(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Good News Roundup for Tuesday, November 14, 2023 [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2023-11-14 🍿 Repellent Republicans Rushing toward Ruin 🍿 Trump Goes To War Against Immigration and Immigrants - It’s Another Big 2024 Problem For Republicans Another mind-bogglingly bad decision by the Adderal-addled Orange Menace. To read the NYTimes article, go to this gift link: www.nytimes.com/... From Simon Rosenberg’s Hopium Chronicles: Here at Hopium we talk about how “Abortion and Treason” will make it very hard for Republicans to win in 2024. It’s possible Trump is now adding a third item to that rancid list - mass deportation. From a new NYT article, Sweeping Raids, Giant Camps, and Mass Deportations: Inside Trump’s 2025 Immigration Plans. ✂️ ...this plan is now a major political problem for an already struggling Republican Party for at least three main reasons: Raids and Mass Deportations Are Deeply Unpopular - We have decades of polling on the forced removal of the 10m+ undocumented immigrants (almost all of whom are employed and pay taxes) in the US, and it is wildly unpopular, perhaps even more so than “abortion bans.” ✂️ It Was A Plan Like This That Caused The Big Hispanic Protests Across the US in 2006. In 2005 the Republican House of Representatives bucked their President, George W. Bush, and passed a bill that called for the rounding up and mass deportation of the 11m undocumented immigrants in the country. … Over the next year huge protests against this bill and mass deportation erupted across the US… after years of Republican gains with Hispanics under W. Bush, Hispanics ran back into the arms of Democrats in 2006 and they have essentially stayed there ever since. ✂️ This Plan Will Wreck The American Economy - In a time of existing wide scale worker shortages, removing 10-15m workers from the American economy in a short period of time would be national economic suicide, and will be seen that way by the business community in DC and in the battleground states. It’s just totally insane and extremist policy no matter how you look at it, and I think it could become as much of a drag on the GOP brand as abortion is now. Republicans still struggle to find a winning strategy on abortion Flail away, you clueless ideologues, flail away. Meanwhile we’ll be handing your asses to you in every election through November 2024. From The Washington Post (gift link): After nearly 17 months of repeated defeats since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Republicans still have no clear strategy on how to talk about abortion, how stringent limits on the procedure should be or how to cope with the ongoing political backlash that Democrats plan to capitalize on next year, according GOP lawmakers, activists and consultants. ✂️ Many Republicans and antiabortion advocates say the problem is simply one of messaging that can be fixed with more moderate language, or the result of tactical errors that can be fixed with a better strategy. But Democrats — and some Republicans — say the GOP has simply backed abortion policies that are deeply unpopular with the public and tough to sell, no matter the messaging. And some leading antiabortion advocates are already looking past 2024, suggesting that it will take more than a year to change people’s minds on the issue. * * * * * The media misbehaving There was such an avalanche of bad reporting this past week that I could devote an entire diary to it, but it wouldn’t qualify as any kind of good news. However, what is good news is that media critics are speaking up. Here’s Margaret Sullivan writing in The Guardian, quoted in Raw Story: "It’s now clearer than ever that Trump, if elected, will use the federal government to go after his political rivals and critics, even deploying the military toward that end," Sullivan wrote. "His allies are hatching plans to invoke the Insurrection Act on day one." Multiple reports have shown that Trump and his allies are planning to impose autocratic control over the federal government, but Sullivan said the media has engaged in both-sides reporting that contrasts Biden's age to Trump's "freewheeling" style as if those are comparable flaws. "Here’s what must be hammered home: Trump cannot be re-elected if you want the United States to be a place where elections decide outcomes, where voting rights matter, and where politicians don’t baselessly prosecute their adversaries," Sullivan wrote. "Trump’s threats to democracy? That’s a harder story to tell. Harder than 'Joe Biden is old.' Harder than: 'Gosh, America is so polarized.'" "Journalists need to figure out a way to communicate it – clearly and memorably," she added. "It’s the media’s responsibility to grab American voters by the lapels, not just to nod to the topic politely from time to time." * * * * * Good news from my corner of the world How Oregon researchers, farmers and brewers want to safeguard beer against climate change Climate change affects everything. I’m glad that the passionate folks who make craft beers are figuring out some fixes. From Oregon Public Broadcasting: Climate change is anticipated to only further the challenges producers are already seeing in two key beer crops, hops and barley. Some hops and barley growers in the U.S. say they’ve already seen their crops impacted by extreme heat, drought and unpredictable growing seasons. Researchers are working with growers to help counter the effects of more volatile weather systems with improved hop varieties that can withstand drought and by adding winter barley to the mix. ✂️ Hops declines in Europe mean changes for American producers too. One craft brewery...said that the company is trying to replicate the flavors of German hops using new varieties grown in the U.S. because the ones they depend upon from Europe have been impacted by hot, dry summers over the last couple of years. That’s why some researchers are working on varieties of hops that can better withstand summer heat, warmer winters, changing pests and diseases and less snowfall, which could mean less available irrigation, said Shaun Townsend, an associate professor and senior researcher at Oregon State University. Townsend is working on a project where he subjects hops to drought stress to eventually create more drought-tolerant varieties. It’s no easy task, one that can take a decade, and one that also has to take into account brewers’ main considerations, taste and yield. But the possibility of running out of water is a reality that's on people's radars, he said. Better hops might still be a technology that’s a work in progress, but the story of barley improvements is already well underway. Kevin Smith, professor of agronomy and plant genetics at the University of Minnesota, said that while spring barley is the dominant type for the U.S. beer industry, winter barley – which is planted in the fall and kept on fields during the coldest months of the year – may be more feasible now in the Midwest, where other barley types had been given up due to climate, plant disease and economic factors in favor of crops that are less risky. Winter barley may also be desirable for craft breweries that have started emphasizing local ingredients and who want something grown close by. And it can also be grown as a cover crop, meaning that farmers can prevent erosion, improve their soil health and keep carbon stored in the ground by planting it during the off-season when fields are normally bare. Planting a Movement The story of the Hoedads, “a bunch of idealistic hippies” who started a tree planting cooperative that changed the culture of their city. It’s a long piece, but I recommend you read it — it’s entertaining and inspiring. From Eugene [OR] Weekly: The people of the Hoedads Reforestation Cooperative were real hippies. They slept in vans, shared meals together, grew their hair out and worked for nobody but themselves. ✂️ [Jerry] Rust says he started Hoedads [in the early ‘70s] after returning home from a stint in the Peace Corps in India. He had successfully dodged the draft, met a woman who would become his wife, had a couple of kids, and realized very quickly that he needed to make money. Rust found tree planting to be “surprisingly” lucrative. “I wanted to start a company where everyone made money, not just the company,” Rust says. “So we started a co-op.” ✂️ The Hoedads, named after the long metal shovel used to plant trees, grew from a small company to more of a counterculture movement. Hoedads was one of the first workplaces in Eugene to include women and Latinos; it had all-women crews and all-Latino crews.✂️ At its peak, in the late 1970s, the Hoedads consisted of about a dozen or so crews with 10 to 12 people in each, and raked in nearly $6 million per year. Their influence seeped into Eugene’s politics for decades to come. The Hoedads were a major fundraising help in saving WOW Hall (aka Woodmen of the World Hall) from being sold in 1975. Most notably, Rust was a left-leaning voice in Eugene politics as Lane County commissioner for 20 years, fighting for forests and the environment, often as the lone liberal on the commission. * * * * * Good news from around the nation Great news about American wealth This is really good news, especially given that the facts totally contradict what the MSM tells us. From Noah Smith’s blog, Noahpinion: Americans have gotten used to reading a bunch of dire, grim news lately — war, inflation, political turmoil, etc. In this swirl of things to worry about, good news tends to fly under the radar. So your friendly neighborhood econ blogger, Yours Truly, is here to bring it above the radar…or whatever the metaphor is. Anyway, here’s some good news. A week ago, the Fed and Treasury released its 2022 data from the Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF), which is a big survey they do every three years in which they ask households about their finances. Household surveys are important because they allow us to calculate things like medians — if you want to know how a household in the middle of the national income or wealth distribution is doing, you need to talk to a ton of households to find out what that distribution looks like. A downside of household surveys is that they take a long time to do (which is why the SCF only comes out every three years), so they don’t give you up-to-the-minute information. Another downside is that you have to be very careful about which households you survey, in order to get a representative sample. But even with those limitations, survey data is hugely informative. Basically, the 2022 numbers — which you can see summarized in the Fed’s report — tell a really encouraging story. In a nutshell: Americans’ wealth is way up since before the pandemic. The increase is very even across the board, with people at the bottom of the distribution gaining proportionally more than people at the top. Inequality is down, including racial inequality, educational inequality, urban-rural inequality, overall wealth inequality. Debt is much less of a problem. There’s even some surprising good news about income as well as wealth. In other words, a rising tide is lifting all boats. I know it can be tough to believe that, with all the doom and gloom you see in the media, but the numbers speak for themselves. And just so you know, all the numbers I give in this post are adjusted for inflation, so don’t worry about that. California’s New Miscarriage Law Gives Boost to Rare Leave Type I missed this story when it came out in October, so I’m including it for all of you who missed it, too. It’s wonderful news, decades overdue. If you’d like to read the text of the measure, here’s a link: aboutbtax.com/... From Bloomberg Law News: California’s new guarantee of time off from work following a miscarriage or other reproductive loss is part of a nascent movement to ensure leave for grieving and recovering would-be parents. The new California measure (SB 848) will require businesses to grant employees up to five days off following a reproductive loss, which includes a miscarriage or stillbirth or a failed adoption, in-vitro fertilization, or surrogacy. The law, which takes effect Jan. 1, 2024, doesn’t require that the leave be paid, but it does ban employers from retaliating against workers who take the time off. California is the second state with a law explicitly granting reproductive loss leave for private-sector workers. Illinois enacted a similar measure last year. Utah and a handful of cities—including Boston, Pittsburgh, and Portland, Ore.—have established similar time-off policies for state or local government employees. Some employers, such as The Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo PC, also have announced leave policies covering reproductive losses. While California wasn’t the first state to enact reproductive loss leave, the move is likely to raise the issue’s profile and make it more likely that similar laws will spread, said Joy C. Rosenquist, an attorney at Littler Mendelson PC in Sacramento. New York just made the largest state renewables investment in US history Go, New York! From Electrek: New York is investing in a massive 6.4 gigawatts (GW) of renewable energy – the largest state investment in clean energy in US history. Here’s how it breaks down. The 6.4 GW is made up of three offshore wind farms and 22 onshore clean energy projects, and it’s going to be enough to power 2.6 million New York homes and deliver around 12% of the state’s electricity needs once it’s all online. Combined with two offshore wind blade and nacelle factories, the projects are expected to create around 8,300 “family-sustaining” jobs and spur $20 billion in economic development investments in the state. That includes $3.5 billion in developers’ commitments to disadvantaged communities. New York’s 22 onshore projects are comprised of 14 new solar farms, six wind repowering projects, one new wind farm, and one return-to-service hydroelectric project, for a total of 2,410 MW. Feds say water cuts to 3 states are enough to protect Colorado River – for now Even a three-year fix to stabilize the Colorado River is excellent news, especially since it was reached cooperatively by three affected states. Hopefully during that three years, more robust conservation measures will be agreed to. From Idaho Capital Sun: A robust water year for the Colorado River has given states that rely on the mighty waterway a few more years of stability as climate change takes its toll, federal officials said Wednesday. Last year, federal officials gave Western states two options to protect the over-allocated Colorado River from the effects of a two-decade megadrought: Either reach a consensus to voluntarily reduce water use or be forced to by the federal government. California, Arizona and Nevada agreed to collectively reduce water use by at least 3 million acre-feet through the end of 2026, when the Colorado River’s operating guidelines are set to expire. Federal officials believe those voluntary conservation efforts, largely supported by federal funds, will be enough to keep the river basin stable over the next three years, according to an analysis by the U.S. Department of the Interior released Wednesday. A $500 Million Pledge to Support Local News We all know that local journalism is in dire shape, so seeing a foundation like the MacArthur make such a major philanthropic investment in it is very encouraging, especially since they see it as foundational for strengthening democracy and dealing with our most urgent problems. From NPQ (The Nonprofit Quarterly): Since 2005, some 2,200 local newspapers have closed, according to a press release by the MacArthur Foundation. In an effort to turn this trend around, the MacArthur Foundation unveiled in September 2023 the Press Forward initiative, a coalition of 22 founding donors set on “strengthening communities and democracy by supporting local news.” The MacArthur Foundation itself pledged $150 million to the new fund. Press Forward represents the most significant philanthropic investment into local journalism to date, with the MacArthur Foundation leading and coordinating the effort to contribute a combined $500 million to local news operations across the country over the next five years. The new initiative is being championed by MacArthur Foundation President John Palfrey, who has also served as chair of the Knight Foundation, which funds various journalistic activities around the United States. “We have a moment to support the reimagination, revitalization and rapid development of local news,” Palfrey said in the press release announcing the new fund. “The philanthropic sector recognizes the need to strengthen American democracy and is beginning to see that progress on every other issue, from education and healthcare to criminal justice reform and climate change, is dependent on the public’s understanding of the facts.” ✂️ ...Kathy Im, director of journalism and media for the MacArthur Foundation...tells NPQ that “one of the main goals of this is to bring attention to the need for philanthropic support of journalism...It’s a call to action for philanthropy to step up in this moment….We have a crisis in our country,” Im adds. “And while there are lots of entry points and interventions we can pursue, one of them is revitalizing and rebuilding the local news ecosystem in communities across the country.” The message to donors, Im says, is: “If you care about the climate, and you care about healthcare, and you care about education, you probably want to care about the provision of accurate news and information about those topics. And the way to do that is through journalism.” * * * * * Good news in medicine Cancer trial results show power of weaponized antibodies Another breakthrough in treating cancer by helping chemotherapy target tumors and avoid damaging healthy tissue. From Nature: It’s rare to get a standing ovation at a scientific conference. But on 22 October, cancer researcher Thomas Powles received two. The first came in the middle of his talk, after he announced that a combination of treatments cut the risk of death in people with advanced bladder cancer by more than half — an unprecedented result in a cancer for which survival rates have been almost unchanged since the 1980s. ✂️ Powles was not the only person to present promising data for a class of cancer treatments called antibody–drug conjugates (ADCs) at the European Society for Medical Oncology Congress, held in Madrid on 20–24 October. Further data from trials in breast cancer and other types of tumour added to the momentum of the technology, which uses cancer-targeting antibodies to deliver toxic agents to tumours. ✂️ The combination of drugs used in the bladder cancer study was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration earlier this year. But the data underlying that approval came from a trial of only about 120 people who received the two drugs — the ADC enfortumab vedotin (marketed as Padcev) with pembrolizumab (Keytruda) — so it was unclear how the treatment would perform in a larger trial, says Powles. Pembrolizumab blocks a protein that hinders the immune system, allowing the body to launch a more effective attack against tumours. Enfortumab vedotin consists of an antibody that targets a protein called nectin-4, which is expressed at higher levels in some types of cancer cell than in non-cancerous cells. Attached to this antibody is a chemical that disrupts cell division. The aim of ADCs such as enfortumab vedotin is to provide a way to deliver chemotherapies that target dividing cells directly to tumours, rather than administering them throughout the body, where they can damage other tissues. Several ADCs are already marketed against various forms of cancer, but researchers are still working to find the best way to design them and put them to use in the clinic. World’s first whole-eye and partial face transplant gives Arkansas man new hope This is truly amazing. From CNN: A surgical team at NYU Langone Health in New York...performed the world’s first successful whole-eye transplant in a living person: ...Aaron James. ✂️ Aaron James, 46, with surgeon Dr. Eduardo Rodriguez, who performed his whole-eye and partial face transplantation. ...in late May, a team of more than 140 surgeons at NYU Langone Health completed Aaron’s transplantation procedure, which lasted about 21 hours. The surgery included transplanting the entire left eye and parts of the face from a single donor. It was a medical first. ✂️ Aaron, a 46-year-old military veteran based in Arkansas, worked as a high-voltage power lineman, and...in June 2021, he was working with his colleagues in Mississippi when his face accidentally touched a live wire. The deadly 7,200-volt electric shock caused extensive injuries to Aaron’s face: his left eye, his entire nose and lips, his left cheek area and chin, as well as his left arm. ✂️ Aaron’s medical care team had mentioned the option of a face transplant to [his wife] Meagan. When she then brought it up to Aaron, he said he was “all for it … I thought, ‘Man, this is a big deal,’ because they just don’t do those every day.” ✂️ When the surgery was complete and Aaron looked at his new face in a mirror for the first time, he was thrilled, Rodriguez said. Aaron continues to be closely monitored and must continue taking medications to reduce the risk of his body rejecting the transplant. His medical team notes that the eye has shown signs of health, such as having direct blood flow to the retina, the layer of tissue at the back of the eyeball associated with visual processing. Special Toothpaste Could End Severe Peanut Reactions for People With Allergies A very clever idea! From Good News Network: For years, doctors have treated allergies by introducing small amounts of the dangerous allergen over a period of time, which desensitizes the patient to keep them safe. Now, a special toothpaste may soon be saving people with peanut allergies from having severe reactions. The proposed product would contain tiny amounts of the nut to build patients’ immunity over time. Every participant in the small trial tolerated the highest dose of the peanut toothpaste without any moderate or severe systemic reactions. Some experienced a little itch in the mouth but it was a mild and transient reaction, similar to that which occurs at an injection sites when doctors give shots. Speaking at the annual scientific meeting of the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (ACAAI) in California, allergy expert Dr. William Berger described the process called Oral Mucosal Immunotherapy (OMIT). “OMIT uses a specially formulated toothpaste to deliver allergenic peanut proteins to areas of the oral cavity. ...OMIT as a delivery mechanism for peanut protein has great potential for food allergy desensitization,” he said. Due to its targeted delivery and simple administration, it can desensitize patients to peanuts without requiring dozens of visits to a clinic over a period of years. * * * * * Good news in science 12-year-old Develops Fire Detection System That Wins Her $25,000 and Top Junior Scientist Award The young scientists getting awards for their innovative work are getting younger and younger. What were you doing at age 12? I know it would never have occurred to 12-year-old me that I could invent anything that would save lives. Hooray for STEM! From Good News Network: Shanya Gill A 12-year-old girl from Miller Middle School in San Jose has won $25,000 in a science fair for her invention of a new fire detection system that’s faster, cheaper, and more reliable than smoke detectors. The Thermo Fischer Junior Innovator’s Challenge claims to be the nation’s premier STEM contest for middle schoolers, and Shanya Gill won over second and third-place inventions of a smartphone app that can detect certain cancers and an experimental method of generating electricity through plant cells. In the summer of 2022, a fire destroyed a restaurant behind Shanya’s house. That incident inspired her to create a fire-detection system that involved connecting an affordable thermal camera to a compact computer. It wasn’t that the restaurant didn’t have smoke detectors, but as Shanya explains, that requires there to be a significant amount of smoke first, which can sometimes mean a fire has already started and gotten out of control. She programmed her system to differentiate between people–which were identified as warm objects moving horizontally–and heat sources, such as an active gas burner, which were identified as hot objects that remained stationary. The system can send a text message when it detects a heat source but no human presence for a continuous 10-minute period. Shanya’s system accurately detected human presence 98% of the time and heat sources 97% of the time. ✂️ After her victory, the 12-year-old has said she wants to refine the device by combining it with a smartphone app that will allow users to quickly switch over to a camera after receiving a text message so they can see if the alert is correct, as well as a higher resolution sensor, incorporating smarter algorithms, and designing the product for mass production. What If Psychedelics’ Hallucinations Are Just a Side Effect? This fascinating article is by Richard A. Friedman. a professor of clinical psychiatry and the director of the psychopharmacology clinic at Weill Cornell Medical College. It’s long, and I can’t summarize it effectively, so if it interests you, I highly recommend that you read the whole thing. From The Atlantic: ...some neuroscientists now believe that the transcendent, reality-warping trip is just a side effect of psychedelics—one that isn’t sufficient or even necessary to produce the mental-health benefits the drugs seem to provide. For several years, researchers have understood that the hallucinatory effects of psychedelics can, in theory, be separated from the other ways the drugs affect our mental state and brain structure. But until recently, they have not been able to design a psychedelic that reliably produces only the neurocognitive effects and not the hallucinatory ones. That may soon change. A new generation of nonhallucinogenic psychedelics, at least one of which is currently being tested in humans, aims to provide all of the mental-health benefits of LSD, psilocybin, or Ecstasy without the trip. Trip-free psychedelics would be a great therapeutic boon, dramatically expanding the number of people who can experience the benefits of these drugs. They might also shed new light on how much psychedelics can alleviate psychic distress—and why they do so at all. ✂️ During a trip, psychedelics are silently doing something even more remarkable than warping reality: They are rapidly inducing a state of neuroplasticity, in which the brain can more easily reorganize its structure and function. ... Neuroplasticity enhances learning, memory, and our ability to respond and adapt to our environment—and could be central to the therapeutic effects of psychedelics. In depression, for example, the prefrontal cortex (the brain’s reasoner in chief) loses some of its executive control over the limbic system (the brain’s emotional center). Drugs that enhance neuroplasticity allow new connections to be formed between the regions, which can help reset the relationship and put the prefrontal cortex back in control of emotion. ✂️ In clinical trials, nontrip psychedelics will have at least one major advantage over their trip-inducing analogs: They can more easily be placebo-tested. Classic psychedelic research has been bedeviled by the simple fact that it is virtually impossible not to know that you are taking a classic psychedelic. Indeed, in clinical trials of MDMA and psilocybin, more than 90 percent of subjects who received the treatment correctly guessed that the drug they were given was real. This sort of defeats the purpose of placebo-testing psychedelics at all, because participants who receive the real drugs will expect to feel better. But the new nontrip psychedelics don’t produce the transcendent mental states that tend to “unblind” research subjects. They might produce more typical drug side effects, such as dry mouth or sedation, but that’s a far cry from a mystical experience. * * * * * Good news for the environment Bill Gates Backs Novel Merry-Go-Round Wind Turbine: Half the Cost and Better for Landscape Than Giant Towers I already had this in my draft, so I was happy to see WineRev mention the story in his intro to yesterday’s History Corner. Repetition is good! To learn more about Airloom and watch a video, visit their website. From Good News Network: Bill Gates has backed a novel wind power system by investing in Airloom Energy, a company that has developed a carousel-style wind turbine. The Microsoft billionaire’s Breakthrough Energy Ventures led the round that provided $4 million in seed funding to scale up the innovation, touted to slash the cost of wind energy production in half. ... Standard wind turbines can approach a height of 500 feet, with 180-foot blades rotating on a 300-foot tower. In contrast, the typical Airloom utilizes the same physics but runs 30-foot blades along a lightweight track only 80 feet high. Founded in 2020, the Wyoming-based manufacturer is currently operating a 50-kilowatt test device. Future systems are expected to be up to 1,300 feet long (400 meters) and produce hundreds of megawatts for utility-scale wind farms that produces the same amount of power as a HAWT at a small fraction of the mass and cost. “Cost and environmental advantages extend over the Airloom’s entire lifecycle,” said the company in a media release. “It uses readily sourced materials to ensure rapid manufacturing, and an entire 2.5 MW Airloom could be transported in one standard tractor trailer. It can be configured high or low, short or long, to optimize siting and viewplane, and does not require large concrete foundations in commissioning.” In a U.S. First, a Commercial Plant Starts Pulling Carbon From the Air 🎩 to bilboteach for mentioning this breakthrough in a comment on Saturday. From The NY Times (gift link): In an open-air warehouse in California’s Central Valley, 40-foot-tall racks hold hundreds of trays filled with a white powder that turns crusty as it absorbs carbon dioxide from the sky. The start-up that built the facility, Heirloom Carbon Technologies, calls it the first commercial plant in the United States to use direct air capture, which involves vacuuming greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. Another plant is operating in Iceland, and some scientists say the technique could be crucial for fighting climate change. Heirloom will take the carbon dioxide it pulls from the air and have the gas sealed permanently in concrete, where it can’t heat the planet. To earn revenue, the company is selling carbon removal credits to companies paying a premium to offset their own emissions. Microsoft has already signed a deal with Heirloom to remove 315,000 tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The company’s first facility in Tracy, Calif., which opens Thursday, is fairly small. The plant can absorb a maximum of 1,000 tons of carbon dioxide per year, equal to the exhaust from about 200 cars. But Heirloom hopes to expand quickly. ✂️ Heirloom’s technology hinges on a simple bit of chemistry: Limestone, one of the most abundant rocks on the planet, forms when calcium oxide binds with carbon dioxide. In nature, that process takes years. Heirloom speeds it up. At the California plant, workers heat limestone to 1,650 degrees Fahrenheit in a kiln powered by renewable electricity. Carbon dioxide is released from the limestone and pumped into a storage tank. The leftover calcium oxide, which looks like flour, is then doused with water and spread onto large trays, which are carried by robots onto tower-high racks and exposed to open air. Over three days, the white powder absorbs carbon dioxide and turns into limestone again. Then it’s back to the kiln and the cycle repeats. The rogue rewilders taking Britain’s biodiversity into their own hands This is a long and fascinating article with a lot of nuance, which I can’t do justice to with a few quoted paragraphs. Do click the link to read it all. From Positive News: [Derek] Gow’s land...bears little resemblance to his neighbours’. As we speed off in a mud-splattered off-roader, he points out ponds dug during the previous winter, where he plans to release rare native pool frogs. The surrounding fields are teeming with wildflowers and rough where Iron Age pigs have turned over the soil, making for a bumpy ride. Fording a stream, we startle a trio of wild Konik ponies, sending them galloping across the hills. ✂️ Gow with a rare albino water vole he bred for release. Gow’s efforts to return this former sheep farm to a haven of biodiversity have made him a poster child of the broader rewilding movement. But his real passion lies in bringing back lost species – the animals and plants that were once thriving in Britain but, over centuries of hunting, intensive farming and countless other human interventions, have been erased from the landscape. He’s played a pivotal role in restoring species like water voles, white storks and – perhaps most famously – Eurasian beavers to England, stoking plenty of controversy along the way. He breeds glowworms, harvest mice and turtle doves, too. His latest project: wildcats, which he hopes will soon again prowl the woods of Devon, just as they did more than 100 years ago. He and the local wildlife trust are in the middle of a feasibility study to show that the animals, whose only wild population in Britain is now found in the Highlands of Scotland, can coexist peacefully in the south of England. “We never had any right to ensure that things like [wildcats] should not be here,” Gow says. “It’s a process of restoring a past wrong.” Plenty of others have reached the same conclusion – but are done with doing things by the book. As rewilding has turned from a niche interest into a cultural phenomenon, the worsening biodiversity crisis has radicalised a growing group of ‘guerrilla rewilders’ who refuse to play by the rules, concerned by the rapid decline of nature in Britain and outraged by the government’s lack of action (last week it confirmed that bringing back lost species is “not a priority”). Hundreds of native plants and animals have vanished over the past two centuries alone in Britain. Recent analysis by researchers found that one in six of Britain’s surviving species is now threatened with extinction. A study by the Natural History Museum put the UK in the bottom 10 per cent of the world’s countries when it comes to biodiversity intactness. * * * * * Good news for and about animals Brought to you by Rosy, Nora, and Rascal. This 150-pound Great Dane was just given ‘hero dog’ status Rosy congratulates Maverick on being 2023 American Humane Hero Dog. An obviously well-deserved honor! From The Washington Post (gift link): Maverick's go-to therapy move is placing a paw on the person he is trying to comfort. If Maverick, a 150-pound European Blue Great Dane, puts his paw on you, it might be because you need it. Maverick’s job as a therapy dog is to comfort military members and their families from across the country. His go-to move is placing his paw on the person he’s seeking to soothe. “A sign of a good therapy dog is a dog that always wants to touch you,” said Maverick’s owner, Kelly Brownfield, who lives in Saint Robert, Mo., and is the manager at the Fort Leonard Wood United Service Organizations Club. “He just has a sense of knowing what people need.” When service members die, Maverick escorts their children to their funerals, and he also visits with service members after unexpected deaths in their units. Maverick, shown here visiting students last year at Thayer Elementary School in Thayer, Miss. Each week, he spends time with students at schools, and focuses mostly on children struggling with their classes. While Maverick can initially be intimidating given his size, “he is literally a gentle giant,” Brownfield said. “His whole aura about him is calming.” Plus, “he is the perfect size for everything that we do. He is literally their rock; they can lean on him and he is there for them,” she added. “The one thing about this breed is that they have the heart to match.” On Nov. 6, the 6-year-old gentle giant was selected from a group of hundreds of other dogs and named 2023 American Humane Hero Dog. Hummingbirds' unique sideways flutter gets them through small apertures Rascal, like all the rest of us, loves to watch hummingbirds. Now we know how they get through tight spaces. From Science Daily: Most birds that flit through dense, leafy forests have a strategy for maneuvering through tight windows in the vegetation -- they bend their wings at the wrist or elbow and barrel through. But hummingbirds can't bend their wing bones during flight, so how do they transit the gaps between leaves and tangled branches? A study published today in the Journal of Experimental Biologyshows that hummingbirds have evolved their own unique strategies -- two of them, in fact. These strategies have not been reported before, likely because hummers maneuver too quickly for the human eye to see. For slit-like gaps too narrow to accommodate their wingspan, they scooch sideways through the slit, flapping their wings continually so as not to lose height. For smaller holes -- or if the birds are already familiar with what awaits them on the other side -- they tuck their wings and coast through, resuming flapping once clear. x YouTube Video Understanding feline faces: cats communicate with 300 facial expressions Nora would have loved knowing that science is paying attention to feline facial expressions. She was great at slow-blinking when she was feeling affectionate. To read the research paper, go to www.sciencedirect.com/... From Optimist Daily: Watch out, I’m about to pounce! Many cat owners are used to interpreting their pet’s feelings through meows and purrs, but the mysterious realm of feline communication is much deeper. A recent study has revealed cats’ secret language, finding that these seemingly stoic creatures have approximately 300 various facial expressions to indicate their emotions, ranging from cute smirks to violent hissy faces. Lauren Scott and Brittany N. Florkiewicz undertook this revealing study as part of their mission to deconstruct the complex world of cat-to-cat communication. Their laboratory was a cat cafe in Los Angeles, which housed a thriving colony of 53 cats. The researchers were especially interested in the subtle expressions these cats displayed when engaging with their feline buddies after the cafe’s doors closed for the night. Over the course of ten months, they methodically recorded 276 distinct facial expressions among the cat population. Each of these expressions was a combination of four of the 26 distinct facial motions, which included actions such as opened lips, dilated or constricted pupils, blinking, nose licks, and ear positions. Their findings revealed that 45 percent of these expressions indicated friendliness, while 37 percent clearly emanated anger. The remaining 18 percent were a mystery, falling into a murky area where interpretation may go either way. Deciphering exactly what cats were saying to each other was difficult, but some intriguing patterns emerged. During friendly contact, cats’ ears and whiskers tend to travel toward their fellow felines, while they retreat these facial features during antagonistic encounters. Additionally, narrowed pupils and lip licking appeared as warning indications of an imminent encounter. ✂️ A surprise conclusion arose in the midst of these feline mysteries. Humans, dogs, and other animals all have a “common play face” with cats. This expression has the corners of the mouth pushed back and the jaw lowered, providing a warm and welcoming smile. * * * * * [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/11/14/2204700/-Good-News-Roundup-for-Tuesday-November-14-2023?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=trending&pm_medium=web Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/