Quote of the Day: “If you can change the way people see themselves–you can change the way people live their lives.” – Chuck Palahniuk
Photo by: Bekah Russom
With a new inspirational quote every day, atop the perfect photo—collected and archived on our Quotes page—why not bookmark GNN.org for a daily uplift?
A man rescued a dying bunny that was drowning in his pool after spotting a strange reflection out of the corner of his eye.
The Arizona resident noticed the rabbit while walking back inside from his backyard.
He found the bunny just as it had stopped moving, clearly exhausted, and began dropping its head underwater.
The 35-year-old frantically scrambled to find his pool scooper and get the bunny to safety.
The man, who makes YouTube videos, then grabbed his camera and began filming the situation.
Initially, the bunny was too tired and far too weak to even move—occasionally it would try to raise its head but even that was too strenuous.
The content creator from Lake Havasu City, moved the rabbit into the sunlight and fed it vegetables, sitting with the animal for several hours hoping it would begin to warm up and get some strength.
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“I sat the entire time so no predators could get it whilst it was still vulnerable.
“I didn’t touch it with my hands. The closest we got was when it sat in between my feet for a while.
Slowly, it started moving more and then it eventually just hopped away.
A few days later he saw it again and absolutely knew it recognized him.
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The bunny came over really close to him and looked at him for a while before hopping off—which he sees as a sign that the animal knew just who he was and was grateful.
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A long awaited update to a 2020 medical breakthrough could have a natural knee-cartilage replicant on deck for replacement surgeries by 2023.
Knee pain comes from the progressive wear and tear of cartilage between the knee joint known as osteoarthritis, which affects nearly one in six adults—867 million people—worldwide.
For those who want to avoid replacing the entire knee joint, there may soon be another option that could help patients get back on their feet fast, pain-free, and stay that way.
GNN reported in 2020 on Duke University’s development of a water-based gel designed to replace worn out cartilage in knee joints based around the principles of biodesign found in our God-given cartilage.
To make this material, the Duke team took thin sheets of cellulose fibers and infused them with a polymer called polyvinyl alcohol—a viscous goo consisting of stringy chains of repeating molecules—to form a gel.
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Although 60% water, a single quarter-sized disc of the special gel can bear the weight of a 100-pound kettlebell without tearing or losing its shape.
When the gel is stretched, the cellulose fibers resist pulling and help hold the material together. And when it is squeezed, the negative charges along the rigid polymer chains repel each other and stick to water, helping it spring back to its original shape.
In one experiment, the team subjected it to 100,000 cycles of repeat pulling, and the material held up just as well as porous titanium used for bone implants,
They also rubbed the new material against natural cartilage a million times. They found that its smooth, slippery self-lubricating surface is as wear-resistant as the real thing and four times more wear-resistant than synthetic cartilage implants currently FDA-approved for use in the big toe.
READ ALSO: New Procedure Could Improve Quality of Life for Millions of People after Knee Replacement Surgery
“If everything goes according to plan, the clinical trial should start as soon as April 2023,” said Duke chemistry professor Benjamin Wiley, who led the research.
Since 2020, improvements in design have given the team more encouragement that they will one day become the norm.
In the past, researchers attempting to create stronger hydrogels used a freeze-thaw process to produce crystals within the gel, which drive out water and help hold the polymer chains together.
In the new study, instead of freezing and thawing the hydrogel, the researchers used a heat treatment called annealing to coax even more crystals to form within the polymer network.
By increasing the crystal content, the researchers were able to produce a gel that can withstand five times as much stress from pulling and nearly twice as much squeezing relative to freeze-thaw methods.
Furthermore the tests found that the design stays fastened 68% more firmly than natural cartilage on bone.
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For young people with worn out knee cartilage—maybe from a career of top level sports, a full knee replacement is an unattractive option, since modern knee prosthetics wear out over time and would facilitate another total replacement surgery in their lifetime. The hydrogel could simply be replaced if they managed to destroy it as well.
REPLACE The Bad News On Social Media With This Good Health Tech News…
A little boy finally got to play in the sea, thanks to the use of a beach wheelchair—and his laughter brought his mom to tears.
Joey has quadriplegic cerebral palsy, which affects both of his arms and legs, and sometimes his torso and face.
The two-year-old suffers with very bad sensory issues and cannot stand the feel of grass, sand, carpet, and snow.
Trips to the beach were impossible, but thanks to a charity offering the big-wheeled wheelchairs on Ingoldmells beach in Lincolnshire, the family has finally been able to enjoy the sea for the first time.
Helen Butterfield filmed her little boy squealing with excitement as the sea water washed over him and his dad.
The mother of three who lives in Sheffield as Joey’s full time care-giver, said seeing his reaction was one of the most special moments of her life.
“Honestly, he has never laughed so much.”
She credits the community group Beach Ability Ingoldmells with having given her boy a special gift: “the chance to experience waves and mother nature’s beauty instead of feeling left out and different.”
“I’m just so glad I managed to get it on camera. We will never, ever forget this day.
Joey, who was born prematurely at 27 weeks, weighing just 2 pounds 6 ounces, cannot support his body enough to sit unaided with the diagnosis of quadriplegic cerebral palsy.
Doctors have prepared the family for the possibility that he will never be able to walk but mum Helen is determined to do everything she can to give him the best life possible.
Joey hates how pretty much everything feels, but the one thing he loves is water.
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“He doesn’t handle well, especially with strangers, and gets so frustrated, but pop him in the bath and he is in heaven. It was like Joey was born to be a water baby.
“He has been through so much, so seeing him in the sea was the best feeling ever. He is so tiny, but mighty—and I’m sure his strength and determination won’t stop there.”
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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 August 27, 2022
Copyright by Rob Brezsny, FreeWillAstrology.com
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22):
Whenever you are contemplating a major decision, I hope you raise questions like these: 1. Which option shows the most self-respect? 2. Which path would be the best way to honor yourself? 3. Which choice is most likely to help you fulfill the purposes you came to earth to carry out? 4. Which course of action would enable you to express your best gifts? Are there questions you would add, Virgo? I expect the coming months will require you to generate key decisions at a higher rate than usual, so I hope you will make intensive use of my guiding inquiries, as well as any others you formulate.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22):
Libran blogger Ana-Sofia Cardelle writes, “I look back on past versions of myself with such love and tenderness. I want to embrace myself at different parts of my life.” I hope you’re inspired by her thoughts as you carry out the following actions: 1. Create an altar filled with treasures that symbolize major turning points in your destiny. 2. Forgive yourself for what you imagine to be old errors and ignorance. 3. Summon memories of the persons you were at ages 7, 12, and 17, and write a kind, thoughtful message to each. 4. Literally kiss seven different photos of your face from earlier in your life. 5. Say “thank you” and “bless you” to the self you were when you succeeded at two challenging tests in the past.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21):
You know more about how karma works than all the other signs. Scorpio-style intelligence typically has a fine intuitive grasp of how today’s realities evolved out of the deep patterns and rhythms of the past. But that doesn’t mean you perfectly understand how karma works. And in the coming weeks, I urge you to be eager to learn more. Become even savvier about how the law of cause and effect impacts the destinies of you and your allies. Meditate on how the situations you are in now were influenced by actions you took once upon a time. Ruminate on what you could do in the near future to foster good karma and diminish weird karma.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21):
Kabbalistic writer Simon Jacobson says, “Like a flame, the soul always reaches upward. The soul’s fire wants to defy the confines of life. It cannot tolerate the mediocrity and monotony of sheer materialism. Its passion knows no limits as it craves for the beyond.” That sounds both marvelous and hazardous, right? Jacobson concludes, “Whether the soul’s fire will be a constructive or destructive force is dependent on the person’s motivation.” According to my astrological analysis, your deep motivations are likely to be extra noble and generous in the coming weeks, Sagittarius. So I expect that your soul’s fire will be very constructive.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19):
In the Spansh language, there’s the idiom pensando en la inmortalidad del cangrejo. Its literal translation is “thinking about the immortality of the crab.” It applies to a person engaged in creative daydreaming—her imagination wandering freely in hopes of rousing innovative solutions to practical dilemmas. Other languages have similar idioms. In Finnish, istun ja mietin syntyjä syviä means “wondering about the world’s early origins.” Polish has marzyć o niebieskich migdałach, or “dreaming about blue almonds.” I encourage you to enjoy an abundance of such explorations in the coming days, Capricorn. You need to fantasize more than usual.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18):
My Aquarian reader Georgie Lee wrote to tell me what it’s like being an Aquarius. I offer it to you because you are potentially at the peak of expressing the qualities she names. She says, “Accept that you don’t really have to understand yourself. Be at peace with how you constantly ramble, swerve, and weave to become more of yourself. Appreciate how each electric shift leads to the next electric shift, always changing who you are forever. Within the churning, ever-yearning current, marvel at how you remain eternal, steady, and solid—yet always evolving, always on a higher ground before.”
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20):
Here’s a good way to build your vibrancy: Use your emotional intelligence to avoid swimming against strong currents for extended periods. Please note that swimming against strong currents is fine, even advisable, for brief phases. Doing so boosts your stamina and fosters your trust in your resilience. But mostly, I recommend you swim in the same direction as the currents or swim where the water is calm and currentless. In the coming weeks, I suspect you can enjoy many freestyle excursions as you head in the same direction as vigorous currents.
ARIES (March 21-April 19):
In the coming weeks, I urge you to flee from stale and rigid certainty. Rebel against dogmatic attitudes and arrogant opinions. Be skeptical of unequivocal answers to nuanced questions. Instead, dear Aries, give your amused reverence to all that’s mysterious and enigmatic. Bask in the glimmer of intriguing paradoxes. Draw inspiration and healing from the fertile unknown. For inspiration, write out this Mary Oliver poem and carry it with you: “Let me keep my distance, always, from those who think they have the answers. Let me keep company with those who say ‘Look!’ and laugh in astonishment, and bow their heads.”
TAURUS (April 20-May 20):
A blogger named Chaconia writes, “I’ve cultivated a lifetime of being low maintenance and easy-going, and now I’ve decided I’m done with it. Demanding Me is born today.” I’m giving you temporary permission to make a similar declaration, Taurus. The astrological omens suggest that in the coming weeks, you have every right to be a charming, enchanting, and generous version of a demanding person. So I authorize you to be just that. Enjoy yourself as you ask for more of everything.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20):
Lisa Chamberlain writes about the magical properties of colors. About brown, she says it “represents endurance, solidity, grounding, and strength.” According to my reading of the astrological omens, the upcoming weeks should be a deeply brown time for you Geminis. To move your imagination in a righteous direction, have fun wearing clothes in shades of brown. Grace your environment with things that have the hues of chestnut, umber, mahogany, sepia, and burnt sienna. Eat and drink caramel, toffee, cinnamon, almonds, coffee, and chocolate.
CANCER (June 21-July 22):
Cancerian poet Danusha Laméris discovered that earthworms have taste buds all over their bodies. Now she loves to imagine she’s giving them gifts when she drops bits of apples, beets, avocados, melons, and carrot tops into the compost bin. “I’d always thought theirs a menial life, eyeless and hidden, almost vulgar.” But now that she understands “they bear a pleasure so sublime,” she wants to help the worms fulfill their destinies. I mention this, Cancerian, because I suspect you may have comparable turnarounds in the coming weeks. Long-held ideas may need adjustments. Incomplete understandings will be filled in when you learn the rest of the story. You will receive a stream of interesting new information that changes your mind, mostly in enjoyable ways.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22):
You should never allow yourself to be tamed by others. That advice is always apropos for you Leos, and even more crucial to heed in the coming weeks. You need to cultivate maximum access to the raw, primal sources of your life energy. Your ability to thrive depends on how well you identify and express the beautiful animal within you. Here’s my only caveat: If you imagine there may be value in being tamed a little, in harnessing your brilliant beast, do the taming yourself. And assign that task to the part of you that possesses the wildest wisdom.
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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Quote of the Day: “Judge nothing; you will be happy. Forgive everything; you will be happier. Love everything; you will be happiest.” – Sri Chinmoy (born 91 years ago today)
Photo by: Irudayam, CC license
With a new inspirational quote every day, atop the perfect photo—collected and archived on our Quotes page—why not bookmark GNN.org for a daily uplift?
It’s World Photography Day—and we couldn’t find any exposures this cool to celebrate with.
From old school entertainers like Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr. to rock staples like The Kinks and Todd Rundgren – this guy has a knack for jumping into the artwork of his favorite album covers.
Illustrator Wayne Honath, also known as Wayno, is a cartoonist and photographer whose hobbies include posing with LPs from his record collection.
In every one of his “Record Head” photos, Wayno perfectly frames himself so that it looks like his body belongs to the face of the artist on the album.
Despite our never having seen images like this, Wayno informed us that it was not an original idea—though his own choices for Record Head poses are praiseworthy.
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“People have been doing things like this forever, it’s certainly not a new idea on my part!” he told Good News Network. “A Canadian artist I know … set up a Record Heads Facebook group, and I decided to participate.”
“I looked through my own record collection to find suitable covers to photograph and I did all of the photos on my phone, using a small phone tripod.”
Since he’s dedicated himself to illustrating for Bizarro, the online comic series, he hasn’t had time for any new Record Head photo shoots, but you can see all 46 of his images here in this Wayno Illustration Facebook album.
“I had to cut back because (now) I have a daily deadline, so my creative energies are primarily to the comic,” he told GNN. “I still have some album covers set aside for future record head photos, but I don’t know when I’ll ever get to them. I’ll only do them when I have time to make them as good as the ones I’ve done in the past.
These Will Have Your Friends Spinning: Be Sure And Share the Fun – Photos by © Wayno
A woman said she owes her life to a rescue dog who sensed her breast cancer and wouldn’t keep its nose out of her right armpit.
Lucy Giles thought her beloved Brody was initially just craving some attention.
The 45-year-old had welcomed the gentle giant into her life a year ago, after her partner had spent six months in the hospital on life-support with the Covid virus.
When he returned home, and as part of his recovery, the pair decided to add to the family of pets that they love doting on.
They adopted Brody—whose Newfoundland breed is well-known for lifesaving due to their swimming abilities and intelligence—from a family who could no longer look after him.
Lucy, of Oxon, said he started to “sniff and nuzzle” at her right armpit.
“It was mostly when I was sat down, so either watching TV or sitting down for a rest and always in the same spot on my right side.”
“At first, I thought it was him wanting a bit of fuss and attention but I decided that I should perhaps take notice as it was just my right side he would do this.”
She examined herself and, sure enough, felt a lump there—and soon after was diagnosed with breast cancer.
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“It was the same day my nan had died from bowel cancer the year previously and I was with her when she died.”
Giles underwent six rounds of chemotherapy followed by a lumpectomy and radiotherapy afterwards.
She said she has a brilliant support network of family and friends who take her to appointments and help by “just being there”, along with Brody of course.
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“Perhaps he came into our lives for a reason.”
ALERT the World to the Wonder of Dogs by Sharing This Good News…
For all the grief carbon dioxide gets down here on Earth, its detection for the first time ever in the atmosphere of an exoplanet has scientists elated.
The finding, produced by the James Webb Space Telescope, offers evidence that in the future Webb will be able to measure carbon dioxide in the thinner atmospheres of smaller rocky planets—and zero in on those most likely to contain life.
This observation of a gas giant planet orbiting a Sun-like star 700 light-years away provided important insights into the composition and formation of the planet,
WASP-39 b is a hot gas giant with a mass roughly one-quarter that of Jupiter (about the same as Saturn) and a diameter 1.3 times greater than Jupiter. Its extreme puffiness is related in part to its high temperature (about 1,600 degrees Fahrenheit or 900 degrees Celsius).
Unlike the cooler, more compact gas giants in our solar system, WASP-39 b orbits very close to its star, completing one circuit in just over four Earth-days.
Previous observations from other telescopes, including NASA’s Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes, revealed the presence of water vapor, sodium, and potassium in the planet’s atmosphere. Webb’s unmatched infrared sensitivity has now confirmed the presence of carbon dioxide on this planet as well.
“As soon as the data appeared on my screen, the whopping carbon dioxide feature grabbed me,” said Zafar Rustamkulov, a graduate student at Johns Hopkins University and member of the JWST who worked with the investigation. “It was a special moment, crossing an important threshold in exoplanet sciences.”
The research team used one of Webb’s four peerless instruments, known as the Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec).
CONTINUE EXPLORING: Scientists Stunned by New Jupiter Images With Galaxies ‘Photobombing’ the Webb Telescope
In the resulting spectrum of the exoplanet’s atmosphere, a small reading between 4.1 and 4.6 microns presented the first clear, detailed evidence for carbon dioxide ever detected in a planet outside the solar system.
Access to this part of the spectrum is crucial for measuring abundances of gases like water and methane, as well as carbon dioxide, which are thought to exist in many different types of exoplanets.
“Carbon dioxide molecules are sensitive tracers of the story of planet formation,” said Mike Line of Arizona State University, another member of this research team.
“By measuring this carbon dioxide feature, we can determine how much solid versus how much gaseous material was used to form this gas giant planet. In the coming decade, JWST will make this measurement for a variety of planets, providing insight into the details of how planets form and the uniqueness of our own solar system.”
It’s also entirely fundamental to life’s processes on Earth at both higher and foundational orders—an inescapable constant in our bodies, ecosystems, and technology.
WATCH: Travel 2,000 Light-Years in 60 Seconds With New Video From NASA’s Webb Telescope
With a great demand for Webb’s unparalleled capabilities among scientists, Line and Rustamkulov are part of the “Early Science Release Team” whose job is to make robust and foundational observations with Webb and release them as swiftly as possible to the astronomy community.
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Droughts aren’t all bad. Sometimes the receding of rivers reveals amazing things, such as the tracks of a meat-eating giant that roamed Cretaceous-Era Texas 113 million years ago.
Prints mostly left by the Acrocanthosaurus—a theropod that stood 15 feet and weighed 7 tons have emerged in recent weeks as the Paluxy River has dried up almost entirely in most parts of Dinosaur Valley State Park in Glen Rose, Texas.
Dinosaur Valley State Park is rather unique, says Paleontologist Timothy Rose. Visitors are given buckets with glass bottoms and encouraged to roll their pantlegs up, kick off their shoes, and go have a look through the bucket at the tracks which were known to science before the recent drought.
However what the drought did do is reveal dozens more tracks than anyone knew existed.
Arcocanthosaurus was a big impressive dinosaur that would have looked like T-Rex, only a bit smaller, with three toes instead of two, and an array of impressive spines on its back.
READ ALSO: 100 Million-Year-Old Footprints of Giant Dinosaur Found at Restaurant in China
Definite Acrocanthosaurus fossils have been found in the Twin Mountains Formation of northern Texas, the Antlers Formation of southern Oklahoma, and the Cloverly Formation of north-central Wyoming and possibly even the Arundel Formation in Maryland.
Rose, speaking to Australian news at the time, explained the tracks show the animals moving around slowly, perhaps hunting, perhaps not, but the lack of any fast or leaping movements is clear.
TAKE an intimate look at the tracks in the video below…
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Quote of the Day: “We create ourselves by what we choose to notice.” – Margaret Wheatley
Photo by: Warren Wong
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?
Scientists in Australia have achieved the first-ever offseason coral spawning in the history of coral breeding and restoration sciences.
The breakthrough dramatically expands the capacity to grow corals in captivity to then use to restore the Great Barrier Reef, since it allows the scientists to spawn coral 50% more often than in nature.
At the Australian Institute of Marine Sciences, coral colonies are kept in captivity with the hopes of one day transplanting them to the biggest reef on earth. Out on the GBR, coral spawning happens only twice a year, between October and December.
At the Institute’s Townsville lab, coral have now reproduced in the middle of winter, thanks to artificial moonlight and controlled temperatures which convinced the 43 lab corals the time was right, despite being 6-months ahead of schedule.
“We’re going to have a lot of opportunities to advance coral reproductive biology,” senior aquarist Lonidas Koukoumaftsis told ABC Australia. “Normally we can only explore this once a year in the summer period.”
Corals, guided by seasonal warming, moon phases and tides, release egg and sperm into the water around the same time to create new corals. In the Institute’s National Sea Simulator (SeaSim) some corals were subjected to artificial conditions for the purpose of seeing if they could spawn during another period before eventually being transplanted back to the coral.
“At the moment we only have about two times a year we can generate these juvenile corals and then plant them on the reef,” said Koukoumaftsis “Possibly in the future we can increase that ability to restore the reef.”
READ ALSO: Parts of the Great Barrier Reef Show Highest Coral Cover in 36 Years
The natural coral spawning on the GBR, which takes place normally under the cover of darkness, yet with the help of a full moon, is one of the planet’s most incredible natural phenomena.
SPAWN A Bit Of Enthusiasm On Social Media With This Story…
A all-female Lebanese dance troupe promised to hypnotize the judges on America’s Got Talent: a bold call before performing for someone as notoriously spikey as Simon Cowell.
The “Mayyas” lined up in single file after answering some questions, before proceeding to do just that; wowing the judges and winning a Golden Buzzer from Sophia Vergara.
“It was the most creative dance I’ve ever seen,” the latter said when it was all over.
The Mayyas, which means “proud walk of the lioness” in Arabic, carried out what was essentially a giant illusion with their synchronized movements.
“Seeing the Mayyas in America’s Got Talent is the most beautiful feeling I’ve ever felt,” Nadim Cherfam, founder of the Mayyas, says in a video. “Lebanon is not considered a place where you can build a career out of dancing. It’s hard. Really hard. [And] it’s harder for women.”
Winning the Golden Buzzer means the Mayyas are placed in the Live rounds of the show, and have a chance at making the finals.
WATCH the performance on the troupe’s Instagram…
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HYPNOTIZE Your Friends On Social Media With This Knockout Performance…
There’re 3D-printed homes, and there’re prefabricated homes. Take the best of both technologies, throw in a groundbreaking use for discarded plastic, and you have a genius idea.
Born in Culver City, the startup Azure is mostly using recycled plastic water and drink bottles to create homes that are 90% complete by the time they leave the factory.
By blending the manufacturing speed of 3D-printing with the assembly speed and modular possibilities given by prefabrication, Azure’s houses are a game changer for sustainability in the housing industry.
The startup says it can build homes 70% faster and 30% cheaper than “traditional home construction methods” by 3D printing the floor, roof, and walls of its models inside its factory.
Practically all that’s left to be done at the build site is to connect the prefab panels to each other, and to the foundation, and connect the utilities.
In April, Azure unveiled what it called the world’s first 3D-printed building with recycled plastic materials. It was a small addition, meant to be marketed as a gym or outdoor office, and priced at $25,000, while the larger “accessory dwelling unit” (ADU) or what is essentially a one-bed one-bath comes in at $40,000.
A rush of pre-orders for the ADU has left Azure’s Culver City factory backed up for 3-months as it waits for the rest of the equipment it needs to begin mass producing the houses.
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At the moment the company has a number of partners who provide plastic waste recycled from industry, but it hopes to shift more towards plastic waste generated by consumers.
By December Azure hopes to have 14 of their print-prefab houses arranged in a community in partnership with an LA real estate company, and by 2024 be able to manufacture bigger ADUs.
Once the concept is firmly established and revenue is stable, they also want to turn their technology towards helping to end the homelessness epidemic of California.
“3D printing is a more efficient way of building and it should only get better as we develop the processes, technology, and materials further,” Co-founder Ross Maguire told Business Insider. “I can only see it becoming more and more prominent in [construction] as we move forward.”
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Quote of the Day: “If you find yourself drawn to an event against all logic, go. The universe is telling you something.” – Gloria Steinem
Photo by: Peppe Ragusa
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?
Some old tech was able to make a new connection for a little English girl who got to speak with an orbiting astronaut after her dad hailed him on a Ham radio.
It was August 2nd when Isabella Payne had just settled down for her “beauty sleep.” But her father, Matthew, knew that since they shared a passion for space and radio communications, a brief opportunity to hail American astronaut Kjell Lindgren was not to be missed.
Dragging Isabella out of bed, the pair ran to the radio bench.
“I was like ‘Why are you doing this to me? I need my beauty sleep,'” Isabella told CNN on Wednesday.
Aboard the International Space Station, a Ham radio station is maintained so that astronauts can occasionally talk with people on the ground—usually schools—through classic radio communications.
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Such exchanges are typically brief, with operators giving over their radio’s unique callsign, a name and location, a thank you and a goodbye. However when Lindgren, who just happened to be passing over Kent that night, heard Isabella’s name and age, his voice changed from routine to joyful.
The astronaut took to Twitter and said it might have been his favorite contact so far.
I've had a lot of fun using the #ARISS amateur radio station #NA1SS on the @Space_Station to talk with ham radio operators all over the world. I've even (unofficially) worked stations on all continents! But this may be my favorite contact so far. Thanks Isabella and @m0lmk! https://t.co/Z2pWUbEZZr
— Kjell Lindgren (@astro_kjell) August 2, 2022
“I was elated when I heard his voice,” Isabella told CNN. “I thought it was a dream.”
Isabella shares her father’s passion for space and radio, and watches every launch and spacewalk from her usual position on his knee at the radio desk.
They’ve shared that special bond all their life, even when Mr. Payne helped a school radio British astronaut Tim Peake aboard the ISS in 2016, when little Isabella was just 2-years-old—she maintained the front-knee seat for the event.
Her dream is to become a communications specialist with a space agency so she can replicate her exchange with Lindgren as many times as she’d like.
COMMUNICATE This Inspired Little Girl’s Encounter With Your Friends…
Even though the English government recently announced a ban on garden hose watering in the west of the country, Peter Harden has kept right on hosing worry-free.
That’s because Harden has been storing rainwater in large catch thanks for almost 50 years, and with 6,000 liters (1,500 gallons) of water available to him, his paddock is the greenest on the block.
An 82-year-old retired teacher, Peter Harden has lived in his bungalow for 52 years, and said he installed his first rainwater catch tanks after a famous English drought in 1976.
The keen gardener noticed droughts in the UK were getting more intense and became inspired to take precautions by he and his wife’s holidays to Europe.
“Our holidays abroad in Europe over 50 years frequently included cultural visits to ancient Greek and Roman towns,” said Harden. “We were always impressed by the huge number of domestic underground cisterns that the Romans et al. pre-built to catch rainwater for very dry summers.”
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“With this experience in mind, I gradually increased the number and size of my rainwater catch tanks until about 15 years ago when I had nine 375 liter capacity tanks fed directly by rainwater from the bungalow’s guttering.”
But why such dedication? Peter lives in one of the driest areas in the UK. The clay beneath his property in Ingoldsby, Lincolnshire, does hold water, but as soon as the UK gets a drought the clay starts to crack.
Now the region is experiencing its worst drought in 26 years, and to protect municipal water reserves, a hose pipe ban has been introduced in parts of the West Country.
“We live in an area with one of the lowest mean rainfalls in the country. We get a circa of 22 inches per year,” said Harden, who about eight years ago supplemented his 9 catch tanks with two more, 1,000 liter (250 gallon) intermediate bulk containers, before adding another pair just recently.
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The bulk water containers sit at the bottom of the garden and are filled directly by garden hose from some of the 375-liter catch tanks.
“Using an electrically-powered submersible water pump, I pump water through a garden hose from one of the tanks through a spray attached to the garden hose,” he explained.
“As the level of water falls in the one tank it levels out in the other tanks through gravity feed through the interconnected pipes.
“Three of my original 375-liter tanks have since become unserviceable and I am waiting to replace them. I also am trying to buy two more 1,000 liter bulk containers to increase my water storage volume.”
Not slowing down, he says he aims to store 9,000 liters soon.
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Imagine being able to generate electricity by harnessing moisture in the air around you with just everyday items like sea salt and a piece of fabric.
That’s just what a team of researchers from Singapore has shown, having developed a moisture-driven battery made of a thin layer of fabric, sea salt, carbon ink, and a special water-absorbing gel.
About 0.3 millimeters in thickness, the moisture-driven electricity generation device, or MEG, is built upon the ability of different materials to generate electricity from the interaction with moisture in the air, and could potentially fit a wide range of real-world applications, including wearable electronics like health monitors, electronic skin sensors, and information storage devices.
Such devices have already been developed, but face major challenges with balancing and maintaining moisture content between where it shouldn’t be and where it needs to be.
Now, a research team led by Assistant Professor Tan Swee Ching from the National University of Singapore’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering have devised a novel MEG device that can perpetually maintain a difference in water content and generate electrical output for hundreds of hours.
The team’s MEG device consists of a thin layer of fabric which was coated with carbon nanoparticles. In their study, the team used a commercially available fabric made of wood pulp and polyester.
One region of the fabric is coated with a hygroscopic ionic hydrogel, and this region is known as the wet region. Made using sea salt, the special water-absorbing gel can absorb more than six times its original weight, and it is used to harvest moisture from the air.
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“Sea salt was chosen as the water-absorbing compound due to its non-toxic properties and its potential to provide a sustainable option for desalination plants to dispose of the generated sea salt and brine,” shared Assistant Professor Tan.
The other end of the fabric is the dry region which does not contain a hygroscopic ionic hydrogel layer. This is to ensure that this region is kept dry and water is confined to the wet region.
Once the MEG device is assembled, electricity is generated when the ions of sea salt are separated as water is absorbed in the wet region. Free ions with a positive charge are absorbed by the carbon nanoparticles which are negatively charged. This causes changes to the surface of the fabric, generating an electric field across it.
Using a unique design of wet-dry regions, the team showed they could sustain electrical output even when the wet region was saturated with water. After being left in an open humid environment for 30 days, water was still maintained in the wet region demonstrating the effectiveness of the device in sustaining electrical output.
“With this unique asymmetric structure, the electric performance of our MEG device is significantly improved in comparison with prior MEG technologies, thus making it possible to power many common electronic devices, such as health monitors and wearable electronics,” explained Tan.
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The MEG device has immediate applications due to its ease of scalability and commercially available raw materials. One of the most immediate applications is for use as a portable power source for the portable-powering of electronics directly by ambient humidity.
By connecting three pieces of the power-generating fabric together and placing them into a 3D printed case that was the size of a standard AA battery, the voltage of the assembled device was tested to reach as high as 1.96V—higher than a commercial AA battery of about 1.5V—and enough to power small electronic devices such as an alarm clock.
The scalability of the NUS invention, the convenience of obtaining commercially available raw materials as well as the low fabrication cost of about SIN$0.15 per square meter make the MEG device suitable for mass production.
“Our device shows excellent scalability at a low fabrication cost. Compared to other MEG structures and devices, our invention is simpler and easier for scaling-up integrations and connections. We believe it holds vast promise for commercialization,” said Tan.
CHARGE Up Your Friends With This Awesome Innovation…
With giant storms, powerful winds, auroras, and extreme temperature and pressure conditions, Jupiter has a lot going on—and NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has captured some incredible new images of the planet.
“We hadn’t really expected it to be this good, to be honest,” said planetary astronomer Imke de Pater, professor emerita of the University of California, Berkeley, who led the observations of Jupiter with Thierry Fouchet, of the Paris Observatory.
“It’s really remarkable that we can see details on Jupiter together with its rings, tiny satellites, and even galaxies in one image,” she said.
The two images come from the observatory’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam), which has three specialized infrared filters that showcase details of the planet.
In the wide-field view (above), Webb sees Jupiter with its faint rings, which are a million times fainter than the planet, and two tiny moons called Amalthea and Adrastea. The fuzzy spots in the lower background are likely galaxies “photobombing” this Jovian view.
“This one image sums up the science of our Jupiter system program, which studies the dynamics and chemistry of Jupiter itself, its rings, and its satellite system,” Fouchet said.
In the standalone view of Jupiter below, created from a composite of several images from Webb, dreamy auroras extend to altitudes high above both the northern and southern poles of Jupiter.
Since infrared light is invisible to the human eye, the light has been mapped onto the visible spectrum using three filters.
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The auroras shine in a filter that is mapped to redder colors, which also highlights light reflected from lower clouds and upper hazes. A different filter, mapped to yellows and greens, shows hazes swirling around the northern and southern poles. A third filter, mapped to blues, showcases light that is reflected from a deeper main cloud.
The Great Red Spot, a famous storm so big it could swallow Earth, appears white in these views, as do other clouds, because they are reflecting a lot of sunlight.
“The brightness here indicates high altitude, so the Great Red Spot has high-altitude hazes, as does the equatorial region,” said Heidi Hammel, Webb interdisciplinary scientist for solar system observations. “The numerous bright white ‘spots’ and ‘streaks’ are likely very high-altitude cloud tops of condensed convective storms.” By contrast, dark ribbons north of the equatorial region have little cloud cover.
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Scientists collaborated with citizen scientist Judy Schmidt to translate the Webb data into processed images. Together, the researchers have already begun analyzing Webb data to log new science about our solar system’s largest planet—and more clues to its inner life.
Webb is an international mission led by NASA with its partners ESA (European Space Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency). Learn more at NASA Blogs.
WATCH more images in the Reuters video below… (Note: GNN is not affiliated with any of their ads.)
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