All News - Page 345 of 1714 - Good News Network
Home Blog Page 345

White House Bans Paywalls on Any Publication Containing Taxpayer-Funded Research

By
Good News Network
-

The White House ruled this week that scientific research which is taxpayer-supported must be available to the American public at no cost—addressing the expensive paywalls that block online viewing of studies in many journals.

The Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) delivered guidance for agencies to update their public access policies as soon as possible to make publications and research funded by taxpayers publicly accessible immediately upon publishing, without an embargo or cost. All agencies will fully implement updated policies, including ending the optional 12-month embargo.

The current optional embargo allows scientific publishers to put taxpayer-funded research behind a subscription-based paywall – which may block access for innovators for whom the paywall is a barrier, even barring scientists and their academic institutions from access to their own research findings, unless they pay.

POPULAR: Virginia Joins 20 Other States Banning Ticket Quotas For Traffic Cops

The new rule also expands the definition of a “scholarly publication” to include “not only peer-reviewed articles but also book chapters and conference proceedings.”

“When research is widely available to other researchers and the public, it can save lives,” said OSTP head Dr. Alondra Nelson. “The American people fund tens of billions of dollars of cutting-edge research annually. There should be no delay or barrier between the American public and the returns on their investments in research.”

When Joe Biden was Vice President in 2016, he told the American Association for Cancer Research that U.S taxpayers fund $5 billion a year in cancer research. “Right now, you work for years to come up with a significant breakthrough, and if you do, you get to publish a paper in one of the top journals. For anyone to get access to that publication, they have to pay hundreds, or even thousands, of dollars to subscribe to a single journal. And here’s the kicker — the journal owns the data for a year.”

RELATED: U.S. House Passes Bill to Cap Insulin Cost at $35 Per Month

Advocates, researchers, academic libraries, Congressional leaders, and others have long called for greater public access to federally funded research results—and now they will have it.

In the short-term, agencies will work with the OSTP to update their public access and data sharing plans by mid-2023.

SET YOUR SCIENCE FREE – Share the Good News on Social Media…

Brightest Jupiter in 70 Years Appears in the East Two Hours After Sundown Thanks to Near-Perfect “Opposition”

By
Andy Corbley
-
Jupiter with its 2 tiny moons Amalthea and Adrastea – NASA/ESA Image processing by Ricardo Hueso and Judy Schmidt
Jupiter with its 2 tiny moons Amalthea and Adrastea – NASA/ESA Image processing by Ricardo Hueso and Judy Schmidt

Stargazing typically demands that people pry themselves out of bed at 4:30 AM, as the conditions tend to be better.

But in this period anyone can witness a once in 70-year phenomenon merely two hours after sunset.

Jupiter, the solar system’s largest planet, is now the brightest light in the eastern night sky by a country mile. According to the ever-stalwart Jamie Carter over at Forbes, Ole’ Jove hasn’t been this bright in 70 years.

The reason for this is that Jupiter is in perfect opposition to Earth in this period. Jupiter’s revolution around the Sun is much longer, but right now there is a perfect line between the Earth, the Sun, and Jupiter.

“Opposition makes a huge difference when viewing any planet from Earth,” explains Carter.

LOOK: Scientists Stunned by New Jupiter Images With Galaxies ‘Photobombing’ the Webb Telescope

The entire disc of the planet is illuminated in this way, and as well as being visible for longer thanks to early rising and late setting times, the basic fact that the two bodies are the closest that they’ll be to each other makes it the brightest moment.

Perfect opposition will occur on the 26th of September, but even now it’s possible to see 99.7% of its light disk.

Get a pair of good binoculars at least, and you’ll be able to spot some of the larger Jovian moons, Ganymede, Io, Callisto, and Europa.

Just above Jupiter around 10:30 at night, there will be four bright stars known as the “Great Square of Pegasus,” sitting within that constellation. Far to the right will be Saturn.

SHARE This Occasion With Your Stargazing Friends On Social Media…

Your Inspired Weekly Horoscope From Rob Brezsny: A ‘Free Will Astrology’

By
Good News Network
-

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 September 3, 2022
Copyright by Rob Brezsny, FreeWillAstrology.com

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22):
“Now that I’m free to be myself, who am I?” Virgo-born Mary Oliver asks that question to start one of her poems. She spends the rest of the poem speculating on possible answers. At the end, she concludes she mostly longs to be an “empty, waiting, pure, speechless receptacle.” Such a state of being might work well for a poet with lots of time on her hands, but I don’t recommend it for you in the coming weeks. Instead, I hope you’ll be profuse, active, busy, experimental, and expressive. That’s the best way to celebrate the fact that you are now freer to be yourself than you have been in a while.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22):
In her book Tales From Earthsea, Libra-born Ursula K. Le Guin wrote, “What goes too long unchanged destroys itself. The forest is forever because it dies and dies and so lives.” I trust you’re embodying those truths right now. You’re in a phase of your cycle when you can’t afford to remain unchanged. You need to enthusiastically and purposefully engage in dissolutions that will prepare the way for your rebirth in the weeks after your birthday. The process might sometimes feel strenuous, but it should ultimately be great fun.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21):
As a Scorpio, novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky was rarely guilty of oversimplification. Like any intelligent person, he could hold contradictory ideas in his mind without feeling compelled to seek more superficial truths. He wrote, “The causes of human actions are usually immeasurably more complex and varied than our subsequent explanations of them.” I hope you will draw inspiration from his example in the coming weeks, dear Scorpio. I trust you will resist the temptation to reduce colorful mysteries to straightforward explanations. There will always be at least three sides to every story. I invite you to relish glorious paradoxes and fertile enigmas.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21):
Author Zadie Smith praised Sagittarian writer Joan Didion. She says, “I remain grateful for the day I picked up Joan Didion’s Slouching Towards Bethlehem and realized that a woman could speak without hedging her bets, without hemming and hawing, without making nice, without sounding pleasant or sweet, without deference, and even without doubt.” I encourage Sagittarians of every gender to be inspired by Didion in the coming weeks. It’s a favorable time to claim more of the authority you have earned. Speak your kaleidoscopic wisdom without apology or dilution. More fiercely than ever before, embody your high ideals and show how well they work in the rhythms of daily life.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19):
Capricorn novelist Marcia Douglas writes books about the history of her people in Jamaica. In one passage, she writes, “My grandmother used to tell stories about women that change into birds and lizards. One day, a church-going man dared to laugh at her; he said it was too much for him to swallow. My grandmother looked at him and said, ‘I bet you believe Jesus turned water into wine.'” My purpose in telling you this, Capricorn, is to encourage you to nurture and celebrate your own fantastic tales. Life isn’t all about reasonableness and pragmatism. You need myth and magic to thrive. You require the gifts of imagination and art and lyrical flights of fancy. This is especially true now. To paraphrase David Byrne, now is a perfect time to refrain from making too much sense.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18):
To be the best Aquarius you can be in the coming weeks, I suggest the following: 1. Zig when others zag. Zag when others zig. 2. Play with the fantasy that you’re an extraterrestrial who’s engaged in an experiment on planet Earth. 3. Be a hopeful cynic and a cheerful skeptic. 4. Do things that inspire people to tell you, “Just when I thought I had you figured out, you do something unexpected to confound me.” 5. Just for fun, walk backward every now and then. 6. Fall in love with everything and everyone: a D-List celebrity, an oak tree, a neon sign, a feral cat.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20):
A blogger who calls herself HellFresh writes, “Open and raw communication with your partners and allies may be uncomfortable and feel awkward and vulnerable, but it solves so many problems that can’t be solved any other way.” Having spent years studying the demanding arts of intimate relationship, I agree with her. She adds, “The idea that was sold to us is ‘love is effortless and you should communicate telepathically with your partner.’ That’s false.” I propose, Pisces, that you fortify yourself with these truths as you enter the Reinvent Your Relationships Phase of your astrological cycle.

ARIES (March 21-April 19):
In his poem “Autobiographia Literaria,” Aries-born Frank O’Hara wrote, “When I was a child, I played in a corner of the schoolyard all alone. If anyone was looking for me, I hid behind a tree and cried out, ‘I am an orphan.'” Over the years, though, O’Hara underwent a marvelous transformation. This is how his poem ends: “And here I am, the center of all beauty! Writing these poems! Imagine!” In the coming months, Aries, I suspect that you, too, will have the potency to outgrow and transcend a sadness or awkwardness from your own past. The shadow of an old source of suffering may not disappear completely, but I bet it will lose much of its power to diminish you.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20):
In his poem “Auguries of Innocence,” William Blake (1757–1827) championed the ability “to see a World in a Grain of Sand. And a Heaven in a Wild Flower. Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand.” According to my reading of the astrological omens, Taurus, you are primed to do just that in the coming days. You have the power to discern the sacred in the midst of mundane events. The magic and mystery of life will shine from every little thing you encounter. So I will love it if you deliver the following message to a person you care for: “Now I see that the beauty I had not been able to find in the world is in you.”

GEMINI (May 21-June 20):
“The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time,” said philosopher Bertrand Russell. I will add that the time you enjoy wasting is often essential to your well-being. For the sake of your sanity and health, you periodically need to temporarily shed your ambitions and avoid as many of your responsibilities as you safely can. During these interludes of refreshing emptiness, you recharge your precious life energy. You become like a fallow field allowing fertile nutrients to regenerate. In my astrological opinion, now is one of these revitalizing phases for you.

CANCER (June 21-July 22):
“My own curiosity and interest are insatiable,” wrote Cancerian author Emma Lazarus (1849–1887). Inspired by the wealth of influences she absorbed, she created an array of poetry, plays, novels, essays, and translations—including the famous poem that graces the pedestal of America’s Statue of Liberty. I recommend her as a role model for you in the coming weeks, Cancerian. I think you’re ripe for an expansion and deepening of your curiosity. You will benefit from cultivating an enthusiastic quest for new information and fresh influences. Here’s a mantra for you: “I am wildly innocent as I vivify my soul’s education.”

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22):
Blogger Scott Williams writes, “There are two kinds of magic. One comes from the heroic leap, the upward surge of energy, the explosive arc that burns bright across the sky. The other kind is the slow accretion of effort: the water-on-stone method, the soft root of the plant that splits the sidewalk, the constant wind that scours the mountain clean.” Can you guess which type of magic will be your specialty in the coming weeks, Leo? It will be the laborious, slow accretion of effort. And that is precisely what will work best for the tasks that are most important for you to accomplish.

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)

SHARE The Wisdom With Friends Who Are Stars in Your Life on Social Media…

“Live out of your imagination instead of out of your memory.” – Les Brown

By
Good News Network
-

Quote of the Day: “Live out of your imagination instead of out of your memory.” – Les Brown

Photo by: Austin Distel

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?

U.S. to Plug More than 10,000 Abandoned Carbon-Emitting Oil and Gas Wells in 24 States

By
Andy Corbley
-
An old oil well in Texas
An old oil well in Texas

A new program under President Biden’s infrastructure bill is set to plug up more than 10,000 wells of oil and natural gas that have since been abandoned.

Once sources of energy, these derelict wells now act merely as exhaust pipes that emit methane from the basins into which they were drilled, increasing America’s emissions with no return or value of any kind.

The Dept. of the Interior has identified just over 10,000 high priority wells on public lands across 24 states that had been leased for oil and gas drilling.

These are just a fraction of the over 100,000 total derelict wells that need to be dealt with, not only to reduce unnecessary emissions, but serious safety hazards as methane is not safe to breathe, and is also flammable.

“President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law is enabling us to confront long-standing environmental injustices by making a historic investment to plug orphaned wells throughout the country,” said Secretary Deb Haaland.

“At the Department of the Interior, we are working on multiple fronts to clean up these sites as quick as we can by investing in efforts on federal lands and partnering with states and Tribes to leave no community behind.

Of states eligible for funding, 22 have been allocated $25 million each in Initial State Grants. Arkansas and Mississippi will receive $5 million each to support methane measurement and begin plugging wells.

RELATED: U.S. Suspends Oil and Gas Leases in One of Nation’s Largest Wilderness Areas

Oklahoma, Kentucky, have each to their own identified 1,000 or more such wells, while Texas and Louisiana have identified around 800.

Kansas has found more than 2,000 in its state alone.

Climate advocates are proposing wild things like downsizing the beef industry, or culling millions of deer in order to reduce American methane emissions, but it seems a no brainer that the first thing society would do is eliminate sources that do nothing for no one.

CHECK OUT: Oil and Gas Rigs Could Soon Be Reassigned to Fight Climate Crisis by Storing CO2 Emissions

To that effect, the Dept. has found the best, permanent solution to reduce methane emissions.

PIPE Out This Great News To Social Media And Your Friends… 

Audubon Society Enjoys Huge “Tern-Around” in the Puffin and Tern Populations of Maine

By
Andy Corbley
-
Atlantic puffins - CC license - stockvault
Atlantic puffins – CC license – stockvault

50 years worth of conserving the tern and puffin populations in Maine has created a stable colony of thousands of breeding birds.

Located on Petit Manan and other small islands off the coast, the birds have absorbed the worst of climate change during the 2000s, and are returning just as before to large numbers of breeding pairs and fledgling chicks.

Even the wildest gambler wouldn’t have put a penny on the Atlantic puffins of Maine making it out of the 20th century alive, after they were hunted down to just 2 birds by 1902.

Huddled on Matinicus Rock, the remotest spit of land in what today is the Maine Coastal Islands National Wildlife Refuge, an Audubon Society member began bringing down puffin chicks from Newfoundland in 1972 to try and recreate their breeding booms that would cover every square inch of rock in squawking chicks a century earlier.

Today there are more than 1,300 pairs of puffins across several islands, mostly on Eastern Egg Rock, Seal Island, and Matinicus Rock. The project was the first one in history that restored a seabird to an offshore island where it had been extirpated by humans.

On Petit Manan, another of the islands, the arrival of puffins was a happy accident. The more native bird has also faced dire plights.

Common, Arctic, and roseate terns sheltered on the island in their thousands. Then a lighthouse manned for decades by the U.S. Coast Guard was, in the late 1970s, automated. This abandonment caused an imbalance in the number of gulls that kept nests there.

This imbalance was corrected in the 80s after the terns all but left the island entirely, and the terns return. By the turn of the millennia there were 2,500 breeding pairs.

project puffin islands – Audubon society

It seemed that these delicate coastal bird sanctuaries were in the clear, but warming waters and shorter springs, winters, and autumns began devastating the populations as the cold water fish species the puffins and terns preyed on stayed further out to sea.

RELATED: Island is Wonderland for Penguins Once Again After Dog Helps Eradicate 300,000 Invasive Rabbits

Harsher sun damaged the cold and wet-loving native plant life, and nests became harder and harder to build.

A number of students and conservationists that make up Project Puffin, an Audubon Society success story that watches over the Maine islands, have been blown away by the resilience of these birds.

In 2009 the puffin breeding pairs fell to a bleak 47, while only 16% of all tern chicks reached adolescence.

Using leg bands, the teams at Project Puffin keep track of birds they capture and release for research. Return of cooler weather over the years has meant they’re finding more and more chicks reaching adulthood, more and more adults settling down to breed, and some migrating terns racking up a speech-stealing 2.3 million migratory miles.

One puffin was found to have reached 35 years of age.

“When you hold a bird that travels like it does and it looks into your eyes and you look into its eyes, I constantly wonder what is going on it its mind,” Kaiulani Sund, a 21-year-old senior at Gettysburg College, told Environmental Health News.

READ MORE: Birdwatchers Flock to See Rare 8-ft Raptor After ​Huge Russian Eagle Takes Detour into Maine

Project Puffin gets incredibly anxious around spring hatching season since the difference between a normal year and a bad year in terms of temperatures and food availability can be so impactful on these delicate and wonderful avians. But they soldier on, building artificial puffin burrows, introducing more students from more schools to the project, and hoping for cooler winters.

TWEET On Social Media About This Squawking-Great News…

Machine Just Turned Martian Atmosphere Into Pure Oxygen Just Like a Little Tree

By
Andy Corbley
-
purple coating mars perseverence released NASA, JPL-CALTECH, MSSS
NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover took this selfie over a rock on September 10, 2021 Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

A small device brought recently to Mars just created breathable oxygen out of the Red Planet’s carbon dioxide-rich atmosphere.

While the Perseverance Rover’s search for life has capitalized most of the headlines, additional equipment brought along like “Moxie” (Mars oxygen in-situ resource utilization experiment) and the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter, have both been totally successful.

Sustaining a human presence on Mars would require breathable oxygen, which is obviously too much of a burden to transport in cylinders aboard the limited cargo of a spacecraft. Fortunately, scaled up versions of the newly-tested Moxie, which is currently about the size of a school lunchbox, could do the oxygen-emitting work of over 100 trees, and be hooked up directly to a habitation.

“This is the first demonstration of actually using resources on the surface of another planetary body, and transforming them chemically into something that would be useful for a human mission,” said Moxie deputy principal investigator Jeffrey Hoffman.

SIMILAR: Mysterious Purple Coating Found on Mars Rocks in Every Direction

By the end of 2021, Moxie had been able to continue producing oxygen at consistent rates of 6 grams per hour through day and night, and through a variety of weather conditions. This is about the same as a single grown-up tree.

Along with providing a permanent human settlement on Mars with air, the oxygen can be turned into rocket propellent for return journeys to Earth through a fairly straightforward chemical engineering process.

“The only thing we have not demonstrated is running at dawn or dusk, when the temperature is changing substantially,” said principal investigator of the Moxie mission at MIT, Michael Hecht.

“We do have an ace up our sleeve that will let us do that, and once we test that in the lab, we can reach that last milestone to show we can really run any time.”

A full-size system could run for thousands of hours without any problems if it’s proven to be consistent even while constantly switching on and off, Hecht says.

When Elon Musk developed the concept of a mission to Mars, robotic exploration proponents and comedians alike joked that it would be a one-way ticket.

KEEP READING: Huge Supply of Water Discovered on Mars, Frozen at the Bottom of its Grand Canyon

But there’s no accounting for scientific advancement, and the ability to produce oxygen in the Martian atmosphere turns the idea from a robotic-centered colony or a billionaire’s playground into a much more believable concept.

SHARE This Breath Of Fresh Air On Social Media…

Genius Scarecrow Competition Attracts Thousands to Village – LOOK

By
Andy Corbley
-
The Brinklow Scarecrow festival in Warwickshire has returned and it will run until September 2, 2022. Various scarecrow displays stretch across the village and includes more than 75 exhibits. This year's trail continues to raise money for the local community and is the biggest scarecrow festival in the Midlands. See SWNS story SWLNscarecrow. August 31, 2022.
The Brinklow Scarecrow festival – SWNS.

Thousands of people flocked to a little English village to see homeowners decorate their properties with comical creations as part of an annual scarecrow competition.

Resident have been turning heads with their weird and wacky scarecrows placed outside their homes in Brinklow, Warwickshire.

More than 80 incredible displays have been erected throughout the picturesque village, including non-fictional creations like Prime Minster Boris Johnson relaxing on a deckchair, and fictional ones like ET and Elliot talking off from a front garden in a bicycle.

Elsewhere, Spiderman can be seen dangling from one family’s tree while a giant pairs of legs stick out of another.

The Minions, Mr. Bean, Edward Scissorhands, Shrek, The Queen and the characters from the Wizard of Oz make up some of the other funny displays.

This edition of the Brinklow Scarecrow Festival was special and well anticipated, as it was returning for the first time in three years following the COVID-19 pandemic.

SWNS photo
The Brinklow Scarecrow festival – SWNS

“It’s just a good bit of fun and after the last couple of years we’ve had that’s what we can all do with,” said 66-year-old resident Peter Cox.

“Everybody goes all out to create these wonderful scarecrows, a lot of time and effort goes into it and if I’m honest, people get a bit competitive too.”

“But it’s all part of the fun and its lovely to see so many people come from all over to see them in our little village.”

Visitors were also treated to flybys from a Royal Air Force Hurricane fighter jet and by a rare Lancaster bomber, as well as live bands and children’s rides.

The Brinklow Scarecrow festival in Warwickshire – SWNS

It’s everything someone could want from a small town festival.

KEEP READING: Going to Festivals Can Connect You to Humanity, Make You More Likely to Help Strangers for 6 Months: Yale

Now in its fourth year, the last event raised over £15,000 for charity.

SEE all the entries below… 

SCARE The Bad News Crows Away With This Charming Village Festival…

“You get in life what you have the courage to ask for.” – Nancy D. Solomon

By
Good News Network
-

Quote of the Day: “You get in life what you have the courage to ask for.” – Nancy D. Solomon

Photo by: Michael Spain

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?

Humble Leaders Inspire Greater Cooperation Among Teachers – and Workers of All Kinds

By
Andy Corbley
-

Leaders of teacher groups who were thought of as humble helped improve professionalism and collaboration among team members, new research has shown.

In the study done in China, groups of teachers were more willing to share their knowledge and expertise when they rated the leader of their meeting group as being higher in humility.

The reason was that humble leaders made teachers feel more empowered to share their knowledge because they felt psychologically safe to take risks, said study co-author Roger Goddard, professor of educational studies at Ohio State University.

“A little humility on the part of leaders goes a long way in helping groups be more productive and collaborative,” Goddard said.

“When people feel their leader admits mistakes and is open to learning from others, everyone contributes more and makes these groups more effective.”

In the United States and elsewhere, “professional learning communities” (PLCs) are designed to facilitate the sharing between teachers of their best practices and experiences in the classroom.

In China, the equivalent of PLCs are called Teaching Research Groups (TRGs). The leaders of TRGs are experienced teachers who are not traditional administrators, but do serve as supervisors and coordinators and are involved in teacher evaluations, lesson planning and teacher selection.

The study involved 537 teachers from 238 TRGs in a variety of both urban and rural schools in China.

Teachers rated their TRG leaders on three dimensions of humility: their willingness to view themselves accurately, such as admitting when they didn’t know how to do something; their appreciation of others’ strengths; and their teachability, such as being open to other teachers’ advice.

CHECK OUT: Having Muslim Soccer Champion on English Team Has Led to Dramatic Drop in Hate Crime, Islamophobia

Results showed that teachers who rated their TRG leaders as being higher in humility were more likely to report that they shared their knowledge and expertise in TRG meetings.

“The whole point of these groups is for teachers to share their knowledge, so the fact that humble leaders inspired individuals in their groups to be more willing to do this is very significant,” Goddard said.

The study determined that humble leaders were so effective in helping their teachers share their knowledge because of the sense of psychological safety their humility provided; they gave the TRG the confidence to share experiences that might not automatically be viewed positively.

That feeling of safety led them to feel more psychologically empowered: They felt their jobs had meaning, they had autonomy to do their work, and they felt they were competent and that their work had impact in the school.

“This feeling of teachers that they could safely share their knowledge comes from having a leader who has humility—an openness to learning from others, a willingness to revise opinions, and an appreciation for the strengths of others,” he said.

While this research was done in China, Goddard said he believes the results would be similar in the United States and elsewhere.

RELATED: Humble College Professor is Putting All of His Nobel Prize Money Towards His Students’ Education

“There’s a lot of evidence that suggests trust is a key part of successful organizations. And feeling psychologically safe and empowered to share your knowledge in the workplace is part of building trust, and that’s what humble leaders help create,” he said.

“That is as true in the United States as it is in China.”

In the same way, the results should be applicable outside of education.

“Many of the same principles that make successful organizations cut across cultures and fields.  It makes sense that humble leaders will build trust and better relationships that will increase the effectiveness of any groups that have to work together,” Goddard said.

SHARE This Team Building News With Your Own Team On Social Media…

Man Organizes Redo of School Football Match After 50 Years of Feeling Guilty for Scoring Dubious Goal

By
Andy Corbley
-
Graeme Jones (far right) with teammates on August 27, 2022 (and 50 years ago) in Heswall, Wirral, England – SWNS
Graeme Jones (far right) with teammates on August 27, 2022 (and 50 years ago) in Heswall, Wirral, England – SWNS

An Englishman has organized a replay of a school football match after 50 years of feeling guilty for scoring ‘foul’ goal.

Graeme Jones admitted to shoving a goalkeeper who had the ball in his hands, “ten yards” over the goal line in the dying seconds of a match to earn a “dubious” draw in September, 1972.

But the former Royal Navy training instructor said he was determined to “put right a wrong” after learning of the result’s lasting impact on his aggrieved local rivals.

It was no mean feat either, as Jones had to spend 18 months assembling the same line-up from the Gayton Primary School team, in the Wirral, who took on St Peter’s School half a century ago.

And before Saturday’s game (Aug 27), they even recreated an old squad photo that had appeared in a local paper when they were just ten years old.

Graeme’s bitter rivals went on to take a stunning 6-2 win in the one-off geriatric grudge match.

SIMILAR: Player’s Honesty Costs Him the Match, But Wins Hearts w/ Sportsmanship

And though he was left feeling disappointed with the final result, Graeme said he could now put his “demons to bed”.

“We got stuffed because they had to bring on a couple of [younger players],” said Jones. “But my demons have been put to bed and my conscience is clear now, and we would have still lost regardless.”

“As I said before if we lose, we lose, and I wanted to turn a wrong into a right.”

It became all the more urgent to put the matter to bed, since during 2020 lockdowns when the idea of organizing the game came to Jones, he discovered that his neighbor from the St. Peter’s team had never forgiven him for playing dirty all those years ago.

“He told me, ‘I remember that game, and I’ve never forgiven you,'” said Jones. “‘You shoved the goalkeeper about ten feet behind the line in the corner kick in the dying minute, and your school PE teacher [the referee] gave the goal.”

“I was a center-half back in the day, and I just came up and bulldozed my way through,” he reminisced. “You wouldn’t get away with it today.”

Over the next couple of years, Graeme went about tracking down every former player who’d been in his school team’s original starting line-up. He had to bully a few and plead to others, but he managed to get the exact, albeit greyer, starting team as before.

Assembled team of 1970s rivals from the infamous game at Gayton Primary School – SWNS

Graeme even managed to get in contact with his former PE teacher, Alan Jones, who had awarded his team their controversial last gasp equalizer. Graeme was amazed to find that Jones is still alive, fit, and healthy in his early to mid-80s. The former-teacher observed the coin toss for first possession to ensure there was no foul play.

The two teams played a 30-minute-a-side match at nearby Heswall football club’s ground, with a raffle set up to help buy Graeme’s old school a new team kit.

RELATED: Little League Batter Hit in the Head Embraces Devastated Pitcher in Inspiring Display Sportsmanship –WATCH

And though Jones said that “the best parts of him are in a hospital bin” and that the team of golden oldies wouldn’t attempt another match, he said they would continue to meet up and renew their bonds following the now iconic fixture, with 522 years of memories between them all.

SHARE This Charming Display Of A Man And His Karma On Social Media…

A Tribute to Mikhail Gorbachev – The Man Who Ended The Cold War (1931–2022)

By
Andy Corbley
-
Gorbachev - CC 3.0. Yuriy Somov
Gorbachev – CC 3.0. Yuriy Somov

Credited with peacefully bringing about the end of the Cold War, former Soviet President Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev has died at age 91 after a long illness.

Trying to imagine an alternative history of humanity without Mikhail Gorbachev is almost scary.

That’s because without Gorbachev, the Cold War would very likely have escalated into more dangerous heights, as advancing technology continued to modernize the nuclear capabilities of the USSR and USA.

As the Soviet Union’s catastrophic attempt to centrally-plan human economics worsened ever more as the decades passed, one shudders to think how a collapsing empire would have handled the nuclear stand-off that persisted for so many years. Perhaps that’s why Gorbachev was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

He served as the final President of the Soviet Union, having instituted democratic reforms and a new election for president, before resigning during the collapse of the Berlin Wall.

A 2017 survey carried out by the independent institute Levada Center found that 46% of Russian citizens have a negative opinion towards Gorbachev, while 30% are indifferent, and only 15% have a positive opinion—but most Westerners see him as one of the greatest statesman of the second half of the 20th century, regardless of what flag they are standing behind.

He had the truly indomitable courage to accept the fact that after 40 years of attempts, and countless lives spent in the process, the Soviet experiment had failed its people.

He initiated “glasnost” and “perestroika” in the USSR—which demanded more openness in government—a new way of democratic thinking, and restructuring of his society.

With the courage of a great statesman, he faced down the paranoia and entrenched military and global arms manufacturing interests as he tried to rid the world of the terror of nuclear weapons by negotiating—and signing—an arms treaty with US President Reagan.

When he was challenged by his former foe to ‘Tear down that wall,’ he did it, which led to the reunification of Germany and freedom for citizens to travel.

After retiring from politics, “Gorby”, as he was affectionately known, founded Green Cross International, which works like a Red Cross for the environment.

Watch an obituary video below…

HAIL the Red Reformer on Social Media By Sharing…

“It has been my philosophy of life that difficulties vanish when faced boldly.” ― Isaac Asimov

By
Good News Network
-

Quote of the Day: “It has been my philosophy of life that difficulties vanish when faced boldly.” – Isaac Asimov

Photo by: Ramazan Tokay

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?

This Group Has Rerouted 250 Million Pounds of Food From Landfills to Feed People in Need

By
Andy Corbley
-
- released by Jen Serena Food Forward.
– released by Jen Serena Food Forward.

A Los Angeles-based non-profit is helping reroute perishing produce to communities in need of more fresh fruits and veggies all over the country.

A combination of inflationary governmental fiscal policy and the centrally-planned response to COVID-19 has really damaged the ability of rural or food-desert-based communities to buy fresh produce.

Since 2009, Food Forward has rerouted 250 million pounds of food from landfills and delivered over a billion servings of fresh produce to food insecure communities.

Based in Southern California, Food Forward have mastered the logistical challenge of rerouting produce destined for landfills to communities that need it. SoCal is both the largest exporter and importer of produce in the country, making them perfectly placed.

From its refrigerated food distribution center in south east LA, the group works with 350 direct partners coordinating food donations, which have so far made it out to 12 California counties, six other states, and two Tribal nations.

“We understood workflows well enough, we understood efficiencies, we understood the network and how food flows through the L.A. area, the contiguous county, and the region,” CEO Rick Nahmias told Civileats.

SIMILAR: Kroger Donates $500,000 Facility to Rival Grocery Store So Community Won’t Be Left Without a Supermarket

“We’re all kind of under this umbrella, feeling like the last 10 years for Food Forward were a dress rehearsal for the pandemic.”

Coming out of the centrally-planned chaos of the pandemic, Food Forward feels they are getting a grip on the demand for fresh produce rather than reacting to it in difficult or emergency circumstances.

There are as many problems in this line of work as a CEO could stomach. Chief among them is the fact that often the food has just days of shelf life left. Nahmias credits his team’s nimbleness and excellent reactivity to the success that saw them win 2018 CA non-profit of the year.

ALSO READ: Charity Rescues So Much Food From Landfill, It Opens a ‘Pay What You Feel’ Grocery Store To Share Tons of Produce

Their operation is so tight that every $1 donated allows them to redirect 10 pounds of produce from restaurants, grocery stores, or farms before sending them to communities that rarely get to buy a bright red tomato or a crisp head of romaine.

Keeping that perishing produce out of landfills also reduces methane gas emissions from its decomposition, reducing America’s methane footprint after about ten years.

DISTRIBUTE This Good News The On Social Media Of Your Choice…

New Yorkers With Pot Convictions Will Now Be the First to Get the Opportunity to Sell It

By
Andy Corbley
-
A New York dispensary - CC 4.0. Tdorante10
A New York dispensary – CC 4.0. Tdorante10

American criminal records are filled with non-violent cannabis possession charges, but in New York, that could soon go from being an employment hinderance to a lucrative employment opportunity.

New Yorkers with past cannabis conviction charges will be the first to have the opportunity to obtain a Conditional Adult-Use Retail Dispensary licenses.

Once the center of “stop and frisk,” the 2021 legalization of cannabis for adult use in the state of New York was underpinned by a commitment to benefit those most harmed by war on drug policies.

The Marijuana Regulation and Taxation Act looked at other states’ similar bills and found that due to excessive regulations, the largest cannabis industry leaders cobbled up most of the opportunities.

But because the war on drugs for so long has terrorized black and brown minority individuals, it only seemed right to let them be the first ones to receive an economic boon from the newly-legalized substance.

“We think that leaning into folks who [have past convictions], but have that business experience means that we’re going to find a bunch of applicants who have gone through some significant challenges to still open and operate successful businesses,” Office of Cannabis Management executive director Chris Alexander said in an interview, according to Politico.

SIMILAR: Luxembourg Becomes the First European Country to Legalize Growing and Consuming Cannabis

“We just took a different approach.”

Dispensary licenses are available now through September 26th to those with prior cannabis-related convictions, or who have a family member with the same.

Applicants must have some kind of business experience and some kind of asset, for example a car registered in New York state or a rental contract, tying them to the state.

RELATED: Cannabis-Fed Chickens May Cut Antibiotic Use on Thailand Farms

“Successful applicants will receive aid from a $200 million Social Equity Cannabis Investment Fund, which was created to help finance the leasing and equipping of up to 150 dispensaries across the state,” reports Politico.

Turn Over This New Leaf In New York Justice On Social Media…

California Begins Covering Canals with Solar Panels to Fight Drought

By
Andy Corbley
-
Rendering, Solar AquaGrid
Rendering, Solar AquaGrid

State utilities in California are preparing to launch a pilot project to cover California’s irrigation canals in solar panels.

The decision was influenced by a landmark 2021 research paper, where scientists at Univ. of California Santa Cruz crunched the numbers and figured that the panels would save 63.5 billion gallons of water from evaporation annually by shading the flowing water.

Turlock Irrigation District Water & Power is preparing two pilot canal projects: a 500-foot (152-meter) curved canal section near the town of Hickman, and a second mile-long (1.6-km long) straightaway in nearby Ceres.

GNN reported last year that the UC Santa Cruz investigation found that for every megawatt of solar energy generated during Turlock’s 290 days of average sunshine, the pairing of panels over canals could replace 15-20 diesel generators used to pump water along the canals.

Called Project Nexus, the work is slated to begin this October with funding of $20 million from the state’s coffers.

SIMILAR: Huge Supply of Water is Saved From Evaporation When Solar Panels Are Built Over Canals

Along with preventing evaporation, reducing the land clearance needed for solar farms, and boosting green energy output, the canal-mounted panels have the added benefit of longer functional lifespans, as the water underneath keeps the panels’ undersides cooler.

This idea actually began in the Indian state of Gujarat in 2014, when a pilot project covering 750 meters of canal space led to the creation of an entire canal-topped solar plant in Vadodara District, and another one totaling 100 megawatts off the Narmada River.

Researchers in India found that the water running beneath the panels cooled them, too, preventing overheating and resulting in an average efficiency increase of between 2-5%.

There are around 4,000 miles of canals in California, which could produce up to 13 gigawatts of power which would cover around 750,000 homes, or around half of Los Angeles.

RELATED: Irrigation System Talks to Plants to Find Out When they Need Water — Cutting Water Use by 30-50%

“It’s really exciting to test our hypothesis and the paper we published. We’ll have an opportunity to really understand if those benefits pencil out in the real world,” Brandi McKuin, one of the lead investigators at UC Santa Cruz, told Reuters.

(Note: GNN has no affiliation with any ads displayed in the following video)

Create A FLOW Of Good News Out To Your People On Social Media…

Man is Reunited With Sentimental Ring From Mom–After Losing it Picking Berries 50 Years Ago

By
Andy Corbley
-
- SWNS
– SWNS

A man has been reunited with a ring he lost while picking fruit over 50 years ago.

It was gifted by his late mother for his 21st birthday, but slipped off his finger as he picked strawberries in 1968.

Retired train engineer Dave Radley spent several distraught hours trying to locate the ring among the rows of bushes.

He was picking strawberries in the field behind a friend’s father’s house to sell that morning when he suddenly realized the ring was no longer on his finger. He had received the 9 carat gold ring as a present just weeks before, but the fit wasn’t quite right.

In a stroke of luck, last month a metal detectorist who received a tip from the land-owner about the lost ring made the discovery.

SIMILAR: Renaissance Masterpiece Found Hanging in 90-Year-Old Woman’s Bedroom

54 years after the signet ring ran off, Dave got a call from his friend’s brother Peter who still owns the land. A metal detectorist working for Peter asked if he could detect in the very same field where the item had been lost, to which Peter agreed and informed him about the missing ring.

It was found seven inches deep in the ground with only one slight scratch ready to be polished out, and Dave went to collect it from Leicestershire later that week.

“The ring might not have changed but its owner has—so it’s a fairly tight fit,” Radley said.  “I’ve had to have it changed slightly as I can just about get it on. But none of that matters because I’m so grateful to have it back”.

“My family wasn’t too well off in those days and I spent hours searching for it on the rows we had been. My mother wasn’t upset with me, just more upset because of how distraught I was.”

“When I got the call from Peter I couldn’t quite believe it—the joy I felt in that moment is indescribable.”

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

Radley said that a jeweler near to his home priced it at £700, which he said demonstrated just how much his mom had gone out of her way to surprise him.

REVEL In Dave’s Joy By Sharing This Story On Social Media…

“Give me strength to defeat my greatest enemy, the doubts within myself.” – P.C. Cast

By
Good News Network
-

Quote of the Day: “Give me strength to defeat my greatest enemy, the doubts within myself.” – P.C. Cast

Photo by: Elyas Pasban (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?

Canada Schoolteacher Finds Fossil that May Be 300 Million Years Old and Could Re-Write Fossil Record

By
Andy Corbley
-
Released by Laura MacNeill)
Released by Laura MacNeill

A discovery which paleontologists are calling the find of a lifetime was recently turned up by a school teacher in Canada.

It could be 300 million years old, and is probably at least a prehistoric species new to science, and at most a “once-in-100-years” find that could go so far as to rewrite the fossil record.

Lisa Cormier was taking a walk down on Cape Egmont in southwest Prince Edward Island (PEI) when she found what looked like a skeleton.

There were the head, ribs, and spine; all pressed into the stone like a fossil. Taking pictures and sending them to her mother sent off a chain reaction that had geologists and paleontologists racing to the cape.

It was a fossil, and John Calder who is an expert in prehistoric PEI, told CBC news it was “extremely rare.”

“A fossil like this comes up every 50 years or 100 years,” he said. “I mean there’s no real frequency, but it’s rare. And this could be a one-of-a-kind fossil in the tree of life … of evolution of amphibians, to reptiles, to mammals to us.”

Calder believes it’s an early reptile from after their class broke off from amphibians during the Carboniferous period, around 300 million years ago. Few specimens exist from this era, and so getting a bead on where it’s located in the evolution of reptiles, or even its place in absolute time, could be very tricky.

The scientist also advised beachcombers to be on the lookout, as not only are prehistoric finds becoming more common, but there are a lot more beachcombers that there are paleontologists.

RELATED: Spectacular Fossils Discovered from Prehistoric Rainforest Reveal Intimate Details From 11 Million Years Ago

“To think that I found something that might be 300 million years old, it’s incredible,” Cormier said. “I think it’s gonna be a one time [thing], but I’ll continue my walks and I’m going to continue to look for sea glass and maybe I’ll find something else.”

REWRITE The Bad News With This Good Discovery From Canada…

Boston Officers Rescue Father and Son Floating on Cooler

By
Andy Corbley
-
- released body cam footage
– released body cam footage

When a father and son’s fishing boat hit rocks out from Boston Harbor, their lives were saved in part thanks to their desire for some liquid libations on board.

While the headline sounds like a barrel of laughs, 15 minutes of frigid Atlantic waters almost caused the pair to enter hypothermia.

Two officers from the Boston Harbor police unit were on patrol when they got the call about a sinking ship.

When they arrived on the scene, all that could be spotted bobbing about was a turquoise cooler, on which were dangling a pair of life-preservers.

The whole rescue was caught on the officers’ body cameras, during which the son requests that the police help his father up before himself.

Again, what appears in the video to be a simple act of pulling oneself onto a boat belies the fact that the simple act of recruiting muscle fibers becomes extremely difficult since cold transmitted through water immersion chills the body 25x faster than air.

Both men are no worse for wear for their time at sea, and the cooler was presumably saved and set aside for the next time they cast off.

WATCH Inside Edition go through the body cam footage…

SHARE This Remarkable Rescue Story And The Heroic Cooler’s Actions…

1...344345346...1,714Page 345 of 1,714
© Copyright 1997–2026 GNN, LLC