Welcome back to our weekly behind-the-scenes glimpse at what’s getting our team talking. Tell us what you’ve been reading at info@reasonstobecheerful.world and we just might feature it here. Not easy being green The saga of the algae-filled Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool continues, with the U.S. National Park Service now planning to drain and repair it after July 4th. But there are natural ways to fix the pool’s pea soup problem, according to a story from The Conversation that Executive Editor Will Doig shared with our team this week. One such solution: Let Daphnia, a type of zooplankton also known as “water fleas,” keep algae under control by eating it. “The hubbub over the Reflecting Pool holds a mirror up to assumptions about how to solve pressing environmental challenges,” writes scientist Eric Palkovacs. “The idea of just engineering one’s way out of any environmental crisis has limits.” Will says: For people who talk a lot about “what the founders would have wanted,” might we suggest remedies that have been keeping ecosystems healthy since the 18th century? An ounce of prevention A couple of decades ago, Scotland had a reputation as the “murder capital” of Europe, with the United Nations declaring it the most violent country in the developed world in 2005. As the BBC reports in a story found by Editorial Director Rebecca Worby, violent crime in Scotland has since declined significantly — by 2015, the homicide rate had fallen by 56 percent in Glasgow and 38 percent overall. How did this happen? In short, the country opted to prioritize prevention and intervention. Scotland’s approach treats violence more like a disease — vaccinating against measles is more effective than treating people who have been infected — than like a crime. Becca says: The idea to treat violence as a public health problem came in part from the U.S., with some of the methods coming out of programs in Cincinnati and Chicago. Great example of replicable solutions being adapted to work in a different place. What else we’re reading Deaths linked to London air pollution have fallen 40%, study estimates — shared by Contributing Editor Michaela Haas from the Guardian ‘Kind of miracle solution’: How Paris is harnessing the Seine to replace air-con — shared by RTBC Founder David Byrne from the Guardian U.S. murder rate approaches a record low — shared by Executive Editor Will Doig from NPR In other news… Contributing Editor Michaela Haas took home second place at the L.A. Press Club Awards in the category of health and science solutions journalism. Congratulations, Michaela! Read Michaela’s story about former Navy SEALS and other veterans who have found a new sense of purpose in ocean conservation. The post What We’re Reading: How to Fix the Reflecting Pool Mess — Naturally appeared first on Reasons to be Cheerful.

We all know that dogs can be very smart creatures. They’ve been known to alert their humans about impending danger and readily save the lives of those they love. A home surveillance camera in Texas caught an incredible moment of a dog saving itself in just a split second. In the incredible video obtained by CBS News, we see the dog sitting happily on the couch undisturbed. Suddenly, it gets up and leaves the room. Seconds later, the ceiling collapses, yet the dog escapes unscathed. View this post on Instagram A post shared by CBS News (@cbsnews) The Ceiling Collapse Could Have Killed the Dog “A dog walked out of a living room seconds before the ceiling of a home in Dallas, Texas, collapsed. Video shows the dog relaxing on the couch before she sits up and walks away when the ceiling begins to creak,” CBS News captioned the video on Instagram. The pet’s owner, Kathryn Bautista, said there was no obvious cause of the ceiling’s collapse and repair workers didn’t tell her why it happened.” The Dog’s Escape from the Ceiling Collapse Was Impressive Some shared their own stories of animal intuition. “When I was younger I was doing homework in the kitchen. Our cat kept looking up at the ceiling. He left the kitchen and I got up to get something to drink and the ceiling fell right on the kitchen table. Pay attention to your animals. They hear and see things before we do,” a comment reads. “Woah, reminds me of the time my sister in law’s living room ceiling randomly collapsed to the floor. My husband had been on the floor doing yoga, got up and walked away and the roof came down. He was so lucky it wasn’t seconds sooner,” another person wrote. We’re with this person. “From now on when my dog looks up and leaves the room I’m leaving too,” they shared. This story’s featured image can be found here

BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM A Stanford Medicine study has identified a protein that roughly doubles in aging joints and blocks cartilage from repairing itself. Blocking that protein in older mice regenerated hyaline cartilage across the joint surface. Human tissue samples from knee replacement surgeries responded the same way after just one week of treatment. The protein, 15-PGDH, is a gerozyme: a class of proteins that accumulate with age and suppress tissue regeneration across the body. It works by degrading prostaglandin E2, a molecule that drives tissue repair. As 15-PGDH rises with age, prostaglandin E2 falls, and regeneration slows across muscle, bone, nerve, and blood. The same team identified gerozymes in 2023. This paper, published in Science, is the first to show the mechanism in cartilage. How cartilage aging differs from other tissues Cartilage regeneration does not work the way researchers expected. Most tissue repair runs on stem cells: they multiply, differentiate, and produce new specialized cells. Cartilage appears to skip that entirely. The cells already in the joint, called chondrocytes, can shift their gene expression and return to a more functional state without any stem cell involvement. “We were looking for stem cells, but they are clearly not involved,” said Helen Blau, PhD, professor of microbiology and immunology and senior author of the study. “It’s very exciting.” In aging joints, chondrocytes drift toward inflammation and collagen breakdown. As collagen goes, cartilage thins and softens, producing the pain and swelling of osteoarthritis. Elevated 15-PGDH is part of what pushes cells in that direction. What blocking 15-PGDH did in older mice Researchers gave older mice a small molecule that blocks 15-PGDH, delivered either by abdominal injection or directly into the knee joint. Both worked. Cartilage that had thinned with age grew thicker, and the new tissue was hyaline cartilage, the smooth, load-bearing type needed for normal joint movement, not fibrocartilage, a lower-quality substitute. In untreated aging cartilage, chondrocytes responsible for breakdown made up eight percent of cells; after treatment, three percent. Cells associated with fibrocartilage production dropped from 16 to 8 percent. Cells that build hyaline cartilage and maintain the surrounding matrix rose from 22 to 42 percent. “Cartilage regeneration to such an extent in aged mice took us by surprise,” said Nidhi Bhutani, PhD, associate professor of orthopedic surgery and co-senior author. “The effect was remarkable.” Protection after ACL-type injury About half of people who tear their ACL develop osteoarthritis in that joint within 15 years. In the mouse model, untreated ACL-injured animals had 15-PGDH levels roughly twice those of uninjured mice and had osteoarthritis within four weeks. That’s a compressed version of a process that takes over a decade in humans. Mice given the inhibitor twice weekly for four weeks after injury were far less likely to develop it. They also walked more normally and put more weight on the injured limb. Human tissue also responded The most striking result may be the human tissue data. The team tested cartilage from total knee replacement surgeries: end-stage, already-failed joints. After one week of treatment, those samples showed fewer degraded cells, less gene activity tied to breakdown, and new articular cartilage growth. “It’s clear that a large pool of already existing cells in cartilage are changing their gene expression patterns,” Bhutani said. “And by targeting these cells for regeneration, we may have an opportunity to have a bigger overall impact clinically.” Toward clinical trials A Phase 1 trial of a 15-PGDH inhibitor for muscle weakness has already been completed with safety confirmed and biological activity observed in healthy volunteers. A cartilage trial is the next step. Osteoarthritis affects hundreds of millions of people globally and is a primary driver of joint replacement surgery. No approved drug currently addresses the cartilage loss itself, only the symptoms. “Until now, there has been no drug that directly treats the cause of cartilage loss,” Bhutani said. “But this gerozyme inhibitor causes a dramatic regeneration of cartilage beyond that reported in response to any other drug or intervention.” Source study: Science— Inhibition of 15-hydroxy prostaglandin dehydrogenase promotes cartilage regeneration     Did this solution stand out? Share it with a friend or support our mission by becoming an Emissary.The post How blocking one protein regenerates knee cartilage in aging mice and human tissue first appeared on The Optimist Daily: Making Solutions the News.

BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM More than 1,300 people die from extreme heat in the United States each year. The events behind the worst of those deaths usually share the same explanation: a heat dome, a ridge of high atmospheric pressure that parks itself over a region and won’t move. Two are forming right now. One is developing in the southwest; a second is building over the subtropical Atlantic. NOAA forecasters expect them to merge over the eastern United States around the Fourth of July, pushing temperatures into the 90s as far north as the Great Lakes and Minnesota, with highs in the 100s across the South and heat indexes above 110 degrees Fahrenheit from the mid-South to the central Gulf Coast. Here is how these heat domes form, and most importantly, how to prepare. What creates a heat dome? A heat dome forms when a large high-pressure system builds in the atmosphere and holds position for days or weeks. AccuWeather Meteorologist Brandon Buckingham describes it as a pressure ridge that “acts like a lid, preventing heat from escaping and blocking cloud formation, which leads to persistently high temperatures and minimal relief from the heat.” Hot air that would normally rise and disperse gets pushed back down by the high-pressure system. As it sinks, it compresses and grows hotter, putting more heat into the surface below. Without cloud cover to interrupt it, solar radiation hits the ground directly, adding to what’s already trapped. The jet stream connection The jet stream is the fast-moving band of winds that crosses the continent from west to east in a shifting, wavy pattern, and it determines whether a high-pressure system keeps moving or stalls. When the jet stream’s north-south loops grow too large, they slow. A stalled jet stream leaves a high-pressure system in place, which is how a heat dome forms and why it can linger for days. Ocean conditions matter here too. La Niña and warmer-than-usual sea surface temperatures can alter airflow in ways that help a heat dome develop. Even after the dome is established, the jet stream still controls its movement and duration. “The positioning of the jet stream often determines how long a region will suffer under the dome and whether cooler air from higher latitudes can move in,” says Buckingham. “When the jet stream shifts or weakens, the dome may expand in size or move into new areas. Relief finally arrives when the ridge of high pressure breaks down, causing the dome to dissipate quickly.” How climate change is making them worse The IPCC’s 2023 Synthesis Report concluded it is “virtually certain” that hot extremes have become more frequent and more intense across most land regions since the 1950s. Heat domes are part of that. Warmer baseline temperatures on land and ocean both make a dome’s effects worse from the start. Drought strips away soil moisture that would otherwise cool the surface through evaporation. The two problems reinforce each other once a dome settles in. “Changes in atmospheric circulation, linked to warming in the Arctic, can lead to more stagnant weather patterns that allow heat domes to persist,” says Ashley Ward, director of the Heat Policy Innovation Hub at Duke University. Arctic warming is narrowing the temperature gap between the poles and the tropics. That gap is what drives jet stream circulation, and a smaller one produces a weaker, more erratic jet stream, one that stalls more often. The 2021 Pacific Northwest heat wave showed how fast this can get away from existing models. Temperatures ran so far past historical records that scientists had to rethink how they project extreme heat in a warming climate. What heat and humidity do to the body High temperatures alone are dangerous. Add humidity, and they can kill. Sweat works by evaporation: moisture leaves the skin and takes heat with it. When air is already saturated with water vapor, that doesn’t happen efficiently, or at all. Core temperature keeps rising. Mostafijur Rahman of Tulane University, who studies extreme weather and human health, is plain about what that leads to: “Heat and humidity together pose serious health risks,” and can “result in dehydration, heat exhaustion, and potentially life-threatening heat stroke.” Older adults, children, people with chronic conditions, and outdoor workers are most exposed. Staying safe during a heat dome Knowing that these heat domes are on the way means it’s time to prepare for yourself and those around you. Stay hydrated, stay out of the heat during peak hours, and get somewhere cool. Cold showers help. So does immersing your feet and forearms in cold water, or sitting in front of a fan with a cool damp cloth on your skin. Ward is direct about what severe heat requires: “When temperatures reach certain levels outside, the only way to be safe is to seek out air conditioning.” If you don’t have it at home, that means knowing where the nearest cooling center is and when it opens. Libraries and malls work. A neighbor’s couch works. And make sure to check on the people around you. Ward’s bottom line: “Most importantly, pay attention. Seek help immediately if you show signs of heat stroke, and check on family, friends, and neighbors who are vulnerable.”   Did this solution stand out? Share it with a friend or support our mission by becoming an Emissary.The post How heat domes form, intensify, and what they do to the body first appeared on The Optimist Daily: Making Solutions the News.

Betty and Kermit Eastman have a love story for the ages—and history books. The couple from St. Cloud, Minnesota are both 99 years old and recently celebrated their 80th wedding anniversary on June 6, 2026. They celebrated the milestone anniversary at Talamore Senior Living, where they live together. Childhood sweethearts, their sweet love story began when Betty and her family moved into Kermit’s neighborhood in Thief River Falls, Minnesota during her sophomore year in high school. “I remember one time her dad said to her, ‘I wonder what that Eastman boy is doing walking up and down the sidewalk,'” Kermit told WCCO CBS News, after he noticed Betty, “girl next door.” “She was so handy, she was right across the street,” Kermit jokingly shared with St. Cloud Live. The Eastman’s get married Betty also took interest in Kermit. “He had a lawn mowing business when he was real young,” she told the news outlet. Kermit left high school early to join the Navy during World War II. While serving on the U.S.S. Mullaney, the ship was hit by a Japanese kamikaze pilot. “We lost quite a few guys, about 20 I think,” he shared. The couple spent two years apart, and they wrote each other to stay in touch. When Kermit returned home, they had a small wedding ceremony, per St. Cloud Live. Together, the couple then finished high school, with Kermit adding, “My senior year, I was married!” View this post on Instagram Starting a long life together The couple attended college, and afterwards settled in St. Cloud where Kermit served as a school superintendent. They went on to have two children, and are now: grandparents to five grandchildren, great grandparents to 11 great-grandchildren children, and great-great grandparents to three great-great grandkids. Their marriage has seen many ups and downs. Betty battled both thyroid and breast cancer. “Every couple has events that they wish didn’t happen, like when Betty was diagnosed with cancer, but we still have good memories that happen every day,” Kermit told St. Cloud Live. Their 80th anniversary is their “Oak Anniversary.” “Oak is a pretty solid tree,” Kermit said to WCCO. View this post on Instagram The 80th anniversary is extremely rare. WCCO noted that only one couple in the United States each year make it to the milestone. Even more rare, only one couple in every six million globally makes it to 80 years together. The couple shared their marriage advice that has kept their relationship strong throughout the years. “Just don’t keep secrets and be honest,” Betty said. Kermit added, “Tell it like it is. Just live every day. Every day is a gift.” Kermit also told St. Cloud Live, “I’ve loved her since I met her.” Viewers react Betty and Kermit’s amazing love story touched viewers who wished them well in the video’s comment section: “Makes me so happy to see they’re both so sharp minded at 99!” “Awww Kermit and Betty May God continue to bless you guys!!! ” “Wow!! Now that’s an accomplishment ” “How adorable! Happy anniversary!” “This is beautiful .” “What an awesome milestone!!! I’ve seen 50 even 65 yrs but that is quite a marital accomplishment!!!! HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!!!” The post Minnesota couple, both 99, celebrate their 80th wedding anniversary appeared first on Upworthy.