Inspirational Media ArticlesExcerpts of Key Inspirational Media Articles in Major Media
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Left on their own, some deforested areas can rebound surprisingly fast with minimal help from humans, sequestering loads of atmospheric carbon as they grow. New research from an international team of scientists, recently published in the journal Nature, finds that 830,000 square miles of deforested land in humid tropical regions–an area larger than Mexico–could regrow naturally if left on its own. Five countries–Brazil, China, Colombia, Indonesia, and Mexico–account for 52 percent of the estimated potential regrowth. That would boost biodiversity, improve water quality and availability, and suck up 23.4 gigatons of carbon over the next three decades. "A rainforest can spring up in one to three years," said Matthew Fagan, a conservation scientist and ... coauthor of the paper. "In five years, you can have a completely closed canopy that's 20 feet high. I have walked in rainforests 80 feet high that are 10 to 15 years old. It just blows your mind." That sort of regrowth isn't a given, though. First of all, humans would have to stop using the land for intensive agriculture–think big yields thanks to fertilizers and other chemicals–or raising hoards of cattle, the sheer weight of which compacts the soil and makes it hard for new plants to take root. A global goal known as the Bonn Challenge aims to restore 1.3 million square miles of degraded and deforested land by 2030. More than 70 governments and organizations from 60 countries ... have signed on.
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In January 2024, The GivingBlock, one of the largest crypto donation platforms, reported that crypto donations had reached more than $2 billion, projected to exceed $10 billion by 2032. Crypto donors, who are largely millennials, contribute on average 128 times more per donation than cash donors. By leveraging tax incentives like capital gain offsets to eliminate taxes on donations, crypto giving is as financially smart as it is impactful. But the benefits of crypto giving go far beyond the financial incentives. Social impact is embedded in the foundation of Web 3. This new economy is fueled by cutting out traditional middlemen, banks, and allowing transparent, secure, and borderless peer-to-peer payments. No ID or passport is needed. This allows people, especially the unbanked, to have full control of their assets with minimal fees. Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has championed using memecoin momentum for good, saying, "I want to see quality fun projects that positively impact the ecosystem and the world." He donated nearly $2 million in memecoin winnings to charities, including $532,000 to the Effective Altruism Fund's Animal Welfare Fund and over $1 million to the United Humanitarian Front, an organization providing grants to humanitarian relief initiatives in Ukraine. New Story, a nonprofit building homes to alleviate homelessness worldwide, partnered with artist Brian Ku to release a limited edition series of NFTs where each sale provided a 3D house for a family in Latin America.
Note: Watch our latest video on the potential for blockchain to fix government waste and restore financial freedom. Explore more positive stories like this on technology for good.
Tangles of grapes and blackberries grow in clusters along a trellis. Leafy rows of basil, sweet potatoes and mesclun spring from raised garden troughs. Most striking are corridors of elevated planters stacked four high, like multilevel bunk beds, filled with kale, cabbage, arugula, various lettuces, eggplants, tatsoi and collard greens. Run by a gardening wizard named Jamiah Hargins, this wee farm in the front yard of his bungalow provides fresh produce for 45 nearby families, all while using a tiny fraction of the water required by a lawn. At just 2,500 square feet, this farm forms the heart of Mr. Hargins's nonprofit, Crop Swap LA, which transforms yards and unused spaces into microfarms. It runs three front yard farms that provide organic fruits and vegetables each week to 80 families, all living in a one-mile radius, and often with food insecurity. Rooted in the empowering idea that people can grow their own food, Crop Swap LA has caught on, with a wait list of 300 residents wanting to convert their yards into microfarms. The mini farms bring environmental benefits, thanks to irrigation and containment systems that capture and recycle rain. That allows the farms to produce thousands of pounds of food without using much water. "Some people pay $100 a month on their water because they're watering grass, but they don't get to eat anything, no one gets any benefit from it," Mr. Hargins said. "I can't think of a more generous gift to give to the community than to grow delicious, naturally organic food for the direct community," [says Crop Swap LA subscriber] Katherine Wong. "This is one of the noblest things anyone is doing today."
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Clinicians know that their patients' health is determined not just by the care they receive but also factors outside the confines of medicine – employment, financial stability, safe housing and access to nutritious food, to name a few. Boston Medical Center ... is well ahead of the curve; 23 years ago, it began its first "food as medicine" program. Patients identified as having food insecurity receive a food "prescription," meaning they could visit a food pantry run by the hospital once every two weeks and receive boxes customized for their medical conditions. Latchman Hiralall, manager of BMC's Preventive Food Pantry, explained that clinicians give a referral to the program, so workers know whether the patient requires a diet for diabetes, kidney disease, autoimmune conditions and so forth. Eligible patients can walk in right away, chat with pantry staff and leave with a wide array of food. Crucially, it's patients who decide what food they take. Eligibility is simply a matter of answering yes to two questions about whether they are worried about getting enough food. They don't need to show proof of financial stress. The program serves about 6,800 patients, distributing 50,000 pounds of food a month. The source of much of the fresh produce: The hospital itself. That's right – BMC operates its own rooftop farm. Seventy percent of the vegetables grown there go to Preventive Food Pantry participants. A portion of the rest is served in the hospital cafeteria.
Note: Read about how German hospitals are offering patients the "planetary health diet," a plant-based, whole food approach that's also in service to the Earth. Explore more positive stories like this about healing our bodies.
Sirish Subash is no ordinary ninth-grade student. The 14-year-old from Gwinnett School of Mathematics, Science, and Technology in Snellville, Georgia, was named America's top young scientist after winning the 2024 3M Young Scientist Challenge. The reason? Subash's creation of an AI handheld pesticide detector named "Pestiscand." "It works on a method called spectrophotometry. Now what this means is that it uses different ways that light interacts with different chemicals to look for different chemicals on the produce," Subash [said]. "Each chemical reflects different parts or wavelengths of light, and that creates a spectral signature, which is basically a catalog of what wavelengths are reflected back. So, "Pestiscand" can look for those wavelengths that are reflected by side residues on the produce." While the product is not on the market for the broader public at this time, Subash aims to dedicate his time to ensuring it has mass availability in the near future. "I want to continue developing projects like "Pestiscand" and eventually get them out to the world, to the market. That's one of my goals for "Pestiscand", to get it out to everyone," Subash added. In his downtime, Subash enjoys reading both fiction and non-fiction and making origami. His $25,000 prizefund will go toward his college education
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The world over, thousands of babies are adjusting to life outside the womb not in incubators in hospital nurseries, but on the warm chests of their parents. This is kangaroo mother care, modern medicine's latest protocol for babies born prematurely or underweight – and a long-standing traditional midwifery practice. It derives its fetching name from female kangaroos who keep their infants warm and stable in a pouch on their bodies. This immediate skin contact provides warmth and protection from infections while also aiding stress relief and emotional bonding. In 2017, [researchers] began studying whether kangaroo mother care (KMC) could be used for every preterm baby. They randomly assigned unstable newborns ... to two groups. Group 1 received immediate KMC. Group 2 received conventional care in an incubator or warmer until the baby's condition stabilized. They observed a 25 percent reduction in preterm deaths, 35 percent reduction in incidence of hypothermia and 18 percent fewer infections in the immediate KMC group, compared to babies in the control group. Public health advocate [Aarti] Kumar is helping design one of India's first KMC-enabled special newborn care units. "We need such facilities," she says. "More than science and modern medicine, the most powerful treatment for a premature, underweight infant is their mother, no matter if she is educated or illiterate, rich or poor ... I think that's amazing."
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A Virtual Power Plant (VPP) is a network that connects homes, farms, and businesses using renewable energy sources like rooftop solar, batteries, heat pumps, and smart appliances. Unlike traditional power plants, a VPP doesn't rely on one central facility. Instead, it creates a coordinated system where each participant contributes power and flexibility. For rural communities, VPPs offer a powerful solution to increasing energy demand and the challenges posed by severe weather. These systems allow smarter energy management, helping communities stabilize their energy use and reduce their reliance on costly fossil fuels like coal and gas. A standout example comes from Colorado's Holy Cross Energy. Their Power+ Program offers members affordable, lease-to-own home battery storage systems. These batteries store energy during off-peak hours and release it when demand is high or during outages. This not only saves money but also improves energy security and resilience. Similar success stories are unfolding in Vermont, where Green Mountain Power operates a VPP using Tesla Powerwalls. The program saved millions by strategically using stored energy to offset peak demand. These savings are shared with customers through bill credits, creating a win-win model for utilities and participants. Virtual Power Plants show how local, cooperative solutions can drive a national energy transformation.
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Filmmaker [Titus Kaphar] has many reasons to smile. The premiere for "Exhibiting Forgiveness" attracted attendees such as Serena Williams and Oprah Winfrey. The visually sumptuous movie examines what it takes to pardon wrongdoing. Famously, Mr. Kaphar was in his mid-20s when he decided to become an artist. The spark? An art history class in junior college. Mr. Kaphar taught himself how to paint by visiting art museums. In 2001, he completed an MFA degree at Yale. He was awarded the "genius grant" in 2018. Yet for all the artist's success, he was secretly having panic-attack nightmares about his father. "The thing that was the revelation is that my father is not the villain of my narrative," says Mr. Kaphar, who'd left home to live with relatives in California after witnessing his father commit a "heinous" act. While completing the script, Mr. Kaphar started writing and thinking from the perspective of La'Ron, the father. Mr. Kaphar realized that there are very few true villains in this world. "I began to realize that my father is as much a victim as I was. My father suffered at the hands of his father and, in fact, did better than his father," he says. "That was difficult for me to accept initially. But by the time I got finished, it was just clear. It was absolutely clear. It meant that I have developed a new compassion and sympathy for my father." Like his proxy character in the movie, Mr. Kaphar has let go of resentment toward his father. It had a healing effect. "Since the film, I haven't had any more of those nightmares," says Mr. Kaphar. "I haven't had one for almost two years now."
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Western Sikkim in India ... officially went 100 percent organic in 2016, and won what many regard as the Oscar for best public policies – the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation's Future Policy Gold Award – in 2018. This change is necessary: An estimated 52 percent of agricultural land across the globe is moderately to severely degraded due to monoculture, chemical pesticide and fertilizer use, and groundwater extraction – and this will accelerate unless these practices change. Sikkim is India's most sparsely populated state. Its mainly subsistence farms were, and continue to be, spread thinly across mountainous terrain, which makes supplying inorganic fertilizers expensive. Consequently, using homegrown organic manure and vermicompost (compost created from worm waste) was very much the norm. It also helped that the local populace already understood the value of organic food. "As children, we were taught that basti (local) vegetables grown without any chemical inputs by small farmers, were the best vegetables to eat," says Renzino Lepcha, CEO of Mevedir, an organic agri-business and certification agency in Sikkim. [Former] chief minister Pawan Chamling wrote, "[W]e have not inherited this earth from our forefather but have borrowed it from our future generations, it is our duty to protect it by living in complete harmony with nature and environment." Rain-fed agriculture has helped reduce the need for irrigation and conserve water. Some reports suggest that since 2014, bee populations have been rebounding, with yields of pollinator-dependent cardamom increasing by more than 23 percent.
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In the city of Nanchang, in an alleyway near a cancer hospital, two senior citizens run a "community cancer kitchen" to support those caring for their loved ones. Wan Zuocheng and Hong Gengxiang have been doing this charity work for two decades. "No matter what life throws at you, you must eat good food," Mr. Wan told South China Morning Post. For just 3 RMB, the equivalent of around $0.32, anyone can use the kitchen spaces they've set up in the alleyway to cook meals. Sometimes it's for the patients so they can eat something familiar rather than hospital food, while sometimes it's for the people who care for the patients. "There was a couple who came to us with their child," Wan said, talking about the day in 2003 they decided to start their charity kitchen. "They said he didn't want treatment, he just wanted a meal cooked by his mom. So we let them use our kitchen." As time passed they added more utensils, appliances, stoves, and ovens to their stall. This came with gradually increasing use of water, electricity, and coal, but as the costs rose, so too did the community, supporting the couple and their efforts to provide the invaluable service they relied on. Donations began to outpace expenditures, and now nearly 10,000 people come to cook in the cancer kitchen. It's been thoroughly observed in medicine that the odds of beating cancer can be improved with positivity, and what could be more positive than a loved one bringing you a home-cooked meal?
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"Hospitals are the ugliest places in the world," says Jacques Herzog. "They are a product of blind functionalist thinking, while neglecting basic human needs." Welcome to Zurich's remarkable new children's hospital, the Kinderspital – or "Kispi" for short – a 14-year endeavour to revolutionise how we think about the architecture of healing. It is not trying to be a fancy hotel, like some private hospitals. It is just a place where simple things like the quality of light and views, the scale and proportion of spaces and the texture of materials have been thought about with immense care, and honed to make the experience as pleasant as possible for everyone. The firm [Herzog & de Meuron] completed an impressive, yet oddly undersung, rehabilitation clinic in Basel in 2002, and is now building a huge amoeba-shaped hospital in Denmark as well as a terracotta-clad ziggurat teaching hospital in San Fransisco. "I am totally convinced that architecture can contribute to the healing process," [Herzog says]. The 600-strong practice has been quietly tackling the topic of healthcare for the last two decades. Kispi ... is unlike any other hospital. The rooms have a more domestic feel than typical hospital rooms, like being in the attic of an alpine chalet. They have big picture windows and clever window seats that can be pulled out to become beds, giving weary parents a place to sleep. Having a sloped wooden roof and natural light makes a huge psychological difference when you're lying in bed staring at the ceiling all day. Fun porthole windows at child height can be opened for natural ventilation, while every room has an en suite bathroom. Wooden floors add a sense of warmth in contrast to the usual stark vinyl – and they're just as hygienic, coated with ultra-hardwearing polyurethane. "We've tried to make the architecture address the curiosity of children," says Christine Binswanger, partner in charge of the project.
Note: Don't miss the incredible photos of this children's hospital at the link above. Explore more positive stories like this on healing our bodies.
REMspace, a California-based neurotech startup, claims to have achieved the first two-way communication between individuals during lucid dreaming. Using specially designed equipment, participants reportedly exchanged a message while asleep–an extraordinary claim that has yet to be peer-reviewed. This milestone, if validated, could mark a turning point in dream research, with REMspace suggesting applications from mental health therapies to skill training. Lucid dreaming ... is the state of being aware that you are dreaming while asleep. While around 50 percent of people report experiencing at least one lucid dream, the idea of communication within such a state is still in its early stages of research. The REMspace team claims they achieved communication between two participants during a lucid dream on September 24, 2024. Participants received random words generated by a server through earbuds while they were dreaming. One participant reportedly repeated the word in their dream, and the second confirmed it after waking. Looking ahead, they claim to be working on enabling more complex forms of dream communication, including full conversations and interactions with external servers. [REMspace founder Michael] Raduga predicts that within a few years, "dream communication will become common." Until then, the scientific community awaits peer-reviewed evidence to substantiate these intriguing, but currently unverified claims.
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Venture into New Mexico's beautifully stark high desert and you may well stumble across some fantastical and unconventional homes – some palatial and sculpturally rounded; others with an ancient temple-like form – that look like they're from a Star Wars movie. Set in and around the town of Taos where they were invented almost 40 years ago, these are Earthships: net-zero, sustainably designed homes built mostly from both natural and waste materials, such as old tyres, empty wine bottles and wood and mud. Earthship construction requires less in the way of toxic or carbon-emitting construction materials like concrete and plastics, and doesn't require precious woodland and other natural resources. An earth berm (a purposefully built bank of soil) surrounds the Earthship on three sides, providing insulating mass that controls temperature. Each has a greenhouse ... either on the north or south side depending on location. Most Earthships are purely solar powered; some also have wind turbines to supplement or a wood-burning stove as back up. Taos has cold snowy winters and often dry, hot summers, but in an Earthship, the internal temperature remains close to 72F (21C) year-round, regardless of outside weather conditions. What does it feel like to stay inside an Earthship? "It feels like you're inside the womb," says Earthship construction manager Deborah Binder. "You feel constantly hugged and snuggled. The temperature is always comfortable."
Note: Don't miss the great Earthship pictures at the link above. Explore more positive stories like this on technology for good.
By the early 1990s, extremist Hutu propaganda had started to spread in newspapers and on the radio, radicalizing Rwandans. Over the course of just 100 days [in 1994], about 800,000 Rwandans, primarily Tutsi, were killed. On April 22, 1994, [Hussein] Longolongo recounted, he and an armed group of men entered a chapel where dozens of Tutsi were hiding. "We killed about 70 people," he said. "I was brainwashed." Eventually, more than 120,000 Hutu were arrested on charges of participating in the genocide. In prison, [Longolongo] was forced to take part in a government-sanctioned reeducation program. He initially dismissed much of what he heard. "But as time went on, I became convinced that what I did was not right," he told me. Longolongo also participated in more than 100 of what were known as gacaca trials. Gacaca–which roughly translates to "justice on the grass"–had historically been used in Rwandan villages and communities to settle interpersonal and intercommunal conflicts. Now the government transformed the role of the gacaca court to handle allegations of genocide. Many survivors were initially reluctant. "They would say, â€How can you forgive those people?'" [Albert] Rutikanga told them that these conversations weren't something they should do for the perpetrators. "Forgiveness is a choice of healing yourself," he would say. "You cannot keep the anger and bitterness inside, because it will destroy you."
Note: Read how a Rwandan woman forgave the man who killed her husband during the 1994 genocide and allowed his daughter to marry her son. Explore more positive stories like this on healing social division.
Hundreds of ant species farm fungi today, and studies of ant evolution suggest the adaptation goes back tens of millions of years. Now, scientists have sharpened the picture by bringing in the fungal family tree as well. They pinpoint a date for the origins of the partnership and suggest a surprising catalyst: the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs 66 million years ago. Since ants' fungal gardens were first described 150 years ago, entomologists have uncovered 247 species of ants that tend them and rely on this fungal crop to survive. Researchers surmise that the ants descend from a common ancestor that later evolved into separate species nurturing different types of fungi. The ant and fungal taxa involved in farming both arose about 66 million years ago, which coincides with the massive asteroid strike that drove nonavian dinosaurs and many other species extinct. That cataclysmic impact produced lingering clouds of debris that shut down photosynthesis across the planet for several months, possibly even years. Researchers suggest ants that had already developed a loose relationship with fungi were ready to take advantage of this newly abundant source of food. For the first few million years, the ants tended fungal species also found in the wild. Then, about 27 million years ago, a subset of ants completely domesticated their fungal cultivars, just as humans have done with most of our staples, which are now remote from their wild roots.
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[Robert] Brito and his family, who live along the Rio Negro in the Brazilian Amazon, only saw the monetary value of logged trees. Now, when Brito looks at a tree, everything has changed. "We stopped thinking about price and started thinking about [a different kind of] value. For example, when I see a beautiful cumaru [Brazilian teak] tree, 300 to 400 years old ... I still touch it, but with a different mindset. I have access to education, technology, a future for the young people living here, and I still contribute to the preservation of our planet in relation to climate change." Brito's transition ... required the support and alignment of financial, social and environmental incentives. In 2008, the government of the Brazilian state of Amazonas created the Rio Negro Sustainable Development Reserve, in order to preserve nature and to support communities living within it. The designation of the sustainable development reserve led to organisations including the Foundation for Amazon Sustainability (FAS) establishing education and health projects there. Brito recalls that one day Virgilio Viana, the director general of FAS, suggested that he might like to work in community-based tourism. "I started receiving people in my own home," Brito says. This trial was a success. He realised that he earned more in a week than he had ever seen in three months of logging. In 2011 – three years after the creation of the sustainable development reserve and over two decades since he cut down his first tree – Brito opened his nature lodge. And he put down his chainsaw. Moving away from blaming or shaming individuals can bring more people into the environmental movement. So can valuing people's prior experiences, such as Brito drawing on his decades of logging as he guides visitors around the forest in his flip-flops.
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In 2023, Courtney Dauwalter became the first person, male or female, to win the Triple Crown, the three most iconic 100-mile races in the world, in a single season. Dauwalter does not have a coach or a strict training plan. She's never been on Strava and doesn't plan races far ahead of time. She runs in long shorts and baggy clothes because, she says, they are more comfortable. She eats candy while training and drinks beer afterwards, because that's what makes her the most happy. "If I'm happy, the engine works way better." While her philosophy may sound casual, the results say otherwise. In the last decade, Dauwalter has won more than 50 ultras, often in dominant fashion, and is widely considered the greatest of all time. Without a coach or set training plan, Dauwalter trains entirely on feel. Her days are structured loosely, which allows for adaptability. She makes decisions intuitively, like how many hill repeats to run or how big her loop should be that day. Curiosity led her to ultrarunning, but success didn't come immediately. In 2012, Dauwalter dropped out of her first 100-mile race, which initially made her doubt herself. "I remember thinking I was a joke for trying it, but that moment was a key part of my path. It taught me about the mental side of ultrarunning and how important the things you tell yourself are, especially in the hardest moments." Years later, Dauwalter's mental fortitude is what truly sets her apart.
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The waiting room in the basement of Boston Medical Center looks like any other. But when patients here are called in ... they're welcomed into the Preventive Food Pantry. Over the next few minutes, staff members tailor a grocery cart to each patient's needs. Someone with a renal condition won't get foods high in potassium, like oranges or potatoes. If they're diabetic, they'll get whole-grain pasta and brown rice. And everyone leaves with vegetables, fruit and other fresh ingredients. The pantry opened in 2001 after doctors raised the alarm that many of their patients reported not having enough food for their families. Setting up on hospital premises, the pantry was an early pioneer in incorporating access to nutritious food directly into the medical system. The pantry was initially expected to serve 500 people a month. Today, it serves more than 6,200. Addressing hunger isn't just a question of quantity of food, but also quality. Healthy produce, fresh meat and dairy products tend to be more expensive, so for families trying to stretch their dollar, those foods are harder to afford. Faced with high costs of treating conditions linked to food insecurity, medical systems, health insurers and government programs have become more interested in ways to support nutrition access. A [Greater Boston Food Bank] survey found that among people who were screened for food insecurity in a medical setting, 87 percent followed up on recommended resources.
Note: Read about how German hospitals are offering patients the "planetary health diet," a plant-based, whole food approach that's also in service to the Earth. Explore more positive stories like this about healing our bodies.
Leah Garcés considered Craig Watts her enemy. As CEO and president of the nonprofit Mercy for Animals, Garcés has devoted her life to protecting animals. When she met Watts in the spring of 2014 at his poultry farm in North Carolina, he was one those factory farmers she deeply despised. Watts had raised over 720,000 chickens in 22 years for Perdue, the fourth-largest chicken company in the US. He took out a $200,000 bank loan to build four giant chicken houses. Squeezed by Perdue's profit margins, Watts struggled to pay the bills. Garcés realized that Watts was not her enemy, but an ally: Chicken farmers like him wanted to end chicken farming as much as she did. Yet because of his hefty loans, Watts saw no way out. Together, they released footage from the horrors of chicken farming in the New York Times. Watts has now become one of the poster farmers for the Transfarmation Project, which Garcés founded as an offshoot of the nonprofit Mercy for Animals in 2019. Ultimately, Garcés's vision is not just "helping a few dozen farmers transition to a healthier and more sustainable model, it is about how we transition away entirely from factory farming." The Transfarmation Project connects farmers with consultants and is producing resources and pilots to model successful transitions. In the same warehouse where Watts once had to kill chickens and where he and Garcés filmed the whistleblower video, he is now harvesting mushrooms.
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Following someone's gaze may seem like a simple act, but it has profound implications for the evolution of intelligence. And humans are far from the only animals that do it. A recent study of bottlenose dolphins in the journal Heliyon adds to previous research identifying the ability to follow the gazes of members of other species – a visual and cognitive trick that may relate to the development of empathy – across a wide range of mammals, not just humans and our fellow primates. What's even more interesting is to trace this ability through not just the mammal family but beyond, to reptiles and birds – and perhaps back as far as the Jurassic period. In general, by identifying important objects in their environment, an animal's ability to follow the gaze of another, including another species, may form a basis for advanced social cognition, paving the way for cooperation and empathy. One such high level type, "geometrical gaze following," occurs if you block the thing that the other is looking at so the subject can't see it, so that they will physically reposition themself to see what others are seeing. Geometrical gaze following isn't even seen in human children before eighteen months of age – and yet wolves, apes and monkeys, and birds of the crow (corvid) and starling genuses have all been found to engage in it. Looking at which living species show evidence of advanced gaze following and which don't suggests that even the more advanced type ... evolved back in the time of dinosaurs.
Note: Read about the world's biggest eye contact experiment and explore a powerful social experiment in Australia where people rekindle human connection through a minute of silent eye contact. For more inspiring news related to this article, check out our news archive on animal wonders.
Important 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.