Mercedes Boggs knows she’s lucky to be alive. Boggs was on her way to work last month when her car hit a patch of ice, flipped on its side, and slid down an embankment coming to rest in a frigid creek.
After regaining consciousness, with cold water rushing in from the smashed windshield, Boggs realized she was trapped. That’s when a stranger appeared making his way toward her and Boggs somehow knew everything was going to be all right.
“When I saw him, it was just like everything was fine,” she told WVLT News-8. “I wasn’t even scared anymore. I just knew that that was like my saving grace.”
Neither one of them realized how very true that first impression would turn out to be.
The good Samaritan freed Boggs from her mangled vehicle. As he was helping her up the embankment, her car burst into flames. Had he come along half a minute later, Boggs would likely have perished in the ensuing inferno.
Kentucky coal miner John Burke was on his way home from working the night shift when he saw someone in serious trouble and stopped to help. After an ambulance crew arrived and took charge, Burke went on his way, but rather than sleeping when he got home, he spent the day wondering if the young woman he’d pulled from the wreckage was going to be okay.
Boggs was rushed to the hospital not even knowing the name of the person who’d saved her life. With no other way to contact him, she put out a Facebook plea in hopes of finding and thanking the man she now considered her guardian angel:
“… Please please share this in hope to help me find the man that saved my life, I owe him deeply. I would just like to speak to him. Without him, this situation would’ve been much different.”
Within a few hours, Boggs’ post was shared close to 900 times. Burke saw it and messaged her.
Boggs said when she spoke with him, Burke downplayed his role in her rescue. He didn’t think of himself as a hero, just someone who stopped to help, but Boggs and her family don’t agree.
“Kids look up to like batman and superman and like those superheroes. That’s how I look at John now. He will forever be my hero,” told WVLT. “He was the person that saved my life.”
The old newsroom adage, “if it bleeds, it leads,” did not apply to Australia recently, as editors covered the front pages with positive headlines about one of the world’s most dramatic drops in crime rates ever reported in a developed nation.
Since 2001, break-ins have fallen by 68%, motor vehicle theft by 70%, robbery by 71%, attempted murder by 70%, and murder rates by 50%, while overall homicide including manslaughter plummeted by 59%.
A comprehensive report in the Sydney Morning Herald provides the details of the precipitous fall, while also attempting to explain this bettering of society.
Possible reasons for the declines include less alcohol consumption among young people, improvements in the economy with lower unemployment, and improved access to better safety technology in cars and homes.
Furthermore, black markets for stolen goods have dried up, creating a greater risk for thieves.
In 2000, this wasn’t the case—and a book published by a team of Australian social scientists called The Vanishing Criminal bears witness. Rising crime rates were the norm, like other English-speaking nations, in the 70s and 80s.
The authors cited an international crime statistics survey of 25 countries at that time which showed Australia had the second-highest rate of car theft, the highest rate of burglary, the highest rate of crime victimization, among other dubious distinctions. Against these depressing trends, the recent fall looks miraculous.
Rising demand from the public on police to produce results seemed to coincide with an increased understanding of what works best in policing, along with a drop in heroin abuse.
It really bears out what Steven Pinker and Matt Ridley write in their books Enlightenment Now and The Rational Optimist: Meaningful ways in which the world is getting better are happening at rates never before seen by our species, and virtually no societal problem is insurmountable by progress.
SHARE the Hopeful Trend From Down Under on Social Media…
An international task force of conservationists have proved that a remarkably simple method of deterring seabirds can save tens of thousands from accidental death.
A recent study published about the Namibian fishery industry determined there was a 98% reduction in albatross and other seabird deaths after laws were passed requiring that fishermen attach colored streamers to the back of their boats, which deterred the birds from pilfering longline fishing nets.
Emily Eng illustration showing how rainbow streamers work for BirdLife International
The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) and BirdLife International’s Albatross Task Force (ATF) came together to help prevent endangered species like albatross from going extinct due to bycatch, a fishing term that describes animals caught but not targeted.
BirdLife South Africa
Albatrosses are amazing birds, capable of traveling thousands of miles across oceans without stopping—all while living into their sixties. Some species mate for life, returning to the same, often uninhabited islands dozens of times to raise young. While many people imagine eagles and condors as the largest birds on Earth, both the title of largest bird, and largest wingspan, belong to albatrosses—to the great albatross and the wandering albatross respectively.
In Namibia, the hake trawl and long-line fisheries were found to kill a staggering 22,000 to 30,000 birds a year, including the endangered Atlantic yellow-nosed albatross, due to the birds’ tendencies to get snagged on the long-line hooks, or colliding with the steel cables that tug the trawl nets along.
JJ Harrison, CC license
“It’s hard to envisage so many birds being killed in individual fisheries on an annual basis, not least for the fishers themselves who see lots of birds gathering behind their boats and perhaps might only bring up 1 or 2 in a haul,” Rory Crawford, Bycatch Program Manager at the RSPB, told Ecomagazine.
“But the cumulative effect for albatrosses in particular has been devastating – 15 of 22 species are threatened with extinction. Mercifully, this is a problem for which there are simple and elegant solutions.”
These solutions are known as “bird-scaring lines.” A colorful pole mounted on the stern of a fishing trawler strings along colorful ropes, which either through movement or the color scheme—scientists aren’t yet certain—act like the marine equivalent of a scarecrow.
As the birds, which can include not only albatrosses but also petrels, approach the fishing vessel with the idea of snatching an easy meal of either fish or bait hanging off the long fishing lines, the bird-scaring lines cause them to take a second guess.
“It’s part of the brightness and then the motion of it, it’s been very very effective around the world, other nations have reported success other than Namibia,” Titus Shaanika, a Namibian conservationist and co-author of the study, told the BBC.
The bird scaring lines were imposed by law, but according to Shaanika, it wasn’t a major challenge to approach hake fishermen and convince them of the value of the birds, and why the simple solution was worth the small investment of time and energy.
A chameleon has been declared by science as currently the world’s smallest reptile.
Endangerex
The male brookesia nana or “nano-chameleon” measures less than an inch long, while the females stretch just past an inch.
Chameleons are famous for their extending, sniper-rifle tongues, their ability to change color, and their funny little karate-chop oven-mitt-like hands that allow them to cling to tree branches. Brookesia nana in contrast is more at home on the forest floor, and can’t even change color.
“Extremely miniaturized animals are generally thought to face physiological challenges that limit further size reductions, yet, miniaturization has independently evolved many times,” explain the research scientists Frank Glaw et al. in their paper describing the details of the tiny lizard.
“The repeated evolution of such an extreme phenotype suggests that [natural] selection can often favor its emergence but currently our understanding of miniaturization and the underlying evolutionary pressures is far from complete.”
Small body, big problems
Endangerex
Examples of extreme miniaturization are fascinating for scientists to study, since the overwhelming majority of vertebrates grow in size as they grow older.
Compared to its body size, the male brookesia nana has the third largest reproductive organ of any of the dwarf chameleons, and the fifth largest of 52 examined chameleons of other species. This is thought to be an absolute necessity, the scientists explained, since if it were any smaller it perhaps wouldn’t be able to reproduce at all.
At one mm long, the “hemipenis,” an internally stored sex organ, is as big as the chameleon’s head, which was actually the piece of the puzzle which confirmed beyond any doubt that it was indeed an adult male the scientists were looking at, and not a juvenile.
In the genus brookesia, there already was a “brookesia micra,” forcing the team to come up with the even smaller designation for the new member, as it measured 2mm shorter in body length.
Glaw and the team note there is an interesting paradigm known as the “island rule,” that the nano-chameleon seems to reinforce, which states that on islands—small mammal species tend to grow larger while large mammal species tend to grow smaller when compared to their closest relatives on the mainland.
However with reptiles, this trend is seen in the opposite direction, as small reptiles grow smaller, and large reptiles get larger, when confined to the beaches of an island; for which the examples of greatest ease are this chameleon, and the Komodo dragon—both residing on islands, and currently considered the smallest and largest reptiles in the world.
Immediately recommended for the endangered species list of the IUCN, the Malagasy government enshrined the forest in which the chameleon is found as a protected area known as COMATSA Nord, hopefully buying enough time to allow scientists to study it further and form a conservation action plan.
Quote of the Day: “If we don’t change, we don’t grow. If we don’t grow, we aren’t really living.” – Gail Sheehy
Photo by: qinghill
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?
One loving father is a stellar example of what it’s like to be happily blind to skin color—and he hopes his story can inspire everyone to understand that transracial adoption is just as natural when the parent is black and child is white. (A combination that has produced too many negative inferences for this dad to count.)
Peter Mutbazi adopting Tony
A 2017 study found the number of white children in U.S. foster care is increasing, but many black parents are still hesitant to adopt them. That’s not the case for Peter Mutabazi, whom GNN readers met back in July after he became a “forever dad” to Anthony, a white teen abandoned in a North Carolina hospital a few years earlier.
Peter says “The differences in my family’s skin may be the first thing people notice today, but I hope that over time what will be most noteworthy about us, and about all transracial families, is the love, joy and connection we share.”
He knows how it feels to be a child who is facing abandonment and fear. He fled an abusive home at age 11 in Africa, and became a street kid in Uganda’s capital city. But later he was taken in as a teen by a complete stranger who became a mentor and changed his life.
“I couldn’t ignore my history—the opportunities that had been given to me by strangers…and I know just how many kids out there have no one. I know what it feels like to have no dreams, no hope.”
Peter knew that teens had lower adoption rates than younger children, and they often wait longer to be adopted (if ever), putting them at much greater risk for a troubled future—so he became a licensed foster dad and hosted 12 different placements over the years. Then he met Anthony.
Immediately the boy announced: “I was told that when I was eleven I would get to choose who my dad was, and I choose you.” That gave Peter the confidence to believe he could be a great dad, even though he had never had one of his own.
In 2019, Peter officially adopted the whip-smart young man.
As Peter and his son were enjoying some relaxation over the holiday, Tony brought up a challenging idea.
“I think that maybe we should reach out to a teenager and give him a home.”
“I already have a teenager,” Peter replied. But, as he reflected back on 2020 he also remembered how he got the opportunity to advocate for teen-fostering and adoption with AdoptUSKids.
After the conversation, serendipity knocked when a social worker called and told Peter there was a young teenager who needed a foster home—and he knew he couldn’t ignore the timing of it all.
“He’s almost 17—only one year left in foster care so I can help him with whatever life skills he needs, whether it’s to get a driver’s license, to support him with his schooling, or to help guide him into a career.”
Peter and Anthony recently welcomed Kai into their home.
While many people focus on what can go wrong, Peter focuses on the benefits and rewards of giving a teen a chance, just like the chance he was given.
“Most of all, I can give him the love and attention he deserves. To let him know he belongs.”
The family now makes videos, having founded Now I Am Known to let even more kids and teens feel seen and heard. Follow their hijinks at YouTube—and check out the plushie ‘support dogs’ modeled after the family pup Simba, which comes with a bandana printed with phrases of affirmation for realizing your full potential. For every adorable plushie sold, they donate one to a child who also needs the love—over 500, so far.
MEET Peter and ‘Tony’ in this charming video…
SHARE This to Spread the Joy of Foster Care and ‘Support Plushies’…
FREE WILL ASTROLOGY – Week beginning February 5, 2021
Copyright by Rob Brezsny, FreeWillAstrology.com
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18):
Aquarian author Alice Walker writes, “In nature, nothing is perfect and everything is perfect. Trees can be contorted, bent in weird ways, and they’re still beautiful.” In the coming weeks, I hope you’ll adopt that way of thinking and apply it to every aspect of your perfectly imperfect body and mind and soul. I hope you’ll give the same generous blessing to the rest of the world, as well. This attitude is always wise to cultivate, of course, but it will be especially transformative for you in the coming weeks. It’s time to celebrate your gorgeous idiosyncrasies and eccentricities.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20):
“Though the bamboo forest is dense, water flows through it freely.” I offer that Zen saying just in time for you to adopt it as your metaphor of power. No matter how thick and complicated and impassable the terrain might appear to be in he coming weeks, I swear you’ll have a flair for finding a graceful path through it. All you have to do is imitate the consistency and flow of water.
ARIES (March 21-April 19):
Herman Hesse’s novel Siddhartha is a story about a spiritual seeker who goes in search of illumination. Near the end of the quest, when Siddhartha is purified and enlightened, he tells his friend, “I greatly needed sin, lust, vanity, the striving for goods, and the most shameful despair, to learn how to love the world, to stop comparing the world with any world that I wish for, with any perfection that I think up; I learned to let the world be as it is, and to love it and to belong to it gladly.” While I trust you won’t overdo the sinful stuff in the coming months, Aries, I hope you will reach a conclusion like Siddhartha’s. The astrological omens suggest that 2021 is the best year ever for you to learn how to love your life and the world just as they are.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20):
Taurus physicist Richard Feynman said, “If we want to solve a problem we have never solved before, we must leave the door to the unknown ajar.” That’s always good advice, but it’s especially apropos for you in the coming weeks. You are being given the interesting and fun opportunity to solve a problem you have never solved before! Be sure to leave the door to the unknown ajar. Clues and answers may come from unexpected sources.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20):
When we want to get a distinct look at a faint star, we must avert our eyes away from it just a little. If we look at it directly, it fades into invisibility. (There’s a scientific explanation for this phenomenon, which I won’t go into.) I propose that we make this your metaphor of power for the coming weeks. Proceed on the hypothesis that if you want to get glimpses of what’s in the distance or in the future, don’t gaze at it directly. Use the psychological version of your peripheral vision. And yes, now is a favorable time to seek those glimpses.
CANCER (June 21-July 22):
If the apocalypse happens and you’re the last human left on earth, don’t worry about getting enough to eat. Just find an intact grocery store and make your new home there. It’s stocked with enough non-perishable food to feed you for 55 years—or 63 years if you’re willing to dine on pet food. I’M JOKING! JUST KIDDING! In fact, the apocalypse won’t happen for another 503 million years. My purpose in imagining such a loopy scenario is to nudge you to dissolve your scarcity thinking. Here’s the ironic fact of the matter for us Cancerians: If we indulge in fearful fantasies about running out of stuff—money, resources, love, or time—we undermine our efforts to have enough of what we need. The time is now right for you to stop worrying and instead take robust action to ensure you’re well-supplied for a long time.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22):
“Judge a moth by the beauty of its candle,” writes Coleman Barks in his rendering of a poem by Rumi. In accordance with astrological omens, I am invoking that thought as a useful metaphor for your life right now. How lovely and noble are the goals you’re pursuing? How exalted and bighearted are the dreams you’re focused on? If you find there are any less-than-beautiful aspects to your motivating symbols and ideals, now is a good time to make adjustments.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22):
I invite you to try the following experiment. Select two situations in your world that really need to be reinvented, and let every other glitch and annoyance just slide for now. Then meditate with tender ferocity on how best to get the transformations done. Summoning intense focus will generate what amounts to magic! PS: Maybe the desired reinventions would require other people to alter their behavior. But it’s also possible that your own behavior may need altering.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22):
Author Marguerite Duras wrote these words: “That she had so completely recovered her sanity was a source of sadness to her. One should never be cured of one’s passion.” I am spiritually allergic to that idea. It implies that our deepest passions are unavailable unless we’re insane, or at least disturbed. But in the world I aspire to live in, the opposite is true: Our passions thrive if we’re mentally healthy. We are best able to harness our most inspiring motivations if we’re feeing poised and stable. So I’m here to urge you to reject Duras’s perspective and embrace mine. The time has arrived for you to explore the mysteries of relaxing passion.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21):
Author Karen Barad writes, “The past is never finished. It cannot be wrapped up like a package, or a scrapbook; we never leave it and it never leaves us behind.” I agree. That’s why I can’t understand New Age teachers who advise us to “live in the now.” That’s impossible! We are always embedded in our histories. Everything we do is conditioned by our life story. I acknowledge that there’s value in trying to see the world afresh in each new moment. I’m a hearty advocate of adopting a “beginner’s mind.” But to pretend we can completely shut off or escape the past is delusional and foolish. Thank you for listening to my rant, Scorpio. Now please spend quality time upgrading your love and appreciation for your own past. It’s time to celebrate where you have come from—and meditate on how your history affects who you are now.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Luisah Teish is a writer and priestess in the Yoruban Lucumi tradition. She wrote a book called Jump Up: Seasonal Celebrations from the World’s Deep Traditions. “Jump up” is a Caribbean phrase that refers to festive rituals and parties that feature “joyous music, laughter, food, and dancing.” According to my reading of the astrological omens, you’re due for a phase infused with the “jump up” spirit. As Teish would say, it’s a time for “jumping, jamming, swinging, hopping, and kicking it.” I realize that in order to do this, you will have to work around the very necessary limitations imposed on us all by the pandemic. Do the best you can. Maybe make it a virtual or fantasy jump up. Maybe dance alone in the dark.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19):
“Perhaps we should know better,” wrote poet Tony Hoagland, “but we keep on looking, thinking, and listening, hunting that singular book, theory, perception, or tonality that will unlock and liberate us.” It’s my duty to report, Capricorn, that there will most likely be no such singular magnificence for you in 2021. However, I’m happy to tell you that an accumulation of smaller treasures could ultimately lead to a substantial unlocking and liberation. For that to happen, you must be alert for and appreciate the small treasures, and patiently gather them in. (PS: Author Rebecca Solnit says, “We devour heaven in bites too small to be measured.” I say: The small bites of heaven you devour in the coming months will ultimately add up to being dramatically measurable.)
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
Ocean sponges and algae on Gulf of Mexico coral -NOAA
The Gulf of Mexico’s largest coral sanctuary just got 200 percent bigger, now that the U.S. government formally approved the expansion of the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary.
Ocean sponges and algae on Gulf of Mexico coral -NOAA
NOAA tripled the sanctuary’s size, located off the coasts of Louisiana and Texas, to protect some of the healthiest and most beautiful coral reefs in the world.
“They are special because they remain healthy,” said Dr. Tom Bright of Texas A&M University, known as ‘the father of the Flower Garden Banks.’
“The coral cover here is greater now than when we first began studying them in the 1970s and 80s.”
Increasing the sanctuary’s size from 56 square miles to 160 square miles builds upon the rich 30-year history of scientific studies and public review of the preservation of this special place.
“The more we found out about these areas, the more we realized that they are as diverse and as productive as any marine communities in the world,” said G.P. Schmahl, Superintendent of the sanctuary.
Sea urchin with sponges and blushing star coral – NOAA
The expansion, announced in January, adds 14 additional reefs and banks that provide important habitat for recreationally and commercially important fish, such as red snapper, mackerel, grouper and wahoo, as well as threatened or endangered species of sea turtles, corals and giant manta rays.
Protections in these new areas will limit impact of activities such as fishing with bottom-tending gear, ship anchoring, oil and gas exploration and production, and salvage activities on sensitive biological resources, according to the NOAA announcement.
“Adding these ecologically significant reefs and banks will protect habitats that contribute to America’s blue economy and drive ecological resilience for much of the Gulf of Mexico region’s thriving recreation, tourism, and commercial fishing,” said retired Navy rear admiral Tim Gallaudet, Ph.D., deputy NOAA administrator.
Located 115 miles off the coasts of Texas and Louisiana, NOAA first designated the National Marine Sanctuary in 1992. Four years later, Stetson Bank, located 80 miles off the Texas coast, was added to the sanctuary through Congressional action.
Expansion of the sanctuary emerged as one of the top priority issues following the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion, which resulted in the largest offshore marine oil spill in U.S. history, with government scientists and non-governmental organizations urging additional protections for marine life and essential Gulf habitat.
You might quite naturally jump to the conclusion that COVID-19 has provided the opportunity through lockdowns and enforced isolation to create the perfect storm in which writers can work on their book.
For some this may be true, however, for others—and I include myself among them—it has created a barrage of situations that have shrunk my writing time, instead of expanding it. On the face of it, my fingers should be running across the keyboard like a woman possessed. So, why aren’t they?
I can sum it up in one word – family – and I use that all-encompassing word with a smile. Despite, the fact my writing time is now at least halved from before, I don’t begrudge it, because I actually feel the need to nurture, comfort, support, and teach those I love during this unique opportunity for my family to develop a deeper understanding of one another.
Family, are like the pieces of a puzzle where the picture is continually changing and everyone is trying to fit themselves together as best they can. Under normal circumstances; pre-Covid; any family difficulties, sibling disagreements, home boundary issues, household chores and finances; could be easily avoided or postponed; by simply exiting the family unit on the pretext you’d be late for school, work, or friends. In my case, any unpleasantness could be shelved until after the first glass of red.
Enter stage right; Covid 19. My daily routine was erased and I found myself sitting opposite a bewildered family at breakfast, who hadn’t said good morning to me in years, as I was out the door by 7am. If asked, pre-Covid, I would have said, ‘we’re a highly adaptable family, we’ve lived in a few countries, we have some experience of the world – bring it on! The reality landed a punch that made my knees wobble. I believe we pulled off the description, ‘plucky’, but that was about it.
Before the week was out, our house had become the center of all operations, with each of us acting autonomously to what was in our individual best interests. My husband was determined to stockpile every can of beans within a thirty-mile radius. My eldest daughter (who has a young son and apartment in the next town) needed to know immediately what my babysitting schedule was looking like for the next year and that I was in her, ‘support bubble’(?), and my youngest daughter believed she was destined to become a spinster. I began planning how to sneak into the garage to write and leave them all to it.
The pandemic forced me to step-up and be emotionally present for my family. The first weeks were the hardest, with no routine and no idea of what I was expected to do, other than cruise the supermarkets for toilet paper. I was hit with what felt like collective shrapnel: upcoming exams, work interviews, medical exams and a speeding ticket – all of which had to be taken online using a webcam. I reminded myself, ‘you’ve relocated across continents with a 3-and-6-month-old – I can do this!’
I don’t remember writing a single line in those first few weeks, while I attempted to calm the rising panic in the house.
I became the IT fixer, cook, teacher, college advisor, nanny, bank negotiator, therapist, nurse, dental hygienist, hairdresser, and veterinary nurse, everything but, a writer. In an even shorter time, tempers frayed, and long-held annoyances and fears were voiced at decibels which left our neighbors blushing.
My, ‘light-bulb’, moment came after revisiting the biscuit tin for the umpteenth time one morning. If Covid didn’t kill me then the stress might. I swallowed my pride, like 90% proof bourbon, gathered the family and announced I couldn’t do it all. You should have seen their faces! Complete disbelief.
Now for the delegation of duties part. I set about the room asking each one of them what their preferred chore was and what hidden skill sets they possessed, pointing out, we didn’t need any twerking done in the house. I was pleasantly surprised and not a little relieved as they took it upon themselves to take responsibility for household chores, communication with the outside world, and scheduling.
In late 2020, we were months into the lockdown and bracing ourselves for the second wave. Our perspective as a family had shifted—it’s no longer ‘poor me’, it’s now ‘what can I do to be useful?’.
Finally, I was writing more furiously and with more conviction and creativity than ever before. I looked at my family, one of the millions on the planet and thought, “wow, these people support me and I support them—and in turn, we support our community”. It was a ripple effect. I’m not alone. We are not alone.
Writing under the pen name Pandora, Claire Pandora Gearty lives in Devon, England with her husband and two daughters. Her debut novel, The Balance-Pilgrim, selling in nine countries since 2015, was adapted for a screenplay, and her follow up novel, Pilgrim and the Geometry of Fear, was published in 2016. She’s working on the third in the trilogy, Pilgrim and the Fall of Kings.
Quote of the Day: “I am beginning to learn that it is the sweet, simple things of life which are the real ones after all.” – Laura Ingalls Wilder (born 154 years ago today)
Photo by: Thom Holmes
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?
230 energetic young adults from across the nation have piled into vans to begin a new adventure serving others through the AmeriCorps’ National Civilian Community Corps (NCCC).
AmeriCorps / NCCC
Two weeks ago, they deployed in 24 teams across the country, assisting community groups that are responding to the COVID-19 pandemic or implementing wildfire management in the West.
“It feels amazing to know that during these unprecedented times I have the chance to make a real difference,” Wilhemina Solley told GNN.
“It was so rewarding to talk to homeowners and know that because of the work I was doing, they are going to be safer and more protected from wildfires. I know that this is an experience I will take with me for the rest of my life.”
The training for AmeriCorps began in October and emphasized Covid-19 safety, teamwork, leadership development, and communication.
From tackling food insecurity to providing affordable housing, these youth are bridging the gap by providing much-needed volunteers and people power.
Habitat for Humanity is one of the groups that is benefitting from the ten week deployments. Two of the teams are wielding hammers and power tools assisting with affordable home construction in Sacramento.
One team traveled to Stockton, California to help with food distribution. Like another group in California assisting with fire management, one team arrived in Oregon to work on similar projects and upkeep the environment.
AmeriCorps / NCCC
From ‘Purple 6 team’ serving in Salt Lake City, Utah, Bode Anderson-Brown discovered the most impactful aspect was getting out of his comfort zone.
“Talking to people on the phone and getting them the assistance they need… I previously considered this to be out of my wheelhouse, but have now discovered that I have a talent for it!”
Other groups are assisting the Health Department by supporting coronavirus testing sites and delivering hygiene supplies to residents.
“Being able to step up and help places that really need it has been such a gratifying way to take a year that would otherwise have been staying at home, and make it a life-changing experience,” Solley said.
They each will graduate from NCCC on July 14th, after completing 3-5 long-term service projects investing over 1,700 hours. In exchange, members receive $6,395 to help pay for college or pay back existing student loans.
The 10-month residential program funded by the U.S. government engages around 2,100 young people every year between the ages of 18 and 26. It was originally envisioned by a bipartisan group of Senators and signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1993.
SHARE Their Experience and Inspire Friends on Social Media…
In honor of Black History Month, an African-Canadian artist created a way to reflect back to young people the heroes of yesterday—and inspire them to greatness tomorrow.
The small business owner in Mississauga, Ontario, calls himself a ‘cardboard artist’—and his new limited edition design features a mirror in the center, surrounded by the faces of 14 legendary Black heroes of history.
Zelpha Comics Ltd.
Luanga Nuwame told GNN he saw news reports in December about an uptick in depression during the 2020 pandemic, especially among kids.
“For the first time in recent history, you have kids with no school interactions… and many are questioning their potential future. From there, the idea for my Reflection of Black Excellence design just hit me.”
From Dr. King and Bessie Coleman, to George Dixon and Rosa Parks, each of those great people, Nuwame says, “were once unsure and scared kids.”
Looking in the mirror, children and teens can be inspired to see the best in themselves, their potential as young future leaders.
Until now, the 43 year-old inventor mostly identified as a ‘geeky nerd-boy’ whose online business, Zelpha Comics Ltd. focused on publishing his array of indie comic book titles likePaper Rock Scissors N’ Stuff Wars and The Adventures of Little Petalianne. Since its inception in 2012, Zelpha Comics has branched out into publishing trading cards, board game concepts, cardboard novelties, and providing custom design services for individuals or businesses.
Luanga Nuwame
With this new product, Nuwame hopes he can do some good. “I hope it can inspire at least some kids to want to be just as great as the greats. Like all my work, I make everything by hand—just me, cardboard, glass, and a cutting blade in my home office.”
The mirror can be wall-mounted and is surrounded by six hand-cut layers of industrial cardboard, made with locally-sourced renewable materials.
He made two versions, a fact that may be fascinating to Americans. The Black legends from the U.S. are household names in the States—people like Booker T. Washington, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, and Jackie Robinson. The Canadian edition features faces not so familiar—Carrie Best, Elijah McCoy, and George Bonga.
By Luanga Nuwame
Both feature an inspiring reminder printed at the bottom: Love Yourself Always.
The price is $49.99, with only 50 copies available of each version. But, he told us, “If the 50 copies are bought, I will definitely create another edition with other great Black History legends featured around the mirror. I want each edition to feature different faces. So, this idea will continue on for sure.”
See all the details on his website, including lead times on products which are made-to-order: HandmadeCardboardInnovations.
Canadian born and raised, his father was from Togo and his mother, Jamaican. On his YouTube channel, Homemade Game Guru, he has shared his love of cardboard, tallying 6 million views of his craft videos ranging from cardboard swimming pools to cardboard furniture, and comic book crafts. Nuwame is also the author of the DIY manual The Cardboard Bible.
SHARE This Inspiring Gift For Black History Month on Social Media…
An absolutely brilliant young woman in Kenya has started a company manufacturing bricks from recycled plastic.
UNEP – YouTube
Nzambi Matee says she was “tired of being on the sidelines” while civil servants struggled against plastic waste in the capital city of Nairobi, so the materials engineer created a product that is 5 to 7 times stronger than concrete.
Founder of Gjenge Makers, which transforms plastic waste into durable building materials, Matee also designed the machines that manufacture the bricks in her factory.
Getting dumps of plastic low and high-density polyethylene and polypropylene from local packaging plants for free, Gjenge Makers produces a variety of different paving stones after the plastic polymer is heated and mixed with sand.
“There is waste they cannot process anymore; they cannot recycle. That is what we get,” Matee told Reuters.
The result is a line of versatile building materials pressed via hydraulic machine into different thicknesses, that sell in a variety of colors that cost an average of $7.70 per square meter.
So far, she has employed more than 110 people, helping to churn out about 1,500 bricks every day. She told Reuters that they have recycled about 20 metric tons of plastic waste since the company was founded in 2018.
SpaceX announced plans for the world’s first all-civilian mission to space. Targeted for late 2021, the flight will be commanded by Jared Isaacman, a 37-year-old entrepreneur and accomplished pilot—and they’re looking for co-adventurers.
Dragon – SpaceX
Named Inspiration4 in recognition of the four-person crew’s mission to inspire support for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, the journey punctuates a new era for human spaceflight and exploration.
Isaacman is donating the three mission seats alongside him to crew members who will be selected to represent the mission pillars of leadership, hope, generosity, and prosperity—and they are using a Super Bowl to announce the search for players.
“Inspiration4 is the realization of a lifelong dream and a step towards a future in which anyone can venture out and explore the stars,” said Isaacman, the founder and CEO of Shift4 Payments. “I appreciate the tremendous responsibility that comes with commanding this mission and I want to use this historic moment to inspire humanity while helping to tackle childhood cancer here on Earth.”
Isaacman and the Inspiration4 crew will undergo commercial astronaut training by SpaceX on the Falcon 9 launch vehicle and Dragon spacecraft, including a specific focus on orbital mechanics, operating in microgravity, zero gravity, and other forms of stress testing, according to this week’s announcement. They will receive emergency preparedness training, spacesuit and spacecraft ingress and egress exercises, as well as partial- and full-mission simulations.
The mission will launch from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida and will be carefully monitored at every step by SpaceX mission control as the spacecraft orbits the planet every 90 minutes along a customized flight path. Upon conclusion of the multi-day journey, Dragon will reenter Earth’s atmosphere for a soft water landing off the coast of Florida.
Isaacman has given St. Jude two seats on the Inspiration4 mission. The first seat is reserved for a St. Jude ambassador with direct ties to the hospital’s vision. This month, members of the public can enter for a chance to join the flight in the second seat and pledge support to the lifesaving mission of St. Jude.
Jared Isaacman -SpaceX
Isaacman has committed to give $100 million to St. Jude and is inviting everyone to join him in attempting to raise upwards of $200 million in support of St. Jude’s multi-billion dollar expansion aimed to accelerate research advancements and save more children worldwide. He will also offer additional support to the St. Jude fundraising effort in the form of other prizes, including flights in a military jet and flight gear.
Rated to fly both commercial and military aircraft, Isaacman holds several world records including a Speed-Around-The-World flight to raise money and awareness for the Make-a-Wish Foundation.
He has flown in over 100 airshows as part of the Black Diamond Jet Team, dedicating every performance to charitable causes. In 2011, Isaacman co-founded what would become the world’s largest private air force, Draken International, to train pilots for the United States Armed Forces.
Dragon, the reusable spacecraft, made history when it was launched into orbit by SpaceX to resupply the International Space Station in 2012, after its maiden flight two years earlier marked the first commercially built and operated spacecraft to be recovered successfully from orbit.
Shift4 Payments is providing marketing support for the mission and will use the Super Bowl broadcast this Sunday, to dramatically introduce the mission and its purpose to the public. A 30-second spot will air during the first quarter of the Big Game and invite all viewers to support and be part of this historic journey through the St. Jude.
“This partnership brings two missions together to create one incredible moment in time that will make an impact for years to come on the global effort to cure childhood cancer,” said Richard C. Shadyac Jr., CEO of ALSAC, the fundraising and awareness organization for St. Jude.
Isaacman concluded, “Today’s announcement is the first step of a very exciting journey. In the lead-up to launch, we’ll share new ways to support and follow our mission preparation and execution with a focus on inspiring and helping others.”
LAUNCH This Opportunity to Space Fans and Entrepreneurs on Social Media…
Quote of the Day: “The more you are focused on time—past and future—the more you miss the Now, the most precious thing there is.” – Eckhart Tolle
Photo by: Fabrizio Verrecchia
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?
You’re walking through a Japanese forest on the southern island of Kyushu. Among the trees you hear the sounds of bird song. A gentle breeze rustles the leaves. A melody you’ve heard before rings faintly through the air. What is that? Bach.
Mori Inc/YouTube
This magical experience is real, thanks to Creative Director Morihiro Harano and his team at Mori Inc.
In a collaboration with the carpenter Mitsuo Tsuda and sound engineer Kenjiro Matsuo, they made and placed an enormous xylophone that’s designed to play Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring—the final movement to Bach’s renowned cantata Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben.
The xylophone is made of hundreds of pieces of different-sized wood; each panel along its length makes a different sound when it’s struck by a cascading wooden ball placed at the top of instrument.
As anyone who’s ever spent any time there can tell you, Chicago is called ‘the Windy City’ with good reason. In winter, when there’s a stiff breeze blowing off Lake Michigan pedestrians often feel more like popsicles than people, making getting in out of the bitter cold a priority.
But when your job is strictly outdoors, staying warm and toasty isn’t an option—unless someone comes to your rescue, that is.
Chicago restauranteur Robert Magiet was driving across town one morning when he spotted a shivering tamale vendor braving the frigid January temperatures. On the spur of the moment, he decided to make her an offer she couldn’t refuse.
Rather than let the woman—who was wearing so many layers of clothing she looked a bit tamale-like herself—turn into a tamale popsicle, Magiet bought out her entire day’s supply—close to 10 dozen tamales, gave her a big tip, and sent her on her way.
After she’d gratefully gone home, Magiet loaded up the copious quantities of tamales he’d purchased and distributed them to some of Chicagoland’s homeless population.
Pleased with the outcome of the morning’s events, Magiet took to Facebook to see if he could continue the trend: “Anyone know of any Tamale Cart vendors that will be out this weekend in the cold weather?” he posted.
“I went to Yolanda near Humboldt Park and bought her out so she could go home today. I’d love to do the same for other Vendors and distribute the Tamales to our Neighbors experiencing homelessness. Let me know of any leads please.”
In the following days, armed with suggestions, Magiet bought up all the tamales from vendors at three different locations. And again, after generously tipping the sellers whose trade had been severely curtailed by both the weather and the lockdown, he shared their wares with people in need.
Helping the hungry in his community is nothing new for Magiet. Having seen firsthand the devastating impact the coronavirus pandemic had on his own industry, he feels lucky to be in a position to provide much-needed relief for those struggling to put food on the table.
After opening a Love Fridge community food pantry outside his TaKorea Cocina restaurant this past June, Magiet teamed up with the owners of Fatso’s Last Stand and Jack & Ginger’s restaurants to prep and deliver 1,300 Thanksgiving meals for the needy.
But Magiet wasn’t through. After Christmas, he partnered with Jason Vincent, owner of Logan Square eatery Giant, to provision and man a food truck serving breakfast and lunch to the homeless.
Next, he reached out to his friend Taylor Hammond, owner of The StopAlong, a Bucktown pizzeria, to ask if he’d be willing to donate his kitchen once a week to help ease food insecurity for families in need. Knowing how much kids love pizza, Hammond readily agreed.
“It’s like, I have a restaurant. I have food. I know people who have restaurants and food. Let’s help people who need food,” Magiet told the Chicago Tribune.
Magiet plans to continue his tamale runs for the remainder of the winter. Pizzas are still on the table as well.
“If somebody in our neighborhood is struggling, we all struggle,” Magiet said. “I’m not trying to save the world. I’m just trying to help people who need food. If I have the ability to go help somebody, I’m just going to go help somebody. To me, it’s literally that simple.”
The food Magiet collects will be distributed to several Love Fridges locations around town, Breakthrough Urban Ministries in East Garfield Park, and to Franciscan Outreach’s homeless shelter in North Lawndale. If you’d like to help, donations can be made to Zelle at 773-807-0057 or venmo: @takoreacocina.
SHARE It While It’s Hot—Send This Story to Your Pals…
By ALICE AUERSPERG, University of Vienna's Goffin Lab
A Goffin’s cockatoo named Figaro and his friends have long been stunning researchers with their ability to craft and use tools, requiring levels of intelligence thought to be similar to a 3-year-old human.
By ALICE AUERSPERG, University of Vienna’s Goffin Lab
Even without possessing the natural wild behavior for making tools, or even the proper beaks normally thought of as sufficient for tool-making, three of these birds managed to craft different tools to fish out cashew nuts from a sealed box.
Tool-making, either with sticks or hooks, is well-documented in the Aves class. As Jennifer Ackerman brilliantly details in her work The Genius of Birds, new Caledonian crows and a few other birds can not only craft sticks to reach larvae in trees, they can actually fashion sticks with hooks on the end, even going so far as to use composite material to make the grub-grabbing a breeze.
Goffin’s cockatoos live on the Tanimbar Islands, a small archipelago in Indonesia. They’ve become a model species for avian intelligence.
Unlike crows, whose bills are quite straight and useful for manipulating the world around them, cockatoos have curled beaks, designed simply for cracking nuts and seeds.
One day four years ago, at the Goffin Lab in Vienna, a center for avian intelligence, Figaro noticed a pebble outside his cage resting on a wooden beam. Desiring this pebble for his own purposes, he tried to pull it towards him using a shard of bamboo.
Impressed, the researchers replaced the pebble with a cashew, triggering Figaro to stick his beak through the bars of his cage and gnaw off a splinter of wood from the very beam the cashew was resting on, before using the splinter to reel the cashew into his tensile beak.
Class is in session
At the Goldegg Goffin Lab, part of the Messerli Institute for Research, the avian clubhouse where Figaro and his friends live, lab director Alice M.I. Auersperg wanted to see if Figaro could impart this self-generated wisdom onto his peers.
Goffin Lab, University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna
Figaro shares the lab with 15 other cockatoos, none of whom are wing clipped, and all of whom participate in trials voluntarily, with the option of simply flying away always available.
“Twelve Goffin’s saw either demonstrations by Figaro, or ‘ghost’ controls where tools and/or food were manipulated using magnets,” writes Auersperg, in the corresponding research paper.
“Subjects observing demonstrations showed greater tool-related performance than ghost controls, with all three males in this group… acquiring tool-using competence.”
Tool-use competence was pretty extreme. Demonstrations by Figaro included trimming the branches off a twig, splitting a thin board of larch wood, and even using his beak like a scissor to painstakingly bite cardboard into a long enough tool.
Figaro’s best pupil was Dolittle, who mastered the twig-trimming, cardboard-cutting, and larch-woodworking, while Pipin only managed the twig, having some kind of phobia towards larch wood.
Kiwi managed both the larch wood and the twig-trimming, but failed with the cardboard, which researchers predicted would be the hardest task.
In a moonshot, Auersperg also gave them beeswax, which none of the four birds could manage to work with.
The ‘Innovation Arena’
Tool-use was just the start of the Silicon Valley careers of Figaro and his friends, as Auersberg has more recently been comparing their intelligence to those of cockatoos that have spent, unlike Figaro, only a short time in captivity.
With a controlled environment to study both innovation behavior and innovation rate, Auersberg created the “Innovation Arena,” (IA) a semicircle of 20 different challenges all baited with a preferred food reward. Each avian would then have 20 minutes to freely explore, innovate, and get as many treats as they cared to work for.
“It is, to our knowledge, the first study specifically targeting innovation rate per time unit in animals and the first systematically controlled direct comparison of problem-solving between captive-born and temporarily wild-caught animals,” read the study, published in 2020 in the journal Scientific Reports.
“It yielded a number of interesting findings, with the most significant one being that long-term captivity does not seem to affect the Goffins’ overall capacity to innovate in the IA but rather their motivation to do so.”
“Captivity bias” is a term used by animal researchers to describe the bump in intelligence, as related to problem-solving, seen in animals subject to long term captivity when compared with their wild peers.
Auersperg’s work presents a new paradigm, at least with birds, that group-identity (captive, wild-caught) could not predict the probability of finding solutions to the 20 problems.
Instead, the unmotivated birds (five wild-caught and one laboratory) consistently couldn’t be bothered to interact with the IA, while the other participants, (three wild-caught and 10 laboratory) “consistently maintained their interest in the setup and discovered a similar number of solutions at the same rate.”
This research presents a series of fascinating conclusions. First, that cockatoos can use tools, and that they may have evolved this behavior either in the wild, or more astoundingly, without ever having had to use it in the real world. Second, cockatoos don’t need to inherit intelligence through genetic instinct, but can actually learn by watching a peer—characteristics reserved for the smartest of animals.
Lastly, it demonstrates that cockatoos should maybe be viewed as seriously difficult pets. They can not only live 40 years, but with the intelligence of a 3-year old, require constant mental stimulation if one is to keep them healthy.
(WATCH the video of Figaro making tools below.)
Share This Fascinating Finding With Your Friends on Social Media…
The idea of billions of people going through a few masks a week during this pandemic definitely rings alarm bells, but a team of researchers in Melbourne, Australia, may have the solution.
Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology
They’ve discovered that adding millions of discarded face masks to road-paving mixtures would actually lowered the cost of the road, while diverting billions of them from landfills.
Just one kilometer of road would need three million masks, and the polypropylene plastic used to make single-use surgical face masks also increased the flexibility and durability of the road.
Jie Li and other scientists at Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology and Melbourne Technical College published a paper in the journal Science of the Total Environment describing the development.
The new composite material is a mixture of about 2% shredded masks, with recycled concrete aggregate (RCA)—a material derived from waste concrete and other minerals from demolished buildings.
This ultra-recycled material was found in the study to be ideal for two of the four layers generally required to create roadways. Paving a kilometer of two-way road with the RCA and three million face masks would result in a rerouting of 93 tons of waste from landfills.
Plastic roads
The roads actually gained greater flexibility as well, since the polypropylene helped reinforce the bindings of rubble particles, as well as giving a bit of stretch to the particle aggregates.
The final product then is more resistant to wear than normal asphalt, as well as being cheaper too, provided there was a method for collecting masks.
Li and his team did a cost-analysis and found that, at $26 per ton, the RCA was about half the cost of mining virgin materials from quarries, and as much as a third of the cost of shipping the used masks to a landfill.
The scaling up would be ideal for large infrastructure projects. For example Washington, a notably progressive state, has the 11th worst roads in terms of unaddressed repairs in the U.S.
If the percentage of damaged roads in Washington state were repaired with Li’s RCA/mask mixture, it would reuse nearly 10 billion masks, sparing American landfills hundreds of millions of tons of trash.
According to Fast Company, Li and his team are looking for private industry partners or governments willing to give their plastic mask road an opportunity for a large-scale test.
DON’T Waste the Good News—Share This Story With Your Friends…
Scottish scientists have developed a system of lasers that melt away cancer cells without damaging normal healthy cells.
National Cancer Institute, CC license
The revolutionary treatment relies on a series of pulses that are short enough to melt the cancer cells, but too short for the heat to transfer to neighboring ones—a major hindrance in past work in the field.
Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh is carrying on the long and celebrated tradition of Scottish medical breakthroughs nearly a hundred years after physician Alexander Fleming isolated penicillin. The research in the laser tech was funded by a £1.2 million ($1.6 million( grant from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.
Professor Jonathan Shepherd led the project, which he told Sky News successfully eliminated colorectal cancer cells in lab tests.
“We proved in the lab that our laser system can remove cancer cells in a way that restricts damage to the surrounding, healthy cells—within the width of a human hair,” he said.
“We’re building on our understanding of lasers in colorectal cancer surgery towards clinical application, and working on adapting it for brain, head, and neck cancers, where it could have huge benefits for patients,” he added.
The technique involves firing the laser in pulses, each measuring about one trillionth of a second, thus preventing the transfer of heat to surrounding tissues.
Light therapy
Three years is the current timeline for further R&D, presumably before the device is ready for clinical tests, which will also include research into an optical fiber-based device that can target and kill cancer cells three times smaller than the ones the laser can remove.
These two aren’t the first light-related therapy projects pursued by Heriot-Watt. Indeed, last September it was announced that the university had secured a £6.1 million ($8.3 million) grant to investigate deep ultraviolet light therapy in the practice of germicide.
Deep ultraviolet light doesn’t occur on Earth, but it has been shown to kill germs including those that have built up antimicrobial-resistance.
Professor Robert Thomson from Heriot-Watt University told the university press: “Some wavelengths of ultraviolet light are known for their germicidal properties, but can cause cancer in human tissues. That’s the problem we’ll solve.”
“We will develop technologies that generate ultraviolet light at just the right wavelength, where the light remains germicidal but without the harmful effects. We’ll also develop technologies to deliver this light precisely, such as optical fibers to transport it into the body without causing further harm,” he said.
Ultraviolet radiation is something astronauts and spaceship builders have to constantly account for, as even brief exposure to it beyond the confines of the atmosphere can lead to cancer and other diseases.
CURE Negativity by Sharing This Story With Your Friends…
