Quote of the Day: “Art is anything people do with distinction.” – Louis Dudek
Photo by: Adam Hoffman
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?
An animal shelter in Krakow was left without words after a weekend of action saw lines out of the door of people who came in to temporarily adopt a dog in the face of an onrushing cold front.
Dubbed “Operation Frost,” the KTOZ Schronisko, or animal shelter, asked on Friday the 5th if anyone interested in adopting a dog could come in immediately as the weather over the first weekend of January was predicted to fall to -5°F.
“Due to the fact that some of our animals live in kennels, we urgently need to make room for them in a closed pavilion,” the shelter wrote on Facebook, according to a proprietary translation from Polish.
The shelter was also asking folks to consider opening their homes for merely a few days of foster care, but what they got instead was a late-Christmas miracle.
This is what it looked like Saturday morning.
And it kept on going through Sunday.
“This was an emotional but very challenging day for our staff and volunteers,” after closing on Sunday. “The amount of people that visited our shelter seemed endless and it is absolutely beautiful.”
By that time the shelter had seen over 100 canines find temporary or permanent homes.
“I saw an ad for winter action on my boss’s story and I’ve been talking to my mum about owning a dog for a long time,” wrote Ms. Pani Ola on Facebook alongside pictures of her new dog Hugo. “This freezing cold gave me such a kick to act that while sitting at work I thought, ‘if not now then never.'”
In a separate post announcing the conclusion of Operation Frost, the shelter thanked everyone for their “kind and open hearts.”
“All dogs from outdoor boxes were moved to indoor rooms thanks to your adoptions. We are very grateful and extremely blessed,” they wrote. “Thank you to everyone, without exception, for every adoption, for your kind and open hearts.”
SHARE This Inspiring Community Response To A Winter Crisis On Social Media…
A burst of radio waves from deep space—the largest ever detected—was found to have originated from a collection of tighly-packed galaxies which may be interacting in ways never seen before, a new study finds.
Called an “FRB” or a fast radio burst, astronomers from Northwestern University detected the most distant, oldest, and most energetic FRB ever recorded. Dubbed FRB 20220610A, it originated when the universe was just 5 billion years old.
First discovered in 2007, fast radio bursts last only a millisecond. Some experts have suggested they may be from an extraterrestrial life form trying to contact other civilizations, because we humans use radio waves to communicate with each other.
But the exact cause and origins of FRBs still remain unconfirmed.
Initially, the Northwestern team thought the FBR originated near an amorphous object which they believed to be either a single, irregular galaxy or a group of three distant galaxies.
But thanks to images from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, the team have discovered that the FBR’s birthplace is no less than seven galaxies packed together in such close proximity that they could fit inside our own Milky Way.
The images also suggest that the collection of galaxies are interacting with one another, giving both a possible explanation for the FRB and the potential for scientists to witness a galactic merger.
These conditions are incredibly rare, and the lead author on the paper, Alexa Gordan, said that Hubble’s help is the only reason they were able to expand on their record-breaking discovery, and put any context of use around it.
“It’s these types of environments—these weird ones—that drive us toward a better understanding of the mystery of FRBs,” she told her university press.
“Despite hundreds of FRB events discovered to date, only a fraction of those have been pinpointed to their host galaxies,” said study co-author Yuxin Dong, an astronomy Ph.D. “Within that small fraction, only a few came from a dense galactic environment, but none have ever been seen in such a compact group. So, its birthplace is truly rare.”
Although up to 1,000 FRBs have been documented since they were first discovered in 2007, astronomers have yet to reach a consensus on the possible mechanisms that generate them.
MORE GALAXTIC MYSTERIES: Astronomers Detect Radio Pattern ‘Like a Heartbeat’ From a Galaxy Far Away
It’s generally agreed that FRBs must involve a compact object such as a black hole or a neutron star, but the exact source behind them remains stubbornly uncertain.
“There are some signs that the galaxies are ‘interacting,'” said study co-author Wen-Fai Fong, an associate professor of physics and astronomy. “In other words, they could be trading materials or possibly on a path to merging. This interaction could trigger bursts of star formations.”
Northwestern University’s discovery could therefore be a step towards understanding the mysterious phenomena of FBRs, which could in turn be a step towards understanding the true nature of the universe itself.
KEEP EXPLORING THE UNIVERSE: Astronomers May Have Spotted the First Known Exoplanet in Another Galaxy
“This,” Fong explained, “is because when FRBs finally meet our telescopes they have already travelled for billions of years from the distant, early universe. During this cross-universe odyssey, they interact with material along the way…[and] from a time delay in the FRB signal itself, we can measure the sum of all of these contributions.”
To continue to probe FRBs and their origins, astronomers need to detect and study more of them. And with technology continually becoming more sensitive, the team at Northwestern University believes that more detections—and possibly the prospect of capturing incredibly faint FRBs—are right around the corner.
SHARE This Awesome Discovery In A Galaxy Far, Far Away…
In Sumatra’s first-ever rehabilitation center for a special kind of singing primate, their first two residents not only recovered from stints in illegal captivity, but have also been reintroduced successfully back into the wild.
Siamang gibbons are famous for their various calling tones which they generate with their large throat sacks and can be heard from 2 miles away. For this reason, they’re often taken and sold illegally as pets.
The Aspinall Foundation teamed up with national and local government ministries in Indonesia to create a dedicated rehabilitation center at a place called Punti Kayu in the southern reaches of the island of Sumatra.
Here, siamang gibbons held by wildlife authorities or captured by police can re-learn how to live alongside other members of their species, how to find food, how to pursue their monogamous relationships, and how to call.
The center’s first resident siamangs, Jon and Cimung, were released on December 23rd into a protected forest area. Conservationists followed them as they made their way through the trees and eventually started calling—the perfect sign that their wild instincts were intact.
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“All gibbons sing, but siamangs are the loudest,” said Made Wedana, country director for the Indonesia program of the Aspinall Foundation wildlife charity. They’re also very beautiful animals, and… very rare in the wild.”
The siamang gibbon is classified as endangered by the IUCN’s Red List, and little information exists for the rehabilitation center to build off of. Instead, the Aspinall Foundation is utilizing years of work from the Javan Primate Rehab and Release program which it runs on the principal island of Indonesia.
MORE UNHERALDED CONSERVATION WORK: World’s Most Endangered Primate Population Triples After 17 Years of Careful Conservation
Anyone interested in contributing to this important conservation work can donate to the Aspinall Foundation here.
WATCH an unrelated video of these gibbons singing…
SHARE This Great News For A Special Kind Of Primate…
It would have made front-page news around the country: a quiet Philadelphia neighborhood exploding suddenly into flames days before Christmas; but because of a clever dog with a heck of a nose, it’s only making news here on GNN.
A disastrous gas leak was detected underground by Kobe, a 4-year-old husky owned by Chanell Bell, who trusted her intuition and listened to Kobe’s warnings.
Having moved into the home rather recently, Bell noticed Kobe was digging in the same spot in the yard hour after hour. She didn’t think much of it as he is an avid digger when the need arises, but as it got larger and larger, she took notice.
“I trust his judgment because that isn’t his typical behavior,” she said. “He has great senses and he never digs holes unless he is helping me dig; I knew something was up.”
Chanell had had a gas leak in the house earlier in December, and seeing that the hole went under the sidewalk, she “trusted her intuition” to take out her gas detection device.
Immediately, the reading detected gas.
Not just gas, but a potentially cataclysmic amount of gas.
Chanell alerted authorities who informed her that if Kobe hadn’t detected the leak when he did on December 21, the consequences could have been fatal.
“We were told it could’ve caused serious health effects like respiratory issues, brain damage, and even death. They told me that something as simple as a light switch turning on could’ve caused an explosion too!” she said.
MORE AMAZING SNIFFERS: Tiny Golden Mole Not Seen in Almost 100 Years Rediscovered Thanks to Sniffing Dog and Determined Scientists
The gas foreman and crew immediately turned off her gas and got to work on the aged pipes that were leaking in three places and which could have affected other houses in the neighborhood as well.
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“They were so impressed with Kobe and mentioned what a good dog he was,” said Chanell, who believes that you should always listen to your animals and their senses.
“It feels amazing to know Kobe saved our block, I am very thankful to have him,” she added. “I hope that this spreads awareness to others about the dangers and severity of gas leaks and to pay attention to your fur babies!”
WATCH the story below from SWNS…
SHARE This Unbelievably Smart Pooch Saving Lives Across The Neighborhood…
Quote of the Day: “Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.” – Khalil Gibran
Photo by: GWC (copyrighted)
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?
A story of grind and hustle published on a popular Instagram feed channeled over $2,000 to a food delivery cyclist who was working through a foot injury.
A bicycle courier by the name of Joshua Cavallero runs an Instagram page called BikingDC, and one day he came across a man named Kevin who, like Joshua, was delivering on a bike—Indian food in this case.
But Joshua stopped to chat when he saw that Kevin had a foot cast on and was dismounting the bike right onto a walker. He walked alongside Kevin as he went in with the walker, got the food, put it into his delivery backpack, then walked out again and attempted to climb back on the bike while using the bike lock to secure his walker to the handlebars.
Kevin said he’d been doing it for 2 weeks by then, and that it was dangerous to steer with the walker interfering with his control of the handlebars.
“Bro, what are you doing? Are you serious?” Joshua can be heard saying, to which Kevin responds: “I got bills to pay, bruh.”
The video exchange was brief but upbeat, with Joshua asking Kevin for his Cash app details so he could send him a little tip. That video went viral and accumulated 5 million views on Instagram and beyond.
The Washington Post, reporting on the story, said that Kevin had been hit by a car in September and spent two weeks in the hospital. His rent was overdue by the time he met Joshua, and the day after he planned to ask his neighbor for a loan. Then he looked at his Cash app account—there was $2,400 in it.
ANOTHER GREAT VIRAL FUNDRAISER: Viral Teen With Record Size Feet Finally Gets Size 23 Shoes Donated So He Can Play Football
Cavallero had posted his Cash App information along with the video of them meeting, and tips were still flooding in by the time Kevin had finished sifting through the hundreds of positive comments.
“I used to want to be that guy who would get caught in a giveback video, where someone would walk up to me and be like, ‘Here’s $1,000 dollars!’” Joshua told the Post.
“I was so broke. I wanted someone to bless me. But it’s amazing to be able to be the person blessing people. Now, I’m the guy who can put someone’s Cash App out there with a sincere story and use my platform to get them back on their feet.”
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The two recently met up again for lunch. Kevin still had the walker, but he had had a rack fitted to the bike to latch it to. Kevin insisted on paying, which after much protest, he was able to do, though Joshua posted his Cash app details again just for good measure.
WATCH the follow-up with Kevin…
SHARE This Ultra-Inspiring Use Of Social Media With Your Friends…
A retired postman must have rubbed his eyes a few times, because it certainly looked like a mouse was tidying up his workbench for him.
The Ratatouille-like scene had played on the man’s mind for days after he noticed on several occasions that things in his garden shed were being mysteriously cleaned up overnight.
Setting up a camera to catch the cleaning culprit, he beheld that it was a little mouse.
The video shows the mouse picking up corks, clothespins, and other things and putting them in a small box, clearing the workspace of the man’s shed for the next day at his home in Wales.
“Ninety-nine times out of 100, the mouse will tidy up throughout the night,” he told the BBC. “It is incredible really that they put them all back in the box, I think it’s possible that they enjoy it.”
ALSO CHECK OUT: Parrots Kept as Pets Were Taught to Video Call Each Other—and They Loved It
He doesn’t even bother to clean up now, assuming they will put anything back in the box on their own.
As far as a motive, the only idea he has is that the objects are piled on top of a cache of nuts, and that without dirt or leaves, miscellaneous objects are the only options for the mouse.
WATCH the astonishing video below…
SHARE This Tiny Little Janitor With Your Friends On Social Media…
In Travis County, beyond the zoning laws of Austin city, a village of tiny homes has been easing the chronic homelessness in Austin for years, but after the latest round of philanthrophic fundraising, it’s slated to become one of the largest communities of its kind anywhere in the country.
In 2019, GNN reported that Community First! Village opened up to renters on the outskirts of Austin with a mission to exclusively house and accommodate formerly homeless people so they can have the freedom and security to heal from their years spent on the streets.
In addition to hosting 100 RVs and 125 micro-houses, the village also includes community gardens, bee hives, workspaces, playgrounds, recreational areas, parks, kitchens, and a dozen other group facilities.
Residents are only required to pay between $200 to $430 per month, which many of them afford through jobs that they secured within the village.
The village was created by the Mobile Loaves & Fishes charity in 2014. Though the community space currently houses 200 formerly homeless residents, the organization began constructing additional facilities last year. Once complete, the village will be able to accommodate almost 500 people—which was about 40% of the Austin’s chronically homeless population circa 2019.
In fall of 2022, the mastermind behind both the charity and Community First broke ground on an adjacent site that will take the number of tiny homes to 2,000, designed by architectural firms that offered pro-bono bids to design the best energy efficient homes.
YOU MAY ALSO LIKE: ‘Mother Theresa of Vietnam’ Overcame Decades of Homelessness to Help Hundreds of Orphans
“…No one’s ever done what they’re about to do,” Mark Hilbelink, the director of Austin’s largest homeless-services provider, told the New York Times.
In a big feature for the Times, Lucy Tompkins documents the stories of hope and recovery that some of the residents have lived through since moving to Community First!, which is run with a Christian ethic of “Neighborhoods of Knowingness.”
SIMILAR ACTS OF HOUSING: Millionaire Builds 99 Tiny Homes to Cut Homelessness in His Community–He Even Provides Jobs On Site for Them
All the new building projects were expected to be finished by the end of 2023, the organization predicted, which was powered forward with two $35 million windfalls: one from the American Rescue Plan, and a gift from the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development approved the use of federal housing vouchers, which subsidize part or all of a low-income resident’s rent, for the village’s tiny homes, Tompkins reports, making the whole thing run with far less financial guesswork when it comes to the books, and should allow residents the time to build up a set of skills that could reward them with a more sustainable career path.
A dozen imitation villages have supposedly cropped up in cities around the nation, all following the path of neighborliness and sustainability put forward by Community First!
SHARE This Incredible Effort With Your Friends In Texas…
Our moms and dads used to tell us about their mile-long walk to school, which they did in the rain and the snow, and somehow was uphill both ways, but if we’re talking about peda-powered travel to school, this man has set a new standard.
Leaving his home in Conakry, Guinea, on a bike, Mamadou Safayou Barry traveled across the whole of West Africa and the Sahara Desert’s road network—2,500 miles—and across 5 countries in the mere hopes he’d be accepted into an Egyptian university.
Along the way, the husband and father of one crossed Benin, southern Mali, Togo, and Chad, as well as some of the most bandit-filled areas on Earth, including parts of Burkina Faso and Niger.
He was detained without cause or charge on three separate occasions, twice in Burkina Faso and once in Togo. It was in Chad, nearly four months after he left home, that he caught an auspicious wind. A local journalist reported on his efforts which led to a local philanthropist getting the man a flight to Cairo.
Once there, the prestigious Al-Azhar University offered him a full scholarship, first for Islamic studies, then for engineering.
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Furthermore, Hollywood megastar Will Smith heard about Barry’s successful voyage, and gave a surprise congratulations to the man. The BBC reported on Barry’s ride in September, which is how Smith heard about it. He video-called the Guinean in Cairo to gift him a new bicycle and a laptop for his studies.
“When I saw him, I was confused in my head, because I had seen that man before,” Barry told the BBC from Cairo. “Then I remember—it’s Will Smith! Wow… I used to watch his films. I was sat on a chair in front of Will Smith!”
WATCH Mamadou Barry’s reaction…
SHARE This Cyclist’s Just Rewards With Your Friends In Need Of Inspiration…
Quote of the Day: “Dream in a pragmatic way.” – Aldous Huxley
Photo by: Kalen Emsley
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?
Until this year, Americans with diabetes have been impacted—some horribly—by a steep rise in the cost of insulin as the price tripled between 2002 and 2013, and kept rising more than inflation.
Now, since the US Congress and Biden White House passed the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, three pharmaceutical companies that control almost the entire insulin market, Novo Nordisk, Eli Lilly, and Sanofi, have all lowered the cost of their name-brand exogenous insulin products—feeling the pressure after the reform bill capped monthly insulin costs at $35 for all Medicare patients.
Insulin is essential for millions of people with diabetes, and there are no alternatives—yet it’s an old drug that has seen incremental innovations since it became widely available decades ago.
Another bill passed, the 2021 American Rescue Plan Act, included a regulation that forced big pharma companies to provide rebates to state Medicaid programs if the cost of their drug rose faster than the price of inflation.
SIMILAR NEWS: US Sets Policy to Seize Patents of Government-Funded Drugs if Price Deemed Too High
Most of the drugs identified thus far are cancer drugs, but there are others that fight debilitating infections like meningitis and cytomegalovirus.
(Learn more about the different insulin situations at CNN.)
SHARE This Big Savings With Any Diabetics You Know…
This decade has been one of the most positive for news about tiger conservation of any since conservation science began in earnest, and a highlight must be this mother tiger and her two cubs sighted in Western Thailand, the first such sighting in more than 10 years of close monitoring.
Tigers are stable or increasing across their entire remaining strongholds, including China, Russia, India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, and now Thailand—the only Southeast Asian country to see measurable increases in tiger population over the last 12 years.
There may now be as many as 190 tigers in the country, up from 46 logged in a population survey in 2007.
The sight of the mother and her cubs, in the Salak Phra Wildlife Sanctuary, part of the sprawling Western Forest Complex of Thungyai–Huai Kha Khaeng Wildlife Sanctuaries that stretch across 2,400 square miles, is a sign that Thailand’s conservation efforts are really working; not only are tigers breeding outside of core areas, but that must therefore mean there is enough large game, like sambar deer, to feed them.
“This is a big news for us,” said Rattapan Pattanarangsan, the conservation program manager at the Thai chapter of Panthera, a renowned wildcat conservation NGO. “…now we are the source, we can produce tigers from our place. That means our place is safe enough, and has enough prey for the mothers to eat and breed.”
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Neighboring Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam haven’t been able to make meaningful progress in restoring their tigers, and if they ever needed a few individual animals, Thailand now has a stable, growing population that is adapted to similar forest conditions.
TIGERS RETURNING: Tigers in Nepal Come Back From Brink of Extinction With Historic 190 Percent Increase
Pattanarangsan told The Guardian that creative efforts to stop poachers, such as by working together with ranchers to place early warning cameras on forest trails have worked significantly.
Reductions in commercial bamboo harvesting have also reduced human-tiger conflict, and the animals look poised to continue flourishing in the western rainforests of the country.
SHARE This Ferocious Bite Of Good News With Your Friends…
An Englishwoman’s ring camera captured a beautiful interaction between her and a stranger who had stopped by on the fly to return a lost purse.
The woman, Georgia Girelli, was “literally crying” her eyes out over the missing bag—probably imagining the interminable amount of paperwork and security checks she would have to do to replace the bank cards, driver’s license, and any other identity documents therein.
Unable to open the door and thank the unnamed man face-to-face, she ended up having a short chat with him through the doorbell camera’s intercom from her friend’s house where she was at the time.
The man, likely from the Merseyside area due to his Liverpudlian accent, remarked that he had thought about swinging by in the morning, but remembered that his girlfriend had once lost her purse on a night out, and was inconsolable about it.
Georgia tries as hard as she can to reward the good samaritan, asking for a phone number and bank details, and even encouraging him to take some money out of the purse itself, but he refuses all of it.
OTHER RING CAMERA SWEETHEART: 70 Million People Cheer on Young Texan Boy Who Rang A Doorbell Asking for Help Finding Friends
“Nah, just pay it forward,” he replies, adding that he is a firefighter and by nature doesn’t need any reward for a good deed. “Just do something nice for the next person,” he concludes by saying.
A beautiful video, a beautiful exchange, and a beautiful lesson—pay it forward.
WATCH the video below…
Stranger finds lost bag and returns it to the owner
byu/Solo_Odyssey inMadeMeSmile
SHARE This Touching Exchange On A Dark Porch In England…
Singapore has decided to lift a 30-year ban on owning cats in government housing, in which about 80% of the 3.6 million inhabitants live.
Singapore’s a beautiful, friendly, ordered place—a vision of a classless, harmonious, market-based society. But the government has gone to extreme lengths to establish and preserve this, and outrightly made illegal many normal things like chewing gum and cats.
Dogs, however, were not banned when the government housing program began more than 30 years ago, and many citizens now feel that a not-so-small modicum of justice has been served to the pet-owning community.
“Cats are so much quieter than dogs. If they allow dogs, I don’t understand why not cats,” said a 30-year-old Singaporean named Sunny, who has owned a cat clandestinely and lives in a government-built high rise.
Sunny, like most young people, lives in government-owned high rises, and told the Taipei Times that, even though the laws banning cats aren’t well-enforced, the fact that they are illegal in her home means she can’t register for pet insurance, or get certain veterinary procedures.
It also means that, if Sunny were to lose her cat Mooncake, she would have no way to prove ownership in the case that Mooncake was picked up by animal control.
MORE ANIMAL POSITIVITY:
The Times speculates that it was a recent survey among government housing occupants in which 9 out of 10 said cats make good, non-disruptive pets that led to the legislative about-face.
“I think it’s a good thing and it’s a step forward after 30 years,” Sunny said.
It will be interesting to see how many clandestine cats now come out of the shadows. It will certainly be enlightening for government bureaucrats curious to see how closely a law is followed when enforcement is lax.
SHARE This Positive Legislation In East Asia With Your Friends…
Quote of the Day: “No one has a greater asset for his business than a man with pride in his work.” – Hosea Ballou
Photo by: Štefan Štefančík
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?
A man in Inner Mongolia, China, went above and beyond to rescue a pregnant horse that was trapped in a deep hole in the snow.
He found the horse laying lifeless, unable to find any strength to pull itself out.
The rescuer who lives in Hulunbuir summoned his friends and eventually used a loader with a rope to hoist the horse out of the hole.
A heartwarming video shows the successful rescue after which the horse seemed completely unharmed by the ordeal.
The Good Samaritans reportedly said that before the horse wandered away from the scene, it looked back at them and gave them a gesture which seemed like an expression of gratitude.
ALSO SEE: Dramatic Rescue Shows Community Teaming up to Save 4 Horses That Fell Through Ice into Freezing Pond
Mr. Wang, who filmed the video on January 3rd, waved to the animal as it departed.
Watch the video below, via DailyMotion…
BE A HORSE WHISPERER – Share the Heartwarming News on Social Media…
After Japan’s 7.6 earthquake on January 1st, veteran educator Anne Hanson urgently sought to learn the fate of her former host family who live in Uozu, a coastline city not far from the quake’s epicenter.
After decades-old email addresses proved useless, Anne searched the internet for Uozu information and made a hope-against-hope effort to reach them by completing a form found on the website for Uozu City Hall.
That’s when a miracle happened. Less than 24 hours later, she received an email from Akihiko Kiyokawa, her Japanese host of 22 years ago.
Akihiko told Anne about the serendipity: “It just so happens that a close friend of mine who can speak some English saw Anne’s message and forwarded it to me. If that friend had overlooked it, this connection would not have happened.”
“When I entered my information into each online window provided, I knew the odds of reaching Akihiko were huge,” Anne told GNN. “But I also knew I believed in miracles and prayed that someone in the office of the beautiful Uozu community might take the time to locate the Uozu teacher Akihiko Kiyokawa.”
She painstakingly crafted a subject line that identified herself as a Fulbright Memorial Fund alumni because she knew the respect the community felt for all the American teachers who had visited Japan to foster mutual understanding through the program.
Subject: “Prayers for you and Japan from Fulbright Memorial Fund 2001 alumna Anne Hanson”
In the message she identified and greeted her host: “Dear Uozu and Family of Akihiko Kiyokawa, my dear FMF host from 2001.” And, from those details, she was reunited with her beloved host family.
“I am so grateful that Akihiko’s friend ‘happened’ to see my message. But for me and Akihiko, our reunion is no mere coincidence—it is a miracle,” says Anne.
LOOK: Two Sisters Put Up for Adoption at End of WWII Finally Reunite After 75 Years Apart
The Japanese woman and her relatives had lost their homes, but nevertheless reported good news from the disaster.
“Fortunately, there were no injuries and my life was saved,” she wrote. “Under these circumstances, I never expected to receive a message of sympathy from America. I believe this is a truly miraculous event that should make it onto the news. I would like to cherish it.”
As a 30-year educator, writer, and believer in miracles, Anne could not agree more with Akihiko’s interpretation of our electronic reunion.
“That my dear host had a friend in the office at just the right time, saw my message, and forwarded it to Akihiko—Yes! A true miracle and, yes again, worthy of making it onto the news.”
ANOTHER MIRACLE: Power of Internet Reunites Minneapolis Woman With Refugee She’d Given $100 to–Decades Ago
An African psychedelic plant “significantly” alleviated the symptoms of war veterans suffering from traumatic brain injuries (TBIs), according to another new study.
Ibogaine, a naturally occurring compound found in the roots of the African shrub iboga, was found to successfully improve functioning, PTSD, depression and anxiety in military veterans.
The plant-based psychoactive drug, which has been used in Africa for a thousand years during spiritual and healing rituals, was also found to contain no adverse side effects—with some veterans saying the experimental treatment saved their lives.
Hundreds of thousands of troops serving in Afghanistan and Iraq have sustained TBIs in recent decades, and these injuries are suspected of playing a role in the high rates of depression and suicide seen among military veterans. With mainstream treatment options not fully effective for all veterans, researchers have sought therapeutic alternatives.
Ibogaine has gained notoriety in scientific communities for its potential to treat opioid and cocaine addiction, because it increases signaling of several important molecules within the brain, some of which have been linked to drug addiction and depression.
Traumatic brain injury is defined as a disruption in the normal functioning of the brain resulting from external forces—such as explosions, vehicle collisions or other bodily impacts. Such trauma can lead to changes in the structure of the brain, which, in turn, contributes to neuro-psychiatric symptoms.
Stanford Medicine researchers discovered that ibogaine, when combined with magnesium to protect the heart, safely and effectively reduces symptoms like PTSD, anxiety, and depression—and improves functioning—in veterans with TBI.
Their new study, published on Jan. 5 in Nature Medicine, includes detailed data on 30 veterans of U.S. special forces.
“No other drug has ever been able to alleviate the functional and neuropsychiatric symptoms of traumatic brain injury,” said Nolan Williams, MD, an associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences. “The results are dramatic, and we intend to study this compound further.”
Since 1970 ibogaine has been designated as a Schedule I drug, preventing its use within the U.S., but clinics in both Canada and Mexico offer legal ibogaine treatments.
“There were a handful of veterans who had gone to this clinic in Mexico and were reporting anecdotally that they had great improvements in all kinds of areas of their lives after taking ibogaine,” Williams told Stanford Medicine News. “Our goal was to characterize those improvements with structured clinical and neurobiological assessments.”
MORE BENEFITS: People Who’ve Tried Psychedelics Have Lower Risk of Heart Disease and Diabetes
Dr. Williams and his Stanford team partnered with VETS, Inc., a foundation that has facilitated psychedelic-assisted therapies for hundreds of veterans. 30 special operations veterans with a history of TBI and repeated blast exposures—almost all of whom were experiencing clinically severe psychiatric symptoms and functional disabilities—were recruited after they’d independently scheduled themselves for an ibogaine treatment at a Mexico clinic.
Before the treatment, the researchers gauged the participants’ levels of PTSD, anxiety, depression and functioning based on a combination of self-reported questionnaires and clinician-administered assessments. Participants then traveled to a clinic in Mexico run by Ambio Life Sciences, where under medical monitoring they received oral ibogaine along with magnesium to help prevent heart complications that have been associated with ibogaine. The veterans then returned to Stanford Medicine for post-treatment assessments.
19 of the participants had been suicidal, and seven had attempted suicide.
“These men were incredibly intelligent, high-performing individuals who experienced life-altering functional disability from TBI during their time in combat,” Williams said. “They were all willing to try most anything that they thought might help them get their lives back.”
On average, treatment with ibogaine immediately led to significant improvements in functioning, PTSD, depression, and anxiety. Moreover, those effects were still lasting one month after treatment, when the study ended.
Before treatment, the veterans had an average disability rating of 30.2 on the disability assessment scale, equivalent to mild to moderate disability. One month after treatment, that rating improved to 5.1, indicating no disability.
Similarly, one month later, they experienced average reductions of 88% in PTSD symptoms, 87% in depression symptoms and 81% in anxiety symptoms. Formal cognitive testing also revealed improvements in participants’ concentration, information processing, memory and impulsivity.
“I wasn’t willing to admit I was dealing with any TBI challenges. I just thought I’d had my bell rung a few times—until the day I forgot my wife’s name,” said Craig, a 52-year-old study participant from Colorado who served 27 years in the U.S. Navy.
“Since [ibogaine treatment], my cognitive function has been fully restored. This has resulted in advancement at work and vastly improved my ability to talk to my children and wife.”
“Before the treatment, I was living life in a blizzard with zero visibility and a cold, hopeless, listless feeling,” said Sean, a 51-year-old veteran from Arizona with six combat deployments who participated in the study and says ibogaine saved his life. “After ibogaine, the storm lifted.”
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Importantly, there were no serious side effects of ibogaine and no instances of the heart problems that have occasionally been linked to ibogaine. During treatment, veterans reported only typical symptoms such as headaches and nausea.
The team is planning further studies, along with analysis of brain scans that could help reveal how ibogaine led to improvements in cognition. They also think ibogaine’s drastic effects on TBI suggest that it holds broader therapeutic potential for other neuro-psychiatric conditions.
“I think this may emerge as a broader neuro-rehab drug,” said Williams. “I think it targets a whole host of different brain areas and can help us better understand how to treat other forms of PTSD, anxiety and depression that aren’t necessarily linked to TBI.”
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The majority of Americans (62%) believe there are too many different ideas of what it means to be “healthy”, according to new survey.
Based on the random double-opt-in poll of 2,000 U.S. adults, over 40 percent point to eating healthy foods and being physically active.
But this view may be holding Americans back from other factors that impact their health: just 29% consider getting 7 hours of sleep as part of being healthy—even though scientific research shows it has a direct link to memory, dementia, mental health, and longevity.
For instance, moving your sleep time an hour earlier could cut depression risk by 23%
Even fewer respondents see the health value of having a positive mindset (25%) or seeking mental health care (12%), even though research shows that optimism might add years to your life.
Conducted by OnePoll on behalf of Cambia Health Foundation, which supports more accessible health care, 80% of respondents said their doctor always asks about their physical health, but nearly a third said they’re never asked about their mental health (29%).
39% weren’t aware that it can have a direct impact on physical health, and 50% reported they’ve never received mental health care.
Besides those who felt like they didn’t need it (42%), others were open to mental health care but haven’t sought help because it was too expensive (14%) or they couldn’t find the time (11%).
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One thing that respondents can agree on is that being healthy means more than just visiting the doctor (82%).
Yet, one-third admitted that they often put-off taking care of certain health concerns and they avoid seeking medical care because of concerns over what the doctor will find (33%).
One in five Americans surveyed rate their intake of healthy foods as below-average, but looking toward the future, 84% of Americans want to do better in making their health a priority as they get older.
In fact, 65% are feeling inspired to take better care of their health.
TOP WAYS AMERICANS WILL CARE FOR THEIR HEALTH IN 2024
1. Be more physically active — 40%
2. Eat healthier foods — 37%
3. Maintain a positive mindset — 30%
4. Spend time doing things they love — 22%
5. Sleep more hours — 22%
6. Spend more time with loved ones — 19%
7. Set goals for themselves — 16%
8. Monitor stress levels — 16%
9. Utilize products that help their body internally (vitamins, superfoods) — 14%
10. Visit their health care provider more often — 12%
Here’s hoping that we all can improve our health in at least one of these areas in 2024.
