235 years ago today, John Fitch was granted a US patent for a boat propelled by steam power which used mechanical paddles to propel it atop lakes and rivers—an invention that revolutionized commercial transportation of both passengers and freight. The American inventor, clockmaker, silversmith, surveyor, entrepreneur, and engineer, also provided beer, rum, and other supplies in 1778 to General Washington’s troops at Valley Forge. READ more about the first steam ship and its inventor… (1791)
Woman Can See Again After World’s First Transplant of a Central Retina
From Turin comes a surgical world-first: the simultaneous transplant of a complete human macula, along with the cornea, sclera, and connective tissue, from one of the patient’s eyes to the other.
It allowed a woman blind for several years to immediately gain enough vision to recognize both her son and her faithful canine companion, Joe.
La Stampa, a Turn-based national newspaper, reported that the intervention was lead by the “intuition” of ocular surgeon Professor Michele Reibaldi, who himself described the process as a “complicated marathon,” lasting 6 hours and requiring careful coordination by surgeons, anesthetists, and orderlies.
The patient was 67-year-old Elena, who lost her eyesight in a road incident which completely severed the optic nerve in her left eye. Responsible for transmitting light absorbed and delineated through the eye to the brain, the irreversible damage was not shared by the rest of eye tissues, which remained largely intact.
In an interesting coincidence, the reverse was true for her right eye. While the optic nerve was undamaged, the trauma of the crash destroyed other parts of her eye including the retina, the cornea, and the portion of the eye containing ocular stem cells, rendering any hope of a normal corneal transplant impossible.
In short, there was enough undamaged components between her two eyes to create one that could function. The only problem was that it would require a surgery never done in the history of medicine, a macular transplant. The macula is a small, light-sensitive region at the back of the retina, itself located in the middle of the eyeball, responsible for high-definition sight. The common cause of blindness, macular degeneration, refers to this small tissue.
Elena also needed a new cornea, and the sclera—the white of the eyeball. Professor Reibaldi resolved to salvage those from the left eye and transplant them all to the right eye, in which the ocular nerve was preserved through the crash.
RESTORING VISION: World’s First Whole-Eye Transplant Gives Arkansas Man New Hope After Terrible Accident
“This procedure represents a new frontier in ocular surgery,” Reibaldi, who practices at the Molinette Hospital in Turn’s City of Health and Science, said according to a translation. “Before today, such a contemporaneous transplant of the anterior eye tissue had occurred just once before, while the central retina has never been possible.”
“Now we will wait and see how well the transplanted retina functions, though early signs are encouraging.”
GETTING BETTER ALL THE TIME: Surgeons Perform World’s First Human Bladder Transplant at UCLA
Follow-ups have confirmed that the tissues have reattached correctly, and that Elena is regaining sight in her right eye.
Reibaldi praised the extraordinary collaboration within the team which carried out the procedure, before adding that the biggest prize for them was “the incredible moment in which Elena, opening her eyes, could finally recognize her son and faithful companion in life, Joe the dog.”
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US Approves First Drug That Targets Root Cause of Narcolepsy Rather Than its Symptoms
A Japanese pharma company has developed a drug that treats the root cause of a leading form of narcolepsy, and is celebrating as it becomes the first of its kind to receive American FDA approval.
Narcolepsy type-1 afflicts 120,000 people in the US, and is characterized by sudden bouts of intense daytime drowsiness, disrupted nighttime sleep, and cataplexy, or sudden muscle weakness while awake
Traditionally treated by simulants to stay awake, or nervous system depressants to dampen cataplexy, this new drug mimics the body’s production of orexin, a compound that helps regulate wakefulness that is disrupted in patients with narcolepsy.
Called Orzeyful, it’s been developed by Takeda, and Tiffany Farchione, MD, Director of the FDA’s Division of Psychiatry, celebrated its approval in an August 5th statement.
“For too long, people with narcolepsy type 1 have had to manage a complex, lifelong neuropsychiatric condition with treatments that only address pieces of it,” said Farchione. “This new drug is the first medicine that impacts the underlying biology of the disease, treating narcolepsy type 1 as a whole.”
Its developers likewise celebrated the milestone.
“The FDA approval of Orzeyful marks a new chapter for the narcolepsy type 1 community, as we introduce an entirely new class of medicine that will potentially redefine how this disease is managed and how people feel on treatment,” says Takeda president and CEO Julie Kim in a separate statement.
The final stage trials that paved the way for approval demonstrated safety and efficacy in 273 patients. Compared to placebo, those who took the twice-daily pill for 12 weeks were able to stay awake longer during the day and rest better at night.
“It’s the best thing that has ever happened to me,” Tyler Chapman, who participated in one of the clinical trials, told Nature’s in-house press publication. “My quality of life is so much better.”
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There were side effects, including of a severity that saw some participants removed from the trial. The most common serious side effects were increased frequency and urgency to urinate, and—ironically—insomnia. Nevertheless the side effect occurrence was considered low.
Orexin, the chemical signaling molecule produced by brain cells which die in narcolepsy type-1, has been linked to other neurological conditions like ADHD, and even Parkinson’s, and with Orzeyful’s FDA approval comes the potential for future research into its utility as a neuro-modulator.
ALSO CHECK OUT: New Drug Could Change Lives of Kids with Resistant Epilepsy, Patient Trials Concluded
“Orzeyful is just the beginning. With orexin emerging as a powerful therapeutic pathway, Takeda is unlocking the potential of this new class of medicine for patients across a range of disorders,” says Andy Plump, the company’s president of research and development, in also the statement.
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Over 3,000 Endangered Yellow-Legged Frogs and Tadpoles Unleashed to Reclaim SoCal Mountains
American amphibian lovers will be jumping for joy at the news of 3,000 frogs and tadpoles from an endangered species bred and released into their former mountain homes.
San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance has been breeding and reintroducing the endangered mountain yellow-legged frog for decades into the San Bernardino and San Jacinto mountains.
Leaving their small carrying crates to take their first hops into the wild world, zoo conservationists smiled as they watched some 3,000 native amphibians disappear into the waters of Bluff Lake in the Big Bear area, one of several sites where reintroductions have taken place this year.
Once historically abundant, the species has declined by more than 98%. The species faces a number of threats, including disease, introduced predators, wildfire and drought. Conservation teams continue to monitor reintroduced frogs to track their health, survival and success in their native mountain habitats.
The frogs were bred at San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance’s Beckman Center for Conservation Research as part of a 20-year conservation breeding and reintroduction program. San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance and its partners, including the US Fish and Wildlife Service, US Geological Survey, and California Department of Fish and Wildlife, have been working to conserve the species since 2006.
MORE FROG CONSERVATION: Frog Wiped Out by Disease Returns to the Wild With the Help of ‘Frog Spas’ and ‘Frog Saunas’
What began as a rescue effort has grown into a comprehensive conservation program focused on breeding, genetic diversity, disease management, reproductive research, and reintroduction.
To date, San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance has reintroduced over 10,000 mountain yellow-legged frogs and tadpoles into high-elevation mountain habitats and continues to work with partners to restore this species in the wild.
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First Bluefin Tuna Caught in North Sea in 60 Years Is Sign of Healthy Ecosystem
Jack Gardner couldn’t believe his eyes when he saw the behemoth hooked on his fishing line.
If he and his crew aboard Dominator reeled it in, he knew it would be the greatest catch of his life and provide the equivalent of a holiday bonus for them all.
What Gardner didn’t know was that the giant Atlantic bluefin tuna fighting an hours-long battle on his line was ultimate confirmation that “careful and judicious management” had revived a celebrated fish stock in the North Sea.
The Dominator’s tuna weighed in at 745 pounds, and was only about 112 pounds short of a fishery record. More importantly, it was the first Atlantic bluefin caught in the North Sea in 60 years.
In the British economy either side of the Second World War, tuna fishing was a valuable and world-renowned industry. The fish was prized for its meat for both the restaurant and canning industries, but in a story as old as industrialization, overfishing of both the tuna and their herring prey caused the fishery to collapse.
The UK has taken steps over the years to ensure these crucial stocks return, and in a report at the BBC regarding Gardner’s mammoth catch, University of Exeter research Dr. Lucy Hawkes said the fact that tuna can reach this size means that the underlying ecosystem must be exceptionally healthy.
“Bluefin tuna are also top predators who can only be in these waters if the ecosystems underneath them are healthy,” she said, adding that these outcomes are the result of judicious fisheries management, whereby the catch limits on fish are “really small” compared to overall populations.
FISH STOCKS REBOUNDING THE WORLD OVER:
- Maine Counts Over 20 Million River Herring During Annual Run, the Highest in Decades
- Southeast Asia’s Fish Supplies Remarkably Robust Despite Decades of Warnings About Overfishing
- Hake Fisheries’ Remarkable Recovery Is a Sign of Hope for Our Oceans
Dr. Hawkes and her team routinely tag bluefish tuna for monitoring purposes off the coast of Exeter on Britain’s southwest coastline, but Gardner and Dominator set out from Whitby, on the northeast coast near the border with Scotland.
“It jumped out of the water, we all just looked at each other in awe,” Gardner told the BBC.
Two opposite points of Britain, two returning tuna populations. A spokesperson from U. of Exeter also told the outlet that the tuna caught by Whitby may have a completely different origins to the ones their teams tag and monitor.
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“If you don’t have time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over?” – John Wooden
Quote of the Day: “If you don’t have time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over?” – John Wooden
Photo by: Yunus Tuğ for Unsplash+
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Good News in History, August 25
110 years ago today, the National Park Service was created in the US. Guardians of 64 extraordinary places which documentarian Ken Burns called “America’s best idea” the NPS is among the most identifiable and appreciated of all government services. Famous for their wide-brimmed hats, patches, and friendly demeanor, about 20,000 citizens work in the service, which manages 433 units covering over 85 million acres across all 50 states, plus several US territories and Washington DC. READ more about the NPS’ history… (1916)
Moms Love This Initiation Ritual Freshmen Must Go Through at This Oklahoma High School
School initiation rituals can be embarrassing, crude, and even disturbing, but for a 14-year-old, nothing could be worse than what is demanded of them, day 1, at Bishop Kelly High School in Tulsa.
If initiation is about fitting in, what could be worse than being caught giving one’s mom, dad, or grandparent a goodbye kiss before the opening bell?
And yet that’s exactly what the seniors demand of the arriving freshmen.
“That’s why it’s perfect,” one senior told CBS News’ Steve Hartman, when asked what else could be more embarrassing. And they take it seriously, with all the senior class swamping the parking lot, screaming and mobbing the arriving vehicles, demanding the newcomers do what “we all had to do,” another said.
It’s a very modern take on the old timey notion of honoring “thy father and mother”—an idea so good it made Moses’ top ten list.
For years, Bishop High seniors played pranks on the freshmen like any other school , until 2001, when the class decided the initiation ritual should be kinder, if still embarrassing.
It’s an emotional moment for parents, and by sealing it with a goodbye kiss, Bishop High ensures they drive away feeling good, and the freshmen join their peers with cheeks as red as county apples.
WATCH the story below from “On the Road”…
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Chinese Man Takes Paralyzed Wife on Epic Road Trip: ‘Die On the Road, Not in Hospital’
Like any pair of baby boomers in America, Liu Peijin and his wife dreamed as newly-weds of a grand tour around their native China.
Marrying out of high school, they had a normal enough life—with Mr. Liu embarking on a long career in the military, and his wife raising children at home.
But as retirement age beckoned and the chance for their dream road trip seemed to materialize, complications with diabetes left Liu’s wife partially paralyzed, and the prospects of a road trip around one of the world’s largest countries in tatters.
Or so it seemed. After agreeing they “would rather die on the road than in a hospital bed,” the couple set out in their car across coastal Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces in 2014.
Their daughter initially objected due to the medical needs of her mother, but the time away from hospital gradually rejuvenated the woman. Now years later, Mr. Liu has said their time continuously exploring the Middle Kingdom has made his wife “100 times” more spirited.
Over a decade later and she has avoided muscle and joint atrophy despite being wheelchair bound from paralysis on her left side. She’s maintained good coordination, and can communicate largely as before, though solid food is becoming a slightly greater challenge.
It wasn’t long after they first set out that Liu managed to replace the car with a camper van, which he equipped with a kitchen, two beds, and a dining table. He keeps it stocked with medical supplies as he essentially has become the woman’s full-time nurse and caregiver, ensuring she does rehabilitation exercises, takes her medicine, and enjoys regular foot soaks for diabetes.
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At publishing time according to an article on their travels in South China Morning Post, the couple have, like the metaphorical boomers in their Winnebago visiting almost all 50 states, made it to 31 out of 33 Chinese provinces.
Throughout all of them, people have been inspired by Liu’s dedication, and the couple’s bravery to shirk elderly convention. In 2017, in Hubei Province, local staff volunteered to hoist the woman up—wheelchair and all—and carry her across a scenic area to the only sightseeing vehicle.
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Liu told local news outlets that he cherishes this kind of help, and tries to maintain contact with people when he’s able.
The couple are currently planning a visit to some lesser-known locations across the country for their next adventure.
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Inventor Envisioned a Waterless Toilet for Astronauts, Realized it Could Solve a Global Sanitation Crisis Instead
An inventor and serial entrepreneur has created a non-flushing, waterless toilet that’s already making sanitation safer and accessible for some 20,000 households,
Deployed in Uganda, Panama, and the United States, the ‘iThrone’ was created when Diana Yousef was working at NASA on spaceborne sanitation.
While brainstorming bathrooms on board space stations, Yousef realized that the requisites for a toilet that works in space were the same for those who live beyond the reach of plumbing and sewage down on Earth—the fate of some 1 billion people worldwide.
Like astronauts, they cannot simply flush away their waste with water down pipes into a sewage system, and so Yousef created a toilet that doesn’t require any.
iThrone rapidly evaporates 95% of the water content of urine and excrement, making human waste disposal in rural areas of low-income countries possible and much safer.
The technology is simple, the design straightforward and replicable, and as stand alone units they can be dropped or trucked into any environment to improve sanitary conditions.
MORE SUCH INVENTIONS: A Jamaican Student Invented a Self-Disinfecting Door Handle for Hospitals: ‘Design that fits reality’
Yousef, who holds degrees at Cornell, Columbia, and Harvard, received this year’s Global Citizen Waislitz Awards award for advancing innovative solutions to some of the world’s biggest challenges. It comes with $100,000 to help Diana and her team expand their work and bring the technology to more communities that need it.
Winning this Award, Yousef wrote, will help her startup change:WATER, to scale iThrone distribution to millions more by next year, amplifying its mission to make safe, sustainable sanitation possible for everyone, everywhere.
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Zebra Sharks the First Ever to Be Rewilded After 82 Pups Released by Dedicated ‘Shark Nannies’
Out in the wild waters of Indonesia, zebra sharks are extremely rare. Overhunted, these striped bottom dwellers were at risk of going extinct.
After 3 years of foundational work, an international consortium of 60 aquariums in 15 countries that banded together to create a huge captive-breeding-and-release program is seeing the fruits of their labor—nothing less than the first rewilded sharks in the world.
Such an effort has never been undertaken before, and rewilding is typically reserved for mammals and other terrestrial species, but the zebra shark, also known as the Indo-Pacific leopard shark, is ideally suited since it lays eggs.
Since GNN first reported on ReShark’s efforts on the Indonesian island of Raja Ampat, 82 shark pups reared in captivity have been transported to the island and released into a 46,000 square-kilometer (17,760 square-mile) shark and manta ray sanctuary.
Satellite tagged, ReShark has been able to gather critical proof-of-concept data about what a captive-bred shark, released into an enclosed nursery, and then into the open water, would do with that freedom. They’re foraging well, and staying within the boundaries of the marine sanctuary, meaning that with any luck they’ll be protected from the illegal fishermen that saw the zebra shark listed as “Endangered” by the IUCN.
“Back in 2019, in Raja Ampat, we estimated that there were about 20 individual adult sharks remaining,” Mark Erdmann, executive director of ReShark, told CNN in an interview.
“Most conservation activities for sharks usually revolve around either setting up marine protected areas or doing fisheries management. In our case, our niche is we’re doing active recovery.”
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The program got its start when Erdmann visited the SEA Aquarium in Singapore, and staff told him that the zebra sharks in their captivity were overwhelming the tank with viable eggs. Pups would hatch and there would be just too many to handle.
Now dozens of aquariums are shipping viable eggs in special containers to ReShark’s two nurseries in Raja Ampat and Phuket, Thailand. There, the eggs hatch, and the baby zebra sharks are reared in protected nurseries by “shark nannies,” which despite the name are actually rigorously trained aquatic animal husbandry specialists.
At 1 meter in length, just over 3 feet, the animals are released into the sanctuary, where they will need between 5 and 12 years to reach sexual maturity. It’s then the true test of this never-before-deployed method of marine conservation will take place: will these sharks reproduce in the wild. ReShark will see the results by 2028 at the earliest.
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One of the major contributors to the zebra shark’s decline was Thai and Indonesian locals overharvesting them for their fins. ReShark’s other chief operation is getting these islanders and fishermen involved in the project so they can understand the vulnerability of the shark and its importance in the ecosystem.
43% of sharks lay eggs, so if the effort is successful, it could be an important milestone in shark conservation that may be replicable in other climes with other sharks.
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“Force your heart and nerve and sinew to hold on when there is nothing in you Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’” – Rudyard Kipling
Quote of the Day: “Force your heart and nerve and sinew to hold on when there is nothing in you Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’” – Rudyard Kipling (paraphrased from the poem, If)
Photo by: Massimo Sartirana
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Good News in History, August 24
10 years ago today, the European Southern Observatory confirmed the existence of Proxima Centauri b, the closest exoplanet to Earth orbiting within the habitable zone of the red dwarf star Proxima Centauri. It’s just over the hedge at 4.2 light years from Earth, and its discovery has led to numerous research activities attempting to establish whether it would harbor conditions for life. READ more about this 10th rock from the Sun… (2016)
Ethiopian Farmers Save Thousands by Switching to Solar Irrigation–While Cutting Emissions
Farmers in Ethiopia are slashing their growing costs, increasing food production, and protecting the environment thanks to solar-powered irrigation systems introduced through the Nature-based Solutions for Sustainable and Inclusive Development program led by the international nonprofit Farm Africa.
In a country famous for its “13 months of sunshine”, Ethiopia has enormous potential to harness solar energy.
While the country has abundant water resources and millions of acres of irrigable land, most small farmers still rely on rainfall to grow their crops—leaving them vulnerable to drought and erratic weather patterns.
Even for those with irrigation systems, extreme shortages and rising fuel prices sparked by the Iran war are disrupting production and cutting into farmers’ profits.
Reliable climate-friendly irrigation arrived, thanks to funding from Farm Africa and the Sida Swedish Development Agency, introduced solar-powered water pumps in Central Ethiopia and around the capital city Addis Ababa.
The technology replaces diesel and petrol-powered pumps that are expensive to run, difficult to fuel and contribute to greenhouse gas emissions.
Solar-powered irrigation systems provide a cost-effective and environmentally friendly alternative, helping to improve agricultural productivity, food security, and household incomes.
The impact is already clear
In Akaki Kality, a vegetable-growing cooperative made up of 25 members previously relied on diesel-powered pumps to irrigate their land, using 2,300 liters of fuel during a single three-month growing cycle.
Switching to solar-powered irrigation is expected to save the cooperative almost $6,000 in fuel costs alone.
For other farmers in the rural Oromia Region, regularly obtaining fuel was not only costly but time-consuming, often requiring lengthy journeys and administrative approvals before fuel could be purchased.
By switching to solar irrigation, the entrepreneurs have eliminated their use of diesel—and their worry over fluctuations in fuel prices and shortages.
In addition to providing financial savings of thousands, reliable solar-powered irrigation enables the farmers to continue producing crops during extended drought patterns.
“Farmers have had to wait in queues for hours to purchase fuel, costing precious time that should be spent farming. The impact on productivity has been severe.”
By eliminating the need for fossil fuels to power irrigation, solar pumps reduce greenhouse gas emissions and support more environmentally sustainable farming systems.
And it has transformed rural livelihoods for many. (Learn more from the website.)
“Solar irrigation is a clean energy source that can deliver a powerful double dividend: lower costs for farmers and a healthier planet for future generations,” says Farm Africa Program Manager Ayele Feleke.
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Dog Lost on 3rd Tallest Peak in England Finally Found After Three Weeks Stuck on Steep Ravine
A dog missing for nearly three weeks on a mountain in rural England’s Lake District has been rescued—and it was a real team effort.
Tiny Teddy vanished on August 2nd while hiking with her owner on Helvellyn, the third-highest peak in the country.
Posters were plastered around the area, but for nearly three weeks no one saw the missing pooch.
Then, on August 21st, volunteers were out searching for him when they heard barking coming from Dry Gill, a steep ravine on the slopes of the mountain.
They located him, but he was stuck and unreachable, so the local Keswick Mountain Rescue Team was called in to help.
Three hours later Teddy was saved—and if you thought the pet was petite before the adventure, the ‘After’ photo (above) shows he lost considerable weight, but thankfully displayed no obvious injuries.
The Keswick Rescue Team needed three and a half hours and seven team members.
He was secured in a rucksack and given a small amount of food for the journey back down to the car park, where he was reunited with his owner and taken to the veterinarian.
“The news of this missing dog had deeply affected so many people across our local community,” wrote the team on Facebook.
“We are absolutely delighted to share this update: A remarkable outcome after nearly three weeks on Helvellyn.
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“And a huge well done to everyone who kept searching and never gave up on Teddy.”
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California Joins 30 States to Require Financial Literacy Courses For Teens in Every High School
California will be helping teens mold their futures as early as possible, by requiring every high schooler to pass a financial literacy course.
Legislation now being implemented after its passage in 2024 made California the 26th state to require a stand-alone personal finance course for all public high school students (including charter schools).
The one-semester course mandated to start by the Fall 2027, will cover 13 money management topics, including banking, debt, and building wealth.
More examples include:
- Banking – savings and checking accounts; minimizing fees
- Credit scores – the relation of debt and interest to credit
- Loans
- Income taxes – how they work, reading tax forms and pay stubs
- Investing and building wealth – tax-beneficial pensions and 401(k) plans, IRAs, stocks, bonds, mutual and index funds
- Handling insurance
- Common scams and frauds and preventing identity theft
- Creating budgets and tracking expenses
- Identifying means to finance college, workforce education, including low-cost community college options, and other career technical educational pathways or apprenticeships
“Saving for the future, making investments, and spending wisely are lifelong skills that young adults need to learn before they start their careers—not after,” said Governor Gavin Newsom this week.
Some California school districts haven’t waited for the state. They’ve already rolled out financial literacy courses—and they’ve been very popular with students.
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Since 2023, Fresno Unified, the state’s third-largest school district, has been pioneering personal finance education, and the classes have been some of the district’s most sought-after electives.
A local teacher helping with the state’s rollout reports “high student engagement”, saying lessons on retirement plans, savings, budgets, and building credit scores have been some of the most meaningful.
A national financial literacy nonprofit, Next Gen Personal Finance, has been a lead proponent of the CA initiative, and offers courses online for all ages.
The group, with its Mission 2030 Fund that supports thousands of educators nationwide, currently counts 30 US states that have agreed to guarantee a personal finance course for teens in school—with 11 fully implemented already, and 19, including California, in the process of completing.
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Good-Humored Scientists Create ‘OnlyMarms’ Page to Boost Marmot Conservation and Donations
Desperate times call for desperate measures.
With traditional funding sources facing cuts, The Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory, which has spent the last 65 years studying yellow-bellied marmots, had to get creative.
That soon led the Colorado researchers to the internet, where marmot videos have amassed millions of likes, with one especially hilarious Tik Tok video eclipsing three million by itself. In that video, a marmot gets a bath as its handler draws washboard abs on its belly using what seems to be shaving cream.
@crazydealcrew #marmot #fyp ♬ nhạc nền - Marmot TikTok
It was time to harness the popularity and the allure of the cute animals and turn it into a benefit for the largest members of the squirrel family.
“Marmots have money troubles, and I figured why not launch an OnlyFans site?” UCLA professor Daniel Blumstein, co-director of The Marmot Project at the Colorado Laboratory, told TODAY, making a playful reference to the TV series Margo’s Got Money Troubles.
“One of my students is like, ‘Great idea!’ Someone else screamed out, ‘OnlyMarms!’… I’m like, ‘Oh yeah!’”
OnlyMarms went live on OnlyFans.com soon afterward, with the animal burrowing its way onto the paid subscription platform known more for risqué business than rodents. G-rated OnlyMarms is totally free, and accepts tips from users about other creative ways to fund research related to the rodent.
One of the first videos featured a female marmot who rebuffed the advances of a seemingly-interested male as he approached her burrow. As of now, the most famous content creators on OnlyMarms are the animals lovably named Jamba Juice and Egg. (See some clips in the video below…)
Every one of their videos seems to deliver a little happiness and wholesome humor, on the back of a furry, four-legged rodent creature—and the end result is a fundraising gem.
The OnlyMarms account already has about 1,700 fans and has earned approximately $6,000 in tips.
(You can sign up for a free Fans Only account to follow their antics.)
Fat Marmot Week: Another creative solution
The lab is in the midst of their first-ever Fat Marmot Week—a competition allowing the public to vote on marmots that are getting fatter by gaining the most hibernation weight. Round 1 voting ends August 24th, following a similar model used by the National Park Service for Fat Bear Week. (See the news video below…)
The animal’s supporters have also created a meme coin cryptocurrency called OnlyMarms, which has reportedly earned thousands of dollars in fees for the lab.
A local brewery has also gotten into the spirit by collaborating with the lab on a special edition fundraising beer called Marmot Tears.
The financial realities of modern conservation certainly require some creativity. But hopefully, the beers and meme coins and the OnlyMarms site will help keep the Rocky Mountain Biological Lab providing marmot content far into the future.
MORE FURRY STREAMERS: Animals are Streaming into 400 Children’s Hospitals From San Diego Zoo’s Dedicated 24-hour Channel
“Understanding the world around us is something where there might not be a direct profit,” Blumstein told UCLA’s Daily Bruin. “But we need to understand the world around us. We need to understand the role of species in their communities.”
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“It is far better to be alone, than to be in bad company.” – George Washington
Quote of the Day: “It is far better to be alone, than to be in bad company.” – George Washington
Photo by: Getty Images for Unsplash+ –
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Good News in History, August 23
3 years ago today, the chief of the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) exclaimed “India is on the Moon!” after the successful landing of Chandrayaan-3, the Indian Lunar lander. In doing so India became the fourth nation to operate on the Moon after the US, Russia, and China, while also beating Japan to our nearest satellite after their attempted mission failed after hitting a crater rim. India is the first-ever nation to visit the South Polar Region. READ more about this event from GNN’s coverage… (2023)
‘Double Spiral’ Secret of Narwhal’s Twisted Tusk Revealed By High Tech X-Rays
Hidden secrets of the narwhal’s twisted tusk have been revealed using the latest X-ray technology.
Tusks of the species of whale native to the Arctic have long been the subject of myths—even being sold as ‘unicorn horns’ and believed to possess magical powers during the Middle Ages.
Now, an international research team has solved the mystery of how the tusk acquires its twisted structure.
But they are still not certain what the narwhal uses it for.
Using state of the art 3D X-ray techniques to determine how the tusk is constructed, their findings, published in the journal Nature, show that the tusk contains not just one spiral—but two.
On the outside, the structure twists to the left, while the interior structure twists in the opposite direction, forming a kind of “biological counterbalance” where two opposing forces meet at the interface between interior and exterior parts.
The team explained that the narwhal’s tusk is, in fact, the left canine tooth, which grows through the jaw and lip and can reach more than two meters (6.5ft) in length.
Unlike human teeth, it has no enamel but consists of dentin on the inside and cementum on the outside.
Most experts today believe that the narwhal’s tusk—the only one in nature that is straight—primarily functions as a sexual signal, since it is typically males that possess one.
But the role of the tusk has been debated, in part because a very small proportion of females also develop tusks, and some males do not.
Some scientists have suggested that the tusk may be able to detect temperature, salinity, and chemical changes in the water. However, marine biologists in Greenland have found no evidence for that in the narwhal’s behavior.
Study lead author Dr. Adrian Rodriguez-Palomo, of Denmark’s Aarhus University, said nobody has ever conducted such an advanced experiment of this type. Due to the size and complex structure of the narwhal tusk, the team had to deploy the largest tech tools available.
They combined the capabilities of three enormous synchrotrons (particle accelerator X-ray sources)—MAX IV in Sweden, Swiss Light Source in Switzerland and European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) in France—to obtain enough resolution and power to map the entire interior of the tooth in three dimensions.
To see how mineralized collagen fibrils—the microscopic building blocks that give the tooth its strength—are oriented inside the tooth, researchers used a special 3D X-ray technique called tensor tomography, which sends powerful X-rays through the tooth and analyzing how they scatter from the nanoscale mineralized collagen fibrils.
The analysis revealed that while the building blocks are primarily oriented along the tooth’s longitudinal axis, they systematically deviate at small angles, creating a twisted structure.
In the outer cementum, the fibrils form a left-handed spiral, while in the inner dentin they form a right-handed spiral.
The two opposing structures meet at the transition between dentin and cementum—a complex biological boundary that now appears to be even more intricate than previously believed.
The double-spiral structure gives the tusk fierce mechanical properties; it’s an architecture found in nature that allows a biological entity to withstand a large amount of force.
Dr. Rodriguez-Palomo said the study shows that the double-spiral structure is preserved across the tooth’s annual growth layers—like tree rings, but with a constant twist.
“This suggests that the left-handed growth pattern is genetically programmed and remains stable throughout the animal’s life, which can extend to approximately 80 years.
“The discovery not only solves a centuries-old natural science mystery about one of the ocean’s most iconic animals.
“It also provides new insight into how nature constructs advanced materials with extreme mechanical properties—knowledge that could inspire new composite materials for fields such as construction and medicine.”
Since these whales can live for up to 80 years, their teeth can form a kind of historical record of changing environmental conditions during their lifetime.
And, because the North Atlantic is currently undergoing rapid changes, the team is now investigating whether they can trace these changes in the hard tissue of the narwhal tusk.
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