Quote of the Day: “The usefulness of a cup is in its emptiness.” – Lao Tzu (Laozi), in the Tao Te Ching
Photo by: Sixteen Miles Out
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?
2,222 years ago today, the Decree of Memphis, proclaiming the rule of the King of Ptolemaic Egypt, Ptolemy V, was carved in three languages on black sandstone blocks around the kingdom. The top two scripts were Egyptian hieroglyphics and Demotic, but the bottom third was ancient Greek. The block today is known as the “Rosetta Stone” and was instrumental to scholarly efforts to translate Egyptian hieroglyphics on the walls and sides of countless temples, coffins, and other objects, opening fully the window onto the great civilization’s long history. READ more about this famous object… (196 BCE)
From central England comes the feel good story of a tiny pony rescued from disease whose winning and warming hearts of visitors at the rescue center where he was nursed back to health.
Last March, Pickle the 9-month-old Shetland Pony was found critically ill after the nonprofit World Horse Welfare responded to an animal welfare call.
Pickle was then so weak, he could barely stand and hardly breathe, and later tests revealed he was suffering from several diseases, including strangles, equine flu, and salmonella.
Charlotte Melvin works as a field officer at World Horse Welfare, and she was part of the team that first encountered Pickle in his sorry state.
“He very nearly didn’t make it, but eventually turned a corner and started to recover,” she told the country’s Southwest News Service. “The team worked so hard to nurse him back to health and his vet said she’s never known a pony to test positive for salmonella as many times as he did.”
According to other team members, he was so small when he was first found that one person was able to carry him to the horse trailer on their own.
Pickle was then taken for ‘immediate and intensive’ treatment at a private holding yard, where he was nursed back to health.
All grown up to a mighty 28-inches tall, Pickle is winning the hearts of visitors at Penny Farm Rescue and Rehoming Center where he is living until a permanent home can be found.
After completing a two-week quarantine period, the 114-pound pony, was able to join the other horses and ponies in the main yard at Penny Farm where he immediately began to charm everyone and everything around him.
“I went and collected him with one of my colleagues and it was just incredible to see how bright he’d become,” Melvin said. “The contrast from that tiny foal who was too weak to stand and could barely breathe was extraordinary.”
MORE ANIMAL RESCUES: Farmers’ Kids Cuddle Up with New Born Calf on the Couch After She Nearly Froze Outside
“At a year old, Pickle is still only a teeny seven ‘hands’ high (28 inches) so it’s no surprise that our visitors fall in love with him as soon as they set eyes on him,” said Adam Cummins, Penny Farm Center Manager.
“There’s going to be a long list of people wanting to rehome him when he’s ready, but that’s a long way off yet. For now, he’s enjoying being a happy young pony playing with his friends—he’s got a lot of fun to catch up on after being so ill at such a young age.”
Pickle has since made a best friend in his stablemate, a pony called Cheddar, with whom he enjoys grazing and playing in the field.
WHO DOESN’T LIKE TINY FARM ANIMALS: Tiny Goat Triplet Shunned at Birth is Now Thriving After Two Sheepdogs Adopt Her and Teach Her to Be a Collie
Pickle is so tiny that the Penny Farm team struggled to find a bridle small enough for him, but World Horse Welfare’s corporate partners LeMieux kindly stepped in, supplying him with a customized piece.
Staff at the farm have said Pickle will be available for transfer for permanent pastures once he’s completed his rehabilitation, which will be later this year.
SHARE This Nice Story Of A Pony On The Edge Of Death Getting A Second Chance…
A huge scientific survey of over 1 million German solar installations has revealed a surprising statistic: their potential to degrade year by year has been significantly exaggerated.
Previous models have overestimated the rate of degradation in a solar installation’s ability to generate power by between 20% to 50% according to this new survey.
“Back of the envelope,” the authors admit, “the estimated cost of degradation would decrease, compared to previous findings, by about €638 million per year to maintain installed capacity in 2040.”
Germany has been steaming forward with green energy installation for 20 years. Having decommissioned many of its coal power plants, and controversially eliminated its entire nuclear fleet as well, the country has installed some 60 gigawatts just of solar capacity since 2006.
A common criticism of solar is that photovoltaic panels—like all electrical hardware—lose efficiency over time, and, being exposed to the elements 365 days a year, frost, heat, wind, and dust beat them down such that the power you expected to receive when you built the solar installation isn’t what you are receiving a decade after.
The survey, conducted by scientists from Brandenburg University of Technology alongside a collaborator from University College London, involved around 1.25 million large and small solar installations across Germany, totaling 34 gigawatts of capacity. At 16 years, the study period was longer than any other examination, while the study period accounted for newer generations of solar panels.
The authors found annual degradation rates of 0.52–0.61%, roughly half the average reported in prior studies, which also had limitations of smaller sample sizes (the largest other survey of this kind was with 4,200 installations) and shorter study durations averaging between 2 and 7 years.
Other key findings support the value of large-scale solar installations. Degradation rates slow as the PV panels age. In other words, new PV panels lose capacity faster than older ones. Additionally, larger installations like solar farms degrade slower than smaller ones like rooftop arrays.
“That is important because it suggests that utility-scale PV cannot simply be treated as a scaled-up version of rooftop solar,” said lead author Peitro Melo, speaking with PV Magazine. “Reliability and maintenance strategies have a measurably different impact on outcomes.”
PV POSITIVITY: Planned Expansion to Take Latin America’s Largest Solar Plant Beyond 1 Gigawatt Capacity
Frost, extreme heat, and air pollution affect PV panels differently at different stages of their lifespan. Extreme heat tends to reduce the efficiency of older panels more than newer ones, even though for frost and air pollution, it’s the opposite.
“This is a positive result for the solar industry, from households who have bought systems up to investors in megaprojects. Lower degradation means greater output and revenue over a project’s lifetime.”
GERMAN NEWS:
Another way to summarize the team’s findings is that this new and more accurately-estimated degradation rate for PV systems translates to a 4.8% reduction in the levelized cost of electricity from solar panels. This means that, in order to maintain nameplate power production across the entire German fleet, 2.3 gigawatts of PV panels would have to be installed every year, while under previous assumptions, replacement rates have reached as high as 4.5 gigawatts.
SHARE This Positive Revaluation Of The Power Of Solar Panels…
In 2021 GNN reported that a man diving off the Israeli coast discovered a sword from the Crusader period.
All locked up in shells and sand, it looked like it could have been forged in mythical Atlantis, and even half-buried on the seabed, diver Shlomi Katzin couldn’t have mistaken its shape.
Now, incredibly, Katzin has found another sword—equally barnacled—while swimming not far from where he found the first one. Quite the thrust of luck.
The sword, which is believed to date back to the 12th century, was transferred to the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) and to researchers from the Department of Maritime Civilizations at the University of Haifa, where Katzin is a student of maritime archeology.
Once there, the experts hoping to examine it got the idea to use a CT scanner at a nearby hospital. With it, they could directly image what remained of the sword beneath the barnacles without risking damage to the artifact.
The scan results found that little of the iron blade still existed, and that it likely wasn’t produced in the Levant—but rather in Europe, making it and the sword from 2021 all but certain to have belonged to soldiers on campaign in the Holy Hand, perhaps during one of the Crusades.
Launched between the 10th and 13th centuries, Europeans made three ultimately-unsuccessful attempts to capture the Holy Land from the Arabs who controlled it.
Katzin was swimming in an area known to contain historic shipwrecks when he spotted a group of people with metal detectors. Thinking them to be looters, he chased with away and happened to notice the sword at the same time, sticking vertically out of the sand.
SWORDS IN UNLIKELY PLACES: 1,000-year-old Viking Sword Fished out of an Oxfordshire River with a Magnet
He then contacted Professor Debbie Zwickel at Haifa Univ. who got special permission from the IAA to remove the sword to prevent looting or further damage from the environment.
“This is an extremely rare find that sheds light on the Crusader presence on the country’s coasts,” Professor Zwickel said.
ALSO CHECK OUT: Finding Any Sword is a Treasure But Four is ‘A Dream’ – We Rubbed Our Eyes
“Only a handful of similar swords from the Crusader period are known in Israel to date, and this discovery contributes greatly to our understanding of the use of naval anchorages and the lives of warriors during this period.”
Smithsonian Magazine reported in 2021 that while the Muslim armies during the time of the Crusades built fortifications on the coasts, only the Europeans were known to have traveled by sea.
SHARE This Man’s Wild Luck To Find Two Swords In The Same Place…
Just days before he left office, former Chilean President Gabriel Boric signed into law protections for the remote Juan Fernández Archipelago and a gargantuan swath of the surrounding sea.
The protections connect the archipelago with the existing Nazca-Desventuradas marine parks, and total 386,000 square miles, an area the size of Venezuela amounting to 50% of Chile’s territorial waters.
This huge marine protected area, home to whales, dolphins, turtles, spiny lobsters, octopus, a vast underwater mountain chain, sea turtles, numerous sea birds, and the Juan Fernández fur seal, is now the third-largest piece of conserved seascape in the world.
Under several administrations, Chile has been a strong supporter of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework since its inception. Around 180,000 square miles of ocean was already protected in this area, and the islanders of Juan Fernández joined with national and international NGOs to campaign for broader protections.
“This commitment reflects the heart of our community,” stated Pablo Manríquez Angulo, mayor of the archipelago’s Robinson Crusoe Island. “Expanding marine protections is not only about conserving biodiversity, it’s about safeguarding our culture, our traditions, and the future of our children.”
THE LARGEST NEW MARINE PARKS:
In 11th of March this year, Boric left office suffering from consistent low approval ratings throughout his tenure. The creation of the new united marine park around Juan Fernández Archipelago is a strong political legacy to leave behind.
“The community of Juan Fernández, President Gabriel Boric and the Chilean government are to be hugely congratulated for this legal designation,” said Dan Crockett, Executive Director of Blue Marine Foundation, who helped advance the new park protections.
“As the world advances towards 2030, fully protected areas of this scale are critically important.”
SHARE This Enormous New Marine Reserve Around Chile’s Pacific Islands…
Quote of the Day: “The well-being and hopes of the peoples of the world can never be served until peace—as well as freedom, honor and self-respect—is secure.” – Ralph Bunche, Nobel Peace Prize-winning diplomat
Photo by: Curated Lifestyle 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?
51 years ago today, the Biological Weapons Convention, (BWC) entered into force. It’s considered to have established a strong global norm against biological weapons reflected in the treaty’s preamble, which states that the use of biological weapons would be “repugnant to the conscience of mankind.” It is also demonstrated by the fact that not a single state today declares to possess or seek biological weapons, or asserts that their use in war is legitimate, and today, only Israel, Chad, Eritrea, and 5 small island nations have not signed the agreement. READ more about the BWC… (1979)
Australian researchers have developed and tested the world’s first quantum battery.
Their prototype is far from anything that will be a perspective power source in an EV or storage facility, but the experiment revealed some important directions for future research.
A theoretical concept since 2013, the prototype was charged wirelessly with a laser, one of the special properties that quantum mechanics in battery technology promises if it can be properly understood and harnessed.
Lead researcher Dr. James Quach of CSIRO, Australia’s national science agency which led the study on the device, said it’s the first quantum battery ever made that performs a full charge-discharge cycle.
Dr. Quach explained that in society today, the larger the battery, the longer the charge time.
“That’s why your mobile phone takes about 30 minutes to charge and your electric car takes overnight to charge,” he said, adding that in contrast, “quantum batteries have this really peculiar property where the larger they are, the less time they take to charge.”
Less time really is an almost worthless descriptor in this case, because the prototype created by CSIRO was fully charged within a few quadrillionths of a second.
The problem is that the discharge rate was a few nanoseconds, which despite being 6 orders of magnitude longer, could be of no use to anyone now. Quach provided some interesting relative comparisons to help mere mortals conceptualize why this could be a world-changing innovation if improved.
THE QUANTUM REVOLUTION: In German Breakthrough Quantum Communications Sent Across the Nation Using Existing Telecom Infrastructure
If it takes 30 minutes to fully charge a mobile phone, and it too had a discharge rate equal to 6 orders of magnitude, that means it wouldn’t need to be recharged even after a decade of use.
“What we need to do next is… to increase the storage time,” Quach said, touching on this point. “You want your battery to hold charge longer than a few nanoseconds if you want to be able to talk to someone on a mobile phone.”
Additionally, the prototype doesn’t hold enough voltage to power anything substantial.
BETTER BATTERIES: Samsung’s 600-Mile-Range Batteries That Charge in 9 Minutes Ready for Production/Sale Next Year
While this might all sound rather pointless, another, non-involved expert in the development of quantum batteries, University of Queensland Professor Andrew White, told the Guardian that the experiment was a huge success in getting the technology off the drawing board and into the real world for the first time.
People would be far more likely to adopt EVs if they could be fully-charged in few seconds, even if their range was severely reduced.
SHARE This Truly Impressive Science Experiment With Your Friends…
A teenage Texan has earned a commendation given fewer than 300 times in the history of the Boy Scouts after saving his scout leader from drowning in rapids.
Devon Champenoy was one of several teen scouts from Houston rafting down class 3 rapids at a summer camp in Georgia’s Blue Ridge Mountains.
Scout leader David Lemley was at the stern, and on a particularly rough patch, lost his balance and fell into the water. Climbing back in, he can be heard in a video from his helmet camera laughing and saying how fun it was in the hot summer day.
When further down the river Lemley fell in again, however, fun was the farthest thing from his mind.
His foot was stuck under the seat of the raft while his head and torso were underwater. Splayed out across the side of the raft, unable to move, his opportunities to breathe came only when the water level happened to be low enough that his head emerged.
Meanwhile, his helmet bought him vital time as his head bounced off rocks as the raft surged down river.
Taking a deep breath and steadying himself, Champenoy, just 13 years old at the time, clambered across and released Lemley’s foot before kayakers helped complete the rescue.
“I have no doubt that if Devon hadn’t released my foot I was going to die,” Lemley told KHOU 11 News.
“It took a while for me to take in the fact that this happened and I saved a life,” Champenoy said in the same interview, admitting he just acted on instinct.
Lemley’s foot had been broken in the ordeal, and Champenoy had to take the role of pilot as there were still 20 minutes of rapids to get through. He kept everyone calm and focused until the job was finished.
When all was said and done, Devon, having been recommended by his Scout Leader, was awarded the Honor Medal with Crossed Palms for unusual heroism demonstrated in the course of saving a life. Fewer than 300 of these medals have been awarded in the more than 100-year history of the Boy Scouts of America.
MORE TEEN LIFESAVERS:
It came with a special recognition from Texas Governor Greg Abbot as well.
Now 15, Champenoy is attempting to become an Eagle Scout, and KHOU 11 had to remark that they felt it would be a breeze for the young hero.
WATCH the story below from KHOU 11…
SHARE This Young Man’s Quick-Thinking To Save The Life Of His Scout Leader…
Last week GNN reported on the completion of the Cross-Texas Trail that would allow Americans to enjoy the full breadth of natural beauty in the Lone Star State.
For Brits, or for those who like their hiking a little more moist, there is the just-finished King Charles III England Coast Path, a 2,689-mile-long trail along the entire coast of England.
In the works for 18 years, it’s the first trail anywhere in the world that follows the entire perimeter of a nation’s coastline.
It was recently inaugurated by the King himself, whose smile was impossible to mistake for anything other than giddy excitement as he hiked a stretch of newly-completed trail along the famous chalk sea cliffs known as the Seven Sisters.
He was joined by Tony Juniper, Chair of Natural England, which oversaw the creation of the trail project going back to the tenure of Gordon Brown.
Juniper said the path “is a testament to how public enjoyment, conservation, heritage, history and community can come together, helping make life better for millions of people.”
An intrepid hiker could very well have done the entire coast of England from Loch Ryan to the Tyne before, but some sections would have required walking along roads, and rambling across others.
Now, 1,000 miles of path have been newly built, intelligently connected, or renovated, which include new boardwalks and bridges as well. Only two sections are broken: one that requires a ferry to cross the Mersey, and another in south Devon where the River Erme must be forded—part of the adventure, argues Neil Constable, who led the project for Natural England.
“It is brilliant—the best thing I’ll do in my working life,” Constable told the BBC.
Quite the statement, but there’s something incredibly special, fulfilling, perhaps spiritual, and ‘just,’ in there being—at any point in the country—a road that leads to the coast, a path that forks at the sea, where whether you turn left or right, one knows they can walk for as long as they want.
ENGLAND’S COASTS: ‘Give Nature Space and it Will Come Back’: Rewilding Returns Endangered Species to UK Coast
Total completion of the King Charles III England Coast Path is predicted for the end of this year, but it will be undergoing maintenance and attention for years to come, as the 2009 Coastal Access Law that mandated the trail’s creation has inbuilt provisions if parts of the seaside route should become unpassable due to rising seas or torrential rains.
Called a “rollback,” where it was necessary to negotiate the trail across private land, all agreements were made with the clause that a could necessitate the trail being moved further inland under climate and weather conditions.
The law also secured public access to many areas that were off limits, including sand dunes, cliff tops, and across salt marsh.
MORE GREAT TRAILS: New Yorkers Will Love This New 7.5 Mile Trail Along the Hudson River Highlands Inspired by Landscape Painters
The BBC reached out to a nature-use advocacy group known as the Ramblers, which had been fighting for the creation of such a route since the Second World War. Their description of it was “transformational.”
The trail opens the tantalizing possibility for a route along the entire coast of the island of Britain, which would extend the trail to some 9,000 miles. Scotland already enshrined access to walking along its coasts through the Right to Roam legislation in 2012, but any such infrastructure is lacking.
Perspective hikers can plan their trip easily on the trail’s website here.
SHARE This Once-in-a-Lifetime Hike With Your Friends Who Love The Seaside…
An autistic barista who had a day’s worth of tips stolen from his coffee shop was left “speechless” after his community rallied to his side.
Michael Coyne knows most of the people who get a coffee from his shop, Red White and Brew, and so the theft of his tips felt extremely personal.
Covering the costs of a recent move to a larger location in Warwick, Rhode Island, the shop currently operates at a loss, and the tip jar is Coyne’s only source of free cash flow.
Coyne has autism, ADHD, and bi-polar disorder. He was fostered by Sheila Coyne when he was 10 years old, who later adopted him. Red White and Brew was opened by Sheila with her retirement savings as a way to guarantee her son fulfilling employment, and despite its first year running smack dab into enforced business closures resulting from COVID-19, the shop was a success.
The store employs workers—and sells products made by—people with mental disabilities, and quickly became a part of the community fabric.
“He was really interested in food service, and I thought, what better way to connect him to a community than a coffee shop?” Sheila told The Washington Post’s Sydney Page. “To me, it just made sense.”
When he recently found that the $20 in tips he had accumulated throughout the day had suddenly been snatched, he was deeply upset.
The day after, the chief of the Warwick Police Department came by for a brew, and after hearing about the theft quickly brought over the materials for a new tip jar with a lid. He told the Coynes he would investigate.
Sheila decided to make a Facebook video announcing the theft and warning people to stay alert. Commenters were infuriated to hear someone would do something like it, among whom was the Mayor of Warwick, Frank Picozzi.
“Red White and Brew is a very special place … run by wonderful people,” he wrote in a post sharing Sheila’s video. “I’ve come to know Michael very well and believe me, it’s not the money that’s bothering him, he’s hurt.”
SIMILAR BUSINESS MODELS: Joyous New York City Coffee Shop Hires and Trains People with Autism and Down Syndrome
The following day, people streamed into the coffee shop, each one leaving a tip in the jar—including one woman who left $100 after telling Michael that her own son is autistic, and that the barista inspires her to believe he can have a decent life as a working adult.
The next day was exactly the same. The mayor came too, and soon Michael had been given $900 in tips.
SHOWING UP FOR THE COMMUNITY: Car Wash Hires All-Autistic Staff to Wash Away Barriers: 10 Years Later, There’s Now 4 Florida Locations
“That was the most special part,” Sheila said. “It was truly just one person after another, leading with such kindness and grace that it renewed my love for humans and humanity.”
Michael admitted the gesture left him speechless.
SHARE This Beautiful Story Of A Community Rallying Around A Wounded Member…
Quote of the Day: “You begin with the possibilities of the material.” – Robert Rauschenberg
Photo by: Raj Adhikari / theraazphotojourney (cropped)
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?
Happy Birthday to Sir Elton John, who turns 79 years old today. Growing up in London, the singer-songwriter learned to play piano at age three. In his 5-decade career, Elton John has sold more than 300 million records, making him one of the best-selling musical artists in the world. WATCH a 70th birthday video tribute… (1947)
Researchers in Sweden recently found that seniors were able to offset a genetic risk for Alzheimer’s disease by consuming more meat.
The study authors say that their findings suggest that conventional dietary advice may be unfavorable to a subgroup of the population who carry the APOE gene.
Now infamous, APOE is a gene that confers a greater risk of Alzheimer’s disease. In Sweden, around 30% of the population are carriers of the gene combinations APOE 3/4 or APOE 4/4, and among Swedish Alzheimer’s patients, 70% carry one of these two combinations.
When the Swedish Food Agency presented an overview of research on the link between diet and dementia last year, more research was requested to assess a possible link between meat consumption and the development of dementia.
“This study tested the hypothesis that people with APOE 3/4 and 4/4 would have a reduced risk of cognitive decline and dementia with higher meat intake, based on the fact that APOE4 is the evolutionarily oldest variant of the APOE gene and may have arisen during a period when our evolutionary ancestors ate a more animal-based diet,” lead author Dr. Jakob Norgren at the Karolinska Institute in Solna said in a press release about the study.
The research, published in JAMA Network Open, followed more than 2,100 Swedes for up to 15 years, all of whom were aged 60 or older and had no diagnosis of dementia at the start of the study period. The association between self-reported diet and cognitive health measures was analyzed, adjusting for age, sex, education, and lifestyle factors.
Among those who ate less meat, the group with APOE 3/4 and 4/4 had more than twice the risk of dementia than people without the gene variants.
However, the increased risk of cognitive decline and dementia in the risk groups was not seen in the top 20% of participants who consumed the most meat (included red meat).
Their average consumption was estimated at around 870 grams of meat per week, standardized to a daily energy intake of 2,000 calories.
Additionally, the 20% of participants who ate the second most meat per week on average had similar, albeit less robust scores for dementia, cognition, and memory, suggesting that at least at this higher level, there was a dose-dependent response: a strong suggestion that the results were more than just an observational coincidence.
“Those who ate more meat overall had significantly slower cognitive decline and a lower risk of dementia, but only if they had the APOE 3/4 or 4/4 gene variants,” said Dr. Norgren. “For those who are aware that they belong to this genetic risk group, the findings offer hope; the risk may be modifiable through lifestyle changes.”
The study also found that the type of meat consumed is important.
“A lower proportion of processed meat in total meat consumption was associated with a lower risk of dementia regardless of APOE genotype,” said study co-author Dr. Sara Garcia-Ptacek said.
The research team also found a “significant” reduction in the chances of an early death in carriers of APOE 3/4 and 4/4 who ate higher quantities of unprocessed meat.
ALSO CHECK OUT: Simple Amino Acid Identified as Perhaps the Difference Between Life and Death from Illness
The researchers pointed out that the research was observational, and needs to be followed up with intervention studies that can better demonstrate causal relationships.
“Clinical trials are now needed to develop dietary recommendations tailored to APOE genotype,” said Dr. Norgren.
“Since the prevalence of APOE4 is about twice as high in the Nordic countries as in the Mediterranean countries, we are particularly well suited to conduct research on tailored dietary recommendations for this risk group.”
FOR MEAT LOVERS: Cruelty-free Way of Making Duck Foie Gras Devised by Scientist: ‘It was always a dream’
Dietary research is difficult to conduct. It’s difficult for people to remember how much of what they ate day in and day out, but keeping them isolated in a metabolic ward for 15 years would obviously be impossible.
Almost all dietary research ever conducted involved gathering observations—not the “gold standard” of scientific research. That includes almost all research that has shown that higher consumption of meat is linked with increased risk factors for various diseases like cancer, cardiovascular disease, and others.
REDUCING YOUR DEMENTIA RISK: 43-year-long Study Found Coffee Was Associated with 18% Lower Risk of Dementia
Whatever those studies might have shown with these relationships, it’s 100% the case that the process of aging is both characterized by and driven by loss of muscle mass and the resulting increase in morbidity. The maintenance of muscle mass in old age is found to reduce morbidity and slow the aging process. High protein diets, such as 1 gram protein per kilogram of bodyweight, support muscle maintenance in old age.
Dementia is also part of the aging process, and so maintaining lean muscle mass—for which a protein-rich diet is a must—may indeed be more than just a correlative finding, which it currently is. More meat, it might be argued, equals more muscle mass, equals slower aging, equals reduced risk of dementia.
SHARE This Important Dietary Research With Friends At Risk Of Dementia…
The new payphone outside a coffee shop on a Boston University campus is a strange sight: with its canary yellow box and the sticker pasted across the top reading “Call a Boomer.”
But what passersby can’t see and don’t know is that over 2,000 miles away in Reno, Nevada, another payphone box sits in a common area at a senior housing community.
Its sticker, in contrast, says “Call a Zoomer.”
The experiment, created by Matter Neuroscience, was designed to bridge generational divides and address loneliness in the two groups experiencing the highest levels of social isolation: young adults and seniors.
If a Zoomer picks up the phone outside of Pavement Coffee House, it automatically calls the phone in the recreation area at the Volunteers of America affordable senior housing community.
If a Boomer in the recreation area picks up the phone, it automatically dials the box on the street outside the coffee shop. Two phones, two generations, instant connection.
Matter styles itself as an emotional fitness club, “backed by science and supported by community.” The purchasing of two old payphones on Facebook Marketplace was just the most recent kind of experiment the ‘club’ has undertaken, which also included the same experiment, but with “call a democrat/republican” stickers on them.
In a video that garnered 18 million views on the page’s Instagram, April the Boomer picks up the phone and connects with Charlotte the Zoomer.
She asks if the Zoomer has any life advice to share—a reverse of traditional roles one might think. The generational g-force of that reversal only deepened when Charlotte replied that she thinks people should just get off their phones and spend more time outside to meet people like them.
If stereotyping is a fault in our stars, the example of April and Charlotte perhaps goes to show how much each generation has to learn and share with one another.
It also goes to show what a bloody good idea Matter Neuroscience had.
LISTEN to the conversation, and watch Matter explain their experiment…
SHARE This Inspiring Cross-Generational Connection With Your Friends…
From England’s South Downs National Park, one can trace a series of traditional hedgerows off into the distance farther than it’s possible to see.
This mega hedge runs all the way across the county of Hampshire, to New Forest National Park, some 15 miles in length.
The Hampshire Hedge, as it’s called, has been three years in the making, as volunteers and experts at making traditional hedges have come together to build an unbroken line of hedgerows connecting the two parks and their wildlife.
Far more than just a fence or barrier, it’s been shown that hedgerows are vital habitat corridors, even as slim as they are. From mice to hedgehogs, insects and birds, they offer a narrow sanctuary to 2,000 species over the course of a year, all of which them the hedges like a natural highway.
The Hampshire Hedge project was put together by the Campaign to Protect Rural England’s (CPRE) “Hedgerows Heroes” program, and was supported by various conservation nonprofits and the UK’s National Lottery Heritage Fund.
“Hedgerows are a defining feature of Test Valley’s landscape and play a vital role in supporting wildlife, tackling climate change and keeping our countryside thriving,” Alison Johnston, a councilwoman responsible for countryside affairs at Test Valley Borough Council, were the hedgerow is located.
Now almost entirely completed, the third-year of hedge laying was celebrated at Broadlands estate at a party called “Hedgefest” that also celebrated CPRE’s 100th anniversary as an organization.
MORE STORIES LIKE THIS: Conservationists Hail Recovery of 150 Struggling Species Thanks to Projects by Natural England
“It was fantastic to see so many people come together at Hedgefest to share skills, celebrate progress and show what partnership working can achieve.”
Like a highway connecting the two national parks, it should go a long way towards promoting habitat connectivity, a challenging goal when considering the population density in southern England.
QUAINT LANDSCAPES: Retired Banker Devotes His Millionaire Fortune to Restoring Protective Sand Dunes on Island Beaches
“The CPRE’s project of joining the two National Parks, the New Forest and the South Downs with these hedgerows is just such an inspiring idea,” said Vanessa Rowlands, Chair of the South Downs National Park Authority.
“We’ve always wanted to have a closer link with the New Forest, and we can do it physically and environmentally for the wildlife. So we’re really excited about it!”
SHARE This Story Of One Hell Of A Hedge With Your Friends…
The annual Global Terrorism Index published by the Institute for Economics and Peace has reported that global terrorist attacks fell 22% last year, and deaths from said attacks fell 28%.
They both fall to numbers not seen since 2007.
2025 registered the single biggest annual reduction in attacks and incidents since 2020-2021. The trend reflects the stabilization of several key geographical areas, and reductions in attacks and deaths in 81 countries worldwide.
Terrorism, defined more narrowly as stateless, transnational perpetrators of violence for political or religious ends, is now concentrated in Africa’s Sahel, and Sub-Saharan region.
The report follows a year (2025) in which several areas that had previously been affected by terrorism saw significant strides towards peace and stability.
Turkey improved by 4 places, and many places in the last decade; a result of the end of a 40-year conflict between the government in Ankara and the Communist Kurdish guerilla movement, the PKK. The group’s founder and leader Abdullah Öcalan ordered the organization to dissolve, admitting it had come as far as possible by means of violence.
Afghanistan continues its improvement from last year’s report when it dropped out of the top 10 worst-affected countries for the first time since the American occupation began in 2002.
Iraq improved 3 positions, coinciding with an ongoing socio-economic improvement in the country after 4 decades of war which the UN’s chief coordinator in the country described as “unrecognizable and remarkable.”
Tunisia, which has suffered from an ongoing terrorist insurgency in the country’s southwestern mountains, majorly improved, with an incidence rating similar to the Netherlands, Austria, and Canada.
Libya, once a failed state, continues its efforts at stabilization, and improved another 4 positions, level with Italy—an outstanding achievement.
Algeria, Oman, Bangladesh, and Jordan all improved substantially. The Ivory Coast improved 11 positions, and is now safer from a terrorist point of view than almost any Western country.
MORE REDUCTIONS IN VIOLENCE: Croatia Declared Landmine-free After More Than 2 Decades of Demining Efforts
70% of all deaths resulting from terrorist attacks occurred in just 5 countries: Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Niger, DR Congo, and Pakistan. Even still, Burkina Faso and Niger experienced 900 fewer deaths from terrorism compared with last year.
Regarding Pakistan, terrorism there is half driven by conflict with the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), a militant group of ethnic Balochs in the country’s southwestern desert regions.
MORE FROM THE FRONT LINES: Timbuktu’s Medieval Manuscripts Return Home After a Decade Away Safe from Insurgents
The conflict is more reminiscent of the UK’s struggle against the Irish Republican Army than the US’s hunt for al-Qaeda. The BLA have a clear political objective of breaking their region away from Islamabad, and wage terrorist warfare in attempt to achieve it. The BLA have never attacked targets outside Pakistan.
2025 was also notable for only one attack that resulted in more than 100 deaths, a major reduction in what the report labeled “large-scale” terrorist attacks.
SHARE This Positive Trendline Down In Violence With Your Friends…
Quote of the Day: “Love takes up where knowledge leaves off.” – Thomas Aquinas
Photo by: Aaron Burden
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?
Happy 50th Birthday to Peyton Manning, one of the greatest quarterbacks in NFL history. Nicknamed “the Sheriff” he spent 14 seasons with the Indianapolis Colts and 4 with the Denver Broncos, recording 11 playoff appearances, 8 division titles, 3 AFC Championship Games, 2 Super Bowl appearances, and 1 championship title in Super Bowl XLI with the Colts, and another Super Bowl appearance (and victory) with the Broncos in his final season as a professional. At the time, he became the first starting quarterback to win the Super Bowl for more than one franchise. READ more about Manning… (1976)
