Goodable

Marine researchers on a recent expedition in the southeast Pacific discovered over 100 new species and multiple unidentified seamounts off Chile's coast. Led by Dr. Javier Sellanes, the team found deep-sea corals, glass sponges, sea urchins, and more across Nazca and Salas y Gomez Ridge. Each seamount showcased unique ecosystems with vulnerable deep-sea coral reefs and sponge gardens thriving within them. Using advanced underwater technology, researchers mapped over 52,000 square kilometers of seafloor and uncovered four previously unknown seamounts.

<p>Marine researchers on a recent expedition in the southeast Pacific discovered over 100 new species and multiple unidentified seamounts off Chile's coast. Led by Dr. Javier Sellanes, the team found deep-sea corals, glass sponges, sea urchins, and more across Nazca and Salas y Gomez Ridge. Each seamount showcased unique ecosystems with vulnerable deep-sea coral reefs and sponge gardens thriving within them. Using advanced underwater technology, researchers mapped over 52,000 square kilometers of seafloor and uncovered four previously unknown seamounts.<br></p>

Over 100 Alien-Looking Species Were Just Discovered in the South Pacific

5 for Good WCVB

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

Boston Musicians Are Bringing More Than 100 Concerts A Year To City Shelters

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Science Daily

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.

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Vivid Dreams May Make Sleep Feel Deeper, Study Finds

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)

Scientists Uncover A Million-Year-Old Time Capsule Beneath a New Zealand Cave

CNN TRAVEL

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.”

Playful Iberian Lynx Photo Wins Wildlife Photographer Of The Year People’s Choice Award

USA Today

When the gunfire started inside a Minneapolis church last summer, Victor Greenawalt threw himself over a classmate. On Wednesday, he was honored in Washington for it.

Victor received a Citizen Honor Award from the Congressional Medal of Honor Society on March 25 for shielding a classmate with his body during the mass shooting at Annunciation Catholic Church and School, officials said.

The Medal of Honor Society named Victor its 2026 Young Hero Honoree, saying he showed "extraordinary bravery far beyond his years" during the Aug. 27, 2025, attack. The award recognizes Americans 17 and younger "for their courage in a dire situation," according to the society's website.

Victor was one of six honorees recognized for this year's National Medal of Honor Day, according to the Medal of Honor Society. The group said the six recipients, five people and one non-profit organization, were honored for their "extraordinary acts of heroism and service within their communities."

"Instinctively, Victor protected a classmate with his own body, directly saving their life during the attack," the Medal of Honor Society said in a news release. "His courage and selflessness became a powerful symbol of hope and humanity for a community in crisis."

The award was presented during a ceremony at the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium in Washington, DC, by the Medal of Honor Society, a congressionally chartered non-profit organization made up of the 64 living Medal of Honor recipients.

Victor and his sister were injured when a shooter fired through the windows of Annunciation Catholic Church toward young students worshipping at Mass, according to a GoFundMe page set up for the family.

In a statement on social media, Senator Amy Klobuchar said Victor "leaped in front of gunfire to protect his friend during the tragic mass shooting."

Representative Angie Craig, a Minnesota Democrat, also praised him in a social media statement.

"Victor’s actions saved his friend’s life," Craig said. "I am so proud of Victor, but this is just heartbreaking. Our kids shouldn’t have to live this way in America. We must do better for our kids and pass an assault weapons ban."

That friend was later identified as Weston Halsne, who was 10 and a fifth grader at Annunciation Catholic School at the time of the attack. Weston told KARE 11 he had been sitting two seats away from the stained-glass windows when bullets started coming through.

Like the other students around him, Weston dropped to the ground, the television station reported. Victor tried to shield him and was shot in the back.

"My friend Victor, like, saved me, though, because he laid on top of me, but he got hit," Weston told KARE 11. Weston called his friend "brave" and said he thought Victor had gone to the hospital and was doing all right.

An Aug. 29, 2025, update on the family's GoFundMe page said Victor had been released from the hospital and was recovering with his family. The page said the family faced a long recovery.

"We know that there is still a long road ahead of healing for our family and the community," the GoFundMe page said. "A sincere and deeply felt thank you from our entire family. We are trying to focus on the light - the incredible stories of people helping each other this week."

The shooting happened just before 8:30 a.m. local time at the Church of the Annunciation, a Catholic church in Minneapolis that also houses a private elementary school with about 395 students, authorities said.

Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O'Hara said the shooter approached the outside of the church building and fired inside toward children sitting in pews.

Two children, 10-year-old Harper Moyski and 8-year-old Fletcher Merkel, were killed.

Police first said 18 other people were injured, including 15 students ages 6 to 18 and three parishioners in their 80s. MPR News later reported that police said 24 children and three adults were injured by gunfire.

Police said at least two of the injured were critically hurt. All of the injured had been expected to recover, though some family members had previously said their loved ones faced long recoveries from serious bullet wounds.

The suspected shooter, Robin Westman, 23, died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound at the scene, O'Hara said.

 📸 credit: Courtesy of Congressional Medal of Honor Society

This Teen Was Just Honored After He Jumped In Front Of Gunfire To Save His Friend

Artnet

The Louvre is about to turn one of its own galleries into a restoration workshop.

The Paris museum says it will restore all 24 paintings in Peter Paul Rubens’s Medici cycle in what it has described as its most ambitious restoration project yet. The full suite of monumental canvases will be treated on site in the Richelieu Wing, where they are currently displayed, with the gallery closing this October so conservators can work behind closed doors.

The project will run for at least four years. It is backed by a donation of €4 million, or $4.6 million, from the Friends of the Louvre Society. The museum has not made the total cost public.

The Medici cycle was produced between 1622 and 1625 on commission for the French Crown. It was one of Rubens’s most prestigious achievements and was painted when the Flemish artist was at the height of his international fame. He created the works in his native Antwerp before they were shipped from Flanders to France for installation in a gallery at the Luxembourg Palace in Paris, the home of Marie de Medici.

Across about 3,150 square feet of painted surface, Rubens depicted scenes from the life of Marie de Medici, the Tuscan princess who became Queen of France in 1600. The cycle includes three grand portraits of the queen and her parents. The other 21 paintings present scenes that mythologize her life, including her birth, education, marriage, coronation, motherhood and the period when she served as regent after her husband died and her son was still too young to rule.

The Louvre describes the group as one of its greatest treasures. The cycle is also regarded as an exemplary work of court portraiture, filled with allegorical detail, and it influenced later French painters including Jean-Honoré Fragonard and Eugène Delacroix.

The museum said the scale of the paintings means the restoration has to happen on site. Custom equipment, including large easels, has been created for the work. Conservators will also use the project to study the paintings’ materials in hopes of learning more about Rubens’s technique and process.

The restoration has been in preparation for years. An initial condition assessment in 2016 raised concerns about the state of the canvases. A deeper analysis in 2020 found that the varnish had yellowed through oxidization. In some areas, paint had also started lifting from the canvas.

The treatment is intended to reverse those problems and repair damage to the compositions. The museum said the aim is to preserve the paintings over the long term and improve their legibility.

The work will be carried out under the direction of Sébastien Allard, the Louvre’s director of paintings.

Marie de Medici’s life did not end in the triumphal terms shown in Rubens’s cycle. In 1631, several years after the paintings were completed, she was exiled from Paris by her son. She died in the Spanish Netherlands in 1642.

 📸credit: Photo: Nicolas Guiraud. © Musée du Louvre.

Louvre Revives Rubens’s Monumental Medici Paintings

Black News

For Shay Taylor, Yale New Haven Hospital is no longer the place where she cleaned floors. It is where she is heading back as a doctor.

Taylor, 32, is from New Haven, Connecticut. At 18, after graduating from Wilbur Cross High School in 2010, she went straight to work as a janitor at Yale New Haven Hospital. She cleaned patient rooms, offices and psychiatric units.

She had done well in school, finishing in the top 10 percent of her class. But she did not have family guidance on college or financial aid, so she started working instead.

A turning point came after her mother suffered severe lung damage in a house fire. Doctors repeatedly dismissed her mother’s symptoms as psychological. Taylor, frustrated by what was happening, contacted the hospital’s chief executive and explained her mother’s struggles.

Within days, her mother was connected to a new medical team. She was then diagnosed with vocal cord dysfunction, a rare condition that had previously been overlooked.

According to Today, that experience pushed Taylor toward patient advocacy. She looked into nursing and other healthcare jobs before deciding she wanted to become a doctor.

She went back to school and attended Southern Connecticut State University. She later earned a master’s degree at Quinnipiac University. During that time, she kept working nights as a janitor so she could save money for medical school applications and the MCAT exam.

Taylor was eventually accepted to Howard University College of Medicine. This month, she matched for residency at Yale New Haven Hospital, returning to the same hospital where she once worked cleaning floors.

Her reaction was captured on video and later went viral. In the video, she screamed, jumped and collapsed into the arms of loved ones after learning where she had matched.

“I would have never imagined this,” she said to Today. “To come back to the same place, it means everything.”

Taylor is returning to Yale New Haven Hospital as an anesthesiology resident. She says she wants her story to help people who are unsure about their path.

“I want them to keep going,” she told Today. “I want them to not take a no as the final answer.”

This Former Janitor Is Now a Doctor At The Hospital Where She Once Worked

In Abington, a simple purple sign above a street name is turning into a public record of service and sacrifice.

Nearly 70 signs have been installed around town to honor military members from Abington who received, or are entitled to receive, a Purple Heart, thanks to a volunteer effort led by Janice Walters, her husband Peter Walters, and Philip Delany.

The three volunteers are all veterans who live in Abington. Janice and Peter Walters served in the Army, and Delany served in the Air Force.

"I always have something to say,” Delany said to WCVB. “So, I joined the Veterans’ Advisory Council, and it just went off from there."

The group has been working to identify Purple Heart recipients tied to the town. Janice and Peter Walters did much of the research, going through volumes of discharge papers from World War I and World War II.

"We would have to look for the name, and then we would come down to battles and campaigns and decorations and citations,” Janice Walters told WCVB.

That work has not stopped. The effort is still going, with more recent enlistment records on file at town hall helping volunteers confirm additional names from later conflicts.

Once a Purple Heart is confirmed, the town installs a purple street sign topper above the street sign where the recipient lived or where the person was enlisted from.

Adam Gunn, Abington’s director of veterans’ services, said those signs are now hard to miss.

"Five years ago, when I started, we had six Purple Heart recipients that we knew of,” Gunn said. “We have 67 signs up throughout town, and we have five more that are sitting on my desk that are confirmed that we need to order signs for, and it just continues to grow thanks to our volunteers."

For some families, the signs have brought recognition that had not been public before.

Jane Matiyosus said people did not really know about her father’s Purple Heart until his sign was installed. Her father, John Matiyosus, was wounded while serving in World War II.

"It's just a wonderful feeling that somebody cared enough to find all the Purple Heart people,” Matiyosus said. “Just having that for all the families to look at … it's just incredible."

The work has also created a growing public record. Information gathered through the project has been posted to the town’s veterans’ services website.

For Janice Walters, the project has carried both meaning and responsibility.

"It's just very, very exciting, very humbling,” Janice Walters said. “If any of the families are listening, I just want them to know that we are so grateful to have been able to do this and continue to do so."

The volunteers are identifying military members from Abington who received a Purple Heart and those who should have received one. Peter Walters said he is hopeful the town will also be able to get several Purple Hearts awarded posthumously to people who earned them but never received them.

That includes five former Abington residents who served and were injured in World War I.

The project started from a small list and has grown steadily. According to Gunn, the town knew of six Purple Heart recipients five years ago. It now has 67 signs installed, with five more already confirmed and waiting to be ordered.

Each new sign marks a name, an address, and a military record that volunteers have worked to verify through enlistment records, discharge papers, and service details such as battles, campaigns, decorations, and citations.

The effort has depended on local records and the persistence of volunteers who wanted to identify and recognize people from their town who were wounded in military service.

In Abington, that recognition now sits above street signs across town, with five more signs already confirmed and waiting to be ordered.

 📸credit: WCVB

A Small Town Is Quietly Changing Its Street Signs… for a Powerful Reason

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For 50 years, NEADS Service Dogs has been breeding, raising, training and matching service dogs, and one of them has spent the past two years helping students and staff at a Cape Cod elementary school.

Star, a specially trained assistance canine, has been working in the halls of Centerville Elementary School in Barnstable, Massachusetts.

School counselor Holeigh Morin said the Barnstable School District brought Star in to support the whole school community.

"Star's impact has been tremendous on not just the students but the staff as well," she told WCVB.

Star was bred through NEADS Service Dogs in Sterling and went through the nonprofit's puppy-raising program, which was created five decades ago.

Director of Development Kathy Zemaitis said she believes NEADS is the longest continuously running service dog organization in the country.

"We're celebrating 50 years of breeding, raising, training and matching service dogs, and we're very excited about that,” Zemaitis said.

Zemaitis said the nonprofit depends on volunteers to do its work.

One of them is Keith McCormick of Boston, who has volunteered with NEADS since 2019. He helped train Star by exposing her to different environments and activities.

"You go to the beach, you go to the Red Sox game, you go to a concert or a theater; the dog is there and participates," McCormick said.

Morin said Star helps students feel confident reading and brings calm in a crisis. She also said attendance has improved since Star arrived.

Zemaitis said service dogs can help in a wide range of public settings.

"Police departments, fire departments, hospitals, schools are a natural fit,” Zemaitis said. “There are so many different ways that dogs can help in a public or a community setting."

McCormick is now helping raise his sixth dog for NEADS. He said saying goodbye at the end of training is difficult, but keeping the broader purpose in mind helps.

"You have to love the program more than you love the dog itself,” he said. “There's always the benefit that when you give up a dog, you only have to wait a short period before you get your next assignment."

Since the 1990s, NEADS has also run a prison pup program. Incarcerated individuals in five area facilities help raise puppies during the week, and volunteers like McCormick take them on weekends.

📸 credit: Neads

Photo by Thirdman on Pexels (https://www.pexels.com/photo/a-german-shepherd-lying-down-on-the-floor-7268587/)

Neads Service Dogs Marks 50 Years As Volunteers Help Train Canines That Support Schools And Communities

Photo by Karen Laårk Boshoff on Pexels (https://www.pexels.com/photo/wooden-honey-dripper-on-waffles-7786846/)

Euro News

It starts with a waffle, but the date comes from a church feast.

International Waffle Day was celebrated this week, and its roots trace back to Sweden and a religious occasion that Christians mark on the same day.

The Feast of Annunciation marks the moment the archangel Gabriel visited the Virgin Mary and told her she was to be the mother of Jesus Christ. The day is also known as “Our Lady’s Day,” which in Swedish is “vårfrudagen.”

Spoken aloud, “vårfrudagen” sounds very similar to the Swedish word for waffle, “våffeldagen.”

That similarity helped turn the date into Waffle Day in Sweden. The celebration later spread internationally, driven by what the source describes as a widely recognised universal love for waffles. These days, most people mark 25 March by eating waffles rather than celebrating the religious occasion.

There is no shortage of ways to do that. The source says there are more than two dozen types of waffles around the globe.

A Swedish waffle is one option for anyone sticking close to the day’s origins. Swedish waffles are heart shaped and are typically served with fruit, whipped cream or ice cream. They differ from the better-known Belgian waffle because they do not contain yeast. That makes them thinner, with a texture more similar to pancakes.

The Dutch stroopwafel is another well-known version. Its name translates to “syrup waffle” in English. It is made with two thin, crispy waffle-like cookies, joined with caramel syrup in the middle.

Then there is the egg waffle, also called a bubble waffle, from Hong Kong. The source describes it as an iconic street food there. These waffles have a spherical shape, a crisp texture and a vanilla flavour. The bubbles can be broken off and eaten as a snack, or the waffle can be shaped into a cone to hold toppings.

The Belgian waffle may be the most popular version globally, but the source says that label covers two different types, the Brussels waffle and the Liège waffle.

The Brussels waffle originally came from Ghent, Belgium. It later became associated with the capital and is now an icon. It is rectangular, light and sweet.

The Liège waffle comes from the city of Liège in Belgium’s Wallonia region. It is round and made with a dense dough.

One of the main differences is the sugar. Liège waffles are made with Belgian pearl sugar, while Brussels waffles are not. That extra sugar is why Liège waffles are seen as sweeter than Brussels waffles, and why they are often eaten without toppings.

Sebastien Nyssen, manager of the waffle shop Capoue, said the sugar is what sets them apart most clearly.

“It’s already [has] enough sugar, and we don’t need to add anything to make it more tasty,” said Nyssen to Euro News.

The way they are eaten also differs. Because Liège waffles usually come without toppings, they are easy to eat while walking around. Brussels waffles are more often eaten sitting at a table with a knife and fork.

Toppings are also more common on Brussels waffles because they are lighter and less sugary than Liège waffles. The source says Brussels waffles are often served with powdered sugar, whipped cream, caramel or chocolate sauce, or ice cream.

Photo by Karen Laårk Boshoff on Pexels (https://www.pexels.com/photo/wooden-honey-dripper-on-waffles-7786846/)

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