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Upworthy

In a quiet corner of the Netherlands, a revolutionary approach to dementia care is redefining what it means to age with dignity.

It’s called The Hogeweyk — and it looks nothing like a nursing home.

Instead of hospital beds and fluorescent lighting, residents of this purpose-built village walk past shops, dine in restaurants, and live in cozy apartments. Everyone from the cashier at the grocery store to the hairstylist at the local salon is trained in dementia care. The streets are enclosed for safety, but within them, people are free to move about, explore, and live with as much independence as possible.

Founded in 2009, The Hogeweyk was the world’s first "dementia village." Since then, the concept has spread across the globe. But its core idea has remained the same: treat people with dementia as people — not patients — and create a place that prioritizes their freedom, identity, and comfort.

Eloy van Hal, one of the founders, explained to Vox that the guiding principle of the village is “normalcy.”

“It’s about choice, choice, choice — where you want to be during the whole day and with whom,” he said.

Unlike traditional care homes, where everyone is housed under one roof and follows a rigid program, residents at The Hogeweyk live in small households of six to seven people. The apartments are styled to reflect familiar environments. The village has distinct landmarks and separate buildings for everyday activities, which help orient residents and encourage natural movement throughout the neighborhood.

The approach is rooted in a simple but powerful belief: people with dementia still have aspirations. They still deserve joy, agency, and connection.

That stands in stark contrast to many institutional care models, which often focus more on managing risk than enhancing life. Van Hal and his team take a different approach: build for safety, but accept a level of controlled risk if it means giving people back a sense of normal life.

“We don’t have to make people prisoners to keep them safe,” he said in previous interviews.

It’s not a cheap model. Without public funding, dementia villages can be cost-prohibitive. But for those who have experienced the difference firsthand, the impact is undeniable.

One commenter on Vox’s video described moving their grandmother from a traditional memory care unit into a village-style facility after a year of watching her spirit fade.

“The quality of life difference is nothing short of ASTOUNDING,” they wrote. “She could function in a way that was familiar and comfortable to her and not be in a foreign hospital setting.”

Another person, who worked in a nursing home, recalled patients begging to go outside, feeling trapped in a place that didn’t resemble the lives they once knew.

“This concept is probably the closest thing possible to a normal life a dementia patient could ever have,” they wrote.

It’s not just about logistics. Locked doors, sterile environments, and confusing layouts can cause deep emotional distress for people with cognitive impairment. One relative of a dementia patient shared how their loved one would become angry and frightened upon encountering locked rooms she didn’t understand.

“These village-based models allow autonomy and an individual experience,” they said. “Just because someone has a brain disease doesn't mean they aren't entitled to the very best care.”

The early data from The Hogeweyk is promising. While long-term outcomes are still being studied, what’s clear is how transformative the environment can feel — not just for residents, but for their families and caregivers too.

And the need for solutions like this is growing fast.

In the United States alone, the number of people living with Alzheimer’s disease is projected to nearly double by 2050 — from 7 million today to 13 million, according to the Alzheimer’s Association. That’s a staggering shift, and it raises urgent questions about how the country will handle long-term care for millions of older adults.

Facilities like The Hogeweyk offer a glimpse of what’s possible when design, policy, and compassion come together. They show that it’s not only about extending life, but improving the quality of it.

As one viewer put it: “Even if there is proven to be no benefits to this model over a care home, I would much prefer to have dignity in my final days than live in a clinical trap.”

That sentiment, more than anything, speaks to why dementia villages matter. They treat people with memory loss not as problems to be managed, but as people — deserving of safety, freedom, and care that honors who they are.

Inside the World’s First ‘Dementia Village,’ Where Residents Live Freely and with Dignity

USA Today

As winter storms roll across the United States, millions of snowflakes are drifting from the sky — each one a tiny, frozen work of art. But how exactly do these intricate crystals form? And why is it that no two snowflakes are the same?

The short answer: science, symmetry, and a little chaos in the atmosphere.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), every snowflake begins its life high in the clouds as a microscopic speck — usually a bit of dust or pollen — surrounded by supercooled water vapor. When that water vapor freezes, it forms a tiny ice crystal.

As the crystal begins to fall through the atmosphere, it grows by attracting more water vapor, which instantly freezes onto its surface. The process creates a six-sided structure, thanks to the molecular shape of ice. But what happens next depends entirely on the path that snowflake takes to the ground.

Atmospheric conditions like humidity and temperature change as the snowflake falls, and that alters how the crystal grows. At colder temperatures, snowflakes tend to grow into slender columns. At warmer (but still subfreezing) temperatures, they form flat plates. If the air is more humid, more elaborate branches may form. The Japanese physicist Ukichiro Nakaya was one of the first scientists to create a system that mapped how temperature and humidity influence these shapes.

Because each snowflake takes a slightly different journey, encountering different conditions along the way, each one develops a distinct pattern. That’s what makes every snowflake truly unique — even if they all share the same basic hexagonal structure.

And just how many of these natural ice sculptures fall every year? According to the Library of Congress, the total is estimated at around 1 septillion — that’s a 1 followed by 24 zeroes. In other words, more snowflakes fall in one winter than there are grains of sand on Earth.

So next time snow is falling outside your window, take a moment to catch one on your glove. You’ll be holding a fleeting piece of natural engineering — a frozen snapshot of the clouds above.

Scientists Unveil The Intricate Process Behind Unique Snowflake Formation

People

At two and a half months old, Kairu (the first ever southern white rhino born at a zoo in Valencia, Spain, began exploring the facility’s expansive multi-species savanna enclosure.

Heartwarming footage released by Bioparc Valencia on January 23 shows the adorable calf alongside its mother, Kwanza, and Nombula, the zoo’s oldest female white rhino.

Bioparc Valencia said the rhino’s birth on November 4 “represents hope” for the near-threatened species that poachers target for its horn.

Playful White Rhino Calf Zooms Around Its New Habitat

Smithsonian Magazine

Positive thinking doesn’t just make you feel better — it might actually help your body fight off illness, too.

New research published January 19 in Nature Medicine suggests that activating the brain’s reward system through hopeful, optimistic thinking can strengthen the body’s immune response to vaccines.

“It’s the first demonstration in humans, in what seems to be a causal manner, that if you learn how to recruit your reward system in the brain, the effectiveness of immunization increases,” said Talma Hendler, a psychiatrist and neuroscientist at Tel Aviv University, speaking to The Guardian.

Hendler and her team studied 85 participants between March 2020 and August 2022. A subset of 34 people were trained to activate their brain’s mesolimbic reward system — specifically the ventral tegmental area (VTA) and the nucleus accumbens — using a technique called neurofeedback.

Inside a brain scanner, participants engaged in guided mental tasks: recalling meaningful memories, thinking about their daily routines, or imagining a successful future. The scanner tracked their brain activity in real time and gave feedback, allowing them to adjust their thoughts to strengthen activity in the targeted regions.

“We open a sort of window into an unconscious neural activity,” said Nitzan Lubianiker, a study co-author and neuroscientist at Yale University, in an interview with Scientific American.

Once participants completed four sessions of training, they received a hepatitis B vaccine. Blood was drawn before the training, then again two and four weeks after the vaccine, to measure antibody production. A smaller group returned three months later for additional testing.

The results were clear: the more participants activated the VTA, the stronger their immune response to the vaccine. That effect was especially linked to hopeful thinking about the future — a mental state the researchers called “positive expectation.”

Other participants in the study were either trained to activate different brain areas or spent time in the scanner without any neurofeedback training. They didn’t show the same immune boost.

The researchers are careful to point out that this kind of brain training isn’t a replacement for vaccines or medical treatment. “The approach we tested is intended solely as a complementary tool that may enhance immune responsiveness to vaccination,” Lubianiker said. “It cannot, and is not meant to, replace vaccines or standard medical care.”

The findings also shed light on a potential biological explanation for the placebo effect — the well-documented phenomenon where people experience real physical improvement from a fake treatment, simply because they believe it will help. The mesolimbic reward system and positive expectations have previously been tied to that effect.

In a commentary published alongside the study, immunologists Kyungdeok Kim, Ben Title, and Jonathan Kipnis of Washington University School of Medicine said the findings highlight how brain activity might influence immune function in medical settings. The results suggest that so-called “hope circuits” in the brain could have a measurable effect on health.

This study doesn’t mean that good vibes alone can replace medicine. But it does suggest that how you feel — and what you expect — can shape how your body responds to it.

Feeling Hopeful Might Actually Boost Your Immune System, Study Finds

A mail carrier is alive thanks to quick-thinking strangers who jumped into action moments after a crash in Parkland, Washington, left his USPS truck in flames.

The collision happened on Jan. 8 in the 10600 block of Park Avenue South, when a USPS mail truck and a white sedan crashed. Both the mailman and a backseat passenger in the sedan were seriously injured, according to the Pierce County Sheriff’s Office.

But the situation turned even more dangerous when smoke began pouring from the postal truck. That’s when Stephanie Burkhart Mabee, who was nearby, rushed to help.

“It was just really, really smoking,” she told KIRO 7 News. “It wasn’t like in flames yet, but you could tell that it was getting ready to.”

Mabee grabbed a hammer, a seatbelt cutter, and a fire extinguisher from her own car and ran toward the wreck. The driver of the mail truck was still inside, unable to move. She used her hammer to break off the door handle, slid the door open, and cut through the seatbelt to begin pulling him out.

Body camera footage from the responding deputy shows the tense scene as the vehicle began to catch fire. Mabee and the deputy worked together to try to douse the growing flames.

“He started with his fire extinguisher. And then we noticed the fire wasn’t going out,” Mabee said. “So we both ran back over to the guy and pulled the guy further away.”

The sheriff’s office confirmed the mail carrier and the sedan passenger were both taken to area hospitals in serious condition.

In a statement shared on social media, the sheriff’s office thanked Mabee and Central Pierce Fire for their actions.

“Thank you to the female bystander who stopped to help and to Central Pierce Fire for all your great work,” they wrote.

For Mabee, helping wasn’t even a question.

“I would wish that if something was going on with somebody in my family or myself, that people wouldn’t just sit in their cars and watch,” she said.

Thanks to her bravery—and the fast response from first responders—a devastating situation didn’t turn fatal.

A Heroic Deputy and Good Samaritan Just Rescued an Injured Mailman From a Burning Truck After a Crash

For decades, Eric Hollaway thought suffering was just part of the deal.

Every spring, the singer and voice-over artist would steel himself for what was coming: weeks of sneezing, congestion, and fatigue so intense it felt like a flu that never ended. As a lifelong allergy sufferer, he’d relied on allergy shots for relief. But when his trusted doctor moved away from the St. Petersburg, Florida, area, Hollaway stopped the treatments.

That decision nearly derailed his career.

“I was getting so tired with the constant sneezing and stuffiness,” said Hollaway. “My agents were calling me to do readings, and I couldn’t do it.”

At 59, his breathing problems had gotten so bad that he could barely perform. Hollaway, whose deep, resonant voice has landed him voice-over gigs for Mercedes-Benz, Geico, and UFC, knew something had to change.

After researching his options, he found one: a 30-minute outpatient procedure called a balloon sinuplasty. In June 2023, doctors used a tiny catheter to open up his blocked sinus passages. What they found surprised even him.

Unbeknownst to Hollaway, he was also living with nasal polyps—noncancerous growths that clog nasal passages and are often linked to allergies. Within days of the procedure, he felt like a new man.

“Once I healed up, I literally cried because for the first time in my life I could just wake up and breathe,” he said. “My normal wake-up routine used to involve half an hour of snorting and coughing and just clearing myself out. I was like, ‘Oh my goodness, this is amazing!’”

Nasal polyps affect an estimated 13 million Americans. In addition to making breathing harder, they can also lead to chronic congestion, sinus headaches, and loss of smell or taste.

“The body overreacts to the environment and causes a lot of inflammation and swelling, which leads to polyp formation,” said Dr. William Yao, a rhinologist and associate professor at UT Health, Houston.

His doctor, Dr. Mariah Pate, medical director of Tampa Bay Breathe Free Sinus and Allergy Centers, explained that sinuses can become so inflamed that they effectively wall themselves off.

“When the sinuses become obstructed because of an infection or some other issue, it starts to swell because it’s so inflamed,” she said.

Now, Hollaway is back to receiving regular allergy shots to help keep the symptoms away. For the first time in years, he feels fully himself again.

“If anybody has suffered like I have, they'll understand,” he said. “Now I just wake up and go about my day with no complications.”

Hollaway knows what it’s like to go without help. Growing up in a family of five children in St. Petersburg, his parents didn’t have the means to send him to specialists.

“My parents were hardworking, but with five kids they couldn’t afford to send us to doctors and dentists and all that kind of thing,” he said.

Springtime was the worst. While his brothers slept peacefully, he’d be up half the night, coughing and congested. The only thing that seemed to set him apart—besides his allergies—was his voice.

“Other boys went through puberty with their voice changing, but mine went straight down—and it’s been there ever since,” he said.

He joined a youth choir, and by age 17, attended a summer music camp where his baritone stood out. After high school, he joined the U.S. Army and was stationed in Germany as a nuclear warhead technician. The upside? Military health care finally helped him get diagnosed.

“I had a skin test, and when I asked about the results, the doctor said, ‘You can just say you’re allergic to Mother Nature,’” he recalled.

Back home, he married his childhood friend Traci, and the two started a family. He held down jobs in manufacturing while gigging at weddings and in local music groups. But even as his voice career gained traction, his allergy symptoms followed him.

In 1992, he finally started regular allergy shots. For the first time, they brought real relief.

“It got to one point to where I had an allergy-free season,” he said. “That was incredible because I never knew what that was like.”

By 2005, he was working with a Tampa DJ who helped him learn to produce and record his own voice work. Weekend gigs turned into commercial work. Eventually, he left his day job to do voice work full-time.

“My voice didn’t become what it is overnight,” Hollaway said. “It’s the result of decades of persistence and, honestly, a lot of life lived. My voice connects with people because I’m not trying to sound like anyone else.”

But in 2015, everything changed again. His allergist left town. At first, Hollaway figured he could manage without the shots. But by 2022, things were spiraling.

“It was like I couldn’t do anything,” he said. “I didn’t want to leave the house because all the pollen is outside.”

That’s when he found Dr. Pate and learned about balloon sinuplasty.

“I was all numbed up so I didn’t feel anything,” he said. “But I could hear all this cracking as she’s going up through my nasal passages, opening them up with these little balloons. She said I had one of the most severe cases she’d seen.”

A scan showed his nasal passages were almost completely closed. Seeing it, he admitted, was “really scary.”

Since then, Hollaway’s life has turned around. The grandfather of six says he’s got more energy, a better voice, and a greater appreciation for his health.

“My voice has a more resonant and fuller sound, and I was very pleased about that.”

These days, he and Traci enjoy cooking and spending time together in their now-quiet house. And Hollaway hopes others might learn from his experience.

“As I get older, I’m listening to my body more,” he said. “I waited longer than I should have because I thought I could just push through. And now I feel incredibly grateful. Breathing should never be something you have to fight for.”

After a Lifetime of Struggling to Breathe, He Finally Found Relief — And Got His Voice Back

Talker News

In the rain-soaked forests of Borneo, a mother orangutan was spotted doing something remarkably human—holding a giant leaf over her baby to keep him dry.

The tender moment, captured on video in December in Indonesia’s Bukit Baka Bukit Raya National Park, shows Muria and her son Bumi huddled together as the rain pours down. Muria uses the oversized leaf like an umbrella, shielding both of them from the downpour.

“This is not AI, we promise!” said UK-based International Animal Rescue (IAR), which shared the footage. “It’s a gentle reminder of how intelligent and resourceful orangutans are, and just how similar they are to us.”

Muria’s journey back to the wild has been a long one. Rescued years ago by Indonesia’s wildlife conservation agency (BKSDA), she spent more than seven years in rehabilitation with IAR’s Indonesian partners, YIARI. She was released in 2019.

Three years later, she gave birth to Bumi—one of several wild-born infants now thriving thanks to the team’s ongoing conservation efforts.

“Seeing Muria and Bumi safe, healthy and living freely is a powerful symbol of hope,” IAR said, “and proof that rescue and rehabilitation truly can restore lives and protect a species.”

Mother Orangutan Shields Baby With Leaf During Rainstorm

Global News

A woman who survived a devastating train crash in southern Spain has been reunited with her dog, four days after he went missing in the chaos.

Ana García, 26, had been traveling with her pregnant sister and their black-and-white dog Boro when their train derailed on Sunday evening in Adamuz, Córdoba. The tail end of the train jumped the tracks and collided with another train coming from the opposite direction, in what became Spain’s deadliest rail disaster in over a decade.

Dozens were killed and more than 150 people were injured. García and her sister were rescued from the wreckage by emergency crews. But as they were being pulled to safety, Boro bolted.

“Please, if you can help, look for the animals,” García pleaded through tears in a televised interview. “We were coming back from a family weekend with the little dog, who’s family, too.”

Her public appeal quickly gained traction. Spaniards flooded social media with posts searching for Boro, while animal welfare group PACMA (Partido Animalista Con el Medio Ambiente) joined the search, warning that the dog was likely “very scared and disoriented” in the area surrounding the crash site.

Then, on Thursday, firefighters searching the nearby forest found Boro alive. Images posted to social media show García hugging her dog tightly.

“Many thanks to all of Spain and everyone who has got involved so much,” García said. “It gave me great hope and we’ve done it.”

PACMA called the reunion a “joy,” but also used the moment to highlight a broader issue. “Boro’s case demonstrates the need for emergency protocols for our animals in cases of accidents or catastrophes,” the group posted on X. “This situation could have been different and resolved sooner.”

PACMA president Javier Luna also expressed his gratitude to the volunteers and emergency crews who helped bring Boro home. “No amount of thanks to the people involved in Boro’s rescue will ever be enough,” the group wrote.

The happy ending comes amid a grim week for Spain’s rail system. Sunday’s crash was followed by two more: a commuter train collision near Barcelona on Tuesday night that killed one person and injured at least 37, and another crash on Thursday in southeastern Spain, where a train hit a crane, injuring six.

Sunday’s derailment was the worst train crash in Spain since 2013, when a high-speed train derailed in Galicia, killing 80 people. As investigations continue, the recent spate of incidents is prompting renewed questions about safety on the country’s extensive railway network.

For García, though, the return of Boro has offered at least one moment of healing in a week marked by trauma. According to PACMA, the dog is now safely home—and “happy.”

Missing Dog Boro Found Safe After Spain Train Crash, Reunites With Owner

Cheyney University in Pennsylvania was founded in 1837 with a clear purpose: to educate the descendants of the African race in academics, trades, and agriculture. Nearly two centuries later, it remains a cornerstone of a broader story—one that’s now being told at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture.

The museum’s new exhibition, At the Vanguard: Making and Saving History at HBCUs, brings that story to life through a striking collection of art, artifacts, and archival material drawn from five historically Black colleges and universities: Clark Atlanta, Florida A&M, Jackson State, Texas Southern, and Tuskegee.

The show dives into the academic, cultural, and social contributions of HBCUs—institutions that emerged out of necessity and went on to shape American life in lasting ways.

"HBCUs are part of the American narrative,” said Deborah Tulani Salahu-Din, a literary historian and co-curator of the show. “Like Black people are part of American history and culture.”

From the Civil War to the Civil Rights era, HBCUs have trained generations of Black educators, artists, doctors, and leaders. Between the 1860s and 1900 alone, more than 90 such schools were established. Shaw University was the first to open after the war. And in 1965, the Higher Education Act formally recognized the role of HBCUs in expanding access to higher education for Black and low-income Americans.

At the Vanguard captures that legacy through physical objects—some humble, some historic. At Tuskegee University, for example, students once learned brickmaking in class and used those very bricks to build the campus. Four of those handmade bricks are now on display at the museum.

“Many of the buildings were created by students,” Salahu-Din said. “Some were even able to help build the school in lieu of paying tuition.”

Elsewhere in the exhibition are George Washington Carver’s notes on peanut oil and a rare 1942 printing of For My People by poet Margaret Walker. Carver’s innovations in agriculture are widely known, but the display also honors his role as a teacher and mentor at Tuskegee. Walker, meanwhile, left a lasting mark at Jackson State University, where she launched the Institute for the Study of the History, Life and Culture of Black People and brought together Black women writers from across the country.

Art also plays a central role. An oil painting by William H. Johnson, lent by Clark Atlanta’s museum, and a sculpture by Cameroonian artist Franck Kemkeng Noah, from Texas Southern, highlight how HBCUs have supported Black artists for decades. Many schools built their own collections long before mainstream institutions showed interest.

“HBCUs played the role in providing platforms and showcasing works that would otherwise just go neglected,” said Salahu-Din.

One of those platforms was created by Hale Woodruff, a painter who founded the first permanent fine arts program at a Southern HBCU—Clark Atlanta—in the 1940s. He later helped establish an annual juried art competition that spotlighted young Black artists, at a time when their work was largely ignored by the broader art world.

“HBCUs saw the value of Black cultural production and Black aesthetics in ways that other audiences probably didn’t understand,” said Joanne T. Hyppolite, NMAAHC’s curator of African diaspora history. “They encouraged students to look at their communities, their landscapes, their families, and paint from that, from what they know and what they saw.”

And while many people associate HBCUs with marching bands and step shows, Hyppolite points out that the schools are incredibly diverse—urban and rural, public and private, large and small. Each has its own identity and legacy.

That diversity is central to the exhibition, which will tour the five campuses that contributed to it once its run in Washington ends. Jeanelle Hope, the museum’s curator of entrepreneurship and innovation, sees it as a rare opportunity for students to connect with their own school’s history.

“A lot of students don’t visit their campus archives or art museums,” said Hope, who previously taught at an HBCU. “Oftentimes, they aren’t aware of the rich history of their campuses.”

The exhibition, she says, is about more than remembering the past—it’s about helping the next generation see themselves as part of it.

From handmade bricks to typewritten lab notes, from early founders to present-day curators, At the Vanguard tells the story of institutions that were never just schools. They were—and still are—engines of culture, guardians of history, and homes for generations of Black excellence.

Historically Black Schools Preserve History With Artifacts From Paintings To Marching Band Hats

The Cool Down

A newborn goat and its mother were rescued from an isolated spot on a cliff in Ajo, Spain, footage released on January 22 by the Cantabria Government Emergency Response Center shows.

“The mother could have given birth there and, since the baby did not come up, she remained with it at that point,” they wrote on X.

Firefighters carried the baby to a safer place where there were more goats, they said.

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