A benefit concert that was broadcast in 100 countries last week helped mobilize $302 million in funding and over 26 million individual COVID-19 vaccine doses for the world’s most marginalized communities, and their health care workers in need of support.
Global Citizen, founded online in 2012 to address global poverty, organized the star-studded concert hosted by Selena Gomez, to support the nonprofit efforts of the ACT Accelerator (Access to COVID-19 Tools).
Played to an audience of fully vaccinated frontline workers in the SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles County, California, the show was taped May 2.
The concert featured speeches by VAX LIVE campaign chair Prince Harry, along with performances from Jennifer Lopez, Eddie Vedder, and Foo Fighters. You can watch their top clips from the show, that include appearances by Ben Affleck (who did a Batman skit with Jimmy Kimmel), Chrissy Teigen, David Letterman, Gayle King, Nomzamo Mbatha, Olivia Munn, and Sean Penn, here.
$302 million was pledged by Canada and Croatia, and $2.5 million raised from the private sector.
13.25 million COVID-19 vaccine doses were pledged from Norway, Spain, New Zealand, Croatia, and the UAE.
$39.6 million in commitments pledged by corporate and philanthropic partners—pledges that have been matched in funding to total $63.3 million.
In total, more than 26 million COVID-19 vaccine doses pledged by governments, businesses, and philanthropists to support those around the world most in need as a result of the aforementioned funding.
Prince Harry and Meghan also called for their fans to donate on the occasion of their son Archie’s birthday—and their call had mobilized $1.9 million in six days.
Donate, Learn More and Watch Videos at the VAX Live website—And Share the Good News on Social Media…
Scuba divers were beyond thrilled when a a group of young sea lions showed up in the water and surrounded them for a playtime of curious wonder.
The beaches and rocky shores of the Galapagos Islands are home to many sea lions, and the large animals so often look and act like our lovable canine companions that they referred to as “sea dogs” or “ocean puppies”.
The adult sea lions are not very interested in humans, with males being especially territorial, and weighing well over 300 pounds (150kg). They can seem quite grumpy if they are approached too closely.
But the juvenile sea lions are curious and fun loving creatures that will investigate anything interesting in the water.
Witness these pups suddenly surround a couple who were swimming. They were fascinated with the pair of humans who captured their shenanigans with an underwater camera.
The couple dove and rolled, trying to mimic the sea lions and engage them in a game. The camera also caught the sounds of the animals as they blew bubbles and communicated, while swimming gracefully in circles around Kristy, who was delighted to join in on their wild water ballet.
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Quote of the Day: “I think attraction to someone is the animating force of the universe—like gravity or the pull of the poles.” – Meryl Streep’s character in the 2020 HBO/Soderbergh film, Let Them Talk
Photo: by Travis Grossen
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?
As bird-lovers celebrated World Migratory Bird Day on May 8, new science had already determined that in the last half century around 3 billion birds in North America had been lost, and that two-thirds of the continent’s feathered friends today are at risk due to climate change.
That’s why the Biden administration this month began a new rulemaking process to formally withdraw the Trump administration action that removed “incidental take” protections from the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.
According to the Audubon Society, the Biden team in March rescinded the “M-Opinion” implemented by the Trump administration, which was struck down in federal court last August, a decision that unequivocally upheld the most effective bird conservation law on the books.
The change by the Trump administration to the 100-year-old Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA) was aimed at limiting the protection only to activities that purposefully kill birds, but exempting all industrial hazards from enforcement. Any “incidental” death—no matter how inevitable, avoidable or devastating to birds—became immune from enforcement under the law.
If this change had been in place in 2010, BP would have faced no consequences under the MBTA for the more than one million birds killed in the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
“We hope to see the administration follow quickly with another rulemaking to establish a reasonable permitting approach for incidental take,” said Sarah Greenberger, senior vice president of conservation policy, National Audubon Society. “A permitting program is a common-sense approach to clarifying these longstanding protections and providing the certainty industry wants.”
“We need a multi-front approach to ensure the MBTA remains as a strong foundation for bird protection well into the future,” said Erik Schneider, policy analyst, National Audubon Society.
“In addition to action by the administration, we hope to see the Migratory Bird Protection Act reintroduced and passed in this Congress. Together, these actions will strengthen the MBTA from future attacks and offer stability and certainty for birds and businesses.”
A bill had been approved by a House Committee in Congress during the final two years of Donald Trump’s presidency, which had a bipartisan group of more than 90 co-sponsors, that would secure protections for birds and direct the Fish and Wildlife Service to develop a permitting process for “incidental take” to drive businesses to implement best management practices and document compliance.
But this new Congress would need to begin the process again, and get a majority vote on the bill in both the House and the Senate if it wants to make its own statement that, in the judge’s words, “to kill a mockingbird… is a crime” when you know you can avoid it.
Tweet This Song of Hope for Birds on Social Media….
FREE WILL ASTROLOGY – Week beginning May 13, 2021
Copyright by Rob Brezsny, FreeWillAstrology.com
TAURUS (April 20-May 20):
A fan once asked composer Johann Sebastian Bach about his creative process. He was so prolific! How did he dream up such a constant flow of new music? Bach told his admirer that the tunes came to him unbidden. When he woke up each morning, they were already announcing themselves in his head. According to my analysis of the astrological omens, Taurus, a comparable phenomenon may very well visit you in the coming weeks—not in the form of music, but as intuitions and insights about your life and your future. Your main job is to be receptive to them, and make sure you remember them.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20):
“I love unmade beds,” writes Gemini poet Shane Koyczan. “I love when people are drunk and crying and cannot be anything but honest. I love the look in people’s eyes when they realize they’re in love. I love the way people look when they first wake up and they’ve forgotten their surroundings. I love when people close their eyes and drift to somewhere in the clouds.” In the coming days, Gemini, I encourage you to specialize in moments like those: when you and the people you’re interested in are candid, unguarded, raw, vulnerable, and primed to go deeper. In my opinion, your soul needs the surprising healing that will come from these experiences.
CANCER (June 21-July 22):
Trailblazing psychologist C. G. Jung said his loneliness wasn’t about a lack of people around him. Rather, it came from the fact that he knew things that most people didn’t know and didn’t want to know. He had no possibility of communicating many of the interesting truths that were important to him! But I’m guessing that won’t be much of a problem for you in the coming months. According to my astrological analysis, you’re more likely to be well-listened to and understood than you have been in quite some time. For best results, ASK to be listened to and understood. And think about how you might express yourself in ways that are likely to be interesting and useful to others.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22):
Author Marianne Williamson tells us, “Spiritual growth involves giving up the stories of your past so the universe can write a new one.” And what exactly does it mean to “give up the stories of your past”? Here’s what I think: 1. Don’t assume that experiences you’ve had before will be repeated in the future. 2. Don’t assume that your ideas about the nature of your destiny will always be true. 3. Even good things that have happened before may be small and limited compared to the good things that could happen for you in the years to come. 4. Fully embrace the truth that the inherent nature of existence is endless transformation—which is why it’s right and natural for you to ceaselessly outgrow the old plot lines of your life story and embrace new ones.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22):
In 2010, an American engineer named Edward Pimentel went to Moscow to compete in the World Karaoke Championship. He won by singing Usher’s “DJ Got Us Falling in Love.” His award: one million dumplings, enough to last him 27 years. I have a good feeling about the possibility of you, too, collecting a new prize or perk or privilege sometime soon. I just hope it’s a healthier boon than dumplings. For best results, take some time now to clearly define the nature of the prize or perk or privilege that you really want—and that will be truly useful.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22):
I will love it if sometime soon you find or create an opportunity to speak words similar to what novelist D. H. Lawrence once wrote to a lover: “You seem to have knit all things in a piece for me. Things are not separate; they are all in a symphony.” In other words, Libra, I’ll be ecstatic if you experience being in such synergistic communion with an empathic ally that the two of you weave a vision of life that’s vaster and richer than either one of you could summon by yourself. The astrological omens suggest this possibility is now more likely than usual.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21):
“I have more memories than if I were a thousand years old,” wrote poet Charles Baudelaire. Was he bragging or complaining? Did the weight of his past feel like a burden or did it exhilarate him and dynamize his creative powers? I’m hoping that in the coming weeks your explorations of your past will feel far more like the latter—a gift and blessing that helps you understand aspects of your history that have always been mysterious or murky.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21):
Have you ever kissed a monster in your nightly dreams? Have you won a chess match with a demon or signed a beneficial contract with a ghost or received a useful blessing from a pest? I highly recommend activities like those in the coming weeks—both while you’re asleep and awake. Now is a good time to at least make peace with challenging influences, and at best come into a new relationship with them that serves you better. I dare you to ask for a gift from an apparent adversary.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19):
What does it mean to “follow the path with heart”? I invite you to meditate on that question. Here are my ideas. To follow the path with heart means choosing a destiny that appeals to your feelings as well as to your ambitions and ideas and habits. To follow a path with heart means living a life that fosters your capacity to give and receive love. To follow the path with heart means honoring your deepest intuitions rather than the expectations other people have about you. To follow the path with heart means never comparing your progress with that of anyone else’s, but rather simply focusing on being faithful to your soul’s code.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18):
“It’s a good thing when people are different from your images of them,” wrote Aquarian author Boris Pasternak. “It shows they are not merely a type. If you can’t place them in a category, it means that at least a part of them is what a human being ought to be. They have risen above themselves, they have a grain of immortality.” I love that perspective! I’m offering it to you because right now is a favorable time to show that you are indeed different from the images people have of you; that you transcend all stereotyping; that you are uncategorizable.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20):
You have personal possession of the universe’s most monumental creation: consciousness. This mercurial flash and dazzle whirling around inside you is outlandishly spectacular. You can think thoughts any time you want to—soaring, luminescent, flamboyant thoughts or shriveled, rusty, burrowing thoughts; thoughts that can invent or destroy, corrupt or redeem, bless or curse. There’s more. You can revel and wallow in great oceans of emotion. Whether they are poignant or intoxicating or somewhere in between, you relish the fact that you can harbor so much intensity. You cherish the privilege of commanding such extravagant life force. I bring these thoughts to your attention because the time is right for a holiday I call Celebrate Your Greatest Gifts.
ARIES (March 21-April 19):
In one of her poems, Emily Dickinson tells us, “The pedigree of honey does not concern the bee; a clover, any time, to him Is aristocracy.” I suggest you be like Dickinson’s bee in the coming weeks, my dear Aries. Take pleasure and power where they are offered. Be receptive to just about any resource that satisfies your raw need. Consider the possibility that substitutes and stand-ins may be just as good as the supposed original. OK? Don’t be too fussy about how pure or prestigious anything is.
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
Dandelion field in Russia by Vadim Indeikin, CC license
As companies continue to search for more environmentally regenerative materials to use in manufacturing, the tire industry is beginning to revisit an old Soviet method of rubber cultivation, using a plant that is considered a pesky weed in the West—dandelions.
Dandelion field in Russia by Vadim Indeikin, CC license
A major tire company in Germany has partnered with the University of Aachen to produce dandelion rubber tires in a bid to cut back on landfill waste, microplastic pollution, deforestation, and economic shortcomings related to rubber tree cultivation.
While the concept of “dandelion rubber” seems like a Harry Potter spell waiting to happen, as mentioned previously, it was actually developed by the Soviet Union in their quest for self-sufficiency.
Reporting from DW tells the story of a scavenger hunt across the largest country ever, and the testing of more than 1,000 different specimens before dandelions growing in Kazakhstan were found to be a perfect fit.
Previously, the world used the rubber trees, mostly Hevea brasiliensi, from Brazil, but during the Second World War the major powers of the USSR, UK, US, and Germany, were all cultivating dandelions for rubber manufacturing.
After the war ended, demand and supply gradually returned to Brazil and eventually to synthetic tires made from petrochemicals.
Aiding the bees and our environment
Now, Continental Tires is producing dandelion rubber tires called Taraxagum (which was inspired by the genus name of the species, Taraxacum). The bicycle version of their tires even won the German Sustainability Award 2021 for sustainable design.
“The fact that we came out on top among 54 finalists shows that our Urban Taraxagum bicycle tire is a unique product that contributes to the development of a new, alternative and sustainable supply of raw materials,” stated Dr. Carla Recker, head of development for the Taraxagum project.
The report from DW added that the performance of dandelion tires was better in some cases than natural rubber—which is typically blended with synthetic rubber.
Capable of growing, as we all know, practically anywhere, dandelion needs very little accommodation in a country or business’s agriculture profile. The Taraxagum research team at Continental hypothesizes they could even be grown in the polluted land on or around old industrial parks.
Furthermore, the only additive needed during the rubber extraction process is hot water, unlike Hevea which requires the use of organic solvents that pose a pollution risk if they’re not disposed of properly.
Representing a critical early-season food supply for dwindling bees and a valuable source of super-nutritious food for humans, dandelions can also be turned into coffee, give any child a good time blowing apart their seeds—and, now, as a new source for rubber in the world; truly a wondrous plant.
Quote of the Day: “Don’t allow your past or present condition to control you. It’s just a process that you’re going through to get you to the next level.” – T.D. Jakes
Photo: by Jason Olliff
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?
A NASA space probe is now deep in interstellar space, and its instruments have detected an intriguing constant ‘hum’.
Voyager 1—one of two sibling NASA spacecraft launched 44 years ago and now the most distant human-made object in space—still works and zooms toward infinity.
The craft has long since zipped past the edge of the solar system through the heliopause— the solar system’s border with interstellar space—into the interstellar medium.
There, it’s been detecting the constant drone of interstellar gas (plasma waves), according to Cornell University-led research.
Examining data slowly sent back from more than 14 billion miles away, Stella Koch Ocker, a Cornell doctoral student in astronomy, has uncovered the emission. “It’s very faint and monotone, because it is in a narrow frequency bandwidth,” Ocker said. “We’re detecting the faint, persistent hum of interstellar gas.”
This work allows scientists to understand how the interstellar medium interacts with the solar wind, Ocker said, and how the protective bubble of the solar system’s heliosphere is shaped and modified by the interstellar environment.
Launched in September 1977, the Voyager 1 spacecraft flew by Jupiter in 1979 and then Saturn in late 1980. Travelling at about 38,000 mph, Voyager 1 crossed the heliopause in August 2012.
After entering interstellar space, the spacecraft’s Plasma Wave System detected perturbations in the gas. But, in between those eruptions—caused by our own roiling sun—researchers have uncovered a steady, persistent signature produced by the tenuous near-vacuum of space, according to new research published in Nature Astronomy.
“The interstellar medium is like a quiet or gentle rain,” said senior author James Cordes, the George Feldstein Professor of Astronomy. “In the case of a solar outburst, it’s like detecting a lightning burst in a thunderstorm and then it’s back to a gentle rain.”
Ocker believes there is more low-level activity in the interstellar gas than scientists had previously thought, which allows researchers to track the spatial distribution of plasma—that is, when it’s not being perturbed by solar flares.
Cornell research scientist Shami Chatterjee explained how continuous tracking of the density of interstellar space is important. “We’ve never had a chance to evaluate it. Now we know we don’t need a fortuitous event related to the sun to measure interstellar plasma,” Chatterjee said.
“Regardless of what the sun is doing, Voyager is sending back detail. The craft is saying, ‘Here’s the density I’m swimming through right now. And here it is now. And here it is now. And here it is now.’ Voyager is quite distant and will be doing this continuously.”
Voyager 1 left Earth carrying a golden record created by a committee chaired by the late Cornell professor Carl Sagan, as well as mid-1970s technology. To send a signal to Earth, it took 22 watts, according to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The craft has almost 70 kilobytes of computer memory and—at the beginning of the mission—a data rate of 21 kilobits per second.
Due to the 14-billion-mile distance, the communication rate has since slowed to 160-bits-per-second, or about half a 300-baud rate.
You can check out GNN’s story on that special golden record here, and learn how scientists have created an awesome update to help space-farers potentially find us humans here on Earth one day.
As the COVID-19 malaise slowly lifts around the world, governments are looking for quick and innovative ways to kickstart their travel industries.
Portugal is building a remote worker village on the stunning island of Madeira, and now two Italian towns are paying 50% of the rental costs for remote workers looking to swap their current digs for a slice of medieval Italian rusticity.
Rieti in the Lazio region, and Santa Fiora in Tuscany, are both having problems keeping young people in town, and the populations of both communes are stagnating.
Maybe for coiffured Italian youths the lure of medieval walls, renaissance piazzas, and baroque palaces set amid vineyards, rivers, local markets, and chestnut forests doesn’t find purchase, but for most Americans it’s the quintessential vision of European life.
And all that can be yours if you just prove to Santa Fiora mayor Federico Balocchi that you are a full-time remote worker, and that you’ll sign on for a stay greater than two months.
It’s a serious government initiative, not a paid holiday, and Balocchi stressed to CNN Travelthat the purpose is not only to bring outside money in, but to find people looking to revitalize Santa Fiora.
Dreams of Tuscany
Commune Santa Fiora
Just cabled with high-speed fiber optic internet, Santa Fiora has only recently garnered the option to host telecommuters, or “smart workers” as the Italians call them.
Nestled in the heart of Tuscany’s Montepulciano province, it’s located within the Monte Amiata Nature Reserve close to Val D’Orcia, or Dorcia Valley. Not far from Sienna, the houses are affordable, costing between €300 – €500 monthly, for which an approved remote worker would receive a check for 50% of the total, potentially transporting you from your lousy studio apartment to this dream-inspired village for around €200, or $240 per month.
Commune Santa Fiora
For investors or entrepreneurs, particularly those with Italian heritage or connections, Balocchi is also offering a €30,000 grant for those looking to open a B&B or hostel business in town, and is also willing to provide childcare assistance.
“The goal is to incentivize people to move in and virtually work from here. We want Santa Fiora to become their flexible office,” said Balocchi. “Each time a youth leaves to search for a job elsewhere a piece of our village is taken away.”
The commune has set up a website for people looking to take advantage of the offer, and they’ve included links to local services like plumbing, other utilities, and childcare. The town is perfect for nature lovers, and horseback riding, trekking and mountain biking are popular hobbies.
A little closer to Rome
Commune Rieti
Rieti, with a population of 50,000, is also witnessing a stagnation in youth opportunity and wants to invite remote workers to bring an outside perspective into the Roman-era town.
An hour and a half from the Eternal City, Rieti was founded by Italian tribesmen before Rome controlled all of the peninsula, and remains from the Roman period can be found under the streets, houses, and out in the countryside.
“Rents in town are in the range of €250 to €500,” explains deputy mayor of Rieti, Daniele Sinbaldi, to CNN. “For €600 you can have an entire little villa in the peaceful countryside. Also, the voucher can be used in the entire territory of Rieti, including the rural hamlets of Sant’Elia, Cerchiara, and the skiing resort of Terminillo but we’d love to have people move in to live in the historical center.”
For employees, they would need a letter from their boss that they are in fact a remote worker with enough hours and money to pay for a minimum 6-month rental (Italian lease and rental conditions are much stricter than in the U.S.) but self-employed folks only need a detailed description of their work, and some proof of income to secure rent assistance.
Located on one of the most important highways in Roman times and surrounded by creeks, ponds, canals, and lakes, Rieti is known as the “fresh water Venice,” and by the less-charming “Umbilicus Italiae” or Italy’s belly-button, as they claim their historical town center is the geographical center of the country.
There is no convenient website like Santa Fiora has, and perspective movers would need to use subito.it, casa.it, or immobilare.it—all Italian rental sites—to find lodging.
As this author, who himself is an American remote worker living in Italy, often says, many Americans will think nothing about spending 30 years dreaming of living in Europe, even though modern telecommunications have made it beyond possible to do so.
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While pangolin scales, shark fins, elephant ivory, and rhino horn are famed for their value on the black market, the most illegally trafficked of them all is the rosewood tree, which generates more dollars than all four put together.
Famed for quality in furniture and instruments, the advent of 3D printers has given a team of designers at San Jose State University the idea to save the tree species by 3D printing rosewood using wood scraps.
Their startup, Forust, can 3D print a wood grain that mimics the properties of any kind of prized wood, whether ash, pine, or rosewood—which is considered vulnerable to extinction due to harvesting for the Chinese luxury furniture trade, an enterprise with a global value of $95 billion.
Trees, as beautiful and complex as they are, are essentially made of two products, explains Ric Fulop, CEO of Desktop Metal, the parent company of Forust. Cellulose and lignin give wood its grain, the strings of material that run vertically up the trunk. Fulop explains that all the 3D printer does is re-construct what furniture makers work to deconstruct, by injecting a non-toxic binder with lignin onto layers of sawdust.
Once finished, the resulting mock-wood can be sanded and refinished like normal timber. The Chinese market typically prizes furniture with traditional designs, that when combined with the deep red of the rosewood, a lucky color in China, indeed creates a stunning piece of furniture.
Speaking with Fast Company, Forust say they can map incredibly complex geometric patterns and shapes onto furniture, which they can print with grain in its finished form— work that would normally take a craftsperson weeks to complete by hand.
Desktop Metal
In the U.S. lignin and sawdust from the lumber industry are produced as waste to the tune of millions of tons per year, which all could go into being upcycled via 3D printing into mock luxury hardwoods. This fact actually changes the entire picture of the furniture industry, since once the material wears out it could be ground down and used again as 3D printing fuel.
For circular-aiming companies like IKEA, it could be the biggest invention since particle board, and for rosewood forests around the world, it could be the most significant invention since the axe.
FOSTER Sustainability in Your Friends—Share This Story With Them…
Literacy skills have actually improved in the pandemic, with children reportedly picking up more challenging books and getting lost in fiction to combat isolation, a study from the UK has shown.
With schools often closed, many more pupils began to enjoy reading again—with 56 percent of young people saying they enjoyed reading either very much (24 percent) or quite a lot (32 percent).
During the first British lockdown, One of Us is Lying by Karen M McManus and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K Rowling were ranked favourite books by high school and elementary school pupils respectively.
A major study by learning and assessment provider Renaissance Learning analyzed the reading habits of more than 1.1 million pupils across the UK and the Republic of Ireland, including 46,722 Scottish youngsters.
The study showed reading skills have improved over lockdown periods, with many children picking up longer books of greater difficulty.
The National Literacy Trust’s Annual Literacy survey of 4,141 pupils across the UK found reading for pleasure dipped at the beginning of 2020, and recorded its lowest level of self-reported reading enjoyment since 2005 (48 per cent of children).
But this changed drastically with three in five children saying reading made them feel better during the lockdown.
More than a third also said reading helped them when they felt sad because they could not see friends or family.
Elementary school children, in particular, improved on their reading levels by focusing on more demanding texts.
At Scottish elementary level and particularly year two (the equivalent of first grade), pupils were reading a larger variety of titles compared to their English counterparts.
Book reading difficulty in year two was at its highest for Scottish children, who were reading books almost two years ahead of their chronological age.
Professor Topping, from the University of Dundee’s School of Education and Social Work, said: “During the lockdown overall, pupils were tending to read longer books of greater difficulty and with greater comprehension.
Renaissance Learning director John Moore said, “Lockdown has been difficult for many children, especially when schools were closed and they could not access school libraries or see their friends.
“Knowing that reading really helped younger children to feel better throughout the pandemic is very encouraging.
“It’s promising to see that when pupils had a choice of books to hand many chose a more challenging book, and one that perhaps allows for more escapism.”
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A kid recently wrote to Old Navy asking them to put pockets on girls’ jeans, and her powers of persuasion seem to have done the trick.
Kamryn Gardner from Arkansas wrote to her favorite clothing brand because she was learning to write persuasive letters in first grade. She said that real pockets should be on girls’ jeans. More specifically, she wrote:
“Dear Old Navy, I do not like that the front pockets of the girls’ jeans are fake. I want front pockets because I want to put my hand in them. I also would like to put things in them. Would you consider making girls’ jeans with front pockets that are not fake? Thank you for reading my request. Sincerely, Kamryn Gardner, age 7.”
Quote of the Day: “In the long run, the sharpest weapon of all is a kind and gentle spirit.” – Anne Frank
Photo: by @K8_iv
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?
They say home is where the heart is, but when the home you’re living in isn’t safe, the heartache can be a real headache. That was the situation for one Nova Scotia family—until neighbors stepped in to turn things around.
When Alvero Wiggins was diagnosed with kidney failure it created a domino effect. The rigors of treatment meant spending nine hours a day on dialysis. That meant giving up work. Unable to earn a living, Wiggins, his wife, and their three children were forced to move into public housing. The hazardous conditions they faced there made for a harsh adjustment.
Fortunately, Wiggins had forged strong ties to his community. Prior to his illness, he’d earned his stripes as a neighborhood activist with two local youth-related organizations, Hope Blooms and LOVE Nova Scotia.
Sarah MacLaren had worked alongside him for years. Having seen how much of himself Wiggins invested in the pursuit of helping others, she felt he more than deserved to get something back. Finding his family a safe and healthy place to live became her top priority.
This past spring, MacLaren launched a GoFundMe campaign in hopes of bringing in enough money to purchase the house and defray some of the Wiggins’ living expenses. Though donations came in by the thousands, it wasn’t nearly enough to make a dent in Halifax’s red-hot housing market.
While MacLaren fretted her efforts would fall short of hitting the mark, she wasn’t destined to be the only fairy godmother in this story. Enter real estate agent Brenda MacKenzie.
MacKenzie heads a local housing initiative, A Home For Everyone. For the past 15 years, she and her peers have donated a portion of their commissions to various housing-related charities.
For MacKenzie, who is likewise on dialysis awaiting a kidney donor, the Wiggins family’s story struck a special chord. Along with her charitable board, the decision was made that this year’s earnings would go toward helping Alvero, his wife Chelcie, and their kids Alaya, Javier, and Jaden find a new place to call home.
But even with the boost in capital, hunting down an appropriate dwelling was proving to be a challenge. Yet again, fate stepped in.
One of MacKenzie’s Halifax listings—a four-bedroom townhouse in close proximity to a park and swimming pool—had been inundated with multiple offers when it hit the market. All of them fell through.
“Team Wiggins” rushed in with a bid, which was accepted.
“This specific house was a miracle house, it was a unicorn house,” MacLaren told CBC News. “It’s probably the most beautiful thing I’ve been a part of in my lifetime.”
The family expects to be able to move into their new digs by month’s end. In the meantime, A Home For Everyone has rounded up a volunteer attorney and home inspector, as well as a crew of businesses to donate a slew of home upgrades and furnishings.
“It will mean everything, it will be a sense of security to live here, to have a home, to have a place to call home. My kids love it here. It will be so joyful for them,” Wiggins told CBC. “I don’t even know how to find the words to thank everybody who has supported this dream.”
(WATCH the threesixfive Media video about this story today.)
While industries are harnessing solar, hydro, and geothermal power to solve the world’s energy problems, it’s been thought by many for sometime that the eventual source of unlimited clean energy will be nuclear fusion.
Fusion reactors replicate the power and process of the sun down here on Earth by creating plasma, the fourth material state, inside a controlled device that harnesses the heat given off as energy to be turned into electricity.
Now a pair of private firms, one near MIT in Boston, and another in England, are developing something that could be described as a “portable” fusion reactor, by utilizing rare minerals and some of the most powerful magnets ever made.
If the firms are able to finish solving some of the most complex technological problems imaginable, coal and oil could stay in the ground, there’d be no need to risk another Fukushima, the enormous inefficiencies with renewable energies could all be forgotten, and all those engineers and technologists could lend their talents to other areas of the economy.
“It’s every engineer’s dream, really, to have a project that’s technically challenging, which requires you to develop new technology and solutions to hard problems, but that are also simultaneously important for the world to have,” Dr. Greg Brittles at Tokamak Energy, the UK firm developing a new fusion reactor, told the BBC.
The squeeze
Unlike other physics equations, the fusion reactor theory is actually quite simple to explain. Hydrogen atoms go into the reactor, immense pressure causes them to fuse and become helium. Some of this hydrogen mass is converted into heat, which can be used to generate electricity. Simple.
The difficulty comes with the process. In order to make fusion occur on Earth, scientists like Brittle must heat hydrogen isotopes to degrees in the hundreds of millions, at which point they break apart and form a plasma.
The sun has its gravitational field to contain the plasma within it. Lacking an object 330,000 times the mass of the Earth, Tokamak Energy and other firms are planning to keep the plasma controlled with super powerful magnets.
Herein lies the problem: how can you build a device that can heat and contain matter in such extremes which doesn’t just use more energy than it generates?
For five years Brittles has helped develop a series of power magnets wrapped with layers of superconducting tape, to be arranged in a spherical or apple-shaped fusion chamber called a tokamak.
As the magnetic forces interact with one another, the pressure in the chamber builds to an incredible level—about two times more intense than at the deepest point in the ocean. The superconducting tape draws large amounts of energy from tokamak, allowing the reactor to produce more than it consumes.
Tokamak Energy
“It will be an assembly of many, many coils generating forces that are all interacting and pulling on one another forming a balanced set. This has to be controlled or the forces could become imbalanced,” he explains to the BBC.
A race to the top
More of this Tony Stark-like tech, this time from America’s Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS), is also gunning to solve the inefficiency problem. Forming a D-shape large enough for a human to stand in, powerful magnets are wrapped with 300 kilograms (660 pounds) of superconducting tape made from a barium copper oxide.
This tape has taken decades to develop, and when cooled to -253 °C, which used to take a refrigerator the size of a house, it conducts nearly all of the 40,000 amps passing through the tokamak at any one time, and very efficiently.
18 of CFS’s magnets are to be arranged in this doughnut shape, similar to a particle accelerator, and their research and development team boasts that their reactor will be able to turn a glass of water into the electricity usage of one human for their entire lifetime.
CFS
Government funding has gone into fusion reactors before, tens of billions of dollars in fact, but so far this haven’t solved the fundamental problems. For example, the super-intriguing international nuclear fusion research project, ITER, which GNN reported on and which is funded by dozens of countries, is years behind schedule.
The leviathan of metal and magnets being constructed in France by all these nations may one day be able to produce fusion, but it will be in a facility that requires many employees, with components that require gobs more rare Earth minerals, and it will be completely immobile—not to mention that humanity perhaps would require more than one such reactor.
Meanwhile, this private innovation, this “race” as Kingham calls it, done with limited resources, always produces the most innovative technologies. There’s no reason to make a reactor that weighs and costs as much as a cruise ship if you can make it the size of a phone box.
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A wild donkey digging in the Arizona's Sonoran Desert/E. Lundgren
E. Lundgren
Research on feral horses and wild donkeys in the American southwest show they dig desert wells with their hooves in the soft sand of riverbeds, thus creating a network of extra fresh water sources for the creatures that are native to the area.
This find has thrown a wrench in the prevailing wisdom that feral equids, who were introduced by the Spanish, are pests that should be removed—as the scientist behind the research suggests they could be fulfilling a vital function once performed by now-extinct mammals from the Pleistocene.
In modern conservation, if an animal turns up where it didn’t live a few hundred years ago and thrives there, it’s typically considered invasive. Invasive species are almost always seen as a menace, with animals like foxes, cats, goats, mice, sheep, pigs, cane toads, rats, carp, and others terrorizing delicate ecosystems in Madagascar, Galapagos, and Australia, to name a few examples.
The Sonoran and Mojave Desert ecosystems currently host 95,000 wild horses and donkeys, which are considered invasive pests that outcompete other native herbivores, and suppress or trample native plants.
Conservation doctrine would say they should be exterminated or removed, but sometimes it’s more complex than that, and Erick Lundgren from the University of Aarhus in Denmark has shown that the desert fauna’s eagerness to drink from these equine wells should be considered before making any decisions about the species’ future.
Lundgren found that 59 different species frequented the water holes, and that species diversity around them was 64% higher than the ecosystem’s square-mile average.
Landscape engineers
“Equid wells strongly reduced the isolation of water features, reducing average nearest-neighbor distances between water features by an average of 65%, and at most by 99%,” wrote Lundgren and his co-authors in the paper they published in Science.
Monitoring four different sites in the Sonoran and Mojave Deserts, and sampling over 3,258 trap nights from 2015-2017, Lundgren found bobcats, javelina, mule deer, scrub jays, and 55 other vertebrates enjoying a drink.
“There was a cacophony of organisms,” he told New Scientist.
Digging for water is a common behavior among large mammals across the world, and in Africa, the elephant’s water wells are a gift to surrounding species. Certain animals, such as the elephant, beaver, and bison, are called “ecosystem engineers” because they shape their environment so dramatically, the flora and fauna therein depend and expect their impact, and have adapted to accommodate or exploit it.
In his paper, Lundgren posits that American wild equids should be categorized as ecosystem engineers.
“By changing the abiotic environment around them, certain organisms can really strongly facilitate other species and processes,” Lundgren said in a recent interview with Science. “The most notable aspect of deserts is the scarcity of water, and these animals can really enhance the availability of it through drought and in the hot summers where natural sources of water tend to dry up.”
A role to play
Questions like whether the wild equids’ presence has changed the landscape in positive ways, what really constitutes invasive and how far back is that measured, and whether our role is to constantly try to preserve what exists now, understanding that 99% of all species have gone extinct, and that Earth’s history has seen constant change, are common in mammal conservation.
In another of Lundgren’s papers, the author points out that since the Pleistocene, a large variety of worldwide megafauna has gone extinct in many different kinds of ecosystems. The services, or engineering those species performed on the landscape to the benefits of many animals and plants that still exist today are largely a mystery.
Yet in number, introduced megafauna have restored about 15% of the estimated Pleistocene megafauna populations around the world.
Nowhere is this perhaps more distinct than in North America, which not only had prehistoric pachyderms in the form of the mastodon, but also hyenas, sprinting cougars, the largest bear ever, and interestingly, several species of wild horse.
“Recent and ancient extinctions and range contractions of megafauna, and the loss of their distinct ecological functions, has led to highly modified modern landscapes,” he writes. “Although introduced megafauna have primarily been studied as threats to conservation goals, growing evidence suggests that they present a countercurrent to ancient losses, and may replace lost ecological functions.”
Could the desert animals observed in Lundgren’s study be reacting to a function which the ancestors of these modern donkeys and horses performed on the landscape tens of thousands of years ago? It’s a thought-provoking question, one which Smithsonian details has hit the community in different ways, with some choosing to remain with the current doctrine, and others reconsidering the pest-status of wild American equids.
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An incredible new bookstore uses gleaming black-tiled floors and mirrored ceilings to transform the location into a ‘never-ending’ palace of books.
The magical Dujiangyan Zhongshuge bookstore, in southwest China’s Sichuan province, is home to over 80,000 volumes in more than 20,000 genres.
SWNS
The books stored inside the stunning store stretch from floor to ceiling—with mirrored ceilings creating the illusion that the room stretches on infinitely.
All of the books are within easy reach of customers, who can ascend the bookstore’s spiral staircase and pass under towering 50-foot archways lined with yet more books, to get to the items they’d like.
Laid out over two stories, and filling an area of almost 1,000 square metres, the bookstore was designed by Li Xiang, founder of Chinese architecture firm X+Living.
Li said her latest project was inspired by the ancient city of Dujiangyan in which the bookstore is built.
SWNS
She said, “Using the technique of architecture, the designer moves the magnificent spirit of mountains and rivers into the indoor space. We present readers with their own elegant and powerful artistic landscape… a visual feast.”
That vision seems to be working, with Li explaining that on entering the store, “Many people associate the space with a magical world, with the magic feeling coming from the structure of the bookshelves, and the reflection of the mirrored ceiling.”
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The naturalist John Muir once said, in regards to the passage of the law that protected Yosemite Valley, that as a result “every pine tree will be waving his arms for joy.”
It’s lovely to think how he’d remark on the news from WWF that the regeneration of natural forests around the world has covered an area the size of France—59 million hectares—over the last 20 years.
According to the various scientific and conservation groups engaged in the project, the restored forest—which was tracked using satellite data—while only being as large as France, has the potential to absorb 5.9 gigatons of carbon dioxide, more than the annual emissions of the U.S.
“This map will be a valuable tool for conservationists, policymakers, and funders to better understand the multiple ways we can work to increase forest cover for the good of the planet,” said John Lotspeich, executive director of Trillion Trees. “The data show the enormous potential of natural habitats to recover when given the chance to do so.”
1.2 million hectares of regrowth were seen in the forests along Mongolia’s northern border, while Canada and the central African basin were also regrowth hotspots.
Additionally, the forestlands along the Atlantic coast of Brazil, second in biodiversity only to the Amazon, saw an area the size of the Netherlands return back to trees since the year 2000.
All the forests being tracked are natural, and the NGOs have included in their data both areas that have needed nothing more than to be left alone to regenerate, and stands of trees that have needed active assistance to grow back. They deliberately excluded commercial plantations from the project.
The resulting satellite map, which was a joint effort between WWF, Birdlife International, and Wildlife Conservation Society, is described as an exploratory one, and the contributors behind it are calling for it to be reviewed and refined.
Trees are a great and inexpensive way to withdraw CO2 from the atmosphere, one of the principle aims scientists have designated for mitigating the worst effects of climate change.
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Quote of the Day: “Midlife crisis is the intermission of the movie—all the thrill is later on. The success of a movie is determined after the intermission.” – Sri Sri Ravi Shankar (turns 65 today)
Photo: by Andrea Enríquez Cousiño
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?
A food-tech startup in upstate New York has developed technology to preserve food without refrigeration for months beyond when it would normally spoil, without the use of artificial preservatives.
Poised to cut down on the millions of tons of food waste worldwide, it also has the potential to transform agriculture in developing countries where refrigerated shipping containers and trains are rare or expensive.
Have you ever wondered why we don’t devote more cropland to growing fruits and vegetables instead of grain since they’re much more nutritious? The reason is food spoilage, a problem that costs $14 billion in waste in India alone.
As soon as a harvest is reaped, a clock begins to tick until oxygen damage and bacteria render a product inedible. Farther Farms’ proprietary CO2 pasteurization technology is a simple fix that can prolong packaged foods’ shelf life in room temperature past 90 days.
Their first demonstration, French fries, would normally need to be frozen to survive trips between production facilities and supermarkets. They can’t be pasteurized like other goods, since the rapid heating with steam would turn them into mush.
Instead, Farther Farms puts them into special packaging, and fills it with supercritical CO2, preventing damage from oxidation, and suffocating bacteria.
The frozen supply chain
Farther Farms
Growing up in India in a farming family, co-founder Vipul Saran developed Farther Farms as a grad student at Cornell University. His familiarity with the costs and difficulties of managing to move agricultural products, in his case potatoes, from farms into towns and cities before they spoiled informed his development of the technology.
“The whole goal was, basically, how can we look into new, innovative food processing technologies that can allow us to create value-added food products from these perishable food products, which avoids the need and the dependency as much as possible on refrigeration and freezing?” Saran told Adele Peters at Fast Company.
Rather than packaging apples or potatoes in a plastic bag, the Farther Farms tech is ideal for value-added food products, not only because they necessitate packaging of some kind, but also because they earn farmers more money, for example turning tomatoes into salsa.
Rather than needing to transport them via refrigerated box car or shipping container, methods that are not only expensive, but limited in their reach to countries in Asia, Africa, and South America, Farther Farms would allow them to bypass the frozen supply chain and ship them at any temperature, thereby allowing farmers and food producers of all kinds to reach the maximal number of markets.
“If you can begin producing internationally and create markets for value-added food products that don’t currently exist, you’re going to do the most to help farmers,” says Saran.
Peters notes that in the States we throw out 30 million tons of food a year, and if you’ve ever pulled out a bag of freezer-burned food from the fridge that you had forgotten about, you can see how this technology would be ideal for family meal planning.
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