Good news

[Jaw]

It's easy to get caught up in only bad or contentious news, so this is a thread is for positive, impactful, non controversial news or stories.

[Jaw]

https://www.peoplesworld.org/article...ve-the-future/

“Mully”: Film aims to spark a movement to save the future

Premiering on October 3 for a limited three-night engagement in U.S. theaters, Mully tells the story of what happens when a six-year-old boy is abandoned by his family and left to raise himself on the rough streets and dirt roads of Kenya. The film is a portrayal of the true story of Charles Mully, an orphaned child who grew up to be a man with wealth and power who ultimately gave up his riches in order to lead a social movement to save the millions of orphaned children in his home country.

In the late 1980s, Mully sold all of his businesses and dedicated the proceeds to helping street children in Kenya through means of rescue, shelter, medical care, emotional support, and education. He went on to be deemed “Father to the Fatherless,” and through his resilience, and the support of his wife Esther Mully, plus his eight biological children, saved more than 23,000 abandoned children and counting.

[Jaw]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p05j116m

Carbon-ion battery could mean rapid charging
A new type of battery could mean we can charge our home appliances and electric vehicles in seconds.

British start-up Zap&Go has developed carbon-ion supercapacitors which allow the rapid charging.

While the current version is not able to store much power, future generations should be able to store much more.

The company has ultimately set its sights on the automotive industry

[Jaw]

http://bgr.com/2017/10/09/puerto-ric...-project-loon/

Google balloons set to bring internet to Puerto Rico

Despite the best efforts of cell companies, the vast majority of Puerto Rico is offline. Internet coverage might seem like a luxury when people are struggling for clean water and power, but communications make moving essential supplies much easier, and enables lost families and friends to find each other.

That’s why the FCC has granted an emergency license to Google parent company Alphabet to deploy 30 balloons over the island, with the intention of providing basic internet service while the conventional cell network is brought back online.

[Jaw]

Surveillance video of the moment a little girl is told that her foster family has been approved to adopt her:

[Tapate50]

Surveillance video of the moment a little girl is told that her foster family has been approved to adopt her:

Wow. Thanks for posting. That's great stuff right there.

This thread is LONG overdue.

[Runnin]

When Girl With Winning Score is Denied Title, Runner-up Offers Trophy: ‘I didn’t win, you did’

It may be the 21st century, but this archaic golf tournament rule said that Emily Nash could not be given a trophy or award for her score – even though she played better than all the boys.

The 16-year-old was allowed to compete on the Lunenburg High School boy’s team in the Central Mass Division 3 Boys’ Golf Tournament in Lunenburg, Massachusetts earlier this week. But in spite of being able to contribute to the team’s score, she could not be recognized as an individual player.

Emily only realized this after she achieved the best score – 3-over-par – but was denied the title. The trophy was instead awarded to Nico Ciolino of AMSA Charter School, who finished four strokes behind Emily.

[Jaw]

We can use cosmic rays to analyze stone structures now.

https://apnews.com/5ba4676be5ef450f9...-Great-Pyramid
Scientists say they have found a hidden chamber in Egypt’s Great Pyramid of Giza, in what would be the first such discovery in the structure since the 19th century and one likely to spark a new surge of interest in the pharaohs.

In an article published in the journal Nature on Thursday, an international team said the 30-meter (yard) void deep within the pyramid is situated above the structure’s Grand Gallery, and has a similar cross-section.

The purpose of the space is unclear, and it’s not yet known whether it was built with a function in mind or if it’s merely a gap in the pyramid’s architecture. Some experts say such empty spaces have been known for years.

“This is a premier,” said Mehdi Tayoubi, a co-founder of the ScanPyramids project and president of the Heritage Innovation Preservation Institute. “It could be composed of one or several structures... maybe it could be another Grand Gallery. It could be a chamber, it could be a lot of things.”

The scientists made the discovery using cosmic-ray imaging, recording the behavior of subatomic particles called muons that penetrate the rock similar to X-rays, only much deeper. Their paper was peer-reviewed before appearing in Nature, an international, interdisciplinary journal of science, and its results confirmed by other teams of scientists.

[Jaw]

This is old, but new to me

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/...ts-predecessor
A new antibiotic offers a potent weapon against antibiotic-resistant infections. Superantibiotic is 25,000 times more potent than its predecessor
Vancomycin, long considered a “drug of last resort,” kills by preventing bacteria from building cell walls. It binds to wall-building protein fragments called peptides, in particular those that end with two copies of the amino acid D-alanine (D-ala). But bacteria have evolved. Many now replace one D-ala with D-lactic acid (D-lac), sharply reducing vancomycin’s ability to bind to its target. Today, that resistance has spread so that dangerous infections like vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE) and vancomycin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (VRSA) are becoming more common. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 23,000 Americans die from 17 antibiotic-resistant infections each year (although it’s difficult to parse out how much is due to vancomycin resistance).
...
Now, Boger and his colleagues have assembled all three weapons into one single vancomycin analog. The new antibiotic is at least 25,000 times more potent against microbes such as VRE and VRSA, they report this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Moreover, when Boger’s team tested vancomycin-resistant bacteria against the new three-part analog, the microbes were unable to evolve resistance even after 50 rounds. Many antibiotics begin to fail after just a few rounds. This suggests the new compound may be far more durable than current antibiotics, Boger says.

"Organisms just can't simultaneously work to find a way around three independent mechanisms of action,” he says. “Even if they found a solution to one of those, the organisms would still be killed by the other two."

[nsacpi]

What would people ever do if they had to pay .50-1.00 more per article of clothing!

There would be more jobs in America and more tax revenues here.

Dont' act like there isn't a benefit with less globalism to highly developed nations like the US.

thou hath committed a fallacy of compostion... 50 cents is nothing...but billions of transactions involving a 50 cent price difference adds up to something

[thethe]

though hath committed a fallacy of compostion... 50 cents is nothing...but billions of transactions involving a 50 cent price difference adds up to something

Yes - And you put that money in the pockets of smaller businesses that then grow within their communities. The only thing that globalization has done is crush the middle class. It helps the poor people of third world nations and lines the pockets of the worlds elite. How has the middle class done in the last 50 years in America?

[thethe]

And again - I am in a very fortunate position whereby my profession is not impacted by globalization. I don't have direct skin in the game but I want to see more people in this nation prosper. Too many of us white collar workers have thrived while blue collar struggle.

[nsacpi]

Yes - And you put that money in the pockets of smaller businesses that then grow within their communities. The only thing that globalization has done is crush the middle class. It helps the poor people of third world nations and lines the pockets of the worlds elite. How has the middle class done in the last 50 years in America?

I think you don't sufficiently appreciate how important incentives to innovate, cut costs and improve productivity are...and international competition is one of most important sources of such incentives...countries that practice mercantilism and try to protect domestic industries end up being laggards

[thethe]

I think you don't sufficiently appreciate how important incentives to innovate, cut costs and improve productivity are...and international competition is one of most important sources of such incentives...countries that practice mercantilism and try to protect domestic industries end up being laggards

China seemingly exploded onto the scene the last 30 years. Would you consider them to have 'open markets'?

[nsacpi]

China seemingly exploded onto the scene the last 30 years. Would you consider them to have 'open markets'?

not really...but they are in a catchup phase....their destiny is to be the next Japan (not the worst thing in the world but not great either) if they don't open up

Argentina once had a first world standard of living...they are exhibit A of the consequences of mercantilism

[nsacpi]

Ranking of countries that are the worst practitioners of mercantilism

http://www2.itif.org/2014-general-me...643.1545850930

the paper makes some good points about the need to get those countries to open up...the solution is not for us to adopt their mercentalist practices

[nsacpi]

Who says we need to be protectionist? I want to stop letting China take advantage of the West. People want to pretend that their actions haven't negatively impacted the Western middle class and that's fine. However, we are seeing the people speak about their problems and acting. If we don't listen things are going to get much worse than what is happening in France now.

blue collar workers have largely misdiagnosed their economic problems...it is a form of malpractice to let an ill-informed patient dictate the course of treatment...better to be honest with them and let them know what can be done about their problems...of course that's asking a lot of our political class

[nsacpi]

And yet via policies implemented by this administration we are seeing massive growth in manufacturing jobs. What is the reason for that?

The supply chain needs to be repositioned. I don't even think it necessarily needs to be America but I want it out of China. I think a stronger Mexcio is much more in Americas interest than China. Bring those jobs over to the US/Canada/Mexico and we will be all the better.

I wouldn't say massive...we have bought a late cycle surge in growth at the expense of blowing a 300 billion dollar hole in federal finances...a policy that is in a word unsustainable

[thethe]

I wouldn't say massive...we have bought a late cycle surge in growth at the expense of blowing a 300 billion dollar hole in federal finances...a policy that is in a word unsustainable

Well if Washington would ever get serious about spending then we would be more stable long term. Revenues have been extremely positive the last few months.

[57Brave]

David Griner
@griner
·
11h
24 hours ago, Birmingham's mayor told protesters that if they stopped trying

to dismantle the confederate monument, he'd have it removed safely within 24 hours.

The city is currently following through on its word,

and the monument will soon be down.