An absolutely staggering rescue story comes now from Russia where a Good Samaritan tugged an unconscious man clear of an oncoming train with less than a second before it passed over him.
In a video obtained by the Sun, security camera footage shows a tall man stumbling towards train tracks while what are clearly the headlights of an oncoming train illuminate the gloom under an overpass.
Whether he was intoxicated, suicidal, or suffering from a medical emergency is not known, nor is the identity of his savior.
What is known, however, is that the stumbling man pauses at the verge of the first track before collapsing face first onto it.
From an area of concrete and buildings just beyond, two men see what happened. One of them sprints 20 yards, leaps the tracks, and with what GNN can only assume to have been an almighty hoist, pulls the prone body off the track just as the train passes by.
Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper have put out a notice saying, that the hero is being sought so that he can be honored by the community.
WATCH the video for yourself…
CELEBRATE A Life Saved, A Man Who Will Go Home To A Loved One—On Social Media…
Sienna the rescue dog - credit, Credit : Friends of Campbell County Animal Control, retrieved from Facebook
Sienna the rescue dog – credit, Credit : Friends of Campbell County Animal Control, retrieved from Facebook
A shelter dog who detected a man’s oncoming seizure, having never been trained to do so, has found a forever home after applications flooded in.
Sweet Sienna, the pit bull-lab mix made headlines around the country in June for her medical instincts, on display all-unexpectedly at an adoption event in Rustburg, Virginia.
On that fateful day, Sienna broke away from the crowd of dogs, appreciative attendees, and familiar caretakers—walking right up to a man at a slight distance from center of the event.
She sat down, looked at him in the eye, put her paw on his leg, and refused to leave his side.
“She sat quietly at his feet, refused to budge, and softly placed her paw on his leg,” Sienna’s shelter, called Friends of Campbell County Animal Control of Virginia, said in a Facebook post at the time. “It wasn’t a trick. It wasn’t prompted. It was pure intuition.”
She then started pawing at his leg. Despite never receiving training on how to detect medical emergencies, Sienna knew something was wrong.
The man, Josh Davis had forgotten to take his epilepsy medication that morning, and it seemed Sienna knew before anyone else did.
“It looked like something you’d see in the movies,” Kristen Davis, Josh’s husband, told ABC News. “She kept putting her paw up on his leg, and like, ‘Hey, are you paying attention to me? I’m trying to talk to you.’ We were all kind of standing around, like, ‘Did that just happen?'”
After the shelter announced what happened on Facebook, the story was featured on news networks nationwide, and applications for adoption came in by the dozens.
However good Sienna’s intuitions were about Davis, they were at most as good as Sharon Sweeney’s intuition about Sienna. The Virginia resident had an outstanding adoption request before Sienna became dog of the day, and she took the 60-pound-pooch home this week.
Jackie Poppe, a volunteer at Friends of Campbell County, was walking Sienna around on the day of her heroics, and she says it’s a reminder of the unique powers that shelter dogs have.
“Don’t overlook the stray dog that’s in your local shelter,” said Poppe. “All of them have amazing traits about them.”
WATCH the story below from ABC News…
SHARE This Heroic Pooch With Your Friends On Social Media…
Quote of the Day: “The more sand that has escaped from the hourglass of our life, the clearer we should see through it.” – Jean Paul
Photo by: Nathan Dumlao
With a new inspirational quote every day, atop the perfect photo—collected and archived on our Quote of the Day page—why not bookmark GNN.org for a daily uplift?
Happy 60th Birthday to J.K. Rowling, the author and humanitarian who, before writing the first of seven books in the Harry Potter series, was a single mom supported by welfare—but she transformed herself into the world’s first female billionaire novelist. Her artful wizarding fantasies became the best-selling book series in history, translated into 73 languages, but she’s not on the Forbes’ Billionaires list anymore because she gives so much to charity—particularly to multiple sclerosis, illiteracy, and child welfare charities—but also to the ‘tax man’, as a form of patriotism. READ more… (1965)
Late blight symptoms on a potato leaf - credit, Howard F. Schwartz, Insect Images - CC 3.0. BY-SA
Late blight symptoms on a potato leaf – credit, Howard F. Schwartz, Insect Images – CC 3.0. BY-SA
A team of Welsh scientists are developing an early-warning system for late potato blight, a water mold that causes nearly $4 billion in agricultural losses every year.
Powered by AI, the smartphone-based application can detect signs of late plight on potato leaves before any manifestation detectable by the human eye appears.
It’s hoped that early warnings like this can help to better secure farmers’ fortunes, as well as the global food supply, as late blight was responsible for three major potato collapses in Europe during the 19th century.
20% of global losses in potatoes are blamed on late blight, which as the name suggests can strike late in the season. Prevention is key, but expensive, and chemical fungicide spraying costs millions, and may be responsible for human health complications and ecosystem biodiversity loss.
The DeepDetect project from Aberystwyth University will work alongside farmers to develop a prototype using image datasets of healthy and diseased potato leaves. The BBC reports that a finished product could be implemented as a national early-warning system beyond Wales, where potatoes are grown across 35,000 acres.
“Potatoes are the fourth most important staple crop globally, and optimal production is essential for a growing global population,” Aiswarya Girija from the Institute of Biological, Environmental and Rural Sciences at Aberystwyth told the BBC.
“Potato blight is therefore not just a farming issue—it’s a food security issue.”
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Taquería El Califa in the León neighborhood, Mexico City - credit kaart_2 @ Mapillary
Taquería El Califa de León, Mexico City – credit kaart_2 @ Mapillary
In cooking, less is often more, and no instance of such a maxim could better prove its veracity than a tiny Mexican taco stand being awarded a coveted Michelin Star.
With just 4 items on the menu, and room inside for just 11 people to eat shoulder-to-shoulder, Taquería El Califa de Leon in the Colonia San Rafael neighborhood of Mexico City has thousands of competitor across the city.
But in the first Michelin guide of Mexico ever published, Chef Arturo Rivera Martínez proved that quality surpasses quantity, and becomes the first taco stand owner to receive the Michelin Star, which indicates “high quality, worth a stop.”
“The secret is the simplicity of our taco,” Rivera Martínez told the Associated Press. “It has only a tortilla, red or green sauce, and that’s it. That, and the quality of the meat.”
Much like pizza and its dough, the quality of a taco starts with the quality of the tortilla, which the Michelin guide claims to be “excellent… elemental, and pure.”
“This taqueria may be bare bones with just enough room for a handful of diners to stand at the counter but its creation, the Gaonera taco, is exceptional,” reads a statement on the Michelin Guide website.
The taco is supposedly named after a famous Mexican bullfighter, Rodolfo Gaonera.
Beyond the tortilla and the thinly sliced meat, seasoned only with salt and lime, the two home-made sauces were described by the Michelin guide as “almost unnecessary” in comparison to the flavor of the other two components.
Mexico has firmly established itself among the pantheon of great food nations. Possessing a variety of traditional and immigrant cultures, often happily blended, and a variety of biomes that permit the cultivation of a wide-variety of produce, it has all the elements needed to create gastro-gold.
“What a joy it is to honor the uniqueness of the Mexican gastronomic landscape in Mexico City,” Gwendal Poullennec, International Director of the Michelin Guides, said in a statement.
“The first and very promising selection is an an illustration of how the country is showcasing its regions, with their cultures and traditions that are as distinctive as they are distinguishable.”
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Vecchio Sultano by Salvador Dalí Credit: Cheffins in Cambridge
Vecchio Sultano by Salvador Dalí Credit Cheffins in Cambridge
A frequenter of analog auctions, clever and confidant in his ability to spot forgeries and potential fortunes, recently snapped up a lost, original Salvador Dalí for just £150.
Amounting to $180 or thereabouts, it’s certainly a bargain considering its being re-sold by Cambridge for as much as 200-times that much.
Vecchio Sultano, or Old Sultan, was painted by Dalí in 1966. The mixed-media artwork was one in a whopping commission the great Surrealist painter received for 500 illustrations inspired by The Arabian Nights.
According to the Guardian, Giuseppe and Mara Albaretto were an Italian couple who commissioned the illustrations from Dalí, while Rizzoli, an Italian publishing house, was planning to publish them. However, Dalí abandoned the project with just 100 of the 500 illustrations finished.
Half were retained by the Albarettos, and the other half went unpublished and are presumed lost.
“Dalí was quite obsessed with Moorish culture and believed himself to be from a Moorish line,” Gabrielle Downie, a fine art specialist at Cheffins in Cambridge, told the Guardian.
An antiquities dealer speaking to the Guardian under the auction name John Russel said that he encountered the painting at a purely in-person auction that was clearing out the effects of a London apartment.
In these cases, Russell says, one just shows up and discovers treasures, or trash as the case may be, but you know that no one beyond the room can see what’s being bid on.
“Most of the time, I buy stuff that I like. On this occasion, I was really taking a bit of a punt, because I wasn’t sure I’d have it on the wall, to be honest … I do like some unusual art, but you’d have to love it, wouldn’t you?” said Russell.
On Russell’s point, it is quite a striking departure from Dalí’s associated style and iconography. Despite being listed as an original Dalí, the auction hall was silent apart from Russell and one other bidder who tapped out after the price reached £150.
But priding himself on being able to spot a forgery from years of watching the British television show Fake or Fortune, and a closer examination revealing stickers on the back of the frame that indicated it had been sold at Sotheby’s, confirmed to Russell that it must be an original.
That turned out to be the case—after he went home and bought the Sotheby’s auction catalogue in which Vecchio Sultano had been sold and found that on the occasion of that previous sale, it had been verified as original by a renowned Dalí scholar.
It’s now going up for sale at Cheffins Fine Art and is expected to fetch between $25,000 and $37,000.
SHARE This Lost Dalí Seeing The Light Of Day Again…
Cambodia and Thailand have signed an immediate and unconditional ceasefire on July 28th following an eruption in military skirmishes along a disputed border.
Though tensions remain high and Thai authorities accused Cambodian forces of violating the ceasefire within hours of its initiation, the frontline remains quiet as July comes to an end.
With three major regional wars already stretching across multiple years without obvious conclusions to be seen in any case, it was vital that a prolonged conflict in Southeast Asia did not break out.
Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet and Thai Acting Prime Minister Phumtham Wechayachai met in Malaysia to organize a halt to the fighting, with a Malaysian foreign policy team acting as mediators of the deal. The agreement took effect at midnight and was announced by Malaysian PM Anwar Ibrahim.
Manet said it was an opportunity for a sustained peace, and that it was “time to start rebuilding trust, confidence and cooperation going forward between Thailand and Cambodia.”
Artillery fire broke out between the two nations after a landmine explosion injured 5 Thai soldiers along the disputed border in north-northwest Thailand, and southern Cambodia. The International Court of Justice has ruled in favor of Cambodia’s claim to several units across the largely-rural area, but Thailand continues to argue that the claim is based on French colonial maps that have no basis being referred to in a post-colonial world.
Dozens of mostly military personnel on both sides were killed, but AP reports that the Trump Administration, which had been undergoing trade negotiations on both sides in regards to the new US tariff policy, warned that Washington would back out of any talks if a ceasefire was not agreed to.
Thailand and Cambodia, at the moment, stand to receive large tariff rates on exports to the US if no agreement can be reached, and the threat gave both nations a face-saving motif for abandoning the warpath.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who was involved in arranging the meeting, applauded the ceasefire declaration while adding he expects the governments of Cambodia and Thailand “to fully honor their commitments to end this conflict.”
The rapid ceasefire agreement, reached without demands or concessions, embodies the principles espoused by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), a 10-member international bloc which both belligerents belong to. The economic, security, and development partnership prides itself on cooperation and non-aggression.
Many of the 300,000 estimated civilians displaced during the fighting, who had taken up refuge in schools, temples, makeshift encampments, and other public areas, have begun to return to their homes.
CELEBRATE The Triumph Of Peace And Reason Over Bitterness And Conflict…
By Jeff Krause Photography on Flickr – CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
Quote of the Day: “The splendor of Yosemite burst upon us, one wonder after another, and it was glorious. A new era began for me.” – Ansel Adams (1916, age 14)
Ansel was given a Kodak Brownie camera by his parents during this trip, which sparked his lifelong passion for photography and his deep connection with Yosemite.
Photo by: Jeff Krause Photography on Flickr – CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
With a new inspirational quote every day, atop the perfect photo—collected and archived on our Quote of the Day page—why not bookmark GNN.org for a daily uplift?
The Yosemite Valley by Jeff Krause Photography on Flickr – CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
Happy 78th Birthday to Arnold Schwarzenegger, the actor, bodybuilder, and former 2-term governor of California who is now fighting to bring redistricting reform to the American political system. “Born in Austria and Made in America”, the ‘Governator’ became the youngest man ever to win the Mr. Universe contest at age 20, then pursued a film career, starring in in Conan the Barbarian, Predator, the Terminator series, and Total Recall. READ about his other initiatives… (1947)
Men of the 9th Marines take cover at Con Thien, public domain
Men of the 9th Marines take cover at Con Thien, public domain
In the trenches of Con Thien, Vietnam, a Marine Corps corporal used to quietly sit and dream about a carousel in a mountain meadow.
His logic was simple: find the complete opposite of his surroundings of death, screaming hot shrapnel, and chaos. Sitting there holding a music box given to him by his sister as a gift, the war—for a sweet, fleeting moment—fell away.
Fast forward almost forty years, and the Carousel of Happiness nonprofit allows thousands of Coloradoans and out-of-state visitors to experience their own little escape on board the ride’s animals that Cpl. Scott Harrison (Ret.) hand-carved in a picturesque valley in Nederland, Colorado.
“I started out just trying to treat myself, but then it just changed into something I could do for others,” Harrison told CBS News’ On the Road with Steve Hartman.
A post at Con Thien, Harrison explains, was as good as a death sentence for a young marine such as himself.
The violence he saw there stayed with him, and despite an alcohol addiction and a houseboat in the middle of the ocean, he couldn’t escape the clinical PTSD that came back with him from Southeast Asian jungles.
There may have been far worse than sleepless nights in store for the former corporal, until he circled back around to those quiet moments with his music box and his mental mountain meadow.
“I thought that if I could actually start making that vision come true, it would keep me on an even keel and make me happier,” Harrison said.
So in 1986, 18 years after he was deployed, he bought a broken-down Looff carousel manufactured just after the turn of the century and began to hand-carve all-new animals in the course of repairing it. In 2010, the carousel opened in a valley in Nederland, Colorado, where today over one million people have ridden on this simple, essential carnival ride.
And though Harrison’s may not be simple—hand-carving and painting is skilled, technical work—it’s absolutely essential.
He was featured in an award-winning documentary Carving Joy, and the Carousel of Happiness podcast features guests and nonprofit staff ruminating on joy, happiness, contentment, positivity, and wellbeing in days when such things seem in short supply.
WATCH the story below from On the Road…
SHARE This Story From The Brilliant Steve Hartman With Your Friends…
Scientists have discovered that pairing wheat with a special soil fungus can significantly enhance its nutritional value.
This partnership leads to bigger grains that are richer in zinc and phosphorus without increasing anti-nutrients that block absorption.
As a result, the wheat becomes a healthier option for human diets. Researchers believe this fungal strategy could offer a natural, sustainable way to fortify global crops with essential nutrients.
Humans have been fortifying crops for around 100 years, attempting to address deficiencies in key nutrients by putting synthetic versions inside staple foods like flour.
A major criticism of fortification is that nutrients added to foods may not have any bioavailability at all. Skim milk fortified with vitamin A and D doesn’t have the bioavailability of whole milk because vitamin A and D are fat-soluble.
When investigators grew different types of wheat with and without the tree-hugging mycorrhizal fungus Rhizophagus irregularis, they observed that those grown with fungi developed larger grains with greater amounts of the essential minerals phosphorus and zinc.
Concurrently, there was no parallel increase in phytate (a compound that can hinder absorption of zinc and iron), resulting in bread with a higher overall bioavailability of zinc and iron compared with wheat grown in the absence of fungi. There isn’t much iron at all in whole wheat bread to begin with, but this method maximizes what little there is.
“Beneficial soil fungi could be used as a sustainable option to exploit soil-derived plant nutrients. In this case, we found potential to biofortify wheat with important human micronutrients by inoculating the plants with mycorrhizal fungi,” said corresponding author Stephanie J. Watts-Williams, Ph.D., of the University of Adelaide, in Australia.
Rhizophagus irregularis is a species of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungus that forms beneficial relationships with the roots of many types of plants. It helps plants take in more nutrients—especially phosphorus and micronutrients—by extending its thin, root-like structures deep into the soil.
This fungus is one of the most widely studied and used in agriculture and ecology because of its broad compatibility with crops and its ability to improve plant growth, health, and soil quality. By boosting nutrient uptake naturally, R. irregularis supports more resilient plants and reduces the need for chemical fertilizers, making it a valuable tool in sustainable farming and reforestation efforts.
Perhaps a better way to think of adding R. irregularis to wheat is as a method of preparation rather than fortification, reminiscent to the ages-old methods of preparing grains and legumes for optimal human consumption like sprouting or fermentation.
The study was published in the journal Plants, People, Planet.
SPROUT Some Positivity On Your Friends’ Social Media Feeds With This Story…
Credit, Richard M. Wicker - Denver Museum of Nature and Science
Credit, Richard M. Wicker – Denver Museum of Nature and Science
For the staff at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, examining this newly found vertebrae from a 67-million-year old plant-eating dinosaur was just another day in the office.
The surprise came in the form of its discovery—from right under the museum itself, which seems appropriate.
Months ago, the Denver Museum undertook an exploratory drilling project on-site to determine if it were possible to change some of the building’s utilities over to geothermal energy from fossil fuels.
A drill core sample, explains Dr. James Hagadorn, the museum’s curator of geology, is basically like a doctor using a syringe to draw blood from a patient. The drill extracts a long cylinder of rock and sediment straight down some 800 feet.
At just a few inches in diameter, the circular drill happened to pass perfectly over the fossil, drawing it up with the rest of the dirt, a mind-boggling coincidence the chances of which Hagadorn described as “infinitesimally small.”
As a result, it’s not only the deepest fossil ever found in Denver, but also happens to be the oldest. Dating back to the late Cretaceous Period, it likely belonged to something like a Thesculosaurus or Edmontasaurus, two species that roamed Great Plaints at that time.
Dr. James Hagadorn (left) examines the drill core sample – credit, Denver Museum of Nature and Science
“We knew those dinosaurs were (nearby in other parts of) Colorado or Wyoming, but we didn’t know that they were in Denver, too … but we suspected it right at this time period,” Hagadorn told AP.
“Now, we have another plant eater that’s been cruising around Denver munching on, who knows, gingers and palm leaves and other ferns and plants 67 million years ago.”
Hagadorn said he’d love to drill a hole down 787 feet and excavate the rest of the dinosaur, but, being that it was found beneath the museum parking lot, he doesn’t believe that’s going to happen anytime soon.
“We need parking!”
WATCH the story below from AP…
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For frequent American flyers and puzzled first-time visitors from Europe, a major security headache is due to finally to fade away into history’s rearview mirror.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced in early July that passengers traveling through domestic airports can keep their shoes on while passing through security screening at TSA checkpoints.
The new policy will increase hospitality for travelers and streamline the TSA security checkpoint process, leading to lower wait times.
In December 2001 onboard a flight from Miami to Paris, Richard Reid, who became known as the “shoe bomber,” tried to ignite hidden explosives in his shoes, which became the impetus for the eventual TSA rule, introduced 5 years later.
“Ending the ‘Shoes-Off’ policy is the latest effort DHS is implementing to modernize and enhance traveler experience across our nation’s airports,” said Secretary Noem.
“We expect this change will drastically decrease passenger wait times at our TSA checkpoints, leading to a more pleasant and efficient passenger experience.”
As well as being a source of traffic in the TSA lines, the last decade and a half has seen the Shoes Off rule become a major source of confusion as well.
In the two decades following the September 11th attacks, countries which had originally adopted the US’ harsh security screening protocols either gradually abandoned them or only parts of them.
The result was that flying through the Western world became an exercise in disarray, as passengers taking off their shoes would be told to keep them on, only to arrive in another country for a connecting flight and suddenly be told to take them off again.
Presumably most other countries will abandon Shoes Off now that America has, so here’s to shorter airport security lines.
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Quote of the Day: “All that you touch, you change. All that you change changes you.” – Octavia Butler
Photo by: Getty Images for Unsplash+
With a new inspirational quote every day, atop the perfect photo—collected and archived on our Quote of the Day page—why not bookmark GNN.org for a daily uplift?
60 years ago today, The Beatles’ film Help! had its world premiere in London with Princess Margaret in attendance at the London Pavilion. The band’s second feature film, it stars The Fab Four engaged in delightful banter while trying to protect Ringo Starr from an Eastern cult and a pair of mad scientists, who all want Ringo’s ring. WATCHthe original 3-min trailer… (1965)
Credit photographer Larry Rosa – at Challenged Athletes Foundation event
Credit photographer Larry Rosa – at Challenged Athletes Foundation event
Physical limitations were off-limits for a blessed and windy day in Sacramento, California.
Dozens of people with various disabilities came down to the Lake Washington Sailing Club to experience the weightlessness of the water.
They used boats that were specifically designed not to tip over, and special rigging for the sails was on hand for those with hands to take control of their surroundings in a unique and new way.
The event was put on by the Challenged Athletes Foundation (CAF), which ensured every participant was accompanied by a sailing pro.
“We have people that sail with no upper arm or leg movement sail with a control, motor control like a wheelchair, that they hook onto their chin,” Jim Tweet, a member of the sailing club who partook in the day’s events.
A polio survivor named Diane Ngo was one of over a dozen who experienced sailing for the first time.
Her attitude was straightforward: bring it on.
“Anything that challenges me to go beyond my comfort zone is why I’m here,” Ngo told CBS News Sacramento. She found that just being on the water and feeling the ability to move around was “exciting.”
Infographic by Linlin Zhao, University of California Riverside
Infographic by Linlin Zhao, University of California Riverside
A new chemical probe protects healthy cells from DNA damage, preserving them from one of the 8 hallmarks of aging.
The story of this potentially paradigmatic development begins where so much of human health begins: the mitochondria. These organelles are disrespectfully monikered as “the powerhouses” of the cell, but they do so much more than just provide cellular energy.
It’s so important, it even has its own DNA. Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is separate from the DNA housed in a cell’s nucleus. While nuclear DNA contains the vast majority of the genetic code, mitochondria carry their own smaller genomes that are essential for cellular functions.
MtDNA exists in multiple copies per cell, but when damage occurs these copies are often degraded rather than repaired. If left unchecked, this degradation can set off a cascade of failures linked to heart conditions, neurodegeneration, and chronic inflammation.
Published in the German Chemical Society journal Angewandte Chemie International Edition, researchers at UC Riverside developed a chemical probe that binds to damaged sites in mitochondrial DNA and blocks the enzymatic processes that lead to its degradation.
“There are already pathways in cells that attempt repair,” said Linlin Zhao, UCR associate professor of chemistry, who led the project. “But degradation happens more frequently than repair due to the redundancy of mtDNA molecules in mitochondria. Our strategy is to stop the loss before it becomes a problem.”
The new molecule includes two key components: one that recognizes and attaches to damaged DNA, and another that ensures it is delivered specifically to mitochondria, leaving nuclear DNA unaffected.
In lab tests as well as studies using living cells, the probe significantly reduced mtDNA loss after lab-induced damage mimicking exposure to toxic chemicals such as nitrosamines, which are common environmental pollutants found in processed foods, water, and cigarette smoke.
In cells treated with the probe molecule, mtDNA levels remained higher, which could be critical for maintaining energy production in vulnerable tissues such as the heart and brain.
Mitochondrial DNA loss is increasingly linked to a range of diseases, from multi-organ mitochondrial depletion syndromes to chronic inflammatory conditions such as diabetes, Alzheimer’s, arthritis, and inflammatory bowel disease. When mtDNA fragments escape from mitochondria into the rest of the cell, they can act as distress signals that activate immune responses.
“If we can retain the DNA inside the mitochondria, we might be able to prevent those downstream signals that cause inflammation,” Zhao said.
Importantly, the researchers found that the protected DNA remained functional, despite being chemically tagged.
“We thought adding a bulky chemical might prevent the DNA from working properly,” Zhao said. “But to our surprise, it was still able to support transcription, the process cells use to turn DNA into RNA, and then into proteins. That opens the door for therapeutic applications.”
The Hallmarks of Aging – credit Rebelo-Marques et al, Frontiers, CC 4.0. BY-SA
The project builds on more than two years of research into the cellular mechanisms that govern mtDNA processing. While additional studies are needed to explore clinical potential, the new molecule represents a paradigm shift.
Indeed, DNA damage makes up two of the 8 hallmarks of aging first outlined in a landmark paper in 2013, which also includes mitochondrial dysfunction as an antagonistic hallmark, i.e. a result of DNA damage.
“This is a chemical approach to prevention, not just repair,” Zhao said. “It’s a new way of thinking about how to defend the genome under stress.”
TELL Your Friends About This Potential Paradigm Shift In Anti-Aging Technology…
New ways to molecularly tamper with wood has led to a bulletproof, fire resistant, lightweight material that could replace steel, concrete, and carbon fiber.
Appropriately dubbed “Superwood,” the applications seem to be limited only to imagination, and may hold up a high-rise just as sure as it might make better tennis rackets.
In 2018, the Wall Street Journal reports, a pioneering materials engineer found a way to take wood scraps that were no longer useable and treat them with heat and chemicals to alter their molecular makeup.
The boards could then be compressed to the point where the pressure collapses the channels between the lignan that serve as the tree’s circulatory system. This process could take a standard board and render it one-quarter the thickness whilst retaining the increased strength from the treatment process.
Sold now by InventWood, a firm that amassed $50 million in startup money from a mixture of Dept. of Energy grants and private financing, Chief Executive Alex Lau believes it could replace steel I-beams in houses or even the exterior of a laptop computer—all depending on what machines are available to work the Superwood.
During a fire, the wood doesn’t sag like steel does at comparable temperatures, nor does it truly burn; the outside carbonizes into an airtight layer before the interior layers of wood feel the heat.
credit – InventWood
Christopher Mims, reporting at WSJ, says that in his hands the Superwood felt like an “otherworldly object,” due to its combination of lightness and the incredible strength and resistance to lateral force.
GNN has reported before on alternative preparations of wood before, mostly of cross-laminated timber or CLT, also known as “mass timber.” CLT is made by gluing exceptionally thin boards of wood together before heat-pressing them, resulting in properties similar to Superwood.
CLT has been used to build the hilariously-named “plyscrapers,” of Scandinava, as well as a new $2 billion Portland Oregon airport terminal.
The difference maker in Superwood is its light weight and flexibility in addition to tensile strength and fire-resistance similar to CLT.
Today, InventWood is bringing Superwood to market with a 90,000-square-foot manufacturing facility. Its initial offerings will be home sidings, which require minimal certifications, but will hopefully be available in many more products in the not-too-distant future.
It’s A Board, It’s Been Planed, No, It’s Superwood. Let Your Friends Know…
A beached minke whale survived 6 hours on shore to make it back to the water thanks to a helping hand from the locals, according to a report from Alaska.
In the town of Seldovia, on Kachemak Bay, a 15-foot minke whale was beached on the rocks at low tide, believed to be an incidence of poisoning by an algal bloom that could have killed it in just 20 minutes.
Seldovia Village Tribe responded to an Alaska SeaLife Center advisory about the incident, the location of which the center asked to be kept secret. They dispatched their environmental coordinator.
Stephen Payton’s job description includes rescuing beached whales, but this was his first encounter in a 10-year career with a live one.
“I just went out as fast as I could, not really knowing what to expect, and it’s a long ways out there down MacDonald Spit,” he said. “So luckily, one of the locals that was responding was able to pick me up on a four wheeler and drive me.”
When he arrived, a group of about 15 locals had formed a bucket line, pouring seawater onto the whale’s soft underbelly, which along with being substantially scratched up by the rocks, could have become damaged in the Sun’s rays.
The locals had also wrapped wet beach towels around it while they waited to come up with a plan on how to rescue it. Minke whales are the world’s second smallest baleen wheel, meaning, like humpbacks and blue whales, they eat krill using a special filtering organ in their throat. Even still, at 15 feet long, it would have weighed at least 3 tons.
The beast was thrashing around from time to time, and no one felt comfortable trying to manhandle it. But luckily as the tide came back in, it freed the whale which was reported in the area for days afterwards swimming and spouting.
Typically, a minke whale can drown in between 10 and 20 minutes on shore. The way the animal was oriented on the beach, lying on its side with its blowhole facing the sea, was very dangerous. The selfless work from the locals allowed that 20 minutes to become 6 hours, when the tide’s eventual arrival allowed the whale to right itself.
“We are grateful for the calm presence and respect shown by those nearby during this time,” Seldovia Tribe wrote on Facebook. “Moments like these remind us of the powerful connection between our community and the natural world around us.”
SHARE This Human-To-Sealife Compassion With Your Friends On Social Media…
