There may be no current pharmaceutical treatments or cures for dyslexia, but scientists have designed a new kind of lamp that could be a game-changer for people with the learning disorder.
Although the cause of dyslexia is still a bit of a mystery, researchers have found that the disorder may be caused by a person being born with two dominant eyes rather than one.
Because both eyes are vying to process information, written letters and words can become blurred or mirrored, which makes reading and writing particularly difficult for people with dyslexia.
That’s why a team of French researchers developed the Lexilife lamp as a tool for helping dyslexics to read and write.
The LED lamp is designed to pulse and modulate at customizable speeds that clear up the visual symptoms of dyslexia.
The Lexilife team tested the light’s efficiency on 300 people with dyslexia—and 90% of participants said that they could “effortlessly read a text illuminated by the lamp.”
The device is currently being sold in Europe for €549 along with a free 30-day trial, and it will soon be made available in the United States.
The Lexilife developers also admit that although the price is steep, they hope to bring down production costs by funding additional research on the lamp’s capabilities and the causes of dyslexia.
“Jean-Baptiste Fontes, founder of Lexilife, decided to share [the lamp] with as many people as possible,” reads the Lexilife website. “Manufacturing costs and selling prices are still high, but the more it is known and adopted, the more accessible it will be.”
(WATCH the lamp in action below) – Photo by Lexilife
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Some people might dislike flying because of the food or lack of leg room—for others, it might be the danger of succumbing to a sudden medical emergency.
Unfortunately for a Chinese man on a 13-hour flight from Guangzhou to New York back in November, that was exactly what he was dealing with.
The unidentified man, who had a history of prostate enlargement, was in severe pain aboard the Boeing 787 on China Southern Flight CZ399 when a quick-thinking doctor stepped in to save the day.
Dr. Zhang Hong was later hailed as a hero after his actions ended up saving the patient from a possibly life-threatening bladder complication.
The plane was still 6 hours away from its destination when Dr. Hong was forced to construct a catheter out of a straw, a syringe, and the plastic tube of an oxygen mask so he could suck 800 milliliters of urine out of the patient’s bladder over the course of 37 harrowing minutes.
“If we had not dealt with the situation in time, the patient’s life would have been at risk,” Dr. Hong, who is head of vascular surgery at the First Affiliated Hospital of Jinan University, told The South China Morning Post.
In the end, Hong downplayed his actions, remarking on how saving lives is in his instincts and so the extreme nature of the intervention never crossed his mind. His first priority was simply figuring out how to draw out the urine and ease the pain of the man who he described as being “hardly able to bear it anymore”.
(WATCH the incredible video below) – Photo by China Southern Airlines
Respect! A #doctor on a flight from Guangzhou to New York uses a makeshift device to suck urine out of an old man’s body when the man is found to be in danger of breaking his #bladder due to inability to urinate. 2 doctors on board help solve the crisis. https://t.co/zQwXU2mOqJpic.twitter.com/hZJPVXeaqw
With wildfires continuing to blaze throughout southern Australia, the situation may be dire—but in the wake of tragedy, there is always a slew of people, celebrities, religious groups, and organizations rallying to offer support.
This week, teams of Muslims from the Australian Islamic Center began cooking meals for exhausted firefighters across East Gippsland. The group also distributed several truckloads worth of food, emergency supplies, and resources across the region.
In the very same area, chefs from the Sikh Volunteers Australia set up their own mobile kitchen so they could feed firefighters and bushfire evacuees.
On the international front, Canada and the United States have collectively deployed more than 200 volunteer firefighters over the course of the last month to help contain the blazes as part of an international coalition to combat wildfires.
As a means of helping animals that have been rescued from the fires, needleworkers from around the world have crafted thousands of mittens, jumpers, blankets, and nests for Australian wildlife organizations—and they have raised almost $5 million in donations for wildlife hospitals.
Furthermore, the family of Steve Irwin has already treated hundreds of animals rescued from the wildfires at their hospital in Queensland.
A number of Hollywood A-listers and famous folk from all walks of life have also contributed to wildfire relief efforts. For starters, an online fundraiser created by Australian comedian Celeste Barber has raised a whopping $30 million in just one week—which is roughly $10,000 in donations per minute.
Australian actress Nicole Kidman made an Instagram post earlier this week stating that she had donated $500,000 to Rural Fire Services, while pop star Pink donated an additional $500,000 to local firefighting departments as well.
Australian tennis player Ashleigh Barty, who is ranked number one in the world in singles by the Women’s Tennis Association, has announced that if she wins the Brisbane International tournament, she will be donating every cent of the $382,000 prize money to the Red Cross.
The Australian children’s entertainment group The Wiggles have reunited for the first time since 2012 so they can play two shows in New South Wales and donate all of the concert proceeds to wildfire relief. The concerts, which reportedly sold out in five minutes, will take place on January 17th and 18th.
OG Wiggles reunion show to raise some much-needed funds for bushfire relief. ALL proceeds from the show will be going to the Australian Red Cross and WIRES.
While there have been dozens of other individual stories of compassion and charity on the home front as well, these headlines have all proven that the world is standing behind Australia until the last of the bushfires have been extinguished.
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Quote of the Day: “When we make mistakes, we cannot turn the clock back and try again. All we can do is use the present well.” – Dalai Lama
Photo: by Giallo, public domain
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This exciting new study has measured just how much decommissioning coal-fired power plants help to save lives and improve crop yields by the millions.
The findings of the new University of California San Diego study published this week in Nature Sustainability use the U.S. transition in recent years from coal towards natural gas for electric power generation to study the local impacts of coal-fired unit shutdowns.
While the shift from coal to natural gas has reduced carbon dioxide emissions overall, it has also changed local pollution levels at hundreds of areas around the country.
In particular, the burning of coal creates particulate matter and ozone in the lower atmosphere—often experienced as “smog” —which can affect humans, plants and regional climate. These pollutants (aerosols, ozone, and other compounds) from coal burning can wreak havoc on human health when inhaled, and also have damaging effects on plant life. They also alter local climate by blocking incoming sunlight.
Study author Jennifer Burney, associate professor of environmental science at the UC San Diego School of Global Policy and Strategy, combined data from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on electric power generation with satellite and surface measurements from the EPA as well as NASA to gauge changes in local pollution before and after coal-fired unit shut-downs.
She also studied changes in county-level mortality rates and crop yields using data from the Centers for Disease Control and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Burney found that between 2005 and 2016, the shutdown of coal-fired units saved an estimated 26,610 lives and 570 million bushels of corn, soybeans and wheat in their immediate vicinities. The inverse calculation, estimating the damages caused by coal plants left in operation over that same time period, suggests they contributed to 329,417 premature deaths and the loss of 10.2 billion bushels of crops, roughly equivalent to half of year’s typical production in the U.S.
“The deaths are assumed to be NOT necessarily workers, but rather among the full population nearby that is exposed to pollution from plants as they operate (importantly, these numbers don’t count coal miner exposures, as those are often in locations far away from the plants that burn the coal),” Burney told World at Large.
“One of the difficult characteristics of air pollution-related deaths is that they are often not obviously due to pollution—it affects cardiovascular, respiratory, and other pathways, and deaths are usually just coded as such.”
These findings suggest that switching to more modern forms of energy production could have unforeseen or additional advantages for public welfare than just a decrease in CO2 emissions.
Burney added that although there are considerable benefits of decommissioning older coal-fired units, the newer natural gas units are not entirely benign. Natural gas units are associated with increased pollution levels; although different than the pollutant mix from coal-fired units, and more research is required to fully understand their impacts.
“Policymakers often think about greenhouse gas emissions as a separate problem from air pollution, but the same processes that cause climate change also produce these aerosols, ozone, and other compounds that cause important damages,” Burney concludes. “This study provides a more robust accounting for the full suite of emissions associated with electric power production. If we understand the real costs of things like coal better, and who is bearing those costs, it could potentially lead to more effective mitigation and formation of new coalitions of beneficiaries across sectors.”
It has been a little more than 13 years since beloved television host and wildlife advocate Steve Irwin passed away—but his family is continuing to save thousands of Australia’s most vulnerable animals.
The Irwin family has carried on Steve’s legacy by treating thousands of animals that have been rescued from the bushfires at their Australian Zoo Wildlife Hospital in Queensland.
Collectively, Steve’s widow Terri and his two kids Robert and Bindi have treated more than 90,000 animals at the zoo’s 24/7 medical unit since they opened 16 years ago—and since the wildfires has caused their patient intake rate to skyrocket, the hospital is busier than ever.
Robert recently posted a photo of their record-breaking animal patient to his Instagram page, saying: “This is patient number 90,000 that the Australia Zoo Wildlife Hospital has treated. ‘Ollie’ the orphaned platypus is receiving round the clock care until he can be released back to the wild.
“Over the last 16 years, the hospital has provided 24/7 wildlife rehabilitation and an incredible animal rescue service,” he added. “We’re so proud of this world-class facility! Thank you for your support—with pressures from drought to bushfires, wildlife need our help now more than ever.”
The Irwins have taken to social media to reassure their concerned followers that they are not in danger of being affected by the wildfires—although they plan to continue taking in as many rescued and injured animals as possible until the fires have been controlled.
Last month, Michael Parker had been out preparing for quail season by helping his beloved dog Soup learn how to smell, flush out, and retrieve the game birds when suddenly, the English setter was distracted by a scent and ran off into the woods next to the orchard where they had been training.
For days, Parker and his wife searched in vain for their family pooch across Montgomery, Alabama, all while posting notices to social media and checking up on their local Humane Society shelter 3 to 4 times a day.
As the couple feared for the worst, Soup was off living like a king in the last place they would have expected: the Kilby Correctional Facility.
Soon after his owner lost him in the forest, Soup was found on the grounds of the prison by Charles Brooks, a plant maintenance supervisor.
According to the Montgomery Advertiser, Brooks found Soup lying next to a truck looking scared. He had lost his collar during his adventure in the woods—but after Brooks fed him a biscuit, Soup quickly took a liking to the man.
As Soup followed Brooks all over the facility, he became an instant celebrity with the inmates. They began giving up parts of their dinner to Soup so he could feast on chicken, roast beef, and even peach cobbler. He played basketball in the yard, and tussled with the guard dogs.
Parker finally learned of his dog’s discovery thanks to a phone call from a social media user who had seen Parker’s pleas for help on a Facebook group for missing animals.
“Someone called and said, ‘He’s up at Kilby Prison and they’re taking care of him and want to keep him,’” Parker told the Advertiser. “‘You better go get him before they do.’”
When Parker and Brooks met outside his shop on the prison grounds, Brooks whistled for Soup to join them. The excited pup immediately began jumping all over his owner as he lay on the concrete in tears.
“You absolutely knew that it was his dog,” Brooks told the news outlet. “Me and the dog were inseparable for three days, and he wouldn’t even come to me when that man pulled up.”
Instead, Soup jumped into the passenger seat of the truck and the two rode off together back home.
After a few days, it was clear that Soup missed all his new friends from his adventure; so the Parkers resolved to start bringing their pup back to the correctional facility for regular play dates.
“We’re going to take him to visit the prison,” said Parker’s wife. “And we’re going to take the warden a pecan pie.”
(WATCH the news coverage below) – Photo by WSAV
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Associate Professor Matthew Hill, Dr. Mahdokht Shaibani, and Professor Mainak Majumder with the lithium-sulphur battery design — Photo by Monash University.
Imagine having access to a battery, which has the potential to power your phone for five continuous days, or enable an electric vehicle to drive more than 600 miles (1,000 kilometers) without needing to “refuel.”
Monash University researchers are on the brink of commercializing the world’s most efficient lithium-sulphur (Li-S) battery, which could outperform current market leaders by more than four times, and power Australia and other global markets well into the future.
Dr. Mahdokht Shaibani from Monash University’s Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering led an international research team that developed an ultra-high capacity Li-S battery that has better performance and less environmental impact than current lithium-ion products.
The researchers have an approved filed patent for their manufacturing process, and prototype cells have been successfully fabricated by German R&D partners Fraunhofer Institute for Material and Beam Technology.
Some of the world’s largest manufacturers of lithium batteries in China and Europe have expressed interest in upscaling production, with further testing to take place in Australia in early 2020.
Professor Mainak Majumder said this development was a breakthrough for Australian industry and could transform the way phones, cars, computers, and solar grids are manufactured in the future.
Associate Professor Matthew Hill, Dr. Mahdokht Shaibani, and Professor Mainak Majumder with the lithium-sulphur battery design — Photo by Monash University.
“Successful fabrication and implementation of Li-S batteries in cars and grids will capture a more significant part of the estimated $213 billion value chain of Australian lithium, and will revolutionize the Australian vehicle market and provide all Australians with a cleaner and more reliable energy market,” said Majumder.
“Our research team has received more than $2.5 million in funding from government and international industry partners to trial this battery technology in cars and grids from this year, which we’re most excited about.”
Using the same materials in standard lithium-ion batteries, researchers reconfigured the design of sulphur cathodes so they could accommodate higher stress loads without a drop in overall capacity or performance.
Inspired by unique bridging architecture first recorded in processing detergent powders in the 1970s, the team engineered a method that created bonds between particles to accommodate stress and deliver a level of stability not seen in any battery to date.
Attractive performance, along with lower manufacturing costs, abundant supply of material, ease of processing and reduced environmental footprint make this new battery design attractive for future real-world applications, according to Associate Professor Matthew Hill.
“This approach not only favors high-performance metrics and long cycle life, but is also simple and extremely low-cost to manufacture, using water-based processes, and can lead to significant reductions in environmentally hazardous waste,” said Hill.
Back in 2018 when wildfires were raging through California, 138 firefighters from Australia and New Zealand flew into the United States so they could help combat the blazes.
According to the National Park Service, “the Australian and New Zealand personnel filled critical needs during the peak of the western fire season for mid-level fireline management, heavy equipment, helicopter operations, and structure protection”—and now, the US is repaying the favor.
For the first time since 2010, the US federal government has deployed a team of 100 American firefighters to help with the emergency response crews in Australia—and they are deploying several dozen more volunteer firefighters this week, according to The Los Angeles Times.
Due to extended drought combined with hot and dry weather conditions, Australia has been experiencing devastating bushfires—particularly in the states of New South Wales, Queensland, and Victoria—since August.
The US firefighters—many of whom were part of the firefighting teams in California— have been deployed in several separate teams over the course of the last 30 days. The international relief mission is part of the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC), the nation’s support center for wildland firefighting. Based out of Boise, the coalition is made up of eight different agencies and organizations including, the Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Indian Affairs, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, National Park Service, U.S. Forest Service, National Weather Service, U.S. Fire Administration, and the National Association of State Foresters.
“We’re sending a contingent from several federal agencies that reflects decades of fire management experience,” said U.S. Forest Service Fire Director Shawna Legarza. “We face many of the same firefighting challenges in each country. We’ve utilized their expertise in the past and welcome the opportunity to reciprocate.”
— National Interagency Fire Center (@NIFCfire) January 2, 2020
The US is not the only country sending aid to Australia, either—Canada has also sent several teams of wildfire specialists as well, bringing their total amount of volunteers to 87.
According to CBC, this is the first time that Canada has deployed firefighting assistance to Australia, although Canada also benefitted from the firefighting teams of Down Under during the devastating British Columbian wildfires in 2017 and 2018.
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Quote of the Day: “January, The first month of the year. A perfect time to start all over again. Changing energies and deserting old moods; new beginnings, new attitudes.” – Charmaine J Forde
Photo: by Christian Collins, CC license – cropped
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More than a dozen different community colleges across Washington State were shocked to find a check worth $550,000 sitting in their mailboxes last month.
The checks were courtesy of Eva Gordon, a 105-year-old woman from Oregon who passed away in June with a secret $10 million fortune she had amassed entirely through savvy investing.
“A lot of people didn’t know the wealth she had. If there was a coupon for two-for-one at Applebee’s, she was all about that,” John Jacobs, her godson and estate representative, told Renton College representatives. “She liked seeing students working, earning and doing things. Her goal was to provide an opportunity for those folks who could ill-afford it, whether vocational training or an academic skill.”
The donation has been hailed as the single largest financial contribution to community colleges in the history of Washington state.
Renton Technical College, one of the 17 lucky schools to receive a donation from Gordon’s estate, announced it would use the money to set up a grant and scholarship fund for underprivileged students, particularly those with financial barriers to attending school.
“At RTC many of our students are first-generation college, single parents, immigrants, or working in order to pay for school,” said Stan Kawamoto, RTC Foundation board president. “The true cost of college goes beyond paying for tuition, especially in King County where the cost of living is high. When you’re a working parent, or the first in your family to go to college and need transportation to get to school, your costs are much higher.”
Ed and Eva Gordon — Photo by John Jacobs
Never having attended college herself, Gordon had a passion for education and childcare, and donated her time and money during her lifetime to different child education programs.
Jacobs informed the schools that while there are no stipulations in Gordon’s will and testament for how the money should be used, she expressed her preference for the money to help the disadvantaged students of her adopted home state.
An American Story
Gordon moved to Seattle after high school where she started working as a trading assistant in an investment firm.
Her $10 million fortune, hidden entirely from her friends’ knowledge, was amassed over decades of buying and keeping stock with long-stable financial returns in now-famous Northwest companies such as Nordstrom, Starbucks, and Microsoft.
In 1964, she married stockbroker Ed Gordon, but the two never had children. Jacobs recounted that they had lived a reserved lifestyle, and that it was only in the final decade of her life that the stocks she held onto for so long really began to grow.
Jacobs credits his godmother’s monumental posthumous donation to Gordon being a person “with a tremendous heart [who] liked to throw a rope to help people climb.”
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When a young couple went on their 2014 honeymoon in Madagascar—one of the most cherished environments in the world—the heartbreaking problems of indigenous people, forests, and lemurs swirled around in their minds until one day a holistic solution revealed itself, like a bright sunbeam through the tangle of jungle canopy.
Their notion of how they could benefit both wildlife and people is today a program that is easing the poverty of the Malagasy people, while helping to save the endangered lemurs, which are found on the island of Madagascar, and no where else.
The nation’s economy is the fourth fastest-growing in the world. In fact, one fourth of the globe’s vanilla comes from the island. Yet the vast majority of the adult Malagasy people can’t even read, so they don’t benefit from the higher-paying jobs. They are left to fend for themselves, living off the land—which encroaches on and endangers the wildlife surrounding them.
The couple, Shana and Vlad Vassilieva, learned all this from their tour guide, JJ (Jean-Jacques Rafenomahazomanana), a passionate local who shared his vast experiences of Malagasy culture and led them beyond designated tourist zones, into isolated villages.
There, they noticed that the schools for children had no books—and the agricultural practices in villages were not sustainable. They decided they could address both these problems, by tackling the literacy issue.
They partnered with JJ to create the Mobile Library Project, designed not only to teach people about letters, but also about their lemurs.
“One of the main goals is to help the Malagasy see how much can be gained from the forests and nature when you take care of it and practice more sustainable methods,” said Shana. “So while kids and adults are learning to read, they are also learning how to thrive off the lands in more mutually beneficial ways.”
The non-profit Mobile Library Project employs two additional educators and operates out of a van that travels to four villages every month in coordination with local schools.
They not only provide books and lessons on reading and writing, the group also offers workshops on how to improve your crop yield and how to rely less on the forests. That way, the Malagasy can develop new resources and leave more of the forest to the indigenous animals—80 percent of which are not seen anywhere else in the world.
“When the people read books, they start to see the relation between the environment and people,” said Madagascar native JJ, who serves as manager of the nonprofit. Speaking to Shana, an Idaho filmmaker, as part of a short documentary, he explained that the people are learning “if they protect the forest, they can get a lot of benefit from it.”
The project also gives families seeds to plant. Whenever a family joins the book project they also get some seeds, along with a book. Each school the project visits also gets fruit trees. When it’s grown, the students can eat the fruit, or teachers can sell the fruit to help pay for supplies and other needed improvements. The trees also help retain water in the soil, provide shade cover for plants, and prevent soil erosion. They are also sharing ananambo trees because they have medicinal benefits and a denser nutritional value, and beans since they are easy to grow.
Since 2016, the group has helped to educate 6,200 people, planted 80 trees at 14 schools, and distributed 66 pounds of seeds for 46 families—as well as thousands of books.
The couple also partners with Zara Aina, a Madagascar nonprofit, and received some grant funding to launch the first tour in 2016. Since adding the seed and tree sharing program in November 2018, they’ve expanded their vision further, hoping to offer micro loans to help Malagasy natives develop their own businesses.
“I love the idea of becoming, not just a mobile library for education, but also a mobile ‘re-greener’ and conservation based financial empowerment tool on wheels,” she said.
Today in the United States, more than 82,000 veterans live in nursing homes—probably not the kind of conditions or end-of-life care that would warm the hearts of veterans who had served gallantly in Korea and Vietnam.
However, the Medical Foster Home program launched by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (DVA) in 2008 has been providing opportunities for a much more comfortable life to senior veterans who can’t live alone by allowing American families to open their own doors to the nation’s heroes.
“A Medical Foster Home can serve as an alternative to a nursing home…for veterans who require nursing home care but prefer a non-institutional setting with fewer residents,” says the DVA website.
This was certainly the case for Korean War veteran Stewart Breeding who resigned himself to spending the remainder of his life alone in a nursing institution after his wife died in 2016.
Two years later, Donna and Bennie Nolan became a DVA-certified medical foster family, and surprised Breeding on his 86th birthday with a cake, balloons, and a room full of well-wishers who celebrated the news that he could move in with them.
“I want to live here with Donna and Bennie until the day I die,” Breeding told The Washington Post. “I love everything about this family. It’s a great place to be.”
According to The Post, Donna Nolan, who is part of an Air Force family, knew she wanted to be a part of the program as soon as she heard about it in 2016. Her husband Bennie—a veteran of the Gulf War, former Army blacksmith and railroad engineer who worked as a communications specialist for 20 years—felt exactly the same.
“It’s an honor to have them living with us,” Bennie said. “Nurturing has always been a big part of my life, and Donna’s life too.”
Homes for Heroes
The program, launched in 2008, now has a presence in 44 states, and each family in the program is allowed to take up to three veterans into their homes in order to give them a more comfortable and personalized care environment.
The agreement is a long-term commitment, and according to Cathy Free at The Post, the veterans often live in the foster homes for the remainder of their lives.
The demand and desire for foster homes over institutions or nursing homes varies from state to state, but trends highest in rural areas, explains Dayna Cooper, Director of Home and Community Care in the Office of Geriatrics and Extended Care for the DVA.
Most veterans want to stay in the towns where they live—a dignity which Cooper feels they certainly deserve, and so the program’s managers always begin the search for foster homes in the vicinity where the veterans currently live.
The program has one of the highest rates of satisfaction of all post-deployment VA programs.
“Many of our caregivers and vets become family,” Cooper told Southern Living. “They take them on vacation. We recently spoke to a family who takes their veteran—a quadriplegic—camping twice a year. These are opportunities they never would have had.”
(WATCH the video below… EDITOR’S NOTEfor international viewers: You can watch the footage on the CBS News website) – Photo by CBS News
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Quote of the Day: “The bird dares to break the shell, then the shell breaks open and the bird can fly. This is the simplest principle of success. You dream, you dare and and you fly.” – Israelmore Ayivor (on the 115th Audubon anniversary)
Photo: by enjoiskate8, CC license
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To learn new things, we must sometimes fail. But what’s the right amount of failure? New research led by the University of Arizona proposes a mathematical answer to that question.
Educators and scholars have long recognized that there is something of a “sweet spot” when it comes to learning. That is, we learn best when we are challenged to grasp something just outside the bounds of our existing knowledge. When a challenge is too simple, we don’t learn anything new; likewise, we don’t enhance our knowledge when a challenge is so difficult that we completely fail or give up.
So where does the sweet spot lie? According to the new study, which was published in the journal Nature Communications, it is when failure occurs 15% of the time. Put another way, it’s when the right answer is correctly given 85% of the time.
“These ideas that were out there in the education field—that there is this ‘zone of proximal difficulty,’ in which you ought to be maximizing your learning—we’ve put that on a mathematical footing,” said UArizona assistant professor of psychology and cognitive science Robert Wilson, lead author of the study.
Wilson and his collaborators at Brown University, the University of California, Los Angeles, and Princeton came up with the so-called “85% Rule” after conducting a series of machine-learning experiments in which they taught computers simple tasks, such as classifying different patterns into one of two categories, or classifying photographs of handwritten digits as odd versus even numbers, or low versus high numbers.
The computers learned fastest in situations in which the difficulty was such that they responded with 85% accuracy.
“If you have an error rate of 15% or accuracy of 85%, you are always maximizing your rate of learning in these two-choice tasks,” Wilson said.
When researchers looked at previous studies of animal learning, they found that the 85% Rule held true in those instances as well, Wilson said.
When we think about how humans learn, the 85% Rule would mostly likely apply to perceptual learning, in which we gradually learn through experience and examples, Wilson said. Imagine, for instance, a radiologist learning to tell the difference between images of tumors and non-tumors.
“You get better at figuring out there’s a tumor in an image over time, and you need experience and you need examples to get better,” Wilson said. “I can imagine giving easy examples and giving difficult examples and giving intermediate examples. If I give really easy examples, you get 100% right all the time and there’s nothing left to learn. If I give really hard examples, you’ll be 50% correct and still not learning anything new, whereas if I give you something in between, you can be at this sweet spot where you are getting the most information from each particular example.”
Since Wilson and his collaborators were looking only at simple tasks in which there was a clear correct and incorrect answer, Wilson won’t go so far as to say that students should aim for a B average in school. However, he does think there might be some lessons for education that are worth further exploration.
“If you are taking classes that are too easy and acing them all the time, then you probably aren’t getting as much out of a class as someone who’s struggling but managing to keep up,” he said. “The hope is we can expand this work and start to talk about more complicated forms of learning.”
Some bad weather turned into the “best Christmas Day ever” for one Canadian who chose to give up hours of holiday fun with his family to help 75 stranded strangers.
High winds diverted a WestJet airline on Dec. 25, a flight intended for St. John’s, Newfoundland that only made it as far as Deer Lake on the other side of the island province—roughly 400 miles (600 km) from its destination.
Local resident Brian Snow was friends with one of the passengers and realized that due to the national holiday, all the restaurants and shops in town were closed.
On top of that, the hotel where almost 80 people had been dropped off had no restaurant. Mr. Snow, who happens to be the community services coordinator for the Salvation Army, posted a call to action on social media: “Let’s show the true Christmas spirit.”
Within an hour, the Facebook post was shared 60 times and the community had spontaneously organized a delightful potluck in the hotel lobby. Residents brought sandwiches, platters of their own turkey dinner leftovers, freshly baked breads, and, of course, lots of cookies and desserts.
“I, as well as my entire family are beyond thankful for the beautiful souls who helped make a Christmas away from home just that much better!” wrote Kate Sexton from St. John’s, with gratitude that her aunt and uncle were being cared for.
With their bellies full and their spirits renewed, the kindness from the Deer Lake community didn’t end at the dinner table.
Dave Power, one of the stranded passengers who was flying with his wife to be with family in St. John’s, told CBC News, “When we finished eating, they said as soon as you’re ready, let us know, and we’ll take you to the airport.”
They organized a motorcade to get everyone back to the airport for their delayed flight.
“It was truly like a ‘Come from Away Christmas’,” said David’s brother Robert Power on Facebook. “That’s what the season is all about.”
Power was referring to the Tony Award-winning musical Come From Away, which tells a similar true story of the small Newfoundland town named Gander where nearly 6,600 passengers were welcomed after the terrorist attacks of 9/11 grounded 38 planes there. The famous news story details the efforts of community members in Gander and surrounding towns who took care of the thousands of travelers in churches, schools, and community centers for several days.
The loving care displayed by Deer Lake residents left some passengers ”bawling.”
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A “breakthrough” treatment plan for type-2 diabetes has the British National Health Service (NHS) bustling as they position themselves to adopt a new standard of treatment.
The course of treatment consists of a liquid diet of 800 calories to be taken as a soup or shake daily for a set amount of months depending on the time since the patient developed type-2 diabetes.
The breakthrough research arose out of Newcastle University which seems to have stuck a pin in many of our assumptions about type-2 diabetes—as well as proven almost beyond a shadow of a doubt that type-2 diabetes is actually reversible, especially in newer patients.
The treatment is basically a prescription for a reduction in calorie intake—a potential intervention that has shown incredible results for many different conditions.
The Diabetes Remission Clinical Trial, (DiRECT) recently published these findings as a means of demonstrating the massive potential of DiRECT as a general treatment plan.
One-third of all people taking part in the trial were free of diabetes at 2 years. Around three quarters of everyone who was in remission at 1 year stayed in remission at 2 years. Furthermore, the group who embarked on rapid weight loss had fewer serious medical problems in the second year of DiRECT.
The Nature of the Beast
Official statistics from the NHS place the number of Brits with type-2 diabetes at 4 million, and rising. Meanwhile, in the United States, the CDC reports that 1 in 10 Americans—roughly 30 million people—have diabetes, 90% of which is type-2. Many people also go undiagnosed for years.
Recent studies carried out by Professors Mike Lean and Roy Taylor of Newcastle University showed that type-2 diabetes is triggered by fat spills. These fat spills, which came from the liver, traveled to the nearby pancreas where it wreaked havoc in the efficiency of the organ to produce insulin.
Insulin is needed to command your cells to absorb excess carbohydrates circulating in your body after a carb or sugar-dense meal.
“The liver fat, astonishingly high in type 2 diabetes, falls to normal,” explains Dr. Taylor in an interview with Medscape. “The pancreas fat comes down gradually, gradually, and the pancreas recovers gradually, gradually. And that’s amazing because we always thought that the pancreas had to go downhill inevitably in type 2 diabetes.”
In April 2020, the NHS will begin trials with a liquid diet as per the DiRECT research with 5,000 participants helping to test whether the program can benefit the public. If the trials are successful, the breakthrough diet will become the new standard of care in a remarkably rapid frame of time for the chronic ailment that’s been causing amputations, blindness, and heart complications for decades.
The widely-taken drug Metformin has been the standard of care for the treatment of diabetes in France since 1957 and in Canada since 1972. Illustrative of how long it can take to approve a treatment in the U.S., Metformin didn’t receive approval by the FDA until 1994, even though 5.8 million Americans were diagnosed with diabetes in 1980.
Like all professional men and women of science, Taylor feels more research is needed before the liquid diet intervention is widely prescribed.
“We need to follow up this group,” said Taylor. “We follow them up for a total of 2 years in the proper randomized controlled trial.”
“We have funding to follow up the intervention group participants for a total of 3 years. And we’ve applied for further funding because we need to see what happens to these people as time goes on.”
But, he admits it is “heart-warming” hearing all the stories about remissions. “It’s all about the individual and all about helping people back to this state of relative health and happiness. And that does seem to be happening in quite large numbers of people who are able to do it.”
Cure Your Friends Of Negativity By Sharing The Good News To Social Media – (Photo by PracticalCures.com, CC license)
'Bagan's golden hour' by @naingtunwinbagan shows a sunny winter morning view of hot-air balloons over temples in Bagan Myanmar.
“Tre Cime” by Carles Alonso shows Italy’s stunning Dolomite mountains, the United Nations World Heritage site.
Some of the world’s most breathtaking landscapes have been captured in a stunning series of images submitted by everyday people to this prestigious photo contest.
“Phenomenal colors of Bali” by Konrad Paruch show the famous rice terrace in Bali.
More than 25,000 photos were entered into the Agora app’s World’s Best Photos of #Landscape2019—and the 50 finalists, chosen by app users, depict some truly jaw-dropping pictures of Mother Earth.
This photo by PanVelvet depicts a spectacular sunset over Fenghuang, one of China’s most famous old towns.
The photos were submitted in a bid to be crowned the #Landscape2019Hero and win $1,000 in prize money.
“In the thunderstorm” by Dean Nguyen shows lightning over the coral reefs of Hon Yen island, Vietnam.
One photographer from Vietnam pledged to donate part of any prize money to a ferryman whom he captured in his particularly mesmerizing picture:
“Tuyen Lam Lake” by Luong Ng Anh Trung shows Tuyen Lam Lake, the largest freshwater lake in Da Lat, Vietnam.
The photographer who snapped this photo of an active volcano in Indonesia described the landscape as “incredibly hostile.”
“Vulcan” by JPR Photos shows Mt. Bromo, an Indonesian active volcano that attracts landscape-lovers from all over the world.
“It was incredibly hot: the surrounding ash burned when you touched it. The air was thin and the winds were harsh, so harsh they whipped up dust devils around us. It is simply the most insane landscape I’ve ever been to.”
Equally ‘insane’ was this immense dune photographed in the Namibian desert.
‘The Dune’ by Anskar Lenzen shows a massive sand dune in Sossusvlei, Namibia.
After Agora viewers voted for their favorite photos last month, Australian photographer Donald Yip was officially crowned the #Landscape2019 Hero and awarded the prize money for his “Cosmic Clouds” photo of Mt. Bromo at night.
“Cosmic Clouds” by Donald Yip shows an eerie shot of Mt. Bromo, an active volcano in East Java, Indonesia.
Check out the 50 beautiful landscape finalists in a cool video, at the Agora website. And join the community to submit your own photos in their ongoing contests…
(All photos distributed and licensed by SWNS.)
‘Autumn in the Dolomites’ by Tom Bridges shows Lago di Braies, a bright blue mountain lake in the heart of the Dolomite mountains in Italy.
Be Sure And Share The Dazzling Landscapes With Your Friends On Social Media…
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?
When this young man was trying on a new pair of basketball shoes at a Walmart in Dayton, Ohio, he managed to convince an older woman to help him put the sneakers to the test.
After the guy had nailed some practice dribbles with the new kicks, he called out to the woman as she was walking past his aisle and asked if she could help him practice.
Although the woman said she was on her way to a meeting and she “had no idea” how to play basketball, she did join in to “play some defense” before walking away with a smile.
Since the man uploaded the adorable video to YouTube back in November, it has been viewed by thousands of people—and it’s not hard to see why.
(WATCH the endearing video below)
Be Sure And Pass This Sweet Story Over To Your Friends On Social Media…
