Quote of the Day: “We must love them both, those whose opinions we share and those whose opinions we reject. For both have labored in the search for truth and both have helped us in the finding of it.” – St. Thomas Aquinas
Image: by Eu Governo, CC license via Flickr
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Seeing a glass as half-full rather than half-empty is typically associated with having a more optimistic worldview, but it may align with even more personality traits including decisiveness, playfulness, and creativity.
A new survey of 2,000 Americans found that when viewing an image of a glass containing an equal amount of liquid and empty space, 58% of Americans felt that the glass was half-full, while 16% felt that it was half-empty (the remaining respondents were indecisive).
The poll found that glass half-full thinkers, while being more optimistic, also tended to be more patient, more competitive, more adaptable, and more playful than glass half-empty thinkers.
Additional Traits That May be Associated With GLASS HALF-FULL THINKERS
More assertive
More right-brained
More extroverted
More practical
More likely to be a morning person
More likely to use Twitter
They also reported having 11 “better than average days” per month and spending 21 hours on hobbies per week.
On the other hand, glass half-empty thinkers tended to be more laid-back, more introverted, more serious and more proud than their half-full counterparts.
Oddly enough, glass half-empty thinkers did not always self-identify as pessimists. In fact, nearly half (48%) of glass half-empty types believe they’re more optimistic than pessimistic.
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When faced with personal setbacks, glass half-full respondents have an easier time quickly finding the silver lining while nearly half of all respondents (46%) report that they’re trying to be more positive day-to-day.
Additional Traits That May be Associated With GLASS HALF-EMPTY THINKERS
More left-brained
More sentimental
More rebellious
More likely to be a night person
More likely to use Instagram
They also reported experiencing nine “better than average days” per month, and spent 14 hours on hobbies per week—33% fewer than the other group.
Glass half-full thinkers, spending more time on hobbies, might be more optimistic because they allow more time for fun. Respondents who think more positively reported almost 10% more days they rated as “better than average” each month than those who see things as being half-empty (11 days vs. 9 days).
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Glass half-full thinkers are 39% more likely to self-identify as a morning person, although the majority of both groups of respondents believed great days start with great mornings.
The survey was conducted by OnePoll on behalf of Borden Dairy for their optimism-inspired campaign.
Be Sure And Share The Survey With Your Friends On Social Media – File photo by Kurt, S, CC
When you’re looking at Elizabeth Fournier’s funeral home from the street, it looks like any ordinary farmhouse nestled into the hills of Boring, Oregon—and even after she welcomed me through the front door, it seemed hard to believe there were two wicker caskets tucked neatly in the back room of the cozy house.
Offering woven caskets is just one of the things that makes Fournier’s mortuary business particularly remarkable.
With the enormous costs of chemically-treated wood coffins, concrete burial vaults, liners, cremations, urns, cemetery space, and embalming, an average funeral in America costs about $10,000. In addition to adding a financial burden to the backs of grieving families, these burial methods are also notoriously toxic for the environment.
Fournier, on the other hand, has made a name for herself in the funeral industry by ditching toxic burial methods altogether in favor of “green funerals”.
WATCH: Pop Star Grieving His Own Loss Helps 83-Year-Old Widower Check Off Bucket List After Wife’s Death
When Good News Network first published an article on Fournier’s trailblazing mortuary career in 2016, she told me about how she created biodegradable urns out of dryer lint, flour, and water so she could give them away to poorer families who couldn’t afford traditional funeral costs.
Not only did she offer discounted services to low-income families, Fournier has also facilitated dozens of funerals for parents who lost their children – and she didn’t charge them a dime.
“As long as the mortuary board is happy with me, and I am being ethical I tend to march to my own drum,” Fournier told GNN in 2016. “If a family is truly having a hardship, I have no issue giving services away.”
Since opening Cornerstone Funeral Services 14 years ago, her passion for eco-friendly mortuary practices has earned her the nickname “The Green Reaper”, although she was quick to assure me that she wasn’t the one to coin the term—there nothing is scary about the humbling way she talks about death and grief.
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Beyond her compassionate and eco-friendly business practices, the ease with which she offers her guidance, empathy, wisdom, and expertise is particularly singular. As we chatted in the Cornerstone funeral parlor, she recounted awe-inspiring tales of uplifting funerals and intimate ceremonies that she had been invited to attend after her consultations. Despite her passion for arranging more consoling memorials, she also spoke very frankly about the ones that had been so heartbreaking to facilitate. She simply said that they “just plain sucked”.
Regardless of the circumstances, she emphasized that everyone should be allowed to grieve in their own way. Fournier herself recently had to cope with the loss of her father, but she says she likes to remember him fondly by the numerous jigsaw puzzles that they did together (all of which have been lovingly glued together as a makeshift wallpaper for the Cornerstone funeral parlor bathroom.)
Such encouraging examples of personalized memorials are featured in her new book called “The Green Burial Guidebook: Everything You Need to Plan an Affordable, Environmentally Friendly Burial”.
The DIY manual is as fascinating and informative as it is relevant. According to a 2017 survey from the National Funeral Director’s Association, just over half of participants expressed interest in an eco-friendly funeral. Furthermore, 62% of consumers felt it was very important to communicate their funeral plans and wishes to family members prior to their own death, yet only 21% had done so.
What makes the guidebook even more relevant is a law that was passed by the Washington state legislature at the end of May.
The bill, SB 5001, makes Washington the first US state to legalize human composting—also known as “liquid cremation”. Up until the law was passed with sweeping bipartisan support (80-16 in the House and 38-11 in the Senate), the only legal methods of post-mortem funerary processing were cremation and burial.
Now, however, bodies can be naturally processed into clean, odorless soil that can nourish the planet without taking up any space in crowded, pesticide-laden cemetery spaces.
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“Natural organic reduction and the conversion of human remains into soil will be opening in the Seattle area in late 2020, and it’ll be the first facility in the world where this can be offered to the public,” Fournier told GNN. “It’s very exciting. Until then, there will be a large push to get the word out and to improve the sustainability, the conscientiousness and the meaning of it all.
“I believe other states are waiting to see how this program will develop before they set foot into the human composting realm,” she added, “but I think it is beautiful, regenerative and really aligned with the cycles of nature.”
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You may already know that planting trees is good for your health and the environment, but did you also know that it is good for your wallet as well?
Depending on the region and size of the tree, backyard greenery has been shown to safe homeowners hundreds of dollars in utility bills.
This particular list of USDA-backed research shows that since large, shady trees can prevent a home from being overexposed to excessive sunlight, urban and rural households can respectively save up to 40% and 30% in air conditioning costs. In fact, the USDA says that the “net cooling effect of a young, healthy tree is equivalent to 10 room-size air conditioners operating 20 hours a day.”
Once the trees shed their foliage during the colder winter months, they continue to help homeowners save money in heating costs because they displace chilly wind currents while simultaneously allowing sunlight to warm our buildings, resulting in a 10% reduction in urban heating costs and 20% for rural homes.
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Between the reductions in air conditioning and heating costs, homeowners could save anywhere from $180 to $400, depending on the household location and the species of tree.
Though this may not seem like very much money in the long-run, urban tree cover is particularly effective against the heat-island effect that occurs in large cities. By mitigating this heat-island effect with trees in urban areas, it could potentially reduce national energy use in air conditioning by 20% and save over $10 billion per year in energy use.
There may be costs associated with maintaining a tree in your backyard, but having a tree in your yard can also increase the value of your home by up to 15% – or about $7,000 per house.
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Furthermore, being surrounded by greenery has been associated with a number of benefits. Medical research has shown that spending time in nature can reduce symptoms of mental and physical ailments and boost the body’s production of immune cells and cancer-fighting proteins. Other studies show that spending just 20 minutes in nature can greatly reduce a person’s stress levels – and people who live close to birds and trees are less likely to suffer from depression, anxiety, and stress.
All of these studies are only reenforced by this more recent piece of research which describes how American counties that have more trees and shrubs have been shown to spend less on Medicare and healthcare costs.
If you’re all ready to grab a shovel and get to work, the Arbor Day Foundation has an online guide for determining which leafy greenery is the best for you and your home. Once you have determined the tree you want to plant, the charity also has a benefits calculator for estimating the total amount of money that you will save on your utility bills based on your area and the size and species of the tree.
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You can also support the foundation’s environmental work by buying your new tree sapling directly from their website.
Before planting your tree in your backyard, be sure and give the tree plenty of space so that it does not interfere with your house or garden. For best results, this 2009 study states that arranging your leafy greenery so that it is either within 40 feet of the south side of your house or within 60 feet of the left side will generate the most energy savings.
Plant Some Positive News Amongst Your Friends By Sharing These Handy Hints To Social Media – File photo JR P, CC
Success rarely comes without struggle – but for people who have worked as hard as Eric White, they know that the reward is worth the rocky road.
White is the 33-year-old mastermind behind Zydeco Construction – a company that will build gorgeous backyard beaches and ponds right on your very own property.
The “swimming ponds”, as White calls them, are actually just blissfully blue swimming pools that are surrounded by sand and equipped with his specially patented water pump.
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That being said, the Louisiana construction worker wasn’t always a millionaire pool designer. As a teenager, White was homeless for eight months, and he told The Daily Advertiser that he could only read at a second-grade level when he eventually dropped out of high school.
“Growing up, things weren’t easy for me,” he told the news outlet. “I could hardly even spell my name.”
After he flunked out of school, White worked as a helper for a local construction company so he could make enough money to feed his daughter. He tried making more money by working at a car dealership, but he says he wasn’t cut out for the job.
Construction work, on the other hand, came naturally to him – so when his father tipped him off to a construction company that was looking for new employees in Baton Rouge, he jumped at the opportunity.
“The guy that I worked for there took me under his wing and taught me about the company,” recalled White. “Within the first six months, I was managing the team.
“From there, I went to another company that offered more money, then I started my own company, a pool business called Cool Pools. That business did very well, and last year, I sold it for over a million.”
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White now runs Zydeco Construction out of southern Louisiana as a “labor of love” with which he can keep himself busy and give free reign to his creativity.
Though he says that his backyard beaches cost several thousand dollars to build, no two creations are ever the same – and each one is a pond-like paradise.
(WATCH the drone footage of the backyard beach below)
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Quote of the Day: “What you seek is seeking you.” – Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
Image: by Etienne, CC license via Flickr
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?
College can be a stressful time for aspiring young academics – but one university has found a perfect solution for easing the minds of anxious students while simultaneously preparing puppies for their own canine careers.
Credited as the oldest guide dog school in the United States, The Seeing Eye is responsible for training hundreds of seeing eye dogs for the blind every year. Prior to graduating from the famed canine academy, however, the young German shepherds, retrievers, and Labradors need to be properly trained and prepared for their future roles as guide dogs.
That’s where Rutgers University comes in; the New Jersey school is just one of two colleges in the nation (University of Delaware is the other) that pairs these guide dogs-in-training with college students.
The Rutgers University Seeing Eye Puppy Raising Club (RUSEPRC) typically hosts 10 to 25 student “raisers” who take on the main responsibility of fostering the puppy while it goes through its preliminary stages of training.
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Taking care of a rambunctious puppy can be difficult for any pet owner, let alone a student who is already trying to balance a typical college course load – but that’s why the club also recruits dozens of “sitters” like Ethan Saul.
In addition to being a junior year student at the school and a roommate to one of the club’s raisers, the 20-year-old business major is just one of the club’s many sitters who delights in petsitting the pups as needed.
“Luckily, a lot of raisers are animal science majors that can bring their dog to work,” Saul told Good News Network. “If they can’t, there’s lots of sitters like me who are happy to help watch them.”
In fact, he told GNN that interacting with the dogs is his “favorite thing” about this university.
“Being a student in the business school, I spend a lot of my time studying for classes like accounting or statistics… very dry and boring,” says Saul. “Being able to see a dog on campus, let alone being able to live with one, is amazing! It really relieves a lot of stress for us.
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“As you know, school is exhausting and stressful,” he added. “So coming home to a furry animal that only wants love is the best.”
While the students are devoted to socializing the puppies and giving them mounds of affection, they also provide a very important aspect of the dogs’ training, which is helping to expose the dogs to as many different sights, smells, environments, and experiences as possible.
“From the second we get them, we shower them with a lot of love and we work on their basic obedience and commands – but the most important aspect of the training that we do with them is the exposure training,” RUSEPRC President Emily Cruz told GNN.
“We never know what type of person they will guide or in what kind of environment they will guide in. They may guide a retired man living in Florida or maybe a young woman with kids teaching at a college in a big city. The possibilities are endless!” she added. “Therefore, we make sure to expose them to many different people, places, sights, sounds, environments, and experiences to ensure that they are the most confident guide dog in every and any situation.”
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The club has collectively raised over 200 guide dogs. If any of the canines fail to make the cut as a service animal, then the raiser has first dibs on its adoption – otherwise, Saul says that they are often sent to live with “a family from a waiting list that is years long.”
That being said, the RUSEPRC club members are quick to say how life-changing the program has been for them during their college careers.
“This program has not only helped make a difference in the lives of blind people, but also has shaped the lives of hundreds of Rutgers students,” says Cruz.
“It might not be easy to give [the dogs] back up, but knowing that they are doing bigger things in the world and knowing that you played a part in that swells everyone involved with pride.”
“While we teach our puppies a lot, they teach us so much in return,” she added. “I know that I wouldn’t be myself if it wasn’t for this program.”
Guide Your Friends to This Pawesome News On Social Media…
[NOTE: GNN in no way supports candidates for elected office.]
When newly-elected Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard came to Washington, DC, she knew that the American political system was breaking down, and one of the essential missing cornerstones was any sense of respect and camaraderie for those politicians on “the other side of the aisle”.
A Democrat and combat veteran, she recalled in an interview with Joe Rogan how she used toffee in 2013 to try to heal the divide.
“I was told as a new member of Congress… with Republicans in charge, coming from a small state like Hawaii, you will never get anything done, so just accept that fact,” said Gabbard.
Upon receiving that warning, one of the first things Gabbard did was to try to get to know people, to make friends.
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“My mom and dad are small business owners. They have this macadamia nut toffee business, and so I called home and said, ‘Hey mom, can you make 434 boxes of your toffee—one for every Member of Congress, Democrat and Republican?”
Her mom loved the idea—and also sent 435 bigger boxes that would be given to each of their staffs.
It wasn’t long before she was sitting in the House chambers listening to debate when the leadership of powerful committees would begin making their way across the aisle, searching her out to say thank you, and asking how they could get more boxes of the delicious toffee to bring to their wives or kids.
WATCH: Political Opponents Stun Voters When They Perform Unexpected Duet in Display of Comradery
Then, she would hear something like, “Tell me what’s going on in Hawaii; let me know how we can work together.”
“I started writing hand-written notes, introducing myself,” says Gabbard. “Just that one small outreach of ‘Aloha’ opened the doors to these relationships that enabled me to be able to pass my first piece of legislation.”
“It’s because (I was) just treating people with respect, saying, ‘Yeah, we can disagree on nine out of ten things, but on that tenth thing, ‘Let’s talk, let’s get something done.’”
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“It further affirmed what I already knew—what I knew from growing up in Hawaii with the Aloha spirit—that this ability to transcend all the superficial divisiveness, is what has the power to bring us together as a country.”
We can only hope she keeps this spirit alive in the future.
Share This Bipartisan Peace With Your Friends On Social Media – File toffee photo by Dana Moos, CC
People may get upset because most young people are always on their phones, but these Girl Scouts are receiving praise for helping senior citizens to use their own cell phones.
The Girl Scouts from Troop 60013 in Arlington, Virginia set up their first walk-in clinic for elderly people having trouble understanding how to unlock the secrets of their modern gadgets.
Each teen spent at least an hour of one-on-one time with their older counterparts. Based on their technological experience, each Girl Scout was assigned to teaching different aspects of Android and Apple phones.
Some of the oldsters actually wanted to join the ecommerce revolution, and needed help setting up ApplePay—others simply had trouble learning how to send messages to their family members.
“I was teaching this older woman how to text people, and the first thing that she did was text her daughter,” one of the Scouts told CNN. “And I thought that was really sweet. It just made me feel really, really happy.”
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In addition to orchestrating group lessons for all of the seniors to learn together at the end of the clinic, the youngsters even printed out brochures and guides for the seniors to take home in case confounded seniors had trouble with their smart phones in the future.
The eighth graders orchestrated the clinic as a means of earning their Silver Award, the highest honor a Girl Scout Cadette can receive.
After experiencing the resounding success of their project, the girls hope to organize more clinics in the near future.
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“Those girls were just marvelous,” said Nancy Taylor, a great-grandmother of four who visited the clinic. “They were all set up and ready for us and had a very mature attitude about answering our questions, and they were magnificent.”
(WATCH the clinic footage below)
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This week the third largest chain of supermarkets in the United Kingdom has committed to cutting a further 1,284 tons of plastic from their supply chain over the course of the next year, including plastic cutlery, bags, lids, and trays.
Sainsbury’s will start by removing 489 tonnes’ worth of plastic bags, which are currently used for loose fruit, vegetables and bakery items. Customers buying loose fruit and vegetables will either be able to bring their own bags or buy a re-usable bag made from recycled materials. Paper bags will be available to customers for loose bakery items.
The company has previously implemented measures that are already leading to a reduction of 8,101 tonnes of non-recyclable plastic and “virgin plastic” every year. Its latest efforts bring this total to over 10,000 tonnes. This is in addition to its commitments to ensure all plastic packaging is reusable, recyclable or compostable by 2025.
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Plastic cutlery will be removed from all their over 1,400 stores as well as plastic trays for asparagus and sweetcorn; plastic cream pot lids; plastic tomato and carrot trays; and plastic sleeves from herb pots.
The company has also committed to replacing their black plastic trays; plastic fruit and vegetable film; PVC and polystyrene trays; and plastic egg trays with recyclable alternatives.
Sainsbury’s CEO Mike Coupe said: “We are absolutely committed to reducing unnecessary plastic packaging in Sainsbury’s stores. Our customers expect us to be leading the way on major issues like this, so I am determined to remove and replace plastic packaging where we can and offer alternatives to plastic where packaging is still required to protect a product.”
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They will also end the use of dark colored plastics (which are difficult to recycle) across fresh foods by the end of 2019 and entirely by March 2020, replacing them with recyclable alternatives by the end of the year.
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Quote of the Day: “Someday, after we have mastered the winds, the tides and gravity, we shall harness the energies of love. Then for the second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire.” – Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
Image: by 小花 王, CC license via Flickr
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?
DJ Pryor may soon receive a medal for being Cutest Dad of the Year.
In a wholesome new video that was filmed by Pryor’s wife, the doting dad can be seen sitting on his couch with his son, Kingston Jierre, so they can watch the season finale of “Empire”.
As they’re watching TV, Pryor strikes up a casual conversation with Kingston about the quality of the show – and the toddler plaintively responds as if he is understanding everything his father is saying.
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But when the toddler is asked whether he actually understands what they’re talking about, Kingston simply says “no”.
The adorable video of the father-son bonding moment has already been viewed over 50 million times since it was uploaded to social media earlier this week.
(WATCH the adorable video below)
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Environmentalists have high hopes for the future of air travel after the highest-capacity hybrid-electric aircraft recently took to the skies in California during its first ever test flight.
Earlier this week, engineers, investors and journalists witnessed the hybrid-electric Ampaire 337 took flight above Camarillo Airport.
This is a significant step for aviation because a hybrid-electric aircraft this of this size ever flown before. Ampaire’s 337 is built with a direct path towards commercialization—moving electric aviation firmly from futuristic to attainable.
The aircraft, which was designed by Ampaire Inc., was retrofitted with Ampaire’s proprietary electric propulsion system and is powered by a lightweight battery system.
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The battery-powered electric motor replaces a combustion engine of the aircraft’s original two-engine configuration, and the resulting system is a “parallel hybrid”, meaning the internal combustion engine and electric motor work in concert to optimize power output as the plane flies. In hybrid configuration, the aircraft sees significant greenhouse gas emissions savings and operating cost reductions.
“The first flight of Ampaire’s electric passenger aircraft is a huge step forward for aviation,” said Deborah Flint, CEO of Los Angeles World Airports. “As a cleantech company that was started in our great city … Ampaire’s incredible achievement further cements Los Angeles as the leader in transportation electrification and technology innovation.”
Aircrafts are a significant contributor to both local and global emissions. Electric and hybrid-electric aircraft will reduce GHG emissions and air pollution even as more and more goods and people fly. Additionally, electric aircrafts are quieter, more efficient and cost much less to fly and maintain connecting communities, making skies quieter.
“Imagine that in just a few years you will be able to buy a ticket for a flight that is clean, quiet and inexpensive,” said Kevin Noertker, CEO of Ampaire. “Ampaire is proud to lead the aviation industry in transportation electrification, and we recognize the importance of electric aviation for climate change and community connectivity.”
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“Given the urgency of the climate crisis, today’s historic flight not only signifies a huge step forward for aviation, it also shines a light on Los Angeles’s leadership in transportation electrification,” said Matt Petersen, CEO of the Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator (LACI).
Ampaire has mapped a clear path from today’s first test flight of a prototype to commercial operations in 2021. This week’s test flight follows the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) May 2019 airworthiness approval to begin a flight test program. The test flights will see the aircraft fly multiple times per week from June through August 2019 and will gather data about the electric propulsion performance characteristics.
In late 2019, Ampaire will begin a pilot project on a commercial route on the Hawaiian island of Maui. The aircraft will be a newly retrofitted Cessna 337 built with learnings from the test flight program that inform the configuration of the battery and motor. This aircraft will be a pre-production prototype and will move Ampaire closer to commercial readiness.
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Ampaire’s focus is on supplying aircraft to regional airlines— who typically fly short-haul—often serving remote communities and island regions. In addition to the upcoming pilot project in Maui, Ampaire is also in collaboration with a regional airline in Puerto Rico to establish a pilot project in the region.
Furthermore, Ampaire has signed Letters of Interest with 14 other airlines from around the world.
(WATCH the April news coverage below)
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A 69-year-old granddad has collected 120,000 cigarette butts from the streets of a seaside resort so he can turn them into works of anti-smoking art.
Retired pharmacist Negweny El Assal uses up to 8,000 butts to create mosaic masterpieces carrying messages that warn against the nasty habit.
Assal spends his weekdays walking around the seaside resort of Blackpool, England to clear the streets of the plastic pollutant and encourage businesses to install cigarette disposal bins.
RELATED: These Tobacco Filters Grow into Plants When Littered
Assal says that he can typically pick up around 3,000 butts an hour. Since he started his voluntary clean-up mission three months ago, he has created around 50 works of art with anti-smoking and anti-littering messages.
Each creation takes him around a day to complete. Assal will secure each butt to his makeshift canvas by cutting them in half length-ways so it sits flat using toothpaste as glue.
“It can be very smelly working with cigarettes,” said Assal. “I always wear gloves.”
The married father-of-six and grandfather-of-four lives in Luxembourg and works in Blackpool from Monday to Friday for his company, Cigarette Waste Management Ltd. He said he chose Blackpool as the destination for his company because it’s an international tourist hotspot.
“I wanted to choose a place where I could make a real difference. Tourist destinations should be beautiful, they trade on their beauty,” said Assal.
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“I also wanted to get my message out there to a lot of people. Blackpool has 11 to 13 million visitors a year and 20% of the British public visit here every year.
“When I go out I have my grabber in one hand and a basket in the other to collect all the cigarette butts. I also have a plastic bag to collect the rubbish as I go along.
“I also ask businesses if they will install a cigarette box so people can dispose of their tabs properly, and not on the floor.”
Disposable plastics are the biggest contributor to marine litter, with cigarette butts and filters being the most commonly found individual items.
“People do not realize that the filters are plastic; they think they are cotton,” says the Egyptian environmentalist. “This waste is often picked up by the seagulls here and used in their nests.
“The toxic tobacco at the end of a cigarette is filled with chemicals. It is not good for humans and it is not good for animals.
“If a person smokes past the filter they are smoking plastic. Tobacco companies tend to make filters smaller so smokers don’t smoke the plastic by accident, but that means more tobacco is discarded as waste, which is also dangerous.
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“I hope to not only encourage stopping the litter but also stopping smoking.”
Assal is hoping his project could help meet stricter new European rules on the disposal of the plastic polluters. In the future, cigarette producers will have to pay for the clean-up of littered cigarette butts and for awareness-raising campaigns – and Assal’s pilot project in Blackpool could demonstrate to tobacco firms what can be done to tackle the problem.
His mission now is to open a gallery of his art to showcase his work and spread his message.
He also aims to give local businesses 1,400 wall-mounted disposal bins free of charge so smokers will be encouraged not to drop their used cigarettes on the ground.
“My target is to eliminate every cigarette butt from the streets of Blackpool and Blackpool will lead the world showing how it can be done,” says Assal.
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Rather than letting thousands of perfectly good bicycles go to waste, an entrepreneur is rescuing them from the trash heap and sending them to children in Myanmar.
Since bike-sharing company oBike withdrew from the Singapore market and began their liquidation process in June 2018, Mike Than Tun Win was heartbroken by the mountains of discarded bicycles that were left behind.
“It felt extremely sad for me to see all these bicycles piling up in junkyard, left around roads and parks unattended and rusting,” Win wrote in a blog post.
“The manufacturing of these bicycles can cost anywhere from $300 to $500 per unit and a lot of natural resources are now left to waste and sent to blazing furnaces to be recycled (if we are lucky) or just simply left rusting somewhere else.”
Win then thought about all the young village children he had seen walking to school during his various road trips through Myanmar in the past – and he was suddenly struck with a bolt of inspiration.
“It’s a common sight to see lines and lines of students walking long distances from home to school in rural villages,” said Win, according to Tech Crunch. “Some students can walk up to one hour from home to school and the families can hardly afford a simple form of transport like bicycle or motorcycle… a school bus is almost unheard of to the students in rural villages.”
Win then started the LessWalk nonprofit so he could buy up all of oBike’s unused bicycles and donate them to schoolchildren.
The project has come with its fair share of expenses; in addition to replacing ride-sharing electrical system with regular key locks, Win says that he has encountered mountains of legislative red tape and fees in relation to shipping the bikes from Singapore to Myanmar.
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That being said, Win is happy to report that he has successfully shipped and received about 4,700 brand new bikes with 5,300 more already on the way.
“The initiative is better than expected as I was trying to buy used bikes from recycling graveyards but managed to get 100% new, undeployed bicycles at a very good price!” writes Win.
“All bicycles are free for students living below the poverty line in Myanmar and need to walk 2 kilometers to school,” he added.
The nonprofit has been funding their mission with sponsorships and donations, but the bulk of their $400,000 financing has come straight from Win’s pocket.
He is currently in talks with various government organizations and grassroots charities in order to properly distribute the bikes. Ideally, LessWalk will begin distributing the bikes over the course of the next few weeks.
“I have been planning this since 1st March when I published [my idea] on Facebook and Linkedin,” writes Win. “Three months after my post, I am super glad that I can finally start working on it!”
Pedal This Sweet Story Of Compassion Over To Your Friends On Social Media…
A 90-year-old woman is alive and well thanks to a group of teenage boys who came to her rescue one evening when her house suddenly caught fire.
Catherine Richie had been in the bathroom of her Sapulpa, Oklahoma home last month when she turned around and saw that her bed had somehow become engulfed in flames.
Richie spent some time trying to extinguish the flames before she eventually gave up, called 911, and pressed her emergency call button.
When she tried to evacuate the house, however, she found that she could barely make her way through the smoke.
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Meanwhile, four boys ranging in age from 14 to 17 years old were leaving the neighbor’s house so they could get something to drink from the nearby convenience store. When they smelled smoke coming from Richie’s house, they immediately jumped into action.
As one of the boys attempted to get help from the other neighbors, the other three youngsters attempted to break into the house from various entrance points. 14-year-old Seth Byrd eventually managed to get in through the back door, and upon finding Richie lost in her smoky hallway, Seth picked her up and carried her outside.
One of Richie’s ten children, Missy Ritchie Nicholas, later wrote a blog post to praise the young men for taking action.
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“Kids who are told about all the things they aren’t old enough to do saved the life of the most precious and beloved woman we know,” wrote Nicholas. “Young men who risked their own lives, their own safety, perhaps their good standing with their parents who might have chosen for them to do otherwise, and they carried my mother out of her burning home into the street, where firetrucks and ambulances would soon arrive.
“Thank you for your selfless acts of heroism and courage,” she added. “Thank you for not allowing this to be the tragic end to our mother’s amazing life. Thank you for staying with her, hugging her, and helping her feel less alone until we could get to her. Thank you for being the kind of young men who thought about another person above yourselves.”
(WATCH the news coverage below) – Photo by KTUL
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Quote of the Day: “Sometimes we balk at embarking on an enterprise because we are afraid of being alone… We are never alone.” – Steven Pressfield
Image: by Patrick McDonald, CC license
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?
What started as a desolate patch of land in 1991 has grown to be one of the most dazzling rainforest sanctuaries in the world.
Back when Pamela and Anil Malhotra purchased what is now the Sai Sanctuary of southern India, the 55 acres of land had been deforested for cardamom and coffee fields.
The couple started to rehabilitate the land by nursing the natural grasses and shrubbery back into healthy abundance. With the return of the greenery, native insects returned to the fields. Once the insects returned, the couple helped coax the rainforest’s native trees back to their former glory.
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With the return of the trees, elephants and monkeys moved back into the territory as well.
Now, the former patch of arid wasteland has blossomed into 300 acres of lush greenery.
Over the course of the 20-year healing process, the National Parks and Wildlife Sanctuaries has recognized the vital importance of the Sai Sanctuary and offered protections over the land. The rainforest is also now called one of the hottest “hot spots” of biodiversity in the world, according to the United Nations
(WATCH the Great Big Story video below) – Photo by Great Big Story
Plant Some Positivity Amongst Your Friends By Sharing This Inspiring Story With Your Friends…
In a bid to make scientific articles more accessible to the masses, researchers are rallying for a new universal platform that will make research articles available for free.
Scientific research usually takes months to be published by academic journals, and once it is, many of the papers can only be read by scientists from wealthy institutes that subscribe to the journals.
Over the years, there have been various attempts to make research more widely available, but most papers remain behind paywalls and scientists complain that the peer review process at journals now takes longer than ever.
In a new article published earlier this week in the open-access journal PLOS Biology, Richard Sever and John Inglis from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and Mike Eisen from UC Berkeley propose a new solution to these problems, which they call Plan U (for “universal”).
They call on the organizations that fund research – government agencies such as NIH and charities like the Howard Hughes Medical Institute – to require the scientists they support to post drafts of their papers on free websites called “preprint servers” before submitting them to academic journals.
The value of this approach was demonstrated by arXiv (pronounced “archive”), a preprint server in the physical sciences that has been running for 28 years and hosts more than a million papers. The biological branch of this platform called BioRxiv, which was founded by Sever and Inglis in 2013, is growing rapidly as more and more biologists realize the benefits of publicizing their work earlier rather than later.
As well as making papers available sooner – and to everyone – Plan U should speed up research itself because other experts can immediately begin building on the work. It should also stimulate evolution of the publication system.
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“Because preprint servers take care of dissemination, scientific journals don’t have to worry about that part and so have more freedom to experiment with how they do peer review,” Sever said – and servers reduce the barrier to entry for new initiatives since they no longer have to cover the costs of hosting the papers themselves.
“Plan U therefore creates fertile ground for a dynamic new ecosystem, opening opportunities for experimentation with peer review rather than prescribing a particular process, endpoint, or business model,” writes the researchers. “Such flexibility may be of particular benefit to scientific societies, nonprofit organizations, journals, and self-organizing groups of academics who wish to improve on existing approaches to peer review and/or explore alternative ways to evaluate academic output.”
Reprinted from PLOS Biology
Be Sure And Share The Free News With Your Friends On Social Media – Representational photo by NASA/Robert Markowitz and Josh Valcarcel
For 40 years, no one has been able to open this museum safe.
Locksmiths tried and failed to crack the code; the safe’s former owners could not remember the combination; and the manufacturers simply could not figure out how to reset the lock.
Experts said that the safe may have been untouched for so long, that even with the correct combination, the gears were simply failing to fall into place.
Since the safe had been condemned as “impossible” to open, it sat in the basement of the Vermilion Heritage Museum in Alberta, Canada and gathered dust – that is, until Stephen Mills visited the little town with his family.
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The 36-year-old stopped by the museum last week with his wife and kids. In the midst of their museum tour, the guide explained the mystery of the safe to the family, and Mills could not resist taking a crack at the code.
“I was like, I gotta get down and try this for a laugh,” he told The Washington Post. “I was doing it as a joke for the kids, trying to be like in the movies more or less.”
Mills, who works as a machinist and welder, crouched down next to the safe and put his ear to the door. Upon noticing that the lock’s digits ranged from 0 to 60, he decided to try a simple 3-digit combination.
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Over the course of the following 30 seconds, Mills spun the lock from 20 to 40 to 60 – and to everyone’s shock, the door swung open.
“I took the numbers out of thin air, like right out of my head,” he told The Post. “Right away, I stood up, and I was like, ‘I’m buying a lottery ticket tonight.’”
Check out the Vermilion Museums Facebook page, the Vermilion Standard or CBC News for the exciting story about the safe being cracked! #explorevermilion #localnews pic.twitter.com/uULQEEdKSG
— NewIdeas4Living (@NewIdeas4Living) June 3, 2019
Town residents had always joked that the safe was filled with jewels and gold bricks – but as the tour group eagerly peered inside of the fabled treasure chest, they only found several yellowed papers from the 1970s, only some of which included a waitress’s notepad with an order for a mushroom burger and a payout slip for a hotel employee.
Regardless of the safe’s contents, museum staffers were over the moon with excitement – although they say that they have put duct tape over the locking mechanism to keep it from resealing itself in the future.
Stay On The Safe Side And Share This Charming Story With Your Friends On Social Media – Feature photo by Chris Stead / Courtesy of Stephen Mills
