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This Dad's Sweet Video Shows the "Unsung Benefits" of Reliving Your Childhood With Your Kids
Parenthood often brings an unexpected and delightful bonus: the chance to relive your own childhood through play with your kids. For Andrew, a father, playing with Play-Doh, Hot Wheels cars, swing sets, and watching Pokémon with his son has not only rekindled his inner child but also strengthened their bond over shared interests. This experience, as highlighted by Andrew and echoed by many parents, brings back the magic of childhood and allows adults to view the world through the eyes of their children, creating precious memories and connections.
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Canadian Lands National Geographic Cover With This Underwater Seahorse Photo
A seahorse in a Bahamian pond has put Saskatchewan-born photographer Shane Gross on the cover of National Geographic. Gross, who specializes in marine life photography, took the photo while in a pond in the Bahamas. The image features a seahorse floating in underwater weeds. “I picked that seahorse because it wasn’t shy. All the elements were there for a good picture. Did I think it would end up on the cover of National Geographic? Absolutely not,” he explained to CTV News. Gross said he has returned to the pond many times over the years. He has camped there for days at a time to put in the work needed to catch the right pictures. “Some of the seahorses in there are very shy. You find the right seahorses that are curious and you can start to make some good pictures,” he said to CTV News. His photography has taken him to all seven continents, most recently Antarctica. Gross said the water there was so cold that he was only able to dive underwater for roughly 40 minutes at a time before his equipment began to freeze up. He also had trouble getting the right shots because visibility was low. Gross said it was not until the final day of the trip that he was able to capture pictures of fur seals and penguins moving through the water. “Having those penguins circle around us was one of those encounters you dream about and hope for,” he said. Gross said he was a National Geographic reader as a child. At the time, he said the idea of being part of the magazine in some way felt farfetched. For people who want to pursue top-quality photography and possibly be featured in well-known magazines, Gross said focusing on a specific subject is the best approach. “They need people who are passionate about a certain thing. To be able to withstand the hardships that you go through when you are shooting these things. It’s passion that gets you through that,” he told CTV News. 📸credit: National Geographic/Shane Gross
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This City Council’s Youngest Regular Is Inspiring More Parents To Seek Office
A seven-week-old baby made an appearance at Fredericton city council this week, even if she did not get a vote. Councillor Cassandra LeBlanc brought her daughter, Josie, to Monday’s regular council meeting as she balanced parenthood and politics, and said she hopes others will feel able to do the same. The first in-person meeting since Josie’s arrival came with some nerves. “I was worrying about my baby having a blowout. And where am I going to change them? If it’s a big council, I don’t want to miss a vote,” LeBlanc told CTV News. She also had to think about breastfeeding and what to do if Josie cried. But LeBlanc said Josie fit right in. At 27, LeBlanc was the youngest woman to run for Fredericton city council. She said that at the time, she knew she wanted to start a family at some point. She had been attending meetings virtually, but Monday night marked her first council meeting in person since giving birth. LeBlanc said she had support from her colleagues and from Mayor Kate Rogers, Fredericton’s first female mayor. Rogers said the city, like other political spaces, has taken time to make women feel welcome. “The conversation was, ‘Why aren’t there more women at the table?’ And I would say, ‘Women don’t want to be at that table because that table is not welcoming to us. And when we come to this table, we’re very aware it wasn’t designed for us,’” Rogers said. “I wanted to create a space where women knew that it was their place.” Very few sitting New Brunswick politicians have given birth while in office. Five years ago, MLA Megan Mitton asked the provincial legislature to install change tables so she could bring her newborn to the house. At the time, Mitton said that kind of change was needed so more young women would feel they could run for public office. “It tends to be a space that has been traditionally dominated by men, and so even going into politics I had heard recommendations to do it later in life, not do it when you have a kid,” Mitton said. “I haven’t followed that.” LeBlanc said she hopes Josie grows up in a world with even more women and young mothers around the professional table. “I hope one day she looks back on that and is proud of her mom. And maybe it inspires her and other little girls to run for council or other offices,” she told CTV News. 📸credit: City of Fredericton
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Score (97)
Washington, D.C. Cherry Blossoms Are in Peak Bloom, National Park Service Says
Spring has hit its mark in Washington. The National Park Service said on Thursday that peak bloom has arrived for the city’s cherry blossoms. Warm temperatures near 15.5 degrees Celsius on Wednesday, followed by warmer conditions on Thursday, sped up the process and pushed many Yoshino cherry trees from Stage Five, known as Puffy White, into full bloom. The Park Service said about one-third of the trees were still in Stage Five early Wednesday, but the mild weather lifted that number. The trees pass through six stages: Green Buds, Florets Visible, Extension of Florets, Peduncle Elongation, Puffy White and Peak Bloom. The National Park Service defines peak bloom as the point when about 70 percent of blossoms have opened. Peak bloom usually happens between late March and early April. Weather shifts have pushed it as early as March 15 in 1990 and as late as April 18 in 1958. The blossoms reached peak bloom on March 28 in 2025 and March 17 in 2024. The Yoshino trees usually stay in bloom for several days, depending on the weather. Cool, calm conditions can stretch out the display, while rain, wind or a late frost can cut it short or stop blossoms from opening. Most Yoshino cherry trees circle the Tidal Basin and extend onto the Washington Monument grounds. Part of the Tidal Basin will stay closed through the 2026 Cherry Blossom Festival because of a 112 million dollar seawall reconstruction project aimed at reducing flooding and improving accessibility. 📸credit: National Mall NPS / @NationalMallNPS Photo by Haoshuang Lou on Pexels (https://www.pexels.com/photo/pink-cherry-blossom-998958/)
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Two Maryland State Troopers Just Saved a Choking Infant While On an Unrelated Call
It turned from an ordinary call into an emergency in seconds. Two Maryland State troopers are being praised after helping save a choking infant when a frantic grandmother ran to them for help while they were on an unrelated call across the street. Trooper First Class Taylor Hersh and Corporal Jonathan Stoltzfus were nearby when the woman approached them with a baby who was unable to breathe. Bodycam footage shows the troopers running to her and starting life-saving measures right away. Within moments, they cleared the infant’s airway and the child was able to breathe again, bringing the ordeal to a safe end. Maryland State Police later highlighted the speed of the response. “Without hesitation, the troopers immediately began lifesaving measures and were able to clear the infant’s airway… Their quick actions and training made all the difference, preventing what could have been yet another tragic outcome,” the agency said. Hersh said the moment showed how training takes over in a crisis. “All the good training that we have, it just becomes second nature at that point,” he said. “We’re presented with critical situations a lot of times, and from that experience, you kind of just learn to stay calm and just not hesitate.” Stoltzfus said the incident also reflects the broad range of work state troopers handle in their communities. “A lot of people look at the state police and think we’re traffic cops… But what people don’t realize, in Southern Maryland specifically, is we do everything,” he said. “We do everything from going to medical calls to a traffic accident, to dealing with situations like this.” Maryland State Police praised the pair in a post, writing: “Job well done by Maryland's Finest!👏”
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Former Los Angeles Funeral Home Becomes Housing Hub For Homeless Seniors
A former mortuary in Los Angeles has taken on a very different role. The old Pierce Brothers Mortuary, once part of a 16-block stretch known as “Mortuary Row,” is now an affordable housing complex for seniors called Washington View Apartments. The shift comes as affordable senior housing has become harder to find. The Department of Housing and Urban Development says more than 146,000 Americans over age 55 experienced homelessness in 2024. Pierce Brothers Mortuary was one of the largest funeral homes in the area. It closed a few years ago, then briefly operated as a church. Attendance later dropped during the pandemic, and the property was converted into housing for older residents. Washington View Apartments now houses 100 elderly neighbors in 122 units priced for residents earning 30 to 60 percent of the area median income. Developers designated 91 of those units for formerly homeless residents. The project drew public and private funding. A private bank provided a $33 million construction loan, and the Los Angeles city government lent another $12 million to help revitalize the site. The building has a long history in the city. It was once the first full-service funeral home in Los Angeles. Over the years, the former Pierce Brothers Chapel suffered two fires and long-term damage before the adaptive reuse project began. The redevelopment restored major parts of the historic property, including the front of the building, the chapel, the bell tower and the red tile roof. The chapel had already been listed as a cultural-historic landmark by the city of Los Angeles, and the project was designed to preserve it. That work earned recognition from the city. Washington View Apartments was named a winner of Los Angeles’s 2023 Preservation Design Award for Reconstruction. The city’s awards page described the condition of the building when work started in blunt terms: “When the project began, the Spanish Colonial revival-style mortuary was a partial ruin,” the summary said. The same summary said the old chapel has been turned into a studio apartment, while the large gathering space now serves as a community area for residents. “The stained-glass windows were repaired, restored, or reconstructed,” the summary said. “The mortuary and converted garage received a seismic upgrade and, with the courtyard, are ADA-compliant.” The former hearse garage is also part of the housing complex. Together, the building and garage now support a residential community with recreation rooms, open community spaces and offices where residents can get case management and attend adult education classes. For people who live there, the building’s history is part of daily life. “It’s a one-stop shop,” resident Louis Juarez joked to The New York Times about living so close to the area’s remaining funeral homes. Juarez also told the paper what the apartment has meant for him after a year in a homeless shelter. “I love it here,” Juarez said to the New York Times. “Every morning I wake up and it relieves all the stress from my life.” 📸 credit: Washington View Apartments
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Sitting Down To Read May Lower Dementia Risk, Study Finds
What you do while sitting may matter as much as how long you sit. Reading, doing a crossword or doing office work while seated may lower the risk of dementia, while spending long periods watching television may raise it, according to new research from Sweden. The study, published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, found that different kinds of sedentary behaviour are linked to dementia risk in very different ways. Researchers said mentally active sitting appeared to help protect against dementia, while mentally passive sitting, described in the study as “couch potato” behaviour such as watching telly, was linked to a higher risk. It challenges the older view that all forms of sedentary behaviour carry the same dementia risk. The research team said previous studies had already suggested that mentally passive sedentary behaviours increase dementia risk, while mentally active sedentary behaviour, such as reading or office work, seemed protective. Most adults spend between nine and 10 hours a day sitting, the researchers said. Earlier research has shown extended, uninterrupted sitting is a risk factor for heart disease, type 2 diabetes and depression. It has also been associated with dementia. The new study is the first to separate passive sitting from mentally active sitting when looking at dementia risk, according to the researchers. They found that adults who spent long periods in mentally passive sedentary behaviour had a higher risk of dementia. Replacing passive sitting with mentally active sedentary behaviour was associated with a lower risk of dementia later in life. Dementia is the third highest cause of death and the seventh largest cause of disability among older adults worldwide, the researchers said. Lead investigator Professor Mats Hallgren, of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, said: “While all sitting involves minimal energy expenditure, it may be differentiated by the level of brain activity. "How we use our brains while we are sitting appears to be a crucial determinant of future cognitive functioning and, as we have shown, may predict dementia onset.” Researchers analysed data from a study involving more than 20,000 Swedish adults aged 35 to 64 who were followed over 19 years. The initial survey included questions about sedentary behaviour, physical activity and other behaviours associated with dementia. To identify dementia cases, the team linked the 1997 survey data with the Swedish National Patient Register and the Swedish Cause of Death Register. Using statistical models, the researchers examined the dementia associations that came from substituting mentally passive sedentary behaviour with mentally active sedentary behaviour. They found mentally active sedentary behaviour was associated with a reduced risk of dementia among middle-aged and older adults. Increasing time spent in mentally active sedentary behaviour was also associated with a “significant” reduction in dementia risk while maintaining levels of passive sedentary behaviour, light physical activity and moderate-to-vigorous physical activity. The same pattern appeared when researchers looked at replacing time spent in mentally passive sedentary behaviour with an equivalent amount of mentally active sedentary behaviour. That substitution was also associated with a lower risk of developing dementia. Because the survey collected data from 3,600 cities and villages across Sweden, the research team said the findings are likely generalisable to a wider global population. Hallgren said: “The prospective study design allowed us to establish the direction of these relationships and infers but does not establish causality. "Controlled trials are needed to confirm these important observational study findings." Hallgren, who also holds a post at Deakin University in Australia, said sedentary behaviour is common and can be changed, making it a target for public health efforts. He said: “Sedentary behavior is a ubiquitous but modifiable risk factor for many health conditions, including dementia. "Our study adds the observation that not all sedentary behaviors are equivalent; some may increase the risk of dementia, while others may be protective. "It is important to remain physically active as we age, but also mentally active, especially when we are sitting.” Photo by Polina Zimmerman on Pexels (https://www.pexels.com/photo/photo-of-woman-reading-book-3747468/)
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Boston Musicians Are Bringing More Than 100 Concerts A Year To City Shelters
Sometimes the smallest stage says the most. On a recent Thursday, professional violinist Adrian Anantawan played with pianist Jennifer Hsiao at Women’s Lunch Place, a day shelter in Boston’s Back Bay. For Anantawan, the performance sat alongside appearances at the White House and for Pope John Paul II and the Dalai Lama. “I've been lucky to have a performing career,” Anantawan said to WCVB. “But oftentimes, the most meaningful experiences that I have as a musician, but also as a human being, is the work that we do here at Shelter Music Boston." Founded in 2010, Shelter Music Boston brings classical music to more than a dozen adult and family shelters across the city. Its paid professional musicians perform regularly, putting on more than 100 concerts a year. Anantawan also serves as the group’s artistic director. He said paying musicians matters to the program and to the idea behind it. “It's not to say that a volunteer can't do the same, but to be able to respect a professional's time and to make that sustainable, this idea of an artist working for social change is something I think that we need to respect and put our resources behind," Anantawan told WCVB. The group adjusts its performances depending on the shelter and the audience. Anantawan said concerts at family shelters take a different shape when children are involved. “Kids need to move, they need to make, so one of our signature programs at this moment is engaging kids with puppetry,” he said to WCVB. At Women’s Lunch Place, CEO Jennifer Hanlon Wigon said the performances have a strong effect on the space. “We really work hard to have a trauma-informed space,” she said. “When you bring the gift of music into that space, it just adds another element of, I think, dignity and joy in our space." Shelter Music Boston musicians perform in more than a dozen Boston shelters and hold more than 100 concerts a year. 📸 credit: WCVB
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Vivid Dreams May Make Sleep Feel Deeper, Study Finds
A good night’s sleep might have less to do with hours on the clock than people think. A new study from researchers at the IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca suggests that dreams, especially vivid and immersive ones, can make sleep feel deeper and more restorative, rather than disrupting it. The study was published in PLOS Biology. For decades, deep sleep has been seen as a state in which the brain is largely “switched off,” marked by slow brain waves, minimal activity and little awareness. Under that view, deeper sleep meant less brain activity. Dreaming, by comparison, has usually been tied to Rapid Eye Movement, or REM, sleep and treated as a sign of partial “awakenings” in the brain. The researchers said that creates a paradox. REM sleep involves intense dreaming and brain activity that resembles wakefulness, yet people often still report that this stage feels like deep sleep. To examine that contradiction, researchers analysed 196 overnight recordings from 44 healthy adults. Participants slept in a laboratory while researchers monitored their brain activity using high-density electroencephalography, or EEG. The data came from a broader project funded by a European Research Council Starting Grant that examined how different types of sensory stimulation influence the experience of sleep. Across four nights, participants were awakened more than 1,000 times and asked to describe what they had been experiencing just before waking. They also rated how deeply they felt they had been sleeping and how sleepy they were. The results showed that people reported the deepest sleep in two situations, when they had no conscious experience, and after vivid, immersive dreams. By comparison, shallow sleep was linked to minimal or fragmented experiences, such as a vague sense of presence without clear dream content. “In other words, not all mental activity during sleep feels the same: the quality of the experience, especially how immersive it is, appears to be crucial,” Giulio Bernardi, professor in neuroscience at the IMT School and senior author of the study, said. “This suggests that dreaming may reshape how brain activity is interpreted by the sleeper: the more immersive the dream, the deeper the sleep feels.” The researchers also found another pattern over the course of the night. Even as physiological signs of sleep pressure gradually decreased, participants said their sleep felt deeper as time went on. That perceived deepening closely tracked an increase in how immersive their dreams became. The findings suggest that dream experiences may help preserve the feeling of deep sleep even as the body’s biological need for sleep declines. The study also points to the idea that immersive dreams may help maintain a sense of separation from the external environment, a feature of restorative sleep, even while parts of the brain remain active. Bernardi said the findings could open a new way of thinking about sleep health and mental well-being. “Understanding how dreams contribute to the feeling of deep sleep opens new perspectives on sleep health and mental well-being,” he said. “If dreams help sustain the feeling of deep sleep, then alterations in dreaming could partly explain why some people feel they sleep poorly even when standard objective sleep indices appear normal. Rather than being merely a by-product of sleep, immersive dreams may help buffer fluctuations in brain activity and sustain the subjective experience of being deeply asleep.” The researchers said the idea echoes a long-standing hypothesis in sleep research, and in classical psychoanalysis, that dreams may act as “guardians of sleep.” The study was part of a broader collaboration between the IMT School, Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna in Pisa, and Fondazione Gabriele Monasterio, where a new sleep laboratory has been established to combine neuroscientific and medical expertise. According to the researchers, the facility supports a multidisciplinary approach to studying sleep and the sleep-wake cycle, with the aim of better understanding how brain activity interacts with bodily processes. They said the findings are an early step in that work and a foundation for future research into how brain-body dynamics shape sleep in healthy people and in people with sleep disorders. Photo by Kampus Production on Pexels (https://www.pexels.com/photo/woman-in-gray-tank-top-sleeping-on-bed-7556590/)
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Scientists Uncover A Million-Year-Old Time Capsule Beneath a New Zealand Cave
A cave near Waitomo has opened a new window into Aotearoa New Zealand’s deep past, with scientists finding animal remains about 1 million years old, including a previously unknown ancestor of the kākāpō. The fossils come from a large collection inside the North Island cave and include remains from 12 species of birds and four species of frogs. Researchers say the site offers a rare look at what New Zealand’s ecosystems looked like at that time. The work, published in Alcheringa: An Australasian Journal of Palaeontology, says dramatic climate shifts and major volcanic eruptions shaped the country’s wildlife long before humans arrived. The research says those natural events led to repeated extinctions and the rise of new species. Lead author Trevor Worthy, a Flinders University associate professor from the College of Science and Engineering, said the fossils reveal a part of New Zealand biodiversity that had not been recognised before. "This is a newly recognized avifauna for New Zealand, one that was replaced by the one humans encountered a million years later," Associate Professor Worthy said. "This remarkable find suggests our ancient forests were once home to a diverse group of birds that did not survive the next million years." Paleontologists from Flinders University and Canterbury Museum examined the fossils with volcanologists Joel Baker from the University of Auckland and Simon Barker of Victoria University of Wellington. The team estimates that about 33 to 50 percent of species disappeared in the million years before humans arrived in Aotearoa New Zealand. Canterbury Museum senior curator of natural history Paul Scofield said fast environmental change played a major role. "These extinctions were driven by relatively rapid climate shifts and cataclysmic volcanic eruptions," Dr Scofield said. "From our excavations at St Bathans in Central Otago over many years, we have a snapshot of life in Aotearoa between 20 and 16 million years ago. These new findings cast light on the 15 million year period from then to 1 million years ago, which is largely absent from New Zealand's fossil record," Dr Scofield said. "This wasn't a missing chapter in New Zealand's ancient history, it was a missing volume." Among the most notable finds is a newly identified parrot species, Strigops insulaborealis, described as an ancient relative of the modern kākāpō. Researchers say that unlike today’s heavy, flightless kākāpō, this earlier species may have been able to fly. Fossil analysis suggests it had weaker legs than the modern bird, which indicates it was likely less suited for climbing. The researchers say more study is needed to confirm if it could truly fly. The cave also held fossils of an extinct ancestor of the takahē, which the researchers say helps explain the evolution of that bird. The team also found an extinct pigeon species closely related to Australian bronzewing pigeons. Dr Scofield said changing habitats reshaped bird life in the North Island. "The shifting forest and shrubland habitats forced a reset of the bird populations," Dr Scofield said. "We believe this was a major driver for the evolutionary diversification of birds and other fauna in the North Island." Scientists dated the fossils because they were preserved between two separate layers of volcanic ash inside the cave. One layer is linked to an eruption about 1.55 million years ago, and the other to a massive eruption around 1 million years ago. The later eruption likely spread metres of ash across much of the North Island, according to the research. While much of that ash was later washed away, some stayed protected inside caves. The older ash layer also shows that the site is the oldest known cave in the North Island. Associate Professor Worthy said the fossils fill a major gap in the record of the country’s past. He said the remains "provide a critical, missing baseline for New Zealand's natural history." "For decades, the extinction of New Zealand's birds was viewed primarily through the lens of human arrival 750 years ago. This study proves that natural forces like super-volcanoes and dramatic climate shifts were already sculpting the unique identity of our wildlife over a million years ago." 📸 Credit: AI/Paul Scofield (Canterbury Museum)
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Playful Iberian Lynx Photo Wins Wildlife Photographer Of The Year People’s Choice Award
Sometimes the winning wildlife shot is all grace. This year, it was a wild cat batting a rat into the air. An image of an Iberian lynx playing with its prey has won the Wildlife Photographer of the Year People’s Choice Award for 2026, after more than 85,000 people voted in the annual contest organised by London’s Natural History Museum. The photo shows the lynx standing on its hind legs with one paw flung out, appearing playful and predatory as it bats around a rodent before killing and eating it. The winning image was taken by Austrian photographer Josef Stefan at Torre de Juan Abad in central Spain, after he spent three days camouflaged in a hide waiting for the animal. The People’s Choice shortlist included 24 photos, selected from 60,636 entries. It is separate from the overall competition, whose winner was announced in October. Stefan told CNN the lynx only appeared briefly during his time in the hide. “During that period, the lynx made ‘brief appearances from time to time,’” Stefan told CNN. He said the key moment came without warning. “On the second day, this special moment came completely unexpectedly, he suddenly appeared with a freshly caught rat in his mouth, lay down near me, and remained there attentively for a while.” Soon after, the lynx started playing with the prey. “He repeatedly tossed the rat into the air, skillfully caught it, and occupied himself with it for about 15 to 20 minutes. Finally, he lost interest, grabbed the rat, and disappeared behind a bush, where he ate it,” Stefan said. The animal then returned. “About 20 minutes later, he reappeared: calmly, almost proudly, he walked past my hide and finally disappeared into the adjacent bushland.” The image also draws attention to a species that was once pushed close to collapse. Iberian lynxes, known for their tufted ears and spotted red-brown fur, were once among the most endangered mammals after being hunted by humans who mistakenly believed they killed livestock, and as scrubland and woodland habitat declined. Stefan recalled that at that time they were “practically impossible” to photograph. Natalie Cooper, a researcher at the Natural History Museum, said numbers in Spain fell to about 100 in the early 2000s. “Only 62 of these were mature individuals,” she added in a statement released by the Natural History Museum on Wednesday. According to the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, intensive conservation efforts lifted the number of mature Iberian lynxes to about 648 in 2022. Stefan said the species is still elusive, but no longer feels out of reach. “With patience, knowledge of their habitats, and a bit of luck, these fascinating animals can once again be observed –– and sometimes even photographed.” He said the lynx now carries a wider meaning. “The lynx is therefore not only a rare subject but also a powerful symbol of how effective nature conservation can be.”