While countless brilliant men and women don’t have college diplomas, their achievements often speak for themselves. Still, having access to higher education can be an integral stepping stone on the path to success.
It’s a double-whammy when marginalized students who’ve traditionally faced financial barriers to obtaining degrees find themselves drowning in debt by the time they graduate.
Few know the challenges of this particular obstacle course better than Calvin Tyler, who abandoned his own collegiate dreams six decades ago when tuition became too steep.
In 1961, Tyler enrolled as a student of business administration at Morgan State College (now Morgan State University) in Baltimore. When his funds dried up in 1963, a year shy of graduation, he took a job as a UPS driver.
Tyler’s lack of a college diploma might have been considered a setback by some, but it didn’t deter this driver with a true drive from steadily rising in the ranks. By the time he retired in 1998, Tyler was Senior Vice President of U.S. Operations and was seated on the UPS board of directors.
Tyler’s hard work and grit paid off, but he knew that in the business world, his story was the exception rather than the rule. So, in 2002, he and his wife established the Calvin and Tina Tyler Endowed Scholarship Fund at the historically Black university he once attended.
Morgan State University
By granting full-tuition scholarships to select Baltimore students in need, they hoped to elevate them to a place where they’d be able to gain a first foothold on the corporate ladder. How far they climbed would be up to them.
In 2016, the Tylers raised the bar, endowing the fund with $5 million. Earlier this year, they broke their own record, pledging $20 million in scholarship endowments.
Tyler says he and his wife were compelled by the impact the COVID-19 crisis has had on students already struggling to do what they could to help close the financial gap.
“This is why we are increasing our commitment,” he explained. “We want to have more full-tuition scholarships offered to young people so that they can graduate from college and enter the next stage of their life debt-free.”
Morgan State President David Wilson addressed the couple’s magnanimous ongoing support in a statement that said in part: “Through their historic giving, the doors of higher education will most certainly be kept open for generations of aspiring leaders whose financial shortfalls may have kept them from realizing their academic dreams…
Morgan State University
“The Tylers’ generosity over the years, culminating with this transformative commitment, is a remarkable example of altruism with great purpose.”
Calvin Tyler might not have a college diploma to hang on his wall, but he’s earned an advanced degree in paying it forward many times over—and that’s one course of study all of us can learn from.
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AJ Murphy teaches Wyatt James about tubeless tires, by Shaun Price
For many living on the 29,500 square miles of Navajo land in New Mexico, riding a bicycle is a way of life, yet there isn’t a single bicycle repair shop in the area. That’s why a group of bike-enthusiasts are bringing a repair shop to the desert.
AJ Murphy teaches Wyatt James about tubeless tires, by Shaun Price
Instead of residents having to travel to towns as far as Gallup to get their bikes repaired, Silver Stallion is coming directly to them—and not charging a dime.
Silver Stallion Bicycle & Coffee Works is traveling across Diné lands to do free bike repair for the Navajo Nation as a form of COVID-19 relief—and they got a grant in 2020 to help cover expenses from the New Mexico Economic Development Department.
In addition to the grant from the state, the Southwest Indian Foundation donated a delivery truck and the Catena foundation awarded the Stallion with a grant to cover the truck’s operating costs.
Late this summer, Stans-Pivot Pro Team mechanic, Myron Billy, traveled to Gallup in New Mexico to outfit the Stallion’s freshly donated truck as a mobile bike shop.
From September to November, Billy and the crew from the Stallion held thirteen repair events, repairing 425 bikes in seven different communities across the Navajo Nation.
Events were hosted by community members at Navajo Nation chapter houses and community schools.
Myron Billy, by Shaun Price
The Silver Stallion’s mobile repair center was a grassroots movement that was led by Diné mechanics and various riders like Billy. His experience working on the World Cup mountain bike circuit was critical to the operation’s success in getting so many bikes rideable and he served as an invaluable mentor for the other mechanics.
The Silver Stallion used donated parts from companies like Stans No Tubes and the Clif Bar Pro Team—along with salvaged parts off old bikes to do many of their repairs.
The crew were experts at freeing-up seized freehubs, outfitting bikes with new cables and housing, and sliming tubes for the abundant local goatheads—a type of seed that causes punctures.
The effort was so successful—and the need so great—that they had to cut off the intake of bikes early at almost every event.
This Spring, the Silver Stallion hopes to continue free bike repair, operating with the belief that cycling is one of the best ways for kids and communities to recreate and find joy during the pandemic.
The Stallion saw plenty of evidence about how essential the service of bike repair is across Diné lands—but also begun fundraising for five kids’ mountain bike teams for expanding the cycling lifestyle.
To support both efforts you can donate to the Silver Stallion Pledgeling fundraiser here. The Silver Stallion is also accepting in-kind donations for bikes and parts for their Devo kids teams. Visit theirwebsite for more information, and to learn a little more about their awesome initiatives.
Reaching zero net emissions of carbon dioxide from energy and industry by 2050 can be accomplished by rebuilding U.S. energy infrastructure to run primarily on renewable energy, at a net cost of about $1 per person per day, says a new study.
Researchers at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the University of San Francisco (USF), and Evolved Energy Research created a detailed model of the entire U.S. energy and industrial system to produce the first detailed, peer-reviewed study of how to achieve carbon-neutrality by 2050.
According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the world must reach zero net CO2 emissions by mid-century in order to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius and avoid the most dangerous impacts of climate change.
The researchers developed multiple feasible technology pathways that differ widely in remaining fossil fuel use, land use, consumer adoption, nuclear energy, and bio-based fuels use but share a key set of strategies.
“By methodically increasing energy efficiency, switching to electric technologies, utilizing clean electricity (especially wind and solar power), and deploying a small amount of carbon capture technology, the United States can reach zero emissions,” the authors write in Carbon Neutral Pathways for the United States, published recently in the scientific journal AGU Advances.
Net zero means achieving a balance between the greenhouse gas emissions put into the atmosphere and those taken out.
Transforming the infrastructure
Jenny Nuss, Berkeley Lab
“The decarbonization of the U.S. energy system is fundamentally an infrastructure transformation,” said Berkeley Lab senior scientist Margaret Torn, one of the study’s lead authors. “It means that by 2050 we need to build many gigawatts of wind and solar power plants, new transmission lines, a fleet of electric cars and light trucks, millions of heat pumps to replace conventional furnaces and water heaters, and more energy-efficient buildings – while continuing to research and innovate new technologies.”
In this transition, very little infrastructure would need “early retirement,” or replacement before the end of its economic life. “No one is asking consumers to switch out their brand-new car for an electric vehicle,” Torn said. “The point is that efficient, low-carbon technologies need to be used when it comes time to replace the current equipment.”
The pathways studied have net costs ranging from 0.2% to 1.2% of GDP, with higher costs resulting from certain tradeoffs, such as limiting the amount of land given to solar and wind farms. In the lowest-cost pathways, about 90% of electricity generation comes from wind and solar. One scenario showed that the U.S. can meet all its energy needs with 100% renewable energy (solar, wind, and bioenergy), but it would cost more and require greater land use.
“We were pleasantly surprised that the cost of the transformation is lower now than in similar studies we did five years ago, even though this achieves much more ambitious carbon reduction,” said Torn. “The main reason is that the cost of wind and solar power and batteries for electric vehicles have declined faster than expected.”
The scenarios were generated using new energy models complete with details of both energy consumption and production—such as the entire U.S. building stock, vehicle fleet, power plants, and more—for 16 geographic regions in the U.S. Costs were calculated using projections for fossil fuel and renewable energy prices from DOE Annual Energy Outlook and the NREL Annual Technology Baseline report.
The cost figures would be lower still if they included the economic and climate benefits of decarbonizing our energy systems. For example, less reliance on oil will mean less money spent on oil and less economic uncertainty due to oil price fluctuations. Climate benefits include the avoided impacts of climate change, such as extreme droughts and hurricanes, avoided air and water pollution from fossil fuel combustion, and improved public health.
The economic costs of the scenarios are almost exclusively capital costs from building new infrastructure. But Torn points out there is an economic upside to that spending: “All that infrastructure build equates to jobs, and potentially jobs in the U.S., as opposed to sending money overseas to buy oil from other countries. There’s no question that there will need to be a well-thought-out economic transition strategy for fossil fuel-based industries and communities, but there’s also no question that there are a lot of jobs in building a low-carbon economy.”
The next 10 years
An important finding of this study is that the actions required in the next 10 years are similar regardless of long-term differences between pathways. In the near term, we need to increase generation and transmission of renewable energy, make sure all new infrastructure, such as cars and buildings, are low carbon, and maintain current natural gas capacity for now for reliability.
“This is a very important finding. We don’t need to have a big battle now over questions like the near-term construction of nuclear power plants, because new nuclear is not required in the next ten years to be on a net-zero emissions path. Instead we should make policy to drive the steps that we know are required now, while accelerating R&D and further developing our options for the choices we must make starting in the 2030s,” said study lead author Jim Williams, associate professor of Energy Systems Management at USF and a Berkeley Lab affiliate scientist.
The net negative case
Another important achievement of this study is that it’s the first published work to give a detailed roadmap of how the U.S. energy and industrial system can become a source of negative CO2 emissions by mid-century, meaning more carbon dioxide is taken out of the atmosphere than added.
According to the study, with higher levels of carbon capture, biofuels, and electric fuels, the U.S. energy and industrial system could be “net negative” to the tune of 500 million metric tons of CO2 removed from the atmosphere each year. (This would require more electricity generation, land use, and interstate transmission to achieve.)
The authors calculated the cost of this net negative pathway to be 0.6% of GDP – only slightly higher than the main carbon-neutral pathway cost of 0.4% of GDP. “This is affordable to society just on energy grounds alone,” Williams said.
When combined with increasing CO2 uptake by the land, mainly by changing agricultural and forest management practices, the researchers calculated that the net negative emissions scenario would put the U.S. on track with a global trajectory to reduce atmospheric CO2 concentrations to 350 parts per million (ppm) at some distance in the future.
The 350 ppm endpoint of this global trajectory has been described by many scientists as what would be needed to stabilize the climate at levels similar to pre-industrial times.
One of the most important stops on the ride to independence is the freedom to economically plan one’s own affairs and retain ownership of acquired property.
World Bank Collection, CC license
The Himalayan state of Uttarakhand has finally given married women co-ownership of their husbands’ ancestral property. It’s the first Indian state to do so, though local politicians hope it won’t be the last.
Ancestral property normally takes form as farms, which have traditionally been passed down along patriarchal lines. But as a state migration crisis has taken place—where men in particular have left in search of work elsewhere—and women have been left alone on family farms, the government thought it was only natural that women should be given co-ownership of the land.
“We talk about equal partnerships and this ordinance will provide equal partnership to women. This will have a major impact and will go a long way in the overall development of the state,” Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawa has said, explaining, “It was unfair that despite performing all the agri works, the women could not take decisions or apply for loans as the land was in the name of their husbands.”
Divorced women, provided they have no children with their first husband, will also have a claim to co-ownership of their father’s farm, and if a divorced husband reaches bankruptcy, his ex-wife will be able to file for co-ownership.
In 2015 Uttarakhand was the second-fastest growing state by GDP, and agriculture remains its economic engine. High in the mountains, bordering Tibet to the North, Uttarakhand is also referred to as Devabhumi, which means “Land of the Gods,” due to the numerous temples and shrines in the region.
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Shannon Lee, The Conservation Fund Parks with Purpose Program
There’s a seven-acre farm in Atlanta where residents can walk into a forest, take a deep breath, and begin pulling crops right off the land for dinner.
Shannon Lee, The Conservation Fund Parks with Purpose Program
A one-time pecan farm, the Food Forest at Browns Mill project contains 2,500 edible and medicinal plants available to anyone in need.
It’s one of a growing number of free-food forests cropping up in cities around the country, as citizens and organizations both public and private attempt to grapple with problems of hunger and food deserts.
In Atlanta, this problem is acute, with the USDA’s Food Access Research Atlas estimating that at least one in every four Atlantans, or around 125,000 people, live in areas defined as food deserts based on their geographical distance from grocery stores.
Having created the nation’s largest free-food forest, The Conservation Fund, with the assistance of the city of Atlanta and the U.S. Forest Service, is ensuring this former pecan-farm continues its tradition of feeding the community.
Located in Browns Mill, only 10 minutes from Atlanta airport, the nearest grocery store for the 2,100 residents in that area a 30-minute bus ride away.
“Access to green space and healthy foods is very important. And that’s a part of our mission,” Michael McCord, a local arborist, told CNN.
The scheme is utilizing practices known collectively as permaculture, and specifically as “agroforestry”—a term that describes marrying the forest and the field in a way that benefits both, as well as the global and local climate. GNN has reported extensively on agroforestry in the US, and in the UK.
Already filled with large, mature pecan trees and blackberry brambles, the conversion process was enough to create some space underneath the trees with which to grow row and cover crops, and clear non-use bushes for replacement by other crops.
Community, corporate, and non-profit partners involved in the project have committed over 1,000 volunteers.
“It’s really a park for everyone,” Atlanta city councilwoman Carla Smith told CNN. “Every time I go there’s a community there who respects and appreciates the fresh healthy foods. There’s a mentality there that people know to only take what they need.”
Reports of people taking more than they need are rare, and food that’s left over will be harvested by full-time volunteers and distributed among the community.
According to the Conservation Fund, gardening and cooking classes are being held to help teach community members about healthy food, and the project includes community garden beds which the most enterprising of visitors can utilize.
Their project map reveals the scope of the project, with mycelium cultivation for edible mushrooms, boardwalks, and an apiary for honey production.
It’s a project carrying the most robust of democratic sympathies; stretching all the way back in likeness to the Athenian Agora—or public square—where members of the community would make intentional efforts to create a flourishing society through specialization and mutual exchange.
Quote of the Day: “Doubt kills more dreams than failure ever will.” – Suzy Kassem
Photo by: Jonas Geschke
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?
When a crippling ice storm hit Texas, leaving a bonanza of burst waterlines, homeowners found themselves scrambling to find help. With local supplies and plumbers exhausted by demand, crucial repairs seemed out of reach—until an unlikely hero rode to the rescue.
Andrew Mitchell
After loading up his truck with about $2,000 of materials, New Jersey plumber Andrew Mitchell, along with his wife, Kisha Pinnock, the couple’s 2-year-old son, Blake, and his newly apprenticed brother-in-law, Isiah Pinnock, made the 22-hour trek from Morristown to Houston—and got to work putting things right.
“A lot of the people we’ve helped were telling us they either can’t get a plumber on the phone or—if they do get one on the phone—the wait to be serviced is three to four weeks out, so they can’t have water during that entire time,” Kisha told the BBC.
Mitchell’s first stop was his sister-in-law’s home in Humble. Throughout the storm, Kisha and Andrew had been keeping tabs on her sister in Texas and learned from her situation just how dire circumstances in the Lone Star State truly were.
Facebook posts from harried local plumbers pleading for help cemented the couple’s resolve to take action. “This is your time,” Kisha told Andrew in a conversation she recounted in an interview with the CBS News program Uplift. “Everybody has their time to shine. You have the skills; you have the credentials…You should just go.”
After tackling his sister-in-law’s plumbing woes, word of Mitchell’s efforts soon spread. With days starting at 7 a.m. and often not ending until after 2 a.m. the following morning, Mitchell and Isiah were servicing on average between 6 to 10 houses per day.
One recipient of their good work was 71-year-old Barbara Benson. After a week without water resulting from a burst pipe, she was at her wit’s end.
Andrew Mitchell
She’d contacted more than a dozen plumbers and was told it would be weeks before an appointment could be scheduled. To make matters worse, Benson said some plumbers quoted as much as $2,000 just to show up for an estimate.
Far from price gouging, Mitchell routinely charged clients only what they could afford. “I always ask a customer what do they think is fair, what do they have to spare,” Mitchell told NJ.com. “I never try to take advantage of somebody.”
Satisfied customer Benson couldn’t have been more pleased with the outcome of Mitchell’s house-call. “For a woman living by herself, you can get scammed easily and I was just pleasantly surprised,” she told NJ.com. “It was like somebody’s watching out for me.”
While Mitchell and his family originally planned to stay until the plumbing supplies run out, since the need remains so great, they’re considering restocking materials and spending at least a little more time in Texas.
“A lot of times when you see devastation it could be across the world; it could be across the country; it could be in your own town,” Kisha told Uplift. “You really feel like your heart is breaking with them and you can’t do anything but in this instance, we really could. I really knew if we could only help one family, we did make a difference.”
Doing what you love and being of service to others has proven to be an immense inspiration.“It’s really a blessing to be a blessing to other people and Andrew truly enjoys the work,” Kisha told the BBC. “Plumbing is his passion.”
(WATCH the CBS video about the New Jersey team below.)
EDITOR’S NOTE: Viewers outside the US can view this video on the CBS website, here.
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Hundreds of turtles are now returning to their home in the Gulf of Mexico after suffering a terrible ordeal during the recent winter storm in Texas.
When the now famous and freakish cold front devastated Texas’ power grid, a local sea turtle rescue shelter, Sea Turtle Inc, lost power and wasn’t able to keep the water at the normally balmy temperatures needed to ensure the turtles’ health.
That would have been the first concern, but then, as GNN reported, literally thousands of sea turtles around South Padre Island and in the Gulf were being “cold-stunned,” a term that describes a comatose state brought on by falling water temperatures sapping the life from the cold-blooded animals.
Volunteer rescue efforts from staff, community members, beachgoers, wardens, and even nearby SpaceX rocket engineers wound up bringing more than 5,000 turtles to makeshift hospitals managed by Sea Turtle Inc. staff.
The infirm reptilians overflowed their property, and a rescue center was set up in a nearby convention center—with turtles lined up nose-to-tail on sheets of tarpaulin, waiting for their turn in warm water kiddie pools, the only method of recovery available when the power was out.
The “overwhelming support” of community volunteers prevented a sea turtle “Armageddon,” and two days ago Sea Turtle Inc. reported that 2,200 of the rescued turtles were returned to the sea.
“We still have lots of work to do but we are rejuvenated with passion,” Sea Turtle Inc. staff wrote, “having seen our first released turtles swim away.”
Another video published by the BBC showed rehabilitators cheer as they sent their first turtle speeding down a slide into the ocean now that record low temperatures have ceased.
(WATCH the amazing BBC video below.)
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When a video surfaces of the Fijian national rugby team singing a rousing song from the balconies of their hotel rooms, you know it’s going to be good.
At the end of a mandatory 14-day quarantine in Australia, the players and coaches sang a traditional song to thank the hotel staff for their presumably kind and attentive service over the two weeks.
The team had traveled to join a rugby competition in New South Wales, but their performance could make one think the athletes were in town as a professional choir.
The curved shape of the hotel’s walls provided helpful acoustics and stunning optics. And the show clearly delighted the other guests—who watched from the other balconies and from the courtyard below. Naturally, the video of the Fijians singing has since gone viral.
What do you do while stuck at home in the age of COVID-19? When you’re a soccer-mad Canadian, you get creative and start trading maple syrup for football scarves from around the world, of course.
Daniel Robertson
19-year-old Daniel Robertson lives in Whitby, Ontario with his family. To pass the time during what’s been, well, a quiet year, he’s been trading syrup for scarves through a light-hearted Reddit thread he created.
Robertson hasn’t had to worry about no-one responding to his unique exchange idea. Since making his first post, he’s received an impressive 113 scarves from 59 countries—from Latvia, Japan, and Singapore, from Nigeria and Belarus and Senegal.
For Daniel, receiving post from across the globe has been a delight. In fact, the surprise gifts have made him feel a little like he’s traveling, while staying safely in one place.
And he’s not done yet. To make his collection complete, he’d love to receive 80 to 90 more scarves—one for all the 193 countries currently recognized by the U.N.
(WATCH Daniel’s fun story in the video below.)
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When computer nerds are placed in command of one of humanity’s most ambitious scientific undertakings, you know there’s going to be some fun involved.
NASA/JPL-Caltech
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)—home of mission control for the Mars rovers Perseverance and Curiosity—takes advantage of the brilliance of their staff, and the fact that tens of millions of people tune in to watch their handiwork of landing craft on Mars, to sprinkle their missions with hidden puzzles and messages that need decoding.
If only the IRS were so playful!
In the video NASA recently released of Perseverance deploying its parachute, Director and Mission Lead Allen Chen announced that hidden within the strange white and orange shapes of the parachute canopy’s underside was a hidden message in binary code.
“So we invite you all to give it a shot and show your work,” Chen said, with “you all” in this instance referring to the entire internet user base.
Unsurprisingly, it took just six hours for people to decode the message hidden in the parachute, matching the variations in color to binary code, before translating that into English letters and numbers.
“Dare Mighty Things,” read the parachute, the motto of NASA’s JPL, with the outermost ring of the parachute containing the GPS coordinates for their facility in California.
“Oh internet, is there anything you can’t do?” wrote Chief Engineer for Perseverance Adam Steltzner in a tweet.
Taken from a Teddy Roosevelt speech in which he noted that “far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure,” the motto perfectly captures the spirit of the JPL, which undertakes many of NASA’s most ambitious projects.
Another jape on the current Mars mission has Sherlock Holmes’ fictional address—221B Baker Street—plastered along one of the lenses of the rover’s principal camera, known as the “Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman & Luminescence for Organics & Chemicals.” Can you see why?
NASA/JPL-Caltech
Curiosity, the previous Mars rover, had the Morse code spelling of the JPL embedded into its wheels, effectively putting a librarian’s stamp on every square foot of Martian dust the rover passed over during its long stay on the Red Planet.
(WATCH the video of Perseverance make its big Mars touchdown below.)
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Quote of the Day: “Never place a period where God has placed a comma.” – Gracie Allen
Photo by: Suzanne D. Williams
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?
Usually, when dogs are actually “smiling,” meaning expressing happiness, it is when they have their ears in the relaxed state for the breed, and a big wide open mouth—tongues a-flailing.
So, although we are giving our thumbs-up for the best pooch smiles today, we are really reflecting our humanness onto the animals—and enjoying it immensely.
Dogs normally are signaling that they accept being the lowly beta in the pack by pulling the corners of their mouths upwards—the same signal we call a smile.
Even so, not all dogs have the talent for making a ‘smile’, but these pups are pros—especially when asked the right question.
Loni had a visit at the doggy dentist where she had to get one of her teeth pulled.
Watch how she shows off her dental work for the camera. Priceless!
“Did you get a tooth pulled? Let me see…”
This Golden Retriever puppy shows off his baby teeth, and the added music makes this is a cuteness overload.
When mom asks Bill the Labrador to smile, he is all too happy to oblige.
This smile might be the most adorable, of all…
But dogs aren’t the only animals that can produce a giddy-faced ‘smile’ on cue. Check out this sea lion. A zookeeper from Dubai in the United Arab Emirates plays a game with one of the animals in his care.
“When I smile at the camera she imitates me and makes the same face.”
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3D printers may one day become a permanent fixture of operating rooms, now that Australian scientists showed they could print bone-like structures containing living cells.
Scientists have worked out how to print bone-like structures using a 3D-printer and a gelatinous ‘bath’ containing living cells. Photo: UNSW
Scientists from UNSW Sydney have developed a ceramic-based ink that may allow surgeons in the future to 3D-print bone parts complete with living cells that could be used to repair damaged bone tissue.
Using a 3D-printer that deploys a special ink made up of calcium phosphate, the scientists developed a new technique, known as ceramic omnidirectional bioprinting in cell-suspensions (COBICS), enabling them to print bone-like structures that harden in a matter of minutes when placed in water.
While the idea of 3D-printing bone-mimicking structures is not new, this is the first time such material can be created at room temperature – complete with living cells – and without harsh chemicals or radiation, says Dr Iman Roohani from UNSW’s School of Chemistry.
“This is a unique technology that can produce structures that closely mimic bone tissue,” he said, pointing to repairs of bone defects caused by accidents or cancer.
Associate Professor Kristopher Kilian who co-developed the breakthrough technology with Dr Roohani says the fact that living cells can be part of the 3D-printed structure, together with its portability, make it a big advance on current state-of-the-art technology.
Up until now, he says, making a piece of bone-like material to repair bone tissue of a patient involves first going into a laboratory to fabricate the structures using high-temperature furnaces and toxic chemicals.
“This produces a dry material that is then brought into a clinical setting or in a laboratory, where they wash it profusely and then add living cells to it,” Professor Kilian says.
“The cool thing about our technique is you can just extrude it directly into a place where there are cells, like a cavity in a patient’s bone. We can go directly into the bone where there are cells, blood vessels and fat, and print a bone-like structure that already contains living cells, right in that area.”
“There are currently no technologies that can do that directly.”
In a research paper published recently in Advanced Functional Materials, the authors describe how they developed the special ink in a microgel matrix with living cells.
“The ink takes advantage of a setting mechanism through the local nanocrystallization of its components in aqueous environments, converting the inorganic ink to mechanically interlocked bone apatite nanocrystals,” Dr Roohani says.
“In other words, it forms a structure that is chemically similar to bone-building blocks. The ink is formulated in such a way that the conversion is quick, non-toxic in a biological environment and it only initiates when ink is exposed to the body fluids, providing an ample working time for the end-user, for example, surgeons.”
He says when the ink is combined with a collagenous substance containing living cells, it enables in-situ fabrication of bone-like tissues which may be suitable for bone tissue engineering applications, disease modeling, drug screening, and in-situ reconstruction of bone and osteochondral defects.
Already there has been keen interest from surgeons and medical technology manufacturers. A/Prof. Kilian thinks while it’s early days, this new bone-printing process could open up a whole new way of treating and repairing bone tissue.
“This advance really paves the way for numerous opportunities that we believe could prove transformational – from using the ink to create bone in the lab for disease modelling, as a bioactive material for dental restoration, to direct bone reconstruction in a patient,” says A/Prof. Kilian.
“I imagine a day where a patient needing a bone graft can walk into a clinic where the anatomical structure of their bone is imaged, translated to a 3D printer, and directly printed into the cavity with their own cells.
“This has the potential to radically change current practice, reducing patient suffering and ultimately saving lives.”
Next up the duo will be performing in vivo tests in animal models to see if the living cells in the bone-like constructs continue to grow after being implanted in existing bone tissue.
Dreams take us to an alternative reality while we’re fast asleep. So, you might not expect that a person in the midst of a vivid dream would be able to perceive incoming questions and provide answers to them. But a new study led by Northwestern University researchers shows that, in fact, they can—and they developed an app for those who’d like to try it at home.
Konkoly watches monitor – Northwestern University
With partners at three universities around the world, they confirmed that real-time dialogue with a dreaming person is possible—and that dreamers were able to solve simple math problems and answer yes-or-no questions.
The researchers studied 36 volunteers who aimed to have a lucid dream, wherein a person is aware that they’re dreaming.
Using polysomnographic data, they could confirm that study participants had reached the REM stage of sleep—the rapid eye movement phase in which lucid dreaming can occur.
“We found that individuals in REM sleep can interact with an experimenter and engage in real-time communication,” said senior author Ken Paller, professor of psychology and director of the Cognitive Neuroscience Program at Northwestern. “We also showed that dreamers are capable of comprehending questions, engaging in working-memory operations, and producing answers.
“Most people might predict that this would not be possible — that people would either wake up when asked a question or fail to answer, and certainly not comprehend a question without misconstruing it.”
While dreams are a common experience, scientists still haven’t adequately explained them. Relying on a person’s recounting of dreams is also fraught with distortions and forgotten details. So Paller and colleagues decided to attempt communication with people during lucid dreams.
The researchers realized that finding a means to communicate could open the door in future investigations to learn more about dreams, memory, and how memory storage depends on sleep, the researchers say.
They also used a rotten egg smell to associate with cigarette smoking, which caused the dreamer less inclined to smoke the following week.
The paper is unique in that it includes four independently conducted experiments using different approaches to achieve a similar goal. Studies were conducted at Sorbonne University in France; Osnabrück University in Germany; and Radboud University Medical Center in the Netherlands.
“We put the results together because we felt that the combination of results from four different labs using different approaches most convincingly attests to the reality of this phenomenon of two-way communication,” said Karen Konkoly, a Ph.D. student in psychology at Northwestern and main author of the paper published this month in the journal Current Biology.
“In this way, we see that different means can be used to communicate.”
One of the individuals who readily succeeded with two-way communication had narcolepsy and frequent lucid dreams. Among the others, some had lots of experience in lucid dreaming and others did not. Overall, the researchers found that it was possible for people, while dreaming, to follow instructions, do simple math, answer yes-or-no questions, or tell the difference between different sensory stimuli.
They could respond using eye movements or by contracting facial muscles. The researchers refer to these successful conversations as “interactive dreaming,” and they chose questions with known answers so that they could assess whether participants’ answers were correct.
Konkoly says that future studies of dreaming could use these same methods to assess cognitive abilities during dreams versus while awake. They also could help verify the accuracy of post-awakening dream reports. Outside of the laboratory, the methods could be used to help people in various ways, such as solving problems during sleep or offering nightmare sufferers novel ways to cope. Follow-up experiments run by members of the four research teams aim to learn more about connections between sleep and memory processing, and about how dreams may shed light on this memory processing.
Students in Paller’s lab group have developed a smartphone app for Android devices that aims to make it easier for people to achieve lucidity during their dreams. Information on the lucid app, and the link to download it, is available on Paller’s cognitive neuroscience lab site, here.
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Stephanie Riise and Jake Anderson on Shetland Islands - SWNS
After a couple stumbled across a strange sight while walking the beach, the blue and yellow surfboard became like a message in a bottle—and they had to know its origins.
Stephanie Riise and Jake Anderson on Shetland Islands – SWNS
It all started when Lee Brogan had been “wiped out” by a massive wave while surfing off the Yorkshire coast in England last year and watched in agony as his surfboard disappeared into the ocean.
He had given up hope of ever being reunited with his 10-year-old board but luckily a young couple found it—some 400 miles away.
Stephanie Riise, 22, and Jake Anderson, 23, were hiking on the Shetland Islands off the coast of Scotland when they spotted the nine-foot board and decided to investigate further.
The Walden board, which costs between £800 and £1,200, was marooned off shore on some gravel but was completely intact.
“Our interest was piqued at that point and we were just wondering where it had come from, how far it had travelled, who lost it, what story was behind it,” said Stephanie, from Shetland.
The inquisitive pair took to Facebook on the day of the discovery to see if anyone could trace the owner as they wanted to know the story behind the board. She posted about her find on the Shetland Seashore Discoveries Facebook page and the community quickly put on their detective hats.
Just a day later, they were put in touch with Lee who couldn’t believe they had found his beloved board which had been lost in the waves in Runswick Bay in Scarborough, England.
“We were so surprised by how quickly it all came about, we didn’t think we’d ever find the owner in all honesty. We were so pleased he had gotten in touch.”
She said they quizzed Lee to make sure he was indeed the owner, but after he provided photo evidence and explained how he’d fallen off the board, they were convinced.
Lee Brogan reunited – SWNS
The kind couple not only solved the mystery, they got a friend to deliver the board to his home in a van and said they were just tickled to have been able to help. And, they signed the board with a message—not needing any bottle to preserve the 400-mile synchronicity of fellowship.
SWNS
“Knowing (now) where it had come from, it’s even more impressive that it was completely intact.”
Quote of the Day: “A person must break with the illusion that her life has already been written and her path already determined.” – Marc-Alain Ouaknin
Photo by: Jonas Denil
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Elizabeth Ann, at the USFWS National Black-footed Ferret Conservation Center
Black-footed ferret recovery efforts aimed at increased genetic diversity and disease resistance took a bold step forward on Dec. 10, 2020, with the birth of “Elizabeth Ann,” created from the frozen cells of a black-footed ferret that lived more than 30 years ago.
Elizabeth Ann, at the USFWS National Black-footed Ferret Conservation Center
The groundbreaking effort to explore solutions to help recover this endangered species results from an innovative partnership among the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and scientists at Revive & Restore, ViaGen Pets & Equine, San Diego Zoo Global, and the Association of Zoos and Aquariums.
“The Service sought the expertise of valued recovery partners to help us explore how we might overcome genetic limitations hampering recovery of the black-footed ferret, and we’re proud to make this announcement today,” said Noreen Walsh, Director of the Service’s Mountain- Prairie Region, where the Service’s National Black-footed Ferret Conservation Center is located.
“Although this research is preliminary, it is the first cloning of a native endangered species in North America, and it provides a promising tool for continued efforts to conserve the black-footed ferret.”
“Successful genetic cloning does not diminish the importance of addressing habitat-based threats to the species or the Service’s focus on addressing habitat conservation and management to recover black-footed ferrets,” Walsh continued.
Today, all black-footed ferrets are descended from seven individuals, resulting in unique genetic challenges to recovering this species. Cloning may help address the issues of genetic diversity and disease resilience in wild populations. Without an appropriate amount of genetic diversity, a species often becomes more susceptible to diseases and genetic abnormalities, as well as limited adaptability to conditions in the wild and a decreased fertility rate.
Once thought to be extinct and currently listed as an endangered species, black-footed ferrets were brought back from nearly vanishing forever by the Service and its partners after a Wyoming rancher discovered a small population on his land in 1981. Ferrets from this population were captured by the Wyoming Game & Fish Department and others to begin a captive breeding program to recover the species.
‘Willa’, a black-footed ferret captured among the last wild individuals, has no living descendants and is therefore not one of the seven founders. The Wyoming Game & Fish Department had the foresight to preserve her genes and sent tissue samples from Willa to San Diego Zoo Global’s Frozen Zoo in 1988. The Frozen Zoo established a cell culture and stewarded these precious frozen cells ever since, making today’s achievement possible.
A win for biodiversity
“San Diego Zoo Global’s Frozen Zoo was created more than 40 years ago with the hope that it would provide solutions to future conservation challenges,” said Oliver Ryder, their Director of Conservation Genetics. “We are delighted that we have been able to cryobank and, years later, provide viable cell cultures for this groundbreaking project.”
A genomic study revealed Willa’s genome possessed three times more unique variations than the living population. Therefore, if Elizabeth Ann successfully mates and reproduces, she could provide unique genetic diversity to the species.
“We’ve come a long way since 2013 when we began the funding, permitting, design and development of this project with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service,” said Ryan Phelan, Revive & Restore Executive Director. “But it was a commitment to seeing this species survive that has led to the successful birth of Elizabeth Ann. To see her now thriving ushers in a new era for her species and for conservation-dependent species everywhere. She is a win for biodiversity and for genetic rescue.”
In 2018, the Service issued the first-ever recovery permit for cloning research of an endangered species, allowing Revive & Restore to initiate genetic analyses and proof of concept trials. This work builds upon recent advancements in cloning processes developed by ViaGen Pets & Equine, which successfully created embryos from the frozen cell line and implanted them into a domestic ferret surrogate.
Mid-gestation, the surrogate mother was transferred from ViaGen Pets & Equine to the Service’s National Black-Footed Ferret Conservation Center to give birth to the cloned kit under the Service’s authority. The NBFFCC staff’s extensive experience breeding and caring for black-footed ferrets ensured the safe arrival of the first U.S. endangered species clone.
Researchers continue to closely monitor the young kit and Elizabeth Ann and her surrogate mother are kept separate from other breeding black-footed ferrets. She will live her life at the Center as additional research is completed. The team is working to produce more black-footed ferret clones in the coming months as part of continuing research efforts.
After years of charity work on behalf of veterans, the Oscar-nominated actor who played Lt. Dan in Forrest Gump, has launched a mental health wellness network to provide ‘transformative care, treatment, and training’ to veterans and first responders who are experiencing post-traumatic stress or substance abuse.
The Gary Sinise Foundation Avalon Network aims to establish 20 treatment sites nationwide to serve thousands of veterans, first responders, and their families.
“When I formed the Gary Sinise Foundation in 2011, it was rooted in a personal mission to provide support, raise spirits, and improve the mental wellness of our nation’s heroes and their families,” said Sinise, the Foundation’s Chairman.
“Always wanting to do more, as the foundation approaches its 10th anniversary this June, I am proud to announce the launch of the Avalon Network to help heal the invisible wounds afflicting too many of our veterans and first responders—transforming struggle into strength…”
An estimated 30% of first responders in the U.S. are dealing with depression and post-traumatic stress, and 1 in 3 veterans have suffered with mental health and brain issues since 2001.
Building on the work of the Marcus Institute for Brain Health and the Boulder Crest Foundation’s Warrior PATHH program, Sinise is partnering with the Co-founders of The Home Depot, philanthropists Bernie Marcus and Arthur M. Blank, who each invested $20 million from their personal foundations to lay the groundwork.
According to The Gary Sinise Foundation, the Network marks the first time that Marcus and Blank have partnered together since co-founding The Home Depot in 1978.
“We’ve lost more veterans to suicide than we have on the battlefields of the Global War on Terror,” said Bernie Marcus. “Our veterans and their families put their lives on the line for us and they deserve the highest level of care available.”
“We’ve found the perfect partner in the Gary Sinise Foundation to scale this idea into a national network that will provide cutting-edge care and improve the quality of life for our nation’s heroes in one of the most critical times in our history,” said Blank.
Since 2003, Gary Sinise, along with his “Lt. Dan Band,” has contributed hundreds of personal appearances and concerts on military bases in Iraq and around the world. He has helped to raise millions of dollars, as well as donating his own money to help give back to military personnel and their families.
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FREE WILL ASTROLOGY – Week beginning February 27, 2021
Copyright by Rob Brezsny, FreeWillAstrology.com
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20):
Piscean author Anais Nin was a maestro of metamorphosis, a virtuoso of variation, an adept at alteration. She regarded her ceaseless evolution as a privilege and luxury, not an oppressive inconvenience. “I take pleasure in my transformations,” she wrote. “I look quiet and consistent, but few know how many women there are in me.” Her approach is a healthy model for most of you Pisceans—and will be especially worth adopting in the coming weeks. I invite you to be a Change Specialist whose nickname is Flux Mojo.
ARIES (March 21-April 19):
I invite you to think about one or two types of physical discomforts and symptoms that your body seems most susceptible to. Next I encourage you to meditate on the possibility that there are specific moods or feelings associated with those discomforts and symptoms—perhaps either caused by them or the cause of them. The next step is to formulate an intention to monitor any interactions that might transpire between the bodily states and emotional states. Then make a plan for how you will address them both with your own healing power whenever they visit you in the future.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20):
Poet Billy Collins describes “standing on the edge of a lake on a moonlit night and the light of the moon is always pointing straight at you.” I have high hopes that your entire life will be like that in the coming weeks: that you’ll feel as if the world is alive with special messages just for you; that every situation you’re in will feel like you belong there; that every intuition welling up from your subconscious mind into your conscious awareness will be specifically what you need at the moment it arrives.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20):
You’re entering a potentially heroic phase of your astrological cycle. The coming weeks will be a time when you’ll hopefully be motivated to raise your integrity and impeccability to record levels. To inspire you, I’ve grabbed a few affirmations from a moral code reputed to be written by a 14th-century Samurai warrior. Try saying them, and see if they rouse you to make your good character even better. 1. “I have no divine power; I make honesty my divine power.” 2. “I have no miracles; I make right action my miracle.” 3. “I have no enemy; I make carelessness my enemy.” 4. “I have no designs; I make ‘seizing opportunity’ my design.” 5. “I have no magic secrets; I make character my magic secret.” 6. “I have no armor; I make benevolence and righteousness my armor.”
CANCER (June 21-July 22):
“The only way to live is by accepting each minute as an unrepeatable miracle,” writes Cancerian author and Buddhist teacher Jack Kornfield. I disagree with him. There are many other modes of awareness that can be useful as we navigate our labyrinthine path through this crazy world. Regarding each minute as an opportunity to learn something new, for instance: That’s an excellent way to live. Or, for another example, treating each minute as another chance to creatively express our love. But I do acknowledge that Kornfield’s approach is sublime and appealing. And I think it will be especially apropos for you during the coming weeks.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22):
The coming weeks will be a poignant and healing time for you to remember the people in your life who have died—as well as ancestors whom you never met or didn’t know well. They have clues to offer you, rich feelings to nourish you with, course corrections to suggest. Get in touch with them through your dreams, meditations, and reminiscences. Now read this inspiration from poet Rainer Maria Rilke: “They, who passed away long ago, still exist in us, as predisposition, as burden upon our fate, as murmuring blood, and as gesture that rises up from the depths of time.” (Translation from the German by Stephen Mitchell.)
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22):
I’m fond of 18th-century Virgo painter Quentin de La Tour. Why? 1. He specialized in creating portraits that brought out his subjects’ charm and intelligence. 2. As he grew wealthier, he became a philanthropist who specialized in helping poor women and artists with disabilities. 3. While most painters of his era did self-portraits that were solemn, even ponderous, de La Tour’s self-portraits showed him smiling and good-humored. 4. Later in his life, when being entirely reasonable was no longer a top priority, de La Tour enjoyed conversing with trees. In accordance with the astrological omens, I propose that we make him your patron saint for now. I hope you’ll be inspired to tap into your inner Quentin de la Tour.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22):
I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with your overall health, Libra—in fact, I expect it’s probably quite adequate—but from an astrological point of view, now is the right time to schedule an appointment for a consultation with your favorite healer, even if just by Zoom. In addition, I urge you to consult a soul doctor for a complete metaphysical check-up. Chances are that your mental health is in fair shape, too. But right now it’s not enough for your body and soul to be merely adequate; they need to receive intense doses of well-wrought love and nurturing. So I urge you to ask for omens and signs and dreams about what precisely you can do to treat yourself with exquisite care.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21):
“Love commands a vast army of moods,” writes author Diane Ackerman. “Frantic and serene, vigilant and calm, wrung-out and fortified, explosive and sedate.” This fact of life will be prominently featured in your life during the coming weeks. Now is a fertile time to expand your understanding of how eros and romance work when they’re at their best—and to expand your repertoire of responses to love’s rich challenges. Don’t think of it as a tough test; imagine it as an interesting research project.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21):
Sagittarian poet and visual artist William Blake (1757–1827) cultivated a close relationship with lofty thoughts and mystical visions. He lived with his wife Catherine for the last 45 years of his life, but there were times when he was so preoccupied with his amazing creations that he neglected his bond with her. Catherine once said, “I have very little of Mr. Blake’s company. He is always in Paradise.” I hope that you won’t be like that in the coming weeks. Practical matters and intimate alliances need more of your attention than usual. Consider the possibility, at least for now, of spending less time in paradise and more on earth.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19):
Poet Robert Graves regarded the ambiguity of poetry as a virtue, not a problem. In his view, poetry’s inscrutability reflects life’s true nature. As we read its enigmatic ideas and feelings, we may be inspired to understand that experience is too complex to be reduced to simplistic descriptions and overgeneralized beliefs. In fact, it’s quite possible that if we invite poetry to retrain our perceptions, we will develop a more tolerant and inclusive perspective toward everything. I’m telling you this, Capricorn, because whether or not you read a lot of poetry in the coming weeks, it will be wise and healthy for you to celebrate, not just tolerate, how paradoxical and mysterious the world is.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18):
The coming weeks will be a favorable time to shed old habits that waste your energy, and create new habits that will serve you well for months to come. To inspire and guide your efforts, I offer these thoughts from author and naturalist Henry David Thoreau: “As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.”
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
