Quote of the Day: “Believe in yourself and all that you are. Know that there is something inside you that is greater than any obstacle.” – Christian D. Larson
Photo: by Johannes Plenio
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?
Sometimes you have to miss a connection to make a connection—and if that’s not a wise old adage yet, it should be. For two waylaid airline passengers stuck in wintry weather at a Toronto airport in 2003, their canceled flights turned into a layover of love at first sight.
Little did Jennifer Lowther, then 29, realize she was about to meet her “knight in shining armor.” All she knew that morning as she hunkered down in tears was that she was about to miss her best friend’s wedding.
The nuptials, at which Jennifer was supposed to serve as master of ceremonies, was set to take place in her hometown of Winnipeg the following day—but with the snow closing in and no flights going out, it looked as if the cause was lost.
Enter 34-year-old Chris Powell, a veteran business traveler for whom scheduling snafus were just part of the game. Waiting out the delay in the airport lounge, Chris noticed Jennifer’s distress.
Winning her over with his dry wit, Jennifer was soon sitting with a group of other stranded souls sharing their stories, venting their frustrations, and imbibing an adult beverage or two as the day passed.
Although romance was the last thing on his mind, Chris felt an instant rapport with the woman he’d found crying into her breakfast—and Jennifer felt it as well.
The waiting vigil became an impromptu party, with Chris and Jennifer serving as the de facto host and hostess. Sharing banter and making jokes helped everyone pass the time. Even though they’d just met, others who later joined the group assumed they were a couple.
Meanwhile, the two travelers who’d just met were beginning to feel like they’d known one another forever.
So, when 4 o’clock rolled around and the last flight to Winnipeg was canceled, unable to bear Jennifer’s devastation, Chris was determined to move heaven and earth to make sure his newfound soulmate would be there when her best friend tied the knot.
There weren’t any flights to her destination, so what were the alternatives?
Chris was booked on a 9 p.m. flight to Vancouver. If Jennifer went there as well—even though it was out of her way by two hours—would she be able to backtrack to Winnipeg in time to make the wedding? With a stopover the following morning in Edmonton, it would be cutting it close, but if all went according to plan, it was doable.
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At 9 o’clock that night, the pair boarded the Vancouver-bound plane. They even managed to get seats together. From there, the romance really took off—with a kiss “right out of the movies.”
“We actually kissed the whole way to Vancouver, just sort of like enamored with each other,” Jennifer told CNN Travel.
Once in Vancouver, the exhausted travelers crashed with one of Chris’s friends. After a few short hours of sleep, Jennifer had to be on her way again—but not before she and Chris swapped their contact info and made plans to meet up when they were both back in Toronto.
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With a 1 p.m. touchdown in Winnipeg, Jennifer had a scant hour to make it to the church on time, but fellow passengers on the flight who’d been regaled with her herculean exploits thus far cleared the aisles for her and cheered her on as she sped off the plane.
Dashing to her parents’ car, with barely enough time to make herself presentable, her dad somehow managed to drop her off just at the stroke of two. Both Jennifer and the bride, who feared her best friend was about to miss her big day, were overcome with emotion.
READ: This Romantic Husband and Wife Broke the Record for World’s Oldest Married Couple
While her ex-boyfriend was at the ceremony and she’d toyed with the idea of making another go of it, Jennifer says she realized while she’d only just met him, that her destiny and her future belonged not with someone from her past, but with Chris.
Three months later, they were engaged. They married in 2004.
This storybook tale has an especially poignant twist since Jennifer, who’d been treated for cervical cancer at age 19, was told she’d never be able to conceive. And, just as he’d never really thought about getting married before he met Jennifer, Chris hadn’t really planned on being a dad, either.
When the couple learned she was pregnant with their first child, it came as a surprise to both of them—but a happy one.
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The birth of their son Spencer was followed by that of his sister Lauren a few years later. The children, now in their teens, share a special bond with their parents forged in part during a nine-month round-the-world trip the family embarked on five years ago that took them to such far-off sites as Sri Lanka and Argentina.
While Chris and Jennifer might have met under circumstances straight out of a Hallmark made for TV movie, after 18 years, it looks as if they’ve still got a firm foothold on their happily ever after. Although both have changed and matured through the years, they say humor and being willing to go the extra mile for one another are still the defining factors of their marriage.
And no matter what force brought them together for their airport “meet-cute” that day, they’re both grateful.
“It was—I don’t know, cosmic alignment, call it what you will; call it kismet—but it was amazing,” Chris told CNN. “I’m lucky it happened to me. Thanks, fate! So far, so good.”
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In Washington D.C., a sophisticated sewage treatment plant is turning the capital’s waste into a form of capital: living capital that is fertilizing the gardens of farms of the Mid-Atlantic region and saving vast quantities of resources.
Described by the workers’ there as a “resource recovery plant,” D.C. Water run a biogas plant and high-quality fertilizer production in the course of their dirty duty to ensure the city’s waste finds a safe endpoint.
The nation’s capital is exceptional at producing waste from the toilet bowls of the 2.2 million people who live, work, and commute through the city and its suburbs.
Reporting by Lina Zeldovich reveals that rather than trucking it all to a landfill, D.C. Water extract an awful lot of value from the capital crap, by looking at it as a resource to send through the world’s largest advanced wastewater treatment plant, which uses a “thermal hydrolysis process” in which it is sterilized, broken down, and shipped off for processing into “Bloom,” a nitrogen-rich, slow-release fertilizer product.
At their facility in southwest Washington, huge aeration tanks percolate the poo of everyone from tourists to the President. After it’s all fed into enormous pressure cookers where, under the gravity of six earth atmospheres and 300°F, the vast black sludge is rendered harmless.
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Next this “Black Gold,” as Zeldovich described it, is pumped into massive bacterial-rich tanks where microbes breakdown large molecules like fats, proteins, and carbs into smaller components, shrinking the overall tonnage of sewage to 450 tons per day down from 1,100 at the start of the process.
This mass-micro-munching also produces methane, which when fed into an onsite turbine, generates a whopping 10 megawatts of green energy which can power 8,000 nearby homes. The 450 tons of remaining waste from the D.C. feces are sent into another room where conveyor belts ring out excess fluid before feeding it through large rollers which squash it into small congregate chunks.
D.C. Water sends this to another company called Homestead Gardens for drying, aging, and packaging before it’s sold as Bloom.
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“I grow everything with it, squashes, tomatoes, eggplants,” Bill Brower, one of the plant’s engineers, tells Zeldovich. “Everything grows great and tastes great,” he adds.
“And I’m not the only one who thinks so. We’ve heard from a lot of people that they’ve got the best response they’ve ever seen from the plants. Particularly with leafy greens because that nitrogen boost does well with leafy plants. And the plants seem to have fewer diseases and fewer pests around—probably because Bloom helps build healthy soils.”
While farms around the country are facing nutrient depletion in soils from over-farming, turning to synthetic fertilizers to make up the difference, introducing more such thermal hydrolysis plants could truly revolutionize the way humans look at their feces—as a way of restoring the country’s soils rather than polluting them. As Mike Rowe would say, it only takes a person who’s willing to get their hands dirty.
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For everything we hear about bees these days, it’s hard to believe that they and their hives are capable of surviving a volcanic eruption.
But rescuers uncovering beehives under ash from the September eruptions on La Palma in the Canary Islands recovered not one, not two, but five beehives and all their buzzing residents after digging them up 50 days after being buried.
Amazingly the bees had survived by creating propolis, a resinous material which they used to seal up the holes in their hive, protecting them from the choking ash.
Safely inside, they kept themselves sustained by eating their winter honey stores, which the beekeepers had, conveniently for them, not collected.
During spring each of the hives could house 30,000 to 40,000 individual bees, providing a huge service for pollination on the islands.
According to the Calgary Herald, some of the rescuers suffered a sting or two, but of course they didn’t hold it against the bees.
One of the six hives buried didn’t make it, which scientists suspect was determined by the proximity of the hive to the volcano—the closer the hive, the less harmful the ash that fell.
Propolis is a known antibiotic, which bees use to regularly disinfect the hive, especially after a visit by a bear, monkey, or other animal whose fur can contain parasites.
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Humans have consumed propolis for millennia, and it’s still sold today as a natural cold remedy and immune support supplement.
(WATCH the Mother Nature video for this story below.)
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Quote of the Day: “Run when you can, walk if you have to, crawl if you must; just never give up.” – Dean Karnazes
Photo: by Sven Vahaja
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?
Although common sense dictates it’s best to let sleeping dogs lie, nowhere is it written that they can’t do so with a touch of panache. And if the beds they lie in are a boost to the environment and give comfort to homeless pets? So much the better.
That’s just what Brazilian artist, environmentalist, and animal lover Amarildo Silva Filho was inspired to do after coming across a pile of used tires in his neighborhood a few years ago.
Where some saw trash, Silva Filho saw an opportunity for upcycling treasure that wound up making a world of difference to stray cats and dogs.
After collecting the tires and giving them a thorough cleaning, Silva Filho put his artistic vision to work fashioning personalized pet beds.
Once the custom paint jobs were complete, with the addition of hand-sewn mattresses, the colorful comfy cots were ready to be distributed to local shelters.
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Silva Filho’s recycled masterpieces proved so popular, a niche market of eco-conscious pet owners sprang up as well.
To meet the growing demand, he launched Caminhas Pets—and has since gone on to hand-craft more than 6,000 pet beds.
To prepare each tire, he cleans them, cuts off the tops with a jigsaw, covers the hole at the bottom with plywood, and then sews his own cushions to make them cozy. He paints and stencils each one with bright colors.
While retail sales have helped sustain his efforts, the majority of Silva Filho’s creations have gone to animals in need.
“The only way to do a great job is to love what you do,” he was quoted as saying by My Modern Met.
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From what Amarildo’s accomplished so far, it’s clear he loves what he does quite a lot—and that’s great news for every one of the animals he’s helped.
(WATCH a video to see how he makes them…)
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Once declared biologically dead, the Thames River flows as much with life as with water these days, and the first report on its health in 60 years is enough to make a Londoner cheer.
Perhaps 115 species of fish live in the river—providing food for not one, not two, but three species of shark which swim above a river bottom where seahorses and eels can be found.
The “State of the Thames” report highlights the gradual work in reduction of pressure on life in the river over the last 60 years, when pollution and sewage decimated it. Short and long-term phosphorus concentrations have fallen, while dissolved oxygen has increased.
“This report has enabled us to really look at how far the Thames has come on its journey to recovery since it was declared biologically dead, and in some cases, set baselines to build from in the future,” said Zoological Society London (ZSL) program lead for wetland recovery, Alison Debney.
ZSL has been working to restore the Thames as a tidal and estuarine ecosystem since 2003, and one of the best ways the look at progress is how river’s estuary is doing—specifically in the populations of the system’s top predators, grey and harbor seals.
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These furry, fish-seeking mammals have increased in numbers, indicating growing fish stocks despite competition from tope, starry smooth hound, and spurdog sharks.
Annual counts of both species of seal have taken place on the Thames Estuary every year since 2013 except during 2020, and they’ve increased from 797 harbor seals to 932, and from 2,866 grey seals to 3,243.
“As top predators, (seals) are a great indicator of ecological health, so they tell us how the Thames is doing,” said conservation biologist Thea Cox, to the BBC. “People think the Thames is dead because it is brown, but the Thames is full of life—the water quality has improved so much.”
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It’s not just swimming things that are flourishing in the Thames, but flapping ones as well.
Several areas of the Thames are protected as native and migratory bird sanctuaries, and as a result the number of wading birds, for example the avocet, has doubled across a period from 1993 to 2017.
Additionally, the future is bright for the river, as while some measurements of life in the Thames are worsening, the report details a new “super sewer” that will divert 95% of all sewage from the waterway.
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“The new sewer, which is due to be complete in 2025, is designed to capture more than 95 per cent of the sewage spills that enter the River from London’s Victorian sewer system,” stated Liz Wood-Griffiths, Head of Consents at Tideway. “It will have a significant impact on the water quality, making it a much healthier environment for wildlife to survive and flourish.”
“A resilient future for both people and wildlife will depend on protecting remaining natural habitats, reconnecting and restoring habitats, and innovating new ways to maximize opportunities for wildlife in the urban environment,” Debney concluded.
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Innovation has pretty much finished with car tires right, I mean, what’s left to change? How about the whole “air” part?
Michelin’s attempt to tackle tire trash around the world saw them roll out puncture-proof “airless” tires, which they say should help reduce the 18% of all world tires that are discarded early due to punctures.
In September, an interesting showpiece at the Munich Auto Show was tire giant’s new concept for an airless tire that is immune to the punctures that render many useless.
Discarded tires are a huge worldwide waste problem—the U.S. produces 260 million discarded tires per year, many of which end up in landfills or on the sides of the freeway where they release harmful gases and microplastic pollutants as they break down.
Michelin’s Unique Puncture Proof Tire System or “UPTIS” is designed using 46% recycled material, and made from a plastic matrix laced with glass fibers that provide a flexible outer layer with a stiffer inner one.
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“The truly distinctive structure of the Michelin UPTIS prototype, or its ‘weirdness’ as we have often heard it called, really attracted the attention of many visitors and left a lasting impression on them,” stated Cyrille Roget, Michelin Group Technical and Scientific Communications Director.
“It was an exceptional experience for us, and our greatest satisfaction came at the end of the demonstration when our passengers, who were admittedly a little wary at first, said they felt no difference compared with conventional tires.”
This isn’t just a European “green” plan to satisfy politicians, the internal spokes of the tire can be tuned to exquisite detail, New Atlas reports, to improve handling or comfort.
Michelin believes airless tires will improve everyone’s lives. With tires less susceptible to wear from the roads, maintenance costs for company’s vehicle fleets will be less expensive, while inexperienced car owners won’t accidentally ruin their rubbers by driving them while they are over- or under-inflated.
No current price has been suggested, and even though they’ve been in development since 2005, they aren’t likely to be available for another 24-36 months. In another 30 years, Michelin hope to manufacture only airless tires, with 100% recycled material.
(WATCH the airless tire test-drive below.)
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Using the ALMA (Atacama Large Millimetre/submillimeter Array), astronomers have unambiguously detected the presence of a disc around a planet outside our Solar System for the first time. The observations will shed new light on how moons and planets form in young stellar systems.
“Our work presents a clear detection of a disc in which satellites could be forming,” says Myriam Benisty, a researcher at the University of Grenoble, France, and at the University of Chile, who led the new research published today in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. “Our ALMA observations were obtained at such exquisite resolution that we could clearly identify that the disc is associated with the planet and we are able to constrain its size for the first time,” she adds.
The disc in question, called a circumplanetary disc, surrounds the exoplanet PDS 70c, one of two giant, Jupiter-like planets orbiting a star nearly 400 light-years away. Astronomers had found hints of a “moon-forming” disc around this exoplanet before but, since they could not clearly tell the disc apart from its surrounding environment, they could not confirm its detection—until now.
In addition, with the help of ALMA, Benisty and her team found that the disc has about the same diameter as the distance from our Sun to the Earth and enough mass to form up to three satellites the size of the Moon.
But the results are not only key to finding out how moons arise. “These new observations are also extremely important to prove theories of planet formation that could not be tested until now,” says Jaehan Bae, a researcher from the Earth and Planets Laboratory of the Carnegie Institution for Science, and author on the study.
Planets form in dusty discs around young stars, carving out cavities as they gobble up material from this circumstellar disc to grow. In this process, a planet can acquire its own circumplanetary disc, which contributes to the growth of the planet by regulating the amount of material falling onto it. At the same time, the gas and dust in the circumplanetary disc can come together into progressively larger bodies through multiple collisions, ultimately leading to the birth of moons.
But astronomers do not yet fully understand the details of these processes. “In short, it is still unclear when, where, and how planets and moons form,” explains Stefano Facchini, a Research Fellow involved in the research at the European Southern Observatory (ESO), which is an ALMA partner.
“More than 4000 exoplanets have been found until now, but all of them were detected in mature systems. PDS 70b and PDS 70c, which form a system reminiscent of the Jupiter-Saturn pair, are the only two exoplanets detected so far that are still in the process of being formed,” explains Miriam Keppler, researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Germany and one of the co-authors of the study.
“This system therefore offers us a unique opportunity to observe and study the processes of planet and satellite formation,” Facchini adds.
PDS 70b and PDS 70c, the two planets making up the system, were first discovered using ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) in 2018 and 2019 respectively, and their unique nature means they have been observed with other telescopes and instruments many times since.
The latest high resolution ALMA observations have now allowed astronomers to gain further insights into the system. In addition to confirming the detection of the circumplanetary disc around PDS 70c and studying its size and mass, they found that PDS 70b does not show clear evidence of such a disc, indicating that it was starved of dust material from its birth environment by PDS 70c.
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An even deeper understanding of the planetary system will be achieved with ESO’s Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), currently under construction on Cerro Armazones in the Chilean Atacama desert. “The ELT will be key for this research since, with its much higher resolution, we will be able to map the system in great detail,” says co-author Richard Teague, a researcher at the Center for Astrophysics partnership between Harvard & Smithsonian.
In particular, by using the ELT’s Mid-infrared ELT Imager and Spectrograph (METIS), the team will be able to look at the gas motions surrounding PDS 70c to get a full 3D picture of the system.
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Quote of the Day: “All human beings should try to learn before they die what they are running from, and to, and why.” – James Thurber
Photo: by Emma Simpson
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?
Employing the common and easily understood method of the vending machine—these Giving Machines allow passersby in American cities to make a charitable donation to a fellow citizen through local and global causes.
Catering to impulsive givers to indulge their altruistic impulses, they can use the vending machine to purchase anything from a single goat or two chickens to providing a household cleaning kit, polio vaccines, or even a day at Yankee Stadium for an orphaned teen.
When donors make their purchase via credit card, the Giving Machine dispenses a postcard featuring an image and description of their donation.
Of the 10 cities with vending machines nationwide, one of them will be located at Rockefeller Center in New York City, just south of its famed Christmas tree. The machine will kickoff on Tuesday, Nov. 30—the day known as “Giving Tuesday”—with speeches from people at UNICEF, WaterAid, the UNHCR, CARE, the Mariano Rivera Foundation, and other charities.
The first Giving Machine ever installed opened in 2017 in Salt Lake City, Utah, where the sponsoring organization, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is headquartered.
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The Utah pilot program was impressive, yielding donations totaling more than a half million dollars. One year later, the response was even stronger, with more than $2.3 million donated through a total of 92,190 Giving Machine transactions.
In 2019, the program expanded, and donations topped $6.2 million—with two locations outside the United States that year: in the Philippine capitol and in London.
After being halted in 2020 due to COVID, the Giving Machines are back, in ten different U.S. cities—with the sponsoring Church covering all administrative costs for this campaign so that 100 percent of each donation goes to each charity.
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The machines launch on the following dates in these cities and will remain operational throughout the Christmas season:
• Las Vegas, Nevada– Currently active in downtown Summerlin Mall
• Nashville, Tennessee– Currently active at 18 Bridgestone Arena
• Honolulu, Hawaii– Currently active in the Pearlridge Center
• Orem, Utah– University Place Mall on November 23, 2021
• Salt Lake City, Utah– City Creek Center on November 24, 2021
• Oakland, California– Temple Hill on November 27, 2021
• Gilbert, Arizona– Water Tower Plaza on November 29, 2021
• Denver, Colorado– Writer Square on November 30, 2021
• Kansas City, Missouri– Crown Center on November 30, 2021
• New York City, New York– Rockefeller Plaza on November 30, 2021
The Giving Machines will feature over two dozen choices for charity initiatives with items to purchase, including:
Meal for a Family
Warm Blanket
Five Sleeping Mats
Solar Lantern
Winter Clothing
One Tent
One Pair of Gloves
One Dozen Pairs of Socks
Two Winter Scarves
Winter Boots
Weekly Metro Card
Two Basketballs
One Month of Meals
Emergency WASH Kit
Polio Vaccines for 100 Kids
Five Menstrual Care Kits
Rainwater Storage Tank
Water Pump
Install a Well
Two Chickens
One Goat
Household Cleaning Kit
One Laptop
A Day at Yankee Stadium
WaterAid
Portable Vaccine Carrier
Spiritual Care of Seniors
Protect a Health Care Worker
Passover Meal for Two People
All through organizations like UNICEF, USA,The Mariano Rivera Foundation, USA for UNHCR – The UN Refugee Agency, Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of New York, and The Actors Fund, a safety net for performing arts and entertainment professionals over their lifespan.
In 2019, a total of 255,814 items were purchased from ten Giving Machine locations around the world. The top five purchased items were:
The annual #LightTheWorld holiday initiative by the nonprofit Latter-day Saint Charities is “an invitation to all to make the most of the Christmas season by giving, one person at a time — in homes, in communities, and around the globe.”
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A couple in their 30s were absolutely done with the constant isolation, following more than a year of COVID, and they decided to launch a community initiative this summer.
Jake Williams and Charlotte Sinclair started Talk the Walk, which seeks to promote people getting together, exploring London on foot, and getting to know each other.
The number one mission was to have fun—even if only a few people showed up for the free events. That’s what they expected when they started in September on Meetup.com.
Suddenly they were getting hundreds of people RSVPing with enthusiasm.
“Our services are really in demand,” Jake told GNN.
200-300 people of various ages now regularly attend each event, which opens with the playing of icebreaker games. The couple designed the games to be easy for introverts, too, with “fun questions” breaking the nervousness.
They pick interesting landmarks to visit, with the first locations chosen being Hampstead Heath, King’s Cross, and the Regent’s Canal. Attendees are even surprised with an offer of chocolate.
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“I have a megaphone now, thank God,” Jake told My London. “I’ve done some crazy things in my time working from home to stop loneliness, like dog sitting for people and joining gyms just so I can have more conversations with people.”
“I think that it’s hugely impactful for people who have been affected by Covid, by being forced to work from home and having that isolation,” he continued.
“Our focus is to end loneliness and to bring communities back together,” wrote Jake via email.
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They’ve seen older folks conversing with younger folks, and people becoming friends—so much so, that the strangers are now meeting on their own after becoming acquainted.
Talk the Walk organized their last event for October 23, but told us they will resume shortly.
“It’s getting cold here. But we’ll be back once it starts to warm up again 🙂
Nearly 2,000 members in their Meetup community and followers on their Facebook Page are waiting for that day also, but meanwhile, this young couple might serve as your very own inspiration to connect people in your own communities.
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What’s more cozy than a cabin nestled in nature?
Well, one architect wanted even more nature, so he designed a cabin with moving walls that can slide open.
Cabin ANNA, by architect Casper Schols, accomplishes what our zipped jackets do when the weather changes; the walls open wide on rails to allow in the sunshine and scenery.
Delivered pre-assembled or as a flat pack, sliding away the wall on an ANNA cabin, one can have a glass greenhouse for a chilly yet sunny day, or nothing between you and the nature which surrounds you.
For nighttime or cold days, simply push all the components together again, and you have a cozy, insulated traditional cabin.
There are two versions, ANNA Stay and ANNA Meet—the former comes with either an on-grid version with plenty of amenities, or an off-grid version with self-sustaining technologies like a waste-water treatment system, solar panels, and a fire-heating water boiler.
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For the construction, only high-quality natural materials are used. The outside is made of sustainable Siberian larch wood. On the inside, birch plywood has been used for high quality and its light color. Most wood is left untreated and sawdust was used for insulation.
Both versions come with a fully-equipped kitchen, shower, bathroom, and room for two adults and two kids or three adults. A bathtub is fully integrated under the floor paneling.
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Schols tells Dezeen that it was actually a garden house he designed and built for his mom that gave him the inspiration to make ANNA. She wanted a place she could paint, play with her kids, garden, and be outside, and so he made her a small structure with two exterior wall panels that moved and two interior ones.
“ANNA Stay has two sliding shells instead of the four in the original Garden House,” Schols told Dezeen. “But the two are longer and cover more area.”
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“ANNA is a dynamic home in the shape of an open platform to live with rather than against the elements, by playing with the configuration of the layers of the house,” he writes on the CABIN ANNA website.
“Just like the way you dress yourself to suit different weather conditions, occasions, and moods.”
If the designer’s aesthetic, ‘let nature be your home,’ resonates with customers, they can contact the company to discuss prices.
(SEE the grand design in action in the video below.)
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Another patient has seemingly recovered fully from a diagnosis of HIV.
The woman in Argentina may have become the first person whose immune system, itself, cured her of the virus. And, though it has been heralded as a miracle, it presents hope to scientists—and patients—that one day we may be able to put the HIV scourge behind us.
The 30-year-old woman dubbed the “Esperanza” Patient (in the tradition of naming HIV-cured patients after their city of residence), may prove a little more special.
“This is really the miracle of the human immune system that did it,” Dr. Xu Yu, a viral immunologist at the Ragon Institute in Boston, told NBC. Yu led the exhaustive, no-stone-unturned search for any trace of HIV in the Esperanza Patient, and published the study this month in Annals of Internal Medicine.
The few details released to the public regarding the unique case includes that she was diagnosed in 2013, and has been showing ‘non-existent viral presence’ for 8 years. Then, in 2020 she gave birth to an HIV-negative child. If researchers’ can figure out how her immune system is capable to neutralizing the virus so effectively, it would lead to more effective and basic treatments, and perhaps even a cure.
HIV has been hypothesized as cured in 2 other people, the “London,” and “Berlin” Patients, who were both cured with a stem cell transplant treatment.
The transplanted donor cells had a gene defect called CCR5delta32mutant which results in the absence of one of the critical entry gatekeepers that HIV generally needs to infect cells.
RELATED: First Human Trial of HIV Vaccine Produced Immune Response in 97% of Volunteers
In the case of the Esperanza Patient, she is defined as an ‘elite controller’, with rare odds and an immune system that can suppress the dreaded virus naturally. HIV is difficult to treat and detect, as it is capable of infecting and living dormant in the immune cells, which live the longest, giving it excellent resilience.
These elite controllers have an ability to preferentially target these long-lived cells, according to another paper published by Yu in 2020 with “Esperanza” as a participant. The “viral reservoir” dries up, removing HIV’s most effective survival strategy.
“I enjoy being healthy,” the Esperanza patient, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told NBC News in a translated email. “I have a healthy family. I don’t have to medicate, and I live as though nothing has happened. This already is a privilege.”
38 million people live with HIV, which over the last two decades has become somewhat treatable with drugs, but the authors state that the more cases like Esperanza that medical science can uncover and study, the more we can begin to understand what it means—and looks like—to cure the disease.
Maybe another reason people are feeling hopeful. The word ‘esperanza’, in Spanish, literally means hope.
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Quote of the Day: “The important thing is to be able, at any moment, to sacrifice what we are for what we could become.” – Charles Du Bos
Photo: by Patrick Tomasso
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?
Age is nothing but a number for most older Americans, as 84% said they have embraced aging—and they’re living their best lives.
A survey of 2,000 people 65 and older found nearly three-quarters (72%) of people feel younger than they are, with half saying they feel younger than 50-years-old.
The average person stops caring what others think of their age at 43, and over one-third of those polled said that being able to say what you want is one of the best things about getting older.
As older Americans enjoy their golden years, people cited the best parts of aging as having more time to do what they want (64%) and enjoying retirement (60%).
Another recent poll showed that 45% of Americans aged 50 and older reported having the best sex of their lives as they’ve aged. The survey found that 35% are surprisingly more intimate than ever before.
Conducted by OnePoll on behalf of ClearMatch Medicare, the results showed that 58% of elders are also tapping into their younger selves by using social media to communicate with their family and friends.
RELATED: Six in 10 Americans Agreed They’re More Financially Confident Than They Were Before the Pandemic
“Baby boomers are reinventing what it means to age, and they resent those outdated stereotypes of older adults,” said Keira Krausz, chief marketing officer at ClearMatch Medicare.
“They’re not letting their age interfere with their quality of life because the best years of their lives are still ahead of them.”
84% of older Americans are confident in their understanding of online safety, and reported are aware of online risks.
“Older adults today are well-equipped to utilize technology to choose goods or services they need—the shift to quarantine as a result of COVID has proved that,” said Krausz.
ALSO: More Americans Now Consider Themselves to be ‘Thriving’ Than at Any Point in 13 Years: Gallop
BEST PARTS OF GETTING OLDER
Having more time to do what I want (64%)
Retiring (60%)
Having more time to relax (56%)
Spending time with my family (49%)
Being able to say what I want (36%)
Let us know in the comments if you’ve experienced the same positive attitudes and feelings, and what your secret is…
More than a million Americans voted on their favorite ‘Hero Dog’ finalist this year—and after a deliberating VIP panel of dog experts and judges, the winner was crowned at the American Humane Hero Dog Awards gala in Palm Beach, Florida this month.
A four-year-old hound mix named Boone from Butler, Pennsylvania, took home the top prize.
Boone, who survived heartbreaking treatment as a puppy, bested more than 400 other competitors from across the country to win the award. Finalists from 7 categories went head-to-head collecting votes from the public—Law Enforcement / Detection Dogs, Service Dogs, Military Dogs, Search & Rescue Dogs, Shelter Dogs, Guide/Hearing Dogs, and, Therapy Dogs, which was Boone’s category.
Boone’s two back legs had to be amputated after the initial abuse, and he was fostered by a family with a soft spot for special needs pets. “He was calm as calm could be,” said Tanya Diable, his foster mom, who was so moved by the pup that she adopted him two days later.
Boone’s family had him fitted with a wheelchair to improve his mobility, which immediately changed him. Charley Diable said it was the first time he ever wagged his tail—and he’s been a dog on a mission ever since.
“The light bulb just clicked,” says Tanya. “He was amazing after that.”
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The hound’s sweet nature and enthusiasm for life made him perfect for earning a certificate to become a therapy dog. He now goes to children’s hospitals and wherever he is need to help reduce stress in others.
Boone is also an ambassador for the nonprofit Joey’s P.A.W. (Prosthetics and Wheels), which has provided mobility devices to more than 700 dogs in need in Pittsburgh, across the country and globally.
Boone is also helping to erase perceptions around disabled dogs and their adoptability.
“The American Humane Hero Dog Awards were created to honor some of the world’s most extraordinary heroes, as well as celebrate the powerful relationship between dogs and people,” said Dr. Robin Ganzert, president and CEO of American Humane, America’s first national humane organization, which holds the Hero Dog Awards annually.
“These courageous canines have gone above and beyond the call of duty, saving lives on the battlefield, comforting the ill and aged, and reminding us of the powerful, age-old bond between animals and people.”
WATCH Boone’s story triumphant below…
LOOK: Six Puppies Are All Determined to Fit Into One Small Bucket – And They Succeed (WATCH)
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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 November 19, 2021
Copyright by Rob Brezsny, FreeWillAstrology.com
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21):
“Some people become so expert at reading between the lines they don’t read the lines,” wrote author Margaret Millar. That’s not a common problem for you Scorpios. You are an expert at reading between the lines, but that doesn’t cause you to miss the simple facts. Better than any other sign of the zodiac, you are skilled at seeing both secret and obvious things. Given the astrological omens that will be active for you during the rest of 2021, I suspect this skill of yours will be a virtual superpower. And even more than usual, the people in your life will benefit from your skill at naming the truth.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21):
Storyteller and mythologist Michael Meade believes that each of us has an inner indigenous person—a part of our psyche that can love and learn from nature, that’s inclined to revere and commune with the ancestors, that seeks holiness in the familiar delights of the earth. The coming weeks will be a favorable time for you to cultivate your relationship with your inner indigenous person. What other experiences might be available to you as you align your personal rhythms with the rhythms of the earth? What joys might emerge as you strive to connect on deeper levels with animals and plants and natural forces?
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19):
Capricorn novelist Haruki Murakami writes, “I was always hungry for love. Just once, I wanted to know what it was like to get my fill of it—to be fed so much love I couldn’t take any more. Just once.” Most of us feel that longing, although few of us admit it. But I will urge you to place this desire in the front of your awareness during the next two weeks. I’ll encourage you to treat your yearning for maximum love as a sacred strength, a virtue to nurture and be proud of. I’ll even suggest you let people know that’s what you want. Doing so may not result in a total satisfaction of the longing, but who knows? Maybe it will. If there will ever be a time when such fulfillment could occur, it will be soon.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18):
An article published in the journal Scientific American declared, “Most people don’t know when to stop talking.” Conversations between strangers and between friends typically go on too long. A mere two percent of all dialogs finish when both parties want them to. That’s the bad news, Aquarius. The good news is that in the coming weeks, your sensitivity about this issue will be more acute than usual. As a result, your talk will be extra concise and effective—more persuasive, more interesting, and more influential. Take advantage of this subtle superpower!
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20):
Since 1996, Ira Glass has produced the renowned radio series This American Life. In 2013, as a reward for his excellence, he was offered a raise in his annual salary from $170,000 to $278,000. He accepted it for one year, but then asked that it be lowered to $146,000. He described the large increase in pay as “unseemly.” What?! I appreciate his modesty, but I disapprove. I’m always rooting for Pisceans like Ira Glass to embrace the fullness of their worth and to be aggressive about gathering all the rewards they’re offered. So I’m inclined, especially right now, to urge you NOT to be like Glass. Please swoop up all the kudos, benefits, and blessings you deserve.
ARIES (March 21-April 19):
Aries poet and philosopher Friedrich Hölderlin (1770–1843) had many ups and downs. He was one of Germany’s greatest poets and philosophers, but he also endured more emotional distress than most people. His biographer wrote, “Sometimes this genius goes dark and sinks down into the bitter well of his heart, but mostly his apocalyptic star glitters wondrously.” You may have been flirting with a milder version of a “bitter well of the heart,” Aries. But I foresee that you will soon return to a phase when your star glitters wondrously—and without the “apocalyptic” tinge that Hölderlin harbored.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20):
Author David Foster Wallace felt sad about how little of our mind’s intense activity can be shared with others. So much of what goes on inside us seems impossible to express. Or if it is possible to express, few of our listeners are receptive to it or able to fully understand it. That’s the bad news, Taurus. But here’s the good news: In the coming weeks, I believe you will experience much less of this sad problem than usual. I’m guessing you’ll be especially skilled at articulating your lush truth and will have an extra receptive audience for it.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20):
“I never resist temptation,” declared playwright George Bernard Shaw. Why did he dare to utter such an outlandish statement? “Because I have found that things that are bad for me do not tempt me,” he said. I propose that you aspire to embody his attitude during the next eight weeks, Gemini. Make it your aspiration to cultivate a state of mind wherein you will only be tempted to engage with influences that are healthy and educational and inspiring. You can do it! I know you can!
CANCER (June 21-July 22):
While still a teenager, Cancerian cowboy Slim Pickens (1919–1983) competed in the rodeo, a sporting event in which brave athletes tangle with aggressive broncos and bulls. When America entered World War II, Pickens went to a recruiting office to sign up for the military. When asked about his profession, Pickens said “rodeo.” The clerk misheard and instead wrote “radio.” Pickens was assigned to work at an armed forces radio station in the American Midwest, where he spent the entire war. It was a safe and secure place for him to be. I foresee a lucky mistake like that in your near future, Cancerian. Maybe more than one lucky mistake. Be alert.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22):
To create your horoscope, I’ve borrowed ideas from four famous Leos. They all address your current astrological needs. First, here’s Leo author P. L. Travers (Mary Poppins): “More and more I’ve become convinced that the great treasure to possess is the unknown.” Second, here’s Leo author Sue Monk Kidd: “There is no place so awake and alive as the edge of becoming.” Third, Leo poet Philip Larkin: “Originality is being different from oneself, not others.” Finally, Leo author Susan Cheever: “There is no such thing as expecting too much.”
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22):
I encourage you to adopt the perspective expressed by spiritual author Ann Voskamp. She wrote, “I want to see beauty. In the ugly, in the sink, in the suffering, in the daily, the moments before I sleep.” I understand that taking this assignment seriously could be a challenging exercise. Most of us are quick to spot flaws and awfulness, but few have been trained to be alert for elegance and splendor and wondrousness. Are you willing to try out this approach? Experiment with it. Treat it as an opportunity to reprogram your perceptual faculties. Three weeks from now, your eyes and ears could be attuned to marvels they had previously missed.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22):
Libran educator and anthropologist Johnnetta Cole wrote, “The first sign of an educated person is that she asks more questions than she delivers answers.” I agree and would also say this: A prime attribute of an intelligent, eager-to-learn person is that she asks more questions than she delivers answers. I encourage you to be like that during the coming weeks, Libra. According to my astrological estimation, you are scheduled to boost your intelligence and raise your curiosity. An excellent way to meet your appointments with destiny will be to have fun dreaming up interesting questions.
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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A record number of calves have been recorded in the Salish Sea this season, marking a significant rebound for a species that was endangered just 25 years ago.
Whale watchers and researchers off the coasts of Washington and British Columbia near Vancouver, documented 21 calves, according to the Pacific Whale Watch Association (PWWA).
According to Mark Malleson of Center for Whale Research, that is the highest annual number on record so far for the region, and is nearly twice as many as were reported last year, when 11 calves were documented.
“2021 has been a banner year for female humpbacks coming into the Salish Sea with new calves,” says Wendi Robinson, naturalist with Puget Sound Express. “Calves only travel with mom for a year or so and then they’re on their own. Once they’re familiar with our waters, they will often return year after year to feed.”
As to the cause of this year’s baby boom, Erin Gless, Executive Director of the Pacific Whale Watch Association, can only speculate.
“We’re not sure why there were so many calves this year,” she says. “It’s possible the last two years had an abundance of food for the whales.”
“25 years ago, here off of inland B.C. waters, we had zero humpback whales, so this is a new phenomenon in our waters … they’ve made up for lost time. We are seeing lots and lots of whales, which is super exciting.”
WATCH: Curious Whale Nudges Paddle Boarder in Argentina in Stunning Video
Fall brings the peak of humpback activity in the Salish Sea as the whales seize their last feeding opportunities before traveling south for winter. In the coming months—after eating 2,000 pounds (900 kg) of fish and krill every day—humpbacks will swim to breeding grounds near Hawaii and Mexico to mate, give birth, and return in late spring.
Humpbacks have also bounced back in the South Atlantic. After the population had diminished to only 450 whales, 2019 research showed numbers have has rebounded to 25,000—an estimate now close to pre-whaling numbers.
WATCH: Friendly Humpback Whale Gives Woman the Experience of a Lifetime
In June, the U.S. Biden administration announced it would be officially protecting 116,098 square nautical miles of the Pacific Ocean as critical habitat for three populations of endangered humpback whales.
Evidence shows that endangered or threatened species that have protected critical habitat are twice as likely to be recovering as those without it—so we can expect these positive trends for Pacific humpbacks to continue.
LOOK: Humpback Whales Herd Salmon With Their Fins in Never-Before-Filmed Feeding Behavior
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Quote of the Day: “Life is like a play: it’s not the length, but the excellence of the acting that matters.” – Seneca
Photo: by Gwen King
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?
