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Thread: Good News!

  1. #151
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    You don't have to be stuck in the false paradigm of picking sides. You don't have to be relegated to a 'team'. And you can make a difference as just one person.

    Good News indeed.


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  3. #152
    Senior Member Emil El Zapato's Avatar
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    Quote Originally posted by Dreamtimer View Post
    Church says it paid off all available medical debt for entire state of New Mexico

    An Episcopal church in New Mexico says it paid off all of the available medical debt for all of New Mexico, as well as several counties in Arizona.

    St. Bede’s Episcopal Church in Santa Fe, N.M. says that through donations, and partnering up with nonprofit RIP Medical Debt, it was able to pay off $1,380,119.87 in medical debt belonging to 782 households. According to its website, RIP Medical Debt is a group dedicated to finding families with medical debt whose incomes are less than twice the poverty level, as well as families whose liabilities exceed their total assets, known as insolvency.

    Each family impacted will receive a letter in the mail telling them they no longer owe the debt. The letter, in part, says:



    RIP Medical Debt then contacts credit agencies to verify the medical payments while clearing the person's credit history.



    Go Episcopals! (I was raised episcopal)
    That's even better than that old-time religion ... Makes me wish I still lived there.
    “El revolucionario: te meteré la bota en el culo"

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  5. #153
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    Art and farming together as one...


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  7. #154
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    Folks are coming up with plastic alternatives at amazing rates.

    The German startup Traceless...has devised a technique to turn agricultural waste, such as starch or brewery residues, into a range of ‘plastic’ films, coatings and rigid materials. Since the resultant materials are made entirely from plant residue, they’re completely compostable, breaking down in two to nine weeks, depending on their thickness. That means they can go straight into the home compost bin, or added to anaerobic digesters to help generate biogas.
    Seaweed water pods

    Instead of plastic water bottles, runners at the 2019 London Marathon were handed edible, H2O-filled pouches to slay their thirst. Dreamed up by Notpla, the drinks pods are made from seaweed and plant materials, which can be swallowed whole, or left to degrade as harmlessly as, well, seaweed on the shore.
    A shore thing

    Evoware has also looked to the ocean for answers. It works with seaweed farmers in Indonesia to harvest the raw material for its compostable cups and packaging which, like Notpla, is safe to eat, too. Seaweed is increasingly feted as a source of healthy nutrients.
    Smoke without fire

    Researchers in the US are exploring a novel combination of cows’ milk and clay, which, blended together, can produce a strong, ultra-thin compostable material – so light and airy that it’s been nicknamed ‘solid smoke’. Its potential uses range from packaging to insulation, without leaving behind any harmful residues.
    The last straw

    Anyone justly horrified by photographs of turtles struggling with plastic straws will be cheered by Loliware’s ‘hypercompostable’ seaweed-based alternatives – safe for humans and sea creatures alike.
    Mother Nature rules.

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  9. #155
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    A group of moms on Facebook built an island of good-faith vaccine debate in a sea of misinformation

    Amid the online scare stories and anti-vaccine memes, an army of local influencers and everyday users is waging a grass-roots campaign on Facebook, Reddit and other platforms to gently win over the vaccine skeptical. They’re spending hours moderating forums, responding to comments, linking to research studies, and sharing tips on how to talk to fearful family members.

    “It feels a lot like covid is something that is completely out of control and there is nothing we can do, like it’s this out-of-control wildfire, and I’m just one person with a little hose,” said Kate Bilowitz, an Oakland, Calif.-based mom who works for a real estate company and co-founded Vaccine Talk [on Facebook]. “But when people reach out to us, it feels like it’s making a little bit of a difference.” ✂️

    While the White House is launching a project to pay micro-influencers to spread pro-vaccine messaging, a handful of carefully designed and self-policed online spaces, such as the Vaccine Talk group on Facebook, are showing that it is possible to change people’s minds, one nuanced post at a time. To do it, they’re adopting moderation systems and rules of discourse very different from those of the social media platforms.
    There are stories on the Washington Post and also NYT but I don't subscribe so cannot link.

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  11. #156
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    This article doesn't go into detail, but it calls to mind my earlier post about deriving vanillin from plastics. Microbial chemistry of this sort reminds me of the movie Ghandahar (formerly known as Light Years).

    They work with nature on a very macro scale in that animated gem, but this is a similar principle. And the best 'solution' to the plastics disaster. As there are plenty and they're now ubiquitous around the globe, there's plenty of plastic food for microbes to make food for us.

    Hell of a circle of life, huh?

    University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign bioengineer Ting Lu and Michigan Technological University biologist Stephen Techtmann won an award called the 2021 Future Insight Prize earlier this month for technology that they say can convert plastic waste into edible protein. ✂️

    The tech itself relies on what Lu calls microbial synthetic biology, which essentially relies on gene-hacked microbes to break down the molecules of plastic garbage and turn them into protein.
    And as a couple other prior posts show, we can replace plastics with biofilms which will degrade naturally.

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  13. #157
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    Chadwick Boseman was an amazing man. Talk about working your ass off and never complaining. I do mean choosing to do that work. And I do mean pursuing dreams, not being dog-driven by a heartless boss.



    Huzzah!

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    The Mushroom Revolution

    Directing the growth of mushroom fibers may not sound like a big deal, but this evolution in biofabrication stands to transform the way we manufacture, consume and live. What are the possibilities? Mycelium's fast-growing fibers produce materials used for packaging, clothing, food and construction—everything from leather to plant-based steak to scaffolding for growing organs. Mycelium, when harnessed as a technology, helps replace plastics that are rapidly accumulating in the environment.

    Mycelium also provides a cruelty-free way to create meatlike structures with a much smaller environmental footprint than traditional livestock,

    https://blogs.scientificamerican.com...on-is-upon-us/

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  17. #159
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    Marvelous, marvelous mycelia.

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  19. #160
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    Friendship Bottles!

    Recycled bottles are used to make structures. They were developed for disaster relief, and have 'off-label' uses as well.

    On the street outside Peaches Kitchen & Bar in Brooklyn, New York, two translucent outdoor dining structures are now standing like oversized glowing lanterns. Like the outdoor dining spaces of other restaurants across the city and around the world, these structures popped up quickly during the pandemic. But unlike these other facilities, the structures outside Peaches are made out of interlocking plastic bottles.

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