In Covington, Georgia, a 30,000-ton-per-year recycling facility for batteries and battery scrap just switched on the disassembly line for the very first time.
Inside its walls, a Massachusetts-based startup will be harvesting lithium carbonate, cobalt, manganese, and other battery minerals and selling them back to the market, circumventing the huge challenges that come from opening new mines.
Ascend Elements hopes to take advantage of massive government spending on electric vehicle production by dotting the Carolinas, Georgia, Tenessee, and the Midwest with recycling facilities within an hour’s drive from new automotive plants.
The Covington location can take apart around 70,000 electric vehicles worth of batteries, while allegedly providing enough free cash flow to allow Ascend to pay car manufacturers a little for their old batteries to make doubly sure they don’t end up in landfills.
Once they arrive on site, the batteries are shredded and sieved into “black mass” which is sorted by mineral type.
As well as selling raw minerals, Ascend upcycles some of this black mass into cathode precursor and cathode active material at an R&D center in Massachusetts. They are currently building another facility in Kentucky to bring this operation closer to the “Battery Belt” states mentioned above.
“Those two facilities represent the investment that we are making in key infrastructure to recover these batteries, retain these critical elements in the United States and return them into the supply,” said Ascend CEO Mike O’Kronley.
WATCH how they do it in a corporate video below…
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An Endangered abalone whose blood could hold a cure for cancer has been crowned “International Mollusk of the Year.”
Though it’s not much to look at, the Chilean abalone, a large, carnivorous limpet with a heavy shell, got more than 40% of the public vote, conferring them the grand prize—a full genome sequencing.
Chilean abalone Juan Diego Alvarez accepted the prize on his species’ behalf at the Senckenberg Natural History Museum in Frankfurt where voting partially took place, calling the victory “one shell step for man.”
All kidding aside, the cultural, ecological, and potentially medicinal value of the species is hoped to have been amplified by the news of the award. The abalone’s numbers were drastically diminished in the late 20th century due to overfishing.
A component in its blood has been shown recently to be effective against bladder and prostate cancer, and in its natural habitat, it’s a top predator that’s important for keeping its own little food web in balance.
“…A component of its blood, the oxygen transporter haemocyanin, also shows an immunotherapeutic effect against some types of cancer,” said competition judge Dr. Carola Greve, lab manager at the LOEWE Translational Biodiversity Genomics Centre, where the abalone’s genome will be completely mapped out.
“So, the genomic analysis can not only help to explore adaptation strategies and different populations in the large distribution area, but also to discover new molecules with pharmaceutical importance.”
Although mollusks form the second largest animal phylum after arthropods (insects), the genomes of only a few mollusk species have been completely sequenced so far.
Accordingly, little is known about the genomic basis for the diversity of the species, their adaptive abilities, or the natural products they produce.
This abalone, Concholepas concholepas, is actually not an abalone at all, the chief difference being that abalones are herbivores and this one is a carnivore that belongs to the family of Murex snails.
The competition received a total of 4,309 votes from all over the world, the Chilean abalone received the most with 1,798 votes.
It is followed in second place by the wavy bubble snail, Micromelo undatus with 970 votes, the giant deep-sea oyster Neopycnodonte zibrowii, and the thick-horned nudibranch Hermissenda crassicornis.
“Together, we are getting closer to our goal of publicly showing the enormous biodiversity of mollusks and arousing enthusiasm for these often underestimated organisms, many of which perform important tasks in their respective ecosystems,” said Professor Julia Sigwart, Section Head of the Department of Malacology at the Senckenberg Research Institute.
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Quote of the Day: “To be looking everywhere for miracles is a sure sign of ignorance that everything is miraculous.” – Abraham H. Maslow
Photo by: McKinley Corbley
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Kuttamperoor River–Before and After (YouTube screenshots) Credit: Budhanoor Grama Panchayat
Kuttamperoor River–Before and After (YouTube screenshots) Credit: Budhanoor Grama Panchayat
A once-biologically dead river in southern India has been revived to the fullest extent thanks to local dedication and government involvement.
A tributary of the Pampa and Achencoil rivers, the 4-mile-long Kuttamperoor River has for centuries been a source of life and drinking water for rural communities in Kerala.
Irrigating more than 2,000 acres of rice paddy, and providing a lifeline for 500 fishermen families, the Kettamperoor River played a huge role in the local community.
However, over three decades of a mixture of misuse and neglect led to the river becoming biologically dead; choked with weeds, and polluted with trash.
Floods, once rare, became a common occurrence, and by 2005 the sorry state of affairs on the Kettampreroor led even to the contamination of groundwater sources.
Those days are gone—thanks to a collaborative effort between the Kerala state government, the Budhanoor village council, and the participation of locals along the banks, the Kettamperoor has been resurrected.
A large number of workers under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme took to the shallows to scoop out the tangled masses of aquatic weeds and trash.
7,000 villagers from the three communities donated around 30,000 man-hours of work to finish the initial clean up in just 2 months.
Volunteers on Kuttamperoor River -(YouTube screenshot) Credit: Budhanoor Grama Panchayat
After that, the state government in Kerala on the southwest tip of India took over and created the conditions for life to return. They worked alongside the denizens of the river, who offered off up some of their land for a planned expansion of the river’s banks.
Kuttamperoor River cleanup (YouTube screenshot) Credit: Budhanoor Grama Panchayat
Five years and around $1.5 million (₹13 crore) later, fish and other animals were back in the river, whose flow width had grown from a few dozen feet to around half a football field in length.
The Hindu reports that the success has become literally a textbook example of restoration, and made national headlines when Prime Minister Narendra Modi mentioned it in a national radio address, known as a Mann Ki Baat.
WATCH the restoration story in full, from Budhanoor Grama Panchayat…
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In Alaska, amazing animals are simply part of the scenery—even, as it turns out, in the hospital.
Fancying a snack from the foliage in Anchorage’s Providence Alaska Health Park’s cancer center, it was last Thursday that a moose decided to walk into the building.
Its hooves were no impediment to the motion-activated door, and soon, the security staff had to get on the intercom to warn visitors, patients, and staff that a moose was on the loose.
However the announcement served mostly to draw people in to see the moose, which wasn’t the first to ever enter the building, nor has it only been members of the deer family. Providence has also had bears try to enter their facilities.
“The Providence Health Park had an extra-special visitor today, as a moose decided to come inside and check out the plants in the lobby,” the hospital wrote on Facebook.
Security managed to corral the animal before it could damage anything beyond the plants.
“Finally, I think it had enough of everybody watching him, watching him eat,” said Randy Hughes, the hospital’s director of security.
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An aperiodic monotile never repeats a formation, no matter how long the pattern. Photograph David Smith, Joseph Samuel Myers, Craig S. Kaplan, and Chaim Goodman-Strauss, 2023
An aperiodic monotile never repeats a formation, no matter how long the pattern. Credit: David Smith, Joseph Samuel Myers, Craig S. Kaplan, and Chaim Goodman-Strauss, 2023
Mathematics is full of difficult problems, and one that had been outstanding for several decades has finally been solved.
Is there a shape that could interlock with itself ad infinitum without ever replicating a pattern? Turns out, there is.
A 13-sided shape called “the hat” and another one called “the turtle” have both been found to create irreplicable designs regardless of how many shapes are interlocked, whether 100, 400 quadrillion, or something equally ridiculous.
Such a shape is known as an ‘aperiodic monotile’ or an “Einstein shape”, using both the German wording for ‘one shape’ and the name of a certain famous physicist.
The discovery was largely the work of an Englishman named David Smith who lives in the East Riding, Yorkshire. Once he made his discovery using an online geometry program, he shared it with a professor of computer science and mathematics at the University of Waterloo in Canada, Dr. Craig Kaplan.
Kaplan then engaged a team of colleagues to work on Smith’s shape—Dr. Chaim Goodman-Strauss, a University of Arkansas mathematician, and Dr. Joseph Myers, a software developer in Cambridge, England.
It was these three that begin tinkering with “the hat” to see if it could be, in fact, an aperiodic monotile that had no limit. The New York Times reported the team found that not only was there “the hat,” and “the turtle” but that these two shapes were linked to a whole family of Einstein shapes.
“The miracle is that this little tile disrupts order at all scales,” Goodman-Strauss told the Guardian. “These tiles are just sitting next to each other and somehow have these effects at any length scale: miles, 10 miles, 100bn light years, these little guys are somehow causing effects at these arbitrary long distances.”
The discovery won’t likely yield any breakthroughs in theoretical physics or anything of that nature, but the implications of the shape for art, interior design, and architecture are exciting: materials made in the hat or turtle shapes guarantee irreplication when tiled onto a floor, a building facade, or a painting.
“I’ve just been blown away by the outpouring of interest and people making their own tiles, their own drawings—somebody made cookies in the form of this thing—and quilts,” Goodman-Strauss said.
“To me, the human aspect of this is really incredibly gratifying, that there’s all these people coming together and enjoying this thing, and it really means that this thing is gonna live for quite a long time.”
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A Kenyan high school teacher is using your old laptop batteries to turn petrol-powered bikes into electric ones.
There’s no shortage of MacGyver-like innovations in Africa, and Paul Waweru is a perfect example of that ingenuity, turning second-hand electronics destined to become waste products into something useful.
The batteries can cost as little as 0.50 Kenyan shillings, which Waweru then cannibalizes for the cells that still can hold a decent charge. Once he has enough, he configures them into battery packs to replace the internal combustion engines of existing scooters and bikes.
“Nobody was selling electric bikes in Kenya, so I had to import one,” he told African News.
The imported bike didn’t last long, so he used his own innovation to create the product his society needed. African News reports he founded a company called Ecomobilus which is already selling well, especially to couriers who love that they can avoid the high costs of gasoline.
“Ecomobilus bikes are more advantageous compared to other gasoline-powered bikes. Number one, because of the cost of maintenance,” Waweru explains. “Ecomobilus bikes require zero maintenance because there are no mechanical parts that need to be repaired every often [sic], we give it at least two years for services because the engines are no longer there, we are dealing with motors.”
A full charge on the laptop battery pack is around 60 miles, (100 kilometers), and it can fully charge in 45 minutes for less than half the cost of a full tank of fuel.
Many African cities are choked with air pollution, especially during the dry seasons, and some are seeing electric bikes as the perfect solution to quickly and effectively improve on this vital issue.
WATCH the story below…
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Quote of the Day: “The best revenge is not to be like your enemy.” – Marcus Aurelius
Photo by: Gavin Allanwood (cropped)
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A church destroyed in France during The Somme has regained its holy crucifix lost in the battle.
Plucked from the mud in 1916 by a British reverend, it was brought back to Britain and has proudly sat on the altar of All Saints Church in Tinwell since 1936.
The crucifix will is due for a return to its rightful home this June after some All Saint’s parishioners discovered the church in Doingt-Flamicourt had been rebuilt only a few years after the war’s end.
A group of ten churchgoers will set out on a pilgrimage to reunite the crucifix with the church on a 297-mile trip to the village in northern France in what will be the 107th year since the battle.
Doingt and its church were almost completely destroyed during the Battle of the Somme. The village and its church were rebuilt following the armistice and the crucifix is seen as a precious link between its devastation and restoration.
“A village once destroyed is rebuilt; where there was trauma and death in 1917, today there is life and community,” said Reverend Olwen Woolcock from Tinwell. “The crucifix is like the last piece of the jigsaw in that restoration.”
The crucifix, which is in the French style with a shortened top with a gilded metal figure of Christ, was later used as a replacement for a small altar cross at All Saints.
SWNS
Tinwell resident Katharine McDevitt formed the plan to reunite the lost relic back with its French village after she learned in 2018 that Doingt Church was rebuilt in 1925.
“I wrote a letter to the mayor of Doingt-Flamincourt and asked Katharine to translate it into French,” said Rev. Woolcock. “After several months we sent another letter and this time got a response from the deputy mayor who put me in touch with a member of their historical society.”
“They said they would very much like their crucifix back so we started to organize the trip.”
The trip has taken four years to arrange and required special dispensation from the Chancellor of the Peterborough Diocese to remove the figure of Christ on the cross from the church.
“When we received the email, I was very surprised and moved,” said Hubert Boizard, a member of the local history group, Mémoire de Doingt-Flamicourt. “I look forward to meeting our English friends to remember the past when their country defended France and freedom.”
“The region is sensitive to the fate of all the young British soldiers who died on our soil. The return of the crucifix symbolizes the friendship between our two nations…”
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In a national first, the Food and Drug Administration has given Intellia Therapeutics the go-ahead to begin testing a drug that uses CRISPR gene editing in vivo.
In biology, in vivo means within an organism, rather than in something like a petri dish, and Intellia’s offering is the first time ever that the FDA has approved such testing.
Their drug would prevent swelling attacks in people with a genetic condition called hereditary angioedema.
Typically, treatments and drugs that utilize CRISPR take place outside the body. Cells or tissues are removed and altered ex vivobefore being re-introduced inside the patient. In the case of Intellia’s drug, the edited media finds its own way to the liver rather than being injected there.
The advantages are huge if such a drug could be proven to work well—a lack of hospital and laboratory procedures would save a patient thousands, and potentially open up the class of drugs to the lower and middle classes, or to those who are uninsured.
“This is an important milestone for Intellia as it is the first-ever (investigational new drug application) cleared by the FDA for in-vivo gene editing,” RBC Capital Markets analyst Luca Issi said in a report on Inetllia’s stock, which rose following the announcement.
The company plans to file the papers for another such drug later in the year, which would help tamp down on an abnormal protein that builds up in the heart.
Other Western countries have already approved several and even many in vivo CRISPR treatments for testing, among which are New Zealand, The Netherlands, Sweden, the UK, and France.
Some West Midlands cat lovers are planting roots of good merit through a beautiful and unique rescue operation.
Shropshire Cat Rescue in Shrewsbury takes in homeless, stray, abandoned, and unwanted cats and kittens and organizes veterinary care for feral felines in the area.
But particular to this charity is that it has 17 cats, all of which have been given up or found stray in what should be their golden years, who are now safe and comfortable in Moggies Retirement Village.
The cats enjoy the cushy life with volunteers taking time to look after them and even getting local kids to read to them once a month.
A video of the gated community shows a series of mini cottages surrounded by well-kept gardens where the cats are housed. Each cottage contains a bed, a litter tray, food and drink bowls, and various toys for up to two cats.
The clip also shows Moggie’s Mansion, a larger house with bigger toys and beds where the cats can hang out together.
“The shelter was intended to create an area for cats who were too elderly or had ongoing health conditions that needed regular treatment and monitoring to live out their days in comfort,” explains volunteer vet Susie.
The charity has been rescuing and rehoming cats in the Shropshire area since 1989. Cats in the sanctuary are usually in their later years, but there are others as young as three.
“It also opened the door for people who had elderly cats and were going into a nursing home and couldn’t take them with them. It gives a different option and eases a stressful upsetting time by finding somewhere the cats could live out their final days.”
Being that old cats, much like old humans, tend to be set in their ways, their arrival at the retirement community is often a little stressful, and so they’re locked in a cottage for about two weeks to become accustomed to the new environment.
Moggies Retirement Village
“The retirement village cats are weighed weekly and monitored for weight changes or indications something isn’t right and they are highlighted for a vet check,” Susie said. “If there are any cats who are a concern beforehand, they get taken straight down or booked in asap.”
The volunteers work around the clock, 365 days a year to make sure that these cats are able to live their best life.
FYI to the non-parents out there, it takes at least 15 pairs of shoes for a child to grow from a toddler to a teenager—that’s a lot of trips to the Footlocker.
Fortunately, an Indian entrepreneur from Pune has designed a line of shoes that slowly uncurl as the child ages, intuitively solving the problem and reducing unnecessary manufacturing waste.
Called Aretto, the shoes were designed by Satyajit Mittal and his childhood friend Krutika Lal. Their innovative knitted uppers are designed with all the qualities a parent would want their kids’ shoes to have—durability, flexibility, and washability.
“Children do not wear the right shoes for the first ten years of their lives,” Mittal, who designed the Aretto shoes with consultations with concerned childhood podiatrists, told The Better India.
“Between zero and three years of age, children’s feet size changes every three months, and you need roughly 15 sizes between zero and nine, before attaining final foot size at 13 years. We figured out the problem that while feet grow, their shoes do not.”
What the podiatrists explained to him was that children have a broader footprint than adults, due to their not having worn shoes for most of their lives like adults. Tens of thousands of nerve endings provide the feedback needed for children to understand how to use the miraculous musculature in their feet to walk and run.
Most infantile and childhood shoes don’t consider this, and based on the frequency at which parents need to buy new shoe sizes, proper foot function is probably never even taken into account, and the occasional stuffing of toddler feet into shoes too small or too large, can disrupt this critical muscle development.
“We wanted to give children the right fit for all cycles. We chose one shoe to cover three sizes that allow 18 mm growth. We took inspiration from how a flower blooms from the bud stage to the fully-flowered stage. The transition happens organically every day. We applied this concept to the shoe,” said Mittal.
“We started working on a shoe that flexes as per the feet. Simply put, as and when the feet grow either from the front or back or sideways, and when a child wears this shoe, it expands accordingly and takes the shape and contour of their feet. That’s why children feel comfortable wearing such shoes,” he adds.
The shoes are priced between Rs 1,800 and Rs 2,600, ($22 – $31) and are available internationally as well, provided that international buyers have either an Indian bank, or Google Pay, Amazon Pay, or WhatsApp Pay.
The shoes are fairly new on the marketplace but have already generated 21 lakh, or Rs 2.1 million ($25,000) in revenue.
Quote of the Day: “Enlightenment is gaffe upon error upon blooper.” – The Zen poet Ikkyu (1394-1481)
Photo by: Ryoma Onita
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A couple gave up life on land to live on a houseboat—and doing so saved them $27,500 every year.
Sarah Spiro and her boyfriend, Brandon Jones, spent $23,000 to buy a one-bedroom houseboat and moved in two years ago on Fontana Lake, North Carolina.
Sarah said it was a “no-brainer” to move, and the duo pays $2,500 a year to be able to live there compared to their $2,500 each month for rent on separate two-bedroom properties.
After living atop the water for two years, the couple has started renovating a bigger houseboat, with plans to rent the smaller residence to vacationers.
“We were always spending all our free time on the lake,” said Sarah, a 27-year-old mountain guide. “We were always boating; it was our favorite thing to do.
“It’s been a long-standing dream of ours—and it is so cheap, too. Here we only have one yearly fee. It is a huge step for us.”
The self-described ‘water rats’ bought the boat in March 2021 and spent two months renovating it, spending $23,000.
Sarah Spiro and Brandon Jones – SWNS / @KeepingAfloatWiththeJoneses
“It is so peaceful here. You still have your day-to-day trends like doing the dishes and laundry but you get to do it all in this phenomenal view at all times. Whatever the time, whatever you are doing you are surrounded by peace and serenity—it is paradise.”
Their biggest challenge is the cold winter, with temperatures on ‘most nights’ dipping below freezing. They did add a small fireplace in the corner of the room.
“You do have to make sacrifices convenience-wise. You can’t get food delivered, the grocery store is 40 minutes away. You have to be more intentional about planning the things you need but I wouldn’t change it for the world,” added Sarah, who parks their car at the marina, a five-minute boat ride away.”
Most importantly, Sarah said that living on the houseboat has improved their mental and physical health.
@KeepingAfloatWiththeJoneses / SWN
“It is the sensation of being out in a nice open space. It has benefitted our nervous system. I wear a Fitbit watch and it is crazy to see how my heart rate has decreased living here.
“I love the freedom it has given us: It has freed up our wallets, and given us all the things we love right on our doorstep.
“It is also an affordable and more sustainable way to live.”
Currently, the pair are renovating a new cabin to move into and hope to start renting their current cabin out to holiday makers.
Have a look inside the residence with the video below, and get updates on renting the houseboat on their YouTube channel or on social media (@KeepingAfloatWiththeJoneses)…
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Hybrid micro-robot simulation courtesy of Tel Aviv University / SWNS
Hybrid micro-robot simulation courtesy of Tel Aviv University / SWNS
A tiny controllable robot acts as a real-life ‘Pac-Man’—identifying and gobbling up damaged cells in living things.
Scientists say the minuscule robot, which is seven times smaller than the width of a human hair, can identify, capture, and transport cells.
Another benefit is that it can be navigated and controlled both magnetically and electrically. It can also distinguish between different types of cells, identifying whether they are healthy or dying.
Scientists from Tel Aviv University in Israel say their new micro-robot could be used to administer drugs—and even identify and treat cancer.
The innovative technology was developed by Professor Gilad Yossifon and his team of researchers in the School of Mechanical Engineering and Department of Biomedical Engineering.
The microbots, also known as ‘micro-motors’ or ‘active particles’, are tiny synthetic particles the size of a biological cell that can move around and perform actions either automatically, or by being controlled by an operator.
Prof. Yossifon says the idea to make tiny robots able to move autonomously was inspired by ‘biological micro-swimmers’, such as sperm.
To demonstrate the ability of their robot, the team used it to capture single blood and cancer cells, and a single bacterium.
The results, published in the journal Advanced Science, proved the microbot had the ability to distinguish both between cells that are healthy and those damaged by drugs, and between those dying unnaturally and those dying in a natural process.
After successfully identifying the desired cell, the micro-robot then captures and escorts it to where it can be further analyzed.
Another important feature is the robot’s ability to identify target cells which aren’t labelled or pointed out as being noteworthy. It can self-identifying cells and their health conditions using an internal sensing mechanism based on the cell’s electrical properties.
“In addition, the micro-robot has an improved ability to identify and capture a single cell, without the need for tagging, for local testing, or retrieval, and transport to an external instrument,” said Yossifon.
“This research was carried out on biological samples in the laboratory for in-vitro assays but, the intention is to develop in the future micro-robots that will also work inside the body—for example, as effective drug carriers that can be precisely guided to the target.”
The researchers add that the hybrid nature of the microbot will be beneficial in physiological environments such as tests carried out in a liquid, where electrical guidance techniques are less effective.
“This is where the complementary magnetic mechanism come into play, which is very effective regardless of the electrical conductivity of the environment.”
Lauding the success of his team’s groundbreaking study, Prof. Yossifon hailed the microbot’s future usage in diagnosing and treating diseases:
“Among other things, the technology will support the following areas: medical diagnosis at the single cell level, introducing drugs or genes into cells, genetic editing, carrying drugs to their destination inside the body, cleaning the environment from polluting particles, drug development, and creating a ‘laboratory on a particle’—a microscopic laboratory designed to carry out diagnostics in places accessible only to micro-particles.”
This innovative area of technology is developing rapidly, a promising tool for a wide variety of fields, including the environment and research.
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Kids who arrive at this Chicago hospital to get treated for hand injuries don’t expect to leave with a piece of art that’s designed just for them—but thanks to one artistic doctor, that’s exactly what happens.
Orthopedic surgeon Dr. Felicity Fishman at Shriners Children’s Chicago is the go-to doctor for children who want a grin on their face when they leave for home.
She’s drawn everything from dinosaurs and sharks to SpongeBob and Elsa for “Frozen” fans—all personalized with sterilized markers.
“The whole team at Shriners Children’s has embraced the simple happiness that the cast art allows the recovering child to enjoy,” Fishman told GNN.
“It is truly a team effort; my PA and my nurse in clinic begin the conversation about the potential cast art so the families have time to choose, and the child has something to look forward to—instead of being scared.”
“The ability to pick something special and personalized for their cast allows the child to regain a sense of autonomy in an otherwise anxiety provoking situation.”
The pre-op nurses encourage the kids to pick something really unique. The OR staff (nurses, anesthesia, scrub techs) selects the marker colors and help plan the outline. Finally, Fishman brings the art to life.
Shriners Children’s
“There have been a few children that have loved their drawings so much that they were actually sad to have their cast removed,” says Fishman.
“One family told me that they saw their daughter (around 2 years-old) having a conversation with the Mickey Mouse on her cast.”
Shriners Children’s
The kids usually return about 3-4 weeks after their surgery to have the cast removed and the orthopedic techs try to preserve the art when the family requests to keep it.
“I consider this a huge compliment!”
Dr. Fishman’s expertise is what helps her patients heal, but it’s her artistic skill that puts a smile on their faces.
Even though the art is applied following the real work of surgery, everyone on the team agrees those 10 minutes of creativity are still important to their overall success.
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Terri and Richard Hudson with original still - SWNS
Terri and Richard Hudson with original still – SWNS
A couple is making award-winning gin and vodka after starting a distillery in a garden shed during the pandemic lockdown.
Terri Hudson and husband Richard began experimenting with alcohol flavorings over 12 years ago in their first copper still.
The couple has since converted an old poultry shed—also on their land in Taunton, Somerset, England.
They’ve already scooped up 15 awards since launching officially last year.
“It started as a hobby and we had a real passion for it,” said Richard, 38. “We’ve both worked in the merchant navy so knew a bit about different cultures and flavors and have always enjoyed experimenting.
“Then during the first Covid lockdown, we bought an old farm to move to, and we also decided to start experimenting with distilling alcohol in the shed with a small copper still.
Once they tasted their treasure, the couple wanted to start selling small batches commercially so they applied for all the necessary licenses. They had a derelict poultry shed at the bottom of the land, so they applied to convert it into a distillery.
”We’ve still got the chickens next door, but the warehouse now has all our copper stills and we operate out of that.”
They officially launched Mainline Spirits last June, using a name inspired by the unique history of their plot of land. The couple found links to local railroad history soon after moving in, which showed that the location was on the Mainline railway between London and Penzance.
“The farm hadn’t been touched since the 1970s, but we found documentation about the farm that said it was built in 1717,” explained Richard. Records showed it was right in the path of the original steam locomotives.
”Back in the day it was a big farm with orchards, so we’re trying to replant them and pick ingredients from the land.”
Mainline Spirits
Describing their spirits as “using only the finest hand picked botanicals from the rolling landscapes,” the couple chose train-related names such as Signalman Vodka and Western Star Gin—named for the Great Western Railway.
Quote of the Day: “Easter is meant to be a symbol of hope, renewal, and new life.” – Janine di Giovanni
Photo by: Annie Spratt
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Salt marshes on the East Coast have accumulated soil more quickly over the past century—and some appear to be keeping pace with rising waters.
The world’s salty, tidal marshes are hotspots of carbon storage and productivity, building up sediments and plant material so they can stay above sea level. Scientists wondering whether it’s possible for wetlands to keep up with rising sea levels have revealed research that shows how salt marshes along the U.S. coast have responded—by building up elevation more quickly over the last century.
Two main factors affect how quickly a salt marsh accumulates soil: how much sediment is deposited in the wetland during tidal floods, and how much organic matter from the marsh’s plants escapes decomposition. Humans can either choke sediment supply to marshes by building dams or increase the supply by causing erosion upstream, often through clearing land for agriculture. Cooler temperatures let more organic matter build up.
If sea level is rising slowly, sediment is plentiful, and vegetation is booming, a coastal wetland can keep pace with rising waters. But if sea level rises too quickly, that balance is lost.
“These feedback cycles allow a marsh to keep up and increase its rate of soil accretion up until a point where it just can’t,” said Nathaniel Weston, an ecosystems ecologist at Villanova University who led the study published in Earth’s Future. “After that, it falls off the other end and can no longer exist as a marsh.”
The new study is the first to assess the race on a large scale, comparing soil accretion rates using soil core from nine salt marshes from Maine to Georgia.
The dark, peaty columns record over 100 years of the marshes’ histories, and researchers dated the soil to calculate how quickly the wetlands grew over time and how that rate changed.
Soil accretion sped up in all nine marshes—and six of them built soil at roughly the same rate as sea level rise over the past century. Three marshes in North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia could not keep up with local sea level rise due to low sediment supplies from damming and warmer temperatures.
“This is the first study to document what’s happening on this scale, across pretty much the entire East Coast,” said Weston. “We were definitely excited to see fairly consistent results across our sites, where the marshes were increasing their rate of soil accretion.”
Many coastal salt marshes around the world may be accelerating their growth, too, Weston said.
To slow the process of seawater inundation, communities could install “living shorelines” of vegetation to retain sediment, said Molly Keogh, a coastal geologist at the University of Oregon who was not involved in the study.
An expensive but temporary solution is to spray a slurry of mud and water over the marsh, which adds a few millimeters of sediment and can offset sea level rise a few years.
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