Quote of the Day: “Great artists suffer for the people.” – Motown’s Marvin Gaye (Died 40 years ago this week)
Photo by: Gracious Adebayo
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With the imminent arrival of 150 Przewalski’s horses to the Kazakh steppes, the future of the world’s last non-domesticated horse species is poised to bolt.
Following up on a successful introduction of 5 mares and 2 stallions from Berlin and Prague, Hungary’s Minister of Agriculture István Nagy announced the country would be shipping 150 horses to Kazakhstan in order to safeguard the animal’s future from disease and inbreeding.
Around 6,000 years ago at an unspecified place on the Eurasian Steppe, of which Kazakhstan makes up a major component, human beings domesticated the horse. It changed history forever, but not more so than for the ancient residents of Kazakhstan and related topographies who used them to roam, trade, raid, and conquer for millennia.
From that first day until now, all individual species interbred themselves more or less out of existence with the exception of Przewalski’s horse, which is why its return is so exciting.
Kazakhstan has become something of a conservation and rewilding champion among low and middle-income countries. It has been in the process of restoring major members of its ungulate populations, including the saiga antelope, Bukhara deer, and Przewalski’s horse.
It even plans to reintroduce the tiger by welcoming members of a subspecies related to the local “Turanian” tiger which went extinct over 70 years ago. In the fall of 2023, two cats from the Netherlands arrived in the large Illy-Balkhash Nature Reserve, and this year another 5 are expected from Russia.
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For the Przewalski’s horses, the seven individuals transferred from Berlin and Prague arrived at the Altyn Dala Reserve in Kazakhstan’s Kostanay region. The incoming 150 will be located across the country.
MORE CENTRAL ASIAN WILDLIFE: Wild and Wonderful Saiga is No Longer Endangered with a Million Roaming Now in Central Asia
Hungary sits at the Western terminus of the Eurasian steppe, and takes its name from a people who emerged from its grasslands, the Huns.
It’s fitting then that it should be an ancestral relative that offers the Kazakhs this amazing opportunity to restore a quintessential figure to the grasslands—the wild horse.
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Few in America will likely be aware that a critically acclaimed live-action/animated Looney Tunes movie starring Wile E. Coyote was fully made, but then shelved by Warner Bros. studios.
But, after a raucous outcry from the creative team who fell in love with the project and spent months bringing it to life, Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) finally agreed to sell the rights to Ketchup Entertainment for what an insider told The Wrap was around $50 million.
Called Coyote vs. Acme, the film is reported to boast that brilliant mixture of adult and childish humor that made Looney Tunes relevant for so long among American audiences.
The “Vs.” in the name implies legal action—wherein Wile E. Coyote files a lawsuit against Acme for the countless faulty products he purchased from the company in his pursuit of the indomitable Road Runner.
Even though the film had consistently been highly rated by critics and early-screening audiences, it almost received an Acme anvil to the head before anyone in the public could view it.
Reported extensively by The Wrap, Coyote vs. Acme had been green-lit by a previous team of executives, 4 of whom were replaced during production.
The new suits, who had to delay the theatrical release to avoid contending with Barbie, decided to switch strategies and finally—following the wave of indignation from the film’s production team—acquiesced to letting them shop it around.
What they didn’t tell the team was that the price would be fixed, and WBD would do the talking. After failing to find a buyer for an $80 million take-it-or-leave-it price tag for streaming and non-streaming releases—and rejecting a $50 million offer from Paramount that would include a theatrical release, WBD was prepared to shelve the film permanently and take a $40 million tax write-off in advance of a bad third-quarter earnings drop last year.
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In summary, over a year of creative labor from stars Will Forte, John Cena, Lana Condor, and Tone Bell, was nearly “silenced by a movie studio’s balance sheet.”
Will Forte, who plays Wile E. Coyote’s legal counsel, said specifically that the decision made his “blood boil.”
But before that was all folks, it was announced on Monday that the film was finally sold to Ketchup Entertainment—who recently released another Looney Tunes movie entitled The Day The Earth Blew Up.
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“We’re thrilled to have made a deal with Warner Bros. Pictures to bring this film to audiences worldwide,” Ketchup Entertainment CEO Gareth West said in a statement.
“‘Coyote vs. Acme’ is a perfect blend of nostalgia and modern storytelling, capturing the essence of the beloved Looney Tunes characters while introducing them to a new generation. We believe it will resonate with both longtime fans and newcomers alike.”
A release date of 2026 in American theaters is believed to be most likely.
SHARE This Saga Of Corporate Vs Creativity With Your Friends Who Loved The Looney Tunes…
In the southern Italian region of Campania, excavations in a known Roman colony called Liternum have uncovered a necropolis of substantial historic interest containing a gladiator’s tomb bearing an inscription in his honor.
One of the most romanticized of all ancient warrior societies, the mausoleum where the inscription was found suggests that these gladiators could win substantial post-career retirements and posthumous honors.
Located in the present-day municipality of Giugliano in Campania, the site dates to the first century BCE, and saw use as a final resting place well into the middle imperial period some two to three hundred years later.
A release from the Superintendency of Archaeology, Fine Arts, and the Countryside of the Naples Metro Area details that the stratigraphy of the site and the recovery of grave goods including coins, oil lamps, and ceramics, demonstrate how funerary customs changed over the empire’s history.
The necropolis at Liternum consisted of two funerary enclosures, totaling around 1,500 square feet and enclosed in white-washed grey tuff blocks with red detailing.
The deceased were interred there in several ways, including funerary urns set within about 20 plastered niches cut into the walls, large ossuaries, and enclosures on the floor sealed with pitched roofs of terracotta tiles—called “a cappuccina” tombs.
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Among the most relevant discoveries were diverse marble cenotaphs, some of which remained intact, and one in particular that bears the epitaph of a gladiator, documenting the value and memory of these combatants in Roman society, a statement from the Superintendency read.
Its presence in Liternum suggests that the city was home to gladiators who, after their careers in the arena, found their final resting place there.
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“The Giugliano territory is experiencing an extraordinary period of discoveries, first with the Tomb of Cerberus and now with this necropolis,” the Superintendent Mariano Nuzzo said. “The quality of the structures and their excellent state of preservation enrich our understanding of the history of the Liternum colony and deepen the study of the sociocultural context of the time.”
Excavations are still ongoing, and more secrets may yet reveal themselves, perhaps about Liternum’s place on the Via Domitiana, a road that went from Rome to Campania that was known to have been lined with necropoli and tombs.
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After 12 years of research and development, a team of Canadian chemists has created what could be the ultimate tool for detecting if your drink has been spiked.
More discreet and accurate than anything else on the market, the simple, innocuous-looking drink stir comes with a tip that will change color if exposed to any of the common drugs used by predatory bargoers.
Called Spikeless, the stirrer was envisioned by a team of brothers at the University of British Columbia and can detect common drink spiking drugs like GHB and ketamine, which are otherwise odorless and tasteless, within 30 seconds.
Dr. Johan Foster, associate professor of chemical and biological engineering, and his brother, Andrew, came up with the idea in 2012 and predicted the tool could be carried around with one’s phone, wallet, and keys, or provided by venues upon request.
“Anywhere there’s a bar—clubs, parties, festivals—there’s a risk,” said Samin Yousefi, a UBC master’s student in chemical and biological engineering and the device’s co-inventor alongside the Fosters.
“People have tried cups, coasters, straws, even nail polish to detect these drugs. Our device is more discreet than existing alternatives and doesn’t contaminate the drink.”
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The tool still requires approval from Health Canada, and the inventors haven’t come up with any mass-manufacturing process for it yet.
Global News, a Canadian news outlet reporting on the invention, quoted one expert in the field of sexual abuse and violence, Sasha Santos, who said that providing defense solutions and education, while also leaving the onus to prevent such predation entirely on the individual, hasn’t worked to reduce rates of incidents involving spiked drinks.
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If the cost of Spikeless could be made low enough, establishments could simply have a tray of them on the bar or drink stand, where they could be used like normal drink stirrers.
WATCH the story below from Global News…
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Quote of the Day: “To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people just exist.” – Oscar Wilde
Photo by: Eddie Kopp
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?
A Paralympic gold medalist has become the first blind woman to swim across the English Channel, and she finished under time.
She said that being blind has left her feeling “isolated,” but thanks to swimming, she has a “newfound confidence” and hopes her feat “inspires others”.
49-year-old Melanie Barratt took on the challenge after falling in love with open-water swimming.
She swam the Channel, from Shakespeare Beach in Dover to Cap Gris Nez Beach in France, in 12 hours and 20 minutes, faster than the expected 14 hours, and described it as “a dream come true.”
“My life has been filled with challenges because of my blindness, and it often led me to feel isolated and unsure of myself,” said Barratt.
Melanie, now a special needs assistant after winning two gold medals, two silvers, and a bronze at the 1996 Atlanta and 2000 Sydney Paralympics, said she “never thought it would be possible to achieve something like this.”
It’s no mean feat, even for an Olympian, as the Channel weather regularly takes the lives of sailors and refugees in crossing.
Melanie was born with scarred eyes after her mom contracted congenital toxoplasmosis during pregnancy. She grew up virtually blind and was only able to make out bright colors and shapes. She first began swimming with the British Blind Sport charity.
“I loved the water,” she remembers. “The charity helped me by teaching me to swim straight and how not to bump my head into the pool ends.”
“I struggled to fit in at school because of my blindness, so I often turned to the pool as an escape.”
Slowly improving, a swimming partner invited her to the Paralympic games, which lit a fire underneath her that pushed her to succeed. After Sydney, Melanie retired from competitive swimming and wanted “something more.”
“Sadly, my guide dog doesn’t swim,” she said, according to English news media outlet SWNS. “But I became friends with an incredible open-water swimmer who took me under her wing.”
“The shock of the cold water made me aware of every single cell of my body, and it was freeing.”
Once hooked on open-water swimming, Melanie competed in several races, including a 10k lake swim, the Thames Marathon, and a relay race in Lake Geneva in July 2023.
It was as freeing as it was frightening, since there were no indicative surfaces or objects for her to use as a reference point. A solution presented itself as her husband paddling alongside her in a kayak, the bright colored paint of which she could see.
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“I also started using bone-conducting headphones that allowed him to communicate with me throughout my swims,” she says. “It made open-water swimming more accessible.”
Two years before her Geneva feat, Melanie signed up for the English Channel swim, describing it as “the Everest of swimming,” and on August 28th, 2024, she swam the Channel in 12 hours and 20 minutes, receiving a Guinness World Record for the feat two months later.
“Halfway through the swim, I felt scared and sick. I didn’t think I was going to make it,” she said. “But I had the most amazing team and I was really determined.”
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“Life is incredibly difficult being blind, and it’s very limiting, but sport and open-water swimming have given me a newfound confidence and made me proud of who I am.”
“My husband and two boys always know I love to push myself and that I always need something to work towards, and I hope I’ve inspired others to do the same.”
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A therapist has revealed six parenting tips for building a stronger connection with your child.
Melinda O’Neil, 37, an associate licensed Professional Clinical Counselor in Pleasanton, California, has been a therapist for one year and child counselor for seven.
O’Neil—also the mom of a six-year-old son—focuses on connection, empathy, and personal growth as key components of effective parenting.
From fostering independence to encouraging emotional intelligence, here are her top tips for parenting.
It’s easy for parents to tune out when their child is talking about video games, dinosaurs, or the latest pop star, but O’Neil says engaging with their interests is crucial for bonding.
“[Renowned physician and educator] Maria Montessori always said, ‘Follow the child,’” O’Neil summarizes.
“That means embracing whatever they’re into—whether it’s excavators, the alphabet, animals, or trains.”
She acknowledges that parents may not always love their kids’ taste in music, but she encourages them to listen anyway.
“[L]istening with them means you know what they’re listening to. Plus, it’s a great way to bond. If they want to go to a concert, chaperone!”
“Even if you don’t love the artist, bring some earplugs—it’s about showing interest in their world.”
Parents often ask, “How was school today?” only to be met with a one-word response. O’Neil suggests taking a more intentional approach to foster open communication.
“Ask specific questions about their day,” she said. “Instead of ‘How was school?’ try ‘Did you see your friend today?’ or ‘What was the funniest thing that happened?’ Make communication a two-way street.”
By engaging in detailed conversations, parents create an environment where children feel safe opening up.
“It’s not just about you talking at them or them talking at you—it’s about having real conversations where they feel heard.”
Kids are always watching, and O’Neil says parents should be mindful of the behaviors they model.
“If you make a mistake, own it,” she explained. “Say, ‘I got really frustrated and shouldn’t have reacted that way. Next time, I’ll take a deep breath.’”
By doing this, parents show kids that mistakes are a normal part of life and that they can be handled with accountability and grace.
“It’s a lot of pressure because kids are always copying us,” she admitted. “But modeling healthy responses teaches them how to navigate emotions and interactions in a positive way.”
While it’s important to follow a child’s interests, O’Neil also stresses the value of trying new things.
“Structured activities beyond the park—like cooking classes, new hobbies, or different restaurants—help kids expand their world,” she explained.
“And if they’re hesitant? Encourage them anyway. Remind them, ‘You might like it!’”
She acknowledges that not every new experience will be a hit.
“If they try something and truly don’t like it, that’s okay,” she said. “Congratulate them for trying. But the key is to keep encouraging curiosity and new adventures.”
Emotions can be messy, but O’Neil says learning to sit with them is crucial for emotional intelligence.
“Feelings can make us uncomfortable, but if your child is experiencing one, let them,” she advised. “Be present. Sit with them in their sadness, frustration, or joy.”
She notes that emotions naturally cycle every seven minutes.
“Give them that space,” she said.
“If they’re crying, tell them, ‘It’s okay to cry.’ Even if it makes you uncomfortable, practice sitting with it instead of shutting it down.”
The best parenting starts with self-growth, O’Neil says.
“One thing I see every day is that many parents weren’t taught how to manage their own emotions,” she explained. “So as adults, we’re almost re-parenting ourselves.”
She stresses the importance of self-reflection.
“The best thing you can do for your child is to become a healthier version of yourself.
“Acknowledge your mistakes, work on your emotional responses, and show yourself the same compassion you’d show them.”
At the end of the day, O’Neil says parenting is about connection, empathy, and being willing to grow alongside your child.
“Promote empathy and compassion,” she said. “And that includes being compassionate with yourself.”
SHARE These Good Foundational Parenting Points With Any New Moms And Dads On Your Social Media…
On an island south of Adelaide, a strange creature has been seen creeping through the bush. A long cylindrical body and long snout flanked by floppy ears are dead giveaways.
But this wiener dog named Valerie isn’t lost anymore. After almost 18 months of living wild on Kangaroo Island, local police are poised to get her out of there and reunite her with owners Josh Fishlock and Georgia Gardner.
In 2023, the pair were enjoying a camping holiday on the island with their miniature dachshund Valerie, who weighs no more than 8 pounds soaking wet. The pampered pooch was used to pink sweaters and toys, treats and ramps to help her get upstairs, and so the couple thought it would be safe to leave her closed in her cage with plenty of pleasures while they went fishing.
But within minutes of casting their lines, another camper told them that Valerie had escaped, run underneath a van, and then bolted into the bush when some people tried to coax her out.
“We spent the next five days searching for her through the bushland, hiking up and down big hills and camping overnight,” Georgia told the Sunday Times. They had packed only one pair of clothes each, and amid the stink, the rain, and the lack of any sign of their beloved pooch, the two reluctantly gave up and returned home to Albury.
Meanwhile, on the island inhabited by large venomous black tiger snakes and wedge-tailed eagles that prey on the native wallabies, Valerie’s fate seemed sealed.
But it seems there’s more wolf than wiener in Valerie than meets the eye, and a survival instinct evidently kicked in that has seen her make it through 500 days of wild living.
Via a local Facebook group, Georgia said they heard last month that Valerie had been seen on the island at the end of February, just over nine miles from the campsite where she had been lost.
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Georgia then contacted Jared Karran, according to the Times, who works as both a local police officer and wildlife rescuer. Karran organized an effort to locate Valerie’s territory by baiting and setting out cameras. They eventually spotted her—alive and in rude health.
One local tour operator said the most likely food source has been roadkill, and that the eagles would have been her biggest threat. Valerie is extremely canny, and Karran is reluctant to try and trap the dog. Instead, they are hoping to reactivate her domesticated instincts and coax her out into a space where she can be apprehended.
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For their part, Georgia and Josh are preparing for a 13-hour-long drive back to Kangaroo Island to retrieve her.
“We’re just waiting to see what condition she’s in and whether she’s still domesticated,” Georgia says. “It’s all pretty overwhelming. I just want to give her a big hug.”
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High along the peaks and ridges of the mountains in Ecuador, a 25-year-long conservation program is bearing succulent fruit in the form of cleaner water and abundant wildlife.
Established in the year 2000, Quito’s fund for the protection of water has allowed a critical South American ecosystem unique to the world and vital to both plants and animals to reclaim vast tracts of its former landscape, and people are noticing the difference.
“Before the water fund, the páramo in Antisana was very degraded. The only thing you would see was sheep.” Silvia Benitez, the Nature Conservancy’s Director of Freshwater for Latin America, said in a statement. “The change has been amazing. Vegetation is back. The wetlands are restored.”
“Now people see groups of deer. They see puma. I saw a fox. I had never before seen a fox in this area.”
The story of this quarter-century success began when the United States nonprofit the Nature Conservancy partnered with Quito’s water utility company, known as EPMAPS. The second-highest capital city on Earth by altitude, Quito is surrounded by a famous ecosystem called the páramo, a biodiversity hotspot where masses of mosses, lichen, high-altitude palms, and endemic grasses create a mountain environment unlike any other.
The páramo covers slopes above 10,000 feet in elevation all over the Andes Mountains, and acts like a giant sponge absorbing and condensing moisture from the lower ground before releasing it in streams and rivers further down. The Nature Conservancy estimates that in Colombia, where páramos cover just 2% of land area, this hydrological service provides 70% of all municipal water. It’s estimated that páramo sequesters 6 times more carbon than tropical rainforest.
EPMAPS and the Nature Conservancy organized $21,000 in seed money to kick-start a trust fund that would charge downstream users of water from the páramos around Quito for the conservation measures needed to protect them.
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Called the Fund for the Protection of Water, or FONAG, it’s accumulated $2.5 million in annual contributions over the last 25 years, and as a result, páramos are retaking ranchland that once displaced them, and the wildlife like whitetail deer, Andean bears, Mountain tapirs, and condors are returning as well.
FONAG has so far protected and conserved 55,000 hectares of páramos. But that is just the beginning. In the coming decades, FONAG plans to protect a total of 150,000 hectares of páramos.
“Since FONAG’s beginning, its priority has always been the protection of the water sources. But when you conserve water sources, it’s almost automatic that you have other co-benefits—biodiversity, carbon sequestration, and social benefits,” said Bert de Bievre, Technical Secretary of FONAG.
Local communities have become very involved in FONAG’s work. Two dozen have become páramo rangers, local ranchers have moved their animals to lower elevations, agriculturalists have worked with EPMAPS to switch to low-impact methods of cultivation away from watersheds, and the Nature Conservancy runs a nursery that grows many of the endemic páramo plants for use in reforestation.
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The Quito-FONAG model is now being implemented across the northwestern areas of South America, and it shows how much can be achieved by simply letting rivers run free.
“Each year, the global water sector spends $700 billion on building and repairing pipes and reservoirs, using grey solutions to engineer themselves out of a problem created by deforestation, agriculture or other threats upstream,” said Brooke Atwell, Associate Director of the Nature Conservancy’s Resilient Watersheds strategy.
“If we were able to reallocate just 1% of that spending ($7 billion) toward protecting nature, it would eclipse all global philanthropic spending on conservation today.”
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Quote of the Day: “What matters most is how well you walk through the fire.” – Charles Bukowski
Photo by: Gert Boers
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?
Though officially classified as vulnerable, no credible sighting of the Asian short-clawed otter, the smallest species of its kind, has been made in almost 200 years.
So when forestry officials in Nepal found an injured, juvenile otter at the confluence of two major rivers last November, they never imagined that their actions might determine the fate of the world’s smallest otter.
Fortunately, they sent images to the scientific community in the region, who realized that the animal had reappeared, having not been seen since 1839.
“The sighting of an Asian small-clawed otter after 185 years is a remarkable discovery for conservation in Nepal, ending concerns that the species may have been extinct in the country,” said a note from the IUCN’s Otter Specialist Group.
“The sighting highlights the need for detailed study of the status of this species in Nepal and urgent implementation of conservation initiatives.”
This small member of the Lutrinae subfamily measures 28.6 to 37.6 inches long and weighs in at a maximum of 7.7 lbs. Its claws, as the name suggests, are short and don’t grow past the pad on its webbed feet.
Occasionally reported living in Makalu Barun National Park, Nepal, the juvenile was found along the junction of the Rangun Khola river and its feeder stream, the Puntara Khola, in the far west of the country. The river was tranquil after the monsoon rains, and plenty of space along the banks was occupied by sand and gravel miners, bathers, clothes-washers, and fishermen.
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“As it was found in a fragile and injured state, the forest officers decided to feed and nurse it, but they didn’t know which species it belonged to,” Mohan Bikram Shrestha, lead author of the note, told Mongabay.
The forest officers, led by Rajeev Chaudhary, shared the images of the creature with the Shrestha and the specialist group, which helped them identify it.
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“Otters are resilient to highly modified anthropogenic landscapes, flexible in habitat selection, and able to recover from low numbers,” the conclusion on the note added. “Nevertheless… a timely conservation effort for this exceptionally rare species, a keystone aquatic mesocarnivore, is now urgently needed in Nepal.”
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For most people, a rat is at best an unwelcome guest, and at worst, the target of immediate extermination. But in a field clinic in Tanzania, rats are colleagues—heroes even.
Far from a trash bin-dwelling NYC street rat, the African giant pouched rat is docile, intelligent, easier to train than some dogs, and for East Africans, the performer of lifesaving tuberculosis diagnoses every day.
400,000 new cases of tuberculosis (TB) were estimated to have been prevented by these rats, whose sense of smell would make a bloodhound take notice. As the number-one killer among infectious diseases worldwide, many of those 400,000 can be translated into lives saved.
“Not only are we saving people’s lives, but we’re also changing these perspectives and raising awareness and appreciation for something as lowly as a rat,” said Cindy Fast, a behavioral neuroscientist who coaches the rodents for the nonprofit APOPO.
“Because our rats are our colleagues, and we really do see them as heroes.”
APOPO uses giant pouched rats to sniff out traces of TB in the saliva of patients. In parts of Tanzania, a saliva smear test under a microscope by a human may only be 20-40% effective at detecting TB.
By contrast, a giant pouched rat like Ms. Carolina, a now-retired service rat who worked for APOPO for 7 years, raised the rates of detection on TB samples by 40% in the clinic where she worked.
It would take 4 days for scientists to analyze the number of samples that Carolina could screen in 20 minutes. For that reason, when Carolina retired last November, a party was thrown at the clinic in her honor, and she was given a cake.
TB is sometimes thought of as a thing of the past—a disease for which doctors used to prescribe “dry air,” leading a modern sense of humor to muse at the antiquated, pre-antibiotic medical advice.
But it remains the number-one cause of death globally from a single infectious pathogen, and Tefera Agizew, a physician and APOPO’s head of tuberculosis, told National Geographic that once people see what the nonprofit’s rodents can do to slow the spread, they “fall in love with them.”
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3,000 times in her career did Carolina detect one of the six volatile compounds that can be used to identify Mycobacterium tuberculosis, and she got a hero’s send-off to a special compound to live out the rest of her days with her closet friend and sniffer colleague Gilbert, in a shaded enclosure dubbed “Rat Florida.”
“We’ve made special little rat-friendly carrot cakes with little peanuts and things on it that the rat would enjoy,” Fast said. “Then we all stand around and we clap, and we give three cheers, hip hip hooray for the hero, and celebrate together. It’s really a touching moment.”
APOPO has made headlines for its use of these rats in other lifesaving tasks as well: landmine clearance.
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One of the world’s great underreported scourges (a lot like TB, coincidentally) is landmine contamination. There are 110 million landmines or unexploded bombs in the ground right now in about 67 countries, covering thousands of square miles in potential danger. Thousands of civilians are killed or injured by these weapons every year.
GNN reported on APOPO’s demining efforts using pouched rats back in 2020. One rat named Magawa alone identified 39 landmines and 28 items of unexploded ordnance across an area the size of 20 football fields.
If at the start of this story you didn’t like rats, maybe Magawa and Carolina will have changed your mind.
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A 13-year-old girl has been invited to join the Mensa society after getting the maximum score on the IQ test—higher than Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking.
Sofia Kot Arcuri has been accepted into the club after achieving 162, the highest possible score for a girl of her age.
Proud mom Cecylia Kot Arcuri said she always knew Sofia was smart, but didn’t expect her to ace the test without any preparatory work.
“She just walks around throwing random facts at you,” Mrs. Arcuri said, adding that she has been top of her class from the moment she started school. “When you think of someone of high intelligence, you’d think they’d be quite geeky, but really, she’s a normal girl.”
“She’s got loads of friends, is bubbly, and loved by everyone.”
The Mensa High-IQ Society has been around for over 100 years, and focuses on welcoming those extremely gifted minds among us into a space of collaboration and camaraderie. The American chapter of Mensa boasts 50,000 members of the over 150,000, located in 90+ countries worldwide.
Isaac Asimov, Commander Chris Hadfield, Steve Martin, and John McAfee were all members of Mensa, along with the inventor of the mobile phone and author of The Clan of the Cave Bear novels.
Due to Sofia’s intense workload from school, she “didn’t have time to prepare” for the Mensa test in January, and hadn’t practiced any Mensa tests prior to the big day.
Her mother said she was over the moon after receiving her results on March 14th.
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Sofia is top of her class in computer science and wants to pursue a career in coding when she grows up.
“She came home one day and said, ‘there was a bug the teacher didn’t even know how to solve, and I did it,” said the understandably proud Cecylia.
“She’s also a ballet dancer and performs in shows with her dance school. She loves musical theatre and is always playing the piano.”
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Cecylia’s father and Sophia’s grandfather, Antoni Kot, was a head teacher and mathematician who was very well known in his homeland of Poland, tutoring students until age 86 when he died.
“His brain was sharp even in his last minutes, and we believe Sofia inherited her love of math and coding from him,” she said.
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It’s a wise man or woman who treats strangers with kindness because of the old maxim that you don’t know what kind of day they’re having.
For Tracey Holms-Williams, a Philadelphia trolley operator, that’s more than just a maxim—it’s her Modus Operandi.
Working for the Southeast Philadelphia Transportation Authority (SEPTA) for 26 years, Tracey does her best to help both people and kindness get around the city.
“You’re coming into my house,” Holms-Williams told ABC 6 WPVI in front of her trolley. “So you’re coming into my house, I want to greet you, I want to make you feel good, I want you to have a nice time.”
“Sometimes I’ll say ‘Hold up, don’t get on yet, I’ve got to roll out the red carpet!'”
SEPTA sees an average passenger load of around 750,000 per day, but it’s only a few hundred who will hop on Holms-Williams’ trolley and enjoy all the positive and uplifting quotes and posters pasted on the inside; part of her dedication to inspiring the whole city to keep its chin up.
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Holms-Williams sees herself and her colleagues as being on “the front lines” of civic mindset, and as such, wants to treat everyone to a laugh or a smile.
“I just try to make everybody feel good,” she says. “I put the positive quotes up there to inspire people because you never know what kind of day they’re having.”
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Quote of the Day: “Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach.” – Clarissa Pinkola Estés
Photo by: Polina Kuzovkova / 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?
Researchers at the National Cancer Research Centre in Spain (CNIO) have discovered a mechanism that is triggered just minutes after acute liver damage occurs—and it could lead to treatments for those with severe liver problems.
The avenues for future treatments of liver damage include a diet enriched with the amino acid glutamate.
“Glutamate supplementation can promote liver regeneration and benefit patients in recovery following hepatectomy or awaiting a transplant,” wrote the authors in a paper published in ‘Nature’.
The liver is a vital organ, crucial to digestion, metabolism, and the elimination of toxins. It has a unique ability to regenerate, which allows it to replace liver cells damaged by the very toxins that these cells eliminate.
However, the liver stops regenerating in cases of diseases that involve chronic liver damage–such as cirrhosis—and such diseases are becoming increasingly prevalent, associated with poor dietary habits or alcohol consumption. So activating liver regeneration is key to treating the disease.
Learning to activate liver regeneration is therefore a priority today, to benefit patients with liver damage and also those who’ve had part of their liver cut out to remove a tumor.
The research has discovered in animal models this previously unknown mechanism of liver regeneration. It is a process that is triggered very quickly, just a few minutes after acute liver damage occurs, with the amino acid glutamate playing a key role.
“Our results describe a fundamental and universal mechanism that allows the liver to regenerate after acute damage,” explained Nabil Djouder, head of the CNIO Growth Factors, Nutrients and Cancer Group and senior author of the study.
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Liver regeneration was known to occur through the proliferation of liver cells, known as hepatocytes. However, the molecular mechanisms involved were not fully understood. This current discovery is very novel, as it describes communication between two different organs, the liver and bone marrow, involving the immune system, according to a CINO news release.
The results show that liver and bone marrow are interconnected by glutamate. After acute liver damage, liver cells, called hepatocytes, produce glutamate and send it into the bloodstream; through the blood, glutamate reaches the bone marrow, inside the bones, where it activates monocytes, a type of immune system cell. Monocytes then travel to the liver and along the way become macrophages – also immune cells. The presence of glutamate reprograms the metabolism of macrophages, and these consequently begin to secrete a growth factor that leads to an increase in hepatocyte production.
In other words, a rapid chain of events allows glutamate to trigger liver regeneration in just minutes, through changes in the macrophage metabolism. It is, says Djouder, “a new, complex and ingenious perspective on how the liver stimulates its own regeneration.”
The research also clarifies a previously unanswered question: how the various areas of the liver are coordinated during regeneration. In the liver, there are different types of hepatocytes, organized in different areas; the hepatocytes in each area perform specific metabolic functions. The study reveals that hepatocytes producing a protein known as glutamine synthetase, which regulates glutamate levels, play a key role in regeneration.
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According to the CNIO group, when glutamine synthetase is inhibited, there is more glutamate in circulation, which accelerates liver regeneration. This is what happens when the liver suffers acute damage: glutamine synthase activity decreases, blood glutamate increases, and from there, the connection with the bone marrow is established, reprogramming macrophages and stimulating hepatocyte proliferation.
The experiments have been carried out in mice, but the results have been tested with bioinformatics tools, using databases of mouse and human hepatocytes.
According to Djouder, “dietary glutamate supplementation may simply be recommended in the future after liver extirpation, and also to reduce liver damage caused by cirrhosis.”
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The first author of the paper, CNIO researcher María del Mar Rigual also wants future research to explore using glutamate supplements in humans who have undergone liver resection for tumor removal.
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Two longtime English neighbors are celebrating their joint 101st birthday, born on the same day in 1924.
Josie Church and Anne Wallace-Hadrill have lived side-by-side in Oxford since the 1980s, and the great-grans have celebrated their birthdays together for years.
“I think life has gone quite quickly,” said Josie. “I don’t think we’ve thought much about the time passing. It’s just passed.”
Both women threw themselves into volunteering and creative activities after their husbands died—and the women have been fast friends ever since.
“Anne was very busy when she was younger—so was I—always very productive and creative.
“She did a lot of painting and tapestry, and she was always busy, and I was always busy doing something else, somewhere else, because that’s the sort of life we live.”
Anne, studied English at St. Hilda’s College, Oxford University, and served in the Women’s Royal Naval Service as a radio mechanic during the Second World War. After graduating, she worked as a lexicographer for the Oxford English Dictionary.
“I was always interested in words. It was my trade.”
She was very proud to receive a medal for her service from the Royal Navy last year, described as “long overdue” by the representative who gave it to her.
Josie was trained in nursing for three years at Preston Royal Infirmary and remembers the introduction of the National Health Service.
“In those days,” Josie said, “You had to live (on campus) and you couldn’t get married, and it was very strict. People wouldn’t put up with that sort of life now.”
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Her time in nursing during the Second World War included a “chilling” experience of caring for SS German soldiers she described as “very difficult patients who didn’t wish to be taken care of by us.”
She moved with her husband to Oxford so he could continue his degree after the war.
“Oxford was very strange because each college had a large intake of older people who’d gone through the war and were taking up their university places. So you’d get the old men and then the young 18-year-olds coming in from school.”
They don’t remember the moment they discovered they had the same birthday but they especially enjoyed the celebration of their centennial year arranged for 2024.
“We live on the most amazing road. It’s like one big, extended family,” said Josie, mom of three “wonderful” children.
“Everybody knows everybody else. If you have a problem, you just give a shout and somebody will come. I think we are lucky.”
When asked by the SWNS news agency what tips they might give for leading a long life, Josie concluded: “Just live.”
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“You do what seems to be needing doing, and then you do that—and then something else takes its place. You just go on from one thing to another.
“We don’t engineer our lives. I think they’ve just engineered us.”
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A gold Roman coin believed to be the first of its kind ever found in Britain fetched thousands at auction after being unearthed by a devoted metal detectorist.
Ron Walters finally struck gold after six years of searching the same farmer’s field near Dudley, West Midlands, every spring and autumn when the crops weren’t sown.
The retired welder said he stumbled across the rare Roman coin, which dates back to 69AD, on a day when he was almost going to stay home.
“I was going to go one Thursday and decided against it. It was my wife who basically told me to ‘bugger off and get out the house for a bit’,” said the 76-year-old grandfather.
“I was glad I did. I was out for a couple of hours and I picked a signal up. I started digging a bit, but then I lost the signal.
“I managed to get this reading again from a clod of earth about 2ft away from me, I broke it open and then this coin dropped into my hand.”
It is believed to be the first gold aureus of emperor Aulus Vitellius to ever be recorded as a find in the British Isles.
“My heart was racing, I just popped it in my pocket and went straight back home.
“In metal detecting circles a Roman coin is probably among the best things you can find—that or Ancient English gold.
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“I can only imagine a soldier travelled with it, possibly via France.”
The 1,955-year-old coin was auctioned this week by Fieldings Auctioneers and fetched $6,000, which the Kingswinford man will split with the field’s landowner.
Mark Hannam, senior coin specialist at Fieldings said the coin was a genuinely amazing find and “a unique piece of history.”
“To find a coin from 69AD is incredibly rare, as most coins we find in this country are from the third and fourth centuries, and we are talking about a time when the gold was at its purest level.
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“The fact that this one has escaped ploughing in the ground for over 1,900 years and the coin is still in excellent condition is quite remarkable.”
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When Nihal Tammana was just 10 years old, he heard a news report about a lithium-ion battery exploding at a waste disposal plant—and when he learned about the environmental risks of batteries being left in landfills, he decided to do something.
Tammana started the nonprofit, Recycle My Battery, and now, at 15 years old, he has already recycled over 625,000 batteries—and placed over 1,000 battery bins in schools, libraries, and businesses to make recycling easier.
Anyone can now visit RecycleMyBattery.org for instructions on how to make their schools and businesses battery recycling heroes.
The teen from Monroe, New Jersey, has expanded his impact beyond the United States, too. Tammana’s story and mission were recently featured in a German educational textbook, integrating battery recycling advocacy into school curriculums.
He is also teaming up with B-cycle, Australia’s largest battery recycling company, so the country can adopt his initiative to place battery bins in schools nationwide.
Lately, Nihal is working on a Residual Charge Project, developing a prototype (that was confirmed by a University of Waterloo expert) to extract leftover energy from used batteries that could power the battery recycling plants.
Engaging its 1,000 youth volunteers globally, Recycle My Battery is educating the public about the destructive effects of throwing batteries in with your trash. The nonprofit researched the effects of a normal alkaline battery, such as Duracell, on soil quality. The degrading battery dramatically increased salt levels, rendering the soil toxic, with an alarming pH of 13.01—far beyond the range suitable for any vegetation.
With its goal of recycling 1 million batteries by the end of the year through initiatives like The Battery Challenge, which gamifies school participation, Tammana invites communities and organizations to join the effort. From setting up battery bins to spreading awareness, every action contributes to a cleaner, healthier planet.
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“If I can make the Earth a better place to live, you can…. If you can, we all can,” said Tammana.
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