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Zookeeper Becomes Surrogate Parent to Two Baby Gorillas Rejected by Mothers After Pregnancy Complications

By
Andy Corbley
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Alan Toyne and one of his baby gorillas - credit SWNS
Alan Toyne and one of his baby gorillas – credit SWNS

Like any good foster parent, Alan Toyne shared everything with the babies he was responsible for rearing—his bed, his dining table, his life.

And if you paid him a visit in his Bristol home during a seven-month period in 2016, you’d be impressed with his dedication to ensuring those babies learned how to climb, swing, grunt, and beat their chest—since they were a pair of lowland gorillas.

Toyne had been working for 10 years working as a zookeeper at the Bristol Zoo when he became part of the first team in the UK to hand-rear baby gorillas by working to replicate as much natural behavior as possible.

The surrogacy was necessary because Kera, one of 7 lowland gorillas at Bristol Zoo, developed pre-eclampsia, a birth complication that also occurs in humans, and her baby, later named Afia, was born 4 weeks early through an emergency C-section and rejected.

“We were the first team to use the surrogacy method of hand-rearing gorillas,” Toyne explains to the British media outlet SWNS, “other gorillas were hand-reared in the UK, but weren’t introduced to adult gorillas until they were four years old.”

The team leader of 6, Toyne, who had worked in the finance department of an engineering firm before joining a volunteer zookeeper program at Bristol Zoo in 2006, described the process as “an amazing experience.”

“I still remember the first day bringing Afia back to my home in her car seat and putting her asleep on table,” Toyne said. “My partner, Sharon, was like ‘oh my goodness’, and fell in love with her straight away.”

Unlike the other hand-rearing methods Toyne mentioned, he and his team brought Afia up side by side with the other gorillas to ensure they grew up “proper.”

“The first thing the gorillas had to learn how to do is cling onto their mothers—so we would wear these string vests,” to replicate gorilla fur, he explained. “It was all about training her how to be a proper gorilla, so you had to replicate all of the necessary factors.”

“During the day she would spend time with the gorillas, and if they came over to interact with Afia we would make sure they could—it was important to make them think she was part of the troop, as we always knew she would return to them.”

Toyne looked after both Afia and Hasani, who was also rejected by his mother after she stopped feeding him four weeks in, for around 7 months each.

The zookeeper recently wrote a memoir illustrating his unique journey with the fascinating primates in his audiobook, brilliantly-titled Gorillas in Our Midst.

“When I first brought Afia home—gorillas all eat at the same time—so when we had our tea, we’d all eat together, having our dinner with a gorilla at the table,” Toyne told SWNS, beginning to recall all the bizarreries of living with a gorilla in the house.

“If Afia wanted to wake me up to play she would slap me on the head like a bongo drum but with Sharon, Afia would gently stroke her face.”

“Like human babies, they don’t remember sitting in a car seat: they think of themselves as gorillas.”

FOSTER PARENTS OF ALL STRIPES: Crow Believes He’s a Rabbit After Being Fostered With Broken Leg by Couple With Five Bunnies

Alan admitted it was emotional to say goodbye to the baby gorillas at first, but he was overjoyed their hand-rearing experiences had been positive and successful.

Kera, Afia’s mom, had been reared in captivity 20 years ago, and experienced the problems that led to a re-examination of how best to hand-rear gorillas.

“Back then, if a baby gorilla needed rearing, they would go into a crèche all together, which spurs on their development and play behaviors; but the downside is they don’t understand gorilla social behavior. This meant Kera never fitted in, and was isolated,” Toyne said.

A SIMILAR LIFE STORY: Doctors Called in for Rare Emergency C-Section on Gorilla in the Zoo–and the Baby Pics Are Incredible

“The method we were using was to get the babies in with a surrogate to pick up natural gorilla behavior, then they would fit in normally and be ‘a normal gorilla.’”

After seven months, a surrogate mother took care of raising him socially, while the zoo team continued to bottle-feed Afia and Hasani for three years.

SHARE This Man’s Wild And Unforgettable Experience With Your Friends… 

“If you can’t feed a hundred people, then feed just one.” – Mother Teresa

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By CHUTTERSNAP (cropped)

Quote of the Day: “If you can’t feed a hundred people, then feed just one.” – Mother Teresa

Photo by: CHUTTERSNAP

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?

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Good News in History, May 9

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Good News Network
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Treaty of Windsor, held in the Portuguese National Archives.

639 years ago today, the Treaty of Windsor, the world’s oldest international accord still in force, was signed between Great Britain and Portugal. It was signed and sealed by King Richard II of England and King John I of Portugal to cement commercial ties and mutual defense. Subjects of one king had the rights, under the treaty, to relocate to the kingdom of the other king without special procedure, and it also gave the right of both countries to trade on the terms enjoyed by the subjects of that country, rather than their monarchs. READ more… (1386)

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School Kids Help Ensure Mountain Pygmy Possum Population Bounces Back in Australian Alps

By
Andy Corbley
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A mountain pygmy possum - credit, supplied by the New South Wales government
A mountain pygmy possum – credit, supplied by the New South Wales government

As other endangered Australian wildlife, the mountain pygmy possum has recovered to its pre-wildfire population in the Snowy Mountains.

While conservationists are to be applauded for the turn around, they maybe aren’t the experts you’d expect to be managing such a delicate species, but rather groups of students from the local schools.

Home for this miniscule species is a mountain range in Australia’s New South Wales state, and in the Victorian Alps in the country’s northeast. The adults weigh just 40 grams, and are the only species on the continent that will hibernate under snow.

Following the 2017 drought and the 2020 Australian bushfires which touched Kosciuszko National Park in the far south of the state, the numbers of this endangered arboreal marsupial fell to as low as 700, but after several years of emergency snack delivery, they have rebounded dramatically to almost 1,000.

Linda Broome, a threatened species officer with the NSW Environment Department, described the animal as “very endearing,” and told ABC News AU that the population had recovered to “normal” levels.

“They’re alpine specialists and there’s so little alpine country in Australia that they’re very unique,” said Dr. Broome. “They’re cute, they’re very endearing.”

Even more than the bushfires, it was the 2017 drought that sent their population into free fall. One of their main staples is the larva of the Bogong moth, which was significantly diminished by the lack of moisture.

MORE ANIMALS LIKE THIS: Recovery of Endangered Marsupials is Utterly ‘Extraordinary’– Population Up 45% Since Australian Bushfires

But students at the local NSW schools in the Snowy Mountains towns of Berridale, Jindabyne, Cooma, and Adaminaby, intervened by making “Bogong Biscuits,” a mixture of macadamias, mealworm, and various oils that replicated the fat content in the moth larvae.

“We fed them for two years, until the vegetation recovered,” said Dr. Broome. “If we hadn’t fed the possums, they would have dropped down to 500.”

SHARE This Cute Little Possum And Its Cute Protectors With Your Friends… 

Raising a Glass to the Bronze Age Vintners Who Domesticated the Grape 3,200 Years Ago

By
Andy Corbley
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Getty Images for Unsplash +
Getty Images for Unsplash +

A new study examining 7,000 years of human consumption of grapes found that the domestication of the fruit occurred gradually rather than suddenly, and that wild varieties continued to be used for wine making long after domesticated species emerged.

The data leaves one to with little else to conclude than that vinting in Italy got better with age.

Italian wine is sold and prized around the world, and the consumption of grapes on the peninsula and its related islands goes back millennia. A team of researchers from Italy and France looked at over 1,700 grape seeds from institutional collections to examine trends in domestication over the years.

The results offer valuable insight into the ancient practice of vinting, and tell the tale of a gradual transition from wild to domesticated types over millennia.

“It was believed that it was the Phoenicians and later the Romans who spread domesticated grapes in Italy, while our study showed that domesticated grapes were already present in Sardinia around 3,000 years ago,” study co-author and archaeobotanist Mariano Ucchesu told Popular Science.

“This discovery led me to further investigate the phenomenon; I wanted to understand whether the case of Sardinia was an isolated one or if there were similar cases elsewhere in continental Italy.”

The authors write in their study that grape seeds from Early Bronze Age sites (2050 – 1850 BCE) display the same characteristics from the Early Neolithic period, that is to say, all wild-type.

The Middle Bronze Age sites (1600 – 1300 BCE) continue to exhibit a predominance of wild grape pips, but a notable transition occurs at the end of that period when grape seeds classified as domestic begin to be found in the majority in archaeological sites, indicating a definitive establishment of cultivation practices and selection of domestic grapes by these communities.

The study found the earliest cultivation evidence in Italy’s Campagna region, and Sardinia.

While domesticated varieties began to be found in large numbers from 1100 BCE onward into the Roman era, the seeds of wild grapes underwent their own remarkable transformations beginning as far back as the sixth millennium BCE, showing how important even wild grapevine was for Neolithic Italians.

LISTEN: Making Wine the Way the Romans Did: These Wineries are Cutting The Additives

After the Roman period saw wide-scale cultivation of grape vine and winemaking, the surprises didn’t stop.

“During the Roman period… some sites exhibited a high presence of domestic grape pips and intermediate forms between wild and domestic morphotypes, suggesting introgression between local wild and domestic grape allowing the formation of new varieties,” the authors wrote in their abstract.

MORE RED AND WHITE STORIES: Tuscany’s New Airport Terminal Will Have a Vineyard on the Roof, Obviously

In other words, blending—a signature technique in modern vinting which has produced some of the most famous wine names in the world—Bordeaux, Chianti, Champagne, Valpolicella, Amarone, Rijoa, and Côtes du Rhône.

Ucchesu concluded with Pop-Sci, saying he invites readers to imagine that, “with each sip of fine wine, we are tasting the echoes of a thousand-year journey, a story woven through time to arrive at our palate.”

SHARE A Sip Of The History Of Wine Making With Your Friends… 

Sotheby’s Auction of Sacred Gemstones Found Next to Buddha’s Ashes is Halted as India Intervenes

By
Andy Corbley
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The gem relics of the Buddha - credit, Sotheby's
The gem relics of the Buddha – credit: Sotheby’s

Sotheby’s has halted their planned auction of a cache of gemstones that were found alongside the Buddha’s ashes and bone fragments after a formal complaint was raised by the Indian government.

Known as the Buddha’s “gem relics,” those that were up for sale were a portion of the original archaeological discovery of 1,800 stones found in a large sarcophagus-like chamber under one of Buddha’s 8 relic stupas, which are round buildings built upon the sites.

Large portions of the discovery, made by a British colonial engineer William Claxton Peppé in a town in Uttar Pradesh called Piprawha, were distributed at the time to a museum in Kolkata, while the bone and ash fragments were sent via Hong Kong as gifts to the king of Siam, and interred in stupas across Southeast Asia. Approximately one-fifth of the gem relics were retained by Peppé.

“Nothing of comparable importance in early Buddhism has ever appeared at auction,” Sotheby’s had earlier said on its website, adding they held “unparalleled religious, archaeological and historical importance.”

The web page dedicated to the sale has since been taken down, CNN reported after covering the news on May 6th that the gem relics were set for the hammer.

“In a legal notice dated May 5th and addressed to Ivy Wong, associate general counsel of Sotheby’s Hong Kong, the Indian Ministry of Culture called for the relics to be withdrawn from the auction because the sale would violate Indian and international laws as well as United Nations conventions,” South China Morning Post reported from Hong Kong where Sotheby’s is located.

The gems “constitute inalienable religious and cultural heritage of India and the global Buddhist community,” the notice read.

The gem relics of the Buddha – credit, Sotheby’s

The World-Honored One

Prince Siddhārtha Gautama of the Shakya clan was born in Lumbini, Nepal, just 20 miles from the border of the Indian state of Bihar. He would later become Buddha in India, and spend his whole life preaching and eventually passing away there.

During the time of Peppé, there would have been virtually no Buddhist presence in India to speak of, and even today Buddhists make up a tiny fragment of the overall religious population of the country. Yet after independence it was a Lay Buddhist, Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar, who authored the Indian constitution, and his influence sparked something of a Buddhist revival in the country.

Today, as territorial custodians of virtually all sites connected to the Buddha’s life, India takes its responsibilities to global Buddhism seriously.

India’s foreign ministry said that the Peppé family had no right to sell the gem relics, since they were taken as a form of colonial plunder.

“In light of the matters raised by the Government of India and with the agreement of the consignors, the auction of the Piprahwa Gems of the Historical Buddha, scheduled for May 7, has been postponed. This will allow for discussions between the parties, and we look forward to sharing any updates as appropriate,” the auction house said in its announcement.

When Peppé excavated at Piprahwa, he found the remains of an ancient Buddhist stupa, under which lay a huge sandstone sarcophagus-like chamber. Inside lay five vessels containing the gem relics and ashes with bone fragments. An urn bore an inscription that read “relics of the Buddha, the August One,” in ancient Pali.

Imagining the bones of Jesus gives one a sense of the religious significance and value of this discovery—and it is one of several burials related to the Buddha’s relics. At the ancient site of Vaishali, in Bihar, another of these relic stupas was discovered, containing a green sandstone urn filled with ashy substance. The Pali Canon—the primary historical account written after the Buddha’s life, describes there being 8 of these stupas, each raised at places that had offered patronage to the Buddha’s mission.

MORE INDIAN NEWS: Indian Governor Offers $1 Million to Anyone Who Can Decipher This 5,300-year-old Writing System

This urn was later buried beneath a modern stupa in Buddha Memorial Park in the capital city of Bihar.

In a statement provided to CNN before the close of the auction, Chris Peppé, William’s descendant, explained that it has always been his family’s intention to find an appropriate way to get the gem relics into the possession of a Buddhist nation or community. They have routinely toured the world in museums, with Chris allegedly hoping they would attract the attention of an institution that would allow them to be owned in trust for a Buddhist public.

ANCIENT AUCTIONS: 6 Saplings of Dinosaur-Era Tree Species Being Auctioned to Spread the Pines Around Australia

“Despite exhibitions in major museums including the Met, there has been relatively little interest from the public (including Buddhists) in the gems. Choosing temples and museums for donation all presented different problems on closer scrutiny,” he said.

“The auction seems to have finally brought the gems into the spotlight and may present the fairest and most transparent way to transfer this small part of the original find to Buddhists.”

SHARE This Wild Story Of Religious Significance, And Sotheby’s Doing The Right Thing…

This Rarely-Trained Muscle Is Recognized Worldwide as a Marker of Human Health–And the Test for Living to 100

By
Andy Corbley
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Mika Baumeister (left) and Giulia Squillace (right) via Unsplahs +
Mika Baumeister (left) and Giulia Squillace (right) via Unsplash +

If the man on the street had to guess the best metric for healthy aging, they might say blood pressure, cholesterol levels, lean muscle mass, blood triglycerides, or even telomere length if they follow aging science closely.

But it turns out that one of the best is grip strength. This relatively underdeveloped area of conditioning is increasingly recognized as one of the most reliable markers of human health, according to Joshua Davis at the University of Derby, UK.

Grip strength is associated with positive health outcomes, whether measuring for diabetes risk or depression, and you don’t need any expensive equipment to measure it. Davis recommends you simply pop the top off a can of tennis balls.

“Being able to maintain a maximal squeeze on something like a tennis ball for 15-30 seconds would be a good standard to strive for,” Davis told the BBC.

It’s not necessarily the case that being the one in the house whose hands are the most capable of opening a stubborn pickle jar means you’ll live the longest, rather it’s the case that grip strength is an efficient proxy for total muscle conditioning, which is itself a great proxy for overall nutrition, physical activity, and disease profiles. In other words, it’s a proxy for a proxy.

For example, the BBC report cites one study that found grip strength to be an effective predictor of sarcopenia, the decline in muscle conditioning associated with aging that’s strongly correlated with mortality. The correlation can be seen in another study which found that of those in middle age who had their grip strength measured in 1965, the ones which lived to be 100 were 2.5 times more likely to have had grip strength results in the highest third.

The prognostic value of grip strength for human longevity was found in yet another paper to exceed blood pressure—one of the vital signs controlled for in any patient that visits a hospital.

It’s almost certainly not the case that developing grip strength alone will protect against disease and early mortality; as mentioned above, it’s a proxy for overall muscle conditioning.

STRENGTH AND CONDITIONING: When Your Muscles Work Out, They Help Neurons Grow and Heal 4x Faster, MIT Study Shows

There’s an old saying in medicine: “Break your hip, die of pneumonia.”

Muscle mass is one of the best defenses against the ravages of age. It cushions the joints and bones and provides protection from falls and the subsequent fractures that gave rise to this ghastly adage. It also soaks up excess glucose in the blood to reduce the risk of developing type-2 diabetes or insulin resistance.

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The BBC also spoke with Mark Peterson, a physical medicine and rehabilitation professor at the University of Michigan, who ran a 2022 study which found that deep down in our DNA, patterns of methylated molecules in those who had weak grip strength indicated they were aging at an accelerated rate.

If you don’t happen to have a grip dynamometer on hand to measure exactly how much force your handshake can doll out, you can always perform the tennis ball test.

SHARE This Surprise Measure Of Health And Fitness With Your Friends… 

“For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.” – H. L. Mencken

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Good News Network
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Quote of the Day: “For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.” – H. L. Mencken

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?

Good News in History, May 8

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Good News Network
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Happy 99th Birthday to Sir David Attenborough, the legendary naturalist, broadcaster and producer who created and wrote the influential documentaries Life on Earth (in 13 parts) and The Life of Birds, among many others. After studying Natural Sciences at Cambridge University, he launched his famous Zoo Quest BBC series in 1954. Life on Earth in 1979 led to The Living Planet (1984), The Trials of Life (1990), a celebration of Antarctica called Life in the Freezer (1993), and 1995’s epic The Private Life of Plants (1995). His services to television were recognized in 1985, when he was knighted as Sir David Attenborough. He is set to narrate one last documentary, which he says will be the most important of his career. READ his recent quotes about his new documentary releasing today and WATCH a trailer… (1926)

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Exceptionally Well-Preserved Remains of a 5,000-Year-Old Woman from Elite Coastal Culture Found in Peru

By
Andy Corbley
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- credit, Ministry of Culture, released
– credit, Ministry of Culture, released

A team of archaeologists has found the burial of an elite woman in Áspero, an ancient fishing city of the Caral civilization (3000-1800 BCE) located in the province of Barranca, near Lima.

She was between 20 and 35 years old when she died, and was entombed inside the building known as the Huaca de los Ídolos, one of three that sit atop a raised mound at the heart of the settlement.

The team was led by Ruth Shady Solís, who works for the Ministry of Culture in the permanent archaeological presence at the site. The woman offers a striking glimpse into the nature and customs of this pre-ceramic society.

When people think of the Pre-Colombian American civilizations, three names come to mind invariably: Aztec, Inca, and Maya. In full fact, the continents, both north and south, boast a number of others whose accomplishments, if less preserved or propagated by modern literature, were incredible.

To name a few, there are the Mississippians, the Olmec, and the Caral-Supe Civilization of Peru which despite being of such antiquity as to predate even pottery, produced incredible architectural works spanning dozens of acres using quarried stone and river cobbles.

The Caral-Supe, to which the buried woman belonged, are recognized as one of 6 societies that originated human civilization independent of contact with another, already civilized society.

According to a statement from the Ministry of Culture of Peru, the woman was buried with objects that suggest an elite status. The body was wrapped in various materials, such as cotton fabrics, reed mats, and a panel embroidered with macaw feathers, delicately arranged in a net, and one of the oldest examples of feather art in the Andes.

On top of her head they placed a headdress of fibers with bundles of wound threads which was preserved along with her hair and skin, offering the archaeologists the outline and ornament of a face not seen for 4,500 years.

This discovery joins other elite burials in Áspero: the “Lady of the Four Tupus” found in 2016 and located 3 meters to the north, and the “Elite Male” found between the women in 2019.

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Due to their stratigraphic location, they would all correspond to the same period of occupation, and their grouping is similar to the later burials of nobles that were documented in the settlement of La Galgada, in Tablachaca, Ancash.

At the bottom of the burial, four reed baskets were filled with 30 sweet potatoes, weaving tools including an inlaid needle, and a selection of animal remains from the Amazon Basin’s creatures, such as a shell from an Amazonian snail and the beak of a toucan inlaid with green and brown beads.

ANCIENT AMERICAN HISTORY: Circular Stone Plaza Moves Up Start of Stone Age Construction in the Andes on Par with Stonehenge

With some items originating from the Amazon and others from the highlands, it suggests exchange networks maintained by the Caral-Supe with other regions.

The Áspero settlement, located 700 meters from the Pacific Ocean, is made up of 22 architectural complexes stretching more than 30 acres. It is recognized as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.

SHARE This Incredible Discovery With Your Friends Who Love Amerindian Civilization… 

‘Starquakes’ Inside Universe’s Densest Objects May Have Seeded Earth with Large Amounts of Gold

By
Andy Corbley
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This artist's concept depicts a magnetar releasing material into space. The magnetic field lines, shown in green, influence the movement of charged material around the magnetar - credit, NASA/JPL-Caltech
This artist’s concept depicts a magnetar releasing material into space. The magnetic field lines, shown in green, influence the movement of charged material around the magnetar – credit, NASA/JPL-Caltech

It’s long been suspected to the point of certainty that heavier elements like gold are created inside supernovae, and that over the billions of years Earth has existed, the dust from these explosions swept much of the periodic table onto it.

But a new hypothesis has been developed that may describe another way that the universe put the Au in Australia.

Out in the cosmos there are objects known as neutron stars, or pulsars, which are the unfathomably dense (one teaspoon of their material would weigh one-billion tons on Earth) remnants of exploded stars.

Fascinating objects, pulsars spin at incredibly fast speeds and release constant streams of clear radio waves that have been used as a method for interstellar coordinate calculation. Some pulsars carry magnetic fields one trillion times more powerful than Earth’s, and are called magnetars because of it.

It’s these that Anirudh Patel, lead author of a new study published Tuesday in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, believes could be the another producer of gold in the universe.

“It very cool to think about how some of the stuff in my phone or my laptop was forged in this extreme explosion (over) the course of our galaxy’s history,” Patel told CNN.

Just like on Earth, magnetars sometimes experience instability—so-called “starquakes.”

“Neutron stars have a crust and a superfluid core,” study coauthor Eric Burns, assistant professor and astrophysicist at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, told CNN in an email.

“On magnetars these starquakes produce very short bursts of X-rays. Just like on Earth, you have periods where a given star is particularly active, producing hundreds or thousands of flares in a few weeks. And similarly, every once in a while, a particularly powerful quake occurs.”

It’s supposed by some of Patel’s coauthors, including his PhD advisor Professor Brian Metzger that during these powerful starquakes, ejections of the neutron star crust occur, and would be a prime candidate for heavier elements like gold, uranium, and iron.

Magnetars are also believed to have formed very early on in the history of the universe, perhaps as early as 200 million years after the Big Bang. Evidence of heavy element creation was theorized by Patel and Burns to be identifiable in gamma ray radiation from a large magnetar ejection.

HOW DIAMONDS ARE FORMED: Huge Black Diamond Sold for $4.3 Million–and No One Knows Where it Came From or How it Was Formed

Burns looked at previously gathered data of a giant starquake from a magnetar from 2004, captured by the now-retired International Gamma-Ray Astrophysics Laboratory mission. Back then, astronomers collected and isolated the signal of a gamma ray, but didn’t know how to interpret the data.

That gamma ray’s characteristics matched predictions in Professor Metzger’s previous work on what the creation and distribution of heavy elements would look like in a giant magnetar flare.

INTERSTELLAR WEALTH: Mercury Could Have A Layer of Diamonds 11 Miles Thick Beneath the Surface

The researchers believe that big starquake ejections could be responsible for up to 10% of elements heavier than iron in the Milky Way galaxy.

It’s enough to change one’s perspective of the ring around their left-hand finger, for example—that not only will it never corrode and always be able to be smelted back into pure gold, but it was created to be such a unique treasure via the seismic perturbations on the densest objects in the universe.

SHARE This Interstellar Story With Your Friends On Love Science… 

How a Gift from Pope Francis Inspired a Restaurant Owner to Feed the Hungry for Years

By
Andy Corbley
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Bruno Serato (right, in black) showing Pope Francis his charity work - credit, Bruno Serato, supplied
Bruno Serato (right, in black) showing Pope Francis his charity work – credit, Bruno Serato, supplied

When firefighters pulled a silver crucifix from the ashes of Bruno Serato’s burned out California restaurant, he took it as a sign from god: though he lost so much, he needed to keep faith in the lord and keep going.

Since that day, one of Anaheim’s most beloved Italian imports has opened the doors to a new location, as well as the doors of his heart, feeding the city’s wealthy during the evening so he can feed the city’s poor during the day.

CBS News’ Steve Hartman brings the story of how a gift from Pope Francis transformed the life of Chef Serato, and how his revolutionary papacy continues to inspire him even after the Pope’s passing.

Chef Serato was named a CNN Hero in 2011 for his work in feeding underprivileged children. His charity, Caterina’s Club, founded in 2005, now serves free dinners to over 5,000 children daily in Orange and LA counties. Every meal served at Serato’s private dinning and ballroom—the swanky Anaheim White House—helps serve a pasta meal to a child.

The charity always has something going on, and it won Serato the Ellis Island Heroes award for his service to his adopted country, arriving with zero English skills and just $200 in his pocket.

This year in October, the charity will celebrate its 20th anniversary—a perfect occasion for looking back at accomplishments made, challenges overcome, and moments to cherish.

FEEDING THE HUNGRY: GNN Readers Donate 20,000 Meals to Hungry Kids in Partnership With Nutrition Company

“I was like, ‘No way!'” Serato told CBS News, remembering the moment the firefighter handed him the crucifix—a gift from Pope Francis, whom he met four times. “This is a sign, a sign of god for sure, no doubt about it.”

On the last occasion that he met the pontiff, Francis, looking at a small book of Serato’s work, told him “Bravo, bravo, continua cosi,” which means “continue like this.”

MORE IMMIGRANT STORIES: Run by Grandmothers, a Staten Island Restaurant Highlights Homecooking from Around the World

Serato told Hartman he took that as both command and confirmation, and that he’s doing more than he’s ever done in his whole career to help those in need: a fitting tribute to Francis, who took the name of Saint Francis of Assisi, famous for helping the poor.

“I have to keep doing what I’m doing, if I don’t he come down!”

WATCH Chef Serato’s life story below from Steve Hartman’s On the Road… 

SHARE This Man’s Mission From God And Francis With Your Friends…

Beach Litter Falls by 30-45% Across European Beaches Since 2015 Report Shows

By
Andy Corbley
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Getty Images for Unsplash +
Infographic via the JCR at the European Commission

Litter on European beaches from the Baltic to the Aegean is falling, according to a new report.

If you’ve ever rented in Europe, or you’re a European and you live there, there’s a good chance you’ve had to comply with the strict waste control standards that require you to separate trash into several categories.

If that’s the case, and if it’s a pain in the neck sometimes, well crack a smile, because the hard work is paying off in one of the best, perfectly-tangible ways: how much trash is on European beaches.

In its latest EU Coastline Macro Litter Trend report, the Joint Research Center of the European Union has found that between 2015 and 2021 total beach litter has fallen 30%, with the biggest reductions seen in single-use plastic items (40%). The density was measured in pieces per 100 meters.

Fisheries-related items decreased by 20% as were plastic bags. The beaches that improved the most were concentrated around the Baltic Sea (45%) while the despite the enormity of the Mediterranean, it too experienced a dramatic decline (38%).

The report gathered data on macro marine litter trends across 253 beaches, and was pursuant to tracking the EU Zero Pollution Action Plan’s Target 5a, which aims to reduce plastic litter at sea by 50% by 2030.

LITTER DISAPPEARING ELSEWHERE TOO: 

That target would be well on the way to being met, if the report is accurate. Mediterranean beaches are subject to some of the highest densities of beach goers anywhere in the world, and for the improvement to be so dramatic, with 150 fewer pieces of litter found on average across every 100 meters of sand or stones, is a testament to more than just tight regulations.

SHARE This Great Success In De-Cluttering Europe’s Beautiful Beaches… 

“We are afraid to care too much, for fear that the other person does not care at all.” – Eleanor Roosevelt

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Good News Network
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Quote of the Day: “We are afraid to care too much, for fear that the other person does not care at all.” – Eleanor Roosevelt

Photo by: Jayson Hinrichsen 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?

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Good News in History, May 7

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Good News Network
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79 years ago today, the innovative electronics company, Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering, co-founded by Akio Morita and Masaru Ibuka, first began operations. With 20 employees, and later taking the name Sony, they built Japan’s first tape recorder. In 1955, Sony’s transistor radio cracked open the US market, launching the new industry of consumer microelectronics–with teens being the biggest users. READ more about this remarkable company’s journey… (1946)

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In German Breakthrough Quantum Communications Sent Across the Nation Using Existing Telecom Infrastructure

By
Andy Corbley
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An illustration of the quantum network used in the study - credit, Toshiba Europe Ltd. via Mirko Pittaluga et al. (Nature)
An illustration of the quantum network used in the study – credit, Toshiba Europe Ltd. via Mirko Pittaluga et al. (Nature)

For the first time ever, scientists have demonstrated that it’s possible to send quantum communications using existing commercial telecommunication infrastructure.

Sent across 150 miles of commercial fiber optic lines in Germany, including through three telecom data centers in Frankfurt, Kehl, and Kirchfeld, the demonstration set a new record distance for real-world and practical quantum key distribution.

The demonstration, reported in a paper in Nature back in April, suggests that quantum communications can be achieved in real-world conditions, and without spending untold billions to revolutionize telecom infrastructure.

With all the buzz, potential, and disagreement found in the next wave of advanced technologies—comparable perhaps with AI and nuclear fusion reactors—quantum computing is fast approaching its first deployment challenges.

In the United States, IBM has announced the intention to invest $150 billion over the next five years in quantum computing infrastructure, the company said in April. In his previous administration, President Donald Trump signed the National Quantum Initiative Act, which created five quantum data centers at the US National Laboratories at a cost of $1.2 billion.

In a review from 2024, CNET described the approaching quantum revolution as something akin to a Manhattan Project—a private-public distributed collaboration to create faster internet with unparalleled security.

Distribution on a quantum level of encryption keys is one example of the new paradigm that the quantum computing world would bring. Exploiting the coherence of light waves (their potential to interact predictably) can extend the range of quantum communications, but scalability has been limited by the need for specialized equipment, such as cryogenic coolers.

COMPUTING ADVANCES: Computer Chips Running at Speed of Light Boast Better Performance and Reduced Energy Use

An approach that enables the distribution of quantum information through fiber optic cables, without the need for cryogenic cooling was explored by Mirko Pittaluga and colleagues in their research paper.

Their system uses a coherence-based, twin-field quantum key distribution, which facilitates the distribution of secure information over long distances at 110 bits per second in a star shaped network.

MORE FUTURE TECH: EV Charging Answer: Quantum Technology Will Cut Time it Takes to Charge Electric Cars to Just 9 Seconds

It achieved a repeater-like efficiency of quantum communication in an operational network setting with practical system architecture similar to regular racks in regular data centers, which nevertheless doubled the distance for practical real-world quantum key distribution implementations without cryogenic cooling.

This demonstration indicates that advanced quantum communications protocols that exploit the coherence of light can be made to work over existing telecom infrastructure—a massive savings in time and money that would also enable small-scale experimentation in quantum computing to flourish.

SHARE This Great, Real-World Success In Experimentation…

Giant Mystical Eagle Thought to Be ‘Extinct in Mexico’ Reappears, Marking Landmark Moment for Conservationists

By
Andy Corbley
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Harpy eagle in attack posture - credit Jonathan Wilkins CC BY-SA 3.0 Wikimedia
A harpy eagle in attack posture – credit Jonathan Wilkins, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia

A harpy eagle, Latin America’s largest eagle, and one of the largest in the world, has been sighted in a rainforest in southern Mexico, where it was believed to be locally extinct.

Named for the crone-bird hybrid of Greek mythology, the appearance of this large and majestic raptor is worthy of the association. Adult females are much larger than their male counterparts, weighing up to 40 kilograms (20 lbs), and measuring more than 6 feet from wing tip to wing tip.

Despite a significantly slower and lower birthrate than other eagle species, the harpy eagle numbers in the tens of thousands across South America. In Central America however, they’re virtually extinct.

In Mexico, it’s long been thought that they were, but dedicated wildlife monitors eventually proved otherwise.

A 2011 photograph by a guide from the Siyaj Chan, a group of Indigenous community members who live near the Chiapas-Guatemala border, reignited interest from conservationists that the harpy may still exist in the state, reports Mexico News Daily.

Located in the Lacandon Jungle, a tropical rainforest stretching approximately 1.9 million hectares from southeast Chiapas into northern Guatemala and into the southern Yucatán Peninsula, it’s the only environment the primate-eating eagle can thrive in.

COMING BACK HOME: 

“For many years, the scientific community considered it an extinct species in Mexico,” said Alan Monroy-Ojeda, a conservationist with a PhD in tropical ecology. “Now, we can announce to the world that harpy eagles still exist here.”

If a harpy eagle does still exist in Lacandon, its population cannot be more than a few. Despite being a largely silent bird, it is not an elusive species, and is a common target of visiting birdwatchers even in Central America where it’s rare. Additionally, the females will lay only one egg every two to three years.

Monroy-Ojeda is director of a local organization committed to identifying and advocating for the protection of biodiversity hotspots across Mexico, of which Lacandon certainly is. It is home to 33% of the country’s bird species and 25% of her mammals.

SHARE This Encouraging Sighting With Your Friends On Social Media… 

Editor’s note: this story has been changed to reflect that the harpy eagle is the largest eagle, not bird of prey, in Latin America.

He Was Injured with Crutches When a Group of Scary Teens Offered ‘the Kindness of Strangers’

By
Andy Corbley
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File photo by Quynh Do
File photo by Quynh Do

From the Guardian comes the story of a man who at his most vulnerable received commendable kindness from a source all unlooked to.

Part of the paper’s “Kindness of Strangers” series, the report tells the story of Richard Munoz, who broke his ankle playing basketball and needed corrective surgery which left him on crutches.

Living in an urban environment, a typical day in the life of Mr. Munoz involved a lot of walking beyond the door of his flat, where he says there lay a park routinely occupied by groups of teenagers.

Every day after school, these teenagers would assemble there to smoke cigarettes and make snide remarks at occasional passersby. Munoz never got involved, but the route to the corner store was through that park, and though he could order groceries for delivery to his unit, there were times when certain small things were needed for expediency.

And it was pursuant to one such need that he entered the park on his crutches one day coming home from the corner store with milk only to see the gaggle of teenagers there. Attempting to pass by without rousing them, he heard one call something out to him—the particulars of which Munoz did not catch.

He tried to ignore them, but his pulse quickened as a few stood up and began approaching him.

To his surprise, they came to offer a helping hand with his bags, which he accepted nervously.

“A lot of people were kind to me during that injury experience—and a few weren’t kind at all—but by far the most helpful were those teens,” Munoz wrote.

BREAKING STEREOTYPES: Japanese Woman Offers to Hold New Mother’s Baby so Exhausted Travelers Can Finish Their Meal – (WATCH)

Throughout the rest of his recovery, the park-loiterers were a constant helping hand, taking his garbage out, letting him cut in front of them in line at the store, and regularly asking if he needed a hand with anything.

By the end of the experience, he wrote a letter to the school administrators explaining the good deeds of the teenagers and suggesting they be recognized for their kind efforts, though the author admitted he didn’t know if the letter had been received.

OTHER UPLIFTING STORIES: Boy Stops at Random House to Leave a Pep Talk on Stranger’s Doorbell Cam (Watch)

“I’d been bullied a lot in high school and the experience helped me resolve a lot of the residual wariness I had about groups of teenagers,” wrote Munoz. “It also showed me that we can’t define strangers from the small glimpses we see of them, even if we see them every day. Those teens were more than their stereotype—and I’m grateful for it.”

SHARE This Story Typifying The Kindness Of Strangers… 

Ancient Chinese Astronomer’s Star Log is Found to Be World’s Oldest–Predating Greeks by 200 Years

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Andy Corbley
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A rubbing of the Song Dynasty stone star chart at Suzhou - credit, public domain
A rubbing of the Song Dynasty stone star chart at Suzhou – credit, public domain

Using modern digital rendering of ancient depictions, scientists have presented evidence that a Chinese astronomer created the first star catalogue more than 100 years before the Greeks accomplished the same.

Called the Star Manual of Master Shi, and complied by Shi Shen, it was likely compiled around 335 BCE, making it far older than that composed by Hipparchus of Nicaea.

Consisting of the names and coordinates of 120 stars, Shi’s star manual didn’t include a date of when the record was made. Master Shi used spherical coordinates similar to modern star charts to deign the positions of each star in the firmament, reports South China Morning Post. 

But there’s always been a problem with this method, and it’s called precession. Precession is the phenomenon of the Earth wobbling on its tilted axis, changing the positions of the stars relative to an earthborn viewer. These wobbles are extremely subtle, and precession takes 26,000 years to complete one cycle.

To use precession as a scale in measurements, one needs multiple data points spread out over millennia. Fortunately, the Chinese are a long-lived society, and a team of scientists from the National Astronomical Observatories under the Chinese Academy of Sciences leveraged algorithmic image-rendering techniques to compare Shi’s star manual with star charts made in the subsequent Tang and Yuan dynasties.

This gave a time period of around 1,300 years for the scientists to study. Authors of the analysis, Zhao Yongheng and He Boliang, created an algorithm based on the Hough transform—an image-processing technique primarily used for detecting geometric shapes in images.

ALSO CHECK OUT: Indian Governor Offers $1 Million to Anyone Who Can Decipher This 5,300-year-old Writing System

Placing the positions of the 120 stars in Master Shi’s catalogue and comparing them at 10,000 different moments with added references of the Tang and Yuan star catalogues, the algorithm used precession to place the stars on Master Shi’s manual at around 335 BCE—exactly during the years when Shi Shen lived.

A section of the Dunhuang Star Atlas from the Tang Dynasty – public domain

Further enhancing the success of their experiments, the algorithm technique demonstrated that Shi Shen’s star calculations were updated in the year 125 BCE by the Han Dynasty Grand Astronomer Zhang Heng, who calculated the positions of 2,500 stars and 124 constellations with the help of an armillary sphere, the first in the world, which he invented.

OTHER ANCIENT CHINESE BRILLIANCE: 4,200-Year-Old Ceramic Storm Drains in Ancient Chinese Town Are the Oldest of Their Kind

Zhang led an effort to update Shi’s original work, Zhao and He propose, as positions from 59 of the stars from Zhang’s map could have been recorded during the time of Shi. The hypothesis connects two of ancient China’s most brilliant astronomers and settles any arguments about whether the Greeks or the Chinese first mapped the stars using coordinates.

SHARE This Brilliant And Precise Measuring Of History With Your Friends… 

“Be brave enough to live life creatively. The creative place where no one else has been.” – Alan Alda

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Good News Network
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By Kseniya Lapteva

Quote of the Day: “Be brave enough to live life creatively. The creative place where no one else has been.” – Alan Alda

Photo by: Kseniya Lapteva

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?

By Kseniya Lapteva
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