At a time when shallow seagrass meadows have disappeared from 92% of UK’s vast coastline, scientists have realized that this curious and gentle habitat is needed now, more than ever, to help reduce CO2-induced warming—and guard against potentially rising seas.
Coastal ecosystems are among the most biodiverse on the planet. When salt marshes, shallow water seagrass beds, river estuaries, and tidal zones are healthy, these delicate ecosystems work like the tiles of a mosaic to create the picture of resilient seas and shores.
But, the losses of the crucial seagrass piece is coming to a head in Wales, where Dr. Richard Unsworth of Swansea University, unnerved by the annual decline of 7% in seagrass beds around the UK and Ireland, has worked to organize a massive replanting effort along the coast of Pembrokeshire, Wales.
“It’s incredibly productive and just sucks carbon into the sediments, traps particles that are locked there for millennia,” Dr. Unsworth told BBC. “That means that carbon dioxide is not in the atmosphere.”
According to WWF’s article 10 Reasons to Hope, seagrass can capture carbon 35 times faster than even tropical rainforests, but as it currently covers merely 0.2% of the seafloor, the potential to use more seagrass as a carbon offset is unlimited.
In preparation for this undertaking, 750,000 seagrass seeds were collected from various meadows around the UK last summer and stored in the laboratory at Swansea University.
Those seeds were transferred into small pouches sewn together from natural materials, and work has begun on lowering these seeds down onto the ocean floor off the coast of Dale Fort to create a 20,000-square-meter meadow (5 acres).
Seagrass is also imperative as a haven for wildlife, providing shelter, food, and a place to raise young for all kinds of marine species—as a video from the BBC demonstrates. Seagrass also acts as a nursery for important fish stocks like cod and pollock, and prevents seafloor erosion from storm surges.
In an interview with the BBC, Unsworth stressed the need for hundreds of thousands of acres of seagrass beds, salt marshes, and other coastal ecosystems because of the unique potential they have for tackling local, regional, and—inevitably—global environmental concerns, and for self-cleaning the seas themselves.
Plant Some Positivity By Sharing The Good News With Your Friends On Social Media…
Quote of the Day: “Crisis doesn’t change people; it reveals them.” – Eric Walters
Photo: by Slava B – public domain
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?
If you need to work from home because of the COVID-19 virus, maybe you’d like to get an inspirational jolt by taking some time to help your elderly neighbors—which is exactly what this North Carolina woman did.
Becky Hoeffler who works at Duke University, was talking to her grandfather on the phone when he mentioned that he was going out grocery shopping. She was concerned for him because the elderly population is most at-risk of catching the novel coronavirus, but he lives in New Jersey so she couldn’t help out.
That’s when she got the idea to make grocery runs for her senior neighbors, in lieu of helping her grandpa.
“Am I excited that I’m probably going to get a sweet loaf of banana bread from my neighbor, Patti, because of this, yes,” the spunky Hoeffler told WNCN News. “Either way though, I think being able to help your neighbor is one of the most American things that you can do.”
Her next door neighbor Patti asked for paper towels, fresh fruit, and flour, she told GNN. “I was really lucky to find the paper towels—that whole aisle is almost empty!”
And, some of the flour likely went into this homemade bread given to Becky to say thanks.
Hoeffler also walked down to the housing community for senior living at the end of her cul-de-sac. She talked to people on their porches and introduced herself—and the offer of kindness.
”They told me I could post the sign with my information near the mailbox station, so all members of the community would be able to see it!”
Becky at the supermarket, for GNN
“No one has responded to the sign yet but one of the women I talked to said she will call me in a few days and is thankful that she can stop feeling anxious about having to go to the store now!”
Becky has posted on a local Facebook group to try to get the word out and to see if anyone needs help.
“In these situations, when the community steps up, you really lessen the pressure on first responders and medical personnel,” she said in an email. “If you’re able to decrease, even by a little bit, the number of patients that have to seek care because they’ve been exposed to something, it’s good for the community as a whole.”
“Utilizing people power is one of the best ways that we can combat the virus.”
(WATCH the video from WNCN newscast)
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Missouri’s Share the Harvest program, a goodwill mission that allows Missouri deer hunters to donate part, if not all, of their catch to charity, was a huge success this season. 6,750 whole deer and 350,000 pounds of venison were donated through the program and went to local food banks around the state.
The lean, grass-fed, additive-free meat was tested, ground, packaged, and delivered to the food banks thanks to the volunteers who organized more than 100 participating meat packing facilities. The cost of processing the meat is covered by numerous sponsors, including sportsman’s groups like Missouri Chapter National Wild Turkey, government departments like the Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC), and charity organizations like the Missouri Food Banks Association.
“Hunters started Share the Harvest because they saw a need in their communities,” said MDC Director Sara Parker Pauley in a statement. ”And hunters remain the driving force behind this popular program that helps feed our fellow Missourians who are in need.”
Share the Harvest is coordinated by the MDC and the Conservation Federation of Missouri. Launched in 1992, it has seen 4.3 million pounds of venison ground, packaged and sent off to ensure that people not only have something to eat, but something that is of exceptional nutritional value.
Because there are 1.4 million whitetail deer in Missouri alone, each year around 38,000 vehicles collide with the animals along Missouri’s roads. In 2018, hunters harvested almost 300,000 of them across all seasons.
Along with helping to feed the hungry, and reducing accidents, hunters play a vitally important role in containing the spread of chronic wasting disease in the state—a ferociously contagious, prion-protein disease that infects millions of deer in the country but especially in the Midwest.
Most sportsmen will tell you that sharing their quarry with friends and family is one of the great joys of their pastime, and so it’s not surprising that Share the Harvest is only one of many hunter-food bank initiatives across the country.
Perhaps the largest, Hunters for the Hungry has prominent chapters in Virginia, Texas, Iowa, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and also Missouri. Annually, 8 million pounds of venison is donated across all state chapters, creating over two million meals for America’s hungry.
This traditional way of life also contributes to less CO2 emissions, as hunting is one of the most environmentally-sustainable forms of food production. The carbon footprint from bringing this much meat to table is much smaller through hunting, than if done commercially.
Feed Your Friends Some Positivity By Sharing The Good News To Social Media…
California Governor Gavin Newsom has turned over 286 state-owned buildings and properties at no cost in order to house citizens sleeping on the streets.
The properties include state-owned undeveloped lots, fairgrounds, armories, and other government buildings. The move comes in the wake of other housing initiatives launched since Newsom took office in January 2019, including deploying emergency shelters in the form of mobile homes for homeless.
“Let’s call it what it is, a disgrace, that the richest state in the richest nation … is failing to properly house, heal and humanely treat so many of its own people,” Newsom said in his State of the State address February 19.
The rampant homelessness problem in California is normally attributed to a lack of low-income housing options, and Newsom has proposed $750 million dollars for the purpose of getting this kind of housing built and getting people in as fast as possible.
This is on top of the $1.6 billion that already has been allocated for homeless services and other projects.
The state said they would offer the properties to local governments for $1 leases, and said it had earmarked $650 million in State Emergency Homeless Aid “to build out sites.” But the local governments are charged with reviewing the sites and making final decisions about housing people there.
Homelessness in the most populous U.S. state has soared to around 151,000 individuals, with 41,000 of those being chronically homeless over a long term.
Also in his address, Newsom called for allowing exemptions from the state’s stringent environmental regulations, so that homeless shelters can be built more quickly, speeding up the process and reducing red tape.
According to Reuters, the time these properties sit in environmental review has allowed for those who don’t want shelters and low-income housing developed in their neighborhoods to organized and derail the constructions.
Power Up With Positivity By Sharing The Good News To Social Media – File photo by Imbudiallo
Quote of the Day: “Let us not pray to be sheltered from dangers, but to be fearless in facing them.” – Rabindranath Tagore
Photo: by Sarah Cervantes – public domain
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?
Growing older is inevitable—and a privilege for those who survive their youth. But accepting the changes in your body and lifestyle can be a hard pill to swallow for some.
In fact, in the UK there are an average of 5,400 Google searches every month for “best anti-aging cream”.
But what are the positives of aging? Is anybody shouting about them?
The Office for National Statistics recently revealed that the number of over-85s in the UK is set to increase from 1.6 million in 2018 to 3 million by 2043. As more people reach their ‘Silver Senior’ years, it’s time to celebrate aging and the benefits it brings.
A recent survey of 2,000 adults over the age of 50 sought to uncover their perceptions of aging. Most importantly, it aimed to discover the things they liked about being older—the benefits we all have to look forward to.
The respondents, all living in the U.K., were given a set of questions and a list of aspects of aging to choose from. Overall, 25% of respondents felt very positively about aging. Nearly half of the women (47%) either agreed, or somewhat agreed, that their self-confidence has grown with age. 41% also felt their sense of fulfillment has increased, too.
Meanwhile, 43% of men also believed their self-confidence had increased, and 40% believed their sense of fulfillment has developed, too.
WHAT ARE THE BEST THINGS ABOUT AGING? Survey Says…
Life experience
Being comfortable in your own skin
Having a greater sense of gratitude for the smaller things in life
Independence and freedom (perhaps related to not being tied down to job or family)
Ability to let things go
The cities that proved to have the most positive outlook on getting older might surprise you; Belfast came out on top, closely followed by Newcastle and Leicester.
In case you have difficulties finding the positive aspects of aging, Julie Jennings Dip COT HCPC, an independent occupational therapist, has compiled some tips on how to maintain a healthy and happy mindset as you age that you check out here.
The survey was conducted by One Poll on behalf of HSL, a company that works with Julie to make handcrafted furniture more ergonomic in the UK.
Be Sure And Share This Evergreen Survey With Your Friends On Social Media…
Rather than sharing ice cream with Tom Hanks, this particular “Lieutenant Dan” is on track to become the mascot for Cadbury candy.
The two-legged pup from New Richmond, Ohio is just one of the ten finalists vying to be the official new Cadbury Bunny. Although his Instagram bio says that he was “born a little different,” he apparently still knows “how to live life to the fullest.”
Assuming Lieutenant Dan wins, he will also be awarded $5,000 and a starring role in the next Cadbury commercial.
With Bhutan being ranked one of the most eco-friendly countries in the world, the king of the small nation asked his people to celebrate his most recent birthday in the most perfect way.
King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck turned 40 years old on February 21st. Rather than ask for gifts, however, he told the people of Bhutan to either plant a tree, adopt a stray animal, or clean up their neighborhood in his honor.
Prime Minister Dr. Lotay Tshering announced the heartwarming wish to the world during a series of birthday celebrations and festivities at Changlimithang Stadium, saying “personal commitment such as this … would be the best gift for His Majesty.”
This is not the first time that the King has asked his people to plant trees on his behalf—back in May 2016, he and his wife celebrated the birth of their firstborn son by asking each of the nation’s households to plant a sapling, resulting in more than 108,000 trees planted.
Since the King and Queen are also now expecting the arrival of a second child this spring, the nation is quite likely to rejoice with an equally green ritual.
Plant Some Positivity By Sharing The Good News With Your Friends On Social Media…
It’s been three years since Tony Colley barely had enough money to feed himself—and now, he is making sure that other people won’t have to suffer from the same hunger.
Colley is the mastermind behind B12Give—an “Uber Eats-style” project that rescues leftover food from catering events and donates it to homeless shelters and food pantries.
Since he launched the project last May, he has picked up and delivered more than 11,000 pounds of surplus food to charities throughout the greater Toronto area.
Colley says he was inspired to start B12Give after he landed a job as a part-time event manager for a catering company. Throughout the course of his job, he was heartbroken to see the amount of surplus food that was thrown out at the end of an event—so he started delivering the meals to shelters on his bike after each event.
Now, retailers participating in the B12Give subscription service can simply send a text to Colley whenever they have food to pickup. Colley can then drive the food over to the charities within the hour, making B12Give the first barrier-free food diversion program in Canada.
A Texas coffee shop is being praised for building its business around hiring young workers who have aged out of the foster car system.
The La La Land Kindness Café in Dallas has gone out of its way to hire 9 former foster kids who were facing troubled times after turning 18 years old.
Since many foster kids are left without a support system once they age out of the system, many of them can end up on the streets—but not if Francois Reihani has anything to say about it.
The 24-year-old entrepreneur says that he was first inspired to launch the La La Land business model after he attended an informational meeting for a local nonprofit serving foster kids in Texas. Not only has the restaurant served as a place of employment for the at-risk youth, it has also become a safe haven and community support system for all of the employees.
“We’re not in the business of coffee, we just serve coffee—we’re definitely in the business of kindness,” Reihani told CBS News.
Reihani now hopes that his café will inspire other small businesses to adopt similar initiatives. For 20-year-old employee Ciara Morton who overcame homeless and depression after joining the La La Land workforce last year, the experience has been life-changing.
“I have people to believe in me and support me. I’ve never had that kind of support in my life,” she told CBSDFW. “So I’ve been able to believe in myself, and realize what I want in life and chase after it.”
Serve Up This Inspiring Story Of Kindness To Your Friends On Social Media…
In a hearing on Capitol Hill yesterday, a congresswoman managed to secure a verbal confirmation from the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that he would use his power under law to make coronavirus testing free for all Americans.
Rep. Katie Porter (D-CA) delivered an impassioned argument for free COVID-19 testing to CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield, and also Robert Kadlec, assistant secretary of Health and Human Services during a House oversight committee Thursday.
Porter used a whiteboard to tally up the average out-of-pocket costs of virus testing and ER visit in the U.S., stating that some Americans wouldn’t have the money, and so might stay home rather than get tested.
She then cited a statute from the Code of Federal Regulation which allows the CDC to authorize payment for the “care and treatment of individuals subject to medical examination, quarantine, isolation, and conditional release.”
After several minutes of pressing Redfield to commit to offering free testing and treatment to all Americans, regardless of insurance, he relented. “I think you’re an excellent questioner,” he said, “so my answer is yes.”
You can learn more about laboratories currently offering COVID-19 testing on the CDC website.
Porter, and two of her colleagues—Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) and Rep. Lauren Underwood (D-Ill.)—sent a letter to officials raising this issue of free testing last week, and have promised to hold the administration to this commitment, noting that the Director was under oath.
The congressional video of Porter’s interrogation at the hearing has already been viewed more than 50 million times since it was posted to her Twitter account on Thursday.
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Quote of the Day: “We suffer more from imagination than from reality.” – Seneca
Photo: by Josh Hild – public domain
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?
Reposted on #ThrowbackThursday, in case you missed it…
An 18-year-old pizzeria worker was praised for going above and beyond the call of duty after he broke the restaurant’s take-out rule to deliver a pizza to a family’s home three and a half hours away.
Julie and Rich Morgan had been reminiscing about the legendary pies that are served up at Steve’s Pizza place in Battle Creek, Michigan. It had been 25 years since the couple lived in the city, but despite the distance, the fabled restaurant still set the bar for the perfect slice of pizza.
“We were young and money was tight, but every pay day, Rich would pick up Steve’s Pizza for dinner,” Julie wrote in a Facebook post. “I can’t possibly describe how delicious this pizza is—but several moves and all these years later, it is still the gold standard and we’ve never found a better pizza yet. Rich has frequently critiqued other pizza as ‘good, but it’s no Steve’s.’”
Julie and Rich had been planning on visiting Battle Creek for her birthday—but as their vacation loomed closer, an unexpected cancer diagnosis left Rich in hospice.
“We talked about seeing the leaves and the lakeshore, but that was secondary to our planned visit to Steve’s,” says Julie. “Instead, I took Rich to the ER where he landed in ICU for five days, and where we learned the news that his valiant cancer battle was coming to an end.”
Unbeknownst to the couple, Julie’s father called Steve’s Pizza in hopes of getting a letter, text, or friendly phone call from the restaurant—but as fate would have it, the restaurant’s manager, 18-year-old Dalton Shaffer, answered the phone instead.
After listening to the plight of the Morgan family, Shaffer immediately asked what kind of pizzas the couple liked. Julie’s father emphasized that they lived in Indianapolis—which is 225 miles away from Battle Creek.
Despite the restaurant maintaining a firm take out-only rule, Shaffer waved away the man’s protests and said that he would be delivering two pepperoni pizzas to the couple’s house after he closed the store for the night.
True to his word, Shaffer drove for three and a half hours until he finally arrived at the Morgan’s house.
“And so, while Rich and I slept, at 2:30 AM, Dalton rolled into our driveway, left the car running and delivered two extra special pizzas to my waiting family,” wrote Julie. “He told them we were in his prayers, and offered to help in any way he could.
“My dad offered to put him up in a hotel, but he refused and immediately left for the return trip home because he had to work the next day,” she added.
Though the Morgan family has lauded praise about the pizzeria and their compassionate store manager, Shaffer remained humble. When asked about his extraordinary good deed, Shaffer told the Battle Creek Enquirer: “I just wanted to do that for them. I just wanted to make them happy.”
As a means of expressing her gratitude, Julie posted a photo of the legendary pie to Facebook, saying: “I am beyond overwhelmed and humbled by this act of genuine kindness. Dalton brought our family so much joy—and the best pizza in the world—at a really difficult time.
“While ‘thank you’ hardly seems adequate—from the bottom of my heart, thank you, Dalton … for making your epic middle of the night pizza delivery!”
Pie It Forward By Sharing This Sweet Story Of Kindness With Friends (Photo by Dalton Shaffer / Steve’s Pizza Facebook – Article originally published on GNN in October 2018)
Standing desks are so passé—it’s time for squatting desks.
A USC-led study shows that squatting and kneeling were important resting positions in human evolution—and may be important for modern human health.
Sitting for hours a day is linked to some health risks, including cardiovascular disease, likely because it involves low muscle activity and low muscle metabolism. However, these risks seem paradoxical. For humans, evolutionary pressures favor conserving energy. Spending a lot of time sitting would seem to accomplish that goal. So, why should sitting be so harmful?
The USC-led team has shown that resting postures used before the invention of chairs—like squatting and kneeling—may hold the answer, as they involve higher levels of muscle activity then chair-sitting. These more active rest postures may help protect people from the harmful effects of inactivity.
“We tend to think human physiology is adapted to the conditions in which we evolved,” said David Raichlen, a professor of biological sciences at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. “So, we assumed that if inactivity is harmful, our evolutionary history would not have included much time spent sitting the way we do today.”
The study was published this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
To better understand the evolution of sedentary behaviors, the scientists studied inactivity in a group of Tanzanian hunter-gatherers, the Hadza, who have a lifestyle that is similar in some ways with how humans lived in the past.
For the study, Hadza participants wore devices that measured physical activity and periods of rest. The scientists found that they had high levels of physical activity—over three times as much as the 22 minutes per day advised by U.S. federal health guidelines.
But the scientists also found that they had high levels of inactivity.
In fact, the Hadza are sedentary for about as much time—around 9 to 10 hours per day—as humans in more developed countries. However, they appear to lack the markers of chronic diseases that are associated, in industrialized societies, with long periods of sitting. The reason for this disconnect may lie in how they rest.
“Even though there were long periods of inactivity, one of the key differences we noticed is that the Hadza are often resting in postures that require their muscles to maintain light levels of activity—either in a squat or kneeling,” Raichlen said.
In addition to tracking activity and inactivity, the researchers used specialized equipment to measure muscle activity in the lower limbs in different resting postures. Squatting involved more muscle activity compared to sitting.
The researchers suggested that because the Hadza squat and kneel and have high levels of movement when not at rest, they may have more consistent muscle activity throughout the day. This could reduce the health risks associated with sedentary behavior.
The Hadza in Tanzania tend to squat or kneel when taking a break, which scientists believe may spare them from some risks for heart and metabolic diseases. Photo by David Raichlen of USC and Brian Wood of UCLA.
“Being a couch potato—or even sitting in an office chair—requires less muscle activity than squatting or kneeling,” Raichlen said. “Since light levels of muscle activity require fuel, which generally means burning fats, then squatting and kneeling postures may not be as harmful as sitting in chairs.”
In developed countries, humans spend inactive periods sitting on their duffs in chairs, recliners or sofas, so the only time they activate their leg muscles is when they bend their knees to slide into the seat. On average, people in more industrialized societies, including the United States and Europe, spend about nine hours per day sitting.
“Preferences or behaviors that conserve energy have been key to our species’ evolutionary success,” said Brian Wood, an anthropologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, who has worked with the Hazda people for 16 years. “But when environments change rapidly, these same preferences can lead to less optimal outcomes. Prolonged sitting is one example.”
The scientists dubbed this the “Inactivity Mismatch Hypothesis.”
“Replacing chair sitting and associated muscular inactivity with more sustained active rest postures may represent a behavioral paradigm that should be explored in future experimental work,” they wrote. Resolving this inactivity mismatch with our evolutionary past could pay off in better health today.
“Squatting is not a likely alternative,” Raichlen said, “but spending more time in postures that at least require some low-level muscle activity could be good for our health.”
A study of the second HIV patient to undergo successful stem cell transplantation from donors with an HIV-resistant gene, finds that there was no active viral infection in the patient’s blood 30 months after they stopped anti-retroviral therapy.
Although there was no active viral infection in the patient’s body, remnants of integrated HIV-1 DNA remained in tissue samples, which were also found in the first patient to be cured of HIV.
According to the case report published in The Lancet HIV journal and presented at CROI (Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections), the study authors suggest that these can be regarded as so-called “fossils”, as they are unlikely to be capable of reproducing the virus.
Lead author on the study, Professor Ravindra Kumar Gupta from the University of Cambridge, says: “We propose that these results represent the second ever case of a patient to be cured of HIV. Our findings show that the success of stem cell transplantation as a cure for HIV, first reported nine years ago in the Berlin patient, can be replicated.”
“It is important to note that this curative treatment is high-risk, and only used as a last resort for patients with HIV who also have life-threatening haematological malignancies,” he added. “Therefore, this is not a treatment that would be offered widely to patients with HIV who are on successful antiretroviral treatment.”
While most HIV patients can manage the virus with current treatment options and have the possibility of living a long and healthy life, experimental research of this kind following patients who have undergone high-risk, last-resort curative treatments, can provide insight into how a more widely applicable cure might be developed in the future.
In 2011, another patient based in Berlin (the “Berlin patient”) was the first HIV patient to be reported cured of the virus three and half years after undergoing similar treatment. Their treatment included total body irradiation, two rounds of stem cell transplant from a donor who carried a gene that is resistant to HIV, and a chemotherapy drug regimen. The transplant aims to make the virus unable to replicate in the patient’s body by replacing the patient’s immune cells with those of the donors, whilst the body irradiation and chemotherapy targets any residual HIV virus.
The patient reported in this study (the “London patient”), underwent one stem-cell transplantation, a reduced-intensity chemotherapy drug regimen, without whole body irradiation. In 2019, it was reported that their HIV was in remission, and this study provides follow-up viral load blood test results at 30-months and a modeling analysis to predict the chances of viral re-emergence.
Ultrasensitive viral load sampling from the London patient’s cerebrospinal fluid, intestinal tissue, or lymphoid tissue was taken at 29 months after interruption of ART and viral load sampling of their blood at 30 months. At 29 months, CD4 cell count (indicators of immune system health and stem cell transplantation success) was measured, and the extent to which the patient’s immune cells have been replaced by those derived from the transplant.
Results showed no active viral infection was detected in samples of the patient’s blood at 30 months, or in their cerebrospinal fluid, semen, intestinal tissue, and lymphoid tissue 29 months after stopping ART.
The patient had a healthy CD4 cell count, suggesting they have recovered well from the transplant, with their CD4 cells replaced by cells derived from the HIV-resistant transplanted stem cells.
Furthermore, 99% of the patient’s immune cells were derived from the donor’s stem cells, indicating the stem-cell transplant had been successful.
Since it was not possible to measure proportion of cells derived from the donor’s stem cells in all parts of the patient’s body (i.e. measurement was not possible in some tissue cells like lymph nodes), the authors used a modeling analysis to predict the probability of cure based on two possible scenarios. If 80% of patient’s cells are derived from the transplant, the probability of cure is predicted at 98%; whereas if they have 90% donor derived cells, they predict a 99% probability of cure.
Comparing to the treatment used on the Berlin patient, the authors highlight that their case study of the London patient represents a step towards a less intensive treatment approach, showing that the long-term remission of HIV can be achieved using reduced intensity drug regimens, with one stem cell transplant (rather than two) and without total body irradiation.
However, being only the second reported patient to undergo this experimental treatment successfully, the authors note that that the London patient will need continued, but much less frequent, monitoring for re-emergence of the virus.
That being said, the London patient—Adam Castillejo—has gone public with his identity in hopes that he can be a positive role model for other people living with HIV.
Blake Leeper has never let his lack of legs prevent him from pursuing his passion for sports—and now, he is fighting to become the first American amputee to participate in the Olympics.
Since Leeper discovered his passion for track and field in college, he has gone on to become a Paralympic champion and international silver- and bronze-medalist.
Despite these achievements the 30-year-old double amputee has been denied a chance to compete for Team USA in the Tokyo 2020 Olympics alongside able-bodied athletes because the World Athletics ruled that his prosthetic running blades gave him an unfair advantage over his competitors.
However, Leeper will not be deterred—he has filed for an appeal with the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) to let him compete.
“World Athletics’s decision to bar me from participating in the World Championships was a blow to all disabled athletes, but I will not be deterred. I trust in CAS to recognize that I do not have any advantage over able-bodied athletes,” Leeper said in a statement. “I just want a fair chance to compete. For as long as I can remember, I have dreamed of participating in the Olympics with the best runners in the world, and I have shown myself capable of competing with them. But I will need the help of the Court … to make my dream a reality.”
(WATCH the Great Big Story video below) – Photo by Great Big Story
Run This Inspiring Story Over To Your Friends By Sharing It To Social Media…
Rather than fight vitriol with vitriol, a Muslim politician who is running for a seat in Congress responded to some “deeply hurtful anti-Muslim tweets” with compassion—and it completely changed the dialogue.
Attorney Qasim Rashid, a Democrat who is running for U.S. Representative in the 1st district of Virginia, was disturbed to receive a series of racist messages from a conservative constituent on Twitter.
The man in question was a 66-year-old Fredericksburg resident named Oz Dillon.
Dillon has been struggling to pay the bills since his wife suffered a pulmonary embolism that wiped out their retirement savings. In addition to having a modest income of just $38,000 per year, Dillon and his wife have been coping with soaring insurance rates and a house that is not handicap accessible.
When Rashid learned of Dillon’s financial difficulties on Twitter, he donated to Dillon’s GoFundMe campaign and encouraged his community of voters to do the same.
Inspired by Rashid’s kindness, many of his social media followers did, indeed, donate to the crowdfunding page, leaving Dillon “in awe”.
Dillon apologized for his earlier insults and thanked him for showing such compassion.
I look forward to the beginning of a wonderful friendship.
And I can’t wait to share the full story with y’all so stay tuned
In the meantime if you’re so inclined, you can support Oz & his wife here: https://t.co/uq9MCxiN5t
— Qasim Rashid for Congress (@QasimRashid) March 9, 2020
“Mr. Rashid, You humble me sir, with your graciousness, and surprisingly kind words,” he said in a message to Rashid. “You cannot imagine how uplifting it is, to see gifts such as yours starting to come in! Given how I have misspoken about you in posts on Facebook, I am truly shocked, that you have shared my wife and my plight with your supporters. I must now reassess my opinion about you, and your platform, come November.”
He also published a note of thanks to his benefactors on GoFundMe.
“An amazing week of eye- and heart-opening enlightenment, that I used to always have before 9/11,” he said “A Christian Muslim, Qasim Rashid, who I had previously opposed politically just because of the word Muslim, has opened my eyes that there are GOOD people in all walks of life.
“He shared our plight with his followers, who in turn donated nearly $1,000 dollars to help Terri and I get rid of this crushing debt. I owe him, and everyone in fact, a deep debt of gratitude, and pray you are all rewarded tenfold, for your generosity.”
Since their story has been shared on social media and news outlets, Dillon’s crowdfunding campaign has raised more than $20,000—and Rashid went to meet the voter in person to develop their newfound friendship.
Be Sure And Share This Inspiring Story With Your Friends On Social Media…
Quote of the Day: “If I have lost confidence in myself, I have the universe against me.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Photo: by Etty Fidele – public domain
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For several generations of young Americans, the idea of a ‘milkman’ is a completely foreign concept. But if you lived in the 40s, 50s, and 60s, and you were in the middle-class, you likely had a delivery truck dropping off fresh bottles of milk on your front porch—and you would leave the empties outside to be picked up. It was super convenient—and, better yet, there was no waste generated in the process.
With tons of plastic containers overrunning landfills, and an innovative partnership of consumer brands emerging, the milkman idea of circulating containers is making a comeback.
Loop launched in Paris and New York one year ago as a company that ships customers their favorite products packaged in reusable stainless steel or glass containers to be collected later for cleaning and refilling—just like your grandfather’s milk.
They quickly expanding their operation to cover much of the U.S. Mid-Atlantic region, and this month Loop will be bringing their pioneering business model to the UK, a move they hope will make them the biggest eliminator of single-use plastics in the global grocery market. They also announced plans to expand soon into Canada, Germany, and Japan.
Loop teamed up with some of the biggest consumer industry giants to create eco-versions of hundreds of popular products like Tropicana, Haagen-Dazs, or Hellmann’s mayonnaise; cleaning products like Tide and Clorox wipes; and skin and hair care essentials like deodorants, from companies like Dove, Pantene, L’Oreal, and Crest. Procter & Gamble, Loop’s biggest partner, which also owns a 2 percent stake in the enterprise, tapped into 10 of its most iconic brands as part of the Loop 2019 launch, including Ariel, Cascade, Crest, Febreze, Gillette, Pantene, Pampers, and Tide, according to GreenBiz.
Image by Loop
Stateside, the refillable products are available at Kroger and Walgreens, in addition to the online Loop store, and they cost nearly the same as their plastic counterparts, except for the cost of a deposit.
Founded by the brilliant recycling company TerraCycle, Loop plans to expand across the U.S. this year where more consumers in specific zip codes can place empties inside their Loop insulated zipper tote on the doorstep—to be picked up, washed, and reused.
In France, where Loop has already partnered with Carrefour—one of the largest grocery chains in Europe, consumers pay a small deposit on the items purchased, in case the packages aren’t returned later. This includes small bottles, where a deposit might only be a few cents, or large tubs that might contain laundry soap or paper towels
1953 photo by Ben van Meerendonk / AHF, collectie IISG, Amsterdam
When asked about the hefty carbon footprint of shipping the products all over the country and then shipping them back for washing and refilling, Loop’s founder, the mastermind of Terracycle, Tom Szaky, explained that if you add up all the energy and shipping it takes to create and distribute plastic, the carbon footprint is cut in half—plus you are digging up the actual root of the plastic problem, so it can be eliminated.
Furthermore, as drone delivery technology becomes more and more feasible in major cities, delivery will become much cheaper and more energy efficient. Companies like DHL, UPS, Amazon, Google, Dominoes, Rakuten, and 7-11 all have drone-delivery technology.
According to the Business Insider 2018-2020 report on online grocery shopping, 10% of consumers utilize online grocery store options, while the market value of these services doubled from $12 billion in 2016 to $26 billion in 2018 and shows no sign of slowing down.
It’s possible that in the next ten years thanks to companies like Loop, all the benefits of the friendly neighborhood milkman will be resurrected to create a healthier planet for all.
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