When no one else was capable of saving a drowning 34-year-old man, a boy weighing only 80 pounds quickly became the victim’s hero.
11-year-old Advaik Nandikotkur was hanging out at the pool of his apartment building with his family when the man sank to the bottom of the deep end, his arms outstretched and his eyes wide from eight feet down in the water.
Surprisingly, the youngster was the only one at the pool who was capable of swimming at the time. Before his family had migrated to St. Paul, Minnesota from India three years ago, his father had never had the ability to take swimming lessons and his mother had not been allowed to take lessons because she was a woman.
Luckily, they had insisted on giving Advaik a few swimming lessons in America – “some survival skills for his own sake,” his father told CNN.
When trouble finally struck in the pool, however, Advaik’s father had attempted to help the man from a flotation device, but he couldn’t reach the man’s hand.
Then, at the urging of his mother, Advaik took the plunge.
Despite the man weighing almost 100 pounds heavier than the youngster, Advaik successfully managed to pull him up to the surface and tow him to the edge of the pool. Though Advaik’s uncle had never undergone CPR training, he started performing the procedure based on what he had seen in movies and television.
A few minutes later, the man started to move his hands. Paramedics then arrived on the scene and escorted the man to the hospital where he has since made a full recovery.
The man stopped by the boy’s house later the very same week to thank him for saving his life and give him some money as a gift.
Advaik, who is very shy in the spotlight, has been reluctant to be the center of attention, but local police officers insist that he is a hero.
“I’ve never heard of a boy jumping in and saving an adult from a pool,” Eagan, Minnesota Police Officer Aaron Machtemes told CNN. “Officers on the scene commented the man was very lucky to be alive.”
“It’s simply superb,” added Advaik’s uncle. “If he had not been there, I don’t know. I’m sure it would not be a happy ending.”
Advaik’s father also says that he plans on taking swimming lessons alongside his son in the near future.
(WATCH the news coverage below) – Photo by Raghu Nandikotkur via CNN
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Quote of the Day: “He who fears he shall suffer, already suffers what he fears.” – Michel de Montaigne
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Though some athletes might jump at the chance to criticize their opponent, these titans of tennis had the most endearing reactions to squaring off on the court.
Serena Williams and Roger Federer played each other for the first time in their careers during a mixed doubles match earlier this week.
With 37-year-old Williams playing alongside Frances Tiafoe and Federer playing with Belinda Bencic, the tennis champs finished up their round-robin tournament with a quick match – and they were delighted by the challenge.
“It was a great experience. I’m kind of sad it’s over — I was just warming up!” Williams said about Federer after the match. “Honestly, it was so fun.
“We grew up together, and so having an opportunity after all of these years to play each other — we’ve actually never done this,” she added. “It’s super cool that we actually get to do this, at this pinnacle of both of our careers.”
When asked specifically why she adored Federer as a player, she simply said: “Well, the guy is great. He’s the greatest of all time, to be honest.”
(WATCH the heartwarming interview below) – Photo by Tennis World
You never know who is willing to offer a helping hand – Auburn Sandstrom learned this when she was a young mother neck-deep in the throes of drug addiction.
Yet despite struggling with abuse and poverty, she found help in an unlikely place after she dialed a phone number that was written on a slip of paper – and that phone call ended up becoming a pivotal moment in her life.
Sandstrom first recounted her tale for The Moth, a nonprofit dedicated to the art and craft of storytelling. Speakers are given the opportunity to tell a true story in front of a live audience, and sometimes, their stories are then shared on the radio or The Moth podcast.
Since Sandstrom’s performance was broadcasted in 2016, it has been viewed and shared millions of times.
(WATCH the video below) – Photo by Sean Carter
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In an unprecedented victory for cultural appreciation, people will now have free access to thousands of beloved published works thanks to a mass copyright expiration.
It has been 21 years since copyrighted works have been added to the public domain. Prior to 1978, copyrighted works were eligible for 75 years of copyright protection. Anything published after that year was protected for the lifetime of the creator plus an additional 50 years.
Then in 1998, several corporate media giants – including Disney – rallied for an extra 20 years of protection.
Since this most recent New Year’s Day marked the expiration of the additional two decades of copyright protection, thousands of books, films, poems, and musical pieces that were published in 1923 have finally entered the public domain.
The last mass copyright expiration occurred before Google existed – and experts are now saying that this most recent batch of creative works being added to the public domain in the digital age could have an enormous impact on creative and academic expression.
Some of the new works in the public domain include the renowned Robert Frost poem “Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening”, as well as books by Aldous Huxley, Khalil Gibran, Edith Wharton, Agatha Christie, D. H. Lawrence, and Virginia Woolf.
Over 50,000 films that were published in 1923 have been added to the Hathi Trust website, and local theaters will be able to screen the movies for the community. Theater groups can now perform adaptions of plays, scripts, musicals, and songs. Google Books will now have a treasure trove of books that are available for free.
“We have shortchanged a generation. The 20th century is largely missing from the internet,” Brewster Kahle, founder of the Internet Archive, told Smithsonian.
“The public domain has been frozen in time for 20 years, and we’re reaching the 20-year thaw,” added Jennifer Jenkins, the director of Duke University’s Center for the Study of the Public Domain.
Nicole McNeil’s simple question to a customer ended up saving the man’s life.
McNeil works as a barista at a Starbucks in DuPont, Washington. Back in January 2017, she noticed that one of her regulars, Vince Villano, had been looking rather depressed every time he came in to order his cold brew.
“He kind of seemed like an Eeyore, just a little bit grouchy, a little bit of a sad sack all the time,” McNeil told KIRO 7.
After several visits, she finally decided to ask: “What’s been going on with you?”
She insisted that she was willing to listen to him, so Villano got the courage to sit down with her and explain that he had polycystic kidney disease, an incurable genetic condition that causes cysts to form on his kidneys.
Villano needed a kidney transplant – otherwise, he would be facing a lifetime of dialysis or worse.
McNeil was heartbroken. As the day progressed, she could not stop thinking about Villano’s predicament, so when she finally got home from work, she recounted the story to her husband Justin.
Then without hesitation, Justin said: “I’ve got a kidney, you know, we could do this. I think I’m willing to do that.”
After volunteering to get tested, Justin and Villano began spending holidays and weekends together only to find that they had a lot in common – they were both Army veterans, they both liked hiking and camping, and even more excitingly, they were perfect donor matches.
The two men underwent surgery last week, and according to an update from Starbucks, the transplant was a success and they are both in great health.
Furthermore, the McNeils and Villano are now lifelong friends.
“In general, having them as friends, family, I wouldn’t want it to not be this way,” Villano told KIRO. “I can’t imagine not having them in my life.”
Quote of the Day: “Your life is the fruit of your own doing. You have no one to blame but yourself.” – Joseph Campbell
Photo: by Nicolas Nova, CC license, via Flickr
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Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson has been known to take special care of fans and strangers, but his most recent labor of love may be the most heartwarming of all.
In an Instagram video that the movie star published earlier this week, the Rock surprised his mother Ata with a brand new home.
According to the caption, the Rock has always done his best to take care of his mother and father. After he and his parents had spent years living on the road, he finally bought them their first house in 1999.
“They divorced about 5 years later and as with life, stuff happens and things got a little complicated,” writes the Rock. “Since then, I always made sure my mom and dad have everything they’ll ever need – houses, cars etc.
“But the house this time is a special one and the timing is very meaningful. I told her to treat this card like it’s ‘Willy Wonka’s Golden Ticket’ because she gets to choose any home she wants – anywhere she wants.”
Needless to say, Ata was stunned by the surprise – but her bewilderment quickly turned to tears of love and gratitude.
“I always say, if you got a good mama, then you gotta pretty good shot at becoming a decent human being,” concluded the Rock. “And somehow, somewhere along the line I became one lucky SOB to be able to make stuff like this happen.
“Merry Christmas Ma and WOOOHOOO enjoy your new home!”
Republished with permission from Peace News Network Written by Mohammed Ibrahim December 21st, 2018
What would happen if you built a Muslim mosque right next door to a Christian church in a country that is plagued by religious violence?
In Nigeria, where religious violence has intensified over the course of the last year, building two places of worship so close to each other seemed like an impossibility. Residents in the suburb of Kudanden were nervous when construction began on the new mosque, as it was situated next to a Living Faith church. The buildings even shared a fence-line.
But despite clashes between the two religious groups in other parts of the country, worshipers here have been determined to work together.
“The issue of peaceful co-existence, or better still, refer to it as religious co-existence, cannot be over-emphasized,” said Christian resident Isiah Benjamin.
“So if the mosque is going to be used to worship and serve god, and the church is going to be used to worship and serve god, there’s no big deal about it, it’s a good one, and it therefore shows that we, as human beings, must learn to live as one.”
The harmony in the community was aided by a memorandum of understanding that was established by leaders in the region. The chief of Kudanden, Gabriel Galadima, said leaders from both parties were brought together to recognize a mutual, peaceful, understanding.
“What I want to [show] the youth of this community – not only this community but the state at large [and all those who] wish not to live in peace with one another—is that yes, relations will come and go, but we will still be together.”
Muslim resident Tajudeen Ajibade said: “What makes a difference to us is how we are going to move this state forward.”
Another resident named Samuel David Galadima added that “This happened because we want to be together. We should be our brother’s keeper, we should live together.”
“We want other people to emulate the habit of people from Kudanden, to learn from them. To live in peace with one another.”
(WATCH the news coverage below) – Photo by Peace News Network
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For every person who passes away, another life takes its place – and two Louisiana families have formed a lasting friendship thanks to that very phenomenon.
Back in January, Connie Despanie and Benjamin Hall were rejoicing in the birth of their newborn son at Lafayette General Medical Center. Though they had agreed on naming him Kingston, they had not yet decided on a middle name.
However, they soon found inspiration in an unlikely place: a handwritten letter that was given to them by hospital workers shortly after their son’s birth.
The letter read: “To my dad’s angel, even though I will never know your name, you are the first child born here after my dad’s passing. When one life is taken, another is given. Please keep my dad in your prayers.”
The letter was written by Jamie Fontenot. Her father James had just passed away in the very same hospital at the age of 86.
As Fontenot was grieving her father, a sweet song started to play on the overhead speakers. When she asked nurses about the song, they said that the hospital played the song whenever a baby was born.
In her time of heartbreak, Fontenot found comfort in the new life that followed her dad’s death, so she penned the letter and asked hospital staffers to give it to the baby whose birth prompted the music.
Upon reading the note, Connie immediately started to cry. She was so overwhelmed with appreciation for the letter, she and her husband agreed that their son’s middle name should be James.
They weren’t the only ones who were inspired by the letter, either – after delivering the note to the baby’s family, hospital staffers insisted on introducing Fontenot to Connie and her newborn son.
Needless to say, the meeting was an emotional one.
Over the course of the last year, the two families have kept in touch and become fast friends. Fontenot was even present for Kingston’s christening.
When asked about the significance of her new acquaintances, Fontenot simply told CBS News: “Family is everything, and if you don’t have faith you don’t have anything.”
(WATCH the video below) – Photo by CBS News
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A morbidly obese pooch whose love of deli meat saw her balloon to three times the size of a normal beagle has shed almost 25 pounds in four months.
8-year-old Snuffy used to be so fat, she could hardly walk because she spent her days gobbling down massive meals and snacking on sliced ham and turkey.
“When I first got her she used to snore like a grown man and she wasn’t even able to scratch her ears because she couldn’t reach,” said Snuffy’s owner Caroline Webster, a 26-year-old veterinary assistant from Herndon, Virginia.
“Now she can lift her head and roll into her back without losing her breath.”
The podgy pup used to live with an elderly couple who meant no harm, but couldn’t resist giving her treats. On top of that, they struggled to give her enough exercise.
Her weight eventually crept up to a staggering 65 pounds, when a healthy beagle is supposed to weigh between 22 to 24 pounds.
But in November 2017, Webster adopted Snuffy after her original owners moved away.
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“I’ve known Snuffy for years. She belonged to [an older couple from the clinic],” says Webster. “They were really sweet but the vet was always saying that Snuffy needed to cut back.
“Then they called me one day and told me that they were moving. They said that Snuffy and I got along so well, they’d love if I could adopt her.
“I always loved Snuffy so I was thrilled, but when I got her, she was huge,” added Webster. “My apartment is on the third floor of our building and at the beginning, I really thought she was going to have a heart attack going up the stairs, she was panting so hard.”
Webster knew she would have to teach an old dog some new tricks in order to save Snuffy’s life and whip the poor pup into shape – so she started by cutting out the deli meat and putting Snuffy on a diet of two small meals a day.
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Webster also implemented a strict exercise regime of three one-mile walks per day, which included climbing the stairs to her third-floor apartment.
Amazingly, Snuffy lost an incredible 24.5 pounds in just four months and she is now on track to hit her weight goal just in time for the summer.
Webster said Snuffy is a different dog compared to the one she adopted. The pooch’s health has vastly improved and her loud, disruptive snoring has disappeared. Additionally, Snuffy can now scratch her ears, climb the stairs, and run effortlessly.
“For the first few months I cut out treats completely, but because she’s done so well I give her about five every week now,” says Webster.
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Webster believes that Snuffy’s weight loss has her feeling like a puppy again and she loves being active for the first time in years.
“She runs after birds and squirrels now and howls like a real beagle. She gets the dog ‘zoomies’ which is like a burst of energy when they run around the room back and forth,” says Webster.
“I’ve loved having her around and I want her to be here for so many more years. That’s why I’ve tried so hard to get her weight under control.
“The vet is thrilled with her progress, and hopefully, she will hit her goal weight of 30 pounds by the summer,” she added.
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Webster has started tracking Snuffy’s weight-loss on Instagram, where she has amassed hundreds of followers.
“She’s been getting a lot of support from her followers on Instagram which has been so funny,” says Webster. “They say things like, ‘I’m amazed by this before pic’ and ‘Great job Snuffy’.”
(WATCH the video below)
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A new pilot study shows that virtual reality might be the answer for your reoccurring nightmares.
Nightmare disorder is a condition in which someone experiences reoccurring nightmares that induce significant levels of anxiety and stress. Even though most people are forced to endure occasional nightmares of some kind, the frequency of bad dreams associated with the disorder can dramatically impact a person’s livelihood, and it can often exacerbate other mental illnesses, such as depression, anxiety, or PTSD.
But new research from the Boston University School of Medicine showed that using virtual reality as a therapy tool for nightmares resulted in significantly reduced levels of anxiety, fewer nightmares, and reduced nightmare intensity.
“Current treatments for nightmares required too much time or taking a drug that essentially knocked you out for awhile, so we needed a treatment that was short, non-toxic and effective,” said study author Patrick McNamara of the Boston University School of Medicine.
The study, which was published in the journal Dreaming, involved 19 patients who attended eight therapy sessions over the course of four weeks. The patients were given Oculus Rift headsets that allowed them to see imagery associated with their nightmares which they were then able to manipulate and edit so that it was less frightening.
“We designed the treatment so that it can be adjusted and individualized,” McNamara told PsyPost. “For example, some people’s nightmares are characterized by threatening/arousing images while others are characterized by intense controlling images. The VR app we developed allows users to choose to work on whatever imagery type most characterizes their particular nightmare history and thus this ‘individualized medicine’ approach may more effectively help people with chronic nightmares. The next step is to develop a version for kids with chronic nightmares.”
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Quote of the Day: “What a wonderful thought it is that some of the best days of our lives haven’t even happened yet.” – Anne Frank
Photo: by Evans E., CC license, via Flickr
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Beth Bornstein Dunnington was at LAX waiting to board her flight to Portland when she saw a mother who was having some problems with her son.
“A toddler who looked to be eighteen or so months old was having a total meltdown, running between the seats, kicking and screaming, then lying on the ground, refusing to board the plane,” wrote Dunnington.
“His young mom, who was clearly pregnant and traveling alone with her son, became completely overwhelmed … she finally sat down on the floor and put her head in her hands, with her kid next to her still having a meltdown, and started crying.”
Then, six or seven women from around the boarding area convened on the young mother, formed a little circle around her and her toddler, and they all did something to help calm down the distressed duo.
An empathetic employee was hailed for delivering more than just packages to a Mississippi family.
More specifically, he went out of his way to deliver a box to a 6-year-old boy when the youngster was heartbroken to find that his family’s new refrigerator was not delivered in a cardboard box that he could use to build a fort.
When a father gave a good-natured response to a text from a wrong number, donations poured in for his son’s cancer treatment – and it all started when a woman named Syd accidentally texted Tony Wood with a picture of herself wearing an evening gown in a department store.
Wood, who is a father of six kids in Spring Hill, Tennessee, responded to the photos by saying: “I believe this message was intended for someone else. My wife isn’t home, so I couldn’t get her opinion, but the kids and I think you look stunning in your dress! You should definitely go with that one!”
Not only that, he also sent a photo of his kids all giving a reassuring thumbs up – but social media users noticed that there were two people missing from the photo.
Arron Walshaw was desperate to buy a ticket for a Lotto Millionaire Raffle before it closed. When he quickly popped into a shop, he walked up to the counter and found himself waiting behind a woman who had approached the cashier before him.
Sensing his anxiety, the woman told Walshaw to go ahead of her. With two minutes to spare, he bought a ticket for the raffle. He thanked the woman and left.
Thanks to that small act of kindness, Walshaw was able to buy a multi-million dollar winning ticket.
When a thief stole Amanda Needham’s bike from the front of her home, she left a giant angry sign in its place as an expression of frustration.
The note read: “To the person who stole my bicycle. I hope you need it more than I do. It was $200 used, and I need it to get to work. I can’t afford another one. Next time, steal a hipster’s Peugeot. Or not steal! PS: Bring it back.”
Though she was not expecting anything to come from the sign, she was surprised when it spurred several strangers to knock on her door with offers of kindness.
After the small town of Paradise, California, was nearly wiped out by wildfires, the local high school girl’s volleyball team was still determined to play their semifinal championship match—despite having no uniforms or equipment after evacuating with only the clothes on their back.
But the opposing team from Forest Lake Christian High School in Auburn was waiting with a big surprise.
Within 24 hours, they had collected donations of $16,000 and when the girls from Paradise Adventist Academy showed up, they were greeted with new custom uniforms, knee pads, and socks—and a whole lot of love.
Jarrett Little and a few other cyclists were riding through a forested area in Georgia when they stopped to take a break. As they recuperated, a dog limped out of the woods.
Jarrett suspects that the dog had been hit by a car because it was malnourished, and it was sporting road rash and a broken leg. After he and his friends gave the dog some food and water, they puzzled over how to help it.
Since they were in the woods, they couldn’t get a car to escort the canine to safety, but they also didn’t want to leave it alone in the forest – so Jarrett took it upon himself to hoist the dog onto his back and ride the 7 miles back to town.
Adarsh Shrivastava was on a train that was traveling through India when he noticed something strange about his fellow passengers. His train cabin was filled with girls between the ages of 10 and 14 – and almost all of them were visibly distressed. Some of the youngsters were even crying.
Sensing that something was afoot, Shrivastava pulled out his phone, created a new Twitter account, and sent several messages detailing the situation to railway and law enforcement authorities, saying that he suspected the girls to be victims of human trafficking.
Matthew Stevenson and John Flanagan were on a JetBlu flight in January when an older passenger started having trouble breathing. A nurse who also happened to be aboard the plane tried to help the woman recover – but nothing would relieve the stress on her breathing.
When Stevenson saw what was going on, he flagged down Flanagan for help. They asked the flight crew if they had a hand-operated manual resuscitator on board to pump oxygen into her lungs.
Because they did not, the doctors resolved to build their own.
People are always telling children not to talk to strangers – but everyone is glad that little Isaiah Miller didn’t follow that advice in a sports stadium.
In September, Isaiah’s aunt, Star Balloon-Bradley, brought her nephew to a football game when he wandered up into the stands and started chatting with a woman whom he’d never met before. Not only did he end up crawling into her lap, they were also “talking like they knew each other.”
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A retired couple was walking in a nature reserve on Christmas Day when they were treated to a breathtaking sight during a murmuration of thousands of starlings.
Guy Benson, 60, captured video footage of the mesmerizing moment in the sky when the starlings moved into a formation that resembled a huge bird.
The minute-long video shows the swirling mass of starlings forming different shapes as they dodged and weaved—and eventually becoming an elegant winged creature.
Benson, a retired financial adviser from Long Eaton, Derbys, speculates that they took that form to scare off some birds of prey.
“It was a really unusual shape and I think it was because there were four sparrow hawks who kept diving into the birds to try and pick them off.
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Guy filmed the sight in the Attenborough Nature Reserve in Nottingham, and called it a “a very uplifting moment.”
“It was one of the greatest sights I’ve been able to see in nature.”
Since retiring, Guy spends much of his free time traveling the country to spot rare birds with his wife Anita.
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“You could hear them all flapping their wings and swishing overhead, it was wonderful,” she said. “You just had to stand there open-mouthed, it was so awesome.”
“There are hundreds of thousands of people who live close by but they don’t know that things like this go on.”
While thousands of people are still in bed sleeping off the effects of their New Year’s Eve festivities, these young Muslims woke up early to clean up the aftermath of last night’s partying.
Over 1,000 young members of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Youth Association (AMYA) took to the streets of 50 different UK localities and cities for a New Year’s Day clean-up.
The young men and women even kicked off the event by hosting a special prayer for the new year before they donned their high-visibility vests and tackled the streets with garbage bags in hand.
“From Luton to London, Glasgow to Guilford, Cardiff to Croydon, across the entire country 1,000 members of AMYA participated in the New Year’s Day clean up,” said British Ahmadiyya Imam Qamar Zafar.
“Islam urges every Muslim to partake in charitable giving, community service, and promote cleanliness,” he added. “AMYA has and continues to instill young people with a sense of civic responsibility, and a desire to promote harmony within our local communities.”
“We’ve been doing the New Year’s clean-up for many years now, and each year we see more and more members coming to help,” added AMYA Yorkshire youth coordinator Nadeem Ahmed. “In Islam, ‘Cleanliness is Part of Faith’ so there’s no better way to serve our faith and our country, there’s no better way for us to start the new year.”
Clean Up Negativity By Sharing The Good News To Social Media – Photos by AMYA
Quote of the Day: “The New Year is a fresh start. A new chapter in life waiting to be written. Carve out some quiet time to dream, pen in hand. Only dreams give birth to change.” – Sarah Ban Breathnach
Photo: by Jan Arendtsz, CC license, via Flickr
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While people were definitely asking Google about election results and updates of the Royal Wedding, the search engine’s latest data shows that people were also searching for “good” things more than ever before.
According to this inspirational footage that was released by Google earlier this month, the most popular internet searches of 2018 were about “good” things and how we can be better people.
The montage was created as a result of the company’s year-end research of their search engine trends.
“In a year of ups and downs, the world searched for “good” more than ever before — according to Google Trends,” reads the video caption. “From the epic headlines to the everyday moments, here’s to all the good that people discovered in 2018.”
(WATCH the heartwarming video below) – Photo by Google
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Based on the doom-and-gloom stories we see on our newsfeeds, you might believe there is no hope for our big blue planet—but this year’s groundbreaking environmental achievements show the future to be brighter with every passing day.
From international governments and corporations ditching single-use plastics to the world’s increasingly speedy shift towards renewable energy, 2018 was a year filled with exciting milestones and historic initiatives.
Plastic
Thanks to international research and reports, people have become increasingly aware of the dangers of plastic pollution – and they have been quick to respond.
On an individual level, a young Dutch activist launched the world’s largest ocean clean-up which will be tidying up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch over the course of the next decade.
Kids are pitching in, too – this 5-year-old girl’s heartfelt letter to an international pizza chain compelled them to replace their plastic straws with biodegradable alternatives.
On a global scale, Australia witnessed an 80% reduction in single-use plastic bag consumption over the course of just four short months thanks to a ban that was implemented by two of the nation’s largest supermarket chains.
In July, Starbucks became the largest global retailer to ditch plastic straws, while McDonalds – which is the second largest fast food chain in the world – moved to ditch straws back in March.
In addition to legislation being passed to preserve rainforests and natural landscapes, an online search engine allowed users to passively help in planting over 30 million trees around the world.
A German 20-year-old has also spent a little over a decade orchestrating hundreds of youth-led initiatives to plant trees around the world. Since he launched his conservational initiative as a 9-year-old, he has helped to plant over 1 million trees – and with his new United Nations position, he and his organization will be planting 1 trillion more.
Meanwhile, a Swiss businessman announced in November that he would be contributing $1 billion of his money to preserving one-third of the world’s surface by 2030.
Finally, in America, a California family inherited a patch of land which has been the secret home of over 1,450 ancient redwood trees. Instead of selling the land, they ensured that it would be protected and opened as a public park for years to come.
Ocean
With scientists scrambling to protect ocean ecosystems, there have been several success stories that have inspired hope for the future.
For starters, the world’s second largest coral reef was removed from the endangered places list after years of national and local conservational efforts.
And more reefs are ready to recover thanks to this Florida scientist’s accidental discovery on how to make coral reefs grow 40 times faster than they naturally do in the wild. The researcher now plans on postponing his retirement until he can ensure the survival of coral reefs around the world.
As a means of protecting marine wildlife and humans, the UK also implemented a ban on plastic microbeads from being used in cosmetics, which was a welcomed follow-up to the USA’s microbead ban in 2015.
On a corporate level, the world’s largest overseas shipping company committed to ditching fossil fuels and achieving 100% sustainability over the course of the next few decades – and the company hopes that their initiative will inspire their rivals to do the same.
Renewable Energy
Scientists are coming up with more and more sources of sustainable energy than ever before – a Dutch inventor created a machine that generates electricity from gravity; researchers created a tiny wind turbine that can generate wind power from an apartment balcony so that urban homeowners can join the renewable revolution; and one company has already started implementing their ultra-efficient strategy for converting human sewage into a zero-carbon replacement for coal which they have already begun selling to power companies.
Dozens of localities, countries, and states have also encouraged the transition to sustainability by setting ambitious goals for sourcing all of their energy from renewable sources.
Portugal alone generated enough renewable energy to power the country for an entire month.
Australia has enjoyed over $40 million in savings from maintenance costs to their electrical grid after they installed the world’s biggest lithium ion battery which generates zero carbon emissions.
And contrary to popular belief, Americans are assisting in the transition as well, a claim that is best exemplified by the recent launch of the country’s first solar-powered city.
While some of these examples may seem like small drops in the bucket of what must be done to ensure the safety of our planet, there were hundreds of other environmental achievements that took place in 2018, many of which did not even make the news – and that is why we are confident in saying that there will be even more revolutionary accomplishments in 2019.
So here is to a new year of protecting the planet and preserving the earth for generations many New Year celebrations to come.
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Travis Trent was just celebrating the birth of his newborn baby when his car caught on fire – but instead of letting the burning vehicle damage the hospital or the surrounding cars, he managed to save the property by parking it at a safe distance.
Trent had been parked in the parking garage of the Good Samaritan Hospital in Tacoma, Washington when his dashboard started to smoke.
Despite how most people would have simply abandoned the car and fled to safety, Trent was concerned about the hospital’s structure and the dozens of other vehicles which were parked alongside of him.
“And so I said ‘this ain’t happening here’ and pulled out and [got] to the top and made sure I got my girlfriend’s makeup and car seat out of the car,” he told KOMO.
The car was completely destroyed in the blaze that followed – and while the fire department says that people shouldn’t drive burning cars, they were impressed with Trent’s integrity.
“The fact that he did it and didn’t get injured and saved potentially thousands and thousands of dollars in damage to the parking structure, not to mention the cars he was next to, is pretty incredible,” Capt. Darrin Shaw of Central Pierce Fire and Rescue told the news outlet.
In addition to rescuers thanking Trent for saving the garage, Trent’s brother works as a salesman at a local car dealership. Upon retelling the story of his sibling’s bravery to his boss, the dealership manager decided to replace Trent’s former car with the very same BMW 528 model for free.
They surprised Trent, his girlfriend, and their newborn baby Kennedy with the car earlier this week – and the family was overwhelmed with gratitude.
“It means a lot that people care,” a tear-eyed Trent told reporters.
(WATCH the emotional news coverage below) – Photo by KOMO
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