With plenty to see across the firmament this month, one event surely stands out for stargazers: when 2 meteor showers bombard the sky over the last nights of July. The first is the Southern Delta Aquariids, and though they can be seen as early as July 12th, their peak display will come on July 30th/31st. […] The post July Fireworks Include 2 Separate Meteor Showers to Light up the Night Sky Late in the Month appeared first on Good News Network.

Welcome back to The Spark, our monthly celebration of how people just like you are creating positive change, one meaningful step at a time. The Spark is generously supported by Laura Rice. Sign up to Reasons to be Cheerful’s weekly newsletter here and you’ll get The Spark in your inbox at the start of each month. In this issue Bird lovers respond to avian emergencies A nightly frog shuttle makes migrations safer Enlisting wildlife watchers to record biodiversity On patrol with the injured bird brigade On a summer day in 2024, Faith Davis was maneuvering her SUV up a winding mountain road in central Vermont when from her trunk she heard a persistent thump-thump-thump. Her passenger had woken up. A short time earlier, she’d picked up a juvenile bald eagle that had been electrocuted on a power line and fallen to the ground. Davis put the unconscious eagle in a tote with air holes and began the hour-and-a-half drive to the wild bird rehab at the Vermont Institute of Natural Science, or VINS. When she arrived at the clinic, the bird emerged, with burn marks but otherwise poised to make a recovery. “It was very wide awake and very agitated,” Davis recalls. Avian emergency responders’ goal is to get injured birds into clinics quickly enough for recovery and release. Courtesy of Celia Reinhardt Davis is one of about 100 trained volunteers VINS dispatches when the rehabilitation center gets a report of an injured bird in Vermont, New Hampshire and eastern upstate New York. These transporters are part of a nationwide corps of avian emergency responders, who often drive long distances to contain, collect and safely transport raptors, songbirds, waterfowl and other birds to rehabilitation facilities for medical treatment. The volunteers help wildlife rehab centers overcome a major hurdle: getting injured birds into clinics quickly enough for recovery and release. Birds of all kinds across North America are facing challenges, often because of human activity. Habitat loss is driving declines in the populations of the most common species. Infrastructure is another contributor: Researchers estimate that more than a billion birds a year die because of collisions with buildings.  At VINS in Vermont, many of the more than 1,000 wild birds that come in each year have injuries related to humans, like collisions with cars, diseases from bird feeders, or attacks by house pets, according to VINS avian rehabilitator Celia Reinhardt. Weighed down by negative news? Our smart, bright newsletters deliver the uplift you’ve been looking for. Or click here to choose exactly which ones you want [contact-form-7] The center takes any kind of wild bird, but often gets reports from people many hours away. If a caller can’t bring the bird themselves, VINS rehabilitators turn to their roster of trained transporters to see who is nearby and available. “If we didn’t have volunteers,” says Reinhardt, “it would be very, very difficult to actually get that bird care.” Similar networks support rehabilitators from Minnesota to Alabama to Hawaii. In Washington in 2023, Spokane Audubon’s volunteers drove 5,000 miles, responding to 249 incidents. VINS takes any kind of wild bird. Courtesy of Celia Reinhardt Davis decided to volunteer about four years ago. A lifelong nature lover, she frequented VINS as a visitor with her granddaughter. She liked the idea of being able to contribute around the schedule of her IT job. In an online training, Davis learned the basics: if you need to capture a bird, throw a sheet over them, and wear gloves and eye gear to protect against talons and beaks. Constrain them in a dark container with air holes. Keep the environment as quiet as possible to minimize stress, which can be fatal, particularly for small songbirds. Now, Davis keeps a stash of old towels and sheets alongside a range of containers, so she’s ready to respond to a call about a bird of any size. She has transported a clutch of duck eggs padded with towels on warm water bottles, and waded across a river to capture a gravely injured heron. She drove almost six hours to pick up a hummingbird with a metabolic problem. Davis doesn’t often follow up to learn the fate of the birds she transports. The survival rate is about 40 percent. “But if we didn’t do this,” she says, “it would be much lower.” Birds that fully recover are released back where they were found, and can continue contributing to the local ecosystem, explains Reinhardt. And research suggests that rehabilitation can even boost populations of raptors, which tend to have long life spans and low rates of reproduction. If you come across a sick or injured bird, you can help rehabilitators and transporters by calling in to report it. If possible, keep the bird contained in a dark place, like a box with holes poked in it. Stress can kill, so make the environment as quiet as possible and resist the urge to peek. For more information about helping injured animals, or to locate a licensed wildlife rehabilitator near you, check out the National Wildlife Rehabilitators Association  How did the frog cross the road? When temperatures start to rise in early spring, many amphibians begin an annual migration to breeding ponds, often the same ones where they themselves were born. But when their journey involves crossing a road, the pilgrimage can become deadly, even endangering the long-term survival of local populations. Crossing roads is a risky venture for migrating frogs. Credit: Brett Amy Thelen That’s why grassroots efforts have sprung up across the country to help salamanders, newts and frogs safely cross roads. On what are known as “big nights” — when the temperature and rainy weather align to prompt a large number of amphibians to migrate — volunteers armed with safety vests and flashlights congregate at popular crossing spots to ferry the little travelers across the road, out of danger of car tires. Track the annual migration of spotted salamanders, wood frogs and spring peepers here, and find an amphibian crossing brigade near you. A crowdsourced record of biodiversity Any citizen scientist can help track wildlife in their area through a BioBlitz. During these events, usually held over the course of a day, community members and professional scientists work together to catalog living things in a specific area — like a city park, a stretch of coast, or even part of a national park. Participants can record their findings in a platform like iNaturalist. Wait, you're not a member yet? Join the Reasons to be Cheerful community by supporting our nonprofit publication and giving what you can. Join Cancel anytime By working together, citizen and professional scientists have tracked pollinators, rediscovered rare beetles and spotted a locally endangered snake. The events have proven both to provide scientists with valuable data for research and to engage the public with nature in their area. Find a BioBlitz near you through local parks, universities or museums, or organize your own. Check out guides from iNaturalist, National Geographic and the Pollinator Partnership. The post The Spark: Would You Drive Six Hours to Save a Hummingbird? appeared first on Reasons to be Cheerful.

BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM You brought them home, stuck them in a vase, and two days later they were drooping. Happens to everyone, and it’s frustrating when you paid good money at the farmers’ market. The thing is, sunflowers aren’t that demanding. The difference between four days and ten mostly comes down to what you do in the first thirty minutes. Start with a clean vase Bacteria kill cut flowers, and sunflowers are especially vulnerable. Their thick stems and large leaves break down faster than most, and once the water turns murky, it’s a losing battle. Wash the vase with hot soapy water before filling, or rinse it with diluted bleach if you want to be thorough. A vase that looks clean isn’t always clean. Pick something tall and sturdy too. Sunflower heads are top-heavy, and a wide-mouthed or squat vase won’t hold them properly. Strip the leaves before they hit the water Any leaves below the waterline need to come off before the stems go in. Sunflower leaves are large and decompose fast in water, turning it cloudy and encouraging bacterial growth that shortens vase life. Do this at the sink before you fill it. Cut the stems at a sharp diagonal Trim one to two inches off each stem at a sharp angle. The diagonal cut opens up more surface area and keeps the stem from sitting flat on the bottom of the vase, where it can’t take up water properly. For sunflowers, this matters more than it would for thinner-stemmed flowers. The stems are thick and fibrous, and scissors compress them, which slows absorption. Use bypass pruners if you have them, and cut right before putting them in the water. Feed the water, not just the flower Add flower food to fresh water. The small packets that come with florist bouquets do three things: nutrients, a mild acid that helps with water uptake, and a bactericide. No packet? Mix your own: two tablespoons of lemon juice, one tablespoon of sugar, and a quarter teaspoon of bleach per quart of water. Use bottled lemon juice rather than fresh; the acidity is more consistent. Give them air and a cool spot Sunflowers need room. Their heads are heavy and do better with airflow around them, so don’t pack the arrangement too tightly. A wider vase helps if you have a big bunch. Once they’re in, find them a cool spot out of direct sun. Heat vents, sunny windowsills, and the tops of appliances all shorten their lives. A shaded spot on the counter is what you want. Stay on top of the maintenance These flowers drink a lot. Top up the water every day. Around day two or three, do a proper reset: re-cut the stems, rinse the vase, and start fresh with new water and flower food. Keep trimming every couple of days after that. If a bloom starts to wilt, pull it out right away. A dying flower releases ethylene gas and speeds up the decline of everything around it. Do all of this, and you’re looking at seven to ten days. Skip it, and five is more realistic. It’s not much work. Walking past that vase on Wednesday and finding them still open? Worth it.     Did this solution stand out? Share it with a friend or support our mission by becoming an Emissary.The post Keep cut sunflowers fresh longer with these simple care habits first appeared on The Optimist Daily: Making Solutions the News.

BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM Deaths linked to air pollution in London fell an estimated 40 percent between 2019 and 2024, according to a new Imperial College London study. That’s the good news. The more complicated part: the same research revised the original death estimates sharply upward, because it turns out the science had been underestimating how badly pollution was hurting people. Earlier models put roughly 4,000 premature deaths down to air pollution in London in 2019. Stronger evidence linking air quality to heart disease, dementia, and diabetes has pushed that figure to between 6,400 and 8,000. By 2024, it had come down to between 3,800 and 5,100. Progress against a worse starting point than anyone calculated. Two findings, one clear message Dr. David Dajnak of the Imperial Environmental Research Group was direct about what the numbers show: London’s air quality has improved substantially since 2019, and pollution “remains a serious public health risk” despite that. Nitrogen dioxide fell 41 percent across the city over five years. Fine particulate pollution dropped 28 percent. Those numbers don’t happen by accident; they follow a decade of deliberate changes to how vehicles are allowed to operate in the city. How the ULEZ changed the equation The Ultra-Low Emission Zone launched in central London in 2019 and expanded to inner boroughs in 2021. Vehicles that don’t meet emission standards, diesel cars from before 2015 or petrol from before 2004, pay £12.50 (about $16) a day to drive in. About 97 percent of vehicles in the zone are now compliant. In 2023, Mayor Sadiq Khan pushed the ULEZ out to cover all of London, against significant local opposition. A study for the Greater London Authority found roadside nitrogen dioxide was 27 percent lower than it would have been without the scheme. Khan called the Imperial findings “overwhelming and unarguable” evidence that bold policy had “reduced pollution, improved public health and saved lives.” Where the problem persists The boroughs with the highest ratios of pollution-related deaths in 2024 were Bexley, Havering, and Sutton, all in outer London and all newly inside the expanded ULEZ. The city has also put £2.7 million (about $3.4 million) into indoor air filters for 200 primary schools and grown its zero-emission bus fleet from 30 to over 3,000 in the past decade. Professor Stephen Holgate of the Royal College of Physicians said the scale of improvement was “so encouraging,” a reminder that sustained policy can produce “real, measurable benefits.” But Jemima Hartshorn of Mums for Lungs pointed out that more than 100,000 children were still hospitalized for breathing problems in London in 2024. “Other cities and regions are still more polluted,” she said. “Londoners need more action, and so does the rest of the country.”   Did this solution stand out? Share it with a friend or support our mission by becoming an Emissary.The post Air pollution deaths in London fall 40 percent over five years first appeared on The Optimist Daily: Making Solutions the News.