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MEDICINE • Optimist Daily
Zero deaths from cervical cancer in young women, a firstNot one woman between the ages of 20 and 24 in England died from cervical cancer between 2020 and 2024, the first five-year window on record with zero deaths in that age group. A study published in The Lancet credits the HPV vaccine, introduced for school-age girls in England in 2008. Children vaccinated at ages 12 and 13 now have close to zero risk of dying from the disease before 30, according to research led by Professor Peter Sasieni of Queen Mary University of London. Without the program, the team estimates 23 such deaths would have occurred. About 200 lives have been saved so far. "It's incredible to think that a single jab can almost eliminate a particular type of cancer," Sasieni said. The girls vaccinated in 2008 are now in their late 20s. Sasieni called the current findings "the tip of the iceberg." Cancer Research UK, which funded the work, called it a milestone.
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DELIGHT • Upworthy
Four pet-starved roommates wrote their neighbor's dog a letterJack McCrossan and three friends moved to Bristol, England, only to learn their landlord banned pets. Then they spotted a black Sheprador in a neighbor's window and wrote her owner, Sarah Tolman, a letter. They offered to walk the dog, sit for her, or simply watch her pass the balcony windows. "We hope this doesn't come too strong, but our landlord won't allow pets, and we've all grown up with animals," they wrote, signing off as "The boys from number 23." The reply came from the dog. Stevie Ticks, two years and four months old and adopted in Cyprus, accepted the offer and described herself as "very friendly and full of beans." She warned that her friendship cost five ball throws a day and belly scratches on demand. The boys met her days later. "She was definitely as energetic as described," McCrossan told BuzzFeed. As of September 2024, Stevie is around eight, and made her local coffee shop's doggie wall of fame.
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MOTIVATIONAL • Reasons to be Cheerful
A free barista course, 1,200 lives changed in a decadeWell Grounded, a London social enterprise, has trained 1,200 people for coffee industry jobs since launching a decade ago from an east London cafe, with 77 percent of graduates moving into sustained work or further study. The courses are free, funded by corporate and government support. One graduate is Sana Pishgoo, 45, who fled Iran as a refugee in 2015 after a custody battle and rebuilt her life in north London. She had been the first woman to apply for a cafe license in her home city of Shiraz. Laid off from a bakery during the pandemic, she took the barista course and reopened as a cafe owner. Her shop, Shiraz Patisserie, now serves the city's Iranian community alongside nokodchi chickpea cookies and a constant best seller, pistachio and chocolate ganache cake. Her daughter is studying at Oxford and has requested a mango cake for her birthday. "I know my cakes, and my coffee, are good," Pishgoo says.
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NATURE • Good Good Good
Juno came back for 25 years and laid nest 300A leatherback sea turtle named Juno laid the 300th nest of the season on a Florida beach, a milestone for an endangered species that researchers have followed since 2001. Juno has been returning to the same stretch of coast for nearly 25 years, long enough that the people tracking her know her by name rather than by tag number. Leatherbacks are the largest sea turtles on Earth and among the most threatened, which makes a single reliable returnee something close to a gift. She comes back, digs, lays, and leaves, season after season, without any apparent awareness that anyone is keeping count. The 300th nest is a number worth marking. Juno did not stay to celebrate it.
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DELIGHT • Upworthy
A comedian asked NASA for no meetings before noonComedian and writer Alex Falcone applied to be a NASA astronaut during one of the agency's periodic public openings, then wrote his own rejection letter in NASA's voice and published both halves on his Medium blog, The Weekly Weep. The letter is not real, and Falcone has never pretended otherwise. He told Bored Panda he wrote the whole thing as a bit, a man conducting a one-sided argument with the space agency and losing badly. His self-assessment helped. He described someone with no useful skills, hard to get along with on long trips, who gets motion sick easily. When his application suggested that seeing Masters of the Universe should count toward the required master's degree, the fictional NASA was unmoved. It declined his request for no meetings before noon, confirmed there is only one moon, and noted that astronaut ice cream, which he admitted was 90% of the reason he applied, is available in the gift shop. Years of getting turned down by comedy festivals, Falcone said, gave him a thick enough skin to find rejection funny rather than painful.
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With love, The Editor
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