This Border Collie is about to get its own superhero movie after it came to the rescue of its canine friend earlier this week.
In an astonishing video that was captured by a nearby surveillance camera, a Canadian woman can be seen playing fetch with her three dogs in the snowy front yard of her home in Gaspé City, Québec.
After they finished playing with the ball, the woman gets into her car and starts to pull out of her driveway – and she was later horrified to see that she almost hit her Chihuahua in the process.
Except just as the tiny pup started to walk into the path of the car, the woman’s Border Collie can be seen sprinting to the rescue.
Quick as a flash, the collie dashed across the yard and plucked the Chihuahua from out of harm’s way.
Upon catching a bit of the commotion in her mirror, the woman gets out of her car and is relieved to find that both of her dogs are safe and sound – and it was all thanks to the quick actions of her guardian canine.
(WATCH the video below) – Photo by Jukin Media
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This new study says that smiling really can make people feel happier – even if they’re feeling stressed.
The paper, which was co-authored by Heather Lench at Texas A&M University and researchers at the University of Tennessee, looked at nearly 50 years of data testing whether posing facial expressions can lead people to feel the emotions related to those expressions.
“These findings address a critical question about the links between our internal experience and our bodies – whether changing our facial expression can alter the emotions we feel and our emotional response to the world,” Lench said.
“Conventional wisdom tells us that we can feel a little happier if we simply smile. Or that we can get ourselves in a more serious mood if we scowl. But psychologists have actually disagreed about this idea for over 100 years” said Nicholas Coles, the lead author of the paper.
These disagreements became more pronounced in 2016 when 17 teams of researchers failed to replicate a well-known experiment demonstrating that the physical act of smiling can make people feel happier.
This new paper for Psychological Bulletin, however, describes how the team used a statistical technique called meta-analysis to combine data from 138 studies testing over 11,000 participants from all around the world. According to the meta-analysis, posing facial expressions has a small impact on our feelings.
For example, smiling makes people feel happier, scowling makes them feel angrier, and frowning makes them feel more sad.
“We don’t think that people can ‘smile their way to happiness’. But these findings are exciting because they provide a clue about how the mind and the body interact to shape our conscious experience of emotion” said Coles. “We still have a lot to learn about these facial feedback effects, but this meta-analysis put us a little closer to understanding how emotions work.”
Surfing became the “first and only US-based global sports league” to require equal pay for its female and male athletes – and state legislators are being inspired to follow in its wake.
Back in September, the World Surf League announced that it would be awarding the same amount of cash prize money to its male and female competitors.
“This is a huge step forward in our long-planned strategy to elevate women’s surfing and we are thrilled to make this commitment as we reveal our new 2019 schedule,” WSL CEO Sophie Goldschmidt said in the 2018 statement.
“This is the latest in a series of actions the League has undertaken to showcase our female athletes, from competing on the same quality waves as the men, to better locations, and increased investment and support.”
17-year-old Caroline Marks became the first woman to win the same $100,000 prize as her male counterparts earlier this week when she won the first competition of the 2019 World Surf League’s Championship Tour.
Prior to the equal pay requirements being approved in September, female surfers were competing for about half of the prize money that was awarded to the male surfers. This week’s tournament final was the first time that both male and female first place winners were awarded $100,000.
Inspired by the initiative, California lawmakers introduced a bill last month which would require all sports competitions being hosted on state property to award equal purses to their male and female athletes.
According to Mercury News, surfing, beach volleyball, triathlons, and marathons already award equal amounts of cash prize money to their male and female competitors – but if the latest bill is approved, it could also spur other US states to take positive action on behalf of their female athletes.
“This change is simply the right thing to do for the WSL and we would like to thank the many advocates who have worked for decades to help advance women’s surfing,” said Goldschmidt. “We want to be at the forefront of pushing for equality in all walks of life, starting on the waves, and we feel very lucky to have women on our tour who are highly talented, iconic role models, and more than deserve this recognition as they stand alongside our extraordinary male athletes.”
Youngest on Tour, first CT win, first final, first event of season, new @jeep leader & first woman to win the $100K purse. 👏 @BoostAuspic.twitter.com/ZHr2sLtJeg
It has been four years since Sophie Tanner got married to herself.
For the ceremony, the 40-year-old woman wore a vintage gown with a bouquet of sunflowers as she stood before her friends and family and promised to love, honor and obey herself.
Now as she celebrates her fourth wedding anniversary, Tanner is celebrating the commitment she made to herself by writing a book about living and loving herself.
Tanner, who is a self-love advocate from Brighton, said: “Obviously it was tongue-in-cheek, but when I said my vows promising to love myself, it really was quite powerful and everybody said they had goosebumps.
“My friends and family were all on board and it wasn’t a massive surprise.”
Tanner says that she was inspired to tie the knot with herself after a string of failed relationships made her realize that she did not need another person to feel happy.
“When I turned 30 … I had been through quite a bad break up,” Tanner recalled. “I had been cheated on for the third time and it really knocked me more than other break ups.
SWNS
“I am usually a very happy and confident person but I could not help blaming myself thinking I was not enough.
“I spent a few months which were the worst I ever had spiraling down with my mental health. Then I woke up in bed one morning and had a massive sense of relief where I could feel my optimism returning.
“I realized I am not the loser in this … I actually love my life and I love myself and I felt very grateful.
“Romantic love is so talked about, but nobody really talks about that love of yourself,” she added. “When you are single, there is this unspoken sympathy and idea of ‘don’t worry, someone is just around the corner.’
“But I was happy by myself and I had this idea of this self-marriage.”
SWNS
When Tanner wrote to Brighton and Hove council, however, they refused to make her marriage legally binding because it was not a union of two people, to the exclusion of anybody else.
On top of that, her agent turned down her idea for a new book in which a woman got married to herself because she did not think there was a market for the concept.
“She said it does not fit the rom-com element and I laughed and said that is kind of the point,” says Tanner.
Despite several set backs, Sophie arranged her own illegal ceremony in May 2015 to celebrate her sologamy.
Four years on, she is set to launch her new self-love novel titled “Reader, I Married Me” on May 18th, which marks her fourth wedding anniversary to herself when she will also be renewing her vows.
“Four years ago, I was taking my vows to embrace my dreams and one of my biggest dreams to write a book has now come true. So this will be a chance for my friends and family to join me and celebrate.
“It was amazing to write the book. After the ceremony, it all went a bit bonkers and everyone was quite intrigued the more people started to talk about it,” Tanner added. “It has been such a long and convoluted journey and getting it all down on paper and having my chance to explain what I have done is great.”
While Sophie has dated other people since marrying herself in 2015, she says that she is still happy being single and will only enter into a relationship with somebody who completes her life.
“I am a romantic and I am open to finding love but I am also really happy as I am,” says Tanner. “I love romance films as much as anyone but self-love should be as important so we are not putting all our eggs into one basket of finding the one.
“Because I have made these vows to myself, I would only really go with someone who really completed my life. If a guy gets scared of it, then they don’t get me so it is quite a good filter. If they get it, they get me and that’s wicked.”
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After firefighters spent almost nine hours battling the flames inside of the beloved Notre Dame Cathedral of Paris, officials say that the majority of the building’s most hallowed structures and artifacts have been preserved.
According to a statement from the Parisian fire brigade, “the structure of the cathedral is saved and the main works of art have been safeguarded, thanks to the combined action of the different services of the State committed to our side.”
The blaze was extinguished yesterday evening thanks to the work of 400 firefighters and police officers, only three of whom were injured by the incident. Investigators have stated that the fire was likely caused by accident, rather than criminal motivation or arson.
The fire burned down the spire and roof of the cathedral, but historians breathed a sigh of relief upon discovering that all three of the building’s iconic Rose Windows, which date back to the 13th century, had survived the inferno.
The cathedral’s towers, golden altar and crucifix made it through the fire as well. Though there are still some relics that remain unaccounted for, the Pompiers Paris fire brigade say that the bulk of the artifacts inside of the building have been saved.
“I want to say thank you to Pompiers Paris, they saved the towers. I could not imagine Paris without the Notre Dame towers,” city Mayor Anne Hidalgo wrote on Twitter. “As early as last night, we immediately made Saint Jean Hall available at the Hôtel de Ville so that the works could be protected, such as the crown of thorns and the Saint-Louis tunic.”
Cette cathédrale Notre-Dame, nous la rebâtirons. Tous ensemble. C’est une part de notre destin français. Je m’y engage : dès demain une souscription nationale sera lancée, et bien au-delà de nos frontières.
Furthermore, several French billionaires and organizations have already pledged over $700 million to restore the cathedral to its former glory.
Francois-Henri Pinault, the chairman of Gucci’s parent company Kering, stated that he and his father would be donating $113 million for the cathedral’s restoration.
The family behind the luxury goods company LVMH has also pledged $226 million towards rebuilding the structure.
“The … LVMH Group, in solidarity with this national tragedy, are committed to assist with the reconstruction of this extraordinary cathedral, symbol of France, its heritage and its unity,” said the family in a statement.
1/2 #Intervention#NotreDame : la structure de la cathédrale est sauvée et les principales œuvres d’art ont été sauvegardées, grâce à l'action combinée des différents services de l'État engagés à nos côtés. pic.twitter.com/0GJZKAdYdM
The Bettencourt Meyers family of L’Oreal cosmetics has also issued a statement announcing their own $226 million donation as well.
In addition to several other multi-million dollar donations, Forbes says that Paris officials will also be drawing on the city’s $90 million fund used for restoring the city’s churches.
2/2 Après plus de 9h de combats acharnés, près de 400 pompiers de Paris sont venus à bout de l’effroyable l’incendie. 2 policiers et un sapeur-pompier ont été légèrement blessés. pic.twitter.com/re9ZR0KB3W
Mayor Hidalgo tweeted: “I will propose that we organize in the coming weeks a major international conference of donors, which I am ready to welcome to the City Hall, with patrons from around the world, to raise the funds necessary for the restoration.
“The Paris Fund I created in 2015 will also be mobilized and the City will contribute to this renovation,” she added.
Vive La France! Be Sure And Share The Good News With Your Friends On Social Media – Feature photo by David Merrett, CC
Quote of the Day: “As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him… We need not wait to see what others do.” – Mahatma Gandhi
Photo: by stefanos papachristou, CC license via Flickr
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Today is MOTH Monday on Good News Network: In partnership with The Moth, a nonprofit dedicated to the art of storytelling, we bring you the most uplifting speakers from live stages across the world.
Susanne Schmidt came from a long line of fierce Italian feminists; her own grandmother had to be repeatedly bailed out of jail for protesting on behalf of the suffragettes.
So when Schmidt eventually decided to become a drummer in the high school band, she was determined to ignore the bullying from her male peers and become the best percussionist in the school.
Her perseverance finally came to a tee when she defiantly faced down her naysayers and wore a long green velvet dress on stage for her drum solo.
Listen to her story of rock and roll resolve below…
The Moth gives people an opportunity to tell a true story in front of a live audience, and sometimes their stories are chosen to air on the radio show, now celebrating its tenth year, and broadcasting on 485+ public radio stations—and on The Moth podcast, which is downloaded over 52 million times a year.
Researchers have developed a first-of-its-kind device that can generate electricity from falling snow.
The inexpensive device, which was developed by UCLA scientists, is small, thin, and flexible like a sheet of plastic.
“The device can work in remote areas because it provides its own power and does not need batteries,” said senior author Richard Kaner. “It’s a very clever device – a weather station that can tell you how much snow is falling, the direction the snow is falling, and the direction and speed of the wind.”
The researchers call it a snow-based triboelectric nanogenerator, or snow TENG. A triboelectric nanogenerator, which generates charge through static electricity, produces energy from the exchange of electrons.
“Static electricity occurs from the interaction of one material that captures electrons and another that gives up electrons,” said Kaner, who is also a distinguished professor of chemistry and biochemistry, and of materials science and engineering at UCLA. “You separate the charges and create electricity out of essentially nothing.”
Snow is positively charged and gives up electrons. Silicone – a synthetic rubber-like material that is composed of silicon atoms and oxygen atoms, combined with carbon, hydrogen and other elements – is negatively charged. When falling snow contacts the surface of silicone, that produces a charge that the device captures, creating electricity.
“Snow is already charged; so we thought, why not bring another material with the opposite charge and extract the charge to create electricity?” said co-author Maher El-Kady, a UCLA postdoctoral researcher of chemistry and biochemistry.
“While snow likes to give up electrons, the performance of the device depends on the efficiency of the other material at extracting these electrons,” he added. “After testing a large number of materials including aluminum foils and Teflon, we found that silicone produces more charge than any other material.”
About 30% of the Earth’s surface is covered by snow each winter, during which time solar panels often fail to operate, El-Kady noted. The accumulation of snow reduces the amount of sunlight that reaches the solar array, limiting the panels’ power output and rendering them less effective. The new device could be integrated into solar panels to provide a continuous power supply when it snows, he said.
Photo by Abdelsalam Ahmed / UCLA
The device can be used for monitoring winter sports, such as skiing, to more precisely assess and improve an athlete’s performance when running, walking or jumping, Kaner said. It also has the potential for identifying the main movement patterns used in cross-country skiing, which cannot be detected with a smart watch.
It could usher in a new generation of self-powered wearable devices for tracking athletes and their performances.
It can also send signals, indicating whether a person is moving. It can tell when a person is walking, running, jumping or marching.
The research team used 3D-printing to design the device, which has a layer of silicone and an electrode to capture the charge. The team believes the device could be produced at low cost given “the ease of fabrication and the availability of silicone,” Kaner said. Silicone is widely used in industry, in products such as lubricants, electrical wire insulation and biomedical implants, and it now has the potential for energy harvesting.
It’s never too late to find out more about your family – and this 48-year-old adopted woman from Georgia is certainly glad that she decided to investigate her biological family after decades of mystery.
Amy Battle was adopted in a happy and loving home when she was just 5 months old. Though she had been happy growing up with her adoptive parents, she always wondered about her biological family.
Her heritage remained a mystery until Battle’s oldest daughter finally convinced her to take a 23andMe Ancestry kit – and she was stunned by the results.
The service connected Battle with a man named Stevie who was identified as her brother. Upon chatting with her long-lost sibling, she was told that she had 22 siblings in total – 11 on her mother’s side and 11 on her father’s side.
“I knew I was adopted, but not much else,” Battle told Good News Network. “After taking the test, I received the surprise of my life.”
“Connecting with and talking to Stevie – my youngest brother – for the first time was wonderful,” she added. “Then, when I found out I have 11 siblings on my mother’s side I was shocked. I went from crying, to shocked, to very excited.”
The siblings on her mother’s side range in age from 46 to 65, although she has not yet confirmed the ages of the siblings on her father’s side.
In total, Battle has made contact with 20 of her brother and sisters, and she says that they are still trying to track down the last sibling. She now plans on taking a cross-country road trip with her children this summer in order to finally meet their long-lost family.
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All of the students at this experimental Ohio school had been declared “irredeemable” because of their behavioral issues or social circumstances – but their latest test scores showed that they just needed a little bit of love.
The I Promise School, which opened in Akron in July 2018, currently serves 240 students, all of whom are in the 3rd or 4th grade. Though the disadvantaged students had previously experienced some of the lowest grades and test scores in the district, they are now breaking records.
In just six months of classes, 90% of their pupils have outpaced their fellow district students with their math and reading goals – and according to The New York Times, the “students’ test scores increased at a higher rate than 99 out of 100 schools nationally.”
“For the average student, your percentile doesn’t move that much unless something extraordinary is happening,” Akron public school coordinator Keith Liechty told The Times.
The public school was launched by basketball legend LeBron James as a means of showing that the state’s educational system could be changed to accommodate even the most troubled students.
“These were the children where you went and talked with their old teachers, and they said, ‘This will never work,’” I Promise executive school director Dr. Michele Campbell told the news outlet. “We said give them to us.”
Though I Promise receives the bulk of its funding from the state, it also receives an extra $600,000 in funding from the LeBron James Foundation. With the help of this additional funding, the school is also equipped with a free food pantry that is open to the students and their families; a GED-testing program to help educate parents alongside their kids; and a counseling center which provides trauma, health, and legal resources for the families.
With the recent announcement of the school’s stunning test results, critics are excited to see how I Promise will serve its students in the future.
This elderly dog may be gone, but her owners are honoring her in the most heartwarming way.
Gretchen the German shepherd always used to look forward to seeing her mailman Fernando Barboza arrive at her door – so when she passed away earlier this month, her owners presented the postal worked with a note and a bag of dog treats.
The note read: “Gretchen passed away yesterday. She asked me to ask you if you would share her treats that she never got to finish with the other dogs on your route. She always enjoyed seeing you come to the door and was always happy to get a snack from you. Thank you, the Cimino Family.”
Barboza was so touched by the note, he sent a picture of it to his 22-year-old daughter, which she immediately published to Twitter.
My dad is a mailman and he likes to give dogs on his route treats. Today he told us one of the dogs on his route passed away and his owners gave him this bag of treats with this note 😭 pic.twitter.com/JA46PU60a4
Since Barboza’s daughter published the photo at the start of April, it has been shared hundreds of thousands of times.
A self-admitted animal lover, Barboza told The Dodo that he has always carried around a bag of dog treats in his mail truck so he can use them to make friends with the pups on his route.
He then goes on to say that these treats were part of the reason that he became the first person outside of the Cimino family who Gretchen liked.
So as a means of honoring his furry friend, Barboza has been sure to dole out the treats in her honor.
Thank you. I know she’s up in heaven looking pleased with herself just like this. I’m hoping her story will get people to see that adopting older rescues is well worth it. pic.twitter.com/7t6b1X67VJ
Though Gretchen’s owners say that they had been heartbroken over their dog’s passing, the sudden outpouring of love and support from social media users has helped to ease their sorrows.
“I know that she would have wanted her favorite things that she couldn’t finish to go to her friends,” Cimino told The Dodo. “She may not have liked many people, but she absolutely loved other dogs.”
My wife and I were told about Gretchen’s letter to Fernando being on Twitter. I can’t begin to tell y’all how much it has meant to us seeing how much love and support y’all have shown our girl. She was the absolute best. This is a short video of her seeing her mailman. pic.twitter.com/uK9Y2BtKtO
Quote of the Day: “Umbrella is comfort, rain is life! You must often leave comfort to touch the life!” ― Mehmet Murat ildan
Photo: by Juan Carlos Cameselle, CC license via Flickr
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80-year-old Haze Mabry went to work last month anticipating a busy day of cleaning up trash and bagging garbage. Instead, he was greeted by 800 of his biggest fans.
Mabry has worked as a janitor at Pike County Elementary School in Zebulon, Georgia for the last 13 years, a school from which all three of his kids have graduated—but he feels that every single one of the students are “like children of his own”, according to an interview with The Washington Post.
His special attention to the students is why he is considered “the most loved person” in the whole building – which is why the studenta put together a special surprise for him in recognition of his 80th birthday last month.
When Mabry entered the building last month, he was greeted by youngsters filling the hallways chanting his name
They began handing him cards; singing happy birthday; and holding up banners for his special day. Mabry received so many birthday cards, he had to have a few students follow behind him so they could collect all of the letters and greeting cards into buckets.
He was overwhelmed, but hugged every youngster who reached out to him—and apparently has taken extra time to read each greeting card and offer his sincerest thanks to the students.
Since the school recently posted several photos to go along with the video footage of the janitorial surprise, they’ve been shared hundreds of times across social media.
“It may be his birthday, but we are the ones who receive a gift—the gift of having him in our school, lives, and hearts,” the school wrote on Facebook. “This is the good stuff! Mr. Haze, you sir are loved, admired, and adored here at PCES.”
(WATCH the heartwarming video below)
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Jim Allison has been the quiet hero behind some of the most ground-breaking medical research of the last quarter century—but before he won the Nobel prize for his work, he was laboring tirelessly to proves his theories against a skeptical scientific community.
Back in the 90s, Allison was called “foolish” for claiming that the immune system could fight off cancer. Despite being shot down time and time again by medical researchers and pharmaceutical companies, Allison developed the basis for immuno-oncology drugs – also known as “lpi.”
Allison first became inspired to research cancer treatments as a result of his mother passing away after a long and debilitating battle with lymphoma when he was just 11 years old. After his mother’s passing, Allison would go on to lose a brother and two uncles to cancer; and he himself would end up beating cancer three different times.
Yet, Allison spent years pushing his research until it finally came to fruition and became the framework for several cancer treatments that made tumors disappear.
Since their development, lpi cancer treatments have successfully treated over one million people diagnosed worldwide, including the former president Jimmy Carter.
“I didn’t launch this work to try to cure cancer, but once I saw the implications for patients worldwide, I was fiercely determined to build drugs for cancer patients!” said Allison, who is a professor and chair of immunology and executive director of immunotherapy platform at the MD Anderson Cancer Center at the University of Texas.
As a means of thanking him for his determined efforts, Allison was co-awarded the 2018 Nobel prize for physiology or medicine. More recently, film director Bill Haney released a documentary about Allison last month called Breakthrough – and it has been hailed as a masterpiece since its release.
“I was interested in doing a documentary that united Americans,” said director Bill Haney. “One of the blessings of Jim’s work is there are no Americans—rich, poor, North, South, red, blue—who are pro-cancer. By watching the amazing work of Jim and his team of inspiring collaborators, we can see how to work together for the common good. The scientific revolution that Jim has sparked in immuno-oncology is changing the lives of millions of patients and their families, worldwide.”
(WATCH the Breakthrough documentary trailer below)
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As Dr. King once said: "Everybody can be great, because anybody can serve." We're grateful to our community for giving back with us over the years by helping parents and caregivers prepare their children for success in school and beyond. #MLKDaypic.twitter.com/Ec4QDDdsDI
Days spent at the laundromat can often be incredibly boring, especially for children waiting on their parents. But, instead of asking kids to entertain themselves by watching the rinse cycle, librarians are visiting locations so they can read to the children.
The Too Small to Fail initiative has been trying to improve children’s literacy by bringing books, story time, and reading groups to unusual community spaces, such as laundromats.
The program is especially beneficial for closing the literacy gap between children from lower and higher-income families.
Though the organization has been operating in various locations across the country, they recently conducted a study on the efficacy of their reading programs in six New York laundromats.
Every weekend, volunteer librarians would team up with laundromat owners in order to transform a corner of the facility into a learning corner equipped with educational toys and books.
According to Education Week, the initiatives had a dramatic impact on the children’s reading abilities, especially when parents joined in on the fun.
“We have the right audience … parents and kids who need the most help when it comes to literacy and access to books,” Brian Wallace, president and CEO of the Coin Laundry Association, told Education Week. “Rather than watch the socks tumble … use that time and make it more productive.”
(WATCH the video below)
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Quote of the Day: “Volunteers do not necessarily have the time; they just have the heart.” – Elizabeth Andrew
Photo: by Daniel Thornton, CC license via Flickr
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This group of surfers was treated to a stunning sight last week after they were joined by some unlikely companions.
This breathtaking drone footage captures the moment a pod of dolphins cruise into the path of some surfers off the coast of Australia.
The video, which was filmed by Shaun Petersen, shows dozens of the cetaceans gliding through the water on a small ocean wave that carries them, and surfers, past the shore.
Since Petersen posted it to Instagram, it has been viewed thousands of times.
Joy Milne and Professor Perdita Barran – University of Manchester
Joy Milne (left) and Professor Perdita Barran – University of Manchester
This woman’s keen sense of smell is being used to develop a tool that could be a major step forward in detecting and treating Parkinson’s disease.
Joy Milne is a retired nurse who possesses a very singular talent: she is capable of smelling Parkinson’s disease in other people.
The 68-year-old from Perth, Scotland first caught scent of the disease’s “musky, oily odor” when she smelled it on her now-late husband Les. 12 years after she first detected the smell, he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s at the age of 45.
Milne did not realize that she had been smelling the disease for over a decade until she attended a support group for Parkinson’s patients and found that everyone of them had the same distinctive smell.
After mentioning her strange discovery to Parkinson’s researchers, they began working with the retired nurse in order to test her olfactory abilities.
Milne was asked to smell several dozen tee-shirts worn by patients with, and without, the disease. In addition to being able to identify which shirts belonged to Parkinson’s patients, Milne also smelled the disease on a shirt worn by a “healthy” participant. Eight months later, the patient received a positive diagnosis.
The tests revealed that the Scottish woman was 98% accurate in diagnosing the disease in 50 different shirt samples. After conducting further research, scientists discovered that Milne was smelling a compound contained in the patients’ sebum. Sebum is the waxy, lipid-based biofluid which moisturizes and protects the skin, particularly on the forehead and upper back. Excessive production of the substance is a known symptom of Parkinson’s – and now, thanks to Milne’s nose, scientists have identified specific biomarkers in the sebum that serve as red flags for the disease.
“Finding changes in the oils of the skin in Parkinson’s is an exciting discovery that was sparked by a simple conversation between a member of the public and a researcher,” said Professor David Dexter, Deputy Director of Research at Parkinson’s UK.
“More research is needed to find out at what stage a skin test could detect Parkinson’s, or whether it is also occurs in other Parkinson’s related disorders, but the results so far hold real potential. Both to change the way we diagnose the condition and it may even help in the development of new and better treatments for the 145,00 people living with Parkinson’s in the UK.”
Despite being the second most common neurodegenerative disease next to Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s does not yet have a cure – but early detection could help researchers develop future treatments and therapies to slow the disease’s progression or stop it altogether.
And thanks to Milne’s help in the research, which was published last month in the journal ACS Central Science, scientists could now be one step closer to developing a non-invasive procedure to detect the disease before symptoms even start to occur.
“This could have a huge impact not only for earlier and conclusive diagnosis but also help patients monitor the effect of therapy,” says University of Manchester Professor Perdita Barran, one of the study’s lead researchers. “We hope to apply this to at risk patient groups to see if we can diagnose pre-motor symptoms, and assist with potential early treatment.”
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Whenever Willie Nelson isn’t on the road again, or raising money for American farmers as co-founder of Farm Aid, the country singer is looking after his beloved horses on his Texas farm.
His herd isn’t just made up of regular horses—Nelson rescued all 70 of the equines from being shipped off to the slaughterhouse over the last few years.
Nelson told KSAT in a recent interview that his ongoing rescue mission is part of the reason why he named his 700-acre Spicewood farm “Luck Ranch”.
Rather than being sent to a butcher’s block, the happy horses now enjoy spending their lucky days roaming the countryside and eating regularly hand-fed meals.
(WATCH the news coverage below) – Photo by KSAT
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Quote of the Day: “The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.” – William James
Photo: by OMAR-MALO, CC license via Flickr
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