Quote of the Day: “Creativity is like driving a car at night. You never see further than your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” – E. L. Doctorow
Photo: by Timothy Perry
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?
The 58th Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition is underway with sumptuous entries from photographers of all ages, nationalities, and experience levels.
This year’s 25 unforgettable scenes include a pair of golden pheasants (above), a breathtaking school of barracudas, and a kangaroo with her baby joey framed by a fire’s destruction.
London’s Natural History Museum hosts the annual photo competition and is inviting fans to vote online to choose the winner of the People’s Choice Award.
And, based on our favorite images below, it will not be easy to choose just one.
From over 50,000 image entries from 95 countries, these 25 images are currently on display at the highly acclaimed Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition at the museum in London.
The winner will then be showcased until the exhibition closes on June 5th. The top five People’s Choice Award images will also be displayed online, joining the winners chosen by the esteemed panel of judges that were announced earlier this year.
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“It’s an incredible challenge to pick just one of these images,” said Dr Natalie Cooper, researcher at the Natural History Museum and member of the judging panel. “We’re looking forward to discovering which wild moment emerges as the public’s favorite.”
The photos of animal families are particularly moving. Check out these grebes, lions, and monkeys…
Displayed alongside insights from Natural History Museum scientists and experts, the 100 images will be showcased in spectacular lightbox displays at the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition at the Museum until June 5, 2022.
The exhibition will also be touring across the UK, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Germany, USA and more.
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Vote online for the winner of the People’s Choice Award. Voting ends on February 2, 2022.
DON’T Forget to Share The Feels With Your Friends on Social Media…
In a recent episode of the Food Network competition Chopped, contestants were challenged to make a dish using a basket of random ingredients like bacon, mangoes and banana bread. Imagine the same challenge, except that the basket has been replaced by 1000 pounds of discarded food.
This was the challenge confronting the Pittsburgh nonprofit 412 Food Rescue. They had connected with hundreds of local businesses, discovering hundreds of pounds of good surplus food available for donation every day. And, using its own app, the group had created the largest volunteer-led food transport network in a single urban region.
But there was no kitchen in the region that could accommodate the really large gifts coming from big donors and turn those into single-serving meals.
So in 2019, the organization came up with a solution by opening its own kitchen, the Good Food Project. Paying no money for food and creating zero waste, the kitchen is a model for effective food recovery and distribution.
Food waste makes up about 25% of all material in landfills—more than any other single source of waste—and when it rots, it’s a leading cause of greenhouse gas emissions.
The Good Food Project prevents waste by transforming food that might go to the landfill into healthy, heat-and-eat meals and shelf-stable items packaged in compostable containers. These meals are then distributed to nonprofit partners serving the needy.
The donations come from partners like Gordon Food Service, which may find themselves with food that is still perfectly good to eat, but cannot be sold due to aesthetic standards, sell-by timelines, or transit mishaps.
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Leah Lizarondo launched 412FoodRescue.org in 2015 to redirect food from the waste stream directly to households and nonprofits. To make that pivotal connection, she created an app that gives volunteers pick-up locations and delivery destinations, so they can jump in their car and close the gap between the food surplus and those who need it.
The app, FoodRescueHero is now used by a growing team of 25,000 volunteer drivers in 15 cities.
Together with 800 food retailers, they have turned more than 70 million pounds of surplus into nearly 57 million meals—and mitigated more than 30 million lbs. of CO2.
Meanwhile, their kitchen in Millvale, on the outskirts of Pittsburgh, has produced over 17,000 meals, and is currently creating upwards of 600 meals per week—all with zero cost for food.
While the kitchen—which is solar-powered to help offset energy use—has been expanding its reach, it has also been reducing its waste – all the way to zero. The project stabilizes and uses every ounce of food that it can, and the remainder is composted.
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The kitchen project is just the latest in the garrison of good news emanating from Leah’s determination to solve 3 problems at once—food waste, food insecurity, and the climate crisis.
WATCH her video about her volunteer app to see how heroes are born…
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The cure for ‘coughing without a cause’ has been hiding in plain sight for years, and now people can discover it on YouTube, thanks to Dr. Miles Weinberger, MD, a cough researcher, immunologist, and pediatric pulmonologist.
Until The Weinberger Procedure there had never been a quick and effective cure for ‘habit cough’—and certainly never a free treatment that so many could use without going to a doctor’s office.
One father was so relieved to witness his 12-year-old daughter cured via a Skype tele-conference with Weinberger after only 30 minutes, that he has done all he can—including posting the video session online— to publicize and publish information on this revolutionary treatment for refractory unexplained chronic cough.
One study published in 2020 of more than 9,000 adults over age 45 showed that 10 percent reported a chronic cough. Many patients have respiratory causes for their coughs, and they should seek medical care, but the study also found that many patients with chronic cough do not have any identifiable underlying cause.
Dr. Weinberger’s remedy for those unexplained disorders utilizes the power of suggestion, which was first described as a possible treatment for children in 1966, but Weinberger, who directed the Pediatric Allergy and Pulmonary Clinic at the University of Iowa Hospital for 40 years, has put the idea into practice to benefit hundreds of patients, perfecting a system that has cured adults and children after only a short session.
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The Weinberger ‘Suggestion Therapy’ is so easy and rewarding, that the diagnosed adult or child can “self cure” by watching the video (below) and sipping from a tall glass of water while concentrating on breathing, as instructed. Full recovery to ‘cough zero’ has occurred within days for 95% of children who were treated by Weinberger and practiced the procedure.
Dennis Buettner, who videotaped the session two years ago that cured his daughter Bethany, called it “the most unexpected, unintended, and unprecedented discovery in medical history—since the accidental discovery of penicillin.”
Buettner assisted Weinberger in publishing a peer-reviewed scientific paper in the journal of the American College of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology. Buettner says the treatment is now being routinely used by Johns Hopkins Medicine, the Mayo Clinic, and Kaiser Permanente, and by health experts around the world.
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“They typically and routinely refer their most hopeless, helpless, and forsaken chronic cough patients here [to habitcough.com] when all other options failed.”
Also, Buettner tells GNN that they’ve had volunteers translate the video script into Spanish, Mandarin, Turkish, and German.
“The child in the video below is our sweet daughter. Had we not filmed her instant and permanent cure, even we would not believe what we saw.”
By listening to Dr. Weinberger’s soothing instructions and following his directions in the immediate hours following, these habitual coughs, which had afflicted people sometimes for years, can be suppressed and eliminated.
A young boy from Connecticut became one of the latest to be rescued by the video. Ryan had been violently coughing since September, for 16 hours each day. He was so sad thinking he would never be able to sing again, but then he watched the video and spoke to Dr. Weinberger. He wrote in an email: “Hi Bethany! Yes, I am super excited to FINALLY be done with my cough! Dr. Weinberger is like a miracle worker and my family and I are so grateful to have had the chance to meet him. Once and awhile a single cough slips through but for the most part it is gone!!”
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The original video is held in the permanent video library of The American Thoracic Society. The free availability of it on YouTube is Dr. Weinberger’s gift to the world.
In the video, Bethany’s father gives some background on her cough and all the remedies and pharmacological avenues they had tried before hearing about Weinberger. The actual Skype session with the doctor begins at 4:25, when he began filming after realizing something special was happening.
Contact habitcough.com with all your questions.
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Quote of the Day: “Our heritage and ideals–the things we live by and teach our children–are preserved or diminished by how freely we exchange ideas and feelings.” – Walt Disney (born 120 years ago today)
Photo: by NeONBRAND
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?
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 beginning December 3, 2021
Copyright by Rob Brezsny, FreeWillAstrology.com
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21):
“All my days I have longed equally to travel the right road and to take my own errant path,” wrote Norwegian-Danish novelist Sigrid Undset. I think she succeeded in doing both. She won a Nobel Prize for Literature. Her trilogy about a 14th-century Norwegian woman was translated into 80 languages. I conclude that for her—as well as for you in the coming weeks and months—traveling the right road and taking your own errant path will be the same thing.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19):
Capricorn author Susan Sontag unleashed a bizarre boast, writing, “One of the healthiest things about me—my capacity to survive, to bounce back, to prosper—is intimately connected with my biggest neurotic liability: my facility in disconnecting from my feelings.” Everything about her statement makes me scream NO! I mean, I believe this coping mechanism worked for her; I don’t begrudge her that. But as a student of psychology and spirituality, I know that disconnecting from feelings is, for most of us, the worst possible strategy if we want to be healthy and sane. And I will advise you to do the opposite of Sontag in the coming weeks. December is Stay Intimately Connected with Your Feelings Month.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18):
In some small towns in the Philippines, people can be punished and fined for gossiping. Some locals have become reluctant to exchange tales about the highly entertaining things their neighbors are doing. They complain that their freedom of speech has been curtailed. If you lived in one of those towns, I’d advise you to break the law in the coming weeks. In my astrological opinion, dynamic gossip should be one of your assets. Staying well-informed about the human comedy will be key for your ability to thrive.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20):
“Originality consists in thinking for yourself, and not in thinking unlike other people,” wrote Piscean author James Fitzjames Stephen (1829–1894). Another way to say it: Being rebellious is not inherently creative. If you primarily define yourself by rejecting and reacting against someone’s ideas, you are being controlled by those ideas. Please keep this in mind, dear Pisces. I want you to take full advantage of your astrological potential during the next 12 months, which is to be absolutely original. Your perceptions and insights will be unusually lucid if you protect yourself from both groupthink and a compulsive repudiation of groupthink.
ARIES (March 21-April 19):
It’s a favorable time to get excited about your long-range future—and to entertain possibilities that have previously been on the edges of your awareness. I’d love to see you open your heart to the sweet dark feelings you’ve been sensing, and open your mind to the disruptive but nourishing ideas you need, and open your gut to the rumbling hunches that are available. Be brave, Aries! Strike up conversations with the unexpected, the unknown, and the undiscovered.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20):
Now is a ripe time for you, Taurus, to interweave your subconscious mind with the subconscious mind of an ally you trust. The two of you could generate extraordinary healing energy for each other as you lie together, dozing in the darkness. Other recommended activities: meditating together; fantasizing together; singing together; making spiritual love together. (PS: If you have no such human ally, sleep and meditate with a beloved animal or imaginary friend.)
GEMINI (May 21-June 20):
Gemini author Chuck Klosterman writes, “It’s far easier to write why something is terrible than why it’s good.” That seems to be true for many writers. However, my life’s work is in part a rebellion against doing what’s easy. I don’t want to chronically focus on what’s bad and sick and desolate. Instead, I aspire to devote more of my energy to doing what Klosterman implies is hard, which is to write sincerely (but not naively) about the many things that are good and redemptive and uplifting. In light of your current astrological omens, Gemini, I urge you to adopt my perspective for your own use in the next three weeks. Keep in mind what philosopher Robert Anton Wilson said: “An optimistic mindset finds dozens of possible solutions for every problem that the pessimist regards as incurable.”
CANCER (June 21-July 22):
An organization in Turkey decided to construct a new building to house its workers. The Saruhanbey Knowledge, Culture, and Education Foundation chose a plot in the city of Manisa. But there was a problem. A three-centuries-old pine tree stood on the land. Local authorities would not permit it to be cut down. So architects designed a building with spaces and holes that fully accommodated the tree. I recommend you regard this marvel as a source of personal inspiration in the coming weeks and months. How could you work gracefully with nature as you craft your future masterpiece or labor of love? How might you work around limitations to create useful, unusual beauty?
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22):
Author Melissa Broder wrote a preposterous essay in which she ruminated, “Is fake love better than real love? Real love is responsibility, compromise, selflessness, being present, and all that shit. Fake love is magic, excitement, false hope, infatuation, and getting high off the potential that another person is going to save you from yourself.” I will propose, Leo, that you bypass such ridiculous thinking about love in the coming weeks and months. Here’s why: There’s a strong chance that the real love at play in your life will feature magic and excitement, even as it requires responsibility, compromise, selflessness, and being present.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22):
Virgo author Andre Dubus III describes times when “I feel stupid, insensitive, mediocre, talentless and vulnerable—like I’m about to cry any second—and wrong.” That sounds dreadful, right? But it’s not dreadful for him. Just the opposite. “I’ve found that when that happens,” he concludes, “it usually means I’m writing pretty well, pretty deeply, pretty rawly.” I trust you will entertain a comparable state sometime soon, Virgo. Even if you’re not a writer, the bounty and fertility that emerge from this immersion in vulnerability will invigorate you beyond what you can imagine.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22):
“The problem with putting two and two together is that sometimes you get four, and sometimes you get 22.” Author Dashiell Hammett said that, and now I’m passing it on to you—just in time for a phase of your cycle when putting two and two together will probably not bring four, but rather 22 or some other irregularity. I’m hoping that since I’ve given you a heads-up, it won’t be a problem. On the contrary. You will be prepared and will adjust faster than anyone else—thereby generating a dose of exotic good fortune.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21):
In her poem “Is/Not,” Scorpio poet Margaret Atwood tells a lover, “You are not my doctor, you are not my cure, nobody has that power, you are merely a fellow traveler.” I applaud her for stating an axiom I’m fond of, which is that no one, not even the person who loves you best, can ever be totally responsible for fixing everything wrong in your life. However, I do think Atwood goes too far. On some occasions, certain people can indeed provide us with a measure of healing. And we must be receptive to that possibility. We shouldn’t be so pathologically self-sufficient that we close ourselves off from tender help. One more thing: Just because that help may be imperfect doesn’t mean it’s useless and should be rejected.
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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A new poll of 2,000 adults revealed that more than half believe the age-old adage does ring true: ‘The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach’. And 62 percent of the men believe it applies to them.
57 percent of women believe it applies to them, too.
Almost three in five admitted their mood can be improved with good food, and more than a third said some of their most treasured memories are around eating.
A further 27 percent class themselves as a ‘foodie’, while 24 percent say they are a ‘feeder’.
Similarly, people claim feeding others brings them happiness (62 percent), while others do it because of a maternal or paternal instinct (36 percent), or because they like to share their culinary creations (34 percent).
The survey, commissioned by the brioche makers at St Pierre, identified cooking from scratch, knowing how to make something without a recipe, and not getting stressed in the kitchen, as being among the things that impress people about others.
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Many respondents say they have tried to impress others with their great cooking skills (44 percent) and by creating a meal out of leftovers (34 percent).
Almost half believe sharing food brings people together, and most people typically have three conversations a day about food.
10% have even set up a social media page dedicated to their passion for food, and 14% have visited another country purely for the cuisines—with Italy, Greece, and Spain at the top of the list.
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When asked what stood out about food in fond memories, the answers including the taste (61%), smell (42%) and appearance (36%). More than one in five said it was preparing food with their loved ones.
“Foods often bring back nostalgic experiences… and it’s great to see how passionate the nation is about food,” says Paul Baker, founder of St Pierre.
The survey, conducted by OnePoll, also found it’s important to 62 percent that a potential partner likes food. A quarter said they struggle to understand people who don’t get excited by food, while 37 percent confessed that fussy eaters annoy them.
When meeting up with a friend, relative, or date, 44% said it’s likely to involve eating.
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“Whenever you ask someone about their favorite food, the reason for their answer is almost always linked to a treasured memory,” said Baker. “And that’s a beautiful thing.”
St Pierre has developed an online quiz to identify the way to your heart, along with a host of recipes to share with loved ones this festive season.
Why do Americans still construct traffic intersections that make cars sit idle for minutes at a time, while spewing emissions, at red lights? Well, not all U.S. states are stuck in the past.
In the state of Indiana, 256 roundabouts (also called traffic circles) have been constructed since 2016, and the data is showing what Europeans have known for decades: they definitely reduce collisions, fatalities, traffic congestion, and fuel consumption.
Not only that, roundabouts cut pollution, while reducing construction and maintenance costs.
Due to the fact that the only type of maneuver inside a roundabout is a right turn, they are safer—the intentions are quite obvious what even reckless and unpredictable drivers are trying to do. Furthermore, because entering the circle requires drivers to yield to others in the roundabout, there’s a certain amount of attentiveness that all drivers must give, which will naturally provide more safety in a state that saw 700 people die every year from running red lights, or being hit by someone running a red light.
If you miss your exit in a circle, you simply continue to circulate as normal until you arrive once again at the correct exit.
For all these reasons and more, Indiana has seen reductions of 90% in intersection fatalities when they are replaced with traffic circles, and a 76% reduction in crashes resulting in injuries.
Wisconsin too, has seen a “significant number” of fatalities disappear after the construction of the nearly 500 traffic circles that exist on the Badger State’s road network. Wisconsin has the most roundabouts of any U.S. state, with Indiana and Washington behind it.
“Overall (in roundabouts), we see fatalities and serious injuries almost go down to nothing,” Andrea Bill, a traffic safety engineer and researcher at the University of Wisconsin’s Traffic Operations and Safety Laboratory told the Milwaukee Sentinel.
The service life of a traffic circle is about 25 years, compared to 10 years on the lights of an intersection. The lack of lights also saves around $5,000 a year in energy costs, and traffic quantity can be augmented by 30-50% without creating additional congestion.
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Yep, the evidence is pretty unavoidable at this point. Constructing an intersection regulated by lights would be like building a new line of Fords with engines from the 1980s; it’s just deliberately going backwards.
Let’s hope more states circle around to these impressive statistics and make changes that can cut down on accidents, pollution, and costs.
DRIVE These Interesting Facts to Friends Waiting to Accelerate on Social Media…
Alexander McLeish has won a $1 million prize in the Massachusetts State Lottery’s ‘Cashword’ instant ticket game—and the word that won him the scratch-off jackpot was a ‘heartfelt’ coincidence, to say the least.
The Attleborough man who had just gone through open heart surgery earlier this month, received a get well card from a friend with three instant tickets enclosed.
The friend went out of his way to buy the scratch-off at the same store where he purchased another lottery ticket as a birthday gift for Alexander years earlier that won him $1,000. This time, the prize was one thousand times bigger, and the details of the win were a thousand times spookier.
As Alexander began to scratch the “Your Letters” area of the ticket, the first three letters revealed were A, W and M—his exact initials.
As if that weren’t enough of a positive omen, the word that appeared on the bottom row of his winning puzzle, which clinched him the jackpot, was “HEART.”
With his son by his side, he tried to stay calm so as not to over-excite his overjoyed heart.
McLeish claimed his prize at Mass Lottery headquarters in Dorchester on Friday, November 26.
McLeish told reporters he intends to give his longtime friend of over 50 years who bought the ticket, a little bit of the prize money—in addition to sharing with his two adult sons.
“He offered to buy his wife a new car, but she declined,” reports the Washington Post. “Other than paying off some bills, McLeish said he hasn’t made many other plans with his new riches.”
It was fitting that he scratched off the “HEART” on Thanksgiving, with a new lease on life, and family around to share the excitement.
SHARE Some LUCK With Your Friends on Social Media…
Quote of the Day: “Sometimes I think about retiring but not stopping work. Just ‘re-tiring’ – put on some new tires and go on to do something else.” – Jeff Bridges (turns 72 today)
Photo: DENIS MAROSAN
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?
For your Friday Funnies, we have a guaranteed chuckle for you.
A German shepherd named Nola is best buddies with a little boy who is slumbering in a new video from Rumble.
Their mom, maryannm1405, began taking a video to show the world how the cozy dog was snuggling up to the toddler.
But, suddenly, when the pup turns around, Maryann gets a hilarious and adorable surprise.
Watch the funny moment below…
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SHARE the Laugh With Your Dog-Loving Pals on Social Media! – Photo by Sofia Guaico
Ever the one to go big or go home, Chinese officials have briefed reporters on a new massive greening campaign that will create Belgium-sized forests every year for the next five years.
Additionally, the country’s national park and forest system will be expanded, new green corridors will be created to reconnect fragmented populations of wildlife, and greater crackdowns on the illegal trafficking of wildlife and wildlife products will be enforced.
Li Chunliang, vice-chairman of the State Forestry and Grasslands Commission, announced the addition to the recent five-year plan at a press briefing, stating that, “By 2035, the quality and stability of national forest, grassland, wetland and desert ecosystems will have been comprehensively upgraded.”
14,000 square-miles (35,000 square kilometers) of new forest will go up every year, particularly in drought-prone regions of the North and West.
The nation has also detailed that the strategy will be based around “natural reforestation,” from which one might guess it will have learned from the mistakes of the “Green Great Wall” which attempted to stop desertification near the Gobi Desert, but which was largely a failure due to monocrop planting, with billions of planted trees dying from moisture or from beetle infestations.
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Amazingly, five of these Belgium forests will increase total forest coverage in the country by less than 2%, but in a culture like China, which for decades has existed in the paradox of matching traditions like Buddhism, folk medicine, and a deep reverence for national animals with breakneck economic development and conquering of the natural world, every little bit counts.
Forests planted in the north could expand the habitat of the Siberian tiger, a staple of painting and one of the five animal styles in Kung Fu, while forests planted in the west could be a hope for survival of the Gobi bear, the most endangered species of bear on Earth. That’s good news all-round.
GREEN Up the Internet By Sharing This News Story…
One of the big knocks against solar panels is how much land they take up compared to how much power they generate. But what if there were a readymade source of open land nearby to cities and towns that was guaranteed not to be used for anything else?
As it turns out, landfills are becoming prime real estate for solar farms, and one nonprofit believes the U.S. could increase the nation’s solar energy capacity by 63 gigawatts, or approximately 60%, simply by building solar farms on landfills.
Solar firms are building these landfill solar farms all over the country, and while they present a bigger engineering and economic challenge then building one on flat ground, the appeal of refurbishing capped landfills and brownfields from their barren state into a new service for the community is deeply appealing.
For example, Nexamp’s Solar Star Urbana Landfill community solar farm occupies nearly 40 acres on a capped landfill, meaning one that isn’t accepting solid waste and which has been “capped” with concrete or other material to block rain from seeping through to the decomposing waste below.
It features nearly 14,000 solar panels and generates 5.2 megawatts of clean energy for low and middle income residents, who receive discounts on their energy bill if they sign up to take on the solar energy.
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IKON Environmental Energy is building a 70 megawatt solar farm in Houston Texas called the Sunnyside Energy Project that will power 12,000 homes, atop a 240-acre capped, methane-leaking landfill that will also host community features like an electric vehicle charging point, bio-digester to turn certain waste sources into green energy and fertilizer, and a community garden.
Annapolis Maryland has one too—55,000 panels on an 80-acre landfill, generating power for 2,500 people.
It isn’t the easiest thing to build a solar farm on a landfill. For one thing, the traditional method of securing the panels on concrete struts buried in the ground is out of the question, as it would break the cap on the landfill. This also currently puts a landfill solar panel out of the reach of current technologies that allow the movement of the panels to follow along the sun.
However there are also aspects which are easier, for example there are usually underserved communities that live nearby landfills, and the local cheap power access (solar is usually either subsidized or rewarded) can help save them money.
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Furthermore, there’s no risk of facing high land prices, or a bidding war from someone else who may want to use a pristine stretch of meadow for something else.
There are more than 10,000 closed or capped landfills around the country, and perhaps as many as 4,000 of them could be turned into solar farms immediately.
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A rising star among the UK’s passionate “detectorist” community has found a buried hoard of 65 objects, many of which are bronze axes.
It’s being called a once-in-a-lifetime find, one which had to be handled by archeologists, and which is now undergoing the British government’s Treasure Review to determine if the nation will purchase the artifacts.
Milly Hardwick from Suffolk was out detecting in a field with her dad Colin, when the 13-year-old made the find.
“It was my third time out and I didn’t quite know what I was doing,” Milly told the BBC. “I got a signal and yelled at my dad and when he started digging he went ‘this could be an axe’, and he was joking around about it.”
It’s thought the axes and other objects, 65 in total, date from around 1,300 BCE. After finding the first 20, the father-daughter team had to cover the site back up until archeologists could come the next day.
She took the day off of school to go with her father and give the find to the local coroner to be sent off for review.
Milly says if she receives any money from the hoard she will split it with the landowner, typical of the sometimes millions of pounds in payments detectorists can receive for important finds like the recently-deemed-treasure hoard of gold coins from the Anglo-Saxon period.
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Milly, who is now so taken with detecting she wants to be an archeologist, is on a bit of a hot streak, and the axe hoard has made her somewhat of a celebrity among British detectorists. She was featured on the cover of Searcher magazine, and her mom Claire says she gets noticed when she’s out with her metal detector.
“There’s been times when people have gone ‘Oh no, she’s here, we might as well go home now,’ and there’s been a couple of digs they’ve been on since she found the hoard and when she’s got out the van people have given her a round of applause,” Claire told ITV News. “It’s massive, massive, some people detect for forty, fifty years and don’t find anything like that.”
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Smithsonian reports the British Bronze Age started around 4,300 years ago, when ancient Britons began melting tin and copper together to make bronze.
“Because it’s happening to us it’s lovely anyway, but it’s also nice that it’s happy news rather than some of the depressing news we’ve had lately,” Claire tells the BBC.
We couldn’t agree with you more, Claire.
UNEARTH the Good News; Share This Story….
Quote of the Day: “Spend so much time improving yourself that you have no time left to criticize others. Be too big for worry and too noble for anger.” – Norman Vincent Peale
Photo: Priscilla Du Preez
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?
An enthusiastic backyard bird watcher named Stuart Dahlquist spent years leaving out food for a family of crows—but he never expected to be given anything in return for the snacks.
That’s why he was all the more shocked when he was surprised with a gift from the corvids.
The 56-year-old Seattle homeowner first became acquainted with the bird family after he rescued two chicks that had fallen out of their nest in his front yard six years ago.
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Dahlquist told The Dodo that he had always delighted in listening to the baby birds chirp to their parents during feeding time—so when he went outside and found the tiny crows on the ground, he knew he had to help.
Despite the squawks of alarm from the adults, Dahlquist managed to scoop up the chicks and put them back in the nest. He even left out food and water at the base of the tree in case they fell a second time.
He then began regularly throwing bird food into his front yard—and the crows apparently took notice.
We've been feeding a small family of four crows (mated pair and their two year old kids) for several years. Last week two days in a row they left these gifts, pull tabs threaded onto pine twigs. This isn't only generous, it's creative, it's art.
— Stuart Dahlquist (@StuartDahlquist) March 24, 2019
My mind is blown. pic.twitter.com/tT5ORZ3AHL
One day when Dahlquist was preparing for his daily feeding ritual, he was surprised to find a fir sprig that had been decorated with a soda can tab. Not only that, it was left in the exact spot where he fed the crows.
“I noticed it straight away because I’m kind of sensitive about trash going where it belongs,” he told The Dodo, “but the pull tab being threaded onto the sprig of fir wasn’t normal and I hung onto it.”
The next day, he was offered a second soda tab-decorated branch courtesy of the crows—and he says was stunned by the discovery.
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“This isn’t only generous, it’s creative, it’s art,” Dahlquist wrote on social media. “My mind is blown.”
Since his Twitter photo of the greenery gifts were shared several thousand times, Jennifer Campbell-Smith, a behavioral ecologist who earned her PhD studying crows at Binghamton University, told the Audubon Society: “I am very skeptical of random internet sources, but knowing these birds and how intelligent they are, I wouldn’t be shocked.
“It’s still an amazing example of the way crows are really watching us and are mindful of us,” she added.
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Regardless of the corvids’ intent, Dahlquist says he has maintained a close relationship with the bird family since the incident. Additionally, he told Audubon that he planned on getting a tattoo of the gift as reminder of his sweet inter-species friendship.
“They’ll follow along when I take my walks, landing on the wires along the way,” Dahlquist told The Dodo. “The adult male … is very amiable and will fly sometimes within a few feet, swooping by to say, ‘Here I am!’”
(If you want to learn more about the cleverness of crows, be sure and watch the jaw-dropping TEDx Talk below)
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A Christmas fanatic turned her office cube into an incredible life-size gingerbread house to amuse her colleagues.
47-year-old Monika Orrey had only worked at her new job for two months when they announced a workspace decorating competition.
The financial services manager threw herself into the contest, spending eight hours turning her cube into a festive gingerbread wonderland.
She constructed the sides and roof of the house by herself with duct tape and cardboard that she covered in brown craft paper.
The mum-of-one visited the office on a Sunday to construct her masterpiece as a surprise for her colleagues the following Monday.
Monika from Oakley, California, said, “I consider myself very festive, or as my daughter would say, I am ‘extra’!
“I do indeed have far too many decorations at home according to my family but I know they love it.
“When the cubicle decorating contest was announced, I started stockpiling cardboard right away.
“I was at first concerned my new colleagues might think I was odd but soon remember that I am happiest when I am authentically me so I pushed right past any concerns and got to planning.
“I wanted to do something big and incorporate my well-known sweet tooth, and what better than a giant gingerbread house?
“With the cardboard I had collected and the decorations I had on hand, the biggest cost was tape.
“I was able to collect bowls from the dollar store, paint pinwheels on them, attach the bowl to a white cardboard tube and cover in cellophane for extra large ‘lollipops’.
“I bought some candy stickers and found more candy images online that I printed out for more decorations.”
And when her colleagues rocked up on Monday morning, Monika says they were “speechless”.
“It definitely broke the ice!” she said.
“I am a bit competitive and I love Christmas so it was really right up my alley.
Despite stiff competition from the rest of the staff, Monika’s cube won the decorating competition.
She said, “Many colleagues brought their kids in to see my gingerbread house and it brought smiles to many—mission accomplished!
(WATCH the video to see the Christmas house… )
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If there’s plenty of sky, but little sun; plenty of wind, but little land, where can the Faroe Islands look for renewable energy?
The answer is obvious, owing to their Viking origins: Sea Dragons.
The Sea Dragon is a unique form of kinetic energy generated by the movement of the tides. 40 meters below the surface, they are underwater kites or gliders that have a 16-foot wingspan and swim in a figure of eight position along with the tide, generating enough energy to power 50-70 homes.
Home to just 50,000 people, the Faroe Islands is a self-governing Danish archipelago that lies between Iceland and Shetland—and one would think it would be an easy enough place to reach a zero-emissions target.
But with North Atlantic weather and not much land to build wind turbines, hydro-electric power gives over 40% of the island’s energy supplies.
Built by Minesto, a spin off from the parent company of airplane and (former) car manufacturer Saab, the “tidal kites,” as they’re called, operate by using the lift force of the tide rather like an airplane uses the force of air passing over its wings to fly.
With an onboard control system and rudders, the kite is autonomously steered in a pre-determined pattern that pushes it through the sea while anchored to the seafloor by a tether. By doing so, the turbine experiences a water flow several times higher than the actual stream speed.
The turbine diffuses power to the generator which sends electricity via power cable in the tether up to a station on land.
Operating in unison with the marine environment in totally predictable ways, the tidal kites are extremely low in environmental impact, and most importantly for the tiny island chain, use up no land other than for the receiving power station.
“The new kites will have a 12-metre wingspan, and can each generate 1.2 megawatts of power [a megawatt is 1,000 kilowatts],” Martin Edlund, CEO of Minesto, told the BBC. “We believe an array of these Dragon-class kites will produce enough electricity to power half of the households in the Faroes.”
Returning to winter from an unusually windless summer in which the Faroes had to import much more diesel than their installation of wind turbines would have made them expect, the tide’s regularity is literally the stuff of legend; so much so that Minesto believe their dragons could provide 600 gigawatts low-impact, low-cost, renewable energy around the world if scaled up.
(WATCH the video for this story below.)
ENERGIZE Those Feeds With This Good Green News…
A Londoner has received the world’s-first 3D printed digital eye as a prosthetic.
Promising to cut the time it takes to develop a prosthesis by half, it’s also more realistic than other alternatives.
Steve Verze is a 47-year-old engineer from Hackney who had needed a prosthetic eye since he was 20. Last week he finally had it fitted.
“When I leave my home I often take a second glance in the mirror, and I’ve not liked what I’ve seen,” Verze said in a press release. “This new eye looks fantastic and, being based on 3D digital printing technology, it’s only going to be better and better.”
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Normal prosthetic eyes involve hand-painting an iris onto a disc that is then inserted into the eye socket. However since the eyes are the windows to one’s soul, the light reflecting off the disc rather than penetrating to the full depth like a natural iris will give it away.
Also, along with needing just three weeks to prepare compared to a normal six, 3D printed eyes are much less invasive.
To make a traditional prosthetic eye a physical mold must be taken of the eye socket, but the 3D printer needs only a digital scan which is not only cleaner and faster, but more accurate.
Verze’s functional eye was also scanned to ensure the details between the two would be the same.
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Clinical lead Professor Mandeep Sagoo of Moorsfields Eye Hospital where the procedure took place said: “We hope the forthcoming clinical trial will provide us with robust evidence about the value of this new technology, showing what a difference it makes for patients.”
3D printing has been something of a revolution for the world of prosthetics, with the clever machines being used particularly often to cheaply and quickly restore limbs of animals like turtles, dogs, and ducks, and even a toucan.
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Quote of the Day: “America’s greatest contribution is its concept of democracy and freedom… freedom of action, freedom of speech, and freedom of thought.” – Benazir Bhutto (first woman to head a Muslim country)
Who Ms. Bhutto became the Prime Minister of Pakistan 30 years ago today, on December 2, 1988.
Photo: The top of the U.S. Capitol
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