Quote of the Day: “The soul that gives thanks can find comfort in everything; the soul that complains can find comfort in nothing.” – Hannah Whitall Smith
Photo: by Brooke Cagle – public domain
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?
Pickles wrapped in cheese, popcorn with beans, and ice cream on meatloaf, are just a few of the surprising food combinations Americans said they loved.
According to a survey of 2,000 American adults in California, Texas, New York, Hawaii, and Florida, these connoisseurs also said that mayo and peanut butter sandwiches, and cookies dipped in guacamole, are some of their favorite bizarre meals.
The survey aimed to uncover the most unusual food combinations Americans enjoy—as well as the characteristics coinciding with them—and yielded other otherworldly answers, including meatballs and mayo, octopus and roasted bell peppers, and alligator and fries.
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Commissioned by the SPAM brand and conducted by OnePoll, the survey found respondents were most likely to have discovered their favorite food combinations from family or friends (41%).
TOP 5 WAYS AMERICANS DISCOVERED THEIR FAVORITE FOOD PAIRINGS
1. Family/friends 41%
2. Restaurant 36%
3. Social media/print/online news 33%
4. Word of mouth 32%
5. Celebrity endorsement/advertisement 25%
Others found their go-to combinations while dining at a restaurant (36%) or via social media (33%)—and three in four are proud to share their unexpected food mashups with others.
While some combinations are quirky, others are classics: the survey found the most popular food combo Americans love is dipping their french fries in their chocolate milkshake.
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Other top combinations were chocolate and popcorn (44%) or sour cream-and-onion chips with chocolate (36%).
Over a quarter (26%) of respondents can’t eat a meal without adding hot sauce to it while 27% can’t imagine eating a meal without mayonnaise. Beyond hot sauce and mayo, another 28% won’t eat a meal without a salt shaker handy.
TOP 10 MOST POPULAR—AND PERHAPS CRAZY—FOOD COMBINATIONS
1. French fries and chocolate milkshake 55%
2. Cottage cheese and fruit 50%
3. Fruit preserves with cheese and crackers 47%
4. Chocolate and popcorn 45%
5. Peanut butter and apple 44%
6. Sauerkraut and cheese 43%
7. Cheddar cheese and apple pie 42%
8. French fries and pickles 37%
9. Cold pizza and ranch dressing 36%
10. Sour cream and onion chips and chocolate 36%
Also interesting, over half of those surveyed said they’ll have a “freak out” if their different foods touch each other while on their plate.
39% of those surveyed said they sometimes choose to eat their dessert first while 41% skip breakfast altogether to enjoy a larger lunch instead.
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Nearly half get a hankering for a specific snack when their friends talk about a recent food experience, while a third get a specific craving when they’re extra stressed.
TOP 5 THINGS THAT SPARK A FOOD CRAVING
1. Watching food videos/entertainment/TV 52%
2. Talking to friends about a food experience 42%
3. Seeing an advertisement for a specific food 41%
4. Looking for recipes 36%
5. Stress 32%
Fifty-two percent of Americans say their cravings, mostly experienced at night, are brought on by watching food videos or some type of entertainment, whether online or on TV.
Through their search, Americans have found an affinity for popular food trends including flavored gnocchi (39%), SPAM Musubi—which contains a block of rice, wrapped together with nori in the tradition of Japanese sushi (34%), and cauliflower pizza crust (31%), which they would all enjoy again.
What Are Some Of Your Favorite Food Combos? Let Us Know In The Comments Below—And Ask Your Friends by Sharing on Social Media…
A 62-year-old Australian café owner has been affectionately nicknamed “Generous Pete” after he spent his afternoon handing out $100 bills to people left unemployed by the COVID-19 shutdowns.
Despite how Pete Darmos had been forced to close his restaurant in Melbourne amidst the outbreaks, he felt inspired to share his financial fortune with his community last week after watching a particularly emotional news segment about the lines of people queuing up outside of social security offices across the city.
Rather than twiddle his thumbs at home, Darmos rushed to the bank, withdrew $10,000 in cash, and handed out each of the $100 notes to the people standing in line at the nearby Centrelink location in Box Hill.
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“I started at the back of the queue and then basically handed everybody a $100 note,” he told 7 News. “There were tears and disbelief. $100 is not a lot of money, but four or five bags of food meant a lot to these people.”
Darmos later told reporters that although he had initially wanted to keep his identity anonymous, he now hopes that news of his good deed will inspire other people to show some compassion to their neighbors during these turbulent times.
This is just one of many positive stories and updates that are coming out of the COVID-19 news coverage this week. For more uplifting coverage on the outbreaks, click here.
(WATCH the news coverage below)
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Although the Appalachian Mountains are often only thought of as coal country, the ecosystem as a whole is one of the richest and most biodiverse seasonal deciduous forests on earth.
In addition to the mountains boasting rich populations of freshwater mussels, a corridor for migratory birds, and more species of salamanders than any other range, Appalachia is also home to National Parks like the Shenandoah and the Great Smoky Mountains in Tennessee—a park that may have as many as 100,000 species just on its own.
However, Appalachia also has a darker, decades-long history of toxic coal-mining tactics such as mountaintop removal, surface reclamation, and blasting and tunneling that had done almost irreparable damage to local ecosystems, leaving hundreds of barren and bald hills throughout eastern Kentucky and West Virginia.
RELATED: Scientists Use Recycled Sewage Water to Grow 500-Acre Forest in the Middle of Egyptian Desert
These were the scenes which characterized Patrick Angel’s life and career as a coal-industry regulator through the late 20th century—but in 2003, the Kentucky native had the power of spirit to turn over a new leaf and begin working to undo years of environmental degradation that were caused by the policies he once enforced.
Now 70 years old, Angel—an ex-coal man turned sheep farmer and father-of-five—has been the driving force behind a re-greening of coal country that has given out-of-work miners a chance to undue the environmental damage that they contributed to during coal’s hay day.
It has since amounted to 187 million trees being planted over 275,000 acres of former mines.
Far from the glamor of the forest-green uniform and badges of the National Park Service, Angel had a long 25-year career in the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement (OSM) a particularly small and unloved agency in the Department of the Interior.
It was in 2002, after years of telling coal companies to pack rubble and plant grass on the remains of mountaintop blasting and strip mining sites, Angel noticed that the big trees—the life-giving forces of Appalachia—were not returning to the area.
According to a Seattle Times piece, Angel went to the University of Kentucky to pursue a Ph.D. There he met Chris Barton, a young forestry professor who was studying how regrowing forests could solve frequent flooding problems. Barton then went on become Angel’s colleague as he opened a new position in the OSM specifically to work on reforesting old strip mines and mountaintop removal sites.
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In 2004, Angel, Barton, and others created the Appalachian Regional Reforestation Initiative and held the inaugural meeting in Stonewall State Park, West Virginia. Regulators from all levels of government, scientists, environmentalists, and even coal miners agreed—trees should be planted on mines.
Within just a few years, almost all new mines in the states of Virginia, West Virginia and Pennsylvania were reforested upon completion, rather than packed tight and hydro-seeded with grass.
“For the first time in my career, I saw OSM get favorable press,” Angel told the Seattle Times.
Angel and Barton’s journey hasn’t been easy, as tree planting is much-less profitable than mining—and just as laborious.
WATCH: Man Succeeds Where Government Fails—He Planted a Forest in the Middle of a Cold Desert
“Why would someone who once made $60,000 or even $100,000 a year do harder work for a fraction of the pay and no job security?” asked one Kentuckian—a former hire under Angel’s green jobs program Green Forests Work.
Since Obama-era coal regulations made it all but illegal to close a mine without reforesting the area, the slow work of reforesting the area continues without the help of big name environmental groups or major funding.
Instead, the work is being continued by the sweat of people from the mountains of West Virginia and Kentucky who understand the beauty and importance of their forested homes.
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As a means of expressing their gratitude towards the healthcare employees working on the frontlines to combat the novel coronavirus crisis, these businesses and restaurant chains are offering up tons of free goodies to hospital staffers and emergency responders.
According to an open letter from Starbucks president and CEO Kevin Johnson, cafés across Canada and the US are now offering free small coffees to anyone who identifies themselves as a front line responder over the course of the next month.
Although the North American branches are now operating solely as drive-thru locations, they will be providing the free coffees to police officers, firefighters, paramedics, doctors, nurses, and hospital employees until May 3rd.
CHECK OUT: Hotels Are Opening Up Free Rooms to Healthcare Workers Battling the COVID-19 Outbreaks
“This moment in time, as the world is united in an effort to mitigate the effects of COVID-19, requires coordinated action by governments, health care providers, businesses, and people in every community,” wrote Johnson. “Working together, we are making a difference and, together, we will overcome this unprecedented challenge.”
International donut chain Krispy Kreme is also offering free boxes of donuts to health care workers every Monday starting today on March 30th for National Doctors’ Day.
“Just go to a Krispy Kreme drive-thru, tell us what you need and show us your employer badge,” reads the Krispy Kreme website. “That’s it. Pick up some free dozens on the way to work for you and your colleagues, or maybe a free dozen on your way home to family after a long shift.”
Since Crocs has always been a popular non-stick, cleanable shoe option for hospital staffers, the company is also giving away free pairs of shoes through their online site.
Tropical Smoothie locations are also giving away 100,000 smoothies to healthcare workers across the US.
“In cafes across the country, the Tropical Smoothie Cafe family is working tirelessly to support our local communities, which are currently facing unprecedented hardship,” said Charles Watson, CEO of Tropical Smoothie Cafe, LLC. “Our safety is dependent upon the selfless, hard work of our local healthcare workers and first responders and we want to help them in any way we can.
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“The 100K smoothie giveaway is a simple, but impactful example of one way we can show our gratitude and bring a smile to their face—one sip at a time.”
If you want to find more businesses offering free services during the outbreaks, check out this list from Thrillist.
This is just one of many positive stories and updates that are coming out of the COVID-19 news coverage this week. For more uplifting coverage on the outbreaks, click here.
Our family of franchisees and crew are tirelessly working to donate thousands of smoothies to those serving on the frontlines during the COVID-19 crisis. We won’t stop spreading smoothie sunshine until we’ve given away 100,000 smoothies to first responders. #InThisTogether 💚💛🧡 pic.twitter.com/kZjd4XseWA
— Tropical Smoothie Cafe (@TSmoothieCafe) March 29, 2020
This ex-landlady who set up a virtual pub to keep people entertained during the novel coronavirus lockdowns has been forced to employ bar staffers as a means of coping with her 14,500 online customers.
Since 40-year-old Jo Bowtell launched The Virtual Pub Facebook page just over a week ago, she has been regularly hosting live music, quizzes, DJ sets, open mic, and comedy nights.
She started the page in order to bring her local English community together after running The Noel Arms in Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire for several years.
However, the group has become so popular, it has attracted members from as far away as Australia, the USA, Canada, Spain, and Italy.
The flood of visitors has forced the mum-of-two to enlist the help of international staff members to keep her customers entertained when she goes to bed.
She currently has a team of ten made up of “bar staffers”, who talk to customers, and “bouncers”, who moderate the people allowed into the pub.
Hundreds of people have been sharing selfies of them enjoying a tipple from home as they tune in to watch DJ sets on a Friday night or a comedy show on a Sunday.
Bowtell, who is from Spondon, Derby, says the pub is the biggest she has ever ran—and the page has turned into a full-time job during the COVID-19 outbreaks.
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“It has completely blown up. We’ve got 3,000 members just waiting for approval—it’s like there’s a queue at the door to get in,” says Bowtell. “It’s the biggest pub I’ve ever ran and I can’t believe how popular it has become.
“It started as just a way for locals in Melton Mowbray who knew the pub to keep in touch,” she added. “Now, I’ve got people in Hawaii tuning in to watch a DJ set and people stranded in Italy watching comedy nights with their mum in Britain.
“It’s really nice to be able to bring people together in these difficult times in the most British way possible. It is pretty much like going to a pub, but doing it from your living room or back garden.
“It’s keeping communities entertained and friends and family connected together. It is like running an actual pub without the hassle of serving the booze.
“I have to delegate jobs to my team,” she continued. “I’ve had to ask a friend in Australia to moderate the page throughout the night to make sure there’s entertainment for patrons 24/7. I have people looking after the technical side of things and others doing online tutorials for new users.
“I’ve got moderators, who are like bouncers vetting who can come in, and the bar staff chatting to people over a virtual bar counter.
“A bit closer to the nucleus of the idea is a landlady of a pub in Melton is offering to deliver drinks to people. But most people are just drinking from home.
“We’re encouraging people to drink responsibly though. We have coffee mornings as well.”
“As a landlady you tend to be a pillar of the community, who people turn to in times of need. You’re there for the good, the bad and the ugly,” pondered Bowtell. “You almost have a moral obligation, the pub is an extension of the home for most people, but now their homes are the extension of the pub.
“There are key workers getting in from work at odd hours and it is a way to connect with people.
“We keep it light-hearted and there’s a lot of banter but I don’t tolerate bad language or derogatory comments. I’m a bit of an old-school landlady like that.
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“But it means I need a team of people to moderate the page, and arrange artists to perform. We even have a private ‘green room’ group. Its like running a TV station.”
Music and quiz nights have been running through Facebook live video feeds, with answers posted in the comments.
Last Sunday, a comedy night was hosted by four performers communicating through Skype, which they filmed on YouTube and posted to the page—and this weekend, a Jo Wicks-style boot camp was hosted in the morning, followed by a cocktail-making class in the afternoon and live music and a quiz in the evening.
Performers have been able to share their PayPal details with viewers who can donate if they choose to.
There is even a “thought of the day” from 101-year-old Gentleman Jim: the stereotypical “old man in the corner who will sit with his half a pint of mild.”
LOOK: People Are Now Stocking Little Free Libraries With Toilet Paper and Food for Neighbors in Need
“Everyone is buying into it as they can sit at home and be entertained as if they are in the same place. It is a haven,” says Bowtell. “Some members of the page have been playing it through their television. So its like having the pub singers right in your front room.
“Everyone seems to be really happy with it and I feel like something positive is happening in the world. I’m not doing it for profit and the team are working voluntarily.
“In such bleak times, it is important to find a positive—and with all the bad news going around I think it really puts a smile on people’s faces.”
37-year-old customer Dawn Richardson said: “It is keeping me entertained all day. I just love it. It has brought people together.”
This is just one of many positive stories and updates that are coming out of the COVID-19 news coverage this week. For more uplifting coverage on the outbreaks, click here.
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Quote of the Day: “You will never do anything in this world without courage. It is the greatest quality of the mind next to honor.” – Aristotle
Photo: by Veroniki Thetis Chelioti – public domain
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?
Despite the fears, we’re helping Geri and our audience stay positive, talking about what businesses (like Dyson, Cottonelle, Gap, and Anheuser-Busch), as well as neighborhoods, are doing to uplift thousands, and how the FDA has fast-tracked a blood treatment that uses antibodies from recovered COVID patients. Also, some of our podcast stories have reached overseas in amazing ways.
LISTEN and Subscribe to the show on iTunes — or Podbean — or on Spotify.
EMAIL us to be on the show or share good news: [email protected]
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To celebrate its 60th birthday, the nation of Madagascar held its largest ever tree-planting ceremony, with a million seedlings going into the ground in just a few hours after the speeches concluded. The country is preparing to plant a million trees for each year of its six decade history.
“The government has the challenge of making Madagascar a green island again. I encourage the people to protect the environment and reforest for the benefit of the future generations,” said President Andy Rajoelina at the January launch event in Ankazobe district, 100 kilometers (60 miles) northwest of the capital, Antananarivo.
According to two Madagascar writers published at Mongabay, the highly-publicized campaign comes one year after Rajoelina’s election on a platform that promised to “Make Madagascar green again.” It is the culmination of months of hard work by many organizations amassing around 100 million seeds to place into cultivated nursery beds—with schools, NGOs, government ministries, and even the army lending a helping hand.
Some officials supporting the project worry there won’t be enough follow-up to ensure the trees make it to adulthood, but Madagascar’s environment minister vowed to provide support.
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“This time, the action will be continuous, and there will be a follow-up,” said Alexandre Georget. “The state will recruit guards to monitor and protect the young plants.”
This is the world’s oldest island and a country of unparalleled biodiversity, but it is often scored as one of the worst nations for deforestation, with 40% of its forest cover lost since 1940. Most rural populations can’t make money from the incredibly unique forest ecosystem, so the trees are the first to go, when islanders need to make a living.
That’s one of the reasons the environmental ministry and partners are planting trees that bear fruit and spices which can be harvested for export.
Recent movements turned to education, government protections of land, and the training of rural communities to regard themselves as forest protectors, which have all helped slow the decline of forests and exotic wildlife populations like the 100 species of lemur that are found only on this island.
But rigorous reforestation is also needed to support these exotic creatures, so the country is stepping up. It is including some fast-growing non-native species which do pose a risk to the high bio-diversity of flora in the region, but also could go a long way towards achieving a financially stable relationship between the trees and the Malagasy who live under them.
Say ‘Happy Birthday’ to Madagascar! SHARE Their Good News On Social Media…
This blog was submitted to GNN by one of our readers for publishing. If you have a similar story of COVID-inspired kindness, be sure and send it to us for review.
These two teens’ big hearts and their break from high school in Maryland was the highlight of 73-year-old Jimmy Kraft’s week.
The two sophomores from Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring, Maryland have devised a way for Marylanders to get together and protect their grandparents and loved ones who have health conditions, by delivering the groceries and necessary supplies they need.
Kraft, a retired grandfather, has been sheltering at home during the coronavirus outbreak, unable to shop for himself. He is also raising his grandchild who is severely handicapped.
Concerned about contracting COVID-19 and bringing it home to his grandson, Kraft was yearning for some fresh food to be delivered, and he found Teens Helping Seniors.
Soon, Matthew Casertano and Dhruv Pai showed up at his door with a bag full of groceries.
In the service project, teen volunteers maintain the proper social distance from the people they serve, and show meticulous care while shopping and delivering. They wear gloves while shopping, wipe down bags they are delivering, and offer curbside pickup when possible.
Bags of goods are left at doors, and cash is exchanged the same way. “It’s gone from extremely casual to extremely operational very quickly,” Matthew said. “This is one of those times I will remember that people are willing to look out for one another and have each other’s back.”
The idea came about when the two teens shopped for their elderly grandparents and then for their neighbors. Word spread quickly in the neighborhoods and they distributed flyers throughout the surrounding area.
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In 3 days, the teens have recruited several volunteers from other private and public high schools in Maryland as well as Washington, DC. They are now also recruiting college students to deliver groceries to older Marylanders and other vulnerable people.
“This was tremendously helpful,” said Mr. Kraft. “It truly is so amazing that teenagers would spend their time helping one of the most vulnerable populations. I am very grateful for their help and hope that more kids will join them in their efforts.”
Be Sure And Share This Sweet Story Of Young Kindness With Your Friends On Social Media…
This blog was submitted to GNN by one of our readers for publishing. If you have a similar story of COVID-inspired kindness, be sure and send it to us for review.
At Gotha Middle School, we create weekly music videos for fun. Obviously we can’t do them together anymore — and many of the 8th graders have been heartbroken.
So we created a VIRTUAL music video with 8th graders who sent in videos of themselves dancing and singing (and sanitizing) at home.
And the song choice was perfect: “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”
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“Here we have a burgeoning (mangrove) leaf. You take it and you plant the lower third in the mud, and then you take 2 steps—one, two, and then you plant another one,” said the retired politician, with a smile ear to ear, as he wades in the murky coastal waters of Senegal’s Casamance Delta.
Planting since 2009, Haidar el Ali’s efforts have produced one of the most stunning successes in the history of modern large-scale reforestation—the restoration of an entire Senegalese mangrove swamp.
Forests are one of the most resilient habitats on our planet while also being one of the most exploited. Ever since the scientific community began to encourage the planting of trees to ‘re-wild’ previously lost forest ecosystems to respond to climate change, some very determined members of the human race have rolled up their sleeves and produced remarkable results.
RELATED: Scientists Use Recycled Sewage Water to Grow 500-Acre Forest in the Middle of Egyptian Desert
As Senegal’s former Minister of Ecology (and later Fisheries), the 67-year-old was able to rally citizens from the local coastal population to help him plant 152 million mangrove buds by hand, and it created a truly beautiful coastal mangrove forest stretching hundreds of square miles—one of the largest of its kind in the world.
Recently, Jean Francois Bastin et al. estimated that 2.4 billion acres of additional forest cover on the earth (1B hectares) would suck 25% of all the carbon currently being pumped into the atmosphere. Science like this was in large part responsible for the World Economic Forum’s launch of the Trillion Trees vision.
Because they store immense amounts of carbon in their submerged root systems, mangroves and other bodies of coastal vegetation are some of our planet’s most important ecosystems. They help filter river mud runoff from entering the sea, while absorbing the brunt of tidal waves and tsunamis. And they also provide some of the most valuable habitat for near-shore wildlife including birds, insects, invertebrates, crustaceans, reptiles, fish, and even monkeys.
MORE: First Drone Project of Its Kind in Canada is Aiming to Plant 1 Billion Trees by 2028
In a video interview with BBC, Haidar described how the original mangrove forest in Southern Senegal was disrupted in the 80s and 90s as the nation began to build roads which diverted or ended the flow of rivers. “At the time there were no environmental impact studies, of course.”
Next came the lumbermen who clear-cut the coastal mangroves. It wasn’t, as Haidar explains, until the salt from the sea water entering the delta poisoned the nearby rice fields that people began to think about replacing what had been lost.
WATCH: Man Succeeds Where Government Fails—He Planted a Forest in the Middle of a Cold Desert
Though nearing his seventh decade of life, Haidar swims butterfly stroke through the water-borne forest of his and his colleagues’ making, pointing out the presence of returning wildlife as a boon to the local economy.
“The mangrove is a fantastic ecosystem that attracts rain—and it is well known scientifically that this mud captures methane, and that these leaves capture CO2,” he explains.
“I take a lot of satisfaction from this. I’m ready to do it every day, all evening, all my life.”
(WATCH the heartwarming BBC video below… [NOTE: BBC only has video, no full article)
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Quote of the Day: “A man with outward courage dares to die; a man with inner courage dares to live.” – Lao Tzu
Photo: by Sanjay Hona – public domain
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 complete protein—a critical ingredient for life, and one that could finally solve the mystery of how life on earth began—was discovered for the first time “on an extraterrestrial source.”
Using the latest in mass spectrometry, scientists from Harvard identified isolated amino-acids lodged in a meteorite, and later confirmed them to be part of a unique complete protein structure seen nowhere on Earth.
If cells are the architects, custodians, and innovators of organic life, proteins in many ways are the building blocks used to create it, and while this discovery doesn’t outright confirm that life came from the stars, it supports several hypotheses, such as that life could have begun here on earth with help from interstellar space rocks.
Scientists working with a superconductor X-ray source supplier, PLEX, found the traces on a meteorite known as Acfer 086 which landed in Algeria in 1990. Given the name hemolithin, the unearthly protein contains iron and lithium.
While single and even chains of amino-acids have been found in space before, this is the first time that they have been organized into what could be considered a complete protein. More exciting is that the chemical structure of this extraterrestrial protein is not found in proteins on earth.
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To ensure the protein discovered on the meteorite didn’t come from earthly contaminants, the researchers measured the ratio between deuterium/hydrogen, which is similar to carbon dating and helps contextualize the origins of materials.
The results revealed “very high extraterrestrial D/H ratios,” according to the study, and according to a report from Vice, this suggests the protein could have come from a period before the solar system coalesced—in the proto-solar disc or even earlier—in clouds of molecular dust that existed before our sun was born.
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“At this point, we need other scientists to employ our careful methods to repeat our results,” said study co-author Julie McGeoch, a molecular biologist at Harvard University, who said her team is waiting for their published paper to be replicated and sent through peer-review.
Perhaps the most fascinating and, unfortunately, most complicated aspect of the discovery is the strange reaction hemolithin has in water. Studying these water-protein reactions led McGeoch to try to determine whether reactions between the two in interstellar dust clouds could have played a role in the formation of our solar system (see her corresponding paper).
Down here on earth, the same splitting of molecules from water into hydrogen and oxygen would have played a major role in the creation for habitable conditions for life to arise, suggesting that extraterrestrial proteins like hemolithin might have triggered these reactions on earth.
McGeoch noted that: “If true, this could be a chemical energy source, which is the most important ingredient for a biochemical process leading on to life.”
McGeoch is planning to plow forward studying these reactions, acknowledging that the protein, or any protein’s, potential role in the formation of the solar system or otherwise is merely speculation at this point; but for the first time, short of a cell arriving on a meteorite, we have confirmed the off-world presence of at least one major building block to organic life, as well as the possibility of beginning to understand mechanisms that might lead to a planet becoming suitable for it.
Be Sure And Share The Exciting News With Your Friends On Social Media… (Photo by Tom Hall, CC license)
Always in the running for world’s nicest people, the Sikh community of Sydney, Australia has spent over $4,000 Australian dollars on a food donation program for elderly folks stuck in self-isolation.
The group known as “Turbans of Australia,” has so far donated more than 1.5 tons of food that will be delivered to Sydney residents who are unable to regularly shop for basic non-perishable foods.
Speaking with The Daily Mail Australia, Amar Singh, a volunteer truck-driver said that while preference was being given to the elderly, disabled, and people at greater risk of serious complications from coronavirus, his organization would help anyone who calls.
“The health directive of the mandatory 14-day self-isolation has left many people unable to provide for themselves,” Mr. Singh said. “We don’t want anyone to miss out on essentials.”
RELATED: World’s Largest Free Kitchen Feeds 100,000 a Day Inside a Sikh Golden Temple
Mr. Singh also revealed that he and all the members of the volunteer force work full-time jobs, so they are finding time to help people while in their spare time—though some members go so far as donating 25 hours of their time.
Another organization of Sikhs—Sikh Volunteers of Australia, based in Melbourne, were delivering 1,000 home-cooked meals to elderly and others unable to go grocery shopping during the pandemic, predominantly in the city’s south-eastern neighborhoods.
MORE: Restaurant Flooded With Business After Launching an ‘Adopt a Doc or Nurse’ Catering Service
Marpreet Singh, the group’s vice-president, told The Mail that once it became clear that people were in dire need of food, his organization, which runs a free food for the homeless program twice a week, would work around the clock for the next two weeks while the 14-day isolation period wore down.
“(It’s mostly) vulnerable people who are worried about the virus or people having trouble getting food at the supermarket, and disabled, homeless and single parents who are looking after their kids and can’t go out,” Mr. Singh said.
Regardless of which side of the globe they’re on, Sikhs feel like helping out. In New York, the Sikh Center of New York prepared and packaged more than 30,000 meals—this time for Americans stuck in self-isolation.
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Because 30 times more food was being handled in New York than Melbourne, strict hygiene procedures were observed that involved wearing gloves and masks, social distancing, and sterilization of equipment and surfaces.
Like in Australia, the food packages would go mostly to people who are especially vulnerable to the coronavirus, the elderly, and disabled, and would be delivered by volunteer drivers thoroughly examined by physicians to ensure they are free of the virus.
Sikhism isn’t strictly vegetarian, but there is a sector of their faith in which plant-based diets are a must, and so the meals consist of dried fruit, rice, and lentils.
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According to ANI news, several Sikh organizations on the east and west coast, as well as in between, are prepared to work with government agencies looking to help distribute food or medicine to community members who need it.
“We have requested gurudwaras across the country and the world to especially reach out to the stranded Indian students and provide them meals and shelter, which will give relief to many worried parents back in India,” Jathedar Harpreet Singh, Sri Akal Takht Sahib and the spiritual leader of the Sikh community told ANI.
This is just one of many positive stories and updates that are coming out of the COVID-19 news coverage this week. For more uplifting coverage on the outbreaks, click here.
Multiply The Good By Sharing This Story Of Kindness With Your Friends On Social Media…
As a means of thanking school custodians for going the extra mile, making sure school facilities are kept clean and sanitary during the COVID-19 outbreaks, appreciative parents from all over the country have raised thousands of dollars for their district janitors.
Prior to state legislators closing down schools to curb the spread of the coronavirus, two public schools in Williston, Vermont were temporarily closed earlier this month after a staff member fell ill.
Since the employee had just been traveling out of state and had stayed at a hotel with confirmed cases of infection, the school was closed down for a thorough emergency deep cleaning.
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Brooke Thomas, a mother of four, had been discussing the incident with a number of her fellow school parents in a Facebook group when she got the idea to raise money for the janitors conducting the deep cleaning.
“I said we need to recognize that these staff members who are going into potential contamination and a disaster zone, really, and putting themselves at risk,” Thomas told CNN. “It’s already an under-appreciated job as it is, and not one that gets a lot of respect. It was a feel-good way to get people to recognize that.”
In just one short week, Thomas’s Facebook fundraiser for the custodial staff at Allen Brook School and Williston Central School surged past its original goal of $200 and raised more than $7,400 in donations.
Similar initiatives have popped up across the United States, like Shawna Lidsky’s GoFundMe campaign for the custodial staff at her children’s school in Shelburne, Vermont, which has already raised more than $4,000.
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“Inspired by our neighbors in Williston, who raised over $7000 for their custodial staff during the COVID-19 pandemic, let’s come together and pass on this act of kindness in our town!” wrote Lidsky.
According to ABC News, another crowdfunding campaign from Medfield, Massachusetts has also raised more than $9,000 for their custodial staffers.
This is just one of many positive stories and updates that are coming out of the COVID-19 news coverage this week. For more uplifting coverage on the outbreaks, click here.
(WATCH the video below)
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James Dyson, the manufacturing mastermind behind cyclone vacuum technology and other inventions, received a personal call from UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson to build ventilators—a medical device sorely needed in the treating of COVID-19 patients.
“A ventilator supports a patient who is no longer able to maintain their own airways, but sadly there is currently a significant shortage, both in the UK and other countries around the world,” Dyson wrote in a letter to his employees.
Ever eager to play Nikola Tesla, Dyson and his company got to work and—in just ten days—invented and built a brand new easily duplicated ventilator.
“This new device can be manufactured quickly, efficiently and at volume,” said the English innovator.
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The British government put in a purchase order for the first 10,000 units. Already a billionaire, Dyson is donated 5,000 more to international hospitals that are short on emergency equipment.
UK Business Minister Alok Sharma said he wanted to see “prototypes coming forward in a matter of weeks before we move into large scale production,” in a BBC Radio 4 interview, adding later that any model had to meet National Health Service requirements and are safe to use.
“The core challenge was how to design and deliver a new, sophisticated medical product in volume and in an extremely short space of time,” Dyson said, according to CNN. “The race is now on to get it into production.”
Production for the ventilators is slated to be finished in early April, which could be vital to curbing some of the more fatal cases of the virus.
This is just one of many positive stories and updates that are coming out of the COVID-19 news coverage this week. For more uplifting coverage on the outbreaks, click here.
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Quote of the Day: “A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.” – Winston Churchill
Photo: by Martin Adams – public domain
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?
Pandemic or no pandemic, love will find a way—just ask Jeremy Cohen, a quarantined New Yorker who is now dating his neighbor after using a drone to give his phone number to the young woman he spotted dancing on a nearby rooftop.
Cohen, a Brooklyn-based music photographer and filmmaker who has worked with the likes of Miley Cyrus and Lizzo, was just one of millions of Americans twiddling their thumbs in self-isolation last week when he saw an animated figure dancing with gusto on a neighboring rooftop.
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“I thought she was really cute from far away,” Cohen told The New York Post. “During this quarantine, I think everyone is fiending for social interaction. I was like, ‘Oh my god, a girl. I haven’t seen one for so long.’”
Cohen then pulled out his phone to document the meet-cute that followed. In a now-famous series of videos, the two neighbors can be seen waving to one another—although the distance between their building made conversation difficult.
Necessity, however, is the mother of invention, and in a flash of inspiration, the video shows Cohen writing his phone number on a piece of paper, taping it to his drone, and using a remote control to navigate the machine through the air towards his brunette belle.
I can’t believe this actually worked and yes this is a real story pic.twitter.com/X5KbBl0qIe
— Jeremy Cohen (@jerm_cohen) March 22, 2020
Tori Cignarella, the dancer in question, has also racked up thousands of views since posting her own Instagram post of the quarantine disco.
“I was actually hanging out with my roommate … and I was actually doing the dance from ‘High School Musical,’” Cignarella said, referring to the topically uplifting tune of “We’re All in this Together”.
“I was not expecting to get a phone number out of it,” she added. “We could see his balcony pretty clearly from where we were on the roof and he basically just kind of shouted over to me.”
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As he narrated the TikTok video, Cohen admitted that flirting is “normally daunting” for him, but he is also apparently a hopeless romantic—a fact that is clearly evident in the footage that followed.
The second installment of Cohen’s video series shows the couple sharing a dinner date from across the street as they each sit down to an intimate meal, complete with wine and nice tablecloths, on their respective balconies—something Cohen had stealthily coordinated with Cignarella’s roommate.
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“This date is going really well,” Cohen later confided to his social media followers. “Depending on how long this quarantine lasts, I might just end up in a long-distance relationship with someone who lives across the street.”
The couple can be seen laughing and clinking their glasses over FaceTime—and by the end of the update, Cohen says he has made up his mind. “It’s time to take this relationship to the next level,” he says to the camera, with a twinkle in his eye.
PART 2. Her name is Tori. She’s cute and kind and I’m sor happy I met her pic.twitter.com/tyo0AItBbd
— Jeremy Cohen (@jerm_cohen) March 25, 2020
Cohen’s third video installment turned out to be the most impressive of all… (click below to continue the story)
As the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) works to facilitate expedited access to several investigative drug interventions to treat COVID-19 patients, one particularly promising treatment is now set to enter clinical trials in New York.
The convalescent plasma treatment involves drawing blood plasma out of an individual who has recovered from and built up an immunity to COVID-19, testing the blood for the related antibody, and then injecting it into a sick patient so that the antibody can theoretically attack the virus for its new host.
“Use of convalescent plasma has been studied in outbreaks of other respiratory infections, including the 2009-2010 H1N1 influenza virus pandemic, 2003 SARS-CoV-1 epidemic, and the 2012 MERS-CoV epidemic,” writes the FDA.
“Although promising, convalescent plasma has not been shown to be effective in every disease studied,” they continued. “It is therefore important to determine through clinical trials, before routinely administering convalescent plasma to patients with COVID-19, that it is safe and effective to do so.”
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New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said that it was a treatment he was very interested in pursuing as he tries to face down one of the largest outbreaks in the US.
The treatment will now be made available to those suffering severe or life-threatening symptoms of COVID-19 under the FDA’s new emergency drug application procedure.
New York health officials are hoping to recruit COVID patients from New Rochelle—ground zero for the state’s infection and the area with the largest cohort of people who have recovered—to see if any of them would be willing and viable donors.
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Dr. Arturo Casadevall is the chief of molecular microbiology and immunology at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and he’s advocated for the plasma treatment on the grounds of its past successes with diseases like Ebola and influenza.
“It has a high likelihood of working, but we won’t know whether it works until its done,” he told CNN. “We do know based on history it has a good chance.”
He also says he has been “overwhelmed” by the number of people who want to donate their plasma, and at the number of doctors who want to understand and deploy the treatment in countries around the world.
This is just one of many heartening stories and updates that are coming out of the COVID-19 news coverage this week. For more uplifting coverage on the outbreaks, click here.
Treat Your Friends To The Positivity By Sharing The Good News To Social Media…
