Quote of the Day: “We have art in order not to die of the truth.” – Friedrich Nietzsche
Photo: The Blind Girl by John Everett Millais in 1856 – Birmingham Museums Trust
With a new inspirational quote every day, atop the perfect photo—collected and archived on our Quote of the Day page—why not bookmark GNN.org for a daily uplift?
On this day in history, two masters of early ocean exploration returned to their prospective homes—Vasco da Gama 526 years ago to Lisbon, and Thomas Cavendish 437 years ago to Plymouth. The former had chartered the first European course to India via the Cape of Good Hope, while the latter completed the world’s first intentional circumnavigation. As it happened, Cavendish’s trip also saw the capture of the Santa Anna, the largest Spanish treasure ship ever to fall prey to English privateers. READ more about these accomplishments in seafaring… (1499, 1588)
In a sweet story reminiscent of the Velveteen Rabbit, a young boy’s favorite stuffed animal is sleeping soundly again in the arms of his owner following a harrowing few days of separation.
The Kay family was returning home from a ski holiday when they parked at a rest stop in Wyoming. A wild rangebound wind was whipping across the interstate that day.
Inside the car were parents Bill and Christina, and their 8-year-old boy William who was sitting in the back of the car with his best friend, a dog plushie named, well, Dog. The little brown stuffie was given to Christina as a present at her baby shower—the guest not knowing if it were to be a boy or a girl.
Dog and William slept together ever since. It was Christina’s idea to have lunch at the rest stop, and raced out to get their sandwiches from the cooler in the trunk when William opened the door, unaware of the strong winds.
In a feature for Cowboy State Daily, Christina described the back of the car looking like a bomb had gone off—the wind blew things in every direction, including Dog, who unbeknownst to anyone, sailed out of the car and into some high weeds.
They carried on their journey until they arrived at a motel in Kansas and discovered Dog was missing. The next day, the three cleaned out the car but couldn’t find Dog: it appeared their 8 year friendship was finally, bitterly, ended.
It was a heart-wrenching homecoming in St. Louis for Bill and Christina as they watched William go through the first major loss in his young life. A silver lining was just that: loss. It is the characteristic feature of human life and existence, and something William would have to learn sooner or later.
But papa Bill wasn’t ready to bid Dog farewell just yet, and used Google Maps to find the pull-off area where they ate Lunch. Seeing it was within Carbon County, he went to the website of the local Sheriff’s Department and saw the smiling face of Sheriff Alex Bakken: exactly the kind of face that would belong to a man who’d lend an ear to the news that a boy had lost his immobile best friend.
“Dear Sheriff Bakken” Bill wrote in an email that explained what happened, with GPS coordinates of the rest stop and pictures of Dog uploaded as attachments. That was on the morning of March 23rd. On the 24th, a reply appeared in his inbox.
“I commend you for taking your child’s emotional well-being so seriously,” Bakken wrote. “Nothing would make me happier than seeing if we can help ensure Dog’s safe return to St. Louis. Our Patrol Division has been notified, and I will attempt to search the area later today. Please tell your son that we are on the case.”
They did just that, then waited. Meanwhile, Sheriff Bakken texted Carbon County Deputy Tyler Christen, asking him to go look for Dog at the rest stop if he had time. Christen thought it was a bit strange, but understood.
LOST PLUSHIES RETURNED:
“When my kids lose their stuffie, panic mode sets in until we find it,” he told Cowboy State Daily. “I wanted to see if we could bring that dog back to its owner. He’s had it for a long time and can still enjoy it.”
Arriving at the rest stop, it took a few minutes of poking around before Christen and his partner saw something spud-brown sitting in the foliage. Arriving to find a stuffed animal, they figured it had to be Dog. It was.
On March 25th, Bill received an email, a text, and a voicemail—Sheriff Bakkan had good news. On March 31st, Dog arrived at the Kay family home packed snuggly in a little Carbon County Sheriff’s care package, with branded shirt patches, a badge, and a water bottle as souvenirs.
“He helps me fall asleep at night,” young William said. “I was sad when he was lost and almost cried when I got him back.”
POLICE AS GOOD MEN:
Bill wasn’t just happy his son was happy, but also because he had demonstrated another valuable lesson to his little boy.
“He learned that there are great people in this world that will do things to help you, even when they don’t know you,” Bill said. “I think that was a wonderful lesson for William.”
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Scientists at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital have demonstrated for the first time that the protein midkine plays a preventative role in Alzheimer’s disease.
Midkine is known to accumulate in Alzheimer’s patients, but rather than accelerate the disease, it seems to prevents a second, sticky protein from clumping together—the chief hallmark in this form of dementia.
Alzheimer’s disease drug research almost exclusively focuses on amyloid beta, referred to sometimes as tau protein—its molecular class. There are 6 kinds of tau proteins, and they’re necessary for maintaining the stability of microtubules in human nerve fibers, but when tau proteins—in particular amyloid beta—become hyperphosphorylated, they are observed to clump together around neurons and cause a kind of atrophy.
This is generally considered to be the pathology and driver of Alzheimer’s disease. The rot cause is manifold, with a patient’s genetic mutations, sex, toxin exposure, and sleep history all suspected to play a role.
Midkine, the other molecular character in this tale, is a small, multifunctional growth factor protein found abundantly during embryonic development but also involved in normal cell growth.
Its role in cell growth means that midkine is often overexpressed in cancer, making it a valuable biomarker. However, beyond some preliminary studies showing its increase in Alzheimer’s, midkine’s link to the neurodegenerative disease has been poorly understood.
In a study published on August 21st in Nature Structural & Molecular Biology, co-author author Junmin Peng and colleagues used fluorescence assays among other techniques to investigate how much of the correlation between midkine and amyloid beta is just a coincidence.
They knew that earlier Alzheimer’s models where midkine is lacking showed more amyloid beta accumulation, and so they used a fluorescent sensor to monitor amyloid beta assemblies, called thioflavin T, and tracked the real associations going on between these two compounds.
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Their data revealed that midkine inhibits amyloid beta elongation and secondary nucleation, two specific phases during assembly formation. Nuclear magnetic resonance confirmed this finding.
“Once the amyloid beta assemblies grow, the signal becomes weaker and broader until it disappears because the technique can only analyze small molecules,” said Peng, referring to the ability to spot thioflavin T amid the tau ‘tangles’. “But when we add in midkine, the signal returns, showing that it inhibits the large assemblies.”
HOLISTIC ALZHEIMER’S DRUGS: Being Social–Like Dining Out, Traveling, or Playing Bingo, May Delay Dementia by 5 Years
Additionally, the researchers used Alzheimer’s disease mouse models that have increased amyloid beta and demonstrated that removing the midkine gene resulted in even higher levels of amyloid beta assemblies. These results point to the protective role the protein has against Alzheimer’s disease.
“We want to continue to understand how this protein binds to amyloid beta so we can design small molecules to do the same thing,” said Peng. “With this work, we hope to provide strategies for future treatment.”
SHARE This Great Science With Your Friends Concerned About Alzheimer’s…
A TikToker recently went viral after sharing astory of the unforgettable treatment showed to him by a local steakhouse when his heart was breaking.
Multi-instrumentalist and singer who goes by the username CousinHomer called the Cheddar’s Scratch Kitchen location in Saint Joseph, Missouri with a special request: the biggest, most perfectly cooked steak the kitchen could muster.
The musician was set to put his dog of 13 years down that night. The rotund black lab named Bella had been his best friend and stalwart companion, and her owner wanted to make sure her final meal was a blowout.
When Cheddar’s asked which sides CousinHomer wanted with the steak, the musician declined any, only to be told that they came free of charge so he’d be wasting money in one sense.
He said that he didn’t know if Bella would eat any of the sides for her last meal apart from maybe the french fries.
When the musician arrived to pick up the food, the manager emerged with the staff that were on hand, presented the bag of food, and offered the condolences of the entire restaurant—comping the meal in the process.
Cousin, as the restaurant referred to him in the comment section of the TikTok video was blown away, and in telling the story managed to amass 3 million views on the video, with tens of thousands of people tagging Cheddar’s restaurant in the comments applauding their compassion.
When Cousin opened the to-go container, he found a letter of condolence, signed presumably by everyone in the restaurant that day.
Cheddar’s client relations team were overwhelmed by the response, and sent a branded fleece throw in the mail, wishing that comfort would “wrap around you like a warm Honey Butter Croissant.”
Cousin shared that in another video that also went viral.
MORE CORPORATE COMPASSION: Burger King Workers Show up at Beloved Regular’s Funeral with Chair Engraved in His Honor
GNN recently reported on a very similar story from Pennsylvania, when in May a man was forced to put down his dog and received almost identical treatment from his local Texas Roadhouse after he discovered his great Dane Iris had cancer.
Kate Weston, the kitchen manager for Ephrata Texas Roadhouse, told TODAY.com at the time “I was like, ‘Oh my god, we need to make sure that this is the best meal we’ve ever made.’”
The receipt was signed by the whole to-go staff, and the bill was on the house. Iris’ owner Hunter Metzger admitted he and his family were “blown away” by the gesture.
SHARE This Beautiful Stories Of Corporate Compassion With Your Friends…
Every so often the animal kingdom just throws out a curveball that we’re not prepared for—like in 1970 when fishermen reeled in a freakish-looking shark and then it was never seen again.
Well 50 years later, that shark—so unique that it was declared a new genus—has finally been found again, confirming that the fishermen’s encounter wasn’t just a well-remembered dream.
Meet the sailback houndshark, believed to be endemic to the water’s of Papua New Guinea, and perhaps even to a single stretch of ocean called Astrolabe Bay. A group of fisherfolk reported that 5 of the sharks had been caught while a team of scientists were on the island conducting research for the country’s National Plan of Action on Sharks and Rays.
They had been caught incidentally at the mouth of a river that drains into the Astrolabe Bay, but had been sold as secondary catch since the meat is not prized by locals. Two years later, another was caught that turned out to be the first male sailfin houndshark ever seen.
A male and a female of the species were recently featured in a paper published in the Journal of Fish Biology. A curious predator, they have a large head but small mouth, and true to their name sport an elongated fin reminiscent of a sail on a yacht. Luckily for the shark, it is considered inferior on the market for Asian shark fin.
“Much remains unknown about its biology, ecology and population dynamics,” study corresponding author Jack Sagumai from the WWF Pacific division told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. “Support is still needed to better understand the life history and ecology of this species.”
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Papua New Guinea has several shark species known to inhabit nowhere else in the world’s oceans, so it’s possible the sailfin is one more of these so-called “microendemic” populations. Susceptible to even small changes in ecosystem, it’s likely the shark will require protection, but the first step to knowing how is to know the species, and the first scientific description will go a long way toward achieving that.
MORE SHARK SPECIES: 500 Baby Sharks to be Released in Unprecedented Rewilding of the Ocean
The authors write that the animal embodies “a unique evolutionary lineage of triakid sharks” (or houndsharks, containing about 40 species across nine genera) and that uniqueness could make it an important marine biodiversity “icon” for Papua New Guinea.
“Monitoring and management options are currently being initiated as a precautionary approach to conserve this unique and rare species of shark,” the authors conclude.
We Know About It: Now We Can Protect It: Spread The Word On Social Media…
Quote of the Day: “I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn’t learn something from him.” – Galileo
Photo by: Zainab Gul
With a new inspirational quote every day, atop the perfect photo—collected and archived on our Quote of the Day page—why not bookmark GNN.org for a daily uplift?
59 years ago, the first episode of Star Trek, featuring “Space: the final frontier” and the USS Enterprise, began its three-year mission of exploration on TV screens across America. The science-fiction television show created by Gene Roddenberry was set in the 23rd century and starred William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy. The NBC show has since spawned multiple TV series, as well as comics, toys, and a movie empire. READ more about the show’s impact… (1966)
To commemorate the 80th anniversary of the end of WW II on September 2, Ancestry.com used its historical records and online family trees to uncover the remarkable story of a heroic B-17 crew.
Their modern-day descendants came together for the first time—like one final mission 80 years in the making.
“80% of Americans say they know very little about their personal connections to WWII,” said Ancestry Story Producer, Lisa Elzey. “I wanted to know more about my grandfather’s service, so I dove into the records to see what I might discover.”
Lisa came across an article that said her grandfather, Harold E. Lounsbury, Jr., was the ball turret gunner on a B-17 bomber that shot down three Nazi planes and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross.
She continued to dive into historical documents and discovered a photo of her grandfather with his fellow airmen alongside the story of a death-defying flight.
“I was so inspired by this incredible story of brotherhood these men must have experienced, that I wanted to connect with the descendants of these WWII veterans to see if they knew any more details of their ancestors’ heroism and bravery,” Lisa said.
Lisa then invited the descendants she uncovered to the National Museum of the Mighty Eighth Air Force to learn more about their family’s WWII stories. What they didn’t know was that they were also about to meet the other descendants of the B-17 crew for the very first time—and the TODAY Show filmed the reunion. (See the video at the bottom…)
After sharing heartwarming testimonies about why it’s important to preserve their family’s WWII legacy, Maribeth and Adam Taylor, Lesley Nall Oliverio, and Kris Olson were surprised when TODAY’s Anne Thompson revealed their connection to one another and to Lisa.
“In a tumultuous time these young men risked their lives. It’s meaningful to have us all here together—80 years later, as their living legacy.”
“I didn’t think I had anybody out there that knew anything about my father’s friends on the plane,” exclaimed Lesley. “I feel like I gained a new family.”
Adam echoed the sentiment, saying, “Your relatives are all people he loved…this means the world. This binds us together as humans. You guys are my family.”
The 20th century crew flew over 30 missions together, including one flight that earned them the Distinguished Flying Cross medal.
Their plane, the “Yankee Rebel,” was riddled with holes from enemy fire. The pilot was seriously injured and, even without landing gear, the flying fortress was brilliantly landed back in England safely by Lesley’s father, the co-pilot.
Adam even shared a piece of shrapnel from the plane, and read excerpts from his grandfather’s wartime journal, outlining a first-hand account of the mission.
“As survivors of WWII vets, learning about the rest of the crew and meeting their descendants was amazing—start to finish.
“This is one of the best days of my life,” said Kris.
HEARTWARMING WWII STORIES:
• Dog Tag of Fallen WW II Soldier is Returned to Family 80 Years After His Death
• Woman Discovers Exact Replica of Grandfather’s WWII Plane and Recreates 1942 Photo Before Getting a Special Ride
Ancestry is inviting everyone to learn more about their own family’s connection to WWII for free at Ancestry.com/WWII. The public can use the ‘Memories’ tool to attach their own wartime stories to their family tree, so generations to come can read them.
HONOR OUR WWII HEROES By Sharing This on Social Media…
The immune system can be “reprogrammed” to repair the body faster using electrical stimulation to jump-start healing, according to new research
Irish scientists discovered that by electrically stimulating “macrophages” – one of the immune system’s key players – they can be reprogrammed in such a way to reduce inflammation and encourage faster, more effective healing from disease or injury.
The “exciting” breakthrough by a team at Trinity College Dublin has revealed a potentially powerful new therapeutic option—and work is continuing to improve the process.
Macrophages are a type of white blood cell with several high-profile roles in our immune system. They patrol around the body, looking for bugs or viruses, as well as disposing of dead and damaged cells, and stimulating other immune cells—kicking them into gear when and where they are needed.
But their actions can also drive “local inflammation” in the body, which can sometimes run amok and become problematic, causing more damage to the body than repair. In fact, it’s present in several different diseases, highlighting the need to regulate macrophages to improve patient recovery.
The Trinity team worked with human macrophages isolated from heathy donor blood samples provided through the Irish Blood Transfusion Board at St James’s Hospital.
They stimulated the cells using a custom bioreactor to apply electrical currents and measured what happened.
They discovered that the stimulation caused a shift of macrophages into an anti-inflammatory state that supports faster tissue repair, and a decrease in inflammatory marker activity.
It also triggered an increase in the expression of genes that promote the formation of new blood vessels—associated with tissue repair as new tissues form—and an increase in stem cell recruitment into wounds, which is also associated with tissue repair.
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The immune system is vital for repairing damage in our body and macrophages play a central role in fighting infection and guiding tissue repair.
“As a result, many scientists are exploring ways to ‘reprogram’ macrophages to encourage faster, more effective healing in disease and to limit the unwanted side-effects that come with overly aggressive inflammation,” said study first author Dr. Sinead O’Rourke.
“We are really excited by the findings,” added Dr. O’Rourke, a Research Fellow in Trinity’s School of Biochemistry and Immunology.
“While there is growing evidence that electrical stimulation may help control how different cells behave during wound healing, very little was known about how it affects human macrophages prior to this work.”
“Not only does this study show for the first time that electrical stimulation can shift human macrophages to suppress inflammation, we have also demonstrated increased ability of macrophages to repair tissue, supporting electrical stimulation as an exciting new therapy to boost the body’s own repair processes in a huge range of different injury and disease situations.”
The team says their findings, published in the journal Cell Reports Physical Science, are especially significant given that the work was performed with human blood cells—showing its effectiveness for real patients.
The researchers pointed out that electrical stimulation is relatively safe and easy in the scheme of therapeutic options, and the outcomes should be applicable to a wide range of scenarios.
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Study co-leader Professor Michael Monaghan, from Trinity’s School of Engineering, said, “Among the future steps are to explore more advanced regimes of electrical stimulation to generate more precise and prolonged effects on inflammatory cells and to explore new materials and modalities of delivering electric fields.”
“This concept has yielded compelling effects in vitro and has huge potential in a wide range of inflammatory diseases.”
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Listening to happy tunes helped study participants with motion sickness get over their predisposition and recover better, according to new research.
Motion sickness is a common condition that happens when you’re moving while sitting still, such as riding in a car. It occurs when our eyes, inner ear and body send conflicting messages to the brain, resulting in nausea, headaches, or breaking out in a cold sweat.
Now, Chinese scientists studying ways for improving the condition have published a study in the journal Frontiers in Human Neuroscience showing that playing different types of music may help people recover more effectively.
Using a specially calibrated driving simulator, they induced car sickness in participants and then played different types of music while they tried to recover. Soft and joyful music produced the best recovery effects, while sad tunes were even less effective than doing nothing at all.
“Motion sickness significantly impairs the travel experience for many individuals, and existing pharmacological interventions often carry side-effects such as drowsiness,” said study author Dr. Qizong Yue of Southwest University in China.
“Music represents a non-invasive, low-cost, and personalized intervention strategy.”
The researchers explained that feeling tense in anticipation of possible car sickness can trigger a physical reaction, bringing sickness on more quickly. Because music can be used to alleviate tension, Dr Yue and his team wondered if it could help people who get carsick.
The team began by developing a model to induce motion sickness. They recruited 40 participants to screen routes on a driving simulator and chose the most effective route for making people feel carsick.
30 people who reported moderate levels of previous carsickness then wore electroencephalogram (EEG) caps, to try to identify quantifiable signals of carsickness in the brain’s activity.
RELATED SCIENCE: Just 1-Minute Daily Exposure to Specific Sound Frequency Can Alleviate Motion Sickness: New Study
They were divided into six groups – four that received a music intervention, one that received no music, and one whose simulators were stopped when they started to report that they might feel slightly carsick.
The last group acted as a comparative sample for the EEG data. They had received the same stimuli as the other 25 participants, but weren’t allowed to become nauseous, so the difference between their brain activity and the other participants’ would help identify signals characteristic of carsickness.
To begin with, the participants sat still in the simulator for a few minutes to capture EEG signals from their brains. Then they performed a driving task and reported their level of carsickness to the research team. Once they stopped driving, the participants in the music groups were played tunes for 60 seconds, and then asked to report how sick they felt.
The scientists found that joyful music alleviated carsickness the most, reducing it by 57.3%—followed very closely by soft music, at 56.7%.
Passionate music reduced motion sickness by 48.3%, while playing sad music turned out to be slightly worse than doing nothing.
The control group reported a reduction of carsickness symptoms by 43.3% after their rest, while those who listened to sad music reported a reduction of just 40%.
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The EEG data showed that participants’ brain activity in the occipital lobe changed when they reported carsickness, measureing less complex activity in this brain region when participants said they felt quite sick.
The better the said they felt as they recovered, the more the activity measured by the EEG returned to normal levels.
The researchers believe it’s possible that soft music relaxes people, relieving the tension that exacerbates carsickness, while joyful music might distract people by activating brain reward systems.
But sad music could have the opposite effect, by amplifying negative emotions and increasing overall discomfort.
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The researchers say further work with a larger sample size is needed to confirm the results. They plan to follow up the experiments with investigations of different forms of travel-sickness and the role played by personal musical taste.
“Based on our conclusions, individuals experiencing motion sickness symptoms during travel can listen to cheerful or gentle music to achieve relief,” said Dr. Yue, who believes the findings of this study would “likely extend to motion sickness experienced during air or sea travel,” as well.
SHARE THIS GOOD NEWS TIP With Families Who Have Carsick Kids…
A video captured the moment a boy with cerebral palsy lit up when a stranger took him for a spin on the ice in his wheelchair.
Bleu Greenwood has a severe form of cerebral palsy—stage five quadriplegic—and relies on ventilation to keep his airways open.
After spending six months on such life support this year, his mom Rielle and her family decided to get out of the house in England to enjoy an outing, and they took Bleu along.
Last Sunday they drove to the National Ice Centre in Nottingham, and the 10-year-old boy was so excited as they arrived at the skating rink.
Suddenly, Bleu was approached by a stranger who offered to take him for a spin on the ice. He said he was a hockey player, so their son would be in good hands.
Tyler carefully guided Bleu’s wheelchair across the ice and the boy beamed with joy as his “overwhelmed” mum cheered from the sidelines. (See video at the bottom)
“Bleu was very excited to go ice skating,” Rielle told SWNS news. “It’s not something he gets to normally do in his life.”
“He gave the man a big smile when he grabbed his wheelchair to whizz him off.”
LOOK: He Crowdsurfed in a Wheelchair to the Stage and Coldplay Pulled Him Up to Play Harmonica (Watch)
“Tyler was able to whizz bleu around the ice making him laugh and so happy but also feeling safe and stable.
“It was special that Bleu was able to have all his close family in one place, all having fun together somewhere Bleu was able to be involved.
“As a mother I felt so happy to be able to watch my son smile and laugh with joy.
“All I have ever wanted for Bleu was for him to be included in fun activities for his age.”
WATCH the smiles below… (NOTE: Loud screaming from mom is heard in video)
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Quote of the Day: “A lighthouse isn’t concerned with whether ships are watching it from a distance. It simply shines forth.” – Rob Brezsny
Photo by: Ian Britton, CC license
With a new inspirational quote every day, atop the perfect photo—collected and archived on our Quote of the Day page—why not bookmark GNN.org for a daily uplift?
89 years ago today, Buddy Holly was born into poverty in a musical family in Lubbock, Texas. In just 18 months, from his first #1 hit song, That’ll Be The Day, to when he died in a tragic plane crash at age 22, the prolific singer-songwriter topped the charts with more than a dozen Top 40 hits worldwide. Unlike his hero, Elvis Presley, Holly was an innovator for writing his own material and experimenting with double tracking and orchestration. He also pioneered and popularized the now-standard use of two guitars, bass, and drums by rock bands. READ more, such as how he got his famous glasses… (1936)
A new 3D printing “glue gun” can generate bone grafts directly onto fractures, using a revolutionary process that can fill-in the gaps around the site’s jagged edges.
Now, the researchers in South Korea are preparing for human trials, having developed a tool made from a modified glue gun that can 3D-print bone grafts to repair defects during surgery.
Essentially, it quickly creates bone implants on the spot, without the need for making them in advance.
The researchers “optimized” the 3D-printed grafts until they exhibited high structural flexibility while releasing anti-inflammatory antibiotics and promoting natural bone regrowth at the grafting site—conforming to the jagged edges of a fracture.
Bone implants have previously been made of metal or donor bone or, more recently, 3D-printed material. But in cases involving more complex fractures the implants must be designed and produced prior to surgery to allow for appropriate fitting.
So, the scientists developed a new technology that offers a distinct approach: a printing system for use directly at the surgical site, that enables a “real-time fabrication and application of a scaffold,” said study co-author Professor Jung Seung Lee, of Sungkyunkwan University in South Korea.
“This allows for highly accurate anatomical matching even in irregular or complex defects without the need for preoperative preparation such as imaging, modeling, and trimming processes.”
He explained that the material fed into the glue gun is a filament comprised of two major components: a feature of natural bone known to promote healing called hydroxyapatite (HA) and a biocompatible thermoplastic called polycaprolactone (PCL).
PCL can liquify in temperatures as low as 60 Celsius, which when applied with a heat-modified glue gun, is cool enough to prevent tissue damage during surgical application while being able to conform to the jagged grooves of fractured bone.
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By adjusting the proportion of HA to PCL within the filament, the researchers can customize the hardness and strength of the grafts to fit different anatomical needs.
“Because the device is compact and manually operated, the surgeon can adjust the printing direction, angle, and depth during the procedure in real time,” said Prof. Lee.
“Also, we demonstrated that this process could be completed in a matter of minutes.
“This highlights a significant advantage in terms of reducing operative time and improving procedural efficiency under real surgical conditions.”
Since infection is a common concern with surgical implants, the researchers incorporated vancomycin and gentamicin, two anti-bacterial compounds, into the filament.
The research, published in the journal Device, showed, in both petri dish culture and liquid medium, the filament scaffold successfully inhibited the growth of E. coli and S. aureas, two common bacteria prone to cause post-surgery infections.
Due to physical properties of HA and PCL within the filament, the drugs are released slowly and are able to diffuse directly onto the surgical site over several weeks.
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Prof Lee said: “This localized delivery approach offers meaningful clinical advantages over systemic antibiotic administration by potentially reducing side effects and limiting the development of antibiotic resistance, while still effectively protecting against postoperative infection.”
As a proof of concept, the device was tested on the severe femoral bone fractures in rabbits, with huge success.
Within 12 weeks of surgery, the team found no signs of infection or necrosis and greater bone regeneration when compared to rabbits grafted with bone cement—a sealing compound commonly used for treating defects.
“The scaffold was designed not only to integrate biologically with surrounding bone tissue but also to gradually degrade over time and be replaced by newly formed bone.
“The results showed that the printing group exhibited superior outcomes in key structural parameters such as bone surface area, cortical thickness, and polar moment of inertia, suggesting more effective bone healing and integration.”
RELATED GENIUS: New Tool Can 3D Bio-Print Inside Human Body to Construct Natural Tissue-Like Structures
The researchers have now set their sights on optimizing the anti-bacterial potential of the scaffold further, and preparing the procedure for human trials, believing that their approach can become a practical and immediate solution for bone repair directly in the operating room.
BRIDGE THE DISTANCE Between This And 3D-Printing Fans on Social Media…
The clearest pictures ever taken of a solar flare have been captured by the world’s largest solar telescope in Hawaii.
The record-breaking images from the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope are the highest-resolution ever attained, and they revealed astonishing details within a flare that was four times the diameter of Earth.
The coronal loops seen within the flare are very fine strands averaging about 48.2 kilometers (approximately 30 miles) wide, with some loops as narrow as 21 kilometers (about 13 miles), the smallest coronal loops ever imaged.
The observations could reshape how we understand the Sun’s magnetic architecture and improve space weather forecasting.
“This is the first time the Inouye Solar Telescope has ever observed an X-class flare,” says Cole Tamburri, the study’s lead author who is supported by the Inouye Solar Telescope Ambassador Program while studying at the University of Colorado Boulder.
“These flares are among the most energetic events our star produces, and we were fortunate to catch this one under perfect observing conditions.”
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Astronomers captured the dark coronal loop strands with unprecedented clarity during the decay phase of an X1.3-class flare.
Coronal loops are arches of plasma that follow the Sun’s magnetic field lines, often preceding solar flares that trigger sudden releases of energy associated with some of these magnetic field lines twisting and snapping. This burst of energy fuels solar storms that can impact Earth’s critical infrastructure.
“This marks a potential breakthrough in resolving the fundamental scale of solar coronal loops and pushing the limits of flare modeling into an entirely new realm,” according to the U.S. National Science Foundation, which operates the telescope.
The new findings could suggest that these loops might be elementary structures—the fundamental building blocks of flare architecture.
“If that’s the case, we’re not just resolving bundles of loops; we’re resolving individual loops for the first time,” Tamburri adds.
CHECK OUT THESE SPACE PICS:
• Telescopes Capture Black Hole in Unprecedented Color Photo Using Triple-Frequency
• X-rays and Webb Telescope Provide Dazzling Views of Space Invisible to the Unaided Eye
• Webb Telescope Reveals New Mysteries Hidden in Jupiter’s Own ‘Northern Lights’
“It’s like going from seeing a forest to suddenly seeing every single tree.”
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The stepfather who always believed in her was with her at the end, as his ashes rested inside her necklace while she crossed the finish line.
Brooke Johnson had just become the first woman to cross the United States on a skateboard—a record-setting 3,226-mile journey that began in Santa Monica, California and ended when she walked into the Atlantic Ocean at Virginia Beach after 119 days on the road.
The 29-year-old lifted her skateboard over her head and couldn’t help but think about Roger, the man who made it all happen—even though he was only there in spirit.
Late in his life, Brooke’s stepfather broke his C5 vertebrae and became a quadriplegic. His health continued to decline until he passed away last year.
As time was running out, stepfather and daughter often talked about Brooke’s dream of cross-country skateboarding, and she planned to push him across the finish line in a wheelchair.
Roger never once doubted that she’d make it.
“I was like, ‘Roger, it’s a really big country.’ And he was like, ‘Well, you can do it,’” Brooke told Kelly McCarthy of GMA.
When Roger passed away, Brooke had more motivation than she would ever need. She set out from Santa Monica about four months ago, with the goal of raising money for Wings for Life, a nonprofit dedicated to spinal cord research.
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She persisted through rough weather and mountainous terrain—even rolling through a tornado warning in Oklahoma.
Her team, which included an RV and video crew, ultimately raised $50,000 for Wings for Life—with Roger’s name written on her white shoes so she could see it on every single mile of the 3,226 she completed.
After stepping into the Atlantic Ocean, Brooke celebrated her triumph by sharing a video on social media highlighting her feat. The Instagram post included a voicemail from Roger that she randomly found on one of the toughest days of her journey.
“…Everything’s gonna be fine…We’ll get through it,” Roger said in the voicemail.
His voice and his advice became a beacon that guided Brooke across the country until she completed the goal her late step-father always knew she’d reach.
“It was one of those messages that felt like he left it for the present moment. That was a crazy feeling,” Brooke wrote on Instagram.
MORE SKATER NEWS: Archaeologists to Excavate Glasgow’s First Skatepark with the Help of Former Skateboarders
“If there’s one thing you take away from this trip, it’s that you can truly do anything you put your mind to.”
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Our partner Rob Brezsny, who has a new book out, Astrology Is Real: Revelations from My Life as an Oracle, 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 September 6, 2025
Copyright by Rob Brezsny, FreeWillAstrology.com
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22):
The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is a standard of economic success by which countries gauge their wealth. But the Buddhist nation of Bhutan has a different accounting system: Gross National Happiness (GNH), which includes preservation of the country’s environment. Its scenic beauty could generate more tourism, but limits have been placed on the number of visitors, ensuring the land won’t be trampled. I would love to see you take a similar GNH inventory, Virgo. Tally how well you have loved and been loved. Acknowledge your victories and awakenings. Celebrate the beauty of your life.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22):
In Japanese haiku, poets may reference the lingering scent of flowers as a metaphor for a trace of something vivid that continues to be evocative after the event has passed. I suspect you understand this quite well right now. You are living in such an after-scent. A situation, encounter, or vision seems to have ended, but its echo is inviting you to remain attentive. Here’s my advice: Keep basking in the reverberations. Let your understandings and feelings continue to evolve. Your assignment is to allow the original experience to complete its transmission. The full blossoming needs more time to unfold.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21):
In the Australian desert, there’s a phenomenon called desert varnish. It’s a thin, dark coating of clay, iron, and manganese oxides. It forms over rocks due to microbial activity and prolonged exposure to wind and sun. Over time, these surfaces become canvases for Indigenous artists to create images. I like to think of their work as storytelling etched into endurance. In the coming weeks, Scorpio, consider using this marvel as a metaphor. Be alert for the markings of your own epic myth as they appear on the surfaces of your life. Summon an intention to express the motifs of your heroic story in creative ways. Show the world the wisdom you have gathered during your long, strange wanderings.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21):
In Indigenous Australian lore, the Dreamtime is a parallel dimension overlapping the material world, always present and accessible through ritual and listening. Virtually all Indigenous cultures throughout history have conceived of and interacted with comparable realms. If you are open to the possibility, you now have an enhanced capacity to draw sustenance from this otherworld. I encourage you to go in quest of help and healing that may only be available there. Pay close attention to your dreams. Ask your meditations to give you long glimpses of the hidden magic.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19):
Saturn is your ruling planet and archetype. In the old myth of the god Saturn, he rules time, which is not an enemy but a harvester. He gathers what has ripened. I believe the coming weeks will feature his metaphorical presence, Capricorn. You are primed to benefit from ripening. You are due to collect the fruits of your labors. This process may not happen in loud or dramatic ways. A relationship may deepen. A skill may get fully integrated. A long-running effort may coalesce. I say it’s time to celebrate! Congratulate yourself for having built with patience and worked through the shadows. Fully register the fact that your labor is love in slow motion.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18):
In Greek mythology, the constellation Aquarius was linked to a heroic character named Ganymede. The great god Zeus made this beautiful man the cupbearer to the gods. And what drink did Ganymede serve? Ambrosia, the divine drink of immortality. In accordance with astrological omens, I’m inviting you to enjoy a Ganymede-like phase in the coming weeks. Please feel emboldened to dole out your gorgeous uniqueness and weirdness to all who would benefit from it. Let your singular authenticity pour out freely. Be an overflowing source of joie de vivre and the lust for life.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20):
In 1932, trailblazing aviator Amelia Earhart made a nonstop solo flight across the Atlantic, steering through icy winds and mechanical trouble. When she landed, she said she had been “too busy” to be scared. This is an excellent motto for you now, Pisces: “too busy to be scared.” Not because you should ignore your feelings, but because immersion in your good work, mission, and devotion will carry you through any momentary turbulence. You now have the power to throw yourself so completely into your purpose that fear becomes a background hum.
ARIES (March 21-April 19):
Austin Curtis was a Black scientist whose work had spectacularly practical applications. Among his successes: He developed many new uses for peanut byproducts, including rubbing oils for pain relief. His work exploited the untapped potential of materials that others neglected or discarded. I urge you to adopt a similar strategy in the coming weeks, Aries: Be imaginative as you repurpose scraps and leftovers. Convert afterthoughts into useful assets. Breakthroughs could come from compost heaps, forgotten files, or half-forgotten ideas. You have the power to find value where others see junk.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20):
In Polynesian navigation, sailors read the subtle rise and fall of ocean swells to find islands and chart their course. They also observe birds, winds, stars, and cloud formations. The technique is called wayfinding. I invite you to adopt your own version of that strategy, Taurus. Trust waves and weather rather than maps. Authorize your body to sense the future in ways that your brain can’t. Rely more fully on what you see and sense rather than what you think. Are you willing to dwell in the not-knowingness? Maybe go even further: Be excited about dwelling in the not-knowingness. Don’t get fixated on plotting the whole journey. Instead, assume that each day’s signs will bring you the information you need.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20):
The umbrella thorn acacia is an African tree whose roots grow up to 115 feet deep to tap hidden water beneath the desert floor. Above ground, it may look like a scraggly cluster of green, but underground it is a masterpiece of reach and survival. I see you as having resemblances to this tree these days, Gemini. Others may only see your surface gestures and your visible productivity. But you know how deep your roots run and how far you are reaching to nourish yourself. Don’t underestimate the power of your attunement to your core. Draw all you need from that primal reservoir.
CANCER (June 21-July 22):
To make a tabla drum sing, the artisan adds a black patch of iron filings and starch at the center of the drumhead. Called a syahi, it creates complex overtones and allows the musician to summon both pitch and rhythm from the same surface. Let’s imagine, Cancerian, that you will be like that drum in the coming weeks. A spot that superficially looks out of place may actually be what gives your life its music. Your unique resonance will come not in spite of your idiosyncratic pressure points, but because of them. So don’t aim for sterile perfection. Embrace the irregularity that sings.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22):
There’s a Zen motto: “Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.” I hope you apply that wisdom in the coming weeks, Leo. Your breakthrough moments of insight have come or will come soon. But your next move should not consist of being self-satisfied or inert. Instead, I hope you seek integration. Translate your innovations into your daily rhythm. Turn the happy accidents into enduring improvements. The progress that comes next won’t be as flashy or visible, but it’ll be just as crucial.
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Quote of the Day: “Trees love to toss and sway; they make such happy noises.” – Emily Carr
Photo by: Rob Mulally (cropped)
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30 years ago today, Cal Ripken Jr. broke Lou Gehrig’s baseball record when he played in his 2,131st consecutive game. Once considered a near-impossible feat, “the streak,” which continued for 2,632 games, earned Cal the nickname, Iron Man. The televised game, between the Orioles and the California Angels, still ranks as one of the most watched baseball events, with Cal’s kids throwing out the first pitch. In the fifth inning, as it was tallied a full game, the crowds in the stands, the opposing players, and the four umpires gave Ripken a standing ovation lasting more than 22 minutes, one of the longest ovations for any athlete. WATCH a series of interviews throughout this long streak… (1995)
