Highlights from a trove of more than 200 love letters that tell the story of a couple's courtship and marriage during World War II are now on display digitally through the Nashville Public Library, offering an intimate picture of love during wartime. The letters by William Raymond Whittaker and Jane...

Violent crime rates declined rapidly after Swedish police were given greater authority to crack down on criminal organizations that recruit children to become hitmen despite liberal outcries against the measures. Middle Eastern drug syndicates in Sweden recruited children as young as 12 years old through social media to carry out...

BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM In the natural world, plants are often thought of somewhat as competitors, out there jostling for sunlight, nutrients, and space. But new research suggests they may also be surprisingly cooperative, especially when environmental stress hits. A recent study, published as a preprint on bioRxiv, found that when plants physically touch one another, they activate a kind of early warning system, sharing signals that make them more resilient to stress. The team behind the discovery, led by plant scientist Ron Mittler at the University of Missouri, demonstrated that this physical contact helps plants better tolerate intense light, an increasingly common stressor in a warming climate. “We demonstrated that if plants touch each other, they are more resilient to light stress,” said Mittler in an interview with New Atlas. “If you stimulate or stress one plant, it will send a signal to all the other plants that it touches, and they all become more tolerant.” Building a plant-to-plant warning system The researchers used Arabidopsis thaliana, a small flowering plant commonly used in genetic studies, to test their hypothesis. They created two groups: one in which the plants’ leaves physically touched, and another where each plant grew in isolation. Both groups were then exposed to high-intensity light, simulating the kind of stress that might occur during a heatwave or under direct sunlight. The researchers measured ion leakage from the leaves, a biological marker of damage, as well as the accumulation of anthocyanins, plant pigments that increase under stress. The findings were clear: plants in physical contact showed significantly less damage and fewer stress markers than those grown alone. In other words, the touch group was more resilient. To dig deeper, the researchers turned to genetically modified plants that couldn’t transmit typical chemical signals. They created a three-plant chain: a transmitter, a middle “mediator,” and a receiver. Then, they swapped in signal-deficient mutant plants in the middle. This resulted in the receiver plant losing its resilience, confirming that communication was broken. Further analysis revealed that hydrogen peroxide, a common chemical messenger in plants, plays a central role in this signaling process. Cooperation, not just competition While it’s long been known that plants communicate underground through root systems and mycorrhizal fungi, above-ground communication, especially through touch, is less understood. Mittler’s findings suggest a kind of plant cooperation that’s been overlooked. “Typically, we view plants as competitors,” said Mittler. “But if you grow under harsh conditions, you better grow in a group. If you grow under really ideal conditions—with no predators, with no stressors—then you better grow individually.” This speaks to a broader evolutionary trade-off: plants in challenging environments may gain a survival advantage by forming dense clusters and physically connecting. Piyush Jain, a plant biologist at Cornell University and co-author of the paper, praised the approach. “The authors of this paper propose a thoughtful and clever experimental design to better understand the still underexplored pathways of aboveground plant-to-plant communication,” he said. Jain noted the importance of the study in addressing “a longstanding question: whether chemical signaling and electrical signaling are responsible for increased resilience to excessive light stress.” Why this matters This study opens new avenues for understanding how plants adapt to climate stress, especially as environmental conditions grow increasingly extreme. With prolonged heatwaves and intense sunlight becoming more common, insights like these could inform agricultural practices, crop density strategies, and even how we design urban green spaces. Though the study has yet to be peer-reviewed, it adds to a growing body of research challenging the perception of plants as passive organisms. Instead, they may be more interactive and socially responsive than we realize, capable of forming their own networks through simple physical contact. Source study: bioRxiv—United we stand: Plants that physically touch each other are more resilient to excess light stress     Did this solution stand out? Share it with a friend or support our mission by becoming an Emissary.The post How plant “touch” boosts resilience: new research reveals surprising stress response first appeared on The Optimist Daily: Making Solutions the News.

BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM Joy is often framed as a constant state we’re supposed to reach and maintain, as if feeling good were a personal achievement or a public performance. A quick scroll through social media reinforces the idea that joy should be visible, upbeat, and uninterrupted. When it isn’t, it can feel like a personal failure. Psychology tells a very different story. Joy is not something we summon through effort or positive thinking alone. It’s a natural nervous system response that emerges when we feel safe, resourced, and connected. Like any biological capacity, it can be strengthened, but not through pressure or denial. A more useful way to think about joy is as something similar to muscle tissue. Muscles grow when the right conditions are present: enough challenge to stimulate change, enough rest to recover, and enough nourishment to sustain the system. Joy works much the same way. It’s not an attitude we adopt on command, but a response our minds and bodies generate when conditions allow. With that in mind, here are three evidence-based ways to expand your capacity for joy without forcing gratitude or pretending everything is fine. 1. Help your nervous system feel safe with joy One of the most overlooked barriers to joy is not sadness or stress, but discomfort with positive emotion itself. Just as people vary in how much distress they can tolerate, they also differ in how much pleasure, ease, and excitement their nervous systems can safely hold. For people who grew up with emotional unpredictability, chronic criticism, or neglect, feeling good may not feel safe. Joy can register as vulnerable or fleeting, triggering thoughts like “this won’t last” or “something bad is about to happen.” These reactions aren’t character flaws; they’re protective reflexes developed by a nervous system that learned early on to stay guarded. Research supports this. Large studies show that people with higher levels of adverse childhood experiences report lower happiness in adulthood, not only because they feel more distress, but because their emotional systems are less able to process and sustain positive emotion. They’re more likely to suppress emotions and less likely to use strategies like cognitive reappraisal, both of which are linked to lower well-being. The goal, then, is not to chase more joyful experiences, but to increase your capacity to stay with them when they arise. One simple, research-supported practice is positive affect savoring: deliberately lingering with a pleasant sensation for a few seconds longer than usual. That might mean pausing after a sip of coffee you enjoy, letting a kind comment fully land, or noticing how your shoulders soften during a moment of ease. Holding your attention on a positive sensation for just ten to fifteen seconds helps strengthen neural pathways associated with safety and reward. Over time, joy begins to last a little longer, because your nervous system learns that feeling good does not require immediate shutdown. 2. Quiet the mental noise that crowds out joy Joy also struggles to take hold when the mind is busy narrating, planning, or worrying. You might be in the middle of a pleasant moment while another part of your brain is already rehearsing what’s next or revisiting what went wrong earlier. Joy requires presence, and presence requires some mental quiet. This isn’t just a philosophical idea. In fact, it shows up clearly in research. In a randomized controlled trial with university students, just two weeks of daily mindfulness practice led to significant reductions in anxiety, stress, and negative emotion. More strikingly, reductions in rumination continued to strengthen even three months later. The intervention didn’t remove stressors; it changed how much mental noise surrounded them. When rumination decreases, well-being often rises on its own. Joy doesn’t need to be added, it simply needs space. One accessible way to create that space is through monotasking. Choose one small activity each day to do without multitasking: eating without scrolling, walking without listening to anything, or showering without mentally planning the day. When the constant inner commentary softens, even briefly, the nervous system can register what’s already happening. Often, something good is present, but we’re just too distracted to feel it. 3. Give your brain something good to look forward to Interestingly, the brain’s reward system responds most strongly not when pleasure arrives, but when it’s anticipated. Dopamine pathways light up during the act of looking forward to something enjoyable. Anticipation creates momentum and helps organize the mind around the future. Studies show that when people imagine future activities along with how they expect to feel emotionally, their motivation increases more than when they imagine the same activities in neutral, factual terms. This process, which is sometimes called affective forecasting, helps the brain lean toward engagement and well-being. Modern life, however, offers plenty of instant access and very little anticipation. When pleasure is always immediately available, the reward system gets overstimulated but undernourished. Joy flattens into mild distraction. A simple antidote is to create small, predictable sources of future pleasure. These might include a weekly coffee ritual, a favorite show reserved for certain evenings, a standing walk with a friend, or a creative project you return to each weekend. These rituals aren’t dramatic, but they give the brain something to simulate and look forward to. Over time, this steady anticipation can shift your emotional baseline. The future begins to feel less like a series of demands and more like a sequence of invitations. A quieter, more sustainable joy Joy doesn’t arrive through force or performance. It grows when the nervous system feels safe, when the mind has room to be present, and when there’s something gentle to look forward to. By staying with small moments of pleasure, reducing mental clutter, and cultivating meaningful anticipation, joy becomes less fleeting and more durable. Rather than something to chase, joy becomes something you slowly make room for. That, in the long run, is far easier to sustain.     Did this solution stand out? Share it with a friend or support our mission by becoming an Emissary.The post 3 science-backed ways to build more joy into everyday life first appeared on The Optimist Daily: Making Solutions the News.

Whenever we look to another person to make us happy or bring out the best in us, we have our eyes fixed on the wrong person.

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Wow ... my man didn't hold back

There used to be an old politically incorrect joke about two Muslim women in burkas sitting around talking about their kids with the punchline, “They blow up so fast nowadays.” Suicide bombings aren’t…