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Christmas Spirit Enfolds Korean Tourists During Blizzard –After They Knocked on This Guy’s Door

Alex Campagna - Facebook
– Alex Campagna, Facebook

A group of South Korean tourists narrowly avoided a ruined vacation, with good fortune swapping it for an unforgettable experience waiting out a blizzard and cooking with a New York family.

Traveling from Niagara Falls to Washington DC, a tour group of 10 South Koreans got stuck in a blizzard near Buffalo. Two of the group went to a local house to ask for a shovel to dislodge their vehicle.

It was Christmas Eve when Alex Campagna heard their frantic knocking on his door. Outside, he recounted on Facebook, was “the worst blizzard I’ve experienced” and knowing the folly of trying to carry on, he invited them all inside, putting them up on couches, air mattresses, and sleeping bags.

“As a Buffalonian, this is on another level, the Darth Vader of storms,” he told the New York Times.

Eager to repay his kindness, the guests cooked several South Korean meals like jeyuk bokkeum, stir-fried pork, and dakdori tang, a spicy chicken stew. As it turns out Campagna and his wife really like Korean food and actually happened to have some of the more extravagant ingredients on hand.

RELATED: Care Home Residents Surprised By Festive Penguins Bringing Christmas Cheer

The Times reports they stayed Friday and Saturday. They swapped stories, and even enjoyed some American football matches on Christmas Eve.


On Christmas day drivers came to pick up the tour group and took them to New York for some impromptu flights.

“We have enjoyed this so much,” said Choi Yoseob, a member of the group who described the experience as unforgettable and a “unique blessing.”

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“The really important kind of freedom involves being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them.” – David Foster Wallace

Quote of the Day: “The really important kind of freedom involves being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them.” – David Foster Wallace

Photo by: Kelly Sikkema

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Care Home Residents Surprised By Festive Penguins Bringing Christmas Cheer

Kim Richardson with Betty, Mary and the penguins – Colne View care home / SWNS
Kim Richardson with Betty, Mary and the penguins – Colne View care home / SWNS

Residents of a senior home got a flippin’ good surprise last week, after two charming feathered guests arrived to deliver some Christmas cheer.

Seniors at the Colne View facility in Halstead, Essex, woke up to find two penguins outside.

Accompanied by introductions using their adorable names, Pringle and Widget waddled through the halls, exploring the Care UK home.

Charming photos were soon shared on social media, showing delighted residents petting and holding the penguins on their laps.

Ruth Silverlock said it was “wonderful seeing the penguins.”

“I was surprised at how tame they were,” said the 86-year-old. “They were quite happy just sitting on my lap and they seemed to enjoy the attention from everyone.”

Residents including Ruth were joined by friends and family for the festive affair.

Freda, Ruth, Kim Richardson, John, and Jack – Colne View care home / SWNS

“How lovely to see mum smiling and holding a penguin!” said Anita Griggs. “Thank you for organizing this, it was a lovely day!”

LOOK: Watch Lucky Little Boy Delight in Playing in Snow for the First Time During US Trip

One staff member, Tracie-Ellen Cornhill, wrote on the home’s Facebook page: “This was absolutely the best time ever! I loved the looks on our wonderful family of residents’ faces.”

Several photos showed the penguins sizing up the many indoor Christmas trees. One photo shows a woman locking eyes with a penguin standing on the floor from her bed—presumably wondering if she was still dreaming.

The black and white African penguins were provided by Amazing Animals.

Everyone at Colne View was soon feeling truly ready for Christmas.

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“I’d like to say a big thank you to everyone who came, especially Widget and Pringle, and wish everyone a merry Christmas,” said Cornhill.

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Dog Abandoned at Airport for Months Finds New Home With United Pilot

Polaris and United Staff - NBC Bay Area
Polaris and United Staff – NBC Bay Area

Polaris the black shepherd dog had 30 people lining up to sign adoption papers and give him a new home after he was left at San Francisco International Airport.

The airline industry has had one of the most disrupted years on record, and customer service departments have been pushed to the absolute limits. But when a dog arrived along with an Asian traveler and was left behind at SFO, United Airlines knew they had seen it all.

“Sometimes we deal with the craziest of situations,” United Director of Customer Service Vincent Passafiume said. “This was probably one of the oddest we’ve ever dealt with and also one of the most challenging.”

Abandoned in the international terminal, Passafiume teamed up with the San Francisco SPCA to complete all the procedures necessary to bring Polaris into the country.

“To be able to get the outcome that we did as a team and see that Polaris will go home to a family that will give him a good life is really a special moment for me.”

30 United Airlines employees applied for adoption, but there could ultimately be only one home for the handsome hound: United Captain William Dale and his family.

SIMILAR: Southwest Airlines Workers Looked After a Passenger’s Pet Fish for 4 Months After it was Banned From Flight

The company held an adoption party for Polaris, named for both the North Star, and the company’s business lounge, at the airport.

There will almost certainly be more crazy problems for Passafiume and his staff, but hopefully no more abandoned animals.

WATCH local news coverage below… 

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“Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving.” – Terry Pratchett

Quote of the Day: “Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving.” – Terry Pratchett

Photo by: Zane Lee

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Ottawa Nurse Wins $100,000 Cash From Radio Station–Watch Her Thrilling Reaction

A radio station in Canada surprised a nurse with the best holiday gift of her life.

The young mother of two—with a third child on the way—heard the news through her phone while a colleague captured her reaction on video.

The station in Ottawa known as Hot 89.9 chose Nicole as their Guaranteed Giveaway winner and presented her with $100,000.

Her response is priceless…

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“Christmas is the spirit of giving without a thought of getting. It is forgetting self and finding time for others.” – Thomas S. Monson

Credit: Roberto Nickson

Quote of the Day: “Christmas is the spirit of giving without a thought of getting. It is forgetting self and finding time for others.” – Thomas S. Monson

Photo by: Roberto Nickson

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?

Americas’ Oldest Spear Points Discovered in Idaho Look Like Ones From Japan 16,000 Years Ago

Stone projectile points discovered in Idaho – OSU / SWNS
Stone projectile points discovered in Idaho – OSU / SWNS

Archaeologists have uncovered weapon points that are thousands of years older than any others previously found in the Americas.

Researchers from Oregon State University have dated the “projectile points” discovered in Idaho to around 16,000 years ago.

Rather than outfitting arrows or spears, they were likely attached to darts, which were “deadly” hunting weapons, despite their small size.

The 13 full and fragmentary projectile points are razor sharp and range from one-half to two inches long.

Carbon dating shows they are 3,000 years older than the Clovis fluted points found throughout North America, and 2,300 years older than the points previously found at the same Cooper’s Ferry site on the Salmon River.

The site is on traditional Nez Perce land (a spot known as the ancient village of Nipéhe), and the team works closely with the tribe to provide field opportunities for tribal youth and share all their findings.

“From a scientific point of view, these discoveries add very important details about what the archaeological record of the earliest peoples of the Americas looks like,” said Professor Loren Davis, who led the dig.

LOOK: Stunning 4th Century Mosaic Depicting Trojan War Unearthed in Syria Beneath a War-Torn City

Cooper’s Ferry site in the lower Salmon River canyon of western Idaho – SWNS

“It’s one thing to say, ‘We think that people were here in the Americas 16,000 years ago;’ it’s another thing to measure it by finding well-made artifacts they left behind.”

Previously, Davis’s team had found simple flakes and pieces of bone at the site that indicated human presence around that time.

Even more fascinating, the points are revelatory not just in their age, but in their similarity to projectile points found in Hokkaido, Japan, dating from 16,000 to 20,000 years ago.

He says their presence in Idaho adds more detail to the hypothesis that there are early genetic and cultural connections between the ice age peoples of North East Asia and North America.

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“By comparing these points with other sites of the same age and older, we can infer the spatial extents of social networks where this technological knowledge was shared between peoples,” explained Davis.

He says the slender projectile points are characterized by two distinct ends, one sharpened and one stemmed, as well as a symmetrical beveled shape if viewed head-on.

“There’s an assumption that early projectile points had to be big to kill large game; however, smaller projectile points mounted on darts will penetrate deeply and cause tremendous internal damage. You can hunt any animal we know about with weapons like these.”

MORE SURPRISESIncredible Discovery Beneath the Southern Amazon Reveals Urban-Agrarian Society Never Seen Before

Prof. Davis says the discoveries add to the emerging picture of early human life in the Pacific Northwest, adding: “Finding a site where people made pits and stored complete and broken projectile points nearly 16,000 years ago gives us valuable details about the lives of our region’s earliest inhabitants.”

The newly discovered pits are part of the broader Cooper’s Ferry record, for which the team had previously researched a 14,200-year-old fire pit and a food-processing area. They even found the remains of an extinct horse.

The scientists have found and mapped more than 65,000 items and published their findings in the journal Science Advances.

All excavation and recording work has been completed and the site is now covered—but the data continues to rewrite the history of how early humans crafted and used stone weapons.

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Watch Lucky Little Boy Delight in Playing in Snow for the First Time During US Trip

SWNS
SWNS

This little boy was overcome with excitement after being able to play in the snow for the very first time.

Dominic laughs with excitement in the video posted by his parents—running and discovering all the joys of a thin layer of snow on grass and sidewalk.

Dominic and his parents Candice and Fidel were visiting his grandparents in Utah from their home in Mexico.

The 3-year-old was born in Mexico and has lived there all his life.

“Dominic was amazed and mesmerized,” said the 33-year-old mom.

“The first thing he did was put his hands in the snow and started jumping around. He said wow a lot.”

“It made me cry. My parents were just as emotional as I was.

LOOK: Watch the Moment a Guy Jumps Out of His Car to Give Umbrella to Couple Stuck in Downpour

“It was magical to watch him experience something with such enthusiasm.”

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7 in 10 Americans Love to Hunt for the Perfect Holiday Gift

Half of Americans anticipated that it would be “harder than ever” to find the perfect gifts for people in their lives this holiday season.

A new poll of 2,000 US adults found 65% compare looking for the right gifts to hunting for treasure.

71% said it’s exciting to hunt for the right gifts, with 52% claiming the hunt is just as fun as purchasing. Fifty-five percent find it “extremely satisfying” to find what they’ve been looking for.

Commissioned by BJ’s Wholesale Club and conducted by OnePoll, the random double-opt-in survey study found the average person is willing to wait three weeks for their hard-to-find items before giving up. In that case, 57% have a backup gift in mind.

The items deemed to be the hardest to find this holiday season include gaming consoles (31%), video games (29%), smartphones (23%), clothing (20%) and food items (20%).

Four in five (80%) have been successful in getting hard-to-find items—and finding these rarities creates a sense of happiness (55%), satisfaction (54%), relief (52%) and pure bliss (20%).

For 56%, hard-to-find items aren’t just thrilling to look for—they’re also more meaningful.

“There’s an undeniable amount of excitement that is associated with holiday shopping,” said Rachael Vegas, Chief Merchandising Officer, at BJ’s Wholesale Club. “It goes beyond just getting a great deal. People seem to really enjoy the process of selecting a special gift for everyone on their list.”

Results also found 44% often plan ahead for pre-released items they call “worth” the wait.

HARDEST ITEMS TO FIND THIS HOLIDAY SEASON
• Gaming consoles – 31%
• Video games – 29%
• Smartphones – 23%
• Clothing – 20%
• Food items – 20%
• Smart home devices – 19%
• TVs – 17%
• Accessories (i.e., hats, gloves, watches, etc.) – 16%
• Large home appliances – 15%
• Shoes – 15%

Your Happy Holidays Horoscope From Rob Brezsny: A ‘Free Will Astrology’

Our partner Rob Brezsny provides his weekly wisdom to enlighten our thinking and motivate our mood. Rob’s Free Will Astrology, is a syndicated weekly column appearing in over a hundred publications. He is also the author of Pronoia Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How All of Creation Is Conspiring To Shower You with Blessings. (A free preview of the book is available here.)

Here is your weekly horoscope…

FREE WILL ASTROLOGY – Week of December 24, 2022
Copyright by Rob Brezsny, FreeWillAstrology.com

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19):
To inspire your self-inquiry in 2023, I have chosen a passage from Herman Hesse’s fairy tale, A Dream Sequence. It will provide guidance as you dive further than ever before into the precious mysteries in your inner depths. Hesse addressed his “good ardent darkness, the warm cradle of the soul, and lost homeland.” He asked them to open up for him. He wanted them to be fully available to his conscious mind. Hesse said this to his soul: “Just feel your way, soul, just wander about, burrow into the full bath of innocent twilight drives!”

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18):
Cardiovascular surgeon Michael DeBakey lived till age 99. He almost died at 97, but was able to capitalize on an invention that he himself had created years before: a polymer resin that could repair or replace aging blood vessels. Surgeons used his technology to return him to health. I am predicting that in 2023, you, too, will derive a number of benefits from your actions in the past. Things you made, projects you nurtured, and ideas you initiated will prove valuable to you as you encounter the challenges and opportunities of the future.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20):
I decided to divine the state of your financial karma. To begin, I swirled a $10 bill through the flame rising from a green candle. Then I sought cosmic auguries in the burn patterns on the bill. The oracle provided bad news and good news. The bad news is that you live on a planet where one-fifth of the population owns much more than four-fifths of the wealth. The good news is that in 2023, you will be in decent shape to move closer to the elite one-fifth. Amazingly, the oracle also suggests that your ability to get richer quicker will increase in direct proportion to your integrity and generosity.

ARIES (March 21-April 19):
Aries author Eric G. Wilson has written a book that I might typically recommend to 40 percent of the Aries tribe. But in 2023, I will raise that to 80 percent of you. The title is How to Be Weird: An Off-Kilter Guide to Living a One-of-a-Kind Life. According to my analysis of the astrological omens, it will make sense for you to stop making sense on a semi-regular basis. Cheerfully rebelling against the status quo should be one of your most rewarding hobbies. The best way to educate and entertain yourself will be to ask yourself, “What is the most original and imaginative thing I can do right now?

TAURUS (April 20-May 20):
One of your potential superpowers is cultivating links between the spiritual and physical worlds. If you develop this talent, you illuminate the ways that eternity permeates the everyday routine. You weave together the sacred and the mundane so they synergize each other. You understand how practical matters may be infused with archetypal energies and epic themes. I hope you will be doing a lot of this playful work in 2023, Taurus. Many of us non-Bulls would love you to teach us more about these mysteries.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20):
Here are fun and useful projects for you to cultivate in 2023: 1. Initiate interesting trends. Don’t follow mediocre trends. 2. Exert buoyant leadership in the groups you are part of. 3. Practice the art of enhancing your concentration by relaxing. 4. Every Sunday at noon, renew your vow to not deceive or lie to yourself during the coming week. 5. Make it your goal to be a fabulous communicator, not just an average one. 6. Cultivate your ability to discern what people are hiding or pretending about.

CANCER (June 21-July 22):
In 2023, I hope you will refine and deepen your relationship with your gut instinct. I will be ecstatic if you learn more about the differences between your lucid intuition and the worry mongering that your pesky demons rustle up. If you attend to these matters—and life will conspire to help you if you do—your rhythm will become dramatically more secure and stable. Your guidance system will serve you better than it ever has. A caveat: Seeking perfection in honing these skills is not necessary. Just do the best you can.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22):
Psychiatrist and author Irvin Yalom wrote, “The question of meaning in life is, as the Buddha thought, not edifying. One must immerse oneself into the river of life and let the question drift away.” But Holocaust survivor and philosopher Viktor Frankl had a radically different view. He said that a sense of meaning is the single most important thing. That’s what sustains and nourishes us through the years: the feeling that our life has a meaning and that any particular experience has a meaning. I share Frankl’s perspective, and I advise you to adopt his approach throughout 2023. You will have unprecedented opportunities to see and know the overarching plan of your destiny, which has been only partially visible to you in the past. You will be regularly blessed with insights about your purpose here on earth.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22):
As a young woman, Virgo-born Ingeborg Rapoport (1912–2017) studied medicine at the University of Hamburg in Germany. But in 1938, the Nazis refused to let her defend her PhD thesis and get her medical degree because of her Jewish ancestry. 77 years later, she was finally given a chance to finish what she had started. Success! The dean of the school said, “She was absolutely brilliant. Her specific knowledge about the latest developments in medicine was unbelievable.” I expect comparable developments for you in 2023, Virgo. You will receive defining opportunities or invitations that have not been possible before. Postponed breakthroughs and resolutions will become achievable.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22):
Of the 2,200+ humans quoted in a 21st-century edition of Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations, 164 are women—a mere seven percent! At least that’s more than the four females represented in 1855’s first edition. Let’s take this atrocious injustice as our provocation for your horoscope. In accordance with astrological omens, one of your assignments in 2023 will be to make personal efforts to equalize power among the genders. Your well-being will thrive as you work to create a misogyny-free future. Here are possible actions: If you’re a woman or nonbinary person, be extra bold and brave as you say what you genuinely think and feel and mean. If you’re a man, foster your skills at listening to women and nonbinary people. Give them abundant space and welcome to speak their truths. It will be in your ultimate interest to do so!

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21):
To prepare you for 2023, I’m offering you wisdom from mythologist Michael Meade. Of all the signs in the zodiac, you Scorpios will be most likely to extract riches from it. Meade writes: “Becoming a genuine individual requires learning the oppositions within oneself. Those who fail or refuse to face the oppositions within have no choice but to find enemies to project upon. ‘Enemy’ simply means ‘not-friend’; unless a person deals with the not-friend within, they require enemies around them.”

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21):
“I will always be as difficult as necessary to achieve the best,” declared Sagittarian opera singer Maria Callas (1923–1977). Many critics say she was indeed one of the 20th century’s best. The consensus is that she was also a temperamental prima donna. Impresario Rudolf Bing said she was a trial to work with “because she was so much more intelligent. Other artists, you could get around. But Callas you could not get around. She knew exactly what she wanted and why she wanted it.” In accordance with astrological omens, Sagittarius, I authorize you, in your quest for success in 2023, to be as “difficult” as Callas was, in the sense of knowing exactly what you want. But please—so as to not undermine your success—don’t lapse into diva-like behavior.

WANT MORE? Listen to Rob’s EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES, 4-5 minute meditations on the current state of your destiny — or subscribe to his unique daily text message service at: RealAstrology.com

(Zodiac images by Numerologysign.com, CC license)

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“Do you really want to look back on your life and see how wonderful it could have been had you not been afraid to live it?” – Caroline Myss

Quote of the Day: “Do you really want to look back on your life and see how wonderful it could have been had you not been afraid to live it?” – Caroline Myss 

Photo by: Roberto Nickson (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?

Work Set to Begin on Asteroid Hunting Observatory—NASA’s New Mission to Protect Earth from Disaster

NEO Surveyor JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona
NEO Surveyor JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona

A new space-based surveyor that will help catalog millions of near-Earth objects is now ready for budgeting and building after passing a rigorous technical review.

This year NASA completed its first-ever mission organized entirely for the purpose of planetary defense, when the DART probe slammed into an asteroid to see if it could be redirected away from a potential collision course with Earth.

Now, the NEO Surveyor mission will discover and characterize at least 90% of the near-Earth objects more than 140 meters (460 feet) across that come within 30 million miles of our planet’s orbit.

These objects are capable of causing significant regional harm, while history has shown that larger ones can be catastrophic. Humanity has gotten lucky thus far, but slow-growing wisdom has seen NASA create a Planetary Defense Coordination Office for the purpose of learning how to protect Earth from such events.

You can visualize the scope of the potential danger by looking at the ratio between the number of asteroids and comets in our solar system whose orbits we have mapped and those we haven’t with NASA’s cool Eyes on Asteroids Tool.

“NEO Surveyor represents the next generation for NASA’s ability to quickly detect, track, and characterize potentially hazardous near-Earth objects,” said Lindley Johnson, NASA’s Planetary Defense Officer at PDCO.

SIMILAR: NASA Celebrates World First: Smashing a Spacecraft into an Asteroid to Practice Saving Humanity

“Ground-based telescopes remain essential for us to continually watch the skies, but a space-based infrared observatory is the ultimate high ground that will enable NASA’s planetary defense strategy.”

Sitting around 1 million miles from Earth at the First LaGrange Point, NEO Surveyor will view the solar system in the infrared spectrum of light, lightwaves that are blocked by Earth’s atmosphere and therefore invisible for ground-based telescopes.

MORE ASTRONOMY NEWS: Hubble Is Slowly Falling—and SpaceX Wants to Give It a Boost

With infrared, NEO will be able to see so-called dark asteroids and comets, which don’t reflect light, asteroids that approach Earth from the direction of the Sun, and those that lead and trail our planet’s orbit, where they are typically obscured by the glare of sunlight— objects known as Earth Trojans.

NEO will be designed a little like the James Webb Space Telescope, which also orbits a LaGrange Point and also uses the infrared. As such it will need to be an extremely poor conductor of heat, and have a shield to block light and heat coming from the sun and other bodies.

The launch date is currently proposed for June 2028.

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Festive Seniors Build Christmas Tree Made of LEGOs and a Fireplace With Santa’s Feet Sticking Out

Christmas wall - SWNS
Christmas wall – SWNS

A LEGO-loving couple have created a bit of festive cheer by making an entire wall, fireplace and tree from the plastic blocks in their living room.

For the last 28 years Mike Addis and his wife Catherine Weightman have built amazing LEGO sculptures each Christmas.

Previous creations include a 21-foot London Bridge and a 12-foot replica of Ely cathedral.

Inspired by extension work being done on their house in Cambridgeshire, they decided to cover a wall in their living room with a LEGO replica, complete with Christmas tree, festive decorations, and a fireplace with Santa’s feet sticking out.

There also can be found LEGO mince pies, a LEGO matchbox, and LEGO candles that light up on the mantelpiece.

But apart from the incredible ingenuity needed to create the piece, it’s had the side effect of reducing their heating bills through the energy expenditure of stacking bricks all evening.

CHECK OUT: LEGO Brings Van Gogh’s Most Famous Painting Into the Third Dimension With 2,316 Fan-Designed Bricks

Addis said they committed between two to four hours each evening for two months to complete it.

“It’s quite a social thing and it keeps us warm too,” said Adids. “You can’t believe building LEGO which doesn’t involve a lot of movement would, but you could actually switch the heating off.”

“It’s all the getting up and down and fiddling around with the pieces.”

“It’s amazing even in this cold weather to not have to put the wood burner on because we’re warm enough.”

LOOK: Guy Finds Lost Wedding Ring and Delivers to Honeymoon Couple Using a LEGO Man With Metal Detector

The couple used an estimated 400,000 pieces for the structure, a lot of which went into making the ‘brick’ wall stable enough.

Despite the masterpieces they have created in the past, it was the Christmas tree that was the hardest for Mike this year.

Mike and Catherine’s previous creations

“Imagine trying to create the shape of a tree in square blocks,” said the retired economics professor. “In order to stand it upright we had to build it into the wall. The wall itself is quite heavy and is tied to our curtain rod.”

MORE FROM LEGO: Incredible ‘Home Alone’ LEGO Set is Divided Like an Advent Calendar and Inspired By McCallister Residence

The couple started their passion by creating LEGO sculptures with their children, who are all now adults and have apparently outgrown their LEGO sets.

Mike and Catherine’s previous creations

The family would feature their LEGO builds in Christmas cards each year but now Addis says people expect them to do it.

“We enjoy doing it, it’s the satisfaction of completing something so big and technically interesting. It’s better than watching telly.”

The couple then host a ‘take down’ party each January in which friends with ‘high-pressure jobs’ come with wine and food to help dismantle the structure over some dedicated nights.

WATCH an interview with the intrepid home builders. 

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50 Years Ago, Apollo Crew Gave Humanity a Christmas Gift: Our First Gaze at ‘the Blue Marble’ Still Inspiring us Today

The astronauts of the Apollo 17 mission left a Christmas gift under the tree for all of humanity as they traveled on their way to the Moon.

“The Blue Marble” is still one of the most inspiring images of our Earth ever taken, and it was 50 years ago on Christmas Eve that they did so.

Using Hasselblad photography equipment, Ronald Evans, Eugene Cernan, and Harrison Schmitt captured the blue Indian and Atlantic oceans flanking a giant Africa over-swirled by puffy clouds—all of which was framed by the backdrop of black oblivion.

The powerful image as CNN astutely points out, wasn’t an overnight sensation like the recent JWST photos. Instead it grew slowly to be the banner image of the first environmental movement, and the Earth Day holiday which started just 2 years before.

“It gives you a much different sense of the world in which we live, that geographical and political boundaries are really meaningless when you get into space,” NASA historian Steve Garber told CNN. “And I think that’s part of what was so special about the ‘Blue Marble’ photo.”

RELATED: Webb Telescope Captures Images That Move a NASA Scientist ‘to Tears’ – LOOK

Cernan said the same after he got home, describing it as a self-portrait of humanity.

The Blue Marble generated the phrase “overview effect” which describes how astronauts, and now more recently space tourists, begin to see the fragile nature of the Earth set against the backdrop of empty space, and the foolishness of fighting over national borders—there’s always a comment on borders.

MORE HUMANITY NEWS: A Tribute to the Mars InSight Lander, Who Signed Off on Social Media With Encouragement for Humanity

As almost every globe and map we look at contains politically-motivated boundaries enforced by violence, seeing the world instead au naturale has the effect of dispelling an illusion.

All NASA astronauts are trained photographers for just such occasions as capturing something that communicates the majesty and experience of spaceflight—something like The Blue Marble.

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Achilles Heel for Glioblastoma Discovered—a Rogue Protein that Turns Natural Defenses Off

MRI of a glioblastoma - CC 2.5. Christaras A
MRI of a glioblastoma – CC 2.5. Christaras A

A rogue protein that fuels the deadliest brain cancers has been identified by scientists in a breakthrough that opens the door to bettering what is normally a 10% survival rate.

The scientists used gene editing to deactivate the protein, which stopped the tumor growth in its tracks—a hugely encouraging sign.

Glioblastomas have one of the lowest survival rates of any cancers, with fewer than 10% of patients living past 3 years.

“The aggressiveness of glioblastoma is notorious,” said the new paper’s lead author Professor Alea Mills. “The norm is to do surgery, treat with harsh drugs and just hope for the best.”

Mills and her team identified an Achilles heel of glioblastomas, which not only could lead to better treatments, but also explain in part why they and other cancers are so aggressive.

Bromodomain-containing protein 8, or BRD8, was found to suppress the activity of one of the most important cancer-preventing parts of a cell, the P53 gene. P53 codes for proteins which stop cells dividing when they should otherwise die, and almost all cancers depend on disruptions in P53 activity or production.

MORE GOOD CANCER NEWS: ‘Ground Breaking’ Patient Who Survived 12 Different Types of Cancer Could Hold Key to Detection and Treating

In experiments the researchers deactivated BRD8 using a pioneering gene editing technique. Without overactive BRD8, the P53 proteins coded normally again, and the tumours, transplanted into mice from human patients, were stopped in their tracks.

When BRD8 was deactivated, P53 was unlocked—the tumors stopped growing and the rodents lived longer.

SIMILAR: Youth Given 8 Months to Live Has Beaten Aggressive Blood Cancer, Now Inspires Others: ‘You can get through anything’

The findings in Nature suggest drugs targeting the heart of BRD8 could work against glioblastoma.

Professor Mills hopes it will help turn deadly brain cancer into a treatable disease, dramatically extending life expectancy of patients.

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“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” – Marcel Proust

Quote of the Day: “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” – Marcel Proust 

Photo by: Denys Nevozhai

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?

Queensland Surfers Could Soon be Protected from Shark Attacks With Fleet of Early Warning Drones

Credit: Queensland Department of Agriculture and Fisheries
Credit: Queensland Department of Agriculture and Fisheries

New camera-equipped drones are giving Australian lifeguards an eye in the sky on the lookout for sharks.

For decades, Queensland has used baited hook drumlines and nets to protect surfers and beachgoers from sharks, but these more indiscriminate methods can also kill and injure marine life such as dolphins, dugongs, and turtles, as well as the sharks themselves.

Running from September 2020 to October 2021, a trial of SharkSmart Drones found that more sharks, including those greater than 6-feet and therefore potentially dangerous, were seen by drones than were caught in hooks and nets.

From the detection of 48 big sharks out of the total 172 observed, four beach evacuations were ordered. As the truly dangerous shark attacks are almost exclusively with bull sharks, tiger sharks, and white sharks, most of the sightings didn’t require an evacuation.

Four times as many large and potentially dangerous sharks seen at Ocean Beach on NS Island and Burleigh Beach than were caught in the protective equipment which lined the waters.

The SharkSmart drones fly about 12mph around 60 yards above the water beyond the surf break. The operators will fly them in 400 meter stretches looking for sharks. If they do see one, they can fly lower to confirm the size and species. There were some problems operating the drones in heavy weather, but far fewer people would be on the beach in those times.

MORE MARINE NEWS: Millions of Sharks Could be Saved from Fishing Hooks with Use of New Pulsing Device

A similar project in neighboring New South Wales was implemented in 2017, and conservationists are urging the quick transition away from nets and baited hook drumlines which wound 70% of the animals caught in them.

There are other advantages to the drones, writes Hakkai Magazine.

“You’re more likely to save someone from drowning than interacting with a dangerous animal,” Leo Guida, a shark scientist with Australian Marine Conservation Society, told Hakkai. “There are clear benefits across the board.”

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The Mars InSight Lander Signs Off on Social Media With Encouragement for Humanity – LOOK

NASA / JPL / Caltech
NASA / JPL / Caltech

Twitter was the scene of a fond farewell from NASA’s InSight Mars lander as recent communications disruptions lead to an official end to the mission.

The dusty robotic fellow had Twitter users tearing up at goodbye, with one commenter noting, tears in his eyes, the absurdity of crying over a robot.

“My power’s really low, so this may be the last image I can send,” NASA said. “Don’t worry about me though: my time here has been both productive and serene.”

The Mars InSight lander touched down on the Red Planet in 2018 and proceeded to collect fascinating data that filled in critical gaps in the understanding of Mars’ story.

The lander featured a self-hammering spike – nicknamed “the mole” – that was intended to dig 16 feet (5 meters) down, trailing a sensor-laden tether that would measure heat within the planet, enabling scientists to calculate how much energy was left over from Mars’ formation.

Its highly sensitive seismometer, along with daily monitoring performed by the French space agency, and the Marsquake Service managed by ETH Zurich, detected 1,319 marsquakes, including quakes caused by meteoroid impacts, the largest of which unearthed boulder-size chunks of ice late last year.

MORE MARS NEWS: Watch a Stunning Solar Eclipse on Mars in Video Captured By NASA’s Perseverance Rover

“We’ve thought of InSight as our friend and colleague on Mars for the past four years, so it’s hard to say goodbye,” said Bruce Banerdt of JPL, the mission’s principal investigator. “But it has earned its richly deserved retirement.”

Three papers last year published on the InSight data revealed that scientists had produced a sort of mid-resolution image of the core, mantle, and crust of the planet, confirming certain similarities to Earth, including that Mars has a molten core—another way of saying the planet is still alive in a sense.

SIMILAR: NASA Celebrates World First: Smashing a Spacecraft into an Asteroid to Practice Saving Humanity

“Even if it’s only a robot, it’s an honorary member of humanity,” tweeted English Women’s Football Team head coach Emma Hayes. “I would argue that it’s symbolic of humanity itself.”

Another commenter made it more succinctly, saying the tears were coming “maybe because the robots are made from and carry with them the hopes & dreams of humanity, our curiosity and wonder? This makes them avatars of some of our best collective qualities.”

WATCH a NASA Tribute from 7 months ago… 

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Man Spells Out ‘Hi Kevin’ in Lights for 20 Years–to Honor His Neighbor

- SWNS
– SWNS

Every Christmas, Mike Witmer gets out his colored lights to weave a very specific message out into the night.

Witmer says passersby are sometimes confused by his lights, which read ‘Hi Kevin’ across his roof, but it’s to honor the memory of a young boy who passed away from cancer in 2010.

For the past two decades, he has featured a reference to Kevin in his light displays. Kevin was diagnosed with cancer in 2002 when he was just 11. That year Mike had written ‘Get Well Kevin’ in lights.

The pair had lived on neighboring roads and Kevin had loved seeing Mike’s light displays each December.

He continued to reference the lad in his lights every year until his tragic death eight years on in June 2010.

Mike vowed to honor Kevin’s life by continuing their much-loved tradition of installing his largest display yet on his roof, so that Kevin could still see the lights from above.

“Kevin was a cool kid in the neighborhood. He swam on the local swim team with my kids and we all became friends,” said Witmer from Gaithersburg, Maryland.

“When I heard he had cancer and was going through chemo and radiotherapy, I wanted to support him. I had this idea to write ‘Get Well Kevin’ in my Christmas lights—what 11-year-old doesn’t want to see their name in lights?”

Witmer continued to do it every year, even after his cancer went into remission and Kevin went off to college.

MORE CHRISTMAS STORIES: Christmas is Coming… on a Vintage Train Wrapped in Neon Lights and Steam – WATCH

“But he had just finished his first year of college when the cancer came back—and it took him,” he recalled. “I told everyone to come by that year and the ‘Hi Kevin’ would be bigger so he can see it from up in heaven.”

“This is my 20th anniversary of the tribute to Kevin, and I’ll keep doing it every year as long as I’m able.”

Kevin’s mother told Witmer that Kevin loved the display so much that he had asked if it would be done every year.

RELATED: Children Memorialized in Nature After Hospice Translates Their Names into Birdsongs for Wild Birds to Mimic

“I thought ‘how could I not?’ and the tradition was born,” he said.

Every year after that, Mike would find some way to display a tribute to Kevin in his lights display, placing it in a different spot for Kevin to find, like a game of Where’s Waldo.

He recently shared the sweet story of his and Kevin’s relationship in a Facebook post, which was shared widely and attracted thousands of likes and comments by people touched by his tribute.

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