Volunteers, staff, and contractors removing derelict fencing - credit, American Prairie
Volunteers, staff, and contractors removing derelict fencing – credit, American Prairie
The largest private land conservation project in America passed a milestone of rewilding the Great Plains last year.
The nonprofit American Prairie recently celebrated the new year with a report that it had successfully removed the 100th mile of derelict barbed wire fencing on its land holdings.
All rolled up, the thorny barrier amounted to 500,000 pounds of scrap metal, and with its removal, the prairie’s megafauna are free to move about as their hearts desire.
American Prairie Reserve has for years been buying and leasing land between the Charles M. Russel National Wildlife Refuge and Upper Missouri Breaks National Monument in Montana to create America’s largest assemblage of wild prairie for the purposes of conservation and recreation.
Stitching together grasslands, water features, ranchland, rolling hills, and woodland, the reserve has accumulated 603,657 acres, which comprises 167,070 deeded acres and 436,587 leased public acres. Their goal is ultimately to protect and some cases rewild 2.3 million acres—far harder to achieve for citizens than government lawmakers.
Yet in the over 20 years that American Prairie has been working, they’ve expanded their reserve to such an extent that if it were declared a National Park, it would rank among the nation’s 10 largest across the Lower 48.
The work of removing the derelict fencing is part of returning this patchwork landscape to a semi-wild and in some cases totally wild state. With free-roaming animals like mule deer, elk, and pronghorn, the idea is to completely free them to move about as they please, as if it were the year 8,000 BCE.
But no “Prairie Reserve” could be complete without the bison, and the nonprofit’s bison herd has grown over the last 20 years from just 16 animals to 940 by the end of 2025, roaming across 48,000 acres.
The Anchor ranchland, Montana – credit, American Prairie Reserve, released
In these acres, to comply with state and federal law, the barbed wire fencing has been replaced with wildlife-friendly fencing designed to allow as many species as possible to pass through it while at the same time giving a shock to any itchy bison.
As a species, it’s extremely rare bison ever test a fence, but when shedding their winter coats, they will rub up against the barbed wire and risk damaging the fence. The new electric fences of each property are divided into zones and powered by solar panels. Each zone is 10-12 miles of fence powered by one 150-watt solar panel and a 12-joule charger, and a 12-volt battery that stores backup power used at night and on cloudy days.
Wildlife movement, property boundaries, public property uses, and grazing management all have to be considered when deciding to keep or alter fencing, and that includes the reserve’s vibrant bird life.
One of the design modifications is the addition of fence markers in high traffic bird areas. The American Prairie field team tracks bird-fence collisions and adds markers as needed in collision-prone areas. Research has shown that the markers reduce bird-fence collisions by 70%.
By some estimates, the Great North American Prairie has shrunk by over 90%. American Prairie, which is funded entirely through donations, philanthropy, and the now multiple opportunities for recreation, including stargazing, hunting, and all manner of excursions, aims not to let that number go up so much as 1 percent more, and they’re doing about as good a job as anyone could have ever imagined.
Mudonna the manatee on route to the wild - credit, ZooTampa
Mudonna the manatee on route to the wild – credit, ZooTampa
2025 was a big year for one of Florida’s premier manatee rescue organizations.
ZooTampa released 26 rehabilitated manatees back into Florida waters in 2025—the highest number in its long history.
The accomplishment, the zoo stated, underscores its pivotal role in conserving this iconic species and its role within the manatee rescue network in the state.
These graceful marine mammals are a Florida icon, but nevertheless vulnerable to being struck by boats, and displacement from habitat loss. Every year, dozens of wounded manatees are rescued by organizations like ZooTampa.
The zoo’s David Straz Jr. Manatee Critical Care Center, the largest nonprofit facility of its kind in the US, has cared for over 615 manatees since 1991, with the majority successfully returned to their natural habitat.
The manatee rescue, rehabilitation, and release program costs the zoo $2 million a year, and consists of an expert team of veterinarians, including two US Fish and Wildlife Service-certified manatee critical care veterinarians, and animal care professionals.
The program could never be more needed, as it’s estimated that of the over 620 manatees died in across Florida waters in 2025, 97 were from boat strikes.
In spring 2026, ZooTampa will unveil the Straz Family Manatee Rescue, a state-of-the-art facility that will offer visitors immersive, eye-level underwater views of manatees, providing a unique opportunity to witness the zoo’s life-saving efforts firsthand.
Visitors can see life-saving care in real time in the soon-to-be-five critical care pools where the floors raise up to bring manatees out of the water for their medical treatments. They can also watch manatees in two naturalistic rehabilitation pools as they continue to get ready to be released back into the wild.
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DZ Bank branch in Munich - credit Fred Romero CC 2.0.
DZ Bank branch in Munich – credit Fred Romero CC 2.0.
Having maintained the highest household savings rate among European countries for 10 years, German citizens have together squirreled away $11 trillion in personal wealth.
This gargantuan rainy day fund was the result of a 20-21% average savings rate maintained by the country between 2014 and 2024. It ranked among the highest savings rates of any developed country during that time.
The country reached €10 trillion in savings according to an estimate by DZ Bank, which calculated an increase in money savings and liquid assets of 6%, or around €600 billion in 2025.
DW news reports that compared to other EU countries, German citizens are more leery of equities on average, and that the increase in liquid savings cannot therefore be explained merely by increases in stock market valuations seen on the Frankfurt exchange last year.
DZ Bank economist Michael Stappel said the upward trend is likely to continue in 2026, even if market gains ease.
A high savings rate is not necessarily a sign of hard or uncertain economic times. It also represents a low time preference. Economic theory states that if a society is comfortable delaying gratification—that is, to save the fruit of one’s labor for a later time—that society will inevitably prosper.
Low time preference is linked to societal stability and growth. It requires personal discipline, for example, and having children, buying a house, starting a business, or creating a piece of art like a novel or a music album—things we universally recognize as the best sorts of objectives—all require the ability to give up present consumption for future reward.
In a financial sense, low time preference and high savings rates create greater resources for investment.
In a banking environment where savings rates are high, it’s a key sign for investors and entrepreneurs that there are resources available for long-term projects, the kind of projects that help transform societies from poor to wealthy and industrialized.
They might allow a business to plan to build a new factor, for example, and reasonably suspect that the investment environment will be positive for the 10-12 years needed to finish the project. With its massive growth rate, it’s no surprise that China has seen periods where the personal savings rate has been over 70%—the highest in the world.
Contrarily, societies where the savings rates are very low represent less stable environments with more uncertainty and more hand to mouth existences. A low rate of personal savings sends a signal to investors and entrepreneurs that it isn’t clear projects undertaken in the present will be able to be completed in the future.
20th century economist Ludwig Von Mises wrote that this is akin to a master builder who doesn’t know how many bricks he has at the time he starts building a house.
German manufacturing and financial prosperity is the backbone on which the euro stands erect, and the fact that Germans are able to continue this financial discipline year after year is a testament to how solid that foundation is.
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Quote of the Day: “A good dinner and feasting reconciles everybody.” – Samuel Pepys
Image by: Didriks
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 flag of Pol Pot's Democratic Kampuchea - public domain
47 years ago today, the Vietnamese army coalition FUNSK, or the Salvation Front, succeeded in storming Phenom Phen, Cambodia, ousting Pol Pot, and halting the Cambodian Genocide. The conflict began less than a decade after the Fall of Saigon, but the Vietnamese forces were still strong enough to reverse attacks on their southeast by the Khmer Rouge, invade the country, and topple its government. They succeeded in just two weeks, proving yet again their remarkable prowess on the field of battle. READ more of why this is good news… (1979)
credit - Rene Martin / American Museum of Natural History
credit – Rene Martin / American Museum of Natural History
Birds-of-paradise have long dazzled us with their incredibly vibrant and varied plumage, but researchers studying the group have recently made an even more incredible discovery.
Plumage on 37 of 45 birds-of-paradise species emit biofluorescence meaning molecules inside the feathers absorb UV light and release it as a yellow-green glow.
From long spindly plumes, to bright crowns and fluffy patches on the breast and shoulders, or even feathers so black they absorb light similar to a black hole, birds-of-paradise, found throughout the islands of Australasia, are among the most demonstrative show birds in the world.
Why, then, would their plumage need even more razmataz? That’s what ornithologists are wondering after a team of ichthyologists (fish scientists) revealed that the majority of birds-of-paradise emit biofluorescence from one or sometimes two or three parts of the body.
The ichthyologists were studying biofluorescence in fish, and while sequestered among the collections in the American Museum of Natural History, they got to wondering what other animals displayed this trait.
Using a UV light in a dark room, drawer after drawer of collected specimens of birds-of-paradise shone just like glow-in-the-dark stars under the scientists’ inspection.
Red bird-of-paradise, a species found to glow more than others – credit, JJ Harrison via Wikimedia CC BY-SA 4.0
“It could just be that the biofluorescent portions are helping enhance those displays even more,” hypothesizes lead study author Rene Martin, a fish biologist at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
Further fascinating discoveries followed the first fascinating feathered discovery—that birds-of-paradise had the biofluorescent trait in their mouths as well, and that the 8 species of birds that were noted to be monogamous had much more muted biofluorescence than those other species that paired up every year.
Birds have one more photoreceptor in their eyes than humans do. This allows them to see more colors than us. Study co-author Emily Carr, a PhD student at the American Museum of Natural History, told the Audubon Society that birds-of-paradise also have a small drop of oil in their eyes that filter out certain wavelengths of light that might allow them to see the biofluorescence even more strongly.
As to why the feathers glow at all, scientists are guessing it has to do with aiding the well-documented mating displays of various species, or even to establish some sort of social dominance.
“To me, the interesting part is that it’s so widespread throughout the group,” Edwin Scholes, who founded the Birds-of-Paradise Project at Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology and was not involved in the study, told Audubon. “It’s not just all tail feathers or all flank feathers or anything specific—it’s pretty much all over the board.”
WATCH The BBC’s Classic Planet Earth footage of the birds-of-paradise…
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Pterois miles, or lionfish, in the Cyclades - credit, Paolo Gamba, CC BY-2.0.
Pterois miles, or lionfish, in the Cyclades – credit, Paolo Gamba, CC BY-2.0.
In parts of the Mediterranean, invasive lionfish have devastated local marine biodiversity, but an allegiance between fishermen and chefs may mean the invader has met its match.
On the island of Cyprus, the strategy is now clear: if we can’t beat it, let’s eat it.
Native to the Indo-Pacific the lionfish has been introduced to various parts of the world’s seas through the aquarium industry. Once set, it multiples and consumes everything around it, as it has no native predators in the Mediterranean.
Moray eels, bluespotted cornetfish, barracuda, bobit worms, and large groupers have all been documented preying on the species in its native habitat, but few if any of these live in the Caribbean, Mediterranean, and Western Atlantic where the lionfish is invasive.
These creatures can prey on the animal because they’ve developed methods to either resist or avoid the toxic spines that line the fish’s body, a hazard that its latest predator, Homo sapiens, has to pay attention to.
“First of all it has to be cleaned, it is very dangerous,” Stephanos Mentonis, who runs a popular fish tavern in Larnaca, Cyprus, told Euro News. “You have to cut the spines off… if you get pricked, you will not die but it you be [sic] in terrible pain.”
Mentonis is just one of a number of Cypriots who are beginning to see the best cure for lionfish as a little oil, maybe some oregano, lemon, and medium heat. That number extends to the very commissioner of the European Union Fisheries, Costas Kadis. He noted a social media campaign #TasteTheOcean, which ran first in 2021, that saw a number of Cypriot restaurants introduce lionfish to their menus, and fishmongers introduce it to their markets.
“By incorporating invasive species such as lionfish into our diet, we can turn this challenge into an opportunity for the fisheries sector and at the same time help limit the environmental threat caused by these species,” Kadis says.
The animal is priced competitively with regional favorites like bream and sea bass, costing half as much by weight as the latter, for example, while its meat is fluffy, tender, and slowly becoming more and more popular.
Previous efforts have seen paid scuba divers go cull lionfish around reefs and wrecks in the deeps, but this by-hand work is seen only as a stopgap to help local species recover, as a single female lionfish can lay 2 million eggs per year.
The economics of the food supply chain and fishing industries could prove to be the fatal sting for the poisonous invader.
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Being that many of the so-called “forever chemicals” are involved in making products water-resistant, a French ban on their use in the textile, fashion, and cosmetics industries should serve to greatly reduce the nation’s population to their exposure.
There are hundreds of forever chemicals often called per or poly fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) like perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS). They are used in the manufacturing of non-stick pans, waterproof clothing, waterproof treatments, ski wax, fire-fighting equipment, and much more.
Their exposure has been linked to numerous health conditions, from cancer to birth defects, and their presence has been recorded in most human organs, and in every Earthbound environment assayed for them, including the summit of Everest.
The French lower-house, the National Assembly, adopted the bill put forward by the Green Party with 231 votes to 51 in February of last year, following a green light from the Senate. 14 of the deputies tested their hair and presented the results on the floor as a demonstration—all of the samples contained forever chemicals.
Signed by President Emmanuel Macron, it entered into effect at the start of the year, and comes with a provision that will see the government routinely testing for PFAS in civic water supplies.
The legislation bans the chemicals’ use in clothing, cosmetics, ski wax, but fell short of including non-stick pan coatings. “Essential” emergency equipment was also exempt from the ban.
A ban in Denmark along similar lines will come into effect in July.
Many of the known PFAS were banned in a UN treaty signed during the Stockholm Convention of 2001. 150 Member States ratified the treaty, but certain notable producers declined to do so. The European Union has been studying a possible ban on the use of PFAS in consumer products.
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A rendering of Timber House from the Nak'adzli Development Corporation - credit, released
A rendering of Timber House from the Nak’adzli Development Corporation – credit, released
Prefabricated housing holds the potential to erect both economic opportunities and affordable housing in Canada’s far northwest, tribal leaders believe.
Using low-quality timber sourced locally, the Nak’adzli Whuton, a first nation located near Fort St. James in British Columbia, are creating mass timber panels that can be quickly assembled into a standard building.
The Nak’adzli Whuton Development Corporation teamed up with the University of Northern British Columbia’s Wood Innovation Research Lab, and Deadwood Innovations, a lumber industry player looking to turn low-quality, low-impact wood into high-quality beams and panels. This includes inputs like aspen trees, which grow in colonies and don’t need to be replanted, but which wouldn’t typically be used in logging.
Mass timber is a wood engineering technique that involves gluing, heating, and compressing multiple small boards of wood together to create stronger, larger forms. They’ve proven to be a transformative innovation in timber construction, and it creates the chance for a secondary industry to be spawned from tribal forestry.
“This house means security not only in housing, but in economics and community longevity,” said Nak’azdli Whuten member Elky Taylor.
“We have limited economics in Fort St. James and to create a secondary industry with our timber is something that’s been a long time coming and we’re hoping to see success in this pilot project.”
The house is an upright timber construction featuring an open concept living room/kitchen on the ground floor, and three bedrooms in a loft arrangement on the second floor. Project team leaders spoke with CBC News and said that a 3 bedroom 2 bathroom home could be fully assembled in just 10 days.
Additionally, because all the housing panels are assembled in a factory setting, each can be subject to more rigorous quality control, eliminating the chance for defects to arise in the construction on site, and having to either compensate, or improvise.
“You can build the panels through the winter months, and then in the summer you can erect the houses a lot quicker,” said John-Paul Wenger, CEO of Nak’azdli Whuten Development Corp.
“The idea would be instead of producing two or three houses, we could maybe do 10 houses in this area with our construction crew and local contractors.”
The floor plan for the homes can of course be quickly and easily changed to fit the needs of the community or resident since the building is done so fast.
Fort St. James is one of several northern BC towns that have shared the downturn in the provincial timber industry. As much as the town, like pretty much everywhere else in the Western world, needs more housing at a lower price, the partnership between the Nak’azdli Whuten, Deadwood, and UNBC is as much about creating skillsets that will help ensure the local community can provide value on a national scale.
WATCH the story below from CBC News…
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Quote of the Day: “There’s no use doing a kindness if you do it a day too late.” – Charles Kingsley (So, be kind today!)
Image by: Jesus Fodulla
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?
63 years ago today, Mutual of Omaha’s ‘Wild Kingdom’ was first broadcast on NBC. Hosted by American zoologist Marlin Perkins and filmed by Jim Fowler, the program won 4 Emmys for Outstanding Program Achievement during its original running on NBC every Sunday. ‘Wild Kingdom’ brought the wilds of the Amazon River, the Serengeti, and more into the living rooms of millions of Americans. Just recently, GNN reported on the successful launch of a third reboot of the show, hosted by Perkins’ eventual replacement, Peter Gros. WATCH an episode below… (1963)
Out of the fire that claimed over 40 young lives in Switzerland on New Year’s Eve comes a story of heroism and coincidence that allowed an Italian Swiss father to help rescue 10 of the youth trapped inside the underground venue.
In the Swiss town of Crans Montana, sparklers or similar items are believed to have ignited the ceiling of Le Constellation bar where over 150 young adults were celebrating the new year.
Paolo Campolo, 55 anni, è uno degli eroi della tragica notte di Capodanno a Crans-Montana.L'uomo di origini calabresi che ha salvato, insieme ad altri soccorritori, decine di giovani dal fuoco devastante esploso nel bar, ora si trova in un ospedale di S... https://t.co/w2P3WQwMbC
Paolina Campolo, a student in Geneva who was home with her boyfriend to visit her family, might have been among that crowd, if not for a stopover at the home of her father, Paolo, “to say hello, toast together, and open the panettone.”
Paolina’s boyfriend was waiting for her at Le Constellation, and it was her late arrival that saved both her life, and that of her boyfriend.
“It was our fault she was late: she should have been at that club already at midnight,” Campolo said from his hospital bed according to the Italian outlet Il Messaggero. “Today I can say it without exaggeration: that delay saved her life.”
At about 1:20 a.m., as Paolina was going to meet her boyfriend, she called her father having seen flames rising above the building. Located not far from the upscale bar, Paolo rushed there with his own fire extinguisher.
Searching the exterior, he and a stranger eventually found an exit, “but it was blocked or locked from the inside. I forced my way in, and that’s how I managed to save 10 young people,” said Paolo.
Some of what he saw through the windows horrified him, but he carried on by constantly imagining that everyone inside was his own child.
“The local solidarity was extraordinary,” he continued in the interview. “The nearby bars reinvented themselves as medical hubs. In particular, the ‘1900,’ a bar next door: They welcomed the injured people into their kitchen, made them sit down, helped them breathe, and prevented them from fainting. Amidst the horror, I will never forget that humanity.”
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The knee joint of a young mouse (right), aged mouse (middle) and treated aged mouse (left) with red indicating cartilage - credit, Nidhi Bhutani, released
The knee joint of a young mouse (right), aged mouse (middle) and treated aged mouse (left) with red indicating cartilage – credit, Nidhi Bhutani, released
An injection that blocks the activity of a protein involved in aging reverses naturally occurring cartilage loss in the knee joints of old mice, a Stanford Medicine-led study has found.
The treatment also prevented the development of arthritis after knee injuries such as ACL tears often experienced by athletes or recreational exercisers. An oral version of the treatment is already in clinical trials with the goal of treating age-related muscle weakness.
Samples of human tissue from knee replacement surgeries in the joint also responded to the treatment by making new, functional cartilage, a result which suggests that in the future, knee and hip replacement may be totally unnecessary.
The treatment directly targets the cause of osteoarthritis, a degenerative joint disease that affects one of every five adults in the United States and is estimated to cost about $65 billion in direct health care costs each year. Prevention or a replacement is the only strategy society-wide, as no drug can slow down or reverse the disease.
The protein blocked by the injection, 15-PGDH, is a master regulator of aging, and is in fact termed a “gerozyme” due to its increase in prevalence as the body ages. Gerozymes also drive the loss of tissue function. They are a major force behind age-related loss of muscle strength in mice.
Blocking the function of 15-PGDH with a small molecule results in an increase in old animals’ muscle mass and endurance. Conversely, expressing 15-PGDH in young mice causes their muscles to shrink and weaken.
In bone, nerve, and blood cells, regeneration is due to increases in the proliferation and specialization of tissue-specific stem cells. However, cartilage-generating chondrocytes change their patterns of gene expression to assume a more youthful state without the involvement of stem cells.
“This is a new way of regenerating adult tissue, and it has significant clinical promise for treating arthritis due to aging or injury,” said Helen Blau, PhD, professor of microbiology and immunology. “We were looking for stem cells, but they are clearly not involved. It’s very exciting.”
“Millions of people suffer from joint pain and swelling as they age,” said Blau’s colleague and co-senior author, Nidhi Bhutani, a PhD and associate professor of orthopedic surgery. “It is a huge unmet medical need. Until now, there has been no drug that directly treats the cause of cartilage loss. But this gerozyme inhibitor causes a dramatic regeneration of cartilage beyond that reported in response to any other drug or intervention.”
There are three main types of cartilage in the human body. One, hyaline cartilage, is smooth and glossy, providing a low-friction surface for lubrication and flexibility in joints like the ankles, hips, shoulders and parts of the knee. Hyaline cartilage—also known as articular cartilage—is the cartilage most commonly affected by osteoarthritis.
Osteoarthritis occurs when a joint is stressed by aging, injury, or obesity. The chondrocytes begin to release pro-inflammatory molecules and to break down collagen, which is the primary structural protein of cartilage. When collagen is lost, the cartilage thins and softens; the accompanying inflammation causes the joint swelling and pain that are hallmarks of the disease. Under normal circumstances, articular cartilage rarely regenerates. Although some populations of putative stem or progenitor cells capable of generating cartilage have been identified in bone, attempts to identify similar populations of cells in the articular cartilage have been unsuccessful.
Previous research from Blau’s lab has shown that a molecule called prostaglandin E2 is essential to muscle stem cell function. 15-PGDH degrades prostaglandin E2. Inhibiting 15-PGDH activity, or increasing levels of prostaglandin E2, supports the regeneration of damaged muscle, nerve, bone, colon, liver, and blood cells in young mice.
Blau, Bhutani and their colleagues wondered if 15-PGDH might also play a role in aging cartilage and joints. They wanted to find out if a similar pathway contributes to cartilage loss from aging or in response to injury. When they compared the amount of 15-PGDH in the knee cartilage in young versus old mice, they saw that, as in other tissues, levels of the gerozyme increased about two-fold with age.
They next experimented with injecting old animals with a small molecule drug that inhibits 15-PGDH activity — first into the abdomen, which affects the entire body, then directly into the joint. In each case, the knee cartilage, which was markedly thinner and less functional in older animals as compared with younger mice, thickened across the joint surface. Further experiments confirmed that the chondrocytes in the joint were generating hyaline, or articular, cartilage, rather than less-functional fibrocartilage.
“Cartilage regeneration to such an extent in aged mice took us by surprise,” Bhutani said. “The effect was remarkable.”
Similar results were observed in animals with knee injuries like the ACL tears that frequently occur in people participating in sports such as soccer, basketball, and skiing that require sudden pivoting, stopping or jumping. While the tears can be surgically repaired, about 50% of people develop osteoarthritis in the injured joint within about 15 years.
The researchers found that a series of injections twice a week for four weeks of the gerozyme inhibitor after injury dramatically reduced the chance that osteoarthritis develops in the mice. The animals treated with the gerozyme inhibitor also moved more typically and put more weight on the paw of the affected leg than did untreated animals.
“Interestingly, prostaglandin E2 has been implicated in inflammation and pain,” Blau said. “But this research shows that, at normal biological levels, small increases in prostaglandin E2 can promote regeneration.”
A closer investigation of the chondrocytes in the joints of old mice and young mice showed that old chondrocytes expressed more detrimental genes involved in inflammation and the conversion of hyaline cartilage to unwanted bone, and fewer genes involved in cartilage development.
The researchers studied human cartilage tissue removed from patients with osteoarthritis undergoing total knee replacements. Tissue treated with the 15-PGDH inhibitor for one week exhibited lower levels of 15-PGDH-expressing chondrocytes and lowered cartilage degradation and fibrocartilage genes than control tissue and began to regenerate articular cartilage.
“The mechanism is quite striking and really shifted our perspective about how tissue regeneration can occur,” Bhutani said. “It’s clear that a large pool of already existing cells in cartilage are changing their gene expression patterns. And by targeting these cells for regeneration, we may have an opportunity to have a bigger overall impact clinically.”
“Phase 1 clinical trials of a 15-PGDH inhibitor for muscle weakness have shown that it is safe and active in healthy volunteers,” said Blau. “Our hope is that a similar trial will be launched soon to test its effect in cartilage regeneration. We are very excited about this potential breakthrough. Imagine regrowing existing cartilage and avoiding joint replacement.”
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The radiology department at an Iowa hospital recently teamed up with the waste management team to put the ‘care’ in healthcare, and left a patient in tears with gratitude.
At Grundy County Memorial Hospital, Susan Sinnwell had arrived for a routine medical procedure. Preparing for a couple of X-rays, she took off a pair of heirloom rings left to her by her grandfather, and wrapped them in a napkin to shield them from unfriendly eyes.
What’s out of sight, it’s so often said, tends to slip out of mind, and even though the napkin made a funny sound when it hit the garbage bin bottom, it didn’t jar Sinnwell’s memory.
Once she realized her mistake she called the hospital administrative staff and Craig Buskohl, the imaging manager at the hospital who had taken Sinnwell’s X-rays.
Waste management got to emptying their compactor and faced a mound of some 60 garbage bags that they had to pass over with metal detectors. Any beeping bags were separated, and placed in the ambulance garage where Buskohl waited with his mobile X-ray machine.
“It was really rewarding,” Buskohl told CBS 2 Iowa. “Honestly, I didn’t think we were going to find them—but we did.”
Before they did, they had to spend 45 minutes taking images. But as Buskohl would go on to say, he eventually struck gold as it were. Hospital staff said that the care they give patients goes far beyond just medical services, and looking for lost rings is certainly included in that.
“When he told me how many people helped and everything they did, I just couldn’t believe it,” Sinnwell said, tears welling up. “This is the best place for care.”
WATCH the story below from CBS 2…
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India’s rhino stronghold of Assam reported zero deaths due to poaching among its populations of greater one-horned rhinos in 2025.
The success replicates that seen in 2023, another year in which poachers claimed no rhinos.
Himanta Biswa Sarma, the Chief Minister of the state of Assam, akin to a US governor, said it was “a proud moment for us,” but added that other inspiring wildlife reports emerged in 2025.
This included the sighting of a dhole, or Indian wild dog—the first in the state’s Kaziranga National Park in 35 years. In Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book, it was the dhole, not the tiger, that was most feared by the animals of India.
In addition to the dogs, a lighter tiger, known as a “golden tabby tiger” was spotted in the park.
India is now home to some 4,000 rhinos, having once fallen to as low as 1,800 individuals. Almost all of these are located in Assam, but efforts to reintroduce the animal to areas they once inhabited has had mixed-to-bad results. Native to the subcontinent, they would have lived as far west as Peshawar, Pakistan.
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Quote of the Day: “Price is what you pay; value is what you get.” – Warren Buffett (retired this month at 95, as the world’s most successful investor)
Image by: Priscilla Du Preez
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?
Waiting for Godot from 1978, credit, CC 0 Fernand Michaud
73 years ago today, Waiting for Godot premiered in France. The tragicomedy play written by Irishman Samuel Beckett in interpretation of an earlier French play, En attend de Godot, it’s regarded by critics as “one of the most enigmatic plays of modern literature.” Featuring two characters spilling their thoughts out as they wait for the eponymous Godot, who never arrives, there is only one act in the whole play. READ a bit more, and some famous adaptations… (1953)
Carter Allen proposes to girlfriend via Shrek mashup –SWNS
Carter Allen proposes to girlfriend via Shrek mashup (see Prince in bottom left) –SWNS
A guy proposed to his fiancé by editing himself into the wedding scene of Shrek—a perfect way to totally surprise his girlfriend, and honor their love for the movie.
Carter Allen spent five hours adding a clip of himself seamlessly running down the aisle saying he’s ‘experienced true love, too’.
While playing the edited film for her at home last month, he left the room during that scene. He reappeared wearing the same suit he was wearing in the movie and got down on one knee to propose to Andressa Da Silva.
The young couple met four years ago on a class film set working on a project that Carter wrote.
The 26-year-old American from Georgia was predominantly a writer/director at the Georgia Institute of Technology, while she was an actress.
“When I met her I fell for her, and while editing the class film and listening to us mucking around in between takes, I fell for her all over again.
“From then on, we’ve always helped each other out and spent evenings watching films together.
“I always knew I wanted to do something film-focused, but also something intimate.”
Carter initially thought about proposing to Andressa in a movie theatre, but said ‘it didn’t feel right’.
“You’d be proposing during a film you’d never seen before, and what if it was bad?”
Instead, inspiration came from her suggestion for their next movie night.
“I started thinking about films we both have a fond memory of and, funny enough, she suggested we actually put Shrek on one evening,” he told SWNS news agency.
They ended up watching something else, but it gave Carter his perfect plan.
He worked on the edits while Andressa was sleeping—timing his appearance in the scene to just before Lord Farquaad says “the perfect bride”. (Watch the moment below…)
He was worried she might say no to watching it on the date he’d chosen—December 6. “You can only push so hard to insist on watching Shrek without raising suspicion.”
“I completely lost myself. I forgot everything I was going to say and just asked if she’d like to marry me.”
“I didn’t give myself enough time for the suit change. I nearly skipped the socks, but thankfully it all worked out. I should have done a dress rehearsal!”
Carter also scrambled to set up his phone across the room to record the special moment.
“I tripped on something on the way, but she didn’t notice,” he recalled. “She was absorbed in the film which I was thankful for.”
It also helped that he works from home so he could edit from there.
“I was humming the soundtrack constantly. I had to be careful she didn’t get suspicious.”
Carter Allen wedding proposal via SWNS
The proposal video went viral on Reddit, and the couple has been overwhelmed by the response—52,000 Likes and over a thousand comments.
Fox stuck in patio chair – RSPCA list of 2025 wacky rescues (Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals via SWNS)
Fox stuck in patio chair – RSPCA list of 2025 wacky rescues (Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals via SWNS)
The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals has shared their wackiest animal rescues from 2025, including a fox trapped in a chair and another one stuck inside the engine of an Amazon delivery van.
The charity compiled the list with pictures showing hapless animals and pets trapped in bizarre places but they all were soon freed by baffled—but determined—rescuers.
Of the oddest rescues last year, one of the weirdest was a baby kitten that got itself trapped in the sewage system.
Stunned staff at the site in Birmingham, England, alerted the charity after hearing the tiny animal’s “booming meows”.
RSPCA Inspector Boris Lasserres and Cara Gibbon both donned dry suits to rescue the kitten, nicknamed ‘Olivia Twist’.
“She was trapped down a sewage flow system and we think she must have fallen from quite a height above as there was no other way she could have got herself in there,” said Cara, who reported that the kitten was taken to an animal hospital where she made a full recovery and was later re-homed.
RSPCA via SWNS
“We know she had been in there for at least three days and with no mum around she must have been terrified.”
In January, a not-so-cunning fox found himself stuck in a tight spot after he slipped over garden furniture and got his paw stuck between the slats in a backyard in South East London (top photo).
Fox stuck in van’s engine – RSPCA / SWNS
Another young fox cub needed rescuing after getting stuck inside the engine of an Amazon delivery van in Derby, England.
The distressed female fox was only spotted by the shocked driver after she gnawed through a cable, triggering a dashboard warning light to illuminate.
Meanwhile, in April, a peregrine falcon became tangled and trapped in anti-bird netting in a block of flats in Birmingham.
A seagull was also lucky to escape without injury after getting caught up in a football net in Ramsgate, Kent, in February.
It wasn’t only birds getting themselves in a flap negotiating nets, in Sheffield a badger found itself tied up in knots after stumbling into a football goal.
There were more animals needing help after wandering where they shouldn’t have been.
A hedgehog found herself needing urgent care after being injured by a weed whacker’s string trimmer in Cheddar, Somerset. Despite having many of her spines cut off in the mishap, she made a full recovery before being released into the wild.
Tawny owl stuck in a tree – RSPCA / SWNS
Days later a tawny owl needed rescuing after getting tangled on a branch by its wing. The bird was found hanging 20-feet above fast-flowing water in Bedwas, Caerphilly, Wales.
2025 was one of the charity’s busiest years, said RSPCA superintendent Simon Osborne.
“Every single day throughout the year, our teams rescue, rehabilitate, and re-home hundreds of animals with very special backgrounds and stories of triumph over adversity.”
HAIL THE RESCUERS By Sharing the 2025 Good News on Social Media…
At 80, Betty became oldest woman to complete a thru-hike of Appalachian Trail -Courtesy of Betty Kellenberger
At 80, Betty became oldest woman to complete a thru-hike of Appalachian Trail -Courtesy of Betty Kellenberger
The obstacles and excuses kept blocking Betty Kellenberger’s path, but she never stopped moving forward.
Kellenberger, an 80-year-old retired schoolteacher from Carson City, Michigan, became interested in the Appalachian Trail in elementary school when she learned about it in a Weekly Reader: Betty immediately thought she wanted to hike it someday.
But adult life and her work as a teacher obstructed her path for decades. Even for young people, hiking the entire Appalachian Trail is a grueling, multi-month endeavor.
The trail runs through 14 states from Maine to Georgia and is about 2,200 miles long, filled with rigorous climbs and rocky terrain and a whole host of environmental challenges.
Finishing the entire thing is such a daunting task that many people only attempt to cover stretches of it at a time.
Betty wanted to do the whole thing.
“I remember thinking, ‘How long do you think you have to think about it? You know, I’m pushing 80,” Betty told the AARP. “Am I going to wait until I’m pushing 90?’ So yeah, it sort of pushed me into action.”
She researched the trail and made her first attempt in 2022 with a trail partner, Joe Cox.
Unfortunately, Cox had a rough fall on Mount Katahdin in Maine and had to exit the trail a day later. Betty didn’t make it much longer, leaving several days afterward due to lingering effects from dehydration, Lyme disease, and a concussion.
She tried again in 2023, starting at Harpers Ferry, Virginia and heading north. Betty made it all the way to Massachusetts, but a bad fall forced her to abandon the adventure.
Then, she had knee replacement surgery and learned the sad news that Cox had passed away. Betty became determined to finish the trail in his honor. (Watch a great video of her trek below from PBS…)
She started at Harpers Ferry again in 2024, this time going southward. Unfortunately, in September Mother Nature threw her another curve ball: Hurricane Helene had toppled trees, obstructing paths all over the South, making the Appalachian Trail so impassable in parts that officials made hikers an extraordinary offer during the clean-up.
Leave now and you can count your existing mileage on day one next year.
Typically, all through-hikes have to be finished in 12 months to count as complete, so Betty had actually caught a break.
Betty breaks world record climbing the Appalachian Trail -Courtesy of Betty Kellenberger
She began training for her next shot at the Trail by climbing steps every day at the local hospital because her Michigan surroundings were so flat.
And when she headed out to the Appalachian Trail again in March 2025, she only had the northern and southern routes remaining since she had hiked between Massachusetts and Virginia before the hurricane hit.
She finished the southern end first. Only the northern end remained, but the mountains of Maine and New Hampshire are notoriously difficult, so Betty wasn’t sure she could do it—until she met a man hiking in Pennsylvania who said something unforgettable.
Hikers often call people like this trail angels, seemingly divine beings that show up in the darkest times and offer enough food, advice, or encouragement to keep people going.
“I was hiking alone, and I just thought, if I have to do this alone, I’m not sure I can do it. And he says, ‘Well, you can quit, and nobody will point fingers at you and blame you or anything. But you’ll never know whether you could have done it or not. If you go and you take it on and you try it, then you’ll at least know.’”
So Betty kept going.
The collective elevation gain along the iconic trail is equivalent to hiking Mount Everest 16 times. It’s estimated that 75% of through-hikers fail every year—and no wonder. Betty’s challenges included sore feet, heavy packs, bad weather, mud bogs, upended roots and endless, endless piles of rocks.
“Early on I decided the Lord must love rocks because He made so many of them,” Betty told The Trek website with a chuckle.
Finally, on September 12, Betty completed the northern end at age 80—besting the previous record by six full years—to become the oldest female to finish the Appalachian Trail.
“I’ve had a ‘series of unfortunate events’, I call them. But each one, I learned something,” she told AARP. “Each one, I got a little stronger. Each one, I got a better story. And so then, this year, I was able to do it.”
In addition to the record, Betty took home a simple, yet powerful lesson that she loves sharing.
“Get out, move, set a goal and work toward it. The bigger the goal, the greater the reward. Don’t let society or friends and family set your limitations.”
Quite often, you might be surprised how far you can go once you simply take the first step.
HELP BETTY’S STORY REACH EVEN GREATER HEIGHTS By Sharing This to Your Social Media Feed…
