Quote of the Day: “What men and women need is encouragement. Instead of always harping on a man’s faults, tell him of his virtues. Hold up to him his better self.” – Eleanor H. Porter (Pollyanna)
Photo: by Count Chris
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?
Possessing parallel tracts of stunning and unspoiled lands, Canadian healthcare practitioners are joining onto an American movement to prescribe national parks to improve their patients’ physical and mental health.
PaRx Canada now consists of over 1,000 physicians, nurses, and other medical professionals in B.C., Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Ontario who can prescribe the annual Adult Parks Canada Discovery Pass from the Canadian parks authority—which is normally $72.25 annually for adults aged 18-64 and $61.75 for seniors (65+).
The pass gives people free entrance to over 80 national parks, national historic sites, and national marine conservation areas—and the nature prescription program is expected to spread across every province and territory by the end of 2022.
As a growing body of evidence began to find that being in nature can have a profound influence on our health and well-being, Park Prescriptions America began as a grassroots movement in the United States over a decade ago, and has now spread to countries around the world.
In the States, the program allows physicians to use zip codes to find nearby parks to prescribe to patients. Once a script has been written, through a simple software it’s easy for physicians to send reminders to fulfill it, and to track how many times a patient has visited the prescribed park.
Park Prescriptions Canada, founded in 2020, is the first such organization in the Great White North.
“There are no costs to patients for participating in our program,” a spokesperson for PaRx told GNN. “Participating healthcare providers have the opportunity to prescribe an Adult Parks Canada Discovery Pass, which provides free admission to over 80 locations,” they said, adding that various park-like spaces within major cities, such as the University of British Colombia Botanical Gardens, will also be free under the program.
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“We are very lucky in Canada to have a world of beautiful natural spaces at our doorstep to enjoy healthy outdoor activities. Medical research now clearly shows the positive health benefits of connecting with nature. This exciting collaboration with PaRx is a breakthrough for how we treat mental and physical health challenges, and couldn’t come at a better time… ” said Steven Guilbeault, Minister of Environment and Climate Change and Minister responsible for Parks Canada in a statement.
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A University of Saskatchewan student, speaking with CBC news, described the idea that nature should be looked at as the “fourth pillar” of health, alongside diet, exercise, and sleep.
Dr. Melissa Lem, a Vancouver-based family physician who launched PaRX in Canada with the BC Parks Foundation, has described being proud to help grow Canada’s first national, evidence-based nature prescription program.
She told reporters that PaRX is hoping to expand the nature prescription to include transportation options that stop at or include parks on their transit lines. This way those inside major cities, or people who may not have access to a car, can share in nature’s benefits.
(WATCH the CBC video for this story below.)
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A good night’s sleep helps cut appetite by up to 500 calories a day, according to a new study.
Getting enough sleep could save millions of people from putting on unwanted weight, say scientists.
It is estimated that two out of every three men and six out of 10 women in England are either obese or overweight.
Obesity increases a person’s chances of suffering from mental health problems and has been linked with heart conditions, diabetes, and cancer, all leading causes of death.
Now scientists at the University of Chicago Medicine have come up with a simple solution which many people are likely to welcome; that’s getting more snoozing in.
Author Dr Esra Tasali said, “Over the years, we and others have shown that sleep restriction has an effect on appetite regulation that leads to increased food intake, and thus puts you at risk for weight gain over time.
“More recently, the question that everyone was asking was, ‘Well, if this is what happens with sleep loss, can we extend sleep and reverse some of these adverse outcomes?’”
The researchers recruited 80 young, overweight adults, who would usually only sleep for six and half hours a night.
They were asked to wear a sleep monitor and given counseling sessions to bring their shut eye up to eight and half hours per night.
This way, participants were able to continue sleeping in their own beds and did not have to change their diets.
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Dr Tasali said, “Most other studies on this topic in labs are short-lived, for a couple of days, and food intake is measured by how much participants consume from an offered diet.
“In our study, we only manipulated sleep, and had the participants eat whatever they wanted, with no food logging or anything else to track their nutrition by themselves.”
Participants increased their average sleep duration by over an hour a night after just one counseling session.
To track their calorie intake, the researchers used a special urine test called the “doubly labelled water method.”
It involves giving participants water where the hydrogen and oxygen atoms have been replaced with less common harmless substances.
Senior author Professor Dale Schoeller said, “This is considered the gold standard for objectively measuring daily energy expenditure in a non-laboratory, real-world setting and it has changed the way human obesity is studied.”
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People who get more sleep reduce their calorie intake by an average of 270 kcal per day, with some even cutting out 500, the researchers found.
This translates to roughly 12 kg [26 lbs] of weight loss over three years, provided the effects were maintained over a long term.
Dr Tasali said, “We saw that after just a single sleep counselling session, participants could change their bedtime habits enough to lead to an increase in sleep duration.
“We simply coached each individual on good sleep hygiene, and discussed their own personal sleep environments, providing tailored advice on changes they could make to improve their sleep duration.
“Importantly, to blind participants to sleep intervention, recruitment materials did not mention sleep intervention, allowing us to capture true habitual sleep patterns at baseline.”
The study lasted four weeks, with the first two being dedicated to finding out how many hours participants enjoyed.
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Dr Tasali said, “This was not a weight-loss study.
“But even within just two weeks, we have quantified evidence showing a decrease in caloric intake and a negative energy balance—caloric intake is less than calories burned.”
A healthy sleep pattern could therefore be used to combat obesity, which affects around 13 percent of the world’s population.
Dr Tasali said, “If healthy sleep habits are maintained over longer duration, this would lead to clinically important weight loss over time.
“Many people are working hard to find ways to decrease their caloric intake to lose weight —well, just by sleeping more, you may be able to reduce it substantially.”
The findings were published in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine.
HELP Your Friends Sleep Soundly; Share This Study…
Marine biologists have found that $8 green LED lights affixed to fishermen’s gill nets were enough to dissuade huge amounts of sea animals like turtles, rays, and sharks from ever swimming toward the nets.
Originally tested by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on sea turtles off the coast of Hawai’i, they are proving even more effective on squid and the elasmobranch family, which contains sharks and rays.
Gill nets are indiscriminate, and fishermen end up catching marine life without meaning to, after they get entangled and sometimes killed in the nets.
Jesse Senko, a biologist at the State University of Arizona’s School of Life Sciences, found that just a few green lights reduced the amount of elasmobranch and squid caught in fisherman’s nets by 95% and 81% respectively.
The endangered loggerhead sea turtle also fared well, with the green glowing nets reducing their incidence of bycatch by 51%.
Furthermore, even non-game species of fish steered clear of the green light more than in the unlit control nets. Overall, the lit nets reduced all bycatch by 63%.
“We were stunned with our findings,” one researcher told Reuters.
In their study published in Cell, Senko and the rest of the research team compared 5,000 lit nets to 5,000 unlit nets off the coast of the Baja Peninsula in Mexico, where several species of sharks and rays are declining due to bycatch, including the devil and manta rays.
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Somehow, even though regular non-game fish were reduced, there was no difference statistically in the amount of game species caught in the lit and unlit nets, meaning there was no change to fishermen’s income.
“Regardless, the increased operational efficiency and reduction in total bycatch could justify the costs to fishers that convert to illuminated nets. In cases of high biodiversity and conservation importance, governments and NGOs could subsidize their adoption,” Senko wrote.
“In other gillnet fisheries, net illumination has been estimated to cost as little as $16 to $34 to prevent a sea turtle bycatch event. We encourage conservation practitioners, fishery managers, and other stakeholders to work with industry to develop new technologies, domestically manufacture LED lights, and seek new methods to increase efficiency and availability.”
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One of the unexpected and rather cool reactions of reducing this bycatch was the amount of time it took to haul in and untangle nets, saving an average of 63 minutes per trip.
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Just because a book’s not on the bestseller list doesn’t mean it can’t be the most popular read in town. At one library in Boise, Idaho there’s a years-long waiting list for one title. You’d think they’d order another copy, right?
Well, they can’t because, technically speaking, the book’s never been published.
Its author, an 8-year-old second-grader named Dillon Helbig, surreptitiously slipped his hand-written, 81-page, self-illustrated masterpiece into the stacks of the children’s section of his local library because he simply wanted to share the holiday-themed story he’d created with other kids.
Dillon, a regular patron, was on a visit to the Ada Community Library’s Hazel Branch when he deposited the lone copy of The Adventures of Dillon Helbig’s Crismis (signed “by Dillon His Self”) between some other picture books on the shelves. His random act of literature went unnoticed at the time… but not for long.
When Dillon got home, he confessed the day’s exploits to his mom, Susan. She wasn’t surprised by what he’d done. She knew Dillon had long harbored a hankering to add his name to the ranks of the library’s authors.
“I’ve been wanting to put a book in the library since I was 5,” Dillon told KTVB-7 News.
Concerned that Dillon’s book would be discarded or lost, Susan contacted the library to see if they’d found it and would hold onto it for them. She was in for a bit of a surprise.
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Not only had the staff found it, they thought it was pretty exceptional and even though the circumstances were unusual, they felt it would be a perfect addition to their collection. (The fact Branch manager Alex Hartman’s 6-year-old son Cruzen gave the fantastical tale that includes Santa Claus, an exploding Christmas tree ornament, time travel, and a giant turkey an enthusiastic thumbs up probably didn’t hurt.)
“Dillon is a confident guy and a generous guy. He wanted to share the story,” Hartman told The Washington Post. “I don’t think it’s a self-promotion thing. He just genuinely wanted other people to be able to enjoy his story… He’s been a lifelong library user, so he knows how books are shared.”
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With an official bar code and labels affixed to its distinctive red cover, Dillon’s wish of earning a place in the library’s card catalog came true. Before long, The Adventures of Dillon Helbig’s Crismis proved so popular, it had one of the longest waiting lists in the library’s history.
For his efforts, the library awarded Dillon its inaugural Whoodini Award for Best Young Novelist. Named for the library’s owl mascot, it was a category created just for him.
While readers as far away as Texas had hoped to have the chance to borrow the coveted title through an exchange program, with only one copy, that wasn’t possible. To meet the demand, Hartman and Dillon’s mom are exploring options for an e-book version so the book can be loaned out to a broader audience.
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Flush with success, Dillon isn’t resting on his laurels. He’s already working on his next opus. “It’s about a jacket-eating closet,” he told TODAY.
With his boundless imagination combined an unstoppable determination, at 8, Dillon Helbig is already a literary force to be reckoned with. We can hardly wait to see what he accomplishes when he grows up.
HELP Pals See the World Through a Child’s Eyes; Share This Sweet Story…
Quote of the Day: “Without imagination, love stales into sentiment, duty, boredom. Relationships fail not because we have stopped loving but because we stopped imagining.” – James Hillman
Photo: by Everton Vila
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?
This curious cat is living the dream after his owner splashed out £1,800 ($2,400) transforming his fish tank into a ‘mini SeaWorld’—so he can spend every day pawing at the fish through an underwater viewing chamber.
Jasper the Siamese cat used to spend hours entranced by Melissa Krieger’s exotic pets as he gazed through the saltwater enclosure from a dining room chair.
When the 53-year-old’s fish supplier Jason Hering was cleaning the tank late last year, the pair devised a plan to build a unique design so the intrigued feline could feel he’s underwater too.
Jason, who cleans Melissa’s multiple tanks every fortnight, spent 16 hours molding the new tank’s see-through acrylic panes and building its wooden base before fitting it in December.
Adorable viral footage shows three-year-old Jasper sitting upright on a cushion beneath the purpose-built acrylic case with only his head poking through a cube-shaped hatch.
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The mesmerized kitty looks up and around the tank at the array of colorful fish and he even paws at the hatch to try and touch the tropical pets—just like a child at an aquarium.
Mom-of-four Melissa shared her video at the end of January on Facebook, and since then it’s been widely shared racking up more than 10 million views.
She insists of the 125-gallon tank that “it’s definitely been worth the money” to keep her “easily bored” feline occupied.
Jasper and the family’s other Siamese cat Willow were a little anxious giving their hatch a try at first, but last month Jasper braved the unknown.
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Melissa, from Cincinnati in Ohio, said, “It’s great to see him so happy because you’ve got to stimulate their brains.
Of the steep cost she said, “You spend that much on a TV and this is like a TV for cats. As soon as we feed the fish, he comes running. He’s living the dream.”
Describing Jasper’s first experience with the tank, she said, “His eyes just got huge when he looked up and saw the parrotfish and they were staring back at him. That’s what made him want to go inside it more.”
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Now the videos of Jasper have gone internet-famous, here’s what commenters have been saying:
Lizzie Beth: “This is the most amazing aquarium modification, EVER!!!!”
Vicki Pedeferri: “Great idea! Keep your feline entertained all day.”
(WATCH the fun video for this story below.)
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A retiree rescuer hiked half a kilometer through a winter whiteout to reach a woman that had used social media to alert the local neighborhood that she was stuck and afraid for her safety.
At 80-years old, Andre Bouvier Sr. is being hailed as a hero for rescuing not only the woman, but three other cars likewise stuck in an impassable blizzard which locals describe as a “Saskatchewan Screamer.”
Many have had the same thought as Shannon St. Onge when looking at the approach of snow on a weather forecast—that they have time to finish their errands. The director of finance at the First Nations University of Canada, her signature on a check required her to drive her usual commute of 25 kilometers (15 miles) from her home in Pense, over to the city of Regina.
As she was leaving, the winter snow began to fall, and taking a dirt road for better traction on her tires, she quickly became lost, with no ability to see more than a sliver of the road’s edge from a rolled-down window. After a while she stopped and called 911, with the operator suggesting she wait out the storm as her tank was full and she was warm.
“She (the operator) took my information and told me an officer would call me back. Almost 14 hours and counting and nobody has called me yet to check in,” she wrote in a Facebook post.
“Would the gas tank last until morning? What if I was hit by another vehicle? What if I fell asleep and the tailpipe was blocked? What if I didn’t make it home at all?” St. Onge wondered.
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Determined to ensure the safest end to her turn for the worse, she went out in the storm and discovered her location on a road sign, then found a neighborhood Facebook group for the area she was passing through—alerting those it contained of her plight through a Google Maps pin.
That’s when Andre Bouvier Sr., doing some at-home genealogy research, got a call about St. Onge’s situation, and bundling up while ignoring his wife’s concern for his safety, the 80-year-old went out to find her, on foot, since he couldn’t manage to start his tractor.
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On the way he found three other stranded vehicles, totaling seven people, and walking the quarter mile there and back, he led the helpless cars one by one to his home.
“Once we arrived to [his] house, and I parked the car, I got out and jumped into his arms and gave him a great big bear hug,” St. Onge told CBC News. “I was sobbing with gratitude, I was so grateful.”
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Bouvier let the survivors sleep at his house, where they ate and laughed, and departed the next morning after he had plowed the driveway.
Bouvier remarked that everyone would have done the same, and that it took very few thoughts or courage to help.
(WATCH the CBC video for this story below.)
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With salmon spawning rivers in Scotland reaching record temperatures, the country has launched a mass native tree-planting campaign to cloak the shallows in shade in order to protect the frigid waters the salmon prefer.
Last spawning season for at least one day, the water temperatures in 70% of the spawning grounds were recorded as “too high” for salmon eggs to survive. But freshwater biologists discovered that only 30% of the riverine mileage had adequate tree cover to keep water temperatures cool throughout the day.
There are a total of 64,000 miles (103,000 km) of salmon river habitat in Scotland, and the tree planting is hoped to increase the overall biodiversity of insect, bird, and plant life along them.
The tree nurseries include aspen, willow, hawthorn, Scots pine, native rowan, juniper, and birch, and will start with 250,000 individuals and grow to more than a million. The areas are to be fenced off to prevent them being eaten by deer.
The angling season just started for salmon along rivers like the Dee, in Aberdeenshire, near Cairngorms National Park. Deeside is one of the world’s most famous salmon fishing rivers, and it’s estimated to provide between £5-6 million ($7-8 million) annually to the local communities.
“We need more people fishing, not just women and children,” local angler Cameron Stewart told the Guardian. “We gain so much from it. Just being outside and being in the wild. Even if you don’t catch anything, you come back from the day fulfilled.”
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The River Dee is not the first river to feature these tree planting programs to create shade. Fishery boards across the country have experimented with shade tree planting and seen benefits in biodiversity.
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Cannabis could hold the key to preventing neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s, as it contains a chemical that protects brain cells against aging, according to new research.
What’s more, the ‘miracle compound’ CBN (cannabinol) is non-psychoactive. In other words, it doesn’t get people high.
Senior author Professor Pamela Maher said, “We’ve found cannabinol protects neurons from oxidative stress and cell death—two of the major contributors to Alzheimer’s.
“This discovery could one day lead to the development of new therapeutics for treating this disease and other neuro-degenerative disorders—like Parkinson’s disease.”
Studies on medical cannabis have focused on the active substances THC (delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol) and CBD (cannabidiol).
Little is known about the therapeutic powers of CBN—which is molecularly similar but less heavily regulated.
The team at The Salk Institute in California previously identified the neuro-protective properties. Now they have worked out the mechanism.
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Lab experiments showed CBN stops a type of cell death called oxitosis. The process is triggered by the loss of an antioxidant called glutathione.
In experiments, nerve cells were treated with CBN—before oxidative damage was stimulated.
Further analysis found CBN boosted mitochondria—the power stations of cells.
In damaged neurons, oxidation caused them to curl up like donuts—a change that’s been seen in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s.
Impregnating cells with CBN maintained their healthy shape—and kept them functioning well.
When the test was replicated in nerve cells with mitochondria removed, CBN was no longer effective—confirming the finding.
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Prof Maher said, “We were able to directly show maintenance of mitochondrial function was specifically required for the protective effects of the compound.”
The study also showed CBN did not activate cannabinoid receptor—which happens during a psychoactive response.
So medications containing it would work without causing the individual to become ‘high.’
First author Dr Zhibin Liang said,”CBN is not a controlled substance like THC—the psychotropic compound in cannabis.
“Evidence has shown CBN is safe in animals and humans. And because CBN works independently of cannabinoid receptors, it could also work in a wide variety of cells with ample therapeutic potential.”
The study has implications for a range of neuro-degenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s—which is also linked to glutathione loss.
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Prof Maher said, “Mitochondrial dysfunction is implicated in changes in various tissues—not just in the brain and aging.
“So the fact this compound is able to maintain mitochondrial function suggests it could have more benefits beyond the context of Alzheimer’s disease.”
She called for further research into CBN and other lesser-studied cannabinoids in the marijuana plant.
Prof Maher and colleagues are now seeing if they can reproduce the results in a pre-clinical mouse model.
The study is in Free Radical Biology and Medicine.
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Quote of the Day: “This world is your best teacher. There is a lesson in everything. There is a lesson in each experience. Learn it and become wise.” – Sivananda
Photo: by Suhash Villuri
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 mom says her mother’s instinct saved her unborn baby’s life—after she rushed to hospital convinced something was wrong despite showing no warning signs.
43-year-old Jemma Austin had a gut feeling that something wasn’t quite right when she was 22 weeks pregnant.
Jemma said, “I was on a walk with the dog and I just had this feeling I should go and see my consultant. I didn’t have any symptoms, but I just knew I should go in. I couldn’t ignore it. It was a mother’s instinct.
Jemma and her partner, Paul Jordan had been trying for a baby for five years, and had gone through two rounds of IVF.
It was lucky she did go in, as the doctors found that her cervix was open and measuring 8mm.
“They asked me why I came in,” she said. “Was I in any pain? But I just said it was my instinct.”
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The medical team managed to put a cervical stitch in, and Jemma stayed on bed rest in Worcestershire Royal Hospital for two weeks until she went into labor at 24 weeks.
The couple’s baby boy, named Axel, was born 14 weeks early on February 12, 2020, weighing just 1lb 7oz.
“He was so tiny when he was born. I got to hold him for just a moment before he was taken away. It was so up and down but he pulled through.
Both Jemma and Axel battled sepsis after the birth and their baby boy had a seizure in his first week.
“He was on and off his ventilator,” Jemma said. “But he was such a little fighter. I knew he’d make it.”
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Axel spent 107 days in the hospital, but finally came home with his parents last June.
Now he’s approaching his first birthday and is a happy little boy.
“He’s such a miracle,” Jemma said. “I feel so lucky to have him.”
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What better way to show kids that anything is possible than by setting a world record for most kiwifruits sliced over the duration of one minute, with a samurai sword, while standing on an exercise ball?
That’s just another week in the life of David Rush, one of the world’s most prolific Guinness World Record holders with over 200 titles, and now the owner of what is probably a world record in its own right: breaking a Guinness World Record every week for all 52 weeks in a year.
The process is thorough and complicated and will take much longer than 52 weeks to verify, but NPR confirms that Guinness has so far approved 43 of Rush’s 52 submitted records.
Throughout 2021 Rush, an author, speaker, entertainer, and STEM advocate from MIT, wanted to help inspire kids to pursue STEM education and not to get discouraged and give up. His method of communication was to break a variety of world records.
His YouTube channel features the aforementioned Kiwi-slicing, as well as a wide variety of juggling records such as fastest 100-meter dash while juggling blindfolded, longest time juggling three objects while standing on an exercise ball, most consecutive razor-sharp axes juggled and caught, and most thrown grapes caught in one’s mouth whilst juggling three objects.
There was also a variety of beat-the-clock records, like fastest time to set up a chessboard, most t-shirts put on in 30 seconds, most bars of wet soap stacked in one minute, and the fastest time to burst 10 balloons.
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“STEM is hard and when a student struggles with science or fails at math they may say they can never be an engineer,” he wrote. “In 2015 I broke my first GWR to create a tangible example for folks to show that if you set your mind to a goal, believe in yourself, and pursue it with a passion, you can accomplish nearly anything. Going on to break an average of 1 a week is an extension of that to inspire kids to pursue hard STEM subjects and anyone to pursue anything that’s hard.”
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He saved the hardest for last, which involved legitimate athletic ability, which was the fastest 100-meter dash while blindfolded. The principal challenge, Rush detailed, was staying within the track markers.
Guinness commented on Rush’s video record-breaking on his YouTube page. The organization expects 53 more records in 2022.
(WATCH the video showing a 52-week montage of Rush in his element.)
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A 75-year-old California man has, after ten years of observation, been declared free of cancer after an immune cell treatment wiped out his blood cancer and a decade passed without it returning.
The treatment is one of several next-generation treatments for cancer, called CAR-T cell therapy, which retrains one of the most effective immune cells to target cancer fast, and then stay on patrol for years, evolving to keep the cancer at bay.
“I’m doing great right now. I’m still very active. I was running half marathons until 2018,” Doug Olson who lives in Pleasanton, California, told local news. “This is a cure. And they don’t use the word lightly.”
In fact, it was only three weeks after the experimental treatment was administered that Olson’s University of Pennsylvania doctors, Carl June and David Porter, got to sit Olson down and tell him the good news that they were not able to find a single cancer cell in his body.
The cancer-fighting paradigm for years had been to attack cancer cells radioactively, or with other chemicals, due to the cancer’s ability to disguise itself from the host’s immune system. Now several methods of therapies that involve reconfiguring the immune system to do its job right are being used on thousands of patients.
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CAR stands for the protein “chimeric antigen receptors” which can detect tumors and allow the T-cells to attack them. They’re extracted from the patient, genetically-engineered to produce CAR, and then reintroduced. So far, five such treatments have been approved by the FDA to treat leukemias, lymphomas, and myelomas. Dr. June estimates that tens of thousands of people have received CAR-T cell treatment so far.
While it can cure people, it’s not a miracle cure. It remains expensive and technically demanding, while leading to only around 25%-35% of people into total remission, as is the case with Olson. Dr. June and Porter believe that with continual refinement, that percentage can increase.
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As for Olson, he’s regularly running with his son to try and keep himself in prime condition. “If my cancer was gone, I certainly didn’t want to die of a heart attack,” he told Nature.
(WATCH the ABC6 video for this story below.)
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Planets are usually not much younger than the stars around which they revolve. Take the Sun: it was born 4.6 billion years ago, and not long after that, Earth came into the world.
But KU Leuven astronomers have discovered that a completely different scenario is also possible. Even if they are near death, some types of stars can possibly still form planets. If this is confirmed, theories on planet formation will need to be adjusted.
Planets such as Earth, and all other planets in our solar system, were formed not long after the Sun. Our Sun started to burn 4.6 billion years ago, and in the next million years, the matter around it clumped into protoplanets.
The birth of the planets in that protoplanetary disc, a gigantic pancake made of dust and gas, so to speak, with the Sun in the middle, explains why they all orbit in the same plane.
But such discs of dust and gas needn’t necessarily only surround newborn stars. They can also develop independently from star formation, for example around binary stars of which one is dying (binary stars are two stars that orbit each other, also called a binary system).
When the end approaches for a medium-sized star (like the Sun), it catapults the outer part of its atmosphere into space, after which it slowly dies out as a so-called white dwarf. However, in the case of binary stars, the gravitational pull of the second star causes the matter ejected by the dying star to form a flat, rotating disc. Moreover, this disc strongly resembles the protoplanetary discs that astronomers observe around young stars elsewhere in the Milky Way.
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This we already knew. However, what is new is that the discs surrounding so-called evolved binary stars not uncommonly show signs that could point to planet formation, as discovered by an international team of astronomers led by KU Leuven researchers.
What’s more, their observations show that this is the case for one in ten of these binary stars. “In ten per cent of the evolved binary stars with discs we studied, we see a large cavity in the disc”, says KU Leuven astronomer Jacques Kluska. “This is an indication that something is floating around there that has collected all matter in the area of the cavity.”
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The clean-up of the matter could be the work of a planet. That planet might not have formed at the very beginning of one of the binary stars’ life, but at the very end. The astronomers moreover found further strong indications for the presence of such planets. “In the evolved binary stars with a large cavity in the disc, we saw that heavy elements such as iron were very scarce on the surface of the dying star”, says Kluska.
“This observation leads one to suspect that dust particles rich in these elements were trapped by a planet.” By the way, the Leuven astronomer doesn’t rule out the possibility that in this way, several planets can be formed around these binary stars.
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The discovery was made when the astronomers were drawing up an inventory of evolved binary stars in our Milky Way. They did that based on existing, publicly available observations. Kluska and his colleagues counted 85 of such binary star pairs. In ten pairs, the researchers came across a disc with a large cavity on the infrared images.
If new observations confirm the existence of planets around evolved binary stars, and if it turns out the planets were only formed after one of the stars had reached the end of its life, the theories on planet formation will need to be adjusted. “The confirmation or refutation of this extraordinary way of planet formation will be an unprecedented test for the current theories”, according to Professor Hans Van Winckel, head of the KU Leuven Institute of Astronomy.
The KU Leuven astronomers soon want to verify their hypothesis themselves. To this end, they will use the big telescopes of the European Southern Observatory in Chile to take a closer look at the ten pairs of binary stars whose discs show a large cavity.
The article about this discovery is published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.
Source: KU Leuven
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Replacing margarine, butter, mayonnaise, and dairy fat with olive oil was associated with lower mortality risk from diseases, according to a large new study.
Consuming more than 7 grams of olive oil daily (1 and 1/2 teaspoons) is associated with lower risk of mortality from cardiovascular disease, cancer, and neurodegenerative and respiratory diseases, according to a new study.
The study also found that a lower risk of mortality was associated with the replacement of 10 grams / 2 teaspoons per day of margarine, butter, mayonnaise, or dairy fat with the equivalent amount of olive oil.
Published January 10 in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, the findings were based on an analysis of participants from the Nurses’ Health Study, and the Health Professionals Follow-up Study. Researchers analyzed 60,582 women and 31,801 men who were free of cardiovascular disease and cancer at the study baseline in 1990.
During 28 years of follow-up, their diets were assessed by a questionnaire every four years. The questionnaire asked how often, on average, they consumed specific foods, types of fats and oils, as well as which brand or type of oils they used in the kitchen and at the table.
The findings support current dietary recommendations to increase the intake of olive oil and other unsaturated vegetable oils.
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“Clinicians should be counseling patients to replace certain fats, such as margarine and butter, with olive oil to improve their health,” said Marta Guasch-Ferré, PhD, a senior research scientist at the Department of Nutrition at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and the study’s lead author. “Our study helps make more specific recommendations that will be easier for patients to understand and hopefully implement into their diets.”
Olive oil consumption was calculated from the sum of three items in the questionnaire: olive oil used for salad dressings, olive oil added to food or bread, and olive oil used for baking and frying at home. One tablespoon was equivalent to 13.5 grams of olive oil.
The consumption of other vegetable oils was calculated based on the participants reported oil brand and type of fat used for cooking at home. Margarine and butter consumption was based on the reported frequency of stick, tub or soft margarine consumption, and the amount of margarine or butter added from baking and frying at home. Intakes of dairy and other fats and nutrients were also calculated.
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The researchers found olive oil consumption increased from 1.6 grams/day in 1990 to about 4 grams/day in 2010, while margarine consumption decreased from about 12 grams/day in 1990 to about 4 grams/day in 2010. The intake of other fats remained stable.
Participants with higher olive oil consumption were often more physically active, had Southern European or Mediterranean ancestry, were less likely to smoke, and had a greater consumption of fruits and vegetables compared to those with lower olive oil consumption.
The average consumption of total olive oil in the highest category was about 9 grams/day at baseline and included 5% of the study participants.
When researchers compared those who rarely or never consumed olive oil, those in the highest consumption category had 19% lower risk of cardiovascular mortality, 17% lower risk of cancer mortality, 29% lower risk of neurodegenerative mortality, and 18% lower risk of respiratory mortality.
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The study also found substituting 10 grams/day of other fats, such as margarine, butter, mayonnaise and dairy fat, with olive oil was associated with 8–34% lower risk of total and cause-specific mortality. They found no significant associations when substituting olive oil for other vegetable oils.
Over the course of 28 years, there were 36,856 deaths to examine that occurred in the Nurses’ Health Study and the Health Professionals Follow-up Study.
“It’s possible that higher olive oil consumption is a marker of an overall healthier diet and higher socioeconomic status. However, even after adjusting for these and other social economic status factors, our results remained largely the same,” Guasch-Ferré said.
He pointed out that the study cohort was predominantly a non-Hispanic white population of health professionals, which “should minimize potentially confounding socioeconomic factors, but may limit generalizability as this population may be more likely to lead a healthy lifestyle.”
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In an accompanying editorial, Susanna C. Larsson, PhD, associate professor of epidemiology at the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, added, “The current study and previous studies have found that consumption of olive oil may have health benefits. However, several questions remain. Are the associations causal or spurious? Is olive oil consumption protective for certain cardiovascular diseases, such as stroke and atrial fibrillation, only or also for other major diseases and causes of death? What is the amount of olive oil required for a protective effect? More research is needed to address these questions.”
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New research suggests that ancient trees possess far more than an awe-inspiring presence. They provide a suite of ecological services to forests, as well as sustaining the entire tree population’s ability to adapt to a rapidly changing environment.
In the February edition of Nature Plants, Chuck Cannon, PhD, director of The Morton Arboretum’s Center for Tree Science in Lisle, Illinois, reported that old and ancient trees (often more than 10 to 20 times older than nearby trees) radically change the overall genetic diversity and composition fitness of their surrounding populations.
Collaborating with scientists at Tuscia University in Italy and the University of Barcelona in Spain, he said the findings also indicate that these trees contribute evolutionary properties to forests that are vital to their long-term survival.
“We examined the demographic patterns that emerge from old-growth forests over thousands of years, and a very small proportion of trees emerge as life-history ‘lottery winners’ that reach far higher ages that bridge environmental cycles that span centuries,” said Cannon.
“In our models, these rare, ancient trees prove to be vital to a forest’s long-term adaptive capacity, substantially broadening the temporal span of the population’s overall genetic diversity.”
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These trees, which comprise less than 1% of a population, given model conditions, contribute a vitally important amount of genetic and biological diversity to a forest’s overall population, documenting a broad range of historical environmental conditions that span hundreds or even a thousand years.
To put it simply, according to the authors, ancient trees have survived countless environmental changes over hundreds or thousands of years, and in turn, this genetic resilience is passed on to the forest. Moreover, these old trees sequester a disproportionate amount of carbon compared to typical mature trees.
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The authors report that the death of ancient trees is more a random product of their environment rather than a predictable process.
According to the study, the researchers found in their models that the maximum age that trees could reach was particularly sensitive to the lower range of observed mortality rates. However, at higher mortality rates, like those that might be seen as resulting from climate changes, the ability of trees to reach the same impressive ages is limited.
“As the climate changes, it is likely that mortality rates in trees will increase, and it will become increasingly difficult for ancient trees to emerge in forests,” said the Morton Arboretum botanist.
The authors note that while forest restoration and tree planting efforts are important tools to improve both local and global environments, ancient trees cannot be recovered or regenerated without many centuries and generations of trees passing.
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“This study recalls the urgent need for a global strategy to conserve biodiversity, not only by preserving intact forests, but in particular the small remnant of a few ancient trees that have survived in managed forest landscapes,” concludes Gianluca Piovesan, a co-researcher at the Department of Ecological and Biological Sciences in the Università Tuscia, in Viterbo, Italy.
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A passerby is being hailed as a hero for risking his own life to help rescue a Wyoming family after their Jamestown home erupted into flames early Tuesday morning.
A 34-year-old mother and her four young children, ages 12, 8, 6 and 4, were asleep in their Jamestown house when a fire erupted in the home.
Ryan Pasborg was running late for work Tuesday morning as he traveled from his home in Green River towards town when he smelled smoke and saw flames coming from a bedroom window.
When he didn’t see any emergency lights, the 32-year-old decided to pull into the driveway where he saw a young girl and two boys leaving the house. The three children told Pasborg that their mother and 4-year-old little brother were still inside—and without hesitation he entered the residence through a garage door and stepped into the kitchen.
Pasborg told authorities that he could not see anything inside because of heavy smoke, so he crawled on his hands and knees on the floor several feet into the kitchen before he bumped into the small child. He immediately grabbed the boy around the waist, picked him up and carried him outside.
With a windchill temperature well below zero, Pasborg quickly put all four children in his truck to keep them warm before entering the burning home a second time, this time crawling through the kitchen deeper into the house in search of the children’s missing mother.
Moments later, Pasborg found the woman lying on the floor, badly burned and struggling to breath. After dragging her outside, he noticed that she was unresponsive and no longer breathing, so he began performing lifesaving measures until she suddenly took a gasp of air.
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Pasborg then drove the family away from the now raging fire to the end of the driveway near the highway and awaited the arrival of emergency first responders.
Sheriff Deputy Jason Mower said he could not recall ever witnessing such courage and selflessness as that displayed by Pasborg, who surely saved the lives of the young mother and son.
“I think this is the first time in nearly 15 years of law enforcement that I’ve ever heard of a total stranger truly going above and beyond in a way and in a situation that many wouldn’t have dared to face,” Mower said.
“Not only is it a blessing in its own right that Mr. Pasborg was in the right place at the right time, but his willingness without second thought to risk his own life to help save this family was the difference between life and death for this young mother and her child; he gave them a fighting chance,” said Sheriff John Grossnickle said in a statement.
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“There are no words to adequately express the magnitude of Ryan’s bravery other than he is a perfect example of what it means to be a real hero,” Grossnickle continued. “His actions speak volumes about the true content of his character, and people like Ryan are a testament to the overwhelming power and strength of community that we are so fortunate to share with one another as friends and neighbors here in Sweetwater County.”
Not only was his bravery on display, but his generosity and compassion. Pasborg later purchased several hundred dollars worth of clothing and necessities and delivered them to the family at their grandmother’s house.
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Three weeks ago, a man was caught in an amusing predicament after buying a pet rabbit.
“I went straight to a park,” explained YBS Bunny on YouTube, who was alone, at the time. “Bad idea.”
“Let’s say he gave me a run for my money. 😂”
He bought the rabbit to learn how to reconnect with the earth, by finding something to bond with.
“Then your bond, your connection, will extend to other things on the planet. People get ducks; people get cats; I chose a rabbit.”
Check out YBS Bunny’s epic chase around a tree, as he tries to capture his pet back in the box, in the video below.
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The white wabbit did finally depart the safety of the tree, and scampered into the open lawn—we’re hoping it got easier from there. YBS promised GNN an update tomorrow.
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