Spiral galaxy NGC 5134 in the constellation Virgo was 65 million light-years away –NASA/ESA/CSA via SWNS
Spiral galaxy NGC 5134 in the constellation Virgo is 65 million light-years away –NASA/ESA/CSA via SWNS
Light which emanated from a spiral galaxy at the same time the Tyrannosaurus rex was dying out on Earth was captured in striking detail by the James Webb Space Telescope.
Two instruments aboard the Webb observatory have combined to create a jaw-dropping image revealing the structure of NGC 5134, the spiral galaxy 65 million light‑years away.
“NGC 5134 is fairly close by, as far as galaxies go,” said a statement from NASA, the European Space Agency, and the Canadian Space Agency.
“Although 65 million light-years may seem like a huge distance, the light that Webb collected to create this image has been journeying to us from since soon after Tyrannosaurus rex went extinct.”
The image, captured last month on February 20, offers a view from the deep past. Studying “nearby galaxies” like NGC 5134, which is in the Virgo constellation, is aiding astronomers in their understanding of far more distant systems that appear only as faint points of light.
The relative proximity of the star system allowed two of Webb’s powerful cameras to join forces to pick out fine detail in the galaxy’s tightly wound arms.
Webb’s mid-infrared instrument, a versatile camera/spectrograph, shows warm dust and complex molecules across the galaxy’s clouds, while its near-infrared camera, the primary imaging instrument onboard, highlights the stars and clusters embedded within them.
NGC 5134, which was first discovered in 1785 by German-British astronomer William Herschel, has a possible “active galactic nucleus”—a compact region at the center of a galaxy that emits a significant amount of energy across the electromagnetic spectrum, with characteristics indicating that this luminosity is not produced by the stars.
Within this scenic galaxy view, we see the gas clouds that billow along its spiral arms. These are the sites of star formation, and each star that forms chips away at the galaxy’s supply of star-forming gas. When stars die, they recycle some of that gas back into the galaxy.
This give and take between gas and stars is the focus of a NASA/ESA/CSA program that aims to study 55 galaxies in the nearby Universe that are actively forming new stars using a broad range of wavelengths. (See NASA’s higher resolution version of the photo, here.)
“The new Webb data contribute a rich understanding of individual star clusters and star-forming clouds and have already been used to study the life cycle of tiny dust grains, the shape and properties of star-forming clouds, the links between interstellar gas and dust, and the process by which newly formed stars reshape their surrounding environment,” reports NASA.
Quote of the Day: “Self-defense is Nature’s eldest law.” – John Dryden
Photo by: Getty Images for Unsplash+
With a new inspirational quote every day, atop the perfect photo—collected and archived on our Quote of the Day page—why not bookmark GNN.org for a daily uplift?
120 years ago today, Henry Royce and Charles Rolls put their brains and surnames together to form the most iconic luxury car maker in history. Rolls-Royce released the 40/50 in 1908, known as the Silver Ghost which became a hit, and sole offering of the company that had recently set up shop in Derby, before World War I forced them to start making aircraft engines. READ more… (1906)
Adventure Island heroes rescue mom and daughter from sinking in sand – via SWNS
Adventure Island heroes rescue mom and daughter from sinking in sand – via SWNS
CCTV surveillance footage captured the dramatic scene as a mother and young daughter were rescued after they became stuck waist-deep in wet sand—just meters away from each other.
A young girl was playing in the sand at 5:20 pm, near the Three Shells Lagoon, in Essex, England before she suddenly sinks knee-deep and becomes stuck.
Moments later, her mom can be seen rushing to her daughter’s aid, only to sink fully up to her waist.
The scared duo begin shouting for help during the incident last Tuesday, before four men from the nearby Adventure Island theme park came to their rescue.
The heroes brought a long rope and first pulled the daughter to safety and then worked to free the mother, dragging her a long way across the sand, so no one else would get stuck.
In a post on Facebook, a spokesperson for Adventure Island said the wet sand had recently been placed there by the local council—and the tide coming in—when one of their managers heard the screams.
“Thankfully this happened while our team were still on site at the end of the day, allowing staff to step in when it mattered most.
“He immediately alerted members of our workshop team, who quickly brought ropes to secure around them and carefully pull them to safety. Drawing on their training and expertise, the team acted quickly and calmly to rescue them.” (Watch the video below…)
“A huge ‘well done’ to our team who jumped straight into action and safely rescued them.”
The lagoon is now fenced off with signs warning visitors about the deep wet sand.
Philip Miller, Chairman of Stockvale Group which operates the amusement park, also thanked the rescuers for their efforts.
“They recognized that two people were in real difficulty and worked together, with real calmness and professionalism, to bring them safely out.”
The town council of Southend reported that their engineers installed the fencing and warning signs around the lagoon.
“We will keep the signage on site advising caution…until we are confident that the lagoon is safe (and) will consider any other urgent measures which may be necessary following the next low-tide inspection.”
Archie Ford, 31, helps neighboring farmer remove tons of rubbish dumped on property - SWNS
Archie Ford, 31, helps neighboring farmer remove tons of rubbish dumped on property – SWNS
An 80-year-old farmer in England was being forced to pay $52,000 (£40k) to remove rubbish that was illegally dumped on his land by miscreants, until a kind neighbor set up a fundraising campaign to help clear the mess.
The farmer in his eighties was facing prosecution, after the UK Environment Agency deemed the clean-up job too large for them to get involved, according to SWNS news agency.
200 tons of waste like roofing material, plumbing fixtures, and construction cast-offs was dumped last year in his field alongside a road in Hertfordshire, near St Albans—over 40 dump truck loads.
The perpetrators could never be identified, so responsibility for disposal of the trash fell to the elderly farmer who wishes to remain anonymous.
After reading about the farmer’s plight, Archie Ford launched a JustGiving fundraiser which met its goal in just three days. When the story made headlines, more donations came in raising £58,000 in total.
This week, Archie met with the victim and neighboring farmer Will Dickinson, who has been supporting the effort.
Aerial photo of dumped trash and waste along roadside in Hertfordshire near St Albans, England – SWNS
“I was facing a real-life nightmare, but I’ve been blown away by the support I’ve received from so many people,” said the anonymous farmer.
“This has restored my faith in humanity. I am so grateful to everyone who has supported me. I had no idea what was going to happen to me.”
Almost 2,000 donors sent money, and the thousands of dollars leftover will be used to support other victims of waste-dumping in Hertfordshire, which is about an hour north of London.
31-year-old Archie said it was ‘outrageous’ that farmers were deemed responsible for dumping if the perpetrators couldn’t be found.
“I knew I had to do something as soon as I read this farmer’s story. The situation he was facing was so unfair—and I have been amazed by how many people have supported the crowd-funder.”
SWNS
The National Farmer’s Union is urging authorities to work together to secure more arrests and convictions—for strong penalties that reflect the impact of the crime. Currently victims may have to report incidents to multiple authorities, which the organization says is time “consuming, confusing and frustrating”.
Archie says not everybody can rely on a fundraising campaign, so things need to change. The London Times reported that waste management companies charge up to £450 per ton of commercial, non-recyclable trash, so wrong-doers are choosing to hire criminals to dump the rubbish illegally.
“The situation is out of control with organized criminal gangs taking advantage of a deeply flawed system and our hardworking farmers are suffering as a result.”
Elderly farmer Will Dickinson in field with illegally dumped trash – SWNS
He backs the NFU’s calls for a major shake-up in how waste-dumping is tackled—a crime that costs the UK’s farming industry hundreds of millions of pounds annually in clean-up costs.
The criminal offense in the UK is punishable by unlimited fines or up to 5 years in prison, but the culprits are hard to catch.
Neighboring farmer Dickinson, an NFU member, has dealt with his own share of illegal dumping (which Brits called fly-tipping).
“There are so few arrests for fly-tipping and on the rare occasions when somebody is convicted, they receive a fine which is less than the cost of hiring a skip.”
Clinically significant prostate cancer cells glow in PSMA PET/CT scan despite normal inconclusive MRI Scan SWNS
Clinically significant prostate cancer cells glow in PSMA PET/CT scan despite normal inconclusive MRI Scan SWNS
Scans that make prostate cancer cells ‘glow’ can eliminate the need for invasive biopsies—and they are already available in Australia and Europe.
The state of the art imaging test uses a molecule that binds to prostate cancer cells, causing them to “light up in a remarkable way”—appearing as bright spots in the scanning image.
The process could safely halve the number of men who need to undergo a biopsy for suspected prostate cancer following inconclusive results from an MRI scan, said the Australian scientists.
Their PSMA PET/CT scan identifies the more aggressive prostate cancer cells, which are potentially harmful and may need treatment—and could help reduce the risk of over-diagnosis by determining which cancers are low-risk and will never cause harm.
“It’s rare to see such strong imaging that could be so powerful in the clinic,” said Dr. James Buteau, a nuclear medicine physician at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in Melbourne who led the trial in coordination with St Vincent’s Hospital in Sydney.
A common cause of cancer deaths in men, about 1-in 8 males receive a prostate cancer diagnosis, and they usually undergo an MRI scan to look for abnormal growths.
If MRI results are suspicious or inconclusive, patients usually undergo a biopsy that takes small pieces of prostate tissue and looks for cancer cells, but the invasive procedure can be uncomfortable and sometimes worrying for patients, and is also associated with side effects.
“Incorporating this testing into clinical care could help to address the major challenge of prostate cancer over-diagnosis, which leads to at best unnecessary and at worst harmful treatment for cancers that would never cause any harm.”
The Primary2 trial recruited men considered at higher risk of prostate cancer—such as having a strong family history—and randomly assigned them to get either a standard biopsy or a PSMA PET/CT scan.
Glowing prostate cancer cells PSMA PET/CT Scan – SWNS
Primary2 found that PSMA PET/CT scanning could identify people who either did not have cancer, or whose cancer was so low-risk or slow-growing it would likely never cause harm.
Those patients did not need a biopsy, while patients with a ‘positive result’ for cancer according to the PSMA PET/CT scan had a biopsy.
Researchers say the approach halved the number of patients who needed a biopsy, without missing any harmful cancers.
For patients who still needed a biopsy, their scan results ensured the procedure was targeted to the suspicious areas identified in the test to minimize complications and improve accuracy.
The results are the first released from the Primary2 trial, which will follow the 660 patients for two years.
Already, the PSMA PET/CT scan is widely available in Australia, and it is becoming increasingly accessible in the UK and Europe, primarily for diagnosing high-risk or recurrent prostate cancer—but its cost and availability remain limitations to widespread use.
“PSMA PET/CT scanning makes prostate cancer cells light up in a remarkable way, particularly in more aggressive cancers,” said Dr. Buteau.
“Getting told you have a risk of prostate cancer is a huge cause of anxiety and concern,” said study co-leader Professor Louise Emmett.
“Our findings show that PSMA PET/CT after MRI offers a ‘belt-and-braces’ approach that can determine which people have a clinically significant cancer, and which people are at low risk and don’t need a biopsy or further testing.”
Primary2 is the largest of a series of studies undertaken by the team, exploring whether PSMA PET/CT scanning could improve prostate cancer diagnosis and reduce unnecessary biopsies for patients.
Dr. Buteau was due to present the findings of the trial at the European Association of Urology Congress in London on Friday.
“This well-conducted trial shows that incorporating PSMA PET/CT in men with low or intermediate risk lesions significantly reduced the number of unnecessary biopsies and the diagnosis of clinically insignificant prostate cancer,” said Dr. Derya Tilki, an Association member and senior urologist at Martini-Klinik Prostate Cancer Centre in Germany.
“Importantly, this didn’t compromise the detection of clinically significant disease,” she said, congratulating the researchers on their study.
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FREE WILL ASTROLOGY – Week of March 14, 2026
Copyright by Rob Brezsny, FreeWillAstrology.com
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20):
Can you compel acts of grace to intervene in your destiny? Can bursts of divine favor be summoned through the power of your will? Some spiritual scholars say, “Absolutely not.” They claim life’s wild benevolence arrives only through the mysterious tides of fate—impossible to solicit and impossible to predict. But other observers, more open-minded, speculate that your intelligent goodness might indeed attract the vivid generosity of cosmic energies. I bring this up because I suspect you Pisceans are either receiving or will soon receive blessings that feel like divine favor. Did you earn them, or are you just lucky, or some of both? It doesn’t matter. Enjoy the gift.
ARIES (March 21-April 19):
In theater, “breaking the fourth wall” means acknowledging the audience. An actor steps out of the pretense that what’s happening on stage is real. It’s a disruptive moment of truth that can deepen the experience. I would love you to break the fourth wall in your own life, Aries. It’s a favorable time to slip free of any roles you’ve been performing by rote and just blurt out the more interesting truths. Tell someone, “This isn’t working for me.” Or say, “I need to be my pure self with greater authenticity.” Breaking the fourth wall won’t ruin the show; it will be more fun and real and entertaining.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20):
English speakers like me use the terms “destiny” and “fate” interchangeably. But a scholar of ancient Sumer claims they had different meanings in that culture. Nam, the word for “destiny,” was fixed and immutable. Namtar, meaning “fate,” could be manipulated, adjusted, and even cheated. I bring this to your attention, Taurus, because I believe you now have a golden chance to veer off a path that leads to an uninteresting or unproductive destiny and start gliding along a fateful detour.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20):
The coming months will be a favorable time for you to shed the fairy-tale story of success that once inspired you when you were younger and more idealistic. A riper vision is emerging, calling you toward a more realistic and satisfying version of your life’s purpose. The transformation may at first feel unsettling, but I believe it will ultimately awaken even deeper zeal and greater creativity than your original dream. Bonus: Your revised, more mature goals will lead you to the very rewards your youthful hopes imagined but never quite delivered.
CANCER (June 21-July 22):
Even if you’re not actually far from home, Cancerian, I bet you’re on a pilgrimage or odyssey of some kind. The astrological omens tell me that you’re being drawn away from familiar ideas and feelings and are en route to an unknown country. You’re transforming, but you’re not sure how yet. During this phase of exploration, I suggest that you adopt a nickname that celebrates being on a quest. This will be a playful alias that helps you focus on the pregnant potential of this interlude. A few you might want to consider: Journey Seed, Threshold Traveler, Holy Rambler, Map-Edge Maverick, or Wanderlust Wonderer. Others? Choose one that tickles you with the sense that you are being born again while you travel.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22):
Love is more than a gentle glow in your heart or a pleasurable spark in your body. When fully awakened and activated, it becomes a revolutionary way of being in the world that invites you to challenge and rethink all you’ve been taught about reality. It’s a bold magic that alters everything it encounters. You can certainly choose a milder, tamer version of love if you wish. But if you’d like to evolve into a love maestro—as you very well could during the next 12 months—I suggest you give yourself to the deeper, wilder form. Do you dare?
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22):
Octopuses have neuron clusters in their arms that enable them to “think with their limbs.” Let’s make them your spirit creature for now, Virgo. Your body’s intuitions are offering you guidance that might even be as helpful as your fine mind. This enhanced somatic brilliance can serve you in practical ways: a creative breakthrough while doing housework, a challenging transition handled with aplomb, a fresh alignment between your feelings and ideas. I hope you will listen to your body as if it were a beloved mentor. Trust your movements and physical sensations to reveal what you need to know.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22):
I love your diplomatic genius: the capacity to understand all sides, to hold space for contradictions, to find the middle ground. But right now it’s in danger of curdling into a kind of self-erasure where your own desires become the one thing you can’t quite locate. Another way to understand this: You are so skilled at seeing everyone’s perspective that you sometimes lose track of your own. Here’s the antidote I recommend: Practice the revolutionary act of having strong opinions, of preferring one thing over another without immediately undercutting your preference with a counter-argument. I guarantee that your relationships will survive your decisiveness. In fact, they will deepen as people locate the real you beneath your exquisite balance.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21):
New love cravings have been welling up inside you, Scorpio. These cries of the heart may confuse you even as they delight you and invigorate you. One of your main tasks is to listen closely to what they’re telling you, but to wait a while before expressing their messages to other people. You need to study them in detail before spilling them out. Another prime task is to feel patient awe and reverence for the immensity and intensity of these deep, wild desires.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21):
If you are fulfilling your birthright as a Sagittarius, you are a philosopher-adventurer with a yearning for deep meaning. As you seek out interesting truths, your restless curiosity is a spiritual necessity. You understand that wisdom comes from collecting diverse, sometimes contradictory experiences and weaving them into a coherent worldview. You have a fundamental need to keep expanding and reinventing what freedom means to you. All these qualities may make some people nervous, but they really are among your primary assignments now and forever. They are especially important to cultivate these days.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19):
In traditional navigation, “dead reckoning” means finding your position by tracking your previous movements. Where you have been tells you where you are. But it only works if you’ve been honest about your course. If you’ve been misleading yourself about the direction you have been traveling, dead reckoning will get you lost. I bring this to your attention, Capricorn, because I really want you to rededicate yourself to telling yourself the deepest, strongest, clearest truths. Where have you actually been going? Not where you told yourself you were going or where other people imagined you were going, but where your choices have actually been taking you. Look at the pattern of your real movements, not your stated intentions. Once you know your true position, you can chart a true course for the future.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18):
You’re entering a rambling zigzag phase. Each plot twist will branch into two more, and every supposed finale will reveal itself as the opening act of another surprise. Fortunately, your gift for quick thinking and innovative adaptation is sharper than ever, which means you will flourish where others might freeze. My suggestion? Forget the script. Approach the unpredictable adventures like an improv exercise: spontaneous, playful, and open to the fertile mysteries.
WANT MORE? Listen to Rob’s EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES, 4-5 minute meditations on the current state of your destiny — or subscribe to his unique daily text message service at: RealAstrology.com
Quote of the Day: “The sky broke like an egg into full sunset and the water caught fire.” – Pamela Hansford Johnson
Photo by: Getty Images for Unsplash+
With a new inspirational quote every day, atop the perfect photo—collected and archived on our Quote of the Day page—why not bookmark GNN.org for a daily uplift?
123 years ago today, President Theodore Roosevelt at the behest of some naturalists and ornithologists designated Pelican Island off the east coast of central Florida the nation’s first National Wildlife Refuge. The refuge consists of a 3-acre island that includes an additional 2.5 acres of surrounding water that plays host to hundreds of species, including fifteen federally-listed threatened or endangered ones like the West Indian manatees and sea turtles that occupy parts of the lagoon, and wood storks, who enjoy two nearby refuges. READ more about the NWR system in America today… (1903)
A river otter the moment it was released into the Rio Grande - Credit J.N. Stuart, CC 2.0.
A river otter the moment it was released into the Rio Grande – Credit J.N. Stuart, CC 2.0.
In 1986, Ohio’s Department of Natural Resources began reintroducing North American river otters to the rivers, creeks, and shorelines of the Great Lakes ecosystem.
40 years later, these adorable apex predators have recolonized much of their former aquatic acreage in Ohio, New York, Michigan, and Ontario, fastening the food chain at the top while ecosystem restoration programs have anchored it at the bottom.
The Great Lakes region holds one-fifth of the world’s fresh water. It’s a massive ecosystem that supports tens of millions of people, tens of billions in industry, and thousands of animal and plant species.
Unfortunately for the otter, an apex predator needs a vast and intact ecosystem to thrive, and as industrialization ate away at its prey species and den habitat, hunters reduced their numbers in pursuit of their pelts.
In 1980, an examination conducted on US river otter populations determined they were locally extinct in 11 states, and lost significant population in 9 other states.
It’s a story all-too-familiar the world over, but one that seems now to have had a happy ending.
After the Ohio DNR began releasing river otters from southern states like Arkansas and Louisiana, New York state began a mirrored effort of relocating otters from the Adirondacks, the Hudson Valley, and Catskills to the tributaries of the Great Lakes in the western part of the state.
“All of these efforts were bolstered by the 1972 Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement, a landmark US–Canada treaty that pushed both countries toward reducing toxic discharges and restoring damaged habitats,” writes Timothy Mihocik at Rewilding Magazine.
Gradual waterfront revitalization and de-industrialization has allowed the otter to go beyond mere sheltered streams in protected areas back into the heart of the Great Lakes ecosystem, a return that also heralds cleaner, uncontaminated water, richer fish stocks, and more biodiverse riverbeds.
GNN has reported over the years that the character of several Midwest rivers, once so polluted they’d catch fire, has now changed. In Toronto, Ohio, and Chicago, rivers are now swimmable and fishable again, and otters stand hugely to benefit from that.
Still, North American river otters have remained rare or absent in the southwestern United States. Water quality and development inhibit recovery of populations in some areas, but here too, otters are returning, with the New Mexican population tripling in the last few years.
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Lorenzo (left) and Maria Enes (right) - credit SWNS
Lorenzo (left) and Maria Enes (right) – credit SWNS
A boy who threw a message in a bottle into the Bahamian seas was stunned when it was found on a beach in Portugal exactly one year later.
Amy Bisterzo and her 10-year-old son Lorenzo live in the archipelago’s town of Fort Old Bay, and on February 10th of last year, they decided to conduct a fun experiment.
“Of course when we first threw it we were so excited to imagine what might become of the bottle and where it would go,” Bisterzo told English media back home. “But honestly as time went by we completely forgot about it.”
She admitted that it was a sort-of exciting activity to do with a child, “but in my adult mind I knew it was highly unlikely to be found.”
Lorenzo wrote down his and his mother’s WhatsApp numbers, along with the name of their town and the date, before they took off in a jet ski and hurled it into the glittering ocean.
It travelled over 4,000 miles from Nassau in the Bahamas and reached Vila Chã Beach, near Porto, in Portugal.
There, 49-year-old schoolteacher Maria Enes was walking her dog on February 12th, 2026, when she spotted the bottle amongst a pile of sticks.
She described the moment of finding a message in a bottle as being a “childhood fantasy.”
“As it said 2025 and it was so new I thought it was from the area and I took it home with me. I took the paper with tweezers and I was astonished that it came from the Bahamas— exactly one year had passed.”
“I thought it was awesome and I called the number in the note,” Enes said.
Back in Fort Old Bay, Bisterzo was getting ready to go to bed when a “random” number from Portugal called.
“Then a strange photo popped up with someone saying ‘I got your bottle,'” the mother recounted.
When Amy realized it was Lorenzo’s writing on the paper in the photo, she immediately unblocked the number.
“I shouted upstairs to Lorenzo ‘someone found our bottle’ because it was so long ago he didn’t know what I was talking about and then I showed him. Then I started to communicate with Maria, and she sent voice notes and videos, and very quickly I realized this woman was so kind and lovely.”
The European hedgehog can hear sounds at higher frequencies than is possible for humans, dogs, and cats, a potential breakthrough finding in protecting these animals from becoming roadkill.
There must be only a handful of critters cuter than the hedgehog, yet one-third of all mortality cases among local populations are attributed to car collisions.
It happens so frequently, that despite their rodent-like fecundity, these animals are now considered “Near Threatened,” by the IUCN.
Researchers at the University of Oxford in the UK, where hedgehogs are at risk of localized extinctions from car strikes, have discovered for the first time that hedgehogs can hear ultrasonic sound waves as high as 85,000 hertz. Humans can hear up to 20,000 hertz, dogs more than twice as many, and cats more than thrice as many; but none can match the hedgehog’s 85 kHz, and potentially higher, sensitivity.
The study subjected hedgehogs at a Danish rescue center to short sonic bursts up to 20 seconds long. The animals wore electrodes to measure brain activity between the inner-ear and the brain, and the result was that peak sonic detection was 45 kHz, around as much as a dog whistle.
The study authors paired this data with micro-CT scans of a mortally-injured and euthanized hedgehog to get a detailed picture of the ear cannel of the animal. Their conclusion was that it seemed similarly constructed and functional to that of echolocating bats.
“It is especially exciting when research motivated by conservation leads to a fundamental new discovery about a species biology which, full circle, in turn offers a new avenue for conservation,” study co-author Professor David Macdonald, told Euronews.
Dr. Sophie Lund Rasmussen, corresponding author on the study, agreed.
“A fascinating question now is whether they use ultrasound to communicate with each other, or to detect prey—something we have already begun investigating.”
In addition, the team is investigating whether ultrasonic sound emitters, mounted on cars, lawnmowers, and hedge trimmers, could serve as effective hedgehog repellants. Blasting an ultrasonic note which only they can hear, might it dissuade them from attempting their long, slow road crossings that sometimes end in disaster?
The team is looking for volunteer collaborators within the car industry who could spare the funds to finance a prototype repellant device and trial it on their cars.
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The rendering above illustrates the $30-million renovation of Jackie Robinson Ballpark - credit, Barton Malow and MSA Sport, released as a courtesy to ENR Record
The rendering above illustrates the $30-million renovation of Jackie Robinson Ballpark – credit, Barton Malow and MSA Sport, released as a courtesy to ENR Record
The first baseball park that Jackie Robinson ever played ball on is about to enjoy the fruits of a $30 million renovation that will bring it into the 21st century while maintaining its historic charm.
Though he made his fame with the Dodgers, the first diamond Robinson ever played on was City Island Ballpark in Daytona Beach, Florida.
City Island is around 100 acres in size located on the Halifax River, several miles from Daytona Beach’s center. Here, in 1946, the Brooklyn Dodgers visited on a spring training game against their minor-league affiliate, the Montreal Royals. Among the Royals roster, Robinson had found a place amid a nationally-segregated baseball environment where he could play.
That’s because while many other Florida teams adhered to rules regarding segregation, City Island Ballpark, the Royals, and the local community leaders, would not.
“Jackie Robson was told no, he could not play in many places, but the city of Daytona Beach, with the help of local leaders, said yes,” Dru Driscoll, deputy city manager for Daytona Beach told Engineering News Record.
“So, maintaining that there’s only one place he first played professional baseball, it’s our responsibility to rehabilitate the ball field,” Driscoll adds.
In 2020, Major League Baseball passed an organization change on facility requirements that put some 160 teams and ballparks on notice that they would have to shell out on modernization.
In particular, the change mandated that visiting teams have dedicated clubhouses of a certain size as well as pitching and batting tunnels, that parks should have modern, climate-controlled weight and fitness rooms, and facilities for female players and staff.
This led to 2024 and 2025 being the two largest years in the history of minor league ballpark investment, with total renovations nationwide totaling some $2.3 billion according to the Sport Business Journal.
As the project’s main owner representative, Driscoll faced unique problems in the bid to renovate City Island Ballpark. If one of baseball’s great charms is the wonky irregularities between ballparks, City Island, now called Jackie Robinson Ballpark (JRB) stands among the wonkiest.
A canal runs in parallel with the third base line, while Orange Avenue hugs first. The ballpark takes up almost the entire dimensions of the property it sits on, so finding room for the 38,000 square-foot player development facility, which would include the weight and fitness areas, required requisitioning from the city a couple of derelict tennis courts abutting the right field wall—another curiosity.
Lead contracting firm on the renovation of the JRB, Barton Malow, got started in 2024. Though hampered substantially at times from the desire not to alter the “sacred” layout of the park, and a water table which becomes especially high during summer rains and required diligent dewatering with high pressure pumps, one might say they hit a home-run, accommodating all of the MLB’s new requirements and then some—including a dining space for the club and management to host events, clubhouse seating, dedicated player parking, and a new grandstand with a brilliant view over the river to downtown Daytona.
The park will also include new water service lines and fire sprinklers, and a 1,500 square foot museum dedicated to the life, times, and excellence of the ballpark’s namesake.
In concert with Barton Malow’s work at the JRB, the city of Daytona took the opportunity to do some much-needed civic infrastructure improvements on the island, including a new seawall.
Now home to the Daytona Tortugas, the Cincinnati Reds minor-league affiliate, the JRB is ready for another 80 years of history.
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Quote of the Day: “A good decision is based on knowledge and not on numbers.” – Plato
Photo by: Giammarco Boscaro
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?
38 years ago today, the Seikan Undersea Tunnel was opened in Japan, leading to a dramatic increase in freight traffic between the northern island of Hokkaido and the central island of Honshu. The Seikan holds a variety of records, including being the longest undersea tunnel by total length (33.46 miles), as well as having the second-longest segment under the seafloor, being the second-longest main-line tunnel of any kind, and the second-deepest undersea tunnel at 740 feet below sea level, and 250 feet below the sea bed. The tunnel was built mainly on expectations of traffic between the two islands, but the government couldn’t predict the rise in air travel making the Seikan virtually redundant for passengers even before it was finished. READ more… (1987)
A page of writing from legendary Greek scientist Archimedes, which was lost for several decades, has been rediscovered by a French national researcher working at the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Blois, France.
The leaf, from what is considered one of the most important surviving manuscripts of antiquity, contains a passage from the treatise On the Sphere and the Cylinder, Book I (Propositions 39 to 41)—and much of it remains largely legible on the 10th Century parchment.
It was identified in the museum’s collection by Victor Gysembergh, a researcher at the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), as being the missing page known from century-old photographs taken of the text in 1910, which are now preserved at the Royal Danish Library.
On one of its two sides, a text of Greek prayers partially covers geometric diagrams, while the other side is covered by an illustration added in the twentieth century depicting the Prophet Daniel surrounded by two lions, beneath which the ancient text remains to this day, but inaccessible while using conventional methods of examination.
Gysembergh and his colleagues at the CNRS’ Léon Robin Center for Research on Ancient Thought plan to conduct the first X-ray imaging studies within a year, after obtaining the necessary authorizations, to document what was written beneath the illustration.
To understand both the value of the discovery, as well as why a single page was missing and stuffed in a French museum, and why there are passages hidden beneath an illustration, one must understand the incredible story of the text’s provenance.
Some believe the manuscript was copied from an earlier compilation made by the legendary Isidore of Miletus (475 CE–mid-550s CE), the mathematician and architect who designed the original building that became the Hagia Sophia church in then-Constantinople (Istanbul).
It contained works of the Classical Greek mathematician Archimedes and others. Archimedes was known in his day (C. 287–212 BC) as the best mind in Greece. He approximated pi, and formulated multiple theorems for determining the areas of various geometrical shapes.
Placed onto parchment in 950 CE, the codex was later evacuated to a Greek Orthodox monastery in Palestine as crusaders were getting ready to sack Constantinople in 1204. There it existed for centuries, during which the paper was washed and reused for Greek religious scripture—a process known as palimpsesting. In 1899 it was still in the hands of the Greek church, and was photographed by Johan Heiburg in Istanbul in 1906.
Around 1922, a page from the manuscript went missing in the midst of the evacuation of the Greek Orthodox library during a tumultuous period following World War I, during which it entered a private French collection.
Within the Archimedes Palimpsest, on the reused paper with washed-out text, the original writing is still visible, running left-to-right across the parchment, and contains two works of Archimedes that were thought to have been lost—the Ostomachion and the Method of Mechanical Theorems—as well as the only surviving original Greek edition of his work On Floating Bodies.
CNRS stated that the Ministry of Culture eventually approved the manuscript’s export to Christie’s Auction House in New York City in 1998, where it was put up for sale by the daughter of the Frenchman who owned the work. It was contested by the Greek church, but a US court ruled in favor of the auction, and the incomplete manuscript was purchased by an anonymous buyer, “Mr. B,” to be deposited for conservation and study at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore. (The German newspaper Der Spiegel reported that the buyer was most likely Jeff Bezos, the founder and CEO of Amazon.)
Regarding the newly found missing page, the scientists plan to use a multispectral approach combined with a series of synchrotron-based X-ray fluorescence analyses to generate the text beneath the illustration of Prophet Daniel.
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Derelict Fishing Gear – Courtesy of HPU's Center for Marine Debris Research
Derelict Fishing Gear – Courtesy of HPU’s Center for Marine Debris Research
In just over 3 years, Hawaiʻi Pacific University’s “Bounty Project” has removed over 185,000 pounds (84 metric tons) of derelict fishing gear from the North Pacific Ocean by turning commercial fishing trips into opportunities for ocean cleanup.
By pulling nets, lines, and floats out of the water before they can drift into reefs, shorelines, or threaten endangered marine wildlife, the Bounty Project is one of only 3 known efforts to remove debris in the distant North Pacific Garbage Patch.
The Bounty Project was organized by the University’s Center for Marine Debris Research (HPU CMDR) and launched in November, 2022, according to a novel, straightforward idea: position the fishermen already working on the ocean at the center of the solution.
It may be that certain irresponsible fishermen are responsible for the “ghost gear” that can do so much harm to marine life, but in economics, incentives matter.
Through partnerships with the Hawaiʻi Longline Association and the Hawaiʻi Department of Land and Natural Resources, eligible commercial fishermen are compensated to recover derelict gear during routine fishing activity, so removal occurs at sea, not after debris had already reached the shore.
“It is incredible that we are now approaching 200,000 pounds of gear removed from the ocean through this project,” says HPU CMDR Project Manager Katie Stevens in a statement, “and it has been great to see the enthusiasm and engagement of the commercial fishers as stewards of the ocean environment.”
Supported through a 2022 award from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Marine Debris Program, with Ocean Conservancy providing matching funds, the Bounty Project has helped scale up removals and strengthen the Project’s recovery system and partnerships.
“This project stands out for its innovative approach, partnering with commercial fishers toward a solution. Compensating those already on the water to remove derelict fishing gear, maximizes both efficiency and environmental benefit,” shared Mark Manuel, NOAA Marine Debris Program’s Pacific Islands Region Coordinator.
77 commercial fishermen conducted more than 690 ghost gear seizures, with the objects taken ashore either for reuse, recycling, energy recovery, or responsible disposal.
Participating non-longline fishermen removed gear within 12 hours of first detection 88% of the time, helping prevent debris from repeatedly snagging and dragging across sensitive habitat.
The Project included monthly surveillance of sensitive reef habitats, including Kāneʻohe Bay, supporting rapid-response recovery where derelict gear poses immediate risk.
“The financial reward has created friendly competition and results in a very rapid response to get the nets off of reefs to give the corals a fighting chance of survival,” commented Hank Lynch, a fisherman who participated in the project.
“When the nets are too large, we call on the other bounty fishers for help and split the reward. The payment helps to diversify the income of commercial fishers and supports maintenance of our vessels so we have the capacity to continue this work.”
While most of the equipment is shredded and incinerated, 2,323 pounds of recovered gear were shredded and recycled into a Hawaiʻi Department of Transportation experimental pavement project in ʻEwa Beach called “Nets-to-Roads.” Some recovered material has also been stored for additional recycling research.
To sustain and expand this work, HPU CMDR is seeking support in multiple ways to keep removal efforts moving, strengthen rapid-response recovery in sensitive reef areas, and advance solutions that prevent ghost gear from entering the ocean in the first place. Interested parties are encouraged to contact Director of the HPU CMDR, Jennifer Lynch, Ph.D.
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A chimp named Toti observes the crystal - credit, García-Ruiz et al., 2026, according to CC 4.0. license
A chimp named Toti observes the crystal – credit, García-Ruiz et al., 2026, according to CC 4.0. license
Scientists have found that chimpanzees are attracted to crystals, seem to value them, want to keep them where they sleep, and can easily distinguish any stone that shines or glitters from others that don’t.
The researchers were hoping to understand whether our own species’ long documented appreciation (bordering on obsession) with crystals, gems, and precious metals, extends even further back down our evolutionary timeline.
The findings must be taken with several grains of sodium chloride crystal, but may open up a fascinating field of study into the origins of value.
Maybe you’ve experienced this: news comes out about a large diamond or ruby selling at auction for the same price as a house, and you or a friend have a brief moment of wondering, “why?”
Similarly, maybe you subscribe, or at least sympathize, with Warren Buffet’s long-held views on gold—namely that it’s nothing but a shiny rock—”a barbarous relic,” as the Oracle of Omaha famously said.
But even so, there’s something about the appeal of shiny rocks that clearly transcends logic, and that’s been true not only for the 5,500 year history of gold’s use as money, but for likely our entire existence.
Crystals have repeatedly been found at archaeological sites alongside Homo remains. Evidence shows hominins have been collecting these stones for as long as 780,000 years. Yet, we know that our ancestors did not use them as weapons, tools, or even jewelry. So why did they collect them at all?
Something about these stones made them desirable, even when they weren’t used for anything, and hoping to understand why, Spanish scientists conducted an experiment with 9 encultured chimps at a primate rescue center.
Encultured means that the animals have had extensive contact with humans, and is the first reason to hold one’s horses regarding scientific conclusions, but the results of the experiment nevertheless left the scientists “amazed.”
“We were pleasantly surprised by how strong and seemingly natural the chimpanzees’ attraction to crystals was,” said lead author Juan Manuel García-Ruiz, a professor in San Sebastian in crystallography. “This suggests that sensitivity to such objects may have deep evolutionary roots.”
Modern humans diverged from chimps between 6 and 7 million years ago, so we share substantial genetic and behavioral similarities. To find out if fascination with crystals is one of them, the researchers provided two groups of chimpanzees (Manuela, Guillermo, Yvan, Yaki, and Toti in group one and Gombe, Lulú, Pascual, and Sandy in group two) with access to crystals.
A chimp named Yvan spent more than 15 minutes inspecting a small crystal – credit García-Ruiz et al., 2026, according to CC 4.0. license
In the first experiment, a large quartz crystal—called the monolith—was placed on a platform, along with a normal rock of similar size. While initially both objects caught the chimps’ attention, soon the crystal was preferred and the rock disregarded. Once they had removed it from the platform, all chimps inspected the crystal, rotating and tilting it so they could view it from specific angles. Yvan then picked up the crystal and decisively carried it to their hay-lined sleeping huts.
A second experiment showed that the chimps could identify and select smaller quartz crystals—similar in size to those found in hominin site excavations—from a pile of 20 rounded pebbles within seconds.
When pyrite (Fool’s Gold) and calcite crystals, which have different shapes than quartz crystals, were added to the pile, chimps still were able to pick out crystal-type stones.
“The chimpanzees began to study the crystals’ transparency with extreme curiosity, holding them up to eye level and looking through them,” García-Ruiz said. The animals then immediately, like the monolith experiment, took them back to their dormitories.
Chimps repeatedly examined the crystals for hours. Sandy, for example, carried pebbles and crystals in her mouth to a wooden platform where she separated them.
“She separated the 3 crystal types, which themselves differed in transparency, symmetry, and luster, from all the pebbles. This ability to recognize crystals despite their differences amazed us,” García-Ruiz said.
The authors pointed out that chimps don’t usually use their mouths to carry objects, so this could mean they were hiding them, a behavior consistent with treating the crystals as valuable, the team pointed out. It could, however, also mean they were testing to see if they were edible, but maybe not.
Another behavior by the chimps demonstrated the potential that they understood a value proposition in the crystals: that in order to get them back, the researchers had to barter for them, with substantially more pounds of food then the crystal. If indeed they were testing to see if it were edible, the amount of food they demanded in return seems strange.
Philosophically, the food trade experiment mirrors the classical value paradox of gems and precious metals.
One can’t eat a gemstone or gold coin, yet they cost far more than bread. Starving to death, one would trade every gemstone on Earth for a loaf of bread, so why do we assign them so much value? Based on how many bananas and how much yogurt García-Ruiz and his team had to offer, it could be that chimpanzees fall into that same paradox.
An interesting hypothesis as to why the chimps found the crystals interesting is their shape.
Crystals are the only natural polyhedral objects, meaning the only natural solids with many flat surfaces. When early humans tried to make sense of their environment, their cognitive processes might have been drawn to patterns that were unlike what they knew.
The clouds, trees, mountains, animals, and rivers of the natural world surrounding our ancestors were defined by curvature and ramification, so few items had straight lines and flat surfaces.
The combined observations from the experiments identified that both the transparency and the shape as alluring properties to the chimps. It might have been the same qualities attracting early humans to these rocks.
However, the fact that the chimps had long become accustomed to living with humans should, the researchers note, be considered a limiting factor in interpreting anything conclusively from the studies. Ideally, García-Ruiz said, the experiment should be replicated with wild apes, and preferably not only with Chimps, but also bonobos and gorillas.
Michael Haslam, an archaeologist with Historic Environment Scotland, told the New York Times that the great apes aren’t the only animals that value crystals: some birds have been known to collect them. Bowerbirds, fascinating birds that will decorate their nests with all sorts of objects, have been documented arranging quartz crystals around the perimeter of their nest to attract females.
The gemstones of our marketplaces today are just certain kinds of scarcer crystals that are cut and polished, and there’s every reason to suspect that if the Hope Diamond were placed in front of Sandy, or the male bowerbird, they’d behave exactly the same.
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Everyone in life has likely gone through it at least once: losing a wallet can be stressful to say the least.
So can delivering snail mail in -11°F, but that didn’t stop a Pennsylvania postal worker from doing a good deed when presented with the opportunity.
25-year-old Bruce Armah, a new member of the mail team, found a wallet half-buried in snow in Coraopolis new Pittsburgh. He tucked it away in his car and continued on his route, but not because he meant to steal anything.
Finishing his shift, he looked to see if there were an ID of sorts that might have an address, and thankfully there was. Speaking with CBS News Pittsburgh’s Barry Pintar, Armah explained why he struck out at the end of a long day in his own car to return the wallet to its rightful owner.
“It was my father’s good deeds,” Armah said, explaining that his did taught him that he should do the same in the stranger’s position. “He lost his wallet, and someone returned it to him, so I was just returning the favor.”
His father’s wisdom at heart, Armah arrived in Clinton, only to find that the wallet’s owner had moved all the way to McDonald, which for readers not familiar with the area is many miles away. He nonetheless made the hike—driving 52 miles in total after work to and from the owner’s house—in order to return that favor his father had experienced all those years ago.
“There was $100 cash in there, credit cards, ID, healthcare cards,” said the husband of the wallet’s owner, Matt Bryan. “He wanted nothing in return; he just said it was the right thing to do.”
Bryan wouldn’t let sleeping dogs lie, and quickly told his own mailman about the incident, who in turn told another postal service worker, who told another, until it caught the ear of their boss, who commended Armah for taking so much time and effort at the end of a long, taxing, cold day.
His father would be proud.
WATCH the story below…
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