck, and upon his death had him interred at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London.

SHARE This Remarkable Find With Your Friends From The Art World…

Aviation Startup ZeroAvia Flies Largest-Ever Hydrogen Electric Aircraft

By
Andy Corbley
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The plane that made the hydrogen powered flight. credit: ZeroAvia
The plane that made the hydrogen powered flight. credit: ZeroAvia

An aviation start-up just set a new world-first for the largest hydrogen-powered aircraft flight in history—a 19-seat aircraft called the Dornier 228.

Designed by ZeroAvia, the start-up is developing hydrogen-powered engines for regional flights, and over the last 12 months has really taken off.

This most recent flight was a 10 minute affair from the Cotswolds Airport in Gloucestershire, England, but was only the most recent manifestation of their success.

ZeroAvia counts American and United airlines as their investors, and by 2025, the firm has 1,500 pre-orders of their hydrogen electric powertrains to fulfill. The prototype powertrains have received approval from both the UK and US civil aviation authorities.

“This is a major moment, not just for ZeroAvia, but for the aviation industry as a whole, as it shows that true zero-emission commercial flight is only a few years away,” ZeroAvia founder and CEO Val Miftakhov said in a statement Thursday.

The flight comes after news in August that the company signed a memorandum of understanding with American Airlines for 100 of the powertrains, which are being developed for 90-seat aircraft.

“Having support from [one of the] world’s largest airline is a strong indication of the progress we’re making on the development of hydrogen-electric, zero-emission flight,” added ZeroAvia Founder and CEO Val Miftakhov. “We are focused on delivering sustainable travel, and are delighted that American, a visionary leader in the industry, sees ZeroAvia as a part of the future of aviation.”

Hydrogen as a fuel source is currently one of two more sustainable alternatives to powering aviation. Accounting for 2.8% of all global emissions, passenger aircraft need high octane, energy dense fuel sources because of the weight limitations which batteries can’t account for.

YOU MAY ALSO LIKE: 100% Hydrogen-Powered Jet Engine Successfully Tested by EasyJet and Rolls-Royce

The ZA2000-RJ powertrain from ZeroAvia is predicted as having a 500-mile range on a full tank, which United Airlines said would restore the economic viability of smaller regional flights.

“A lot of small cities have lost service because of the cost, and we think that these technologies will allow United to bring back more frequent service and service to airports that don’t have any service today,” Michael Leskinen, president of United Airlines Ventures, told CBS.

MORE AVIATION NEWS: Jet Fuel Derived From Used Cooking Oil Certified Airworthy for Large-Scale Production in China

For reference, 500 mile jumps could service distances such as Pittsburgh to Chicago, Amarillo to Austin, or Fort Myers to Savannah. In Europe the benefits compound because of the size of the continent. ZeroAvia could easily service Milan to Naples, Munich to Hamburg, or Newcastle to Exeter.

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Bucket Truck Used to Rescue Seagull Entangled in Utility Wires (WATCH)

By
Andy Corbley
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Dan Cosgrove Animal Shelter
Dan Cosgrove Animal Shelter

Animal rescuers in Connecticut received word that a seagull was tangled in wires at the top of a power line.

The Dan Cosgrove Animal Shelter in Branford went to the location of the call and, sure enough, found a seagull stuck dangerously close to the live power lines.

Shelter personnel were able to get in contact with Eversource CT, a company that works on power lines, who decided to send a repairman turned animal rescuer to the scene with a bucket truck.

“Mike was so kind with this bird and spoke so softly to him as he freed his leg,” the shelter said in a Facebook post about the incident.

The bird received medical attention at the Dan Cosgrove Animal Shelter.

MORE ANIMAL RESCUES: Sam the Lamb is Nursed Through Incredible Recovery After Falling off Highway Truck – WATCH

They posted a video of the seagull-bucket-powerline rescue on Facebook, proving that not all heroes ride in X-Jets or Batmobiles; some ride in bucket trucks.

WATCH The Video Above And SHARE With Your Friends… 

“Until you have loved, you cannot become yourself.” – Emily Dickinson

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Good News Network
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Quote of the Day: “Until you have loved, you cannot become yourself.” – Emily Dickinson

Photo by: Dan Musat

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?

Design Company Invents Ceramic–Like Tiles But Made Entirely of Fish Scales and Completely Recyclable

By
Andy Corbley
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Scalite tiles - credit Scale
Scalite tiles – Scale

In an effort to come up with a renewable, biodegradable design material that also eliminates a landfill waste stream, French designers are proposing to cover the walls of your home with fish scales.

In reality the idea is an elegant tile made from fish scales. It’s called Scalite, and it separates then combines naturally-occuring minerals and the collagen in the fish scales to create a beautiful, durable, naturally fire-resistant tile.

Fish scales are sometimes turned into fertilizer and fish oil supplements, but are often just thrown out into normal landfill waste streams along with the head and the bones.

Erik de Laurens came up with the idea and started the design company Scale with his cousin Edourad.

While it’s difficult to zero in on reliable supply chains of fish scales, even on the most recycling-conscious continent of Europe, the square or rectangular tiles of Scalite are priced in between common natural stone like white Corian, and marble, at about $35 per squre foot, or €300 per square meter.

“If you’re really serious about your environmental impact then this is a really good solution because it’s basically natural,” Laurens told Fast Company.

SIMILAR: This Gorgeous Leather is Made From the Hide of an Invasive Predatory Fish

Scale have designed the Scalite tiles to be useable in a wide variety of applications, from interior decoration in private homes and offices, to furniture, to retail displays.

A variety of natural dies can create wild marble-like patterns in shades as various as moss green and mustard yellow.

RELATED: These Guys Make Edible Cement From Food Waste – And You Can Literally Add it to Your Gingerbread House

Sadly, and perhaps ironically, they aren’t water-resistant. One should not go and plaster these tiles in a bathroom, as they will absorb any water that they come in contact with. Scale has contracted a biochemist to find a solution to this defect in a true, natural way to maintain the product’s green credentials.

TILE Your Newsfeed With This Cool Idea By Sharing on Social Media…

Once Biologically Dead, the River Mersey in England is “Best Environmental Story in Europe”

By
Andy Corbley
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Mike Duddy - Mersey Rivers Trust
Mike Duddy – Mersey Rivers Trust

Famous more as a cultural feature than as a natural one, the pace at which the River Mersey is recovering to a fishy wonderland has ecologists stunned.

Splitting The Beatles’ home city of Liverpool in two, a recent survey found 37 different species of fish, more than two-and-a-half-times as many as were found in the previous survey 20 years ago.

Five different species of sharks were also found, along with huge eels and sea scorpions. ‘Holiday species’ as one local fishermen called them, like turbot, smelt, and cod, have also been caught.

Scientists at the Mersey Rivers Trust, a public/private charity-driven partnership for nature in the area believe that these species are breeding in the 3 mile-wide estuary.

The Liverpool Docks—the largest enclosed dock system in the world, were described by Herman Melville as comparable to the Pyramids in size and construction.

As a result, industrialization heavily polluted the river. In 2009 however it was announced that the river was “cleaner than at any time since the industrial revolution” and is “now considered one of the cleanest [rivers] in the UK.”

“Over the last 30 years, there’s been this tremendous regeneration, this renewal of the River Mersey that started slowly but is now picking up pace. I still think we’re right at the beginning of something special,” said Mike Duddy at the Mersey Rivers Trust, who spoke to the Wirral Globe about the restoration. 

RELATED: Once Biologically Dead, London’s River Thames Rebounds – With Seahorses and Seals

“It’s the best environmental good news story in Europe without a doubt,” adds Duddy. “Everywhere else nature is in decline but in the Mersey the ‘wildlife-ometer’ is in the red and it’s got loads and loads to go… David Attenborough talks about an environmental crisis but the Mersey is not.”

Humpback whales were recently seen in Liverpool Bay for the first time since 1938, while the Mersey itself has also welcomed back otters, salmon, octopus, porpoises, and seals.

MORE NEWS ON RIVERS: Beavers Saved From Euthanasia Transform and Replenish Rivers in the Utah Desert

The Trust is currently compiling a species list, and is holding a competition with local fishermen to see how many can be recorded. Duddy expects to raise the count of 37 fish species to 50 next year.

FLOAT This Good News Down The River Social Media… 

Alabama Town Shocked to Learn Farmer had Secretly Paid People’s Pharmacy Bills for a Decade

By
Andy Corbley
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Hody Childress - courtesty of Tania Nix's family
Hody Childress – courtesy of Tania Nix’s family

Upon the occasion of the funeral for one Hody Childress from Geraldine, Alabama, it was revealed that for a decade this quiet and humble gentleman was a sort of guardian angel for the town’s poor and sick.

A farmer and U.S. Air Force veteran, Childress began his covert charity campaign when he visited the local Geraldine drugstore and learned that all too many of the town’s 900 residents couldn’t afford to pay for their prescriptions.

Life up until that point had been difficult from a health standpoint. Childress lost a son in 1973, and his first wife in 1999—whom he used to carry into the stands for local football games due to her multiple sclerosis.

Upon hearing of his neighbors’ inability to always afford their medications, he handed Brooke Walker, owner of Geraldine Drugs, a $100 bill.

“Here, this $100 is for anyone who can’t afford their prescription,” Walker recalled in an interview with local news. “Do not tell a soul that the money came from me, tell them it’s a blessing from God.”

SIMILAR NEWS: A Stranger’s Kindness Helped Boy Escape the Nazis Who Would Go On to Win Nobel Prize–And He Never Knew it

A month later, Walker saw Childress again walking into her store to hand over another $100 bill, with the exact same instructions—’do not tell a soul that the money came from me, tell them it’s a blessing from God.’

He would return on the 1st of every month for the same motivation for years, until in late 2022, because he wasn’t able to walk due a pulmonary disease and other health conditions, he decided he needed to enlist someone for help. He entrusted the task to his daughter, Tania Nix.

“I was shocked – I had no idea that he was helping people at the drugstore,” according to WVTM. 

At his funeral on January 5th, 2023, Nix told the story of Childress’ decade of giving, and how it was able to cover the cost of expensive medications for 2 Geraldine residents per month.

RELATED: Captain Tom Moore’s Family Launches Online Bulletin Board Where Strangers Share Favorite Moments of Kindness

The word got out that they had an angel in their midst, and WVTM reports that the townspeople have agreed to carry on his legacy.

“There are so many people in Geraldine who have lived longer because of Hody,” pharmacist Heather Walker said. “Hody was a true humble servant who will always be loved.”

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Little Girl Declares She Wants to Find a Megalodon Tooth—and Promptly Plucks One From Beach on Christmas Day

By
Andy Corbley
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Molly with her megalodon tooth – Sampson family photo
Molly with her megalodon tooth – Sampson family photo

It was Christmas day, and young Molly was jumping for joy having unwrapped a pair of insulated waders and a sifting basket.

They were exactly what the 9-year-old wanted—and needed, because as it turned out they helped her get her hands on a “once-in-a-lifetime” find of a megalodon tooth from a 50-foot shark that swam in the prehistoric oceans 15 million years ago.

Molly Sampson wants to be a paleontologist when she grows up, a dream nurtured by her and her father’s love of fossil hunting in the shallow water of the Chesapeake Bay’s Calvert Cliffs, Maryland.

She and her sister Natalie both go often with their father Bruce, and even on a 10°F day at 9:30 on Christmas morning, all they wanted to do was go looking for fossils. Molly, according to NPR, announced to the team she was going to look for a megalodon tooth.

It was low tide, meaning they could wade further out, allowing Molly to catch a glimpse of her dream find.

“I went closer, and in my head, I was like, ‘Oh, my, that is the biggest tooth I’ve ever seen!'” Molly said excitedly during an interview in early January. “I reached in and grabbed it, and dad said I was shrieking.”

credit: Alacia Sampson

Her father also dreams of finding a “meg” tooth, but his largest find is about 3 inches. The future paleontologist explained to local news how one can estimate the size of the shark by the size of the tooth.

RELATED: Little Boy Finds Massive Ancient Shark Tooth Millions of Years Old

“Every inch is 10 feet,” Molly said. “So this is five inches, so it’d be 50 feet, [a] 50-foot shark.”

Bruce and the family took the tooth to the Calvert Marine Museum to confirm its identity, who shared Molly’s story on facebook.

Megalodon, short for Megalodontus, or “Giant-toothed” was one of the largest predatory fish to ever live, and is estimated to have wielded the greatest bite force the process of evolution has ever produced.

MORE PALEONTOLOGY NEWS: Fossil Found by Kids in New Zealand Turns Out to Be 27 Million-Year-old Giant Penguin

Precursors to modern Great White Sharks in hunting and feeding habits, they preyed on whales and dolphins before going extinct presumably during a decline in prey numbers.

Molly got to keep the tooth, but whether she loves it enough to sleep with it every night like other 9-year-olds do with plushies, GNN can’t speculate, but this was surely the best Christmas ever for this future paleontologist.

WATCH the story below… 

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“If you do not love too much, you do not love enough.” – Blaise Pascal

By
Good News Network
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Quote of the Day: “If you do not love too much, you do not love enough.” – Blaise Pascal

Photo by: freestocks

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?

First 2-Story Home to be 3D Printed in the U.S. Reaches for the Sky in Texas

By
Good News Network
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Hannah / PERI 3D Construction / CIVE
Hannah / PERI 3D Construction / CIVE

“An enormous printer weighing more than 12 tons is creating what is believed to be the first 3D-printed, two-story home in the United States.”

That’s according to a new video from Reuters News, highlighting the 4,000-square-foot home in Houston, Texas.

The huge printer erected on the site requires 330 hours of printing to create the three-bedroom home.

Called the House of Cores, the design combines concrete 3D printing with wood framing.

The project is the culmination of a two-year collaborative effort between architectural designers Leslie Lok and Sasa Zivkovic, principals of HANNAH; along with PERI 3D Construction, and CIVE, one of the leading engineering and design/build contractors in Houston.

RELATED:Habitat for Humanity’s First 3D-Printed Home on East Coast Sold to Single Mom With Touching History

In 2020, a 2-story home was 3D-printed in Europe—with two living rooms, a kitchen, bathroom, and foyer—by a Belgian company working on sustainable construction.

Watch the video from Reuters below… (NOTE: GNN has no affiliation with any ads displayed.)

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