Quote of the Day: “We do not love each other without changing each other.” – Madeleine L’Engle
Photo by: Priscilla Du Preez
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?
A woman whose family fled to Britain to escape a war has closed her seaside hotel to tourists—so she can give Ukrainian refugees a place to stay.
Nitsa Michael is no longer taking guests at the Seaward Hotel—even during her busiest season in Weston-super-Mare, England. Instead, she has rolled out the welcome mat to 22 Ukrainians, so far, providing a “home away from home”.
Her family fled from Cyprus to Britain following a Turkish invasion in 1974, and she wanted to do something to help people in the same ‘horror situation’, fleeing from Russian aggression in Ukraine this year.
“I felt for them,” said the 84-year-old widow and great-grandmother of five.”Lets help in a big way, this is what I want to do.”
Her daughter Michelle Michael is in charge of running the hotel, which has room for 70 refugees.
“Mum always has and still does listen to the news every day and it was really bothering her. She was feeling quite sad about it all, and that’s when she came up with the idea of opening the hotel to refugees.”
The 22 arrivals share meals and time together, “and basically they heal together,” said Michelle.
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“Seeing all the people staying here and how happy they now are, it’s all due to her.”
Decades earlier, Nitsa worked as a seamstress in London and her husband Axentis was a chef before they eventually moved to the South West where they took over the Seaward Hotel.
They made it their family home where they raised their four children.
Back in ‘74 when Turkey invaded, Nitsa recalled, “We had no way of knowing if my father’s family were dead or alive because there was no connectivity. Everyone fled their homes with nothing to their names.”
To alleviate the same sort of anxiety this year, Michelle registered their family’s hotel on the Homes For Ukraine webpage, and before they knew it, they were welcoming their first refugee.
Yuliia, 31, now lives in the hotel with her husband and their dog after she left their home in Berdyansk after explosions started in February. She had to leave behind her parents, and had not spoken to them for a month prior to arriving at the Seaward Hotel a month ago.
“This life here is very good, and I’m very glad to be in this country,” said Yuliia. “Here we have a hotel, a room, a shower, a kitchen and many other things – we also have the sea.”
LOOK: Ukrainian Refugees Move Into Medieval Irish Castle Owned by Good Samaritan
Since arriving in the UK she has been provided with a phone to speak to her family back at home and she could finally communicate with her parents and brother again.
There is a WhatsApp group set up for the other families who have arrived at the hotel and Yuliia helps to translate Michelle’s messages for the other refugees.
Michelle and the team provide the refugees with welcome packs on their beds with essentials such as shower gels and deodorants. The local government has provided $250 to each person to allow each refugee to mobilize themselves to get a National Insurance number and open a bank account.
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Michelle explained Nitsa visits the hotel once a week and makes sure to meet every guest and listen to their stories. She loves to see the children around in the hotel as it reminds her of raising her own four children there. It has brought the hotel back to life.
Any refugees in need of accommodation can find the Seaward Hotel listed on Homes For Ukraine—and you can donate on the hotel’s website to help Nitsa’s family support refugees.
SHARE the Uplifting Ukraine Story on Social Media…
Finally, some research we can all use right away—especially if you’re prone to being bitten by mosquitoes more than anyone around you. It could hinge on what you wear.
New research led by scientists at the University of Washington indicates that a species of common mosquito flies toward specific colors, while ignoring the cooler shades of green, purple, blue and white.
On the other end of the color spectrum, human skin emits a strong red-orange signal for the mossies—and those are two of the colors that attract the bugs.
“Mosquitoes appear to use odors to help them distinguish what is nearby, like a host to bite,” said Jeffrey Riffell, a UW professor of biology. “When they smell specific compounds, like CO2 from our breath, that scent stimulates the eyes to scan for specific colors and other visual patterns… and head to them.”
“I used to say there are three major cues that attract mosquitoes: your breath, your sweat and the temperature of your skin, said Riffell, who is senior author on the paper.
“In this study, we found a fourth cue: the color red, which can not only be found on your clothes, but is also found in everyone’s skin. The shade of your skin doesn’t matter, we are all giving off a strong red signature. Wearing clothes that avoid those colors, could be another way to prevent a mosquito biting.”
The researchers tracked individual mosquitoes inside a test chambers where they sprayed specific odors and presented different types of visual patterns—such as a colored dots, human hands, or gloved hands.
Without any odor stimulus, mosquitoes largely ignored a dot at the bottom of the chamber, regardless of color. After a spritz of CO2 into the chamber, mosquitos continued to ignore the dot if it were green, blue or purple in color. But if the dot were red, orange, or black, mosquitoes would fly toward it.
Oddly, the color between green and blue on the spectrum—cyan—was also attractive to the creature.
Humans can’t smell CO2 (which we exhale with each breath), but mosquitoes can. Past research by Riffell’s team and other groups showed that smelling CO2 boosts female mosquitoes’ activity level—and they start searching the space around them, presumably for a host. The colored-dot experiments revealed that after smelling CO2, these mosquitoes’ eyes prefer certain wavelengths in the visual spectrum.
It’s similar to what might happen when humans smell something good.
“Imagine you’re on a sidewalk and you smell pie crust and cinnamon,” said Riffell. “That’s probably a sign that there’s a bakery nearby, and you might start looking around for it. Here, we started to learn what visual elements that mosquitoes are looking for after smelling their own version of a bakery.”
Most humans have “true color” vision: We see different wavelengths of light as distinct colors: 650 nanometers shows up as red; 450 nanometer appear blue. The researchers do not know whether mosquitoes perceive colors the same way that our eyes do. But most of the colors the mosquitoes prefer after smelling CO2 — orange, red and black — correspond to longer wavelengths of light. Human skin, regardless of pigmentation, also gives off a long-wavelength signal in the red-orange range.
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When Riffell’s team repeated the chamber experiments with human skintone pigmentation cards — or a researcher’s bare hand — mosquitoes again flew toward the visual stimulus only after CO2 was sprayed into the chamber. If the researchers used filters to remove long-wavelength signals, or had the researcher wear a green-colored glove, then CO2-primed mosquitoes no longer flew toward the stimulus.
Riffell says knowing which colors attract hungry mosquitoes, and which ones do not, can also help design better repellants, traps, and other methods to keep mosquitoes at bay.
The paper, published Feb. 4 in Nature Communications, describes how the team used female yellow fever mosquitoes, Aedes aegypti, which are common in tropical, subtropical, and temperate regions throughout the world, and can transmit dengue, yellow fever, chikungunya and Zika. Like all mosquito species, only females drink blood.
More research is needed to determine if other mosquito species may have different color preferences, based on their preferred host. But these new findings add a new layer to mosquito control: color.
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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 June 4, 2022
Copyright by Rob Brezsny, FreeWillAstrology.com
GEMINI (May 21-June 20):
A blogger named Sweetlikeacherry reminds us, “Some epiphanies are only possible when you put away your phone and go completely offline for a while.” She adds that sometimes you also need to at least partially avoid your phone and the internet if you hope to incubate new visions of the future and unlock important discoveries in your creative work and summon your untamed genius. According to my astrological analysis, all these possibilities are especially likely and necessary for you in the coming weeks. I trust you will carry out the necessary liberations to take full advantage.
CANCER (June 21-July 22):
Poet Carolyn Kizer (1925–2014) won a Pulitzer Prize for her poetry. She was smart! But when she was young and still studying her craft in college, a professor objected to one of her poems. He said, “You have pigs in this poem; pigs are not poetic.” Kizer was incensed at such ignorance. She testified, “I got up and walked out of that class and never went back.” Judging from the astrological omens, I suspect you may have comparable showdowns headed your way. I advise you to be like Kizer. You are the only one who truly knows the proper subjects of your quest. No one else has the right or the insight to tell you what your work (or play) should be about.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22):
Leo author James Baldwin said it wasn’t often “that two people can laugh and make love, too—make love because they are laughing and laugh because they’re making love. The love and the laughter come from the same place: but not many people go there.” Your assignment, Leo, is to be the exception to Baldwin’s rule during the coming weeks. According to my analysis of the astrological omens, there’s a high possibility that interesting eros can converge with humorous fun in a glorious synergy. You will have a knack for conjuring up ribald encounters and jovial orgasms. Your intuition will guide you to shed the solemnity from your bliss and replace it with sunny, carefree cheer.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22):
I’m worried you will over-indulge in your pursuit of perfection during the coming weeks. It’s fine to be exquisitely skillful and masterful; I hope you do that. But if you get obsessed with flawlessness, you will risk undoing your good intentions. As an antidote, I offer you two pieces of advice. The first is from actor and activist Jane Fonda. She said, “We are not meant to be perfect; we are meant to be whole.” The second counsel is from philosopher and psychologist William James, who wrote, “Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection, we can catch excellence.”
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22):
Author Mustafa Mahmoud described the signs of love between two people: 1. feeling a comfortable familiarity; 2. having no urge or need to lie; 3. being natural, not trying to be different from who one is; 4. having little or no possibility of being embarrassed in front of the other person; 5. experiencing silence as delicious, not alienating; 6. enjoying the act of listening to the other person. I bring these pointers to your attention, Libra, because the coming months will be a favorable time to define and redefine your understandings about the signs of love. How do you feel about Mahmoud’s ideas? Are there any more you would like to add?
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21):
“We do not love each other without changing each other,” wrote author Madeleine L’Engle. Meditate on that gem, Scorpio. Now is a perfect time for you and your loved ones to acknowledge, honor, and celebrate the ways your love has changed each other. It may be true that some transformations have been less than ideal. If that’s the case, the coming weeks will be a favorable time to correct those trends. As for the positive changes that you and your allies have stimulated in each other: I hope you will name them and pledge to keep doing more of that good work.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21):
“I always deserve the best treatment, because I never put up with any other,” wrote Sagittarian novelist Jane Austen. Sagittarian politician Stacey Abrams said, “From the moment I enter a room, I am clear about how I intend to be treated and how I intend to engage.” You’ll be wise to cultivate those attitudes in the next seven weeks, Sagittarius. It’s high time for you to raise your self-respect in ways that inspire others to elevate their appreciation and regard for you.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19):
In 1963, Jim Munro and Alice Munro founded Munro’s Books, a store in Victoria, British Columbia. After being on the job for a few months, Alice found she was not impressed with many of the products they sold. “I can write better books than this,” she told Jim. Five years later, she published her first collection of short stories, Dance of the Happy Shades. Fourteen books later, she won the Nobel Prize in Literature. Will the coming months bring your equivalent of Alice Munro’s pivotal resolution? I suspect they could.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18):
“True love for whatever you are doing is the answer to everything,” proclaimed performance artist Marina Abramovic. Amen to that righteous attitude! I hope you will embrace it in the coming weeks. I hope your heart and imagination will reveal all you need to know to bring tender fresh streams of true love to the essential activities of your life. Now is an excellent time to redefine the meaning of the word “love” so it applies to all your relationships and pursuits.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20):
A homeless woman in a wheelchair stopped where I was sitting outside a café. She was pushing her belongings in a small shopping cart. “Would you like to go dancing?” she said to me. “There’s a nearby park that has a great grassy dance floor.” “Maybe another day,” I told her. “My energy is low. I’ve had a lot of personal challenges lately.” I’m sure the expression on my face was less-than-ebullient. “Cheer up, mister,” she told me. “I’m psychic, and I can tell you for sure that you will live a long life and have many more fine adventures. I’ll be in the park if you change your mind.” My mood instantly brightened. “Thanks!” I yelled toward her as she rolled away. Now I predict that you, Pisces, will have comparable experiences in the coming days. Are you willing to welcome uplifting surprises?
ARIES (March 21-April 19):
Who loves the truth better than you Aries people? Who has the greatest potential to speak the real story in every situation, even when it requires extra courage? Who has more fun than you in discovering and defining and expressing the raw facts? In my Book of Life, you Rams are radiant beacons of candor—the people I go to when I need accuracy and honesty. And all I’m saying here will be especially crucial in the coming weeks. The whole world needs concentrated doses of your authenticity. Now read this pep talk from Aries philosopher St. Catherine of Siena: “Let the truth be your delight; let it always be in your mouth, and proclaim it when it is needed. Proclaim it lovingly and to everyone, especially those you love with a special love—but with a certain congeniality.”
TAURUS (April 20-May 20):
Before the 20th century, you couldn’t buy a loaf of bread that was already sliced into thin pieces. Then in 1912, the American inventor Otto Frederick Rohwedder developed a slicing machine. But all his work, including the blueprints and the machine prototypes, was destroyed in a fire. He had to seek new funding and begin again. Sixteen years later, his innovation was finally ready for broad public use. Within five years, most of the bread in the US was sold sliced. What does this have to do with you? I am picking up an Otto Frederick Rohwedder vibe when I turn my visions to you, Taurus. I suspect that in the coming months, you, too, will fulfill a postponed dream.
WANT MORE? Listen to Rob’s EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES, 4-5 minute meditations on the current state of your destiny — or subscribe to his unique daily text message service at: RealAstrology.com
(Zodiac images by Numerologysign.com, CC license)
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Quote of the Day: “Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection, we can catch excellence.” – Vince Lombardi
Photo by: Afif Kusuma
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 is the heart-warming reaction of care home residents as they enjoyed a visit from an adorable group of Pomeranian and British bulldogs.
The adorable video shows the residents of Romford Grange Care cooing, stroking at the tiny dogs, and having their noses licked in return.
The visit, which took place last month, was organized by Larry Cooley, owner of The Bully Ranch, as part of the “Bully Ranch to you” project.
The project is a personal one for 34-year-old Larry who organized the trip to raise the spirits of the residents at the care home.
He said, “Being raised by my nan and grandad in the East End of London, I have always had utmost respect for the elderly, always helping out carrying bags and doing what I could to contribute.
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“Puppies and dogs have amazing benefits such as lowering anxiety, helping with depression, stress, conquering loneliness and even reducing physical pain.”
Conquering loneliness was a big factor in their going after the effect the pandemic had on the elderly.
He added, “From the moment we entered the care home there were smiles all round from staff and residents. It was a really nice atmosphere I must say.
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“During the pandemic it was hard not to notice that the elderly were affected dramatically, with no visits from family and friends and the massive change in climate.
“The residents in the care home had a rough two years but on Wednesday they were told we were coming to visit, they were very excited and kept asking after us.”
(WATCH the video for this story below.)
RAISE a Paw For This Adorable Story…
A protein that destroys hard-to-treat cancers has been discovered by scientists, offering hope of effective new treatments.
Experiments on mice and human tissue found it is effective against the most aggressive tumors.
They include those of the breast, pancreas, ovaries, and brain. The compound, known as ERX-41, leaves healthy tissue unscathed.
It is one of the most promising breakthroughs to date—offering hope of a ‘one size fits all’ pill that was once thought impossible.
Results were so encouraging that clinical trials are expected to begin in the next few months.
“We identified a critical vulnerability in multiple cancers and have validated our findings in multiple cancer cell types and animal models,” Lead author Professor Ratna Vadlamudi, of the University of Texas said. “The range of cell lines and xenografts in which the compound has been shown to work is compelling and indicates that it is targeting a fundamental vulnerability in cancer cells.”
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Xenografts are human tumors grown in mouse models for research purposes. The findings could lead to exciting drugs for cancers that have few effective treatments.
Prof. Vadlamudi’s lab staff study breast and ovarian cancer with a goal to developing small-molecule inhibitors for tumors that are resistant to current therapies.
In 2017, they identified a compound called ERX-11 that targets the oestrogen receptor (ER) protein that drives most breast cancers.
By screening similar chemicals, the researchers showed ERX-41 killed ER-positive and triple-negative breast cancers (TNBCs) in petri dishes.
They lack receptors for the hormones oestrogen, progesterone, and human epidermal growth factor 2 – and are the most deadly.
The researchers then showed ERX-41 also attacked a large number of human tumors grown from several of these cell lines in mouse models.
It was also potent against patient-derived xenografts, shrinking human tumors grown in lab rodents without affecting normal breast cells or causing any discernible toxicity.
“The safety profile and high therapeutic index of this compound is particularly notable and bodes well for clinical translation,” Prof Vadlamudi said.
Further tests found ERX-41 is also effective against pancreatic, brain, and ovarian tumours. They are among the most lethal, with few effective treatments.
“This vulnerability has a large therapeutic window, with no adverse effects either on normal cells or in mice,” Prof. Vadlamudi added. “Our study implicates a targeted strategy for solid tumours including breast, brain, pancreatic, and ovarian whereby small, orally bioavailable molecules result in tumor cell death.”
Dallas-based biotech company EtiraRx hopes clinical trials will be underway in early 2023.
The study was published in the journal Nature Cancer.
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Almost the only thing Birmingham, Alabama, and Pakistan have in common is Shahzeb Anwer—a man who left his home country for an important surgery in the U.S. and found so much more than medical help.
The 31-year-old found his ‘home away from home’ in the southern city, and now considers it—and all its 211,000 residents—part of his family.
So, as he was preparing to be married, he did what anyone would do; he invited his family—all of Birmingham—to his special day.
This heartwarming story began in Pakistan where Anwer, who suffered from kidney stones every year or two, needed a surgery that he found could be done most effectively and cheaply at UAB Hospital in Birmingham.
Never having heard of this city or state before, Anwer began doing his homework; what should he wear, what’s the best way to get around? Posting on a small Reddit group for the Magic City, Anwer soon got a double dose of southern hospitality.
“People responded in a way that I wouldn’t even expect from my own people in Pakistan,” Anwer told a CBS local affiliate.
Folks in the group started cheering him on, making recommendations, and helping to facilitate his trip/stay by making sure he had rides to places.
One Birminghamer, Andrew Harris would drive him around, take him out to dinner, and ensure he got to try as many foods from other countries as possible, adding that Anwer always tried to pay him, but that he never accepted, because it was like he was making a great friend out of the South Asian visitor.
Then the day came. After the surgery was a complete success, Anwer was set to return to Pakistan.
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“When he started to leave, I got this huge hole in my stomach–in my heart–that I was about to lose him,” Harris said. “Knowing him such a short time, I was surprised that I started having those feelings, but he’s already become such an important part of my life.”
After returning to Pakistan, Anwer felt that since Harris and the rest of Birmingham had become such a part of his life, they should be at his upcoming wedding. He posted in the same Reddit group that all the members to the thread were invited, and they could bring anyone from the city.
In the Reddit Birmingham community he wrote days later: “Hello home city and its people. I hope you’re all fine. Just a glimpse of one of my days though marriage is a multiday celebration here.”
Comments soon after rained well-wishes on him and his fiancee.
One took the opportunity to express how Anwer’s journey influenced their decision to move to Alabama.
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“I was considering permanently moving to Birmingham when I first read about your story through this Reddit,” one person wrote. “I was so touched that it (among many other things) helped convince me to take the plunge and commit.”
Anwer responded that, “for you it’s a golden opportunity, no hugs are turned down in this place.”
His wedding took place on May the 22nd, and it’s unclear how much of Birmingham made it out, as it was short notice and a long flight. But they were all invited, and that’s all that matters.
(WATCH the video for this story below.)
SAY ‘I do’ to Stories of True Hospitality Like This One; Share It on Social…
When a woman recently found a lump in the cushion of a chair she had received for free on Craigslist, she thought it was a heating pad someone with a bad back had stuffed into it.
But when Vicky Umodu from Colton in California unzipped the cover, she pulled out a dozen envelopes of cold, hard cash.
She yelled “we’ve got to call the guy” to her son, and quickly returned every cent—saying it never once occurred to her to keep even a dollar.
An ABC news local affiliate reached out to the vendor and his family, who said that they were getting rid of the chair and a matching sofa after the death of a loved one.
The money totaled $36,000, which the family believes was hidden away by the deceased as part of a saving strategy, and that there could be more dough in unseen places.
Mrs. Umodu was given $2,200 as a reward for her good deed, money she’ll use to buy a new refrigerator.
“God has been kind to me and my children,” Umodu told reporters. “They are all alive and well, I have three beautiful grandchildren, so what can I ever ask of God?
(WATCH the video for this story below.)
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Quote of the Day: “Remember… Triumph is made up of two words: TRY and UMPH.” – Robert Schuller
Photo by: Julia Caesar
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?
A sick schoolgirl who dreamed of staying at The Shard as she looked out at it from her bed at Great Ormond Street Hospital has been treated to a $25,150 (£20,000) stay there.
14-year-old Angel Growns was diagnosed with Proximal Femoral Focal Deficiency and Sacral Agenesis at birth, which means her lower spine did not develop properly and her right femur was completely missing.
She has spent years of her life in and out of hospital.
In 2018 she nearly died following an operation to amputate her lower leg at the world-famous hospital While the operation was successful, Angel contracted deadly sepsis afterwards following an infection.
It was there that she could see The Shard from her hospital bed and kept asking the nurses about it.
“When she learned there was a hotel inside, called Shangri-La, she desperately wanted to go,” her mom, Holly, said.
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The family were treated to the luxury stay through charity Make-A-Wish UK free of charge.
“I really can’t put into words just how amazing the whole thing was. A real VIP experience,” Her mom added. “Angel has been through so much in her young life and continues to go through a lot but has always done it with a brave face. This was such a magical thing for her to enjoy.
Instead of staring out at The Shard from her sick bed, she was able to look back across to Great Ormond Street from her window. And her room in the hotel was beautifully decorated with balloons, flowers and edible decorations.
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The whole family was told to ‘go mad’ on room service and the chef even prepared a special selection of Angel’s favorite food and drink.
“It’s a once in a lifetime thing and it will be a memory she will cherish forever. We all will.”
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Rubber from used tyres acts like sunscreen for roads and halves the rate of sun damage when mixed with bitumen, new research has found.
Engineers at RMIT University in Australia have discovered a bitumen blend that is both UV-resistant and withstands traffic loads, with the potential to save governments millions on road maintenance annually.
Unlike much outdoor infrastructure—such as playground equipment and outdoor furniture— roads are not designed with any sun protection, making them prone to cracking and potentially unsafe to drive on.
Incorporating recycled rubber not only offers sun protection but is a promising sustainable solution to the used-tyre crisis in many countries, including Australia where an export ban on used tyres has been in place since December 2020.
While research efforts have focused on improving the durability of roads in terms of traffic load, thermal ageing and weather-related events, sun damage has received little attention, until now.
The new study led by RMIT’s Associate Professor Filippo Giustozzi provides a sustainable solution to UV protection for roads.
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“We found that the ageing trend is actually slowed down when you add crumb rubber, which is recycled from scrap tyres, into the top layer of a road,” Giustozzi said.
“This acts so effectively as a sunscreen for roads that it actually makes the surface last twice as long as regular bitumen.
“We knew that UV would be a factor in road degradation, but not by what degree or how to protect against it, as nobody has really been looking at this aspect.”
RMIT is one of the few universities in Australia to have a UV machine for asphalt studies, which can simulate weather-related ageing and is usually used for testing outdoor furniture paints.
Giustozzi’s team used this machine to simulate the long-term effect of solar degradation in the lab on bitumen with different concentrations of crumb rubber: from a low concentration of 7.5% to a medium of 15% and a high of 22.5%.
RELATED: This California Highway Has Just Become the First State Road Made From Recycled Plastic in the US
After a month and a half of continuous exposure in the UV machine—equivalent to about a year of UV radiation in Melbourne, Australia—they measured the changes in bitumen’s chemical and mechanical properties.
Giustozzi said bitumen mixed with the high concentration of crumb rubber from recycled tyres showed 50% less UV damage compared to regular bitumen.
While using more rubber was better in terms of UV resistance, Giustozzi said it was also important to balance this with mechanical performance.
“You don’t want something that is UV resistant but not truck resistant,” he said.
“We found adding between 18% and 22% of crumb rubber generates an ideal balance in terms of improving rut and fatigue resistance to traffic loads, while resisting UV ageing.”
Tyre Stewardship Australia CEO, Lina Goodman, said while Australia produced around 450,000 tonnes of end-of-life tyres in 2021, only around 70% of those were recycled or reprocessed.
Goodman said they were encouraged by the research in showcasing the viability and benefits of using crumb rubber from end-of-life tyres, not only in roads and civil infrastructure, but across multiple sectors.
MORE: 12 Countries Have Built Roads Out of Plastic – And They Can Perform As Well or Better Than Asphalt
“We’re excited to collaborate on this project with industry and leading researchers at RMIT University,” she said.
“A multi-organisational approach paves the way for new innovation and the opportunity to turn this resource into a value-added product.”
Giustozzi said an added advantage of crumb rubber was that it was already widely in use, including in some roads, but that the councils and state authorities using it were not aware of this ‘sunscreen’ effect revealed in the research.
“We hope this research will change that and open new opportunities.”
The results have been published in the Journal of Cleaner Production.
Source: The Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology
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The Lesson: American winemaking is a racket. A few companies use public money to control all wine imports into our country, while artificially creating wines with additives to control shelf life, de-foaming agents, stabilizing agents, coloring agents, agents that affect the body of the wine, and even sugar additives. It’s not only that mass produced American wines are making us sick, they aren’t really even wine. Dry Farm Wines is a purveyor of natural wines that are zero sugar, low alcohol, additive free, and grown with regenerative agriculture methods free of pesticides—you know, the way the Romans did it.
Notable Excerpt: “Natural wines are grown in pretty small quantities by very small family farms. There’s not a lot of money in making wine this way because you can’t make it in great enough volumes. Back to the consolidated industry, you’ve got these giant wine companies [that] make millions and millions and millions of cases of wine. They don’t want you to know that, so they hide behind thousands of brands and labels to trick you. They want to feature a farmhouse or an animal on the label or a chateau to have you believe that you’re drinking [wine] from this place, when, in fact, most of these wines are made in giant wine factories located in the Central Valley of California.
The Guest: Todd White is founder of Dry Farm Wines, a distribution company that delivers boxes of wine from dozens of natural winemakers while ensuring the quality control with their own natural wine standard consisting of lower alcohol, zero sugar, organic or biodynamic farming, keto and vegan-friendly, additives-free, and less sulfites. Listeners interested can go to dryfarmwines.com/chriskresser to receive an extra bottle with their first order.
The Podcast: Revolution Health Radio is a deeply varied, topical podcast on functional medicine and ancestral health. It features interviews with experts in disciplines as varied as sleep and cancer to farming and strength-training.
The Host: Chris Kresser MD is a pioneer in the field of functional medicine, a discipline of working with patients to correct tendencies of exercise, sleep, nutrition, and lifestyle factors to tackle America’s growing health epidemic. He is the co-director of the California Center for Functional Medicine, and the author of New York Times bestseller The Paleo Cure, as well as Unconventional Medicine.
(HEAR the podcast by pressing play below.)
Featured image: Dry Farm Wines
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Just ten minutes beyond the center of Wellington lies a wild paradise, where the birdsong of as many as 40 species ring out above hikers.
The massive urban forest of Zealandia is helping prove that if you restore native forest in cities, native species will come back, and for a place with as unique an ecology as New Zealand, that’s all the more important.
The park, described as an eco-sanctuary, is delightful on its own, but it’s having a halo effect on bird communities in suburban, and even urban areas of the nation’s capital.
Opened in 1999, native birds have since increased during annual counts by 50%, while for some species that aren’t rare but shy away from cities, those figures are much higher. The numbers of kākā had increased by 250%, kererū by 186%, and tūī by 121% (the Māori accents denote a long vowel, i.e. “too-ee.”)
“In the 1990s seeing a tūī in suburban Wellington was a big deal, let alone a kākā,” Adam Ellis, a keen birdwatcher in Wellington, told the Guardian, reporting on the news. “Zealandia … created such a change in bird life that birds like tūī became a common garden bird.”
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It’s a species of least-concern, but it’s a true tragedy not to have the tūī flitting about backyards. Its beautiful blue-green plumage with a funny white bow-tie is magnificent to behold, and their cacophony is allegedly charming.
The Zealandia model drove researchers to investigate whether native tree density in and around cities resulted in an increase in native bird species. To get an answer, they examined 25 urban forest projects totaling 72 years of work. They found that the longer the reforestation work, the greater the diversity of native species.
Furthermore, populations of invasive predators like weasels, cats, possums, and rats, which were logically thought to be a reducer of population, had no affect in areas reforested with native tree species.
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However it’s far from just birds that enjoy Zealandia. Visitors can also see freshwater mussel colonies, frogs, the eponymous New Zealand eel species, and the wētā, a giant cricket. Additionally, lucky hikers may also see a tuatara. It may look like a lizard, but it’s one of the planet’s truly unique species, as it evolved back in the Triassic Period, and is the only surviving member of its species, which split away from snakes and lizards before the age of the dinosaurs.
Zealandia is a beautiful place, but it takes a lot of hard work to maintain it. Nine kilometers of predator-proof fencing surrounds the park, and 500 volunteers keep trails and water ways in order, and ensure that invasive species don’t propagate.
“When you see birds in your backyard that no one else has, it makes you want to do something for them,” Gini Letham, its lead ranger told the Guardian.
“One of our main missions is to connect people with nature—it’s not necessarily coming here for a bush walk, but it’s also about looking after nature in their own backyard and spreading it past just the sanctuary.”
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Quote of the Day: “Studying the imagination is the most exciting and accurate way to heal the terminal divide between the sciences and the humanities.” – Stephen T. Asma
Photo by: Denisse Leon
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?
In a “bugs as drugs” approach, medical researchers in England are using living bacterial magnets to guide viruses engineered to attack cancer tumors.
This process, which has several years of work behind it, has been shown to be able to successfully attack prostate and breast cancers, and has been awarded the Roger Griffin prize for cancer drug discovery.
Known as an “oncolytic virus,” it naturally occurs in nature, but can be modified to improve its efficacy and limit its virality. It causes cancer cells to burst open and die, and so many researchers are keen to harness this near-readymade solution. However, like all other viruses, they also attract the host’s immune system, meaning if they don’t reach their target fast enough, they can get vaporized by immune cells.
Oncologists have successfully used a kind of fat cell known as a liposome to coat and transport intravenous oncolytic viruses, which allows them to be taken up more quickly into tumorous areas.
Now, researchers at the Sheffield group, funded by Cancer Research UK, have also found they can guide the viruses quicker if they’re coated with magnetized particles. Believe it or not, engineers can make magnets fifty one-billionths of a meter, to arm the oncolytic viruses with. But there’s actually a much cheaper and easier way of doing this.
Enter a kind of microbe found in soil that absorbs iron oxides to align itself with Earth’s magnetic field, called magnetosomes.
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“These microscopic magnets, they make are perfectly shaped and ideally suited to the microscopic packages we need to target deep cancers,” Dr. Faith Howard, a project leader at the Sheffield Group, told the Guardian.
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To date their research has focused on animal trials, and now the project needs to be able to manufacture enough supplies to complete a long human trial before the experimental “bugs as drugs” procedure can be proven to work.
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Electric cars could be made with plastic from old clunkers, according to new research.
Bumpers, carpets, mats, seating, seals, and door casings have been turned into graphene, which is the world’s lightest material.
Invented by British scientists almost two decades ago, it is set to revolutionize the automative industry.
The metal will increase vehicles’ strength while reducing weight, improving fuel efficiency, and creating rust-free paint.
It will make self-driving cars safer with sensors just one atom thick, enabling detection of obstacles even in difficult weather conditions.
The U.S. team collaborated with Ford using a state-of-the-art technique called flash Joule heating.
“Ford sent us 10 pounds of mixed plastic waste from a vehicle shredding facility,” project leader Professor James Tour, of Rice University, Houston, said. “It was muddy and wet. We flashed it, we sent the graphene back to Ford, they put it into new foam composites and it did everything it was supposed to do.
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“Then they sent us the new composites and we flashed those and turned them back into graphene. It’s a great example of circular recycling.”
The recycling breakthrough could also reduce landfill waste from over 1.4 billion passenger cars used globally.
Ford has been using up to 60 lbs of polyurethane foam in its vehicles, with about 2 lbs being graphene-reinforced since 2018.
“When we got the graphene back from Rice, we incorporated it into our foam in very small quantities and saw significant improvement,” co-author Dr Alper Kiziltas, a sustainability expert at the motor giant, said. “It exceeded our expectations in providing both excellent mechanical and physical properties for our applications.”
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The company first introduced it into under-the-hood components. In 2020 it added a graphene-reinforced engine cover. It’s also expected to boost hard plastics.
“Our collaborative discovery with Rice will become even more relevant as Ford transitions to electric vehicles,” co-author Dr Deborah Mielewski, also from Ford, said.
“When you take away the noise generated by the internal combustion engine, you can hear everything else in and outside the vehicle that much more clearly.”
“It’s much more critical to be able to mitigate noise. “So we desperately need foam materials that are better noise and vibration absorbers.
“This is exactly where graphene can provide amazing noise mitigation using extremely low levels.”
Graphene will also replace lithium ion batteries, currently a very heavy component of electric vehicles.
The study in Communications Engineering reused the graphene to make enhanced polyurethane for new vehicles.
Tests showed the infused foam’s tensile strength and low-frequency noise absorption increased by 34 and 25 percent, respectively, with less than 0.1 percent by weight.
And when that new car is old, the foam can be flashed into graphene again. Plastic in vehicles has increased by an estimated 75 percent in just six years.
“In Europe, cars come back to the manufacturer, which is allowed to landfill only 5% of a vehicle. That means they must recycle 95%, and it’s just overwhelming,” prof. Tour said.
The US shreds up to 15 million vehicles each year, with more than 27 million shredded globally. Much ends up being incinerated.
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“We have hundreds of different combinations of plastic resin, filler and reinforcements on vehicles that make the materials impossible to separate,” Dr Mielewski said. “Every application has a specific loading/mixture that most economically meets the requirements.”
Engineered plastics cannot be recycled. Traditional recycling methods are expensive because they require the separation of different types.
“These aren’t recyclables like plastic bottles, so they can’t melt and reshape them,” Prof Tour explained. “So, when Ford researchers spotted our paper on flash Joule heating plastic into graphene, they reached out.”
Flash Joule heating was developed by his lab two years ago. It packs mixed ground plastic and a coke additive, for conductivity, between electrodes in a tube.
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The chemical cocktail is blasted with high voltage. The sudden, intense heat reaches nearly 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit vaporizing other elements, leaving behind graphene.
It offers significant environmental benefits. The process does not require solvents and uses a minimum of energy.
In experiments, the team ground shredder ‘fluff’ from end-of-life F-150 pick-up trucks without washing or pre-sorting the components.
Powder heated between 10 to 16 seconds in low current produced a highly carbonized plastic accounting for about 30 percent of the initial bulk.
The rest was outgassed or recovered as hydrocarbon-rich waxes and oils. Lead author Kevin Wyss, a graduate student, believes this could also be recycled.
The carbonized plastic was then subjected to high-current flashing, converting 85 percent of it into graphene while outgassing hydrogen, oxygen, chlorine, silicon, and trace metal impurities.
Analyses showed it produced graphene with a substantial reduction in energy, greenhouse gas emissions, and water use when compared to other methods, even including the energy required to reduce the plastic shredder fluff to powder.
Graphene was discovered in 2004 by Prof Andre Geim and Prof Kostya Novoselov at the University of Manchester. It later won them the Nobel Prize for physics.
It is tougher than diamond, but stretches like rubber. It is virtually invisible, conducts electricity and heat better than any copper wire, and weighs next to nothing.
In coming decades, the astonishing material is expected to change almost every aspect of our lives.
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A new poll suggests ‘Summer Fridays’ are the key to feeling happier at work.
59% of 2,000 working adults say their jobs offer ‘Summer Fridays’—allowing them a short day, or a day off, occasionally on Fridays during the season.
Over eight in 10 employees say they benefit from this perk because it makes them feel much happier at work (85%).
The survey, commissioned by Wisetail and conducted by OnePoll, delved into the impact weather may have on productivity—finding that 73% believe it directly impacts how they work.
Respondents claimed that cool temperatures (28%) and clear blue skies (27%) are associated with being the most productive at work, coinciding with 43% who believe they do their best work in the spring.
It’s no surprise, then, that 65% prefer working outside when the weather is nice—from getting work done in local cafés (53%) to rooftops (48%) and patios (48%).
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Employees shared what weather factors can make them have a bad day at their jobs—with conditions like heavy rain (25%) and freezing temperatures (25%) being the root cause of unproductive workdays. Meanwhile, 22% associate snow with having a bad day at work.
Overall, 68% said the motivation to learn or absorb information at work drops when the weather is poor.
Nearly as many (67%) will turn the brightness of their computer screens down if it’s gray or darker outside and 64% said they have to take frequent breaks away from their computer screens when there’s overcast.
Poor weather conditions are enough for 63% to believe it’s excusable for them to take more time completing their work tasks.
Time is also a factor in people’s productivity. In order to have the “best day” at work, the average person needs to wake up at 7:30 a.m, while rising an hour later at 8:30 a.m. would be considered the “worst” way to start off the day.
Sixty-four percent noted that daylight saving had affected their productivity in the past, with a majority (85%) saying they feel unproductive when the clock changes.
“While there are evolving variables to the explanation and reason behind productivity and nice weather, we can correlate better weather with a more positive outlook on the day and overall better mood,” said Kyle Reichelt, product manager at Wisetail. “We also know that better moods lead to increased motivation and self-confidence, which all contributes to efficiency levels in productivity.”
Aside from the workplace, the weather seems to play a role in people’s daily lives. The average respondent said they get seven migraines or headaches per year influenced by the weather.
Nearly two in three (63%) said they have struggled with Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) before—a behavioral disorder where cold, gray weather affects Vitamin D and dopamine levels.
Of those who experience this condition, 80% said it affects the quality of work they put in at their jobs.
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“Increasing workplace productivity starts with learning which task management tricks work best for you,” continued Reichelt. “While we can’t control the weather, we can control how we tackle our day and adjust for different weather conditions knowing how they affect us.
“Focusing on one task at a time, taking regular breaks, time-blocks on your schedule, and initiating small goals with small objectives are all tricks you might try. Also, try waking up a bit earlier. As noted in the poll, many find that waking up before 7:30 a.m. affects productivity and energy throughout the day.”
“Further, assigning yourself your most challenging tasks that require intense focus at the peak clear-minded time of the day leads to increased productivity and efficiency.”
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So a monk and a bishop walk into a bar… If someone had to sum up the friendship of His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, maybe that’s how it would begin.
A documentary to be streamed live on Facebook on June 2nd celebrates the incredible friendship of these two global icons. Called Mission: JOY, it’s a tour-de-force about creating happiness in one’s life, no matter the conditions.
GNN will have a live stream of the film on our Facebook page starting on Thursday, June 2 at 5:00pm PST, and ending on Saturday, June 4 at 5:00pm PST.
Throughout the film, these renowned spiritual leaders share the ways in which they’ve harnessed ancient wisdom and perseverance to find, seek, and maintain joy—even in the face of great adversity and during troubled times like the ones in which we are now living.
An Academy Award-winning documentary team shot and produced Mission: Joy, which took place in the final years of the Archbishop’s life, and offers an unparalleled glimpse into the teasing and laughter the pair shared for years.
The hope is not only to show people how to create joy, but that the benefits of joy a many-fold for both physical and mental health. Berkeley is working with the film to carry out The Big Joy Project, a large citizen science experiment that prescribes certain acts of joy depending on the person, to see how much it can enrich the public health.
Visit missionjoy.org to learn more.
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Quote of the Day: “A person is a fluid process, not a fixed and static entity; a flowing river of change, not a fixed quantity of traits.” – Carl Rogers
Photo by: Joshua Fuller
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?
