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And a happy Halloween/Samhain/end of October, everyone! To end the month of Illuminations, let's talk about getting back on our feet. Injuries to the spinal cord have been seen as major, life-changing issues that can't be overcome. There have been some limited successes in specific situations, but not many and not often. Cue scientists and EES . The technique is still in process and has a ways to go, but it represents a huge leap forward in treating spinal-cord injuries. In the small study done earlier this year, several of the patients were able to move - and walk - with assistance after as little as a few days' treatment. The treatments, which involve implanting electrodes that allow electrical impulses to bypass the injured portions of the spinal cord, have proven to be effective in animals, but they've been difficult to get just right for humans. The combination of the treatment itself and the additional knowledge of the human nervous system researchers develope...

A tip of the hat to Ainy Rainwater for directing this my way - super helpful, especially as I'm fighting either a bad cold or a light flu at the moment. Thank you! So, lo these many moons ago, I spent a summer in college working in the school library as we did some year-end cleaning and organizing. Part of this job involved spending a day with the rest of the student employees and full-time librarians moving several bookcases' worth of books from the tower down to the main floor. No elevator up there, of course, so we used mail bins to pass handfuls of books down a human chain down the stairs and onto a cart. It worked, though man were those things heavy. Today's Illumination involves a similar process with a lot more people.  October Books  in England was moving to a new location, as the rent of their existing storefront was skyrocketing (as they do). They decided the best thing they could do was buy their own location, which they were able to do through donations, cro...

"It," in this case, means a sign of a hopeful new beginning. Tonight's Illumination is about an aspect of conflict I don't think many of us consider. Syria has been living through years of internal battle and civil war, but finally, finally, there are some signs of improvement. Damascus, an important and ancient city, is currently restored to peace, and city officials are taking a moment to show the people of the city their optimism. Something that had happened early in the fighting was that the national museums were closed and artifacts either moved or hidden, hoping to keep them safe. While not everything survived unscathed, Sunday the  Syrian National Museum  reopened its doors and allowed the people to see their past once again. Many artifacts were recovered, having been smuggled out of the country or looted by the Islamic State. More work remains to be done, but in the meantime, the city of Damascus is reminding people that they're still here. They have n...

GeekGirlCon has come and gone, which means I stand a chance of relaxing after a weekend full of good times, awesome people and stuff, and so much walking. And conveniently, tonight is the airing of the Illumination I want to discuss! So, I enjoy professional wrestling. (I'll wait while some of y'all laugh. I get it.) Something that has always been a problem has been how women appeared in wrestling shows - basically, if they did appear, then it was as arm candy (or worse). There were a few women who wrestled, but not frequently, and not particularly well. Cut to tonight, and  Evolution . This is a pay-per-view, meaning it's one of the big shows during the year, and this time every wrestler in the ring is a woman. There are several different types of matches, including a battle royale which requires multiple wrestlers in the ring at the start of the match and people are only eliminated by being tossed over the top rope. Essentially, these are matches of the type that wome...

I'm starting this before the clock strikes midnight and before I've gone to sleep, so it's Saturday's Illumination. Remember how we discussed  Egyptian blue  and how it can be used to keep buildings cool? Engineers at University of Colorado Boulder and University of Wyoming have  taken another step  in the War on Heat. They've managed to demonstrate a practical way to manufacture a metamaterial (debuted last year) in sufficient quantities to use it to cool homes and businesses. The way the devices are made, the cooling is extremely efficient, requiring very little by way of electricity. Personally, I've always been a fan of being too cold than too hot, so bring on the air conditioning, especially if you can do it in a responsible and non-damaging way.

I realize it's after midnight my time, but I haven't been to bed yet, so it's still Friday. That's my story, at any rate. And I have an Illumination for everyone! Now, those who know me know that the US military holds a spot close to my heart, as my father was a career member of the Air Force, and most of the men in my family have served at one time or another. Many of them were deployed to different combat areas around the world, and that sort of action takes a toll, both physically and mentally. In general, humans aren't built to handle that kind of violence and come out unscathed. Lately, the  Wounded Warrior  project, which has been helping veterans and their families for several years, have doubled down on mental health support. They're working with hospitals and clinics around the country to provide intensive, clinical support for those in need, particularly those impacted by PTSD. This is the definition of an underserved population, so it warms my hea...

Particularly, in this case, if you are a bacterium, and the Greek is bearing iron. Today's Illumination comes to us from the world of medicine, as scientists have developed a  new antibiotic  that manages to trick bacteria into absorbing it. Essentially, the body's defense against infection is to create an iron-poor environment. This medication hitches a ride with iron, which the bacteria absorbs. Then, the caller is inside the house! And doctors have another way of fighting infection. New antibiotics are needed, as germs have a bad habit of becoming tolerant of the ones we have. Having new ways of delivering them is certainly a step in the right direction.

There are few things that make me happier than robots - couldn't tell you why, they just do. So you combine robots with young folk doing awesome in the world, and you've got an Illumination! Today, we're talking about  Daniela Saez  (warning: autoplay video in Spanish with English subtitles). She's an engineering student who's been fascinated by robots since she was a kid. Due to a lack of resources in her school, her early robotic education was found online or from other students, as the school couldn't afford an instructor. That was enough for Daniela to put together a robotic sensor for the blind that allows people with vision problems to walk without a cane (sensors indicate the distance between the person's foot and an obstacle), as well as identifying the color of objects. It's been presented in several places around the world, as well as in Daniela's native Chile. Her next big project is a robotic arm prosthetic for a girl who lost the maj...

Even I have my standards. Sometimes. Tonight's Illumination goes back to one of the common themes this month - food. Specifically, this time, fresh fruits and veggies, which are frequently thrown out due to spoilage, causing major food waste and contributing to food insecurity worldwide. Enter  Apeel . Ignoring the silly name, the company has worked to create a tasteless, colorless, odorless powder that at least doubles the shelf life of produce. In lab circumstances, it's been able to triple the shelf life. The powder is created from the skin, pulp, and seeds of fruits and veggies that have been used in other products (such as tomato skins from a ketchup manufacturer), so it's not a harsh chemical additive and it actually uses food waste from other industries. Using food waste to create a product that prevents food waste? Reducing the energy and resources needed to transport and store produce? Sounds like a great plan all around.

Or at least a lot more people. Today's Illumination comes to us from Dubai by way of China. Scientists have been experimenting with strains of rice plants that are salt-tolerant, specifically for areas where fresh water is too precious to use in the quantities needed to grow rice. In January, the project began the practical research and planted several of the strains in parts of the desert in the United Arab Emirates. Not only did the rice grow and thrive, but it yielded more than twice the amount of food as the average rice production. The researchers plan on rolling out a bigger test next year, eventually building up to covering 10% of the desert in rice fields. This is the kind of thing that can go a long way toward solving food insecurity while not forcing countries in the Middle East to rely completely on other parts of the world.

Good evening, all! Tonight's Illumination takes something that a lot of us have benefited from and takes it to the next logical step. In  Zimbabwe , one of the psychiatrists in the country has spent the last few years building up a program to provide mental health assistant to those who wouldn't normally be able to access it. There aren't many mental health professionals in Zimbabwe, or in most of Africa, so the doctor decided to make use of the resources available - grandmothers. Dr. Chibanda trains the grandmothers - volunteers from the community - in evidence-based therapy, but they also use methods and language rooted in the culture and society of their patients. You know how much better you feel after having a good, long talk with someone close to you, where you talk about your problems and get some advice on how to move forward? That's essentially the basis of this program. It's been scientifically vetted and proven to provide results, and the program has ...

Today's Illumination may be imagined as the light in a jack-o-lantern, it being the season of pumpkin everything and such. We have a small sampling of how people near me celebrate Halloween and lend a hand at the same time. Now, I've never been much for haunted houses, but  this zombie wedding  might be an exception for me. Not only is it a display for the neighborhood (started as one for the grandkids), but this year people are taking the opportunity to collect donations of food and coats for a local shelter. Most of the other events on that page have similar requests, showing that people are aware of ways they can lend a hand to those in need. The small comforts, the little things, the tiny gestures that most of us don't think about - these are the things that add to the light in the world. Don't give up, friends, and remember that every bit of light helps.

Immigration. It's a tough subject to discuss these days, especially in the States. There are difficult attitudes to overcome, particularly if you are an immigrant who happens to not be white or a native English speaker. The news frequently presents a specific image of these immigrants, and it generally isn't flattering. Fortunately, in today's Illumination, a new exhibit in the  Moving Walls  series presents a different image of immigration. The exhibit focuses on the family ties and individual acts of bravery and self-sacrifice that immigrants and refugees experience, and shows these people as they want to be seen. The link above has examples of the art and photography produced by the people taking part in the exhibit, and it's stunning. It shouldn't be such a bright spot, to see people as individuals with personalities and histories, families and dreams and hopes, rather than simply a group of "the other." At the same time, anything that reminds soci...

In today's Illumination, there's a major city in India that has taken the differing abilities of their people into account when celebrating a major religious and social festival. In  Kolkata , a committee organizing the celebration of Durga Puja in the southern part of the city decided that this festival needed to be more inclusive. The celebration reveres the goddess Durga, a warrior and protective mother goddess in the Hindu religion, and is seen as a time for joy and thanksgiving. Artists worked for months to create a bust of the goddess covered in screws and nails, allowing those with vision problems to feel the face of the goddess they can't see. Artists also did extensive work with bamboo and thread, weaving mantras and other important phrases in Braille into panels around the pandal (the temporary building built explicitly for this festival). Visitors are encouraged to touch, breaking all the rules of major religious events. In another pandal nearby, devotees wit...

Then again, maybe we just think  we aren't. Tonight's Illumination is about how new technology is helping people unlock some important aspects about themselves and gaining skills that are essential these days. Researchers at  Stanford  have conducted two studies over the last few months about how using VR may change people's attitudes, compared to other forms of media. People across the ages were more empathetic toward the experiences viewed through VR than other types of media, both immediately after the experiences and in the days and weeks afterwards. While we constantly hear that we'd be best served to imagine walking a mile in someone else's shoes, we have the technology to actually feel what those shoes are like, and it's making a difference. Being able to envision situations you've never experienced personally has always been a difficult process; now, there are tools to make it easier, and hopefully that will lead to more understanding across the ...

I do live on the West Coast, after all. Today's Illumination isn't a fiat accompli, so much as a work in progress, but it's an important work that can help save thousands of lives. The last few years have shown the world how devastating earthquakes and tsunamis can be. Every second of warning can help get people to higher ground, and so everyone's looking for better ways to detect what might be coming. In  Japan , scientists are examining geomagnetic fields to see what information earthquakes and tsunamis send up before they unleash on the Earth. There are tiny shifts and alterations in the geomagnetic fields all the time, but the more data scientists are able to gather about what "normal" looks like, the more information they can find about abnormal circumstances. The project is still in early stages, but knowing what kind of information to look for is always a great start. If it can help even one person to get to higher ground or take cover in time, I wo...

If you're like me, you've ridden public transit a time or five in your lifetime. Today's Illumination is about one city's take on public transit, and how it's changing the way people move around. In Dunkirk, they are  one month  into an experiment in free public transit. That's right, completely free for residents and visitors - all of the buses are hop-on, hop-off, and have been extended and made more frequent due to the additional demand. Apparently, what happens when you make public transit free and more accessible is that more people take the bus, leaving their cars behind. They also travel more frequently - there are people who rarely traveled beyond their normal routes who decided that they were willing to try something new. It's not right for everyone or every city, but being able to make it easier for people to move around is always a good thing. It's a symbol of freedom, after all. On an unrelated note and for a personal Illumination, to...

Something a little different for today's Illumination - not so much a specific act, but a thing that has caused joy and been used in ways that far outstrip its original intentions. Most Americans know the song "La Bamba" at least peripherally - it, along with "Feliz Navidad," are generally the two songs in Spanish most Anglophone Americans recognize right away. However, the history of  "La Bamba"  is more involved that I ever knew, and thus, I share it with you all. It's a folk song to start, one that appears to have been born in Veracruz, Mexico. It originated from a style of music called son jarocho, which is a kind of cultural integration that came about when African slaves, indigenous peoples of Latin America, and Spaniards were all squished into the same place. The fact that the song was born of such strife and represents a blend of cultures is, in itself, a testament to the power of music. The most popular version for most Americans is ei...

They're doing and achieving so much more than I even thought was possible when I was that young. Say what you will, but there are some decided upsides to a world with faster technology and more information flowing fast and free. Today's Illumination is about Sakshi Satpathy , a 16-year-old Girl Scout who is being recognized with the National Gold Award from the Girl Scouts for her work on an initiative she created called Project GREET . It's an initiative meant to both raise awareness about human trafficking and other human rights violations and provide resources to help rehabilitate victims of human trafficking, among others. She did this by seeing there was a problem, recognizing one possible piece that she could help resolve (namely, the lack of awareness about the human rights violations happening around the world), and finding a way to fill that gap. In Sakshi's case, filling that gap meant learning how to shoot and edit video and conduct interviews, among many...

Sorry tonight's Illumination is a little late - it's been a very long and busy day, but I was told multiple times (by people I'd never met before!) that folks were very happy I existed, so I'll call it a win. Tonight, we'll be talking about a group that is doing good in the world of Specifically, artwork in war zones. The  British Army  is reviving a program from World War II (memorialized in the movie "Monuments Men") that will protect art and archaeology, as well as investigating looting and smuggling, and making sure allied forces are aware of the cultural heritage sites so that (hopefully) they don't get destroyed in battle. It's not the greatest of thoughts, I know, but knowing that there are people who are working to save and restore the art of prior ages and maintain the symbols of multiple cultures, does make me feel some hope. Not ever light will be the biggest and the brightest, but they all dispel some of the darkness.

Work with schools, environmental benefits, saving restaurants money... Stefon approves! Today's Illumination comes to us from New York's Billion Oyster Project. The  organization  has set up a program in which restaurants collect the shells from their oyster dishes; those shells are then cured, cleaned, and brought to a high school with a training program in marine sciences; and the students use the shells to essentially seed new oysters. Once the oysters are big enough, they get moved to a structure that helps them form a reef in New York Harbor. Oysters, evidently, are pretty magnificent creatures. (Calling the world your oyster makes a little more sense to me now.) They filter the water, promote biodiversity by providing food and shelter to other marine life, and protect a shore against a hurricane's waves. Admittedly, none of these things make me more likely to want to eat them, but I can at least appreciate them more. On a personal note, since it is Coming Ou...

Egyptian blue, apparently! Today's Illumination is taking something old and discovering what new things can be done. Researchers at Berkeley Lab have  discovered  that a pigment that was popular in ancient Egyptian art has the ability to cool the outsides of buildings and vehicles, due to its ability to reflect heat. They've also discovered that the pigment can be used in solar energy collectors, so it would be possible to tint windows blue and have that tint help power your home. If absolutely nothing else, it means that there might be some mighty bright roofs and walls on buildings in the near future. SCIENCE!

Robot bees, that is. Yes, today's Illumination comes from Delft University in the Netherlands, where scientists are working on creating  robot bees  to replace/supplement natural bees in pollinating plants around the world. The scientists have studied the flight patterns and movements of fruit flies to get that evasive motion nailed down for their bees. Currently, they can't fly for long - about six minutes on the current batteries - but the robots are being fitted with sensors that will allows them to move automatically from flower to flower and avoid running into each other. Bees have been having a hard time as of late, but it's great to see that some scientists are working on a way to keep things pollinated, even as other scientists are working on saving the bees themselves. So useful, and stylish, too!

And now some more we can drink! Welcome back to Illuminations (hat tip to Ainy Rainwater for titling this series), and today, we're going to talk about water. Specifically, we're going to talk about cleaning water up. Do you remember about 10 years ago, when the news started reporting on the dangers of BPA? It's a chemical used in the manufacture of plastics, and there are several studies that state it is Bad News for humans and other animals. Turns out, it's not so great for the environment, either, and there's a fair amount of it out in the water due to manufacturing and post-consumer waste. It inhibits plant growth and development and causes long-term damage to critters that live in the tainted water. Never fear, science is here! Scientists at Rice University have put together something  promising  for pulling BPA out of water. They're tiny little spheres that essentially absorb the BPA and encircle it, forcing the BPA to degrade into something harmless. ...

Coming to the end of week one of the Good News Project, and I'd love to know what other people think about things. Is this helping you? Does learning about something positive happening in the world help you get through the day? Meanwhile, today let's talk about fire. Living on the West Coast in the US, I've heard and seen the devastation of wildfires every year. I've been fortunate enough not to have been damaged directly, but the fires are tremendous problems and destructive in multiple ways. So it makes me so happy to know that there are scientists  studying  how to predict wildfires and how they spread. They're using controlled fires in specific areas to learn how fire moves in different circumstances and putting together models that will one day allow them to predict when and how fires will build and change. Minimizing the damage fire does? That's the kind of thing that makes me that much more optimistic.

Today's bit of positivity is close to home for me. My family has a history of heart disease and high blood pressure, like a lot of Americans, and it's one of those things where everyone knows someone who's had a heart attack. A lot of people don't know they're at risk until things have already gone wrong. Well, Jeffrey Wessler in New York decided to try to change that. He worked with a group of other cardiologists, along with engineers, data scientists, and patient experience experts to create  Heartbeat . The goal is to take a preventative take on cardiology, and make patients feel more comfortable to actually come into a doctor's office as needed. It's a combination of digital components and face-to-face medical care, and it's looking to integrate existing technology like FitBit stats to influence this preventative cardiology. I love the idea that someday, heart disease may not be the specter it is today.

The Positivity Parade continues to march. I freely admit that the path of the parade feels a little rougher today than most days, but that's why we need to see some light. Thus, I'm breaking out some big guns today. The  2018 MacArthur Fellows  have been announced, and there is a wide variety of awesome and important stuff to unpack. I'm not going to go through everything, but I'm going to pull some highlights, because this is seriously cool. First, a little on the MacArthur grants. The MacArthur Foundation provides unrestricted fellowships (this year, $625,000) to individuals who have demonstrated exceptional creativity, a promise for important future advances, and potential for a fellowship to help create more creative works. The first grants were given in 1981, and to date, 1,041 people have received them. Because the criteria is so broad, the people receiving these grants are all over the spectrum in terms of what they do and how they create. For example, Li...

Greetings and salutations! A bit of local news today (well, local to me - possibly not local at all to you, in which case welcome! What's it like where you are?). We've got another case of someone seeing a problem and working on a solution, using what he has available. In  Tacoma , Washington, a man named David Thompson has launched a local branch of the Food is Free Project . This non-profit encourages people who have the means to grow their own food to grow a little more and share with their neighbors and others who come through the neighborhood. That's it. Think of it as the extreme version of giving away all the zucchini that take over your veggie patch every year. (Seriously, those things are worse than rabbits and Tribbles COMBINED.) The way Mr. Thompson does it, he puts a table out in front of his house with the produce he has available and a sign so people know that yes, it is free, really and truly. Just that small deed is enough to help someone who isn't ...

I'm a geek, what do you expect? Operation: Unapologetic Positivity is continuing into its third day, though I have to admit that this is a touch harder than I expected it to be. I hadn't realized just how much I was avoiding the news at large until I was regularly looking through it for positive stories. If the press could cut back on the "if it bleeds, it leads" mentality, that would be super beneficial for my (and probably everyone else's) mental health, thanks. However! Today, a robot  landed on an asteroid ! The Mobile Asteroid Surface Scout (MASCOT, I see what you did there) joins two baby hopping robots from the same mothership. To put the distance in perspective, the project launched from Earth in December 2014 and just made it into orbit around the asteroid a couple of months ago. The whole project is an international affair - the German, French, and Japanese space agencies all have worked on some piece of the project. They managed to land on a flippin...

Day two of the October of Positivity, Dammit! Today, let's look at a very lucky  whale . On Saturday, this humpback whale beached itself about 200 miles south of Buenos Aires. Beached whales aren't particularly strong, since they aren't really meant to be on land, so this (7 ton) little guy was in trouble. Over the next 28 hours, people worked together around the clock to get the whale back to its home. It took a lot of digging, a harness, and a tugboat, but the whale made it back into the waters on Sunday. A couple of points here: 1. Look what happens when people work together toward a common goal! People have the potential to be so awesome. 2. The article I linked mentions using a "special harness," which naturally meant I had to go looking. Behold , the power of the internet!

My friends, there's an awful lot of awful going around these days. Personally, I see-saw between terrified anger and cynical numbness, and frankly, I'm done. I don't want to isolate myself from the gift that is the internet because there are terrible things happening. I don't want to miss important milestones in my friends' lives because I'm afraid of finding out about another horrifying thing in the world. I miss cat pictures, dammit, and I'm sick of hiding from social media for fear of learning how another part of the sky is falling. I'm going to say something that may be controversial, but hear me out. It's not all bad.  Yes, there's a lot of bad going around, and it's really hard to live through it, especially when it directly impacts you or the ones you love. There are a lot of us that may be struggling to survive in this climate, but there's something we need to remember - what we're struggling to survive for. Hence, my chal...