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MEDICINE • Optimist Daily
The old cure took ten years. This took six months.An experimental drug called bepirovirsen achieved a functional cure in roughly one in five patients with chronic hepatitis B, according to a clinical trial published May 28 in the New England Journal of Medicine. The current standard of care clears the virus in about 3 percent of patients, and only after eight to 10 years. The B-Well trial enrolled 1,838 adults across 29 countries, giving a weekly injection or a placebo for six months. Among those on the drug, 19 percent saw their immune systems keep the virus in check without medication. The rate reached 26 percent in patients whose disease was already best controlled. The drug works partly by recruiting macrophages, the body's front-line white blood cells, to take back control. "We've not had a treatment come close to this level of cure," said study co-author Seng Gee Lim. GSK has submitted the data to regulators, with decisions expected this year.
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SCIENCE • Good News Network
Three 16-year-olds won the Global Earth Prize for clean waterThree 16-year-olds from India have won the Global Earth Prize for a microplastic filter built from tamarind seed, the Geneva-based Earth Foundation announced. Vivaan Chhawchharia, Ariana Agarwal and Avyana Mehta are the first team from India to claim the prize, chosen by 23,000 experts across dozens of countries. Their invention, Plas-Stick, uses powdered tamarind seed as an all-natural clumping agent. After a short agitation period, the seed binds invisible plastic particles into visible clumps that can be lifted out with a handheld magnet. No electricity. No filtration system. Just a crop already sitting in most South Asian kitchens. The idea came from a visit to a rural community, where the students saw drinking water stored in shared containers without filtration. More than 2.2 billion people lack safely managed drinking water worldwide. "What started as an idea between students has now been recognised among thousands of projects from around the world, which feels both surreal and deeply motivating," the trio said. They plan to build decentralised production hubs across rural India next.
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KINDNESS • InspireMore
His sister was deployed all year. She delivered his diploma herself.Kalen Barksdale was waiting to cross the stage at his graduation from Milwaukee Lutheran Middle and High School in Wisconsin when the announcer paused. She was missing exactly one diploma, his. "Sometimes the most important deliveries take a little longer than expected, especially when they're coming from so far away," she said. Then a familiar voice came over the speakers. Kalen's sister, Specialist Barksdale of the Wisconsin National Guard's 2-127th Infantry Battalion, had been deployed his entire senior year. She walked out from the back of the room and handed him the diploma herself. "I will cross the ocean a million times for you," she told him. "Congratulations, Kalen Barksdale. I am so proud of you." The crowd stood up and cried. One attendee left a request on the school's Facebook page. "Milwaukee Lutheran, you all owe me some Kleenex."
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DELIGHT • Nice News
A viral photo got a 10-year-old onto the Toy Story 5 red carpetVinny Donnelly was 4 when his dad lined up his toys at the front door to see him off on his first day of school, a quiet nod to the goodbye scene in Toy Story 3. Last week, at 10, he walked the red carpet at the London premiere of Toy Story 5 and met Tom Hanks and Tim Allen, the voices of Woody and Buzz Lightyear. Disney Pixar tracked the family down after the 2020 photo, taken at their home in Leicestershire, England, went viral. "To be honest, we'd kind of forgotten about the photo because it was so long ago," Sean Donnelly, 38, told SWNS. "Suddenly a few weeks ago Disney got in contact out of the blue." The image landed during lockdown, on Vinny's first day back to anything normal in months. He still has every figurine in his bedroom. The film reaches theaters June 19.
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NATURE • Sunny Skyz
She saved one crow. Now it brings her gifts.Leah Wilson has received more than half a dozen gifts from crows over the past while, including sticks, balls of moss, and once a small bird's nest. The offerings started after she rescued an injured crow trapped in a home's rain gutter. A flock overhead was already circling and dive-bombing the area, and no one nearby had a ladder tall enough to reach the bird. So Wilson walked up to a parked fire truck a few blocks away and made her pitch. "I was like, 'Hey! You look like you want to save a crow today,'" she said. The firefighters raised their ladder and freed it. Wilson then drove the crow to a wildlife rehabilitation center, and during the trip it wrapped its claws around her finger and held on. "That was life changing," she said. The bird recovered and was released. She can still pick it out of the flock by the metal band on its leg. It joins her morning dog walks now, block to block.
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With love, The Editor
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