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Ordinary Plastic Turned into Diamonds Via Laser Beam in the Blink of An Eye

By
Andy Corbley
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plastic diamond - cc Steve Jurvetson
plastic diamond – cc Steve Jurvetson

A thin film of plastic was, for the first time ever, turned into tiny diamonds in the blink of an eye after being shot at with a laser beam.

Synthetic diamonds are valuable for their hardness and are used to make high-quality cutting and polishing tools, but equally so for their thermal conductivity, and electrical insulation.

Opening up synthetic diamond production from plastic could lead to more demand for water bottles and other containers which often end up in the sea.

The breakthrough also has implications for planetary science, and the researchers who managed this philosopher’s stone-like transformation said it sheds light on what goes on inside the ice giants Neptune and Uranus.

How exactly was something that costs pennies turned into the hardest and one of the rarest minerals on Earth?

At their fundamental level, diamonds are simply a solid form of carbon, arranged in a particular crystalline structure alongside hydrogen and oxygen.

In tests, a sheet of PET (polyethylene terephthalate) plastic used for packaging food and beverages was heated by a laser beam up to 6,000°C. PET is made of petroleum, which is known in the industry as a “hydrocarbon.”

The test compressed the plastic under a weight equal to millions of times Earth’s atmospheric pressure for a few billionths of a second. This incredible experience reconfigured the molecules of the plastic into a nanodiamond.

“So far, diamonds of this kind have mainly been produced by detonating explosives,” said Professor Dominik Kraus, of the University of Rostock, Germany, and a co-author of the study. “With the help of laser flashes, they could be manufactured much more cleanly in the future.”

CHECK OUT: Huge Black Diamond Sold for $4.3 Million–and No One Knows Where it Came From or How it Was Formed

The laser fired ten flashes at the plastic film, after which the nanodiamonds formed and dropped in a collecting tank filled with water. There they are decelerated and can then be filtered and gathered.

“Up to now, we used hydrocarbon films for these kinds of experiments. And we discovered that this extreme pressure produced tiny diamonds,” Krauss explained. “PET has a good balance between carbon, hydrogen and oxygen to simulate the activity in ice planets.”

Proving it can be done with plastic takes the concept to an entirely new level of convenience for production on Earth, as well as reveals how nanodiamonds might form in large quantities on ice giants like Neptune and Uranus.

Ice giants contain carbon, hydrogen and vast amounts of oxygen. The new study published in Science Advances confirmed it really does rain diamonds inside ice giants at the solar system’s edge.

“The effect of the oxygen was to accelerate the splitting of the carbon and hydrogen and thus encourage the formation of nanodiamonds. It meant the carbon atoms could combine more easily and form diamonds.”

KEEP READING: Locals Digging a Well Accidentally Discover a $140 Million Star Sapphire Weighing Half a Ton

Temperatures in the interior of Neptune and Uranus reach several thousand degrees Celsius and the pressure is millions of times greater than Earth’s atmosphere. Above, the outer atmosphere of gasses is one of the coldest places in the solar system.

This creates storms that produce hailstones of diamonds. Scientists believed this was the case for 40 years, and recent studies have further reinforced this hypothesis.

TRANSFORM Your Friends’ Days With This Amazing Science On Social Media…

Bridgestone Tire Gets Rubber from Desert Guayule Plant Which Doesn’t Require Irrigation

By
Andy Corbley
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The Bridgestone guayule tire - released.
The Bridgestone guayule tire – released.

Bridgestone has invested $100 million into farming a desert-dwelling herb to replace the rubber tree for rubber production.

Guayule (Why-OO-lee) produces rubber as a form of protection, and owing to its Chihuahuan Desert heritage, doesn’t need any irrigation.

Guayule comes from the Asteraceae family, which includes species like chamomile, daisy, asters, marigold, and chicory. It was used by the Mesoamerican civilizations as a kind of rubber, which is the same reason that Tempe Farming, which usually grows cotton or alfalfa, is covering 25,000 acres of its farmland with this plant.

Haveas, the tropical rubber tree, is expensive, climate intensive, and risky to farm. They are vulnerable to pests and disease, and labor intensive to cultivate and harvest.

Most passenger cars for this reason use 90% synthetic material for tires, and only 10% natural rubber. However there are still some products made entirely of natural rubber—large truck tires for example.

Parthenium argentatum or Guayule

Bridgestone R&D have spent years breeding a lineage of Guayule that produces exceptional amounts of its rubber, and it wants to scale up production as fast as possible, not only for economic and climate reasons, but because Guayule rubber tires perform better than haveas rubber.

In a recent test, Bridgestone rolled out a racing tire with a sidewall of Guayule rubber for an Indycar race.

“We use racing as a testbed,” Nizar Trigui, chief technology officer at Bridgestone Americas, told Fast Company. “In a very demanding application, like open wheel racing in IndyCar, we have shown that it actually gives us similar or better performance.”

RELATED: Rubber Made From Dandelions is Making Tires More Sustainable – Truly a Wondrous Plant

“The introduction of guayule natural rubber to America’s preeminent open-wheel racing series speaks to the confidence we have in the technology and its potential as a scalable, sustainable and domestic source of natural rubber—a vital raw material.”

To date, Bridgestone has invested over $100 million into Guayule cultivation, and the recent $42 million will go to building a biorefinery to process the plants and turn them into rubber for the company’s tires.

ALSO READ: ‘Genetic Goldmine’ Unearthed in the Desert Could Help Crops Survive Global Warming

Rubber trees are not grown here at home, but as long as there are plants growing in Arizona, the effects of recurring droughts being experienced across the American West could be dampened if more desert-dwelling species that don’t need to be irrigated could be utilized. In this regard Guayule will free up the irrigation resources for 25,000 acres, offering water sources a welcome relief.

SEE If Your Friends Would Buy These Tires On Their Car By Sharing This Story…

Giant Bronze Mythical Beast Found at Famous Chinese Archeological Site—LOOK

By
Andy Corbley
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The bronze beast from Sanxingdui, note the human figurine atop the head - People CN.
The bronze beast from Sanxingdui, note the human figurine atop the head – People CN.

In one of China’s richest and grandest archeological sites, a very large statue of a mythical beast cast in bronze has been found.

The site at Sanxingdui, or Three Star Mound, has yielded hundred of bronze statues which some archeologists have described as more impressive than the Terracotta Army, and this latest find contributes aspects of size and majesty to the collection.

Weighing 330 pounds (150) kilos, the bronze beasty was found on last Wednesday. Its shape is characteristic of many smaller figurines already produced at Sanxingdui, but this one is the largest.

“Since the first excavation at Sanxingdui in 1986, the unearthed mythical beasts have been smaller in size, only about 20 to 30 centimeters long,” said Zhao Hao, a member of the team surveying sacrificial pit No.8.

SIMILAR: Viking Age Shipyard Uncovered at Birka is Like Nothing Ever Found Before

Sanxingdui was discovered in 1927 and has since grown into one of the most prominent excavation sites in China. Centered around an ancient city protected by more than 3 miles of walls on the banks of the Yazi River, it was probably founded between 2,000 and 1,600 BCE, making it contemporaneous with the Middle Kingdom of Egypt.

Believed the be the ancient state of Shu, the first major breakthrough came in 1986 when the first sacrificial pit was found, containing 800 noteworthy artifacts, highlighted by a series of bronze statues of stunning craftsmanship, including the largest and oldest full-scale bronze of a human adult.

After the first two pits were found, from 2019 onwards several others were discovered that uncovered many more exquisite gold, jade, ivory, and bronze artifacts.

Other statues depicting similar mythical beasts from Sanxingdui CC 2.0. Momo – 中国新闻网

This new mythical beast was found in sacrificial pit 8. As well as being the largest, it’ also been preserved with a tall thin man standing right atop the beasts’ horns, which the team suspects indicates control. Another feature unique to this beast is a sacred tree engraved on its chest.

“The tree is engraved directly on it and can be seen as Sanxingdui people’s worship of the sacred tree, or has taken the sacred tree as a kind of divine presence,” said Zhao.

13,000 items have in total been found at the site, including 3,155 largely complete artifacts.

ALSO READ: Incredible Discovery Beneath the Southern Amazon Reveals Urban-Agrarian Society Never Seen Before

South China Morning Post reports that a 473,612 square feet (44,000 square meter) exhibition hall is slated to open in 2023 in Chengdu, Sichuan province, to display the greatest and most important treasures of the city.

SHARE This Great Discovery And A Small History Lesson With Your Friends…

“Trade unions have done more for decency, for honesty, for the developing of character in man, than any other association of men.” – Clarence Darrow

By
Good News Network
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Quote of the Day: “Trade unions have done more for decency, for honesty, for the developing of character in man, than any other association of men.” – Clarence Darrow (Happy Labor Day)

Photo by: Jon Tyson

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?

Getting Plants ‘Drunk’ Insulates them Against Drought, According to New Research

By
Andy Corbley
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Main crop plants thrived when their soil was soaked in ethanol alcohols even after two weeks without water, report scientists.

Climate change may be affecting production of corn and wheat by 2030, and scientists believe the solution is learn more about plants’ biology to find inbuilt resiliencies.

Genetically modifying plants so that their stomata—the pores in their leaves—stay closed, has been somewhat effective because it prevents water from leaving the plants. Other experiments have looked at making plants produce larger root systems.

But making them is expensive and time consuming. Countries with the greatest need might not have equal access to these modified crops if droughts continue at their current severity.

Plants produce ethanol when deprived of water, so a team from the RIKEN Centre for Sustainable Resource Science in Japan reasoned it would protect them from future drought.

“We find treating common crops such as wheat and rice with exogenous ethanol can increase production during drought,” said lead study author Dr. Motoaki Seki. “This offers us a cheap and easy way to increase crop yield even when water is limited, without the need for genetic modification.”

SIMILAR: Common Weed May Be ‘Super Plant’ That Holds Key to Drought-Resistant Crops

Ethanol is neat alcohol. A small amount of the chemical is the same as a large number of normal alcoholic beverages.

In people, immediate effects include nausea, vomiting and intoxication. In large quantities, it can cause almost immediate loss of consciousness.

Compared to water, wheat and rice could only survive a fortnight of drought conditions when they did a bit of pre-game with 3% ethanol.

And it wasn’t even close. 75% of ethanol-treated wheat and rice plants survived after they were re-watered at the end of the fortnite, compared to less than 5% of the untreated plants.

The researchers analyzed gene expression in the plants before and during water deprivation and radio-tagged the ethanol before pretreatment.

This allowed them to see what processes were activated during drought and what happened to the ethanol after it was taken up by the plant roots.

Even before water was deprived, the ethanol-treated plants began to express genes that are normally expressed during water deprivation.

Additionally, around the same time that water content was dropping in untreated leaves, the ethanol-treated plants were making sugars from the ethanol and doing photosynthesis.

“First, drought-related genes are expressed even before water is missing, giving the plants a head start in preparation,” explained Dr. Seki.

READ ALSO: Irrigation System Talks to Plants to Find Out When they Need Water — Cutting Water Use by 30-50%

“Then, the stomata close, allowing leaves to retain more water. At the same time, some of the ethanol is used to make a variety of sugars, which provide much needed energy that is normally difficult to get with closed stomata.”

“As ethanol is safe, cheap, and widely available, this finding offers a practical way to increase food production all over the world when water is scarce, without the need for costly, time-consuming, and sometimes controversial production of genetically modified plants.”

RAISE A Glass To These Scientists And Their Plant Studies On Social Media…

World’s First 100% Hydrogen-Powered Trains Now Running Regional Service in Germany to Replace Diesel

By
Andy Corbley
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One of Alstom's hydrogen trains - released by company
One of Alstom’s hydrogen trains – released by company

A regional train operator in Germany is becoming the first company to utilize 100% hydrogen fuel cell trains on their lines.

But if almost all train travel is electric now, and even those few diesel trains that still operate produce a mere third of the CO2 per passenger as a car, what’s the need for big investment into hydrogen in rail travel?

In Germany and the U.S., some regional lines still use diesel-powered locomotives, which expose passengers inside the cars and at the stations to more harmful air pollutants like nitrogen oxide, than standing near a busy intersection in a city.

Along with eliminating this health hazard, the higher emissions cost of a diesel locomotive moving at slower speeds on regional lines are averaged down in national emissions figures by electric powered ones, making the whole endeavor appear less than it actually is.

RELATED: New Design for Solid-State Hydrogen Fuel Cell Significantly Reduces Charging Times and Improves Safety

The new route, between the Lower Saxony towns of Cuxhaven, Bremerhaven, Bremervörde and Buxtehude, will use only hydrogen fuel cell trains from a French company Alstom, purchased by the German regional rail company LNVG.

Inside fuel cells, hydrogen stored on the roof of the train combines with oxygen to make power. When that hydrogen and oxygen combine, the only thing left is H2O.

Alstom’s model can go 1,000 kilometers, or 621 miles before it needs a refueling, which for these inter-small town services means no refill will be needed until service finishes at the end of the day.

“We will not buy any more diesel trains, in order to do even more to combat climate change,” Carmen Schwable, a spokesperson for LNVG, told Deutsche Welle (DW). “We [also] are convinced that diesel trains will no longer be economically viable in future.”

Alstom is reportedly in talks to bring some of these locomotives and carriages to American rail lines as well, as the States continue to use diesel locomotives based on the vast distances they travel compared to European routes, and the costly nature of electrifying railway lines.

WATCH The Train In Quiet Action From The Company…

BLOW The Horn On Social Media About This Blue-Green Mode Of Travel…

Good Gardening Week 6: How Do You Handle Chaos in Your Garden?

By
Andy Corbley
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Welcome back to Good Gardening! In our Week 5 discussion, we wanted to know how our Good Gardeners manage a drought, seeing as most of the world is in one. We took the conversation to social media and shared anecdotes.

Lucy Becker shared the Al-Baydh project in Saudi Arabia where permaculturalists are restoring dead streams to life by bringing soil back to desertified hills. If you’re interested in permaculture, this mini-doc a great example of its power.

BIG NEWS We had another avid gardener—a professionally-certified permaculturalist, decide to become a regular contributor to our discussion group! Monica Richards is located in hot and dry California, and she gave her expert advice about hot weather gardening.

“We went through a wildfire, the Bobcat Fire, and our entire property burned, right up to our house – though the house was saved. But much of my garden burned and I had to start over in places. This has been a fascinating experience as I saw what came back, and how to rebuild, using the ash in the soil, as well as making use of the burned branches and trunks of burned trees.”

Her answer as to how to conserve water in a drought is as follows: “Water conservation, shade and wind systems, mulching around plants and trees, plus understanding the microclimates around our property and how to add to them. We have a greywater system, and much of our gardens and trees are watered through that. We also catch rainwater and continue to work toward finding ways to create shade.

I had a chat with a friend in the UK about building quick shade systems over her plants, you can do this by crisscrossing branches over the beds, tying old cloths overhead with stakes or creating a teepee system.”

Monica Richard’s permaculture-influenced garden shade system.

Our friends from The Sharing Gardens wrote in from their home in Oregon: “Here in USA (Zone 7B), where we live and garden, we experienced excessive rain in the winter and spring of 2022. It was so bad that it killed off almost all the bumblebees in our area (which are ground-nesters) and are necessary for pollinating several of our annual plants. But then, since July, we’ve had basically no rain. The way we deal with these extremes in moisture is to mulch heavily,” they wrote about how they use primarily grass-clippings and leaves.”

Ismail, a Sharing Gardens volunteer, gathers grass clippings.
Hayden, another volunteer, puts the grass clippings on the greenhouse paths to create additional compost.

“The forest floor is a lake,” — Sepp Holzer.

Topic Week 6: Chaos and Order

Question 1: How much natural chaos do you tolerate in your garden? Do you allow grasses and flowering weeds to grow?

Question 2: How much de-weeding do you do in an average season? Got any tips on how to keep them down?

Question 3: Got any tips for keeping a garden in order? Raised beds? Rock patches?

Tell Us Here in The Comments… or, send your questions, tips, and photos to [email protected]. Join our Facebook Good Gardens thread every Friday on the GNN Facebook Page…

Good gardening rules

  • Green thumbs can help novice greenhorns.
  • Share your gardening photos and resources.
  • Garden jargon encouraged!

INVITE Friends to our Gardening Discussion on Social Media–And Share Your Photos and Tips!

Friends Saved Over a Million Gallons of Paint From Landfill by Rescuing and Remixing it to Give it New Color

By
Good News Network
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Staff at Seagull Paint Store – SWNS
Staff at Seagulls Paint Store – SWNS

Meet the friends who have saved more than 1.05 million gallons of paint from landfills by rescuing used cans—refilling and remixing them to give each one a new lease of life.

Cat Hyde and Kate Moree had the passion and drive to make a difference by repurposing waste material, while making money at the same time.

Since settling on paint and co-founding Seagulls in 2004, the pair have collected around 300 tons of paint each year from the landfill.

They have grown the company to employ 14 staff members who manage 10 volunteers in their English hometown of Leeds, Yorkshire.

“We started by just collecting half-used paint tins in the back of my car,” Cat said.

The team then sorts the good and bad paint and re-blends with new colors requested by customers—all at an affordable price 75% less than in the stores.

RELATED: The City of Berlin Now Runs a Department Store That Sells All Recycled Goods

Seagulls paint store in Leeds, England – SWNS

RELATED: Dutch Are Reducing Waste By Fixing Broken Objects With Online Local Barter Network-And You Can Too

“We hadn’t heard of anyone re-cycling paint before,” said 43-year-old Cat. “We were able to work with the local council to collect all the waste paint in Leeds and recycle as much of it as we can.”

“It’s very labour intensive to scrap all the paint tins and re-blend colors but we love it.

“In the last 18 years we have diverted over four million liters of paint which would have caused 11.4 million tons of carbon.”

The social enterprise says that, in order to offset that much CO2, 68 million trees would need to be planted.

The company also gives a lift to those of different backgrounds.

POPULAR: Kenyan Woman’s Startup Recycles Plastic Waste into Bricks That Are 5x Stronger Than Concrete

“We’ve helped previous offenders, those who have struggled with their mental health, and young people who have been isolated.”

Staff at Seagull Paint Store – SWNS

Seagulls Paint Store also runs decorating workshops and gets involved with art in their community.

“We want everyone to be able to decorate their homes.”

SPILL This Idea on Social Media to Inspire Colorful Change…

“Think of mindfulness as a form of affectionate attention.” – Jon Kabat-Zinn

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Good News Network
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Quote of the Day: “Think of mindfulness as a form of affectionate attention.” – Jon Kabat-Zinn

Photo by: Michael Payne

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?


These Barbecue Foods Have Officially Gained ‘God Tier’ Status, Says New Poll

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Good News Network
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A new survey of 2,000 Americans revealed the nation’s favorite and least favorite barbecue foods—and tradition ruled the day.

Burgers, hot dogs, and chicken wings have been given the official “God tier” status according to BBQ fans – proving the classics have withstood the test of time, despite the rise of alternative menus across America.

This guide to the best of the barbecue foods shows the likes of cauliflower ‘steak’ and eggplant appeared at the bottom of most wishlists.

Seafood makes up a huge portion of the “good” tier including salmon, lobster, and white fish.

Second from the bottom—the “meh” tier—features pineapple, as well as lamb chops and tuna steak.

Commissioned by St Pierre Bakery and conducted by OnePoll, the poll found that 41% plan to host a barbecue this Labor Day (September 4-5), while 47% will be attending one.

57% claim that hot dogs and burgers are unbeatable, but almost half (45%) like to try out new dishes when grilling to impress others.

POPULAR: Trendy Type of Norwegian Cheese May Stave Off Bone Thinning, Shows New Study

“The god tier ratings are definitely a conversation starter and everyone will have their own opinion on the best and worst barbecue foods”, said a spokesperson for St Pierre. “This list is perfectly timed to help inspire hosts on what to serve hungry guests.

Meals to impress at a cookout include a whole chicken (32%), beef brisket (29%) and upgrading from standard bread to brioche rolls (25%).

While 63% stick to the basics when cooking as they assume that’s what their guests want, 66% try – and fail – to cook something other than traditional foods.

RELATED: Eating Oily Fish Like Salmon May Cut Risk of Developing Alzheimer’s by Nearly 50%

Half of barbecues have become healthier in the last decade, and 44% think they have become more suitable for all dietary requirements—with the addition of veggie burgers added into the mix

GOD TIER:
Burgers
Chicken wings
Hot dogs
Chicken e.g. breasts, legs, thighs etc
Steak
Ribs
Burger cheese
Potato salad
Corn on the cob
Beef brisket

GOOD TIER:
Pasta salad
Pork chops
Kebabs/skewers
Lobster
Chicken souvlaki
White fish e.g. seabass, halibut
Grilled vegetables
Pulled pork
Salmon
Avocado

MEH TIER:
Sweet potatoes
Potato rolls
Crisps
Grilled mushroom
Lamb chops
Onions
Banana
Bacon
Pineapple
Tuna steak

NAH TIER:
Coleslaw
Lamb
Bread rolls
Pitta/flat bread
Chorizo
Eggplant
Cauliflower ‘steak’
Cous-cous

SHARE Your Weekend Barbecue Menu on Social Media, With This Poll…

White House Bans Paywalls on Any Publication Containing Taxpayer-Funded Research

By
Good News Network
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The White House ruled this week that scientific research which is taxpayer-supported must be available to the American public at no cost—addressing the expensive paywalls that block online viewing of studies in many journals.

The Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) delivered guidance for agencies to update their public access policies as soon as possible to make publications and research funded by taxpayers publicly accessible immediately upon publishing, without an embargo or cost. All agencies will fully implement updated policies, including ending the optional 12-month embargo.

The current optional embargo allows scientific publishers to put taxpayer-funded research behind a subscription-based paywall – which may block access for innovators for whom the paywall is a barrier, even barring scientists and their academic institutions from access to their own research findings, unless they pay.

POPULAR: Virginia Joins 20 Other States Banning Ticket Quotas For Traffic Cops

The new rule also expands the definition of a “scholarly publication” to include “not only peer-reviewed articles but also book chapters and conference proceedings.”

“When research is widely available to other researchers and the public, it can save lives,” said OSTP head Dr. Alondra Nelson. “The American people fund tens of billions of dollars of cutting-edge research annually. There should be no delay or barrier between the American public and the returns on their investments in research.”

When Joe Biden was Vice President in 2016, he told the American Association for Cancer Research that U.S taxpayers fund $5 billion a year in cancer research. “Right now, you work for years to come up with a significant breakthrough, and if you do, you get to publish a paper in one of the top journals. For anyone to get access to that publication, they have to pay hundreds, or even thousands, of dollars to subscribe to a single journal. And here’s the kicker — the journal owns the data for a year.”

RELATED: U.S. House Passes Bill to Cap Insulin Cost at $35 Per Month

Advocates, researchers, academic libraries, Congressional leaders, and others have long called for greater public access to federally funded research results—and now they will have it.

In the short-term, agencies will work with the OSTP to update their public access and data sharing plans by mid-2023.

SET YOUR SCIENCE FREE – Share the Good News on Social Media…

Brightest Jupiter in 70 Years Appears in the East Two Hours After Sundown Thanks to Near-Perfect “Opposition”

By
Andy Corbley
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Jupiter with its 2 tiny moons Amalthea and Adrastea – NASA/ESA Image processing by Ricardo Hueso and Judy Schmidt
Jupiter with its 2 tiny moons Amalthea and Adrastea – NASA/ESA Image processing by Ricardo Hueso and Judy Schmidt

Stargazing typically demands that people pry themselves out of bed at 4:30 AM, as the conditions tend to be better.

But in this period anyone can witness a once in 70-year phenomenon merely two hours after sunset.

Jupiter, the solar system’s largest planet, is now the brightest light in the eastern night sky by a country mile. According to the ever-stalwart Jamie Carter over at Forbes, Ole’ Jove hasn’t been this bright in 70 years.

The reason for this is that Jupiter is in perfect opposition to Earth in this period. Jupiter’s revolution around the Sun is much longer, but right now there is a perfect line between the Earth, the Sun, and Jupiter.

“Opposition makes a huge difference when viewing any planet from Earth,” explains Carter.

LOOK: Scientists Stunned by New Jupiter Images With Galaxies ‘Photobombing’ the Webb Telescope

The entire disc of the planet is illuminated in this way, and as well as being visible for longer thanks to early rising and late setting times, the basic fact that the two bodies are the closest that they’ll be to each other makes it the brightest moment.

Perfect opposition will occur on the 26th of September, but even now it’s possible to see 99.7% of its light disk.

Get a pair of good binoculars at least, and you’ll be able to spot some of the larger Jovian moons, Ganymede, Io, Callisto, and Europa.

Just above Jupiter around 10:30 at night, there will be four bright stars known as the “Great Square of Pegasus,” sitting within that constellation. Far to the right will be Saturn.

SHARE This Occasion With Your Stargazing Friends On Social Media…

Your Inspired Weekly Horoscope From Rob Brezsny: A ‘Free Will Astrology’

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Good News Network
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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 3, 2022
Copyright by Rob Brezsny, FreeWillAstrology.com

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22):
“Now that I’m free to be myself, who am I?” Virgo-born Mary Oliver asks that question to start one of her poems. She spends the rest of the poem speculating on possible answers. At the end, she concludes she mostly longs to be an “empty, waiting, pure, speechless receptacle.” Such a state of being might work well for a poet with lots of time on her hands, but I don’t recommend it for you in the coming weeks. Instead, I hope you’ll be profuse, active, busy, experimental, and expressive. That’s the best way to celebrate the fact that you are now freer to be yourself than you have been in a while.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22):
In her book Tales From Earthsea, Libra-born Ursula K. Le Guin wrote, “What goes too long unchanged destroys itself. The forest is forever because it dies and dies and so lives.” I trust you’re embodying those truths right now. You’re in a phase of your cycle when you can’t afford to remain unchanged. You need to enthusiastically and purposefully engage in dissolutions that will prepare the way for your rebirth in the weeks after your birthday. The process might sometimes feel strenuous, but it should ultimately be great fun.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21):
As a Scorpio, novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky was rarely guilty of oversimplification. Like any intelligent person, he could hold contradictory ideas in his mind without feeling compelled to seek more superficial truths. He wrote, “The causes of human actions are usually immeasurably more complex and varied than our subsequent explanations of them.” I hope you will draw inspiration from his example in the coming weeks, dear Scorpio. I trust you will resist the temptation to reduce colorful mysteries to straightforward explanations. There will always be at least three sides to every story. I invite you to relish glorious paradoxes and fertile enigmas.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21):
Author Zadie Smith praised Sagittarian writer Joan Didion. She says, “I remain grateful for the day I picked up Joan Didion’s Slouching Towards Bethlehem and realized that a woman could speak without hedging her bets, without hemming and hawing, without making nice, without sounding pleasant or sweet, without deference, and even without doubt.” I encourage Sagittarians of every gender to be inspired by Didion in the coming weeks. It’s a favorable time to claim more of the authority you have earned. Speak your kaleidoscopic wisdom without apology or dilution. More fiercely than ever before, embody your high ideals and show how well they work in the rhythms of daily life.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19):
Capricorn novelist Marcia Douglas writes books about the history of her people in Jamaica. In one passage, she writes, “My grandmother used to tell stories about women that change into birds and lizards. One day, a church-going man dared to laugh at her; he said it was too much for him to swallow. My grandmother looked at him and said, ‘I bet you believe Jesus turned water into wine.'” My purpose in telling you this, Capricorn, is to encourage you to nurture and celebrate your own fantastic tales. Life isn’t all about reasonableness and pragmatism. You need myth and magic to thrive. You require the gifts of imagination and art and lyrical flights of fancy. This is especially true now. To paraphrase David Byrne, now is a perfect time to refrain from making too much sense.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18):
To be the best Aquarius you can be in the coming weeks, I suggest the following: 1. Zig when others zag. Zag when others zig. 2. Play with the fantasy that you’re an extraterrestrial who’s engaged in an experiment on planet Earth. 3. Be a hopeful cynic and a cheerful skeptic. 4. Do things that inspire people to tell you, “Just when I thought I had you figured out, you do something unexpected to confound me.” 5. Just for fun, walk backward every now and then. 6. Fall in love with everything and everyone: a D-List celebrity, an oak tree, a neon sign, a feral cat.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20):
A blogger who calls herself HellFresh writes, “Open and raw communication with your partners and allies may be uncomfortable and feel awkward and vulnerable, but it solves so many problems that can’t be solved any other way.” Having spent years studying the demanding arts of intimate relationship, I agree with her. She adds, “The idea that was sold to us is ‘love is effortless and you should communicate telepathically with your partner.’ That’s false.” I propose, Pisces, that you fortify yourself with these truths as you enter the Reinvent Your Relationships Phase of your astrological cycle.

ARIES (March 21-April 19):
In his poem “Autobiographia Literaria,” Aries-born Frank O’Hara wrote, “When I was a child, I played in a corner of the schoolyard all alone. If anyone was looking for me, I hid behind a tree and cried out, ‘I am an orphan.'” Over the years, though, O’Hara underwent a marvelous transformation. This is how his poem ends: “And here I am, the center of all beauty! Writing these poems! Imagine!” In the coming months, Aries, I suspect that you, too, will have the potency to outgrow and transcend a sadness or awkwardness from your own past. The shadow of an old source of suffering may not disappear completely, but I bet it will lose much of its power to diminish you.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20):
In his poem “Auguries of Innocence,” William Blake (1757–1827) championed the ability “to see a World in a Grain of Sand. And a Heaven in a Wild Flower. Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand.” According to my reading of the astrological omens, Taurus, you are primed to do just that in the coming days. You have the power to discern the sacred in the midst of mundane events. The magic and mystery of life will shine from every little thing you encounter. So I will love it if you deliver the following message to a person you care for: “Now I see that the beauty I had not been able to find in the world is in you.”

GEMINI (May 21-June 20):
“The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time,” said philosopher Bertrand Russell. I will add that the time you enjoy wasting is often essential to your well-being. For the sake of your sanity and health, you periodically need to temporarily shed your ambitions and avoid as many of your responsibilities as you safely can. During these interludes of refreshing emptiness, you recharge your precious life energy. You become like a fallow field allowing fertile nutrients to regenerate. In my astrological opinion, now is one of these revitalizing phases for you.

CANCER (June 21-July 22):
“My own curiosity and interest are insatiable,” wrote Cancerian author Emma Lazarus (1849–1887). Inspired by the wealth of influences she absorbed, she created an array of poetry, plays, novels, essays, and translations—including the famous poem that graces the pedestal of America’s Statue of Liberty. I recommend her as a role model for you in the coming weeks, Cancerian. I think you’re ripe for an expansion and deepening of your curiosity. You will benefit from cultivating an enthusiastic quest for new information and fresh influences. Here’s a mantra for you: “I am wildly innocent as I vivify my soul’s education.”

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22):
Blogger Scott Williams writes, “There are two kinds of magic. One comes from the heroic leap, the upward surge of energy, the explosive arc that burns bright across the sky. The other kind is the slow accretion of effort: the water-on-stone method, the soft root of the plant that splits the sidewalk, the constant wind that scours the mountain clean.” Can you guess which type of magic will be your specialty in the coming weeks, Leo? It will be the laborious, slow accretion of effort. And that is precisely what will work best for the tasks that are most important for you to accomplish.

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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“Live out of your imagination instead of out of your memory.” – Les Brown

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Good News Network
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Quote of the Day: “Live out of your imagination instead of out of your memory.” – Les Brown

Photo by: Austin Distel

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U.S. to Plug More than 10,000 Abandoned Carbon-Emitting Oil and Gas Wells in 24 States

By
Andy Corbley
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An old oil well in Texas
An old oil well in Texas

A new program under President Biden’s infrastructure bill is set to plug up more than 10,000 wells of oil and natural gas that have since been abandoned.

Once sources of energy, these derelict wells now act merely as exhaust pipes that emit methane from the basins into which they were drilled, increasing America’s emissions with no return or value of any kind.

The Dept. of the Interior has identified just over 10,000 high priority wells on public lands across 24 states that had been leased for oil and gas drilling.

These are just a fraction of the over 100,000 total derelict wells that need to be dealt with, not only to reduce unnecessary emissions, but serious safety hazards as methane is not safe to breathe, and is also flammable.

“President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law is enabling us to confront long-standing environmental injustices by making a historic investment to plug orphaned wells throughout the country,” said Secretary Deb Haaland.

“At the Department of the Interior, we are working on multiple fronts to clean up these sites as quick as we can by investing in efforts on federal lands and partnering with states and Tribes to leave no community behind.

Of states eligible for funding, 22 have been allocated $25 million each in Initial State Grants. Arkansas and Mississippi will receive $5 million each to support methane measurement and begin plugging wells.

RELATED: U.S. Suspends Oil and Gas Leases in One of Nation’s Largest Wilderness Areas

Oklahoma, Kentucky, have each to their own identified 1,000 or more such wells, while Texas and Louisiana have identified around 800.

Kansas has found more than 2,000 in its state alone.

Climate advocates are proposing wild things like downsizing the beef industry, or culling millions of deer in order to reduce American methane emissions, but it seems a no brainer that the first thing society would do is eliminate sources that do nothing for no one.

CHECK OUT: Oil and Gas Rigs Could Soon Be Reassigned to Fight Climate Crisis by Storing CO2 Emissions

To that effect, the Dept. has found the best, permanent solution to reduce methane emissions.

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Audubon Society Enjoys Huge “Tern-Around” in the Puffin and Tern Populations of Maine

By
Andy Corbley
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Atlantic puffins - CC license - stockvault
Atlantic puffins – CC license – stockvault

50 years worth of conserving the tern and puffin populations in Maine has created a stable colony of thousands of breeding birds.

Located on Petit Manan and other small islands off the coast, the birds have absorbed the worst of climate change during the 2000s, and are returning just as before to large numbers of breeding pairs and fledgling chicks.

Even the wildest gambler wouldn’t have put a penny on the Atlantic puffins of Maine making it out of the 20th century alive, after they were hunted down to just 2 birds by 1902.

Huddled on Matinicus Rock, the remotest spit of land in what today is the Maine Coastal Islands National Wildlife Refuge, an Audubon Society member began bringing down puffin chicks from Newfoundland in 1972 to try and recreate their breeding booms that would cover every square inch of rock in squawking chicks a century earlier.

Today there are more than 1,300 pairs of puffins across several islands, mostly on Eastern Egg Rock, Seal Island, and Matinicus Rock. The project was the first one in history that restored a seabird to an offshore island where it had been extirpated by humans.

On Petit Manan, another of the islands, the arrival of puffins was a happy accident. The more native bird has also faced dire plights.

Common, Arctic, and roseate terns sheltered on the island in their thousands. Then a lighthouse manned for decades by the U.S. Coast Guard was, in the late 1970s, automated. This abandonment caused an imbalance in the number of gulls that kept nests there.

This imbalance was corrected in the 80s after the terns all but left the island entirely, and the terns return. By the turn of the millennia there were 2,500 breeding pairs.

project puffin islands – Audubon society

It seemed that these delicate coastal bird sanctuaries were in the clear, but warming waters and shorter springs, winters, and autumns began devastating the populations as the cold water fish species the puffins and terns preyed on stayed further out to sea.

RELATED: Island is Wonderland for Penguins Once Again After Dog Helps Eradicate 300,000 Invasive Rabbits

Harsher sun damaged the cold and wet-loving native plant life, and nests became harder and harder to build.

A number of students and conservationists that make up Project Puffin, an Audubon Society success story that watches over the Maine islands, have been blown away by the resilience of these birds.

In 2009 the puffin breeding pairs fell to a bleak 47, while only 16% of all tern chicks reached adolescence.

Using leg bands, the teams at Project Puffin keep track of birds they capture and release for research. Return of cooler weather over the years has meant they’re finding more and more chicks reaching adulthood, more and more adults settling down to breed, and some migrating terns racking up a speech-stealing 2.3 million migratory miles.

One puffin was found to have reached 35 years of age.

“When you hold a bird that travels like it does and it looks into your eyes and you look into its eyes, I constantly wonder what is going on it its mind,” Kaiulani Sund, a 21-year-old senior at Gettysburg College, told Environmental Health News.

READ MORE: Birdwatchers Flock to See Rare 8-ft Raptor After ​Huge Russian Eagle Takes Detour into Maine

Project Puffin gets incredibly anxious around spring hatching season since the difference between a normal year and a bad year in terms of temperatures and food availability can be so impactful on these delicate and wonderful avians. But they soldier on, building artificial puffin burrows, introducing more students from more schools to the project, and hoping for cooler winters.

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Machine Just Turned Martian Atmosphere Into Pure Oxygen Just Like a Little Tree

By
Andy Corbley
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purple coating mars perseverence released NASA, JPL-CALTECH, MSSS
NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover took this selfie over a rock on September 10, 2021 Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

A small device brought recently to Mars just created breathable oxygen out of the Red Planet’s carbon dioxide-rich atmosphere.

While the Perseverance Rover’s search for life has capitalized most of the headlines, additional equipment brought along like “Moxie” (Mars oxygen in-situ resource utilization experiment) and the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter, have both been totally successful.

Sustaining a human presence on Mars would require breathable oxygen, which is obviously too much of a burden to transport in cylinders aboard the limited cargo of a spacecraft. Fortunately, scaled up versions of the newly-tested Moxie, which is currently about the size of a school lunchbox, could do the oxygen-emitting work of over 100 trees, and be hooked up directly to a habitation.

“This is the first demonstration of actually using resources on the surface of another planetary body, and transforming them chemically into something that would be useful for a human mission,” said Moxie deputy principal investigator Jeffrey Hoffman.

SIMILAR: Mysterious Purple Coating Found on Mars Rocks in Every Direction

By the end of 2021, Moxie had been able to continue producing oxygen at consistent rates of 6 grams per hour through day and night, and through a variety of weather conditions. This is about the same as a single grown-up tree.

Along with providing a permanent human settlement on Mars with air, the oxygen can be turned into rocket propellent for return journeys to Earth through a fairly straightforward chemical engineering process.

“The only thing we have not demonstrated is running at dawn or dusk, when the temperature is changing substantially,” said principal investigator of the Moxie mission at MIT, Michael Hecht.

“We do have an ace up our sleeve that will let us do that, and once we test that in the lab, we can reach that last milestone to show we can really run any time.”

A full-size system could run for thousands of hours without any problems if it’s proven to be consistent even while constantly switching on and off, Hecht says.

When Elon Musk developed the concept of a mission to Mars, robotic exploration proponents and comedians alike joked that it would be a one-way ticket.

KEEP READING: Huge Supply of Water Discovered on Mars, Frozen at the Bottom of its Grand Canyon

But there’s no accounting for scientific advancement, and the ability to produce oxygen in the Martian atmosphere turns the idea from a robotic-centered colony or a billionaire’s playground into a much more believable concept.

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Genius Scarecrow Competition Attracts Thousands to Village – LOOK

By
Andy Corbley
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The Brinklow Scarecrow festival in Warwickshire has returned and it will run until September 2, 2022. Various scarecrow displays stretch across the village and includes more than 75 exhibits. This year's trail continues to raise money for the local community and is the biggest scarecrow festival in the Midlands. See SWNS story SWLNscarecrow. August 31, 2022.
The Brinklow Scarecrow festival – SWNS.

Thousands of people flocked to a little English village to see homeowners decorate their properties with comical creations as part of an annual scarecrow competition.

Resident have been turning heads with their weird and wacky scarecrows placed outside their homes in Brinklow, Warwickshire.

More than 80 incredible displays have been erected throughout the picturesque village, including non-fictional creations like Prime Minster Boris Johnson relaxing on a deckchair, and fictional ones like ET and Elliot talking off from a front garden in a bicycle.

Elsewhere, Spiderman can be seen dangling from one family’s tree while a giant pairs of legs stick out of another.

The Minions, Mr. Bean, Edward Scissorhands, Shrek, The Queen and the characters from the Wizard of Oz make up some of the other funny displays.

This edition of the Brinklow Scarecrow Festival was special and well anticipated, as it was returning for the first time in three years following the COVID-19 pandemic.

SWNS photo
The Brinklow Scarecrow festival – SWNS

“It’s just a good bit of fun and after the last couple of years we’ve had that’s what we can all do with,” said 66-year-old resident Peter Cox.

“Everybody goes all out to create these wonderful scarecrows, a lot of time and effort goes into it and if I’m honest, people get a bit competitive too.”

“But it’s all part of the fun and its lovely to see so many people come from all over to see them in our little village.”

Visitors were also treated to flybys from a Royal Air Force Hurricane fighter jet and by a rare Lancaster bomber, as well as live bands and children’s rides.

The Brinklow Scarecrow festival in Warwickshire – SWNS

It’s everything someone could want from a small town festival.

KEEP READING: Going to Festivals Can Connect You to Humanity, Make You More Likely to Help Strangers for 6 Months: Yale

Now in its fourth year, the last event raised over £15,000 for charity.

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“You get in life what you have the courage to ask for.” – Nancy D. Solomon

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Good News Network
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Quote of the Day: “You get in life what you have the courage to ask for.” – Nancy D. Solomon

Photo by: Michael Spain

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Humble Leaders Inspire Greater Cooperation Among Teachers – and Workers of All Kinds

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Andy Corbley
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Leaders of teacher groups who were thought of as humble helped improve professionalism and collaboration among team members, new research has shown.

In the study done in China, groups of teachers were more willing to share their knowledge and expertise when they rated the leader of their meeting group as being higher in humility.

The reason was that humble leaders made teachers feel more empowered to share their knowledge because they felt psychologically safe to take risks, said study co-author Roger Goddard, professor of educational studies at Ohio State University.

“A little humility on the part of leaders goes a long way in helping groups be more productive and collaborative,” Goddard said.

“When people feel their leader admits mistakes and is open to learning from others, everyone contributes more and makes these groups more effective.”

In the United States and elsewhere, “professional learning communities” (PLCs) are designed to facilitate the sharing between teachers of their best practices and experiences in the classroom.

In China, the equivalent of PLCs are called Teaching Research Groups (TRGs). The leaders of TRGs are experienced teachers who are not traditional administrators, but do serve as supervisors and coordinators and are involved in teacher evaluations, lesson planning and teacher selection.

The study involved 537 teachers from 238 TRGs in a variety of both urban and rural schools in China.

Teachers rated their TRG leaders on three dimensions of humility: their willingness to view themselves accurately, such as admitting when they didn’t know how to do something; their appreciation of others’ strengths; and their teachability, such as being open to other teachers’ advice.

CHECK OUT: Having Muslim Soccer Champion on English Team Has Led to Dramatic Drop in Hate Crime, Islamophobia

Results showed that teachers who rated their TRG leaders as being higher in humility were more likely to report that they shared their knowledge and expertise in TRG meetings.

“The whole point of these groups is for teachers to share their knowledge, so the fact that humble leaders inspired individuals in their groups to be more willing to do this is very significant,” Goddard said.

The study determined that humble leaders were so effective in helping their teachers share their knowledge because of the sense of psychological safety their humility provided; they gave the TRG the confidence to share experiences that might not automatically be viewed positively.

That feeling of safety led them to feel more psychologically empowered: They felt their jobs had meaning, they had autonomy to do their work, and they felt they were competent and that their work had impact in the school.

“This feeling of teachers that they could safely share their knowledge comes from having a leader who has humility—an openness to learning from others, a willingness to revise opinions, and an appreciation for the strengths of others,” he said.

While this research was done in China, Goddard said he believes the results would be similar in the United States and elsewhere.

RELATED: Humble College Professor is Putting All of His Nobel Prize Money Towards His Students’ Education

“There’s a lot of evidence that suggests trust is a key part of successful organizations. And feeling psychologically safe and empowered to share your knowledge in the workplace is part of building trust, and that’s what humble leaders help create,” he said.

“That is as true in the United States as it is in China.”

In the same way, the results should be applicable outside of education.

“Many of the same principles that make successful organizations cut across cultures and fields.  It makes sense that humble leaders will build trust and better relationships that will increase the effectiveness of any groups that have to work together,” Goddard said.

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