How an Act of Kindness Led Anwar Mabil to Becoming Australian of the Year

Awer Mabil is a South Sudanese refugee who, against all odds, fulfilled his dream of becoming a professional footballer in Australia. Mabil was inspired after footballer Travis Dodd once gave him his jacket when he realized he didn't have one. He is also the co-founder of charity Barefoot To Boots, which provides football gear and other resources to refugees living in camps around the world. Named 2023 Young Australian Of The Year, Mabil hopes to use his new platform to take his charity to new heights and make the world a better place for all.

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867-5309 Now Connects Callers To A Cancer Helpline

That famous phone number from the early 1980s has a new job. The number 867-5309, made famous by Tommy Tutone's 1981 hit "867-5309/Jenny," is now a helpline for people impacted by cancer. Run by the global nonprofit Cancer Support Community, the free line offers guidance, resources and emotional support. If people call, Jenny will not answer. A cancer support expert will. Tommy Tutone singer Tommy Heath, 78, told PEOPLE he was moved to take part because cancer has touched his own life. "I have some family members who are struggling with cancer," Heath told PEOPLE, adding that he is also dealing with "minor" skin cancer. He said the disease can appear without warning. "I'm out on tour with a lot of bands and suddenly somebody's not there," he explained to PEOPLE. Cancer, he said, is "affecting us all." Heath has joined the Cancer Support Community and Gilda's Club for the campaign. Gilda's Club was started in honor of the late actress Gilda Radner, who died from ovarian cancer in 1989. Under the campaign, anyone who dials the number linked to the song can speak with professionals. Cancer Support Community CEO Sally Werner told PEOPLE, "Anyone impacted by cancer can call CSC-867-5309 [272-867-5309] to receive immediate support, trusted information, and personalized guidance from trained specialists at Cancer Support Community." Heath said he hopes the number can offer some comfort in a difficult moment. "I hope when someone is depressed and confused, they'll go, 'Hey, I'll call 867-5309. Somebody's waiting there to help me.' And I hope they smile at that point." "That's the way I think it ought to work, and I hope it does," he said, adding that he jumped at the chance to help the cause. "I need to give back to the community, the people who have supported me all these years," he shared. "I'm going to do what I can." Heath also said he was drawn in as soon as he learned Gilda's Club would benefit. "[Gilda Radner] a big hero of mine," he said. "I'm just glad to be involved." Werner said the helpline is free and staffed by trained professionals. "It is staffed by trained professionals experienced in supporting individuals impacted by cancer. They are skilled in listening, resource navigation, and compassionate support. Many callers say the Helpline helped them feel heard, informed, and less alone. It often becomes a lifeline during one of the most difficult moments in someone’s life," Werner told PEOPLE. Heath said he would welcome the campaign becoming a lasting part of his song's legacy. "I'd be happy if this was an enduring legacy, and made people smile and give them hope," said Heath, who is hitting the road with a summer tour. "(And yes, he'll perform "867-5309/Jenny.") "I'm pretty proud to be part of it." The campaign was created in partnership with the health marketing agency Klick Health. More information is available at csc8675309.com.

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Study Finds Virtual Reality Games Can Boost Kindness

A lost dog, a distressed boy and a virtual reality headset were enough to shift how people felt about helping others. New research suggests virtual reality games can make players kinder by increasing their desire to help. The study found that VR games may raise a person’s sense of altruism and influence levels of empathy. The American study followed participants as they played through a virtual reality scenario in which they helped a boy find his lost dog. The findings were published in the journal Frontiers in Virtual Reality. Researchers said immersive games can motivate people to help, even when they cannot directly relate to someone else’s emotions. Study leader Dr Samantha Lorenzo is not a gamer, but she has widely studied the social and psychological impacts of different forms of communication. She has seen how narratives can play a big role in how people understand information. When Dr Lorenzo came across research about the social and emotional benefits of games, she became curious. She wanted to know if narrative-driven games could influence emotional processes, including altruism and empathy. Dr Lorenzo, from the University of Oregon, was particularly interested in VR because of how immersive the platform is. She believed VR could strengthen the emotional experience for players and lead to more positive outcomes and longer-lasting effects. Dr Lorenzo said: “I had an idea that VR might be an effective tool to influence people's ability to want to help others and better understand other people's perspectives. “I wanted to explore possible behavioral changes from immersive environments and the underlying mechanisms that foster altruistic engagement within, and beyond, the gaming world.” She worked with Dr Danny Pimentel, who co-directs the Oregon Reality Lab, where students and researchers can develop virtual, augmented and mixed reality media. The team created a narrative-driven VR game to immerse players in an emotional storyline and test if the experience changed levels of empathy and altruism. In the game, called Empathy in Action, players enter a neighbourhood community and meet Alden, a young boy who has just lost his dog, Buddy. Players are given several tasks, including physical and emotional ones. They search for clues and decide if, and how, to comfort the upset child. Dr Lorenzo said the team looked at a few possible narratives for the game but picked the lost dog scenario because it felt believable and like something that could happen in real life. The researchers thought a realistic narrative would be the most effective way to get people to consider how they would react in a similar situation. Before and after the game, participants answered a series of questions so the researchers could measure how the experience affected empathy and altruism. Dr Lorenzo said: “We wanted to see if the game shifted their motivation to help others and if it affected their ability to understand other people’s emotions." The team said they were surprised to find that empathy and altruism do not always rise together. Dr Lorenzo said people’s sense of altruism increased during the study, but the results on empathy were more complicated. The researchers found significantly higher ratings of “cognitive empathy”, which is the ability to recognise and understand someone else’s feelings. At the same time, they found a decline in “affective empathy”, when a person actually feels the sadness that another person is feeling. The findings suggested people might still feel moved to help, even if they do not feel greater empathy for those in need. Dr Lorenzo said: “People knew that this was a sad situation and that's why they wanted to help." As part of the study, participants suggested possible uses for immersive digital games like Empathy in Action. Their recommendations included classrooms and other learning environments, therapeutic or rehabilitation settings, and conflict-resolution training. Dr Lorenzo said future research could examine if different storylines produce different findings. She also wants to explore how immersive, narrative-driven interventions could be used for understanding and coping with medical challenges. Dr Lorenzo added: “This gaming technology is new and exciting, and there’s a lot of potential for researchers to keep exploring how immersive media can be leveraged for social good."

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A New Cross-Border Birding Route Puts Southern Africa On The Global Map

Birders have a new route to put on the map, and it stretches across five southern African countries. A new transboundary birding route has been announced across Angola, Namibia, Botswana, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Known as the Great Kavango Zambezi Birding Route, it contains an estimated 650 endemic and migratory species. The route runs through what is described as the world’s largest conservation area, as big as Germany and France together. It passes through 36 protected areas and covers 12 birding zones. Those zones include ecosystems ranging from dry desert to forest and wetlands. Birdwatchers on the route will follow ancient migratory paths along five rivers, the Zambezi, Chobe, Kwando, Kavango and Kafue. “No single country could offer what these five nations can achieve together,” said Dr. Nyambe Nyambe, Executive Director of the Kavango-Zambezi Secretariat. “This route is a living example of cross-border cooperation, combining diverse habitats and guiding expertise into a single coherent product that puts southern Africa on the global birding map.” The route has also been tested by an international press expedition hosted across the region. That group documented 215 bird species, including 43 species recorded for the first time by experienced international birders. The announcement said that figure speaks directly to the route’s credentials among serious avitourists. Dozens of partners are already involved in the project. They include BirdLife International’s local chapters, which have overseen training courses for guides. Safari lodges and camps with experience transporting visitors across the region are also part of the effort. Conservation organisations working in the conservation districts to protect birds and mammals from poaching have also joined. In total, 100 Birding Route Ambassadors have registered to promote and operate experiences under the KAZA Birding Route brand. 📸 credit, Jae Zambia, CC 4.0. via Wiki

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Researchers Unearth 1949 Whale Recording That Could Help Unlock Ocean Mysteries

Sometimes the past is sitting on a shelf, waiting to be heard. Researchers at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution say a humpback whale song recorded in Bermuda in March 1949 is the oldest known preserved recording of its kind, and they say it could help scientists better understand how whales communicate. The recording came from Woods Hole scientists working on a research vessel with the U.S. Office of Naval Research. They were testing sonar systems and carrying out acoustic experiments when they captured the sound, said Ashley Jester, director of research data and library services at Woods Hole in Falmouth, Massachusetts. The scientists at the time did not know what they were hearing, Jester said, but they kept recording and saved the sound anyway. "And they were curious. And so they kept this recorder running, and they even made time to make recordings where they weren't making any noise from their ships on purpose just to hear as much as they could," Jester told CBS News. "And they kept these recordings." Woods Hole scientists found the whale song last year while digitising old audio recordings. Jester located the recording on a well-preserved disc made by a Gray Audograph, a dictation machine used in the 1940s. "These audograph discs survived because of their material and careful preservation," Jester said. Peter Tyack, a marine bioacoustician and emeritus research scholar at Woods Hole, said the recording matters not only because it captured whale song, but because it also preserved the sound of the ocean around it. "The recovered recordings 'not only allow us to follow whale sounds, but they also tell us what the ocean soundscape was like in the late 1940s,'" Tyack said. "That's very difficult to reconstruct otherwise." Tyack said the ocean of the late 1940s was much quieter than the ocean of today, giving scientists a very different background for whale song than the one they usually hear now. He said a preserved recording from that period can also help researchers better understand how newer human-made sounds, including increased shipping noise, affect whale communication. Research published by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration states that whales can vary their calling behaviour depending on noises in their environment. According to Sean Hastings, a policy manager for NOAA, ship strikes and entanglements in fishing gear are currently the number one and number two threats to whales. The recording also predates Roger Payne's discovery of whale song by nearly 20 years. Jester said the underwater recording equipment used in 1949 would be considered crude by today's standards, but it was advanced for its time. She said the plastic disc is especially significant because most recordings from that era were made on tape, which has since deteriorated. Whales rely on sound to survive. According to NOAA scientists, they make clicks, whistles and calls. Scientists say those sounds help them find food, locate each other, understand their surroundings and move through the ocean. Several species make repetitive sounds that resemble songs. Humpback whales are among the best-known singers. They can weigh more than 55,000 pounds and are capable of complex vocalisations that can sound ethereal or mournful. NOAA says humpback whales were listed as endangered in the United States in the 1970s, due primarily to commercial whaling, and a final moratorium on commercial whaling was established in 1985. NOAA says four of the 14 distinct population segments are still protected as endangered, and one is listed as threatened. Tyack said underwater recordings remain an important way to study and protect whales. "Underwater sound recordings are a powerful tool for understanding and protecting vulnerable whale populations," he said. "By listening to the ocean, we can detect whales where they cannot easily be seen." Hansen Johnson, a research scientist at the Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life at the New England Aquarium who was not involved in the research, said the recording from a quieter ocean could help scientists better understand the sounds whales make today. "And, you know, it's just beautiful to listen to and has really inspired a lot of people to be curious about the ocean, and care about ocean life in general," Johnson said. "It's pretty special."

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How a Message In a Bottle Connected Two Women Who Finally Met After 25 Years

A barnacle-covered bottle rolling in on a Tasmanian beach has turned into a 25-year friendship between two women who did not know each other existed. Back in 2001, Diane Charles was on one of her usual morning walks along a beach in Stanley, Tasmania, when she spotted something unusual in the surf. “I'd walked out along the beach … and as I came back, rolling in on the waves was a bottle … covered in barnacles,” she recalled. She picked it up and saw there was a note inside. “To my surprise, it seemed to have a note inside.” The message was hard to read at first because it was written in Spanish. Charles said she was determined to work out what it said, and locals helped try to translate it, including her brother, who had recently returned from Chile with a Spanish dictionary. “We just tried to pick words from the dictionary,” she said. A scholar eventually helped decode the note. Charles said it roughly read: “Life has taught me all is possible, receive love and success second to this.” The note also included a name, a Colombian address and a fax number. Those details led Charles to Erika Boyero, a woman from Colombia who had thrown the bottle into the sea four years earlier while working on a cruise ship near Norway. In 1997, Boyero had been bartending on a cruise travelling through the Nordic countries. One evening, she was bored and wanted something fun to do, so she wrote several notes, sealed them in empty bottles and tossed them overboard. Then she forgot about them. “I completely forgot about … that day,” she said. Years later, her father called with unexpected news. “Hey, you received a fax from Australia,” he told her. Boyero said she was stunned. “I said, ‘What? I don’t know anyone in Australia.’” She later realised the fax must be connected to the bottles she had thrown into the sea. “You don’t really think that can happen,” she said. “There are so many millions of people in the world … and when destiny, in this way, shows a person you have to meet in this life … it is beautiful.” What began as a mystery message became a long-distance friendship. Charles and Boyero stayed in touch for the next 25 years, sharing updates about their lives and major milestones, including the birth of children and Boyero’s move to Germany. Recently, the story added another chapter. Boyero was travelling in Kuala Lumpur when she called Charles with an idea. She wanted to fly to Tasmania so they could meet in person for the first time. When she arrived, Charles said the reunion felt immediate. Once Boyero walked into the terminal, the two hugged like “long lost friends.” “It was amazing and we've just talked ever since,” Charles said. The next morning, they walked together along the same beach where the bottle had washed ashore more than two decades earlier. They also visited the Stanley Discovery Museum, where the message that first connected them is now kept. Looking back, Boyero said the early translation Charles received was close to what she had originally written. “Life has taught me all is possible,” she said. “I wish you good fortune wherever you are.” 📸 credit: ABC News: Sandy Powell

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Clinical Trial Finds 24 Minutes Of Music Therapy Can Ease Anxiety

A 24-minute listening session may be enough to take the edge off anxiety, according to a new randomized clinical trial from researchers at Toronto Metropolitan University. The study tested specially designed music paired with auditory beat stimulation, or ABS, a technique that uses rhythmic sound patterns to influence brain activity. Researchers said the approach could offer an accessible, drug-free option for people looking for additional ways to manage stress and regulate emotions. The clinical trial was conducted by psychology researchers Danielle K. Mullen and Frank A. Russo at Toronto Metropolitan University, in partnership with LUCID, a digital therapeutics company that emerged from TMU's Zone Learning ecosystem. Anxiety affects millions of people around the world. Common treatments include medications and cognitive-behavioral therapy, or CBT, but the researchers said those options can come with challenges such as side effects, long wait times, cost and the time required for ongoing treatment. The researchers said those barriers have led them to explore music-based digital therapeutics as a low-cost and widely accessible way to help people manage anxiety symptoms. They said the tools are designed to deliver quick relief through guided listening experiences that can be used almost anywhere. The study included 144 adults who had moderate trait anxiety and were already taking medication to help manage their symptoms. Participants were randomly assigned to one of four listening conditions: pink noise for 24 minutes as a control, music with ABS for 12 minutes, music with ABS for 24 minutes, or music with ABS for 36 minutes. Before and after the listening sessions, participants completed standardized assessments that measured anxiety levels and mood. The results showed that listening to music with ABS significantly reduced both cognitive and somatic symptoms of anxiety compared with the pink noise control. Participants also reported improvements in negative mood. Among the listening durations tested, the 24-minute session produced the strongest overall reduction in anxiety. The researchers said its effects were similar to the 36-minute session and clearly stronger than the 12-minute session. "What we're seeing is a dose-response pattern where about 24 minutes of music with ABS seems to be the sweet spot," said Russo, Professor of Psychology at TMU and Chief Science Officer, LUCID. "It's long enough to meaningfully shift anxiety levels, but not so long that listeners need to carve out a large block of time." The study, "Investigating the dose-response relationship between music and anxiety reduction: A randomized clinical trial," was published in PLOS Mental Health on January 21, 2026.

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A New Dementia Village May Change How Americans Care For People With Memory Loss

For people with dementia, daily life in care can shrink fast. A new project in Wisconsin is trying to push it open again. The nation’s first dementia village is planned for Madison, with Agrace, a nonprofit healthcare agency, leading the $40 million development. The project will cover six acres and is slated to open in 2027, according to a news release. Agrace said the community is modeled on European “microtowns” designed for people living with memory loss. The Madison site will have a Main Street-style layout with shops, a theater, and an arts and crafts center. “All too often, when someone enters memory care, their life gets smaller, and the way each day unfolds is regimented and uniform,” said Lynne Sexten, president and CEO of Agrace. “We want to give those people back their autonomy,” she said. The project comes as the United States faces a growing number of older adults with dementia. The Alzheimer’s Association estimates 7.2 million Americans age 65 and older are living with significant memory loss. Agrace’s village is expected to include eight households. Each one will have private bedrooms, en-suite bathrooms, shared kitchens, and shared living spaces. The exteriors will also have front porches. “We are building a Main Street that looks familiar to the type of downtown you see in so many Wisconsin communities, but also in towns throughout the country,” Sexten told Fox News Digital. The village is meant to move away from the tightly structured routine often linked with nursing homes. Sexten said residents should have room to decide how they want to spend their day. A resident may think, “I was supposed to go to play Mahjong today, but instead I feel like just sitting around and reading the newspaper or working on a puzzle,” Sexten said. The village is expected to house up to 65 full-time residents. It will also be open to 40 to 50 adults with dementia who live at home and want to take part in activities. Specially trained caregivers will have private apartments in the village as well. Agrace said residents will be able to use the village much like a small town. “Residents will be able to buy food from the store, take part in menu planning for their household and even participate in meal preparation,” Sexten said. The development draws heavily from a dementia village in the Netherlands called the Hogeweyk, in the Amsterdam suburb of Weesp. Agrace described that site as widely seen as highly successful. The Hogeweyk opened in 2009 and spans four acres. According to its website, it works to “emancipate people living with dementia and include them in society.” Funded by the Dutch government, the community serves 188 residents across 27 houses. The model differs sharply from traditional nursing homes. Other companies in the United States have tried to copy the idea, including a proposed village in Holmdel, New Jersey, but Agrace said there are currently no close contenders. Sexten said residents in Wisconsin “will pay monthly rates comparable to what they would otherwise pay at memory care facilities.” She also said Agrace has an endowment to help offset costs for people who cannot cover the full expense. Prospective residents will likely be able to apply in the first quarter of 2027, according to Agrace. The dementia village model has drawn praise and criticism. Some people see it as an appealing alternative to standard memory care. Some critics question the idea of building a separate environment that recreates familiar routines. “Critics have drawn parallels with the deception depicted in the 1998 ‘social science fiction’ film ‘The Truman Show’; but many Alzheimer’s experts have praised [the Hogeweyk] for being the first to adjust ‘our’ reality to allow those with dementia to be in a safe and comforting environment,” wrote Dr. Fay Niker, a member of the Neuroethics Collective in British Columbia. Dementia villages in Amsterdam, Norway, France, and Australia recreate familiar settings while removing friction points. One of those is money. At the grocery store checkout in Madison, no money will change hands. Some villages use “play money” to keep the experience familiar. Agrace does not currently plan to use any money. Residents will be allowed to leave the village with family members, but most medical care will be provided by Agrace. “When more specialized care is needed, our team will refer them as necessary,” Sexten said. The push to rethink memory care comes as dementia rates continue to rise globally. Alzheimer’s Disease International said more than 55 million people worldwide are living with dementia. The group projects that total will nearly double every 20 years, reaching 78 million by 2030 and 139 million by 2050. Sheryl Zimmerman, director of the National Center for Excellence in Assisted Living, said residential care settings have increasingly been moving toward a sense of “household.” She told Fox News Digital that before the Wisconsin village opens, and without data, it cannot be confirmed that the model will restore autonomy and spontaneity. “But they are very much the characteristics that people value throughout their lifespan.” 📸 credit: The Hogeweyk

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Volunteer Who Came To Haiti After The Earthquake Now Runs The Country’s 911 System

What started as a one-week volunteer trip after Haiti’s 2010 earthquake turned into a life in crisis response for Stacy Librandi. Librandi arrived in Port-au-Prince in late January 2010, as the fallout from the magnitude 7 earthquake spread across Haiti. She stepped onto the airfield and saw what she described as a city of people living in tents, with food, water, clothing and medical aid piled along the tarmac. She had come with a small backpack, some camping supplies and no formal disaster relief training. She planned to stay for a week. She stayed for two, then three. Sixteen years later, she is still in Port-au-Prince, where she runs HERO, the Humanitarian Emergency Response Organization, described in the source material as the largest emergency medical ambulance and medevac service in Haiti. “I never saw my life going this way,” she told 60 Minutes. “I just came down thinking I am going to give this a complete shot. And that was when I was born in a lot of ways.” Before Haiti, Librandi said she had an “unconventional” childhood. Born in San Diego and put up for adoption as a baby, she told 60 Minutes she quit school somewhere “between 7th and 9th grade” and lived as a “nomad,” hopping freight trains around the United States. She married at 19 and moved near her husband’s family in the Bronx in New York. The couple had three children. Librandi, which was her husband’s last name and the one she kept after their divorce, spent almost 10 years in the city trying to build a life, raise a family and run a photography business. Then, in the winter of 2009, a building fire destroyed her apartment. She told 60 Minutes she was living out of her car at the time, with a failed marriage, bartending shifts and a photography business that had been badly hit by the fire. When the earthquake hit Haiti on January 12, 2010, Librandi decided within weeks to get on a plane. “It was a kind of kneejerk decision,” she told 60 Minutes. “But I had a feeling, and I didn’t have anything to lose.” She said the first problem she saw was aid sitting on the tarmac “literally rotting in the sun.” So she started moving it. With a small group that included an English-to-Creole translator, she loaded a box truck with supplies and took them to a nearby camp. She then had the translator tell people they would return the next day with more supplies, and that they would need to line up. “People said it was a bad idea to go out like this, that we were going to get mobbed,” she said. “But we went back the next day and the men and women and children did exactly what we needed.” Librandi said others on the airfield quickly started using the same approach. “I have a unique way of problem solving,” she said. “And the ideas I had just seemed to work.” In the years after the earthquake, aside from one trip to see her children in New York, Librandi stayed in Haiti. She told 60 Minutes she lived with her translator’s family in a one-room home under a tin roof and traveled by motorcycle while consulting on and organising ambulance services. “I had nothing at the time,” she said. “There were ladies that gave me coffee and bread with peanut butter on credit because I didn’t even have 50 cents.” She later began meeting with the United Nations World Food Program, the lead agency for supplying food in Haiti, and said those meetings led to more invitations. Around that time, she said, she started thinking about ambulance services. “It was that time that I had a lightbulb,” she said. “I wanted to see what would happen if ambulances worked in Haiti.” Her first idea was a membership system. People would pay an annual fee, “low cost, because it’s for everyone,” and get ambulance and EMT services for a year. Haitians were skeptical, according to the source material, because reliable emergency services were unfamiliar. But the team moved ahead, taking EMT courses run by international charities and operating from a house where Librandi lived and ran dispatch. “And then, we just inserted ourselves. Our guys were showing up on motorcycles and helping people,” she said. Most patients were not paying members in the early days. That changed in 2012, when HERO received its first donated ambulance. The team bought uniforms, and Librandi struck deals with insurance companies, regional ports, local manufacturers and tourism boards to provide emergency response for their staff. Those contracts helped fund a wider service. According to the source material, HERO could then respond to emergencies involving both paying members and nonmembers. Members who could afford it paid an annual fee of $100 USD. “HERO thrives in filling the gaps,” said Coralie Caze, HERO’s general manager and Librandi’s business partner. Caze, who was born and raised in Port-au-Prince and joined HERO in 2018, said the company’s flexibility has been central to its work. “It doesn’t matter what comes up, we are out in the street responding, which is exactly the kind of operation needed in Haiti,” she told 60 Minutes. The business changed sharply again in 2021 after the assassination of Haitian president Jovenel Moïse, when armed gangs began taking over Port-au-Prince. According to the source material, gangs blocked airports, ports and roads, seized police stations and attacked neighbourhoods. One of HERO’s first calls after the assassination came from the office of the late president. The first lady was injured and needed evacuation. Librandi said she coordinated her medevac to the United States. After that, airports shut down, then roads, leaving locals, tourists and international volunteers stranded across Haiti. Librandi arranged a helicopter evacuation, and HERO now operates four helicopters for medevac and air shuttle work. “This was the land of NGOs, the land of Missions, and all those jobs are just gone now,” Librandi said. The source material says HERO remains one of the only operational crisis relief groups in Haiti, in part because almost 95 percent of its staff is Haitian. Caze said that has been imperative to the company’s success. HERO has since added a security division, HALO Solutions Firm, managed by Librandi and Caze and operated by former U.S. military personnel with a fleet of bulletproof vehicles. According to the source material, HALO started as protection for HERO’s EMTs and now offers security consulting services across the country. Today, HERO contracts with the U.S. Embassy, the U.S. State Department and the Haitian National Police Force to provide security and emergency services in Haiti. The company has 10 ambulances and about 120 employees, including EMTs, medical staff, emergency managers, surgeons, neurosurgeons, orthopedic surgeons, search and rescue workers, a dentist, and communication and geospatial experts. It also works with local hospitals and expects its own Level II Trauma Center to be operational by the spring. Stacy Librandi

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This Dog Just Alerted Its Owner To an Unconscious Woman And Helped Save Her Life

What started as the same five-mile walk Dan DiCandilo takes every day with his dog Gozier ended with a 911 call and a stranger still alive. A routine morning walk for a Virginia man and his dog turned into an unexpected life-saving scenario in Ashland, according to local news outlet WWBT. DiCandilo recently recalled the day when he and Gozier saved a stranger’s life in an interview with WWBT. He said their daily routine had stayed the same for years. “We walk five miles a day, every day, and we’ve been doing that for nine years,” DiCandilo explained. “Gozier is the child we’ve never had.” On that morning, though, he said Gozier reacted in a way he had never heard before. “We were about halfway up Henry Clay heading toward the tracks, as we call it here in Ashland, and she started barking wildly at a house that we pass every single day,” he continued. “The bark had a little cry to it. It was different. It wasn’t a bark I had heard from her before.” According to WWBT, Gozier was barking at an unconscious woman lying on the front lawn of a home. DiCandilo said the woman was hard to spot from the road. “It was a woman who was on her back in a white robe, which camouflaged her and made it impossible to see from the road,” DiCandilo told the outlet. “She had no hat. She had no gloves. She had no shoes.” After speaking with the homeowner and learning the woman did not live there, DiCandilo immediately called 911. Gozier kept barking in what DiCandilo described as an attempt to wake the woman up, and first responders arrived soon after to take over. DiCandilo told WWBT that video from a neighbor’s door camera showed the woman had been outside for hours before he and Gozier found her. “Phone camera on the neighbor’s door showed her crawling on his front lawn at 4:15 in the morning, so we walked by at 7:15, 15-degree temperature, she had been out there for three hours,” DiCandilo explained to WWBT. He also told the outlet the woman survived after spending time in intensive care. “The woman, from what I understand, spent a week in ICU, her body temperature was 78 degrees, and somehow survived.” DiCandilo said Gozier’s reaction showed the kind of instinct dogs can have. “Dogs are special. They have that sense that we don’t have, and obviously, that was well displayed that morning,” he said. “It’s like a proud father. That’s my little girl.” The Ashland community later recognized Gozier for what happened that morning. A ceremony for the dog’s bravery was held on March 3. 📸 Credit : WRIC ABC 8News/YouTube

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Idaho Lab Builds LED-Powered Mock Reactor To Speed Up Nuclear Testing Safely

A mock nuclear reactor the size of a telephone booth is giving Idaho researchers a faster, safer way to test ideas before they reach a real core. A team at Idaho National Laboratory has built what it calls ViBRANT, short for Visual Benign Reactor as Analog for Nuclear Testing. The system uses LEDs to simulate neutron-driven reactions and works with the lab's microreactor automated control system, or MACS, according to the Idaho National Laboratory (INL). Both ViBRANT and MACS were developed in-house at INL. The lab says the system acts as a bridge between computer models and its MARVEL microreactor, an 85-kilowatt sodium-potassium-cooled reactor now under development. "MACS/ViBRANT is a hybrid," said Tony Crawford, an INL researcher and MARVEL's reactivity control system lead, in a press release. "The actual actuators are the same technology that will be used in the MARVEL reactor." The setup is designed to mimic the behavior of a reactor without using the hazardous materials involved in an operating nuclear system. Instead of relying on real fuel and neutron activity, ViBRANT uses light-based physics to model how the system would respond. "The fuel, the hazardous reflector and absorber materials driving reactor physics are actually replaced by benign materials amenable to light physics," Crawford continued. "It reduces all the hazards from a real reactor to safe and accessible levels with the promise of accelerating development." That speed is one of the main selling points. INL says the system can cut a day's worth of operations down to 10 minutes, letting researchers move through testing and development much faster than they could with a full reactor system. That matters because new reactors, including microreactors, need extensive testing before they can be used. The source text says those systems could play a role in powering data centers, and researchers need to optimize them and check their safety before deployment. Nuclear fission, the process at the center of reactor design, happens when a nucleus is bombarded with particles such as neutrons. The nucleus then splits into two or more smaller nuclei, generating large amounts of heat and radiation. Today's nuclear reactors use that heat to boil water and drive steam turbines that produce electricity. The source text says nuclear-generated electricity already supplies more than half of the carbon-free energy in the United States. It also says that nuclear power saves the atmosphere from more than 470 million tons of planet-warming pollution each year, citing the Nuclear Energy Institute. The same source text says reactors operate without producing air pollution and take up a small amount of land compared to other energy-generating methods. It also says teams work to store used fuel in a way that does not impact the environment. The source text says there are hazards involved in nuclear power, but describes it as a relatively low-risk option. It adds that INL's new testing platform will let researchers fine-tune future reactors in a safe way while building a more complete understanding of how the systems behave. Crawford said the system also opens reactor development to more people working on different parts of the process. "By being accessible and as intuitive as watching a TV screen, nearly everyone in the reactor development process, from the modeler to the control system developer to the assembler, can get involved and learn," he said. According to INL, using MACS and ViBRANT has already produced advances in MARVEL's hardware and software control systems. The lab says the platform could also offer insight into the next generation of advanced reactors. 📸 credit: Idaho National Laboratory (INL)

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