Do you think you’ll hear the next rainstorm differently—with extra awareness, curiosity, and a sense of play? That’s what the best music does. It moves us, and it binds us quietly to where we are.
A young boy is the first in the world to have a rare form of cancer spreading through his body, but he has a fighting chance thanks to groundbreaking treatment.
SWNS
12-year-old Reef Carneson has a life-threatening cancer that’s normally slow to progress, limited to the skin, and seen in adults who have spent years sunbathing without suncream.
He was first diagnosed with advanced cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma (cSCC) in 2015, but a chemotherapy cream seemed to have mostly cured it by 2019.
Sadly, the skin cancer was then found to have spread to his bones and brain in 2020.
Just days after Reef and his family were told to say their goodbyes after it was found the cancer had spread to his lungs, Reef was offered another chance at life with a new treatment.
This therapy has never been used in children anywhere in the world to battle this form of cancer, and Reef’s unusual case makes him the first kid to undergo Cemiplimab—a programed receptor-1(PD-1) blocking antibody, which teaches the patient’s body’s immune system to recognize the cancer cells as not part of them and harmful.
Reef, who has lived with immunological complications after beating leukemia as a baby, has kept on fighting and his proud mom, Lydia Carneson, said he is responding well to the treatment, which began on May 7.
The mom of three said: “It’s amazing. He is stable and we believe the treatment is working… We feel unbelievably blessed at this time. We believe he is a miracle a thousand times over.”
Reef as a baby, SWNS
In the meantime, Reef has mentioned that he has three wishes: to have a pet duck, to go to the mall, and to go camping.
Now he has two ducks named Donald Duck and Daisy. He’s visited the Metro Centre mall in Newcastle on a VIP experience: Five stores invited him to pick out whatever he’d like, with no budget limit.
“He is so humble that he picked a lot of ducks, sweeties, and balloons,” his mom said.
Here at GNN, we’re wishing Reef and his family a wonderful camping trip as soon as it’s as possibility.
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Goutam Narayan, Ph.D., Project Director, Pygmy Hog Conservation Programme holds a one month old Pygmy Hog, weighing around 800gms and measuring about 9 inches, 6th June 2008, Pygmy Hog Conservation Programme (PHCP) Research and Breeding Centre, Basistha, Guwahati, Assam, India.
Pygmy Hogs (Porcula salvania) are the worlds smallest and most endangered species of wild pig. At birth they only weigh between 150 and 200g and are about the size of a rat.
The Breeding Centre, centre holds the only captive pygmy hogs in the world, 49 adults and around 20 infants. Adults are only 60 to 65 cm in length and 25 cm in height. An adult male weighs 8 to 9 kg. Females are a bit smaller. Compared to a Wild Boar it is about 10-15 times smaller in bulk. Currently, the Pygmy Hogs are found only in the grassland of Manas Tiger Reserve of Assam. In the past they were found in a narrow belt of grassland south of Himalayan foothills in Uttar Pradesh, Nepal, Bihar, north Bengal and Assam. Even till 1990, they were present in a few places outside Manas, such as Barnadi Wildlife Sanctuary, but populations other than those in Manas have all disappeared now. Although accurate numbers are not known it is estimated that there may be only a few hundred, probably less than 500, Pygmy Hogs left in the wild.
The World Conservation Union (IUCN) has accorded the highest priority rating (Status Category 6 - Critically Endangered) to the species putting it among the most endangered of all mammals. It is also listed in the Schedule I of the Indian Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972.
PHOTOGRAPH BY SIMON DE TREY-WHITE/ BARCROFT MEDIA LTD + 44 (0) 845 370 2233
Goutam Narayan, Ph.D. holds a one month old Pygmy Hog, SIMON DE TREY-WHITE/BARCROFT MEDIA LTD
Who would imagine that in the habitat of elephants, tigers, and rhinos, the world’s smallest wild hog is the animal that’s determining where the conservation dollars go?
Like the keystone in an arch that holds all the others in place, the endangered pygmy hog of North India is the keystone species of the Terai grasslands, and while those other large mammals can live elsewhere, the hog cannot. Therefore you have a situation where protecting a 10-inch tall pig has the added benefit of protecting the 300-pound tigers and 8-ton elephants.
Presumed extinct until it was discovered in 1971 in the Indian state of Assam by a tea plantation worker, it wasn’t until the 1990s that conservationists began breeding the pygmy hogs in captivity.
Fortunately the hogs, which represent the last living species in the genus porcula, breed like, well, pigs, and now between 300-400 are roaming the Terai grasslands again—while another 74 stay in captivity awaiting reintroduction.
Between 2008-2020, National Geographic reports, the PHCP released 130 wild hogs into two national parks, Manas and Orang, as well as two wildlife sanctuaries, Barnadi and Sonai Rupai. All four of these are found in the state of Assam, as that’s where the special grassland habitat the pygmy hogs require can be found.
Grassland ecosystems often contain one or more species that act as regulators or engineers which keep the system healthy. Lemmings or other rodents constantly aerate the soil through the digging, while grazers like bison or wildebeest constantly trim the tall grass species, allowing light to reach the smaller blades.
Pygmy hogs play a role like this in the Terai grasslands. They tear up grasses to make small thatched nests over depressions in the ground, and the trails and corridors they make among the grass stalks help create space for light and for other plant species to grow, not to mention useful ready-made highways for other animals.
By injecting a Parisian man’s eye with genes from algae that encode for light-sensing proteins, scientists were able to slowly restore the patient’s vision to the point where he could locate, identify, and count objects again.
The treatment is being called a breakthrough in optogenetic therapy, and offers a chance of vision restoration in people with retinitis pigmentosa, the degradation of photoreceptive cells in their eyes.
Found in glowing algae, the protein, called channelrhodopsin ChrimsonR, aids in the flow of ions in and out of the cell after being exposed to light. The application of this protein opens up new possibilities for retinal gene-therapy, as it bypasses the broken photoreceptors typifying retinitis pigmentosa.
Instead, the ChrimsonR genes were targeted for retinal ganglion cells, which are part of the vision equipment responsible for taking information from photoreceptors and relaying them to the optic nerves, and then to the brain where they’re transformed into what we know as sight.
The ganglia were essentially given the job of the photoreceptors, which due to the disease no longer functioned. A pair of purpose-built goggles collected the image of the world and condensed it into a single amber-light spectrum, the one which causes the channelrhodopsin ChrimsonR protein to change shape and send signals to the brain.
Over months of training, the patient was able to see objects, the white lines on the sidewalk, and more with the help of the goggles—all of which is detailed in the resulting study, published in Nature journal. This doesn’t seem like a particularly advanced treatment, but retinitis pigmentosa has no approved therapy, and is one of the most common causes of blindness in young people.
Further developments in this field could make optogenetic therapy much more futuristic, such as if a gene somewhere in biology could be found that reacted in the same way as ChrimsonR, but towards multiple color spectrums. This would allow a more natural version of sight to be restored.
On the other hand, stem cell methods for restoring photoreceptors have been pioneered in mice and also performed in humans. Sai Chavala, Ph.D. at the Laboratory for Retinal Rehabilitation in the University of North Texas, recently showed that fibroblasts, a type of skin cell, can reprogram themselves into photoreceptors in patients and mice with age-related macular degeneration (MD), a type of progressive blindness that’s so common it’s practically just described as “aging.”
Chavala is gunning for FDA approval of this treatment for rolling back age-related MD in the next 1-2 years.
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Quote of the Day: “When I first lit the Amnesty candle, I had in mind the old Chinese proverb: ‘Better light a candle than curse the darkness’.” – Peter Benenson (founded Amnesty International 60 years ago today)
Photo: by BBC Creative @bethbapchurch
With a new inspirational quote every day, atop the perfect photo—collected and archived on our Quote of the Day page—why not bookmark GNN.org for a daily uplift?
Being in the right place at the right time can mean the difference between life and death.
When a freak ice storm felled runners in a 100-kilometer cross-country race in China’s north-western Gansu province, a shepherd named Zhu Keming braved the elements to pull three men and three women to safety.
The day of the race began with mild temperatures. Zhu was tending his flock as usual. Then in the space of a few moments, everything changed.
As temperatures plummeted and freezing sleet and hail began to pound the terrain, Zhu took shelter in a small cave he’d been using for years to store emergency supplies.
It was from this vantage point Zhu noticed one of the runners in obvious distress. The man appeared immobilized, disoriented, and in pain.
Zhu brought the man back to the cave to warm him up. After lighting a fire, Zhu returned to the mountainside, shepherding five additional runners to the cave. There’s little doubt he saved their lives.
Unprepared for the abrupt shift in the weather, most racers were outfitted in lightweight clothing that was no match for the frigid temperatures. The threat of hypothermia was all too real. (21 of the 172 athletes in the race succumbed to the storm.)
Shepherd hailed as hero in deadly China ultramarathon.
“I want to say how grateful I am to the man who saved me,” runner Zhang Xiaotao posted on the Chinese social media site Weibo. “Without him, I would have been left out there.”
While Zhu is being lauded as a hero in his homeland, the humble shepherd doesn’t see the reason for all the fuss. He says he’s “just an ordinary person who did a very ordinary thing.”
The athletes whose lives he saved, their families—and pretty much everyone else who hears the story—likely disagree. Being in the right place at the right time and having the courage to do the right thing can be extraordinary indeed.
In a greenhouse in Missouri, a tree listed as critically endangered produced a flower which had never been recorded before by science in the perfect metaphor for the species’ chances of survival.
The botanists caring for it believe there’s no question they can save the tree since collecting pollen from this flower, as they can now cross-pollinate its thirty-strong sapling neighbors to restore genetic diversity.
Karomia gigasis a member of the mint family, and is also related to oregano, rosemary, and thyme. It grows wild only in East-Central Africa, in Tanzania, and in the past in Kenya. It’s so unknown there’s no common name for it in English, Swahili, or any other African language.
The flower it produced consisted of five purple petals tugged down towards the stem, and four long pollen stamens protruding from the center.
Growing straight up to heights of 80 feet, it’s thought one reason there is no image of the flower in the scientific record is that an adult K. gigas doesn’t produce branches until halfway up the trunk, so the rapidly-wilting flowers simply emerge too high to be seen.
The un-minty nature of the flowers lead scientists to hypothesize it could be a self-pollinating tree, and they hope to find more flowers in the coming months that will allow them to strengthen the genetic diversity of the remaining trees.
They can clone individual trees from cuttings, but that doesn’t do anything to increase genetic diversity, which is key to ensuring the long-term survival of the species and its ability to resist disease.
Growing hope
As well as growing in a difficult-to-replicate kind of soil substrate consisting primarily of old corral and termite leavings, K. gigas is very susceptible to fungus, and its wood is similar to teak, and so is occasionally poached. All this pressure puts the tree among the most endangered of the 60,000-known tree species.
It was discovered in Kenya in 1977, then rediscovered in Tanzania in 1993 after all the Kenyan specimens died out.
Apart from the thirty saplings growing in the Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis, the Tanzanian Forest Service estimate there are two dozen or more others, but only in Mitundumbea Forest Reserve and Litipo Forest Reserve in Tanzania, both of which are protected areas characterized by flat woodlands that used to be the ocean floor.
“On one side of the coin it’s a little scary because very rare species like this are depending upon us and we can’t get it wrong,” writes Andrew Wyatt, Senior Vice President of Horticulture and Living Collections at the Missouri Botanic Gardens, the oldest continually operating gardens in the nation.
“Personally, and I know others on my staff feel this way too, it is actually amazing and exhilarating. It is such an honor to use one’s skill to save a species from extinction.”
“As far as survival, we’ve got this one,” says Wyatt, this time to National Geographic. “We can actually make sure it does not go extinct. The idea of actually preserving the species is entirely possible. It’s protected in Tanzania. We have collections in the botanical garden. Once we’ve got enough seed, we hope we can store it [in a freezer] and create a buffer between loss.”
It’s good he and his staff are so confident. Based on how many houseplants this reporter has killed, he can only imagine the pressure they’re under.
(L) Web Summit SM1_0502, CC license; (R)@iloveyourestaurant Instagram
(L) Web Summit SM1_0502, CC license; (R) @iloveyourestaurant Instagram
Paying it forward is something that’s in Jaden Smith’s genes. He played an instrumental role in the JUSTwater campaign, helping provide clean drinking water to the residents of Flint, Michigan.
Then, to commemorate his 21st birthday two years ago, the rapper/actor launched the I Love You Restaurant, a vegan food truck initiative to combat food insecurity for Los Angeles’ homeless.
“Our mission is to spread love to communities experiencing food and/or housing insecurity by offering water along with fresh, high-quality, and delicious sustainable meal options,” his food website explains.
Smith’s vegan meals found their way to 8,000 of L.A.’s Skid Row residents. Eventually, I Love You’s efforts were expanded to serve at-risk residents in Harlem, New York City.
“[We were] not able to actually get our food truck down to Skid Row and physically hand it out to people for obvious reasons,” he told COMPLEX. “You’re thinking about everything happening with COVID-19 and people having to stay home and all this stuff. Well, if you’re homeless, you can’t stay home… So we’ve been donating… everything that we can… vegan food, masks, clothes, hand sanitizer, and all different types of things.”
Although normal is still a way off, Smith is pivoting his I Love You concept yet again. With plans for a more permanent, non-rolling version of his restaurant on the table, Smith is parlaying the success of his past efforts into the next phase.
The “pay as you can” philosophy on which the new endeavor is based takes a page from the venerable drive-through feel-good tradition of paying not only for your own eats but for those of the occupant in the following car as well—only Smith is taking the feel-good one step further.
While anyone will be welcome to partake of the yet-to-be-announced location’s fare, those who can afford the suggested menu prices will be in effect subsidizing meals for those who can’t.
“It’s for homeless people to get free food,” Smith told Variety. “But if you’re not homeless, not only do you have to pay, but you have to pay for more than the food’s worth so that you can pay for the person behind you.”
It sure sounds like a great way to serve up some good karma to us, but we were just wondering… Can we get vegan fries with that?
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While looking for ways to make homes and offices more efficient, building managers have realized that something as seemingly insignificant as the water droplets from the underside of air conditioning units have the potential to quench the thirst of thousands.
While the drips don’t seem like much, they really add up. Microsoft reports that their 46,000 square meter offices in Herzliya, Israel, collect 3 million liters of condensate from air conditioners annually, which it uses to irrigate the campus flora and cool the building.
In the U.S., a campus building at Rice University, Houston, has an A/C unit that generates 15 gallons of condensate per minute, and they believe their entire campus could supply 12 million gallons annually.
Grasping this potential, municipal governments and eco-conscious offices around the United States are experimenting with different ways of utilizing a resource which for many years has served only to drip down the walls of buildings, giving them a dirty run-down appearance.
It’s not the hardest challenge, since condensation is a process that’s quite easy to control and predict. For example, if the surface on which condensation is taking place is uneven, the water will always run to the narrowest point before gathering enough mass to fall. Positioning a cistern or channel under that point is essentially the only major step required, or adding a water pump if one needs to send the water uphill.
Furthermore, many A/C units come with rubber condensate disposal piping which drains the moisture into a specific location such as a yard.
Clever condensation
In Austin, Texas, a place that is both parched and forward-thinking, the city council approved an incentive program that will offer large building managers money if they can reuse their air-conditioning condensate, graywater, or rainwater for onsite non-potable needs.
Bloomberg reports that between two buildings, the 56-story Austonian residential skyscraper, and the Austin Central Library, their water recycling methods save the city 362,800 gallons of water per year.
Systems that go farther—that save one million gallons of potable water—are eligible to receive $250,000 in funding, doubling to $500,000 if the systems can save the city three million gallons.
Another hot and arid city, Tucson, is demonstrating the use of these water-conserving systems. The College of Architecture, Planning, and Landscape Architecture at the University of Arizona uses 100% recycled water in their Sonoran Landscape Laboratory.
Situated on what used to be 1.2 acres of parking lot, this miniature piece of the Sonoran Desert uses 95,000 gallons of water—all collected from air conditioning condensate for the irrigation of desert gardens and in continuously topping up a pond where local wildlife can drink.
Other non-potable water integration features like roof runoff, drinking fountain graywater, and back wash from a sand filter, along with the HVAC condensate will save an estimated 230,000 gallons of potable water there per year.
There are several online guides for how to build your own recycling system, or the basic principles of harvesting your own A/C condensate ,if you live in an dry climate and want to take advantage of this techno-blessing.
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If you think of TikTok as a place where tweens and members of Gen Z perform unfathomable dance moves and viral sea shanties for their peers, you might be surprised to find that it’s also an online platform where gardening tips are shared.
According to some of the most popular green-thumbed TikTokers, with a little ingenuity and, say, a few old plastic bottles, there’s pretty much nothing you can’t do to get your indoor and outdoor plants looking great.
From ‘wine bottle watering globes’ to getting rid of pests using orange peels, check out these hacks.
1. Water your plants with a wine bottle
Watering globes that go into soil can cost quite a few dollars, but a wine bottle you have hanging around in your recycling bin? That costs nothing. Check out @brightly.eco‘s TikTok to learn how to create your own free watering globe.
2. Feed your plants for just the right amount of time
Neither overwatering and under-watering your plants is optimal, so @chelseaaabri says to place your pots in a plate full of water. That way, they’ll soak up just the right amount.
3. Figure out how thirsty your plants are with a pencil
Here’s @geainthejungle‘s trick for finding out when your plants need watering: Mark the depth of dryness a particular plant likes on a pencil; stick the pencil in the soil to that exact depth, and if the nib comes out a little damp? You know you don’t need to water it quite yet.
How to fertilize your potted plants? Well you could buy some fancy plant food, or you could just dilute your leftover coffee with water and pour that in the soil, says @_forthehome.
6. Make a mini greenhouse from old plastic bottles
Over on Instagram, @plasticfreeally has shared a green way of making a tiny greenhouse from discarded plastic bottles. First up, cut those bottles in half, then watch your green things sprout.
Here’s a new one from @creative_explained: Take a used tea bag, pop a hole in it with a pair of scissors, put your chosen seed inside, place the whole thing in a Ziploc bag, then watch that little seed sprout.
8. Grow your own fruit from what you get in the grocery store
So you want to grow some strawberries? According to @growithjessie, pretty much all you need is a knife, a pot, some water, some soil—and of course, some sun—and then you’re all set. Do let us know if you give this, or any these other online hacks, a go?
Quote of the Day: “I can’t give you a sure-fire formula for success, but I can give you a formula for failure: try to please everybody all the time.” – Herbert Bayard Swope
Photo: by Илья Мельниченко
With a new inspirational quote every day, atop the perfect photo—collected and archived on our Quote of the Day page—why not bookmark GNN.org for a daily uplift?
After a year in lockdown, growing fruits and vegetables at home has officially taken root—with more than half of adults cultivating their own produce during the past 12 months.
SWNS
The trend is particularly popular among younger adults, with six in ten 18-to-34 year-olds growing their own—and now a former Beatle and his family are spearheading an effort to increase the number even more, on behalf of the late Linda McCartney.
Saving money (32 percent), helping the environment (23 percent), being more sustainable (28 percent), and eating more fruit and veg (15 percent) are some of the reasons people are picking up trowels.
The poll, by Linda McCartney Foods, found 70 percent of adults want to grow even more produce at home but are unable to do so.
The biggest barrier is lack of space said 27 percent of those surveyed, with half of adults—including 66 percent of 18-to-34 year-olds—wishing they had a bigger garden area.
Another 13 percent simply wish they had a garden.
In order to help people like these, the vegetarian food company has announced its ‘Grow Your Own with Linda’s’ initiative.
The initiative is building ‘growing spaces’ in urban areas throughout Britain, the company told SWNS news, while a Grow Your Own Guide will soon be available on their website.
The wife of Beatle Paul McCartney for 29 years, until her death from cancer, Linda was a vegetarian and started Linda McCartney Foods almost three decades ago.
Paul said, “We’re so pleased to bring this initiative to people across the UK and continue the legacy of kindness that Linda set out with for her veggie food company 30 years ago.
“Linda aimed to show that being kind didn’t mean having to compromise on eating delicious food.
“Through this project, we hope we can empower more people across the UK to try growing, and eating their own. Dig in and have fun.”
Two thirds of survey participants enjoy growing so much that they would happily live off their own home-grown foods if they could.
Home growers already enjoy an average of three meals a week containing produce they’ve cultivated themselves.
It also emerged 72 percent believe growing your own food produce is good for mental health, and 68 percent agree it also encourages you to have a better diet.
Other benefits to home-grown food include giving you a reason to get outside (52 percent) and being more ethical than some mass-produced foods (29 percent).
And notably, 48 percent think home-grown tastes better than items purchased from shops.
However, the survey, carried out through OnePoll, found two thirds (66 percent) would like to have greater knowledge about growing the crops—with those aged 18 to 34 especially keen (77 percent).
Grower and gardener, Diarmuid Gavin, who is offering his expertise on the project, said, “This has been such a great initiative to be involved with especially at a moment when the outdoors and nature has become even more precious in lockdown.
“I hope the Grow Your Own Guide can be an inspiration for people in flats, tower blocks, and without much outdoor space to see just how much they can grow with their own hands and a few recycled containers.”
If you rose early this morning to see the first lunar eclipse in more than two years, yet all you have to show for your experience is an image of a tiny, glowing red smudge in a dark sky—that’s not necessarily a sign of poor photography skills, just a lack of a telephoto lens.
Long-focus lenses can be used to make the moon appear much closer than it is—creating some truly spectacular photos.
A few hours ago, in many parts of the globe, the eclipsing of the sun’s light by Earth shadowed our lunar neighbor, turning it a deep, impressive red—hence the name Blood Moon. Or even Super Flower Blood Moon.
Check out the images these photographers captured and shared on Instagram, and do let us know if you got a great shot too.
Many have daydreamed of winning the lottery—but how about unwittingly having a $1 million win in your hands, then accidentally tossing it out?
That waking nightmare happened to Massachusetts’ Lea Rose Fiega. Luckily, the kind store owners where she bought the ticket let her know her mistake.
It was back in March that Fiega spent $30 on a scratch-off Diamond Millions ticket from Lucky Stop in Southwick.
“I was in a hurry, on lunch break, and just scratched it real quick, and looked at it, and it didn’t look like a winner, so I handed it over to them to throw away,” she told Associated Press.
For 10 days, the ticket simply lay there behind the counter.
“One evening, I was going through the tickets from the trash and found out that she didn’t scratch the number,” Abhi Shah, the son of the store’s owners told WWLP-TV. “I scratched the number and it was $1 million underneath the ticket.”
“We had mixed emotions,” Shah told the Washington Post. “We didn’t sleep for two nights, but I don’t know what happened. My inner soul told me: ‘That’s not right. You know who that person is. You should give that ticket back to them.’ And that’s exactly what I did.”
Fiega works near the convenience store where she got her ticket—so Shah went over there. He told her his mom and dad would like to see her, so she went over to the store. When she got the news she couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She cried. And then she hugged the entire family.
For Fiega, who nearly died of COVID-19 in January, winning the lottery has truly been the (very rich) icing on the cake of what’s been a difficult year.
The Diamond Millions store will get $10,000 from the Massachusetts State Lottery commission for selling the winning ticket—and Fiega happily gave the family an additional reward. The rest, she says she’ll save for her retirement.
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Recently in Argentina, a giant river otter popped out of the water right next to the canoe containing, of all people, the director of conservation at Rewilding Argentina.
A good omen, one would think, as not only had the charismatic Pteronura brasiliensis not been seen in Argentina since the 1980s, but the river upon which Sebastián Di Martino was floating sat within a park his organization helped create.
“It reared up, so its white chest was visible, which I recognized as the giant river otter,” Di Martino told the Guardian. “At this point, your legs go weak and your heart starts beating faster.”
Di Martino was kayaking on the Bermejo River in Impenetrable National Park—the legacy of one of the world’s great conservationists, Douglas Tompkins, founder of The North Face and Esprit outdoor suppliers, who transferred one of the largest land fortunes on Earth to the governments of Chile and Argentina upon his death.
The otters hadn’t been seen on the Bermejo River in over a century, but the waterway is connected to the Paraguayan Pantanal so the simplest explanation is that it swam there, even though it would be a journey of over 1,000 kilometers (600 miles).
Di Martino thinks that since otters live in family groups, the one he saw was simply part of a remnant population that has since gone undetected. It’s not a crazy hypothesis, since Impenetrable National Park is 128,000 hectares, or 500 square miles of rivers and woods within Gran Choco Forest, an extremely biodiverse region.
Giant river otters are known as “Wolves of the River,” and like the wolf, they are top predators. Their hunting exerts a regulatory influence on the rest of the ecosystem, keeping the links in the riverine world in order. They’re also extremely charismatic, trusting, and curious, and can grow 4.5-feet long and weigh more than 60 lbs.
Giant river otter in Brazil, Sharp-Photography.co.uk
The coincidence of the magical meeting between the riverine mammal and Di Martino is that his organization, Rewilding Argentina, is currently working on a conservation plan to reintroduce giant river otters to the country; to the very park in which he spotted one. The plan also includes reintroductions for the collared peccary, Pampas deer, red and green macaws, and even jaguars.
It’s all part of the late Doug Tompkins and his widow Kris’s incredible dedication to the wilds of South America, who through the money from their companies created 13 national parks containing over 5.9 million hectares of pristine land in Chile and Argentina.
The sighting of the otter on a river known for illegal fishing activities is a smashing sign that there is plenty still worth saving in the world right now.
(WATCH the Guardian video of the exciting ‘pop up’ moment below.)
The high hopes of scientists who found a 100-year old female giant tortoise on Fernandina Island in the Galápagos have been confirmed: genetic tests have proven it is a member of the species thought to have gone extinct more than a century ago.
Courtesy of Galapagos National Park Directorate
Presumed to be lost for 112 years, the Galápagos Conservancy and the Galápagos National Park Directorate will urgently launch expeditions to find a mate for the female Chelonoidis phantasticus and save the species.
GNN reported on the discovery of the tortoise, called “Fern” in 2019, while Yale University began conducting genetic analysis to determine the creature’s exact species. Researchers had strong suspicions that it was a Fernandina, so launched expeditions on the island to look for more members of her species.
Soon afterward, park rangers reported sighting scat and tracks on the volcanic slopes, suggesting there could be more turtles around. If found, any remaining individuals will immediately be transported to the breeding center on Santa Cruz Island, where several species of the giant tortoises have been successfully bred back to stable population levels.
“One of the greatest mysteries in Galápagos has been the Fernandina Island Giant Tortoise. Rediscovering this lost species may have occurred just in the nick of time to save it. We now urgently need to complete the search of the island to find other tortoises,” said Dr. James Gibbs, Vice President of Science and Conservation for the Galápagos Conservancy and a tortoise expert at the State University of New York.
“We desperately want to avoid the fate of Lonesome George,” said Danny Rueda Córdova, Director of the Galápagos National Park Directorate in a press release. “My team from the Park and Galápagos Conservancy are planning a series of major expeditions to return to Fernandina Island to search for additional tortoises beginning this September.”
While one might think “what are you waiting until September for?” the landscape of Fernandina is dominated by an active volcano and a hard volcanic landscape, making long-term exploration difficult.
In fact, a January 2020 eruption delayed the first planned expedition to the island in the aftermath of Fern’s discovery.
Meanwhile, the Galápagos Conservancy have set up a fundraiser for three separate expeditions to the island, equipped with tortoise veterinarians and helicopters to scout from the air, and transport any tortoises they find back to the breeding center.
The previous president of the Galápagos Conservancy, Johannah Barry, last year admitted to GNN that the old female was thought to be a Fernandina tortoise just because she was found there, but doubts remained because sailors in the 19th and 20th centuries often moved tortoises around.
“I can understand why people are excited. It’s either going to be, ‘wow, it’s a Fernandina tortoise,’ or ‘wow, it’s not,’” she sighed.
Wow. It is.
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Quote of the Day: “It’s the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting.” – Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist
Photo: by Jr Korpa
With a new inspirational quote every day, atop the perfect photo—collected and archived on our Quote of the Day page—why not bookmark GNN.org for a daily uplift?
Everyone has a COVID story now, and for those aged 16-18, the story likely has something to do with school and extra-curricular disruptions during a critical period of their lives.
We often like to say they were the best years of our lives, and noticing this—despite the fact that he didn’t even have a child on the podium—Graham Williams wanted to make sure that Denver Public Schools graduates from the ‘Class of COVID’ had something special to make them feel celebrated, as well as something to turn to if they ever needed advice.
As the CEO and founder of Impart, a unique gift-giving company, Williams put together a graduation book brimming with life lessons and advice from Colorado’s celebrities big and small.
After all, what could be more inspiring for a high school football player who hasn’t been able to play because of the lockdowns than a heartfelt message from Payton Manning?
“We’re big believers in the power of sharing life lessons, and we thought ‘Boy, we see a need in the community where these high schoolers have really had a tough time and shown their mettle, and we’ve got a platform where we can use the tools we have to put a gift in front of all of them,'” Williams told GNN.
Graham Williams, Impart
“We wanted to say: ‘one, that the entire community is behind you and you’re not alone in this, and two, what a great job you’ve done in difficult times.'”
Featuring everyone from local news anchors to philanthropists, athletes, artists, and civil servants, the 21-page book—which you can download for free at home—poses a simple question to each person featured: If you could go back and tell your high school graduate self one thing, what would it be?
“Passion and love will take you further and fulfill you more than anything else will,” says Missy Franklin, a five-time Olympic gold medalist swimmer.
“Question everything and never turn down an adventure,” says Colorado House Representative Jennifer Bacon.
“Live your life, not the life you think your parents, friends, or society want you to live,” says KBCO, 97.3 FM radio host DJ Keefer.
“What we wanted to do was gather a diverse and inspiring set of responses based on different experiences, and we wanted those responses to resonate with the students of Denver schools,” explains William.
“We didn’t know what was going to come back when we made the request, but we were really gratified at how the community really rallied around the students, wanted to show their support… and how genuine the respondents were.”
Hopefully with 21 pieces of wisdom, the students of Denver schools will feel a little more prepared for life beyond high school classrooms—and that their graduation was a special day after all.
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A gamer bullied as a youngster because they were born without a hand finally feels their disability isn’t a hindrance, now they’ve been fitted with a bionic arm inspired by a hugely popular video game.
21-year-old Laiken Olive, who identifies as nonbinary, was born with a congenital limb difference and said they used to hide their disability before receiving the $11,000 bionic arm.
The young gamer has become the first recipient in the U.S. of the ‘Venom Snake’ arm developed by British robotics company Open Bionics. The inspiration for its look and design? Metal Gear Solid, which is soon to become a blockbuster film starring Oscar Isaac.
In the video game, the character Venom Snake loses his arm in an explosion and wears an iconic red and black bionic limb complete with detachable missile functionality and gadgets to stun enemies.
Although the Hero Arm isn’t equipped with weapons, it is custom built and uses myoelectric sensors to read electric outputs of the muscles to be converted into bionic hand movements.
Laiken said they felt empowered by the arm and finally saw their potential after years of being harassed in school. The South Louisianan explained, “I got bullied because of my arm, which led me to have a lack of confidence in myself. I doubted myself and just wanted to fit in with able-bodied people.
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“I would wear this cosmetic prosthetic which looked like a hand and I would wear a jacket over that because of the bullying I experienced.
“I wanted to hide the fact I was different. It was a barrier or a shield so that people wouldn’t know… but with the Hero Arm I saw all the potential of what I could do with it and it wasn’t about hiding myself… This entire experience has been so beautiful for me.”
Laiken started their TikTok account around December 2020, and began cosplaying while proudly showing their prosthetic arm in different costumes.
Before Dwight David Eisenhower became America’s 34th President, he commanded the country’s military. And at the Minnesota elementary school that bears Ike’s name, a mama duck who takes her marching orders seriously is doing him proud—continuing a 20-year tradition.
Two decades ago, a female mallard decided nesting in the school’s enclosed courtyard was a good idea—only she’d made one strategic error: there was no direct access to the pond nearby.
As it turned out, the only way to get her fledgeling offspring—old enough to float but not yet able to fly—where they needed to be was to go through the school.
Someone inside figured that out too and opened the door.
To everyone’s delight, Mama Duck quickly marshaled her feathered brigade and paraded the brood directly through the school corridors to an exit on the pond side of the building. And so an annual rite of passage was born.
With an office overlooking the courtyard, library media specialist Jeff Shepherd enthusiastically volunteers for guard duty as each new batch of baby ducks arrives.
“And as soon as they’re born, ‘I’m like, okay, everyone stay away; everyone be careful; everyone look out,’” the aptly-named Shepherd told KARE 11 News.
This year, as awed students and teachers looked on from a respectful distance, Mama Duck led her 10 little troopers from the safety of the nest to the freedom of the big, wide world.
“It’s kind of bittersweet because we love watching them grow up, but this is where they belong,” Kindergarten teacher Betty Johnson told KARE.
The passage of the ducks has become such a beloved ritual at Eisenhower, parents Brad and Laurie Gilmore created a children’s book to commemorate the annual event. Proceeds from their Ducks in a Row… Here We Go! will be used to keep the school courtyard in top shape for future generations of nestlings.
An eggcellent idea, don’t you think?
(Click below to watch the sweet video on the Youtube channel of KARE 11 …)
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