Quote of the Day: “Art is the unceasing effort to compete with the beauty of flowers—and never succeeding.” – Gian Carlo Menotti
Photo by: Clara Beatriz for Unsplash+
With a new inspirational quote every day, atop the perfect photo—collected and archived on our Quote of the Day page—why not bookmark GNN.org for a daily uplift?
2,228 years ago today, the Gaozu Emperor (given name Liu Bang) claimed the Mandate of Heaven and established the Han Dynasty—one of the three great dynasties of a unified Imperial China. Among the hundreds of Chinese emperors, Liu Bang was among the few born to a peasant family. Though he ruled briefly—just 7 years—it was enough to usher in the historical era known in the West as the first Pax Sinica, from as far south as the Pearl River to as far north as the Mongolian steps, and as far west as Xinjiang. In the last years of his reign, he instituted free-market reforms including privatized coinage and lower taxes. READ more about his life and the founding of the Han Dynasty… (202 BCE)
A neat feat of calculation and deduction may have solved one of our solar system’s greatest mysteries.
Titan, the largest moon of Saturn, is bigger than Mercury, yet for all its conspicuousness, scientists don’t know exactly how it came to be so large that it’s gravitational influence causes Saturn to tilt and wobble.
There are some 274 moons that orbit Saturn, the solar-system’s second largest planet, and Matija Ćuk, a research scientist at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California, proposes a theory that one of these collided with Titan in the planet’s ancient past, enlarging it in the process.
Ćuk believes it might have been the precursor to Hyperion, the largest nonspherical Saturnine moon, but which is tiny in comparison to Titan.
Ćuk put data collected by NASA’s Cassini Probe which visited Saturn between 2004 and 2017 together with new research and computer simulations to present the idea that an extra moon colliding with Titan set off a chain reaction that not only explains Titan’s size, but Saturn’s characteristic wobble and tilt, and even its famous rings, saying the theory “explains everything.”
Even as the James Webb Space Telescope has pushed the boundaries of understanding the university farther than we could have ever imagined, the discovery demonstrates how much is left to know about our own cosmic cul-de-sac.
“I propose that there was an extra moon about half a billion years ago that collided with Titan, that actually became part of Titan,” Ćuk told CNN about his research, accepted for publication in The Planetary Science Journal.
“From this event, Titan could have perturbed some of the inner moons into more collisions, which created the rings sometime later, maybe 100 million years ago.”
Previously, scientists estimated that the orbital force of Neptune accounted for the wobble of Saturn. This concept in astronomy is known as “resonance,” but data from Cassini showed they weren’t sufficiently synced up to explain this.
Then in 2022, scientists proposed that a lost moon called Chrysalis had spun too close to Saturn, broke apart, and formed its rings as well as its tilt and wobble.
Refining the concept, Ćuk showed that if you look closely, Saturn is wobbling a bit too fast for Neptune’s resonance to account for, but subtracting backwards in time, around when Saturn’s rings are thought to have formed, the wobble is very closely aligned with Neptune.
Adding in an extra moon, around 1,000-times larger than Hyperion, makes the resonance between Neptune and Saturn exact.
MORE SOLAR-SYSTEM SCIENCE: New Webb Image Captures Clearest View of Neptune’s Rings, Revealing the Ice Giant in Whole New Light
In other words, when Saturn had both the proto-Hyperion moon and proto-Titan, its resonance with Neptune was so close as to fit into established calculations on how the orbital force of one planet can affect others, but a collision between the moons sped up its wobble and accounted for why the Neptune theory seemed improbable.
CNN reached out to William B. Hubbard, professor emeritus of planetary sciences at the University of Arizona, who wasn’t involved in Ćuk’s research, to ask for comment.
LOCAL (RELATIVELY) NEWS: This Tiny Moon of Saturn Is the Smallest Case of a Subsurface Ocean Ever Found in the Solar System
Professor Hubbard concluded that Ćuk’s theory fits the billing better than did earlier theories about the Chrysalis moon.
This was the same conclusion as Carl Murray, an emeritus professor of mathematics and astronomy at Queen Mary University of London, who wasn’t involved in the work but was a member of the Cassini team. Murray called it “highly probable.”
SHARE This Local Astronomy Seemingly Solved…
The UK’s first geothermal power plant has just begun operations, using hot water from deep underground to create renewable electricity.
The United Downs plant in Cornwall has been in development for nearly two decades, and will now begin providing enough electricity to power 10,000 homes.
Geothermal power generation comes via energy stored in the form of heat beneath the surface of the Earth. The company behind the project, (GEL) Geothermal Engineering Ltd., had to drill the deepest on-shore well ever drilled on UK soil—over 3 miles deep—to source the geothermal fluid that is used for the power plant.
The naturally heated water, exceeding 190°C, generates electricity 24 hours a day, 7 days a week regardless of the weather.
The water will help drive turbines to generate electricity for 10,000 homes but will also provide the UK’s first domestic supply of lithium, a critical mineral used in green technology.
Dr. Ryan Law, CEO of GEL, said the opening of the power plant is a “huge advancement for geothermal power in the UK.”
“Geothermal energy and critical minerals extraction are naturally complementary as they share the same subsurface resource,” Dr. Law explained. “The hot, mineral-rich fluids that generate clean electricity can also be processed to recover strategic materials like lithium carbonate.”
“Therefore, collocating power and mineral extraction plants maximizes investment in the wells, minimizes subsurface disruption, and accelerates the transition to secure domestic supply in both critical sectors.”
GEL have said the water they’ve brought to the surface after drilling contains one of the highest concentrations of lithium in the world.
Lithium carbonate is a key raw material used in the production of rechargeable batteries like those that power electric vehicles and energy storage systems. From its February, 2026 starting point, GEL says the plant has the capacity to produce 100 tons per annum.
Ground source heat pumps are a form of geothermal technology already used in the UK, and in places like Southampton, heating is provided to hundreds of homes via a local network. But the United Downs project has drilled to far greater depths where temperatures are hot enough to generate more than just heat, but actual electricity.
MORE INNOVATIVE ENERGY SOURCES: Iron-Air Batteries Powered by Rust Could Revolutionize Energy Storage By Using Only Iron, Water, and Air
Furthermore, the project has only cost around $59 million to date, funded through private investors and the EU.
Energy provider Octopus Energy has purchased the power generated at United Downs and will deliver it, via the national grid, to about 10,000 homes.
GEL has two other sites it plans to develop into geothermal power plants, and although one additional site has been initially turned down over environmental concerns, the company is appealing.
GEOTHERMAL HERE AT HOME: Giant 2-GW Geothermal Project in Utah Gains Federal Approval
Greg Jackson, Founder of Octopus Energy, said UK bills are “still too high” and the answer is “more homegrown, renewable energy.”
“For the first time, we’re bringing deep geothermal power to British homes—a clean, constant energy source right beneath our feet,” he said. “Projects like United Downs show how the UK can cut bills and carbon by tapping every ounce of our renewable potential.”
SHARE This Story With Any Brits You Know Who Might Need A Power Pick-Me-Up…
A snow plow driver was crawling through near-white out conditions on Long Island when he saw something strange.
Kenny McGowan has had to stop his snow plow in the past for all manner of hidden obstacles and hazards, from buried cars to fallen branches.
Instead, two slight figures were running along the asphalt/ice/snow/salt poutine that McGowan has scraping away.
“I looked over and I seen something in the corner of my eye right there, and then I looked in my mirror and I saw a dog. I’m like ‘that’s a dog running,'” McGowan told CBS News.
“I immediately put my sirens on, and stayed right behind them. Being an animal lover, being a father, I went right into protection mode … I was gonna do whatever I had to do to stop these dogs from getting hurt.”
He kept going until he was able to turn his plow sideways near Town Hall and block the dogs’ path, after which they ran shoulder to shoulder into the middle of a median strip and buried themselves in 3 feet of snow.
With the help of several Good Samaritans, who perhaps wanted to know why the truck driver had blocked the road, or because they too had seen the dogs, McGowan managed to get the two uncollared Labrador-mixes into the back of his truck.
MORE DOG RESCUES: Mountain Rescue Script Flipped as Hiker Saves Lost Dog Instead of a Dog Saving Hiker
The “animal lover” brought them immediately to the nearest animal shelter, whose staff heard the story and told CBS that both dogs could have frozen to death buried out of sight in the drift.
When they arrived in the shelter it was clear to everyone the two dogs were bonded. They didn’t leave each other’s side at any point, and the shelter didn’t bother trying to separate them.
ALSO CHECK OUT: Farmers’ Kids Cuddle Up with New Born Calf on the Couch After She Nearly Froze Outside
While they didn’t have collars, both were microchipped. Their owners were notified, and the dogs returned to what would presumably be an extra-warm doggie bed that night.
WATCH the video below…
COMMEND Kenny’s Compassion For Two Four-Legged Long Islanders Lost In The Snow…
In January, GNN reported on how the brain-disabling cold of the Norwegian winter couldn’t affect the performance of an all-electric ferryboat plying the waters in the country’s far northern district of Finmark.
Well closer to home, a fleet of all-electric buses in Wisconsin have made it to the Vernal Equinox with similar performance statistics: the buses ran morning to night in a city that averages 18 days a year with below-zero temperatures.
That being said, Grist.com, which brought the story from the streets of the state capital of Madison, added that electrification of bus fleets across America has been a rocky road, with cold weather sitting squarely among the challenges transportation departments have faced.
Batteries don’t like the cold, and it was only a few years ago that Madison’s Metro Transit buses would routinely beep-beep to a halt. A pilot program secured 3 electric buses from a company called Proterra in 2020, and problems were rife right from the off. Proterra declared bankruptcy in 2024, and the city switched suppliers to New Flyer.
With a suite of advancements, including overhead charging lines on the most common routes and improved battery capacity and insulation, taking a bus in the winter of 2026 was just as reliable as it used to be, just much quieter and with much less diesel smoke.
Whether one agrees that removing internal-combustion vehicles will do anything to change the climate, the lack of engine noise and exhaust makes for not only a more pleasant atmosphere for those onboard and outside, but a healthy one as well, since frequent bus commuters are at a higher risk of lung and heart disease than motorists.
MORE STORIES LIKE THIS: Colorado Town is Case Study for Electric School Buses in Wintertime—They Outperformed Diesel
Bus commuters spend a lot of time waiting by bus stops where, shifting in and out of 1st and 2nd gears, diesel-powered buses belch out the most fine-particulate matter, which has been shown to lead to these diseases.
When the New Flyer coaches that travel along the west-east routes reach the last stop, the driver gets a brief layover of 20 minutes to get out and stretch their legs or have a coffee. At the same time, a robotic arm reaches up and plugs into a pantograph charging port over head that can replace about 15% of the bus’s charge in as many minutes.
NORTHERN TRANSPORT: Autonomous Montreal Metro Completed with Massive Cost Savings–Sets Example for Canada
Those that travel on the north-south lines don’t have the chargers, and finish the day’s load with about 20-25% charge remaining. Even on the coldest days this winter, no coach suffered more than 10% additional battery loss, and there were no grounded trips due to cold affecting battery performance. Trips were interrupted or canceled for other reasons, but not for the weather.
SHARE This Major Improvement In Electric Buses Around Wisconsin’s Capital…
Quote of the Day: “I am a kind of paranoid in reverse. I suspect people of plotting to make me happy.” – J. D. Salinger
Photo by: Allison Saeng
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?
30 years ago today, the world of Pokémon went public, emerging from the mind of game designer Satoshi Tajiri onto Nintendo Gameboy systems. In the six years it took to create the game and its first three “pocket monsters” (Bulbasaur, Squirtle, and Charmander), Tajiri’s Game Freak studio nearly went out of business, but the little creatures—some disarmingly cute, like, Pikachu—would take the world by storm and handheld Gameboys would assume a second life. READ more about the franchise… (1996)
From the charming British countryside of Salisbury comes an equally-charming story of a roll of lost film found lodged in a thrift shop camera.
Developed by Ian Scott of Salisbury Photo Center, he and the new owner of the antique camera were suddenly looking at crisp memories of a skiing trip to St. Moritz, Switzerland.
Yet because the camera was dropped off at Alabaré Wilton Emporium who-knows-how-long ago by who-knows who, there’s no clue as to the identities of the people in the photos.
Scott has taken the time to launch a sort of nation-wide awareness campaign to see if anyone recognizes a face in the photographs.
“No leads on the photos yet,” Scott told our Smithsonian Magazine on February 19th. “It has been on TV and the Sunday Express and [my] Instagram, which had 8,000 views in 24 hours, but sadly, no leads.”
A couple of clues exist in the photos and the film they were imprinted on. For starters, the camera was a Zeiss Ikon Baby Ikonta, made in the interwar period and designed to be carried around in one’s pocket since it folded up. However, the film inside was Verichrome Pan 127, sold in Britain for the first time in 1956.
Furthermore, the skiers were wearing numbered pennies with the name of a baby formula brand Cow & Gate, which sponsored a ski trophy in the 1950s.
Beyond that, it’s clear they’re in St. Moritz ski resort from one picture of a woman on ice skates in front of the town’s iconic Badrutt’s Palace Hotel.
MORE MYSTERY PHOTOGRAPHS:
“There appears to be a great story behind these photographs, and it would be brilliant if someone could recognize a face amongst them,” Scott told the Salisbury & Avon Gazette. “At the very least, it has been a privilege to have played a small part in preserving these moments from the past.”
It’s amazing to see how lightly some of the subjects are dressed. Wool is a hell of a thing.
WATCH the story below from ITV News (Via Scott’s IG…)
SPREAD The Word About These Mystery Photographs…
Capable of undergoing 120,000 charge cycles and being disposed of anywhere, an experimental new battery design might be thought of as truly state-of-the-art.
To the contrary, the magnesium chloride or calcium chloride electrolytes used to carry the charge between the negative and positive electrodes were quite familiar to the Hong Kong-scientists that designed the battery for a very good reason.
They’re used to make tofu.
Researchers from City University of Hong Kong and their colleagues sought to advance the science of water-based batteries, as they’re safer in society and don’t require hazardous waste disposal.
As China has rapidly become the world leader in electric vehicle and renewable energy productions, the lithium-ion battery has come to permeate the society. As well as powering most phones, computers, and other devices, it’s a glaring, approaching waste problem that will involve the need to process millions of tons of battery waste every year.
That’s a major risk for local environments, both urban and natural, since lithium-ion batteries use flammable solvents as the electrolyte which can catch fire or explode if damaged. These fires can be difficult to extinguish as they aren’t water-based, and it’s why power-banks and portable batteries have been banned on many airlines.
Aqueous, or water-based batteries by contrast, don’t have any component that can catch fire, and so are hypothesized as being more environmentally-friendly. Despite being under development in various ways for over 200 years, however, they’ve never caught on in a big way. While safer, the chosen electrolytes have been either too far to the alkaline or the acidic sides of the pH spectrum, which present a different set of challenges, South China Morning Post reports.
The team from City University needed an electrolyte that was water-based, nontoxic, and neutral in pH level, so they turned to food additives: magnesium chloride or calcium chloride.
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In order to make tofu, soy milk is introduced to brine featuring one of these mineral salts which act as a coagulant to turn the milk into a solid.
“Compared with current aqueous battery systems … our system delivers exceptional long-term cycling stability and environmental friendliness under neutral conditions,” the team said in a paper published in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Communications on February 18th.
MORE BATTERY ADVANCEMENTS: Samsung’s 600-Mile-Range Batteries That Charge in 9 Minutes Ready for Production/Sale Next Year
“As magnesium and calcium are naturally abundant in soil, their presence poses minimal environmental risk,” they added.
“Our findings represent a considerable advancement in the development of neutral electrolyte-compatible negative electrode materials, offering a safer, high-performance, long-lasting and environmentally sustainable energy storage solution.”
SHARE This Delicious Idea Of A Battery For The Future With Your Friends…
Thai conservationists were delighted with the news that a sighting of an Asian golden cat had been recorded by camera traps.
The legendary “fire tiger” of Thai folklore and mythology, the Asian golden cat is one of the most scarcely seen of all wildcats.
Filmed by a camera trap in the country’s northern Khao Luang National Park, Catopuma temminckii, is most closely related to the bay cat of Borneo, or the marbled cat of the Himalayas.
Despite having branched away from its common lineage with the tiger between 8 and 16 million years ago, it’s known in Thai as the “fire tiger” because of its distinctive coat that can appear tan at times and orange at others. Interestingly, in Chinese it’s known not as the fire tiger, but the “metal cat.”
The sighting was announced by park officials in a July 7th Facebook post, in which the golden cat passed in front of the camera trap for a mere 10 seconds before disappearing into the forest.
Their behavior is perfectly adapted to both their forest home and to avoid being spotted by humans. Territorial, solitary, and capable of hunting in both day and night, the lack of predictable hunting patterns and social lives renders it one of the hardest cat species to see in the wild.
LITTLE-KNOWN WILDCATS:
The Karen people of southeastern Myanmar believe that carrying a single hair of the cat is sufficient to keep tigers away. Like the cheetah, it is listed as “Vulnerable” by the IUCN, and suffers from all the classic wildlife risks: habitat destruction and fragmentation, poaching, and conflict with humans over livestock.
A 2023 population estimate by the IUCN suggested that a reasonable number of mature individuals across its whole range could be 7,000—more than the cheetah, the tiger, and the snow leopard—and that it could number as many as 12,000 or as few as 1,000.
The wide variation is a testament to the cat’s elusiveness. Intact strongholds, according to the estimate, seem to be a mixture of Bhutan, western Myanmar/eastern Bangladesh, the west coast of Thailand, the hilly, forested center of the Malaysian Peninsula, and the south-facing flank of Sumatra.
WATCH the beautiful fire tiger on video below…
SHARE This Exciting Video Of A Beautiful And Little Known Cat…
250 million years ago, the giant ancestors of today’s salamanders swam from the area of today’s Norwegian Arctic to the west coast of Australia.
This monumental trip placed it, many years later, under the brushes and picks of paleontologists who incorrectly identified it. The fossils would later travel all over the world much like the animal did in life, before being placed in storage and forgotten about.
A moment of great fortune reunited the ancient amphibian Aphaneramma with its native land, and it’s given Australian scientists a chance to iron out the family tapestry of these marine amphibians.
“The Aphaneramma’s got a head like a crocodile, a body like a giant salamander, pretty pointy teeth … it would have been a very active predator in the water,” said Lachlan Hart, a lecturer in paleontology at the University of New South Wales.
The fossils were originally unearthed in 1960 on Noonkanbah Station, about 1,500 miles north of Perth in a region called Kimberly—you can picture classic Australian Outback of hardy trees, red stones, and scrubland.
They were correctly identified as Temnospondyls and named Erythrobatrachus, but paleontologists at the time didn’t know was that they were holding two different species jumbled together.
MORE INSTANCES OF THIS:
This might have been realized, but the pieces were shipped by and for other institutions around the world and eventually forgotten about. They ended up in the US, where 50 years later researchers stumbled upon them and found out that Dr. Hart and his colleagues had ongoing projects into them.
The American museum staff or researchers who found them asked if he had been “looking for these,” and Dr. Hart admitted it was pure serendipity, when you “really have to check your luck.”
“Temnospondyls are a really important group of animals because they survived two of the big five mass extinction events that have happened in Earth’s history,” Dr. Hart told ABC News AU. “Including the largest one that ever happened … and that’s where about 90% of all living things were wiped out.”
SHARE This Serendipitous Rediscovery With Your Friends…
Quote of the Day: “Land really is the best art.” – Andy Warhol
Photo by: Joshua Rawson Harris
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?
94 years ago today, Johnny Cash was born. The American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and author was widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century and one of the best-selling music artists of all time, having sold more than 90 million records worldwide. Although primarily remembered as a country music icon, his genre-spanning songs embraced rock and roll, rockabilly, blues, folk, and gospel. This crossover appeal won Cash a rare honor: multiple inductions in the Country Music, Rock and Roll, and Gospel Music Halls of Fame. WATCH Cash perform in San Quentin Prison… (1932)
Reprinted with permission from World at Large News
In South Africa, a strategy 6 years in the making to protect rhinos from poaching, as ingenious as it is dramatic, is now being implemented on the ground in the country’s game reserves and parks.
Called the Rhisotope Project, it involves embedding non-harmful radioactive isotopes into the horns of rhinos, thereby rendering them impossible to traffic across borders due to existing infrastructure at seaports and airports to prevent nuclear terrorism and proliferation.
Even if the isotope is found and removed, the residue on the horn—and anything it touches—can be detected. Undertaken by the University of Witwatersrand-Johannesburg, field tests have confirmed that the radioactivity of the isotopes can be identified even if a single horn is hidden inside a standard, 40-foot steel shipping container.
The Rhisotope Project was launched, a release from “Wits” University elaborates, to combat the high levels of illegal poaching of South Africa’s rhinos. Home to the largest population of the rhinoceros species anywhere on Earth, South Africa has been combatting rhino poachers, as they threaten to wipe out the already small populations of white rhino (Ceratotherium simum) and black rhino (Diceros bicornis), classified by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as “Near Threatened” and “Critically-Endangered” respectively.
“Our goal is to deploy the Rhisotope technology at scale to help protect one of Africa’s most iconic and threatened species. By doing so, we safeguard not just rhinos but a vital part of our natural heritage,” Jessica Babich, CEO of the Rhisotope Project, said in a statement.
Roughly 11,000 machines capable of detecting radiation are installed at points-of-entry across the world’s 200-odd countries, and have been designed to allow staff to make such detections with minimal effort and training. By contrast, few places have infrastructure or training programs that specialize in detecting trafficked animal parts.
There was skepticism early on about whether the radioactive material would hurt the rhinos, but other conservationists working to protect the mega mammals have called it “a magical idea”.
“There was an attempt to use nuclear technology back in 2015/16 when a completely different group was trying to work with NECSA (Nuclear Energy Corporation of South Africa) and some major funding to see if using nuclear technology to protect rhinos was feasible. But it wasn’t, they gave it up very, very quickly because the type of technology they were using wasn’t going to work in the field,” Babich told WaL.
She explained that it was overly cumbersome, and the idea was later put to Professor James Larkin, Chief Scientific Officer of the Rhisotope Project and scientist specializing in radiology at Witwatersrand University. It was he who proposed using isotopes.
“The idea grew out of a question of whether or not radioactivity could be used to ‘poison’ a horn,” Professor Larkin told WaL via email. “From my point of view that is an emphatic ‘no’. I came up with the idea to use radioactive seeds to devalue the horn and make it much easier to track across international borders. So basically the idea, good or bad, is mine”.
NECSA and Wits worked together with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to advance Larkin’s idea, and in 2024, inaugurated a testing phase at a rhino nursery in the UNESCO Waterberg Biosphere Reserve in the northern province of Limpopo. The animals were monitored 24/7 for 6 months for any signs that the radioisotopes might have been affecting them.
Then, using a technique known as biological dosimetry, researchers cultured blood samples and examined the formation of micronuclei in white blood cells—a proven indicator of cellular damage. No such damage was found in the 20 rhinos, and represented a major step in the feasibility of nuclear-powered wildlife trafficking prevention.
“We have demonstrated, beyond scientific doubt, that the process is completely safe for the animal and effective in making the horn detectable through international customs nuclear security systems,” Professor Larkin said last summer.
For the observer, one characteristic of South African wildlands and wildlife that might seem like an impediment to the project is the fact that thousands of rhinoceroses live on privately-owned land.
“Private rhino owners in South Africa are incredibly important. Believe it or not, the vast majority [sic] are privately-owned rhinos—greater than that in national parks like Kruger,” Babich said. “All of the populations are incredible important, but as a not-for-profit company we are actively looking for partners and collaborators to gain funding support so that we can offer to treat as many rhinos as possible as quickly as possible, and we are in discussions with quite a few people and places that would like the technology put in”.
PREVENTING POACHING: India’s Rhino Stronghold Sees 86% Drop in Poaching and Five-Fold Increase in Rhinos
1 kilogram of rhino horn on the black market has been reported widely to cost around $65,000, which would make the double-horned black rhinoceros worth $130,000 dead. As has been repeated exhaustively, the material of a rhino’s horn is the same as that of a human’s fingernails and hair: keratin, a simple, crude protein that confers no medicinal properties despite the horn’s use as a medicinal tea.
Various strategies have been employed to combat rhino poaching, from funneling millions into the arsenals and training camps of anti-poaching security teams, to one man’s quest to breed captive rhinos and farm them for their horns with the intent to flood the market, crash the price, and disincentivize the poachers.
Babich explained that if using radioisotopes does deter poachers, it would save the nation’s private landowners whose lands include rhinos a lot of money that they are otherwise paying to hire, train, and equip anti-poaching security teams, and to de-horn rhinos, another of the common anti-poaching strategies. That, though, has to be done every 18 to 24 months.
“With the isotopes the rhino gets to keep its horn, and we only have to come back after a 5-year period just to top up the dosage, so it will ultimately be more cost-effective in the long-run”.
One of the nuclear scientists from Witwatersrand University involved at the periphery of the project was Professor Nithaya Chetty, dean of the science faculty at Wits. He had previously told Africa News that studies on de-horned rhinoceroses showed that even though it’s somewhat effective at deterring poachers, it negatively affects the rhinos’ social habits and hierarchy.
MORE STORIES LIKE THIS: Nuclear Waste from Unused Weapons Is Being Safely Turned to Glass After Leaking for Years
Having seen the project move from a face-to-face proposal, to a rough idea, to development, testing, success, and deployment, Professor Larkin was contemplative when asked about it.
“Feelings? A certain amount of pride that I have done the research and shown the idea is viable,” he told WaL. “Hope that the idea is taken up at scale and maybe the hope that we have really made a difference to the rhino population and they are around for a few more generations”. WaL
WATCH the testing in action below…
SHARE This Ambitious Way To Protect These Magnificent Creatures…
A soccer player for an amateur league team in Istanbul had to unexpectedly deputize as an emergency veterinarian during a match in the Turkish city last weekend.
The goalkeeper for a team playing in red went to boot the ball upfield, but instead left the entire pitch in shock when the ball traveled a mere 20 yards and walloped a passing seagull.
The bird hit the turf, seemingly dead.
The event was captured on video and shared on the soccer channel of the social media site Reddit, which revels in amateur league bizarrities, from Turkey more than most, where other recent videos include a referee allowing play to continue with two balls on the pitch, another where a sideline referee had a bicycle thrown at him from the stands, and a third where a referee in a third-tier league was filmed conducting a grass inspection despite more than a foot of snow covering the pitch.
A player wearing number 5 ran over, turned the bird on his back, and was filmed performing CPR in an earnest attempt to save it, while teammates and opposition players surrounded to watch.
At one point, the player seems to give up, but then carries on until he sees signs of life in the bird.
Ferrying the animal off the field, he was directed to the medical staff who entered the pitch through a chain-link fence, took the seagull, and the game was allowed to continue.
Only in Turkey, the headline might have read.
WATCH the seagull saga below…
Goalkeeper in Istanbul's amateur league hit a seagull; a player performed CPR, resuscitated it, and handed it to medical staff.
by u/PrimedGold in soccer
SHARE This Funny-Not-Funny Video Of A Live-Saving Intervention…
A bride who was filmed dancing at her wedding reception while undergoing treatment for cystic fibrosis has gone viral.
“CF doesn’t stop no party ✨” was Dannika Evans’ opinion when she posted the video to her TikTok account, where she was doing her best to dance while wearing a special oscillation vest with a nebulizer stuck between her teeth.
20-year-old Dannika married her fiancé Bo Evans, 23, last June in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
20 might seem young in this day and age, but cystic fibrosis has the effect of altering the perception of time among patients, particular regarding how much is left.
Parents of children born with cystic fibrosis, a genetic disease that leaves the patient extra-susceptible to lung infections, are often cautioned not to grow too close to them. Mortality from the disease is high among children, but many, like Dannika, make it to adulthood.
In Dannika’s case, a twice-a-day treatment involves a nebulizer and high-frequency chest wall oscillation (HFCWO) vest to help open her lungs, which can often become clogged with overly-thick mucous-like secretions.
The bride-to-be did her treatment combo the morning of the wedding, and expected she might have to do it during the reception that evening.
“Knowing that I had to do treatments the night of my wedding, doing them on the dance floor with everyone I love surrounding me seemed like the best option,” Dannika told PEOPLE Magazine. “While energy was high, we had the time of our lives dancing the night away while I was shaking!”
The video of her dancing amassed 2.2 million views, and thousands of positive comments praising her bravery and attitude.
“As a CF patient myself I feel so much joy seeing other CF people sharing the happy parts of their life,” one comment read.
INSPIRING WEDDING SAGAS:
“Most of the comments are from ‘CFers,’ respiratory therapists, or parents of CF patients,” Dannika said.
“Knowing that I can reach people just like me, gives me hope to keep posting my life journey with CF. I hope it gives people a new perspective of the disease. Cystic fibrosis can take, take, and take, but you can fight back! With joy, patience, and doing EVERYTHING you can to stay as healthy as possible.”
This does seem to be the prevailing attitude of those who survive childhood, with ‘CFers’ frequently incorporating truly impressive wellness and fitness regimes into their lives and remaining rigorously disciplined to them.
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@dannikaspam CF doesn’t stop no party ✨ #cysticfibrosis #weddingday #weddingdance #wedding #trends ♬ Inside Out Joy - Sweet Dreams & D'Michel Leb
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Long before antibiotics were invented, biotics—i.e. bacteria—had developed resistance to them.
When researchers examined a bacterial strain called Psychrobacter discovered in 5,000-year-old layers of cave ice, they found it was resistant to 10 modern antibiotics.
Yet it also showed promising enzymatic activities and could inhibit the growth of ‘superbugs’ resistant to multiple antibiotics, and besides this, its genetics harbored clues to the evolutionary origin of resistance.
Bacteria have evolved to adapt to all of Earth’s most extreme conditions, from scorching heat to temperatures well below zero. Ice caves are just one of the environments hosting a variety of microorganisms that represent a source of genetic diversity that has not yet been studied extensively.
Now, researchers in Romania tested antibiotic resistance profiles of a bacterial strain that until recently was hidden in a 5,000-year-old layer of ice from underground Scarisoara Ice Cave, and found it could be an opportunity for developing new strategies to prevent the rise of antibiotic resistance and study how resistance naturally evolves and spreads. They reported their discovery in Frontiers in Microbiology.
“The Psychrobacter SC65A.3 bacterial strain isolated from Scarisoara, despite its ancient origin, shows resistance to multiple modern antibiotics and carries over 100 resistance-related genes,” said author Dr. Cristina Purcarea, a senior scientist at the Institute of Biology Bucharest of the Romanian Academy.
“But it can also inhibit the growth of several major antibiotic-resistant superbugs and showed important enzymatic activities with important biotechnological potential.”
Psychrobacter SC65A.3 is a strain of the genus Psychrobacter, which are bacteria adapted to cold environments that can cause infections in humans or animals.
Dr. Purcarea and her team drilled a 25-meter ice core from the area of the cave known as the Great Hall, representing a 13,000-year timeline. To avoid contamination, the ice fragments taken from the core were placed in sterile bags and kept frozen on their way back to the lab. There, the researchers isolated various bacterial strains and sequenced their genome to determine which genes allow the strain to survive in low temperatures and which confer antimicrobial resistance and activity.
They tested for resistance of the SC65A strain against 28 antibiotics from 10 classes that are routinely used to or reserved for treating bacterial infections.
“The 10 antibiotics we found resistance to are widely used in oral and injectable therapies used to treat a range of serious bacterial infections in clinical practice,” Purcarea pointed out. Diseases such as tuberculosis, colitis, and UTIs can be treated with some of the antibiotics that the researchers found resistance to, including rifampicin, vancomycin, and ciprofloxacin.
SC65A.3 is the first Psychrobacter strain for which resistance to certain antibiotics— including trimethoprim, clindamycin, and metronidazole—was found, despite it last seeing daylight during the Stone Age. Those antibiotics are used to treat UTIs, infections of lungs, skin, or blood, and the reproductive system. SC65A.3’s resistance profile suggests that strains capable of surviving in cold environments could act as reservoirs of resistance genes, specific DNA sequences that help them survive exposure to drugs.
The team described them as both a threat and a promise.
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“If melting ice releases these microbes, these genes could spread to modern bacteria, adding to the global challenge of antibiotic resistance,” Purcarea said. “On the other hand, they produce unique enzymes and antimicrobial compounds that could inspire new antibiotics, industrial enzymes, and other biotechnological innovations.”
In the Psychrobacter SC65A.3 genome, the researchers found almost 600 genes with unknown functions, suggesting a yet untapped source for discovering novel biological mechanisms. Analysis of the genome also revealed 11 genes that are potentially able to kill or stop the growth of other bacteria, fungi, and viruses. The first ever antibiotic was penicillin, which was isolated from fungi.
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Such potential is becoming ever more important in a world where antibiotic resistance is a growing concern. Going back to ancient genomes and uncovering their potential highlights the important role the natural environment played in the spread and evolution of antibiotic resistance.
“These ancient bacteria are essential for science and medicine,” Purcarea concluded.
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Quote of the Day: “If you’re going to do something tonight that you’ll be sorry for tomorrow morning, sleep late.” – Henny Youngman
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298 years ago today, John Wood the Younger, a famous British architect who gave the nation such famous works as the Royal Crescent and the Circus in Bath, was born. His craft and determination in succeeding in his father’s storied reputation as a Bath builder elevated the cityscape to be one of the most striking and romantic of any in Britain. His magnum opus is without question the Royal Crescent, a row of 30 terraced houses laid out in a sweeping crescent of Palladian splendor, considered the finest example of Georgian-era architecture outside London. READ more about his works… (1728)
