Weddings are meant to be joyous celebrations. Of course, even the best-laid plans can run into a snag or two, but when Texas couple Carlos Muniz and Grace Leimann were confronted with the ultimate wedding crasher—COVID-19—it looked as if their dreams for a shared future were about to be shattered. Thanks, however, to the inspired intervention of one caring nurse and his co-workers, tragedy was averted.
Rather than partying with bachelor pals during the week of his scheduled wedding, the groom found himself fighting what looked to be a losing battle with coronavirus in San Antonio’s Methodist Hospital ICU. Hooked up to an ECMO machine (an advanced form of life support), Muniz’s condition continued to steadily decline.
After learning of his patient’s derailed nuptials, nurse Matt Holdridge was immediately struck with an idea shot straight from Cupid’s bow. The original ceremony might have been scuttled, but why not organize a wedding for Muniz and Leimann in the hospital instead?
“The ball just kind of got rolling from there,” Holdridge said in an interview with CNN. “A lot of people started volunteering for it. Before you knew it, every nurse in the unit knew about it and was trying to figure out ways to make it more special.”
For many critically ill patients, having a positive frame of mind can sometimes be as integral a component to recovery as medical treatment. As it turned out, giving Muniz the extra incentive of matrimony proved to be just what the doctor—or in this case, nurse—ordered.
With the wedding back on, Muniz rallied remarkably. “We were able to remove his feeding tube and he was able to eat on his own and drink on his own,” Holdridge reported. “Everything about his overall picture got better and better.”
The couple tied the socially-distanced knot with a bedside ceremony held on August 11. Leimann wore a traditional white dress accessorized with a matching veil and hospital mask. Muniz, along with best man Holdridge, sported matching tuxedo T-shirts. Rather than the bride walking down the aisle, the groom was wheeled in—bed and all—to the accompaniment of stirring music by a wedding party of elated hospital staffers.
It’s been said that “marriage is about two people and weddings are for everyone else.” Nowhere could that adage have been more true than on this particular occasion.
Holdridge told CNN that planning and bringing off such an uplifting event in these trying times proved to be a huge morale booster not just for the happy couple, but for the entire hospital staff as well. “We needed that just as much as they did,” he admitted.
Guess it just goes to show that even in the age of Coronavirus, sometimes love really does conquer all.
WATCH the beautiful wedding below…
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Just over two years since Global Wildlife Conservation (GWC) promoted their ’25 Most Wanted’ list of ‘lost species’, a series of rediscoveries has reduced that number down to 20.
On expeditions around the world, in recent months scientists have been going into the deepest jungles, and to the remotest parts of various countries, all in the name of preserving biodiversity.
Take a look at the charismatic flora and fauna that are now known to still be with us, and celebrate these fascinating finds.
From ‘Lost’ to Found
1. Jackson’s Climbing Salamander
Last Seen: 1975. Rediscovered: 2017
Credit: Carlos Vásquez Almazán
The first species on the 25 Most Wanted list to be rediscovered happened by complete accident, and actually occured months before a GWC-planned expedition to Guatemala’s Cuchumatanes Mountain range to look for the animal.
Discovered by a guard at the GWC-founded Finca San Isidro Amphibian Reserve while on patrol, the story of the “golden wonder” rediscovery will make your heart swell with joy, and includes the culmination of herpetologist Carlos Vásquez Almazán’s life’s work, as well as the rediscovery of two other lost salamander species in the process.
Long and gold like crystallized honey, with a black racing stripe down its back, the salamander’s rediscovery was “for me personally… a moment of sheer joy,” says Vasquez.
2. Wallace’s Giant Bee
Last Seen: 1981. Rediscovered: 2019
38 years is a long time to go without seeing the world’s largest species of bee, one that possesses a wingspan of 2.5 inches. Four times larger than the European honey bee, this giant insect was rediscovered in 2019 on the Indonesian islands known as the North Moluccas.
You can hear the passion in Clay Bolt, the man responsible for its rediscovery, when he spoke to GWC about what it was like to scratch the second species off the 25 Most Wanted List.
“It was absolutely breathtaking to see this ‘flying bulldog’ of an insect that we weren’t sure existed anymore, to have real proof right there in front of us in the wild,” said Bolt, who spent years researching the right habitat type with trip partner, Eli Wyman.
“To actually see how beautiful and big the species is in life, to hear the sound of its giant wings thrumming as it flew past my head, was just incredible. My dream is to now use this rediscovery to elevate this bee to a symbol of conservation in this part of Indonesia, and a point of pride for the locals there.”
3. Velvet Pitcher Plant
Last Seen: 1918. Rediscovery: 2019.
Illustration credit: Originally published in Danser, B.H. 1928
As mentioned above, this species disappeared from the scientific record just as quickly as it entered. Hailing from the bizarre world of carnivorous plants, the velvet pitcher plant was rediscovered in May 2019 on the slopes of a mountain called Kemul, which GWC describes as sitting in the “most remote, last-remaining large patch of true wilderness in Borneo.”
4. Silver-Backed Chevrotain
Last Seen: 1990. Rediscovery: 2019.
Credit: Global Wildlife Conservation
Knocking three species off the 25 Most Wanted list in a year, GWC was delighted when they were able to confirm the existence of the aptly-named “fanged mouse deer”—the first mammal on the list to be rediscovered.
Scientists know almost nothing about the general ecology or conservation status of this species, making it one of the highest mammal conservation priorities in the Greater Annamite Mountains of Indochina, one of GWC’s focal wildlands.
Using local knowledge, the GWC-backed research team placed camera traps around areas where locals claimed to have seen a chevrotain with a silver stripe down its back, distinguishing it from the lesser mouse deer, which is far more common.
This resulted in 275 photos of the species. The team then set up another 29 cameras in the same area, this time recording 1,881 photographs of the chevrotain over five months.
5. Somali Sengi
Last Seen: 1968. Rediscovered: 2020.
Credit: Steven Heritage at Global Wildlife Conservation
The discovery, as GNN reports, of the “tiny elephant shrew” marks the first African animal on the 25 Most Wanted list to be found, as well as the only one to be found living in relatively stable and healthy populations.
A distant relative of goliaths like the manatee and elephant, this tiny incarnation of trunked-mammals races around as fast as an olympic sprinter, vacuuming up ants with its nose in much the same way as the aardvark.
An expedition beginning in 2019 looked to utilize local knowledge about the sengi from the people of Djibouti, rather than the country of the sengi’s namesake. The locals got it completely right, and it took only one trap filled with coconut, peanut butter, and yeast to find the little guy.
“It was amazing,” Steven Heritage, a research scientist at Duke University in the US, told the Guardian. “When we opened the first trap and saw the little tuft of hair on the tip of its tail, we just looked at one another and couldn’t believe it. A number of small mammal surveys since the 1970s did not find the Somali sengi in Djibouti—it was serendipitous that it happened so quickly for us.”
Looking forward
Using renowned and talented artists to help depict the 25 Most Wanted on the GWC website, the conservation charity tries to portray the animals as works of art, and their potential extinction as akin to losing a priceless painting or sculpture.
GWC is currently awaiting a DNA test result to confirm whether or not the Fernandina Galapagos Giant Tortoise can become the first reptile on the list to be rediscovered. So who knows? Soon that Most Wanted list may go down to just 19.
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After six months of the COVID-19 pandemic, a body of scientific work is emerging that shows our immune system is capable of remembering COVID-19 and producing a lasting immunity.
This immunology work also supports the theory of cross-protection, whereby the body can mount a timely and appropriate defense on the simple inference that Sars-CoV-2 is a lot like other coronaviruses.
Over the course of the pandemic, medical fears have been shaped as much by what the future holds in terms of second waves and mutations during the cold of winter, as by what has been happening in the world at any particular moment.
However, studies both peer-reviewed and not, are seeing positive changes in the human innate immune response to COVID-19 that suggest the diseases’ days of unfettered infection are numbered.
For example, in one peer reviewed study from Nature, immunologists in Singapore studied the cellular memory of T-cells, an important immune cell that weaponizes other immune responses in addition to tracking and eliminating pathogens on their own.
People with or recovering from COVID-19 displayed immediate memory T-cell activation to the virus’ proteins.
People with an infection history—going back as far as 17 years—of SARS-CoV-1 which emerged in China around 2002-2003, had long-lasting memory T-cell responses that ”displayed robust cross-reactivity to the N protein of SARS-CoV-2.”
And, perhaps most interesting, SARS-CoV-2-specific memory T-cell activation was found “in individuals with no history of SARS, COVID-19 or contact with individuals who had SARS and/or COVID-19.”
The last point is certainly enough to give us hope. And yet more positive research emerges.
Antibody Activation
Another study, this one not yet peer-reviewed, found that the response of antibodies—one of the primary classes of immune cells used to defend against pathogens—stayed active in saliva up to 115 days after the onset of symptoms in COVID-19 patients.
While antibody and T-cell responses in the blood have been extensively studied, this work, published in the preprint publication, has been one of the first to look at responses in mucus cells. The scientists note this is an important area of research since the virus infects in the upper respiratory tract.
“The immune response is doing exactly what we would expect it to,” Gommerman, an immunologist at the University of Toronto who worked on the study, told CNN. “At least at about four months, which is, as far as, most of us can measure at this point in the pandemic.”
Work on yet another kind of immune cell, the ‘helper’ T-cell as opposed to the ‘killer’ T-cell, was completed earlier in the year when several studies published in Nature and Science found that the helpers could also, more than half the time, identify COVID-19 and sound the alarm, and that these helpers were present in patients that had never been exposed to COVID-19.
The evidence of re-infection is, at this point, non-existent, which suggests humanity’s collective immune system is working well to combat it.
“So that is all good news,” Gommerman said. ”That means that people who are infected with this novel coronavirus should have the capacity to mount what’s called a memory immune response to protect themselves against infection.”
Need more positive stories and updates coming out of the COVID-19 challenge? For more uplifting coverage, click here.
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This is the heartening moment a tiny premature baby helped his dad propose to his mom on the hospital ward.
Credit: SWNS
Little Cobie Sellors was born ten weeks early, weighing just 3lb 9oz, and it was a tricky time for his parents Sian Stafford and John Sellors.
Unable to introduce him to family and friends due to COVID-19 restrictions, romantic John enlisted the help of his two-day-old son and the nurses to help him surprise Sian.
On August 3 popped a note in Cobie’s incubator alongside the engagement ring, asking if ‘Mummy would marry Daddy’.
Sian was so overwhelmed at seeing her son had been able to stop using his breathing machine, at first she didn’t notice the note—but of course eventually said yes.
John, from Pinxton in Derbyshire, England said, “I’m not usually the romantic type, but I really wanted to do something to lift Sian’s spirits and she had been dropping hints for a while about wanting to get married.
“The nurses were great and really helped make it a special proposal to remember,” added the 29-year-old new father. “They just told me to take Sian for a coffee and that they would sort it out for when we got back.
“When we got back the message and ring were there and it was such a lovely moment, I can’t thank them enough.”
Credit: SWNS
The 26-year-old woman said, “I was so shocked, I really didn’t expect it and I was really overwhelmed.
“I was concentrating so much on Cobie that I didn’t even notice the note and the ring at first!
“But then John said, ‘look, I think Cobie wants to know something!’ Then I read the note and it was such a surreal but happy moment.”
The pair, who have a daughter Ruby, four, have been together for eight years. They’re going to start planning the wedding once they have Cobie safely home.
Lynsey Lord, a deputy sister on the neonatal ward at Mansfield’s King’s Mill Hospital, helped with the planning of the surprise proposal. She said, “It’s not often we get the chance to be involved in a proposal on the unit and this was certainly a first for me, but it was so lovely to see the family all so happy, especially during what has been such a difficult time for everyone.”
Have you heard of a proposal as sweet as this one? We’d love to hear about it.
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Quote of the Day: “Be positive, stay strong, and get enough rest. You can’t do it all, but you can do your best.” – Doe Zantamata
Photo: by Shifaaz shamoon
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It looks like the frequency of charitable giving by individuals in the US is continuing—and even increasing—during the economic uncertainty of the coronavirus pandemic.
The report from Lending Tree reported that about two-thirds of respondents said they had not changed their charitable giving habits from previous years—with 34% donating more than once within the last year.
The report also uncovered increases in forms of giving which aren’t usually recorded due to the inability to write them off on income taxes. These included donating to a local relief fund (13%) and sending money to a loved one who was laid off (12%).
56% said they make recurring donations, meaning they donate to the same charity or organization once a month or more often.
The generosity was impressive when it involved people they knew personally who are affected by the lockdowns: “Some consumers (30%) continue to pay for services they can’t use due to social distancing guidelines, like housekeeping and babysitting.”
There was a lot of public debate before the first U.S. stimulus package was passed about whether people who had monetary means or property would—upon recognizing the gravity of the financial blow the country was about to receive—continue to support people who relied on them for their livelihoods.
The survey shows that many did indeed choose to make sure person-to-person service providers did not fall on hard times.
The CARES Act, the first COVID-19 stimulus package, encouraged donations by allowing regular household earners to write-off anything larger than $300 from their income tax total without requiring them to go through the process of itemizing their deductions.
Heavy duty giving – up a whopping 667%
While personal charity is a great marker to judge how charitable a society is, it’s equally amazing to note that large-scale corporate giving actually increased during 2020.
In June, Fidelity Charitable, the largest organizer of donor-advised funds (DAFs)—a kind of charitable savings account—reported that these funds have donated $3.4 billion in 2020, a 28% increase in giving in the first six months, over the same period over the previous year.
Together the donors directed a whopping 667% increase in their grants to food banks and other food assistance programs across the States.
In June, Good News Network reported that Schwab Charitable alone saw a 46% increase in DAF grants, totaling $1.7 billion across 330,000 separate grants, it was the most generous period of giving recorded in the history of one of America’s largest philanthropic funds.
“The last six months have been incredibly challenging, and I am truly inspired to see donors utilize their donor-advised funds to help communities and nonprofits impacted by health, economic, and social crises,” says Kim Laughton, President of Schwab Charitable.
Washington Examiner also reported on a statistic that found DAFs managed in 32 different community foundations in 21 different states “reported an 80 percent increase in donations… from March to May, compared with the same period last year.”
This is a heartening reminder once again that the United States has some very generous citizens, despite COVID-19 concerns.
Need more positive stories and updates coming out of the COVID-19 challenge? For more uplifting coverage, click here.
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A man in South Carolina learned how to cook by watching YouTube videos, and now he’s gone on to open a restaurant that has employed 60 people.
Octavius “Tay” Nelson grew up washing dishes in restaurants where his father served as cook. He always saw the joy that his dad’s food brought to so many people outside their family.
After his father and brother passed away, Nelson wanted to honor their memory by engaging in that shared passion for food. The problem? Nelson didn’t know how to cook.
Turning to YouTube, he watched endless “how to” videos to gain kitchen skills.
“I watched every video I could find,” Octavius tells GNN. In that way, he says, I “learned everything from how to cook different types of meat to business-related tips on how to run a restaurant.”
At home in Fountain Inn, South Carolina, Nelson eventually launched a line of all-natural seasonings inspired by his father’s recipes, but his ultimate dream was to open a restaurant. So he turned back to YouTube to search everything he needed to know about running a food business.
Through using the skills he learned on YouTube, Nelson started a catering business. He finally made his dream of opening a restaurant come true in 2018.
Bobby’s BBQ, named after his father and brother, has provided dozens of jobs for his community, and more than 35,000 people have come to taste his barbecue rubbed with the house-made seasonings.
”We are incredibly grateful that we’ve managed to keep our doors open through this pandemic, so we can continue to have a positive impact on our community, as well as keeping our staff employed.”
(WATCH Bobby’s amazing story in the video below.)
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Joining a number of high-profile species rediscoveries in the last two years, a tiny elephant shrew—also known as the Somali sengi—has been found to still be with us, and in quite healthy numbers too.
Credit: Steven Heritage at Global Wildlife
Despite not being documented by researchers since 1968, the sengi, a tiny big-eyed mouse with a long tail and a trunk-like nose that’s native to Somalia, was rediscovered living in well-preserved habitat in neighboring Djibouti, and in relatively-stable populations.
An expedition beginning in 2019 looked to utilize local knowledge about the sengi from the people of Djibouti who said it was still there. Sure enough, it took only one trap filled with coconut, peanut butter and yeast to find the little guy.
“It was amazing,” Steven Heritage, a research scientist at Duke University in the US, told the Guardian. “When we opened the first trap and saw the little tuft of hair on the tip of its tail, we just looked at one another and couldn’t believe it. A number of small mammal surveys since the 1970s did not find the Somali sengi in Djibouti—it was serendipitous that it happened so quickly for us.”
A distant relative of goliaths like the manatee and elephant, this tiny incarnation of trunked-mammals races around, vacuuming up ants with its nose in much the same way as the aardvark.
Correcting The Record
One of the least understood members of the 20 species-strong elephant shrew genus, the sengi lives in habitat that is unsuitable to most human activities, allowing it to remain relatively undisturbed and secure.
“Usually when we rediscover lost species, we find just one or two individuals and have to act quickly to try to prevent their imminent extinction,” said Robin Moore, of the Global Wildlife Conservation (GWC) group, who had placed the Somali sengi on their 25-Most Wanted List of missing species.
According to the Guardian, the team set out 1,000 traps and caught 12 of the little shrews while obtaining the first video and photographic documentation of the animal for science.
Along with rediscovering the species, the team gathered DNA samples which later revealed the Somali sengi to be more closely related to sengis in other corners of the continent like Morocco and South Africa.
This finding has suggested that the Somali sengi needs to be placed in a new genus—moving from Elephantulus to Galegeeska.
Like all great discoveries in science, the questions answered are only equal to the new mysteries presented, but the researchers’ work has highlighted Djibouti as a biodiverse nation worthy of scientific study. With any luck, perhaps more discoveries are waiting to be made among its desert and salt lakes.
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What do you do when a stray dog shows up at your car dealership day after day? You give him a job, of course. Or at least, that’s what you do if you’re Emerson Mariano, a Hyundai Prime branch manager in Brazil.
Instagram
Mariano and his staff had taken a shine to a member of Brazil’s roving dog contingent who’d gotten in the habit of making regular visits. One rainy night the steadfast stray was invited to come in from the streets.
Little did the drenched pooch realize as he munched an impromptu meal, he’d found his “furever” home. But as far as the management was concerned, throwing the dog a lifeline instead of merely tossing him a bone only made sense.
“The company has always been pet friendly,” Mariano told Top Motors Brazil. “We decided to embrace this idea in practice too,” he said, citing the need for both heightened awareness and positive intervention to help curb Brazil’s growing population of abandoned animals.
After his adoption, the newly christened Tucson Prime was given the title of “Official Meeter & Greeter.” The staff says his “caring and docile nature” made him a natural for the role, but the persistent pup has already set his sights on climbing the corporate ladder.
In addition to his concierge duties, Tucson Prime is honing his marketing skills with regular posts to his “very own” Instagram account. While his musings have made him something of an Internet sensation, the handsome hound remains doggedly humble.
“Where I came from,” the doggo blogger reports, “I didn’t have this technology. Me and my humans are still trying to find a way to deal with so much love and affection.” (While he and his crew haven’t worked out all the deets, the caring canine is determined to answer all of his fan mail.)
Quote of the Day: “One of the keys to happiness is a bad memory.” – Rita Mae Brown
Photo: by Matthew T Rader
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‘Fake it till you make it’ is an aphorism that suggests that by imitating confidence or an optimistic mindset, a person can realize those qualities in their real life.
A new study from researchers at the University of South Australia have confirmed that the very act of smiling by simply moving your facial muscles, can actually trick your mind into being more positive.
The study, published in Experimental Psychology, evaluated the impact of a covert smile on perception of face and body expressions. In both scenarios, a smile was induced by participants holding a pen between their teeth, forcing their facial muscles to replicate the movement of a smile.
Credit: Cherie Joyful
The results found that facial muscular activity generates more positive emotions.
Lead researcher and human and artificial cognition expert, UniSA’s Dr Fernando Marmolejo-Ramos says the finding has important insights for mental health.
“When your muscles say you’re happy, you’re more likely to see the world around you in a positive way,” Dr Marmolejo-Ramos says.
“In our research we found that when you forcefully practice smiling, it stimulates the amygdala—the emotional centre of the brain—which releases neurotransmitters to encourage an emotionally positive state.
“For mental health, this has interesting implications. If we can trick the brain into perceiving stimuli as ‘happy’, then we can potentially use this mechanism to help boost mental health.”
The study replicated findings from an older ‘covert’ smile experiment by evaluating how people interpret a range of facial expressions (spanning from frowns to smiles) using the pen-in-teeth mechanism. It then extended this using point-light motion images (spanning from sad walking videos to happy walking videos) as the visual stimuli.
Dr Marmolejo-Ramos says there is a strong link between action and perception.
“In a nutshell, perceptual and motor systems are intertwined when we emotionally process stimuli,” Dr Marmolejo-Ramos says.
“A ‘fake it ’til you make it’ approach could have more credit than we expect.”
Wearing certain contact lenses could reduce by 50% worsening eyesight in children, suggests a new study.
Multifocal contact lenses, typically used by adults over the age of 40, were found to curb the advancement of myopia in children as young as seven—by nearly 50 percent.
File photo by איתן טל, CC
There has been an increase in the condition of myopia among children, linked to surging screen time and shrinking outdoor time during early eye development.
Myopia, or nearsightedness, is linked to the onset of eye diseases in later life, but opticians have questioned prescribing contact lenses for young children given safety fears.
The study’s findings have helped to allay such concerns and the researchers now suggest that lenses could become a legitimate treatment option for mitigating myopia.
The condition occurs when a child’s developing eyes grow too long, from front to back. Instead of focusing images on the retina—the light-sensitive tissue in the back of the eye—images of distant objects are focused at a point in front of the retina.
As a result, people with myopia have good near vision but poor distance vision, the team explained.
Regular single vision prescription glasses and contact lenses are used to correct myopic vision, but fail to treat the underlying problem.
The study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, found that multifocal contact lenses correct myopic vision in children while simultaneously slowing myopia progression by slowing eye growth.
Study author Dr Jeffrey Walline, at the Ohio State University College of Optometry, said, “It is especially good news to know that children as young as seven achieved optimal visual acuity and got used to wearing multifocal lenses much the way they would a single vision contact lens.
“It’s not a problem to fit younger kids in contact lenses. It’s a safe practice.”
Dr David Berntsen, who led the study at the University of Houston, said multifocal lenses slowed myopia progression by about 43 percent over three years, compared with single vision lenses.
He added, “Greater amounts of myopia and longer eyes are associated with increased prevalence of eye conditions that can lead to visual impairment.
“Our study shows that eye care practitioners should fit children with high-add power multifocal contact lenses in order to maximize myopia control and the slowing of eye growth.”
Credit: SWNS
Myopia cases has surged over the past five decades. In 1971, a quarter of Americans were myopic, compared to a third in 2004.
There are currently no tests to identify which individuals with myopia will progress to high myopia, but the younger a child is affected, and left without intervention, the more opportunity their myopia has to progress.
Some of the world’s largest mobile video game developers have formed an alliance to raise awareness about renewable energy and the climate crisis through the UN’s “Playing For the Planet” initiative.
Credit: United Nations, YouTube
Consisting of around 11 companies, including the console producers Sony and Microsoft, and 25 design studios with mobile games played by 900 million active users, Playing For the Planet seeks to leverage a huge number of eyes and ears towards the goal of combatting not just evildoers in a game, but unmitigated climate change in the real world.
To this end, mobile gaming studios teamed up in spring 2020 to host the first ever Green Mobile Game Jam, which brought the best minds in an extremely competitive business together to come up with educational solutions for spreading awareness about the climate crisis.
“We are excited to see the gaming industry throw its weight behind global efforts to reverse the climate crisis,” said Inger Andersen Executive Director of UN Environment Program. “The climate emergency needs all hands on deck. In reaching out to 250 million gamers, we hope to inspire audiences to take action.”
Some of the mobile game ideas have already been integrated, and the rest will go live by early 2021 or sooner.
Organizers hope that, by next year, additional companies will join in the jam, potentially reaching up to a billion gamers.
Green Mobile Game Jam
Different developers all had their own ideas on how to encourage initiatives like tree-planting and habitat restoration, on how to educate users on renewable energy and the environmental impact of climate change, and the Green Mobile Game Jam from the Playing For the Planet initiative saw the immense creativity of the mobile video gaming world on full display.
Some developers added special unique stages and levels of gameplay featuring world regions that are most-affected by the climate crisis: including Bali in Indonesia and the Amazon rainforest, while others added playable storylines that allow users to experience a parallel story involving greenhouse gas emissions and the warming of the earth.
Others ran in-game fundraisers that would plant trees or support animal conservation projects. Contributing in the game would earn the player special rewards. Creative Mobile—who won an award for fastest implementation of a solution in their game ZooCraft—used this method to contribute $14,000 dollars to the Wolf Conservation Center.
“We felt compelled to act when invited to participate; climate change will ultimately affect us all and is simply too important to ignore,” says Alex Rigby, Chief Creative Officer of Playdemic, the studio which was voted as the winner of the Green Mobile Game Jam.
“And we’re in a position to help; the ubiquity of mobile games represent an unusually effective way to communicate to people across the whole of society.”
Playdemic used their Golf Clash game as a platform to attempt to feature honest, neutral messaging about climate change and easy commitments users could make to help the climate crisis.
Console Gaming Joins In The Fun
Launched in September 2019 at the UN Headquarters in New York during the UN Secretary-General’s Climate Action Summit, it wasn’t just the mobile gaming industry that pledged to throw their power behind the climate crisis.
From the holy trinity of console gaming, Sony’s introduction of energy efficient technology and suspended low-power mode for next-generation Playstations puts the company on track to save 29 million tons of carbon dioxide by 2030.
Another member of the console-gaming power trio pledged to engage gamers in sustainability efforts in real life through the Minecraft ‘Build a Better World’ initiative, which saw Microsoft players take more than twenty million in-game actions.
Minecraft is an open-world game that allows you to build things with blocks. Users can build anything, from a house to a skyscraper, even portals to the underworld, and one gamer famously created a 1:1 scale model of the entire planet in Minecraft—making it the perfect electronic space for sustainability messaging.
Together, mobile and console gaming has as broad a user base as professional sports, but with a much younger average audience, representing an enormous opportunity to inspire change in the next generation.
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Lifelike ‘companion animals’ are now offering the elderly all the feel-good perks of pet ownership, but without the drawbacks.
According to research, pet therapy has numerous benefits that run the gamut from helping alleviate anxiety and loneliness, to lowering blood pressure and cortisol levels, to fostering enhanced social interaction.
Credit: Hasbro/YouTube
“The simple act of petting animals releases an automatic relaxation response,” a report from UCLA Health reveals. “Humans interacting with animals have found that petting the animal promoted the release of serotonin, prolactin, and oxytocin—all hormones that can play a part in elevating moods.”
Unfortunately, the practicalities of pet ownership: feeding, grooming, and vet visits—not to mention cleaning up the occasional “Oops!”—all too often limits seniors, especially those in assisted living, from having a fluffy friend to call their own. But now, thanks to a novel breed of robotic puppies and kitties, many seniors are getting a “new leash on life.”
The leader of the pack when it comes to robotic companion animals is Joy For All Companion Pets. This line of “adoptable” animatronic fur babies from manufacturer Ageless Innovation was specifically created by a group of former Hasbro toy designers with seniors in mind.
“We have technology that allows you to respond to touch and sound and light in different ways,” Ageless Innovation CEO Ted Fischer told CNN. “That’s part of the magic of a companion pet.”
In addition to providing companionship, robot pets have shown amazing promise for improving the quality of life for Alzheimer’s and dementia patients.
In a CBS Health Watch interview filmed at the Memory Care Unit at the Hebrew Home in Riverdale, New York, spokesperson Mary Farkas explained their cadre of resident robotic pets are often used to soothe agitated dementia sufferers rather than resorting to drugs. “These animals are a wonderful way, a nonpharmacologic approach to offer comfort and a sense of calm,” she said.
Decreased meds and a calming influence are definite checks in the plus column, but the benefits don’t stop there. Often offering a dose of much-needed role reversal, robotic pets also boost seniors’ self-esteem. “[They] provide an opportunity for the resident to be in the role of the nurturer and the caregiver,” Hebrew Home CEO Daniel Rheingold told CBS.
So, are robotic pets the “purrfect” solution for seniors suffering unrequited puppy love or crushing on kitty in a cat-free zone? Signs point to “Woof!”
WATCH the story from CBS…
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A team of Florida scientists have recently discovered that grey reef sharks form long-lasting relationships with each other that straddle the line between friendships and business partners.
Credit: Kydd Pollock
“We don’t think of sharks as social animals, but they do have social groups,” says Yannis Papastamatiou, who was involved with the study.
Averaging six feet, or two meters in length, the large-eyed sharks of the Pacific and Indian oceans may be aggressive nocturnal predators, but apparently they have a soft side.
Scientists found that the social groups of the sharks were remarkably stable, with the same individuals remaining in their cliques of around 20 animals for years—while rarely ever switching associations despite the presence of almost 8,000 sharks which frequented the reefs surrounding the atoll.
Around the Palmyra Atoll, a remote island 1,000 miles from Hawaii, researchers from Florida International University in Miami, tagged 41 grey reef sharks with acoustic transmitters that emit a unique sound picked up by a perimeter of receiving devices stationed around the island.
For four years, anytime a tagged shark would come within 300 meters of the receivers, their identity would be logged in a database.
The remarkable discovery leaves many questions unanswered, for example how the sharks identify each other, and what the purpose of their social groups are.
The Mafia Of The Sharks
Credit: David Clode
They is no proof that the sharks have any emotional bond with each other, so Papastamatiou, speaking with the New Scientist, was unsurprisingly reluctant to refer to the sharks as friends.
He and his colleagues opted to call them “associates,” which is maybe a little more mafioso, but considering how grey reef sharks often use their aggression to bully larger sharks, maybe it’s for the best.
One hypothesis as to the purpose of these “associations” is that they are loosely organized hunting units. Since the sharks hunt at night beyond the reach of the receivers, there wasn’t any evidence that deliberate cooperation was occurring in the dark ocean beyond the view of the research team’s devices.
However, it may be a sort of poaching strategy, whereby if the shark to attack first loses out, his “associates” have an opportunity to follow up. This might even-out the success rate for all the members of a group over a long enough time span, increasing their overall survival rate.
This discovery makes grey reef sharks one fascinating fish. They display a collection of highly unusual behaviors in the shark world, including performing threat displays, and now, as scientists have just found out, social congregation.
Quote of the Day: “Now, if you want me to get out of the world, you had better get the women votin’ soon. I shan’t go till I can do that.” – Sojourner Truth (19th Amendment is 100 years old)
Photo: Sojourner Truth, Library of Congress
With a new inspirational quote every day, atop the perfect photo—collected and archived on our Quote of the Day page—why not bookmark GNN.org for a daily uplift?
A teenage boy annoyed by road signs left dirty and hedges overgrown during lockdown has become a local hero after going on a mission to clean them all up.
Joseph Beer – SWNS
Joseph Beer noticed dozens of neglected street signs and hedgerows while out on his daily walks with his mom Lisa, 52.
The 15-year-old soon decided he wanted to clean up the streets. With the help of dad, he rigged up a trailer to fix to the back of his bike, and started peddling around the streets near his house.
Almost every day, Joseph, from Chatteris in Cambridgeshire, England, has headed off to do more tidying up.
The youth, who has autism and ADHD, has scrubbed street signs that have been left almost unreadable due to moss growing over them. In other places, hedges have become hazards, left to grow until they almost completely obscure road directional signs from view.
Joseph’s efforts have not gone unnoticed by the people of Chatteris and surrounding towns—particularly a driving instructor who got in touch to thank him for uncovering hidden road signs.
One kindly neighbor, who Joseph’s family did not even know, was so impressed by his clean-up of the town, that she set up a GoFundMe page to reward him.
The fundraising campaign, which has now ended, raised almost £1,000 in donations.
Joseph’s mom Lisa says that her son has been working “really hard” almost every day of lockdown.
Credit: SWNS
“We are absolutely blown away with everything he’s done. His dad and I are so proud.
“He comes back absolutely filthy, and still carrying the bucket of water, which by the end of the day has turned black from all the cleaning he’s done.
“Then he’ll hop in the shower and get ready to do it all again the next day.”
He started sharing photos on his Facebook, too, and reports, “I’ve found it really satisfying to look at the ‘before’ and ‘after’ pictures, and see the obvious improvements I’ve made to my hometown.”
His mother says he’s got an “incredible heart,” and now he wants to share the money that was raised for him. Joseph is donating to the local food bank, “for families who are struggling to feed themselves at the moment”.
Credit: SWNS
The teen, who usually boards at a residential, therapeutic school during the week, had been in need of routine since the school closed in March—and he found it with the cleaning project.
“Every day he wanted to find something new and challenging to take on. He had lots and lots of energy, and he wanted to put it to practical use.
Three-quarters of Americans with cats couldn’t have gotten through the quarantine without their pet, according to a new survey.
The poll of 2,000 cat owners (57% of whom also have a dog) looked at the various benefits provided by our furry friends during the pandemic, and how they helped us through.
Pets were found to ease feelings of anxiety. 57% said having a pet made them feel less alone, and 49% said it helped them feel less anxious.
Those weren’t the only benefits though — 41% said being with their pet gave them someone to talk to, and 35% said their pet brought a feeling of positivity to their days.
Conducted by OnePoll on behalf of Royal Canin following International Cat Day Aug. 8, the survey also found quarantine was an opportunity for respondents to learn more about their feline friends.
Two-thirds (66%) of cat owners surveyed learned or noticed something new about their pet, and three out of four respondents became closer to their kitty as a result of the quarantine.
Being cooped-up indoors gave respondents time to uncover a new spot their cat enjoys hiding in (64%), notice a new behavior (57%) and discover a new food their pet likes (55%).
But our pets, like many of us, may be ready for things to return to normal! The survey found 73% of those surveyed said their cat seems to be ready for some space.
“Although many cats are enjoying the attention from their owners being at home, most cats are independent and do a good job of structuring their day themselves,” said Laura Pletz, DVM, Scientific Services Manager, Royal Canin. “Owners should make gradual changes to help reduce stress and ease the transition back to ‘normal’ life.”
With all the things our pets do for us — during quarantine and beyond — it’s no wonder that respondents want to return the favor.
Eighty-six percent of respondents agreed that they want to take care of their pet because their pet takes care of them.
BENEFITS OF HAVING A PET DURING THE QUARANTINE
Helped them to feel less alone 57%
Helped them to feel less anxious 49%
Playing with their pet helped encourage them to move around my space 47%
Gave them someone to talk to 41%
Helped give them a schedule throughout the day 39%
Brought a feeling of positivity into my day 35%
And, another silver lining of the pandemic: 66% plan to improve how they care for their pets since COVID-19.
In California last week, a local police officer became a hero when she pulled a man stuck in his wheelchair from the tracks within seconds of a train barreling past.
Her body camera footage shows the tense moments leading up to the rescue.
On the morning of August 8th, at around 8:44am, Officer Erika Urrea jumped out of her patrol car when she saw what was about to happen. The railroad crossing arms were coming down. A train was approaching.
She ran over and, after the wheelchair wouldn’t budge, pulled the anonymous man from his chair. They both fell back onto the ground and were safe, just moments before they would have been hit.
The man, 66, suffered a leg injury, but was immediately tended to by Urrea and her colleague, Officer Delgado, who had arrived at the scene to help.
The team at Lodi Police Department wrote of the daring events on Facebook, “Officer Urrea risked her own life to save another and her actions prevented a tragedy today. We are extremely proud of her heroism.”
(WATCH the body camera footage of Officer Urrea’s brave rescue below.)
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One of the great inventions in human history, refrigeration is being brought to rural fish and produce markets in Nigeria through an entrepreneur’s invention of 100% solar-powered walk-in cold storage rooms.
ColdHubs
Nnaemeka C. Ikegwuonu has been showered with awards for his pioneering ColdHubs, which use transformative technology that, like all great innovations, tackles several problems at once.
Around 6,000 tons of fish are harvested every day on the rural Nigeria side of the Niger Delta, but due to the tropical climate only 2,000 tons of fish are sold fresh. The story is the same for fruits and vegetables, which on average can survive a maximum of only two days in the West African nation’s heat and humidity.
Designed specifically for off-grid areas, ColdHubs employ rooftop solar panels to generate enough electricity to power the units in all weather conditions, while providing reliable 24/7 autonomous refrigeration. This cuts down on spoilage, but also leads to much higher profits.
A bag of fresh bonga fish should in theory fetch between $20 and $40, but without storage facilities, fishermen either sell the same bag for much less to avoid spoilage, or they smoke or dry the fish and sell it days later—while accepting much less due to the higher value and demand that fresh fish commands.
ColdHubs currently serves 3,517 farmers and fishermen. The company has so far installed 24 Hubs, saving over 20,000 tons of food from spoilage, and employing 48 women to service the refrigerators. At a rental cost of $1 a day on a pay-as-you-go subscription model, users can increase their income by being able to sell more fresh food.
An entrepreneur for the moment
Once an agricultural radio host, Ikegwuonu grew up on a farm and understood that food spoilage was a major impediment to farmers’ livelihoods.
ColdHub fridges can extend the life of fruits and vegetables from two to 21 days. This increases vendor and farmer profits by 25% on average, says the company. It also increases entrepreneurial energy among the users, as literal days of their life are freed up from having to spend time buying, sourcing, shipping, or throwing away extra produce.
ColdHubs
Ikegwuonu won the 2020 Waislitz Global Citizen Disruptor Award and its $50,000 cash prize, which he says he will use “to build two ColdHubs in two fruit and vegetable markets, saving 3,285 tons of food from spoilage yearly, increase the income of 200 users, and create four new jobs for women.”
Ikegwuonu told Global Citizen., “Tackling food spoilage is important because, according to the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), it is estimated that a 10% reduction in global food loss will result in an 11% decrease in hunger, and a 4% decrease in child malnutrition worldwide.”
“In Nigeria, a 35% reduction in post-harvest tomato loss alone would [impact] vitamin A deficiency for up to 1.1 million children per day,” he added.
It’s a classic economic case of ‘what is seen and what is unseen.’ And Ikegwuonu, Nigeria, and even the world, might never understand how much entrepreneurial, educational, or economic advances could arise from ColdHubs’ presence in the country.
