A Little Good News

[JacobC1989]

Originally Posted by djousset

And a Snowy Owl found its way to NYC

https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/snow...me-in-130-yrs/

Not good for an owl to be on the ground like this especially during the day in such a crowded area 😔 Was really hoping to see the owl fly away at the end, hopefully, there is a full video that shows the owl flying away, if not I'm going to be concerned about this little cute guy

[GordMay]

The world’s largest trial of COVID-19 drugs has produced more good news:

The anti-inflammatory drug tocilizumab cut the death risk of people hospitalized with the disease, reduced their need for a mechanical ventilator, and shortened time spent in the hospital, investigators of the United Kingdom’s Recovery trial [1] announced at a press conference.

A preprint about the data has been published on medRxiv.[2]

Used to treat rheumatoid arthritis and other autoimmune diseases, tocilizumab is a monoclonal antibody that blocks the protein that serves as receptor for interleukin-6 (IL-6), a signaling molecule in the immune system. That dampens the immune response, which is often overactive in late-stage COVID-19, causing serious disease and sometimes death.
The drug comes at a steeper price than dexamethasone, however: about £500 per treatment course in the United Kingdom, versus £5 for the steroid.
Tocilizumab is not the only available IL-6 inhibitor. Another inhibitor called sarilumab showed a similar effect in the REMAP-CAP trial, but results from two large, completed trials of that drug are yet to be reported. “Publication of results from those trials is now essential to assess whether alternative [interleukin-6] antagonists to tocilizumab are effective,” the Recovery investigators write in their preprint.
The largest trial of COVID-19 therapeutics in the world, Recovery has so far enrolled more than 36,000 patients at about 170 U.K. clinics. In addition to identifying two successful drugs, it helped rule out several others, including the antimalarial hydroxychloroquine, the HIV drug combination lopinavir/ritonavir, and azithromycin, an antibiotic.
The trial is still testing aspirin, an anti-inflammatory drug named colchicine, an antibody cocktail from drug company Regeneron, and baricitinib, another drug used to treat rheumatoid arthritis.

[2] “Tocilizumab in patients admitted to hospital with COVID-19 (RECOVERY): preliminary results of a randomised, controlled, open-label, platform trial” ~ by Peter W Horby et al
➥ https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1....full.pdf+html

[1] Recovery Trial [Randomised Evaluation of COVID-19 Therapy]➥ https://www.recoverytrial.net/
And ➥ https://www.recoverytrial.net/news

[GordMay]

Restaurant entrepreneur aims to thank every care-home worker in Canada with a free meal

Mohamad Fakih built a restaurant empire from the ground up, and COVID-19 has nearly torn it down. Yet, in a surprising contradiction, his kitchens are humming right now.

Three quarters of his Canadian-based Paramount Middle Eastern Kitchen restaurant locations are closed. And virtually all the seats inside the dining facilities that are still open are stacked up, as fear and lockdowns keep customers away. Financial losses are mounting.

But the Toronto-based business leader, with help from about a dozen long-time staff and volunteers, is cooking and packing hundreds of spiced chicken and rice dishes each day. Every one of the meals is given away free to front-line workers in long-term care homes.

"We're now at 6,000 meals, but each month we want to be doing 15,000," said the Toronto-based Lebanese-Canadian entrepreneur.

Their aim is to get one meal into the hands of every worker in the province over the next three months, and eventually reach workers across the country.

More ➥ https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toron...kers-1.5908184

Paramount Fine Foods ➥ https://paramountfinefoods.com/

[GordMay]

70-Year-Old Man Rows Across Atlantic Ocean And Raises Over $1 Million For Alzheimer's Research
Frank Rothwell has become the oldest person to row unassisted across the Atlantic Ocean, raising more than $1 million for Alzheimer's research.
Rothwell, 70, from Oldham, England, set off the Canary Islands on December 12, and crossed the finish line in Antigua, 56 days later. He completed the 3,000 mile journey a week ahead of schedule.
As of February 16, he has raised £1,048,783, for dementia research.

[GordMay]

“America, welcome back to the frontline of the global fight against climate change.”
British parliamentarian Alok Sharma, the president of the COP26 climate change conference, welcomes the United States back into the Paris accord, which it officially rejoined today.

“The US is back in the Paris Agreement. Now what?” ~ Opinion by Alok Sharma
➥https://edition.cnn.com/2021/02/19/o...d29e5-45020405

[GordMay]

Ghana has become the first country in the world to receive vaccines, acquired through the United Nations-backed COVAX initiative, with a delivery of 600,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, made by the Serum Institute of India.
The vaccines, delivered by UNICEF, arrived at Accra’s international airport, early Wednesday, and are part of the first wave of COVID-19 vaccines being sent by COVAX, an international co-operative program, formed to make sure low- and middle-income countries have fair access to COVID-19 vaccines. COVAX is led by the United Nation’s World Health Organization; Gavi, a vaccine group; and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, or CEPI.
More ➥ https://www.unicef.org/press-release...-covax-vaccine
And ➥ https://apnews.com/article/world-new...2931ef321e807b

[GordMay]

Zero!
The number of flu cases, detected so far this year, in a survey of hundreds of thousands of swab samples, in the United Kingdom. Scientists credit the achievement to record influenza vaccination levels, and strategies to reduce COVID infections.
More ➥ https://www.independent.co.uk/news/h...-b1805124.html

[GordMay]

Half a trillion corals: Coral count prompts rethink of extinction risks

Over the past several decades, corals have suffered tremendous damage from warming seas, which causes bleaching, a process that causes stressed corals to lose the algal partners they need to survive. Corals are also being assaulted by ocean acidification, which can harm their ability to build their hard frames, as well as by pollution, overfishing, oil spills, and other human activities.
In some places, such as the Caribbean, coral numbers have dwindled and, overall, the extent of coral reefs is half what it was in the 1870s.

Experts have warned that most coral reefs could be gone by 2100. Already, about one-third of the world’s 6000 known coral species are listed on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN’s) Red List of Threatened Species. On the other hand, some reefs are proving resilient to marine heatwaves or have continued to thrive against all odds.
It should be noted that, Red List status is not determined by the total number of individuals. As the fate of passenger pigeon has shown; species with extremely high populations have gone extinct, in the past.

A comprehensive survey of corals [1] has turned up billions of colonies, across the Pacific Ocean.

The work [based on actual head counts, satellite data, and informed estimates] suggests many species are not in immediate danger of extinction, and the census could help conservationists and policymakers make better decisions, about how to protect reefs.
The new coral census focuses on a 10,000-kilometer-long swath of the Pacific Ocean, between Indonesia and French Polynesia.
The researchers concluded that about 200 coral species each have more than 100 million colonies. The count topped 1 billion for about 60 species, Dietzel, and colleagues, reported in Nature Ecology & Evolution.[1] Eight species outnumber the world’s population of humans (7.8 billion). And even the rarest species topped 1 million. These numbers add up to about a half-trillion corals, on par with the number of birds in the world, and the number of trees in the Amazon.
The data shed new light on conservation strategies already in place. IUCN has listed 80, of the 318 species included in the study, as either vulnerable, endangered, or critically endangered; yet 12 of those 80 have estimated populations exceeding 1 billion. For example, one of the more abundant species, Porites nigrescens, which forms massive boulders on reef flats, is considered vulnerable, even though it is resistant to bleaching. In contrast, IUCN lists some of the rarer corals as “data deficient”; meaning not enough is known to make a call on the species’ vulnerability; or of least concern.

The findings suggest that, while a local loss of coral can be devastating to coral reefs, the global extinction risk, of most coral species, is lower than previously estimated. Extinctions could instead unfold over a much longer timeframe. because of the broad geographic ranges, and huge population sizes, of many coral species.

There is still time to protect them from anthropogenic warming, but only if we act quickly, on reducing greenhouse gas emissions [and other stressors].

[1] “The population sizes and global extinction risk of reef-building coral species at biogeographic scales” ~ by Andreas Dietzel et al
➥ https://www.nature.com/articles/s415...80ll2I85kj0%3D

and

A new study, from North Carolina State University, reveals that the soundscapes of coral reef ecosystems can recover quickly, from severe weather events, such as hurricanes.

“Hurricane impacts on a coral reef soundscape” ~ by Kayelyn R. Simmons et al
➥ https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ar...l.pone.0244599

[JPA Cate]

This is only word of mouth. Last night, sharing supper with a retired virologist, he was anticipating that Oz would have the Covid 19 under control within 6 months. Now, he's not a public health specialist, but I thought it was possibly encouraging news.

Ann

[GordMay]

LUCKY US!

A scientist, who ran simulations of the evolution of 100,000 possible planets, has concluded that the chance of any particular planet remaining habitable, long enough for life to evolve intelligence, are quite small.

Professor Toby Tyrrell's work [1] suggests that, not only would the rise of intelligence on other planets rely on good fortune, but that life on Earth was very lucky to not experience a complete extinction, before human intelligence arose.

Tyrrell was investigating what's called the "habitability problem." Scientists have long wondered just what maintained the habitability of a planet, in the face of naturally fluctuating radiation levels from its star, catastrophic vulcanism and cosmic impacts.

Any of these events can disturb a habitable planet's climate, enough to result in it freezing into a permanent iceball, or heating up, so that its oceans boil away. On an Earthlike planet, for example, only a slight increase or decrease in the rate that the geosphere takes up, or releases carbon dioxide, could result in a permanent deep-freeze, or catastrophic global warming.

Some researchers have suggested that, on living planets, natural mechanisms act to stabilize climate, and correct for the influence of climate disturbances. If this is the case, then life is more inevitable, and luck plays a less important role.

Tyrrell decided to test this through computer modelling. He generated a "zoo" of 100,000 potentially habitable planets, and ran them through climate simulations, over three billion years. Each planet's fate was simulated 100 times.

In his virtual experiment, only one planet was habitable through every simulation. Fewer than nine per cent were successful in maintaining habitability, in even one of their 100 runs.

From that, we deduce that it's almost certain there was a degree of chance in Earth having stayed habitable, that it wasn't something guaranteed from the outset.

According to Tyrrell's study, the implications of this are that, despite the large number of potentially habitable planets we now think exist in our galaxy, relatively few likely maintained a stable climate, long enough for intelligent life to arise.

[1] “Chance played a role in determining whether Earth stayed habitable” ~ by Toby Tyrrell
➥ https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-020-00057-8

[GordMay]

“Our oceans are suffering, but we can rebuild marine life”

It's not too late to rescue global marine life, according to a study [1] outlining the steps needed for marine ecosystems to recover from damage by 2050.
The research revealed many examples of recovery of marine populations, habitats and ecosystems following conservation interventions.
More about ➥ https://www.uq.edu.au/news/article/2...ld-marine-life

“Rebuilding marine life” ~ by Carlos M. Duarte et al
[1] ➥ https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2146-7

[GordMay]

"The great pivot: how 3 Canadian small businesses found growth in the pandemic"

To mark the one-year anniversary of the novel coronavirus pandemic, Global News spoke to three entrepreneurs in some of Canada's hardest-hit industries about how they pivoted and found a way to survive and thrive during the health emergency.

More ➥ https://globalnews.ca/news/7664743/c...d-19-pandemic/

[GordMay]

“NASA Supercomputing Study Breaks Ground for Tree Mapping, Carbon Research”
NASA is counting trees that had never been included in the maps; a breakthrough for research, and the fight against global warming.
Researchers at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, in Greenbelt, Maryland, are teaming up with international scientists, to map all trees on Earth, and thereby establish the basis for measuring planetary carbon storage.

The team integrated a powerful calculation algorithm on one of the world’s most powerful supercomputers, the University of Illinois’ Blue Waters. They thus formed a model capable of recognizing individual trees, or small groups of trees, over multiple terrains. To do this, scientists manually surveyed 90,000 individual trees using high-resolution satellite images from West Africa. This region has the advantage of having arid and semi-arid zones where many isolated trees grow; these have never been included in previous assessments. In addition to locating and counting the trees; the program measures the diameter, coverage, and density of their crowns, i.e. from the top of the trunk to all the branches. As a result, they can analyze variations in these data according to land use and climate.

More ➥ https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard...arbon-research

See ➥ https://youtu.be/NLB_M6Z83iE

“Satellites could soon map every tree on Earth” ~ by
Niall P. Hanan & Julius Y. Anchang
An analysis of satellite images has pinpointed individual tree canopies over a large area of West Africa. The data suggest that it will soon be possible, with certain limitations, to map the location and size of every tree worldwide.
➥ https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02830-3

“An unexpectedly large count of trees in the West African Sahara and Sahel” ~ by Martin Brandt et al
➥ https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2824-5

[GordMay]

Vitamin D

“Association of Vitamin D Levels, Race/Ethnicity, and Clinical Characteristics With COVID-19 Test Results” ~ by David O. Meltzer, MD, PhD, Thomas J. Best, PhD, Hui Zhang, PhD, et al
Findings
In this cohort study of 4638 individuals with a measured vitamin D level in the year before undergoing COVID-19 testing, the risk of having positive results in Black individuals was 2.64-fold greater with a vitamin D level of 30 to 39.9 ng/mL than a level of 40 ng/mL or greater and decreased by 5% per 1-ng/mL increase in level among individuals with a level of 30 ng/mL or greater. There were no statistically significant associations of vitamin D levels with COVID-19 positivity rates in White individuals.
Meaning
These findings suggest that randomized clinical trials to determine whether increasing vitamin D levels to greater than 30 to 40 ng/mL affect COVID-19 risk are warranted, especially in Black individuals.
➥ https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...rticle/2777682

See also:

“Vitamin D supplementation to prevent acute respiratory tract infections: systematic review and meta-analysis of individual participant data” ~ by Adrian R Martineau et al
Conclusions
Vitamin D supplementation was safe and it protected against acute respiratory tract infection overall. Patients who were very vitamin D deficient and those not receiving bolus doses experienced the most benefit.
➥ https://www.bmj.com/content/356/bmj.i6583

[GordMay]

Site of former coal mine being fitted with solar farm

A coal mine turned waste depot in the northeast of England is to undergo a retrofit that will utilize a range of sustainable technologies and design features, with those behind the project hoping over 1,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide will be saved annually thanks to the changes.

The £8.3 million ($11.37 million) project to update the Morrison Busty depot in County Durham will center around the construction of a 3 megawatt solar farm that will power the site's operations.

In addition, electric vehicle charging points will be integrated into the development's design, while a battery storage system will also be built.

Natural gas heating will be replaced with air source heat pumps — devices which, as the Energy Saving Trust puts it, "absorb heat from the air" — while office buildings will, among other things, benefit from new windows and doors as well as LED lighting.

The depot, which is located in the village of Annfield Plain, traces its roots back to the 1920s, when it was known as the Morrison Busty Colliery. The coal mine closed down in 1973.

Today, the site hosts equipment stores and houses fleet vehicles for services such as household waste collection, street lighting and road maintenance. It's also home to, among other things, a household waste recycling center and horticultural nursery.

More ➥ https://bidstats.uk/tenders/2020/W52/741474316

Video ➥

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TN4eYC9HlCE