The Betts family relaxing after a dry 10 years was ended by recent rains - released Monique Betts
The Betts family relaxing after a dry 10 years was ended by recent rains – released Monique Betts
Incredible rains in Australia’s Queensland have turned the typical red of the outback soil into lush green terrain crisscrossed by swollen rivers, ending a decade-long drought.
At its height, the drought affected 88% of the state. But after Diamantina and Bulloo shires had their drought status changed, it means the number has fallen to zero.
With water holes, creeks, and rivers full, it spells a good 2024 for the cattle and the tourists, two staples of the state’s economy.
“It’s amazing how well the country within this area responds to rain,” Mrs Monqiue Betts, a rancher in the southwest told ABC News Australia. “You’d probably say you’re safe for maybe 18 months, especially water-wise.”
“Our house dam had been dry for quite a while… definitely the majority of last year,” she said, adding that they were on the cusp of having to bring water to the farm in tanks on their pickup.
The cattle have already fattened up, which is a relief since recently some ranchers have had to sell out of their operations to avoid losses that might be too much.
The water disperses across the flat region by slow-moving floodwaters in an area called the Channel Country. After receiving late summer rains of around 150 to 300 millimeters, the waters fanned out across the land, greening it as it went.
It follows a year in which California was declared drought-free for the first time in three years, with the added bonus of a mild summer that didn’t bring about a new one, which in turn prevented any serious wildfires from breaking out.
82% of all land in Queensland is used for either farming or ranching, but the driest areas are in the ranchland to the south and west.
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Regular insulin and a syringe from ampoules and vials of medicines
Regular insulin and a syringe from ampoules and vials of medicines
Stem cells are being used more and more widely in treatments across the spectrum of medicine, but a recent breakthrough from Shanghai promises the best may still be yet to come.
A senior who had suffered from type-2 diabetes for 25 years hasn’t taken insulin for 33 months after he received a regenerative islet cell transplantation.
Diabetes, particularly type 2—the form that can develop in one’s life because of poor diet and lifestyle choices—is one of the most prevalent non-communicable diseases on Earth.
China in particular is one of the world’s diabetes hotspots, with 140 million people unable to make their own insulin, and so suffer from kidney problems, blindness, amputation, and cardiovascular problems.
But this new breakthrough, coming after 10 years of research and testing, may change this paradigm of sickness forever.
Yin Hao, a leading researcher on the team and director of Shanghai Changzheng Hospital’s Organ Transplant Center, said they took the patient’s own peripheral blood mononuclear cells and used existing methods to reprogram them back into pluripotent stem cells for injection into the pancreas.
“Our technology has matured and it has pushed boundaries in the field of regenerative medicine for the treatment of diabetes,” Yin, told China Daily whose team conducted the research with scientists from the Center for Molecular Cell Science at the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Existing transplant treatments for type-2 diabetes are hindered by a lack of donor cells, and the complexity of pancreatic islet cell isolation technology.
Pancreatic islet cells are the major insulin-producing cells in the body, and the patients’ were almost completely inhibited. He relied on multiple insulin injections daily in addition to a kidney transplant.
After receiving the manufactured stem cells in 2021, he was weened off of external insulin over 11 weeks, after which his disease seemed to be largely gone.
“Follow-up examinations showed that the patient’s pancreatic islet function was effectively restored, and his renal function was within normal range,” Yin said. “Such results suggested that the treatment can avoid the progression of diabetic complications.”
The paper was published in Cell Discovery on April 30th, and future studies, the authors wrote, should explore the pharmacology of drugs that might provide off-the-shelf equivalents for islet transplantation.
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A wonderful story comes to us now from Patagonia where a valley of towering granite cliffs and rare species was saved from development by activists.
It’s a story that North America saw many times during the birth of the conservation movement with groups like the Sierra Club in Yosemite, but this story regards Cochamó Valley, also known as the ‘Yosemite of South America.’
Roberto Hagemann owns 325,000 acres, or roughly 508 square miles, of this valley and its surrounding lands, which sit near the southern tip of South America where the Andes meet the Pacific Ocean.
This Chilean industrialist, who made a fortune in mining and real estate, managed to do what many very rich people had deemed too difficult—buy up all this area from small ranching families. The feat involved over 200 land deed transactions.
Cochamó Valley had never been developed and remained a haven for pumas, the rare Andean deer, and Darwin’s frog. Aside from the ranchers, a plan in the early 2000s to build a road through the area was met with stiff resistance from environmental activists.
Cochamó has many charms in the eye of the environmentalist. Along with being a burgeoning tourist destination for rock climbers hungry to scale the towering granite walls similar to Yosemite Valley in California, it is almost completely surrounded by national parks, allowing animals to roam between them in an unbroken, 4,000-mile area.
Hagemann announced plans to develop the area with a hydroelectric installation, a network of power lines, and 39 miles of roads. The ink on the announcement had hardly dried when activists rose up against it led, as the New York Times reports, by Pablo Condeza, a self-described ‘hippie’ and long-time wilderness guide.
He founded a defense group called Puelo Patagonia dedicated to preserving the land and sued Hagemann for failing to undergo the proper environmental reviews. After years of legal battles, courts scuppered Hagemann’s plans, and the industrialist decided to sell out.
The price was $150 million, but after no one came forward with an offer, Puelo Patagonia entered into negotiations with the man with whom they had just spent the better part of half a decade in litigation.
The meetings must have had a strange start. Hagemann wanted at least $100 million, but Puelo Patagonia tried to convince him to sell at a fraction of the price.
“Due to this meeting, a long process of mutual knowledge and respectful dialogue began, that allowed us to reach mutual understanding and respect beyond our differences,” Mr. Hagemann told the Times.
A deal was concluded for $63 million, and Puelo Patagonia was given 3 years to come up with the cash, $30 million of which has already been raised by the Freyja Foundation and the Wyss Foundation. Several large philanthropic entities had been aware of the valley and its importance but considered the task of buying up all the individual ranch land too complex.
Now that one solitary cheque need be signed, one imagines they’ll jump at the chance.
“This is an irreplaceable place… the missing puzzle piece,” said Jeff Parrish, a senior executive at the Nature Conservancy, which is advising the nonprofit group leading the purchase. “Had it been developed, it would have bifurcated a bunch of protected areas.”
Many of the most beautiful places in the United States were saved from development because of the actions of one or a few committed people who were at the right place at the right time. Pablo Condeza certainly fulfilled that role for his country, the continent of South America, and the world beyond.
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Quote of the Day: “The love of beauty is one of Nature’s greatest healers” – Ellsworth Huntington
Photo by: Martin Sanchez
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Luigi Ganna, the winner of the inaugural Giro d'Italia
115 years ago today, the inaugural Giro d’Italia, was held, with cyclists competing in 21 different stages across over 1,200 miles of the country. The origin of the race was to help increase sales of the newspaper La Gazzetta dello Sport, and was set to start and end in Milano, the city where the paper was headquartered. Since then, it has become one of the three “grand tours” of cycling, and is considered the second-most prestigious behind the Tour de France. READ more… (1909)
The new wind farm will likely use this Goldwind wind turbine, the largest in the world - released.
The new wind farm will likely use this Goldwind wind turbine, the largest in the world – released.
Reprinted via EarthTalk®, From the Editors of E – The Environmental Magazine
What is wind repowering and why are environmentalists so bullish on it?
While wind power has been a staple in renewable energy from the beginning, many of the original and old wind turbines have begun to show signs of aging.
Wind repowering is fixing this, by revamping old turbines with more efficient components, or putting in new, state-of-the-art turbines as a whole.
These new components can more efficiently power a turbine, reduce noise, and a deliver a higher overall energy output.
For example, Denmark became an early adopter of wind repowering, with a 1.3 GW gain in capacity and a reduction of 109 wind turbines, enabling substantially increased wind energy production with fewer turbines.
This promising data prompted a surge in wind repowering projects there—and already four years ago, 86 percent of wind energy projects there were classified as “repowered.”
Their signs of success and scalability showed other countries the benefits of wind repowering.
Now, the U.S. has more than 40 active wind repowering sites, with over 2,500 turbines having some type of renovation at any given moment.
This gale force of advancement, with help from large energy corporations like General Electric, is responsible for four gigawatts of energy, enough to power more than 30 million homes.
Why do eco-advocates support wind repowering so strongly?
Wind repowering has energy, financial, aesthetic and technological benefits. Not only does it make units more efficient, it also removes units that might be aesthetically unpleasing, or in less efficient spots than they could be.
Wind repowering also increases the lifespan of turbines by as much as 20 years, and reduces the need for maintenance. Repowered turbines are also quieter, sleeker, and produce considerably more energy.
So, while there are many types of repowering efforts for other renewable energy sources, none are as comprehensive or successful as wind repowering. Not only is it a comprehensive option for revamping clean energy, but it doesn’t require the entry costs of building new wind farms.
We invite readers to call local officials or urge any nearby wind farms to look into wind repowering—and build on all the success.
EarthTalk® is produced by Roddy Scheer & Doug Moss for the 501(c)3 nonprofit EarthTalk. See more at emagazine.com. To donate, visit Earthtalk.org. Send questions to: [email protected].
Rare WWII pigeon parachute used to carry messages to French resistance in Normandy ahead of D-Day – SWNS
Rare WWII pigeon parachute used to carry messages to French resistance in Normandy ahead of D-Day – SWNS
(By SWNS / Talker News)
A rare World War II ‘pigeon parachute’ used to carry messages to the French resistance in Normandy ahead of D-Day has been found in a tattered old shoebox.
It was discovered—along with other D-Day-related documents—in the loft of a woman named Mrs. Ellington, who recently passed away in England.
Her family was left scratching their heads over the artifact—how it came to be there and what it was exactly. They had no idea what the fabric item was used for.
They were astonished to discover that she’d been keeping in her possession a very rare D-day pigeon parachute—and now they’ve donated the surviving piece of history to a museum.
The pigeon parachutes were used over Normandy in the days before the Allied Forces landed in France on June 6th, 1944.
Ahead of the planned attack, the British gathered homing pigeons from the local areas of coastal Normandy and used them to carry messages to the French resistance while the area was occupied and defended by thousands of Nazi troops.
The pigeons carried instructions about blowing up communication lines, armories, and transports.
The pigeon would have been dropped by a light plane low over France, and once released the pigeons could struggle free of the parachute and fly off to their home coop.
This method was considered safer than using coded radio messages.
South American marmoset monkey named Marcel – Wings and Paws / SWNS
South American marmoset monkey named Marcel – Wings and Paws / SWNS
A woman in the city of Wolverhampton, England, suddenly discovered a South American monkey in her greenhouse, and scrambled to figure out who to call.
The animal charity Wings and Paws said they were contacted by a distressed woman who reported a “strange wild animal with a bushy tail” leaping about her property.
Volunteers who arrived on the scene expected to find a squirrel or a fox but were left shocked to see a monkey casually sitting on the kitchen countertop.
“We’re more used to dealing with domestic pets and farmyard animals like dogs, cats and horses so it was certainly a shock to discover a monkey,” said volunteer Gemma Warner.
It turned out to be a marmoset—5,400 miles away from his native South America—most likely an unwanted pet left to fend for himself in the West Midlands of Great Britain.
“Its lucky we found him because the cold would have killed him if he’d been left on the streets of Wolverhampton.”
They were able to entice ‘Marcel’ into a cage to take back to their rescue centre—and things only got better from there.
South American marmoset monkey named Marcel – Wings and Paws / SWNS
Volunteers spent several weeks nursing him back to full health—and now they’ve found him a suitable home, which had the added bonus of a potential new girlfriend.
It wasn’t an easy task though, Monkey World—like Wings and Paws, and other rescue facilities—was full.
“The owner jiggled some things around and he now has a lovely big enclosure to explore.
“Our volunteers worked relentlessly to make this happen and Monkey World could see he deserved a new start. We’re really grateful.”
“We are sad to see him go but over the moon for him.
Marmosets are mainly found in the tropical rainforests of South America, with a few populations in Central America.
It is currently legal in the UK to keep them as pets, but new rules adopted earlier this year by the government will make it illegal to keep monkeys, lemurs, and other primates without a license beginning in 2026.
Sharing the news on social media, Wings and Paws added: “What a fabulous end to our rescue mission – this is what it’s all about! Rescues helping rescues and saving lives!”
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On average, people need to spend 67 minutes outside every day in order to feel refreshed, according to a new poll conducted for Mental Health Awareness Month in May.
The survey of 2,000 adults in the U.S. revealed that over half of Americans (57%) say they are craving time spent outdoors more today than ever before.
Results found 68% of those who spent time outside saying it relaxes them, puts them in a better mood, and helps them clear their heads.
Likewise, spending too much time indoors has led to feelings of depression for 38%, anxiousness for 33%, and loneliness for 32% of those polled, according to the research.
Six in 10 said they get stir-crazy after spending too much time inside—with negative emotions resulting from outdoor plans getting derailed by cancellations or bad weather.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic, 16% of respondents have experienced a shift in their travel preferences, favoring places in nature, according to the poll conducted by Talker Research on behalf of RVshare.
“From enhanced mood to feelings of relaxation and wellbeing, there are so many physical and mental benefits that come from breaking through the four walls and exploring open-air adventures and activities,” said RVshare’s CEO Jon Gray.
“During Mental Health Awareness Month, we are encouraged to be mindful of how we’re spending our time and factor outdoor experiences into our everyday lives, including our travel plans.”
Respondents also shared their favorite outdoor activities, with a majority saying they enjoy these because they can benefit both mental and physical health. Some of these included walking, grilling, hiking, bicycling, and sports.
Findings showed that 67% of Americans view travel as a method of self-care and four in 10 (42%) said they need to book a trip to “escape” at least once every six months.
Those who vacation in the great outdoors are seeing benefits to their mental health through reduced stress (36%), mental recharging (33%), and becoming more grateful for the things they have (23%).
One-third of respondents regularly choose vacations centered around outdoor activities, with 44% most excited about trips to the beach, 29% choosing national parks, and 12% preferring cross-country road trips.
Over half (57%) preferred driving to their destination, compared to flying (25%). This could be due to the belief that the journey to a destination is part of the vacation itself, which is felt by the majority of respondents (83%).
All in all, outdoor trips are having a positive impact on American lives, as indicated by 83% of survey respondents.
“A key takeaway here is that spending time in nature and on the open road while traveling has both physical and mental benefits,” said Gray. “Whether soaking up the sun, hiking a new trail or gazing up at the starry sky, we’ve all experienced the invaluable renewal, mental clarity and freeness that comes from being outdoors.”
Quote of the Day: “Your own mind is a sacred enclosure into which nothing harmful may enter except by your permission.” – Arnold Bennett
Photo by: frank mckenna
With a new inspirational quote every day, atop the perfect photo—collected and archived on our Quotes page—why not bookmark GNN.org for a daily uplift?
Mehrangarh Fort in Jodhpur - CC 4.0. SA - Sanhitasinha
565 years ago today, Jodhpur, the “Sun City,” the “Blue City,” was founded amid the stark lands of the Thar Desert in Rajasthan, India. In 1459, Rao Jodha Rathore succeeded in conquering the surrounding territory from the Delhi Sultanate and thus founded a kingdom that came to be known as Marwar. Located on the strategic road linking Delhi to Gujarat, it was able to profit from a flourishing trade in opium, copper, silk, sandalwood, dates, and other tradeable goods. READ more about the city… (1459)
To help reduce anxiety—and open the way for learning—several elementary schools in Michigan have enrolled service dogs as full-time happiness ambassadors—and it is paw-sitively working.
Students are “already seeing a big difference in their academics,” according to a news report from WXMI-TV 17.
Priority Health, a Michigan health insurance provider, launched Priority Pups in September when goldendoodles were placed in two of the state’s school districts, “with more to come”.
“I love you, Meeka,” said Shelby, a student at North Godwin Elementary School who was snuggled up with the pup, which serves in a different classroom every day.
Research shows the presence of a trained dog lowers children’s stress, fosters a positive attitude toward learning, and smooths interactions between classmates.
A 2023 report from Mental Health America found that many youth in Michigan with clinical depression did not receive any mental health treatment.
Shelby’s mom, Laurie Uhl, described the difference Meeka is making in her daughter’s life.
“Shelby was diagnosed with a genetic disorder called Fragile X Syndrome, along with autism and ADHD. Here at school, she really struggles with a range of emotions.
“She gets angry and will cry or scream uncontrollably.”
But since Meeka the goldendoodle arrived at school, there is a guaranteed way to bring calm to the situation.
Meeka inside a Michigan classroom – Priority Pups
“I’ve seen Shelby having a meltdown and when Meeka is brought into the room, I can see a breath of fresh air wash over her and she finds comfort.”
It’s not only the stressed-out students that benefit from sitting with the pup during the day.
Research shows that literacy scores went up for children after they read to dogs.
“My math was super hard,” one fifth-grader told WXMI-TV. “But then Meeka came in and when I take a break with her for a few minutes. Then math became really easy.”
The program was made possible by Canines for Change, founded in 2005 by Dr. Nikki Brown, a school psychologist for the Lansing School District in Michigan.
Priority Pups
Dr. Brown began taking her Corgi to school, to work with special education students, and noticed a drastic improvement in their skills and behavior with the addition of a dog.
So she teamed up with another trainer to be able to offer service dogs for children with special needs.
Three years ago, Canines for Change was approached by their local Grand Ledge School District to place a Facility Dog in each of their nine school buildings. When Priority Health heard about it, they began funding their own program for schools, Priority Pups.
WATCH their heartwarming video below…
AND, watch the school featured in WXMI-TV 17…
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The Ogham Stone carved with an ancient Celtic script dating back to the 4th Century – SWNS
The Ogham Stone carved with an ancient Celtic script dating back to the 4th Century – SWNS
A teacher was left stunned after digging up a stone carved with an ancient Celtic script dating back to the 4th Century while weeding in his garden.
Now, the 4-inch stone (11cm) has gone on display at a museum while experts continue to figure out the full meaning of the mysterious relic.
During the lockdowns of May 2020, many of us found ourselves digging in gardens like Graham Senior. The 55-year-old was clearing out his overgrown flowerbed in Coventry, England when he made the incredible discovery .
It has since emerged the sandstone rock bears an early form of Ogham script from Ireland, dating back around 1,600 years.
The rectangular block features a series of lines inscribed on three sides in a script primarily used in early medieval Ireland.
Scottish historian Professor Katherine Forsyth, from the University of Glasgow, has partially translated the words to reveal a name, “Mael Dumcail”—and the geography teacher who found it believes it was the name of a lover.
“My house sits about 100 yards away from a Roman fort called Lunt which is a visitor attraction and sits downstream of the River Sowe.
“We think a Roman soldier must have been walking away from there when he dropped it.
“It was possibly a keepsake from a sweetheart who he had been left behind in Ireland—but its still obviously quite a mystery.
Teacher Graham Senior, finder of the stone now on display at the Herbert Art Gallery and Museum in Coventry, England – SWNS
“It’s a very tactile thing. When you have it in your hand, it just feels right, as if it was meant to be held.
When the married father-of-two found it in the dirt, he immediately became curious.
“I just saw this thing sticking out of the flowerbed after digging about four or five inches down and thought, ‘that’s not normal’.
“I could tell they were not scratchings from an animal or anything like that and decided to investigate a little further.
“My wife has a friend who is an archeologist and we told her about it, expecting her to not be very impressed.
“But she began getting very excited about it and before we knew it, we were in touch with the local finds officer and various museums from up and down the country.
“I never knew it at the time but it turned out to be quite a remarkable thing to find while weeding out the flowerbed.”
The Ogham Stone / SWNS
“The Herbert Art Gallery and Museum now has it, but they have done me a nice 3D replica so I do have a nice memento from it.”
Teresa Gilmore, finds liaison officer for Staffordshire and West Midlands, told the BBC it was an “amazing” find.
“Most Ogham inscriptions you generally find in the more Celtic areas—Scotland, Ireland and down in Cornwall—you don’t generally get them down in the Midlands.”
Although no one is yet 100 percent certain of what it actually is, Ms. Gilmore said another theory was that it could have been used by Irish tradesmen to make contact with each other, or linked to people coming over from Ireland to early medieval monasteries in the area.
Ali Wells, a curator at the museum where it is displayed in Coventry, said, “It is really quite incredible. The language originates from Ireland, so to have found it here has been an exciting mystery.”
SHOW GARDENERS What To Look For, By Sharing on Social Media…
Dr Elias Sayour (left) - the University of Florida
Dr Elias Sayour (left) – the University of Florida
In a first-ever human clinical trial, an mRNA cancer vaccine developed at the University of Florida successfully reprogrammed patients’ immune systems to fiercely attack glioblastoma, the most aggressive and lethal brain tumor.
The results in four adult patients mirrored those in 10 pet dog patients suffering from brain tumors whose owners approved of their participation.
The discovery represents a potential new way to recruit the immune system to fight treatment-resistant cancers using an iteration of mRNA technology and lipid nanoparticles, similar to COVID-19 vaccines, but with two key differences: use of a patient’s own tumor cells to create a personalized vaccine, and a newly engineered complex delivery mechanism within the vaccine.
“Instead of us injecting single particles, we’re injecting clusters of particles that are wrapping around each other like onions,” said senior author Elias Sayour, M.D., Ph.D., a UF Health pediatric oncologist who pioneered the new vaccine, which like other immunotherapies attempts to “educate” the immune system that a tumor is foreign.
“These clusters alert the immune system in a much more profound way than single particles would.”
Among the most impressive findings was how quickly the new method spurred a vigorous immune-system response to reject the tumor, said Sayour, principal investigator at the University’s RNA Engineering Laboratory and McKnight Brain Institute investigator who led the multi-institution research team.
“In less than 48 hours, we could see these tumors shifting from what we refer to as ‘cold’—very few immune cells, very silenced immune response—to ‘hot,’ very active immune response,” he said.
“That was very surprising given how quick this happened, and what that told us is we were able to activate the early part of the immune system very rapidly against these cancers, and that’s critical to unlock the later effects of the immune response,” he explained in a video (below).
Glioblastoma is among the most devastating diagnoses, with median survival around 15 months. Current standard of care involves surgery, radiation and some combination of chemotherapy.
The new report, published May 1 in the journal Cell, is the culmination of seven years of promising studies, starting in preclinical mouse models.
In the cohort of four patients, genetic material called RNA was extracted from each patient’s own surgically removed tumor, and then messenger RNA (mRNA)—the blueprint of what is inside every cell, including tumor cells—was amplified and wrapped in the newly designed high-tech packaging of biocompatible lipid nanoparticles, to make tumor cells “look” like a dangerous virus when reinjected into the bloodstream to prompt an immune-system response.
The vaccine was personalized to each patient with a goal of getting the most out of their unique immune system.
“The demonstration that making an mRNA cancer vaccine in this fashion generates similar and strong responses across mice, pet dogs, and human patients is a really important finding, because oftentimes we don’t know how well the preclinical studies in animals are going to translate into similar responses in patients,” said Duane Mitchell, M.D., Ph.D., director of the UF Clinical and Translational Science Institute and a co-author of the paper. “This is a novel and unique way of delivering the mRNA to generate these really significant and rapid immune responses that we’re seeing across animals and humans.”
While too early in the trial to assess the clinical effects of the vaccine, the patients either lived disease-free longer than expected or survived longer than expected. The 10 pet dogs lived a median of 4.5 months, compared with a median survival of 30-60 days typical for dogs with the condition.
The next step, with support from the Food and Drug Administration and the CureSearch for Children’s Cancer foundation, will be an expanded Phase I clinical trial to include up to 24 adult and pediatric patients to validate the findings. Once an optimal and safe dose is confirmed, an estimated 25 children would participate in Phase 2.
For the new clinical trial, Sayour’s lab will partner with the multi-institution Pediatric Neuro-Oncology Consortium, to send the immunotherapy treatment to children’s hospitals across the country. They will do this by receiving an individual patient’s tumor, manufacturing the personalized vaccine at UF and sending it back to the patient’s medical team, said Sayour, co-leader of the Immuno-Oncology and Microbiome research program at the UF Health Cancer Center.
“I am hopeful that this could be a new paradigm for how we treat patients, a new platform technology for how we can modulate the immune system,” said Sayour in a UF Health news report by Michelle Jaffee. “We showed in this paper that you actually can have synergy with other types of immunotherapies, so maybe now we can have a combination approach to unlock those immunotherapies.”
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FREE WILL ASTROLOGY – Week of May 11, 2024
Copyright by Rob Brezsny, FreeWillAstrology.com
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Keizoku wa chikara nari is a Japanese proverb that means “To continue is power.” I propose you make that your motto for the next four weeks. Everything you need to happen and all the resources you need to attract will come your way as long as your overarching intention is perseverance. This is always a key principle for you Tauruses, but especially now. If you can keep going, if you can overcome your urges to quit your devotions, you will gain a permanent invigoration of your willpower.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20):
Do you believe there are divine beings, animal spirits, and departed ancestors who are willing and able to help us? If not, you may want to skip this horoscope. I won’t be upset if you feel that way. But if you do harbor such views, as I do, I’m pleased to tell you that they will be extra available for you in the coming weeks. Remember one of the key rules about their behavior: They love to be asked for assistance; they adore it when you express your desires for them to bring you specific blessings and insights. Reach out, Gemini! Call on them.
CANCER (June 21-July 22):
I’m taking a gamble here as I advise you to experiment with the counsel of visionary poet and painter William Blake (1757–1825). It’s a gamble because I’m asking you to exert a measure of caution as you explore his daring, unruly advice. Be simultaneously prudent and ebullient, Cancerian. Be discerning and wild. Be watchful and experimental. Here are Blake’s directions: 1. The road to excess leads to the palace of wisdom, for we never know what is enough until we know what is more than enough. 2. If the fool would persist in his folly, he would become wise. 3. The pride of the peacock is the glory of God. The lust of the goat is the bounty of God. 4. No bird soars too high if it soars with its own wings. 5. Exuberance is Beauty.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22):
Cosmic energies are staging a big party in your astrological House of Ambition. It’s a great time to expand and intensify your concepts of what you want to accomplish with your one wild and precious life. You will attract unexpected help as you shed your inhibitions about asking for what you really want. Life will benevolently conspire on your behalf as you dare to get bolder in defining your highest goals. Be audacious, Leo! Be brazen and brave and brilliant! I predict you will be gifted with lucid intuitions about how best to channel your drive for success. You will get feelers from influential people who can help you in your quest for victory. (PS: The phrase “your one wild and precious life” comes from poet Mary Oliver.)
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22):
Is it possible to be too smart for your own good? Maybe, although that won’t be a problem for you anytime soon. However, you may temporarily be too smart for some people who are fixated on conventional and simplistic solutions. You could be too super-brilliant for those who wallow in fear or regard cynicism as a sign of intelligence. But I will not advise you to dumb yourself down, dear Virgo. Instead, I will suggest you be crafty and circumspect. Act agreeable and humble, even as you plot behind the scenes to turn everything upside-down and inside-out—by which I mean, make it work with more grace and benefit for everyone concerned.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22):
In my fairy tale about your life in the coming weeks and months, you will transform from a crafty sleuth to an eager explorer. You will finish your wrestling matches with tricky angels and wander off to consort with big thinkers and deep feelers. You will finish your yeoman attempts to keep everyone happy in the human zoo and instead indulge your sacred longings for liberation and experimentation. In this fairy tale of your life, Libra, I will play the role of your secret benefactor. I will unleash a steady stream of prayers to bless you with blithe zeal as you relish every heart-opening, brain-cleansing moment of your new chapter.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21):
In the coming months, I will encourage you to keep deepening and refining the art of intimacy. I will rejoice as you learn more and more about how to feel close to people you care for and how to creatively deal with challenges you encounter in your quest to become closer. Dear Scorpio, I will also cheer you on whenever you dream up innovations to propitiate togetherness. Bonus blessings! If you do all I’m describing, your identity will come into brighter focus. You will know who you are with greater accuracy. Get ready! The coming weeks will offer you novel opportunities to make progress on the themes I’ve mentioned.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21):
You could offer a workshop on the perks of wobbliness. Your anxious ruminations and worried fantasies are so colorful that I almost hesitate to tell you to stop. I’m wondering if this is one of those rare phases when you could take advantage of your so-called negative feelings. Is it possible that lurking just below the uneasiness are sensational revelations about a path to liberation? I’m guessing there are. To pluck these revelations, you must get to the core of the uneasiness.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19):
During the last 11 months, life has offered you unprecedented opportunities to deepen and ripen your emotional intelligence. You have been vividly invited to grow your wisdom about how to manage and understand your feelings. I trust you have been capitalizing on these glorious teachings. I hope you have honed your skills at tapping into the power and insights provided by your heart and gut. There’s still more time to work on this project, Capricorn. In the coming weeks, seek out breakthroughs that will climax this phase of your destiny.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18):
Naturalist and author Henry David Thoreau declared, “We need the tonic of wildness.” Amen! In my view, you Aquarians especially need this sweet, rugged healing power in the coming weeks. Borrowing more words from Thoreau, I urge you to exult in all that is mysterious, unsurveyed, and unfathomable. Like Thoreau, I hope you will deepen your connection with the natural world because it “it is cheerfully, musically earnest.” Share in his belief that “we must go out and re-ally ourselves to Nature every day. We must take root, send out some little fiber.”
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20):
I have four questions and homework assignments for you, Pisces. 1. Is there a person in your inner circle who is close to ripening a latent talent that would ultimately benefit you? I suspect there is. What can you do to assist them? 2. Is there a pending gift or legacy that you have not yet claimed or activated? I think so. What would be a good first step to get it fully into your life? 3. What half-dormant potency could you call on and use if you were more confident about your ability to wield it? I believe you now have the wherewithal to summon the confidence you need. 4. What wasteful habit could you replace with a positive new habit?
ARIES (March 21-April 19):
When my friend Jessalyn first visited Disneyland as a child, she was smitten by its glimmering, unblemished mystery. “It was far more real than real,” she said. “A dream come true.” But after a few hours, her infatuation unraveled. She began to see past the luster. Waiting in long lines to go on the rides exhausted her. The mechanical elephant was broken… The days ahead may have resemblances to Jessalyn’s awakening for you. This slow-motion jolt might vex you initially, although I believe it’s a healthy sign. It will lead to a cleansed perspective that’s free of illusion and teeming with clarity.
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
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The Persistence of Memory, oil on canvas, and sometimes called "The Watches".
120 years ago today, Salvador Dali was born. Known for his striking and bizarre images, he is one of, if not the most famous surrealist painter in history. Inspired by the Renaissance masters, Dali nevertheless gravitated to the surrealist movements in the early 20th century. He would live in France for the duration of the Spanish Civil War, before moving to America and achieving commercial success. SEE a Couple of His Most Famous Works… (1904)
A close up of Climework's Mammoth technology fans - credit Climeworks
A close-up of Climework’s Mammoth technology fans – credit Climeworks
A pair of climate-solution firms have just turned on the largest CO2 vacuum in the world, capable of sucking thousands of tons of carbon out of the atmosphere.
In 2021, GNN reported on the operation of the Orca facility in Iceland, run by the firm CarbFix in partnership with the Swiss company Climeworks. The company said it can pull 4,000 tons of CO2 out of the atmosphere every year, the equivalent of taking 870 cars off the road.
Now though, they’ve outdone Orca’s output 10 times with the Mammoth plant in Hellisheiði Iceland.
Sucking 36,000 tons of carbon out of the air every year with Climeworks’ modular, stackable intake fans, CarbFix’s unique technology deposits the carbon deep underground where it will mineralize and not emerge for hundreds of millions, perhaps billions of years.
The whole thing will be powered by geothermal energy, making it carbon-negative.
Mammoth and Orca are projects known as Direct Air Capture (DAC), which many criticize as being unproven or too expensive.
But scientists have begun predicting that carbon will have to be removed from the atmosphere to prevent the worst effects associated with a 2°C increase in average global temperatures, in addition to simply scaling back how much carbon is emitted.
Several other large operations are in the process of being planned or built, including a massive one in Wyoming that aims to capture 5,000,000 tons annually.
Climeworks didn’t give an exact price of the carbon credit, but said it would be closer to $1,000 than $100, the number that many feel needs to be reached for DAC plants to run sustainably.
In September 2022, just months after Orca first came online, Climeworks announced plans to scale up in the United States.
The company outlined its intent to engage in several large-scale DAC projects over the next few years, with the potential to create thousands of direct U.S. jobs in the process.
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credit - Open Studio Architecture/San Antonio Food Bank
credit – Open Studio Architecture/San Antonio Food Bank
A food bank in a fast-growing Texas community is building affordable housing next to its bank, to ensure people who have to juggle food and rent are able to, with minimal effort.
The 51-unit apartment complex hasn’t gone up yet, but planning has begun for facilities that would temporarily house people struggling to afford the cost of living while undertaking job training or studies.
30 minutes outside San Antonio lies one of the fastest-growing towns in the US: New Braunfels.
Here, homelessness is growing due to an exploding population. The New Braunfels branch of the San Antonio food bank wondered if they could do more than just cover the cost of food.
“What we know about a food insecure household is that rent eats first in every household budget,” says Eric Cooper, president and CEO of the San Antonio Food Bank.
“If we can provide food, that in some ways allows a family to cost-shift their dollars to stay housed. For food banks across the country, hundreds of millions of dollars in the value of food is offsetting rent payments going to landlords.”
Cooper told Adele Peters of Fast Company that despite believing they could do more, the board of directors of the food bank was worried about ‘mission creep’—trying to do too much and ending up doing several things poorly.
But the opportunity was there to make the leap when a vacant lot next to their location had been sought after by local organizations working on homelessness. A foundation purchased the land, but they needed someone to take on the building.
After long deliberations, the board came to the conclusion that their purpose was to help their neighbors, whether that be with food or housing.
Partnering with Open Studio Architecture, the food bank is planning a 51-unit complex that will be rented to families with children for a period of 24-36 months that may have either one or two earners who are currently undergoing training or education for a job that pays enough to support the family outright.
Cooper believes it’s the first affordable housing complex ever built by a food bank.
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Andriana Green captures the unique patterns and colors of the human iris
before transforming the results into beautiful works of art.
Stunning macro images show the ‘windows of the soul’ looking like other-worldly planets, as a yin and yang and also connected as wheels on a bike.
The colorful new photography trend has increasingly seen couples and families getting their pupils snapped up close for a unique keepsake.
Green says everyone’s eye is different, reflecting our personality, emotions, and identity.
Her photos show the complex and intricate textures hidden within the human iris which gives our eyes a unique character.
“I used to think people had just green, brown, or blue eyes,” said Andriana, who lives with husband Cameron and their three-year-old daughter Nicole. “But with these pictures you can really see all the different lines and areas of the eye, everyone really is unique,” she said, comparing them to snowflakes or fingerprints.
“I find them truly beautiful and fascinating. They look like something from outer space, almost like planets by themselves.
By Moonlight Photography / SWNS
“I’m originally from Bulgaria and found out about the trend a few months ago when we went back to visit some family. There was a big international business fair taking place in the city, so we went along to see what was happening and that’s when I saw it.”
“It is becoming more in demand here too so I thought I’d give it a go and it is proving popular with people wanting a different family portrait,” she adds.
“I mostly concentrate on family and children’s photography but in a matter of weeks, this seems to be quite sought after.”
In order to take the close-up pictures, Green says it’s necessary to shine a continuous light into the eyes, meaning her subjects will be required to sit completely still for a few minutes.
For this reason, she says this type of photography might not be suitable for younger children or anyone who suffers from light sensitivity.
“The process of taking the pictures only takes about half an hour but the editing takes three to four hours, so that is the time-consuming part,” said Green, who runs Moonlight Photography.
“The finished pictures make a really unique piece of art to hang on the walk and a great talking point.”
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