Quote of the Day: “Change, indeed, is painful; yet ever needful; and if memory have its force and worth, so also has hope.” – Thomas Carlyle
Photo: by Jonathan Gonzales, CC license (cropped)
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What is the meaning of life? It’s a big question with possibly even bigger implications for our health and wellbeing than we previously thought.
Over the last three decades, meaning in life has emerged as an important question in medical research, especially in the context of an aging population. A recent study by researchers at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine found that the presence of and search for meaning in life are important for health and wellbeing, though the relationships differ in adults younger and older than age 60.
“Many think about the meaning and purpose in life from a philosophical perspective, but meaning in life is associated with better health, wellness and perhaps longevity,” said senior author Dilip V. Jeste, senior associate dean for the Center of Healthy Aging. “Those with meaning in life are happier and healthier than those without it.”
The study, which was published online in this week’s edition of the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, found the presence of meaning in life is associated with better physical and mental wellbeing, while the search for meaning in life may be associated with worse mental wellbeing and cognitive functioning.
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“When you find more meaning in life, you become more contented, whereas if you don’t have purpose in life and are searching for it unsuccessfully, you will feel much more stressed out,” said Jeste.
The results also showed that the presence of meaning in life exhibited an inverted U-shaped relationship, while the search for meaning in life showed a U-shaped relationship with age. The researchers found that age 60 is when the presence of meaning in life peaks and the search for meaning of life was at its lowest point.
“When you are young, like in your twenties, you are unsure about your career, a life partner and who you are as a person. You are searching for meaning in life,” said Jeste. “As you start to get into your thirties, forties and fifties, you have more established relationships, maybe you are married and have a family and you’re settled in a career. The search decreases and the meaning in life increases.”
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“After age 60, things begin to change. People retire from their job and start to lose their identity. They start to develop health issues and some of their friends and family begin to pass away. They start searching for the meaning in life again because the meaning they once had has changed.”
The three-year, cross-sectional study examined data from 1,042 adults, ages 21 to 100+, who were part of the Successful Aging Evaluation (SAGE)—a multi-cohort study of senior residents living in San Diego County. The presence and search for meaning in life were assessed with interviews, including a meaning in life questionnaire where participants were asked to rate items, such as, “I am seeking a purpose or mission for my life” and “I have discovered a satisfying life purpose.”
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“The medical field is beginning to recognize that meaning in life is a clinically relevant and potentially modifiable factor, which can be targeted to enhance the wellbeing and functioning of patients,” said Awais Aftab, first author of the paper and a former fellow in the Department of Psychiatry at UC San Diego. “We anticipate that our findings will serve as building blocks for the development of new interventions for patients searching for purpose.”
Jeste said next research steps include looking at other areas, such as wisdom, loneliness and compassion, and how these impact meaning in life. “We also want to examine if some biomarkers of stress and aging are associated with searching and finding the meaning in life. It’s an exciting time in this field as we are seeking to discover evidence-based answers to some of life’s most profound questions.”
Reprinted from University of California – San Diego
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Brian Johnson isn’t just the frontman of legendary rock band AC/DC—he is also a beloved philanthropist.
Case in point? The singer and his wife Brenda Johnson recently donated a massive property in Sarasota, Florida to help finish building a new housing campus for foster kids and siblings.
The property, which was donated to the All Star Children’s Foundation, sold for net proceeds of $335,000—all of which will be used to finish building the organization’s Sarasota-based “Campus of Caring”.
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Since the nonprofit is dedicated to transforming foster care through innovation and compassion, the campus features six foster family homes that will provide children who have experienced abuse or neglect with a nurturing, family-style home environment and comprehensive, trauma-sensitive treatment. Siblings will be kept together, and parents and caregivers will also be offered a range of innovative services. Not only that, it will include a center for trauma-focused clinical services, a computer learning lab, playground, clubhouse, and outdoor movie theater.
Once construction is finished, the campus is set to open in January 2020.
“We are so grateful to Brenda and Brian,” said Graci McGillicuddy, All Star’s co-founder and board chair. “We’re preparing to open our campus to children very soon. Raising funds is so important in this crucial time—and they’ve taken us leagues closer to making this dream a reality.”
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When the rock and roll star was asked about his motivation for donating the property to the charity, he simply said: “They have brought a community together in a common cause to help children who have grown up in unpredictable households where violence and neglect may have occurred.
“There is no greater good than what they have achieved in building the All-Star Children’s Foundation campus, and Brenda and I are honored to be a part of it,” he concluded.
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In addition to patrons being able to borrow their favorite books at this Florida public library system, visitors can now lend out colorblind-corrective glasses for up to two weeks at a time.
The St. Johns County Public Library System (SJCPLS) announced earlier this week that they had partnered with EnChroma—inventors of eyewear for color blindness—in order to offer EnChroma glasses to colorblind patrons at all six of the library’s branches.
The purchase of the EnChroma glasses was funded by a generous $13,000 grant award from the nonprofit Barbara A. Kay Foundation, which will also fund the library’s new “Color Your World” program with free oil pastel classes available to all of their patrons.
“The St. Johns County Public Library System is in the forefront of supporting accessibility and eager to serve the many needs of our community,” said Library Director Debra Rhodes Gibson of St. Johns County Public Library System. “EnChroma glasses will allow those who cannot see colors as well or vibrantly to enjoy and experience color as much as everyone else does. We are grateful to the Barbara A. Kay Foundation for helping to bring color accessibility to the people of St. Johns County.”
One in 12 men and 1 in 200 women are color vision deficient, amounting to about 13 million in the United States and 350 million worldwide. With a population of over 250,000, St. Johns County, Florida, has an estimated 11,000 people with color vision deficiency.
Nearly two years ago, the Johnson County Public Library in Indiana became the first library system in the nation to provide access to EnChroma glasses to those with color vision deficiency—and they are now delighted that other libraries are following suit.
“Having EnChroma glasses as part of JCPL’s Library of Things has given some of our color blind patrons the opportunity to see color for the first time in their lives,” said Elyssa Everling, Adult Services Librarian, Trafalgar Branch, Johnson County Public Library.
“One of my favorite memories is of a patron who experienced the beauty of a rainbow the first time he tried them on,” she recalled. “We love connecting our patrons with color blindness to this potentially life-changing resource at all four of our libraries.”
EnChroma continues to lead in advocating for “color accessibility” with the launch of the EnChroma Color Accessibility Program.
The program helps public venues, schools, state parks, libraries, museums and other organizations purchase and loan EnChroma glasses to color blind students and guests to help make schoolwork that involves color, colorful exhibits, attractions and/or experiences accessible to the color blind.
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Red-green color blindness is caused by an excessive overlap in the signals from red- and green-sensitive retinal cone cells in the eye, which causes colors that are normally seen as distinct and different to appear highly similar and confusing. Common color confusions include green and yellow, gray and pink, purple and blue, and red can appear brown. People with color vision deficiency are estimated to see about 10% of the one million shades that a person with normal color vision can see.
EnChroma glasses are engineered for the most common forms of red-green color blindness. The company’s patented lens technology is engineered with special optical filters to remove wavelengths of light where the red and green cones in the eye of the color blind overlap excessively. This enhances the separation between color channels to help them see colors more vibrantly, clearly and distinctly, helping them to overcome everyday obstacles and access more of life’s colorful experiences.
“EnChroma glasses enable those with color vision deficiency to experience the world in colorful ways they never thought possible, from the seemingly mundane to the life-changing,” said Andrew Schmeder, Co-founder and CEO of EnChroma. “We hope that more libraries will join St. Johns in making EnChroma glasses available to their constituents.”
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It has been two years since the first-ever permitted 3D printed house in the US was built in Texas in less than 24 hours.
Now, according to New Story, a nonprofit that pioneers solutions to end global homelessness, one of the world’s first 3D printed communities is officially underway with the first two homes already built in Mexico.
The resilient, 500-square-foot homes were each 3D printed in around 24 hours of print time across several days by ICON, a construction technologies company, and feature final construction build out by ÉCHALE, New Story’s nonprofit partner in Mexico.
The built-to-last homes located in rural Tabasco, Mexico will be granted to local families currently living in extreme poverty and makeshift, unsafe shelter. The community of 3D printed homes will contain 50 homes in total.
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After 18 months in planning, New Story and ICON completed the first two printed homes using the Vulcan II, a massive 3D printer that is designed to work under the constraints that are common in rural locations.
This printer, designed to tackle housing shortages for vulnerable populations, is the first of its kind.
The 3D printed homes feature two bedrooms, a living room, kitchen and bath. Co-designed with feedback from the families who will live in them, the homes have been created to meet the specific needs of the community.
“I think it’s important to remember what makes this project different, what makes it matter,” said Alexandria Lafci, the COO of New Story. “We’re not an R&D company just for the sake of innovation, and we’re not here to turn a profit. These homes are for real people, with real needs, and everything we do is for them, and includes them in the process.”
New Story is a nonprofit serving families in need of shelter. Since their founding just five years ago, the team has built more than 2,700 homes, serving over 15,000 people, using traditional construction methods across Haiti, El Salvador, Bolivia, and Mexico.
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In the last two years, they’ve spent thousands of hours and millions of dollars developing innovative solutions and R&D to help build homes better and faster for the global social housing sector.
“Imagine if we could slash the cost and time it takes to build a home while improving quality and customization. This 3D home printer has that potential,” said Lafci. “Change is an open source pursuit so we are not working with ICON to bring this technology to only New Story projects, we are bringing it to the world. Our goal is to power our sector, every government and organization building homes for the poor, to do their best work.”
The partnership with ICON and use of the 3D printing technology allows New Story to impact more families faster, while simultaneously improving quality and design flexibility. The hope is that this catalytic R&D project will influence the sector as a whole.
Through the technology, software, and advanced material, the teams will learn, iterate, and then share the learnings with other nonprofits and governments to help everyone improve and reach families faster.
“Conventional construction methods have many baked-in drawbacks and problems that we’ve taken for granted for so long, that we forgot how to imagine any alternative,” said ICON co-founder Jason Ballard. “With 3D printing, you not only have a continuous thermal envelope, high thermal mass, and near zero-waste, but you also have speed, a much broader design palette, next-level resiliency, and the possibility of a quantum leap in affordability. This isn’t 10% better, it’s 10 times better.”
The families who will live in this community have been preselected and will move in upon community completion. Families are selected based on need; in this community, the median family income per month is $76.50—some of the lowest-income families in Mexico as a whole. Additionally, the majority of the families in this area are from an indigenous population that has historically been left out of government programs.
Through partnership with the local government, the 3D printed community is to be part of a larger community plan for the overall municipal area. The families will have access to green spaces, parks, community amenities, and basic utilities through this master plan provided by the local government.
“We are living a historic moment, having the first community of 3d printed homes being built,” said ÉCHALE Development Director Gretel Uribe. “But more than the technological accomplishment that this represents, which feels like science fiction meeting reality, I would like to point out that this technology is being developed and used to bring adequate housing to the most vulnerable families.
“I think this project is a lesson that if we come together to work, join talents and resources, and lead them to solve real problems, the dream of sustainability and social fairness is achievable.”
(WATCH the video below)
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Christmas came early for the children living in these low-income neighborhoods and housing complexes.
That’s because a former resident of the area returned to the streets where he grew up so he could hand out more than $12,000 worth of toys to the local children earlier this week.
Adam Armstrong grew up poor in a mostly government-subsidized apartment complex in Harrisonburg, Virginia. When he was just 18 years old, he was sent to jail to serve a 3-month sentence for marijuana possession. By the time he was released, he knew that it was time to turn his life around.
Armstrong, who is now the father of a 3-year-old girl, ended up moving to Baltimore and working a string of different jobs until he finally got into the mortgaging business.
As Armstrong became more and more financially comfortable, he felt more and more compelled to give back to people living in poverty—so he began donating heaps of toys to local charities every holiday season.
This week, the 35-year-old philanthropist drove to his former neighborhood in a 26-foot moving truck packed with 1,327 toys to give away to all of the children.
Sara Lewis-Weeks, the property manager of the complex, says that when Armstrong had approached her about the giveaway last week, she had been wary of his intentions.
“He comes [into my office] and says, ‘What are you doing on Saturday? I’d like to give away a lot of toys’ and I’m like, ‘Yeaaah, I don’t know about that,’” Lewis-Weeks recounted to NBC News. “I’m very skeptical at that point.”
To her astonishment, however, Armstrong made good on his promise.
“It wasn’t like stuffed animals—he was giving away bikes, remote-controlled cars, real Barbie dolls—not Dollar Store Barbie dolls,” says Weeks. “He didn’t miss anybody. His heart was truly in this.
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“They thought it was going to be a couple of stuffed animals, not, ‘And you get a bike, and you get a bike, and you get a bike,’—like an ‘Oprah’ for little kids,” she added.
Armstrong simply told The Washington Post that he was happy to bring joy to little kids for the holiday season.
“The kids were so innocent and sweet,” Armstrong told the news outlet. “You can’t put a price on looking at these kids’ happy faces. Some of them have nothing, and to be able to give them a small toy … the reward and the pleasure was mine.”
(WATCH the news coverage below)
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Quote of the Day: “Whether you succeed or not is irrelevant, there is no such thing. Making your unknown known is the important thing.” – Georgia O’Keeffe
Photo: by Jerry Kollman (hand-made boats by students at James Madison University, VA)
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?
Alan Tripp is the perfect example of how it is never too late to follow your dreams.
At 102 years old, Tripp is being hailed for releasing his first ever studio album of jazz songs for seniors.
Since he composed the songs with his 88-year-old counterpart Marvin Weisbord, the two men believe themselves to be the oldest songwriting duo in history.
Their musical career began two years ago when Tripp composed a poem about growing old for his 100th birthday and shared it with Weisbord, his friend at their Pennsylvania retirement home.
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Weisbord enjoyed the poem so much, he decided to put it to music—and as Tripp felt inspired to continue writing more and more poems, Weisbord continued to use them as lyrics for jazz ballads.
Despite how neither of them have had any experience with making music, Weisbord managed to rally a team of musicians to record their compositions in the studio until they succeeded in publishing their debut 8-song album “Senior Songbook” last month.
“I’ve never had so much fun in my life, and I never expected to be doing this in my old age,” Weisbord told The Washington Post.
Tripp says that the songs “cover the gamut” of emotions experienced by people regardless of their age—from heartbreak and platonic friendship to love and appreciation.
“You may be too old to take out the trash and you may be too old to drink cheap wine, but you’re never too old for love,” Tripp told Localish in the interview below.
When asked about his secret to longevity, he simply said: “When you’re doing something that gives you joy and satisfaction, you don’t get older. You stop the aging process, and it is one of my secrets: never retire. Retire to something, not from something.”
(WATCH the video below) – Photo by Localish
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This vertigo-inducing footage shows a crew of adrenaline junkies enjoying their massive handmade trampoline—and they are claiming it is the world’s largest.
The viral “Dunking Devil” superstars are already famous for staging a freestyle basketball slam dunk show on a speeding train—but the Slovenian quartet’s new web series “DD Squad” proves that they have many more tricks up their sleeve.
In their latest stunt, the gang literally takes their acrobatic stunts to new heights on what they are calling the world’s biggest trampoline suspended from a crane 100 feet above the ground.
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The group spent two days building the massive trampoline using aluminum pillars, 36 nylon straps, 300 springs, 164 feet of chain and 164 feet of cable.
It was then hung from a 12-ton crane so the stuntmen could perform their “extreme” head-spinning flips with the trampoline propelling them a further 32 feet into the air.
“The feeling of floating 40 meters (130 feet) above ground protected merely by a thin web is, frankly, indescribable,” said DD Squad member Maks Veselko.
“In the beginning, your body experiences some kind of a shock, but eventually it gets used to the constant moving of the web and swaying of the crane. You can’t help but feel dizzy when you’re propelled in the air—however, the feeling is nothing short of pure ecstasy!”
Dunking Devils manager Domen Rozman added: “The building of the world’s biggest trampoline is yet another project that proves anything is possible when the right people come together.
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“The production of this video demanded a lot of planning and preparation as everyone involved had to be very well coordinated. The guys had to trust each other 100% as there was no room for mistakes!
“It was pure joy watching these acrobats fly through the air!” he concluded. “I am certain that this video featuring our extreme stunts will go viral and reach viewers across the globe.”
(WATCH the impressive footage below)
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A crafty Scottish woman has come up with the sweetest way for people to keep meaningful mementos of their loved ones.
For the last six years, Mary Macinnes has been making people “Memory Bears” out of the favorite clothing of their deceased friends and family.
Macinnes, who studied fashion technology at Herriot Watt University in Edinburgh, Scotland, says that she made her first memory bear for a friend when she was just 16 years old. She quickly became flooded with people’s requests for their own Memory Bear, but she always turned them down because she wanted to focus on her studies.
After her bears became more and more popular on social media, however, she eventually opted to start making the bears full-time.
Now 21 years old, Macinnes has made hundreds of Memory Bears, each of which costs £50 ($65) and requires 5 to 6 hours of planning and crafting.
Macinnes has crafted bears that include the ashes of the loved one, as well as jewelry. She even adds pockets to the backs of the stuffed animals so the recipients can stash special letters and mementos with their bear.
The bears have become so popular, Macinnes says that she currently maintains a months-long waiting list.
Although working with such emotional materials may not always be the easiest line of work, Macinnes says that her job has also been infinitely rewarding.
“I really enjoy meeting my customers when they collect bears—80% burst into tears,” she told Metro. “I think that’s because garments arrive as sad reminders of the past then it’s almost as if new life is breathed into them. They become something that’s much more acceptable to cuddle and talk to, and the feedback is they definitely can help the grieving process.”
If you want to check out more of Macinnes’s Memory Bears, feel free to visit her Facebook page.
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You see them all over city streets: pedestrians wearing headphones or earbuds—their faces glued to their phones as they stroll along oblivious to their surroundings.
Known as “twalking,” the behavior is not without its dangers. Headphone-wearing pedestrians often can’t hear the auditory cues—horns, shouts, or the sound of approaching cars—that signal imminent harm.
As a result, the number of injuries and deaths caused by twalking in the U.S. has tripled in the last seven years. Last year, pedestrian deaths in the U.S. were at their highest level since 1990.
To counter this growing public safety concern, researchers at the Data Science Institute at Columbia University are designing an intelligent headphone system that warns pedestrians of imminent dangers.
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The headphones have miniature microphones and intelligent signal processing that detects sounds of approaching vehicles. If a hazard appears near, the system sends an audio alert to the pedestrian’s headphones. The research team is developing prototypes and testing them on streets close to the university. Once developed, the intelligent wearable system could help reduce pedestrian injuries and fatalities.
“We are exploring a new area in developing an inexpensive and low-power technology that creates an audio-alert mechanism for pedestrians,” says Fred Jiang, a Data Science Institute member and an assistant professor of electrical engineering at Columbia Engineering.
The smart-headphone project was awarded a $1.2 million grant from the National Science Foundation in 2017, and the team has since published two conference papers as well as a journal paper in IEEE Internet of Things Journal on their research.
The research and development of the smart headphones is complex: It involves embedding multiple miniature microphones in the headset as well as developing a low-power data pipeline to process all the sounds near to the pedestrian. The pipeline, which must extract the correct cues that signal impending danger, will contain an ultra-low power, custom-integrated circuit that extracts the relevant features from the sounds while using little battery power.
The researchers are now using the most advanced data science techniques to design the smart headset. Machine-learning models on the user’s smartphone will classify hundreds of acoustical cues from city streets and nearby vehicles and warn users when they are in danger. The mechanism will also be designed so that people will recognize the alert and respond quickly.
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The team is now testing its design both in the lab and on the streets of New York—a city known for its congestion and cacophony of sounds. One of the psychology professors on the research team says he will be conducting perceptual and behavioral experiments with people to see how the alerts can be effectively provided to pedestrians who walk in cities wearing headphones.
Jiang said his aim is to develop a prototype of the smart headphone system at Columbia and then transfer the technology to a commercial company.
“We hope that once refined,” he says, “the technology will be commercialized and mass produced in a way that will help cities reduce pedestrian fatalities.”
Reprinted from Columbia University
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For 198 real estate employees, this has turned into a Christmas season which they will not soon forget—and it is all thanks to their appreciative boss.
St. John Properties, which is one of the largest and most successful privately held commercial real estate firms in the Mid-Atlantic, recently celebrated reaching 20 million square feet in their housing portfolio.
So as a means of honoring the milestone, company founder Edward St. John surprised his workforce with a very special gift during their annual holiday party in Salt Lake City, Utah.
At the event, each of the firm’s 198 employees were presented with a sealed envelope. St. John then took to the stage and announced that each of the envelopes contained a bonus check based on the amount of years that the employee had worked at the company.
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In total, St. John ended up giving away $10 million in holiday bonuses at an average of $50,000 per employee.
Needless to say, his staffers were overwhelmed by the announcement.
“What happened tonight was magical. It is life changing,” said one tearful employee. “That was so generous.”
When St. John was asked what prompted him to give away such sizable bonuses, he simply said: “I steer the boat, but they’re the ones who run the boat; they’re the ones who make the boat go. Without the team, we are nothing—absolutely nothing.”
(WATCH the emotional video below)
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Quote of the Day: “Loneliness is only an opportunity to cut adrift and find yourself.” – Anne Shannon Monroe
Photo: by Hafiz Issadeen, CC license, Flickr (cropped)
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?
If you’re a stargazing enthusiast who lives on the east coast of the United States, it’s time to grab your binoculars—the last full moon of the decade is taking place this week.
For east coasters, the moon is set to hit maximum exposure at exactly 12:12AM on December 12th.
Astronomers all over the world will still be able to catch a gorgeous glimpse of the moonrise, but its full illumination will take place at a less superstitious time than 12:12AM on 12/12.
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That being said, stargazers in the central US time zone can still catch the moonrise at 11:12PM on December 11th, which makes for a palindromic timestamp.
This particular full moon has been called the “Long Night’s Moon” or the “Cold Moon” because its occurrence in December usually precedes the start of winter on the 21st, meaning that the nights will start getting longer and colder and the moon will sit above the horizon for a longer period of time.
If you want to prepare for this week’s moonrise, be sure and check a moonrise calculator as well as your local weather radar for cloud cover predictions. For more general information about the moonrise, you can also check out the Farmer’s Almanac.
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For the last five years, this Kenyan region has been suffering from debilitating drought—but they have finally been given the gift of clean water thanks to a new solar-powered desalination plant.
Prior to the plant’s launch in the town of Kiunga, villagers had completely run out of clean drinking water and had instead resorted to using dirty well-water and saltwater from the Indian Ocean.
Now, the solar water farm produces enough clean drinking water for more than 35,000 people every day. Not only that, the water has been shown to be even cleaner than typical desalination plants.
The desalination farm is just the latest project launched by GivePower, an international nonprofit dedicated to using renewable energy as a means of bringing water, food, and energy to the places that need it most.
In addition to successfully launching the solar water farm, the foundation has also brought renewable energy to over 2,500 schools in 17 countries, thus benefiting more than 300,000 people.
Following the unparalleled success of the water farm in Kiunga, the group now plans on building similar facilities in other drought-prone areas such as Colombia and Haiti.
(WATCH the GivePower video below) – Photo by GivePower
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It can’t be easy working as a delivery driver during the busy holiday season—which is why Kathy Ouma always makes sure to leave out some goodies for mail workers.
Despite how there is a basket of snacks and beverages on Ouma’s doorstep every year, one particular Amazon Prime delivery driver named Kareem Earl Reed III recently went viral for having the sweetest reaction to Ouma’s labor of love.
According to security footage from Ouma’s doorbell cameras, Reed can be seen dropping off some packages only to catch sight of the goodies and let out an exclamation of delight.
“Oh! This is nice!” says Reed. “They’ve left some goodies! Oh, this is sweet! Oh, wow! Get out of here. This is so nice!”
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The basket of snacks was adorned with a sign reading: “UPS, USPS, Amazon, FedEx: Please take some goodies to enjoy on your route. Thank you for making holiday shopping easy. The Ouma Family.”
After selecting a few treats for the road, Reed can even be seen doing a little happy dance as he is walking away from the house.
Since uploading the footage to Facebook last week, the video has been viewed more than 10 million times—and it’s not hard to see why.
(WATCH the adorable video below)
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These stylish winter parkas aren’t just fashionable—they’re also designed to be far more sustainable than the coats hanging in your average department store.
Rather than being stuffed with plastic materials or animal-derived fillings, these “flowerdown” jackets are filled with wildflowers that have been sourced from restoration projects helping to support butterfly species.
Sustainable fashion company Pangaia says that they have spent the last 10 years developing the patented technology as a sustainable and cruelty-free alternative to goose-down insulation.
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The vegan coat is filled with a fully biodegradable material made out of certifiably hypoallergenic wildflowers, biopolymer, and a specialized aerogel that keeps the material insulated and waterproof, but still breathable.
“The wild flowers we source are from areas which contribute to habitat restoration, whilst helping to conserve a species of local butterflies,” the company told Tree Hugger. “This kind of regenerative agriculture results in a reduction of greenhouse gas production (12 tons of CO2 per hectare of plant material). The method also helps to preserve groundwater, as it doesn’t require irrigation.”
The aerogel is reportedly made out of 85% recycled paper and several other renewable, non-toxic, and biodegradable materials. Pangaia designers also say that it is the world’s first green aerogel.
The coat cannot be hailed as being entirely plastic-free since the outer shell and lining are made out of nylon and polyster, but the company says that all of their plastics are made from recycled materials in order to maintain a zero-waste production cycle.
The regular-sized coats are currently being sold on the Pangaia website for $550 a pop.
(WATCH the video below)
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A group of elementary schoolers managed to persuade their principal to adopt a therapy dog for the school.
Not only has the pup’s presence made a dramatic impact on the school, he has also brought joy to the animal shelter that adopted him out.
Back in 2018, the first grade students at Reeths-Puffer Elementary School in Muskegon, Michigan conducted a writing exercise in which they wrote letters to their principal citing evidence on how a therapy dog would benefit their students.
Their letters were so well-articulated, vice principal Karyn Benner began visiting local animal shelters with the hopes of finding a dog fit for the job—one who was hypoallergenic, well-behaved, quiet, and generally good with kids.
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Upon meeting Buddy the dog at the Humane Society and Animal Rescue of Muskegon County, she knew that he would be perfect for the school.
Since 40% of Reeths-Puffer students come from low-income households or troubled backgrounds, Buddy has now become an invaluable member of the school’s support team.
“He cheers up teachers who have had a rough moment and supports our school-wide Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) initiative,” says Benner. “We have some highly aggressive students who have elaborate behavior plans. When their behaviors would escalate, our masters-level staff were often unable to de-escalate them in a timely manner. But when Buddy comes in, the students just melt in a matter of minutes.
“When students are depressed, Buddy instinctively goes to them and lies next to them or brings them a toy to play,” she added. “He is trained to stay at my side as his handler; however, when he senses a need in another, he is drawn to the person’s side and provides comfort simply by being there.”
Buddy’s impact on the school later inspired Benner to send their story to the Petco Foundation’s 2019 Holiday Wishes grant campaign. This year in particular, the foundation has awarded $875,000 in grant awards to support various animal welfare organizations—including the Humane Society that matched Buddy with the school.
As a thank you for the shelter’s efforts, the Petco Foundation surprised the Humane Society administrators with a $100,000 check—and they were understandably overwhelmed by the gift.
(WATCH the emotional video below)
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Quote of the Day: “The family is one of nature’s masterpieces.” – George Santayana
Photo: by jeff_golden, CC license, Flickr (colorized)
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Listen to this heartwarming tale of familial affection in this week’s edition of MOTH Monday, a partnership with Good News Network that features inspiring videos from The MOTH, a nonprofit group showcasing the art of storytelling.
Leonard Lee Smith was just a boy when his mother and new stepfather tore him away from his family in rural Alabama and moved him all the way to the strange and sunny shores of California.
Smith had trouble fitting into his new home in the Golden State—but most of all, he missed spending Christmas with his beloved grandmother.
When it finally came time for Smith to spend his first holiday season away from home, his grandmother reassured him that she would be sure to include him on the festivities.
True to her word, his grandmother went above and beyond the call of duty to send him a very special care package in the mail—and she made sure to send him one every Christmas afterwards, too.
(LISTEN to the emotional story below)
The Moth gives people an opportunity to tell a true story in front of a live audience, and sometimes their stories are chosen to air on the radio show, now celebrating its tenth year, and broadcasting on 485+ public radio stations—and on The Moth podcast, which is downloaded over 52 million times a year. The Moth’s third book, Occasional Magic: True Stories About Defying the Impossible is now available for purchase through your favorite booksellers.
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