Good Morning, Gnusies!
Allow me to offer a virtual smorgasbord of good news from around the country and beyond. Unfortunately, I will not be here to enjoy it with you until later this afternoon, as I have obligations elsewhere. I trust my fellow gnusies to rec, comment, and share over the course of the day, as well as to contribute other pieces.
So enjoy, and always look for the helpers. They’re everywhere. We’re everywhere.
Let’s open with An Accidental Concert for Neighbors, from 13-year-old Cole Lam in the UK. I highly suggest reading the story behind the recording. And it’ll go well with Good News, since it’s instrumental.
From the “The Kids are All Right” files:
Some unlikely heroes in Minneapolis have raised $100,000 to support black-owned businesses and neighborhoods—and they’re only 9-years-old.
It all started one day when Kamryn Johnson and five of her friends were bored. So, in order to have a little bit of fun, they had the bright idea to sell some bracelets. Rather than just keep the money for themselves, Kamryn’s mom suggested it would be nice to do something positive for others—and the kids agreed. “Kamryn & Friends: Bracelets for Unity and Justice” was born.
The kiddos hoped to make a small impact with their enterprise, but since May 30, these altruistic children have managed to raise almost $100,000.
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Even though the bracelets cost $5, people have paid $20, $50, even $100 to support the cause. In addition to selling bracelets—each woven with different colors—they have collected online donations on a GoFundMe campaign that has tallied $46,000.
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“Day after day, we’re having impactful conversations with so many people,” Ron told CNN. “So many of our community members have come by to drop off supplies, or just talk about things like racism and injustice, stuff that we don’t talk about very often,” Ron said.
It was pining for the fjords!
A researcher from New Brunswick has rediscovered a species of harlequin toad presumed extinct, and the details of the discovery offer hope not just for the species, but for the entire atelopus genus, which was nearly wiped out by the amphibian epidemic.
Caused by bacteria, the fungal disease chytridiomycosis has wreaked havoc on amphibians worldwide, with harlequin toads (atelopus) proving particularly susceptible.
However Canadian herpetologist Melissa Costales’s sighting of the Mindo harlequin toad (atelopus mindoensis) in Ecuador could mean the epidemic of chytrid may be subsiding; evidence supporting an already established and hopeful hypothesis.
“The fact that it has reappeared after 30 years is possibly because they have become resistant to [chytrid],” Costales, who recently published a study on the discovery in the journal Herpetological Notes, told Nat Geo.
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The exciting discovery of the Mindo is also the ninth such reappearance of a harlequin toad species seemingly coming back the dead, so to speak, since 2003. Furthermore, since making the discovery last August, subsequent returns by her and her team to the Ecuadorian reserve (unnamed to protect the animals) yielded 5-times more toad sightings, including juvenile toads, suggesting they are reproducing.
You know I love solutions that deal with multiple problems at once. This is one of them.
In a rare moment of bipartisanship on Capitol Hill, Democrats and Republicans in the Senate voted 73-25 to pass the Great American Outdoors Act, a funding bill that one lawmaker called the “single greatest conservation achievement in generations.”
The Outdoors Act creates a fund into which not less than 50% of all revenues made from energy production on public lands—from oil and gas drilling and renewables—to be dedicated to finally funding over $20 billion worth of delayed maintenance projects in America’s national parks and public lands.
70% of the fund’s contents will go to the National Parks Service for projects in America’s national parks, encompassing over 400 places of historic, recreational, and scientific importance, from the Grand Canyon and Yellowstone to the Appomattox Courthouse and Statue of Liberty. Another 15% will go to the Forest Service, for maintenance on public lands, while 5% will be given to the Bureau of Indian Education, the Bureau of Land Management, and the Fish and Wildlife Service respectively.
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“I’m proud to have worked closely with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to pass this historic conservation bill,” said Sen. Cory Gardner (R-CO). “Full and permanent funding for the LWCF is critical so our land management agencies can continue their legacy of conservation and growing opportunities for outdoor recreation. Addressing the daunting deferred maintenance needs in our national parks is long overdue and will ensure all of our public land management agencies can operate fully to maintain and protect the public lands we all cherish”.
Sen. Gardner was a strong contributor to the bill’s passage on June 17, as was Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), and Joe Manchin (D-WV). All the lawmakers pointed out that tens of thousands of jobs would be created to address the maintenance backlog.
More in the multiple problems, single solution category, and this type of farming doesn’t require feeding or fertilizing.
In an area characterized by poverty, overexploitation of sea resources and high unemployment, women in Jambiani in southeast Zanzibar are beginning to farm sea sponges as a more reliable source of income.
Organized by marinecultures.org, a small non-profit in Zanzibar headquartered in Zurich, 3-4 sea sponge farms are being launched every year to help unemployed or single mothers support their families.
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“Aquaculture of sponges was identified to be a suitable alternative to seaweed farming promising substantially higher incomes.”
A research trip to Southeast Asia and the Pacific yielded this idea after witnessing an organization that worked with community members to farm sea sponges and invertebrates with materials and methods that were both sustainable and very cheap.
Entertainment break, courtesy of my brother:
Don't like the swab-in-the-nose COVID test? No sweat! (No, sweat more.)
A new study from researchers at the national veterinary school in Alfort, outside Paris trained 8 Belgian Malinois shepherds to identify the smell of COVID-19 in the sweat of infected individuals.
The dogs’ overall success rate was near-perfect, correctly guessing an average of 95% of samples. Four dogs successfully identified a positive COVID sweat sample 100% of the time.
Many of the countries which have had the greatest success maintaining low numbers of Covid case numbers have done so with widespread use of testing. Using dogs, according to the scientists, would greatly increase the speed at which people could be tested, and they resolved to move forward with subsequent studies in case of resurgent numbers as lockdowns throughout the Northern Hemisphere end.
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“In a context where, in many countries worldwide, diagnostic tests are lacking in order to set up a mass detection of COVID-19 contaminant people, we think it is important to explore the possibility of introducing dog olfactive detection as a rapid, reliable and cheap “tool” to either pre-test willing people or be a fast checking option in certain circumstances.”
Three entries from the “We've got your back!” department:
King Mohammed VI of Morocco has sent 8 million masks and millions of other pieces of personal protective equipment (PPE) to 15 different African nations.
Including almost one million facial visors, 600,000 plastic hair caps, and 60,000 gowns, the aid will be distributed between Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Comoros, Congo, Eswatini, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Malawi, Mauritania, Niger, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Senegal, Tanzania, Chad and Zambia, according to a statement by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Having seen successful examples of beating COVID-19 in countries like South Korea, Germany, and New Zealand, Morocco and other African nations already have case examples and best-practices to base defense strategies on—and it’s this that Morocco hopes to encourage and support in other nations.
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Along with making masks compulsory in public, Morocco has painted masks onto the fronts of their train cars and buses as a cute way to raise awareness.
I can’t do this one justice in a 5-paragraph quotes, you’ll just have to go read the whole thing.
Local mindfulness teacher Shelly Tygielski launched her Pandemic of Love in Fort Lauderdale after seeing people around her losing their jobs. Worried not just about money, but also their health amidst the COVID-19 crisis, her social media feeds grew abuzz with fear and anxiety—and Shelly sensed an opportunity in the difficulty.
“I wanted to turn from this environment of fear to an opportunity for us to create connection, community and strengthen the bonds of love between us,” Shelly told CNN.
It all started out very simply, when Shelly posted a video on her Instagram on March 14. She announced a new program aimed at connecting those with a need due to loss of income with those who are in a position of privilege and able to be of service. When she went to bed that night, she wasn’t sure how much good her efforts would do. By morning, she had received 400 requests for assistance and 500 offers of help.
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People in all corners of the world inspired by Shelly’s compassion soon set up similar online exchanges in their own communities under her Love Pandemic banner. In addition to the many groups that sprang up around the U.S., people have been using the Pandemic of Love website to offer assistance in 16 countries so far, including Mexico, Iceland, Chile, and Australia.
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Reflecting on what the project has meant to her, Shelly said: “On a personal level, it shows me that a person can make a difference when you aggregate this act of kindness. You know viruses can be scary things, but the word ‘viral’ does not have to be negative. A lot of positive things can go viral like hope and faith and love. And love can be the cure.”
This song’s for you, Matt. And I'm out, fellow gnusies. Take it home, ladies.