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Good News Roundup: While we are waiting on Thursday, 3-23-23 [1]
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Date: 2023-03-23
I have some music to read to. A little explanation: I had the opportunity to attend a concert last month here in Cleveland. The Lviv Philharmonic Orchestra of Ukraine performed at the local community college. I could go on at length, but the music I have for you is Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9, the New World Symphony, the last piece on the program* the orchestra played. Also a piece I had the good fortune to play when I was in Symphonic Orchestra back in high school. It’s my favorite piece of classical music, amazing to play, and to get to hear it live, in that theater was pure magic. Standing room only. Ukrainian flags all through the audience, some of them small on sticks, some of them full sized and held up or draped over shoulders or chairs like capes. I could not find a YouTube video of that orchestra playing it, so you’ll have to settle for this one, of Oksana Lyniv & Youth Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine. Kind of funny the connections our brains make — I looked for the orchestra I got to see live last month, and found one similar to the one I played with decades ago.
I hope you enjoy!
x YouTube Video
* I say last piece on the program because they played a piece not listed on the program after, of Ukrainian heritage. Unfortunately, I have no idea what that piece was or by whom it was written.
I have brought you news of clean energy sources, developments, battery storage discoveries, and other wonderful and sometimes very weird and/or unbelievable things humanity is doing to transition away from burning fossil fuels. This is one of the weirdest. You’ve heard of wind, water, and solar power, biofuels, and several other things. But electricity from...air? Not wind. Just...air. Atmospheric hydrogen, no pre-processing required, at that. Mind blown.
Newly Discovered Enzyme Turns Air Into Electricity, Promising a New Clean Source of Energy Recent work by the team at Monash Biomedicine Discovery Institute at Monash University, Australia, has shown that many bacteria use hydrogen from the atmosphere as an energy source in nutrient-poor environments. ... In their discovery paper published in Nature, the researchers extracted the enzyme responsible for using atmospheric hydrogen from a bacterium called Mycobacterium smegmatis. They showed that this enzyme, called Huc, turns hydrogen gas into an electrical current. ... “It is astonishingly stable,” she said. “It’s possible to freeze the enzyme or heat it to 80 degrees Celsius, and it retains its power to generate energy. This reflects that this enzyme helps bacteria to survive in the most extreme environments.” The bacteria that produce enzymes like Huc are common and can be grown in large quantities, meaning humanity could potentially have access to a sustainable source of the enzyme. Dr. Grinter says that a key objective for future work is to scale up Huc production. “Once we produce Huc in sufficient quantities, the sky is quite literally the limit for using it to produce clean energy.” “This is a really exciting discovery that could be a game changer in addressing climate change. It speaks to the strength of Monash research in developing smart solutions to the world’s most pressing problems. A big congratulations to [the team] what a fantastic achievement,” said Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Professor Rebekah Brown, who was not involved in the study.
Good sportsmanship and compassion. ‘Nuff said.
x Softball player Kaitlyn Moses hit a grand slam, but collapsed at second base with an ankle injury.
Due to NAIA rules, her team wasn't allowed to help her.
So the opposing team walked over and helped her complete her bases.
Some things are bigger than the game. pic.twitter.com/9OXocIpJmJ — Goodable (@Goodable) March 22, 2023
[@Goodable
Softball player Kaitlyn Moses hit a grand slam, but collapsed at second base with an ankle injury.
Due to NAIA rules, her team wasn't allowed to help her.
So the opposing team walked over and helped her complete her bases.
Some things are bigger than the game.
[Video of grand slam and player rounding half the bases, collapsing, and then being carried the rest of the way home by opposing players]]
I’m very very sorry if this one gives you an earworm. I promise that wasn’t the intent.
500 Baby Sharks to be Released in Unprecedented Rewilding of the Ocean Now though, an international consortium of 44 aquariums in 15 countries is banding together to create a huge captive-breeding-and-release program that aims to reintroduce 500 sharks to their native waters. Protections of sharks and rays around Raja Ampat in Indonesia, one of the richest tropical marine environments known to man, have already allowed populations of these ancient creatures to rejuvenate. ... “It’s such a milestone,” Nesha Ichida, an Indonesian marine scientist helping manage this work for ReShark, told Nat Geo. “This is such a hopeful, momentous moment.” Most sharks give birth to live young, but because the zebra shark lays eggs, that look like strange, gnarled, tree nut casings, they are much easier to breed in captivity for the aim of reintroduction. “Conservation groups, local communities, local government, and the large public aquaria together in a coalition that has never really happened before, the potential is really amazing,” said Dr. Mark Erdmann, Vice President of Asia Pacific Marine Programs for Conservation International.
I’ve posted stuff about this before, but it is very worth posting again:
x Finland was just ranked the happiest country in the world for the sixth year in a row.
These are the leaders of all five parties in government.
🇫🇮 pic.twitter.com/BE0UNapZN8 — Goodable (@Goodable) March 21, 2023
[@Goodable
Finland was just ranked the happiest country in the world for the sixth year in a row.
These are the leaders of all five parties in government.
[Photos, left to right:
Sanna Marin, Social Democratic Party
Li Andersson, Left Alliance
Katri Kulmuni, Centre Party
Maria Ohisalo, Green League
Anna-Maja Henriksson, Swedish People's Party of Finland]]
CRISPR: Not just for immune disorders!
CRISPR Gene Editing Reverses ‘Permanent’ Vision Loss in Mice–Offering Hope for Retinitis Pigmentosa Patients The hereditary condition retinitis pigmentosa is one of the most common causes of blindness, affecting one in every 4,000 people. Now, researchers in China have used a genome-editing technique to correct a mutation that leads to the condition in both mice and humans. Not only did the genetic correction lead to the mice regaining their sight, but the mice were shown to retain their sight well into old age. The study team, from the Wuhan University of Science and Technology, hope this promising new method could soon be used to similarly restore people’s vision in years to come. ... Led by Professor Kai Yao, the team attempted to rescue the vision of mice with RP caused by mutations in the gene encoding a critical enzyme – called PDE6ß – by engineering a new use for the CRISPR genome editing tool. When the system was programmed to target the harmful mutant gene (PDE6ß), it was shown to be able to correct the mutation and restore the enzyme’s activity in the retinas of the mice.
x Kindness is free ❤️ pic.twitter.com/fxIdMyRjpT — Goodable (@Goodable) March 19, 2023
[@Goodable
Kindness is free.
[Video of hailstorm through a storefront; electronic doors are held open to allow two people inside, one holding a broken umbrella, then reopens partway to allow a pigeon to take shelter]]
Given historical policies and practices with regard to large predators the world over, it’s really awesome to see interest in reestablishing those predators, even if it is creating something of a political tug of war between those areas that still have them and those who are looking to return them to where they no longer exist.
Lions in India Get New Sanctuary as Numbers of Asiatic Lions Soar in Their Last Stronghold The Indian state of Gujarat is the only place outside of Africa where one can hear the roar of a lion in its natural habitat. Now, conservation programs have raised the numbers of these animals so much that the state government will be relocating some to a new wildlife sanctuary to expand their territory and ensure this growth continues. ... Gir National Park is 544 square miles of ideal lion territory. In 2015, the lion population was 523, while in 2010 it was 411, and 359 in 2005. With so many lions about, other states become curious if it were possible for Gujarat to share. For the moment, they will remain in Gujarat, though nearby Barda Wildlife Sanctuary will soon become the second protected area on Earth where these animals can be seen. In 2013, an Indian Supreme Court ruling ordered some of the lions in Gir to be moved elsewhere to prevent disease and other dangers from imperiling the whole of the population.
The life of Robert Smalls is so inspiring and incredible that if it were fiction and turned into a movie, I'd have Issues(tm) suspending my disbelief long enough to sit through it. I've posted Goodable tweets about him in GNRs past. His name is now being honored by the U.S. Navy in place of...well, something that I don't think needs recognition in that fashion. Here's Beau with more:
x YouTube Video
Not only is it really really cool to learn stuff like this about our ancient ancestors, but it also explains why my love of adding tons of cheese to pretty much anything doesn’t bother me despite my own lactose intolerance. Chemistry for the win, at least in this instance!
Evidence of Cheese-Making to Circumvent Lactose Intolerance 6,000 Years Ago Found in Poland Analysis of neolithic pottery shards shows that in Northern Europe, where poor soils and low sunlight made primitive agriculture extremely difficult, people were making cheese in places like Poland potentially as far back as 9,000 years ago. ... Researchers from the University of York point out that lactose intolerance would have been common in nearly all European populations at the time, but that the processing methods still used today to create yogurt, kefir, and cheese were being used to overcome this intolerance. “Whilst previous research has shown that dairy products were widely available in some European regions during this period, here, for the first time, we have clear evidence for a diversified dairy herd, including cattle, sheep, and goats, from the analysis of ceramics,” said Dr. Harry Robson, from the Department of Archaeology at the University of York. ... This shows that the clever ancient Poles were managing to circumnavigate their own genetic lactose intolerance to add a sustainable and protein-rich food source to their diets. Today, people who are lactose intolerant can still eat well-aged cheeses, owing to the removal of lactose both during the cheese-making and aging process, although they probably don’t realize this knowledge is as ancient as pottery.
x This dog named Leo went missing in January. Last week he was found. This was the moment he was reunited with his family 🐶😭🐾
pic.twitter.com/7MyAa9fsEw — GoodNewsCorrespondent (@GoodNewsCorres1) March 18, 2023
[@GoodNewsCorrespondent
This dog named Leo went missing in January. Last week he was found. This is the moment he was reunited with his family.]
Legalizing marijuana has all kinds of beneficial side effects for society. Who’d have thunk it?
Studies Link Marijuana Legalization to All Sorts of Positive Public Health Outcomes In a landmark paper, economists have collected evidence on the societal implications of cannabis legalization and found it lowered the rates of suicide, binge drinking, traffic fatalities, and perhaps ironically, cannabis use in teenagers. Now that recreational cannabis is available in 18 states, and medically authorized in 36 states, concerns over the effects of widespread societal access are appearing as the motivation behind scientific research. Much of that scientific research has now been collected in a meta-analysis of 36 different papers published between 2013 to 2021. It shows that the societal impact of cannabis legalization has led to some significant positive outcomes. ... In another study, cannabis legalization was found, during the period 1999–2010, to be inversely associated with opioid overdose deaths, although once the years 2011-2017 were added into the analysis, the effect waned. ... However that wasn’t the only study which linked cannabis legalization to reduced opioid deaths. Two others published in 2019 and 2020 found the same; the second of which determined it to be 16-21%.
x "Out of all the seats in Carnegie Hall, I (a doctor) am sitting right next to him," that's how life-saving doctor describes what happened:
A physical therapist sitting nearby noticed Ting-Chao Chau was slumping in his chair, so he began pounding on Chau's chest. pic.twitter.com/tWhVOl6kTE — GoodNewsCorrespondent (@GoodNewsCorres1) March 19, 2023
[@GoodNewsCorrespondent
"Out of all the seats in Carnegie Hall, I (a doctor) am sitting right next to him," that's how life-saving doctor describes what happened:
A physical therapist sitting nearby noticed Ting-Chao Chau was slumping in his chair, so he began pounding on Chau's chest.
[Photo of two men, one seated and in medical scrubs, one standing in a business suit, shaking hands in what appears to be the waiting room of a medical office]
Following post reads:
That alerted Dr. Daniel Roses sitting right next to him - who then performed CPR in the lobby, saving his life. Talk about right place at right time. The whole thing happened so quickly that before the show was over, the concert's conductor was able to announce that Chau survived]
That’s all for me, fellow gnusies! I leave you with some more music, as always!
[END]
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