If you have been putting off going to your local museum, then you now have a pretty good excuse to go this weekend.
In celebration of Museum Day this Saturday, over 1,500 museums will be allowing free admission to their institutions for the day.
The event, which is orchestrated by Smithsonian, is allowing one free admission ticket per email address and each ticket will allow free admission for two people.
Cultural institutions in all 50 American states – from history museums to botanical gardens and state zoos – will be participating.
If you want to look at a complete list of participating museums or you want to get free tickets, you can check out the Smithsonian website.
Additionally, Smithsonian just released a list of their 10 favorite can’t-miss museums, including the Zoo Miami and the quirkier National Barber Museum in Canal Winchester, Ohio.
Plan A Trip: Tell Your Friends About The Good News By Sharing To Social Media – Photo by Brady Harvey / Museum of Pop Culture
Herman Gordon is a custodian at Bristol University in England. Described adoringly as a “legend” and “hero” of the school, the students took to one of their school social media pages so they could talk about how much they loved Herman and his “jolly” disposition.
One of the students in particular made a post about how Herman had not been able to see his family in Jamaica for four years – so the young adults banded together to raise money for the 65-year-old janitor to visit his family.
The students all donated to a JustGiving page that eventually managed to raise over $2,000 (£1,500); enough for a one-week vacation to Jamaica for Herman and his wife Denise.
One of the young donors surprised Herman with the gift by handing him an envelope filled with cash. As the student filmed the emotional moment, Herman can be seen breaking down into tears, overwhelmed by the compassionate gesture.
The video was shared thousands of times – and now, the students get to see the wonderful fruit of their labor.
Herman and Denise recently published photos of their glamorous two-night stay at the Sandals Resort in Motego Bay, saying that they are finally getting to celebrate their 23rd wedding anniversary.
The lovebirds got to enjoy a couple’s massage and candlelit dinner at the 5-star resort before they head off to see Herman’s family in Kingston.
After Herman released photos of his celebrity treatment, he wrote to the Bristol students, saying: “God bless you all. Everybody will see this and think that I’m a trillionaire.”
Denise chipped in as well, adding: “I just wanted to say thank you to all the University of Bristol students for this gift that they have given to me and Herman.”
Judging by how the students talk about the Jamaican janitor, however, it seems like it was the least they could do for such a compassionate man.
“All year round, this man works hours on end to provide us with a clean working space in which to study,” one of the students wrote in the original social media fundraising thread. “But most importantly, his undying positive energy and chit-chat has managed to turn many students’ dark days into positive ones filled with joy. Whether you’re just feeling generally down and out or stressed out due to exams, Herman is always there to speak to you.”
“This legend proves that happiness is not about what you own, what job you have or how much money you’ve got, but about appreciating what you currently have in life.”
Be Sure And Share This Sweet Story Of Kindness With Your Friends – Photos by Sandals
Quote of the Day: “What you can BECOME depends upon what you can OVERCOME.” – Anthony D. Williams
Photo: by Andrey Nefedov, CC license
With a new inspirational quote every day, atop the perfect photo—collected and archived on our Quotes page—why not bookmark GNN.org for a daily uplift?
Following a violent 20-year conflict, the leaders of Ethiopia and Eritrea have officially opened the border between their two nations.
Ecstatic Africans rushed across the border in celebration of the historic event, many of them family members who were finally able to embrace after years of forceful separation.
The countries that have been at odds since 1993 when Eritrea voted with a super majority to separate from Ethiopia. The border conflict eventually resulted in a two-year war in 1998 and harsh tensions between the two nations.
Early in April, however, Abiy Ahmed took over as Ethiopian Prime Minister after the previous leader resigned suddenly in February amid massive anti-government protests. In Ahmed’s inaugural address, he called upon Eritrean leaders to aid him in ending the deadly two-year old border conflict and resolved to create a new chapter in the two nation’s histories.
Ahmed’s administration has also been praised for its release of thousands of jailed political prisoners, and a greater focus on maintaining the basic rights of Ethiopians, as well as a more open relationship with the press.
By reopening the border, Eritreans were invited to celebrate the Ethiopian new year alongside their international neighbors last week – and judging by footage that was released by the Associated Press, the festivities were happy indeed.
(WATCH the video below)
Be Sure And Share The Awe-Inspiring Story Of Peace With Your Friends – Photo by The Associated Press
It has been 12 years since Wesley Ryan watched his beloved car drive away from him – and the sight “broke him in half”.
Back in the day, Wesley was known around San Antonio, Texas for his white 1993 Ford Mustang, which he fondly called “Christine”.
But when his wife and high school sweetheart, Laura Ryan, was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, Wesley sold the car to help pay for her mounting medical bills.
“[It’s] not his world, but it’s one of the pieces to his heart. You just can’t replace it with any other vehicle,” Wesley’s daughter Jeni Ryan told CBS News. “He’s not materialistic — he just wants his family taken care of. And at the end of the day, this all started because my mom was diagnosed with cancer and my dad being the man that he is, he decided to sell his vehicle in a heartbeat.”
So as a means of thanking their father for all his years of kindness and devotion, Jeni and her brother Jake Ryan tracked down the very same Mustang and presented it to their father earlier this week.
Jake managed to find the Mustang’s VIN number on Craigslist, and within the same day, the siblings explained the situation to the owner, struck up a deal, and drove for an hour and a half to pick up the car in the city of Kyle.
With the help of their mother, now cancer-free, Jake and Jeni asked their father to meet them in a Kohl’s parking lot for the surprise. They blindfolded their bewildered father before parking the Mustang in front of Wesley.
Needless to say, he was overcome with emotion with when the blindfold came off.
The siblings took a video of their father’s reaction and posted it to Facebook where it was viewed thousands of times.
“I know how much it broke him in half seeing that car drive away from him. A day I’ll never forget,” Jake captioned the video. “Well… She’s back home pops and here to stay this time. Looking forward to building this car with you this time instead of being in a booster seat looking out the window.”
Jeni told CBS News that she and her brother had tried to buy the car back several times over the years – which is why she can’t help but cry every time she watches the video of Wesley and Christine’s reunion.
“He never expected anything back from us. All my dad wanted us to be is successful, and that’s all he ever asked from us. He never asked for his vehicle back,” she told the news outlet. “Literally, words cannot explain that video because that video explains absolutely everything.”
(WATCH the video below or our international readers can watch the video on the CBS News website)
Drive This Sweet Story To Your Friends By Sharing To Social Media – Photo by Jake Ryan
The world’s first ever hydrogen-powered train has just been launched for commercial use in Germany, signaling yet another victory in the shift towards sustainability.
The Coradia iLint passenger train, which was developed by rail transport company Alstom, can travel 600 miles (1,000km) on a single tank of hydrogen. Using special fuel cells, the trains generate energy through a combination of hydrogen and oxygen, with excess energy stored in lithium ion batteries.
Though they have the same range as diesel-powered trains, they produce no greenhouse gas emissions and they are cheaper to run than their fossil fuel counterparts.
“This zero-emission train emits low levels of noise, with exhaust being only steam and condensed water,” says Alstom. “The iLint is special for its combination of different innovative elements: clean energy conversion, flexible energy storage in batteries, and smart management of traction power and available energy.
“Specifically designed for operation on non-electrified lines, it enables clean, sustainable train operation while ensuring high levels of performance.”
Two of the Coradia iLint trains will be managing a 62-mile stretch of railway in Lower Saxony, Germany. With several more provinces expressing interest in the eco-friendly transit, Alstom says that they expect to launch 14 more of the zero-emission trains within the next few years.
Power Up With Positivity And Share The Good News With Your Friends – Photo by Alstom
After Puerto Rico was clobbered by Hurricane Maria, this celebrity chef and his team were on the ground serving meals to all of the survivors. Now, he has set up shop right in the middle of Hurricane Florence so he can feed everybody throughout the storm.
José Andrés and his nonprofit World Central Kitchen are responsible for feeding millions of people during every kind of natural disaster. In Puerto Rico alone, he served over 3.6 million meals and his team stayed for an entire year to keep making food for the recovering nation.
Last week, he and his volunteers set up kitchens in Raleigh and Wilmington, North Carolina – the most endangered parts of the state – just days before the storm.
According to CNN, the team has already delivered over 140,000 meals to dozens of shelters, police stations, response teams, neighborhoods, and families without access to food in the Carolinas.
Over the course of the last week, World Central Kitchen has reportedly been the only food relief operation that is currently serving on a large scale in the affected counties – and they still insisted on risking the weather in order to deliver their meals.
“Even though there is still a lot of flooding, I believe yesterday was more dangerous than today. I’m just glad the storm is finally over and people can start getting their lives back to normal,” he told CNN.
(WATCH the video below)
Feed Your Friends Some Positivity And Share The Good News – Photo by World Central Kitchen
Quote of the Day: “All problems become smaller when you confront them instead of dodging them.” – William F. Halsey
Photo: Ian Britton, CC license
With a new inspirational quote every day, atop the perfect photo—collected and archived on our Quotes page—why not bookmark GNN.org for a daily uplift?
There can be a lot of emotional challenges that come from fighting cancer – but according to this charity, a little letter can be a big help in overcoming those obstacles.
Girls Love Mail is a nonprofit that asks strangers to write letters of love and encouragement to breast cancer patients.
Since the charity was launched in August 2011, there have been over 125,000 letters sent to cancer patients around the world. Letter writers have ranged from fourth graders to 90-year-olds across the US, plus Canada, Japan, Germany, Korea, Brazil, UK, Ireland, Australia, Malta, Burma, and The Netherlands.
Regardless of the author’s background, the letter recipients have been grateful for the messages of support.
“I received a note from a complete stranger and it was so powerful,” says one patient. “Now I keep the letter on my nightstand and read it every night before bed to gain strength. I’m amazed at the kindness in this world.”
The founder of Girls Love Mail, Gina Mulligan, says that she got the idea for the charity after she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2009. At the time, the author had been working on a novel that was entirely made up of letters – and then she started receiving hundreds of hand-written well wishes and cards in the mail.
“Letters were all around me, and I realized letters are a precious gift with the power to heal,” says Gina.
She then started the charity with the intention of generating enough letters to send to every woman who receives a breast cancer diagnosis, which is roughly 250,000 per year. The charity’s Miles of Mail 2018 campaign hopes to garner at least 40,000 letters for the year.
Past studies have shown that positive phrasing can help hospital patients better deal with their symptoms and illnesses. In a more surprising case that was described as “unexplainable by western science”, this man is believed to have cured his rare form of stomach cancer by performing random acts of kindness for a year – so it’s no stretch of the imagination to believe that reading letters of love could help breast cancer patients heal as well.
If you would like to participate in the charity’s mission, you can visit the Girls Love Mail website for more details. Additionally, Mulligan has published a compilation book of the charity’s letters called “Dear Friend”, which is available on Amazon.
(WATCH the emotional 2017 footage below)
Cure Your Friends Of Negativity And Share The Inspiring Story To Social Media – Photo by Girls Love Mail
In light of how the stereotypical “homecoming queen” title has placed value on things like prettiness and popularity, these teens are ditching the school tradition in favor of something better.
The student council of Chelsea High School in Michigan have unanimously agreed to replace their homecoming queen tradition with a new “Excellence Award” that will instead recognize students based on their emotional, social, or academic attributes.
The students hope that the new award will help prevent bullying within the school. In the past, the homecoming queen process has been notorious for pitting girls against each other, hurting student feelings, and even being used for bullying purposes.
The school has been working to fight bullying since they launched their #WhyYouMatter campaign in 2016. The new Excellence Award, which will be unveiled at the homecoming football game later this week, is just another way in which the youngsters hope to reward and emphasize student kindness and character, regardless of gender.
Student Council President Drew Vanderspool says that the majority of the high school’s student body has welcomed the change.
“Previously with the homecoming queen award, we thought that it was saying that as a school we really valued the kids that were the prettiest or the most popular,” Vanderspool told Michigan Radio, “and we think that by changing the idea behind the award into the Chelsea Excellence Award, we’re saying as a high school that we value kids with character and kindness and school spirit above that, and we allow kids to be who they want to be without being judged or without feeling like they have to fit into certain categories here at CHS.”
Be Sure And Pass On The Positive Story To Your Friends – Photo by Chelsea High School
In one of the “biggest breaking stories of 2018” illustrating the ongoing transition from fossil fuels to renewables, a top power plant developer has just announced that it will be pivoting away from coal in favor of sustainable energy.
Japanese energy company Marubeni will no longer be building coal-powered plants. Instead, it will be doubling the sustainable energy capacity of its net power supply from 10% to 20% by 2023.
The conglomerate also plans on reducing its environmental impact by slashing its coal-powered energy of 3GW by half.
According to Japanese newspaper Nikkei, the company plans to avoid job loss by reassigning their employees currently working on coal-related projects to their renewable energy initiatives as they develop.
“Marubeni Corporation recognizes that climate change is a major issue shared by all of humanity,” said the company in a statement detailing their new initiative. “It is a problem that threatens the co-existence of the global environment and society, a problem that has an enormous effect on Marubeni’s business and its shareholders, and a problem that Marubeni believes must be dealt with swiftly.”
Marubeni is already one of the driving masterminds behind the Noor Abu Dhabi project: the largest solar project in the Middle East and one of the cheapest solar projects in the world.
With the company currently ranked as the world’s 11th biggest coal power developer out of 120, the announcement is being hailed as a watershed victory for sustainability.
Energy finance specialist Tim Buckley made a post on Twitter saying that “this has to be one of the biggest breaking stories of 2018 in terms of energy transition.”
Power Up With Positivity And Share The Good News With Your Friends – Representative photo by Tj.Blackwell, CC
This man is not driving a school bus so he can bring children to class – instead, he is using it as a makeshift Noah’s Ark for all the dogs and cats left behind during hurricanes.
When Hurricane Harvey hit Texas back in 2017, Tony Alsup heard about all of the animals who were in need of rescuing from the danger area. So he simply bought a school bus, ripped out the seats, filled the passenger area floor-to-ceiling with kennels, and started picking up as many shelter animals as he could fit into the cages.
According to The Washington Post, he used the bus during Hurricane Irma as well. When his bus was unable to help with Hurricane Maria battering Puerto Rico, he volunteered to look after horses.
Now, the 51-year-old trucker been piloting his bus across North and South Carolina to rescue shelter pets from Hurricane Florence.
Last week, Alsup rescued 64 animals from 4 different shelters in just two days. He then brought all the animals to his friend’s animal shelter in Alabama before turning around and heading back up the coast so he could pick up more animals.
“I’m like, look, these are lives too,” Alsup told The Post during a pit stop. “Animals — especially shelter pets — they always have to take the back seat of the bus. But I’ll give them their own bus. If I have to I’ll pay for all the fuel, or even a boat, to get these dogs out of there.”
Saint Frances Animal Shelter from Georgetown County, South Carolina praised Alsup’s efforts on social media, saying: “Tony swooped in at 4am Wednesday morning to pick up our ‘leftovers‘ – the dogs with blocky heads, the ones with heartworm. The ones no one else will ever take. And he got them to safety.
“Not the most conventional evacuation, but surely the one with the most heart,” they added.
(WATCH the interview below)
Be Sure And Share The Pawesome Story With Your Friends – Photo by Tony Alsup
Quote of the Day: “When life looks like it’s falling apart, it may just be falling in place.” – Beverly Solomon
Image: by David Denicolò, Antelope Canyon, CC license
With a new inspirational quote every day, atop the perfect photo—collected and archived on our Quotes page—why not bookmark GNN.org for a daily uplift?
What started as a modest literacy project in 2009 has grown into a worldwide phenomenon: Little Free Libraries.
Little Free Libraries are tiny houses filled with books that can be placed in people’s front yards so that neighbors can take and leave books at their leisure. The libraries ensure that – no matter a person’s place, income, or circumstances – they can always have access to a good book.
Todd Bol created the nonprofit in 2009 after placing one of the boxes in his own front yard. Now nine years later, the charity is celebrating its 75,000th Little Free Library which was placed in Jenks, Oklahoma in late August.
“With 75,000 Little Libraries around the world, we estimate that 54 million books will be shared this year alone and 900,000 neighbors will meet each other for the first time,” says Bol. “But book access remains a critical challenge in so many communities around the country. We believe everyone has the right to read, and we want to help make that a reality.”
The libraries have been placed in 88 countries around the world. At Jenks East Elementary, a community of more than 1,600 elementary school students, more than 67% of the pupils qualify for free and reduced lunch and 25% are English-language learners. The student body includes resettled refugees from Myanmar as well as immigrants from Mexico, Syria, China, Puerto Rico, Korea, Russia and Iran.
This is just one example of a community that can benefit from the joys of free books. Similar community-sharing ideas have also manifested in the form of “Little Free Pantries” and “driveway art galleries”.
An 83-year-old man is being hailed as a hero after he successfully managed to fight off three assailants from robbing a bookies earlier this week.
Irish great-grandfather Denis O’Connor was at Bar One Racing in Glanmire, County Cork when three people wearing balaclavas charged into the building, two of them wielding hammers and one of them holding a gun.
While the men with the hammers started to harass the man behind the counter, the man with the gun kept his weapon trained on the gamblers.
“You can either run and hide or take a stand and I took a stand. The two with the hammers had jumped in and were threatening Tim, the manager, and I decided to go and help him,” the great-grandfather told the Irish Sun.
“Tim the manager is a very nice young man and I just couldn’t not help him. I ignored the fellow with the gun and I went behind the counter. I just didn’t think about what I was doing.
“Sometimes you can just sit down and do nothing or you can stand up to people like these and that’s what I did,” he added.
O’Connor, who is a retired mechanic-fitter and father of five, proceeded to grab one of the assailants and pull them out from behind the counter. As he forced them out of the building, Tim managed to fight off the other hammer-wielding assailant.
As the final would-be burglar was running out of the building after his companions, O’Connor managed to deliver a swift kick to the man’s backside, which he says “felt really good.”
O’Connor works out at the gym several times a week, going for swims and walks that are several miles long. He is also turning 85 years old next month.
Though O’Connor says that his was wife of 60 years was not very pleased by his actions, Tim has called the pensioner a hero and thanked him for intervening when he did.
(WATCH the video below)
Be Sure And Pass On The Positive Story To Your Friends
On a sleepless night in 2011, a Southern California surfer was staring at his quiver of surfboards unhappy with the quality and integrity of the bags that protected them. They were unimaginative, all manufactured overseas, and none of them used recycled material. Then, his gaze fell to an old sail lying on the floor. It was part of a set design destined for the stage—and, later, the landfill. He suddenly had an idea.
After much research, fed by his passions for surfing, sailing, and designing, Jeffrey Wapner launched a company in his hometown of Santa Barbara to create stylish, durable, and sustainable surfboard bags and carry-all totes.
Paradise Divided Into Blue and Green upcycles old sails, anchor lines, vintage fabric, and post-consumer materials, all sourced locally—and sews them into handmade bags on site. The company just opened an e-commerce store online, after launching in retail stores in Japan.
“I wanted to give these sails, originally designed to be used at sea, a second chance at romance with the wind, salt, and sand,” says Wapner.
Wapner’s aesthetic priority is to allow the materials to dictate the design: “Every sail tells its own story, and I try to honor the original design—for example, the traditional zig-zag stitching—into every component.”
His priority for sustainability dictated that he find a source for recycled foam to protect the board, and eco-friendly zippers. He even found upcyled zipper pulls.
Now, every surfer who has a deep connection to the Earth can purchase bags true to their environmental character. Learn more at intoblueandgreen.com.
– Co-written with Morgan Balavage, @splendid.yoga in Santa Barbara
Quote of the Day: “Ultimately, what really matters is the love you give, the love you receive, and the love you leave.” – Mary Manin Morrissey
Image: The Wilds of Cumberland, Ohio, via video
With a new inspirational quote every day, atop the perfect photo—collected and archived on our Quotes page—why not bookmark GNN.org for a daily uplift?
To encourage youth leadership, the Creative Arts Emmys invited “Kids for Peace” representatives to join media networks in covering the Red Carpet in Los Angeles last week.
Participating in the event, in the lead-up to the 70th annual Primetime Emmys Monday night on NBC, was a dream come true for the two teens. They rehearsed their camera moves and honed their focus to one single question they would ask celebs and artists: “How do you think your work in the arts is helping to create a better world?”
18-year-old Shivanii Ray, the group’s spokesperson, and Eli Bensen, 15, who operated the camera, have both participated for years in programs run by the nonprofit, Kids for Peace, which has an active network of 10 million youth in 121 countries around the world.
The chance to practice courage and poise on the Red Carpet, however, seems to have been their favorite peace project to date.
When the Emmy-nominated comedian, actor, and producer Melvin Jackson Jr. (The Wire) met the eager youth, he exclaimed, “You had me at Kids for Peace.”
He and his wife, Kelly Jenrette, are the first African-American married couple to be nominated for an Emmy in the same year.
All photos submitted by Kids For Peace
“He was one of my favorite interviews because of his warm smile and genuine interest in what we’re doing,” said Bensen.
Scheduled as a presenter onstage during the evening’s gala was the Kids for Peace Celebrity Ambassador, Giancarlo Esposito, who is an award-winning film and television actor (Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul, and Do the Right Thing) who understands the importance of what the kids are trying to do. Beyond chatting with them on the Red Carpet, he is joining them in a global campaign beginning next week—called #DoItForPeace—which aims to galvanize a billion people to do acts of peace within ten days, for which Good News Network and Peace One Day are major partners.
Topping off their experience, was a serendipitous drop-the-mic-moment with the wildly fun talk show host James Corden backstage. After receiving two Creative Arts Emmys, which honors outstanding artistic and technical achievement in a variety of television genres, he happily posed with the Kids For Peace sign, with the message of “Peace begins with you!”
The hashtag on the sign, as well social media posts this week, are inspiring people to sign up to become ignitors in the #DoItForPeace campaign which launches September 21, 2018, on the International Day of Peace. DoItForPeace.org has a goal to activate a critical mass of 1 billion people to shift global consciousness and make peace a reality.
Get involved by making a peace sign, helping a stranger, or any other act of peace, and post about it online with the hashtag #DoItForPeace, and ask your friends to do the same. Watch a spinning globe light up during the ten days on our GNN #DIFP page, in the locations people are hashtagging— and see videos and photos as they are posted.
Together, we can make an impact greater than a television show honored on the red carpet.
The campaign’s biggest sponsor is TaTaTu, a new entertainment platform launched by Italian filmmaker Andrea lervolino that rewards users for watching free movies and gaming online with advertisers paying users in blockchain-based cryptocurrency tokens—and additional tokens being earned whenever they get friends to join and watch, too. This #DoItFoPeace sponsorship is the company’s first foray into social causes as part of TaTaTu’s larger push into community activism & global stewardship.
The female physicist responsible for one of the most important discoveries of the 20th century is finally getting the recognition she deserves, after a man earned the Nobel Prize, instead of her. Hear The Good News Guru tell the inspiring story (from the September 14, 2018 Ellen K. Morning Show on KOST-103.5 radio in Los Angeles).
LISTEN to this story here, as told by The Good News Guru, from Friday’s radio broadcast with Ellen K and the GNN founder, on KOST-103.5 — Or, READ the story below… (Subscribe to our podcast on iTunes – or for Androids, on Podbean)
Working as a lone woman in the physics department at Cambridge University, she was responsible for one of the most important discoveries of the 20th century, but she hasn’t been recognized until now.
Jocelyn Bell Burnell spent years being ridiculed in the 60s for being a woman in a man’s world, laying miles of cables to set up the radio astronomy equipment that allowed her to gaze at the skies behind a telescope.
Under the direction of a man, Antony Hewish, a scientist who was searching for quasars (bright objects with unknown origins), the grad student pored over the data for months.
Then, one day in 1967, she discovered four gently pulsing sources of radio waves that were emanating from different points in the galaxy—and knew she’d discovered something important.
The 24-year-old from Northern Ireland had discovered pulsars: rapidly spinning and highly-magnetized stars that are the size of San Francisco, but with the mass of the sun.
Her discovery was published in a reputable scientific journal, but her advisor’s name was listed as the first author.
Despite all her work, Hewish and another man were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for “their decisive role in the discovery of pulsars”—because students weren’t eligible even to be acknowledged.
“I think he expected me to be angry,” Bell Burnell told The Washington Post. Yet she was proud that her stars motivated the Nobel committee for the first time to recognize the field of astronomy with the notable physics prize.
Now, nearly a half century after her discovery, Burnell has been awarded the Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics along with a $3 million prize. Only four of these prizes have ever been awarded, with previous winners including Stephen Hawking, the scientists responsible for the Higgs boson, and the research collaboration that first detected gravitational waves.
She was “literally speechless” when she heard the news—but her fellow scientists have been quick to applaud the decision.
“Jocelyn Bell Burnell’s discovery of pulsars will always stand as one of the great surprises in the history of astronomy,” said Edward Witten, the chair of the Selection Committee. “Until that moment, no one had any real idea how neutron stars could be observed, if indeed they existed…something that has led to many later advances.”
“Professor Bell Burnell thoroughly deserves this recognition,” wrote Yuri Milner, one of the founders of the Breakthrough Prize. “Her curiosity, diligent observations and rigorous analysis revealed some of the most interesting and mysterious objects in the Universe.”
To pay homage to the struggles she went through as a woman, Burnell says she will use the prize money to create a scholarship for women, minority, and refugee grad students.
Be Sure And Pass On The Inspiring Scientific Story To Your Friends – Photo by Robin Scagell and the Breakthrough Foundation
