Goodable

This week, Canadian pop music icon Shawn Mendes did something very few artists have had the courage to do: He announced the cancellation of his world tour in order to focus on his mental health. He made the announcement <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CghLcRuLILp/" target="_blank">via Instagram</a>, saying he wasn’t ready to face the increased mental health pressures of going back on tour. It’s a trend experts are seeing more often in Gen Z, who are more open to talking about their mental health than generations before.

<img src="https://thefader-res.cloudinary.com/private_images/w_760,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:best/GettyImages-1020372020_lu7tzd/shawn-mendes-shirt-lol.jpg">

The American Psychiatric Association released a report saying teens and young adults are more likely to have received treatment or gone to therapy (37%) compared to Millennials (35%), Gen X’ers (26%), Baby Boomers (22%), and the Silent Generation (15%). The report, “<a href="https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/stress/2018/stress-gen-z.pdf" target="_blank">Stress in America: Generation Z</a>” says there are three reasons for the increased use of mental health services: <ul><li>

Life has introduced a different variety of stressors, leading to increased psychological concerns and more need for services for mental health.
</li><li>

Awareness of mental health issues has grown, so that what once might have been ignored is recognized as a problem and treated as such.
</li><li>

Stigma around using mental health services has lessened, making it more likely that Gen Z will identify their own issues and seek help when they feel they have a mental health problem that can be treated.
</li></ul>
"Gen Z are far more conscious of mental health issues—and more able to articulate them—than their parents were," explains Dr. Rebecca Rialon Berry, an associate professor at NYU. She also notes Millennials (anyone born 1981 to 1996) tend to also be more open to mental health treatment than previous generations. 

Mendes isn't the only celebrity that’s opened up about mental health. In 2018, NBA All-Star DeMar DeRozan divulged his struggle with depression.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">This depression get the best of me...— DeMar DeRozan (@DeMar_DeRozan) <a href="https://twitter.com/DeMar_DeRozan/status/964818383303688197?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 17, 2018</a></blockquote> 


"It's one of them things that no matter how indestructible we look like we are, we're all human at the end of the day," <a href="https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/22582972/demar-derozan-toronto-raptors-depression-fight-all-human" target="_blank">said DeRozan.</a> 

NBA Champion and Cleveland Cavaliers forward <a href="https://www.theplayerstribune.com/articles/kevin-love-everyone-is-going-through-something" target="_blank">Kevin Love also spoke about his panic attacks, anxiety and depression</a> which further opened the conversation about the stigma surrounding mental health. And last year, pop star <a href="https://www.billboard.com/music/pop/justin-bieber-justice-new-album-billboard-cover-story-2021-9537735/" target="_blank">Justin Bieber spoke about his struggle with success</a>, revealing he needed to work on his mental health like he does his music. 

As for Mendes, he says he’ll be making new music, and is looking to tour in the future. “I promise I will be back as soon as I’ve taken the right time to heal. I love you all and thank you all so much for supporting me and sticking by me on this journey.”

Thank you Shawn for speaking out.

Shawn Mendes Just Stood Up for Mental Health — Here's Why it Matters

Smithsonian Magazine

Visitors to a Venice museum can now watch conservators at work on a Renaissance altarpiece that has hung in the city for more than 500 years.

Giovanni Bellini created the painting around 1478 for the church of San Giobbe in Venice. The wood panel work, titled Madonna and Child Enthroned, Music-Making Angels and Saints Francis, John the Baptist, Job, Dominic, Sebastian and Louis of Toulouse, hung for centuries inside the church in a custom stone frame.

By the 1810s, the painting needed restoration, and the work was moved to the Gallerie dell’Accademia, where it has remained. The painting is more than 15 feet, or about 4.6 metres, tall.

“It is a work of immense importance, not only [for] Venetian art but for all of Italian art,” Giulio Manieri Elia, the museum’s director, told the London Times’ James Imam. “It represents that pivotal moment in the Renaissance when the polyptych made with multiple panels transitioned to monumental single altarpieces.”

The 15th-century painting now needs another round of work. Conservators have decided it is too delicate to move, so they will stabilize, clean and protect it where it hangs. The museum has turned the exhibition hall into a temporary laboratory, letting visitors see the restoration as it happens.

This choice to carry out the work in public view is “not only about caring for an absolute masterpiece of our collection,” Elia said in a statement shared with Artnet’s Richard Whiddington. “It’s about demonstrating how scientific knowledge, responsible conservation and visitor communication are integral to the museum experience.”

According to a statement from the museum, the painting is made up of 13 horizontal poplar planks joined with glue and wooden pins. Over time, changes in temperature caused the wood to expand and contract. That movement led to long cracks on the surface. The painting has also become discoloured over the centuries.

Conservators plan to stabilize the wood, gently remove dirt and old varnish, deal with the cracks and bring back the original colour. They will then apply a new varnish to protect the surface in the years ahead.

“The work site, set up directly in the room with large windows overlooking the working area, will allow visitors to follow the project live, observing up close the different stages of study, analysis and conservation treatment of the artwork,” the museum said in a March 19 Instagram post.

As part of the project, conservators will also use ultraviolet fluorescence and infrared imaging to study the painting. They want to learn more about the original composition and about the effects of the six restorations carried out over the past 200 years.

The early findings have already turned up several preparatory layers beneath the painted surface, according to the museum statement. Those layers include coats of glue and a clear primer made of white lead. Conservators have also found that some of Bellini’s brushstrokes contain a mix of three pigments.

The project will take two years and cost $580,000. Venetian Heritage, a nonprofit that works to preserve Venice’s art and architecture, is funding part of it.

Last year, the same group helped fund the restoration of another Bellini work, Pietà, also known as Dead Christ Supported by Angels. That painting belongs to the City Museum of Rimini and is currently on view at the Morgan Library & Museum in New York.

Watching major restoration work in person is not limited to Venice. In Amsterdam, visitors to the Rijksmuseum can also observe the restoration of Rembrandt’s The Night Watch. Conservators there are cleaning and restoring the 17th-century painting from behind a glass barrier.

Once work on Bellini’s altarpiece is finished, the painting will move to a former church that is now part of the museum. “That will give it more breathing space,” Toto Bergamo Rossi, director of Venetian Heritage, told the Times. “It will look even more glorious.”

📸 Credit: Matteo Panciera

This Museum is Letting Visitors Watch Conservators Restore This 15th-Century Masterpiece

5 for Good WCVB

An old firehouse in East Boston now sounds very different. Inside Engine 40, young people run a radio station, practice instruments, write songs, and learn technical skills through ZUMIX, a nonprofit focused on music and the creative arts.

The organization has been in East Boston for nearly 35 years, but it started on a much smaller scale.

Co-founder Madeleine Steczynski said ZUMIX grew out of a specific moment in the community.

"The beginnings … really were in response to the epidemic of gang violence in the late '80s and the very early '90s," she said to WCVB.

In the summer of 1991, the program was taught out of Steczynski’s East Boston apartment. Eighteen kids learned about songwriting there.

Now, the historic firehouse houses a much broader set of programs.

Program director Corey Depina said the group now offers instruction across music, performance, and technical media.

"Magic happens here at ZUMIX," Depina said. "We make dreams come true. We offer programs that start as a small … like private lessons in guitar, drums, bass, piano. Kids can graduate from that and form ensembles that go out and get paid and do gigs. We also have an audio creative tech media pathway where young kids can learn live sound, audio engineering, studio engineering."

That range of programs is reflected in the experiences of students and alumni.

Board member and alumnus Bryan Zuluaga said ZUMIX gave him technical skills and work, but he said its effect on his life went well beyond that.

"Before, it was the place that gave me technical skills and a job. This was a place where I felt comfortable with other adults," he said. "(One) of the first places in my life where someone that was not my family member was an older person that I could ask about college, or I could talk to about what jobs and taxes were, or just anything else that was going on."

Zuluaga now serves on the board of the same nonprofit where he once took part as a young person.

Current student Kenneth Palacios said he first found ZUMIX when he was in 8th grade. The Revere High School junior started with guitar lessons, then expanded into other parts of the organization.

He now hosts his own live radio show.

Palacios said one program led to another.

"Radio became storytelling," Palacios said to WCVB. "That became playing guitar for a band, that became making new friends, (then) photography and doing music journalism. All these different things kind of just manifested within each other."

ZUMIX describes its mission as empowering youth through music and the creative arts. Its current setup inside the former firehouse includes space for radio, instruments, songwriting, and technical instruction.

The organization’s history stretches from an apartment-based songwriting program for 18 kids in 1991 to a nonprofit with multiple pathways in music and creative media.

Depina said those pathways can begin with private lessons in instruments, including guitar, drums, bass, and piano. From there, he said, students can move into ensembles that perform paid gigs, or into technical training in live sound, audio engineering, and studio engineering.

For alumni such as Zuluaga, that structure offered a place to build skills and find trusted adults. For students such as Palacios, it opened the door from guitar lessons to radio, storytelling, photography, and music journalism.

ZUMIX is celebrating its 35th year with a number of events this spring and summer.

📸 Credit: WCVB

A Boston Nonprofit is Empowering Youth With Music, Radio and Creative Tech Skills

Good News Network

For the palm cockatoo, finding a home can take centuries. Now, conservationists say they have found a way to help, after a chick hatched in an artificial nest designed to mimic the rare tree hollows the species depends on.

Scientists say the ideal nesting hollow for the palm cockatoo can take 250 years to form. It needs mature trees, termites or fungi to create a hollow, exposure from strong Southern Pacific cyclones, and no wildfires during that long process.

Deforestation is making that combination even harder to come by.

People for Wildlife says it has now “cracked the code” on getting the birds to nest in artificial hollows, in what the group says is a major step for the species’ protection.

“This is huge news,” People for Wildlife associate researcher Christina Zdenek told ABC News AU. “We have a highly endangered species in severe decline, and we’ve been working for years to crack the code of how to help them. And we finally have.”

The palm cockatoo lives in Queensland, Australia’s northernmost state. It is a large bird, well over 30 centimetres in length from tip to tail, with a black crest, red cheek and a large black beak.

Like other cockatoos, it can use tools. During mating season, it uses a stick to drum rhythms on hollow trees.

That behaviour has earned it the nickname the Ringo bird, after Beatles drummer Ringo Starr.

Fewer than 2,000 palm cockatoos remain, according to the source text. Their nesting needs are highly specific. The birds look for hollows in mature trees made by termites or fungi and exposed by cyclone winds. Logging and more intense wildfires interrupt the long process needed for those hollows to form.

To try to work around that problem, People for Wildlife teamed up with a specialist woodcarver to create the “Palm Cockatube.”

The design uses a section of old-growth tree trunk hollowed out to mimic the natural feel of the hollows the birds choose in the wild.

The group installed 29 artificial nests across prime habitat where palm cockatoos were known to live but were not currently nesting. The nests used three different designs.

Last September, Dr Zdenek and her colleague Benjamin Muller noticed adult birds visiting one particular hollow. They later found an egg inside.

That egg has now hatched, in what the group described as a moment of delight for the researchers and for the Apudthama Traditional Owners.

The result could matter beyond one species. Tree hollows are used by many animals in Australia as shelter, and Dr Zdenek said the success of the artificial nests could help others too.

She said animals such as the glider, a tree-dwelling marsupial with wings like a flying squirrel, may also benefit if the artificial hollows work for a species as selective as the palm cockatoo.

“Palm cockatoos here are the umbrella species; if you save them, you save dozens of others,” she said.

📸 credit: Benjamin Muller via ABC News AU

This Artificial Nest is Helping Save the Endangered Palm Cockatoos

Talker News

A red panda is back at Highland Wildlife Park, and keepers sound pretty pleased about it.

Priya, a three-year-old female, arrived at the Kingussie park from Edinburgh Zoo on Tuesday. Keepers said her arrival marks the "long-awaited return" of red pandas at Highland Wildlife Park.

Michael Livingstone, carnivore team leader at Highland Wildlife Park, said: “It’s always exciting to welcome a new animal, but even more so when they are as sweet and well-mannered as little Priya. I’m excited to see our visitors fall in love with her.

“I used to look after Priya at Edinburgh Zoo, so I know her well. It’s wonderful to be reunited and to see her enjoying a new home. The habitat is beautiful, with lots of trees, areas to explore and plenty of space for her to do as she pleases. She’s going to be really happy here.”

Keepers will soon welcome a male red panda to join Priya, and they said they have high hopes of successfully breeding the endangered species.

The Royal Zoological Society of Scotland, the wildlife conservation charity that runs both zoos, designed the new red panda habitat. 

 📸Credit: Talker News

This Adorable, Endangered Red Panda Just Arrived at a Wildlife Park to Boost Conservation Efforts

"dolly parton en american idol" by Alejo Castillo is licensed under CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/)

inspiremore

For decades, Dolly Parton has backed children’s causes. Now her name is going on a children’s hospital in Tennessee after what its chief executive described as a far-reaching donation.

East Tennessee Children’s Hospital in Knoxville is now Dolly Parton Children’s Hospital, according to Chief Healthcare Executive.

Parton never had children of her own, but she created Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library to encourage a lifelong love of reading. In 30 years, the program has gifted more than 200 million books.

Her support has also reached other projects in Tennessee, and now includes the renamed hospital in Knoxville.

Matt Schafer, president and CEO of Dolly Parton Children’s Hospital, told Chief Healthcare Executive that meeting with Parton and hospital staff to talk about the future left a strong impression.

“It was truly humbling, and to hear her, in her own words, talk about the importance of this to her, to her community, to this organization, and to children, was super affirming,” Schafer said.

Schafer did not disclose financial details of the agreement, but he said Parton’s backing would have a lasting effect on the hospital.

“What I can tell you is that she has made a generational and transformational commitment to Children’s and its mission, and that commitment is something that goes beyond our wildest expectations, that is, beyond generous, and will be a lifeline for this mission for now and for years to come. And we’re excited about and humbled by her willingness to do so,” he said.

Schafer also said Parton’s support is expected to help fundraising efforts and bring wider attention to the hospital’s work.

“Fundraising has and will continue to be a big part of ensuring that mission is exceeded to its fullest,” the CEO explained. “And there’s no time like this opportunity to tell our story in a broader way, to have the halo effect of Dolly Parton and those who like to support what she supports. We’re seeing some of the early fruits of that, and I believe we will continue to see that moving forward.”

"dolly parton en american idol" by Alejo Castillo is licensed under CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/)

Dolly Parton, The Queen of Kindness, Now Has a New Children's Hospital in Her Name

Comets are messy, hard-to-predict things, and comet 41P/Tuttle-Giacobini-Kresák has now given astronomers another reason to say so.

A new study described on March 26 in the Astronomical Journal says the comet may have done something rarely, if ever, seen directly before: slowed its spin to a stop and then started rotating the other way.

The object, known as 41P, had already caught scientists’ attention years ago. In early 2017, researchers reported that the comet’s rotation had slowed dramatically. It was taking about 46 to 60 hours to complete one rotation, more than twice as long as its earlier roughly 20-hour spin.

Comets do sometimes change how fast they rotate, but usually by much smaller amounts. “By so many hours and so drastically, that we’ve never seen,” Dennis Bodewits, an astronomer at Auburn University and a co-author of the older study, told Jonathan O’Callaghan at the New York Times.

That was not the end of it.

David Jewitt, an astronomer at the University of California, Los Angeles, recently studied archival images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope in December 2017. He found that by then, 41P had sped up again, rotating about once every 14 hours.

Taken together, the observations point to a simple explanation. The comet appears to have slowed down, stopped spinning, and then begun rotating in the opposite direction.

Jewitt told Nikk Ogasa at Science News that the likely cause was sunlight heating some of the comet’s ice and turning it into jets of gas. Those jets can act like thrusters on a rocket. Most of the strongest jets are probably on one side of the comet, pushing it into a particular spin.

“It’s like pushing a merry-go-round,” Jewitt said in a statement from NASA. “If it’s turning in one direction, and then you push against that, you can slow it and reverse it.”

That kind of change may be easier for 41P than for a larger object. The comet is considered small. Its rocky center, or nucleus, is about 0.6 miles wide. According to the report, that probably makes it somewhat easy to twist.

Scientists estimate that 41P entered its current orbit about 1,500 years ago after Jupiter’s gravity flung it there. It now passes through the inner part of the solar system roughly every 5.4 years.

Comets themselves are icy leftovers from the formation of the solar system about 4.6 billion years ago. They contain frozen gases, rock and dust because they formed far from the sun’s heat.

Qicheng Zhang, an astronomer at the Lowell Observatory who was not involved in the study, said 41P may not be unusual so much as unusually visible. “Most comets of this size probably change their rotation on comparable or shorter timescales,” Zhang said in a statement from the observatory. “They just tend to not pass close enough to Earth for these changes to be observable. In many cases, they’re just destroyed before we ever get a second look at the rotation.”

Jane Luu, an astronomer at the University of Oslo in Norway who was not involved in the work, told the Times that researchers had already suspected comets could go through these kinds of reversals. “But as far as I know, this is the first observation to catch a comet doing that in the act,” she said.

The study also suggests the comet’s surface may be changing quickly. The source text says most structural changes in comets take centuries, but 41P appears to be evolving fast enough for scientists to follow over a human lifetime.

Jewitt also ran computer simulations of the comet. Those simulations suggest its spin will keep speeding up. As that happens, the force from the rotation could eventually become stronger than the gravity holding the comet together, causing it to break into several pieces.

Jewitt told Science News that it is hard to say exactly when comet 41P will break apart, but it might happen in only a few decades.

📸 Credit: Space Telescope Science Institute

An Astronomer May Have Seen a Comet Halt Its Spin and Reverse Rotation for the First Time

A new documentary series starts with a hard question and keeps it simple: Can joy still exist in grief?

"Joy Drive," from Joy Magnet Media and Creation Studios, is now streaming on BINGE Networks and YouTube. The series is hosted by media personality and joy expert Shari Alyse and follows her across the United States after the loss of her father to ALS.

According to the release, Shari traveled 8,000 miles to better understand what joy looks like in real life. The series says that search came at a time when she was dealing with grief, change and what the release describes as "the complexities of midlife."

Rather than presenting a fixed message, the series is framed as a record of that process.

As Alyse traveled coast to coast, she spoke with people from different backgrounds in conversations described as honest and unscripted. The release says those conversations reflect the emotional and cultural climate of America today.

The series includes an episode centered on ALS, which is deeply personal for Alyse. It also includes social experiments about how busy people are and how little time they take for themselves, along with conversations with women in their "second act" who are redefining their lives and stepping into a new purpose.

Alyse said joy came up repeatedly during filming.

“No matter where I went in the country, one thing kept showing up,” says Alyse. “We may disagree on a lot, but we all agree on this. We could all use more joy. And more importantly, we’re all looking for it in the same place. In connection.”

"Joy Drive" is now available on BINGE Networks and YouTube. You can also listen to Alyse's 3-part audio sessions here in Goodable Plus.

A Documentary Series is Tracking an 8,000-Mile Journey to Rediscover Joy After Loss

"Cardi B - Openair Frauenfeld 2019 02 (cropped)" by Frank Schwichtenberg is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/)

USA Today

Hip-hop is heading to the classroom at Howard University, this time with Cardi B at the centre of the syllabus.

The Washington, DC-based historically black college and university is offering a new course called “The Cardi B: Am I The Drama? The Art, Production, Marketing, and Cultural Impact of Hip-Hop.” The class will examine the Grammy-winning rapper’s rollout for her sophomore album, released seven years after her debut.

The course comes through the Warner Music/Blavatnik Music Business Center at Howard, led by director Jasmine Young. Young, known as the Hip-Hop Professor, has worked with major acts during her career in the music business, including DMX and Jay Z.

Now, she says, that experience is helping connect students with the industry.

“This center came about because of the passion and community that we have at Howard University for the music industry and as a way to support students to be a pathway,” Young told USA TODAY.

The class carries three credits and has 24 slots for the fall. Young said it has already drawn strong interest from underclassmen since it was announced.

She said she and her co-teachers will be able to “speak to the students on their level and about what they're excited for."

“Cardi B is a household name at this point, a phenomenon. And we're going to talk about her rise, and what makes her this amazing, global, iconic person in the music business," she added.

In a LinkedIn post, Young said the course treats hip-hop as an academic subject and a business at the same time.

“This course is groundbreaking because it validates hip-hop as both a scholarly discipline and a living, breathing global economy, while giving students real-time access to the strategies, storytelling, and brand architecture behind a superstar like Cardi B. Students are excited because this isn’t theory alone, it’s access, it's proximity, it’s the REAL playbook."

Young is teaching the class with Dr. Msia Kibona Clark, associate professor in the Department of African Studies and director of Howard’s hip-hop studies minor, and Professor Pat Parks, assistant professor and area coordinator in the Department of Theatre Arts.

The curriculum will look at Cardi B, along with the team behind “Am I The Drama?” and its success. According to the source text, the course will focus on the people who helped the album become a platinum-level success.

Young said students will hear from people working in different parts of the business.

“In addition to textbook research and case studies, Howard students will ‘be talking to production, and they'll be talking to marketing,’” Young said. “Then also learning about gender and culture and the representation of Black women and minority women in the music business.”

The class is built around an era in Cardi B’s career that has kept public attention. The source text says that during this period, she has been in the spotlight through her court trial, rap feuds, fashion and a sold-out headlining tour.

It also says Cardi B has built her star power on vulnerability and relatability, interacting with fans online and in person at shows across the country.

That public-facing approach has also carried into her business work. Last month, she held a pop-up event in her hometown of the Bronx, New York, for her new haircare line, Grow Good Beauty.

Howard is not the only university to build a class around a major music star. The source text says Yale University and Cornell University have recently examined Beyoncé’s cultural impact and influence. Earlier this year, Tina Knowles appeared as a guest for Vanderbilt University’s “Beyoncé: Epic Artist, Feminist Icon” course.

For Young, there is still one more step she would like to take with the class.

“My dream workshop would be Cardi B and her team, for them to just teach... and talk to the students in real time about the success," Young said.

"Cardi B - Openair Frauenfeld 2019 02 (cropped)" by Frank Schwichtenberg is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/)

Howard University Launches New Course on Cardi B’s Cultural Impact Amid High Anticipation

For one University of Toronto Scarborough English class, the syllabus comes with body slams, heel turns and a trip to the wrestling ring.

Professor Daniel Tysdal is teaching a course that asks students to treat professional wrestling as a serious storytelling form, combining literary analysis with hands-on experience in and around the ring.

The course, ENGD54 “Extremely Revealing Bullshit” - The Art of Professional Wrestling, looks at wrestling through character, narrative structure and audience response. Tysdal says the class grew out of his own return to wrestling in the early days of the pandemic, when he started watching All Elite Wrestling, or AEW, at home with his wife.

A fan as a child, Tysdal said his casual viewing turned into something deeper and eventually fed into his own writing.

“I just started to see it as an art form,” says Tysdal, an award-winning poet and short fiction writer. “Like fiction or film, when it comes down to it, pro wrestling is all about storytelling.”

Tysdal wanted to understand that storytelling more closely, so he signed up for classes at Superkick’d, a Toronto wrestling gym near his home. That was where he first stepped into the ring.

What he found, according to the course description, was a form that demanded physical and creative discipline. The first lesson was basic and unforgiving.

“The first thing you learn is how to fall properly,” he says. “Everything you do is built around that.”

Training includes repeated drills on how to land safely, move with a partner and perform sequences that look violent but are carefully controlled. The work is physically exhausting, combining strength training, cardio and choreography.

Tysdal has since developed his own in-ring character, “A+” Mr. Croxtin, described as a reluctant teacher turned unlikely hero. He debuted the persona at the OssFest street festival.

His time in wrestling also shaped how he teaches it. In the ring, he says, matches usually follow a seven-part narrative arc, moving through set-up, rising tension, climax and resolution. Wrestlers use pacing, moves and character work to tell that story, while the crowd helps shape it in real time.

“You’re telling a story with your body, and the crowd plays a big part of that story,” he says.

That idea sits at the centre of the class. Students study wrestling with literary frameworks, looking at how heroes, heels and more complicated characters drive action. They also study “kayfabe,” the convention of presenting staged events as real, and how that relationship between fiction and reality affects audience engagement.

“It’s just like watching a good play,” says Tysdal. “You’re not thinking these are actors, you just get swept up in the story.”

The course mixes analysis with practice. Students read poetry, comics and academic essays, watch weekly wrestling broadcasts, write reflections and complete critical and creative assignments. Some focus on themes such as race or gender in wrestling. Others build original characters or stories.

For fourth-year English and creative writing student Rekha Samlal, the course opened up a form she had never followed before.

“I didn’t have a background in wrestling at all, but I was intrigued,” she says.

Over the semester, Samlal said she became invested in the storylines and the characters she watched each week.

“I was very confused at first, but then you get heavily invested. You want to know what will happen next,” she says.

The course also takes students out of the classroom. As part of the class, they attend a live wrestling event and visit the gym where Tysdal trains. There, they learn basic techniques and get a closer look at the physical demands of the work.

For Samlal, that experience sharpened the line between performance and pain.

“It made me realize, yeah, it might be staged, but what they put their bodies through is still real,” she says. “They’re still hitting the ground; they’re still executing these moves.”

Tysdal says that the mix of intellectual and physical engagement matters. He describes professional wrestling as a way to think about storytelling at the meeting point of sport, theatre and popular culture. He also says it creates room for broader discussion in class.

“Pro wrestling is very political. It’s a great vehicle for talking about class, gender, race, all of these topics,” he says, adding that the industry has also become more progressive and inclusive in recent years.

For Tysdal, the point of the course is to take wrestling seriously as an art form and to show students how stories are built, performed and felt by an audience.

“Once you start looking at it that way, you realize there’s something here for everybody.”

 📸Credit: Don Campbell

A Toronto English Professor is Using Pro-Wrestling to Teach Storytelling in the Classroom

Euro News

A soft glow from a flower sounds like science fiction, but Chinese scientists say they have made it real.

Researchers in China have created genetically engineered plants that glow in the dark by transferring light-producing genes from fireflies and luminous fungi into plant cells. They say the work could change urban lighting, tourism and sustainable design.

The bioluminescent plants emit what researchers described as a soft natural glow. The project was developed using gene-editing technology, and more than 20 species have already been engineered to shine at night, including orchids, sunflowers and chrysanthemums.

Dr Li Renhan, founder of biotechnology company Magicpen Bio and a Ph.D. graduate of China Agricultural University, linked the idea to his childhood.

“I was born in the countryside. Back then, my family didn't have any money, so at night I could do nothing but lie in a hammock in my grandfather's bamboo grove to cool off. Fireflies often landed on my arms,” he recalled.

Li said that years later, while studying genetic editing, he began asking if the same biological mechanisms could be moved into plants.

"We wanted to transfer genes from animals, like those of fireflies, into plants, so they could also glow at night. We're dedicated to bringing this technology to cultural tourism and the nighttime economy. Imagine a valley filled with glowing plants in the dark, it would be like bringing the 'Avatar' world to Earth."

The plants were recently shown in public at the Zhongguancun Forum. Researchers examined experimental specimens there and showcased flowers emitting visible light without external power sources.

Li said the possible uses go beyond appearance. He said bioluminescent plants could light parks and public spaces without electricity, relying only on water and nutrients to function.

"Beyond tourism, we could also use them in urban parks without the need for electricity,” he explained, describing the system as highly efficient and low-carbon. "These plants don't need electricity. They only need water and fertiliser. They save energy, reduce emissions, and can light up cities at night."

Researchers also said similar techniques are already helping scientists watch how diseases develop at a cellular level. They said that is speeding up drug discovery and improving treatments for conditions that were previously difficult to treat.

In agriculture, scientists said gene editing is also being used to edit susceptibility genes in rice. They said that work has produced new strains resistant to multiple pests and provides a solid foundation for global food security.

Download the world's only news app designed to spread joy and happiness.

What's Good Now!