Beginning at noon on Friday, the Irish people will pick up shovels and seedlings to embark on an initiative which aims to plant a million young native trees at many different sites across both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland in 24 hours.
The non-profit charity One Million Trees in One Day will establish individual trees and woodlands in both rural and urban areas to provide valuable resources, beneficial ecosystems and a lasting legacy. The group is committed to low impact and sustainable management and will shun chemical weed-killers in its maintenance plan.
Toyota’s electric hybrid car sales passed the 5 million mark in March, 2013, a milestone for the industry. The company started selling the Prius, the world’s first mass produced gasoline-electric passenger car in 1997.
Four years ago, Janelly Martinez-Amador was confined to a bed, unable to move even an arm or lift her head. At age 3, the fragile toddler had the gross motor skills of a newborn and a ventilator kept her alive.
She was born with thin, fragile bones, and by 3, she had no visible bones on X-rays. Initially, doctors weren’t sure she would survive her first birthday. In May, Janelly will turn 7, and is developing bone with the help of an experimental drug therapy and her care team at the Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt.
Now she can dance.
“This is why we get into medicine in the first place,” said her physician, Jill Simmons, M.D., a pediatric endocrinologist at Vanderbilt. “My goodness, to go from no bones to bones. That’s the most impressive thing I have seen as a physician. It’s incredible.”
Janelly has a rare genetic disorder called hypophosphatasia (HPP), a metabolic disease that affects the development of bone and teeth. An enzyme deficiency causes the bones to become soft because they can’t absorb important minerals such as calcium and phosphorus, increasing the risks for pain, broken bones and bone deterioration.
“Imagine your child laying all the time in bed, not being able to lift herself, not being able to move herself,” said her father, Salvadore Martinez, through a Spanish interpreter.
“The treatment has worked very well. If you saw her in 2009 and see her now, it’s not the same Janelly,” said her mother, Janet Amador.
11 children, age 3 years and younger, participated in the clinical trial testing an enzyme-replacement drug therapy, asfotase alfa. Janelly had the worst case of the group.
Michael Whyte, M.D., the lead investigator of the study, visited Janelly and her family at Children’s Hospital last week. It was the first time he had met the family and Dr. Simmons.
“For many years, it seemed there was nothing that was very helpful for this disorder,” said Whyte, medical-science director of the Center for Metabolic Bone Disease and Molecular Research at Shriner Hospitals for Children in St. Louis.
Varying degrees of HPP affect about one in 100,000 babies born in the United States. The most severe forms occur before birth and half the babies born with the disease don’t survive beyond their first birthday.
“We were fearful that her bone disease was so terribly severe that it might not work. But by looking at the X-rays and hearing about her visits, we were thrilled to hear about her progress,” he added.
About eight months into the treatment, Janelly’s parents felt her fingers — which had been completely soft and boneless — and they could feel traces of developing bone. Her head also began to develop bone. At 18 months into therapy, X-rays showed, for the first time, the visible development of her rib cage.
Janelly now sits in a wheelchair. Recently, dressed in her Easter best and bright pink bows, she was able to turn her head to gaze at a room of onlookers.
She smiled and waved her hand excitedly, a feat she never would have accomplished before the drug therapy. She is also able to attend school at Harris-Hillman Special Education School, not far from Children’s Hospital.
This spring, doctors hope to be able to remove her tracheostomy tube, which has prevented her from speaking. Her developmental and cognitive abilities will be tested in July. Improvement continues each day, each week for Janelly.
Edited by Good News Network; Source materials from Vanderbilt.edu – Photo credit: Vanderbilt-Daniel Dubois
(WATCH her dance in this video below, from the Tennessean)
When two teammates on the Washington Spirit women’s pro soccer team, learned where they would live this summer, they thought someone was playing a prank.
The world-class athletes who won bronze medals at the 2012 Olympics were placed in a retirement community.
But after seeing their new home for the first time last month and receiving a warm welcome from the residents, Robyn Gayle and Diana Matheson are embracing inter-generational living.
“It grew on us quickly. We got here and it surpassed our expectations.”
On Monday, the newspaper staff that had been working overtime in Boston to cover the tragic events of their city found a welcome gift from fellow journalists in a thousand miles away.
The Chicago Tribune staff overwhelmed them with pizzas delivered at noontime along with a nice note:
We can only imagine what an exhausting and heartbreaking week it’s been for you and your city. But do know your newsroom colleagues here in Chicago and across the country stand in awe of your tenacious coverage. You make us all proud as journalists.
We can’t buy you lost sleep, so at least let us pick up lunch.
For years, fishermen, farmers and hydroelectric dams were in a tug of war on the Klamath River in California. Finally, the once bitter enemies came together in compromise, even agreeing to the possible destruction of the dams.
The ensuing years of conservation efforts helped to create a chinook salmon population boom last October that saw thousands of them moving up river every day — nearly double the size of any annual run since 1978.
Based on the agreement, the Department of the Interior released the Final Environmental Impact Statement on April 4 and it recommended full removal of four privately owned hydroelectric facilities in the Klamath Basin.
The now-three-year-old Klamath Hydroelectric Settlement Agreement laid out the process for determining whether the removal of the facilities would advance the restoration of salmon fisheries and how it would impact local communities and tribes. Signed in February of 2010 by more than 40 entities, including the states of Oregon and California, PacifiCorp, three Indian Tribes, irrigation communities, fishing communities, and non-governmental organizations, the agreement called for a robust scientific evaluation of the potential removal of these facilities.
The salmon bonanza in California follows on the successful restoration of once-robust fisheries in Washington state last year following the largest dam removal project in U.S., which gave the migratory chinook and steelhead trout a chance to spawn up river in large numbers once again.
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar called on Congress, which needs to authorize the dam removal as part of the final agreement.
Like the rest of the University of New Hampshire track and field team, Cameron Lyle, 21, joined the bone marrow registry in his sophomore year. After all, it was a one in 5 million chance of ending up a match for a non-family member.
Then, a few weeks ago, the shot put star learned he was an exact match for a 28-year-old man on his last fight against leukemia.
Ever since his father died two years ago Cole Holzer, 7, has clung to his father’s shirt for comfort. He cuddles it, sprays it with his father’s aftershave, and falls asleep with it.
When the boy left the shirt on a Delta Airlines flight to San Diego, and realized it later, he was devastated. That’s when the caring airline sprung into action to try to locate “the daddy shirt”.
As we reported on Saturday, millions of dollars have already been raised directly for specific bystanders who lost limbs in the Boston Marathon bombing. Some of the victims had no health insurance and their friends set up fundraising web pages to help pay the bills.
Businesses now are showing their spirit for Boston through generous contributions to the One Fund Boston. According to ABC News, the fund, which is collecting donations that will be divided between victims and their families, has already topped $10 million.
If you are looking for something fun and fantastic to do with family and friends, head out to America’s national parks this week where nature and history come together — and it’s all free.
The National Park Service presents National Park Week, a presidentially proclaimed celebration of our national heritage. From Saturday April 20 through Sunday, April 28 every national park will have free admission.
HealthyWage and other websites now offer money in exchange for improving your health and fitness.
The company offers $10,000 when teams of five compete to lose weight in a healthy way. Its 10% Challenge allows users to double their money if they lose 10% of their weight in six months; and the BMI Challenge pays users $100 to go from an obese BMI to a healthy BMI in 12 months.
Smart phones are more sophisticated than ever, yet the batteries that power them have remained relatively archaic – until now.
Scientists at the University of Illinois have managed to develop the most powerful microbatteries ever created, making them almost 1000 times stronger than existing lithium batteries and paving the way for smartphones that could be charged in just one second.
Led by William P. King, a professor of mechanical science and engineering, the researchers published their results in the April 16 issue of Nature Communications.
A program to establish a wild population of Tasmanian devils free from facial tumors is showing early signs of success.
In response to the disease that has already killed up to 90 percent of the species, the Save The Devil program released 15 healthy devils on Maria Island, off the state’s east coast, in November.
Wildlife biologist Phil Wise says they have already started breeding.
A Reddit user posted this photo taken by his friend who lives in Watertown where families were ordered yesterday to stay indoors during a manhunt for the Marathon bomber suspect.
The family asked if they could go get milk for their 16 month old son. A policeman, working long hours already, went to the store for them and delivered the milk to the house.
The Watertown resident told Reddit user ZanePerry that the cop was very humble and would not want the publicity.
UPDATE: The policeman was later identified as a policeman from the Brookline community who was helping out in Watertown.
But, ZanePerry deciding to post the photo without permission gave the rest of us a chance to feel a happy warmth for the law enforcement community of Boston.
Brazil will provide 2.4 billion reais ($1.19 billion) of cheap loans and grants for renewable- energy research projects through 2016 as part of a government effort to spur investment in innovation.
The Inova Energia program is intended to create a culture of innovation in Brazil’s energy industry encouraging projects like efficient power lines connecting remote hydroelectric dams in the Amazon or factories that make silicon for use in solar panels.
From passing out lollipops to distributing free iced tea and hugs outside the library at finals, Happiness clubs on college campuses around the country are aiming to uplift their peers throughout the academic year.
Quick, simple attempts to make people feel special dominate these clubs’ agendas, such as a flash mobs or giving out compliments to pedestrians.
A wall at Harvard University is lined with Post-it notes about what makes students happy, messages that remind undergraduates to smile during finals, said junior Emily Lowe, 21, Happiness Project co-director.
Donors have flooded crowdfunding campaigns set up for individual victims of Monday’s bombings at the Boston Marathon, raising more than $1 million in a matter of days.
“Help for Patrick and Jess” — a campaign on crowd fundraising site GiveForward.com — raised $200,000 within 24 hours to benefit Patrick and Jessica Downes, newlyweds who both required leg amputation. As of this morning the campaign has raised $518,971.
Many of the donors are strangers to the couple, like the New Jersey resident who gave $18 and wrote, “You seem like a young couple that represents the best that our great Country can produce… While we don’t know each other, today your family is my family, your goals are our goals, your recovery is our recovery.”
The “Celeste & Sydney Recovery Fund,” set up on GoFundMe.com has also raised nearly a half million dollars for Celeste Corcoran and her teenage daughter Sydney, both severely injured by the blast.
Whole Foods Market has partnered with Gotham Greens to build the nation’s first commercial-scale rooftop greenhouse for growing year-round local produce atop the store in Brooklyn.
The 20,000-square-foot greenhouse, currently under construction along with the forthcoming Whole Foods Market store in Gowanus, is scheduled to open later this fall. Gotham Greens will use the space to grow premium quality, pesticide-free produce for sale in Whole Foods Market locations throughout New York City.
Twelve-year-old Luka suffers from muscular dystrophy – a cruel degenerative disease which confines him to a wheelchair and will make him weaker and weaker over time.
But a friend and photographer Matej Peljhan has allowed him to create an imaginary world where he can shoot a basketball, climb stairs and even perform a handstand.
The magic is created when she places objects on the ground, and shoots the photos from above.
Beginning at noon on Friday, the Irish people will pick up shovels and seedlings to embark on an initiative which aims to plant a million young native trees at many different sites across both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland in 24 hours.
Center for Metabolic Bone Disease and Molecular Research at Shriner Hospitals for Children in St. Louis.
