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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.


Billionaire Mark Cuban's Discounted Pharmacy Has Launched: 'Bypass Middlemen and Outrageous Markups
2022-01-25, People
https://people.com/human-interest/mark-cuban-discounted-pharmacy-has-launched/

Mark Cuban has opened up a new online pharmacy to help make generic drugs more affordable. The Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Company (MCCPDC) officially launched last week, claiming to offer the "lowest prices on 100 lifesaving prescriptions, according to a press release. The company is able to offer lower prices because it's a registered pharmaceutical wholesaler, meaning MCCPDC can "bypass middlemen and outrageous markups," per the press release. "The pharmacy's prices reflect actual manufacturer prices plus a flat 15% margin and pharmacist fee," the press release states. The company also "refuses to pay spread prices" to pharmacy benefits managers, which manage prescription drug benefits on behalf of health insurers. One of the medications available is Imatinib, a leukemia treatment that has a retail price of $9,657 a month and costs around $120 a month with a common voucher, per the press release. However, the MCCPDC offers a steep discount, making the drug available for $47 per month. Two other notable prescriptions available at a significantly reduced price are Mesalamine, used for ulcerative colitis treatment, as well as gout treatment drug Colchicine. "Not everyone sets the goal of being the lowest cost producer and provider," the billionaire [said]. "My goal is to make a profit while maximizing impact." "We will do whatever it takes to get affordable pharmaceuticals to patients," CEO Alex Oshmyansky said.

Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.


Joe Biden Formally Backs Consumers' Right to Repair Their Electronics
2022-01-24, Vice
https://www.vice.com/en/article/qjbzpw/joe-biden-formally-backs-right-to-repair

President Biden became the first sitting president to give extensive comments supporting the right to repair and acknowledging the anticompetitive practices of electronics manufacturers that have spent the last decade creating repair monopolies and making it difficult for consumers to fix the things they own. At a cabinet meeting Monday, Biden gave an update on the executive order he issued last year that directed the Federal Trade Commission to create right to repair rules that would enforce against anticompetitive practices. "Too many areas, if you own a product, from a smartphone to a tractor, you don't have the freedom to choose how or where to repair that item you purchased," Biden added. "It's broke. Well, what do I do about it if it's broke, you had to go to the dealer and you had to pay the dealer's cost, the dealer's price. If you tried to fix it yourself, some manufacturers actually would void the warranty." Biden was referring here to practices by John Deere and Apple, as well as by video game console manufacturers, who as Motherboard reported violate the Magnusson-Moss Warranty Act with "Warranty Void if Removed" stickers. Biden ... also took credit for recent moves from Amazon and Microsoft that will, in theory, make it easier for people to gain access to repair parts and manuals for their devices. "It's going to make it easy for millions of Americans to repair their electronics instead of paying an arm and a leg to repair or just throwing a device out."

Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.


British rower with incurable cancer sets new world record for Atlantic crossing
2022-01-24, The Independent (One of the UK's leading newspapers)
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/atlantic-cancer-research-uk-british-dol...

Three British women, one of whom has incurable cancer, have shattered the world record for rowing across the Atlantic. Kat Cordiner, who has secondary ovarian cancer, and teammates Abby Johnston and Charlotte Irving, arrived in Antigua on Sunday evening. The women completed the 3,000-mile crossing from La Gomera in the Canary Islands to English Harbour in 42 days ... knocking an astonishing seven days off the female trio record in the Talisker Whisky Atlantic Challenge. Rowing the world's second largest ocean is acknowledged as the ultimate endurance race. More people have summitted Mount Everest than have successfully rowed the Atlantic and fewer than 20% of ocean rowers are women. It is thought Ms Cordiner is the first person to tackle this challenge as a cancer patient. The women are raising money for Cancer Research UK, Macmillan Cancer Support and The Royal Marsden Cancer Charity. Race organisers said they had shown the impossible was possible. Ms Cordiner, 42, Ms Irving, 31, and Ms Johnston, 32, were on a 25ft boat – called Dolly Parton – rowing two hours on and two hours off. During their epic trip they experienced scorching heat, enormous night-time waves, sleep deprivation, blisters and callouses on their hands, and sharks trailing their small boat. Ms Cordiner said: "The doctors have told me I don't have decades, I have years, so I really want to make the most of them. I don't want to muck around doing stuff that doesn't matter – I want to do things that are challenging and fun."

Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.


Seeing 1,000 glorious fin whales back from near extinction is a rare glimmer of hope
2022-01-17, The Guardian (One of the UK's leading newspapers)
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jan/17/glorious-fin-whales-ext...

Good news doesn't get any more in-your-face than this. One thousand fin whales, one of the world's biggest animals, were seen last week swimming in the same seas in which they were driven to near-extinction last century due to whaling. It's like humans never happened. This vast assembly was spread over a five-mile-wide area between the South Orkney islands and the Antarctic Peninsula. A single whale is stupendous; imagine 1,000 of them, their misty forest of spouts, as tall as pine trees, the plosive sound of their blows, their hot breath condensing in the icy air. Their sharp dorsal fins and steel-grey bodies slide through the waves like a whale ballet, choreographed at the extreme south of our planet. The sight has left whale scientists slack-jawed and frankly green-eyed in envy of Conor Ryan, who observed it from the polar cruiser, National Geographic Endurance. Ryan, an experienced zoologist and photographer, says this may be "one of the largest aggregations of fin whales ever documented". His estimate of 1,000 animals is a conservative one, he says. Fin whales are surprisingly slender, serpentine creatures when you see them underwater, and so long that they seem to take for ever to swim past. Like blue, humpback and minke whales, they're baleen whales, distinguished by food-filtering keratinous plates in lieu of teeth. Unlike toothed whales, such as sperm whales and killer whales, they are not usually seen as social animals.

Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles on marine mammals.


Giraffe populations are rising, giving new hope to scientists
2022-01-12, National Geographic
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/giraffe-populations-rising...

Giraffe numbers have increased across Africa, new research shows, a rare spot of good news in the conservation world. According to a recent analysis of survey data from across the African continent, the total giraffe population is now around 117,000, approximately 20 percent higher than it was thought to be in 2015, when the last major survey was published. This rise is a result of genuine growth in some areas, but also stems from more accurate census data, says Julian Fennessy, executive director of the Giraffe Conservation Foundation, based in Namibia. "It's great to see these numbers increasing," says Fennessy, a co-author of the new research. Giraffes were once considered a single species. But recent genetic evidence shows there are likely four species of giraffe, three of which have increased considerably in number: northern, reticulated, and Masai giraffes. The fourth, southern giraffes, have remained relatively stable. Data were collected during the last few years across 21 countries, by governments, researchers, nonprofits, and even citizen scientists. Fennessy and six co-authors then analyzed this vast trove of information and published the results ... in the peer-reviewed research volume Imperiled: The Encyclopedia of Conservation. Northern giraffes, the most threatened species, live in isolated populations across Central and West Africa, as well as Uganda and parts of Kenya. The new paper estimates there are more than 5,900 of this species, a significant increase from 2015, when there were 4,780.

Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.


Windows giant Andersen leads $30M funding of solar window company
2022-01-12, Electrek
https://electrek.co/2022/01/12/windows-giant-andersen-leads-30m-funding-of-so...

Ubiquitous Energy claims that its technology, UE Power, is the only patented and transparent photovoltaic glass coating that uses solar power to generate energy while remaining visibly indistinguishable from traditional windows. The transparent solar panels can produce up to about 50% of the power of rooftop solar per given surface area, so it's designed to complement solar panels, not replace them. Ubiquitous Energy ... was started by a group of Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Michigan State University scientists and engineers looking for new ways to integrate solar power technology into everyday products and surfaces. The company has begun a US site selection process for its first high-volume manufacturing line. Ubiquitous Energy says that "broad adoption of UE Power within architectural glass has the opportunity to offset up to an estimated 10% of global emissions, greatly reducing the 40% of global carbon emissions that come from buildings and improving their energy efficiency at the same time." Jay Lund, chairman and chief executive officer of Andersen Corporation, said: "Ubiquitous Energy's transparent photovoltaic technology is revolutionary and represents a new horizon for the fenestration industry."

Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.


Fish in the driver's seat: Israeli scientists teach goldfish to operate vehicle
2022-01-11, Washington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/01/11/israel-goldfish-drives-car/

Israeli researchers have taught goldfish to drive, according to a study that offers new insights into animals' ability to navigate – even when they're literally fish out of water. For the study, published in the peer-reviewed journal Behavioural Brain Research, the goldfish were trained to use a wheeled platform, dubbed a Fish Operated Vehicle. The FOV could be driven and have its course changed in reaction to the fish's movements inside a water tank mounted on the platform. Their task was to "drive" the robotic vehicle toward a target that could be observed through the walls of the fish tank. The vehicle was fitted with lidar, short for light detection and ranging, a remote sensing technology that uses lasers to collect data on its ground location and the fish's location within the tank. The researchers, from Ben-Gurion University, found the fish were able to move the FOV around unfamiliar environments while reaching the target "regardless of their starting point, all while avoiding dead-ends and correcting location inaccuracies." The goldfish in the tank were placed in a test arena and tasked with driving toward a target. Upon successfully hitting the target, they received a food pellet reward. After a few days of training, the fish were able to navigate past obstacles such as walls, while eluding efforts to trick them with false targets. "The study hints that navigational ability is universal rather than specific to the environment," said Shachar Givon, one of the study's authors.

Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.


Bridging America's political divide with conversations, one small step at a time
2022-01-09, CBS News
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/one-small-step-storycorps-60-minutes-2022-01-10/

Dave Isay has created a program called "One Small Step" to get Americans from across the political spectrum to stop demonizing one another and start communicating - face to face, one conversation at a time. It has taped more than half a million Americans telling their stories – to become the largest single collection of human voices ever recorded. StoryCorps is an important part of adding history and context and the individuals who make history. Not just the ones that we see on the news, but the people who are part of the fabric of our American life. Around the time of the 2016 presidential election, Dave Isay says he got the idea for a new kind of StoryCorps that could perhaps help unite a country becoming increasingly divided. He decided to call it "One Small Step." "So we match strangers who disagree politically to put them face-to-face for 50 minutes," [said Isay]. "It's not to talk about politics, it's just to talk about your lives." Facilitators begin by asking the participants to read one another's biography out loud. The project tries to match people who may be from different political parties but have something else in common. The format is derived from a psychological concept developed in the 1950s called contact theory. When you have two people who are enemies and you put them face-to-face under very, very specific conditions , and they have a conversation and a kind of visceral, emotional experience with each other, that hate can melt away. And people can see each other in a new way.

Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.


California man scales Machu Picchu in off-roading wheelchair
2022-01-07, San Francisco Chronicle (San Francisco's Leading Newspaper)
https://www.sfgate.com/california-news/article/California-man-scales-Machu-Pi...

In 2011, [Ropert Kapen] suffered a brain stem stroke that left him paralyzed. Doctors told his family that he had a 1% chance of survival, and that if he lived, he'd likely be in a vegetative state. Kapen beat those odds. His mental faculties were unscathed, and he slowly regained some movement and speech through therapy. Eventually, he was able to communicate, eat, operate a motorized wheelchair and write a book. He had another big dream, too. "Growing up, I fell in love with hiking, being outdoors and the beauty of nature," he says. That was taken away from him for 10 years, Kapen says, but very recently, a new set of wheels has allowed for his return. It's called the AdvenChair [which] recently enabled Kapen to visit Machu Picchu. The orange, "all-terrain" wheelchair is human-powered and designed to help people with mobility challenges to venture into the wild. Its wheels, tires, brakes and handlebars are all premium mountain bike parts, and the large tires and suspension system offer a comfortable ride. Thanks to a versatile system of pulleys, bars and straps, teams of one to five people can assist in navigating the AdvenChair over just about any landscape. "It's rejuvenating to be outside, especially as a person with a disability, because these resources are not exactly the most accessible," [Isaac] Shannon says. "So when there is a tool that allows a person to be able to experience life in the most average way possible, I think it's healing, and it's nice to be out in nature where you're not around people."

Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of inspiring news articles, including ones specifically on disabled people who have made their mark in our world.


China, US, UK, France and Russia pledge to avoid nuclear war
2022-01-04, CNN World
https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/04/world/p5-nations-nuclear-pledge-intl-hnk/index...

Five of the world's largest nuclear powers pledged on Monday to work together toward "a world without nuclear weapons" in a rare statement of unity amid rising East-West tensions. "A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought," said the joint statement, which was issued simultaneously by the United States, Russia, China, the United Kingdom and France. "As nuclear use would have far-reaching consequences, we also affirm that nuclear weapons - for as long as they continue to exist - should serve defensive purposes, deter aggression, and prevent war." The statement also stressed the importance of preventing conflict between nuclear-weapon states from escalating, describing it as a "foremost responsibility." The statement released by the five powers ... as permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, called on all states to create a security environment "more conducive to progress on disarmament with the ultimate goal of a world without nuclear weapons with undiminished security for all. The five pledged to adhere to the 1970 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) which obligates them "to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament." Some of the text of the statement ... echoes a statement issued by the five nations after a December conference in Paris that laid the groundwork for the since delayed review of the treaty.

Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.


Canada reaches $31.5 billion deal over Indigenous children put in foster care unnecessarily
2022-01-04, Washington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/01/04/canada-indigenous-foster-care...

Canadian officials said Tuesday they have reached $31.5 billion in agreements in principle with Indigenous groups to compensate First Nations children who were unnecessarily taken from their homes and put into the child welfare system, a major development in a dispute that has long been a sticking point in Ottawa's efforts to advance reconciliation with Indigenous people. Under the agreements, half of the money would go to children and families harmed by an underfunded and discriminatory child welfare system on First Nations reserves and in the Yukon, while the rest would be earmarked over five years for long-term reforms, the Indigenous services ministry said. "This is the largest settlement in Canadian history, but no amount of money can reverse the harms experienced by First Nations children," Marc Miller, Canada's Crown-Indigenous relations minister, told reporters. "Historic injustices require historic reparations." The dispute dates to 2007, when several Indigenous advocacy groups claimed in a human rights complaint that the federal government's "inequitable and insufficient" funding of child welfare services on First Nations reserves was discriminatory. In 2016, the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal agreed with the advocates. The panel said the federal government's funding formula was based on "flawed assumptions about children in care," resulting in a system that incentivized the removal of First Nations children from their homes and their cultures.

Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.


The inspirational story of how a single mum has toured the world carrying her disabled son on her back - after vowing to give him a life of adventure when she gave birth at 17
2022-01-01, Daily Mail (One of the UK's popular newspapers)
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-10294493/Meet-inspirational-mother...

From Hawaii to Bali and the ski-slopes of Perisher, 26-year-old Jimmy Antram has seen plenty of the world. But it has all been from the vantage point of his mother's back. Fulfilling a promise she made to herself as a 17-year-old first-time mum to give her disabled son the best life she possibly could, Niki Antram has spent years travelling the globe with Jimmy clinging to her shoulders. Jimmy was born with physical and mental disabilities, including blindness, and requires round the clock care from Ms Antram and his support workers. He has a wheelchair, but Ms Antram has never enjoyed using it. She's content to carry him while she's physically able and helps him walk short distances on his own. Incredible photographs taken around the globe show him clinging on as they hike through mountains and rainforests. 'Planning big holidays, I always make sure I have plenty of nappies, clothes, and even bed pads, sheets and pillowcases,' she [said]. Ms Antram plans a meticulous itinerary and calls ahead for every venue she wants to visit - whether it be a restaurant, hotel or daredevil adventure. 'Even if I know we will be okay I like to inform the companies to give them a heads up about us to make sure they understand and are okay with having us there,' she says. Sometimes, they can't accommodate. This is usually because of risks associated with Jimmy's condition or logistical difficulties. Ms Antram said the exception to this was in Hawaii, where 'everyone wanted [Jimmy] to join'.

Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring disabled persons news articles.


8 Trends from 2021 We'll Carry to the New Year
2021-12-30, Optimist Daily
https://www.optimistdaily.com/2021/12/8-trends-from-2021-well-carry-to-the-ne...

There is no question that 2021 was another unpredictable year and we are still living in uncertain times. And so, as we say adieu to this turbulent year, we are highlighting eight positive trends that we see sticking around! The pandemic allowed us to slow down and reevaluate our work-life balance with new work patterns that are here to stay. Some people are now permanently working from home, and some returned to the office, even if for just a few days a week, under a hybrid model. We also saw an even greater, and much-deserved appreciation for our frontline workers. We have developed an increased respect for service industry workers and those people employed to keep our health care, infrastructure, and education systems running. Even on the world's biggest stage, mental health became a number one priority this year, and helped recenter the conversation around the globe around what makes a person thrive. With the loss and altering of life over the past almost two years, many of us have looked at ways to improve our overall health and extend our days. Maybe more of us can even achieve new heights such as this 105-year-old setting the world-record for the 100 meter dash earlier this year! Speaking of health, many people over the course of the pandemic wisely decided to bring more houseplants into their lives. This bit of green lifted moods and gave us plant parents new purpose as we spent more time in our homes working or learning remotely and social distancing.

Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.


A man strung Christmas lights from his home to his neighbor's to support her. The whole community followed.
2021-12-21, Washington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2021/12/21/baltimore-rodgers-forge-c...

It started last November with a single string of Christmas lights on a Baltimore County street. Kim Morton was home watching a movie with her daughter when she received a text from her neighbor who lives directly across the road. He told her to peek outside. Matt Riggs had hung a string of white Christmas lights, stretching from his home to hers in the Rodgers Forge neighborhood, just north of the Baltimore city line. He also left a tin of homemade cookies on her doorstep. The lights, he told her, were meant to reinforce that they were always connected despite their pandemic isolation. "I was reaching out to Kim to literally brighten her world," said Riggs. He knew his neighbor was facing a dark time. Morton had shared that she was dealing with depression and anxiety. Riggs could relate. A bit of brightness was in order, he decided, but he certainly did not expect that his one strand of Christmas lights would somehow spark a neighborhood-wide movement. Neighbor after neighbor followed suit, stretching lines of Christmas lights from one side of the street to the other. Leabe Commisso ... wanted in. "I said to my neighbor: ‘Let's do it, too,' " she recalled. "Before we knew it, we were cleaning out Home Depot of all the lights." Quickly, other neighbors caught on. "Little by little, the whole neighborhood started doing it," said Morton, 49, who has lived in Rodgers Forge for 17 years. "The lights were a physical sign of connection and love." For the first time in a long time, a feeling of togetherness – and light – had returned.

Note: Enjoy a wonderful compilation of inspiring stories from the pandemic times on this webpage. Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.


After decades, some of America's most toxic sites will finally get cleaned up
2021-12-17, Washington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2021/12/17/superfund-clean...

The laboratories and other buildings that once housed a chemical manufacturer here in New Jersey's most populous city have been demolished. More than 10,000 leaky drums and other containers once illegally stored here have long been removed. Its owner was convicted three decades ago. Yet the groundwater beneath the 4.4-acre expanse once occupied by White Chemical Corp. in Newark remains contaminated, given a lack of federal funding. But three decades after federal officials declared it one of America's most toxic spots, it's about to get a jolt. This plot in Newark is among more than four dozen toxic waste sites to get cleanup funding from the newly-enacted infrastructure law, the Environmental Protection Agency announced Friday, totaling $1 billion. "This work is just the beginning," EPA Administrator Michael Regan said. President Biden signed legislation reviving a polluter's tax that will inject a new stream of cash into the nation's troubled Superfund program. The renewed excise fees, which disappeared more than 25 years ago, are expected to raise $14.5 billion in revenue over the next decade and could accelerate cleanups of many sites that are increasingly threatened by climate change. The Superfund list includes more than 1,300 abandoned mines, radioactive landfills, shuttered military labs, closed factories and other contaminated areas across nearly all 50 states.

Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.


Rapper Logic's
2021-12-15, CBS News
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/logic-1-800-273-8255-song-suicide-prevention/

Four years ago, rapper Logic released his hit song "1-800-273-8255" – a reference to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline – in hopes of helping others. A new study released this week found it did just that: researchers say the song potentially helped saved hundreds of lives. The study, published Monday in the BMJ, found almost 10,000 calls went to the Lifeline – a 6.9% increase over the expected number – during 34 days in 2017 and 2018 when the song was receiving heightened public attention. And an estimated 245 fewer suicides took place in that same time period – 5.5% below the expected number. The study authors' looked at the days immediately following the song's release, Logic's performance at the 2017 MTV Awards with singers Alessia Cara and Khalid, and their act at the 2018 Grammys. According to the research, those events were also linked to a surge of activity connected to the song on Twitter. "To know that my music was actually affecting people's lives, truly, that's what inspired me to make the song," Logic said in a statement to CNN. "We did it from a really warm place in our hearts to try to help people. And the fact that it actually did, that blows my mind." The song centers around a high school student struggling with his sexuality and contemplating suicide. However, after a call to a hotline, he realizes he wants to live. The song went quintuple platinum and remained Logic's best performing song on Spotify.

Note: Watch this inspiring song which has been viewed over 400 million times at this link. Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.


Clever canines can understand an average of 89 words
2021-12-09, BBC News
https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/59580613

We all talk to our dogs, whether it's calling their name, playing fetch or teaching them new tricks. But do they actually understand the words we're saying? Well according to a new study, they do! The research has found that dogs can recognise an average of 89 words or phrases. The study asked 165 owners of different dog breeds to note down words that they thought their dogs responded to. The results showed the most common words the pooches understood were commands like sit, stay and wait. The research was carried out by Catherine Reeve and Sophie Jacques, from the Department of Psychology & Neuroscience, Dalhousie University, in Canada. During the study, dog owners were asked to say if they thought their pup responded to the words or commands they were giving. The owners then had to record if their pet got excited, looked for something, looked up or did an action in response to a command. The research found that 89 words was the average number that the dogs could understand - one clever canine is believed to have understood 215 words in total - but the worst performing pooch knew only 15. Nearly all of the dogs that took part in the study reacted to their own name and many gave a response when being praised. The researchers said: "Those of us who have owned dogs would not be surprised to see most dogs respond with an enthusiastic tail wagging or a treat-seeking response on hearing, good girl/good boy."

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Tropical forests can regenerate in just 20 years without human interference
2021-12-09, The Guardian (One of the UK's leading newspapers)
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/dec/09/tropical-forests-can-rege...

Tropical forests can bounce back with surprising rapidity, a new study published today suggests. An international group of researchers looking at a number of aspects of tropical forests has found that the potential for regrowth is substantial if they are left untouched by humans for about 20 years. For example, soil takes an average of 10 years to recover its previous status, plant community and animal biodiversity take 60 years, and overall biomass takes a total of 120, according to their calculations." This is due in part to a multidimensional mechanism whereby old forest flora and fauna help a new generation of forest grow – a natural process known as "secondary succession". These new findings ... suggest that it is not too late to undo the damage that humanity has done through catastrophic climate change over the last few decades. "That's good news, because the implication is that, 20 years ... that's a realistic time that I can think of, and that my daughter can think of, and that the policymakers can think of," said Lourens Poorter ... lead author of the paper. This idea of natural regeneration is frequently disregarded in favour of tree plantations, but according to Poorter, the former yields better results than restoration plantings. "Compared to planting new trees, it performs way better in terms of biodiversity, climate change mitigation and recovering nutrients." The takeaway message is that we don't necessarily need to plant more trees when nature is doing it by itself, Poorter said.

Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.


5 environmental victories from 2021 that offer hope
2021-12-08, National Geographic
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/5-environmental-victor...

As the year draws to a close, there are reasons to feel cautiously optimistic about areas in which the environment scored victories in 2021. Delayed by a year as a result of COVID-19, November's COP26 - the United Nations Climate Change Conference, held in Glasgow - welcomed the world's second-largest fossil-fuel emitter, the United States, back to the negotiating table after four years of inaction on climate change. By the summit's end, the U.S. and China had made a surprise joint declaration to work together on meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement. The biggest news in forest conservation was the pledge at the UN Climate Conference in Glasgow to end deforestation by 2030; the commitment includes a pledge to provide $12 billion in funding to "help unleash the potential of forests and sustainable land use." The Biden administration spent part of its first year restoring habitat protections that had been rolled back by its predecessor. Perhaps the most prominent was the re-establishment of full protection for the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante monuments in southern Utah, as well as the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts National Monument off New England. Populations of some of the world's most iconic species are showing some improvement as a result of protective measures. Humpback whales, whose haunting songs helped build support for the "Save the Whales" campaign that ushered in the modern environmental movement, are increasing in number in many parts of their range.

Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.


Dunkin' customer surprised beloved employee with fully furnished home after eviction
2021-12-07, Today.com
https://www.today.com/food/people/dunkin-customer-surprised-employee-fully-fu...

Ebony Johnson's enthusiastic service at a Dunkin' location in Ohio is so memorable that regular customer Suzanne Burke noticed when she had not been working the drive-thru for a few weeks in March. When Johnson, 33, returned to work at the Mount Healthy location, where she's been employed for three years, she shared with Burke that she had been struggling financially while also trying to find housing for her and her three children following an eviction. Burke left Johnson a note saying that if Johnson wanted help, Burke would gladly do her best. Johnson accepted, and Burke, who has done work with social services in her career, got to work on reaching out to different businesses and organizations. It all led to a moment nine months in the making on Dec. 3 when Johnson broke down in tears and her young children broke out in smiles when they moved into a fully furnished apartment in Cincinnati. "Oh my God, it was so amazing, I just busted out crying," Johnson said. "I never had a full furnished house. I never had help like this. I had been asking God to put us in a home before Christmas, and He really did. I'm just so thankful." "It was so exciting, we all cried," Burke told TODAY. "I've got three kids, and I can't imagine not having a home to go to and then to have to get up, get the kids to school, and show up at work with a positive, happy attitude? I've been in awe of her." Johnson was able to secure the apartment through the help of the Cincinnati-based organization Strategies to End Homelessness.

Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.


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