That’s the first line of the new song that we can all relate to.
“She’s at the fridge again!”
KD French, a gospel singer in Atlanta, Georgia, posted a video of herself singing all the voices from a full gospel choir doing a rendition of a new anthem about snacking during lockdown.
“At least, making this song kept me from the fridge for about an hour,” French wrote on YouTube.
The song describes the irresistible pull of her refrigerator—and all the goodies inside. Clearly striking a chord in the rest of us, the video has been racking up millions of views on Facebook and YouTube this week.
Quote of the Day: “Be vigilant. Guard your mind against negative thoughts.” – Buddha
Photo: by Jackson David
With a new inspirational quote every day, atop the perfect photo—collected and archived on our Quote of the Day page—why not bookmark GNN.org for a daily uplift?
This sweet-natured golden retriever has one very important job. As a certified crisis response therapy dog, she’s tasked with helping exhausted firefighters get the kind of comfort only a four-legged friend can provide.
That’s especially important work right now, as hundreds across Marin County work extra long shifts to try and contain the Woodward Fire that’s currently blazing in Northern California.
“Kerith is boosting morale during the crew’s morning briefing,” Heidi Carmen, Kerith’s human caretaker, told CNN. “She brings levity and a sense of playfulness even though they know the task of the day will be challenging.”
Trained to be a guide dog, her super excitable nature made her not quite suited to her original task. Kerith went on to become a therapy dog in the emergency ward of a local hospital. But, explains Carmen to CNN, “her favorite people are firefighters.”
“She makes people feel loved, special and important. One firefighter told me ‘Kerith has the uncanny ability to make me feel like I am the most important person in the world.’”
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As a kid, Easton LaChappelle was always fascinated by robotics and how things worked, leading him to take his passion and learn more about prosthetics engineering.
Credit: Easton LaCappelle
That’s when he turned to YouTube to experiment and master everything from the core fundamentals of electronics to software interfaces and reading sensors.
Eventually, 25-year-old Easton used his newfound skills and created a working device, making it all the way to the White House Science Fair with then-President Obama.
During his science fair days, Colorado’s Easton encountered a young girl with a prosthetic arm that looked “archaic” and cost about $80,000. He remembers thinking, is “this really her best available option?”
He tells GNN, “That’s when I decided to dedicate my life to solving the affordability of prosthetic devices and creating technology that can impact someone’s life on a deep level.
There are over 40 million amputees worldwide, and only about 5% of them have access to prosthetic devices. It was just not acceptable to me and I wanted to do something about it.”
After developing a working prototype, Easton founded a company, Unlimited Tomorrow, which makes low-cost, machine-printed prosthetic limbs.
In under 30 days, the company was able to raise $1.568M to release its first product and provide millions of prosthetic devices to people worldwide at an affordable cost.
“We make a product called TrueLimb,” says Easton, “an affordable, 3D-printed prosthetic limb that uses a special remote-fitting process that is personalized to your skin tone, shape, and size for the perfect fit.”
“Because of YouTube,” he tells GNN, “I was able to turn my passion into a business that is having a positive impact on people’s lives.”
A pair of east coast scientists met and fell in love over an interest in researching mud, years before producing a paper that would change how the Eastern United States conducts river restoration.
Big Spring Run immediately after restoration. Credit: Big Spring Run Project
Though controversial among mud experts, their work has created flourishing stream and river ecosystems that resemble their pre-colonial states of low-banked, ecologically diverse, marshy waterways: a big change from the high-banked meandering streams covered in reeds that we often see today.
Dorothy Merritts and Robert Walter, two scientists who started working together as peers, ended up producing a ‘mud-breaking’ research paper as husband and wife.
Their work showed that almost all streams and rivers in the Eastern United States are actually victims of colonial-era tampering that buried resilient and complex river ecosystems under yards of silt.
While this discovery may seem like the lifework of eccentric scientific specialists, to be debated in the obscurest of journals and classrooms, the real-world implications could be enormous for riverine construction and flood insurance firms.
Dorothy Merritts, 62, is a geomorphologist at Franklin & Marshall College in Pennsylvania, who, after a long and adventurous career in the field, decided to shift focus in 2002 to concerns of silt erosion in rivers on local farmland.
On a research trip, her students produced a photo of a six-foot high bank of laminated layers of mud from the Little Conestoga River in PA.
Merritts would eventually show the photo to her future-husband Robert Walter, 69, also a geomorphologist at F&M, who was certain that the mud had been deposited in still water—originating because of a dam or lake, rather than through the flowing of a river.
Sure enough, after traveling to the Little Conestoga, they found the remains of an 18th-century milldam upstream—an artificial stopper in the river that would have channeled the water to power a grain mill.
“[Our] data, as well as historical maps and records, show instead that before European settlement, the streams were small anabranching channels within extensive vegetated wetlands that accumulated little sediment but stored substantial organic carbon,” explained Merritts and Walter in their 2008 paper which received over 750 citations and many critiques from fellow mud enthusiasts.
“Subsequently, 1 to 5 meters of slackwater sedimentation, behind tens of thousands of 17th- to 19th-century milldams, buried the presettlement wetlands with fine sediment.”
A billion dollar industry
Their discovery earned them a fair bit of criticism with other muddy-minded geologists who argued that the evidence gave them an inch and they took a mile. However, for private-sector business, and local government agencies, the discovery meant that they might be wasting millions on projects that would be done away if floods pushed tons of “legacy sediment” built up around the milldams, into newly dug rivers.
As state environmental agencies and private landowners began applying Merritts and Walter’s conclusions, the market would decide the outcome of the debates that had been set off in journals like Science and Nature, following their discovery. In 2011, one PA landowner, Joe Sweeney, hired a river-restoration firm to discover why trees he planted along a section of Big Spring Run that ran through his property couldn’t survive.
Walter and Merritts, along with their students, dug pits and determined that several yards of legacy sediment prevented the trees from reaching the groundwater. Together they decided to try and return Big Spring Run into what Walter and Merrits imagined it looked like before Europeans arrived on the continent.
After more than two years of planning and assistance from local and federal environmental agencies, 22,000 tons of mud were bulldozed off a four-square kilometer stretch of the river.
Underneath, the black, soaking wet soil of a past era revealed itself.
In just one year, Big Spring Run was a riverine paradise of bog turtles, geese, and trees centered around a low-banked river that slowly spills over a marshy area that contains triple the sequestered carbon than before, and that doesn’t have to regenerate after every severe storm.
Big Spring Run immediately after restoration. Credit: Big Spring Run Project
Subsequent examinations on the economic effectiveness of the Big Spring Run restoration found it was 16 times more cost effective than comparable strategies.
Walter and Merritts’ love for mud and for each other has rearranged perspectives of rivers around the country, and their methods have been applied in states outside the mid-Atlantic, where milldams were most common, like Kentucky.
A storm-chaser and photographer recently documented a fascinating natural event known as a “sprite” in stunning detail.
Credit: science out there/YouTube
He uploaded it onto his YouTube page, and now a viewer can see lighting bolts express themselves in a completely different way, while also learning how to photograph them.
A phenomenon that might have been more commonly seen by our ancestors, a sprite, as Michael from science out there describes, is a moment of extremely powerful lightning between the ground and the edge of space.
In his video, entitled ‘Bright Red Jellyfish Sprites’, Michael shares with his audience the images he captured of what look to be red water droplets running down a window, or a few jellyfish, or even ramen noodles, suspended for only an instant in the Colorado sky.
To capture a sprite, says Michael, one has to be in a place where there is both very low light pollution, and a view out towards, above, and beyond, the “anvil” of a powerful storm.
If someone finds themselves in this very fortunate situation and focuses their gaze, not below where white and blue lighting illuminates the clouds, but on the night sky above, they might see a flash of an image that looks like something out of the movie Independence Day, or other Sci-Fi classics.
“Usually sprites are quite dim, and few of them are visible to the eye, but to see them in spite of the glow of twilight meant something extraordinary must be going on,” Michael recounts in his video.
Did you know that the thousands of little florets in the middle of a sunflower actually grow with the mathematical precision of a Fibonacci sequence?
An evenly-growing spiral named after the Italian mathematician who described it, Fibonacci numbers form a sequence—often seen in nature—whereby each number is the sum of the two preceding ones.
The sunflower phenomenon is neatly illustrated in a video from the Instant Egghead YouTube series by Scientific American, which that today is celebrating its 175th birthday.
On this day in 1845, the magazine published its first issue, founded by inventor Rufus M. Porter who began reporting on what was happening at the U.S. Patent Office.
The oldest continuously-published monthly magazine in the US, it now reports on noteworthy advances in science and technology, and educates youth and adults alike with its YouTube channel and website.
Marking the milestone anniversary, the website is presenting a mix of Harry Houdini and M. C. Escher; is reinserting a regular poetry column; and making a deep dive into some of the most transformative, thrilling, dizzying discoveries of the past 175 years.
WATCH the sunflower unfold its mysteries below…
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Quote of the Day: “Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them—that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward” – Lao Tzu
Photo: by Erin O’Brien
With a new inspirational quote every day, atop the perfect photo—collected and archived on our Quote of the Day page—why not bookmark GNN.org for a daily uplift?
Do you remember your very first day at school? For most of us, it was so exciting to meet a teacher for the first time. It was great fun to have new classmates and a real desk to sit at.
For children this year, things are a little different. It’ll still feel thrilling to be in a new environment, to wear a special uniform. But it might also be a little scary to be sitting at a desk surrounded by strange plastic screens as a six-year-old.
Credit: Patricia Dovi
These two Florida teachers have figured out a way to make those plastic dividers—installed on desks to protect children during the age of COVID-19—less nerve-wracking, and more totally, joyfully brilliant.
First-grade teachers Patricia Dovi and Kim Martin, of St. Barnabas Episcopal School in DeLand, Florida have turned coronavirus dividers into the windshields and windows of, yes, Jeeps.
“Anything that we can do to add some silliness and some creativity to get them excited is going to be really important in the longevity of this school year,” Dovi told Insider.
Credit: Kim Martin
The school supplied the plexiglass; Dovi and Martin paid for the decorations out of their own pockets. Martin estimates that the desks took about a week to complete. Wasn’t all that work worth it?
“It’s going to be more fun to say, ‘Hey, purple Jeep, you’re getting out of your lane,’” Martin joked. “I think it will be a smart way to keep the kids engaged.” We have no doubt about that.
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From darkness comes light. From despair comes hope. From passion comes change. In the wake of turbulent racial protests in America’s Midwest, a group of teenagers in Chicago’s Austin neighborhood were looking for a way to uplift their marginalized West Side community—and they found it.
Credit: By the Hand Club for Kids//Facebook
“With a little help from their friends”, a galvanized group of young entrepreneurs transformed a gutted liquor store into Austin Harvest, a pop-up food market to provide healthy food alternatives for their underserved neighborhood.
The genesis of the project began with listening circles led by By the Hand Club for Kids. “What I heard coming out of that was that students wanted to take all those raw and powerful emotions and turn them into something good, and do something from a social justice standpoint,” the group’s executive director Donnita Travis told Book Club Chicago.
Credit: By the Hand Club for Kids//Facebook
One of the issues the kids felt about most urgently was the shortage of healthy food options in the area; the result of years of systemic neglect and racism.
For areas like Austin, classified as “food deserts,” groceries and fresh produce are difficult to come by even in the best of times. The situation worsened when several area grocery stores were forced to close temporarily after being looted.
Within the half-mile radius, Austin Harvest has since sprung to life, where there were formerly a dozen liquor stores but only two food markets.
Credit: By the Hand Club for Kids//Facebook
“Food is a basic necessity” Azariah Baker, a teen who’d been with Austin Harvest since its inception, told BCC, “but it’s also a basic necessity we don’t have access to.”
When the discussion turned to the idea of repurposing one of the looted properties into a much-needed community resource, “the kids took the idea and ran with it,” Travis said.
The project got enthusiastic backing from a number of professional athletes. Former Chicago Bears’ linebacker Sam Acho led the charge. “People care. It’s a time for people to show up. I think our world has changed,” Acho told BCC. “So for us to be able to come together and say we’re going to lead that change, it means something.”
Other athletes who contributed to the cause included the Blackhawks’ Jonathan Toews, Bears quarterback Mitch Trubisky of the Bears, White Sox pitcher Lucas Giolito, Cubs outfielder Jason Heyward, and St. Louis Cardinals first baseman Paul Goldschmidt. Together, they raised $500,000 in seed money to get the project rolling.
While By the Hand brought in architects and branding experts for guidance, the vision for Austin Harvest was shaped and implemented by its youthful participants. “We’ve been behind the scenes completely,” Baker said. “We’ve discussed how we want to show our market, where we wanted our market to be, what we sell, what we look like. This is who runs it.”
Credit: By the Hand Club for Kids//Facebook
Taking a “teach someone to fish rather than give someone a fish approach,” The Hatchery Chicago also pitched in to offer hands-on lessons in real-world business skills including licensing and customer service, as well as a culinary pathways program aimed at helping interested teens work toward careers in the food industry.
When Roy Austin went on his first wildlife safari back in 2018, his only goal for the leisurely vacation was to catch sight of some African wildlife in its natural habitat—but he ended up finding something much more meaningful.
Although Austin enjoyed seeing lions and other wildlife across several East African countries, he was most captivated by the people he met in rural Kenya—particularly at the Amboseli Primary and Secondary School in Amboseli National Park.
In addition to befriending many of the students and teachers, Austin was surprised to learn how difficult it was to get books and school supplies for the children.
“In rural Kenya, the government does not build school buildings. You either build it yourself or raise the money to have it built,” says Austin. “A teacher was asked if they had a library. [She] replied, ‘No, but we would love to have a library.’ That stuck in my mind.”
When Austin eventually returned to his home in Bluffton, South Carolina, he launched Libraries for Kids International with the goal of sending books to the Kenyan schoolchildren.
Since starting the charity, Austin has managed to ship more than 1,000 books to 11 schools across Kenya and Tanzania. He says that he has managed to keep shipping costs down by sending the books through the post office rather than FedEx.
Photo by Libraries for Kids International
Not only has the charity supplied the schools with books, it has also given Austin a new sense of purpose and determination since his wife passed away in March.
As they continue to collect books and donations for additional shipments, Austin tells WJCL that the nonprofit is now helping to move a shipping container of 22,000 books from Atlanta to Kenya. In the future, the philanthropist hopes to start sending donations to South America as well.
“Many people told me that it can’t be done, it’s too expensive to ship books, and they will disappear going through customs,” Austin writes on the organization’s website. “However, one of my life philosophies is ‘Focus on the Objective, Not the Obstacle.’
“Every worthwhile project will have problems and obstacles. If you focus on the problems you will never start. Conversely, if you focus on the objective and solve the problems as they arise, most anything is possible.”
Photo by Libraries for Kids International
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Although COVID-19 cases have been on the rise in São Paulo, Brazil, many of the city’s residents have decided to take action.
Notably, high school student Gabriel Aun Klinger organized a project intended to help people from favelas in Brazil defend themselves against the virus.
Favelas are slums (or highly-populated communities) where many people live in extreme poverty. Many favela residents struggle to feed themselves and have to live in dangerously unhygienic conditions.
“Some people from these communities can’t even afford to buy a soap bar,” stated Klinger.
After reading several documents and scientific papers on COVID-19, Klinger stumbled upon a simple, affordable, and effective solution against COVID-19—something he described as being the “perfect weapon of self-defense against the virus.” When he realized that this solution was also much cheaper and easier to obtain than 70% alcohol gel, he immediately launched his project aiming to use it for the benefit of the people in favelas.
“The core of the project has been to share information I had regarding a home-made solution for combatting the coronavirus with some of the most vulnerable people in São Paulo,” he explained.
In March, his crowdfunding campaign raised enough money to purchase hygiene products and food items for over 500 families in those communities. As a part of the project, he then distributed these products to the community, making sure to teach those people how to prepare the solution with the items they received.
According to him, the project was a success. “We were able to distribute all the kits in an organized and smooth way,” Klinger said. “It felt incredible to be involved in the community in this way, and be able to make a real, tangible contribution during a time like this.”
In June, Klinger organized a second round of this project so he could help even more people.
“If this project was able to save even one life, it was worth it completely,” he said.
Through his project, Klinger learned that small actions like this one can go a long way. In times like these, he hopes to remind people that everyone has the power to make an impact on people’s lives and help those who need it most.
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Growing their own vegetables, switching to one-ply toilet paper and eating lots of leftovers—these are just a few ways people are pinching pennies during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to this new survey.
Interestingly, over half of Americans polled credit the COVID-19 pandemic with finally teaching them how to be smart with their money.
In fact, a similar survey from two years ago shows that the number of US adults who feel very smart with their money has actually risen from just 42% in 2018 to 51% in 2020.
Another two in three participants said the pandemic has turned them into a frugal person.
The polls of 2,000 Americans, both conducted by OnePoll on behalf of Slickdeals, looked into how the pandemic has changed people’s mindsets about their money and how they define being “cheap” versus being “frugal.”
The latest survey was meant to mirror the one run in 2018 as a means of comparing just how much the results have changed over the course of two years and a global pandemic.
Tipping the minimum (15–20%) regardless of service was found to by people in 2020 be “cheap;” however, skimping on the tip in 2018 was voted to be an act of frugality. Perhaps this can be explained by a shift in gratitude towards frontline workers?
Declining to be part of rounds at the bar was considered cheap by respondents, as was calculating your share of the group bill down to the cent.
Other cheap actions? Still using very outdated electronics, re-gifting, and diluting soap containers with water.
Conversely, purchasing clothes at a secondhand store was found to be “frugal,” as was buying off-brand food products, buying no-name electronics, and always seeking out deals or coupons when going shopping.
Participants also considered tracking their electricity and heating usage at home to keep the utility bills down to be frugal behavior.
According to the survey, the average American becomes a frugal person at the age of 31, with one in four saying they became thriftier when they were even younger. Two in three Americans also said they consider being called frugal a compliment.
“The coronavirus pandemic has impacted the financial situations of many people, and brought new focus to the importance of prioritizing spending,” said Josh Meyers, CEO of Slickdeals. “We see a shift toward smarter spending with 65% of respondents indicating that the pandemic has transformed them into a frugal person, and 67% reporting that being called frugal is actually a compliment.”
The survey also found that being financially conscious can be important on the dating scene.
Two-thirds of those polled said they actually think using a coupon on a first date is completely acceptable. In fact, 45% said they’d happily use a coupon on a first date.
Three in four say that the more they age, the more desirable it is for a romantic prospect having a smart financial mindset.
CHEAP OR FRUGAL?
CHEAP
– Tipping the minimum acceptable amount (15–20%) regardless of service
– Declining to be a part of rounds at the bar
– Calculating your part of a group bill to the cent
– Keeping outdated or worn out electronics, as long as they still barely work
– Reusing tea bags or coffee filters
– Eating food a few days past its expiration date
– Lengthening longevity of soap by diluting soap bottles with water
– Re-gifting
FRUGAL
– Regularly tracking electricity use (switching off lights/appliances when they aren’t in use)
– Regularly tracking the home thermostat (keeping the heat as low as possible)
– Watching movies at home instead of in the theater
– Shopping at second-hand clothing stores
– Buying off-brand food products
– Buying no-name electronics (such as ear buds from the corner stone)
– Giving up drinking while at bars or restaurants / only having alcohol at home
– Seeking out deals or coupons for all purchases
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Quote of the Day: “In the kingdom of hope there is no winter.” – Russian proverb
Photo: by Ralph Katieb
With a new inspirational quote every day, atop the perfect photo—collected and archived on our Quote of the Day page—why not bookmark GNN.org for a daily uplift?
A blind mom was able to ‘see’ her unborn baby—thanks to a 3D-printed ultrasound.
Credit: SWNS
Taylor Ellis was born with glaucoma and has very little vision. When she went in for her 20-week scan and was unable to see her baby, she was left in tears.
When doctors found out she was upset, they conducted a special ultrasound and made a 3D print out of her unborn daughter’s face.
26-year-old Taylor and her husband Jeremy, who is also visually impaired, received the special scan in the post a week later. They were able to feel the baby’s face as a result, and it was a dream come true.
Baby Rosalie is now ten weeks old, and mum-of-three Taylor said the 3D printing technology—most commonly use to make car parts—has been “life changing.”
Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore usually uses the technology to create models of unborn babies with spina bifida. It allows surgeons to get a clear image of the spines of babies to see if they need in-womb surgery. When an ultrasound sonographer at the same hospital found out, he suggested the technology be used to help blind parents. It is thought to be the first hospital in the world to offer the service.
Taylor, a stay-at-home-mother, from Cockeysville in Maryland, said, “I always thought about what my baby would look like and was always saddened to know I wouldn’t have the same opportunity as seeing mothers.
“My sight wasn’t as bad with my first two children, so I could see the 2D ultrasound.
When she received the 3D ultrasound, Taylor said of the exciting moment, “I had the realization that this was my baby’s face, it was so heart-warming. I showed off my scan to my daughters and my parents on video chat.”
Proud mom Taylor, added: “This pregnancy has been so scary but so exciting the whole way through, I just wanted this [moment] really really bad.”
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An interactive online map allows you to punch in your home address and superimpose the global geography of epochs gone by to see how the earth has changed over 750 million years.
Ian-Webster – Ancient-Earth
Seeing the results can be super surprising. 600 million years ago, for example, when multicellular life was just beginning to emerge in the ocean, the U.S. capital of Washington D.C. was smashed into the coast of West Africa as part of a jumbled ball of land stretching to the South Pole, which would eventually break off, drift away, and form the Americas.
The love-labor project of paleontologist Ian Webster, the exciting map tool allows users to enter most towns, cities, and countries into a search bar here, where a 3D rotatable globe will show you approximately where the land was located throughout a 750 million-year timeline.
The project is attached to the world’s largest digital dinosaur database, also created by Webster, who drew on geographical data from another resource called Ancient Earth. Created by paleographer Christopher Scotese, Ancient Earth was a culmination of work 30 years in the making called the Paleo Maps Project.
The webpage displays with a variety of tools that allow you to learn interesting information, or select a time period based on the emergence of specific features, such as the first flower to ever bloom on Earth.
Given that Webster is an expert in dinosaurs, any location you enter in the search function will also provide you with a list of dinosaurs that would have been your neighbors—all with inline links to that particular dinosaur’s profile on Webster’s database; all-in-all it represents an incredible educational resource for children and adults interested in paleontology or geography.
Even with modern GPS technology and programs like Google Maps, globes and 2-dimensional paper maps continue to shape our perception of the sphere we call Earth.
A great example of our reliance on maps is the Chinese word for China—“Middle Kingdom.” This perception as China being the land between heaven and Earth is reflected on Chinese maps, where it is the Pacific Ocean that occupies the right-central areas instead of the Atlantic, and where Asia and Africa clog up the left side with the other continents situated to the right.
Another example can be found in maps dated in the 1980s or earlier, when given the importance of the Northern Hemisphere to most scholars, the Equator was positioned at 10 degrees north longitude, making the continents of the Southern Hemisphere appear smaller.
Ancient Earth is the ultimate in perspective-shifting educational tools—especially for kids, as they get to see their very own homes move around in the tectonic dance that’s been going on for billions of years.
“I’m amazed that geologists collected enough data to actually plot my home 750 [million] years ago, so I thought you all would enjoy it too,” Webster wrote in a comment on Hacker News.
“Obviously we will never be able to prove correctness,” Webster concludes. “In my tests I found that model results can vary significantly. I chose this particular model because it is widely cited and covers the greatest length of time.”
When straight-line winds blew through his beloved adopted home of Cedar Rapids, one local hero leapt into the fray with his own very special brand of barbecue to the rescue.
Credit: Willie Ray’s Q Shack/Facebook
We’re all familiar with the wreckage wrought by hurricanes and tornadoes, but a derecho, with wide-ranging, sustained winds sometimes in excess of 100 miles per hour, can have equally disastrous consequences.
After a series of derechos tore across the Midwest on Monday, August 10, leaving a swath of destruction in their wake, Willie Fairley, owner of the iconic local eatery Willie Ray’s Q Shack, was driven by his strong sense of community to selflessly volunteer his services and his grill, serving up as many as 400 free meals a day for neighbors in need.
“[We’re] giving out food, doing whatever we can,” Fairley told KGAN News. “Help[ing] the neighbors move trees. I brought the grill home and cooked for everybody and somehow we’re here.”
Cedar Rapids felt the brunt of the derechos’ fury. Approximately 50 people with storm-related injuries were hospitalized, and according to Cedar Rapids Fire Chief Greg Smith, more than 800 residential and commercial buildings suffered full or partial collapse of the roof, walls, ceiling, or floors.
“It’s devastating you know,” Fairley told KGAN, “a city you’ve been in for 18 years and you see it just crumble down.”
A City Comes Together
Fairley set the BBQ ball in play and social media has kept it rolling. Donations keep pouring in. “The main reason we’re doing it free is because there’s been a lot of people donate to us to help us keep feeding people,” he told CNN. “So, we figure we’ll just do it to make sure everybody gets something.”
Even after the derecho cleanup is over, Fairley plans to help out with meals for a homeless shelter at least once a week. “People keep donating, so we’re going to be giving out food for a long time.”
Thomas Clark, who helps Fairley prep and distribute meals, sums up his community’s feelings about Fairley. “He’s doing such a great job and we’re proud of where he’s taken this and how he started from nothing now he’s out here doing it with honestly nothing and just to do it. He’s not asking for anything. I’ve known him for 15 [or] 16 years and he’s always been that way,” Clark told KGAN.
Fairley’s efforts are so appreciated, Willie Ray’s Q Shack has been nominated for the Discover Eat it Forward program, a contest that awards $25,000 prizes to Black-owned restaurants.
But as much as it’s great to be recognized for his efforts, Fairley believes being able to give back has been the greatest reward he’s taken away from the whole experience, saying, “I wish I could put my shoes on and everybody [would] know how I feel on the inside.”
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The World Health Organization is celebrating the news that the African continent is finally free of the wild poliovirus, 24 years after Nelson Mandela helped Rotary International launch its Kick Polio Out of Africa campaign.
Polio healthcare workers in Africa – WHO
“Today is a historic day for Africa, which has successfully met the certification criteria for wild polio eradication, with no cases reported in the region for four years,” said Professor Rose Gana Fomban Leke, who heads The African Regional Certification Commission for Polio eradication (ARCC).
The success comes after an exhaustive, decades-long process of documentation and analysis of polio surveillance and immunization of the region’s 47 member states, which included conducting field verification visits to each country.
In 1996, African leaders of every country committed to eradicate polio, at a time when the virus was paralyzing an estimated 75,000 children annually. While there is no cure for polio, the disease can be prevented through the administration of a simple and effective vaccine.
Mandela’s call that year mobilized African nations across the continent to step up their efforts to reach every child with the polio vaccine—and the last case of wild poliovirus was detected and defeated in 2016 in Nigeria.
Officials at WHO say the polio eradication efforts have prevented up to 1.8 million children from crippling life-long paralysis and saved approximately 180,000 lives.
“This is a momentous milestone for Africa. Now future generations of African children can live free of wild polio,” said Dr Matshidiso Moeti, WHO Regional Director for Africa. “This historic achievement was only possible thanks to the leadership and commitment of governments, communities, global polio eradication partners and philanthropists. I pay special tribute to the frontline health workers and vaccinators, some of whom lost their lives, for this noble cause.”
The announcement Tuesday marks only the second eradication of a virus from the face of the Africa since smallpox 40 years ago.
While the eradication of wild poliovirus here is a major achievement, 16 African countries have reported cases of cVDPV2. While rare, these vaccine-derived polioviruses cases can occur when the weakened live virus used in the oral polio vaccine passes among under-immunized populations and, over time, changes to a form that can cause paralysis. If a population is adequately immunized with polio vaccines, it will be protected from both wild polio and circulating vaccine-derived polioviruses.
“Africa has demonstrated that despite weak health systems, significant logistical and operational challenges across the continent, African countries have collaborated very effectively in eradicating wild poliovirus,” said Dr Pascal Mkanda, Coordinator of WHO Polio Eradication in the African Region.
“With the innovations and expertise that the polio program has established, I am confident that we can sustain the gains, post-certification, and eliminate cVDPV2,” added Dr Mkanda.
Thanks to the dedication of governments, the WHO, Rotary International, UNICEF, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, polio cases have been reduced worldwide by 99.9% since 1988. Only Afghanistan and Pakistan still have cases of the wild virus.
“The expertise gained from polio eradication will continue to assist the African region in tackling COVID-19 and other health problems that have plagued the continent for so many years. This will be the true legacy of polio eradication in Africa,” said Dr Moeti.
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If you have ever been discouraged from pursuing your wildest dreams, archeology professor Cameron Smith is a perfect role model for why you should never give up.
Smith made national headlines back in September 2018 after he built his own spacesuit with the goal of testing it at 63,000 feet—a height at which no human can survive without specialized equipment.
Smith first fell in love with outer space after his father showed him videos of the moon landing as an 8-year-old boy. Throughout his life, he would write letters to retired astronauts and NASA officials, asking for advice on how he could get into space. When he was left unsatisfied by their answers, he decided to take matters into his own hands and build a DIY spacesuit.
For eight years, Smith used everything from zip ties and pie tins to motorcycle batteries and aquarium pumps to construct his spacesuit.
Despite how Smith endured multiple failures in the process, he finally succeeded in building a $1,000 suit that he would later put to the ultimate test in a hot air balloon flying above the Earth’s surface.
Although Smith only managed to reach 5,000 feet in the balloon, his determination and triumph has since become an inspiration to countless people. Not only that, he is apparently still building and testing his spacesuit with the aim of one day reaching 63,000 feet.
(WATCH the Great Big Story video below)
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Quote of the Day: “In families, love is the oil that eases friction… and the music that brings harmony.” – Friedrich Nietzsche
Photo: by Tyler Nix
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