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Revealing News For a Better World

Inspirational Media Articles
Excerpts of Key Inspirational Media Articles in Major Media


Below are highly engaging excerpts of key inspirational articles reported in the mainstream media. Links are provided to the original articles on their major media websites. If any link fails to function, read this webpage. These inspirational articles are listed by article date. You can also explore the articles listed by order of importance or by date posted. Enjoy the inspiring articles!

Note: Explore our full index to key excerpts of revealing major media news articles on several dozen engaging topics. And don't miss amazing excerpts from 20 of the most revealing news articles ever published.


Planetary health diet cuts early death risk, new study shows
2024-06-10, Washington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2024/06/10/planetary-diet-lower-morta...

Can you eat a diet that's good for your health and good for the planet? A new study suggests that it's possible. It found that people who ate mostly minimally processed plant foods such as nuts, beans, fruits, vegetables, whole grains and olive oil, along with modest amounts of meat, fish, eggs and dairy, had lower rates of premature death from heart disease, cancer and other chronic diseases. At the same time, their diets had a smaller environmental footprint because they consisted of foods that were grown using relatively less land and water and that were produced with fewer greenhouse gas emissions. The study ... was inspired by a landmark 2019 report from the EAT-Lancet Commission, which designed a "Planetary Health Diet" capable of sustaining 10 billion people and the planet by 2050. The planetary health diet, in broad strokes, encourages people to eat more plants and whole foods alongside small portions of meat and dairy. People whose eating habits most closely adhered to the planetary health diet were 30 percent less likely to die prematurely compared to people who ate the lowest amounts of foods that form the basis of the planetary health diet. Planetary health eaters had a 10 percent lower risk of dying from cancer, a 14 percent lower likelihood of dying from cardiovascular diseases, a 47 percent reduction in the risk of dying from lung disease, and a 28 percent lower likelihood of dying of Alzheimer's disease and other neurodegenerative disorders.

Note: Explore more positive stories on healing our bodies and healing the Earth.


How the virtual world is inspiring gamers to become botanists
2024-06-10, Positive.News
https://www.positive.news/society/virtual-world-inspiring-gamers-become-botan...

What if computer games could facilitate a tangible, meaningful connection with nature? Now they can thanks to a new botany project that empowers gamers to cultivate plants featured in their favourite video game. The idea was that of Hannah Young and Aleks Atanasovski, two gamers who wanted to fuse their love of nature with their passion for gaming. The result is Seed Saga, a botanical pilot that allows players of Guild Wars – a popular roleplaying game renowned for its spectacular flora – to apply for seed packs so they can grow plants that feature in the game. The pair pitched the idea to the developer behind Guild Wars, Arena Net, which was "really up for it". So much so, that the firm provided renders from the game for the seed packets and gave the project a push on its social channels. Due to the limited availability of seeds ... gamers must submit an application explaining why they want them. The responses, says Young, have been heartening. Said one applicant: "[Guild Wars] saved my life during a period of deep depression. It would be an honour to grow [crimson sunflowers] in my yard to pay homage to the game and support the surrounding insects that could benefit from these flowers." The first seed packs went out in April. The idea now is to partner with other players in the industry and scale the concept to cultivate a new generation of botanists. Doing so could boost mental health: research shows that interacting with plants counteracts stress brought on by computers.

Note: Explore more positive stories about using technology for good.


Dutch digital detoxers unplug en masse. Will the world follow?
2024-05-31, Positive.News
https://www.positive.news/society/dutch-digital-detoxers-unplug-will-the-worl...

The Offline Club, which began life in Amsterdam, offers an oasis of calm and respite from the incessant digital hustle of life lived through the black glass of a smartphone. It nurtures moments of quiet introspection over vapid doomscrolling, and encourages spontaneous conversations with strangers instead of endless keyboard arguments. The concept grew organically from the ‘offline getaway' retreats [co-founder Ilya] Kneppelhout set up with pals Valentijn Klok and Jordy van Bennekom. The trio opened their first phone-free hangout in Amsterdam's Cafe Brecht in February this year, and to their astonishment drew 125,000 new Instagram followers in the space of a month. Customers alternate between time to themselves and time to connect. "People don't just pay to get rid of their phones – they're also paying to meet others," says Kneppelhout. "We live in quite an isolated world where we're ever more connected online, but in the physical world, it's hard to meet people. This is a real experience: where else are you going to be in a cafe with 30 others, and read a book or draw? It's quite unique." His hope is that customers will take away lasting habits from their cafe visits. "Big tech companies and the biggest social media companies are really playing with our minds, and with our time and our attention," he says. "I think that's bad: a counter movement is really necessary, and I think it's happening."

Note: Explore more positive stories on healing social division.


‘The tranquility frees you': Bogotá, the city that shuts out cars every week
2024-05-30, The Guardian (One of the UK's Leading Newspapers)
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/may/30/the-tranquility-f...

Once a week the citizens of Bogotá take back the streets of their city. Every Sunday, between 7am and 2pm, many of the biggest roads are shut to cars and left open to bikes, skates and feet. "CiclovĂ­a is really cool because there is a lot more space for us," says seven-year-old Oliver Rojas, who is out cycling with his parents and is baffled to hear that this innovative scheme does not exist in the rest of the world. The weekly event was born out of a one-day protest in 1974 against cars taking over the world's streets. It now covers 127 km (79 miles) of streets in the city and, on average, 1.5 million Bogotanos use the CiclovĂ­a every Sunday. It has spread to most other Colombian cities and has been copied by mayors across the world, from Buenos Aires to Bengaluru, who hope the initiative can help get people in shape, improve mental health, reduce car usage and help fight climate change in the way that it has in Colombia. Part of the attraction is the fun and the family-friendly atmosphere. Bogotá's cycleways are punctuated with aerobics classes, people selling fresh juices, and the sound of salsa. On a regular weekday, the level of PM 2.5 particles on the main road through Bogotá ... is dangerously high at 65 µg/m3. During CiclovĂ­a, however, that number falls to 5 µg/m3 on the same stretch of road – 13 times less and in line with the WHO's recommendations for the tiny, harmful particles. Noise levels are seven times lower.

Note: Read about the successful story of a US community that banned cars.


How Electric Harps Are Protecting Honey Bees
2024-05-23, Reasons to be Cheerful
https://reasonstobecheerful.world/electric-harps-protect-honey-bees-from-asia...

Michel Costa had become a frustrated veteran of an obscure yet devastating war in Europe. The enemy: invasive Asian hornets, which had been massacring his honey bees. When Costa, a retiree and avid beekeeper, discovered a new weapon with the potential to change the course of the entire war, he was intrigued. Several companies had begun selling so-called "electric harps," which they claimed could kill the hornets in droves by electrocuting them as they flew through. Although the harps take different forms, each one is made of some sort of large frame, which is then "strung" with conductive metal wires. These are then connected to a source of electricity, often solar panels, so that the wires conduct simultaneously positive and negative charges. When a hornet flies through, its wings touch the wires on either side, completing a circuit, and thereby delivering a fatal current of electricity. Beekeepers then place the harps around their hives in positions along the hornets' frequent flight paths. The harps can reduce predation pressure by 89 percent – enough to give hives the chance to replenish their stores. In one study only 56 percent of unprotected hives survived through winter, while 78 percent of those protected by harps did. Harps are also cheaper than other methods for beekeepers to install and operate. Beekeepers can buy them in complete kits that cost around $300 ... as Costa did. When combined with solar panels, maintenance costs are minimal.

Note: Explore more positive stories like this about healing the Earth.


The Search For Alien Technology May Have Actually Found Something
2024-05-21, The Debrief
https://thedebrief.org/the-search-for-alien-technology-may-have-actually-foun...

Astronomers scanning distant star systems for signs of alien technology say they have found 60 candidates, including seven M-dwarf stars giving off unexpectedly high infrared heat signatures, which may be surrounded by orbiting extraterrestrial power plants known as Dyson Spheres (DSs). First proposed by theoretical physicist Freeman Dyson back in 1960, confirmation of these aptly named devices would not only represent the first verifiable signs of life beyond Earth but would likely indicate a species that is more technologically advanced than humans. Since humanity's most powerful telescopes cannot image objects orbiting distant stars directly, researchers ... knew they would have to analyze light spectrum data emitted by millions of stars across the galaxy to search for signs of alien technology. In the case of Dyson Spheres, the team would need to look for an ‘unnatural' imbalance between the visible light and the infrared light emitted by a distant star. As proposed by Dyson, the more technologically advanced a species becomes, the more energy it needs. If they become advanced enough, a species could, in theory, surround an entire star with a "sphere" designed to capture all of its emitted energy. The sphere would radiate an excess of heat energy in the infrared spectrum as it captures the star's radiated energy and then releases it into space. In their published study [they explain:] "Dyson spheres, megastructures that could be constructed by advanced civilizations to harness the radiation energy of their host stars, represent a potential technosignature that, in principle, may be hiding in public data already collected as part of large astronomical surveys." Dubbed Project Hephaistos (named for the armorer of the Greek Gods), the effort [examined] data from over one hundred million stars. As hoped, the effort ... not only found 60 stars that had the right light ratios, but seven of these were particularly tantalizing, with IR heat signatures that lacked any other good explanation.

Note: Explore more stories about the nature of reality.


How doulas and cafes help people break the last taboo – talking about death
2024-05-20, Christian Science Monitor
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2024/0520/death-taboo-conversation-educ...

Ms. Gatto is Green-Wood [Cemetery's] resident death educator. She coordinates programs that include financial end-of-life planning seminars and the Mortality & Me book club. For much of human history, the issues of death and dying have been predominantly handled though religion and rites of organized faith. But as the United States became more secular, the loss of customs left a void. "Many people are raised with different ideas about fear connected to death. People end up carrying this stuff with them throughout their whole lives ... It's creating these more positive outlets for processing these kinds of feelings with community. I get to see what people are yearning for, and then create events and programs around it – and make it, dare I say, a little fun, right?" [Gatto] says. The goal of today's death education, says Anita Hannig, an anthropologist and author who studies death, is to find ways to address mortality without taking on the baggage that often accompanies it. "We're trying to create a safe container for us to have those conversations and not be labeled as morbid, suicidal, or weird and obsessed with death," she says. Some people's first encounter might be a death cafe. The unstructuredness of death cafes means participants can steer the conversation to larger topics, like questions of an afterlife, legacy, or a bucket list. But they can also find it helpful to dig into more functional topics, like funeral planning, wills, and burial methods. These gatherings numbering in the thousands have taken place across 90 countries. The rules of death cafes are simple: They are respectful and confidential. They shouldn't have any particular agenda. They shouldn't be held with the intention of leading participants to any particular conclusion. And they should, ideally, involve cake.

Note: Explore more positive stories like this about healing social division.


At age 90, America's first Black astronaut candidate has finally made it to space
2024-05-19, NPR
https://www.npr.org/2024/05/19/1252354052/blue-origin-rocket-ed-dwight-astronaut

Ed Dwight, the man who six decades ago nearly became America's first Black astronaut, made his first trip into space at age 90 on Sunday along with five crewmates aboard Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket. The approximately 10-minute suborbital flight put Dwight in the history books as the oldest person ever to reach space. He beat out Star Trek actor William Shatner for that honor by just a few months. Shatner was a few months younger when he went up on a New Shepard rocket in 2021. In the 1960s, Dwight, an Air Force captain, was fast tracked for space flight after then-President John F. Kennedy asked for a Black astronaut. Despite graduating in the top half of a test pilot school, Dwight was subsequently passed over for selection as an astronaut, a story he detailed in his autobiography, Soaring On The Wings Of A Dream: The Untold Story of America's First Black Astronaut Candidate. After leaving the Air Force, Dwight went on to become a celebrated sculptor, specializing in creating likenesses of historic African American figures. Speaking with NPR by phone a few hours after Sunday's launch, Dwight said, "I've got bragging rights now." "All these years, I've been called an astronaut," Dwight said, but "now I have a little [astronaut] pin, which is ... a totally different matter." He said he'd been up to 80,000 feet in test flights during his Air Force career, but at four times that altitude aboard New Shepard, the curvature of the Earth was more pronounced.

Note: Explore more positive human interest stories.


How Women Are Helping Their Neighbors Heal From Depression
2024-05-16, Reasons to be Cheerful
https://reasonstobecheerful.world/women-peer-led-therapy-depression/

Rhoda Phiri was having a hard time sleeping. She found it difficult to mingle with people in her community and at church. Even basic chores were hard. She was, she says, in a "dark corner." Then one day in 2020, a couple of women knocked on the door of her home in Zambia. The women were with StrongMinds, an international nonprofit that provides support for depression, particularly among women and adolescents. She accepted the women's invitation to join a group therapy program, held under a tree in an area near her home, and as she learned about depression, she recognized the signs in herself. "All the symptoms they were talking about, it's like they were talking about me," Phiri says. "It's like they knew what I was going through." Instead of relying on mental health professionals, StrongMinds offers group therapy facilitated by trained community members – often clients who have completed the treatment themselves, like Phiri. This group therapy model has proven to be an effective way to treat depression. Since the organization launched in 2013, half a million people have gone through the treatment program. Three-quarters of participants screened as being free of depression symptoms two weeks after completing it. "What we've learned in 11 years is that depression treatment can be, what we call, democratized," says StrongMinds founder ... Sean Mayberry. "You can take it out of the hands of doctors and nurses and give it to the community itself."

Note: Explore more positive stories like this in our comprehensive inspiring news articles archive focused on solutions and bridging divides.


Priced Out of Housing, Communities Take Development Into Their Own Hands
2024-05-13, New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/13/business/gentrifying-neighborhoods-communi...

"Community-owned cooperative real estate" ... was developed a decade ago by a nonprofit legal group and a nonprofit neighborhood group in Oakland, Calif., and has been refined by legal and development groups in Atlanta, Boston, Minneapolis, Philadelphia, Portland, Ore., and other cities. The cooperative strategy enables neighborhood groups to finance unconventional construction or renovation projects that banks and institutional lenders, which prefer strong cash-flow operations, won't touch. Much of the approach stems from efforts by the federal and local governments to make it easier for small investors to put money into real estate developments. Federal rules once barred small investors – those whose net worth is less than $1 million or who make less than $200,000 a year in income – from participating in development projects; that changed in 2015. At the same time, a few states enacted laws allowing small investors to put their money into local developments. "Until that change, 90 percent of the residents in a community couldn't make direct investments in a real estate project," said Chris Miller [with] the National Coalition for Community Capital, a nonprofit group. "Michigan allows nonaccredited investors to invest up to $10,000 in a project now." In Oakland, the East Bay Permanent Real Estate Cooperative is widely credited with being one of the first community groups to apply the community-owned cooperative concept to a neighborhood project.

Note: Explore more positive stories about reimagining the economy.


Scientists document remarkable sperm whale 'phonetic alphabet'
2024-05-08, NBC News
https://www.nbcnews.com/science/science-news/scientists-document-remarkable-s...

The various species of whales inhabiting Earth's oceans employ different types of vocalizations to communicate. Sperm whales, the largest of the toothed whales, communicate using bursts of clicking noises – called codas – sounding a bit like Morse code. A new analysis of years of vocalizations by sperm whales in the eastern Caribbean has found that their system of communication is more sophisticated than previously known, exhibiting a complex internal structure replete with a "phonetic alphabet." The researchers identified similarities to ... human language. "The research shows that the expressivity of sperm whale calls is much larger than previously thought," said Pratyusha Sharma ... lead author of the study published on Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications. "Why are they exchanging these codas? What information might they be sharing?" asked study co-author Shane Gero, Project CETI's lead biologist. "I think it's likely that they use codas to coordinate as a family, organize babysitting, foraging and defense," Gero said. Variations in the number, rhythm and tempo of the clicks produced different types of codas, the researchers found. The whales, among other things, altered the duration of the codas and sometimes added an extra click at the end, like a suffix in human language. "All of these different codas that we see are actually built by combining a comparatively simple set of smaller pieces," said study co-author Jacob Andreas.

Note: Explore more stories about amazing marine mammals.


The all-female patrol guarding Ecuador's Amazon Rainforest
2024-05-07, BBC News
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20240503-the-indigenous-women-fighting-min...

It is the break of dawn in the Serena community, in the middle of the Ecuadorian Amazon. Elsa Cerda, a 43-year-old indigenous Kichwa woman, brews guayusa leaves – a native plant from the rainforest – in a pot. It marks the start of the Guayusa Upina, a ritual performed by Amazonian indigenous peoples before beginning their daily activities. This tradition is more than a routine; it's a spiritual connection to their ancestral roots. As the first rays of light begin to filter through the tree canopy, a diverse assembly of 35 women, ranging from 23 to 85 years old, arrives one by one at the ceremony. The group goes by the name of "Yuturi Warmi". Their role as Amazonian guardians involves safeguarding the territory from pollution and preserving the land and rivers from activities that jeopardise biodiversity – such as deforestation and mining operations. The women undergo regular training sessions, with younger women teaching older members how to operate these phone cameras and drones. Each patrol involves a rotation of members, particularly the younger ones, who primarily patrol the land, ensuring continued presence and surveillance. The women do not carry any weapons, relying instead on their collective presence to act as a deterrent. In the event of witnessing illegal mining activities, the women prioritise non-violent measures such as contacting the authorities and gathering evidence.

Note: Explore more positive stories like this about healing the Earth.


The children who remember their past lives
2024-05-02, Washington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2024/05/02/children-past-lives/

Since the 1960s, more than 2,200 children from across the world have described apparent recollections from a previous life, all documented in a database maintained by the Division of Perceptual Studies within the Department of Psychiatry and Neurobehavioral Sciences at the University of Virginia School of Medicine. Sometimes a child presents enough identifying information for relatives or researchers to pinpoint a deceased person, but that level of specificity is elusive; about a third of the cases in the database do not include such a match. The phenomenon, with its aura of the paranormal, has long been fodder for books, academic studies, newspaper stories and dramatized documentaries. All of these explorations tend to orbit the same existential questions: Is reincarnation real? What happens after we die? How can this be explained? Certain consistent patterns have emerged: The most pronounced and convincing cases ... tend to occur in children between the ages of 2 and 6. They might suddenly describe places they have never been, people they have never met, sometimes using words or phrases that seem beyond their vocabulary. Nightmares or sleep disturbances are occasionally reported. Many of these children are highly verbal and start speaking earlier than their peers. Their descriptions of past-life recollections often fade away entirely by the time the child turns 7 or 8.

Note: Explore more positive stories like this in our comprehensive inspiring news articles archive focused on solutions and bridging divides.


Plastic-eating bacteria can help waste self-destruct
2024-04-30, BBC News
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-68927816

Scientists have developed a "self-digesting plastic", which, they say, could help reduce pollution. Polyurethane is used in everything from phone cases to trainers, but is tricky to recycle and mainly ends up in landfill. However, researchers have come up with a sci-fi like solution. By incorporating spores of plastic-eating bacteria they've developed a plastic that can self-destruct. The spores remain dormant during the useful lifetime of the plastic, but spring back to life and start to digest the product when exposed to nutrients in compost. There's hope "we can mitigate plastic pollution in nature", said researcher Han Sol Kim, of the University of California San Diego, La Jolla. And there might be an added advantage in that the spores increase the toughness of the plastic. "Our process makes the materials more rugged, so it extends its useful lifetime," said co-researcher, Jon Pokorski. "And then, when it's done, we're able to eliminate it from the environment, regardless of how it's disposed." The plastic is currently being worked on at the laboratory bench but could be in the real world within a few years, with the help of a manufacturer, he added. The type of bacteria added to the plastic is Bacillus subtilis, widely used as a food additive and a probiotic. Crucially, the bacteria has to be genetically engineered to be able to withstand the very high temperatures needed to make plastic.

Note: Explore more positive stories about healing the Earth.


Watch these hungry waxworms eat through plastic and digest it too
2024-04-24, BBC News
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20240419-the-worms-that-eat-through-plastic

At first glance there's nothing particularly remarkable about waxworms. The larval form of wax moths, these pale wriggling grubs feed on the wax that bees use to make their honeycomb. For beekeepers, the pests are something to swiftly get rid of without a second thought. But in 2017 molecular biologist Federica Bertocchini ... stumbled on a potentially game-changing discovery about these creatures. Bertocchini, an amateur beekeeper, threw some of the waxworms in a plastic bag after cleaning her hive, and left them alone. A short time later, she noticed the worms had started producing small holes in the plastic, which begun degrading as soon as it touched the worms' mouths. The worms were doing something that we as humans find remarkably difficult to do: break down plastic. Not only that, but the worms appeared to be digesting the plastic as though it was food. Bertocchini and her fellow researchers began collecting the liquid excreted from the worms' mouths. They found this "saliva" contained two critical enzymes, Ceres and Demeter – named after the Roman and Greek goddesses of agriculture, respectively – which were able to oxidise the polyethylene in the plastic, essentially breaking down that material on contact. Bertocchini is now chief technology officer at bioresearch startup Plasticentropy France, working with a team to study the viability of scaling up these enzymes for widespread use in degrading plastic.

Note: Explore more positive stories about healing the Earth.


Why do people forgive? It's messy, complex and 'the best form of self-interest'
2024-04-23, Minneapolis Star Tribune
https://www.startribune.com/forgiveness-project-minneapolis-laura-yuen/600360...

Forgiveness is a principle promoted by just about every faith tradition. Even neuroscientists agree on its mental and physical benefits – from lowered risk of heart attacks to improved sleep. Twenty years ago, UK-based journalist Marina Cantacuzino launched the Forgiveness Project, a collection of stories from survivors and victims of crime and conflict, as well as perpetrators who reshaped their aggression into a force for peace. Cantacuzino documented real-life stories of seemingly supernatural examples of forgiveness. A Canadian woman who forgave her husband's killer. An Israeli filmmaker wounded in a terrorist attack. A Minneapolis mother who grew to love the person who murdered her only child. But even Cantacuzino admits it can seem difficult to relate to those who forgive the seemingly unforgivable. Are they morally superior? Extremely religious? Some are, but they are more likely to share the traits of curiosity, empathy and a flexible viewpoint. It feels like those characteristics are harder to come by today. The cacophony of "if you're not with us, you're against us" has divided families and entire communities. One's ability to recognize the pain on both sides of the Israel-Hamas war can evoke outrage, for example. But Cantacuzino continues to support discussions that bring together Israeli and Palestinian victims of the conflict, stories that require people to embrace complexity and contradiction while honoring the "sanctity of every human life ... Stories stick, whereas facts fade," she says. The Forgiveness Project's exhibit has now journeyed to 17 countries, including Kenya, Australia and Israel.

Note: Explore Cantacuzino's latest inspiring book, Forgiveness: An Exploration, which delves into the politics, mechanics and psychology of forgiveness. Explore more positive stories that reveal the power of healing social division and polarization.


Compassion is making a comeback in America
2024-04-23, Vox
https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/24137520/americans-empathy-new-compassion-...

Since the late 1970s, psychologists have measured empathy by asking millions of people how much they agreed with statements such as "I feel tender, concerned feelings for people less fortunate than me." In 2011, a landmark study led by researcher Sara Konrath examined the trends in those surveys. The analysis revealed that American empathy had plummeted: The average US college student in 2009 reported feeling less empathic than 75 percent of students three decades earlier. A few months ago, [Konrath] and her colleagues published an update to their work: They found that empathy among young Americans is rebounding, reaching levels indistinguishable from the highs of the 1970s. Our biased minds tempt us to see the worst in people. The empathy decline reported 13 years ago fit that narrative and went viral. This decline is almost certainly an illusion. In other surveys, people reported on kindness and morality as they actually experience it – for instance, how they were treated by strangers, coworkers, and friends. Answers to these questions remained steady over the years. As with the decline, we might grasp for explanations for this rise. One possibility is collective suffering. Hard times can bring people together. In her beautiful book, A Paradise Built in Hell, Rebecca Solnit chronicles disasters including San Francisco's 1906 and 1989 earthquakes, Hurricane Katrina, and 9/11. In the wake of these catastrophes, kindness ticked up, strangers stepping over lines of race and class to help one another.

Note: Explore more positive stories like this in our comprehensive inspiring news articles archive focused on solutions and bridging divides.


Try something new to stop the days whizzing past, researchers suggest
2024-04-22, The Guardian (One of the UK's Leading Newspapers)
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2024/apr/22/try-something-new-to-stop-the...

If every day appears to go in a blur, try seeking out new and interesting experiences, researchers have suggested, after finding memorable images appear to dilate time. Researchers have previously found louder experiences seem to last longer, while focusing on the clock also makes time dilate, or drag. Now researchers have discovered the more memorable an image, the more likely a person is to think they have been looking at it for longer than they actually have. Prof Martin Wiener, co-author of the study ... said the findings could help develop improve artificial intelligence that interacts with humans. Writing in the journal Nature Human Behaviour, Wiener and colleagues described how they showed scenes of six different sizes and six different levels of clutter to participants for between 300 and 900ms, and asked them to indicate if they thought the duration was long or short. Participants were more likely to think they had been looking at small, highly cluttered scenes – such a crammed pantry – for a shorter duration than was the case, whereas the reverse occurred when people viewed large scenes with little clutter. More memorable images were processed faster. What's more, the processing speed for an image was correlated with how long participants thought they had been looking at it. "When we see things that are more important or relevant, like things that are more memorable, we dilate our sense of time in order to get more information," Wiener said.

Note: Explore more positive stories like this in our comprehensive inspiring news articles archive focused on solutions and bridging divides.


When the Prescription Is for a Dance Class, not a Pill
2024-04-17, New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/17/well/mind/social-prescription-health-medic...

A practice called social prescribing is being explored in the United States, after being adopted in more than 20 other countries. Social prescriptions generally aim to improve health and well-being by connecting people with nonclinical activities that address underlying problems, such as isolation, social stress and lack of nutritious food, which have been shown to play a crucial role in influencing who stays well and for how long. For Ms. Washington, who is among thousands of patients who have received social prescriptions from the nonprofit Open Source Wellness, the experience was transformative. She found a less stressful job, began eating more healthfully and ... was able to stop taking blood pressure medication. At the Cleveland Clinic, doctors are prescribing nature walks, volunteering and ballroom dancing. In Newark, an insurance provider has teamed up with the New Jersey Performing Arts Center to offer patients glassblowing workshops, concerts and museum exhibitions. A nonprofit in Utah is connecting mental health patients with community gardens and helping them participate in other activities that bring them a sense of meaning. Universities have started referring students to arts and cultural activities like comedy shows and concerts. Research on social prescribing suggests that it can improve mental health and quality of life and that it might reduce doctor visits and hospital admissions.

Note: Explore more positive stories like this about healing our bodies and healing social division.


5 Countries That Ditched Their Military Forces
2024-04-16, Howstuffworks.com
https://science.howstuffworks.com/5-countries-without-military-forces.htm

Between 136.5 and 148.5 million people became casualties of war in the 20th century alone. The economics are equally staggering. For instance, U.S. spending on the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan could top $4 trillion. Despite the exorbitant human and financial costs, the vast majority of governments consider defense spending to be a necessity. A few renegade countries have opted to shed their militaries, however. The first country is the most recent one on our list to get rid of its armed forces. After Jean-Bertrand Aristide was elected president [of Haiti] on Dec. 16, 1990, his government was overrun by a military coup. Aristide ... moved quickly to disband Haiti's armed forces before they could pose any further problems. What prompted Costa Rica to eliminate its armed forces? In 1948, after an unusual period of political upheaval ... the new government drafted a constitution that not only guaranteed free and open elections but also abolished the country's armed forces. The island nation of Mauritius is home to more than a million people and one of the strongest economies in Africa. What you won't find, however, are regular military forces. Thanks to the deep distrust Panamanians held for the military, the government adopted a constitutional amendment disbanding the military in 1994. In 1986, Micronesia entered into a Compact of Free Association with the United States.

Note: Explore more positive stories like this on healing the war machine.


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