A sprinkle of crushed basalt rock has turned out to be the fairy dust that newly planted forests need to develop faster and absorb more carbon. That’s what scientists from Imperial College London are reporting in a new study from the largest field experiment studying how “enhanced weathering” and soil microbiome enrichment can potentially improve […] The post Spreading Crushed Rock on Newly-Planted Forests Boosts Carbon Storing and Nutrients appeared first on Good News Network.

A guy goes into a bar, and leaves with one less kidney. That’s a joke Mark Scotch tells about his life. It’s only a slight exaggeration: A chance encounter in 2020 did lead to him donating a kidney — although not quite in the way he expected. Scotch, then 64, had gotten talking to Hugh Smith, 56, in a Louisiana bar. At the end of their conversation, Smith mentioned that he spent 10 hours every night on dialysis, something only a kidney transplant would change. “It went from this enjoyable experience of meeting him to thinking, ‘Oh my God, this guy’s life is just horrible.’ … It was just so abrupt,” recalls Scotch.  Mark Scotch (left) and Hugh Smith. Courtesy of the Organ Trail Without much thought, Scotch immediately offered one of his own kidneys. His sister-in-law had previously donated a kidney, so he knew that a person could live perfectly well with just one. There was another reason this radical gesture felt right: He and his wife Lynn had lost their first son at 15 months old, and they’d always regretted not donating his organs. Meeting someone in need all these years later was “a realization that maybe we could have a second go at this,” he says. Scotch was all set to travel from his home in Wisconsin to Louisiana, where Smith lived — a keen cyclist, he planned to do it by bike and raise awareness along the way — when he learned of another option. He could donate to someone else closer to home, as part of a “voucher” scheme that would push Smith to the top of the waitlist in his area. That was appealing for practical reasons: It meant Scotch could be seen for potential post-operation complications in his local hospital, instead of having to return to Louisiana each time. And it meant both he and Smith would be matched with the best possible candidate, meaning optimal outcomes for two patients. “It just blew my mind,” says Scotch of this opportunity. In late 2020, his kidney went to a stranger — someone he still knows nothing about — and five months later, Smith received his own life-changing transplant from another donor.  The Scotches are now vocal advocates of living donation: Lynn later donated a kidney herself, and Mark has also donated a portion of his liver. But, until that chance meeting in the bar, they assumed deceased donors filled the gap. “We never knew there was such a need,” Mark says.  In fact, more than 90,000 people in the U.S. are currently on the waitlist for a transplant, and every day 12 to 17 people die while waiting. Most other countries report similar mismatches of need and supply. Kidney disease is among the 10 leading causes of death worldwide. Many patients turn to family or friends as living donors. But often these are screened out when doctors identify medical or psychological issues deemed too risky for surgery. Another option is a willing, unrelated donor. This is still very unusual: only around 500 people in the U.S. donate a kidney to a stranger each year. In most countries this is not allowed at all, given the potential harm to a healthy patient for no tangible benefit to them (like any surgery, there are risks of complications or even death). And whether you find a potential donor within your circle of friends, or by chance in a bar — or, as is increasingly the case, via social media — compatibility is not guaranteed. In fact, a third of would-be donors are incompatible with their intended recipients.  Paired donation allows an estimated 20 to 30 percent more transplants. Credit: Stanford Impact Labs For a long time these people would simply be told, “‘I’m so sorry — there’s the door, you don’t match,” says Dr. Mike Rees, director of renal transplantation and transplant surgeon at the University of Toledo Medical Center. From the early 2000s, he was among those trying to change this. The result was what is now known as paired donation, where algorithms help match incompatible donor-recipient pairs. For example, a woman who is incompatible with her husband could instead donate her kidney to another patient, whose loved one would donate to her husband in exchange. This allows an estimated 20 to 30 percent more transplants.  In 2006, nondirected donors — those willing to give to a stranger — were brought into the mix, kicking off so-called “domino chains.” But operations were still done on the same day, to avoid the risk of someone pulling out and the chain falling apart. That, in turn, limited the numbers: For a chain involving three transplants, for example, you’d still need six operating teams, available at the same time and within a reasonable distance of each other. In 2006, nondirected donors were brought into the mix, kicking off “domino chains.” Credit: Stanford Impact Labs Perhaps surprisingly, it was an economist who drove the next major innovation. Alvin Roth, an expert on market design, had long been discussing kidney exchange as a theoretical market in which no money could change hands (paying for organs is illegal everywhere except Iran). When he discovered that clinicians were already working on this, he got in touch. Together they created the New England Program for Kidney Exchange, a computerized system to match kidney recipients with compatible living donors. In 2007, Roth, Rees and others expanded on the domino chain by creating the first non-simultaneous, extended altruistic donor chain. In this model, surgeries don’t need to take place simultaneously. Each pair receives a kidney before they donate one, which offers some security: If for some reason the chain breaks, the pair can still donate later because they still have a kidney to give.  Still, it required some trust — and it could have “gone terribly,” admits Rees, who founded and runs the Alliance for Paired Kidney Donation. What if someone didn’t uphold their end of the bargain? But that first attempt worked: All 10 transplants went ahead, and after three years the chain continued, enabling another 16 transplants. There have been numerous non-simultaneous chains since then. Rees, initially of the view that “everybody was capable of screwing the next person,” now thinks that their success makes sense. After all, people who decide to donate to a loved one are not “everyone”: They’re already more generous than most. Then they witness their loved one being transformed thanks to a new kidney. “To think that that person would now cheat another family out of that — it’s possible, but it’s extremely rare,” Rees says.  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] Rees, Roth and others were not the only ones trying to improve the prospects for those on the waitlist, and the various innovations built on one another. The National Kidney Registry — a U.S. organization that uses DNA matching technology to pair donors and recipients — created its standard voucher program in 2014, the scheme that Smith and Scotch discovered in 2020. The non-simultaneous, extended altruistic donor chain helped resolve concerns about donors dropping out, explains Rees; trust in the system helped the voucher idea to become viable.  This is all good news for kidney patients. Access to a national pool of donors results in better quality matches, which means the transplanted kidney will last longer, and potentially require less immunosuppressive medication, says Samantha Hil, vice president of marketing at the National Kidney Registry, and a transplant recipient herself. And it means the donor can schedule their surgery at a time that suits them, regardless of when the intended recipient is ready — especially helpful for donors who are also the ones caring for the recipient (like a spouse). “This way, the donor can heal before they have to care for the recipient’s recovery,” Hil says.  Researchers including Roth — who in 2012 won a Nobel Prize in Economics, in part for his work on kidney exchange — are now exploring new ways to expand access to kidney transplants. This includes using deceased donations to kick off chains in the U.S. for the first time, and helping to expand exchanges in Brazil and India, two countries where donation rules are currently very restrictive.  Roth received the Nobel prize in 2012. Credit: Bengt Nyman Jaya Jairam, a kidney recipient and project director at India’s MOHAN Foundation, a nonprofit promoting organ donation, welcomes the expansion of kidney exchange in her country, where “the burden of kidney failure is high and the availability of deceased donor organs remains limited.” But strong ethical safeguards to protect donor welfare will be vital, she says — ideally through independent donor advocates, whose sole responsibility would be to protect donor interests throughout the process. Introducing any successful program into a new country must also consider the cultural context: In India, decisions about donation are often made within families rather than by individuals alone, says Jairam, so women and young people may be susceptible to subtle or overt pressures to donate.  Donor welfare and autonomy is a core concern of any organ donation program. But some argue it’s possible to be too cautious, which harms those who lose out on transplants. In the U.S., only about two percent of willing donors ultimately donate. “I think we [in the U.S.] are already way too conservative as transplant professionals,” says Rees. “Of course we never want to coerce anybody, we shouldn’t take advantage of anybody, but I think there are a lot of people who don’t know this is an option.  “I’ve seen so many amazing stories where people did give a stranger their kidney, and so many of those people would say it was one of the best parts of [their] life. I think we should give more people that opportunity, and be careful that we’re not coercing them.”  Many others agree. Momentum is building in the U.S. behind the proposed End Kidney Deaths Act, which would provide a refundable tax credit of $50,000 to those who donate a kidney to a stranger. Campaigners say this would remove financial barriers to donating, which include loss of income during testing, surgery and recovery — while saving the billions of dollars currently spent on dialysis.  Mark Scotch founded the Organ Trail to raise awareness about living donation. Another barrier is simply the lack of awareness. “Most people are not aware that they can donate while alive,” says Hil. Mark Scotch is among those trying to change this, through his self-organized Organ Trail, which has seen him cycle more than 12,000 miles and give well over 300 interviews. Now aged 70, he is also proving that healthy donors can be as fit and healthy as anyone else.  And for people like the Scotches, donating an organ is perhaps the most tangible way to know you are making a difference. “What else can you do for another person that has such a significant impact on their life, and the lives of their family members, with so little impact on the donor? We haven’t found anything,” says Lynn.  The post The ‘Domino Chains’ Transforming Kidney Donation appeared first on Reasons to be Cheerful.

History paints a very specific picture of ancient women, especially royalty. At museums, we often see them portrayed in fine clothing, lounging in sunlit palaces, and living lives of leisure. It’s rare to see or hear of them fighting in battles or hunting game. For generations, when archaeologists uncovered weapons tucked inside the tombs of mummified Egyptian princesses, they brushed off their presence as mere decoration. Historians presumed that the daggers and bows found in their burial chambers were simply symbolic tokens, something meant for the afterlife.  Now, with the help of modern technology, we know this was an unfortunate assumption.  A mistake that ended up rewriting history During 1894 and 1895, a group of mummies and other ancient artifacts were excavated from the Dahshur funerary complex in Egypt. The findings were catalogued, but (for reasons no one can determine) six of the mummified bodies were moved and later stored, unmarked, in the basement of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. Over a century later, museum staffers rediscovered the bodies. Quickly, a team of scientists at the University of Beni-Suef decided to take a fresh look at these long-forgotten remains. The group used modern bioarcheological tech and methods during their examination.  What they uncovered was remarkable and revolutionary. It shattered how historians had viewed royal daughters of pharaohs past.  Their bones told a story that modern science couldn’t ignore Led by bioarcheologist Zeinab Hashesh, the research team analyzed the skeletal remains of four royal sisters—Princesses Ita, Khenmet, Itaweret, and a fourth likely sister, Sathathormeryt. Experts believe each was a daughter of 12th Dynasty Pharaoh Amenemhat II. The team recently published their findings in the journal Frontiers in Environmental Archaeology. Instead of pristine skeletons typical of privileged, royal life, the researchers found wear and tear they did not anticipate. The bones of these princesses showed heavy, pronounced muscle and ligament attachments in their upper bodies. Their skeletal structures bore the exact physical hallmarks of high-intensity, repetitive movements—but not the kind you might expect from the Egyptian peasant women who labored in the fields. These were the signs of warriors. These individuals regularly pulled heavy bowstrings, stabilized impact weapons, and tightly gripped sword handles. @history.mae In the 1890s, archaeologists discovered several mummies of Egyptian princesses who’d been buried alongside weapons typically associated with men, including arrows, maces and daggers. Six royal mummies were unearthed: King Hor, Princess Noub-Hotep, Princess Ita, Princess Khenmet, Princess Itaweret and an unknown woman suspected to be Princess Sathathormeryt. In 2020 the six mummies were carefully examined after spending a century in the basement of the Egyptian Museum. When researchers examined the individuals’ bones, they found physiological evidence suggesting they were active users of the weapons they were buried with millennia ago. Princess Ita, for example, appears to have had strong hand muscles, perhaps built up from years of gripping weapons like daggers and maces, according to the researchers. Princesses Noub-Hotep and Itaweret, meanwhile, both had thickened forearm bones, which could have resulted from repeatedly drawing and stabilizing a bow. The bones in Princess Noub-Hotep’s right hand also showed signs of “archer’s grip,” Overall, the findings suggest the princesses “were not leading sedentary lives of luxury,” “They were well-conditioned athletes whose bodies were hardened by the same skilled force and disciplined movement as the men of their time.” #history ♬ original sound – llea – lleasqx Princess Itaweret, who lived to be between 20 and 34-years-old, displayed physical signs of being a skilled archer. Researchers even detected healed bone fractures, denoting that she’d engaged in high-risk activities. Princess Ita featured robust muscle attachments consistent with the handling of maces and other heavy weapons. They also found an ornate dagger buried beside her inside the sarcophagus.   Rewriting history proves it pays to keep an open mind This discovery has unlocked new ways of viewing and understanding ancient Egypt’s royal familial structures. Far from passive figureheads, these princesses were trained fighters. They learned by actively participating in skilled combat and hunting. We now know the weapons buried with them were not symbolic. Each had entered the afterlife with genuine battle scars. The swords and bows are testaments to the powerful, resilient lives they actually lived.  These revelations are a powerful reminder of why we should always question old assumptions. History is far from fixed in stone. Sometimes, it’s just waiting for the right discovery—perhaps in the cool, dark recesses of a museum—to help it speak again. The post 4,000-year-old Egyptian mummy rediscovery reveals 4 previously unknown warrior princesses appeared first on Upworthy.

BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM Gillnets catch dolphins by accident. The nylon mesh hangs nearly invisible in the water, and dolphins’ echolocation, the system they rely on to navigate and hunt, can fail to detect it. The filaments may produce no detectable echo, or the dolphins may detect something but not recognize it as a threat. Either way, they swim in and don’t get out. Around 1,000 porpoises and hundreds of dolphins, including 250 common dolphins, die in gill nets in UK waters alone every year, according to Whale and Dolphin Conservation. Globally, fishing bycatch is one of the primary causes of cetacean death. The echolocation gap Echolocation works by bouncing sound waves off objects and reading the echoes to build a picture of what’s nearby. It works well for prey, obstacles, and other animals. It does not work reliably on thin nylon mesh. The material is too sparse and too close in acoustic density to water to return a reliable signal. Per Berggren, a professor at Newcastle University, looked at that specific gap and asked a simple question: what if you gave the net something that does produce an echo? His answer: attach empty bottles. How bottles work as sonar reflectors Plastic and glass bottles address the problem through different mechanisms. Empty plastic bottles contain a pocket of air, and air reflects sound very differently from water. A dolphin’s echolocation click bounced off an air-filled bottle produces a much stronger echo than the same click bounced off nylon mesh. The dolphin gets a return signal it can act on. Glass bottles take a different approach. Berggren’s team placed metal bolts inside them so the bottles would generate a clinking sound as they moved with the water. That passive noise gives dolphins an additional non-echolocation cue. What the trials found Two studies tested the approach across more than 1,600 fishing nets deployed in Zanzibar, Peru, and Brazil, published in Fisheries Research and Marine Mammal Science. Results varied by location. In Peru, where nets are set near the surface, the bottles did not reduce the number of dolphins, porpoises, or turtles caught. They did increase the catch of target fish, and also increased the number of sharks caught. Despite the Peru results, Berggren’s overall assessment is positive. “Attaching plastic bottles to fishing nets can reduce dolphin bycatch globally and is something that every fisher can afford,” he says. Cost and supply chain Part of what makes the approach viable at scale is how cheap and simple it is. The bottles attach to existing nets, require no infrastructure, and can come from waste plastic rather than purchased materials. “It’s also rewarding to know that we are using some of the plastic waste that spoils our oceans,” Berggren says. “The bottles are securely attached to the nets and we did not lose any plastic bottle during the trials.” That matters. The obvious worry about attaching plastic to fishing nets is that the plastic ends up in the ocean. In these trials, none of it did. “This is genuinely recycling that rescues dolphins,” Berggren says. The approach costs almost nothing, uses materials fishers can pull from waste streams, and requires no new equipment. For a problem that has resisted solutions for years, that combination is worth paying attention to.     Did this solution stand out? Share it with a friend or support our mission by becoming an Emissary.The post The Newcastle researcher turning ocean plastic into a dolphin rescue strategy first appeared on The Optimist Daily: Making Solutions the News.