A former McDonald’s CEO is flipping vegan burgers these days.
Don Thompson is bringing his 25 years of experience from the fast food chain to the six-year-old vegan food company, Beyond Meat.
Thompson left McDonald’s after months of faltering sales. In a November 5 statement announcing his new job, he said customers today want more variety in their food choices and are adding more plant proteins, like his new company’s non-GMO, protein patties made out of peas.
A one-year-old girl is completely cancer free, after doctors used “designer immune cells” for the first time in history in a desperate attempt to save her life.
Layla Richards was diagnosed with lymphoblastic leukemia when she was just 14 weeks old. After chemotherapy, bone marrow transplants, and various experimental treatments failed, doctors told the parents Layla would die.
That was five months ago, and it’s when researchers at University College in London stepped in. The family having refused to give up, agreed to a treatment never before tried on humans.
They received special permission from the British government and Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) for Children to try a genetic treatment that had only been tested in a lab.
It’s called “genome editing” — creating and transplanting special cells into the body to fight cancer.
The body normally relies on T-cells to fight infection, but those don’t always recognize leukemia cells. So doctors took T-cells from a donor, altered them with splices of other genes so they would only see leukemia cells — and so that Layla’s body wouldn’t reject the transplanted cells.
Then they turned loose the edited cells in Layla’s body.
Within months, the little girl’s leukemia was completely gone.
“If replicated, it could represent a huge step forward in treating leukemia and other cancers,” Professor Waseem Qasim, Professor of Cell and Gene Therapy at University College London, and an immunologist at GOSH said.
Doctors point out that Layla was a “very strong” little girl, and it’s unknown if they can repeat her success with other patients.
The genome editing researchers published the results of Layla’s case in the journal Nature.
A Chinese woman’s autobiography certainly wasn’t written in the blink of an eye — but by millions of blinks at a computer screen. The book, “Beautiful Frozen” is a 150,000-word story of her life and her struggle with a paralyzing disease.
Gong Xunhui is practically frozen, unable to move anything but her eyes, 12 years after being diagnosed with ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis), also called “Lou Gehrig’s Disease”. She communicates by blinking her eyes at a computer screen, which slowly spells out her messages.
Gong worked on her autobiography every day for ten months, from eight in the morning until ten or eleven at night — averaging just 3,000 characters a day.
Completing a 150,000 word book is quite the accomplishment for any writer. Online bookseller Amazon reported the median length of all the books they sell is just 64,000 words.
It recounts the 62-year-old’s childhood memories, her youth, and finally her struggles with ALS since being diagnosed with it in 2002. She has lived far longer than most people who are given such a sentence.
Her story is even more inspiring because Gong plans to use the proceeds to buy $3,000 respirators for other ALS patients who can’t afford the life saving devices.
(WATCH the video below from CCTV or READ more at the Daily Mail) — Photo: CCTV video
The Force was strong for Daniel Fleetwood. The Star Wars fan with terminal cancer wanted to see the latest sequel in the movie series before it went public in December–and his wish was granted last night. He and his wife were treated to a private screening of the unfinished movie.
“Daniel just finished watching an unfinished version of Star Wars: The Force Awakens!!!” his wife, Ashley, wrote on her Facebook page late Thursday. “We would like to thank the awesomely talented JJ Abrams for calling us yesterday to tell us Daniel was getting his wish granted!”
The 32-year-old Texas man whose house is packed with Star Wars memorabilia isn’t expected to survive until the film’s opening date of December 18.
Ashley started a social media campaign, #ForceForDavid, asking studio heads to let him see the movie early. It drew national attention — members of the cast even joined the calls for an early showing.
The rock band Foo Fighters never considered fighting off the persuasion of 1,000 passionate Italians.
Back in July, hundreds of guitarists, drummers, and singers assembled in a field in the tiny town of Cesena, Italy to play the 1999 hit, “Learn to Fly.” The giant jam session was a love song sent to lure the Foos to their city.
The video of their massive performance had been viewed 26 million times — and one of those was the band’s founder, David Grohl, who said in a video message it was so beautiful, it made him cry.
It also made him want to show up—so the band added one final stop to their 2015 tour, finishing it off in the small city in Emilia-Romagna on Tuesday.
Grohl took a break in the concert to personally thank all the local musicians, but especially Fabio Zaffagnini, the fan who organized the summer spectacle. He was invited onstage to sit in Dave’s throne and perform with the band.
About 3000 people attended the concert, according to Zaffagnini who spoke to the New York Times. Most of them were musicians or the donors who gave $50,000 to fund the elaborate production.
(WATCH the Inside Edition video below) — Photo by Edvill, CC
For one sick boy who might not make it to Christmas, a Canadian community has delivered the holiday early.
Evan Leversage has been fighting brain cancer for the past five years. When his doctors suggested that the family celebrate Christmas sooner than later, an outpouring of support from the seven-year-old’s community of St. George, Ontario made it happen in October.
Neighbors and friends started decorating their houses, going as far as importing fake snow to scatter around. Carolers have also been gathering early to sing songs on peoples’ doorsteps.
The community even arranged an early Santa Claus parade with 7,000 people in attendance, including Santa himself, who promised to bring Evan “Spongebob Squarepants” for Christmas.
Sure enough, later that night, Spongebob showed up at Evan’s door for a visit.
The GoFoundMe page set up to help the Leversage family with medical expenses had an initial goal of raising $1,500. Today, the fund has collected $45,854.
(WATCH the video above or READ more from CBC News) Photos: CBC News
Thousands of supporters – including Luke Skywalker – are retweeting the Star Wars hashtag #ForceForDaniel to help one special fan gain a sneak peek before the official December 18 premier date of the 7th installment of the legendary film series.
Daniel Fleetwood has been a Star Wars fan since he was eight years old, but he may not get to see the new film because of a rare form of cancer that doctors said in July would leave him with just months to live.
The campaign to allow the 32-year-old fan with spindle cell sarcoma to view a private screening of Star Wars: The Force Awakens is aimed at Walt Disney Studios – and it’s gaining traction.
Mark Hamill, the actor who plays Skywalker; John Boyega, who stars as Finn the ex-storm trooper; and Peter Mayhew, the one and only Chewbacca, have each announced their respective support for the campaign.
Daniel’s wife Ashley has been keeping Twitter updated with news and photos of her husband to encourage support from the internet community. Their GoFundMe page for Daniel’s medical bills is a quarter of the way to it’s $100,000 goal.
J.J. Abrams, the film’s director, allowed another fan with terminal cancer to see his earlier blockbuster, Star Trek Into Darkness, before it was released in 2013. The trekkie passed away only days after seeing the film, and Twitter fans hope he will help grant the same privilege to Daniel.
The boss at this Los Gatos, California-based company is telling his 2,200 employees to take six weeks of vacation every year, just like he does — and he’ll pay them to do it.
“I take a lot of vacation and I’m hoping that certainly sets an example,” Netflix CEO Reed Hastings said Tuesday. “It is helpful. You often do your best thinking when you’re off hiking in some mountain or something. You get a different perspective on things.”
Netflix actually offers unlimited vacation time, but opponents to the idea say it makes people less likely to use it, for fear of losing their jobs because they don’t look like hard workers.
Hastings hopes his example of taking lots of time off sends a different message — easing workers’ fears, and letting them relax on more vacations.
As of November 5, there are dozens of Netflix job openings listed for their 2 California locations in need of IT staff, and various other positions, and one opening in Utah for their call center.
Basketball star Yao Ming led his Houston team to four championship tournaments in America, but his greatest victory may be his work in China to save millions of sharks.
Yao joined a campaign in 2006 to ban shark fin soup, which is a delicacy in his native China, and nine years later his involvement has been hailed as crucial in transforming Chinese attitudes about the tradition.
U.S. based conservation group WildAid recruited Yao as the face of its media blitz designed to make people aware of how their food habits were destroying shark populations around Asia.
In a television ad, the star athlete is about to dine on soup. He hears that 70 million sharks are killed each year just for their fins, and looks up from his soup to see a wounded shark in an aquarium tank. He pushes his soup away in disgust and other people in the restaurant, watching him, follow his lead and do the same.
That’s pretty much what happened in real life.
The campaign first gained traction during the 2008 Beijing Olympics, where Yao was a huge draw playing for the Chinese National Team in basketball.
Yao’s TV ad so moved Chinese businessman Jim Zhang, he turned into a full time environmentalist who successfully lobbied the National People’s Congress (China’s parliament) to ban ‘shark wing’ soup, as it’s called, from state banquets. Hong Kong, Malaysia and India did the same.
The cause became a centerpiece of Chinese social media, which led to five hotel groups, three shipping companies, and 24 airlines banning the transport or serving of the dish. Chinese television stations gave the WildAid’s PSAs $11.6 million in free airtime.
By 2014, WildAid reported sales of shark fin soup had declined 82%, and nearly two-thirds of Chinese people credited awareness campaigns with their decision to quit eating the soup.
Maybe Yao’s advocacy on behalf of the fierce fish came from his early days as a member of the pro basketball team in China — the Shanghai Sharks.
(WATCH the pivotal ad below – *Warning: contains image of wounded shark) – Photos by voyagedeslivres; World Economic Forum, CC
The town of Geel has been a sanctuary with a tradition of hospitality toward anyone with mental illness since the 1400s – and such ground-breaking integration was the key to healing success.
Resident families volunteer their homes to people affected by mental disabilities by signing agreements with health authorities to let them move in. After families receive a $750 monthly stipend to support their ‘boarders’, as the patients are called, the guests are free to come and go as they please.
The community in Belgium has replaced stigmatizing labels such as ‘mentally ill’ and ‘madness’ with words that have more positive connotations, like ‘different’ and ‘special.’ As boarders live in an environment that has eliminated the prejudice, dramatic positive effects on their emotional wellbeing can be observed.
Psychiatrists throughout history have praised this communal treatment for its efficacy in helping patients live better lives.
“So much of what makes [us] think that people like that are different is people’s response to them – a bit scared, a bit awkward, they don’t really know how to handle them,” cultural historian Mike Jay told the Independent. “But when people open up, a lot of the problems we perceive just melt away.”
Oddly enough, this revolutionary model of health care originated when an Irish princess named Dymphna fled to Geel escaping her crazed father in Flanders.
Dymphna began to nurse the sick and was able to ease the pain of the mentally-afflicted, leading locals to believe she had divine healing abilities. After her father murdered her, she was deemed a saint and the town built a shrine in her honor that eventually evolved into a church.
Seeking similar healing, thousands of pilgrims came from far and wide to obtain shelter from oppression at Saint Dymphna’s holy house. Because it was always filled to capacity, the town residents stepped in.
Housing the asylum-seekers was seen as a Christian homage to Dymphna, but also beneficial for farmers who needed extra hands. Over the years, the number of boarders has shrunk to about 300, yet Geel is still happy to accommodate the visitors with open arms.
Click to Share This With Your Friends… Photo by Erf Goed Be, CC
When it comes to handicap accessibility, it’s no secret that public transportation in a number of cities is given a failing grade—taxis and rental cars are also ill equipped to accommodate wheelchairs.
So it was not surprising, but still frustrating, when a woman from Paris, France visited Florida and found she couldn’t find a wheelchair-accessible ride around town.
Once Charlotte de Vilmorin arrived back home, she decided to create her own solution in the form of a company called Wheeliz.
An “Uber” for people with disabilities, Wheeliz pairs the owners of handicap accessible vehicles equipped with lifts and other amenities to people who need them.
While there are 100,000 adapted cars in existence throughout the city of Paris, very few of them are in use all the time. Her business, therefore, earns drivers some extra cash while creating more transportation options for people who need them.
“I really believe there is an opportunity there for the collaborative economy and sharing economy to make mobility more accessible for wheelchair users,” she told Mashable.
Jon Stewart’s quiet retirement as a gentleman farmer didn’t last long.
Just three months after leaving “The Daily Show,” the comedian and commentator has signed a four year contract with HBO to produce short, online videos and other content – just in time to poke fun at, or prompt serious thinking about, the 2016 election season in the U.S.
“Appearing on television 22 minutes a night clearly broke me,” Stewart said a statement. “I’m pretty sure I can produce a few minutes of content every now and again.”
Unlike most HBO content, viewers won’t need to have a cable TV subscription to see Stewart’s new videos, but you’ll still have to pay for the HBO Now app for tablets, smartphones, and other devices, which may cost up to $14.99 per month. The new content will also stream on HBO Go.
HBO hasn’t announced when Stewart’s work will debut.
Three and four-year-olds in Seattle, Washington are trading preschool classrooms for the great outdoors.
In a new partnership with Seattle Parks and Recreation, Tiny Trees Preschool will foster learning in nine city parks beginning in September of 2016.
Andrew Jay, one of the school’s founders, maintains that anything kids can do indoors, they can do at a city park—plus, there are so many added opportunities in the natural world for discovery. Using a skill set Jay developed at Outward Bound working with middle and high school students, he is ready to bring outdoor learning into the mainstream.
“When I heard about outdoor preschools, how they can make it much more affordable for families and provide a rich, vibrant program for kids, I was really inspired,” Jay told Good News Network.
Children will use park bathrooms, nap on mats inside park shelters, and take their lessons under picnic pavilions when it rains. And, because Seattle gets a lot of precipitation each year, the kids will each be issued “award-winning Oakiwear rain suits” to keep for the whole year.
The outdoor classroom will have different stations, similar to a Montessori school, where students can explore different layers of the woods. Jay says a science station might involve making a mud pie to learn about surface adhesion or using a magnifying glass to identify bugs, and an art station might use piles of sticks and leaves to make sculptures. Traditional story time, with lots of books will be standard, too.
Without the overhead cost of buildings, Tiny Trees can make year-round preschool more affordable, and spend more money on quality teachers — it will cost about $7,000 a year, compared to $12,000, which is the average cost in Seattle.
The inspiration for Andrew is a school for fifty families begun two years ago at the University of Washington. Fiddleheads Nature School is a successful outdoor model for Seattle, with teachers saying they are thrilled by classroom sightings of bald eagles mating, young owlets fledging, and praying mantids hunting.
The concept was developed in Denmark and Sweden in the 1950s, before it spread to other European countries, including Germany, where currently 1,000 outdoor preschools operate. In the U.S. there are schools operating in Maine, San Francisco, and Georgia.
Tiny Trees points to the UK’s Forest School Association, featuring the video below, as a model of what they plan to create in Washington.
“Teaching preschool is pretty magical,” Jay said. “Instead of being a teacher pouring knowledge by the cupful into each student, you are helping each child collect raindrops of knowledge.”
True to that natural analogy, Jay said the name “Tiny Trees” was chosen because preschool age is when kids “create their first memories and develop roots in their community that last a lifetime.” The school chose a sprouting acorn as it’s logo, and hopes that a total of 20 outdoor schools will sprout up locally by the year 2020.
(WATCH the video below) — Photos by Heaton Johnson, CC; Forest School Association, video
It was “The Paper Man,” a happy, singing, dancing man she saw every Sunday hawking the Cincinnati Enquirer to passing motorists. Rain, shine, or snow, the stranger kept a smile on his face and entertained people stopped at his intersection.
“He sells the paper with such enthusiasm that I often want to buy one just to reward his work,” she wrote online.
She had noticed he rode a rickety, old bicycle with a cart behind it to haul his papers. She thought maybe she could help him buy a new rig, so Alysun took the five dollars and set up a fundraising page called “Bless the Paper Man.”
He tried carrying his brother, at first, but soon realized he wouldn’t be able to cover even a fraction of the distance to the finish line 13 miles away.
The duo had another idea: tie some rope to the wheelchair—maybe Brent could hoist it up and act as a human wheel the rest of the way. When it became clear the weight was too much for Brent alone, other runners stepped in to save the day.
When little Sam Campanella noticed the Halloween pumpkins missing from his front porch, he knew he had to call 911.
His parents tried to explain to him the number was only for emergencies, but to a six-year-old kid, stolen pumpkins at Halloween is the very definition of an emergency.
His parents dialed the Wilmington, Massachusetts Police Department business line, instead, and let Sam explain the missing gourds.
The officers listened to Sam’s official statement and a description of the Jack-O’-Lanterns, then said they’d send over a squad car to investigate. A quick collection arose at the station to surprise the little boy.
A half-hour later, three officers rolled up at Sam’s house, and they asked Sam to open their squad car. Pumpkins rolled out the door, big and small. They also bought a bag of candy to jumpstart the boy’s Halloween.
Science has just given every boy and girl ample evidence to argue their case for a new puppy— kids with dogs are less likely to develop asthma.
Growing up in homes with dogs reduces an infant’s chances of developing asthma before age six by 13%, and exposure to horses and other farm animals reduces the risk by a whopping 52%.
“To let children have a pet in their home is likely to enrich the family life in many ways, and perhaps also enriches the child’s microbiome and immune system,” the study’s lead author, Tove Fall of Uppsala University in Sweden, told Newsweek.
Fall and his team studied meticulous data on more than a million children in Sweden from 2001 through 2010. It identified the link, but didn’t pinpoint the reason why children exposed to animals are less likely to get asthma.
Scientists have long known that people who grew up on farms tend to have far fewer issues with allergies and asthma than people who didn’t. Now families in the suburbs have a suitable substitute for boosting their immunity, without having to give up the benefits of urban living.
Their findings were published in the journal JAMA Pediatrics.
After 25 years of coaching football, you’d think Gregg Farnetti would have a lot of stand-out memories. But his proudest moment came in the final home game of his career, on an extra point kick — by the homecoming queen.
The coach’s life has been consumed with football; all his free time has gone into the team. With his older daughter, Jody, in her last year of high school, Farnetti decided to take a sabbatical to spend quality time with both daughters before they aged another year.
He never had sons to play on his football team, but Jody was able to give him a special moment he would never forget.
So, in that final home game, after her dad escorted her onto the field at halftime where she was named homecoming queen, she traded her gown for pads and her crown for a helmet, and waited on the bench for a chance to enter the game.
Her extra point kick in the final seconds made no difference to the outcome, but it made all the difference in the world for Coach Farnetti, the man who always wanted a son to play football for him.
When a black Labrador saw an intruder entering her home, the dog sprang into action, scaring him away.
In the process, the dog named Egypt was injured by the broken window, and was badly bleeding when members of the Seattle Police Department crawled through that window.
Officers found her and immediately raced out to their squad car to grab the materials needed to bandage her legs. They then high-tailed it to the vet’s office so the seven-year-old mixed-breed could undergo surgery.
One week later, Egypt is doing great, and enjoyed a happy reunion with the officers.
“This brave dog risked her life to protect her home, and it’s thanks to these officers that she’s alive today and recovering at home with her family,” said PETA Senior Vice President Lisa Lange.
The animal rights group presented a Compassionate Police Department Award to the officers along with a box of vegan chocolates.
Because the family’s vet bills were so high, a campaign was started to help pay for them—and the fundraising goal reached in a few days.
