The Black man who was wrongly accused by a White woman in New York City while he was birdwatching is set to star in a new National Geographic TV series—and he intends to inspire viewers with his lifelong hobby.
Christian Cooper, the lifelong bird-watcher, has been spying crows, cardinals and catbirds since he was ten.
The channel announced this week that the 59-year-old will host a new nature series called Extraordinary Birder.
“Christian Cooper takes us into the wild, wonderful and unpredictable world of birds.”
“Whether braving stormy seas in Alaska for puffins, trekking into rainforests in Puerto Rico for parrots, or scaling a bridge in Manhattan for a peregrine falcon, he does whatever it takes to learn about these extraordinary feathered creatures and show us the remarkable world in the sky above.”
In May of 2020, Cooper was bird-watching at The Ramble in Central Park when he asked her to put a leash on her dog. She called the police claiming he was an “African-American man threatening my life.”
A 3D image of the LIDAR survey showing the urban-agrarian culture that existed in the southern Amazon, capable of sophisticated engineering, irrigation, and social organization –Courtesy of Deutsches Archäologisches Institut, Bonn, courtesy of Heiko Prümers
Reprinted with permission from World At Large, a news website of nature, politics, science, health, and travel.
A 3D image of the LIDAR survey showing the urban-agrarian culture that existed in the southern Amazon, capable of sophisticated engineering, irrigation, and social organization –Courtesy of Deutsches Archäologisches Institut, Bonn, courtesy of Heiko Prümers
If one searches “Casarabe Culture” in a search engine, they won’t find much. Maybe they will see a Wikipedia article for the town of Casarabe in Bolivia less than 10 words long.
However a paper published this week in Nature reveals that down in an alluvial plane in Bolivia’s Llanos de Mojos savannah in southwest Amazonia, flourished an agrarian low-density urban society for 900 years, building hundreds of acres of monumental earthworks, canals, walls and fortifications, and large pyramids.
The Casarabe culture transformed and lived off the land in way few archeologists and historians believed possible for the Amazon.
The sparsely populated region in the north of Bolivia has suffered little disturbance over the years, and since 1960 archeology has known that extensive evidence of earthworks was to be found in the plane—everything from causeways and mounds to potential artificial islands.
However after working in the area for 20 years, archeologist Dr. Heiko Prümers led a LIDAR survey to get an idea of the total extent of the civilized area, and has revealed details of a major continental civilization that grew maize and yuca equal to and exceeding at times the size and efficiency of similar areas in Medieval Europe.
“We have got something in the Amazon region that nobody expected, but that we know existed,” says Prümers.
“Now it’s obvious that this region of the world like many other tropical regions, like Mexico, or Angkor in Cambodia or some cities in Sri Lanka that are located in tropical regions, they are not the “green deserts” that have been imaged for a long time”.
The Beni Savannah ecoregion in the Llanos de Mojos, where trees and watery scrub dominate the landscape, concealing the remains of a massive semi-urban environment. – By Sam Beebe. CC 2.0
Tree-scrubbing
For two reasons, an established orthodoxy led archeologists to believe that the Mayan Civilization was uniquely exceptional among tropical forest-dwelling Mesoamerican societies. The first is the immense scale of the Mayan cities, and the second is the well-known fact that tropical soils are poor for any kind of centralized food production.
Okay, so the famous calendar makers aside, the old orthodox still applied for years to people further south, in Amazonia, where even poorer conditions left them imagined as simple subsistence farmers of little societal, or technological development.
With LIDAR (light-detection and ranging) Prümers et al. were able to map the precise contours of a 204 square kilometer piece of land without any interference from the trees or marshes, effectively scrubbing away anything that would impede the vision of a satellite photo. What was revealed were 24 sites, roughly half of which were unknown, all built of raised earthen mounds, including two remarkably large sites of 284 and 778 acres each (147 and 315 hectares).
“The scale of the architectural remnants at these sites, which include earthen pyramids that once towered more than 20 meters over the surrounding savannah, cannot be overstated and is on a par with that of any ancient society,” wrote Christopher Fisher, a geo-anthropologist at Colorado State Univ. Fort Collins, who wasn’t involved in the study.
The civic-ceremonial architecture of these large settlement sites, called Cotoca, and Landivar, includes stepped platforms, on top of which lie U-shaped structures, rectangular platform mounds and conical pyramids up to 22 meters tall.
Extending out in a 500 square kilometer area from the center of Cotoca, long straight causeways connected various raised mounts of smaller scope, suggesting that Cotoca’s urbanism sprawled about, but was slightly contained by, the low-lying watered ground.
Area surveyed in Amazon, courtesy of Deutsches Archäologisches Institut in Bonn – by Heiko Prümers
“All these settlements are embedded in a human-engineered landscape with a massive water-control system designed to maximize food surpluses to support the large Casarabe population,” writes Fisher.
Who were the Casarabe?
Known to have existed down in Llanos de Mojos from 500 CE to 1400 CE, the Casarabe culture take their name from a modern day town near to where the sites like Cotoca and Landivar were first found. They were chiefly agriculturalists, and also great movers of earth.
“At the same time the Casarabe developed we have in the Andes the culture of Tiwanaku, a very big imperium that stretched from the Chilean coast to La Paz in Bolivia,” Dr. Prümers explained to WaL in an interview.
“That’s one of the intriguing things we have to resolve in the future,” he said, noting the lack of evidence for contact between Casarabe and Tiwanaku. “Of course there must have been a relationship in some context, but in the archeological record there’s little evidence of that”.
“They’re not hunter-gatherers like some people have maintained until now. They cultivated maize, yucca maybe, so I think we must imagine a type of culture just like in Europe at that time, with the same kind of villages and small cities. Cotoca would very much be the same as a Medieval city of that time in Europe—it’s walled, it has a core area with administrative and ceremonial purposes”.
“We are lucky in the sense that this region is very poorly populated in the last 900 years, so there’s been very little modern disturbances,” says Prümers.
“Just imagine you are working 20 years in that region like we did, and you have to explain to someone not familiar with the archeology of the region, and they’re asking what is special about that culture—you’d need an hour to explain it,” he said. “Now we just show the images, and everybody will say ‘wow, yes it’s obvious that it’s something big’”.
The moving of earth to create these structures was remarkable, and on par with some of the greatest earth-moving societies of the period. The central cityscapes of Landivar and Cotoca were built on a raised platform assembled in Landivar’s case by moving 275,000 cubic meters of soil, and in Cotoca’s with roughly 570,000 cubic meters of soil, about ten-times as much as was moved to create Akapana, a similar site in Tiwanaku.
The spaced circles around the perimeter of the Cotoca site, pictured here, were walls with a moat in the middle for defense. The straight-ish lines were causeways that connected the center to various hamlets, while the lines moving off to the right marks the terminus of a 7-kilometer canal from Laguna San José to Cotoca. Courtesy of Deutsches Archäologisches Institut, Bonn, courtesy of Heiko Prümers.
Of comparisons, there is only one—Cahokia, the pre-Colombian city-state near St. Louis in Missouri, which built raised earthen mounds totaling into the millions of cubic meters.
“Cahokia is a very good example to compare with, especially the history of the investigation; because for a long time it was dispelled as the idea of an important [regional center,] now we know that it was, and it’s one of the largest structures ever constructed in the New World,” says Prümers. “The Cotoca site is not as huge as Cohokia, but it’s not so far away”.
As notable as the massive moving of earth is the complete lack within the Casarabe archeological record of any kind of widespread evidence of stones. They must have had some, but only for making small tools. Dr. Prümers explains.
“During our excavations in almost 10 years, maybe we’ve found one or two kilos of stone, and that stone was imported from the Andes!” he said.
As for the indigenous population, they are well-informed and involved in the project, reports Prümers.
It’s fascinating to think that these earth-moving corn famers would survive 900 years, more than 3-times as long as the current American culture. It clearly wasn’t just large earthworks they built, but a strong enduring foundation, which is now up to people like Prümers to try and preserve into the ages.
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Quote of the Day: “To attract something that you want, become as joyful as you think that thing would make you.” – Martha Beck
Photo by: Anastasiia Tarasova
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They share the same father, are the same age, and have lived in the same city for over 30 years.
Yet, each sister was unaware of the other’s existence, having been born to different mothers separated through unfortunate circumstances 51 years ago. They’ve reunited recently, however, after a DNA test, and it’s absolutely spooky how much they have in common.
Their kids graduated on the same day from the identical high school in Las Vegas, with each sister attending the graduation and shooting videos of the ceremony from different angles.
Michele Dugan was the one who went to foster care and was later adopted, while her sister, Trish Morgan, remained with their father and Trish’s birth mother.
Three years ago Michele decided it was time she discovered where she came from and signed up for Ancestry.com. To her surprise, she received a message from a woman named Trish asking to meet for coffee.
“It was like looking at a ghost,” said Morgan. “The blue eyes, the hair, everything. So I couldn’t stop staring at her. Like, you’re definitely my sister—for sure 1,000 percent.”
They spent hours sipping and chatting about their lives, trying to catch up for lost decades.
They were amazed not only by the fact that their sons were the same age and walking the same school hallways, but that they both had a background in real estate.
Trish had enrolled in real estate school but had not yet received her certification. Michelle was something of a Las Vegas real estate legend, having worked in the industry for nearly 25 years. This shared career passion made teaming up an obvious next step.
Michele encouraged Trish to get her certification and together they soon launched ‘Sisters Selling Vegas’ for the Realty ONE Group.
“It was the universe talking,” said Michele, who was at somewhat of a low point in her life.
“I was so busy. I remember saying to someone, ‘I need another me. I need someone who really likes to work and cater to clients and is not just in it for the paycheck, but in it for all the right reasons.’ And there she is! We just came into each other’s life at the absolute perfect time.”
Sisters Selling Vegas reportedly closed 44 transactions with $12 million in gross sales last year.
About 25 million adults and children in the U.S. have asthma. Now a clinical study shows patients worldwide who used a new combination of two drugs dramatically lowered their chances of suffering an acute attack.
Results from the trial published in The New England Journal of Medicine, show that a combination of albuterol—which provides relief from an asthma attack by relaxing the smooth muscles and is used for immediate asthma relief—and a corticosteroid taken together via an inhaler, lower the number of sudden episodes of shortness of breath, wheezing and coughing in patients, which can often land them in an emergency room or, in some cases, cause death.
“This represents a paradigm shift in the treatment of asthma. We see this combination treatment, which is the first of its kind, as becoming part of standard therapy,” said author Reynold Panettieri Jr., a professor of medicine at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School.
The Phase 3 clinical study called MANDALA, which included more than 3,000 asthma patients from 295 sites throughout the U.S., Europe, and South America, was designed to evaluate the safety and efficacy of a combination of albuterol and budesonide (both AstraZeneca PLC drugs), as a treatment for patients with modest to severe asthma.
Albuterol is a short-acting beta 2-agonist that works by attaching to miniscule proteins called beta receptors in the airways, relaxing the muscles there. As a corticosteroid, budesonide decreases swelling and irritation in the airways.
Standard “maintenance” treatment involves taking an inhalant that combines two drugs, one a long-acting beta 2-agonist and the other a corticosteroid. When patients suffer an asthma attack, they typically use a rescue medicine such as albuterol. They also are often prescribed doses of oral steroids.
Physicians are looking to prescribe oral steroids less frequently because of their powerful side effects.
The trial was divided into three groups. With many patients already on daily maintenance asthma therapy, participants in the groups were given one of three different rescue therapies to use, should individuals suffer asthma attacks, that included either a combination of albuterol and a high dose of budesonide or a lower dose of budesonide. A control group was given just albuterol.
The patients, the study concluded, not only improved their lung function; they suffered fewer attacks.
Scientists found that albuterol with the higher dose of budesonide reduced the risk of an asthma attack by 27 percent in the short term and reduced asthma attacks by 24 percent annually. This combination also reduced use of corticosteroids, which can have adverse side effects, by 33 percent.
“With this new inhaler that delivers more inhaled steroids every time patients take the rescue therapy, they’re getting more at a time when they’re having a flare-up and when they need it,” said Panettieri, who is also director of the Rutgers Institute for Translational Medicine and Science and conducts research at the Child Health Institute of New Jersey. “We showed that, beyond decreasing their exacerbations, it decreased their need for oral steroids after a flare-up.”
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A statewide program launching on June 1 will help Florida residents in over 50 critical professions, including first responders and teachers, to purchase their first home.
The $100 million Hometown Heroes Housing Program will be available to law enforcement officers, firefighters, educators, healthcare professionals, childcare employees, and active military or veterans.
The program provides assistance with down payments, closing costs, and a lower mortgage rate to first-time, income-qualified homebuyers to purchase a home in the community where they work.
Borrowers can receive up to 5% of the loan amount—up to $25,000—in assistance. Limits on income and the price of the house are determined by the specific county.
The program will expand Florida’s existing housing programs to reach critical workers and those who have served our country. Governor Ron DeSantis also intends to expand the total earmarked by the Legislature in the upcoming budget to $363 million appropriated for affordable and workforce housing—the highest total in 15 years.
“Our hometown heroes are the backbone of Florida communities and making sure that they can afford to be homeowners is a great way to give back to them and support the future of the American Dream,” said DeSantis.
“I have been a teacher for 25 years,” said Melba Lugo, who works at Mid Cape Global Academy. “I want to thank all of these people that have made this possible. Owning a house seemed like such a distant, far away dream.”
Funds will be available to reserve starting June 1, which coincides with National Homeownership Month.
To qualify for this program, homebuyers must connect with a participating loan officer, have a minimum credit score of 640, and meet the income threshold for their county.
If you are not a first-time homebuyer, you may still be eligible to participate if you are purchasing a home in a federally designated targeted area or if you are a qualified veteran.
FREE WILL ASTROLOGY – Week of May 28, 2022
Copyright by Rob Brezsny, FreeWillAstrology.com
GEMINI (May 21-June 20):
“Reality is not simply there; it does not simply exist,” claimed author Paul Celan. “It must be sought out and won.” I think that is excellent advice for you right now. But what does it mean in practical terms? How can you seek out and win reality? My first suggestion is to put your personal stamp on every situation you encounter. Do something subtle or strong to make each event serve your specific interests and goals. My second suggestion is to discern the illusions that other people are projecting and avoid buying into those misunderstandings. My third suggestion is to act as if it’s always possible to make life richer, more vivid, and more meaningful. And then figure out how to do that.
CANCER (June 21-July 22): Wilma Mankiller was the first female Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation. She said, “The cow runs away from the storm, while the buffalo charges directly toward it—and gets through it quicker.” Political analyst Donna Brazile expounded on Mankiller’s strategy: “Whenever I’m confronted with a tough challenge, I do not prolong the torment. I become the buffalo.” I recommend Mankiller’s and Brazile’s approach for you and me in the coming days, my fellow Cancerian. Now please excuse me as I race in the direction of the squall I see brewing in the distance.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): The New Yorker is an influential Pulitzer Prize-winning magazine that features witty writing and impeccable fact-checking. How did the magazine get its start? It was co-founded in 1925 by Harold Ross, who had dropped out of school at age 13. He edited every issue for the next 26 years. I’m sensing the possibility of a comparable development in your life, Leo. In the coming months, you may get involved in a project that seems to be beyond the reach of your official capacities or formal credentials. I urge you to proceed as if you can and will succeed.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22):
Virgo-born Jocko Willink is a retired naval officer and author. In his book Discipline Equals Freedom: Field Manual, he lays down his manifesto: “Become the discipline—embrace its cold and relentless power. And it will make you better and stronger and smarter and faster and healthier than anything else. And most important: It will make you free.” While I don’t expect you to embrace Willink’s rigorous ethic with the same fanatical grip, I think you will benefit from doing the best you can. The cosmic rhythms will support you if you make a fun and earnest effort to cultivate liberation through discipline.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22):
“Some nights you are the lighthouse, some nights the sea,” writes Libran author Ocean Vuong. According to my astrological analysis, you are better suited to be the lighthouse than the sea in the coming days. Lately, you have thoroughly embodied the sea, and that has prepared you well to provide illumination. You have learned new secrets about the tides and the waves. You are attuned to the rhythms of the undercurrents. So I hope you will now embrace your role as a beacon, Libra. I expect that people will look to your radiance to guide and inspire them.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21):
“Movie people are possessed by demons, but a very low form of demons,” observes author Edna O’Brien. She should know. She has hung out with many big film stars. Since you’re probably not in the movie business yourself, your demons may be much higher quality than those of celebrity actors and directors. And I’m guessing that in the coming weeks, your demons will become even finer and more interesting than ever before—even to the point that they could become helpers and advisors. For the best results, treat them with respect and be willing to listen to their ideas.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21):
I’m all in favor of you getting what you yearn for. I have no inhibitions or caveats as I urge you to unleash all your ingenuity and hard work in quest of your beautiful goals. And in the hope of inspiring you to upgrade your ability to fulfill these sacred prospects, I offer you a tip from Sagittarian author Martha Beck. She wrote, “To attract something that you want, become as joyful as you think that thing would make you.”
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19):
According to author Caroline Myss, “You should see everything about your life as a lesson.” Whoa! Really? Each trip to the grocery store should be a learning opportunity? Myss says yes! For example, let’s say you’re in the snack foods aisle and you’re tempted to put Doritos Nacho Cheese Tortilla Chips and Lay’s Barbecue Potato Chips in your cart. But your gut is screaming at you, “That stuff isn’t healthy for you!” And yet you decide to ignore your gut’s advice. You buy and eat both bags. Myss would say you have squandered a learning opportunity: “You’ve harmed yourself by blocking your intuitive voice,” she writes. Now, in accordance with astrological omens, Capricorn, here’s your homework assignment: Regard every upcoming event as a chance to learn how to trust your intuition better.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18):
An Aquarian poet was disturbed when a suitor told her, “I’m really very fond of you.” She responded, “I don’t like fond. It sounds like something you would tell a dog. Give me love, or nothing. Throw your fond in a pond.” I don’t advise you to adopt a similar attitude anytime soon, Aquarius. In my oracular opinion, you should wholeheartedly welcome fondness. You should honor it and celebrate it. In itself, it is a rich, complex attitude. And it may also lead, if you welcome it, to even more complex and profound interweavings.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20):
“I need a playlist of all the songs I used to love but forgot about,” wrote a Tumblr blogger. I think you could use such a playlist, too, Pisces. In fact, I would love to see you receive a host of memos that remind you of all the things you love and need and are interested in—but have forgotten about or neglected. The coming weeks will be an excellent time to recover what has been lost. I hope you will re-establish connections and restore past glories that deserve to accompany you into the future.
ARIES (March 21-April 19):
In defining the essential elements at play in a typical Aries person’s agenda, I’m not inclined to invoke the words “sometimes” or “maybe.” Nor do I make frequent use of the words “periodically,” “if,” or “ordinarily.” Instead, my primary identifying term for many Aries characters is “NOW!!!” with three exclamation points. In referring to your sign’s experiences, I also rely heavily on the following descriptors: pronto, presto, push, directly, why not?, engage, declare, activate, venture into, enterprising, seize, deliver, and wield. You are authorized to fully activate and deploy these qualities in the next three weeks.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20):
I like Joan Didion‘s definitions of self-respect. As you enter a favorable phase for deepening and enhancing your self-respect, they may be helpful. Didion said self-respect is a “sense of one’s intrinsic worth,” and added, “People who respect themselves are willing to accept the risk that the venture will go bankrupt, that the liaison may not turn out to be one in which every day is a holiday. They are willing to invest something of themselves.” And maybe the most essential thing about self-respect, according to Didion, is that it is “a discipline, a habit of mind that can never be faked but can be developed, trained, coaxed forth.”
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Quote of the Day: “Self-respect is a discipline, a habit of mind that can never be faked but can be developed, trained, coaxed forth.” – Joan Didion
Photo by: Dollar Gill
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?
Over the last two decades, a secret institution has gone largely uncredited with some fairly remarkably achievements in animal conservation.
But as well as potentially offering the only chance for the northern white rhino’s survival, the “Frozen Zoo” at San Diego has already given a second chance to animals as close to and (some times over) the brink as possible.
San Diego’s Frozen Zoo is not a place to see polar bears and penguins, but rather a cyrobank of cells from endangered animals from around the world.
It was their stored genetic material that has led to the cloning of the critically endangered and undomesticated Przewalski’s horse in 2020, an Indian Guar—a species of humpbacked wild ox in 2013, a Banteng, a species of cattle found in Southeast Asia in 2003, and the black-footed ferret, also in 2020.
The Frozen Zoo has been around for 50 years. Started in ’72 by a biologist named Kurt Benirschke, above the door to his lab was a sign that prophetically read “you must collect things for reasons you don’t yet understand,” referring mostly to skin cells, stored in Frozen Zoo at -320°F.
Some scientists have determined that the biodiversity of life on Earth may fall by around 1 million species in the next century. To this end, the work of institutions like Frozen Zoo is becoming even more critical. CNN reports they are already saving eggs and sperm of animals like the cheetah—not yet recognized as endangered, but at a high risk of doing so.
San Diego Zoo Globa
In total they have 10,500 individual animals from 1,220 species, and currently among them is the only available frozen material from male northern white rhinos—12 to be exact, from which they’ve managed to create stem cells—which could be used to create sperm to fertilize an egg, which would then have to be carried by the closely related southern white rhino subspecies.
GNN first reported on the Frozen Zoo with the birth of Elizabeth Ann, a black-footed ferret.
Today, all black-footed ferrets are descended from seven individuals, resulting in unique genetic challenges to recovering this species. Cloning may help address the issues of genetic diversity and disease resilience in wild populations. Without an appropriate amount of genetic diversity, a species often becomes more susceptible to diseases and genetic abnormalities, as well as limited adaptability to conditions in the wild and a decreased fertility rate.
Frozen Zoo isn’t the only organization that cryobanks endangered animals. Nature’s Safe, founded by Tullis Matson, also collects cells of the same types for the same purpose.
Cryobanking receives little of any kind of funding, and most are working on shoestrings. However Matson told CNN he sees the greater challenge, since private donations are there, to be inter-program coordination.
“The task is enormous, nobody can do this on their own,” says Matson. “There’s a million species at risk. We need 50 different genetic samples from each, so that means 50 million samples; for each of those, we need five vials for each sample, so that’s hundreds of millions of samples that need to be stored.”
It’s no small task, but cryobanking endangered species’ cells has all the qualities of a “bigger than you, bigger than me” challenge, no doubt attracting talented individuals. If one or two more species, particularly the rhino, whose coming extinction was heralded solemnly by news stations around the world, could be revived via Frozen Zoo or Nature’s Safe, it could draw the attention the workload deserves.
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Across Europe, intrepid artists, planners, and architects are transforming the flat, grey rooftops of the continent into lively community hubs.
From public parks to art venues to rainwater catchments and solar farms, there’s hardly a bad idea about how to utilize thousands of football fields of under-utilized space.
The European Creative Rooftop Network connects various organizations in European cities like Barcelona and Antwerp that want to ‘aim high’ with cultural hotspots and innovative living labs exploring sustainability.
Rotterdam has 150 million square feet of rooftop space, and the municipality’s program Multifunctional Rooftops is encouraging building owners to green their rooftops to improve water collection, or “yellow” their roofs by installing solar panels on them.
For example, the Luchtpark Hofbogen sits on top of a heritage train station that’s being converted into a meandering rooftop park—much like the High Line in New York City.
Next weekend, Multifunctional Rooftops is hosting the Rotterdam Rooftop Days festival that aims to educate people about various potential uses for city rooftops. The festival will be centered on a pair of exhibits—public spaces on various rooftops connected via colored bridges.
It’s not only Rotterdam, and nearby Amsterdam, that are looking up. There are chapters of the ERCN in Belfast, Antwerp, Nicosia, Gothenburg, Chemnitz, and Faro.
In Barcelona, a group called Coincidencies is building a network of cultural exhibition areas including concert venues and performance spaces.
Nicosia in Cyprus is also seeing a lot of success turning their roofs into attractions. The top of Stelios Ioannou Learning Center is a turf roof allowing 360-degree vision of the city. At the center, an artificial hill offers a skylight into the library below.
1010 Hall is a rooftop cultural space with a focus on stargazing—not because you can see many stars in Nicosia, but because there’s a very big telescope on the roof. Stargazing and astronomy talks are hosted at its small theater.
New hope
For those curious about where to visit some of these revamped rooftops, the ERCN’s “Rooftopedia” has all of them together.
For Rotterdam, the conversion of roofs is as much for keeping the city above water, as 90% of the municipality is technically below sea level, and the emphasis on water collection is strong. It started in 2008 when they became the first city to offer subsidies to building owners constructing green roofs.
A year later, the roof of a 1960s concert hall called De Doelen finished installing a roof upgrade which included hidden water tanks under stones, paving a public walkway that can collect 2,000 bathtubs of water.
Bare roofs by dark-grey concrete play a huge role in the “heat island” effect of cities, and the more stuff put up there to absorb that heat, the less energy a building will need to cool itself. One could call it the next revolution in urban planning.
(WATCH the video for this story below.)
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Children who spend more time playing adventurously have lower symptoms of anxiety and depression, and were happier over the first Covid-19 lockdown, according to new research.
A study led by the University of Exeter asked parents how often their children engaged in play that was “thrilling and exciting,” where they might experience some fear and uncertainty.
The study comes at a time when today’s children have fewer opportunities for adventurous play out of sight of adults, such as climbing trees, riding bikes, jumping from high surfaces or playing somewhere where they are out of adult sight. The study sought to test theories that adventurous play offers learning opportunities that help build resilience in children, thereby helping to prevent mental health problems.
With funding from a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship, the research team surveyed nearly 2,500 parents of children aged 5-11 years. Parents completed questions about their child’s play, their general mental health (pre-Covid) and their mood during the first Covid-19 lockdown.
The research was carried out with two groups of parents: a group of 427 parents living in Northern Ireland and a nationally representative group of 1919 parents living in Great Britain.
Researchers found that children who spend more time playing outside had fewer “internalizing problems,” characterized as anxiety and depression. Those children were also more positive during the first lockdown.
The effects were relatively small, as would be expected given the range of factors that affect children’s mental health. However, results were consistent even after researchers factored in a wide range of demographic variables including child sex, age, parent employment status etc, and parent mental health. The study in the Great Britain group also found that the effect was more pronounced in children from lower income families than those growing up in higher income households.
“We’re more concerned than ever about children’s mental health, and our findings highlight that we might be able to help protect children’s mental health by ensuring they have plentiful opportunities for adventurous play,” Helen Dodd, Professor of Child Psychology at the of the University of Exeter, who led the study, said. “This is really positive because play is free, instinctive and rewarding for children, available to everyone, and doesn’t require special skills. We now urgently need to invest in and protect natural spaces, well-designed parks and adventure playgrounds, to support the mental health of our children.”
“Every child needs and deserves opportunities to play. This important research shows that this is even more vital to help children thrive after all they have missed out on during the Covid-19 restrictions,” Dan Paskins, Director of UK Impact at Save the Children, said.
“More play means more happiness and less anxiety and depression. That’s why Save the Children is supporting the Summer of Play campaign which brings together organizations from around the country to pledge their support to enable children to have fun, spend time with friends and enjoy freedom.”
“This research emphasizes the importance of adventurous play. Children and young people need freedom and opportunities to encounter challenge and risk in their everyday playful adventures. It is clear from the research findings that playing, taking risks and experiencing excitement outdoors makes a positive contribution to children’s mental health and emotional well-being,” said Jacqueline O’Loughlin, Chief Executive of PlayBoard NI, wo welcomed the findings. “The rewards of allowing children to self-regulate and manage challenge in their play are widespread and far-reaching. Adventurous play helps children to build the resilience needed to cope with, and manage stress in challenging circumstances.”
Examples of adventurous activities that don’t cost anything are:
Going for a torch walk in the dark
Exploring woods alone or with a friend
Camping out overnight
Swimming or paddling in a river or lake
Jumping from a swing
Trying out new skills on a skateboard, rollerskates or cycling
Adding cranberries to your diet could help improve memory and brain function, and lower ‘bad’ cholesterol—according to new research.
A new study from the University of East Anglia highlights the neuroprotective potential of cranberries.
The research team studied the benefits of consuming the equivalent of a cup of cranberries a day among 50 to 80-year-olds.
They hope that their findings could have implications for the prevention of neurodegenerative diseases such as dementia.
“Dementia is expected to affect around 152 million people by 2050. There is no known cure, so it is crucial that we seek modifiable lifestyle interventions, such as diet, that could help lessen disease risk and burden,” lead researcher Dr David Vauzour, from UEA’s Norwich Medical School, said.
“Past studies have shown that higher dietary flavonoid intake is associated with slower rates of cognitive decline and dementia. And foods rich in anthocyanins and proanthocyanidins, which give berries their red, blue, or purple colour, have been found to improve cognition.
“Cranberries are rich in these micronutrients and have been recognized for their antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties.
“We wanted to find out more about how cranberries could help reduce age-related neurodegeneration.”
A fresh study
The research team investigated the impact of eating cranberries for 12 weeks on brain function and cholesterol among 60 cognitively healthy participants.
Half of the participants consumed freeze-dried cranberry powder, equivalent to a cup or 100g of fresh cranberries, daily. The other half consumed a placebo.
The study is one of the first to examine cranberries and their long-term impact on cognition and brain health in humans.
The results showed that consuming cranberries significantly improved the participants’ memory of everyday events (visual episodic memory), neural functioning, and delivery of blood to the brain (brain perfusion).
“We found that the participants who consumed the cranberry powder showed significantly improved episodic memory performance in combination with improved circulation of essential nutrients such as oxygen and glucose to important parts of the brain that support cognition—specifically memory consolidation and retrieval,” Dr Vauzour said.
“The cranberry group also exhibited a significant decrease in LDL or ‘bad’ cholesterol levels, known to contribute to atherosclerosis, the thickening or hardening of the arteries caused by a build-up of plaque in the inner lining of an artery. This supports the idea that cranberries can improve vascular health and may in part contribute to the improvement in brain perfusion and cognition.
“Demonstrating in humans that cranberry supplementation can improve cognitive performance and identifying some of the mechanisms responsible is an important step for this research field.
“The findings of this study are very encouraging, especially considering that a relatively short 12-week cranberry intervention was able to produce significant improvements in memory and neural function,” he added.
“This establishes an important foundation for future research in the area of cranberries and neurological health.”
Quote of the Day: “Love is everything it’s cracked up to be. It really is worth fighting for, being brave for, risking everything for.” – Erica Jong
Photo by: Fernando Jiménez, CC license
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?
Billions of years ago, a series of volcanic eruptions broke loose on the moon, blanketing hundreds of thousands of square miles of the orb’s surface in hot lava. Over the eons, that lava created the dark blotches, or maria, that give the face of the moon its familiar appearance today.
Now, new research from CU Boulder suggests that volcanoes may have left another lasting impact on the lunar surface: sheets of ice that dot the moon’s poles and, in some places, could measure dozens or even hundreds of feet thick.
“We envision it as a frost on the moon that built up over time,” said Andrew Wilcoski, lead author of the new study and a graduate student in the Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences (APS) and the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) at CU Boulder.
The researchers drew on computer simulations, or models, to try to recreate conditions on the moon long before complex life arose on Earth. They discovered that ancient moon volcanoes spewed out huge amounts of water vapor, which then settled onto the surface— forming stores of ice that may still be hiding in lunar craters. If any humans had been alive at the time, they may even have seen a sliver of that frost near the border between day and night on the moon’s surface.
It’s a potential bounty for future moon explorers who will need water to drink and process into rocket fuel, said study co-author Paul Hayne.
“It’s possible that 5 or 10 meters below the surface, you have big sheets of ice,” said Hayne, assistant professor in APS and LASP.
Temporary atmospheres
The new study adds to a growing body of evidence that suggests that the moon may be awash in a lot more water than scientists once believed. In a 2020 study, Hayne and his colleagues estimated that nearly 6,000 square miles of the lunar surface could be capable of trapping and hanging onto ice—mostly near the moon’s north and south poles. Where all that water came from in the first place is unclear.
“There are a lot of potential sources at the moment,” Hayne said.
Volcanoes could be a big one. The planetary scientist explained that from 2 to 4 billion years ago, the moon was a chaotic place. Tens of thousands of volcanoes erupted across its surface during this period, generating huge rivers and lakes of lava, not unlike the features you might see in Hawaii today—only much more immense.
“They dwarf almost all of the eruptions on Earth,” Hayne said.
Recent research from scientists at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston shows that these volcanoes likely also ejected towering clouds made up of mostly carbon monoxide and water vapor. These clouds then swirled around the moon, potentially creating thin and short-lived atmospheres.
That got Hayne and Wilcoski wondering: Could that same atmosphere have left ice on the lunar surface, a bit like frost forming on the ground after a chilly fall night?
Forever ice
To find out, the duo alongside Margaret Landis, a research associate at LASP, set out to try to put themselves onto the surface of the moon billions of years ago.
The team used estimates that, at its peak, the moon experienced one eruption every 22,000 years, on average. The researchers then tracked how volcanic gases may have swirled around the moon, escaping into space over time. And, they discovered, conditions may have gotten icy. According to the group’s estimates, roughly 41% of the water from volcanoes may have condensed onto the moon as ice.
“The atmospheres escaped over about 1,000 years, so there was plenty of time for ice to form,” Wilcoski said.
There may have been so much ice on the moon, in fact, that you could, conceivably, have spotted the sheen of frost and thick, polar ice caps from Earth. The group calculated that about 18 quadrillion pounds of volcanic water could have condensed as ice during that period. That’s more water than currently sits in Lake Michigan. And the research hints that much of that lunar water may still be present today.
Those space ice cubes, however, won’t necessarily be easy to find. Most of that ice has likely accumulated near the moon’s poles and may be buried under several feet of lunar dust, or regolith.
One more reason, Hayne noted, for people or robots to head back and start digging.
“We really need to drill down and look for it,” he said.
Iceland has trotted out a service that lets horses reply to work emails when you’re on holiday.
The world-first ‘OutHorse Your Email’ service is designed to encourage travellers to switch off and take an uninterrupted trip to the country.
Using a large keyboard mat, the gaited horses are able to walk, trot, canter, tölt, and pace their way across the keys.
Unsurprisingly, the result is nonsense replies to corporate contacts, with examples listed as “þþnjifai=’.,,lmbmbnbbhgycdrgzw/’pfæ ndaiFVxhðut7r7r7djsmfdsm” and “þnjifai\’/.p,oii9unnbhvggyvgjhbjm,kfæ,.iklp–jpomohu o/’k;,i,mumnf.”
A recent global study by Visit Iceland found that two fifths (41%) of people globally check their work emails between one and four times a day when on holiday, while one in ten (14%) review them 5-6 times every day.
“When visitors travel to Iceland we want them to fully experience everything our nation has to offer, from breathtaking surroundings to endless landscapes and friendly faces,” Sigríður Dögg Guðmundsdóttir, Head of Visit Iceland said.
SWNS
“Our OutHorse Your Email service lets them do just that, taking away the pressure of feeling as if they have to be always on and instead allowing them to be present throughout their trip. With our world-first service we hope to encourage people to disconnect and take a well-deserved, uninterrupted break”.
“Our talented horses took naturally to the OutHorse Your Email service, tölting and galloping their way across the fields and creating a range of unique emails that will help holidaymakers enjoy their trip without any interruptions,” Jelena Ohm, Project Manager of Horses of Iceland said. “From curiosity, intelligence and independence, our horses are special for many reasons, and so now we can add email responders too.”
Due to the pandemic, over the last few years many workers have transitioned to remote working, finding that the lines between their work and personal lives have become blurred.
The research by Visit Iceland revealed that three-fifths (59%) of people globally now feel as if their boss, colleagues, and clients expect them to reply when on holiday, while less than half (44%) of workers actually feel rested after their trip.
A further one in ten (15%) have even canceled or postponed their holiday plans altogether due to work. That’s why Iceland is ‘outhorsing’ workers’ emails to its horses, asking them to trot out replies, so they don’t have to.
Visit Iceland adds, “So, don’t be foal-ish, enjoy a distraction free trip to Iceland and remember, if you do receive work emails while on holiday, Iceland’s horses have you covered.”
(WATCH the video for this story below.)
TROT The Out-of-Office Idea to Your Boss—Or Your Chums…
Fresco uncovered during a recent dig - Credit: Archaeological Park of Pompeii
Fresco uncovered during a recent dig/Archaeological Park of Pompeii
Pompeii has captured the world’s attention for years, and few sites have revealed more about the life and luxuries of the Roman Empire than it has.
Recent clues—scrawled onto walls by ne’er-do-wells, and others uncovered in the ash, are changing the record about exactly when the city met its unfortunate end at the hands of the volcano.
A worker wrote a joke with charcoal onto the wall of a building one day in CE 79, more or less reading, “he ate too much.” However this everyday bit of time-killing was made with a date: October 17th, two months after the long-suspected eruption of Vesuvius.
It’s believed that Pompeii was buried on August 24th, based on a letter sent by Pliny the Younger, who, standing on the other side of the bay of Naples, witnessed the destruction from a safe distance.
This new date is thought to be pretty accurate, as the delicate charcoal which wrote the graffiti would not have lasted long in the sea air. Instead the volcanic ash preserved it.
There are other recently-uncovered reasons to believe the eruption took place later in the year, including charred fruit from autumn harvests, bodies buried in thick cold-weather clothing, outdoor braziers still filled with firewood, sealed amphorae with wine—again from the harvest, and a coin that was not minted before September.
Pliny’s account from the advancing ash is harrowing, and helps us imagine the gravity of the eruption as it spread across the region. He wrote the day after the eruption:
“From the other direction over the land, a dreadful black cloud was torn by gushing flames and great tongues of fire like much-magnified lightning. The cloud sank down soon afterwards and covered the sea, hiding Capri and Capo Misenum from sight. My mother begged me to leave her and escape as best I could, but I took her had and made her hurry along with me. Ash was already falling by now, but not very thickly. Then I turned around and saw a thick black cloud advancing over the land behind us like a flood. ‘Let us leave the road while we can still see”, I said, “or we will be knocked down and trampled by the crowd’.
We had hardly sat down to rest when the darkness spread over us. But is was not the darkness of a moonless or cloudy night, but it was just as if the lamps had been put out in a completely closed room. We could hear women shrieking, children crying and men shouting. Some were calling for their parents, their children, or their wives, and trying to recognize them by their voices. Some people were so frightened of dying that they actually prayed for death. Many begged for the help of the gods, but even more imagined that there were no gods left and that the last eternal night had fallen on the world.”
Still, just one-third of Pompeii has been excavated. Much of the last two-decades has been restoration work, part of the Great Pompeii Project. There’s likely so much more to be discovered.
UNEARTH Fascinating Finds Like This Story; Share It With Mates…
Following a massive, 125-fold increase in western monarch butterfly populations in America, a 35% increase has just been recorded in the numbers of monarchs arriving in Mexico.
As one of the great migratory species on the planet, entomologists in Mexico don’t bother counting individuals, but rather the acreage of mountaintop pine trees on which they roost.
In the pine-tree covered mountains west of Mexico City, this year seven acres were covered with butterflies compared to around 5.8 last year.
Experts in Mexico, according to AP, are reporting that this is due to a mixture of an overall reduction in wintering forest loss and adaptation to what they describe as climate change, although they add plenty of non-climate related aspects under the umbrella such as pesticide use and logging.
Normally, the monarchs arrive in late October to early November, escaping the cold in North America. They typically then leave around March, moving to either side of the Rocky Mountains as far north as Canada. Last year was different, in that most of them left in February on a fortuitous flight that saw them escape an April heat wave.
This year some of them left in April, which experts said was very strange, and that they will be curious to see the numbers next year to assess whether this late start was a good strategy.
A flight of hope
When it comes to this majestic species, the mainstream media often offers doom and gloom. Yet it’s normal for migratory species to fluctuate greatly in number; migration, after all, is a highly-dangerous behavior.
The Guardian, closing the report on this year’s 35% increase in butterfly numbers, wrote “Drought, severe weather and loss of habitat – especially of the milkweed where the monarchs lay their eggs – as well as pesticide and herbicide use, and climate change, all pose threats to the species’ migration. Illegal logging and loss of tree cover due to disease, drought and storms also continues to plague the [forest] reserves.”
Arrivals in 2020 saw the covered acreage the same as this year. Even in the early 2000s, when monarch populations were capable of arriving in Mexico in droves that would regularly cover up to 20 acres or more, there were even scanter years than the 2021 dip, demonstrating that many factors have always impacted this species, and that the situation is not so grim.
Quote of the Day: “The giving of love is an education in itself.” – Eleanor Roosevelt
Photo by: Nathan Anderson
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?
Franklin County High School in Tennessee / Rise Vision
With childhood depression and anxiety rising during the pandemic and disturbing news stories only adding to the mental health burden in our schools, it is the perfect time to be delivering some positive news headlines into hallways and classrooms across the U.S.
That’s exactly what Good News Network is now providing in a new partnership with digital signage company Rise Vision.
Launching this month in over 120 schools, Rise Vision and Good News Network (GNN) are spreading positivity with uplifting news content on video screens for grades K-12. Now, students and teachers can stop and read about kindness and scientific breakthroughs on new templates created by Rise Vision.
Founded in 1997, millions of people have turned to GNN as an antidote to the barrage of negativity experienced in the mainstream media. Because of its long history, staying power, and public trust, GNN.org is #1 on Google for good news.
“Especially this year, which is our 25th anniversary, GNN is thrilled to be helping teachers and school students and staff stay optimistic in these challenging times,” said GNN founder and CEO Geri Weis-Corbley.
“Digital signage shouldn’t be complicated—it should be positive, educational, and informational. Rise Vision’s partnership with Good News Network addresses these points, while being eye-catching and fun. It adds to the conversation of increasing social emotional learning and requires no design time from educators,” said Shea Darlison, Head of Marketing, Rise Vision.
“Even better, these new templates help create a nurturing learning environment focused on joy and positivity. As Rise Vision continues to grow we look for more partnerships to help address school and classroom communication barriers and save educators time and effort.”
What makes this partnership so great is there is no additional cost for Rise Vision customers to use these templates. If you are interested in trying out the Good News Network templates, go to the Rise vision website and start your free trial.
Rise Vision signage at Jim Thorpe Area High School in Pennsylvania
Rise Vision is the #1 digital signage software solution for schools. Rise Vision helps schools improve communication, increase student involvement, celebrate student achievements, and create a positive school culture. For more information on Good News Network digital signage, contact [email protected].
SHARE the Opportunity With Teachers and Students By Sharing on Social Media…
This month, seven members of an all-Black mountain climbing team summited Mount Everest, helped along by eight Sherpa guides.
Even though hundreds line up to climb Everest every year, only ten Black people have surmounted the highest peak on Earth before, including only one Black woman, and one Black American.
“I am deeply honored to report that seven members of the Full Circle Everest team reached the summit on May 12,” tweeted Philip Henderson, leader of the team and instructor at Nepal’s Khumbu Climbing Center (KCC), which trains some of the world’s premier mountaineers.
“While a few members, including myself, did not summit, all members of the climb and Sherpa teams have safely returned to Base Camp where we will celebrate this historic moment!”
With the ideal period for climbing Chomolungma, or Mother Goddess of the World, being in May, Full Circle Everest arrived at base camp on Khumbu Glacier—a tent city of athletic hopefuls looking for the perfect weather conditions to scurry up to the summit.
Henderson was the leader of the expedition, which for many days meant eating, resting, gradually acclimatizing to breathing in one-third less oxygen than is found at sea level, and organizing quick jaunts up the mountain as a training regimen.
Among their team can be found people from all over the U.S., and one man from Kenya, aged 29 to 60, whose everyday lives involve being a sociology professor, a Microsoft data scientist, a chemistry teacher, a freelance photographer and filmmaker, an Iraq War II combat vet, and climbing experts.
“When children around the world see themselves reflected in this all-Black expedition, they too will experience and become part of the value set that is climbing,” Conrad Anker, founder of KCC and a colleague of Henderson’s, told National Geographic about the achievement.
There’s a litany of things that can go wrong on Everest, and many people who reach basecamp will never get the opportunity to climb the mountain. Full Circle team member Fred Campbell, from Seattle, said this knowledge added to the pressure.
“It would be nice to just climb [Everest], but we are representing Black people,” he said. “As much as it’s an extra burden, I think it’ll have a positive impact.”
TAKE Good News to New Heights; Share This Awesome Feat…
