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?
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.
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.
“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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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…
SHARE This Hee-Haw Cutie in a Tribute to Betty White on Social Media…
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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The always generous Shaquille O’Neil turned into Shaq-a-Claus in December to shower low-income students with gifts this Christmas.
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.
Shaq-a-Claus brought the holiday spirit to children at Wesley Lake Elementary School in McDonough, GA! 🎁 @SHAQ joined us for the event which featured donations from @pepsi, @Fritolay, Tonka and many more.#PepsiStrongerTogether pic.twitter.com/dJS0NB49T0
— Pepsi Stronger Together (@PepsiStronger) December 27, 2021
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.'”
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…
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?
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…
The stunning beauty of one of nature’s most spectacular events has been captured in this series of spell-binding images.
On special nights far from the equator, the sky is illuminated by a dazzling, celestial light show.
The aurora borealis and aurora australis are caused when cosmic radiation hits electrically charged particles in Earth’s atmosphere.
The spectacular results have been captured in a series of 25 winning images selected in the Capture the Atlas Northern Lights photography competition.
Winners includes images taken in countries including the United States, Russia, Finland, Norway, Iceland, Australia, Canada, and Antarctica.
They show mesmerizing bands of luminous green light playing in the night sky above icy fjords, snow-capped pine forests, and iceberg crammed seas.
One of the images, taken by photographer Benjamin Eberhard, looks like something out of a sci-fi movie.
RELATED: Star-Gazer Reveals Stunning Pictures of Space He Takes From His Back Garden
The image, titled “Antarctic Night,” shows a vast sky streaked with bands of green, orange, and yellow above the futuristic looking Ice Cube Neutrino Observatory.
Benjamn said, “This image shows a strong and colorful aurora over the IceCube Neutrino observatory in the South Pole and is part of a longer time-lapse series.
“The South Pole is probably one of the most remote and challenging environments to do photography, and it is strenuous for both humans and technology.
“To achieve 24-hour-long time-lapse shots, you need some creativity to heat and insulate your equipment in order to keep it running, and even rotating, in temperatures ranging down to -80ºC (-112 ºF).”
See a few of the other amazing photos below.
Be Sure And Share These Breathtaking Images With Your Friends On Social Media…
A trip to the doctor for a dose of magic mushrooms could help treat mental health conditions like PTSD, according to new research.
Small doses of the psychedelic drug psilocybin, found in magic mushrooms are not only good at easing disorders that are resistant to treatment, but they also have no short or long-term side effects in healthy people, scientists say.
In a study led by the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN) at King’s College London, researchers have found that the drug can be safely administered in up to six patients using doses of either 10mg or 25mg.
In partnership with COMPASS Pathways, the report is an essential first step for experts to prove the safety and feasibility of psilocybin as a treatment alongside talking therapies for a range of conditions including treatment-resistant depression (TRD) and PTSD.
The psychedelic is the first of its kind to go head-to-head with the traditional and often ineffective treatments on the market.
Although early research has hailed the mushroom as a promising treatment, no human trials have been conducted until now.
The trial is the first of its kind to thoroughly investigate the magic of the mushroom.
RELATED: Eating Mushrooms a Few Times a Week Could Dramatically Reduce Dementia Risk, Says 6-Year Study
Researchers used a sample of 89 participants who hadn’t used psilocybin within a year who were recruited to take part in the trial.
They then randomly picked 60 people to receive either a 10mg or a 25mg dose of psilocybin in a controlled lab environment.
After the doses were administered, the patients received one-to-one support from trained psychotherapists.
The remaining 29 participants acted as the control group and received a placebo drug, as well as psychological support.
The participants were closely monitored for six to eight hours and they were then followed up for 12 weeks.
During this time, they were assessed to track the number of possible changes, including sustained attention, memory, planning, as well as their ability to process emotions.
Dr James Rucker, a clinical scientist from the National Institute for Health Research, was the study’s lead author.
He said, “This rigorous study is an important first demonstration that the simultaneous administration of psilocybin can be explored further.
“If we think about how psilocybin therapy (if approved) may be delivered in the future, it’s important to demonstrate the feasibility and the safety of giving it to more than one person at the same time, so we can think about how we scale up the treatment.”
Dr Rucker, who is also an honorary consultant psychiatrist at South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust added, “This therapy has promise for people living with serious mental health problems, like treatment-resistant depression (TRD) and PTSD.
“They can be extremely disabling, distressing and disruptive, but current treatment options for these conditions are ineffective or partially effective for many people.”
No-one withdrew from the study and there were no suggestions that either of the psilocybin doses had any short or long-term negative effects on the participants.
Professor Guy Goodwin the chief medical officer at COMPASS Pathways, said, “This study was an early part of our clinical development programme for COMP360 psilocybin therapy.
MORE: Dutch Man Invents Coffin That Turns Bodies Into Mushrooms: ‘We are nutrients, not waste’
“It explored the safety and feasibility of simultaneous psilocybin administration, with one to one support, in healthy participants, and provided a strong foundation to which we have now added positive results from our Phase IIb trial in 233 patients with TRD, and from our open-label study of patients taking SSRI antidepressants alongside psilocybin therapy.
“We are looking forward to finalizing plans for our phase three programme, which we expect to begin in Q3 2022.”
Since this study was conducted, the researchers have completed phase two of the study, which has explored the efficacy and safety of psilocybin in people living with TRD and PTSD, and are now analyzing their findings.
This study was published in The Journal of Psychopharmacology.
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Quote of the Day: “When you chase a dream, you learn about yourself. You learn your capabilities and limitations, and the value of hard work and persistence.” – Nicholas Sparks (Three Weeks With My Brother)
Photo: by Ivana Cajina
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?
After its harrowing touchdown on Mars ten months ago left NASA engineers cheering, a six-wheeled scientist named Perseverance has been achieving its key objectives.
The rover has been searching for signs of ancient microbial life on the Red Planet and is at the heart of NASA’s goal to complete the first mission to collect and cache Martian rock and dust.
Now, all that it has accomplished so far has been captured in a new video.
Surface Operations Mission Manager Jessica Samuels reflected on the year filled with groundbreaking discoveries from the Jezero Crater on Mars.
In the 10 months since it landed with a parachute by working with gravity, the car-size rover has driven 1.8 miles (2.9 kilometers), set a record for the longest rover drive in a Martian day, taken more than 100,000 images, and collected six samples of Martian rock and atmosphere that could eventually be brought to Earth for further study.
RELATED: The Inspiring and Playful Hidden Message in the Mars Perseverance Rover’s Parachute
And then there’s NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter, which hitched a ride to the Red Planet with Perseverance.
It proved that powered, controlled flight is possible in Mars’ thin atmosphere, and the 4-pound (1.8-kilogram) rotorcraft has logged 18 flights and counting.
LOOK: See Incredible Photos and Hear Martian Winds From the Red Planet—Thanks to Perseverance Rover
Samuels, the Perseverance surface operations mission manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, also explains the next phase of Perseverance’s mission: to explore the delta that formed in Jezero Crater billions of years ago from sediment that an ancient river carried into the lake that once existed in the crater.
WATCH it below – and learn more at nasa.gov/perseverance…
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A wildlife ranger is being sought for an idyllic island off the north coast of Scotland—and a free cottage to live in is included.
The Scottish Wildlife Trust is looking for someone to take over the position of Handa Island Ranger on the remote island off the coast of Sutherland in the Highlands.
The successful candidate will be treated to stunning sandy beaches, spectacular views from the 394-feet-high cliffs, and getting to know the 100,000 breeding seabirds living on the island.
Handa is so small it only takes two and a half hours to walk around, but the candidate will need a driver’s licence and a vehicle to make weekly trips to the nearest village, Scourie, over on the mainland.
Those interested will need to have a good knowledge of the local marine and terrestrial natural history, excellent people skills, and organizational abilities.
RELATED: 4-Day Work Week is a Huge Success in Iceland
The six-month fixed term contract is from March to September 2022, and pays £17,290 ($23,458) FTE per annum pro rata.
Applications opened last month and are due to close on January 17 at 2pm–if you’re looking for a wild adventure, it sounds like it’s time to get applying.
SHARE This Opportunity With Those Who’d Love to Hear About It…
“The mole on the back of your neck is possibly cancerous. Please go see a doctor!”
It was a strange thing for Vancouver Canucks assistant equipment manager Brian Hamilton to see on the screen of a cell phone belonging to a fan who had pressed it against the glass separating fans from players.
Fans do all kinds of strange things at sporting events, but Nadia Popovici was following her medical training when she noticed that the dark spot on the back of Hamilton’s neck was discolored, raised, and had irregular borders: all potential signs of the skin cancer melanoma.
As it turns out, Hamilton had the mole removed which was subsequently confirmed to be a melanoma tumor.
“… She saved my life,” Mr. Hamilton said at a press conference. “The words out of the doctor’s mouth were if I ignored that for four to five years I wouldn’t be here. How she saw it boggles my mind. It wasn’t very big, I wear a jacket, I wear a radio on the back of my jacket… She’s a hero.”
MORE: Your Body’s Own ‘Cannabis-Like’ Substance Can Reduce Chronic Inflammation During Exercise
The team wanted to reach out to Popovici somehow, and so set up a social media campaign to reunite the two before the Canucks played Seattle Kraken on January 1st, which succeeded.
An act of kindness towards another human that Brian (Red) will forever be grateful for.
— Vancouver #Canucks (@Canucks) January 2, 2022
Brian and Nadia had an emotional meeting ahead of tonight's game in Seattle. pic.twitter.com/xvld8x2ltz
As a way of saying thank you, during the second commercial break it was revealed for everyone in the Seattle Climate Fund Arena to see, that both teams had raised $10,000 to send Popovici to medical school.
Together with the @SeattleKraken, we awarded Nadia Popovici a $10,000 scholarship for medical school as a show of our appreciation 👏 pic.twitter.com/VgK8aMgJTA
— Vancouver #Canucks (@Canucks) January 2, 2022
What Popovici described in her diagnosis of the melanoma was a method of identification called the “ABCDE Rule,” an acronym for Asymmetry, Border, Color, Dark, and Evolving, five signs that anyone’s mole might be a common yet dangerous skin cancer.
RELATED: After Covid and Cancer, Couple Finally Gets to Be Married – Thanks to Speedy Robotic Surgery
“After that moment I kind of regretted it,” Popovici told Sky News of her typed-out phone warning. “I thought, ‘you know, that was inappropriate it, I shouldn’t have brought it up, maybe he already knows about it and it’s a sensitive topic.'”
“To not know for so many months what happened to this man and to finally put a name to the face and a story, it’s been incredible and truly life-changing,” she added.
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NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope officially launched on December 25. Its mission? To seek the light from the first galaxies in the early universe and to explore our own solar system, as well as planets orbiting other stars, called exoplanets.
“The James Webb Space Telescope represents the ambition that NASA and our partners maintain to propel us forward into the future,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. “The promise of Webb is not what we know we will discover; it’s what we don’t yet understand or can’t yet fathom about our universe. I can’t wait to see what it uncovers!”
Ground teams began receiving telemetry data from Webb about five minutes after launch.
The Arianespace Ariane 5 rocket performed as expected, separating from the observatory 27 minutes into the flight.
The observatory was released at an altitude of approximately 870 miles (1,400 kilometers). Approximately 30 minutes after launch, Webb unfolded its solar array, and mission managers confirmed that the solar array was providing power to the observatory.
Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington, said, “Webb’s scientific promise is now closer than it ever has been. We are poised on the edge of a truly exciting time of discovery, of things we’ve never before seen or imagined.”
MORE: Cosmic Telescope Finally Captures Light From the Dawn of Time
The world’s largest and most complex space science observatory will now begin six months of commissioning in space. At the end of commissioning, Webb will deliver its first images.
Webb carries four state-of-the-art science instruments with highly sensitive infrared detectors of unprecedented resolution. Webb will study infrared light from celestial objects with much greater clarity than ever before. The premier mission is the scientific successor to NASA’s iconic Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes, built to complement and further the scientific discoveries of these and other missions.
“The launch of the Webb Space Telescope is a pivotal moment—this is just the beginning for the Webb mission,” said Gregory L. Robinson, Webb’s program director at NASA Headquarters. “Now we will watch Webb’s highly anticipated and critical 29 days on the edge. When the spacecraft unfurls in space, Webb will undergo the most difficult and complex deployment sequence ever attempted in space. Once commissioning is complete, we will see awe-inspiring images that will capture our imagination.”
LOOK: Astronomers Uncover the Largest Group of Rogue Planets Yet
The telescope’s revolutionary technology will explore every phase of cosmic history—from within our solar system to the most distant observable galaxies in the early universe, to everything in between. Webb will reveal new and unexpected discoveries and help humanity understand the origins of the universe and our place in it.
On January 4, the telescope team announced it fully deployed the spacecraft’s 70-foot sunshield, a key milestone in preparing it for science operations.
“This is the first time anyone has ever attempted to put a telescope this large into space,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate at the agency’s headquarters in Washington. “Webb required not only careful assembly but also careful deployments. The success of its most challenging deployment – the sunshield – is an incredible testament to the human ingenuity and engineering skill that will enable Webb to accomplish its science goals.”
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The five-layered sunshield will protect the telescope from the light and heat of the Sun, Earth, and Moon. Each plastic sheet is about as thin as a human hair and coated with reflective metal, providing protection on the order of more than SPF 1 million. Together, the five layers reduce exposure from the Sun from over 200 kilowatts of solar energy to a fraction of a watt.
This protection is crucial to keep Webb’s scientific instruments at temperatures of 40 kelvins, or under minus 380 degrees Fahrenheit – cold enough to see the faint infrared light that Webb seeks to observe.
“Unfolding Webb’s sunshield in space is an incredible milestone, crucial to the success of the mission,” said Gregory L. Robinson, Webb’s program director at NASA Headquarters. “Thousands of parts had to work with precision for this marvel of engineering to fully unfurl. The team has accomplished an audacious feat with the complexity of this deployment—one of the boldest undertakings yet for Webb.”
The world’s largest and most complex space science observatory has another 5 1/2 months of setup still to come, including deployment of the secondary mirror and primary mirror wings, alignment of the telescope optics, and calibration of the science instruments. After that, Webb will deliver its first images.
We’ll keep you updated as news from the Hubble telescope’s successor–a joint effort with ESA (European Space Agency) and the Canadian Space Agency–continues to unfold.
(LEARN more about this historic launch in the video below.)
Source: NASA
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Quote of the Day: “Yet he who reigns within himself, and rules passions, desires, and fears, is more a king.” – John Milton, Paradise Regained
Photo: by Pro Church Media
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Incredible photos show the beam of the setting sun through a stained glass window at a Neolithic burial barrow creating a mesmerizing rainbow of light.
Wildlife photographer Andrew Fusek Peters, 56, captured the colorful spectacle at the Soulton Long Barrow in Shropshire on the evening of December 29.
The recently completed burial site has been aligned to capture the sun at the midwinter solstice as it passes through a stained glass window, illuminating the burial chamber.
Andrew had been on a walk in the Shropshire Hills when he spotted the opportunity to capture the atmospheric phenomenon and “drove like a maniac” to get there in time.
His breathtaking dusk images show beams of blue, purple, orange, red and green light flooding the reimagined ancient chamber with spectacular color.
“I’d heard about this colorful light display caused by the window but it really has to be seen to be believed,” said Andrew.
“Colorful is an understatement, and I don’t think the pictures even do it justice. I felt honored to be there to see it.
“I feel like at the end of the year, these pictures tell a story of hope. There is still beauty in the world.
The monuments were created around 5,000 years ago for people to lay the ashes of their beloved ones.
The modern-day Soulton Hall long barrow contains the largest stone corbelled ceiling in modern times, over the height of two double decker buses and can seat 80 people.
It is only the third of its kind to be opened as part of an a Stone Age tradition being resurrected across Britain.
The main chamber is aligned so that at winter solstice and for a few weeks after, the sun sets directly through the stained glass door.
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A farmer, Tim Ashton, spent three years creating the barrow after visiting dozens of henges to finalize the design.
“It is a very modern but sacred place and it was quite a spiritual moment to see all this color spilling into the chamber.”
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Andrew assured the media there was no camera trickery—all the light was natural.
“I had just been walking on the hills and it was the first day the weather was good enough so I drove like a maniac to get there.
“There is only a window of a few days to capture this moment and even less than that when the weather is bad so I felt very lucky to witness it.
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“The way they have deliberately aligned the window to refract the sunlight in such a dynamic way is a truly beautiful thing.”
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Everyone knows Santa’s favorite red-nosed reindeer knows how to fly. Unfortunately, his namesake, Rudolph, a beloved stuffed toy fawn belonging to 4-year-old Nico Lavallée, did not.
Sadly, Nico found that out the hard way while on a walk with his mom, Brenda Duke, and siblings 2-year-old Santiago and 6-year-old Sebastian when his little brother decided to test his pitching arm by tossing the “stuffie” over the railing next to the frozen waters of Ottawa’s Rideau Canal.
Unable to retrieve his best buddy, Nico and his family returned to visit Rudolph more than once. Luckily, the plush Bambi landed in close proximity to a distance marker sign, so he wasn’t too hard to find, but prospects for a homecoming didn’t look good.
After several days’ of falling snowflakes, the forlorn fawn began to slowly disappear beneath a blanket of white, leaving behind only a telltale bump.
That’s when older brother Sebastian came up with an idea. During the pandemic, neighborhood social media had become a lifeline to a community isolated by the lockdown. Sebastian urged his mom to reach out to neighbors to see if anyone might be able to help retrieve Rudolph.
Duke was skeptical at first. “I didn’t want to bother anyone. I don’t think anyone would care,” she told CBC News.
But Sebastian convinced her to give it a shot, so she took to Twitter.
“If anyone happens to see a ‘stuffie’ reindeer (I think it’s a fawn actually) when the canal opens my kids would be grateful,” she tweeted with an accompanying photo showing Rudolph’s last known whereabouts circled in red.
“Toddler brother threw it in. I know it’s unlikely since they clear snow now and it will be even more buried but my 6-year-old asked me to post here. They come visit it on our daily walks now; it’s the little mound you see.”
As hard as it was to believe, a mission to rescue Rudolph was quickly mounted. Even the National Capital Commission (NCC), signed on, pledging to put its skateway squad on the lookout.
After several hours of relentless searching, our courageous NCC Skateway team saved a stuffed baby deer from a most tragic end. He is now safe and sound while he defrosts!
— RideauCanalSkateway (@NCC_Skateway) January 19, 2021
We know a young owner who will be very happy to find him. 😉🦌 pic.twitter.com/mGcImYFV1c
Lo and behold, in the twinkling of one vigilant crew member’s eye, Rudolph was—though frozen and a bit soggy—MIA no more.
After he’d been thawed and groomed, the prodigal stuffie was reunited with a joyful Nico and his grateful family at NCC headquarters.
All thawed out and headed home! 💛
— RideauCanalSkateway (@NCC_Skateway) January 21, 2021
The stuffed deer heroically rescued by the NCC Skateway Team has now been reunited with its best friend. Smiles all around! pic.twitter.com/kSZqTpkaVv
In a world rife with so many negatives, it can be easy to lose sight of the positive ones. Sometimes it takes focusing on small acts of kindness to put things in perspective.
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“You just have to just have to ask,” said Duke. “People do care. Assuming that they don’t is something that adults do… [My kids] are growing up knowing that other people have our backs and other people care, and that’s really heartwarming.”
“This stuffed baby deer isn’t the only thing melting,” a watcher named Monica Ward seconded from her perch in the Twitterverse, “so is my cold, cold heart.”
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We’ll just file this one under, “I’m not crying; you’re crying,” shall we?
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A fan showing up to watch the latest movie by Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson had the shock of a lifetime—first by meeting the star himself, and then when the wrestler turned actor handed over the keys to his personal truck.
Johnson knew he would be treating the movie-goers to a meet and greet as well as free popcorn and ice cream at concession stands, but he also did a bit of research into those in attendance, and it was Rodriquez’s big heart that caught his eye.
“Oscar Rodriguez’s story moved me” Johnson wrote on his Instagram, explaining the gift, which was enough to make Rodriquez break down and cry.
A Navy veteran, personal trainer, and sole caretaker of his 75-year old mother, Rodriquez is also a leader of a local church group, and runs a charity to help victims of domestic violence.
“My original idea was to give away the Porsche Taycan that I drive in the movie, Red Notice,” Johnson wrote. “So we reached out to Porsche, but they said no.”
Meeting Hollywood’s highest paid actor on any occasion is a cause to be excited. The Rock has a reputation of being extremely positive, motivational, and prone to bouts of kindness.
After calling Rodriquez down from the seats in the theater to introduce him and share his story, he led the man out to the parking lot and handed him a card that said, “Thank you for your service brother, enjoy your new truck.”
“And now I can figure out how I’m getting home,” Johnson joked after his good deed. “‘Cause I don’t have my ride.”
(WATCH the surprise unfold in the Instagram video below.)
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A tooth found nearly fifty years ago has recently been re-examined and found to contain the remains of a land-going whale from an extinct family found only in Pakistan.
A cousin of other walking whales in the family of Remingtonocetidae, it’s the first discovery of this ancient animal in North America, and gives a tantalizing prospect of a potential distribution of these creatures across the entire world.
It’s strange to think that as mega as so many of the dinosaurs became, the largest example of the advantages of enormity to a complex life form is alive with us today in the form of the blue whale.
Yet the whale lineage had to take many twists and turns before it arrived at a blowhole and flippers, which because of its mammalian origin, also involved feet and a long, almost crocodilian snout.
In 1973, a premolar of a new species of walking whale was found at a stone quarry in Castle Hayne, North Carolina.
In 2020, a team of researchers found it matched more closely the fossils found in Pakistan of Remingtonocetidae and not other extinct whale genera that were known to live along the coast of what would become North America.
Remingtonocetids lived in the Tethys Ocean, a body of water that existed for half a billion years along the shore of an ancient super-continent called Gondwana which contained all the land that would form Africa, India, Australia, South America, and Antarctica. By the time of the Eocene, when this new species was discovered, the Tethys Ocean was a tiny fraction of what it once was, perhaps allowing the normally coastal animal to leave its Indo-Pakistan territory and venture as far as North Africa.
Paleontologists from Egypt discovered a walking-whale in North Africa in 2008, and in 2019 another specimen was found in Peru. The animals tended to average around 10 feet, or 3 meters in length, and have powerful jaws that are suggested to have been enough to allow the beasts to prey on crocodiles.
“This fossil really starts to give us a sense of when whales moved out of the Indo-Pakistan ocean region and started dispersing across the world,” Professor Jonathan Geisler told Live Science about Phiomicetus, the Egyptian-based walking-whale, after its discovery.
Rather than phiomicetus, Uhen believes the closest dental-match is drawn with Remingtonocetus harudiensus, discovered in the 1980s by a pair of scientists who first described these unique legged-whales. This would mean, if true, that while other whales crossed the Tethys to arrive near Egypt, or crossed the whole of the Eocene Atlantic Ocean to arrive in Peru, some of these proto-whales arrived in North America straight from Pakistan.
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“The first phase of cetacean evolution is, for the most part, the story of adaptation to the aquatic environment,” writes author and paleontologist Mark Uhen at George Mason University. “Changes in feeding, sensory systems, and locomotor systems are apparent in all of the lineages of middle Eocene cetaceans.”
“The potential discovery of a remingtonocetid from North America extends a third family of [proto whales] across the Atlantic and suggests that the aquatic abilities of remingtonocetids may have been better developed than previously thought.”
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Quote of the Day: “What seems nasty, painful, and evil, can become a source of beauty, joy, and strength, if faced with an open mind.” – Henry Miller
Photo: by Roberta Sorge
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?
