Quote of the Day: “Be the one who has an understanding and a forgiving heart, one who looks for the best in people. Leave people better than you found them.” – Marvin J. Ashton
Photo: by Igor Rodrigues – 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?
It can be quite a struggle for parents to get stubborn children to eat their vegetables—which is why generations of them have come up with creative methods for sneaking nutrition into their kids’ diets.
In the survey of 2,000 parents with children under 18, half declared a parenting ‘win’ whenever their child requested a healthy snack. 53% said another win was watching them actually enjoying that healthy snack.
These wins could arguably be the most satisfying for parents too, because 55% of respondents agreed getting their child to eat healthy food was “difficult”.
Conducted by OnePoll on behalf of Pirate’s Booty for National Snack Food Month in February, the survey looked at the top tips and hacks parents use to assist them in scoring those parentings wins.
Fifty-five percent of respondents said they’ve employed the “stealth health” technique to help them maintain a well-rounded and nutritious diet for their children.
21% of parents polled really dedicate themselves to stealth health by pureeing, dicing, or even grating vegetables so they can be snuck into a plate undetected.
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Creativity is also key for parents—from slipping spinach into brownies or placing veggies underneath the cheese in pizza. One respondent even said they mix powdered baby food into mac n’ cheese in order to keep their kids eating their veggies.
‘Chicken nuggets’ is another key to stealth health, as twenty-two percent of parents surveyed said they’ve told their children breaded vegetables were chicken nuggets to help persuade the little ones to eat them and 21% said they’ve told their children all meat is chicken nuggets to give them a boost to eat it.
The most successful tip to keep their kids eating healthy, however, is simply allowing them to lend a hand in the kitchen (37%). Any way you slice it, adults all love those satisfying little ways we manage to empower ourselves while raising their brood.
WHAT ARE THE TOP 10 HACKS PARENTS USE TO MAINTAIN A NUTRITIOUS DIET FOR THEIR FAMILY? Survey Says…
1. Allowing your child to help cook meals so they will be more likely to eat them
2. Letting your child pick their own healthy snacks
3. Letting your child pick a few meals for the family to have each week
4. Only letting your child eat dessert if they’ve finished their vegetables
5. Switching the packaging from an unhealthy snack to a healthy snack
6. Bribing your child with a treat to get them to finish their dinner
7. Letting your child put a little ketchup on things they don’t like, so they will eat them
8. Using the “one more bite” rule over and over to get your child to finish their meal
9. Buying snacks with characters your child likes on the packaging so they would be more likely to eat it
10. Making faces with the food so your child will be entertained and be more likely to eat it
Share The Tips And Tricks With Your Friends On Social Media… (Photo by Dan Foy, CC license)
Ask ten of your friends to join you on stage to do improv comedy, and see how many of them say yes. Now, imagine someone suffering from anxiety or depression and ask them the same question—probably a slim chance of getting a yes out of anyone in your entire friend group.
But, those who are grappling with anxiety or depression in Chicago should seriously consider joining the program Improv for Anxiety.
Freethink.com documented the adventure of Stephanie Azzaline and other students who signed up for the 8-week course—a mixture of group therapy sessions (led by two licensed clinicians with improv experience) and actual improv training and performances led by instructors at one of the world’s premier comedy clubs, Second City.
The idea, which came to life at Second City a couple years ago, was to create a support network, which would then help bolster the confidence of members, both teens and college students, stuck in anxiety’s grasp. And a scientific study showed it to be a potentially a great idea.
After a short-term clinical study involving 32 patients, researchers in Illinois concluded that intervention using improvisational comedy exercises may provide a strong and efficient treatment for patients with anxiety and depression.
Improv for Anxiety course methods include all of the classic games that made Whose Line is it Anyway famous, like ‘scenes from a hat,’ and ‘hoedown’.
RELATED: LEGO Targets Stressed-Out Adults to Reduce Their Anxiety at Home and Work
The students found the assurance that everyone in the class was already seeking to remedy their anxiety encouraging, and it was an important part of getting them comfortable enough to perform.
“People with anxiety a lot of times are either thinking about the past, or they’re thinking about the future,” Megan Hastings, an improv student told Freethink. “But they’re normally not in the present.”
Improv forces those in the class to stay rooted in the present as they try and come up with ideas, rhymes, jokes, and more. There are no pauses in improv rounds, so if you make a mistake, the only way to fix it is to move forward and try to nail the next bit.
For instance, one of the games from Whose Line is it Anyway that Improv for Anxiety regularly uses is an exercise where they all take turns adding one word onto an ongoing sentence to try and make the funniest story.
MORE: Easing Anxiety for Lower-Income Students With 10-Minute Writing Exercise, Grades Soar Dramatically
Many of the students and participants said their anxiety had abated, sometimes a little, sometimes a lot, after taking the course. One participant managed to navigate a potential breakup without breaking up, and added that her day-to-day life was 30% easier.
The support network continues even after their eight weeks has ended, as participants share their highs and lows in a group text—undoubtedly with jokes thrown in as often as possible.
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While not many of you currently clean your kitchen counters with a rotting banana peel, the natural processes inherent in decomposing fruit actually produce many of the key ingredients within many common household cleaners.
With so much food waste going to rot in landfills, a company called Veles wanted to repurpose those sugars and acids and turn them into something useful. Today, their all-purpose cleaner is made exclusively from 100% food waste, along with a selection of sustainably sourced natural fragrances—and lab tests show it to be effective 99% of the time at cleaning tough dirt from multiple surfaces.
Most household cleaners contain up to 90% water, a valuable resource in any country—but all the water in the Veles product is directly derived from the food waste.
Co-founders of the New York–based eco-company, Amanda Weeks and Brett Van Aalsburg, have partnered with food waste collectors across the city to bring the contents of food waste bins in corporate cafeterias throughout Manhattan to use in their production process.
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Using a simple acid fermentation process, key cleaning ingredients can be teased out of food waste. These include water, lactic acid, acetic acid, one of the few compounds in vinegar, and alcohol. Together they make up 97% of the Veles cleaner, with natural fragrances representing the remaining 3%.
The environmental benefits of the Veles cleaner go beyond just increasing the amount of food waste being recycled. It raises awareness of the benefits of bio-matter as a cleaning agent; reduces a potent source of methane (CH4) a harmful greenhouse gas, which emanates from food waste accumulating in landfills; and also removes the need for processed ingredients to be shipped to the Veles production facility in Newark from faraway places, reducing CO2 emissions in the transportation sector.
And more good news comes from the fact that they’ve designed their handsome spray bottle to be made of recyclable aluminum sourced in the U.S., and the company will soon be selling refills for it.
MORE: Cameroon Man Uses Wasted Plastic Bottles to Build Canoes for Fishermen in Need
Like other products that are beneficial for the environment, Veles isn’t cheap. It is available for $16.00 on their website, but the refills will be selling for half as much—for all the customers who want to maximize the green potential of their dollars, and support small business innovation.
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Quote of the Day: “Tell me who admires and loves you, and I will tell you who you are.” – Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Photo: by Holger Link (@photoholgic) – 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?
Artificial intelligence yields new antibiotic
A deep-learning model identifies a powerful new drug that can kill many species of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
Written by Anne Trafton
MIT News
Using a machine-learning algorithm, MIT researchers have identified a powerful new antibiotic compound. In laboratory tests, the drug killed many of the world’s most problematic disease-causing bacteria, including some strains that are resistant to all known antibiotics. It also cleared infections in two different mouse models.
The computer model, which can screen more than a hundred million chemical compounds in a matter of days, is designed to pick out potential antibiotics that kill bacteria using different mechanisms than those of existing drugs.
“We wanted to develop a platform that would allow us to harness the power of artificial intelligence to usher in a new age of antibiotic drug discovery,” says James Collins, the Termeer Professor of Medical Engineering and Science in MIT’s Institute for Medical Engineering and Science (IMES) and Department of Biological Engineering. “Our approach revealed this amazing molecule which is arguably one of the more powerful antibiotics that has been discovered.”
In their new study, the researchers also identified several other promising antibiotic candidates, which they plan to test further. They believe the model could also be used to design new drugs, based on what it has learned about chemical structures that enable drugs to kill bacteria.
“The machine learning model can explore, in silico, large chemical spaces that can be prohibitively expensive for traditional experimental approaches,” says Regina Barzilay, the Delta Electronics Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science in MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL).
Barzilay and Collins, who are faculty co-leads for MIT’s Abdul Latif Jameel Clinic for Machine Learning in Health (J-Clinic), are the senior authors of the study, which appears today in Cell. The first author of the paper is Jonathan Stokes, a postdoc at MIT and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard.
A new pipeline
Over the past few decades, very few new antibiotics have been developed, and most of those newly approved antibiotics are slightly different variants of existing drugs. Current methods for screening new antibiotics are often prohibitively costly, require a significant time investment, and are usually limited to a narrow spectrum of chemical diversity.
“We’re facing a growing crisis around antibiotic resistance, and this situation is being generated by both an increasing number of pathogens becoming resistant to existing antibiotics, and an anemic pipeline in the biotech and pharmaceutical industries for new antibiotics,” Collins says.
To try to find completely novel compounds, he teamed up with Barzilay, Professor Tommi Jaakkola, and their students Kevin Yang, Kyle Swanson, and Wengong Jin, who have previously developed machine-learning computer models that can be trained to analyze the molecular structures of compounds and correlate them with particular traits, such as the ability to kill bacteria.
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The idea of using predictive computer models for “in silico” screening is not new, but until now, these models were not sufficiently accurate to transform drug discovery. Previously, molecules were represented as vectors reflecting the presence or absence of certain chemical groups. However, the new neural networks can learn these representations automatically, mapping molecules into continuous vectors which are subsequently used to predict their properties.
In this case, the researchers designed their model to look for chemical features that make molecules effective at killing E. coli. To do so, they trained the model on about 2,500 molecules, including about 1,700 FDA-approved drugs and a set of 800 natural products with diverse structures and a wide range of bioactivities.
Once the model was trained, the researchers tested it on the Broad Institute’s Drug Repurposing Hub, a library of about 6,000 compounds. The model picked out one molecule that was predicted to have strong antibacterial activity and had a chemical structure different from any existing antibiotics. Using a different machine-learning model, the researchers also showed that this molecule would likely have low toxicity to human cells.
This molecule, which the researchers decided to call halicin, after the fictional artificial intelligence system from “2001: A Space Odyssey,” has been previously investigated as possible diabetes drug. The researchers tested it against dozens of bacterial strains isolated from patients and grown in lab dishes, and found that it was able to kill many that are resistant to treatment, including Clostridium difficile, Acinetobacter baumannii, and Mycobacterium tuberculosis. The drug worked against every species that they tested, with the exception of Pseudomonas aeruginosa, a difficult-to-treat lung pathogen.
To test halicin’s effectiveness in living animals, the researchers used it to treat mice infected with A. baumannii, a bacterium that has infected many U.S. soldiers stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan. The strain of A. baumannii that they used is resistant to all known antibiotics, but application of a halicin-containing ointment completely cleared the infections within 24 hours.
Preliminary studies suggest that halicin kills bacteria by disrupting their ability to maintain an electrochemical gradient across their cell membranes. This gradient is necessary, among other functions, to produce ATP (molecules that cells use to store energy), so if the gradient breaks down, the cells die. This type of killing mechanism could be difficult for bacteria to develop resistance to, the researchers say.
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“When you’re dealing with a molecule that likely associates with membrane components, a cell can’t necessarily acquire a single mutation or a couple of mutations to change the chemistry of the outer membrane. Mutations like that tend to be far more complex to acquire evolutionarily,” Stokes says.
In this study, the researchers found that E. coli did not develop any resistance to halicin during a 30-day treatment period. In contrast, the bacteria started to develop resistance to the antibiotic ciprofloxacin within one to three days, and after 30 days, the bacteria were about 200 times more resistant to ciprofloxacin than they were at the beginning of the experiment.
The researchers plan to pursue further studies of halicin, working with a pharmaceutical company or nonprofit organization, in hopes of developing it for use in humans.
Optimized molecules
After identifying halicin, the researchers also used their model to screen more than 100 million molecules selected from the ZINC15 database, an online collection of about 1.5 billion chemical compounds. This screen, which took only three days, identified 23 candidates that were structurally dissimilar from existing antibiotics and predicted to be nontoxic to human cells.
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In laboratory tests against five species of bacteria, the researchers found that eight of the molecules showed antibacterial activity, and two were particularly powerful. The researchers now plan to test these molecules further, and also to screen more of the ZINC15 database.
The researchers also plan to use their model to design new antibiotics and to optimize existing molecules. For example, they could train the model to add features that would make a particular antibiotic target only certain bacteria, preventing it from killing beneficial bacteria in a patient’s digestive tract.
“This groundbreaking work signifies a paradigm shift in antibiotic discovery and indeed in drug discovery more generally,” says Roy Kishony, a professor of biology and computer science at Technion (the Israel Institute of Technology), who was not involved in the study. “Beyond in silica screens, this approach will allow using deep learning at all stages of antibiotic development, from discovery to improved efficacy and toxicity through drug modifications and medicinal chemistry.”
Reprinted with permission from MIT News
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This compassionate veterinarian has spent the last nine years treating homeless people’s pets across California.
Dr. Kwane Stewart first started his labor of love back in 2011 when he was left heartbroken by the amount of animals being surrendered to his veterinary clinic during the recession. As more and more people lost their homes, more and more pet owners opted to turn their furry companions over to a shelter than allow them to be homeless.
Stewart then brought his veterinary supplies to a soup kitchen event so he could treat some of the homeless pets around Modesto, California.
“About 25% of our homeless population own a pet, and I knew that if I set up a table at a soup kitchen I could help a small group of animals,” Stewart told GoFundMe. “So that’s what I did. I called over anyone who was holding their pet and told them I’d take a look and vaccinate or treat their pet if I could.”
Upon successfully treating 15 animals in a single day, Stewart knew he had found his purpose.
He has since devoted his spare time to wandering through alleyways and city streets up and down the west coast so he can treat homeless people’s pets—and he has helped heal more than 400 animals.
Despite how many dogs and cats can easily be treated with the supplies in his veterinary bag, however, some of the animals required more intensive surgeries and operations.
Back in September, Stewart created a GoFundMe campaign to raise money for his mission—and to date, he has raised $29,000 to pay for animal treatments. He was also officially named the GoFundMe Hero of February.
“I don’t ever want to have to turn anybody away,” he says. “The look on people’s faces when they get their pets back, especially after a surgery or a life-saving procedure—those are moments I’ll remember forever.”
(WATCH the video below)
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In an ambitious bid to cut the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions, India is now ensuring that all diesel and gas stations will only be supplying the cleanest available fuel.
Starting on April 1st, India will join the ranks of the few world nations offering Euro-VI grade fuel, which only contains 10 parts per million (ppm) of sulphur in contrast to the 50 ppm in Euro-IV fuels.
India is reportedly the first country to ever transition directly from IV-grade fuels to VI-grade. Not only that, they managed to achieve the transition in just three years.
According to The Tribune, it took India 7 years to transition from Euro-III grade fuel with a sulphur content of 350 ppm to Euro-IV fuel. Reports also say that most of the nation’s gas stations were already distributing the new ultra-low fuel by the end of 2019.
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“We are absolutely on track for supplying BS-VI fuel from April 1. Almost all refineries have begun supplying BS-VI fuel and the same has reached storage depots across the country,” Sanjiv Singh, Chairman of Indian Oil Corp (IOC), told reporters. “It was a conscious decision to leapfrog to BS-VI as first upgrading to BS-V and then shifting to BS-VI would have prolonged the journey to 4 to 6 years. Besides, oil refineries, as well as automobile manufacturers, would have had to make investments twice—first to producing BS-V grade fuel and engines and then BS-VI ones.”
While the initiative is just one of the many ways that India is trying to keep up with the world’s shift towards renewable energy, the nation reportedly made history last week by becoming the first country to power all of its government-run seaports with solar and wind energy.
The “green port” infrastructure means that 12 of the country’s biggest seaports are exclusively using renewable energy to power their daily operations. Not only that, the ports can use the energy to electrically power ships as they are docked.
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Thousands of people from around the world are rallying behind a 9-year-old Australian boy who was ruthlessly bullied for his dwarfism at his school.
Yarraka Bayles was heartbroken to pick up her son Quaden from school in Queensland this week only to find the youngster in tears from being taunted by some other students.
Bayles posted a video of Quaden’s emotional response to social media in hopes that it would show kids—and parents—just how devastating bullying can be for a boy.
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The video did indeed have a powerful response; since it was uploaded on Tuesday, it has been viewed more than 20 million times
Hundreds of thousands of people have sent the family messages of love and support. Sports teams and celebrities such as Hugh Jackman have recorded video messages of encouragement for the youngster.
Furthermore, Australian comedian Brad Williams—who also lives with a form of dwarfism—started a GoFundMe in order to raise money to send Quaden and his family to Disneyland.
Quaden - you’ve got a friend in me. #BeKind @LokelaniHiga https://t.co/8dr3j2z8Sy pic.twitter.com/jyqtZYC953
— Hugh Jackman (@RealHughJackman) February 20, 2020
“I’m setting up this GoFundMe to let Quaden know that bullying will not be tolerated, and that he is a wonderful human being who deserves joy,” Williams wrote on the campaign page.
“This isn’t just for Quaden, this is for anyone who has been bullied in their lives and told they weren’t good enough,” he added. “Let’s show Quaden and others, that there is good in the world and they are worthy of it.
“I have been in touch directly with Quaden’s mother. So I will have their information to book the flights. Funds raised will be spent on two airplane tickets for Quaden and his mother from Australia to Los Angeles, as well as providing a hotel, food, and tickets to Disneyland Park in Anaheim for multiple days.
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“After all the flights, hotel, tickets, and food is paid for, any excess money will be donated to anti-bullying/anti-abuse charities.”
Within 24 hours of creating the campaign, it surged past its original goal of $10,000 and garnered roughly a quarter-million dollars in donations. [Update: By Sunday, February 23, the fund has reached $460,000.]
“This is the best of humanity,” wrote Williams in a Twitter update. “I promise every penny donated will be put to good use. It will go to help Quaden and to make sure no child goes through what he went through. YOU ALL ARE AMAZING!”
Update! We raised 25k! I’m speechless. Many other people and celebrities have started their own campaigns of awareness and that’s great. Doesn’t matter where the help comes from as long as they are legit. I’m talking to his family to schedule the trip! https://t.co/bmRnGiSWil
— Brad Williams (@funnybrad) February 20, 2020
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Quote of the Day: “I felt my lungs inflate with the onrush of scenery—air, mountains, trees, people. I thought, ‘This is what it is to be happy.’” – Sylvia Plath
Photo: by Tim Tiedemann – public domain
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Although Harper the dog has already proven herself to be a very capable “branch manager”, it seems that she still has a few tricks that she needs to learn from her mom Willow.
Harper was recently caught on camera struggling with a particularly large stick in a local park. Despite how it seems she was determined to move the stick on her own, Willow was more than happy to lend a helping paw.
Based on their resulting success, we would not be surprised if the two pups made it a family business.
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“Both have determined personalities and are always so proud when they are doing it,” their owner Tanya told The Dodo. “They carry [the sticks] for about a kilometer around our 5-kilometer park where they need to get through crosswalks and bollards—which they have now perfected.”
“Harper gets distracted by people wanting to talk to her,” she added “But Mum is always there to help her keep moving on.”
(WATCH the video below)
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Some rural Indian villages are miles and miles away from the nearest hospital—and that’s why this devoted man has taken it upon himself to run his very own free ambulance service.
During the last 19 years, Karimul Haque has brought more than five thousand people to the hospital using his makeshift motorcycle-powered ambulance.
Haque was first inspired to launch his mission of service after he was left grief-stricken by the death of his mother almost two decades ago. He then vowed not to let any other mothers in the region suffer from lack of medical treatment or access to healthcare.
Since Haque first began his labor of love, his entire family has joined his mission by volunteering their own time and services.
(WATCH the Great Big Story video below)
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Corporate food giant Kellogg’s is moving to import all of their palm oil from sustainable sources before 2025—and it’s all thanks to the work of two young English sisters who were moved to help endangered orangutans.
12-year-old Asha Fitzpatrick and her 10-year-old sister Jia stopped eating Kellogg’s cereals and petitioned the firm to improve its palm oil policy after watching a documentary about orphaned orangutans.
Despite its humble beginnings, their petition has since racked up more than 780,000 signatures. Not only that, it caught the eye of Kellogg’s chiefs who invited the determined sisters to a meeting.
The sisters first met the firm’s executives in 2018 to discuss possible changes to where they source their palm oil. The clear-cutting in forests to make way for new palm crops have been blamed for devastating the orangutans’ natural habitat.
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Since then, impressed Kellogg’s bosses have pledged to appoint “trusted NGOs” (or nonprofits) to oversee the firm’s planned switch to segregated palm oil—a more sustainable form of the ingredient widely used in food and cosmetics.
Alison Last, a spokeswoman for Kellogg’s, said: “In February 2020, Kellogg updated its Global Palm Oil Policy and launched its Global Deforestation Policy, as well as plans that reflect an evolution of the company’s strategies and actions to further drive impact at scale.
“…Kellogg’s is committed to working with its global palm oil suppliers to source fully traceable palm oil that is produced in a manner that’s environmentally responsible, socially beneficial and economically viable, which includes helping to mitigate deforestation.”
In a policy document handed to the Kirkpatricks, Kellogg’s confirmed that it is now “committed” to sourcing 100% of its palm oil sustainably by 2025.
The firm currently sources 15% of its palm oil from uncertified producers and offsets the costs by purchasing environmental “credits” from the conservation nonprofit Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil.
Additionally, the food giant has pledged to partner with “trusted” NGOs and work with smallholders to “combat deforestation and support forest restoration.”
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The company announced the move in a meeting with the sisters on Friday, 18 months after they first launched their petition.
Harvinder Dhinsa, the girls’ delighted mum, said: “They were really surprised by the announcement.
“They weren’t expecting such a commitment. I’m really proud of them,” she added. “It shows no matter how small you are that you have a voice and people will listen.”
Dhinsa, who is from Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire, said her daughters have decided to keep the petition active in order to ensure that Kellogg’s management keeps their word.
“If they don’t follow through, we will be on their backs,” she added. “The announcement is great, but we need to keep their feet to the fire and ensure changes are made before we can say it’s done.
“That’s why the petition stays open and we are still calling for signatures.”
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Dhinsa said the girls’ petition gained momentum after environmental charity Greenpeace launched a campaign to save the endangered orangutans in Borneo that are losing their homes and habitats to palm oil production.
The girls first met with Kellogg’s chiefs, including Oli Morton, managing director for Western Europe, back in 2018.
“The first meeting was a bit of a charm offensive,” recalled Dhinsa. They gave the girls cereal boxes, posed for photos and spoke about changing their policy.”
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In the second meeting last year, Dhinsa said the girls left “disappointed” after the managers seemed to backtrack on their previous claims.
“They rolled back on the commitment saying they were a small player in the global palm oil market without much power to change things,” said the mother. “But on Friday, our third meeting, the firm’s tone became very positive.
“I’m certain that increased media coverage on climate change, the Australian forest fires and figures like Greta Thunberg have encouraged their new stance.”
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Dhinsa said Kellogg’s bosses have agreed to meet with the girls again in six months to update them on their progress, and to tell them which NGOs they have appointed for the transition.
Now, the young sisters are considering approaching other firms to see whether they will “step up” and follow Kellogg’s lead.
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Chronic inflammation can contribute to a variety of devastating diseases, from Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s to diabetes and cancer. It flares up if old age, stress, or environmental toxins keep the body’s immune system in overdrive.
Now, scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, have identified a molecular “switch” that controls the immune machinery responsible for chronic inflammation in the body. The results of their testing on mice could lead to new ways to halt or even reverse many of these age-related conditions.
“My lab is very interested in understanding the reversibility of aging,” said senior author Danica Chen, associate professor of metabolic biology, nutritional sciences and toxicology at UC Berkeley. “In the past, we showed that aged stem cells can be rejuvenated. Now, we are asking: to what extent can aging be reversed? And we are doing that by looking at physiological conditions, like inflammation and insulin resistance, that have been associated with aging-related degeneration and diseases.”
In the study, published online in the journal Cell Metabolism this month, Chen and her team show that a bulky collection of immune proteins called the NLRP3 inflammasome—responsible for sensing potential threats to the body and launching an inflammation response—can be essentially switched off by removing a small bit of molecular matter in a process called deacetylation.
Over-activation of the NLRP3 inflammasome has been linked to a variety of chronic conditions, including multiple sclerosis, cancer, diabetes, and dementia. Chen’s results suggest that drugs targeted toward deacetylating—or switching off—this NLRP3 inflammasome might help prevent or treat these conditions and possibly age-related degeneration in general.
“This acetylation can serve as a switch,” Chen said. “So, when it is acetylated, this inflammasome is on. When it is deacetylated, the inflammasome is off.”
By studying mice and immune cells called macrophages, the team found that a protein called SIRT2 is responsible for deacetylating the NLRP3 inflammasome. Mice that were bred with a genetic mutation that prevented them from producing SIRT2 showed more signs of inflammation at the ripe old age of two than their normal counterparts. These mice also exhibited higher insulin resistance, a condition associated with type 2 diabetes and metabolic syndrome.
The team also studied older mice whose immune systems had been destroyed with radiation and then reconstituted with blood stem cells that produced either the deacetylated or the acetylated version of the NLRP3 inflammasome.
Those that were given the deacetylated, or “off”, version of the inflammasome had improved insulin resistance after six weeks, indicating that switching off this immune machinery might actually reverse the course of metabolic disease.
MORE: Accidental Discovery of New T-Cell Hailed as Major Breakthrough for ‘Universal’ Cancer Therapy
This is just one of the most recent discoveries of how neurological circuits can impact everything from overeating and alcoholism to celiac’s disease and epilepsy, although this trailblazing piece of research does shed further light on how inflammation can dramatically affect neurological conditions.
“I think this finding has very important implications in treating major human chronic diseases,” Chen said. “It’s also a timely question to ask, because in the past year, many promising Alzheimer’s disease trials ended in failure. One possible explanation is that treatment starts too late, and it has gone to the point of no return. So, I think it’s more urgent than ever to understand the reversibility of aging-related conditions and use that knowledge to aid a drug development for aging-related diseases.”
Reprinted from University of California Berkeley
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These off-duty police officers are a perfect example of how couples who dine together can also protect and serve together.
Detective Chase McKeown and Officer Nicole McKeown have been married for six months after meeting each other as co-workers at the Elizabethtown Police Department.
The couple had been out on their weekly Saturday date night at Raising Cane’s Chicken Fingers in Louisville, Kentucky when a man entered the restaurant wearing a mask.
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At first, the McKeowns thought the man needed help—but when they saw the cashier raise her hands in alarm, they realized the man was attempting to rob the restaurant at gunpoint.
“I saw her hands go up like this and I’m like, ‘Is he doing what I think he’s doing?’” Nicole told reporters as she recalled the evening’s events at a news conference on Tuesday. “And [Chase was] like, ‘Yeah.’”
“There was literally no question. We just looked at each other: ‘Is this what’s going on? Let’s go,’” Chase added. “We just did what we felt like we had to do.”
Security footage then shows Mr. and Mrs. McKeown drawing their firearms and advancing on the 30-year-old suspect, warning him to drop his gun.
The robber runs out the door with the McKeowns in hot pursuit. He was eventually taken into custody after the married police officers cornered him in a nearby residential yard and held him at gunpoint until backup arrived.
Since they first shared dinner at Raising Cane’s on their wedding night, Chase and Nicole have been going there every Saturday—but this week was, by far, the most eventful date since.
(WATCH the video below)
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Quote of the Day: “Life acquires meaning when we face the conflict between our desires and reality.” – Deng Ming-dao
Photo: by léa b – public domain
With a new inspirational quote every day, atop the perfect photo—collected and archived on our Quotes page—why not bookmark GNN.org for a daily uplift?
It has been four years since Natalie Reilly first began writing love notes to first responders with her mother—and despite her mom losing a long battle with cancer, Reilly is still going strong.
Ever since her mother passed away the Arizona daughter has been managing Nothing But Love Notes: an organization dedicated to writing cards to firefighters and police officers.
To date, Reilly has written and distributed more than twenty thousand cards.
“Somewhere along the way I lost my mother, my best friend and biggest cheerleader, but I gained something I never would have expected … an entire community of amazing people who support me, our mission, and our nation’s heroes!” writes Reilly.
But that’s not the only fairytale ending.
Not only have her letters helped to cheer thousands of people, her labor of love also led to love for herself—a new boyfriend, a retired police officer who received one of her letters last year.
(WATCH the inspiring news story below via CBS 5) – Screenshot via CBS 5, YouTube
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An American architect has put his own money and years of struggle on the line to begin building a modern neighborhood that would generate its own power using a closed loop system that would also recycle all the waste and generate all the food.
Officials in the Netherlands have given James Ehrlich an initial green light to construct at least one eco-village 30 minutes outside of Amsterdam, and he hopes to break ground on the project sometime this year.
Ehrlich founded ReGen Villages in 2016 as a startup company intending to disrupt the way the world thinks about housing, development and transportation, and how these CO2-heavy sectors can be overhauled to create a green, self-sustaining lifestyle.
The master plan is for 200-300 homes in the town of Almere where infrastructure permits were approved in 2018.
The vision is a grand one: While incorporating entirely self-sustainable systems for waste management, water treatment, and food production, electricity would be generated through solar, biogas from food and animal waste, and geothermal sources.
Special aquaponic gardens would combine fish farming with aquatic agriculture that allow residents to cultivate a sustainable micro-ecosystem to produce fish and produce.
Human waste would be composted to feed the ecosystems, with the fish waste providing a critical source of fertilizer for the gardens.
But there are two bigger issues for ReGen Villages: “The two greatest challenges we face are financial support and political will,” the founder told the New York Times.
LOOK: Success of First 3D-Printed Home in US – 50 More Are Being Built for Poor Families
The company is trying to wrap up a funding round of €16 million in private equity investment for operating expenses needed for the first village and for “master planning the next couple of concurrent developments.”
The homes, to be situated on at least 61 acres of land in the Oosterwold District, would cost according to DutchReview magazine between €200,000 to €850,000 ($216,000–$918,000) depending on the size and luxury of the house.
Continuing the closed-loop ecosystem model, each family home will have a greenhouse attached to it for growing personal crops, and rainwater catch-and-filter systems. The energy and food systems would be managed by ReGen’s staff, but residents could also work in the communal farming systems to reduce the monthly cost of their food and energy fees, which would be charged along with their mortgages.
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Two “priceless” bonsai trees have been returned to their rightful home at a Washington state museum after they were stolen last week.
The Pacific Bonsai Museum in Federal Way, Washington, is home to more than 100 rare and ancient bonsai trees. On February 9th, museum staffers were left frantic with worry when they discovered that a pair of 70-year-old trees had been taken from the facility.
One of the trees, a Japanese Black Pine, was particularly notable for being grown out of a tin can by a Japanese-American man incarcerated in a World War II internment camp.
MORE: When Stranger Finds Lost Wallet on Airplane, He Returns It to Owner With Even More Cash Inside
The museum quickly made a social media post begging for information on the trees’ whereabouts.
“This is a tremendous loss, not only to our collection but there is a strong likelihood that the trees will perish. These trees have been cared for every day for more than 70 years, and if that daily care doesn’t continue the trees will die,” wrote Aarin Packard, Pacific Bonsai Museum Curator.
The post was shared across the internet until—just 72 hours after their reported theft—museum security guards found the two stolen trees sitting on the roadside near the museum.
Although one of the trees had suffered from some minor broken branches, they were in surprisingly good condition following the heist.
They were put back on display later that very same day and museum staffers thanked members of the public for helping to bring the bonsais back home.
They announced that they now plan on installing an updated security system thanks to the sudden influx of online donations following the trees’ return.
“THANK YOU to everyone who helped share the news of the missing bonsai and perhaps made them ‘too hot to hold,’” wrote the museum. “We are so grateful to all of you.
“We have also noted your good suggestions that we could use a security system upgrade. Many of you have made donations to implement such an upgrade and safeguard the collection—THANK YOU!”
Plant Some Positivity By Sharing The Happy Bonsai Ending On Social Media…
This dynamic duo is winning hearts across social media since photos of their sweet friendship went viral this week.
Herman the pigeon was rescued from a car dealership in Hilton, New York one year ago. The hapless bird, which turned out to be suffering from some neurological condition, had been found sitting on the pavement for three days before his rescuers realized he was unable to fly.
After wildlife specialists declared Herman untreatable, they prepared to euthanize him—that’s when Sue Rogers stepped in to save him.
RELATED: Watch Stray Dog Jump into Action to Help Kindergartners Safely Cross Busy Street
Rogers is the founder of The Mia Foundation, a Rochester-based nonprofit dedicated to rescuing and rehabilitating animals with physical defects and deformities.
Over the course of the last year, Rogers has cared for Herman, keeping him in a crib when not on daily outings to stimulate his little legs.
More recently, however, Herman was paired with an unlikely roommate: a Chihuahua puppy named Lundy who is unable to move his hind legs due to “swimmer’s syndrome”.
When Lundy’s owners in South Carolina realized that he was disabled, they sent him off to live with the Mia Foundation—and Rogers was amazed by how quickly he befriended his feathered roommate.
Rogers had only briefly placed the two critters together in a bed before they started snuggling. They have since become virtually inseparable.
Furthermore, the foundation has been flooded with thousands of dollars in donations since Rogers posted some photos of Herman and Lundy to social media last week.
LOOK: Stray Cat With No Ears Finally Adopted After Shelter Worker Crochets Her a Pair of Purple Ones
“I never imagined the pictures of Lundy and Herman would touch so many people! Almost 5 million people in a little over 24 hours!! Their little story is being shared all over the world!” wrote Rogers.
“And thank you also for the donations coming in,” she added. “We really do need them as we have a few surgeries coming up soon! It brings me to tears to think that our little Herman (the pigeon) is known worldwide now! I’ve been called crazy for keeping Herman alive and trying to make his life a happy one. And Lundy… well, who wouldn’t love that sweet little nugget?”
Since they story has been shared across the internet, several people have offered to adopt Lundy once his general health is assured—but Rogers now knows that she will be hard-pressed to separate the pup from his new friend in the future.
Be Sure And Share This Pawesome Rescue Story With Your Friends On Social Media…
