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Friday, Nov 6 · Five good things · Three minutes
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KINDNESS • Sunny Skyz
Two teenage brothers paddled a kayak to the rescueThe crews couldn't get through. A Facebook post did.
Brittany Grant spent more than three hours on her kitchen counter in Palm Bay, Florida, with her young son and three dogs, as floodwater rose around them. She called 911 repeatedly. Crews couldn't reach the house. So she posted to Facebook instead. A mother nearby saw the message and sent her two teenage sons. Jonah Marshall, 15, borrowed a neighbor's kayak. His brother Lucas, 17, grabbed his paddleboard. They paddled over and got Grant's son out first. Lucas, guessing the boy was scared, kept him talking the whole way, asking his name and how school was going, then offered, "This is a weird day, isn't it?" The brothers brought everyone, dogs included, back to dry land. Grant and her son are staying with a friend now. "The community came together and saved us," she said. "If it wasn't for them, I don't know how we would have gotten out."
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MEDICINE • ScienceDaily Health
Scientists found a way to regrow tooth enamelYour body can't rebuild enamel. This gel asks your saliva to help.
Researchers at the University of Nottingham have developed a fluoride-free gel that can regrow tooth enamel using minerals already present in saliva. Their findings, published in Nature Communications, describe a material built from proteins that imitate the ones guiding enamel formation in early childhood. Applied to a tooth much like a fluoride varnish, the gel forms a thin coating that fills microscopic cracks and attracts calcium and phosphate ions, organizing them into new crystals aligned with the original surface. Enamel is one of the few things the body cannot rebuild once it is lost, which has long been dentistry's quiet frustration. In lab tests simulating brushing, chewing and acidic foods, the regenerated enamel behaved like the real thing. "The regenerated enamel behaves just like healthy enamel," said Dr. Abshar Hasan, the study's lead author. The team has started a company, Mintech-Bio, and hopes to have a first product out next year.
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MOTIVATIONAL • Reasons to be Cheerful
A mother built a ranch so her son could workThe desk job lasted a while. The horses lasted longer.
Erik's Ranch & Retreats, a 230-acre guest retreat near Livingston, Montana, is run largely by autistic adults who work as wranglers, guides, cooks and concierges. Founder Kathryn Nordberg opened it in 2014 after years of wondering how her son Erik, who she described as "a moderately functioning teenager with autism," would live and work as an adult. The ranch sits less than an hour from Yellowstone, with cabins designed for sensory comfort. Hardware was chosen to close drawers and doors almost silently, and lights have dimmers. Jacob Thoresen, 33, has worked with the nonprofit for a decade after stints as a baggage handler and, briefly, at a desk. "But that isn't me," he said. Zoe Markman, 21, loves chickens, so Nordberg built a coop. Markman named the hens herself: Chiquille O'Neal, Princess Layer, Hen Solo. Only about 53 percent of surveyed autistic adults were working in 2023. On the ranch, 19 were employed last year. Read the full story → | |||
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NATURE • Good News Network
The terns are back, from zero to 756Flu emptied the colony in 2022. The birds kept the number at zero for years.
Sandwich terns have returned to a colony on England's south coast three years after avian flu wiped them out, with numbers climbing from zero to 756. The breeding site at Pagham Harbour, between Brighton and Southampton, was abandoned in 2022 after a severe outbreak of HPAI hit the birds along with black-headed and Mediterranean gulls. "It's taken several years of dedicated conservation action, but the situation began to 'tern' around last year," said Wez Smith, senior project manager for the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. Yes, he made the pun. He is a man who has earned it. The recovery came from predator-proof fencing, rat monitoring and the selective clearing of vegetation to coax the birds back. Rangers also set up dog-friendly exercise areas well away from the nests. Little terns, ringed plovers and oystercatchers have all increased too. The site now holds record-breaking populations across a 128,000-acre stretch of protected coast. Read the full story → | |||
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SCIENCE • Good News Network
A CT scanner cracked the code he chased for 20 yearsHe spent 20 years guessing. A hospital scanner did it in three.
A 400-year-old padlock recovered from a Welsh shipwreck has finally been opened, with help from a micro-CT scanner at Cardiff University. The combination was ANCE. It took three scans to find it. The brass lock was part of the cargo of the Ann Francis, a ship wrecked in a storm in December 1583 while returning from Spain. A metal detectorist named Peter Hughes found it buried in sand near Port Talbot, alongside Spanish silver coins and standardized coin weights. He spent two decades trying to open it by hand. "I tried to unlock it for about 20 years, I tried moving the dials, finding the right combinations, and I failed," Hughes told the BBC. The lock has four rings and six letters each, giving 1,296 combinations. There are also decoy letters on the ends that do not move. They were there to mislead burglars, who clearly never got as far as the CT scanner. Read the full story → | |||
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