Quote of the Day: “In my world, attachment is another word for devotion—the focused zeal of knowing what I love and joyfully working on its flourishing.” – Rob Brezsny
Photo by: Shane Stagner
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?
59 years ago today, Marvin Gaye finished recording “I Heard It Through the Grapevine,” one of the hottest singles in Motown history, for his then upcoming album In the Groove. Written by Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong for Gaye, Motown executive Barry Gordy declined to release it at the time. Whitfield and Strong then recorded and released it with Gladys Knight & the Pips as a single, where it went to number one on the Billboard R&B Singles chart and number two on the Billboard Pop Singles char, allowing the songwriters to push harder for the release of Gaye’s original recordings, which proved even more successful. WATCH a great live version of the song from Montreux… (1967)
The butternut tree, (Juglans cinerea) a close relative of black walnut prized for its pale wood and wildlife value, is on the brink of disappearing from North American forests.
But a new study from Virginia Tech offers hope that the species could regain its foothold with help from modern data science. By mapping climate and soil conditions linked to natural resistance which the tree has developed to a fungal disease, researchers are guiding restoration strategies that could help this native species recover.
Published recently in Forest Ecology and Management, the researchers identify where endangered butternut trees and their more disease-resistant hybrids are most likely to thrive.
Using habitat modeling that combines climate, soil, and genetic data, the team mapped regions across the Midwest and Northeast that are best suited for restoration.
“Butternut has nearly vanished from our forests because of an invasive fungal disease that spread across the landscape a century ago,” said Carrie Fearer, assistant professor in the Department of Forest Resources and Environmental Conservation and senior author of the study.
“But we now know that some individuals have natural resistance, and by understanding the conditions that support those trees, we can focus conservation where it will matter most.”
The disease, known as butternut canker, has pushed the tree to Endangered status on the IUCN’s Red List. Working with Purdue University and the US Forest Service, the research team developed predictive maps that show where resistant trees are already surviving and where future planting efforts could succeed.
The models highlight parts of southern Indiana, western Kentucky, western Michigan, and much of New England as prime regions for resistant butternut. The results also identify areas where naturally occurring hybrids, crosses between native butternut and the disease-tolerant Japanese walnut, may already be helping the species persist.
“This study gives forest managers a conservation map,” said Fearer, also an affiliated faculty member of the Fralin Life Sciences Institute. “It tells us which combinations of temperature, precipitation, and soil carbon tend to support resistant butternuts. Those insights help us protect the right trees and guide future restoration planting.”
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Butternuts are valuable “mast,” or “canopy trees,” that is, they’re producers of large nuts that feed wildlife such as turkeys, deer, and bears. Their decline has ripple effects across forest ecosystems and the communities that depend on them.
“Losing a canopy species like butternut changes everything from wildlife habitat to forest composition,” Fearer said. “It’s about protecting the biodiversity and heritage of our eastern forests.”
Aziz Ebrahimi, a research scientist at Purdue University who worked on the project, said the results of their work are practical tools that guide where to collect seed, establish regeneration orchards, and focus restoration efforts.
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As climate patterns shift, identifying where endangered species can survive is important. Fearer said that the same modeling approach could guide efforts for other native trees under threat from invasive diseases and changing temperatures.
“We can’t move trees everywhere,” she said, “but we can predict where they’re most likely to succeed. This research gives us a road map for restoring not just butternut, but resilience to our forests.”
SHARE This Great Insight Into North American Forests…
Construction of a “transformational” new railway line linking China, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan will allow goods to transit from east to west across Eurasia a whole week faster.
On the way, it’s also predicted to have a transformational impact on the economy of Kyrgyzstan, one of the slowest developing countries on the continent.
To speak of Europe later, the railway will address Central Asian transit in a dramatic way. A map will prove handy to understand why. If you wanted to send a load of goods from China to the capitals of Bishkek (Kyrgyzstan) or Tashkent (Uzbekistan), you’d have to send them all the way across Kazakhstan first before doubling back via truck, a quite absurd runaround considering China’s border with the former is actually closer than with Kazakhstan.
Now, the “CKU” will give direct transit options for most of Central Asia while unlocking substantial natural resource opportunities among a depressed, mountainous region of Kyrgyzstan.
“This railroad will virtually transform Kyrgyzstan—and not just Kyrgyzstan, but the whole of Central Asia,” Edil Baisalov, the country’s deputy prime minister, told The Times of Central Asia.
“Even under the most pessimistic scenarios, the cargo loads expected to transit this route could generate at least $300 million in annual revenue, benefiting the country significantly.”
Other estimates have placed the totals closer to $200 million, but either way it would allow the country to pay back the costs of the construction work in a few prosperous years.
The trilateral agreement to build the 300-mile-long railway was signed on December 27th, 2024, and construction began the following year. $1.1 billion will be provided by China for the Chinese portion, and $573 million by Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan for their respective portions. An additional $2.3 billion will be paid by a Chinese joint venture overseeing the project.
90% of the Kyrgyzstan portion will run through the poor region of Naryn, 70% of which is mountains. To get through it, the CKU railway will pass over 50 bridges and through 29 tunnels. Already the country has 5,000 people employed on this impressive engineering project.
Huge infrastructure investment like this takes years to pay off, but Baisalov sees ample opportunities for the private sector to take root along this vital corridor. Kyrgyzstan is a resource economy, yet 82% of all freight in the country is transported on roads, making it slow, seasonal, and vulnerable to fuel shocks.
With the CKU comes the opportunity to access the region’s “world class” mineral wealth, including iron and aluminum which cannot be transported via trucks.
“During the Soviet era, Kyrgyzstan’s mineral base was largely ignored in favor of deposits elsewhere. The Soviets focused only on uranium here, which was used for their first nuclear bomb, but otherwise, industrial development was minimal,” Baisalov explained, adding that as a result, Kyrgyzstan remained mostly agrarian—producing crops and animal products.
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Additionally, there is the opportunity for logistics businesses and warehousing to service transit along the line.
“The railroad will also stimulate manufacturing and logistics. International investors are already building logistics centers and assembly facilities along the line, leveraging the region’s labor force,” said Baisalov.
CENTRAL ASIAN STORIES: Endangered Persian Leopards Mount Comeback in Central Asia’s Most Reclusive Nation
As for the value of the railroad on a continental basis, existing transcontinental railway lines pass through Kazakhstan and Russia, and for the purpose of exporting between Europe and China, would require an extra week of transit time.
Instead, with a terminal in Uzbekistan’s Fergana Valley, the CKU will link directly with trans-Caspian routes to Turkey and onto Europe.
SHARE This International Business Corridor Set To Lift A Developing Region…
An Applebee’s manager whose been afraid of storms since she was a child nevertheless stepped up to rapidly lead her staff and guests to safety as a tornado was barreling towards the restaurant.
It was a normal Friday at the Applebee’s in Three Rivers, Michigan, when all of a sudden Aubrey McKenzie saw the weather service issuing a severe tornado warning.
“When we got the tornado warning, we’re like, ‘Aw, there’s no way, like, it’s beautiful outside.’ And then it turned serious very, very quickly,” McKenzie told Wilcox Newspapers. “It hit so fast and so unexpectedly. I’m glad that everybody was able to get somewhere somewhat safe and able to walk away and tell their story.”
At the time, the restaurant manager was leaving for a neighboring Applebee’s location, and they discussed the tornado with McKenzine. Both more or less came to the conclusion that they had seen dozens of tornado warnings come to nothing in their lives, and that it was a beautiful day. In short, they were prepared to ignore it—but only for about ten seconds.
“I came back in and I heard everybody’s phone going off, like, blaring; every guest, every bartender, everybody,” she told Fox News 17.
Conditions were so obviously changing fast, and before long, she could see the funnel cloud outside.
Admittedly panicked, McKenzie tapped into that Friday-night dinner rush spirit—when any server or bartender has to stay calm amid the million things they need to do. McKenzie asked herself “what do I have to do right now?” and her response was quick and orderly.
She led all the guests and staff into the prep kitchen where there are no windows. It was a tight squeeze, but it was their best chance of shelter. After everyone was inside, she “peaked her head out” one last time, and saw that a man and his dog were sitting in a pickup truck outside the restaurant, as well as a boy on his phone, who seemed like he was waiting for someone. She told the man and the boy to come inside immediately.
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“I think he was waiting for his dad or something, I don’t know, but I grabbed his arm and dragged him to the back and everything,” McKenzie told Wilcox.
Then the tornado hit.
“Your ears were popping, but then you could also hear the glass shattering from the dining room. It’s exactly how you would imagine it would be standing in the middle of a tornado. Shattering, like things hitting everything. It sounded like a freight train.”
MORE STORIES LIKE THIS: Teen Lifesaver Awarded One of Scouting’s Highest Honors After Harrowing Whitewater Rescue
The brick-built Applebee’s held up, even though it took 4 days to clean up the restaurant, with glass from the broken windows and spirit bottles finding its way into every conceivable nook and cranny. New vacuums had to be bought, new carpets too, but not one single person was hurt.
“I was surprised that I was able to get everybody, and be that organized in that short amount of time,” she admitted. “I’ve been called ‘hero’ a lot lately, and I laugh it off, but I guess I did what I felt I had to do.”
WATCH the story below from Fox 17…
SHARE This Manager By Name And Nature Stepping Up When She Was Most Needed…
3 years ago this month, GNN reported that a UK land trust had set the goal of reforesting a 70 acre “celtic rainforest” on the Isle of Man.
30,000 trees later, the effort exceeded expectations and finished ahead of schedule.
The budding rainforest instead stretches 100 acres across an area called Creg y Cowin, owned by the Manx Wildlife Trust, which owns three properties for the sake of conservation.
Temperate rainforests are one of the rarest kinds of ecosystems worldwide, and in the UK are found in Wales, on the Isle of Man, and a few other locations.
MWT chief executive Graham Makepeace-Warne spoke with the BBC about how best to categorize the ecosystem, describing something akin to the forests of the American Pacific Northwest.
“Temperate rainforests can be described as plants growing on plants, growing on plants,” he said.
It will take around 50 years for the trees to reach the level of maturity where that lush microclimate can be seen, a date too far off for some of the volunteers, many of whom brought their children with them to show them what they had hopefully secured for their posterity.
“To plant 30,000 trees in three years in incredible work, our volunteers should be really proud of that,” Makepeace-Warne said. “I love the idea of them coming back with their kids, when it is a proper woodland, that they can enjoy—that’s a lovely idea.”
MORE IMPRESSIVE TREE-PLANTING: Leslie Dart has Planted 372,290 Trees Across Canada Over the Past 3 Summers and Inspired So Many Others
Makepeace-Warne said he believes it will take far less than 50 years for cattle and sheep to be welcomed back into the rainforest. Unlike our image of domesticated cattle out in a field, the native bovid species on the British Isles was a woodland animal, which enjoyed scratching itself on trees and sheltering from extreme temperatures.
Many of the UK’s plant species evolved to rely on the downstream effects of the cattle’s presence, such as hitching a ride for their seeds on the animal’s fur.
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Creg y Cowin was included in the UK’s Temperate Rainforest Restoration Program, which aims to reforest these ecosystems where they’re found across the British Isles. The project is led by the national Wildlife Trusts, and funded with a mixture of public and private money up to $52 million (£38.9 million).
Future sites, as GNN reported in 2023, could include the peak and slopes of Bwlch Mawr, in North Gwynedd, Wales.
SHARE This Volunteer Effort To Restore A Rainforest In Britain…
Quote of the Day: “Love is all; it gives all, and it takes all.” – Soren Kierkegaard
Photo by: Fa Barboza
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?
161 years ago today, the American Civil War ended when Robert E. Lee and his Army of Northern Virginia surrendered to General Ulysses Grant and the Union Army. The moment was the first time the two men had seen each other face-to-face in almost two decades. Suddenly overcome with sadness, Grant found it hard to get to the point of the meeting. The victorious general granted parole and freedom to the 28,000 Confederate soldiers, allowing them to return home with their horses—and officers with their swords and pistols—effectively ending the four-year war. READ more about the moment… (1865)
A research team at Johns Hopkins Medicine is developing a nose-delivered inoculation against tuberculosis, the world’s leading cause of death from infectious disease.
The approach fuses two tuberculosis genes with the goal of directing the immune system to fight drug-tolerant bacterial survivors that can endure antibiotic treatment to spread another day.
The paper on the vaccine was published last week in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, where JH Medicine researchers were joined by colleagues from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
TB is estimated by the World Health Organization (WHO) to be spread asymptomatically by around 2 billion people. In 2024 , WHO reported that TB was the leading cause of death from a single infectious disease.
In recent years, WHO has called for therapeutic vaccines that can be used alongside drug therapies to shorten TB treatment regimens and improve outcomes, particularly because long multidrug courses are difficult to complete, and drug-resistant TB strains continue to emerge. The vaccine described in the new Johns Hopkins study shows promise for meeting that need.
The new Johns Hopkins vaccine, says study lead author Styliani Karanika, MD, fuses two genes: relMtb and Mip3α, and is given through the nose to take advantage of 3 beneficial biological activities.
“Administered together with first-line TB drug therapy, our intranasal DNA fusion vaccine helped infected mice clear the disease bacteria faster, reduced lung inflammation, and prevented relapse after treatment ended,” says Karanika, a faculty member of the Johns Hopkins Center for Tuberculosis Research.
“The vaccine also helped the powerful TB drug combination of bedaquiline, pretomanid, and linezolid work better, suggesting it could be used with treatments against drug-resistant TB to help the body fight the disease, even hard-to-treat cases.”
Dr. Karanika explained that TB bacteria possess a gene—relMtb—that produces a protein called RelMtb—which together help the microbes survive hostile conditions such as antibiotic exposure, low oxygen, and nutrient limitation by entering a drug-tolerant persistent state.
Fusing relMtb with another gene called Mip3α produces a signal that attracts immature human dendritic cells. These cells pick up TB proteins and ‘present’ them to T cells, the immune cells that help coordinate a targeted attack on the TB bacteria.
“Finally, intranasal delivery focuses vaccination on the respiratory mucosa in the lungs where TB infection occurs, helping generate long-lasting localized T-cell immunity in the airways and lungs, along with systemic immune responses,” says Karanika.
By combining these strategies, the investigators aimed to strengthen immune activity directly in the respiratory tract, where transmission most commonly occurs.
In the mouse studies, this approach both improved the quantity and organization of dendritic and T-cells in the lungs, and generated immune responses both locally and systemically. The improved response included to two types of T-cells, CD4 (also known as helper T-cells) and CD8 (also known as killer T-cells).
MORE INFECTIOUS DISEASE TRIUMPHS: Egypt Becomes 26th Country to Eliminate Leading Cause of Infectious Blindness with Triumph Over Trachoma
One study strongpoint was that it included tests on primates: in this case, rhesus macaques. The researchers found that their nose-delivered DNA vaccine prompted measurable TB‑focused immune responses in blood and in the airways similar to what led to lower bacterial counts in the lungs of the mice they studied.
These responses persisted for at least 6 months, suggesting durability for the vaccine’s action.
“These nonhuman primate data are encouraging because they show that the Mip3α/relMtb vaccine can generate durable, antigen-stimulated immune responses in an animal model whose immune system more closely resembles that of humans,” said Dr. Karanika. “That gives us an important translational bridge between the mouse efficacy studies and the additional preclinical work needed before human trials.”
TACKLING TB: Novel Plant-Derived Compound May Be Game-Changer for Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis
Readers may recoil from the notion of primate testing, but Old World Monkeys are very susceptible to TB, and in fact spread it between themselves just as we do. Research has shown that TB has been spread among humans as far back as 70,000 years, and followed our migration out of Africa and across Asia.
The authors say their findings support a broader strategy of targeting surviving TB bacteria with immunotherapy, rather than relying solely on antibiotics to eliminate actively replicating bacteria. Because DNA vaccines are relatively stable and can be manufactured efficiently, they may offer practical advantages if this approach ultimately proves effective in humans.
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When Venetian conservators were preparing for another round of conservation work on a monumental, 500-year-old masterpiece, they decided to open the process to the public eye.
Now installed in a special work area, visitors to the Galleria dell’Accademia can watch the various stages of conservation work that such an important and massive artwork requires to ensure it survives through the centuries.
Called Madonna and Child Enthroned, Music-Making Angels and Saints Francis, John the Baptist, Job, Dominic, Sebastian and Louis of Toulouse, the wood-panel painting was specially made by Venetian Renaissance artist Giovanni Bellini for the altar piece at the Church of San Giobbe.
According to a museum statement, the painting was carried out by Bellini between 1478 and the end of the following decade, and represents a “decisive turn” in the evolution of altar piece artworks.
By 1810, time had taken its toll on the work which was made out of 13 horizontal panels of poplar wood held together with glue and wooden pins. The bottom five panels, over several historic rounds of conservation work, have held up the best, while the above 8 have fared poorer.
In that year it was taken from the Church of San Giobbe to the Galleria, where it’s remained ever since. This preservation work will include special diagnostic analysis, including ultraviolent, fluorescent, and infrared imaging to get a better understanding of what lies beneath the pigments, what the pigments themselves were made of, and perhaps whether Bellini began with preparatory work.
Already, conservators have learned that preparatory work was carried out with layers of glue and white primer, and that Bellini’s brush wielded precious and expensive pigments mixed by three.
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The previous centuries’ restoration efforts have now left the panel in need of a comprehensive treatment that will involve removing old varnish, addressing cracks formed in the swelling and shrinking of the poplar wood, scraping off dirt, and revivifying some of the color, a process which will take 2 years and $580,000 in grant money generously given by Venetian Heritage.
With so much touching up to do, the museum decided to move the altar piece to a special area where visitors can watch conservators work on the painting and receive explanations and descriptions about what is being done.
WATCH the painting being moved into the new area below…
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Cambodian artists and authorities have unveiled the statue of a four-footed hero to the nation, never to be forgotten.
During his remarkable life and career, Magawa the African giant pouched rat used his incredible sense of smell to locate 100 landmines and unexploded bombs before they were able to hurt anyone.
Because of his aptitude, exceptional even among minesweeping rats, (more on that later) there are 1,5 million square feet of space, equivalent to 20 English footfall fields, safe for farming and living once again.
A UK veterinarian’s charity PDSA awarded Magawa its ‘Medal of Gallantry’ in 2020 for his incredible work over a 5-year career that started in Africa in 2016.
The statue of the beloved ‘Hero Rat’ carved from local stone by artists was unveiled in Siem Reap on April 4th, International Day for Mine Awareness.
As GNN has reported before, one of the world’s great underreported tragedies is how much of the Earth is covered in landmines and unexploded bombs and shells from past conflicts.
Removing productive farmland from use, lying dormant with the potential to kill and maim for decades after being embedded in the ground, their deadly, indiscriminate effects are most often felt among children, who see strange metal objects among the grass and mistake them for toys.
Trained to sniff landmines by a Belgian NGO called APOPO, the Hero Rats were first deployed to Mozambique, the first nation since the 20th century began to be declared mine-free.
Over the course of APOPO’s work the rats it employs (and pampers) have safely located over 106,000 mines. Even though they’re one of the world’s largest rats, they are too small to trigger the detonation of mines, and are therefore safter than humans and dogs.
An APOPO Hero Rat like Magawa can search the area of a tennis court in 30 minutes—something that would take a human with a metal detector up to four days to achieve.
Dr. Ly Tuch, First Vice President of the Cambodian Mine Action and Victim Assistance Authority, pulled the curtain off the statue, and gave a speech that wouldn’t be out of place on in a Medal of Honor ceremony.
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“Before us stands Magawa—a small creature, yet one who changed the ground beneath our feet,” the translated speech read. “For years, Cambodia lived with land that could not be trusted. Fields held danger. Paths carried uncertainty. Families measured every step.”
“But Magawa moved through that same land with calm precision. Where others saw risk, he found what was hidden. Where fear remained, he helped restore confidence. More than 100 landmines and explosive remnants were cleared through his work.”
MINESWEEPING:
“Each detection meant a space returned to life. Each cleared area meant children walking safely, farmers working freely, communities rebuilding without hesitation. This is the true meaning of mine action. It is about restoring normal life. It is about dignity. It is about giving people back their future.”
“The statue we unveil today carries more than form. It carries a message — that even the smallest actor can leave a lasting impact.”
SHARE This Hero Minesweeper Honored By A Nation…
On the last day in March, GNN reported that the conscientious efforts of a 70-year-old delivery driver left an Idaho man so taken aback, he raised $24,000 on GoFundMe to reward the employee, who told him he was mere weeks away from retirement.
Well the nation has clearly concurred that Dan the Dominoes deliveryman deserves a decent retirement, and it’s sent the GoFundMe to the moon, having surpassed $129,000 at publishing time.
“Hi everyone! First off, thank you SO much for your incredible donations to Dan,” wrote Brian Wilson, who ordered the pizza that Dan delivered. “We’ve had several opportunities to chat with him about the fundraiser, and he’s BLOWN away! Dan is such a humble guy, and incredibly appreciative of your contributions.”
The story began in late March when Wilson ordered a pizza and Diet Coke for delivery, but was called by the store later to explain that they had no Diet Coke and the driver had already left. He didn’t think much of it—because he didn’t know that Dan had stopped at a nearby store to pick up the soda especially for him, an extra mile that took just 3 minutes, Dan later admitted.
Wilson was shocked when Dan explained it all at his door, and wanted to tip more at the time, but had no cash on him. So as GNN has so often seen, he started a GoFundMe, and the whole nation responded.
“We were honestly blown away. That level of care and kindness is rare these days,” Wilson wrote on GoFundMe. “Let’s show Dan that his kindness didn’t go unnoticed. Let’s help him step into retirement feeling appreciated, supported, and celebrated.”
@katey_93 When Domino’s is out of Diet Coke, but your delivery driver stops at the store to get it for you. Dan, you went above and beyond tonight, thank you!The world needs more Dans. Happy almost retirement! #dominos #fyp ♬ original sound – Katey Ann
Wilson sent a letter to the store with $50 cash, while also sharing the Ring Camera video interaction on TikTok to see if anyone else would like to give Dan a tip. Just a few days later, that GoFundMe has received more than 1,600 donations totaling over $23,000.
MORE STORIES LIKE THIS: Woman’s Viral Video of Elderly DoorDash Driver Channels $1 Million to Help Him Retire
In an update to the story, local news sat down with Dan while he recounted the events. He remembered going into work the next day and his coworkers saying “you’re famous dude!”
“I’ve always tried to work hard and go the extra mile on stuff, and I guess maybe I’m getting rewarded for that,” he said, when it was up to around $18,500.
Oh if you only knew Dan, if you only knew.
WATCH the video below…
SHARE And CELEBRATE Dan’s Hard Work And Just Rewards On Social Media…
Quote of the Day: “We can spend our life suffering because we can’t relax with how things really are, or we can embrace the open-endedness of the human situation.” – Pema Chödrön
Photo by: Lili Popper
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?
Happy Birthday to actress Robin Wright, who turns 60 years old today. Known for her film portrayals as Buttercup, in The Princess Bride, and Jenny in Forrest Gump, she won a Golden Globe for playing the devious political wife on the critically-acclaimed Netflix series House of Cards. READ more about Wright… (1966)
Singapore’s transportation officials are set to debut the use of 3D-printed concrete in the form of a new pedestrian bridge that will stretch 30 feet across a waterway.
Brought onboard a larger project to improve transit options in the Jurong River and Temah areas of the city state, it’s the country’s first use of 3D printing for this kind of infrastructure.
The project, managed by the Land Transit Authority (LTA) has just completed a testing phase where segments of printed concrete, made up of cement, sand, and water, were subjected to stress tests under the weight of large water tanks weighing 1 metric ton each.
The first printed segments formed a scale model of what will be the eventual bridge. 10 segments in total took about 40 hours to finish compared to two weeks that might have been expected with manual concrete laying.
It cost a mere $1.4 million to develop and supply the specialized 3D-printing mixture, and the whole project was carried out by Singapore Center for 3D Printing at Nanyang Technological University, with help from the engineering consultancy Witteveen+Bos and 3D concrete printing construction firm CES_Innovfab.
The real thing is slated for completion in 2028, when each of the 10 segments will be threaded together on robust steel cables until it measures 30 feet long and 15 feet wide.
3D-printed bridges have also been installed in China and the Netherlands. The longest in the world is in the Dutch city of Nijmegen, where it stretches 95 feet (29 meters) across a canal.
MORE 3D-PRINTING:
The bridge is striking to look at, with sculpted conical feet that gives it a shape a little like that of a caterpillar.
In Singapore, it’s very much early days for the technology, and the load-bearing tests carried out on the scale model will inform any future applications of the technology. It’s hoped they will be successful, as labor shortages are affecting LTA’s ability to conduct similar projects at scale.
SINGAPORE STORIES:
3D-printed homes present as a much easier engineering challenge since the structure is built from the ground up. Printing each bridge segment—set for a life of foundationless suspension, required a precise mixture of ingredients, printing flow rate, and printing speed to ensure each layer fell, filled, and dried in a perfectly even pattern to ensure no cracks would develop as the mixture hardened.
SHARE The News Of This Ambitious Project With Your Friends…
A nano-scale pinch of gold dust may be enough to transform a previously-ineffective battery technology into a new industry standard.
As the demand for more reliable power systems grows in the renewable energy sector, the race is on to develop batteries that cost less but have a longer lifespan.
Precious metals are a key part of this effort, with silver and gold being among the most conductive elements on the periodic table. Silver is being used in new solid-state batteries, while gold has been used by Canadian researchers to solve a major issue with zinc batteries.
While zinc-based batteries are safer and more cost-effective than industry-standard lithium-ion batteries, a major obstacle to their use in large-scale, grid storage is their shorter lifespan. They fail sooner because they develop tiny, tree-shaped metal structures on the anode called dendrites, which cause the battery to short circuit.
Now, researchers from Concordia University have found a way to slow dendrite formation.
Using the ultrabright X-ray devices of the Canadian Light Source at the national laboratory at the University of Saskatchewan, the Concordia team found that “sprinkling” a small amount of gold nanoparticles on a battery’s inner surface can cut dendrite growth by up to 50 times compared to regular zinc batteries.
Their gold-treated batteries went on to work for more than 6,000 hours in lab settings, a 50-fold increase compared to uncoated zinc.
“Coating the electrode is known to improve battery performance, but the small quantity of particles needed for our technique and how they are arranged on the battery surface is a very new, exciting finding,” says Seungil Lee, a PhD student at Concordia and lead author of the team’s paper, published in the Journal of Materials Chemistry A.
Although gold is expensive, the technique the researchers developed—which sparsely distributes particles on less than 10% of the battery surface—could be relatively cheap to implement for large-scale battery applications.
“Because of the way that we make it, which doesn’t require any special lab conditions and only small amounts of gold, it just becomes dead cheap to put gold particles on the surface, it’s 1/100th of the price of regular gold coatings,” says Ayse Turak, Associate Professor, Physics, and Lee’s supervisor.
“It was a revelation for us. There’s so little material on the surface that it’s almost impossible to characterize by any other means. But X-rays at the Canadian Light Source provide a very strong signal, so we can see it and we can confirm it’s there, and where it sits on the surface,” added Turak.
Now the team is studying how the particle-coating technology could perform with copper electrodes for next-generation anode-free batteries. They’re also investigating whether sparse nanoparticles could be used beyond batteries, in other technologies such as sensors, photovoltaics, and lighting.
MORE USE OF THE CANADIAN LIGHT SOURCE:
Silver and gold are recognized in the investment community mostly as non-interest bearing reserve assets—safe havens from monetary debasement. Studies like these remind us that just because gold and silver have been used as money for 5,000 years at least, they have numerous current and future industrial applications.
Samsung’s new, all-solid-state battery, to be debuted first (it’s believed) in EVs will provide almost twice as much range as lithium-ion battery packs and charge within 10 minutes. The advent of silver as a key coating in the battery was one of several developments that saw silver prices rise parabolically between November and February from around $50 per ounce to $150.
SHARE This Great New Use For Gold To Make Safer, Longer-Lasting Batteries…
A rural New Mexico family was left in a state resembling heartbroken wonderment when they discovered their 12-year-old dog who’s afraid of the vacuum cleaner fought off a bear encroaching on their property.
Honey the dog was recorded in security camera audio having it out with the bear, newly emerged from hibernation and famished; with an eye and a nose on the 60 or so chickens that Denise Martinez houses in a coup on her property.
At risk might also have been the horses, or the other dogs, but Honey was having none of it.
She’s far from her prime years, and half-blind from an encounter with a porcupine, but still managed miraculously to ward off the ursine intruder despite suffering grievous injuries.
“She is our little savior—she’s always been protective that way,” Martinez told the Guardian in a brief phone call on Monday. “She risked her life to save not just the coop, but her family, from that bear.”
Martinez’s daughter, Leanna was the one who found Honey after she fell under the bear’s attacks, suffering deep punctures, bruising, and partial flaying around the head and neck.
The wounds were everything the chilling security camera audio of the battle sounded like they’d be, and the family didn’t imagine she’d pull through as they raced her to a local treatment center, Española Humane.
Once there, she underwent a battery of life-saving interventions, including surgery, medication, and frequent bandage changing. Flaying, or the removal of skin, is a common occurrence in bear attacks. The animal’s tongue is strong enough to take off the skin organ in its totality as easy was we might remove the point of an ice cream dollop.
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In spite of it all, Honey the “Bearslayer” pulled through.
“And because of her family’s love, a community who cares, and a little bit of … badassery, this half-blind sassy senior is still here,” Española Humane wrote in a Facebook post celebrating the fact that she pulled through.
Now at home, Honey can rest easy knowing she carried out the ultimate responsibility of any ranch dog, without paying the ultimate price, a testament both to her own inner strength, and that of all her race.
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Americans and Canadians been delighted with images of the Moon and Earth taken from onboard the Orion capsule as it took 4 astronauts into Lunar orbit for the first time since the Apollo program.
Artemis II lifted off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida on April 1st, 2026, reached the Moon on the 5th, and transited the Moon’s far side on the 6th.
On Monday, the mission marked the farthest point humans have ever traveled from the surface of Earth—about the width of the Lower 48—plus a quarter-million miles—from home.
On the way, the crew have kept their countrymen updated with all the sights from Lunar sphere of influence, where the gravity of our satellite affects the capsule more than does the gravity of Earth.
NASA astronaut Christina Koch, the first woman to visit Lunar space, was captured in a particularly striking photo gazing out a cabin window at our planet while her hair dangled in microgravity.
Mission Commander Chris Wiseman captured the Earth illuminated by the Sun, with the polar aurora spreading out along the Northern Hemisphere.
A striking image of the Moon’s near side (the side we see from Earth) was taken from the capsule that shows a major crater and former lava flow, while the bottom-third of the photo captures the far side, totally pockmarked with impact sites.
Artemis II is the mission that would return humans to Lunar space to build up performance data and know-how for an eventual return to the Moon’s surface with Artemis III.
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Quote of the Day: “Affliction comes to us, not to make us sad, but sober; not to make us sorry, but wise.” – H.G. Wells
Photo by: Abdulla Faiz (CC license)
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?
25 years ago today, NASA launched the “2001 Odyssey” probe to Mars. Named after Kubrick’s classic sci-fi film, its mission was to use spectrometers and a thermal imager to detect evidence of past or present water and ice, as well as study the planet’s geology and radiation environment.
That mission was a success over a period that elapsed 32 months after it arrived in orbit around the Red Planet, and has continued on for 24 years and 5 months, still transmitting valuable data as the oldest craft on or around Mars, and the second oldest serving spacecraft in the solar system. READ more about what it’s found… (2021)
