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KINDNESS • Upworthy
Contractors quoted $6,000. He did it free in three hoursA retired maintenance superintendent in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, who goes by Uncle Jhonn on TikTok, rebuilt a neighbor's collapsed fence for free after spotting it from his truck. The single mother who owns the home lives with her own mother, whose car was totaled in an accident, and the family had been trying to afford a replacement for years. Contractors had quoted them over $6,000. "We all know with the state the world in right now, $6,000? You might as well say that's a million dollars," Jhonn said. He did knock first. "I didn't just jump out of my truck with a saw and start cutting these people's fence up," he explained, adding that the family was more than excited once he said it was free. The job took just under three hours and cost him $2,173.89, money he earns through TikTok. The video has been viewed more than 16 million times.
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SCIENCE • Good News Network
Tiny robots guided stem cells. The severed spine healed.A mouse with a completely severed spinal cord walked normally again after engineers at ETH Zurich treated it with stem cells steered by magnetic micro-robots, according to a study published in Nature Materials. The team built what they call NPCbots, combining therapeutic cells derived from a skin sample with nanoparticles that respond to magnetic fields and convert that response into electrical signals. The cells and particles fuse in about thirty minutes in a culture medium one square centimeter wide. Once injected, the particles can be guided to the exact site of injury and switched on to accelerate repair. After 28 days, the severed nerve cells at each end of the mouse's spinal column reconnected, and its gait and coordination steadily returned. The treatment caused no adverse reactions. Before any human trials, the researchers still need to answer a quieter question first. "We first need to test which magnetic fields work best in humans," said senior scientist Hao Ye.
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MEDICINE • Sunny Skyz
Four nurses made a coloring book for NICU big siblingsFour nurses at Connecticut Children's Hospital have spent years making a coloring book for the people nobody usually thinks to comfort in a NICU: the older brothers and sisters at home. Called A Message to My Sibling, it explains the machines, the wires, and the wait in language a small child can hold. The nurses worked with illustrator Cheri Lenhow, who tried to introduce the equipment without alarming anyone. "It was really about introducing these things without scaring them, because it can be scary to see this equipment," Lenhow said. The book grew from families they watched, including one that drove long distances to visit a daughter named Anna, born at 31 weeks at 2 pounds, 13 ounces. One page lets children draw themselves and tape it to the wall of the hospital room. So the baby, too young to read, gets mail. From a sibling who cannot come in, the artwork goes in first.
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PROGRESS • Good News Network
Donkeys named Nono and Pitou are calming psychiatric patientsA psychiatric hospital outside Paris is expanding a donkey therapy program after patients and staff reported steady improvements in care. Every Friday at the Ville-Evrard complex in Neuilly-sur-Marne, patients visit a wooded farm sanctuary to spend time with donkeys named Nono, Pitou, and others, who pull carts, offer their hooves for cleaning, or simply nuzzle the people who need it. Attendance is free. "Talking with people, taking part in activities — I don’t have that in my daily life," said Jerome, 52. "Staying at home isn\'t good for me." Ermelinda Hadey, a psychiatric nurse, and her husband Francois launched the project, and the first trained donkeys arrived in 2016. It has since grown to include goats, rabbits, and doves. Nursing student Alicia Fabi, 18, told the Associated Press patients return calm. The hospital now wants formal research done, hoping to offer the practice nationwide. The donkeys, bred to carry heavy loads, find the work no trouble at all.
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NATURE • Good Good Good
Endangered leatherback turtles just had their best nesting season everLeatherback sea turtles, the largest of all turtle species and endangered worldwide, had a record nesting season along the beaches of Palm Beach County, Florida, this year, and the researchers counting every nest say it is the best news they have had in a long time. Leatherbacks can grow to more than 1,000 pounds and travel thousands of miles of open ocean before returning to lay their eggs on the same stretch of sand where they hatched. Counting them is slow, patient work, often done at night with a flashlight and a clipboard. A record season means more nests, more hatchlings, and more tiny turtles making the long scramble down to the water. The odds against any single hatchling are steep, roughly one in a thousand reaching adulthood. The researchers count them anyway, every one.
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With love, The Editor
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