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World’s First Electric Aircraft Flight Powered by New Liquid Hydrogen–Flew for 3 Hours

By
Andy Corbley
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Credit H2FLY-via-SWNS
Credit H2FLY via-SWNS

The world’s first piloted flight of an electric aircraft powered by liquid hydrogen has taken place.

H2FLY, the Stuttgart Germany-based developer of hydrogen-electric powertrain systems for aircraft announced it has successfully carried out four flights from Maribor, Slovenia, powered by liquid hydrogen as part of its flight test campaign, including one flight that lasted for over three hours.

They believe the flights lay the foundation for long-range, emissions-free flight, with liquid hydrogen doubling the range of the HY4 aircraft to 932 miles (1,500km), compared to using gaseous hydrogen which is much heavier.

“Results of the test flights indicate that using liquid hydrogen in place of gaseous hydrogen will double the maximum range of the HY4 aircraft from 750 km to 1,500 km, marking a critical step towards the delivery of emissions-free, medium- and long-haul commercial flights,” the company said in a statement.

Over the last 12 months, GNN has kept abreast of all hydrogen electric flight milestones, as the liquid fuel is the only current option for decarbonizing aviation. In December, Rolls Royce and EasyJet successfully tested a hydrogen engine for a jumbo jet.

This year, Connect Airlines and Avia have both successfully flown aircraft using green hydrogen fuel, the latter onboard a 40-seater ATR 72-600 regional aircraft during a 15-minute FAA Airworthiness Certificate flight, and the former during a 10-minute flight with a 19-seat aircraft called the Dornier 228.

In May, GNN reported on a Concord-like supersonic jet under development that would use green hydrogen as its fuel source. The company Destinus is working with hydrogen because it’s much lighter than fossil jet fuel, and weight considerations are a key requisite for supersonic travel.

Now however, H2FLY’s piloted HY4 demonstrator aircraft fitted with a hydrogen-electric fuel cell propulsion system was able to conduct tests upwards of 3 hours of flight time, making the German company’s progress the outlier in the field of hydrogen aviation.

HYDROGEN IN OTHER FIELDS: World’s First 100% Hydrogen-Powered Trains Now Running Regional Service in Germany to Replace Diesel

Compared with pressurized gaseous hydrogen storage, H2FLY’s use of liquified, cryogenic hydrogen enables significantly lower tank weights and volume, therefore leading to increased aircraft range and useful payload.

“This achievement marks a watershed moment in the use of hydrogen to power aircraft,” said Professor Josef Kallo, co-founder of H2FLY. “We are now looking ahead to scaling up our technology for regional aircraft and other applications, beginning the critical mission of decarbonizing commercial aviation.”

WATCH the flight test conducted below…

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Finding Any Sword is a Treasure But Four is ‘A Dream’ – We Rubbed Our Eyes

By
Andy Corbley
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Photo by Amir Ganor Israel Antiquities Authority
Photo by Amir Ganor Israel Antiquities Authority

A cache of Roman weapons has been found in an inaccessible cave in Israel near the shore of the Dead Sea.

Delighting the discoverers, archaeologists believe that they were taken off of Roman soldiers and stored there by Judean rebels resisting Roman imperial incursions.

“Finding a single sword is rare—so four? It’s a dream! We rubbed our eyes to believe it,” the researchers said in a statement released by the Israeli Antiquities Authority.

The finding consisted of four swords and the Roman fighting/throwing spear called the pilum, which was a key part of the fighting system the Romans used to dominate the world.

Some of the swords were kept in scabbards of carved wood or leather, while the shaft of the pilum had long ago disintegrated to leave the iron point behind. Three of them measured between 24 to 26 inches long, while a fourth was even shorter.

“The hiding of the swords and the pilum in deep cracks in the isolated cave north of ‘En Gedi, hints that the weapons were taken as booty from Roman soldiers or from the battlefield, and purposely hidden by the Judean rebels for reuse,” said Eitan Klein, one of the directors of the Judean Desert Survey Project.

Alongside the iron weapons was a bronze coin dating to 135 CE, which could be a corresponding date for the swords according to the press release, since this was the year of the fiercest fighting of the second Jewish Revolt, when, after personally taking the field himself, Emperor Hadrian dispatched his generals to utterly crush what had been up to that point an organized and successful revolt by the people of Judaea.

Photo by Yoli Schwarz Israel Antiquities Authority

MORE ROMAN DISCOVERIES: Sealed Vial Reveals the Smell of Ancient Rome With Patchouli Scents From Time of Jesus

“This is a dramatic and exciting discovery, touching on a specific moment in time. Not all are aware that the dry climatic conditions pertaining to the Judean Desert enable the preservation of artifacts that do not survive in other parts of the country,” Eli Escusido, director of the Israel Antiquities Authority, said in the statement.

“This is a unique time capsule, whereby fragments of scrolls, coins from the Jewish Revolt, leather sandals, and now even swords in their scabbards [sic], sharp as if they had only just been hidden away today.”

SHARE This Awesome Piece Of Preserved History With Your Friends… 

Africa NGO Purchases World’s Largest Captive Rhino Population to Rewild 2,000 Across the Continent

By
Andy Corbley
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3 of the 2,000 southern white rhino up for auction. credit Platinum Rhino
3 of the 2,000 southern white rhino up for auction. credit Platinum Rhino

A giant conservation NGO has purchased the largest privately-owned rhino herd on earth to rewild them in secret locations over the next 10 years.

More than 2,000 white rhinos had been bred in captivity as part of a project called Platinum Rhino, to flood the East Asian rhino horn trade with sustainably harvested horns in order to drastically lower the price, and thus disincentivize poachers.

However the breeder, John Hume of South Africa, ran out of money after the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) remained adamant that they would not grant him an exception for the sale of rhino horn—banned as it has been since 1974, and so Hume put all the animals up for auction in April.

On August 4th, Africa’s biggest wildlife NGO, African Parks, announced it had purchased the entire Platinum herd for the purpose of rewilding them across sites in southern Africa.

The organization managed to secure significant emergency funding that not only allowed them to buy all the rhinos, but also pay for an international, intra-Africa relocation of the animals.

These 2,000 are approximately 15% of the remaining wild population of southern white rhino. Many of them were bred in Hume’s massive ranch, while he took in many others who were rescued because their mother’s milk dried up or because they had been orphaned, etc.

African Parks manages 22 protected areas across 12 countries, making them the ultimate organization for this mammoth undertaking.

OTHER RHINO STORIES: For the First Time Since 1977, Zero Rhinos Were Poached In India’s Parks

“African Parks has conducted multiple wildlife translocations and reintroductions–moving over 8,000 animals from 32 species to help repopulate parks and re-establish populations across Africa,” reads a statement released by the organization.

“These efforts have resulted in bringing rhino back to Malawi, Rwanda, and the DRC; as well as bringing lion, cheetah, leopard, and wild dog back to Malawi, along with a historic 500 elephant initiative. Through these wildlife translocations, we have learned and gained valuable experience to consistently refine our approach so that we can ensure a greater likelihood of success for every translocation we undertake.”

While African Parks, and their sponsors the IUCN Rhino Project stress the difficulty of the rewilding, Dr. Richard Emslie, a Pietermaritzburg-based rhino conservation expert, told South Africa’s Daily Maverick he reckoned, having seen the Platinum rhinos, they would get on just fine.

GOOD POACHING NEWS: Researchers Pioneered a Way to Use DNA From Elephant Tusks to Catch Poachers

“I would call them ‘semi-wild’ rather than ‘semi-captive’. It’s interesting that some of John Hume’s black rhinos were sent to a property in Eswatini a few years ago—and within just a few months of their arrival one of the females had been mated by a wild rhino,” said Dr. Emslie. “So I strongly suspect his white rhinos will also do fine. Obviously, this will depend on where they are going.”

WATCH a short video below of John Hume explaining his life’s work… 

SHARE This Rewilding Project With Your Friends…

One in Five Successful Couples have ‘Nothing in Common’ – Showing Opposites DO Attract

By
Andy Corbley
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credit Tim Mossholder
credit Tim Mossholder

Researchers have confirmed that opposites do, in fact, attract, as a study commissioned in front of the launch of a UK television show found that one in five couples admit they have nothing in common.

The study of 2,000 adults in a relationship found that 24% have totally different hobbies to their other half. But the differences don’t stop with pastimes.

One in six of the couples, or 14%, said their music taste couldn’t be further apart from their partner.

51% of the couples look very different in appearance, and say this is what sparked the attraction in the first place.

Looks, sense of style, and spoken accent are other common differentiators that initially caught their eyes and ears.

Overall, an eye-opening half of all those polled said these opposing relationships really work.

The study was commissioned by Sky Atlantic, to launch its new series The Lovers.

The data found couples are more likely to be closely aligned on what food they eat and what holidays they prefer to go on, than many other subjects like film taste or their jobs, but 22% of those polled admit they’ve made a conscious effort to change their interests, to match their partner.

Just over a third have clashed with their significant other when it comes to making decisions.

MORE ARTICLES LIKE THIS: Listen to What These Couples From Around the World Have to Say About Being Married for More Than 30 Years

However a quarter of them believe couples who have opposing interests are more likely to stay together than those who do not, and 73% believe having different interests can lead to more diverse and enriching conversations in a relationship.

In today’s 24-hour media landscape, companies pour billions of dollars into making sure adults remain connected with their interests 24-7. Pages on social media sites can rake in ad revenue by doing nothing other than making memes targeted at people who are interested in certain TV shows, hobbies, sports teams, or lifestyles.

READ ONE EXAMPLE HERE: Love in the Time of Corona: An American Traveler Survives Italian Lockdown, and Finds True Love

Outside social media, suggested products follow internet users wherever they go, constantly attempting to connect them with products that match their interests.

All this can lead to an over-emphasis on the importance of cultural or habitual interests in relationships. When trying to make a relationship work, or simply to get one off the ground, it can sometimes just require looking at the person from a different perspective beyond that of whether they share your interests—what else is attractive about that person, how can you place that more toward the center of interactions.

SHARE This Encouraging Bit Of Dating Research With Your Single Friends… 

“The best way out is always through.” – Robert Frost

By
Good News Network
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Quote of the Day: “The best way out is always through.” – Robert Frost

Photo by: Emma Simpson (cropped)

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?

Woman Wrote ‘Please write me’ on an Egg in 1951–Someone Finally Did

By
Andy Corbley
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credit John Amalfitano - Facebook
credit John Amalfitano – Facebook

We’ve all heard stories about people finding messages in bottles, but I’ll bet you’ve never heard about someone finding a message in an egg carton before.

Emerging from social media, a 92-year-old Iowa resident has had a 70-year dream fulfilled after a message she wrote on an egg at a packing plant in 1951 has finally been responded to.

Mary Foss and a few of the gals that worked at the Forest City Iowa plant decided to all sign eggs with their name and hometown on them and send them off all in different boxes that were going out that day.

The cartons were headed to the East Coast, and Mary, who had never been to New York City, hoped someone there would find it and become her pen pal. She sent out 4 or 5 such eggs to increase the odds of a serendipitous meeting over scrambled eggs, but as the year rolled on, the stunt became a memory to be shared at dinner and lunch parties.

“Whoever gets this egg, please write me,” Mary carefully wrote on several eggs with a pencil. She then added, “Miss Mary Foss, Forest City, Iowa” along with the date, April 2, 1951.

“We heard that egg story our entire lives,” Mary’s daughter Laurie Bascom told the Washington Post. “Our mom always thought it would have been fun to get a response.”

Unbeknownst to Mary, who married and became Mary Starn, one of her eggs had been found by a man named Miller Richardson, who kept it for decades in his home and watched it petrify amid his collection of antiques.

The second key figure in this story is John Amilfitano, a neighbor of Richardson’s who came across the egg one day while helping Richardson find something in his collection. Richardson explained its origin and then, before he died years later, gave it to Amalfitano who kept it in his china cabinet for 20 years.

SIMILAR STORIES: Teen Girl’s Secret Message Left in a Wall 48 Years Ago is Found: ‘I was Absolutely Shocked!’

The story first appeared on Facebook in a group called “Weird (and Wonderful) Secondhand Finds That Just Need To Be Shared,” where Amalfitano thought the curious egg would fit perfectly.

“Wonder if she might still be alive! Tried to locate her, but came up empty. 🥺 I keep the egg safe in a pretty, art deco, English, Egg cozy,” he wrote in a long post in the group along with photos of the egg.

The comment section exploded with curious minds wanting to solve the 72-year-old mystery, and within the day, it came across the screen of one of Mary Starn’s nieces, who in turn shared it with Starn’s daughter Jacque Ploeger.

OTHER LONG-AWAITING RECONNECTING: Pen Pals Finally Get to Meet in Person–68 Years After They Began Writing Letters Back and Forth

Calling Ploeger on the phone, he slowly began explaining the egg story—itself being so bizarre that he didn’t know what to expect even though he knew he may have tracked down the family of the egg author.

“In the background on the call, I heard this voice speak up,” he told the Post. “She said, ‘This is Mary Foss.’”

PEOPLE CONNECTING ACROSS TIME: Wife of WWII Soldier Spends Decades to Reunite Japanese Family With Photo Album He Found on Okinawa –LOOK

Amalfitano said the brief conversation he shared with her was incredibly uplifting, and that he hopes to meet Starn, who herself says she finally found a pen pal from New York (Amalfitano lives on Staten Island), and that it only took 72 years.

SHARE This (Dare I Say It Again) Egg-cellent Story With Your Friends…  

Across Florida, Buildings Are Quietly and Quickly Being Assembled with Real-Life LEGO Bricks

By
Andy Corbley
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Renco USA released
Renco USA released

A Florida construction firm is seeing fast adoption of its intuitively-made building blocks that work like real-life LEGO bricks.

The interlocking blocks made of a mineral composite and reinforced with glass fiber can be quickly and quietly assembled into walls, floors, and even roofs, with a special adhesive and a rubber mallet being the only tools workers need to get the job done.

By using a process similar to injection molding, Renco USA can take the material and turn it into a variety of shapes, from the standard LEGO bricks to roofbeams and joists. No heavy cutting, welding, or masonry is needed on the job site, and contractors installing plumbing, ventilation, or electrical work can treat the finished block walls like normal concrete.

In Palm Springs, a $21 million, 96-unit housing complex near West Palm Beach is being built by just 11 workers using the blocks and adhesive. Without any cranes or lifts, and no bench saws or metal cutting equipment, the neighbors heard only the muted thud of the rubber mallets.

According to industry reporters, ongoing labor shortages and volatile markets in both steel and concrete are making America’s go-to building strategy for over 100 years more and more difficult to budget for.

Renco’s building system combines standard materials from other industries, like methyl methacrylate glue used in heavy vehicle manufacturing, and recycled glass fiber to reinforce the stability of supply chains and make costs lower and more predictable.

MORE NEWS LIKE THIS: These Lego-Like Bricks Make Building a Raised Garden Bed a Snap

“We worked on this [system] for more than 10 years,” Renco co-founder Tom Murphy, Jr. told Engineering News Record. “We had to keep changing it to make it better and easier to work with. As we did that, making a building with it got faster and easier, and… the building got stronger each time.”

Importantly for Florida weather is that early adoption tests show the blocks are incredibly durable and exhibit properties typically associated with the longest-lasting building materials.

Renco USA released

They’re rated to withstand wind speeds of 275 mph, and because of a naturally-occurring resin used in the injection molding of the blocks, they wick moisture away rather than absorbing it. They’re even insect repellent. A test saw a section of blocks put into a terrarium with a queen termite and 99 males. A month later the block stood alone amid the dead insects.

MORE CONSTRUCTION INNOVATION: World’s Tallest ‘Hempcrete’ Building in South Africa Captures More Carbon than it Emits

Together with a recently closed funding round of $18 million, the Jupiter Florida manufacturing facility churning out 6,000 apartments worth of building materials, and the 96-unit housing complex in Palm Beach, Murphy and President of Renco Kenneth Smuts believe they are poised for a major breakout into the building market.

“Jupiter will be able to produce 6,000 apartment units’ worth of material per year,” Smuts told ENR. “There’s 1.5 million housing starts in the U.S. on an annualized basis. There’s roughly a 5-million housing-start backlog that I don’t think anyone’s ever going to catch up with.”

SHARE This Awesome Next Generation Building Material With Your Friends… 

Portuguese Man Accidentally Finds 82-Foot-Long Dinosaur in His Backyard

By
Andy Corbley
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Instituto Dom Luiz (Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon)
Instituto Dom Luiz (Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon)

While doing renovations on his property, a Portuguese man stumbled upon a fossilized sauropod that might be the largest dinosaur skeleton ever found in Europe.

It all started in 2017. While carrying out construction work, the owner of the property in central Portugal noticed the presence of several fragments of fossilized bones in his yard. He called scientific authorities, and last month they unearthed several “important” skeletal elements of a beast that may have been 82 feet long (25 meters).

“It’s one of the biggest specimens discovered in Europe, perhaps in the world,” Elisabete Malafaia, a paleontologist from the Faculty of Sciences at the University of Lisbon in Portugal, tells Agence France-Presse.

So far, an important set of elements of the axial skeleton has been collected from the site, which includes vertebrae and ribs.

“It is not usual to find all the ribs of an animal like this, let alone in this position, maintaining their original anatomical position,” Malafaia adds in a statement. “This mode of preservation is relatively uncommon in the fossil record of dinosaurs, in particular sauropods, from the Portuguese Upper Jurassic.”

Instituto Dom Luiz (Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon)

The preservation characteristics of the fossils and their disposition indicate the possible presence of other parts of the skeleton of this individual, a hypothesis that will be tested in future excavation campaigns in the deposit.

Europe has found several genera of Brachiosauridae on the continent, and this back garden gargant might be a Brachiosaurus altithorax, a Giraffatitan brancai, or the Late Jurassic species first found in Portugal’s West region, Lusotitan atalaiensis.

What A Way To Kick Off Some Home Improvement-SHARE The Story Below…

Hero Neighbor Charges Into Lake to Save 4-Year-Old Boy With Autism

By
Andy Corbley
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credit Inside Edition - screen capture
credit Inside Edition – screen capture

A Michigan woman is being hailed a hero after she rescued a 4-year-old autistic boy who jumped into a lake.

Drowning is the leading cause of death among autistic children, but the water would have to make do with frogs and fish after Jessica Bauer and the boy’s Grandma saw him fall in, and the former tossed her smartphone over her shoulder before jumping in.

Ring camera captured the youngster tumbling into a pond and Bauer’s rescue. The young woman has a three-year-old of her own, and said the sight of the little boy drowning was frightening, but nevertheless, she told Inside Edition that she didn’t think much at all as she was jumping in.

The mother of the 4-year-old later thanked her hero neighbor. Bauer says the boy she saved is doing fine and is excited to celebrate his 5th birthday.

WATCH the rescue below…

“We cannot change anything until we accept it. Condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses.” – Carl Jung

By
Good News Network
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Quote of the Day: “We cannot change anything until we accept it. Condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses.” – Carl Jung

Photo by: Sigmund

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?

Winter Rains Cured California’s Three-Year Drought and Summer’s Record Heat Didn’t Bring a New One

By
Andy Corbley
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NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (CC license on Flickr)
Tropical Storm Hilary (bottom of the picture) moves towards Mexico. credit – Goddard Spaceflight Center CC 2.0.

By late January of this year, a remarkable thing had occurred in the normally thirsty state of California. Aside from splotches of land on the northern and southern borders, the state’s three-year drought had been entirely cured.

Now, as a globally hot summer winds to a close, the US Drought Monitor map for California reads exactly the same as when the spring ‘superbloom’ cloaked the hillsides in flowers.

Winter and spring rains and snowfall had set records in the mountains, and aside from the tragic flooding that cost some residents their lives and thousands in property damage, the understanding was that the days of water rationing were, for the time being, over.

It’s the first time since April of 2020 that no part of the state was considered stuck in “exceptional drought.”

In January and February, officials were quick to dismiss ideas that the precipitation could be a “drought buster” because it would have taken a legendary soaking to replenish underground aquifers and lakes. It kept on raining and snowing.

Then in April, officials cautioned that with conditions of climate change making weather patterns allegedly harder to predict, chances for extremely dry and hot summer months lay ahead.

OTHER GOOD WEATHER NEWS: Deaths by Extreme Weather and Aviation Accidents Have Never Been Lower than Now

However it seems Mother Nature pulled through for the state, leaving California one of the regions worldwide that didn’t see record-high temperatures during the summer. To wit, Tropical Storm Hilary provided even more rainfall, leading city planners and utilities to consider preparing more rainwater catch infrastructure for future wet times.

Los Angeles was able to capture 10,000 acre-feet of water from Hilary’s rainfall, or around 3.2 billion gallons; enough to provide a year’s worth of water to 40,000 households.

GOOD EARTH: In Frigid Maine So Many Heat Pumps Were Sold the State Passed its Clean-Energy Target Two Years Early

Additionally, with September typically representing the peak of southern California’s fire season, the recently added moisture could help delay or prevent what has become an all-too-familiar seasonal disaster.

“It should help some in terms of adding some soil moisture and helping the plants to not be so dried out,” David Simeral, a climatologist at the Desert Research Institute who mapped the latest U.S. Drought Monitor update, told the LA Times. “Hopefully this extra precipitation will push that back even further.”

SHARE This Good CA Climate News With Your Friends… 

‘World’s Loneliest Lion’ Returns to Africa After Years Alone in Zoo–WATCH His First Steps

By
Andy Corbley
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Ruben's veterinary exam in Africa – Animal Defenders International / SWNS
Ruben’s veterinary exam in Africa – Animal Defenders International / SWNS

The ‘world’s loneliest lion’ has returned to his natural habitat after he was abandoned in a private zoo in Armenia for five years.

15-year-old lion Ruben was part of a pride living in the now-closed zoo, but while all the other lions were relocated, Ruben was left behind in a tiny concrete cell for five long years.

Now, Ruben has made a 5,200-mile journey to South Africa where he took his first steps out of his travel crate into the home of his ancestors.

The epic journey was organized by Animals Defenders International (ADI) and Qatar Airways Cargo.

Ruben is now being rehabilitated at the ADI Wildlife Sanctuary in Free State, South Africa.

“Lions are the most sociable of the big cats, living in family prides in the wild,” said ADI President Jan Creamer. “Seeing him walk on grass for the first time, hearing the voices of his own kind, with the African sun on his back, brought us all to tears.”

At first, Ruben’s legs were wobbling due to malnutrition and a “lifetime of no exercise.”

However, Ruben’s resilience has stunned everyone at the sanctuary. He strode from his travel crate and followed a trail of sausages to a giant catnip punchbag—his first toy—and immediately started playing with it.

After not hearing other lions for years, Ruben has already started to get his roar back, his morning calls getting steadily louder as he regains his confidence.

MORE STORIES LIKE THIS: After Fatal Disease Arrives, Zoo Calls in the Only Team of Turtle-sniffing Dogs in the World to Help Out

“His whole demeanor has transformed, his face is relaxed and no longer fearful. His determination to walk is inspiring,” said Creamer. “If he stumbles or falls he just picks himself up and keeps going. He is nothing short of heroic.”

At first, ADI couldn’t find a suitable flight for him out of Armenia, but Qatar Airways Cargo ‘WeQare’ charity initiative stepped in. They moved a larger aircraft with hold doors big enough for Ruben’s crate into the scheduled passenger route out of Yerevan.

OTHER ZOO RESCUES: After Spending Life at Roadside Zoo, Chimps Share Emotional Hug in New Sanctuary Home

“There are a lot of logistics involved in moving animals like Ruben; from the logistics at the airports involved, the process for loading and unloading the animals from the aircraft to ensuring the correct cages and wellbeing of the animals are in place,” said Elisabeth Oudkerk, SVP Cargo Sales & Network Planning at Qatar Airways Cargo.

“It takes a lot of effort from our team to organize such transport—but it is something we are all collectively very proud to be a part of, knowing we helped give back to our planet.”

WATCH Ruben take his first steps (and find a sausage waiting for him)… 

SHARE This Inspiring Story Of Humanity Toward Its Pawed Brethren… 

Look What AI Could Do for Architecture: Giving Rise to a Stunning New Style

By
Andy Corbley
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From art nouveau to neoclassical futurism, Tim Fu designs architecture using AI / timfu.com
From art nouveau to neoclassical futurism, Tim Fu designs architecture using AI / timfu.com

What will be the next great architectural style, the one that shapes the skylines and suburbs of the future? If you’ve never heard of “neoclassical futurism” that’s because it was just invented by an architect with a passion for letting machine learning take up the drafting pencil.

These are computer-generated images above made by a smart machine design program called Midjourney, and they display a mixture of old and new, and maybe a bit of Lady Galadriel’s palace in Lothlorien on the right.

Arguing that AI in architecture is not just a disruptive technology or a useful tool, but a total paradigm shift, renowned architect Tim Fu left his position at the prestigious Zaha Hadid architecture firm to pursue artificial intelligence-driven design and engineering standards for world architecture.

His hope, as he explains in one interview, is to unify current fragmented architectural practices where engineers and designers are compartmentalized and separated, around AI’s ability to automate dozens of tasks simultaneously while seamlessly blending existing architectural styles, or producing entirely new ones.

courtesy of Tim Fu

One of these he has dubbed “Neoclassical Futurism.”

As Western Civilization gradually found its feet again after the fall of the Roman Empire, buildings in the Gothic style began rising from the ground all across Europe. Gothic cathedrals and townscapes dominated the land where stone was plentiful for hundreds of years until it was eventually replaced by the Renaissance, and then eventually Baroque styles.

MORE AI NEWS: 24 Million Miles Ahead of Tesla, Autonomous Semi Truck Logs Accident-Free Milestone on Delivery Routes

“We love Renaissance cathedrals so much, yet we’re building boxes everywhere,” Fu told Dezeen in a long-form interview. “So why not bring back ornamentation, bring back the beauty and the aesthetics that we once held so highly in the classical era, and also allow machines to continue to fabricate and produce feasibly for us and free us up to do the more intricate and beautiful parts?”

courtesy of Tim Fu

Fu is perhaps unique in that he considers the ‘beautiful parts’ as the carving of stone with hand tools, not the artistic design. He says that no machine can carve stone as well as a stonemason, work that in itself is deeply human and one of the first handicrafts ever developed in human society.

At a Venice architectural fair, Fu used Midjourney to create a series of brand new fusion column heads and teamed up with famous stone carver Till Apfel to bring them to life.

“I hope to usher in more ornamentation and move away from the minimalism that was ushered in by the Industrial Revolution,” he explained. “The Industrial Revolution was about human ideation and machine fabrication, AI allowed [sic] us to put the machine at the ideation phase so that potentially we can use human fabrication instead and revert the role of the two.”

MORE CLEVER AI USE: Paralyzed Woman ‘Speaks’ with Brain Signals Turned into Talking Avatar in World First

Tim Fu isn’t the only architect to hold a bullish opinion of AI’s role in the profession. Earlier this year, GNN covered the release of a tranche of images also created with Midjourney by Manas Bhatia, architect and head of the firm Ant Studio.

The AI created a vision of nature-inspired skyscrapers, symbiotic buildings that respirate like plants, with facades like bark and windows covered in trees and climbers.

SHARE This Bold Vision For The Future With Your Friends Interested In AI…

After Taking Vitamin B2 Baby Becomes Solitary Case of Recovery from Rare Genetic Disease

By
Andy Corbley
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Augustine having recovered from Mitchell Syndrome - SWNS
Augustine having recovered from Mitchell Syndrome – SWNS

Vitamin B2, or riboflavin, is a key compound in energy metabolism, cellular respiration, and antibody production, and in the case of a 1-year-old baby from California, perhaps the reason he was able to recover from Mitchell Syndrome.

If that disease sounds unfamiliar to you, that’s because it’s one of the rarest diseases known to medicine. There have been just 20 recorded cases of this genetic disease, and it was only named back in 2019.

Augustine was born a perfectly healthy boy on May 27th, 2022, but at three months he had to be hospitalized with hypoglycemia, and his health afterwards began to deteriorate.

He began to lose his hearing and he also had difficulty moving. At six months, the tot stopped eating altogether. At first doctors said it was just down to teethin, but an MRI scan showed deterioration of the protective covering of nerve fibers in his brain known as demyelination.

Augustine’s mother Kristen and his father Moses, “begged” for further genetic testing, which revealed a genetic mutation of a gene called ACOX1, leading to the diagnosis of Mitchell syndrome aged seven months.

The newly diagnosed neurological illness is caused by a rare genetic mutation which attacks the nerves that control hearing, movement, and vision.

“At the time, the hospital were only aware of three patients with the disorder, who had all passed away, that was incredibly hard to hear,” said Kristen. “It wasn’t until weeks later that I started asking more questions.”

In the course of that asking she found the Mitchell and Friends Foundation, set up after the death of Mitchell Herndon, the first recorded death by this disease in 2019.

The foundation had detailed records of all 20 known patients, some of whom were still alive, and they shared with Kristen that vitamin B2 seemed to have some positive effect for ameliorating the worst of the disease.

“He can sit up, eat and crawl which doctors never expected him to do,” said Kristen. “But there’s no research so we don’t know what will happen—we have nobody to guide us because the condition is so rare.”

OTHER RARE DISEASES: Angel Donor Offers to Match 100K to Give Research into Rare Disease a Big Boost

“Normally when people lose a skill like movement, it’s gone forever; nerve function goes, then eventually brain function,” she explains. “But that hasn’t happened for Augustine.”

Augustine is starting to babble, and even crawling and trying to walk. In May this year, he turned 1 and all of his family celebrated by singing Happy Birthday to him using sign language.

Kristen and the family are learning sign language, which they’re teaching Augustine, but he’ll also have cochlear implants as he gets older.

MORE MEDICAL ESCAPES: Man Paralyzed from the Neck Down from Rare Disease Makes Incredible Recovery, Now Back at the Gym

“He is so sweet, he is interested in everything he loves to explore and is very affectionate, he loves us to wrestle with him and he loves his sisters,” she adds. “He puts his hands on my throat to feel the vibrations when I talk.”

“We can’t predict the future but we have all the hope in the world he will do well and we have to have faith.”

SHARE This Gratitude-Inspiring Medical Miracle With Your Friends… 

“Thinking is the talking of the soul with itself.” – Plato

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Good News Network
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Quote of the Day: “Thinking is the talking of the soul with itself.” – Plato

Photo by: Joshua Earle

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?

Oprah And Dwayne Johnson Giving $1,200 Per Month To Maui Wildfire Survivors

By
Andy Corbley
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Oprah Winfrey, (left) and Dwayne Johnson (right) consulted Maui community leaders including Hokulani Holt-Padilla (center) - credit The People's Fund of Maui
Oprah Winfrey, (left) and Dwayne Johnson (right) consulted Maui community leaders including Hokulani Holt-Padilla (center) – credit The People’s Fund of Maui

In the aftermath of the most destructive fires in the island state’s recent memory, donations have poured in to help the thousands of affected residents on Maui.

Now, celebrity duo Oprah Winfrey and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson have created a special welfare fund that will provide those directly injured or whose property was damaged by the fires with $1,200 per month out of their own pockets.

Together they created The People’s Fund of Maui, which armed with $10 million in aid money donated by the two celebrities, will ensure those in need are reached directly.

“I have been meeting with people throughout the community that were impacted by the fires over the last few weeks, asking what they most needed and how I could be of service,” Ms. Winfrey said in a press release.

“The main thing I’ve been hearing is their concern about how to move forward under the immense financial burden. The community has come together in so many wonderful ways, and my intention is to support those impacted as they determine what rebuilding looks like for them.”

A variety of Maui residents and community leaders were consulted by Winfrey and Johnson who both hoped to ensure that neither time nor money was wasted in getting aid directly to those who need it.

“As people around the world watched the catastrophic loss and devastation caused by the Maui wildfires, they also witnessed the great spirit and resilience of our Polynesian culture and the tremendous strength of the people of Maui,” Mr. Johnson added in the same release.

OTHER NEWS ON THE MAUI FIRES: A 5-Year-Old’s Lemonade Stand in Seattle Raised Over $17,000 for Victims of Maui Wildfires

Both state and federal government assistance was lagging, according to reports, in the aftermath of the fires, and multiple GoFundMe efforts and other private charities and non-profits managed to raise tens of millions of dollars for the victims of the Upcounty and Lahaina fires.

Civil Beats Honolulu has all the information on how readers can support the recovery and assistance efforts.

SHARE This Generous Donation On Social Media… 

Company Devises Ingenious Method of Repurposing Old Wind Turbines: ‘The perfect time’

By
Andy Corbley
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American Public Power Association
American Public Power Association

With the first generation of wind turbines well into a period of decommissioning, questions about what to do with the massive fiberglass blades is a pressing one for an industry that markets itself as green and sustainable.

While indeed no fossil fuels need be burned to generate electricity with wind turbines, the mounting landfill burden of the blades which are not recyclable is projected to climb to over 40 million tons of fiberglass over the next 20 years.

Some companies though are changing the angle of approach of the problem from how to recycle the blades into raw materials to simply moving them onto other uses—and the company REGEN Fiber, owned by the trucking company Tavero, sees their future as additives in concrete and asphalt.

The primary end-product is a top-performing reinforcement fiber that increases the strength and overall durability of concrete and mortar applications such as pavement, slabs-on-grade, and precast products. The company also produces microfibers and additives from components of the wind blade for use in a range of composite, concrete, and soil stabilization applications.

By preventing decommissioned wind turbine blades from ending up in landfills or releasing combustion byproducts, such as carbon, to the atmosphere if burned, REGEN Fiber’s new and sustainable solution is helping to solve the wind industry’s growing challenge of finding environmentally friendly ways for disposing of wind turbine components.

“With tremendous growth projected in the wind industry and an increasing number of turbines already reaching the end of their approximately 20-year lifespan, REGEN Fiber is entering the market at the perfect time,” Jeff Woods, director of business development at Travero, said in a statement.

Credit – REGEN Fiber, released

“Recycling blades without using heat or chemicals while simultaneously keeping them out of landfills or being burned supports the sustainability goals of both the wind industry and customers receiving the recycled products.”

Large, commercial-scale operations for the recycling of decommissioned blades are expected to begin in the second half of 2023. A new manufacturing facility for REGEN Fiber to recycle decommissioned blades is currently being constructed in Fairfax, Iowa.

MORE UPCYCLING SOLUTIONS: Plastic Waste Can Now be Turned into Soap Thanks to Eureka Moment from Virginia Tech

Once commercial-scale operations in Fairfax reach full production levels, REGEN Fiber anticipates recycling over 30,000 tons per year. of shredded blade materials and byproducts from new blade manufacturing.

Reinforcing concrete, asphalt, and other paving materials is proving an effective place for upcycling non-recyclable products.

CHECK OUT THIS RECYCLING: Robot Named Sorty McSortface Uses Mechanical Claws and AI to Sort Tons of Recyclables in Minutes

When the production of masks exploded during COVID, many people were quick to point out they couldn’t be recycled. The Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology and Melbourne Technical College turned them into road asphalt mixture, with just 1 kilometer of road being able to consume 3 million masks.

Similar to masks, baby diapers can’t really be recycled either, and so scientists at the School of Environmental Engineering at the University of Kitakyuku in Japan found a way to replace sand in concrete mixtures with 40% shredded baby diapers.

SHARE This Intelligence Upcycling With Your Green-Minded Pals… 

Prehistoric Bird Once Thought to Be Extinct Returns to New Zealand Wild

By
Andy Corbley
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Prehistoric takahe bird by Kathrin Stefan Marks (CC license on Flickr)
Prehistoric takahe bird by Kathrin Stefan Marks (CC license on Flickr)

In a massive and historic conservation success story, eighteen takahē birds have been released into the wilds of a nature reserve on Lake Wakatipu.

This is hoped to be followed by seven more in October, and another 10 in the early months of next year as this rediscovered wonder continues its long road to recovery into the third separate breeding population in the wild.

The automobile was still a novel sight in London when the takahē was declared extinct.

This iridescent flightless bird is a symbol of New Zealand’s unique prehistoric past, but it evolved on an island without mammals, and with their invasive introduction came what might have been the bird’s ultimate demise.

However they were rediscovered after the Second World War and ever since conservationists have been taking a proactive approach to ensuring their survival. Eggs located in the wild are taken into care centers to protect them from thieves like stoats, ferrets, and rats.

Conservationists raised chicks in breeding centers by using sock puppets shaped like adult takahē heads, an invaluable technique that eventually gave way to breeding in specially controlled environments.

Trapping the invasive predators has also been an incredibly important contribution to the animal’s steady growth in population of around 8% per annum.

ANOTHER NEW ZEALAND BIRD: Hawaii’s State Bird Soars Back From Brink of Extinction After Only 30 Birds Left on Islands

On New Zealand’s South Island, Lake Wakatipu is the island nation’s longest, snaking through the Waimāori Valley for 50 miles. The surrounding environment of alpine slopes is perfect for the one-and-a-half-foot bird.

“They’re almost prehistoric looking,” says Tūmai Cassidy, of the Ngāi Tahu indigenous group who steward the land around Lake Wakatipu. “Very broad and bold.”

MORE STORIES LIKE THIS: Platypuses Return to Sydney’s Royal National Park After Disappearing for Decades

He says that from the front they appear perfectly spherical, like a miniature Earth mounted on a pair of orange legs. For the Māori, the reintroduction is incredibly special. In the past Māori people gathered the feathers of the bird into cloaks, and the calls of these animals radiating up the slopes from the valley bottom was a cherished memory that may now be able to be relived.

WATCH the animal in its natural habitat, AND the moment they were released…

SHARE This Magnificent Bird And Its Historic Recovery With Your Friends… 

Viral Teen With Record Size Feet Finally Gets Size 23 Shoes Donated So He Can Play Football

By
Andy Corbley
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Eric Kilburn Jr. has been wearing too-small shoes, until now – Photos courtesy of Rebecca Kilburn
Eric Kilburn Jr. has been wearing too-small shoes, until now – Photos courtesy of Rebecca Kilburn

Sports are a proving ground where every challenge becomes an opportunity to grow stronger, a fact that for one very unique Michigan sophomore proved true on and off the field.

Eric Kilburn Jr. was born a normal 8-pound baby boy, but has grown into a well-spoken giant of a young man with what might be the largest feet ever recorded in a human teenager.

His unique growth rate has certainly given the 6-foot-10 defensive tackle at Goodrich High School an advantage, but also created trouble finding shoes that could contain his feet which seemed to grow a size every 6 months.

At 15 years old he was wearing size 22 shoes—the largest which any sporting company had ever needed to make. But soon, even these were too small, and in lieu of constantly suffering blisters and muscle deformations in his feet, Eric’s mother Rebecca was left with no other choice but to order specially-made orthopedic shoes at a cost of $1,500 per pair.

Direct pleas to sporting goods companies fell on deaf ears, but a friend who started a $3,500 fundraiser to get two of these expensive shoes for Eric created something truly special.

The fundraiser was reported on by Hometown Life, and the story quickly went viral, attracting the attention of PR firms of Puma and Under Armour, as well as the king of big-boy generosity—Shaquille O’Neil.

Representatives of the two companies arrived at Goodrich High to measure Eric’s feet, and after a lengthy process donated 4 pairs of cleats and 2 pairs of trainers to the school, who gave them to Eric as a gift in order to maintain his status as an amateur athlete.

“I got my cleats before conditioning practice and it was an immediate difference,” Eric told USA Today, following up on the Homelife story. “It’s insane how much more traction I got. It’s mind-boggling.”

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The companies declined to specify whether the shoes were size 23 because there are no industry specifications for shoes that big; and in any case, Eric’s feet are wider than a normal estimate for a size above 22. Under Armour and Puma simply referred to them as “Eric Kilburn-size.”

At the Martians’ first JV football scrimmage this season at Goodrich High School, Mom Rebecca got to watch her son play without any impediments to his mobility, and in the Michigan rain, she wept.

“Just seeing him perform to the best of his ability was a gift,” she said. “It was full circle emotion and just happiness to see him have the same advantages as other kids on the field do.”

MORE BIG TEENS GETTING SUPPORT: Shaquille O’Neal Gives Teen 10 Pairs of New Size 18 Shoes to Pay Forward Childhood Good Deed

The story doesn’t end there, as Shaquille O’Neil, who has helped several very large young men find shoes and suits that fit, sent a care package of shoes and clothes to the family, as well as his personal tailor who measured Eric for two suits; one for prom and another for homecoming lined with purple and red paisley.

Reebok, Shaq’s personal sponsor, sent along the shoes with a letter that said “Eric—Hoping these shoes could be a fit and offer you some relief… Know that we’re here to help and behind you every step of the way!”

MORE SPORTING GENEROSITY: College Athlete Learns His Teammate Donates Plasma to Afford School–So He Gave Him His Scholarship

Shaq wears size 22 shoes, and so unfortunately—and unbelievably—Eric will not be able to make use of them.

Rebecca is determined to pay all this kindness forward, and is in the process of setting up bigshoenetwork.org to help other teens like her son find shoes that fit, with a focus on getting them into households who can’t afford the high price tag of oversized shoes for teen sports.

WATCH the measuring process and hear what the Kilburns had to say…

SHARE This Larger-Than-Life True Sporting Story With Your Friends…

“Perhaps the truth depends on a walk around the lake.” – Wallace Stevens

By
Good News Network
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Quote of the Day: “Perhaps the truth depends on a walk around the lake.” – Wallace Stevens

Photo by: Aaron Burden

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?

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