Quote of the Day: “Travel is never a matter of money, but of courage.” – Paulo Coelho
Photo: by Anthony Tran – public domain
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This fluffy feline may look confused, but he is simply showing off his singular set of eyes that has earned thousands of dollars for other rescue cats just like him.
Belarus has chronically crossed eyes as a result of a condition called strabismus, which causes his pupils to point in different directions.
Although it is just one of his many charming traits, it is the one that caused Rachel Krall to fall in love with him back in June 2018.
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Krall first saw pictures of Belarus as a kitten in a Facebook post from the San Francisco Animal Care and Control. Although Krall had never lived with a cat before, she went to go meet the feline at the animal shelter—and she ended up adopting him that very same day.
“When I first saw him, I just thought he was the most hilariously adorable cat ever,” Krall told reporters. “I had never really been a cat person before, but thought he would be the perfect cat. I sent his adoption picture to my family and their reactions were quite similar. They told me ‘you have to go see him’, so I did.”
Krall has since created an Instagram account for her cross-eyed companion which has racked up more than 250,000 followers.
As a means of wielding his social media fame for good, Krall started selling shirts and hoodies emblazoned with Belarus’s face and donating 100% of the proceeds to animal rescues.
Collectively, Krall says she has already been able to donate several thousand dollars to pet charities thanks to Belarus’s endearing condition.
“Last year, we donated $6,000 to shelters, with $4,000 to Belarus’ shelter SFACC, $1,000 to Sonoma Community Animal Response Team for their efforts saving animals from the Sonoma wildfire, and $1,000 to Cat Town of Oakland,” says Krall.
If you want to purchase some Belarus merchandise of your own, be sure and visit his online Bonfire store.
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We are now one step closer to efficiently generating electricity from a single drop of water.
A research team led by scientists from the City University of Hong Kong (CityU) has developed a droplet-based electricity generator (DEG): a device that can power up to 100 small LED bulbs simply by harnessing the power of a raindrop.
The device uses a field-effect transistor (FET)-like structure that allows for high energy-conversion efficiency and instantaneous power density increased by thousands times compared to its counterparts without FET-like structure.
The research, which was led by the CityU’s Department of Mechanical Engineering, was published in the latest issue of journal Nature.
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Hydropower is nothing new. About 70% of the earth’s surface is covered by water. Yet low-frequency kinetic energy contained in waves, tides, and even raindrops are not efficiently converted into electrical energy due to limitations in current technology.
For example, a conventional droplet energy generator based on the triboelectric effect can generate electricity induced by contact electrification and electrostatic induction when a droplet hits a surface. However, the amount of charges generated on the surface is limited by the interfacial effect, and as a result, the energy conversion efficiency is quite low.
In order to improve the conversion efficiency, the research team has spent two years developing the DEG. Its instantaneous power density can reach up to 50.1 W/m2, thousands times higher than other similar devices without the use of FET-like design. And the energy conversion efficiency is markedly higher.
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Professor Wang Zuankai from CityU pointed out that there are two crucial factors for the invention. First, the team found that the continuous droplets impinging on PTFE, an electret material with a quasi-permanent electric charge, provides a new route for the accumulation and storage of high-density surface charges. They found that when water droplets continuously hit the surface of PTFE, the surface charges generated will accumulate and gradually reach a saturation. This new discovery helped to overcome the bottleneck of low charge density encountered in previous work.
Another key feature of their design is a unique set of structures similar to a FET, which is a Nobel Prize in Physics winning innovation in 1956 and has become the basic building block of modern electronic devices.
The device consists of an aluminium electrode, and an indium tin oxide (ITO) electrode with a film of PTFE deposited on it. The PTFE/ITO electrode is responsible for the charge generation, storage, and induction. When a falling water droplet hits and spreads on the PTFE/ITO surface, it naturally “bridges” the aluminium electrode and the PTFE/ITO electrode, translating the original system into a closed-loop electric circuit.
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With this special design, a high density of surface charges can be accumulated on the PTFE through continuous droplet impinging. Meanwhile, when the spreading water connects the two electrodes, all the stored charges on the PTFE can be fully released for the generation of electric current. As a result, both the instantaneous power density and energy conversion efficiency are much higher.
“Our research shows that a drop of 100 microliters (1 microliter = one-millionth of a liter) of water released from a height of 15 centimeters can generate a voltage of over 140V—and the power generated can light up 100 small LED light bulbs,” said Professor Wang.
He added that the increase in instantaneous power density does not result from additional energy, but from the conversion of kinetic energy of water itself.
“The kinetic energy entailed in falling water is due to gravity and can be regarded as free and renewable,” he said. “It should be better utilized.”
Their research also shows that the reduction in relative humidity does not affect the efficiency of power generation. Also, both rainwater and seawater can be used to generate electricity.
Professor Wang hoped that the outcome of this research would help to harvest water energy to respond to the global problem of renewable energy shortage. “Generating power from raindrops instead of oil and nuclear energy can facilitate the sustainable development of the world,” he added.
He believes that in the long run, the new design could be applied and installed on different surfaces, where liquid is in contact with solids, to fully utilize the low-frequency kinetic energy in water. This can range from the hull surface of a ferry or a coastline to the surface of umbrellas or even the insides of water bottles.
Reprinted from City University of Hong Kong
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Although people are using their phones more than ever before, studies say that people across all age groups—particularly millennials—are lonelier than ever.
That’s why this new texting platform is aiming to spread kindness and connection all over the world by allowing people to send and receive compassionate texts from strangers.
Text for Humanity, the world’s first texting switchboard, was launched by cloud communications company Sinch in partnership with Mental Health America as a means of fighting social isolation from people’s cell phones.
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“Today, nothing is as personal and emotional to us as our phones. But although we use them 24/7 to communicate, we seem to feel lonelier, not happier,” Sinch CMO Jonathan Bean told Good News Network. “At Sinch, we believe mobile communication is the solution, not the problem. So what if people could start to get unconditional love from the phones we love unconditionally?
“We made the world’s first texting switchboard, where you send a text you would love to get, to a stranger,” he continued. “And in turn, you receive a text that someone in the world right now needs to hear. Because we’re more open and honest with strangers, these words have the potential to be relevant, personal and powerful. After all, we are human.”
All users have to do is text the word “Join” to the corresponding Text for Humanity phone number of their country.
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After that, users will simply be asked for their first name and country of origin before they’re ready to write a kind message up to 160 characters long. Each text is then sent to another random user somewhere in the world. In return, the user receives a sweet text from another random stranger.
Users can send and receive up to five texts every day. Since the service launched across 23 different countries last month, more than 7,000 kind texts have already been exchanged.
Mental Health America CEO and president Paul Gionfriddo said: “We know there is a lot of negativity online these days—and by taking a minute to deliver a simple, positive message to someone who may need it, each of us can help brighten someone’s day and lift up their overall mental well-being.”
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Firefighters across the fire-stricken provinces of Australia are rejoicing over the arrival of some much-needed rain.
In just one single day, torrential rainfall across New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory extinguished about one-third of the active bushfires—and officials say the downpour could put out even more of the fires during the days to come.
Collectively, the rainfall has extinguished 20 of the active fires, leaving 42 fires still blazing across the coast. According to the Sydney Morning Herald, only two of those fires are above the “low-moderate” safety rating.
This is also the largest single-day drop in active wildfires since the fire season began.
Although the downpour has resulted in some flooding across the provinces, the NSW Rural Fire Service says they are “over the moon” to see the rainfall aiding them in their fight against the bushfires.
Many of the bushfires have been fueled by the drought conditions that have plagued eastern Australia for the last three years.
Thanks to the rain, however, Sydney—which is the largest city in Australia—enjoyed their wettest day on record in about 15 months, and weather services are calling for another 350 millimeters of rain this weekend.
It was fantastic to wake up to much-needed rain this morning!
— Clover Moore (@CloverMoore) February 7, 2020
Today has already been the wettest Sydney day in 15 months, and thankfully it’s raining across NSW where we need it most. https://t.co/FsBxow8Zuv
According to The Guardian, the last time the city received more than 100 millimeters of rain in a day was back in November 2018.
“It was fantastic to wake up to much-needed rain this morning!” says Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore. “Today has already been the wettest Sydney day in 15 months, and thankfully it’s raining across NSW where we need it most.”
The NSW Rural Fire Service says that more than 1,200 firefighters are currently taking advantage of the weather conditions to continue containing the fires while their division simultaneously prepares for the upcoming flood warnings.
So nice listening to rain falling last night & driving with windscreen wipers on for a change this morning. @BOM_NSW indicates continued rain this next week & importantly, falls across our fire areas which will be so welcomed by our farmers, fire fighters & all affected. #NSWRFS pic.twitter.com/gJ3aFRQlzF
— Shane Fitzsimmons (@RFSCommissioner) February 6, 2020
Be Sure And Share The Good News With Your Friends On Social Media – File photo by Ed Yourdon, CC
This is the incredible moment a hungry skydiver managed to have pizza delivered to her at more than 2,000 feet in the air.
24-year-old McKenna Knipe, who is known for her high altitude “food reviews” was filmed during her 300th jump at Skydive City in Tampa, Florida.
The footage shows fellow skydiver Brain Stempin perching himself atop Mckenna’s parachute before producing a Dominos pizza and delivering it to her during the duo’s descent.
“This jump took place at Skydive City on my birthday, January 14, 2020,” said McKenna. “It was my 300th jump, along with my first CRW jump. CRW stands for ‘canopy relative work’—it is considered one of the most dangerous disciplines in skydiving.
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“I met Brian Stempin about two hours before we did the jump. Brian is what the skydiving world calls an experienced CRW Dawg.”
“He said he had the idea to deliver a pizza to me during a CRW jump for quite some time … so we met and immediately made it happen. My lose friends Anthony Zerbonia and Charlie Mather picked up a Dominos pizza while Brian gave me an hour-long safety debriefing (listing all the things that could go wrong and how to handle it).”
“We jumped at 13,000 ft and Anthony Zerbonia and Garth Baker trailed behind us getting outside video.
“We managed to pull off several docks, a down plane, and pizza delivery by 2,000 feet. It was the most epic jump I have done to date. Life is awesome.”
(WATCH the video below)
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Quote of the Day: “The world is full of temptations… Always let your conscience be your guide.” – Walt Disney’s Pinocchio (debuted 80 years ago)
Photo: by Benjamin Davies – 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?
Altruistic helping—the act of giving away something desirable, even at a cost to oneself—is perhaps most evident when it comes to food.
Human adults often respond to hungry people, whether through food banks or fundraisers, or by simply handing over their lunch. But when does that spirit of giving start?
New research by the University of Washington’s Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences (I-LABS) finds that altruism may begin in infancy. In a study of nearly 100 toddlers who were 19 months-old, researchers found that the children gave a desirable snack to a stranger in need, even when they, themselves, were hungry. The findings not only show that young tots engage in altruistic behavior, but also suggest that early social experiences can shape that altruism.
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The study is published online this week in Scientific Reports, an open-access journal from the Nature Publishing Group.
“We think altruism is important to study because it is one of the most distinctive aspects of being human. It is an important part of the moral fabric of society,” said Rodolfo Cortes Barragan, a postdoctoral researcher at I-LABS and lead author on the study. “We adults help each other when we see another in need and we do this even if there is a cost to the self. So we tested the roots of this in infants.”
Non-human primates have been found to cooperate, and to share resources under restricted conditions—but non-human primates, such as chimpanzees, don’t actively hand over delicious food that they need themselves.
I-LABS researchers wanted to test whether human infants were able to act beyond self-interest when faced with one of the most fundamental biological needs: food.
For this study, researchers chose kid-friendly fruits—including bananas, blueberries, and grapes—and set up an interaction between child and researcher. The goal was to determine whether the child would—without encouragement, verbal instruction, or reinforcement—spontaneously give an appealing food to an unfamiliar person.
In the experiment, the child and the adult researcher faced each other across a table at I-LABS, and the researcher showed the child a piece of fruit. What happened next was determined by whether the child was in the control group, or the test group. In the control group, the researcher gently tossed the piece of fruit onto a tray on the floor beyond reach but within the child’s reach. The researcher showed no expression and made no attempt to retrieve the fruit.
In the test group, the researcher pretended to accidentally drop the fruit onto the tray, then reach for it unsuccessfully.
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That reaching effort—the adult’s apparent desire for the food—seemed to trigger a helping response in the children, researchers said: More than half the children in the test group picked up the fruit and gave it to the adult, compared to 4% of children in the control group.
In a second experiment with a different sample of children, parents were asked to bring their child just before their scheduled snack or mealtime when the child was likely to be hungry. Researchers reasoned that this would raise the “cost to self” that defines altruism. The control and test group scenarios were repeated, but with children who were now more motivated to take the fruit for themselves. The results mirrored those from the previous study. Fully 37% of the test group offered the fruit to the researcher while none of the children in the control group did so.
“The infants in this second study looked longingly at the fruit, and then they gave it away!” said Andrew Meltzoff, who is co-director of I-LABS and holds the Job and Gertrud Tamaki Endowed Chair in psychology. “We think this captures a kind of baby-sized version of altruistic helping.”
The research team also analyzed the data in different ways—whether children offered fruit on the first trial of the experiment or got better during the process, for example, and whether children from particular types of family environments helped more.
The researchers found that infants helped just as well on the very first trial of the experiment as on later trials, which Barragan said is informative because it shows that the children did not have to learn to help during the study and needed no training. Indeed, children spontaneously and repeatedly helped a person from outside of their immediate family.
The researchers also found that children with siblings and from certain cultural backgrounds were especially likely to help the adult, indicating that the expression of infant altruism is malleable. These results fit well with previous studies with adults that show positive influences of having a cultural background that emphasizes “interdependence,” that is, a background that places particular value on how much an individual feels connected to others.
“We think certain family and social experiences make a difference, and continued research would be desirable to more fully understand what maximizes the expression of altruism in young children,” says Barragan. “If we can discover how to promote altruism in our kids, this could move us toward a more caring society.”
Reprinted from the University of Washington
(WATCH a quick clip of the experiment in action below)
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A novel salt-tolerant bacterium cultured from the Red Sea effectively removes nitrogen from salty wastewater—and it could be used to treat sewage coming from toilets that use seawater for flushing in place of freshwater.
Less than 1% of Earth’s water is fresh and also accessible for human use. The world’s population is expected to grow to about ten billion by 2050 and will continue to place increasing pressure on this already rare resource.
Currently, toilet flushing accounts for about 30% of the world’s total domestic water demand, and using seawater could alleviate that pressure on freshwater resources. A research team from King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) believes they have figured out how it can be done efficiently.
“Seawater toilet flushing is already in practice in Hong Kong, Singapore and Tokyo,” says KAUST research scientist Muhammad Ali.
More coastal cities might follow suit except that the high salt content of seawater would limits the performance of conventional nitrogen-removing bacteria used in the treatment processes “because they have low salt tolerance.” Nitrogen needs to be removed from wastewater due to its negative effects on the environment and human health.
Ali and Dario Rangel Shaw, both in Pascal Saikaly’s lab, conducted three years of tests to find whether the bacterium Candidatus Scalindua sp. AMX11, which they cultured from the Red Sea, could effectively remove nitrogen from salty wastewater.
Currently, the most energy-efficient method to do this involves the use of granules containing two types of nitrogen-removing bacteria. But one of these, an anaerobic ammonium oxidation bacteria, or anammox bacteria for short, has a very low tolerance for and effectiveness in saltwater.
On the other hand, Candidatus Scalindua sp. AMX11 was around 90% effective in treating wastewater with a salinity of about 1.2% and demonstrated high nitrogen removal rates. The tests were on real seawater—unlike other studies that used artificial versions.
“The findings demonstrate a proof of concept, and the next step is to demonstrate this technology in a microbial granular system containing Candidatus Scalindua sp. AMX11 bacteria and the other types of bacteria necessary for a full-scale wastewater treatment process,” explains Saikaly.
The team is also working with a Saudi fertilizer company to test its bioprocess for treating industrial wastewater.
Reprinted from KAUST Discovery
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Check out the pawsome moment that an ingenious cat came to the rescue of his owner after she found herself locked out of her home without her keys one year ago.
Boko the cat and Gabriella Tropea have been virtually inseparable since she rescued him as a stray on her college campus—and after Tropea was locked out of her house in Austin, Texas, he finally got to repay the favor by rescuing her in return.
Back in February 2019, Tropea briefly stepped outside of her home in Austin, Texas so she could walk her little sister Isabelle to school.
Upon returning to her house, however, Tropea was dismayed to find that her sister had accidentally locked the door behind them—and Tropea had left her keys inside.
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“I got to the front door and Boko could hear me trying to get in,” Tropea told The Dodo. “He started crying and scratching at the door.”
Tropea ended up circling around to the rear patio where the back sliding door was kept closed by a wooden stick jammed into the door frame—and that’s when the dynamic duo got an idea.
“He started rubbing his face on the stick and I was encouraging him to mess with it. I was coaching him to lift it up,” Tropea told the news outlet. “He understood what I was trying to tell him and he started lifting it up!”
My sister accidentally locked me out of the house so I went to check if the back door was unlocked and this happened pic.twitter.com/2zkjeyFJk5
— Gabby Tropea (@gabbytropea) February 18, 2019
After some brief coaxing, Boko finally managed to pull the stick free so Tropea could get back inside her house.
Since she shared the video to social media, it has been viewed more than 7 million times, although Tropea says she was “not surprised this blew up because Boko is a hero and he deserves this.”
Although Boko did not comment on his sudden rise to internet stardom, Tropea did reassure Twitter users that the cat was appropriately showered with kitty treats and snacks.
How could I have not already look at him!!! pic.twitter.com/nYwlmOaFoQ
— Gabby Tropea (@gabbytropea) February 18, 2019
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A top-secret electric vehicle has completed the UK’s longest and most complex autonomous car journey by self-navigating itself along 230 miles on British roads.
The modified 2017 electric Nissan LEAF travelled from the Nissan Technical Center Europe (NTCE) in Cranfield, Bedfordshire, to the brand’s manufacturing plant in Sunderland.
Over the course of the journey, the autonomous car tackled road junctions, roundabouts, motorways, and even country lanes with little or no road markings.
The car’s autonomous technology activated along the route to change lanes, merge, and stop and start when necessary. The only moment the passenger took control of the LEAF was to drive into motorway services—in order to charge it.
The UK government-backed HumanDrive project, which took place on public roads with surrounding motorists none the wiser, is the result of 30 months of work by a consortium of industry leaders.
“Our Future of Mobility: Urban Strategy is supporting transport innovation for cleaner, greener and smarter transport,” said Future of Transport Minister, George Freeman, MP from the UK Department For Transport. “Nissan’s successful HumanDrive project is an exciting example of how the next phase of the UK’s transport revolution could look.”
Nissan worked with Hitachi, Highways England, and a number of other partners to produce one of the most technologically advanced autonomous vehicles ever seen.
By building a dataset of previously encountered traffic scenarios and solutions, it can use this “learned experience” to handle similar scenarios in the future and plot a safe route around an obstacle.
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Capable of handling narrow winding roads with no lane division markings and poorly-marked roundabouts all on its own, the LEAF’s technology was designed to create a more familiar and comfortable experience for passengers in the car.
The HumanDrive project demonstrates how car firms like Nissan, along with other industry leaders and the UK government are committed to making autonomous vehicles a reality on European roads.
HumanDrive is jointly funded by the UK government through the Centre for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CCAV), Innovate UK, and nine other consortium partners. The joint funding package for the project totaled £13.5 million ($17.5 million).
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“Nissan’s Intelligent Mobility vision is to develop autonomous drive technologies for use in all of our cars in any area of the world,” said David Moss, senior vice president for Research & Development in Europe, Nissan Europe. “The door is now open to build on this successful UK research project, as we move towards a future which is more autonomous, more electric, and more connected.”
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Last month, a Welsh teacher waited with baited breath while his class of thirty students counted down together towards the moment when they would all open the results of their mathematics exam.
When the moment finally arrived, a chorus of gasps erupted from the class of mostly minority, low-income, and English second-language speakers as they realized each and every last one of them had gotten an A*—which is the equivalent of an A+ in Wales.
Francis Elive, a teacher at Fitzalan High School in Cardiff, Wales, has since been hailed as the “Maths Whisperer” since he managed to guide each and every one of his pupils to the highest possible grade.
Cllr Sarah Merry, the cabinet member for education, employment and skills at Cardiff council, welcomed the school’s success when she spoke to The Guardian in January.
“We call him the maths whisperer,” Elive’s teaching assistant Jo Kemp told Wales Online. “He instills the belief that they have practiced the hardest maths that they have to ever face, so why be scared of an exam? It’s the belief that they absolutely can do it, and the children think it’s magic.”
To put the achievement of Elive and his pupils into perspective, only 13% of Welsh students who took the exam managed to get an A* or higher grade last summer.
“What an incredible result. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of an entire class scoring A* across the board,” she said. “I want to congratulate all the pupils, their teacher Mr. Elive, and of course the school for this wonderful achievement.”
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Quote of the Day: “The life of inner peace, being harmonious and without stress, is the easiest type of existence.” – Norman Vincent Peale
Photo: by Diego PH – public domain
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Kansas City Chiefs defensive tackle Derrick Nnadi has been praised across social media since he celebrated his Super Bowl win by covering the pet adoption fees of 109 animals from his local animal shelter.
Now, Coors Light is hoping to reenforce the NFL player’s good deed for Valentine’s Day by encouraging people to adopt a dog ahead of the Hallmark holiday—and they’re even offering to foot the bill.
Between February 4th — 21st, Coors is volunteering to pay for up to 1,000 dog adoptions across the United States.
The beer brand is covering up to $100 for each rescued canine, which will result in more than $100,000 worth of free adoptions.
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“With almost half of millennials planning to stay in on Valentine’s Day, we wanted to help empower people to savor the day with Coors Light and a dog by their side,” said Chelsea Parker, Marketing Manager at Molson Coors.
There is no beer purchase necessary to participate in the offer, but there are some caveats to the offer. Participants must be 21 years or older in order to be reimbursed for their adoption; state residents from California, Louisiana, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Texas, Virginia, and West Virginia are excluded from the initiative; and participants will only be reimbursed through the Venmo banking app (although it is free to make an account).
After that, participants are simply required to submit a photo of their adoption receipt by texting it to 28130 along with the phrase “COORS4k9”. To learn more, you can visit the “Coors for Canines” website.
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Reprinted with permission from World At Large, a news website on politics, nature, science, health, and travel.
A new paper awaiting peer-review from Harvard Medical School has found evidence that the human microbiome has a greater power of detecting disease and predicting mortality than the current applications derived from genetic mapping.
This remarkable finding was achieved by examining 47 studies that looked at the relationship between the genetic makeup of gut microbes and the association with 13 diseases such as hypertension, asthma, and schizophrenia. These were then compared with 24 gene-wide association studies (GWA) which correlate specific human genetics and various diseases.
This has been a major strength of GWA studies in the past, and such meta-analyses have been used to determine major findings like the melatonin-receptor gene of the pancreas that inhibits insulin release. This was found by looking through GWA studies to find the number one associated genetic marker for obesity, which then led to the time-restricted eating and intermittent fasting diets now popular in America today.
However, the paper—published on the scholarly reprint site bioRxiv—demonstrated that the microbiome was 20% better at predicting an ill person than GWA studies. In some circumstances, the margin was far greater; for instance, the microbiome is about 50% more accurate at predicting colorectal cancer than the individual’s own genetics.
The understanding of the powerful influence that the human microbiome has on our physiology is only growing in scale the more we perform this type of research. In 2012, the microbiome was described as our “second genome” due to its importance for understanding genetic factors and influences on disease and health.
Datasets from the American and British Gut projects have deepened our understanding of the complex interactions between our food, genetics, and lifestyle on the colonies of trillions of tiny organisms that live on our skin, in our brains, and in our GI tracts.
“Gut microbiome species diversity has been theorized as playing an important role, either as a correlative, causal, or associative factor, in the greater obesity epidemic affecting much of the world, as well as several other diseases,” World at Large detailed in an examination of the American and British Gut datasets.
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Jeroen Raes of the VIB-KU Leuven Center for Microbiology told Science that the gap in understanding between our own genetics and the microbiome means it’s “risky” to compare the two. However, he added that when trying to predict diseases with a strong environmental, and weaker genetic component—such as type 2 diabetes—the gut microbiome could go a very long way indeed in helping clinicians identify pre-diabetics earlier and more accurately.
About 1 in 10 Americans has type 2 diabetes according to the CDC, and managing the disease from age 45 until death can cost the American healthcare and insurance systems tens of thousands of dollars per patient.
In a second study that is currently also awaiting peer-review, Finish researchers looked at the correlation between a person’s microbiome and their life span. Donated stool samples from thousands of Finish individuals from 1972 through to 2002 were examined 15 years post-sequencing for their microbial content.
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Individuals with large populations of certain kinds of enterobacteriaceae—potentially infectious bacteria which include escherichia coli and salmonella, were found to have a 15% greater chance to die in the next 15 years.
It’s unclear in both studies whether the associations are caused by bacteria having a direct effect on disease and mortality or if the microbial communities are reacting in some way to the genetic or environmental changes that are causing the unfavorable states of health.
Regardless, the discoveries could have a dramatic impact on how the medical community diagnoses, prevents, and treats diseases in the future.
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An intrepid feline known as Miss Rigby has spent her entire life sailing the ocean with her family.
Known to be the most ‘dog-like’ of all cat breeds, this American Burnese has lived on a boat with her owners Shane and Maryvonne since she was a kitten.
Also known as Rigs, Riggles, or Chicken, she was offered to Maryvonne by a breeder in Connecticut.
“They are extremely loving and loyal and also trainable—well, as much as you can train a cat,” she added. “But the boat is her home and she loves it.”
Around 45% of plastic waste is recycled annually in the UK and is on the increase. However, one of the problems with current plastic recycling methods is that you end up with a lower-quality plastic with worse properties than the original.
This means that plastic drinks bottles cannot simply be recycled into new drink bottles continuously, but instead are used for other lower-grade products such as park benches and traffic cones.
Now, scientists from the Universities of Bath and Birmingham have developed a new way of chemical recycling—converting plastics back into their constituent chemical molecules—so that they can be used to make new plastics of the same quality as the original.
The team’s method, published in ChemSusChem, also uses lower temperatures and more environmentally-friendly catalysts than previous methods.
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“Most plastic is currently recycled using mechanical methods, where they are chipped into granules and melted down before being moulded into something new,” said Professor Matthew Jones, from the Centre for Sustainable and Circular Technologies at the University of Bath.
“The problem is, melting plastic changes its properties, and reduces the quality, which limits the range of products in which it can be used.
“Our method of chemical recycling overcomes this problem by breaking down plastic polymers into their chemical building blocks, so they can be used all over again to make virgin plastic without losing any properties.”
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The researchers recycled plant-based PLA, which is made from starch or crop waste instead of petrochemicals, and is used in “biodegradable” food packaging and disposable cutlery and cups. PLA isn’t currently recycled because it’s not yet widely used, however with growing awareness of plastic pollution, the demand from consumers for recyclable packaging is growing.
The team has also started trialling a similar process for recycling PET, which is used for drink bottles.
“PLA is being increasingly used as a sustainable alternative for single-use plastics. Whilst it’s biodegradable under industrial conditions, it doesn’t biodegrade with home composting, and isn’t currently recycled, so at the moment, it commonly ends up contributing to the tons of waste in landfill and oceans,” said first author of the paper, Dr. Paul McKeown from the University of Bath.
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“There is no single solution to the problem of plastic waste—the approach has to be a combination of reducing, reusing and recycling. Our method of chemical recycling could allow carbon to be recycled indefinitely—creating a circular economy rather than digging more up from the ground in the form of fossil fuels, or releasing it into the atmosphere as a greenhouse gas.”
So far, the technology has only been demonstrated on a small scale, although collaborators at the University of Birmingham are now working to scale up the system to produce larger quantities of starting chemicals.
Reprinted from the University of Bath
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These compassionate Florida firefighters are being hailed for going above and beyond the call of duty to help a family in need following a medical emergency.
Captain Dennis Noble and firefighters Joe Clark and Duane Norman were just a few of the first responders who rushed to the rescue of a family-of-four whose minivan had run out of gas while driving to the hospital.
Since one of the family members had been experiencing a medical emergency at the time, paramedics treated them on-site before transporting them to the hospital.
However, this left the rest of the family stranded on the side of the road with a quickly deflating tire, an empty gas tank, and no money to fill up.
Noble, Norman, and Clark then took it upon themselves to push the minivan a quarter of a mile to the nearest gas station. Not only that, they paid to fill up the family’s gas tank and fixed the leaking tire.
The Hernando County Fire Rescue (HCFR) later published a photo of the three Good Samaritans pushing the vehicle to social media in order to praise them for their kindness.
“This truly exemplifies the meaning of why HCFR exists… to serve others!” they wrote.
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Quote of the Day: “My definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular.” – Adlai Stevenson II (born 120 years ago today)
Photo: by Javier Allegue Barros – public domain
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When a pair of complete strangers expressed their condolences to Shaquille O’Neal, the NBA legend decided to thank them for their kindness with a gift.
The heartwarming incident took place last week when Patrick Martin was shopping at a Best Buy in McDonough, Georgia—and to his surprise, he also spotted Shaq in a nearby aisle.
Martin then took it upon himself to approach Shaq and offer his condolences not only for the recent death of Shaq’s friend and former teammate Kobe Bryant, but also Shaq’s sister Ayesha Harrison-Jex who passed away in October following a battle with cancer.
Though Martin may not have thought much of the deed, he was soon rejoined by the former Lakers player.
“We walked off, then Shaq comes to us and says, ‘I like y’all, so get the nicest one in here and I’ll pay for it,’” recalls Martin.
True to his word, Shaq bought Martin a brand new Microsoft Surface Laptop.
Since Martin shared the story to social media, it has been shared thousands of times by appreciative fans.
Although this is not the first time that Shaq has been hailed for a random act of kindness towards a fan, this particular story has touched the hearts of Lakers fans since Bryant passed away in January. Additionally, Shaq donated all the proceeds generated from his Super Bowl party in Miami this weekend to the Kobe & Vanessa Bryant Family Foundation as well as the families of the helicopter crash victims.
Shaq says that he had been contemplating canceling the event after he was left reeling from the death of Bryant, who played alongside him for three of his NBA titles.
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“Been going back and forth the past couple of days on if I should even have my event in Miami this weekend,” Shaq wrote on Instagram last week. “Part of me wanted to stay to myself as I reflect what my brother and his family mean to me and my family. But in thinking what would Kobe want, what would he do? Kobe would want us to push through and celebrate life. So let’s do just that.
“I’ll be dedicating and donating all my proceeds from Friday nights Fun House to all the families who lost loved ones and to the Kobe and Vanessa Bryant Foundation,” he concluded. “Together we will celebrate all those who lost their lives in Sunday tragedy. RIP my brother, my friend and my homie, The Black Mamba. Until we meet again.”
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