Quote of the Day: “We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us happy is something to be enthusiastic about.” – Charles Kingsley
Photo by: Anthony Fomin
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Workmen have uncovered a suspected Roman road in a field dating back 2,000 years that could be the only one of its kind in Britain and of ‘world importance.’
Archeologists say the cobbled ford uncovered in Worcestershire could be the finest Roman example of its type in the UK. In fact, the only existing roads in such a state of preservation are found in Pompeii and Rome.
The stretch, measuring 32-ft by 9.6 feet wide (10 x 2.9 meter), was discovered during routine utility work by Severn Trent Water a few weeks ago in an area called Evesham.
The exact location of the discovery is being concealed but it was found by a river where a Roman-era villa complex was previously uncovered four years ago.
Excavations are now taking place to find out more about the site, but experts say everything points to it being a genuine Roman structure—built 1,900 years ago.
“At the moment everything is ticking the boxes for it to be Roman but it still feels too good to be true so we are keeping an open mind,” said Aidan Smyth, archeology officer from Wychavon District Council where the water works were being dug, adding that seeing it first hand “took his breath away.”
The owners of the property contacted Wychavon District Council and a team from Historic England is now expected to analyze the excavations.
The road is a ‘ford,’ or a small river crossing, and also has ruts in the stones indicating it was was used by carts for a long time.
“If it is a first-century Roman feature it is the only one of its kind to be found in Britain to date,” said Smith, who noted no one was building roads like this during the Medieval Period.
“If it was to be a Roman feature, with its only comparisons in Rome and Pompeii, you could argue it’s of world importance, not just of national importance. The stonework is absolutely perfect.”
Smith explains in the video below how the Romans were the only road builders to ever build their roads like they built walls. During excavations Smith explains the team found “batted” stone curbs, meaning to be laid at a steep angle rather than vertically. They were made of a different stone than the flat cobbles passersby would walk upon.
“Now I’ve lots of evidence in this part of Evesham for Medieval batted stone walls, my problem is I’ve not got anything Roman to compare it with,” Smith said. “So it’s not that it isn’t Roman, it just could have a Medieval phase to it.”
SIMILAR: Viking Age Shipyard Uncovered at Birka is Like Nothing Ever Found Before
Wychavon District Council has confirmed as of yet, no dateable finds such as pieces of pottery or coins have been discovered which are usually used to help date the site.
Worcestershire is fertile ground for important archaeological finds as Worcester was possibly the site of the Roman town of Vertis. The Roman army passed through the area now known as Worcestershire in the 40s and 50s CE as it pushed west to reach the River Severn on its way to Wales.
RELATED: Incredible Discovery Beneath the Southern Amazon Reveals Urban-Agrarian Society Never Seen Before
Gravel will be taken from under the cobblestones and above them in the flood material called alluvium, to get a good idea of when each sets of minerals saw the sun last.
Readers looking to pursue a career in archeology should watch the video below, as it’s a very accurate depiction of the profession.
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New carbon dioxide ventilators could turn fumes into fertilizer to bring vegetable patches to high rise rooftops, suggests a new study.
It wasn’t just suggested, the study included an experiment that found spinach by the new air vents grew four-times larger than the other plants.
The breakthrough is a promising development for healthier city life, say scientists.
Scientists at Boston University created new technology that turned carbon dioxide (CO2) pumped from building air vents into fertilizer to improve the challenging plant-growing conditions for rooftop plant-life.
Rooftop vegetable gardens—big ones even—can be found in cities around the world, but they’re mostly hydroponic systems, receiving nutrients and water via a special mist channeled through tubes.
Rooftop farms and gardens are often suggested as ways to improve air quality, but conditions are difficult. Plants are often smaller and less healthy because the sites catch more solar radiation, wind exposure, and the soil is less moist.
The researchers decided to intercede by repurposing the CO2 emitted from building exhaust into a fertilizer.
ALSO READ: Rooftop Panels of Tiny Plants Can Cleanse Polluted Air at 100 Times the Rate of a Single Tree
Dr. Sarabeth Buckley, now at the University of Cambridge, began growing corn and spinach on a Boston University campus roof in an experiment named BIG GRO.
“We wanted to test whether there is an untapped resource inside buildings that could be used to make plants grow larger in rooftop farms,” she said. “Creating more favorable conditions that increase growth could help make rooftop farms more successful and therefore more viable options for installation on buildings.”
Dr. Buckley and her team chose corn and spinach because they are common edible plants that are more sensitive to high CO2 levels when they photosynthesize, versus other plants. They then placed the plants near the exhaust vents, and another control group near simple fans.
CO2 levels in the classrooms below were regularly measured to figure out how much extra CO2 the plants were receiving. High concentrations were found both inside classrooms and at rooftop exhaust vents when people were in the building.
“CO2 levels averaged above 1000 parts per million—the recommended limit—in classrooms and above 800ppm—high enough to increase growth in plants—at the rooftop exhaust vents,” said Dr. Buckley.
While growing, plants were monitored for size, number of leaves, and wet and dry biomass after harvesting.
The results were striking: spinach grown beside the exhaust vents had four-times the biomass of spinach grown next to a control fan.
High winds decreased the size advantage in some plants, but they were still twice as large as the controls.
Dr. Buckley cautioned there was still more work to be done before the system can be used.
“There are still many aspects of this system that must be determined before it can be implemented…” she said. “There is a decrease in growth with increased wind speed, so the optimal wind speed would need to be found and incorporated into the system design.”
“We are hoping this could lead to the further development of this system and eventual implementation in rooftop gardens and farms. If that happens, then hopefully more rooftop farms will be installed.”
“They could provide a multitude of environmental and social benefits such as energy savings for the building, carbon drawdown, climate mitigation, urban heat reduction, local food production, community building opportunities, and aesthetic and mental health benefits.”
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Everyone knows your family can be a pain in the neck sometimes, but regular family dinners can be the key to reduced stress levels in the household.
This was found in a survey by the American Heart Association (AHA), who research chronic stress which can increase rates for all manner of non-communicable heart diseases.
Of the 1,000 U.S. adults nationwide surveyed in September 2022 by Wakefield Research on behalf of the AHA, 91% of respondents said their family was less stressed when they share meals together.
84% say they wish they could share a meal more often with loved ones.
“Sharing meals with others is a great way to reduces stress, boost self-esteem and improve social connection, particularly for kids,” said Erin Michos, M.D, M.H.S, and American Heart Association volunteer from Johns Hopkins.
“Chronic, constant stress can also increase your lifetime risk of heart disease and stroke, so it is important for people to find ways to reduce and manage stress as much as possible, as soon as possible.”
Connecting with friends, family, coworkers and neighbors benefits people beyond stress relief. In fact, the AHA survey found 67% of people say sharing a meal reminds them of the importance of connecting with other people, and 54% say it reminds them to slow down and take a break.
The survey also identified the majority (65%) of adults say they are at least somewhat stressed and more than a quarter (27%) are extremely or very stressed.
Nearly 7 in 10 of survey respondents who are employed full or part-time said they would feel less stressed at work if they had more time to take a break and share a meal with a co-worker.
Those surveyed say they are more likely (59%) to make healthier food choices when eating with other people but have difficulty aligning schedules with their friends or family to do so, according to the survey. Overall, respondents reported eating alone about half of the time.
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“We know it’s not always as easy as it sounds to get people together at mealtime. Like other healthy habits, give yourself permission to start small and build from there,” Michos said.
“Set a goal to gather friends, family or coworkers for one more meal together each week. If you can’t get together in person, think about how you can share a meal together over the phone or a computer.”
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Many countries have monuments to their fallen soldiers, but the French have recently inaugurated a sort of “Tomb of the Unknown Canine,” to honor the contributions of dogs to the civil, police, and military service of the nation.
From lending their noses to counter-banditry operations across the Sahel, to tracking down the perpetrators of the 2015 Paris terrorist attacks, to rescuing people from buildings and the mountains, dogs have every right to be considered just as heroic as the officers and soldiers leading them in these endeavors.
At the end of 2018, when the centenary of the end of the First World War was celebrated, France’s national kennel club, Centrale Canine, had expressed its desire to erect a work paying tribute to hero dogs who also participated, alongside their masters, to military operations.
To this end, they enlisted the help of French-Colombian sculpture Milthon depicting a WWI solder and a dog huddled together.
Located at the crossroads of the sites of Verdun and the town of Suippes, an area that saw extremely heavy fighting in the First World War, it represented a location that was all the more symbolic as it is home to the 132nd infantry regiment, who have been training French military dogs for 45 years.
Many representatives of the armed forces were able to attend the inauguration ceremony, including General Elrick Irastorza, former Chief of Staff of the Army who agreed to be the sponsor of the memorial.
In WWI, dogs were used to deliver messages and supplies, and seek out wounded soldiers in No Man’s Land, and whether on purpose or not, contributed vital moral support to men in the trenches.
“It’s very important [recognition] because dogs, like human beings, carry out missions, but we don’t ask them for their opinion. So to me, it’s fair to give them back a medal,” Johann, an adjutant in a combat unit, told AP, reporting on the news.
The inauguration saw a squadron of military dogs stand alongside their trainers wearing their military medals.
SIMILAR: These Specially-Trained Dogs Have Saved 45 Rhinos From Poachers in South Africa—And Counting
Many of the breeds are German or Belgian shepherds—animals that can withstand cold, heat, exhaustion, and stressful situations. The trainers work with them, mostly through their olfactory capabilities, to locate wounded soldiers, detect mines, improvised bombs, and other explosives, and track extremist groups across the North African Sahel once upon a time in places like Mali.
There were no treats, jokes, or puppy-dog talk at the inauguration, it was a serious ceremony with a serious atmosphere under a steel-grey sky in Suippes, a fine testament to the honor, value, and esteem those assembled on two legs had for those on four.
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Quote of the Day: “Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigues of supporting it.” – Thomas Paine
Photo by: Phillip Goldsberry
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Trying to distract himself from his PlayStation during COVID lockdowns, a London high schooler self-published a fantasy novel that’s now selling as far away as Australia.
16-year-old Dylan Brennan started writing Noble: Betrayed in April 2020, after recognizing he was spending too much time playing video games.
The aspiring lawyer said he had long dreamt of publishing a book, and lockdown gave him the perfect opportunity to knock out the first full draft in 9 months, before the final copy was released in October 2022.
The book was inspired by Dylan’s favorite authors: George R. R. Martin, J. R. R. Tolkien, and Andrzej Sapkowski, who wrote The Witcher, the latter of which was turned into three award-winning role-playing video games.
“It’s amazing! It’s a dream I’ve always had,” said Dylan. “I’m so pleased with it but I can’t stop here, I’m already working on the next one. I love fantasy, it’s just my genre.”
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Writing and publishing a book has never been easier, but at the same time Dylan’s decision to forfeit the easy dopamine hit of video games to do it speaks volumes about his character.
Yet at the same time Dylan’s influences were obviously heavily inspired in part by his fantasy video gaming—the right balance is key.
The tale revolves around the main character Lord Simon Pargion visiting the court of close friend King Emannar Woodgairrd before uncovering a plot to kill him.
It combines the stereotypical elements of fantasy with the sense of community and atmosphere of living in London, he said, and some of the characters are named after his teachers at St. George’s Catholic School, in Maida Vale.
Dylan says he has already bagged £150 in sales from Spain, Germany, the USA and Australia.
“I think 50 copies is the expected number of sales for a self-published first book,” he said. “There’s so much technology you can use to publish for yourself now which takes out a few steps, and publishers always have their own direction they want you to take.”
“I enjoyed exploring the big divide in London. Like the Royal Family who are a tight unit with lots of drama, alongside the less well off people struggling to get by.”
Dylan plans to study to become a lawyer but wants to keep writing as a side hustle, adding he’s aiming for a crime novel next.
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The “Classic Tourist City” of Chaozhou is going to build an offshore wind farm so large that it could power all of Norway.
Detailed in the city’s recent 5-year plan, the 43.3-gigawatt windfarm will grant significant amounts of green energy to the two-and-a-half million inhabitants.
Located in Guangdong Province, and neighbor to the largest inhabited city on Earth in Guangzhou, Chaozhou has unique offshore topography that creates gusty seas ideal for harvesting wind energy.
Capable of running the turbines around 49% of the year, it’s to be located between 47 and 115 miles (75 and 185 km) off the city’s coast.
READ ALSO: Mini Wind Turbines For Rooftops: ‘Up to 50% More Power’ and No Spinning Blades
China is big on wind power, and in 2021 the country installed more wind energy resources than all the rest of the world put together for five years running. Statistics on these large civic projects coming out of the PRC are not always reliable; their mass tree-planting operations along the Gobi Desert are notoriously murky.
China recently debuted the world’s largest turbine at the 20th Party Congress in Beijing. The diameter of the rotors are 827 feet (252 meters) and they are billed as capable of producing 63.5 million kWh per year assuming ideal conditions.
Other large wind farmers are Norway, who boast 38 gigawatts of installed turbines, and the UK, who should currently have the largest offshore wind farm on Earth provided they’ve finished installing all the turbines.
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A small book store is a wonderful place—that’s what Russell Crowe thought when he surprised Bookbugs and Dragon Tales Book Shop with a large donation to help its survival.
Leanne Fridd and her husband Dan “squealed” when after launching a Crowdfunding campaign to do more school literacy outreach and give the business “breathing room,” they saw a large donation from Russel Ira Crowe.
“It’s bonkers,” they said of the surprise, that had them chanting “Russell Crowe, Russell Crowe,” nearly the entirety of the following day.
Even back in 1998, when You’ve Got Mail came out, society heard more and more stories about the small neighborhood book store at risk of disappearing in the face of big corporate booksellers.
In a remarkably bad bit of luck, Bookbugs and Dragon Tales in Norfolk opened its doors in 2019—just before the pandemic. Having had to face COVID shutdowns, and now the British cost-of-living crisis, most people wouldn’t blame them for quitting—but Leanne and Dan say that donations have flooded in from unlikely places—the star of The Gladiator, not withstanding.
RELATED: As the Pandemic Got Worse, Americans Donated More Generously Than Ever – to Record Levels
“We’ve had £100 from the customer who lost her house in a fire,” said Leanne. “I know she can’t afford that.”
They’re also quite sure that it wasn’t a generous prankster masquerading as Crowe through the anonymity of the internet, since they know that a mutual friend of theirs and Crowe’s retweeted their Crowdfunding link.
“I have heard that this is what he is like – he is really supportive and just wants to make a difference,” Leanne told the BBC. “I doubt he will come into the shop, but who knows, if he is in the area in the future, he might.”
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Taking the lead to fight the homelessness epidemic in America, the Salt Lake City council has moved forward with a plan to lease 8 acres of city land to build a village of tiny homes.
Described as “recovery housing,” the 430 units would provide an additional transition between total homelessness and total stability.
The plan was introduced in April of 2021, and has taken awhile to gain traction. On Tuesday, the city council listened to concerns from the community about the use of city resources.
Costing $13.8 million, the village was dreamt up by The Other Side Academy, which provides training and teaches pro-social, vocational, and life skills, allowing attendees to emerge with a healthy life on “the other side” of criminal detention, substance abuse, or homelessness.
But all are looking to change the direction of their lives.
RELATED: She Invited a Homeless Man For Dinner – Now Her Crowdfunding Has Secured Her New Friend a Tiny Home
The SLC council voted unanimously, 7-0, in favor of the project, which is envisioned to be funded largely by contributions and donations rather than public money.
No date has been given for a start date of construction, but the village concept art has shown a large circular village with paths extending into the various quarters, centered around a central pagoda.
The square would include retail shops, on-site healthcare offices, and gardens.
SIMILAR: Tiny Home Village in Albuquerque Helps Homeless Transition With Social Services and Opportunities
Cities around the country are grappling with the homelessness epidemic in different ways. Tiny homes are often touted as a worthwhile solution to investigate, because it’s very difficult, even with financial assistance, to acquire a bank account, housing, various medical assistance, or a job, without having a permanent address.
The plan is similar to a successful village in Austin, Texas. Elsewhere, Acres of Hope is a project of tiny homes for single moms in California.
In Seattle is changing zoning laws to allow a non-profit to build tiny homes for perspective citizens in the backyards of volunteers.
WATCH local Salt Lake City news report on the project.
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Quote of the Day: “Even a single lamp dispels the deepest darkness” – Mahatma Gandhi
Photo by: Vladimir Fedotov
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A breakthrough in electric vehicle fast charging battery design from Penn State has enabled a 10-minute charge time for a typical EV battery.
The record-breaking combination of a shorter charge time and more energy required for longer travel range came from heating the battery to a Goldilocks Zone which has proven difficult for engineers thus far.
Their findings are hoped to accelerate the sale of EVs, and were announced on October 12th, in the journal Nature.
“The need for smaller, faster-charging batteries is greater than ever,” said Chao-Yang Wang, Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Penn State and lead author on the study.
“There are simply not enough batteries and critical raw materials, especially those produced domestically, to meet anticipated demand.”
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In August, California’s Air Resources Board passed an extensive plan to restrict and ultimately ban the sale of gasoline-powered cars within the state. By 2035, the largest auto market in the United States will effectively retire the internal combustion engine.
If new car sales are going to shift to battery-powered electric vehicles (EVs), Wang explained, they’ll need to overcome two major drawbacks: they are too slow to recharge and too large to be efficient and affordable. Instead of taking a few minutes at the gas pump, depending on the battery, some EVs can take all day to recharge.
“Our fast-charging technology works for most energy-dense batteries and will open a new possibility to downsize electric vehicle batteries from 150 to 50 kWh without causing drivers to feel range anxiety,” said Wang, whose lab partnered with State College-based startup EC Power to develop the technology.
“The smaller, faster-charging batteries will dramatically cut down battery cost and usage of critical raw materials such as cobalt, graphite and lithium, enabling mass adoption of affordable electric cars.”
RELATED: 5 Midwestern Governors Sign Up to Create EV Charging Network to Keep Electric Vehicles Moving
The technology relies on internal thermal modulation, an active method of temperature control to demand the best performance possible from the battery, Wang explained.
Batteries operate most efficiently when they are hot, but not too hot. Keeping batteries consistently at just the right temperature has been a major challenge for battery engineers. Historically, they have relied on external, bulky heating and cooling systems to regulate battery temperature, which respond slowly and waste a lot of energy.
Wang and his team decided to instead regulate the temperature from inside the battery. The researchers developed a new battery structure that adds an ultrathin nickel foil as the fourth component besides anode, electrolyte and cathode.
SIMIALR: Innovative ‘Sand Battery’ is Heating Small City, Storing Green Energy for Months at a Time
Acting as a stimulus, the nickel foil self-regulates the battery’s temperature and reactivity which allows for 10-minute fast charging on just about any EV battery, Wang explained.
“True fast-charging batteries would have immediate impact,” the researchers write. “Since there are not enough raw minerals for every internal combustion engine car to be replaced by a 150 kWh-equipped EV, fast charging is imperative for EVs to go mainstream.”
The study’s partner, EC Power, is working to manufacture and commercialize the fast-charging battery for an affordable and sustainable future of vehicle electrification.
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A significant drop in the rates of suicide among active military members that was observed over 2021 has continued into the first 6 months of 2022.
Driven chiefly by sharp drops among the Marine Corps and Air Force, the declines come as a result of increased attention to the issue among high ranking officers and the Dept. of Veterans Affairs.
According to the data, the number of suicides in the Air Force and Marine Corp dropped by more than 30% in 2021 compared with 2020, and the Navy saw a 10% decline. The Army saw a similar 30% decrease during the first six months of this year, compared with the same time period last year.
All the services have been struggling to combat the complex issue of suicide throughout the ranks while dealing simultaneously with the dual challenges of insufficient staffing of mental healthcare workers, and continuing stigma of seeking help professionally.
For this, PBS reports, the services have been increasingly taking advantage of military chaplains, health and fitness coaches, and other support staff to support suicide prevention and mental health care programs.
“The amount of attention that we’re paying to it, I think, is hopefully—we’re cautiously optimistic — what is translating into the downward trend,” Yvette Bourcicot, the acting assistant Army secretary for manpower, told the AP on Thursday.
The Pentagon is working on filling a new force of 2,000 mental healthcare workers, but in the meanwhile some senior officers are requiring soldiers to visit a councilor every so often.
RELATED: Standup Comedy Classes For Men at Risk of Suicide Wins NHS Funding
Lt. Gen. Douglas Sims, for example, mandated once-a-year-visits with councilors at his post on Fort Riley, Kansas. All but 10 of the 14,000 staff used their 60-minute session to talk.
As part of our 25th anniversary celebration, GNN is donating a case of our books (…And Now, The Good News) to the James A. Haley Veterans’ Hospital in Tampa, Florida, to help fight depression.
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An ag-tech startup is spreading basalt rock dust on farmers’ fields as both fertilizer and an ingenious way to not only capture carbon, but remove it from the global carbon cycle forever.
At its maximum output, 3 tons of rock dust can capture 1 ton of CO2, a return on investment that if done at scale has an almost unlimited ceiling of carbon removal.
The business model is based on a mutually-beneficial exchange: the farmer’s fields are enriched with iron, phosphorus, magnesium, and calcium, boosting yields compared to agricultural limestone dust by 47% in some cases. The company, Lithos Carbon, sells the dust application as carbon credits to industries looking to offset their emissions, and gives a cut to the farmers.
“My approach to this is, if you can give farmers something that they will want and love and need, then they will do that,” Lithos CEO Mary Yap told Fast Company. “And then you will scale carbon capture almost as a side effect. One of my farmers has said, ‘I can’t eat carbon credits.’ Really, the crops at the end of the day are the thing that matters.”
RELATED: UK’s Largest Carbon Capture Project Will Turn 40,000 Tons of CO2 into Baking Soda
The way the carbon is captured comes from one of the fundamental steps in the global carbon cycle. CO2 in the air is partially absorbed by rains, which deposit it into the soil and the oceans. When rains fall on a field treated with basalt rock dust from Lithos, the carbon is captured in the basalt, before the material is washed down rivers into the ocean.
READ ALSO: New Wyoming Carbon Capture Project Will Eliminate 5 Million Tons of CO2 Per Year
Once in the ocean it’s taken up by a large variety of animals, often mollusks are other animals who use it to make their shells. Once they die, their shells fall to the ocean floor where the carbon remains, under most circumstances, permanently.
Basalt rock is the most common volcanic rock available on Earth and is produced by the millions of tons per annum in the mining industry, effectively guaranteeing a supply.
The primary challenge comes from the fact that every field will be different in how much dust is used and how it’s applied. Too much can released CO2 or be toxic to breathe in. For that they’ve developed intelligent software alongside Yale University.
At the moment Lithos is managing 14 farms, the most recent of which saw 1,500 tons of rust over 140 acres that should absorb 384 tons of CO2.
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Quick, what animal has a terrible memory? Goldfish of course, everybody knows that.
Sticking to the nautical theme, this is actually as big a myth as the Lost City of Atlantis, and researchers have been proving for decades that goldfish not only have good memories, but are even among the smarter fish in the ocean.
Recently, Oxford University trained a school of goldfish to measure distances. Releasing a goldfish into a long thin thank with black and white vertical stripes, the fish learned and remembered how far to swim down the tank before turning around to the start point for a treat.
The first time the fish swam down the tank, a researcher immersed their hand in the water at a certain point, a point of distance that was remembered accurately by 8 of 9 fish on the second swim down the tank.
“We’ve known about the reasonably good memories of goldfish since the ’50s and ’60s,” Culum Brown, an expert in fish cognition at Macquarie University in Australia, told Live Science last year. “Despite what everybody thinks, they’re actually really intelligent.”
He says the perception of goldfish as dullards stems from pet owners putting them in empty glass bowls with nothing to interact with, hence the appearance of a short memory.
“What is baffling is that it’s pretty much the same wherever you go in the world. In some places, it’s 2 seconds, and in others, it’s 10—but it’s always short.”
In reality, goldfish have such impressive memories, they’re often used as a common model for studying memory and learning in fish, Brown said.
Live Science details that goldfish can navigate mazes, escape nets, and can be prompted to complete tasks with a variety of stimuli, including non-hazards like bubbles, or music. Brown says goldfish can complete these tasks after months of not doing them.
SIMILAR: 5 Experiments Proving Invertebrates Are Much More Aware than We Think
Some pet owners report their goldfish recognizing them from other people, something that is also supported by the science of fish-on-fish interactions.
It’s time for society to change its tune. The goldfish is a pretty smart cookie, and deserves a little more respect around here.
WATCH the goldfish test here from the BBC…
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Quote of the Day: “Once you realize that you can do something, it would be difficult to live with yourself if you didn’t do it.” – James Baldwin
Photo by: Markus Spiske
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The James Webb Space Telescope has been a heck of a software update. Just look at this iconic space feature, the Pillars of Creation.
The left side image was made by the Hubble telescope, while the right-side image was taken with Webb’s near-infrared camera (NIRCam), revealing so much more celestial activity.
Newly formed stars pop out in shades of pink, red, and crimson. Still-forming stars that remain hidden deep in the dusty pillars resemble molten lava, and fully formed blue and yellow stars sprinkle the scene.
Located in the Eagle Nebula, around 6,500 light years away, the Pillars of Creation have iconized space telescope imagery. The largest pillar is so big, it would take four light years to go from tip to tail. They are mostly made of cold hydrogen despite their fiery appearance.
Two images were made of the Pillars, the first in 1995, and the second in 2014. This new one illustrates just how big of an upgrade the infrared vision that Webb brings to bear can be when imaging dense areas of the cosmos.
The new stars lying outside of the dusty pillars are perhaps a few hundred thousand years old, and appear as bright red orbs typically with diffraction spikes. When knots with sufficient mass form within the pillars of gas and dust, they begin to collapse under their own gravity, slowly heat up, and eventually form new stars.
Although it may appear that near-infrared light has allowed Webb to “pierce through” the clouds to reveal great cosmic distances beyond the pillars, there are almost no galaxies in this view. Instead, a mix of translucent gas and dust known as the interstellar medium in the densest part of our Milky Way galaxy’s disk blocks our view to much of the deeper universe.
WATCH: Travel 2,000 Light-Years in 60 Seconds With New Video From NASA’s Webb Telescope
A closer look at the edges of some pillars reveal fiery red, wavy lines. These are ejections from stars that are still forming within the gas and dust.
Young stars periodically shoot out supersonic jets that collide with clouds of material, like these thick pillars. This sometimes also results in bow shocks, which can form wavy patterns like a boat does as it moves through water. The crimson glow comes from the energetic hydrogen molecules that result from jets and shocks.
The new image will update astronomer’s star-formation models.
WATCH a video tour of the image from the Webb-site…
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The past quarter century witnessed an unprecedented decline in child poverty rates in the United States.
Today roughly 1 in 10 children live in families whose economic resources are considered below the poverty line, a 59% drop over the last 26 years.
In 1993, the beginning year of this decline, the numbers were more than one in four children, and the magnitude of this decline in child poverty is unequaled in the history of poverty measurement in the United States.
What led to this remarkable decline in child poverty? A report from a research group called Child Trends took a detailed look.
Lower unemployment rates and higher single mothers’ labor force participation can account for some of these results, but economic factors can’t account for it all.
Family configurations played a role as well, including a decrease in the amount of children in immigrant families, lower rates of teen pregnancy, and increases in the rates of children living in two-parent households.
However the highest increases were because of two social safety net programs, the Earned-Income Tax Credit, and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
Delightfully, the report concludes its summary that between 1993 to 2019, poverty rates declined at similar rates for nearly every subgroup of children examined.
This included children in immigrant families and those in non-immigrant families; for Asian/Hawaiian/Pacific Islander children, Black children, Hispanic children, and White children; and for children living in two-parent families and children living with no or one parent.
Child Trends’ report is a reminder that no matter how gloomy the mainstream media wants the world to seem, society keeps improving every day.
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An American firm called Solar Cycle is transforming broken solar panels from landfill waste to valuable raw materials—perfect for making more solar panels.
Copper, aluminum, silver, and silicon are all recovered from panels at the end of their lifecycle, with the company’s new recycling method reducing them to just 2% of their material weight.
A 2016 report by the International Renewable Energy Agency found that likely by the mid 2030s, millions of metric tons of solar panels will be decommissioned, and if a method wasn’t found to economically recycle them, they would probably end up in the landfill.
Some Australian scientists however found a method of electrostatically separating waste streams from solar panels fed into large machine-grade shredders. By removing the aluminum frame, and then shredding the solar cells, the process is profitable and advantageous when shredding small amounts of solar arrays.
The process can chew up 220,000 pounds (1,000 tonnes) of solar panels a year, the rough equivalent to 50,000 panels a year, says lead author Dr. Pablo Dias.
SIMILAR: Dead Solar Panels Are About to Become a Lot More Valuable – a $2.7 Billion Market by 2030
“This is something someone can pick up elsewhere, it doesn’t use any chemicals, it doesn’t emit any hazardous pollution. It produces dust from crushing the panels, but you have dust collectors there,” Dias told the Guardian.
Dias has recently gone to work to apply his technology on behalf of Solar Cycle, who have attracted investment from all over the solar market, like Sun Power, Solar City, and Closed Loop Partners.
“For solar to truly scale to its full potential, we need to create renewable supply chains and a vibrant secondary market for used panels and recycled materials,” Solar Cycle states.
Solar Cycle is currently the only dedicated technology-based recycling company for the solar industry, and they recently closed a deal for end-of-life solar array recycling with their first utility-scale partner, Silicon Ranch, which operates 145 solar power facilities nationwide.
WATCH an interview with their co-founder and see the process in action…
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Jeff Bezos’ former wife MacKenzie Scott has donated $15 million to provide hundreds of thousands of people with eyeglasses.
It’s believed to be the largest private donation towards assisting uncorrected blurry vision, and will help mainly low-income tea, coffee, cocoa and artisan workers in India, Bangladesh, Ghana, Kenya and Uganda.
While it might not be as glamorous as pledging 10 billion dollars to save the world from climate change, the difference a pair of eyeglasses makes is huge, personal, and immediate.
The donation was made to VisionSpring, a non-profit targeting this economic hinderance. It’s believed these workers could produce $1 billion annually in additional value for themselves and their businesses thanks to the increased productivity from being able to see well.
SIMILAR: Big Brothers Big Sisters Receives $122 Million Donation From Mackenzie Scott
“The gift from Ms. Scott is an incredible acknowledgment of the power of a simple pair of eyeglasses to unlock earning, learning, safety and wellbeing for people vulnerable to poverty,” VisionSpring’s chief executive Ella Gudwin said.
“And, with this powerful endorsement of our work, we are embarking on a multi-year journey to put Livelihoods in Focus, addressing the massive vision care gap among agricultural and artisan workers in south Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.”
SIMILAR: If Children Wear This Type of Contact Lens It Can Stave Off Worsening Eyesight, Researchers Say
VisionSpring have highlighted that the benefits of a correct pair of eyeglasses are immediate, leading to reduced anxiety and depression and richer family lives from being able to see loved-ones’ faces and expressions more clearly.
Over time the better vision increases productivity and income, especially in fiddly tasks such as hand-pollinating a cocoa tree for example, or through better acquisition of knowledge at school and work.
The donation was made through Giving Pledge, an organization set up following several commitments from America’s richest to give away half their wealth to charity.
“In addition to whatever assets life has nurtured in me I have a disproportionate amount of money to share,” Scott has said. “My approach to philanthropy will continue to be thoughtful. It will take time and effort and care. But I won’t wait. And I will keep at it until the safe is empty.”
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