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China’s Artificial Sun Just Broke a Record for Longest Sustained Nuclear Fusion Ten Times Over

By
Andy Corbley
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Chris Bolan, CC license
Chris Bolan, CC license

At the headquarters of China’s most powerful nuclear fusion reactor, Chinese scientists rang in the new year by setting a world record for the longest-sustained operation of such a reactor, beating a world record they set last year 10 times over.

China’s record-breaking Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) in Heifei managed to heat plasma to 120 million Fahrenheit, or 70 million Celsius, for around 17.5 minutes—the longest any nation has ever been able to contain a super-heated plasma.

The relevance is two-fold. First, the longer the plasma can be contained in the reactor, the more electricity is produced, and the greater the volume of these successful tests around the world, the more the case for nuclear fusion power grows. Second, the jump in magnitude between the record set by EAST in July of 2021, and that of December 2022, shows just how fast this technology is advancing.

“We achieved a plasma temperature of 120 million degrees Celsius for 101 seconds in an experiment in the first half of 2021. This time, steady-state plasma operation was sustained for 1,056 seconds at a temperature close to 70 million degrees Celsius, laying a solid scientific and experimental foundation toward the running of a fusion reactor,” said Gong Xianzu, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Sciences Plasma Institute.

How it works

Nuclear fusion reactors are often called “artificial suns” in the media, as they replicate the way stars form and continue to generate matter. A heavy ionized gas called plasma, that makes up most of the stars in the universe, is formed in the reactor by different methods for different reactors. Currently there are many institutions pushing different models of fusion power.

RELATED: Australian Company Works to Make Energy From Nuclear Fusion – But Without the Fiery Ball of Plasma

EAST fires a supercharged laser at heavy hydrogen isotopes like deuterium and tritium. If ice is hydrogen in a solid form, water is liquid, and vapor is gas, plasma is what happens when you really turn the heat up. The plasma would normally dissipate and rapidly cool, but superconducting magnets replicate the intense gravitational pressure at the center of the sun to keep it contained.

Once contained under this pressure, which is tens of thousands of times stronger than the Earth’s, the atomic nuclei of the hydrogen atoms overcome their magnetic resistance and push against each other under the heat to fuse, hence the name fusion.

In order for this process to generate electricity, four hydrogen atoms must fuse together to create a helium atom. Energy is released during this process which in the sun is bled off into the solar system, but in the confines of the reactor is collected for energy.

MORE: The Greatest Technological Hurdle to Making Nuclear Fusion Possible – the Magnet – Just Powered Up

Considering the gravity and price tag of these experiments it seems valuable to question why. Nuclear fusion power generates no emissions expect for helium. Most operators are preparing to adapt seawater as a fuel source rather than uranium or plutonium, as seawater contains a bit of deuterium and tritium. Furthermore the output is extraordinary, with one liter of seawater expected to generate the same amount of electricity as 300 liters of oil.

CHECK OUT: Finally, a Fusion Reaction Has Generated More Energy Than Absorbed By The Fuel

“It’s probably the last energy source we’ll ever tame,” Dennis Whyte, a Canadian scientist who is director of plasma science fusion center at MIT, told the Financial Post last year.

“I think of the trajectory from taming fire and it finally completes in fusion, because we’ll have tamed the energy source of the stars.”

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Nurse Rescues Her Patient’s Dog From a Shelter After Getting a Heart-Felt Phone Call

By
Judy Cole
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Grand Healthcare
Grand Healthcare

“With loyalty, I will endeavor to aid the physician in his work, and devote myself to the welfare of those committed to my care.”

Every day, nurses take these words from the Florence Nightingale oath to heart, striving to ensure their patients’ welfare—but some, like registered nurse Jennifer Smith, take that commitment to care a step further.

Last November, Smith got a panicked call from John Burley, one of her patients from the adult day health care program at Rome, New York’s Grand Rehabilitation and Nursing Center. He’d been hospitalized with pneumonia, and with no nearby family to step in to help, his dog Boomer had been taken to an animal shelter.

“I came into work the Monday after Thanksgiving to the phone ringing at 7 a.m.,” Smith recalled in an interview with CNN. “John was calling from his hospital room saying, ‘Boomer is in the pound! Boomer is in the pound!’”

Aware that the 12-year-old dog he’d had since it was a pup meant the world to him, when Burley asked Smith if she would take care of Boomer, her immediate response was a resounding, “Of course, I will!”

The first thing Smith had to do was track Boomer down, finally finding him at the Rome Humane Society. The following day, she drove to the shelter and put the adoption in motion, letting Burley know Boomer was doing well and he’d be coming home soon.

RELATED: 80-Year-old Man Reunited With Long Lost Siblings Thanks to His Litter Clean-up Dog on TV

Smith was given the green light to bring Boomer to work with her. She says that knowing his beloved canine companion was safe and they’d be able to see one another made a huge positive impact on Burley’s recovery.

Grand Healthcare

During his stay in the rehab wing, Smith brought Boomer to visit his doggy daddy several times a day. The cute pooch soon became a favorite with staff and patients alike.

To Smith, keeping 60-year-old Burley and Boomer together is just a natural extension of her life’s goal of helping people. “There are just so many worries in the world right now. If I can take one worry away from John, that’s the least I can do,” she told CNN.

“I can’t cure diseases. I’m not a miracle worker [but] I made a promise to John to take care of Boomer. I will take care of him as long as he needs me to. John knows that. Right now the focus is on John getting better and taking it one day at a time.”

MORE: Determined ‘Lassie’ Dog Leads New Hampshire Police Back to Scene of Owner’s Car Crash Down a Hill

Burley has speech issues as a result of his illness, so sometimes it can be difficult for him to put his thanks into words. However, there’s one sentiment he’s managed to express loud and clear: “I love Jennifer,” he’s declared.

We’re sure Boomer seconds that emotion with a hearty, “Woof!”

RAISE Your Paws For True Generosity; Share This Story…

‘Orion’s Fireplace’: Flame Nebula is Ablaze With Color and Captured in Stunning New Images

By
Andy Corbley
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The Flame Nebula, captured in radio waves. Photo Credit - ESO/Th. Stanke & ESO/Digitized Sky Survey 2.
The Flame Nebula region as seen in infrared with APEX and VISTA;ESO/Th. Stanke & ESO/J. Emerson/VISTA

There’s an adage in astronomy about how there’s always something new to find in the constellation of Orion—well, astronomers just found his fireplace.

In a new series of images, the aptly-named “Flame Nebula” located in Orion appears like a raging inferno, as radiation released by young stars causes clouds of gases and dust to glow.

The spectacular image was snapped by the Atacama Pathfinder Experiment at the European Southern Observatory in Chile’s Atacama Desert, the perfect place for professional stargazing due to it being very far from any light pollution and located at a very high altitude.

It’s a composite image, with instruments that view in radio waves providing the blazing oranges, and a second infrared spectrum telescope providing the precise background.

Optical light can’t make it through the dense nebulae, but infrared light can, so using both allows scientists to have an unobstructed view.

Orion is one of the most famous regions in the sky, and the image contains the iconic Horsehead Nebula in the top right in addition to the Flame Nebula. The lighter colored swirl in the middle-right is the reflection of another nebula NGC 2023. The team even discovered one new nebula, a small object, remarkable because of its almost perfectly circular appearance, which they named the Cow Nebula.

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

“As astronomers like to say, whenever there is a new telescope or instrument around, observe Orion: there will always be something new and interesting to discover!” ESO Thomas Stanke said in a statement.

The Flame Nebula, captured in radio waves.; ESO/Th. Stanke & ESO/Digitized Sky Survey 2

Nebulae are often referred to as cosmic nurseries, and are areas in which clouds of gases and dust coalesce into stars. This makes them extremely photogenic places, and the clouds in the image are known as the Orion Molecular Cloud Complex.

Located between 1,300 and 1,600 light-years away from Earth, they contain the most active stellar nursery in the Solar System’s neighborhood.

Unlike what the “fire” of this image might suggest, these clouds are actually cold, with temperatures typically just a few tens of degrees above absolute zero.

MORE: Astronomers Capture Black Hole Eruption Spanning 16 Times the Full Moon in the Sky

“The different colors indicate the velocity of the gas,” ESO officials wrote in the statement. “The Flame Nebula and its surroundings are moving away from us, with the red clouds in the background receding faster than the yellow ones in the foreground.”

WATCH ESO stack their images atop one another in the video below.

SHARE These Far Out Photos With More Cosmic Fans…

“The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do. You can act to change and control your life.” – Amelia Earhart

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Good News Network
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Quote of the Day: “The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do. You can act to change and control your life.” – Amelia Earhart

Photo: by Alexander Krivitskiy

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?

 

Watch Woman Save Bees By Rescuing Hives From Old Buildings With Her Bare Hands

By
Andy Corbley
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Photos by Texas Beesworks

If an overwhelming sound of buzzing is coming from the siding on your house, or from an old trashcan or other enclosed space, you’ve got a bee problem and will need a professional.

Photos by Texas Beesworks

If you live in Austin Texas, your beekeeper may arrive without so much as a protective glove on her hand.

After quitting her office job in 2019, Erika Thompson, founder of Texas Beeworks, became a fulltime beekeeper with a mission to increase the population of bees and hives in the Lone Star State.

So, every day she travels to rescue errant bee swarms from harm. She carefully preserves their old hive, cutting it into sections to transfer to a new hive that she has brought. Then she carries the hive to her truck and brings them to her land where they can recover.

Erika is like a bee whisperer. When she arrives on the scene, she can discern from their behavior whether the bees are likely to sting her. She will use protection for those broods, but mostly she works in harmony with them.

With the tenderness of Steve “The Crocodile Hunter” Irwin who would kiss the nose of a ‘problem croc’, Thompson will scoop out bees that have invaded trash bins or house siding with her bare hands and a gentle smile.

All the while, she’ll be explaining on camera, for her TikTok or YouTube channels, how kind, soft, and orderly, bees really are.

LOOK: Teen Rescues Bumblebee And Now it Won’t Leave Her Side –Even Sleeping in a Jar by Her Bed

“How come they aren’t stinging you?” is the number one question posed to Erika, who says the key is reading the bees’ mood.

“After we remove the bees, they are relocated to one our 25+ bee sanctuaries in the Austin area so that the bees can continue their important work in a place that is both safer for you and for them,” Thompson writes on her website.

While it could cost a $100 or more to have an established hive removed from your property, Thompson is encouraging people to protect bee populations by offering free swarm removal. Swarms are errant balls of hiveless-bees, which sometimes don’t have a queen, and are thusly aimless.

RELATED: Bees Have a New, Lifesaving ‘Vaccine’ to Make Them Immune to Pesti-Side Effects

Out of respect for the bee’s toil, Texas Beeworks does not sell any honey from her hives, but rather makes a living exclusively through bee removal and beekeeping classes.

WATCH more mind-boggling, bare-handed hive removals in the incredible video below…

CREATE Some Buzz on Social Media By Sharing the Good News…

Why Cats Love to Sit in Boxes – Even Fake Ones, According to Science

By
Andy Corbley
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Andrew Cornell
Andrew Cornell

Most millennial cat owners will be familiar with the phrase “If I fits, I sits,” used so often to caption delightful online images of cats attempting to squeeze into a box, drawer, bag, bowl, or other container.

But if no such object were there, would cats still try to inhabit, say, inside a picture of a box drawn onto the floor?

Well, a researcher has found that, in their unquenchable desire to sit in boxes, cats are susceptible to being fooled by optical illusions.

He launched a recent citizen science project that recruited cat owners to try to pull the fur over the eyes of their kitties with the ‘Kanizsa contour illusion.’

The Kanizsa contour illusion is an image that demonstrates how our visual system works: perceiving shapes from the empty space before noting those made from solid objects.

Six Kanizsa images were randomly assigned to 30 cat owners, who for 30 days placed them on the floor to see how their cat interacted with them. The owners wore sunglasses to prevent eye contact influencing the cat’s behavior.

MORE: Cats Are Less Stressed in Families With Children Who Have Autism, Study Finds

The Kanizsa image was of a square, delineated only by four “Pacman” shapes forming the corners of the square. Just this was enough to bring seven cats consistently to the perfect Kanizsa square, and eight cats to another Kanizsa square in which the Pacman mouths were pointing outward. Just two chose to sit in a misshapen square.

Gabriella Smith, et al.

RELATED: Cats Track Their Owners’ Movements, Research Finds

“To the best of our knowledge, this investigation is the first of its kind in three regards: a citizen science study of cat cognition; a formal examination into cats’ attraction to 2D rather than 3D enclosures; and study into cats’ susceptibility to illusory contours in an ecologically relevant paradigm,” author Gabriella Smith, an animal behaviorist at Hunter College NY, wrote in the study.

Essentially cat eyes are primed to detect enclosures; so much so that they can find them even if they are only mildly delineated in a 2D environment. It’s safe to say they’re box-seeking missiles, and it’s no wonder they’re so attracted to them.

LET the Cat Out of the Box, Just This Once – Share This Curious Finding…

Get Your US Taxes Filed Digitally for Free Using These Websites

By
Andy Corbley
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No-one likes paying taxes, but truly no-one likes paying for a tax service. Fortunately there are a number of free online services for quickly navigating you through the 2,600 pages of the American Tax Code.

Thinking about the extent of your taxes early will give you a head start towards getting them done in an orderly and beneficial manner. Leaving them until April 1st practically guarantees that an inexperienced filer will pay too much or not notice deductions or possible credits.

FreeTaxUSA is a well-loved service that offers free federal tax returns for all situations. That means even if you generate revenue through more complex situations like farming or renting, if you’re self-employed, if you own a house, a business, or contract freelancers, you won’t pay a dime to file.

With many filing services, state returns come at a premium because they involve navigating through 50 separate tax codes. FreeTaxUSA charges $15 for a state return, but in a love-train of comments on a recent Reddit thread about free tax software, one Redditor claimed they will set you up with a physical state return so you only pay the price of a stamp.

“Always impressed with the level of support they have for a free service,” another commented.

RELATED: This is the Surprising Outcome When a California City Gave Struggling Folks Free Money for a Year

“Their service is excellent, and so easy to get through even if you don’t know what you are doing,” said another. “But also easy to use if you do know what you’re doing!”

MORE: More Than Half of Americans Have a New Definition for Financial Well-Being After the Pandemic, Poll Finds

OLT.com, short for Online Taxes, is another mostly-free filing service which seems, based on the Redditors’ reviews, to be very similar to Turbo Tax—a service which as of this year pulled out of the IRS Free File Program, and therefore no longer offers a free option.

OLT’s state return is $9.99 while all federal returns of all filing situations are free. They keep all of your information to port over for the following year’s taxes, so for filers with a single W-2 source of income, it seems incredibly expedient.

DON’T DELAY–Help Friends Out By Sharing This Story With Them…

Determined ‘Lassie’ Dog Leads New Hampshire Police Back to Scene of Owner’s Car Crash Down a Hill

By
Andy Corbley
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YouTube/WPTV
YouTube/WPTZ

A real-life Lassie saved the lives of two men who had overturned their Ford pickup truck and were lying injured in the cold.

Reports are saying she is being treated to venison and back-scratches—a fitting reward for the faithful canine who braved the cold and high-speed traffic to save her owner.

Tinsley, a Shiloh Shepherd, attracted the attention of the police as she was loitering on an embanked stretch of I-89 connecting New Hampshire to Vermont. Trooper Sandberg and other officers of the Lebanon Police Department made attempts to corral her and get close, but she kept running away, eventually leading them to a damaged section of guardrail.

“They were trying to get the dog off of the highway to keep it safe,” NH State Police Lt. Dan Baldassarre explained to local news. “The dog stood at the top of the embankment and looked down.”

When they followed her lead they saw a badly damaged overturned pickup truck with two injured occupants nearby who had been ejected from the vehicle.

At the scene, Trooper Sandberg and the Lebanon Police Officers called for medical assistance and found the two men to be suffering from hypothermia. It was then they learned that the German Shepard, named Tinsley, belonged to one of the injured occupants of the truck.

“It quickly became apparent that Tinsley led Trooper Sandberg and the Lebanon Police to the crash site and injured occupants,” NHSP said on their Facebook page. 

“This was almost like a real-life Lassie situation,” Baldassarre said. “It’s really quite remarkable. This dog definitely saved their lives. I don’t think they would have survived the night given the temperatures.”

A Facebook commenter agreed, citing the heroics as proof we don’t deserve dogs.

“She’s my little guardian angel,” said Cam Laundry, her owner. “It’s a miracle that she had that kind of intelligence to do what she did.”

(WATCH the WPTZ video for this story below.)

LEAD Your Friends to This Heroic Dog Story; Share It on Social Media…

“Only two things can reveal life’s great secrets: suffering and love.” – Paulo Coelho

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Good News Network
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Quote of the Day: “Only two things can reveal life’s great secrets: suffering and love.” – Paulo Coelho (Aleph)

Photo: by Allef Vinicius

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?

 

Heroic New York Police Officer Runs Out on Thin Ice to Rescue Dog Floundering in Frozen Lake – WATCH

By
Good News Network
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Lewiston Police Department officer Jonathan Smith - SWNS
Lewiston Police Department officer Jonathan Smith – SWNS

This is the tense moment a police officer bolts onto a frozen lake to rescue a puppy that had fallen through the thin ice.

Officer Jonathan Smith, 30, was called to Bond Lake near Lewiston, New York, after receiving reports of a Labrador that had fallen in about 50 yards from the shore.

In this heart-in-mouth footage captured by a fellow officer’s bodycam, the brave cop throws off some equipment before dashing out onto the ice, without any caution for his own safety.

The owner had been walking the 10-month-old pup around the lake on January 5 when Kona spotted a distant flock of geese landing on the water and bolted towards them.

Horrified, Kona’s owner watched as the dog fell into the freezing water at the edge of the ice.

In an email to Lewiston Police Department, the owner wrote: “Although she is a strong swimmer, there was zero chance of her getting back out onto the ice and she began to panic and tire quickly.”

Frantically they called 911, and 15 minutes later, Officer Smith and two other officers from the Police Department arrived.

LOOK: Families Spend Christmas Eve Rescuing 6 Elk Trapped in Frozen River After Falling Through Ice

Without hesitation or rescue equipment, the officer removed his vest and gun belt and hustled over the ice towards an exhausted Kona.

When he got close enough to her, Officer Smith grabbed the 75-lb. pooch and pulled her from the water so she was able to run back over the ice to her owner.

“Kona and I and everybody that loves her are extremely grateful for his selflessness and courage,” the owner wrote. “His professionalism and bravery should be applauded.”

POPULAR: Dog Trapped in Narrow Crevice Licked Moisture From Walls Until Rescuers Found Her With Plumber’s Camera

“I have witnessed countless acts of selfless heroism, Officer Jon Smith’s actions rank high in my book.”

Lewiston Police Department posted the bodycam footage from the rescue on their Facebook page, along with the message from Kona’s owner.

POPULAR: Saved From Bulldozers, Adorable Baby Bird Steals Hearts

Officer Smith was also honored recently for pulling a woman from a burning building in November, and has been working at Lewiston Police Department since July 2020.

WATCH the outstanding rescue below…

HAIL This Officer By Sharing his Heroic Rescue on Social Media…

Astronomers Capture Black Hole Eruption Spanning 16 Times the Full Moon in the Sky

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Good News Network
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Centaurus A elliptical active galaxy with black hole filmed at several wavelengths–Connor Matherne Louisiana State University and Ben McKinley ICRAR/Curtin

Astronomers have produced the most comprehensive image of radio emission from our nearest actively feeding supermassive black hole.

Centaurus A, a giant elliptical active galaxy and its black hole with a mass of 55 million suns – photographed at radio wavelengths, revealing vast lobes of plasma that reach far beyond the visible galaxy. The dots are not stars, but radio galaxies much like Centaurus A, at far greater distances. Credits: Ben McKinley, ICRAR/Curtin and Connor Matherne, Louisiana State University

The emission is powered by a central black hole in the galaxy Centaurus A, about 12 million light years away.

As the black hole feeds on in-falling gas, it ejects material at near light-speed, causing ‘radio bubbles’ to grow over hundreds of millions of years.

When viewed from Earth, the eruption from Centaurus A now extends eight degrees across the sky—the length of 16 full Moons laid side by side.

It was captured using the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) telescope in outback Western Australia.

The research paper was published in the journal Nature Astronomy.

Lead author Dr. Benjamin McKinley, from the Curtin University node of the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR), said the image reveals spectacular new details of the radio emissions from the galaxy.

“These radio waves come from material being sucked into the supermassive black hole in the middle of the galaxy,” he said.

“It forms a disc around the black hole, and as the matter gets ripped apart going close to the black hole, powerful jets form on either side of the disc, ejecting most of the material back out into space, to distances of probably more than a million light years.

“Previous radio observations could not handle the extreme brightness of the jets and details of the larger area surrounding the galaxy were distorted, but our new image overcomes these limitations.”

Centaurus A is the closest radio galaxy to our own Milky Way.

“We can learn a lot from Centaurus A in particular, just because it is so close and we can see it in such detail,” Dr. McKinley said.

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

Not just at radio wavelengths, but at all other wavelengths of light as well, as seen in the photo below.

Centaurus A elliptical active galaxy with black hole filmed at several wavelengths–Connor Matherne Louisiana State University and Ben McKinley ICRAR/Curtin

“In this research we’ve been able to combine the radio observations with optical and x-ray data, to help us better understand the physics of these supermassive black holes.”

Astrophysicist Dr. Massimo Gaspari, from Italy’s National Institute for Astrophysics, said the study corroborated a novel theory known as ‘Chaotic Cold Accretion’ (CCA), which is emerging in different fields.

LOOK: Researchers Solve Mystery of Scattered Black Glass in Chilean Desert – it Was Made by an Exploding Comet

“In this model, clouds of cold gas condense in the galactic halo and rain down onto the central regions, feeding the supermassive black hole,” he said.

“Triggered by this rain, the black hole vigorously reacts by launching energy back via radio jets that inflate the spectacular lobes we see in the MWA image. This study is one of the first to probe in such detail the multiphase CCA ‘weather’ over the full range of scales”, Dr Gaspari concluded.

Dr. McKinley said the galaxy appears brighter in the center where it is more active and there is a lot of energy.

“Then it’s fainter as you go out because the energy’s been lost and things have settled down,” he said.

WATCH: Spectacular Time Lapse Shows the Hypnotic Flames on the Surface of the Sun (WATCH)

“But there are interesting features where charged particles have re-accelerated and are interacting with strong magnetic fields.”

MWA director Professor Steven Tingay said the research was possible because of the telescope’s extremely wide field-of-view, superb radio-quiet location, and excellent sensitivity.

“The wide field of view and, as a consequence, the extraordinary amount of data we can collect, means that the discovery potential of every MWA observation is very high. This provides a fantastic step toward the even bigger SKA.”

SHARE the Mystery With the Black Hole of Fans on Social Media…

Woman Thanks Hero Who Found a Wallet in Snow, Then Drove it to Her House: ‘Juan is a Great Human!!!’ 

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Good News Network
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A family in Maryland wants to publicly thank a stranger for going above and beyond—just in time to bring a Happy New Year.

“What a great human!!” That’s how Laura Degnon began her email to GNN, hoping we would share the story of a good Samaritan touching their lives with kindness.

Her son, Jake, realized on Friday that he had lost his wallet Thursday night.

It snowed a couple inches in Rockville overnight which made it challenging for them to find anything outside around his car, or at the last store where he stopped to buy a snack.

“We shoveled so many places looking for it,” she recalled.

They were very motivated, too, as his wallet was unusually full of “quite a bit of Christmas money, college money, and of course his school ID, license, debit, and credit card.”

But they couldn’t find it anywhere.

Laura was up early on Saturday saying goodbye as Jake headed back to the University of South Carolina, and started cleaning up around the house, when the doorbell rang about 8:00AM.

“Much to my surprise a wonderful man by the name of Juan was standing there asking if Jake lived here.”

RELATED: A Family Treasure Scattered in the Street–and the Good Samaritan Who Cared

“I started to cry right away, and asked if he found his wallet, by chance.”

Juan had been up early, going to work on a Saturday morning, when he found Jake’s wallet in the parking lot of the store where he bought the snack—and he drove to their house to return it.

Everything was in tact, with nothing missing.

“What a great human!! Juan made my son’s day, and mine, more than he will ever know!”

HERO: Good Deed Takes Flight, as Man Buys Ticket For Anxious Stranger Desperate to Get Home

She also had a message for Juan’s employer, Brightview Landscaping in Clarksburg, Maryland: ‘You have one hell of an employee’.

“Thank you, from the bottom of our hearts.”

SHARE the Proof That Humanity is Still GOOD – on Social Media…

Watch the Adorable Moment a Baby Gorilla Born Prematurely is Reunited With its Family

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Good News Network
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Cleveland Metroparks Zoo via SWNS
Cleveland Metroparks Zoo via SWNS

After their premature baby was hospitalized for weeks, this gorilla family had a delightful reunion that was captured by caretakers.

The tiny western lowland gorilla, nicknamed Baby G, was born October 26 at the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo in Ohio.

Baby G was hailed with quite the fanfare in the city last Autumn, because it was the first baby gorilla to be born at the zoo in its 139-year history.

But they were in for a roller coaster ride of health issues.

When its 23-year-old mother Nneka did not show appropriate maternal care, the troop’s eldest female, Fredrika, 47—who herself has raised four infants elsewhere—instinctively took over looking after the newborn.

Baby G weighed only about three pounds at birth, and later contracted pneumonia, so he had to be separated from his family, in order to be treated.

Cleveland Metroparks Zoo, SWNS

Two weeks later, the now-healthy gorilla who weighed nearly seven pounds was reintroduced to his surrogate mother.

Cleveland Metroparks Zoo-SWNS

Keepers at the zoo put the baby in a makeshift nest to get him used to how it would feel to be in the gorilla troop.

They then exited the enclosure and let in Fredrika who, after sniffing him for a few minutes, picked him up and has barely let go of him since.

The baby’s surrogate mother continued to impress the zoo’s staff by bouncing Baby G and displaying all the maternal instincts she had before he was removed.

POPULAR: See The World’s Youngest Gorilla Being Hugged By Mom Hours After Being Born

The other gorillas, including its father, Mokolo, 24, welcomed the baby back into the group, with dad keeping a watchful eye.

WATCH the video that was just released in 2022…

RELATED: Gorillas Spring into Action to Dismantle Poacher’s Traps

SHARE the Adorable Moment With Your Wildlife Friends on Social Media…

“Don’t accept a life of mediocrity when you hold such infinite potential within the fortress of your mind. Dare to tap into your greatness.” – Robin S. Sharma

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Good News Network
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Quote of the Day: “Don’t accept a life of mediocrity when you hold such infinite potential within the fortress of your mind. Dare to tap into your greatness.” – Robin Sharma (The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari: A Fable About Fulfilling Your Dreams and Reaching Your Destiny)

Photo: by Nikola Knezevic

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?

 

Breakthrough Using CRISPR to Target Fat Cells in Genetic Study of Obesity

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Good News Network
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Illustration by Jill George / NIH Image Gallery -CC license

Fat—it is vital for life but too much can lead to a host of health problems. Studying how fat tissue, or adipose, functions in the body is critical for understanding obesity and other issues.

Illustration by Jill George / NIH Image Gallery -CC license

But structural differences in fat cells and their distribution throughout the body make doing so challenging.

“Fat cells are different from other cells in that they lack unique cell surface receptors and only account for a minority of the cells within fat tissue,” said Steven Romanelli, Ph.D., from the Department of Molecular & Integrative Physiology at the University of Michigan.

In a new paper published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry, Romanelli, Ormand MacDougald, Ph.D. and their colleagues describe a breakthrough using CRISPR-Cas9, a tool that has transformed molecular biological research, but whose use in the study of adipose tissue had been elusive.

It’s a gene editing technique comprised of an enzyme called Cas9, which can break strands of DNA, and a piece of RNA that guides the Cas9 enzyme to a specific site in the genome for editing. The tool has been successfully used to study heart, liver, neurons, and skin cells, to name a few, but never a certain type of adipose cells known as brown fat.

Using the technique, the team was able to successfully target brown fat, a specialized adipose tissue used to generate heat and protect core body temperature.

Using their adeno-associated virus CRISPR-Cas9 components, they knocked out the UCP1 gene that defines brown adipose and enables it to generate heat, in adult mice. They observed that the knockout mice were able to adapt to the loss of the gene and maintain their body temperature in cold conditions, hinting at other pathways involved in temperature homeostasis.

CHECK OUT: Common Heart Disease Drug Reverses Obesity By Targeting Inflammation in Mice – Raising Their Metabolism

“The biggest challenge in terms of adipose research to date has been that if you want to study a gene’s function, you have to commit a considerable amount of time, resources and money into developing a transgenic mouse,” said Romanelli.

The traditional way of developing mouse models involves breeding mice with a desired mutation to delete or introduce certain genes of interest, which can take more than a year and tens of thousands of dollars.

CRISPR-Cas9 has revolutionized this process.

“What we’ve been able to do is take that whole process and distill it into anywhere from two weeks to a month to generate a transgenic mouse, reducing the cost to less than $2,000. Not only does it reduce time and cost, it democratizes the research so that any lab that is familiar with molecular biology techniques can adopt this method and do it themselves,” said Romanelli.

RELATED: Revolutionary CRISPR-based Genome Editing System Destroys Cancer Cells ‘Permanently’ in Lab

They were also able to use this method to delete multiple genes simultaneously, a fact that could help researchers better understand important molecular pathways.

Though these results are exploratory, the breakthrough represents an important step forward in studying fat.

(Source: Michigan Medicine, University of Michigan – by Kelly Malcom)

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Baby Donkey is Named ‘Betty White’ to Honor Celebrity Who Donated to Their Animal Sanctuary For Years – LOOK

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Peaceful Valley Donkey Rescue- IG; and Betty White by David Shankbone CC license
Peaceful Valley Donkey Rescue- IG; and Betty White by David Shankbone CC license

For years, television star Betty White had donated to the Peaceful Valley Donkey Rescue in San Angelo, Texas.

Now, upon her death on December 31 at the age of 99, the animal sanctuary has introduced an adorable baby donkey as her namesake.

“This beautiful little jennet was born on Christmas Day but we were unable to come up with the perfect name until New Year’s Eve,” the rescue donkey group wrote on Facebook.

Ms. White has supported the group since 2006, and to honor her memory, Peaceful Valley is also naming their newly constructed nursery in her honor.

“Betty White was a tremendous voice for animals both here in the US and around the world.”

“She would be over the moon ❤️,” commented Kristan Marie Cobb.

Most remembered for her television roles in The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Golden Girls, and Hot in Cleveland, White won 7 Emmy awards—and, at 88 years old, an eighth Emmy for her hosting of Saturday Night Live.

She’s also the author of two memoirs, If You Ask Me, and Here We Go Again: My Life In Television.

WATCH a video of the two-week-old Betty exploring the yard…

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This Week’s Inspiring Horoscopes From Rob Brezsny’s ‘Free Will Astrology’

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Good News Network
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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 beginning January 8, 2021
Copyright by Rob Brezsny, FreeWillAstrology.com

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19):
Capricorn-born Muhammad Ali was far more than a superb professional boxer. He was an activist, entertainer, and philanthropist who gathered much wisdom in his 74 years. I’ve chosen one of his quotes to be your guide in the coming months. I hope it will motivate you to rigorously manage the sometimes pesky and demanding details that will ultimately enable you to score a big victory. “It isn’t the mountains ahead to climb that wear you down,” Ali said. “It’s the pebble in your shoe.”

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18):
At a pivotal moment in his evolution, Aquarian playwright Anton Chekhov (1860–1904) swore an oath to himself. I’ll tell you about it here because I hope it will inspire you to make a comparable vow to yourself about how you’ll live your life in 2022. Author Robert Greene is the source of the quote. He says that Chekhov promised himself he would engage in “no more bowing and apologizing to people; no more complaining and blaming; no more disorderly living and wasting time. The answer to everything was work and love, work and love. He had to spread this message to his family and save them. He had to share it with humanity through his stories and plays.”

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20):
Here’s what Piscean author Anais Nin wrote in one of her diaries: “When I first faced pain, I was shattered. When I first met failure, defeat, denial, loss, death, I died. Not today. I believe in my power, in my magic, and I do not die. I survive, I love, live, continue.” According to my analysis of the astrological omens, Pisces, you could claim her triumphant declaration as your own in 2022, with special emphasis on this: “I believe in my power, in my magic. I survive, I love, live, continue.” This will be a golden age, a time when you harvest the fruits of many years of labor.

ARIES (March 21-April 19):
In the fantasy tale The Wizard of Oz, a tornado lifts the hero Dorothy from her modest home in rural Kansas to a magical realm called Oz. There she experiences many provocative and entertaining adventures. Nonetheless, she longs to return to where she started from. A friendly witch helps her find the way back to Kansas, which requires her to click her ruby slippers together three times and say, “There’s no place like home, there’s no place like home.” I suspect, Aries, that there’ll be a different ending to your epic tale in 2022. At some point, you will decide you prefer to stay in your new world. Maybe you’ll even click your ruby slippers together and say, “There’s no place like Oz, there’s no place like Oz.”

TAURUS (April 20-May 20):
Fifty-five percent of the people who live in Toronto speak primarily English or French. But for the other 45 percent, their mother tongue is a different language, including Portuguese, Tagalog, Italian, Tamil, Spanish, Cantonese, and Mandarin. I wish you could spend some time there in the coming months. In my astrological opinion, you would benefit from being exposed to maximum cultural diversity. You would thrive by being around a broad spectrum of influences from multiple backgrounds. If you can’t manage a trip to Toronto or another richly diverse place, do your best to approximate the same experience. Give yourself the gift of splendorous variety.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20):
One of your primary meditations throughout 2022 should be the following advice from The Laws of Human Nature, a book by motivational author Robert Greene. He writes, “In ancient times, many great leaders felt that they were descended from gods and part divine. Such self-belief would translate into high levels of confidence that others would feed off and recognize. It became a self-fulfilling prophecy. You do not need to indulge in such grandiose thoughts, but feeling that you are destined for something great or important will give you a degree of resilience when people oppose or resist you. You will not internalize the doubts that come from such moments. You will have an enterprising spirit. You will continually try new things, even taking risks, confident in your ability to bounce back from failures and feeling destined to succeed.”

CANCER (June 21-July 22):
I would love to unabashedly encourage you to travel widely and explore wildly in 2022. I would rejoice if I could brazenly authorize you to escape your comfort zone and wander in the frontiers. It’s not often the planetary omens offer us Cancerians such an unambiguous mandate to engage in exhilarating adventures and intelligent risks. There’s only one problem: that annoying inconvenience known as the pandemic. We really do have to exercise caution in our pursuit of expansive encounters. Luckily, you now have extra ingenuity about the project of staying safe as you enlarge your world.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22):
I suspect that your life in 2022 might feature themes beloved by Leo author Emily Brontë (1818–1848). “No coward soul is mine,” she wrote, “No trembler in the world’s storm-troubled sphere.” I suggest making that one of your mottoes. Here’s another guiding inspiration from Emily, via one of her poems: “I’ll walk where my own nature would be leading: / It vexes me to choose another guide: / Where the grey flocks in ferny glens are feeding; / Where the wild wind blows on the mountain-side.” Here’s one more of Brontë’s thoughts especially suitable for your use in the coming months: “I’ll be as dirty as I please, and I like to be dirty, and I will be dirty!”

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22):
What reversals and turnabouts would you like to experience in 2022, Virgo? Which situations would you like to transform dramatically? Are there imbalances of power you would like to rectify? Contradictions you’d love to dissolve? Misplaced priorities you could correct? All these things are possible in the coming months if you are creative and resourceful enough. With your dynamic efforts, the last could be first, the low could be high, and the weak could become strong.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22):
“Everything good I’ve ever gotten in my life, I only got because I gave something else up,” wrote author Elizabeth Gilbert. That has often been true for me. For example, if I hadn’t given up my beloved music career, I wouldn’t have had the time and energy to become a skillful astrology writer with a big audience. What about you, Libra? In my reckoning, Gilbert’s observation should be a major theme for you in 2022.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21):
Author C. S. Lewis wrote that we don’t simply want to behold beauty. We “want to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it.” If there were ever a time when you could get abundant tastes of that extravagant pleasure, Scorpio, it would be in the coming months. If you make it a goal, if you set an intention, you may enjoy more deep mergers and delightful interactions with beauty than you have had since 2010.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21):
Sagittarian singer-songwriter Tom Waits began his career in 1969. He achieved modest success during the next 11 years. But his career headed in an even more successful direction after he met Kathleen Brennan, who became his wife and collaborator. In a 1988 interview, Waits said, “She’s got the whole dark forest living inside of her. She pushes me into areas I would not go, and I’d say that a lot of the things I’m trying to do now, she’s encouraged.” In 2022, Sagittarius, I’ll invite you to go looking for the deep dark forest within yourself. I’m sure it’s in there somewhere. If you explore it with luxuriant curiosity, it will ultimately inspire you to generate unprecedented breakthroughs. Yes, it might sometimes be spooky—but in ways that ultimately prove lucky.

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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Shaq Brings 2,000 Nintendo Switches and PS5s To Underprivileged Kids On Christmas: A Long List of His Good Deeds

By
Andy Corbley
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Twitter post by Pepsi Stronger Together

The always generous Shaquille O’Neil turned into Shaq-a-Claus in December to shower low-income students with gifts this Christmas.

Twitter post by Pepsi Stronger Together

The basketball star revealed on a podcast with Gary Vaynerchuk that he had bought 1,000 Playstation 5s, another 1,000 Nintendo Switches, and an unspecified number of bicycles and and delivered them to school children in Georgia.

“My father was a drill sergeant, my mother just was a hard-working woman,” he said on air. “They had little, but they taught me the value of giving back. They taught me the value of helping those in need.”

“I ordered about 1000 Switches and 1000 PS5s. I went to Walmart and got bikes. So you know yesterday, at this little elementary school in McDonough, Georgia, kids were crying, kids were happy. And that’s what it’s all about,” said Santa Shaq.

He joined representatives from Tonka, ‘Pepsi Stronger Together’, and others to rain down gifts and cheer to schools in Las Vegas, where the Shaquille O’Neal Foundation provided toys, laptops, and lunch for even more children—as well as opening a brand-new basketball court where kids can try on Shaq’s shoes for fun.

It’s not the first year schools would be on the receiving end of a charitable Shaq-attack, as O’Neil’s “Shaq to School” program coordinates with Amazon and Zappos to delivery school supplies every year to 5,000 children who can’t afford them.

“Kids gravitate to me because I am the simple gateway,” he said in a recent mini-doc about his giving tendencies. “When kids see me they was like, ‘I can relate to Shaq, he’s silly.'”

The gentle giant

Shaquille O’Neil is a walking bundle of good deeds waiting to slam dunk on unsuspecting people. Like the most diligent sports reporter, GNN has closely followed Shaq’s career—of giving.

After overhearing a young man was still after weeks of work, far away from paying the outstanding balance on his wife’s engagement ring, Shaq put the balance on his credit card, saying “I’m just trying to make people smile.”

In 2020 he stopped on the side of the road to help a Florida woman whose car had just crashed. The family of a 12-year old boy in Atlanta who was paralyzed by stray gunfire at a violent shootout, received a shock when Shaq bought them an entirely-new wheelchair accessible house, which we can only assume they called the “Shaq Shack”.

When Shaq was in school himself, and unable to fit into most sneakers, a cobbler who specialized in large shoes gave the boy a free pair. Doug the Cobbler has since been repaid by that single loss of revenue many times, with Shaq buying over 2,000 pairs of shoes—both for himself and for donating to kids who have the same problem as he once did.

WATCH a heartwarming compilation of Shaq kindnesses…

SEND Some High-Flying Good Feelings to Friends on Social Media…

“Don’t forget, a human’s greatest emotional need is to feel appreciated.” – H. Jackson Brown Jr.

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Good News Network
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Quote of the Day: “Don’t forget, a person’s greatest emotional need is to feel appreciated.” – H. Jackson Brown Jr. (Life’s Little Instruction Book: 511 Suggestions, Observations, and Reminders on How to Live a Happy and Rewarding Life)

Photo: by Ralu Gal

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?

 

Couple Stuck on Highway for 21 Hours in Snowstorm Asks Bakery Truck to Give Away Their Supply to Hungry Drivers

By
Andy Corbley
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bread truck saves highway drivers in snow-Casey Holihan Noe-FB
Casey Holihan Noe/Facebook

A miserable day stuck in snow on U.S. Interstate 95 took a turn for the better through a positive sort of highway robbery.

The understanding CEO of a baking company ordered one of his drivers to pass bread and rolls out to the stranded cars, breaking some fasts which were going on two days.

With some cars containing babies, pets, and elderly people, a lack of opportunities to eat provided as much discomfort as the cold to thousands of motorists on I-95 who got stranded when a winter storm dropped around a foot of snow on Virginia and other eastern states.

A Maryland couple, Casey Holihan and her husband John Noe, hadn’t eaten for 37 hours while waiting for the snow to clear when they spotted a Schmidt Baking Company truck.

Not thinking it would work, the hungry couple called the company’s customer service line asking if they could have some of the bread.

LOOK: 80-Year-old Man Reunited With Long Lost Siblings Thanks to His Litter Clean-up Dog on TV

“We didn’t think it would actually work, but less then 20 minutes later we got an incredible surprise,” wrote Casey in a Facebook post. “We received a personal call from the owner of the company, Chuck, who contacted the driver.”

“It was an easy decision” Chuck Paterakis, the CEO of H&S Baking, who owns Schmidt, told the Washington Post. His words to the driver were “give away all the bread” adding that he was “very humbled and grateful that we could help.”

The driver Ron Hill opened the back of the truck, and with Casey and John’s help distributed 300 packages of bread and rolls to more than 50 stranded motorists.

MORE: Little Boy’s Stuffed Bambi Was Rescued From Frozen Canal – He Didn’t Think People Would Care

“We just kept giving it out until we couldn’t walk anymore because it was so freezing,” Holihan told NBC affiliate WBAL. “It felt incredible just hearing people say thank you and hearing people just so relieved to finally have food in their car, food in their system and in their kids’ system. It was a really incredible feeling.”

BREAK Some Bread and Share This Story of Generosity…

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