The Hottest New Climate Technology: Bricks

Forget fossil fuels—we're entering an age of “heat batteries”! Companies from Rondo Energy and Antora Energy to ClimateWorks are pioneering brick-stacking tech that uses energy sourced from cheap, clean electricity to provide heat and power for industrial processes. Wonderfully simple, these devices transform the same electricity used by a regular toaster into scorching temperatures high enough even for steelmaking – all while displacing tonnes of emissions. It's clever engineering giving us a sustainable, greener industry, one brick at a time.

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Dog Unearths Ice Age Walrus Bone On New Jersey Beach

It looked like beach junk at first, the kind of thing a dog happily grabs and refuses to drop. But on a late January walk in Bay Head, New Jersey, Charlie Brown came back carrying something far older. When Matthew Gregg pulled a large piece of debris from the mouth of his German shorthaired pointer on Jan. 27, he immediately noticed it was too heavy to be driftwood. What he did not know then was that his rescue dog had picked up an ancient fossil along the high tide line. "He’s got a good nose," Gregg said. "He likes to pick things up that smell funky." Gregg, 42, said Charlie Brown likely found the object in a mix of seaweed, driftwood and debris on the beach. The dog was wagging his tail when he brought it over. "When I took it out of his mouth, I was alarmed at how heavy it was," Gregg said. "I started looking at it and I'm like, 'This has definitely got to be really old.'" The bone was thick, dark and large enough to dwarf Gregg's hand. He took it home so his son, 8-year-old Matthew Gregg II, could get a closer look. The younger Gregg has a strong interest in fossils, his father said. "He loves sharks teeth and sea glass and… anything to do with outside and nature," Gregg said. The second grader wanted to know what the bone was, so he used his father's email address to contact the Edelman Fossil Park & Museum in New Jersey. After studying the fossil, museum staff first thought it might be a giant ground sloth femur, Gregg said. According to BBC Wildlife, ground sloths were large herbivores and grazers with long claws that lived throughout the Americas between 129,000 and 11,700 years ago. The museum team later identified the bone as a walrus femur from the last ice age, according to a spokesperson for the museum. That means it could be at least 10,000 years old. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, walruses lived along the Atlantic Coast as far south as Florida and South Carolina during the last ice age. Today they are found closer to the Arctic. Museum staff said the fossil's condition suggests it was buried in sand for a very long time. That likely protected it for thousands of years. Staff said it may have been brought to the surface through beach replenishment work, but it probably had not been exposed to the elements for long. The museum cleaned the bone, removed salt debris and stabilized it with glue to help prevent decay. In exchange for bringing in the fossil, Gregg and his son got a behind-the-scenes tour of the facility and a look at the fossil lab, Gregg said. "I thought it was amazing," Gregg II said. The walrus bone is now on loan to the museum and is being displayed with its collections. Gregg II said he likes knowing other people can see it. Gregg said the discovery has pushed both of them further into fossils and learning. His son now keeps a collection of 135 shark teeth in his room, along with other finds. "Every time him and I get into an adventure like this, it always just steam rolls into this epic journey of continuing on with his newfound passion," Gregg said. "His bedroom is basically a museum."

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This Homeowner Stopped a Porch Pirate — With Kind Words And A Message Of Love

What could have turned into a porch theft confrontation in Philadelphia ended with a few words of kindness. When Bernadette Williams noticed someone trying to steal a package from her neighbor’s porch, she did not respond with anger. Doorbell camera footage captured her calmly saying, “Put that down.” Instead of escalating the moment, Williams reached into her pocket and gave the woman $7, the only cash she had with her. For Williams, the choice came from compassion. “I said, ‘She’s in trouble. How can I make a bad situation better?’ You have to be a part of the solution,” she said. Williams also offered encouragement, telling the woman, “Get some help. You’re better than that. I love you. God loves you.” The woman apologized and thanked her. Williams later said she saw genuine remorse in the woman’s eyes. “Her eyes of ‘I’m sorry.’ That was in her heart, and that’s what I read. I hope that she will be fine, and I have faith that she will be fine,” she said. Williams, who said she has lived in the neighborhood for decades, said her response was rooted in community. “We are a part of this community, and we can make our community better,” she said. 📸 credit: 6abc Philadelphia

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A 43-Year Study Shows Daily Coffee May Help Protect The Brain

Your morning coffee might be doing a little more than waking you up. A large long-running study has found that moderate intake of caffeinated coffee or tea was linked to a lower risk of dementia, slower cognitive decline and better preservation of cognitive abilities. Researchers examined data from 131,821 participants in the Nurses' Health Study and the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study. Those datasets tracked participants for up to 43 years, with repeated evaluations of diet, dementia diagnoses, subjective cognitive concerns and objective cognitive performance. Among the more than 130,000 participants, 11,033 developed dementia during the study period. The findings showed that moderate intake of caffeinated coffee, defined as 2 to 3 cups a day, or tea, defined as 1 to 2 cups a day, was associated with a reduced risk of dementia. Researchers also found slower cognitive decline and better preservation of cognitive abilities in those groups. Individuals who consumed higher amounts of caffeinated coffee had an 18 percent lower risk of developing dementia than those who rarely or never drank it. They also reported lower rates of subjective cognitive decline, 7.8 percent compared with 9.5 percent, and performed better on certain objective cognitive tests. "When searching for possible dementia prevention tools, we thought something as prevalent as coffee may be a promising dietary intervention -- and our unique access to high quality data through studies that has been going on for more than 40 years allowed us to follow through on that idea," said senior author Daniel Wang, MD, ScD, associate scientist with the Channing Division of Network Medicine in the Mass General Brigham Department of Medicine and assistant professor at Harvard Medical School. Wang is also an assistant professor in the Department of Nutrition at Harvard Chan School and an associate member at the Broad Institute. "While our results are encouraging, it's important to remember that the effect size is small and there are lots of important ways to protect cognitive function as we age. Our study suggests that caffeinated coffee or tea consumption can be one piece of that puzzle," Wang said. The study points to prevention as an area of focus because current treatments for dementia are limited and generally provide only modest benefits after symptoms begin. Researchers said scientists are increasingly focusing on lifestyle factors, including diet, that may influence the development of cognitive decline. Coffee and tea contain compounds including polyphenols and caffeine, which are thought to support brain health. According to the researchers, these substances may help reduce inflammation and limit cellular damage, both of which are linked to cognitive decline. Previous research on coffee and dementia has produced mixed results, often because of shorter study periods or limited data on long-term consumption patterns and different types of beverages, the researchers said. In this study, tea drinkers showed similar patterns to coffee drinkers. Decaffeinated coffee did not show the same associations. Researchers said that this suggests caffeine may be an important factor behind the observed brain-related benefits, although more research is needed to confirm the underlying mechanisms. The strongest effects were seen in people who drank 2 to 3 cups of caffeinated coffee or 1 to 2 cups of tea per day. Higher levels of caffeine intake did not appear to cause harm and showed comparable benefits to the moderate intake range highlighted in the study. "We also compared people with different genetic predispositions to developing dementia and saw the same results -- meaning coffee or caffeine is likely equally beneficial for people with high and low genetic risk of developing dementia," said lead author Yu Zhang, MBBS, MS, PhD student at Harvard Chan School and a research trainee at Mass General Brigham. In addition to Wang and Zhang, Mass General Brigham contributors included Yuxi Liu, Yanping Li, Yuhan Li, Jae H. Kang, A. Heather Eliassen, Molin Wang, Eric B. Rimm, Frank B. Hu, and Meir J. Stampfer. Additional authors were Walter C. Willett and Xiao Gu.

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Australian Scientists Unveil What They Call The World’s First Quantum Battery

A battery that charges in a flash sounds like sci-fi stuff. But Australian researchers say they have now built a prototype quantum battery that does exactly that, at least on a tiny scale. Scientists from the CSIRO, Australia’s national science agency, say they have developed what they describe as the world’s first proof-of-concept quantum battery. Quantum batteries were first proposed as a theoretical concept in 2013. They use the principles of quantum mechanics to store energy and have the potential to be more efficient than conventional batteries. Researchers have now created a prototype that is charged wirelessly with a laser. They say it is a major step towards fully functioning quantum batteries with rapid charging times. Lead researcher Dr James Quach of the CSIRO said the device marks the first time a prototype has completed the full battery cycle. “It’s the first prototype which does a full cycle of a battery: in other words, you charge it, you store energy, and you can discharge it,” he said. Quach said conventional batteries slow down as they get bigger. “That’s why your mobile phone takes about 30 minutes to charge and your electric car takes overnight to charge,” he said. He said quantum batteries behave differently. “Quantum batteries have this really peculiar property where the larger they are, the less time they take to charge,” he said. That comes from what researchers call “collective effects”, where quantum cells charge faster when more cells are involved. Quach and his colleagues first demonstrated that property in 2022, but that earlier prototype could not release its stored energy. The new version can. It is detailed in the journal Light: Science & Applications. According to the researchers, the battery took femtoseconds to charge. A femtosecond is a quadrillionth of a second. The battery then stored the energy for nanoseconds, about six orders of magnitude longer. Quach said that gap is significant. To put that into perspective, he said, for a battery that took one minute to charge, six orders of magnitude would mean it would stay charged for “a couple of years”. The prototype is still extremely limited. Quach said its capacity is only a few billion electron volts. He said that amount is “very small and not enough to power anything useful”. The next problem to solve is how long the battery can hold that charge. “What we need to do next is … to increase the storage time,” Quach said. “You want your battery to hold charge longer than a few nanoseconds if you want to be able to talk to someone on a mobile phone.” Even so, researchers say fully functioning quantum batteries that charge almost instantaneously could eventually be used in quantum computers or in small conventional electronic devices. Because quantum batteries are charged wirelessly with lasers, Quach said the technology could also be used for remote charging. “You could put a quantum battery, for example, on a drone … and you could charge it while it’s in flight,” he said. He said the same idea could one day extend far beyond drones. “Once the technology matures … you would no longer need to stop your car at a petrol station to charge it up; you could charge it on the go,” Quach said. Prof Andrew White, who leads the quantum technology laboratory at the University of Queensland and was not involved in the research, said the work showed the idea had moved beyond theory. He described it as “a really nice piece of work showing that the quantum battery is more than an idea, it’s now a working prototype”. White also said the technology is still a long way from widespread transport use. The batteries were “not going to turn up in any electric vehicles anytime soon”, he said, but “probably the first place that it’ll have an impact is actually for quantum computers”. White said quantum batteries could provide energy “coherently … with the minimum energy cost to these computers”. 📸 credit: CSIRO

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This Portuguese Teen Turned an Injury-Fueled Reading Habit Into A Mission To Inspire Schools

What do you do when you are stuck in bed with two broken bones and no mobile phone? For 13-year-old Francisco Borges, the answer was simple. He read, and read and read. The Portuguese teenager says a double leg fracture turned him into an even more devoted reader, after he spent days at home tearing through books while he recovered. "My leg was broken, I had two broken bones, I couldn't sleep, my mum had to take the food to my bed because I couldn't get out of bed. As I don't have a mobile phone, the only thing I could do was read," he told Euronews. That stretch at home drew attention after Francisco said he managed to read ten books a day. Some people mocked him and said that was impossible, but the books were age-appropriate and easy to read titles, including books by Geronimo Stilton, which he loves. Now his love of reading is taking him beyond his own bookshelf and into schools, where he speaks to other children about books and tries to show them reading does not have to feel boring. When he is not at school, playing football, swimming or kickboxing, Francisco devotes his time to books. Reading on the bus to and from school, and at night before bed, is part of his daily routine. The first book he remembers was an illustrated waterproof book about anemones, which he took to the beach. Since then, he has read at least one Nobel Prize winner. In normal times, Francisco says he averages five books a week. He mostly reads books for his age group, but he also reads crime novels and classics. He is currently discovering Agatha Christie and especially enjoyed "The ABC Crimes", one of Hercule Poirot's cases. He has also read "Oliver Twist" by Charles Dickens and "The God of Flies" by William Golding, which is compulsory school reading. He says he particularly likes that the main characters in Golding's 1954 novel are boys his own age. One of the books he recommends to other readers is "An Eye for an Eye", by Robert Muchamore, from the "Cherub" series. The book deals with crimes involving the theft of dogs for experiments. "It's a very interesting book, but it's for children over 11 or 12, because it talks about the world of crime," he says. Francisco's enthusiasm for books, and the ease with which he talks about them, has helped make him widely known on social media. Schools often invite him to speak to pupils his own age, where he argues that one disappointing book should not put someone off reading for good. "You need the right inspiration for people to start reading. There are people who read a book that isn't right for them and then end up forgetting all about it. They say they don't like reading books because they're boring, and if you ask them how many books they've read, they say it's just one." On the day of Euronews' report, Francisco visited Pedro Santarém Primary School in Benfica, a neighbourhood in Lisbon, to speak to dozens of teenagers his age. The point was to show them that reading can be enjoyable, and school leaders say that message can land differently coming from another child. "It's not the teacher who says reading is cool, it's a classmate of the same age who says reading is cool," said Maria João Covas, headteacher of the school. His visits come as concerns persist that younger people spend more time on social media than with books. But a recent survey, cited by the newspaper Público, found that more than three out of four Portuguese people aged 15 to 24 read at least one book during 2024. 📸 credit: FB - o bibliófilo aka o devoradorsaurius de livros

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Keto Diet (And Exercise) Restored Blood Sugar And Aerobic Fitness In Diabetic Mice, Says New Study

A strict keto diet sent blood sugar in diabetic mice back to normal within a week, and a workout plan pushed some of the gains further. That is the headline from a new US study that looked at mice with hyperglycemia, or high blood sugar, and put them on a high-fat, low-carbohydrate ketogenic diet. Researchers found the diet restored normal blood sugar levels, and after eight weeks, exercise appeared to add another lift. The team reported that the mice's aerobic capacity, or VO2peak, increased. Their muscles also became more resistant to fatigue and more oxygen-rich. "After one week on the ketogenic diet, their blood sugar was completely normal, as though they didn't have diabetes at all," says physiologist Sarah Lessard, from Virginia Tech Carilion. "Over time, the diet caused remodeling of the mice's muscles, making them more oxidative and making them react better to aerobic exercise." The study builds on earlier work by some of the same researchers. They had previously found that hyperglycemia interfered with muscle changes in exercising mice and blunted gains in aerobic capacity. That led to a new question. If a ketogenic diet can improve blood sugar control, could it also restore the exercise response that had been lost in mice with high blood sugar? The answer, in these animals at least, appears to be yes, with limits. The ketogenic diet pushes the body into ketosis, a metabolic state in which it burns fat for fuel instead of sugar. The researchers said it was not clear how that state would affect exercise efficiency. Their results suggest the diet can reverse both high blood sugar and exercise inefficiencies in mice with hyperglycemia. But the effect did not show up across the board. The exercise improvements were not seen in animals with normal blood sugar. The researchers also found another catch. Mice whose VO2peak was restored did not show better actual exercise performance. The study says that may have been because they were short on carbohydrates. When carbohydrates were added back into the diets of those mice, performance improved. The team also took a closer look at blood vessel and muscle signaling linked to ketosis. Their findings suggest the metabolic state was playing an active role, rather than simply sitting in the background. "What we're really finding from this study and from our other studies is that diet and exercise aren't simply working in isolation," says Lessard. "There are a lot of combined effects, and so we can get the most benefits from exercise if we eat a healthy diet at the same time." The paper points to a possible path for people with diabetes, but the researchers are careful about how far the findings go. This work was done in mice, not humans. The keto diet used in the study was also described as a very extreme version. The article says earlier studies have shown that keeping aerobic capacity high can reduce the risk of further health complications in people with diabetes. On that point, the new findings suggest another possible option for cutting those risks. At the same time, the researchers say this is not a one-size-fits-all answer. They note that the keto diet is one of the hardest diets to stick to. They also say other options, including the Mediterranean diet, may suit some people better if the goal is to lower blood sugar. For people with high blood sugar, the study suggests diet and exercise plans may need to be adjusted if the aim is to maintain health and aerobic performance. Future studies could test that idea further. Human trials are already planned. The researchers say those studies should provide data that is more relevant than animal work alone, because animal studies do not always tell the whole story. Lessard said the broader message from the team's earlier research still applies. "Our previous studies have shown that any strategy you and your doctor have arrived at to reduce your blood sugar could work," says Lessard. The research has been published in Nature Communications.

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Dick Vitale Returns To March Madness After Cancer Battle — Calls It A Miracle

For a while, Dick Vitale’s voice, the one that has long been part of college basketball, almost went silent. After years away from regular game calls because of several cancer diagnoses, Vitale is back on the headset for the 2025-26 season and working close to his usual pace again. The 86-year-old told USA TODAY Sports that return still feels hard to believe. “I'm still doing games,” Vitale told USA TODAY Sports. “It's a miracle. It's absolutely a miracle. I get emotional about it sometimes.” Vitale spoke with USA TODAY Sports as part of a partnership with Planet Fitness. He is promoting the company’s black card and its focus on recovery for college basketball fans during March Madness. Recovery has shaped his own life after what he called a long, difficult stretch. He fought three battles with cancer in a two-year span, which kept him away from the sport he has long called with his trademark enthusiasm. “I've had to recover quite a bit,” he said. “It's been a tough ride.” There were points when a return to broadcasting did not look possible. Vitale had periods when he could not talk, which meant he could not work games or use the catchphrases that made him one of the sport’s most familiar voices. In a text conversation with USA TODAY Sports in March 2024, when he still could not speak, Vitale said he wanted to return during the 2024-25 season. He got there. In February 2025, he returned to the booth for Duke’s game against Clemson in what USA TODAY Sports described as an emotional night. That comeback game was not the end of the story. Vitale, who has called more than 1,000 games, signed an extension with ESPN in June that runs through the 2027-28 season. The deal keeps him with the network as he closes in on 50 years with the company. He did not return to a full weekly schedule, but he worked through the entire season. Vitale called the opener between Duke and Texas and the regular-season finale between Kentucky and Florida. His schedule is still growing. Vitale is set to work as an analyst for the NCAA Tournament First Four, calling the second game on Tuesday, March 17, alongside Brian Anderson and Charles Barkley. According to USA TODAY Sports, Vitale has covered the Final Four on radio before, but this will be his first time working as a television analyst for an NCAA Tournament game. “I always believe in one thing, that if you think positive and have faith, and you got good people,” Vitale said, “a lot of good things are going to happen.” With March here, Vitale is already talking tournament basketball. He told USA TODAY Sports it is too early to know exactly how the bracket will play out because the matchups are not set, but he said teams playing well going into Selection Sunday often carry that form into the tournament. He pointed to Duke, Arizona, Michigan and Florida as likely No. 1 seeds and said those teams will be difficult to knock off. “The team's up on top, the heavyweights, they're going to be tough to beat,” Vitale said. “Duke right now is playing incredibly. So is Florida, so is Michigan, so is Arizona, Connecticut.” Vitale also singled out Miami (Ohio), a team at the center of tournament debate. The RedHawks are the only undefeated team in the country, but there are questions about their NCAA Tournament chances if they do not win the Mid-American Conference tournament because of the strength of their resume. Vitale said Miami (Ohio) belongs in the field regardless. “If they're denied an opportunity to play, it would be criminal, because those kids have earned the right,” Vitale said. “We have a tendency to go for mediocrity out of the elite conferences, teams with 11, 12, 13 losses. But because they play a tougher schedule, they get the edge. All the metrics that are done in picking teams really favor all the elite conference teams.” After the illness, the lost time and the long recovery, Vitale told USA TODAY Sports he is grateful to still be part of March. “I really love what I'm doing. I think when you love something and have a passion for it, it's really super,” he said. By Dave Hogg - This image has been extracted from another file, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=32199406

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Scientists Date Prehistoric Paintings In France’s Font-De-Gaume Cave For The First Time

A famous cave in southwestern France has been keeping one of its biggest secrets for a long time. Now researchers say they have pinned down the age of some of the prehistoric art inside Font-de-Gaume for the first time. The cave is filled with images of bison, horses, reindeer, mammoths and other creatures. Scientists have now found that parts of two artworks were made between 13,000 and 16,000 years ago, backing up long-held views that the paintings date to the Paleolithic period. The findings were published March 9 in the journal PNAS. They also point to at least some parts of the artworks being made slightly more recently than researchers had expected. Font-de-Gaume sits in the Vézère valley in southwestern France. Its paintings were discovered in September 1901 by a teacher from a nearby village. Today, visitor numbers are limited to protect the cave’s delicate underground environment. The Vézère valley has been a UNESCO World Heritage site since 1979 because of its large number of prehistoric sites and decorated caves. According to UNESCO, the valley has 147 prehistoric sites and 25 decorated caves. Over the past century, scientists have identified hundreds of paintings in Font-de-Gaume. About two-thirds show animals. The rest depict humans, masks, geometric shapes and handprints. Research in the cave is still going on, with scientists mainly focused on remote parts of the site. Until recently, the age of the cave art had been based on style. Researchers had assumed the art was created roughly 16,000 to 18,000 years ago, but they had not been able to directly test that estimate. For years, scientists thought the paintings were made with pigments based on iron oxide and manganese oxide. That would have ruled out radiocarbon dating, because those pigments do not contain carbon. Then, starting in 2023, researchers found that some black pigments contained traces of charcoal. Charcoal is a form of carbon, which meant it could be used for radiocarbon dating. The team was given special permission to take tiny samples that could not be seen with the naked eye. The researchers collected four samples from two figures, one from a bison painting and three from an abstract mask. Radiocarbon dating showed the bison was created between 13,162 and 13,461 years ago, according to a statement. Two parts of the mask dated to between 14,246 and 15,981 years ago. A third part of the same mask produced a much younger date range, between 8,590 and 8,993 years ago. The researchers suggest a couple of possible reasons for that younger result. One is that the mask was retouched by a later generation. Another is that the sample was somehow contaminated with younger carbon. Inés Domingo Sanz, an archaeologist at the Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies who was not involved in the paper, said the work is a useful first step. “Any opportunity we have to obtain dates is really important, because it helps us fix the art to particular periods of time,” Domingo Sanz tells Chemical & Engineering News’ Fionna Samuels. She also said the findings need to be backed up with more evidence. “we need … more data to be able to rely on the results obtained so far.” The researchers think the findings could have wider use beyond Font-de-Gaume. The region has a large amount of prehistoric rock art, and the unexpected traces of charcoal found in this cave raise the possibility that similar traces may exist at other sites too. If they do, that could open up more opportunities for radiocarbon dating in caves where dating had seemed out of reach. In the paper, the researchers wrote: “This discovery is not only significant for the cave but also represents a remarkable find for the entire region,”

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How A Childhood Moment at 30,000 Feet Came Full Circle Years Later

A plastic pair of wings handed to a 6-year-old on a flight to Florida ended up shaping Angela Luna’s next job. Luna, now 31, said a childhood flight attendant named Kym Hughes left a lasting impression when Luna was traveling with her family to Tampa. “I thought it was so cool that the flight attendants could walk around the plane,” Luna tells PEOPLE. “Kym came by and asked if I wanted to help pass out snacks, and she even gave me a plastic set of wings. My grandpa took photos of the whole thing.” Luna said the flight happened just before the 9/11 attacks, when airport security was far more relaxed. “We used to be able to go to the gates with family and friends, and everything felt more personal,” she recalls to PEOPLE. “I loved how she took the time to let me walk around the plane and make other people happy. That always stayed with me.” Years later, that memory came back after Luna received a conditional job offer from American Airlines in 2024 and began preparing for a career as a flight attendant. “I found the old photos my grandpa took and wondered if she was still flying,” she said to PEOPLE. “I thought it would be amazing if she could pin my wings when I became a flight attendant.” Luna posted in a flight attendant Facebook group, hoping someone would recognize Hughes’s name. She quickly got an answer. Hughes was still flying and working as a Chicago-based Southwest Airlines flight attendant after nearly three decades in the industry. Luna also found out Hughes was friends with one of Luna’s own friends, who also works as a flight attendant. “It was such a small world,” Luna says. “We started texting through the whole process, and I couldn’t believe it.” Luna later posted the story on TikTok. The video drew more than seven million views. Then the moment she had hoped for since childhood happened during flight attendant training, when Hughes pinned Luna’s wings. “She gave me my first set when I was 6, so having her pin my wings now was surreal,” Luna says. “It really felt like everything came full circle.” Getting there was not straightforward. Before applying, Luna had been working in news and was unsure about leaving journalism. She applied for a flight attendant position in November 2024 “just to see what would happen.” Out of more than 100,000 applicants, she reached the final interview stage in Texas. Hiring pauses delayed her training. Luna said she left her station in February and drove to Texas to begin training. She now plans to move to Boston, where she will keep flying while also attending graduate school to further her journalism career. “It’s amazing how much flexibility this job gives you,” she says. “As a journalist, I believe everyone has a story to tell, and sometimes the best stories happen on flights or in airports.” During training, Luna said she was also dealing with a major personal loss. “My mom passed away during my second week,” Luna says to PEOPLE. “It was incredibly hard, but I know she would have wanted me to finish.” She said the experience reminded her of her brother, who completed Marine Corps boot camp after their father died several years earlier. “I really believe people come into our lives for a reason,” she says. “Having Kym reconnect with me and having my training class support me during that time meant everything.” Now, as she gets ready to start flying, Luna said she wants to give another child the kind of moment Hughes gave her. “I hope I can hand a kid their wings and make them feel the way I felt,” she says. “You never know what small moment might stay with someone forever.” 📸 credit: Angela Luna

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Rivals No More: Two Global Conservation Tools are Joining Forces in a Major Collaboration

For years, many conservation groups have had the same problem. Two widely used software platforms could each do part of the job, but using both often meant shuffling information between separate systems. Now those two platforms, SMART and EarthRanger, are being merged into a single product called SERCA. The move is aimed at simplifying wildlife monitoring, patrol management and conservation data analysis for groups working in protected areas. SMART and EarthRanger have overlapping functions, but many organizations have still needed both, creating logistical challenges in managing data across two dashboards. “It’s an enormous opportunity to deliver incredible tools across the entire world for conservationists,” EarthRanger director Jes Lefcourt told Mongabay. SMART was created in 2011 through a partnership between nine conservation groups that wanted a more efficient way to collect and analyze field data in protected areas. Since then, the software has grown to include mobile, desktop and cloud-based components that let organizations record field data including wildlife encounters, illegal activity and ranger responses during patrols. The platform is now used across 1,200 sites in more than 100 countries. In Zambia, the nonprofit Zambian Carnivore Programme uses SMART to collect carnivore and herbivore data in protected areas including South Luangwa National Park and Liuwa Plain National Park. In those places, large carnivores face threats from habitat loss and snaring. Ecologists record group composition, hunting behavior, reproduction and interspecies dynamics of hyenas, African wild dogs, lions, leopards and cheetahs. “You can actually see your database and manage your data, and we need to edit a lot of the data before we can use it for analysis,” Zambian Carnivore Programme data manager Elke van Gils said of why the program uses SMART. But SMART also has limits. It is not designed for real-time monitoring and has limited mapping and visualization tools, making it harder to track threats or species sightings as they happen. It also requires significant training to use effectively. Many organizations rely on a dedicated data analyst to manage the platform and process information collected in the field. Even with that support, the large data sets can be difficult to digest, and some conservation groups do not have the capacity to turn the information into on-the-ground decisions. “Everyone collected a lot of data, a lot of data,” said Rony García, biological research department director at the Guatemala office of the Wildlife Conservation Society, which uses SMART to organize ranger patrols in the Maya Forest. “But very few people are really analyzing what is happening there. So the intelligence is being lost.” Groups that need real-time monitoring and mapping have often turned to EarthRanger instead. The system was created in 2015 and is currently managed by the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence, a nonprofit research institute established by the late Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. Today, the software is used at more than 900 sites in more than 80 countries. In Chile, EarthRanger helps monitor puma dens in real time, with a map showing where individuals move around their habitat throughout the day. In Thailand, it is used to monitor elephant movement and protect against human-wildlife conflict. Other groups use it to track ranger patrols in real time rather than logging data after the fact, as is typically done with SMART. In Guatemala, García said EarthRanger is useful for collecting data about scarlet macaw nesting sites, including when birds are present in their nests and how many eggs they are laying. He said the mobile platform is user-friendly and, like SMART, removes the need to take handwritten notes in the field that can become messy, illegible or damaged by weather. “It’s really easy to use and easy to understand,” he said. Even after the creation of Gundi in 2023, a bridge that allows data to move between SMART and EarthRanger, several conservation groups told Mongabay they still wanted one integrated system. That led to SERCA. The new platform will combine EarthRanger’s user-friendly interface and real-time visualization with SMART’s data collection and analysis capabilities. The project is a collaboration between WCS, WWF, Re:wild, Panthera, North Carolina Zoo, Wildlife Protection Solutions, the Frankfurt Zoological Society, the Zoological Society of London and EarthRanger, which was developed by the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence. Lefcourt said the idea of combining the platforms had been discussed since the early iterations of EarthRanger, but an agreement was not reached until 2025. Development began this year. “The two largest conservation technology initiatives were spending money on two parallel efforts that were headed more or less towards the same north star,” Lefcourt told Mongabay. “We came together to establish SERCA to alleviate that.” A release date has not yet been announced, but Lefcourt said the rollout is expected to begin before the end of the year. The platform will include web, mobile and desktop versions, along with other technologies. He said users should think of the product less as a hard launch and more as a gradual rollout. Software updates are expected every two weeks after the first version is introduced. SMART will eventually be phased out as its capabilities are added to EarthRanger, which will be rebranded as SERCA. For now, most organizations are expected to continue using SMART or EarthRanger in their current forms. García said combining the two could make the transition easier for groups that have already spent years working with one system or the other. “It’s something we’ve needed for a long time,” García said. “It took a long time for people to accept SMART, and getting people to switch to EarthRanger wouldn’t have been easy. But now, if they can combine them into a new product, it will make adoption much easier, and SMART users will be able to take advantage of things from EarthRanger that they didn’t have before.” 📸 credit: SMART Partnership

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