This little cutie might be old for his species, but that doesn’t stop him from shooting hoops to pass the time.
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When the critter’s X-rays showed that he had arthritis in his elbows in 2013, zookeepers were put to the task of finding ways to keep Eddie’s joints healthy and active.
As it turns out, the elderly otter is the Michael Jordan of the sea.
(WATCH the video below)
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In 2015, Binh and Phuoc Wagner made national news with their incredible story: the twins were adopted from a Vietnamese orphanage by a Canadian family when they became very sick and in dire need of liver transplants – their adopted father, even though he was a perfect match, could only donate a piece of his liver to one of them.
The search began for a second donor – an anonymous stranger who would voluntarily give up a piece of their organ and undergo weeks of recovery.
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More than 600 people offered to donate but only one of them was chosen: Kris Chung, a 19-year old student who lived five minutes down the road from the Wagners at Kingston’s Royal Military College in Kingston, Ontario.
Now a year late, Kris is much more than a stranger to the Wagner family.
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After initially connecting over Facebook and learning of his identity, the twins’ parents met up with Kris for coffee.
“I just gave him a big hug when I first saw him,” Johann Wagner told Macleans. “I don’t even think I said: ‘Thank you.’ It was more: ‘Wow, it’s you.’ ”
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Kris, now 21, has now become a member of the family, stopping by the house every day after school and growing alongside his “little sister” Binh.
Kris and Johanna are working alongside each other for a non-profit known as Twins For Hope – an organization providing Vietnamese orphans like Binh and Phuoc education, shelter, health care.
(WATCH the incredible video below)
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This 6-year-old boy had lost faith in ever seeing his favorite ball again – at least before the local police force answered his poster asking for help.
Te Kahu Hall was outside playing with his beloved red ball when it rolled into the street where a woman in a silver car stopped next to the toy, picked it up, and drove away.
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Hall was heartbroken.
However despite his dismay, he immediately started searching for his lost treasure, creating hand drawn posters with the ball’s picture and bringing them in to the Whanganui, New Zealand police station.
The boys in blue were so touched by the child’s plight, they made a Facebook post describing the predicament to their page’s followers.
Even though the police were still searching for the lost toy, they bought a green replacement ball for Te Kahu to cheer him up.
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That’s when Hall’s parents started getting phone calls from people around town who had seen the police force’s Facebook post and were offering money and second hand balls for Te Kahu.
The family was delighted by the reminders that they still lived in a kind community that looked after each other, even if it was only over a little lost toy.
(WATCH the video below)
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Though shark attacks on humans are relatively rare, the irresistible shape of a surfer on the water’s surface closely resembles that of a seal to sharks with their terrible eyesight – putting them in the same category as prey.
The Shark Shield Freedom 7TM creates an electric field that causes muscle spasms in the creatures’ body, thus deterring them from approaching any further than about 4.2 feet on average.
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Though the schematic still needs more intensive testing with other species of sharks, it had an almost 100% success rate with great white sharks who have been the culprits behind the majority of shark attacks.
Out of 322 encounters between 41 sharks and a camera with bait and the Freedom 7TM attached, only one great white shark got past the field, and it only proceeded to nudge the bait rather than bite.
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The control study without the device attached showed that sharks would constantly wrap their jaws around the bait without hesitation.
There have already been other shark repelling devices on the market, but none have ever undergone scientific trials and research to make sure that they work in protecting ocean-goers.
Click To Share This Shocking Story With Your Friends – Photo by Kawika Holbrook, CC
In celebration of the National Park Service’s Centennial, you can now go on a ten minute virtual tour of one of the most famous American parks with none other than President Barack Obama as your tour guide.
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Since the First Family visited the scenic oasis earlier in the summer, the POTUS’s voice explains the history and significance of the breath-taking scenery.
The National Park Service is allowing free admission to all 412 of their parks this week – with their 413th addition on the way – in celebration of their centennial.
(EXPERIENCE the virtual tour below)
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Instead of cake and presents to celebrate his 9th birthday, Carson Boutte was inspired in a dream he had to ask for something rather unconventional of his parents: spending his gift money on pizzas for flood victims..
They also made a post on Facebook asking if friends or family members wanted to contribute any additional pizzas in Carson’s honor.
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That’s when people really started pie-ing it forward.
The social media plea spread like wildfire until dozens more orders for delivery started flooding the Dominos phone lines.
Inspired by the slew of compassion, the Italian eatery offered to match Carson’s 100 pizzas with their own.
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363 pies were donated in total and several neighboring families even lent a hand delivering the gifts to the evacuees.
“For a 9-year-old to even think to help people…it’s amazing,” flood victim Lacey Viator told ABC13. “It’s just so humbling especially in today’s time. You don’t see children that young who have such a big giving heart and that says a lot for Carson.”
(WATCH the video below)
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Scientists announced yesterday that the star closest to the Sun has a planet similar to the Earth – which also makes it the closest possibly-habitable alien planet ever found.
It is not yet known if this planet, Proxima b, has any life. Even if it does not, its potential ability to sustain liquid water might make it a good first hop for humanity’s future trips out into the Milky Way Galaxy.
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Although the planet’s parent star, Proxima Centauri, is cooler and redder than our Sun, one of the other two stars in the Alpha Centauri star system is very similar to our Sun. The featured image shows the sky location of Proxima Centauri in southern skies behind the telescope that made many of the discovery observations: ESO’s 3.6-meter telescope in La Silla, Chile.
The discovered planet orbits close in — so close, in fact, that one year there takes only 11 days on Earth.
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The planet was discovered by the ESO’s Pale Red Dot collaboration. Although seemingly unlikely, if Proxima b does have intelligent life, at 4.25 light years distance it is close enough to Earth for two-way communication.
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The air was rife last week with the smell of Brussels celebrating its 20th anniversary of the annual Flower Carpet event.
The Grand-Palais – a beautiful plaza of Gothic architecture honored as a Unesco World Heritage site – even features a concert with a specially composed anthem for the event’s theme.
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This year’s theme celebrated over 150 years of Belgian and Japanese friendship.
The Tapis de Fleurs includes a committee of artists and designers that use scaled pictures and illustrations to create the festival’s carpet image. Once the design has been confirmed, the flowers can be ordered in advance to highlight each color in the picture.
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A week before the flowers are arranged, a drawing is laid down on the cobblestones as a stencil for the volunteers.
It’s no surprise that the festival has been continuing since its first event in 1971 – Belgium is the largest exporter of begonias in the world, supplying over 60 million bulbs a year primarily to France, the United States, and the Netherlands.
(WATCH the video below)
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A 25-year-old man recovering from a coma has made remarkable progress following a treatment at UCLA to jump-start his brain using ultrasound. The technique uses sonic stimulation to excite the neurons in the thalamus, an egg-shaped structure that serves as the brain’s central hub for processing information.
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Monti said the researchers expected the positive result, but he cautioned that the procedure requires further study on additional patients before they determine whether it could be used consistently to help other people recovering from comas.
“It is possible that we were just very lucky and happened to have stimulated the patient just as he was spontaneously recovering,” Monti said.
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A report on the treatment is published in the journal Brain Stimulation. This is the first time the approach has been used to treat severe brain injury.
The technique, called low-intensity focused ultrasound pulsation, was pioneered by Alexander Bystritsky, a UCLA professor of psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences in the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior and a co-author of the study. Bystritsky is also a founder of Brainsonix, a Sherman Oaks, California-based company that provided the device the researchers used in the study.
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That device, about the size of a coffee cup saucer, creates a small sphere of acoustic energy that can be aimed at different regions of the brain to excite brain tissue. For the new study, researchers placed it by the side of the man’s head and activated it 10 times for 30 seconds each, in a 10-minute period.
Monti said the device is safe because it emits only a small amount of energy — less than a conventional Doppler ultrasound.
“The changes were remarkable,” Monti said.
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The technique targets the thalamus because, in people whose mental function is deeply impaired after a coma, thalamus performance is typically diminished. And medications that are commonly prescribed to people who are coming out of a coma target the thalamus only indirectly.
Under the direction of Paul Vespa, a UCLA professor of neurology and neurosurgery at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, the researchers plan to test the procedure on several more people beginning this fall at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center. Those tests will be conducted in partnership with the UCLA Brain Injury Research Center and funded in part by the Dana Foundation and the Tiny Blue Dot Foundation.
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If the technology helps other people recovering from coma, Monti said, it could eventually be used to build a portable device — perhaps incorporated into a helmet — as a low-cost way to help “wake up” patients, perhaps even those who are in a vegetative or minimally conscious state. Currently, there is almost no effective treatment for such patients, he said.
The study’s other co-authors are Vespa, who holds UCLA’s Gary L. Brinderson Family Chair in Neurocritical Care and is director of neurocritical care at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center; Caroline Schnakers, a UCLA neurosurgery researcher; and Alexander Korb, a Semel Institute researcher.
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Thanks to a family donation, a new space for outdoor adventure, recreation, and play will be available to the public in Maine.
This week, President Obama announced the designation of Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument as America’s 413th participating space of the National Park System.
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The new national park was made possible through a generous donation of 87,500 acres by Roxanne Quimby and her family. The gift has been facilitated by the National Park Foundation as part of its Centennial Campaign for America’s National Parks.
In addition to the new park land, the gift includes an endowment of $20 million to supplement federal funds for initial park operational needs and infrastructure development at the new monument, and a pledge of another $20 million in future philanthropic support.
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“As the National Park Service begins a second century of conservation this week, the President’s designation of Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument serves as an inspiration to reflect on America’s iconic landscapes and historical and cultural treasures,” said U.S. Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell. “Through this incredibly generous private gift for conservation, these lands will remain accessible to current and future generations of Americans, ensuring the rich history of Mainers’ hunting, fishing and recreation heritage will forever be preserved.”
“The National Park Service marks its centennial this week with a renewed commitment to tell a more complete story of our nation and to connect with the next generation of park visitors, supporters and advocates,” said National Park Service Director Jonathan B. Jarvis. “I can’t think of a better way to celebrate the Centennial and underscore our mission than by adding this extraordinary piece of Maine’s North Woods to the National Park System, and sharing its stories and world class recreation opportunities with the rest of the world.”
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Through the Centennial Campaign for America’s National Parks, the National Park Foundation seeks to raise $350 million for programs and projects designed to protect America’s special places, connect people from all backgrounds to parks, and inspire future generations of national park stewards. With this gift, the Foundation has raised more than $300 million toward the goal.
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These orcas will have to stay hungry thanks to the quick actions of this runaway seal.
The sailors encouraged the seal to stay still as the orcas circled in the water below.
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The critter accidentally fell off the boat a few times, but always managed to climb back on just in time.
Once the predators finally left after 35-40 minutes of pursuing their prey, the happy seal dived into the sea and swam into the sunset alive and well.
(WATCH the incredible video below) Editor’s note: graphic language used.
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The 2016 Rio Olympics have taken its toll on the city’s struggling infrastructure, but the Olympic Committee is taking strides to ensure more efficient social and environmental responsibility by reusing the buildings typically abandoned after the games.
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AECOM, an engineering consulting company that created the master plans for the Olympics has mapped out the event’s “legacy mode” – also known as the plans and processes of cleaning up once the games are over.
“With the legacy vision already in place, the strategy was always to create world‑class sports facilities that would not languish unused after the Games,” says Bill Hanway, AECOM’s Global Sports Leader on the buildings. “This meant looking hard at the business case for each stadium. If it didn’t have a clear role post-Games, it became a temporary venue, with its constituent parts designated for reuse.”
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Now that the games have ended, construction crews will start the deconstruction of the building for better use.
The handball venue known as the Future Arena will be used to build four 500-student primary schools in the city’s Jacarepaguá neighborhood while the $38 million Aquatic Stadium where Michael Phelps dominated his races will go towards creating two community swimming centers.
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The International Broadcast Center will become a high school dormitory for gifted athletes; the peninsula that featured several game venues will become host to public parks and private development; and the Tennis Center and souvenir shop can simply be disassembled for better use.
Not only are nomadic buildings better for the city’s infrastructure, but they’re also cheaper to build and more environmentally friendly since they don’t require permanent design and materials.
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If you don’t believe in true love, then you’ve obviously never heard of Klepetan and Malena the storks.
Ever since Malena had her wing shot by a hunter in 1993, she has been unable to join her soul mate on his 5,000 mile migration from Eastern Europe to South Africa.
But that doesn’t stop Klepetan from coming back every year like clockwork to visit his injured mate in Slavonski Brod, Croatia.
The celebrity couple has raised more than 40 chicks in the 14 years that they’ve been together—and they’re even so beloved by village residents, that there’s a live feed of their reunion running every spring.
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Village school teacher Stjepan Vokic found Malena lying on her side in the road almost two decades ago, and he has always cared for her in Klepetan’s absence. Every winter, Malena is allowed to stay in the house with his family, while in the warmer seasons, she resides in a nest that Stjepan built on his roof.
Storks aren’t famous for their long-term mating practices, but they have been known to stay mostly monogamous if they find the right companion.
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Other males have tried to woo Malena in Klepetan’s absence, but she has always chased off the presumptuous birds so she can continue waiting for her one true love.
(WATCH the video of the amorous birds below)
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Starting in 2017, San Francisco will pass legislation banning the sale of foam food and retail products in order to protect the environment from further pollution.
Thanks to the vote by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, the Californian city will start enacting the ban on fish and meat trays in July before continuing the exclusion of items such as foam coolers, cheaply-made pool toys, packing peanuts, polystyrene dock floats, and buoys in January.
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Similar legislation has been enacted in places like New York City, but the ban has been declared the toughest anti-foam law in the country.
“I just passed the toughest anti-Styrofoam law in the country and we did it unanimously,” Board of Supervisors President London Breed wrote on her Facebook page after the vote in July. “This is a huge step for our environment and health. San Francisco is on our way to leading the country on environmental policy—again!”
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A Philippines fisherman was feeling down on his luck when a house fire forced him to clear out his possessions and change locations – until a good luck charm that he had kept under his bed changed his life.
The unidentified man had fished out a giant pearl from the ocean when his anchor got stuck on the rock while sailing off the coast of Palawan Island in the Philippines ten years ago.
When he was forced to sell it, the shocked tourism agent at Puerto Princesca told him that the 77-pound gem that he had kept hidden in his rundown wooden home was likely to be the biggest pearl in the world, measuring in at 1 foot wide and 2.2 feet long. It’s also valued at £76 million ($100 million).
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The Lao-Tzu Pearl, which is currently on display in the Ripley’s Believe It or Not! museum in New York City only weighs in at 14 pounds – five times smaller than the gem that the fisherman just handed in.
According to Aileen Cynthia Amurao, a Puerto Princesa city tourism officer and relative of the fisherman, the monstrous prize is going to be verified by the Gemologist Institute and other international authorities before hopefully going on display to attract more tourists to the little town.
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It all started when Chris Leamy was walking out of the subway with his guitar case and a homeless woman pointed at it, remarking “This would be easier if I had one of those.”
That’s why Chris has been playing his guitar next to homeless people around New York City for almost two years.
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His hashtag #HePlaysForMe helps raise money for the homeless community as he plays: if he makes $15 for a homeless person, they get to keep all the money while Chris matches it by paying $15 to the Bowery Mission Homeless Shelter and asking his followers to do the same.
The musician has already raised well over $6,000 for New York’s homeless since last year.
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One of his friends in poverty, Miguel Correa, is one of Chris’s luckiest benefactors: since the man made an appearance in a Now This video alongside the guitar player, a donation page was set up to get Miguel off the streets.
The goal was set at only $500 – which was enough for new clothes from Goodwill, food, a savings account, and two months rent for an apartment in the Bronx. Any money donated over the specified sum would buy meals for the Bowery Mission homeless shelter.
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Not only did the page make enough money for Miguel to get back on his feet again, it also bought 1,257 meals for the homeless community.
Miguel now has a job at Dairy Queen and Chris has been signed by Sony for a record deal while he continues playing for New York’s homeless.
(WATCH the video below)
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Because 10-year-old Cami Skouson has autism, she has been fixated on the same flowery pink shirt that she got from Target five years ago.
But after constant wear, the child’s shirt became too tattered for use.
Her post was shared over 40,000 times on social media, news stations, and radio shows until the packages started pouring in.
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Over 178 shirts have been shipped to Cami’s home in Utah since the photo went viral and Target has even offered to remake the tee in larger sizes so she can continue wearing them as an adult.
“I don’t know how much she understands, but when she first saw multiples of the shirt, she was a little confused, because she’s only ever had one at a time,” Deborah told Today. “She likes to pick up each one of them, and she rubs them against her face and smells them, and just gets a big smile on her face.”
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Two lucky canines hitched a free ride thanks to a kind-hearted cop.
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The officer snapped selfies with his new furry friends and posted the images on Facebook to help the owners find their runaway dogs.
Thanks to the kindness of the force’s new dog whisperer, the two hounds are now safe and sound with their grateful families.
(WATCH the video below)
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You don’t have to be in the Olympics to be super strong – and according to Wayne McEntire, you don’t have to be young either.
When a Brazilian man offered Wayne a priority seat used for the elderly and disabled, he politely declined – and decided to show off a little.
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To the passenger’s shock, he took hold of a nearby subway pole and lifted his whole body into a perfectly horizontal line
Since his grandson Britton Barker posted the photos of his grandfather on social media, he has become Twitter famous and proved that age is just a number.
Someone offered my grandpa a preferred seat for elderly people on the subway and he did this pic.twitter.com/h7QjAM5rRw
— Britton Barker (@b_flex14) August 11, 2016
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After the ravaging floodwaters of the 2011 tsunami in the Sendai region of Japan displaced thousands of children and families, Takashi Kobayashi knew he wanted to lend a hand in the best way he could: making treehouses.
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A father of 3 himself, the woodsman found his heart breaking as he volunteered in the days following the flood and seeing the Japanese children without homes – or worse.
So in 2014, Takashi built an awe-inspiringly beautiful tree house as a classroom for the kids.
(WATCH the incredible video below)
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