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She Doesn’t Want Kids But Donated 41 Eggs to Help Strangers–And Celebrates Donor Baby’s Birthday Every Year

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Egg donor Yasmin Sharman – SWNS
Egg donor Yasmin Sharman (cropped) – SWNS

A person who doesn’t want kids has donated 41 eggs to help strangers become parents—and celebrates the birthday of her ‘donor baby’ every year.

Yasmin Sharman was concerned by the lack of black donors, so signed up with TFP Fertility in London to be a donor when she 18.

Since then, the 26-year-old has donated 41 eggs, which eventually resulted in the birth of a baby boy to a loving family.

“When I found out that my donation had resulted in the birth of a baby boy I was ecstatic,” Yasmin recalls. “I celebrate the baby’s birthday every year with my friends.”

“It makes me so happy and grateful to be part of somebody’s life, being able to contribute to a family that may have been going through so much emotional turmoil.

“Knowing they have a family now makes me so happy.”

When the teen decided she didn’t want children of her own, she wondered about helping other couples who were struggling with their remaining choices.

Yasmin searched the web for ‘egg donation in London’ and came across TPF Boston Place Fertility—and booked an appointment.

“When I walked through the door, I was nervous, but then it hit me. It was exciting to realize that what I was about to do would impact people.” She described the staff as extremely helpful and lovely: “I felt so supported by them.”

OTHER WAYS PEOPLE DONATE: Woman Welcomes Baby After Strangers Donate $13,000 for Her to Undergo IVF

After giving her a health check-up and reviewing her medical history, they accepted her application. Yasmin has donated a total of three times, most recently in April, despite having to inject herself with hormones multiple times per day.

Egg donor Yasmin Sharman with hormone treatment-SWNS

Egg donors need to inject themselves for 14 days to suppress their natural hormone production, before a second set of injections to stimulate production. A day or two before the eggs are collected, donors receive a hormone injection to help the eggs mature and then the eggs are collected during a procedure.

“I find the process quite easy, I self-inject two or three times a day, for eleven or twelve days, with medicines which stimulate my hormones and encourage my eggs to grow.

“(With) the pregnancy hormones, if I look out of the window and see a cute couple on a bus, I’m likely to burst into tears.”

“I was asked about my reasons for donating, and they checked if I would potentially be happy to be contacted in 18 years,” she said. “I am already happy for that to happen.”

FAMILY FIRST POLICY: Babies Don’t Come with Manuals–But in Oregon, They Now Come With a Nurse

Even though she describes 18 years as a long way away, she’s hopeful that children born with the help of her eggs will reach out to her, when they get to the age.

“It would be interesting and lovely to meet them.”

Celebrating their birthdays annually serves as a great reminder that she’s created real happiness.

“I have contributed to something good. So many people want children but don’t have a choice. I’m young and I have so many eggs.”

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FDA Approves Drug That Targets Brain Cancer Gene Mutation That Could Delay Need for Radiation and Chemotherapy

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Image by Elizabeth Cook / Johns Hopkins
Image by Elizabeth Cook / Johns Hopkins

A new drug for a type of brain cancer, called IDH-mutant low-grade glioma, was approved this month by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration—a promising treatment that stemmed from a genetic discovery made at the Johns Hopkins Cancer Center 16 years ago.

The drug, called vorasidenib, is a targeted cancer therapy that works by inhibiting the activity of a mutated gene called IDH, slowing the growth of the cancer.

The gene was identified by Dr. Bert Vogelstein in 2008 when his team at Hopkins became the first to map the genetic blueprint for brain cancer. The blueprint was considered the most comprehensive genetic analysis for any tumor type, evaluating all known protein-encoding genes in brain cancer.

The researchers found that the IDH gene—which had never been suspected to be involved in any tumor type—was frequently mutated in one subset of brain cancers.

Normal treatments usually include surgery to remove as much of the tumor as possible, followed by radiation and chemotherapy to attack remaining cancer cells. But, in some patients, the addition of the IDH inhibitor could delay the need for radiation therapy and chemotherapy.

“The possibility of delaying radiation therapy and chemotherapy with this drug could be beneficial to select patients with slow growing IDH-mutant gliomas,” says Matthias Holdhoff, M.D., Ph.D., co-director of the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center brain tumor program and a co-investigator on the 2023 clinical trial.

“I believe we are looking at a new standard of care option for these types of tumors.”

VOGELSTEIN ALSO INVENTED: New Cancer Drug is So Effective Against Tumors, the FDA Approved It Immediately

Findings published last year in the New England Journal of Medicine from a phase 3 clinical trial of vorasidenib concluded that the 331 patients with grade 2 IDH-mutant glioma who received the drug had significantly improved progression-free survival and that the therapy delayed the time to the next intervention (compared to patients who received a placebo).

Precision medicine for cancer

Vogelstein and his team’s genetic discoveries ushered in what is known as precision cancer medicine in which therapies are targeted to the unique genetic makeup of each patient’s cancer.

Not only did this research lead to this newly FDA-approved drug, the IDH gene discovery led to a new classification of gliomas—differentiating cancers with an IDH mutation that have overall better outcome and response to treatment from the very aggressive gliomas without an IDH mutation, including glioblastoma, the most common primary brain cancer in adults.

Approximately 80% of low-grade gliomas contain an IDH mutation, according to the National Cancer Institute. They include IDH-mutant astrocytoma and oligodendroglioma, and they occur most commonly in younger adults. Low grade gliomas tend to be slower growing and are associated with longer survival than aggressive, high-grade gliomas.

ANOTHER BRAIN BREAKTHROUGH: Cancer Vaccine Triggers Fierce Immune Response to Fight Malignant Brain Tumors in Human Patients

“IDH is the poster child for cancer genome sequencing, and it illustrates the importance of basic research,” says Vogelstein, the Clayton Professor of Oncology, Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator, and co-director of the Ludwig Center.

“The history of medicine shows that when a disease is understood, it eventually becomes manageable. It may not be immediately evident, but in time, as in this case, such discoveries result in better treatment for patients.”

It has also paved the way for additional studies in other types of brain cancer.

MORE HOPEFUL NEWS: CAR-T Cell Therapy Achieves Near-Complete Tumor Regression in Brain Cancer After Five Days

The Johns Hopkins University holds patents related to the IDH discovery, which have been licensed by Servier Laboratories, which also funded the phase 3 trial. As a result of this licensing agreement, the University and its inventors, including Dr. Bert Vogelstein, will be entitled to royalties related to the IDH discovery.

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Your Weekly Horoscope – ‘Free Will Astrology’ From Rob Brezsny

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Our partner Rob Brezsny, who has a new book out, Astrology Is Real: Revelations from My Life as an Oracle, provides his weekly wisdom to enlighten our thinking and motivate our mood. Rob’s Free Will Astrology, is a syndicated weekly column appearing in over a hundred publications. He is also the author of Pronoia Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How All of Creation Is Conspiring To Shower You with Blessings. (A free preview of the book is available here.)

Here is your weekly horoscope…

FREE WILL ASTROLOGY – Week of August 17, 2024
Copyright by Rob Brezsny, FreeWillAstrology.com

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22):
The coming weeks will be a wonderful time to waste time on the internet. If you are properly aligned with cosmic rhythms, you will spend long hours watching silly videos, interacting with friends and strangers on social media, and shopping for products you don’t really need. JUST KIDDING!! Everything I just said was a dirty lie. It was designed to test your power to resist distracting influences and mediocre advice. Here’s my authentic counsel, Leo. The coming weeks will be a fantastic phase to waste as little time as possible as you intensify your focus on the few things that matter to you most.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22):
Scientific research suggests that brushing and flossing your teeth not only boosts the health of your gums, but also protects your heart’s health. Other studies show that if you maintain robust microbiota in your gut, you’re more likely to avoid anxiety and depression as you nurture your mental health. The coming weeks will be a favorable time to focus on big-picture thoughts like these, Virgo. You will be wise to meditate on how each part of your life affects every other part. You will generate good fortune as you become more vividly aware and appreciative of the intimate interconnectedness that underlies all you do.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22):
The official term for the shape of a single piece of M&M candy is “oblate spheroid.” It’s rounded but not perfectly round. It looks like a partially squashed sphere. An Iraqi man named Ibrahim Sadeq decided to try the difficult task of arranging as many M&M’s as possible in a vertical stack. He is now the world’s record holder in that art, with seven M&M’s. I am imagining that sometime soon, Libra, you could achieve a comparable feat in your own domain. What’s challenging but not impossible?

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21):
I’ve heard many people brag about their hangovers. The stories they tell are often entertaining and humorous. One of my best laughs emerged in response to two friends describing the time they jumped on the roof a parked Mercedes Benz at 3 am and sang songs from Verdi’s opera Falstaff until the cops came and threw them in a jail cell with nothing to eat or drink for ten hours. In accordance with astrological omens, Scorpio, I ask you to *not* get a hangover in the coming weeks, even an amusing one. Instead, I encourage you to studiously pursue extreme amounts of pleasurable experiences that have only good side effects.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21):
Most famous musicians demand that their dressing rooms be furnished with specific amenities. Beyoncé needs rose-scented candles. Rihanna expects her preparatory sanctuary to have dark blue or black drapes topped with icy blue chiffon. Eminem insists on a set of 25-pound dumbbells, and the hip-hop band Rae Sremmurd wants Super Soaker water guns. Since the coming weeks may be as close to a rock star phase of your cycle as you’ve ever had, I recommend you create a list of your required luxuries. This imaginative exercise will hopefully get you in the mood to ask for exactly what you need everywhere you go.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19):
Sleep deprivation is widespread. I see it as a pandemic. According to some studies, over half the people in the world suffer from insomnia, don’t get enough sleep, or have trouble falling asleep or staying asleep. Most research on this subject doesn’t mention an equally important problem: that many people aren’t dreaming enough. And the fact is that dreaming is key to our psychological well-being. I bring this to your attention, Capricorn, because the coming weeks will be a favorable time to enhance your relationship with sleep and dreams. I encourage you to learn all you can and do all you can to make your time in bed deeply rejuvenating.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18):
Only 47 people live on the volcanic Pitcairn Islands, which are located in the middle of nowhere in the South Pacific Ocean. Pollution is virtually non-existent, which is why the honey made by local bees is the purest on the planet. In accordance with astrological omens, I’d love for you to get honey like that in the coming weeks. I hope you will also seek the best and purest of everything. More than ever, you need to associate with influences that are potent, clear, genuine, raw, vibrant, natural, and full-strength.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20):
Many Indigenous people in North America picked and ate wild cranberries. But farm-grown cranberries available for commercial use didn’t appear until 1816. Here’s how it happened. In Cape Cod, Massachusetts, a farmer discovered a secret about the wild cranberry bog on his land. Whenever big storms dumped sand on the bog, the fruit grew with more lush vigor. He tinkered with this revelation from nature and figured out how to cultivate cranberries. I recommend this as a teaching story, Pisces. Your assignment is to harness the power and wisdom provided by a metaphorical storm or disturbance. Use it to generate a practical innovation in your life.

ARIES (March 21-April 19):
Years ago, when I worked as a postal delivery person in Santa Cruz, California, I mastered my route quickly. The time allotted to complete it was six hours, but I could easily finish in four. Soon I began to goof off two hours a day, six days a week. Many great works of literature and music entertained me during that time. I joined a softball team and was able to play an entire game each Saturday while officially on the job. Was what I did unethical? I don’t think so, since I always did my work thoroughly and precisely. Is there any comparable possibility in your life, Aries? An ethical loophole? A workaround that has full integrity? An escape clause that causes no harm?

TAURUS (April 20-May 20):
From an astronomer’s perspective, Uranus is huge. 63 Earths could fit inside of it. It’s also weirdly unique because it rotates sideways compared to the other planets. From an astrologer’s point of view, Uranus symbolizes the talents and gifts we possess that can be beneficial to others. If we fully develop these potentials, they will express our unique genius and be useful to our fellow humans. It so happens that Uranus has been cruising through Taurus since 2018 and will mostly continue there until 2026. I regard these years as your best chance in this lifetime to fulfill the opportunities I described. The coming weeks will be especially pregnant with possibilities.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20):
Mountaineer Edmund Hillary is renowned as the first person to climb to the summit of Mt. Everest. It happened in 1953. Less famous was his companion in the ascent, Gemini mountaineer Tenzing Norgay. Why did Hillary get more acclaim than Norgay, even though they were equal partners in the monumental accomplishment? Was it because one was a white New Zealander and the other was Nepalese? In any case, I’m happy to speculate that if there’s a situation in your life that resembles Norgay’s, you will get remediation in the coming months. You will receive more of the credit you deserve. You will garner the acknowledgment and recognition that had previously been unavailable. And it all starts soon.

CANCER (June 21-July 22):
I earn my living as a writer now, but for many years I had to work at odd jobs to keep from starving. One of the most challenging was tapping the sap of Vermont maple trees during the frigid weather of February. Few trees produce more than three gallons of sap per day, and it takes 40 to 50 gallons to create a single gallon of maple syrup. It was hard work that required a great deal of patience. According to my analysis, you Cancerians are in a metaphorically comparable situation these days. To get the good results you want, you may have to generate a lot of raw material—and that could take a while. Still, I believe that in the end, you will think the strenuous effort has been well worth it.

WANT MORE? Listen to Rob’s EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES, 4-5 minute meditations on the current state of your destiny — or subscribe to his unique daily text message service at: RealAstrology.com

(Zodiac images by Numerologysign.com, CC license)

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“Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.” – William James

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Quote of the Day: “Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.” – William James 

Photo by: Joseph Pearson

With a new inspirational quote every day, atop the perfect photo—collected and archived on our Quote of the Day page—why not bookmark GNN.org for a daily uplift?

Good News in History, August 17

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Good News Network
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The Life of Brian theatrical release poster

45 years ago today, Monty Python’s Life of Brian was released in theaters. Featuring troupe leader Graham Chapman as Brian Cohen, born in the stable adjacent to Jesus at Bethlehem and confusing the residents of the holy land into thinking he is the Messiah, the film was a satire on many Christian doctrines. However at the root of it, it’s just a historical setting for the group’s hilarious and innovative comedic stylings. READ all about this legendary film… (1979)

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18-Year-old Uses Her Tracking Skills to Guide Hikers on Wildfire Evacuation Route

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Andy Corbley
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An image of the fire seen from the Valley of the Five Lakes, Jasper National Park. Parks.canada.ca
An image of the fire seen from the Valley of the Five Lakes, Jasper National Park. Parks.canada.ca

Out from the ash and flames of the wildfires that scorched Canada’s Jasper National Park comes the story of a heroic 18-year-old who saved over a dozen people.

Working as a volunteer firefighter and kitchen aide at a lodge, Colleen Knull received an evacuation order on a Monday in late July. Stepping outside she saw smoke rising up the mountainsides, and knew that there were people still camping in the area.

Alerting everyone at the lodge, she went out to gather the campers until 16 people were ready to evacuate. Darkness was falling, and getting out of the area meant a 4-hour hike across treacherous terrain.

Knull used her knowledge of the area and tracking skills to help navigate the 16 people down the trail. The group used head torches and phone flashlights to see in the darkness.

“I had previously rode up a horse up to that lodge on that same trail and throughout the way me and my employer, we had cut logs on the way up,” Knull told CTV News. “There were 67 logs, so there would be be 67 cut logs on the way down … So I used my tracking skills – following horse tracks, horse manure.”

YOU MAY ALSO LIKE: Sikh Men Created a Lifeline Using Turbans to Rescue Hikers at a Canadian Park

“There was more intense smoke, my eyes were burning, there was ash falling constantly,” said Rebecca Tocher, a hiker who was in Knull’s group. “She was an amazing leader and was just making sure that everyone was working together.”

Incredibly, all 16 hikers made it out ahead of the fires and successfully evacuated in the back of Knull’s pickup truck.

OTHER YOUNG HEROES: 12-year-old Uses Boy Scout Know-How to Rescue Lost Couple and Injured Dog on a Hike

The experience, Knull recounted, just reinforced her desire to become a full-time professional firefighter.

WATCH the story below from CTV News… 

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Hobbyist Hedgetrimmer Transforms His Street into Green Sculpture Gallery in Memory of Beloved Wife

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Andy Corbley
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credit - Time Bushe @hedgetrimmerman
credit – Time Bushe @hedgetrimmerman

“We’re a tourist attraction on Google Maps now,” local Londener Polly Barker told CBS News, gesturing to her garden hedge—trimmed immaculately so as to depict Henry Moore’s famous sculpture Reclining Nude. 

CBS was in Barker’s neighborhood to talk to the sculptor himself: a man named Bushe.

Tim Bushe has been trimming hedges for 15 years. It’s his hobby, his artistic expression, a way to raise funds for his sister who has Down Syndrome, but most of all, whether it’s the locomotive-shaped hedge outside his house, or the cats across the street, it’s a way of memorializing his dearly departed.

“It is her legacy,” Bushe told CBS. Down a dead-end road in London’s Islington district, Bushe had been living for years with his wife Philippa. Meeting as teenagers in art school, they were together 47 years.

One day with her view from the sofa, Philippa asked Tim to cut a cat into the hedge of their home. She got a train instead, but it seemed that the electric hedge trimmer was an artist’s brush, and soon, Philippa suggested he do the neighbor’s hedge too.

The neighbor had physical limitations and couldn’t cut their own hedge, and it was they who eventually got the cat, so in the end Philippa had an even better view.

Bushe, who works as an architect when he’s not busy with a hedge, lost his wife 7 years ago to breast cancer, and continued to sculpt his neighbors’ hedges until the road was filled with elephants, hippos, fish, and other things.

GLORIOUS GREEN ART: Monumental Animal Sculptures Made From 35 Tons of Plastic Collected on Oregon Coast by Volunteers–LOOK

The hedges aren’t just for sightseers, however. With each commission, Bushe raises money for a trust that looks after his sister, and another that donates to environmental causes.

He currently has a GoFundMe called “Hedging Against Climate Change” and is raising money for the WWF, Greenpeace, Fridays for Future, and The Good Law Project.

MORE INSPIRING STREET ARTISTS: Giant Halloween Sculptures in Architect’s Front Yard Get Better Every Year, From King Kong to an Egyptian Tomb—LOOK

“If she was alive now, she would be fascinated, I think, by the way it’s taken off,” he told CBS News, adding that he intends to keep going, “until I fall off my ladder.”

You can keep up with Bushe on his Instagram—Hedgecutterman.

WATCH the CBS interview below… Note: Viewers Outside the US Watch on the CBS Website… 

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Seven-Foot Mammoth Tusk Unearthed in Mississippi Creek Belonged to Largest Species in North America

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Andy Corbley
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MDEQ – via Facebook
MDEQ – via Facebook

A fossil hunter in Mississippi recently unearthed an intact mammoth ivory 7 feet long.

Believing it was the tusk of a mastodon, a far more common proboscidean in the area, Eddie Templeton was nevertheless ecstatic to find one that wasn’t fragmented.

But it was only after scientists arrived from the Mississippi Museum of Natural History and were able to examine it that the real former owner of the tusk became clear. It was the ivory of a Colombian mammoth—the largest mammoth in North America, and rarely documented this far south.

He has found mastodon teeth, jaws, saber-tooth cat gnashers, and other Ice Age treasures, but the size, majestic curl, and rarity of the ivory surely places it not only among the most remarkable finds of Templeton’s career, but among the most remarkable in the state’s history, as it’s the first time an intact tusk from this species has been found in the Magnolia State.

“Mississippi was home to three Proboscideans during the last ice age: Mastodon, Gomphothere, and the Columbian mammoth. All three possessed ivory tusks,” the Mississippi Museum of Natural History wrote in a statement regarding the discovery.

“Mastodons are by far the most common Proboscidean finds in Mississippi as they were browsers, like modern deer, and inhabited a variety of different environments. Mammoths which were related to modern elephants are far less common finds in Mississippi as they were open grassland grazers and would have been at home in only a select few environments, particularly the prairie regions of Mississippi.”

The Columbian mammoth could grow 10 feet tall and weigh 15 tons, but despite this size advantage, the smaller wooly mammoth outlived them by about 6,000 years.

OTHER MAMMOTH BITS: Amateur Fossil Hunter Calls Her Shot, Finding a Giant Mammoth Tooth After Declaring She Would on Her Birthday

The ivory was transported to the Museum of Natural History after being covered in tin foil, slathered with plaster, and wrapped in burlap—the technical procedure for exhuming a fossil from the ground.

Once the plaster jacket containing the fossil tusk dried, it was carefully lifted onto a makeshift gurney fashioned from an ATV ramp. The fossil specimen in the jacket weighed about 600 pounds.

ICE AGE REMAINS IN MISSISSIPPI: Man Finding an American Lion Tooth Fossil in Shallow Mississippi is ‘the Biggest of Deals‘ to Scientists

Stuck in the mud for over 10,000 years, the tusk is well preserved, but contact with oxygen can cause rapid deterioration, so once the covering is removed, a glaze rather like the kind used to laminate safety glass in car windows will be applied in order to put the ivory on display, slated for spring 2025.

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The World’s Largest 3D Printer Is Building Cozy Homes from Wood

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Andy Corbley
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University of Maine, Advanced Structures and Composites Center
University of Maine, Advanced Structures and Composites Center

At the University of Maine, one of the world’s largest 3D printers is using sawdust from the state’s lumber industry to 3D-print cozy 600-square-foot wooden cabins.

It’s part of a move towards making 3D printing faster and more sustainable in a state where the housing shortage that has metastasized in most states around the country is dire.

It’s thought that 80,000 new homes will be needed over the next 5 years to keep pace with demand, and though it takes years for building codes to be changed, the technicians at the Advanced Structures & Composites Center (ASCC) at the Univ. of Maine hope their new toy can help address this need.

Guinness World Records certified the machine at ASCC as the world’s largest prototype polymer 3D printer, capable of creating an object that is 96 feet in length, 36 feet in width, and 18 feet tall—entirely out of bio-based material at a rate of 500 pounds per hour.

In 2022, it could print the walls, floors, and roof of the house in just 96 hours, but the ACSS has been refining the design with the hope of doubling the printing speed and getting it down to a 48-hour timeline.

“When they’re doing concrete, they’re only printing the walls,” Habib Dagher, the executive director of ACSS told CNN. “The approach we’ve taken is quite different from what you’ve seen, and you’ve been reading about for years.”

Indeed, GNN has reported on a fair number of 3D printing projects, but most if not all involve printing only the walls. One fantastical exception is an Italian firm that is 3D-printing domed, beehive-like, modular concept homes inspired by the Great Enclosure in Zimbabwe.

STAND-OUT 3D-PRINTING PROJECTS: 

The ASCC is calling the house design the BioHome3D, and says it’s rare people who tour the concept version don’t ask when they “can have one up?”

The interior gives the feel of a modern Scandinavian wooden cabin, making it fit well with the Maine aesthetic. The ASCC is now doing work on how to incorporate conduits for wiring and plumbing “exactly where an architect would want them,” says Dagher.

WATCH a time-lapse video of the printer doing the job…

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“When one must, one can.” – Charlotte Whitton

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Quote of the Day: “When one must, one can.” – Charlotte Whitton

Photo by: Alexei Maridashvili

With a new inspirational quote every day, atop the perfect photo—collected and archived on our Quote of the Day page—why not bookmark GNN.org for a daily uplift?

Good News in History, August 16

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Good News Network
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A sketch of Vincent Lingiari; charcoal on paper, by Frank Hardy - CC 4.0. Peter Ellis.

49 years ago today, Australian Prime Minister Gough Whitlam symbolically handed over land to the Gurindji people after the eight-year Wave Hill walk-off, a landmark event in the history of Indigenous land rights in Australia. Though initially interpreted merely as a strike against working and living conditions, the primary demands of the 200 or so Gurindji stockmen and house servants who had downed tools in the summer of 1975 were for the return of some of the traditional lands of the Gurindji people, which had covered approximately 3,250 square kilometers (1,250 sq miles) of the Northern Territory before European settlement. READ more about this historic day… (1975)

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The Stonehenge ‘Altar Stone’ Mystery is Solved: It Came from Scotland 460 Miles Away

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Andy Corbley
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The Altar Stone ringed in red - credit SWNS News Media.
The Altar Stone ringed in red – credit SWNS News Media.

It may have been transported around the coast by sea, or by some sophisticated method the nature of which has not yet been revealed, but whatever the case, the 6-ton Altar Stone at Stonehenge came from Scotland, not nearby Wales.

Previous geological research suggested that the slab of sandstone probably originated from the Brecon Beacons in southeast Wales, approximately 50 miles from the site on the Salisbury Plain.

But a new study, led by Australian scientists, concluded that it actually hails from 460 miles away in northeast Scotland.

The Australian team used state-of-the-art equipment, including specialist mass spectrometers, to examine the composition of the Altar Stone.

Their findings, published in the journal Nature, also point to the existence of “unexpectedly advanced” transport methods and organization at the time of the stone’s arrival in Wiltshire around 5,000 years ago.

Researchers from Curtin University in Perth studied the age and chemistry of mineral grains within fragments of the Altar Stone, which is a 50 cm (19.6 ins) thick sandstone block measuring five meters by one meter (16 ft x 3ft), that sits at the center of Stonehenge’s iconic stone circle.

Study lead author Anthony Clarke explained that analysis of the age and chemical composition of minerals within fragments of the Altar Stone matched it with rocks from Scotland, while also clearly differentiating them from Welsh bedrock.

“Our analysis found specific mineral grains in the Altar Stone are mostly between 1,000 to 2,000 million years old, while other minerals are around 450 million years old,” Clarke said. “This provides a distinct chemical fingerprint suggesting the stone came from rocks in the Orcadian Basin, Scotland, at least 750 kilometers away from Stonehenge.”

Given its Scottish origins, the findings raise fascinating questions considering the technological constraints of the Neolithic era.

“Transporting such massive cargo overland from Scotland to southern England would have been extremely challenging, indicating a likely marine shipping route along the coast of Britain,” said study co-author Curtin University Professor Chris Kirkland.

“This implies long-distance trade networks and a higher level of societal organization than is widely understood to have existed during the Neolithic period in Britain.”

CAN’T GET ENOUGH ANCIENT MYSTERIES?

“We have succeeded in working out, if you like, the age and chemical fingerprints of perhaps one of the most famous of stones in the world-renowned ancient monument,” added co-author Professor Richard Bevins, of Aberystwyth University, Wales.

“While we can now say that this iconic rock is Scottish and not Welsh, the hunt will still very much be on to pin down where exactly in the northeast of Scotland the Altar Stone came from.”

Clarke said the discovery holds a special sentiment to the course of his career, as Stonehenge played a large role in him determining his academic path in life.

“I grew up in the Mynydd Preseli, Wales, where some of Stonehenge’s stones came from,” he said. “I first visited Stonehenge when I was one year old and now at 25, I returned from Australia to help make this scientific discovery—you could say I’ve come full stone circle.”

Despite its worldwide reputation, major discoveries on Stonehenge are rather more frequent than one might imagine. Evidence of a 110-meter (360 ft) stone circle at Waun Mawn near Mynydd Preseli was identified in 2021 and sparked a theory that many of Stonehenge’s bluestones were actually recycled from earlier circles.

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Babies Don’t Come With Manuals–But in Oregon, They Now Come With a Nurse

By
Andy Corbley
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Christian Bowen - Unsplash
Christian Bowen – Unsplash

Oregon has recently become the first state in the US to offer free nurse visits to new mothers and fathers statewide.

No one can deny that the United States and its citizens have an array of problems and are facing major challenges, but one which isn’t well reported on is the high rates of death among infants and new mothers compared to other high-income countries.

Oregon’s home visit program called Family Connects is based on a successful model deployed in Durham, North Carolina, and involves a nurse visiting the home of a mother who has just given birth, whether to her first child or her fifth, up to three times in the first month.

Family Connects is an opt-in program that comes at no cost to the family, and the nurse is empowered to ‘connect’ the family with any additional service they may need, whether that’s counseling, psychiatric care, financial assistance, or even, as NPR reports, a hearing aid for a grandparent who’s looking after the child.

State Senator Dr. Elizabeth Steiner championed the program. A family physician, Dr. Steiner wasn’t in charge of creating it or setting policy, but advocated for it in the government. She remembers developing severe post-partum depression after the birth of her daughter, and thought that if one of the Family Connects nurses had visited her, it would have been an enormous help.

To wit, a study of Family Connects mothers found that those who availed themselves of a nurse visit were 30% less likely to develop post-partum anxiety or depression. Undoubtedly one reason for this is the opportunity for the new parents to ask the nurse anything they want.

Additionally, the program’s early data witnessed a reduction in Child Protective Services interventions and investigations among families who had nurses visit them during the first few weeks of life.

The reasons behind these improvements are simple: “Babies are just hard,” Dr. Steiner told NPR.

TO GET YOU SMILING: Baby ‘Completely Paralyzed’ by Rare Toxin was Saved After Remedy Found 5,000 Miles Away

One of the nurses in the Oregon state program, Barb Ibrahim, has to drive sometimes as long as 30 to 40 minutes to visit new parents: exactly the reason that Dr. Steiner believed the program was best suited to the state government, as there are many people who live far from any major medical centers.

This isn’t a problem limited to Oregon, where so much of the eastern reaches of the state are very rural. Zero to Three, an early childhood advocacy group, estimates that just 3% of the nation’s babies are in range of existing home visiting programs.

READ MORE ON THE TOPIC: Hug Therapy Helps Premature Babies Develop as Volunteers Sit in for Moms Who Can’t Be There

This question of distance is also partially why the program’s initial cost estimates have long been exceeded. But, if there was ever a reason to overpay it would be for the security and support for the next generation of mothers—and the next generation of Americans.

SHARE This Vitally Important Program Benefiting Thousands In Oregon… 

This Startup Is Using Dead Leaves to Make Paper Without Cutting Trees

By
Andy Corbley
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credit - Releaf Bags
credit – Releaf Bags

Businesses like to talk about the concept of a closed loop or circular economy, but often they’re trying to close small loops. Releaf Paper takes dead leaves from city trees and turns them into paper for bags, office supplies, and more—which is to say they are striving to close one heck of a big loop.

How big? Six billion trees are cut down every year for paper products according to the WWF, producing everything from toilet paper to Amazon boxes to the latest best-selling novels. Meanwhile, the average city produces 8,000 metric tons of leaves every year which clog gutters and sewers, and have to be collected, composted, burned, or dumped in landfills.

In other words, huge supply and huge demand, but Releaf Paper is making cracking progress. They already produce 3 million paper carrier bags per year from 5,000 metric tons of leaves from their headquarters in Paris.

Joining forces with landscapers in sites across Europe, thousands of tonnes of leaves arrive at their facility where a low-water, zero-sulfur/chlorine production process sees the company create paper with much smaller water and carbon footprints.

It is said of the city of Kyiv that one can walk from one side to the other without ever leaving the shade of horse chestnut trees. Whether Ukrainian founders Alexander Sobolenko or Valentyn Frechka of Releaf Paper ever lived or worked in Kyiv, perhaps this preponderance of greenery influenced their thinking while the pair were coming up with the idea in university.

“In a city, it’s a green waste that should be collected. Really, it’s a good solution because we are keeping the balance—we get fiber for making paper and return lignin as a semi-fertilizer for the cities to fertilize the gardens or the trees. So it’s like a win-win model,” Frechka, co-founder and CTO of Releaf Paper, told Euronews.

YOU MAY ALSO LIKE: 150 Brands Unite to Clean Up Our Paper Supply – Saving Global Forests and Improving Recycling

Releaf is already selling products to LVMH, BNP Paribas, Logitech, Samsung, and various other big companies. In the coming years, Frechka and Sobolenka also plan to further increase their production capacity by opening more plants in other countries. If the process is cost-efficient, there’s no reason there shouldn’t be a paper mill of this kind in every city.

MORE CIRCULAR ECONOMICS: Spanish City is Squeezing Green Electricity From Leftover Oranges

“We want to expand this idea all around the world. At the end, our vision is that the technology of making paper from fallen leaves should be accessible on all continents,” Sobolenka notes, according to ZME Science.

WATCH the production process below from Reuters… 

SHARE This Great Idea And Fantastic Product With Your Friends…

‘Sponge’ Cities Combat Urban Flooding by Letting Nature Do the Work

By
Andy Corbley
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The Benjakitti Forest Park in Bangkok Turenscape/Courtesy The Cultural Landscape Foundation
The Benjakitti Forest Park in Bangkok Turenscape/Courtesy The Cultural Landscape Foundation

In China, a landscape architect is reimagining cities across the vast country by working with nature to combat flooding through the ‘sponge city’ concept.

But just as the Chinese Communist Party famously describes its policies as “Socialism: China style,” Yu Kongjian has put a decidedly Middle Kingdom spin on this concept which has taken root across Holland as well.

Through his architecture firm Turenscape, Yu has created hundreds of projects in dozens of cities using native plants, dirt, and clever planning to absorb excess rainwater and channel it away from densely populated areas.

Flooding, especially in the two Chinese heartlands of the commercial south and the agricultural north, is becoming increasingly common, but Yu says that concrete and pipe solutions can only go so far. They’re inflexible, expensive, and require constant maintenance. According to a 2021 World Bank report, 641 of China’s 654 largest cities face regular flooding.

“There’s a misconception that if we can build a flood wall higher and higher, or if we build the dams higher and stronger, we can protect a city from flooding,” Yu told CNN in a video call. “(We think) we can control the water… that is a mistake.”

Yu has been called the “Chinese Olmstead” referring to Frederick Law Olmstead, the designer of NYC’s Central Park. He grew up in a little farming village of 500 people in Zhejiang Province, where 36 weirs channel the waters of a creek across terraced rice paddies.

Once a year, carp would migrate upstream and Yu always looked forward to seeing them leap over the weirs.

This synthesis of man and nature is something that Turenscape projects encapsulate. These include The Nanchang Fish Tail Park, in China’s Jiangxi province, Red Ribbon Park in Qinghuandao, Hebei province, the Sanya Mangrove Park in China’s island province of Hainan, and almost a thousand others. In all cases, Yu utilizes native plants that don’t need any care to develop extremely spongey ground that absorbs excess rainfall.

The Dong’an Wetland Park, another Turescape project in Sanya. Turenscape/Courtesy The Cultural Landscape Foundation

He often builds sponge projects on top of polluted or abandoned areas, giving his work an aspect of reclamation. The Nanchang Fish Tail Park for example was built across a 124-acre polluted former fish farm and coal ash dump site. Small islands with dawn redwoods and two types of cypress attract local wildlife to the metropolis of 6 million people.

Sanya Mangrove Park was built over an old concrete sea wall, a barren fish farm, and a nearby brownfield site to create a ‘living’ sea wall.

One hectare (2.47 acres) of Turenscape sponge land can naturally clean 800 tons of polluted water to the point that it is safe enough to swim in, and as a result, many of the sponge projects have become extremely popular with locals.

OTHER GREAT MINDS AT WORK: Portland’s New Airport Built with Local Tribal Timber is Inherently Fire Resistant and Less Carbon-Intensive

One of the reasons Yu likes these ideas over grand infrastructure projects is that they are flexible and can be deployed as needed to specific areas, creating a web of rain sponges. If a large drainage, dam, seawall, or canal is built in the wrong place, it represents a huge waste of time and money.

A walkway leads visitors through the Nanchang Fish Tail Park. Turenscape/Courtesy The Cultural Landscape Foundation

The sponge city projects in Wuhan created by Turenscape and others cost in total around half a billion dollars less than proposed concrete ideas. Now there are over 300 sponge projects in Wuhan, including urban gardens, parks, and green spaces, all of which divert water into artificial lakes and ponds or capture it in soil which is then released more slowly into the sewer system.

ALSO CHECK OUT: Businessman Uses Nature’s Wisdom to Transform Drought-ruined Texas Hills into Lush Landscape

Last year, The Cultural Landscape Foundation awarded Yu the $100,000 Oberlander Prize for elevating the role of design in the process of creating nature-based solutions for the public’s enjoyment and benefit.

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“Only the educated are free.” – Epictetus

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Good News Network
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Quote of the Day: “Only the educated are free.” – Epictetus

Photo by: ©GWC

With a new inspirational quote every day, atop the perfect photo—collected and archived on our Quote of the Day page—why not bookmark GNN.org for a daily uplift?

Good News in History, August 15

By
Good News Network
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GNN editor Andy Corbley with his Fiancee in Capri for Ferragosto 2020.

Today is Ferragosto, one of the most important public holidays on the Italian calendar. It is a unique institution, in which working people, typically professionals, take trips to the mountains/hills, the sea, or the cities for leisure, and will stay away between one and two weeks on either side of August 15th. Inaugurated by Caesar Augustus, declared holy by the Church as the date of the Assumption of Mary, and turned into a national unity exercise by the Fascists, it is one of the oldest continual public holidays in Europe. READ more about this unique holiday… (18 BCE)

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Speedy Desert Tortoise is Finally Safe After Covering 3 Miles and Entering a Highway Following Ranch Jailbreak

By
Andy Corbley
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Arizona State Department of Public Safety - released
Arizona State Department of Public Safety – released

Why did the tortoise cross the road?

Or better yet, how did the tortoise outpace its keepers for 3 miles before crossing the road?

These are no doubt questions that a local ostrich ranch in the Arizona town of Picacho will be asking after state troopers called and asked if they were missing a large desert tortoise.

The charade began on July 30th when a Department of Public Safety trooper received a call from a concerned citizen that a sulcata tortoise as big as a Thanksgiving turkey was trying to cross Interstate 10 between Casa Grande and Tuscon.

DPS Sgt. Steven Sekrecki arrived on the scene and located the large reptile who was at that point still unharmed.

On its shell, the Sergeant noticed the word “Stich” written in pen, and assumed it was held by a facility near by.

According to the Arizona Republic, a local ostrich range confirmed Stitch was one of their resident tortoises and had recently escaped from his habitat.

The speedy tortoise had managed to wander 3 miles from the ranch before it made itself known on the highway.

LOVE FOR OUR BROTHERS IN SCALES: 500 Giant Tortoises Reintroduced to Four Galapagos Islands in 2023

The sulcata, or African spurred tortoise, is actually an endangered species of reptile and is native to the Sahara Desert, not North America.

Approximately 9,000 tortoises were taken from the wild for the illegal pet trade between 1990 and 2010. It makes for a good pet because it’s incredibly docile and not territorial, while also being the third-largest species of tortoise in the world, behind the Aldabara giant tortoise and those of the Galapagos.

YOU MAY ALSO LIKE: Town Saves the Threatened Bum-Breathing Punk Turtle–a 9lb Wonder Found Only in the Mary River

Suddenly, Sergeant Sekrecki’s reptile rescue became one of tangible value to global wildlife conservation, and for that we salute him.

SHARE This Remarkable Escape Attempt By This Beautiful Tortoise… 

Teens Invent Device that Removes Microplastics with Ultrasound Waves, Winning $50k

By
Andy Corbley
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Justin Huang and Victoria Ou - credit Chris Ayers / Society for Science / ISEF
Justin Huang and Victoria Ou – credit Chris Ayers / Society for Science / ISEF

A pair of high schoolers invented a unique water filtration device that uses a wall of sound to hold back microplastic particles from running water.

In lab tests, the acoustic force from the high-frequency sound waves removed between 84% and 94% of the suspended microplastic particles in a single pass, and they are using the reward money from a prestigious prize to attempt to scale up their invention.

Without beating a dead horse, microplastic particles are everywhere on Earth—raining down from the jetstream, blowing up to the summit of Everest, and located at the deepest points of the ocean. Once ingested by humans they have been found to infiltrate every organ that has so far been examined for them.

It’s a monumental challenge to address this pancontaminant, but high schoolers Justin Huang and Victoria Ou of Woodlands, Texas, may just have a clever solution.

Using ultrasonic sound waves that move through water freely, the teens have managed to capture as much as 94% of microplastic contaminants by pushing them away from the water’s outflow point.

Their device is no bigger than a pen, and improves on other designs that have tried to use ultrasonic waves to address microplastics in wastewater and drinking water.

“This is the first year we’ve done this,” Huang told Business Insider backstage after receiving their award. “If we could refine this—maybe use more professional equipment, maybe go to a lab instead of testing from our home—we could really improve our device and get it ready for large-scale manufacturing.”

Ou and Huang presented their work at last week’s Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) in Los Angeles, during which they won the Gordon E. Moore Award for Positive Outcomes for Future Generations worth $50,000.

They also picked up first place in their Google-sponsored category, Earth and Environmental Sciences.

THE ISEF WINNERS AS REPORTED BY GNN: 

“This is a pretty new approach. We only found one study that was trying to use ultrasound to predict the flow of particles in water, but it didn’t completely filter them out yet,” said Ou, who has known Huang since elementary school.

In developing their device, the pair visited wastewater and sewage treatment plants near their home and asked how they regulated microplastics. The answer they received was somewhat of a surprise: the plant had no such regulations in place. For starters, there isn’t a cost-effective means of doing so, and also the United States EPA doesn’t have regulations for microplastic contaminants in the water.

Ou and Huang believe their technology could be used in wastewater treatment plants like the one they visited, as well as industrial textile plants, and rural water sources. On a smaller scale, it could filter microplastics in laundry machines and even fish tanks.

WATCH Justin and Victoria explain their device…

SHARE These Two Brilliant Minds Solving Today’s Problems For The Future… 

One Key to Success For U.S. Women’s Gymnastics Team Is a Support Dog to Calm Nerves

By
Andy Corbley
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Simone Biles with Beacon, the team’s support dog – Photo by Tracey Callahan Molna / Instagram
Simone Biles with Beacon, the team’s support dog – Photo by Tracey Callahan Molna / Instagram

The US Women’s Gymnastics team has won 8 medals—which may be down to the excellence of the effervescent Simone Biles, although it may have furrier explanations.

All throughout the games, Beacon the golden retriever has been within petting distance of any one of the five members who may feel some pre-performance jitters.

The topic of mental health in gymnastics has never been far from stories about the US Olympic team after Biles decided to withdraw from the Tokyo games in 2020 to focus on her own mind state.

At the time, news of the scope of sexual harassment and exploitation of Olympic gymnasts by former team doctor Larry Nassar had already been in the news for two years.

Beacon has been with the team since it was undergoing Olympic trials in Minneapolis. With so many hopeful young gymnasts sitting jittery on the sidelines waiting for their turn, what could have been better for their nerves than a big oafish golden retriever walking by and sticking it’s big blonde schnoz into their hand?

Beacon followed the team to Paris where he has become a hit among rival teams as well.

Tokyo Olympic all-around champion Suni Lee posted a picture of herself with the shiny-nosed pooch from the trials. “Thank god for Beacon,” read her caption, helping launch him to stardom.

The team with Beacon at the Olympic trials in Minneapolis – credit Tracey Molnar, released.

He is a professional stress dog and therefore of course has an official Instagram account. His trainer is the former rhythmic gymnastics coach Tracey Callahan Molnar, who says the dog has incredible powers of intuition and empathy. He will find exactly which member of the team is the most nervous and go offer his services as a comfort dog, should they accept it.

YOU MAY ALSO LIKE: College is Pairing Service-Dogs-in-Training With Stressed Students Who Could Use a Furry Friend

Molnar’s previous golden was Tulsa, who passed away in 2019. Molnar went to the exact same Michigan breeder to adopt Beacon, such was Tulsa’s excellence at his job.

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