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This New Taco Bell Location Delivers Food From The Sky
A Taco Bell location is a floating restaurant that delivers food from above. The first-of-its-kind "Taco Bell Defy" opened in a Minneapolis suburb this week and serves food from a kitchen at the top of two-storey building via a "vertical lift" to cars below. Each lane will have a distinct purpose, from customer app orders to delivery drivers, and was designed in response to changing consumer demands since the pandemic began.
Score (98)
Philadelphia Nurse Weaves Art From Healthcare Experiences, Inspires Through Creativity
Linda Ruggiero has spent years caring for people as a nurse in Philadelphia. When she takes off her scrubs, she reaches for yarn and a loom. Weaving, she says, is her way of making sense of what she sees at Penn Medicine, where she works in the cardiac catheterization lab. "I definitely get my inspiration a lot from those experiences in the lab and in other areas of nursing," Ruggiero said. One piece she created, called “Aneurysm,” was inspired by the tubes and stents she uses with heart patients. “The heart is such a great metaphor for artwork and for opening up and healing and life,” she said. “And so it was sort of easy to make that connection.” Before becoming a nurse seven years ago, Ruggiero worked in neuroscience research. She loved the science, but when COVID-19 hit early in her career, she found herself on the front lines. “It was terrible and it was so heartbreaking, and it just felt like it wouldn't stop,” she said. During those months, she turned to weaving as a lifeline. One piece she made, called “Contained,” reflected the false hope that the virus could be controlled. Another, a chaotic mass of yarn, captured what life on the COVID ward really felt like. “This was sort of our trying to keep things tidy and contained, with it sort of seeping out on the sides. And this is what I felt like it was in reality, just kind of chaotic,” she explained. Today, her work reflects new struggles she sees in Philadelphia, from families affected by gun violence to patients fighting drug addiction. “Being creative has always kind of helped me, like, feel better,” Ruggiero said. When she isn’t working or creating, she teaches weaving to others. What began as knitting on the bus in her early 20s has grown into a second vocation, one that gives her and her students a way to process life’s hardest moments through art. For Ruggiero, nursing and weaving aren’t separate. Both are ways of caring, of finding meaning in pain, and of stitching fractured lives back together.
Score (98)
Rescued Sheep Relearns To Walk Thanks To This Custom Wheelchair
Dave the ram was never supposed to make it this far. Rescued from slaughter as a lamb, he’s spent the past six years living peacefully at Albert’s Horse Sanctuary in Barnsley. But earlier this year, his carers feared the worst. Dave was found cast, a dangerous condition where sheep end up on their backs and can’t right themselves. If left too long, it can be fatal within hours. Dave survived, but he couldn’t stand on his own for months. Volunteers lifted him daily, tended to his pressure sores, and refused to give up on him. Their persistence paid off when Winston’s Wheels, a mobility charity, donated a custom-built wheelchair. The device gave Dave the support he needed to rebuild his strength. This week came the breakthrough: Dave stood up by himself and even managed a few steps. “His journey is inspiring everyone who meets him,” a sanctuary spokesperson said. The sanctuary is now appealing for support as it struggles with rising costs for feed, bedding, and veterinary care at a time when donations are falling. For Dave, though, every step forward is proof of what care, patience, and a little ingenuity can achieve.
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Score (96)
A Nonprofit is Partnering With New York To Supply Families With Diapers And Baby Products
Kelly Sawyer Patricof and Norah Weinstein, the CEOs of Baby2Baby, have partnered with New York State to boost maternal health and support newborns. This collaboration aims to set an example for other states across the U.S. The state is teaming up with Baby2Baby to distribute free newborn supply kits to families in need. These kits include essentials like diapers, hygiene items, and breastfeeding supplies. This initiative is part of a larger $2.2 billion commitment from New York aimed at improving access to affordable childcare. Governor Kathy Hochul's 2026 budget allocates $9 million to this nonprofit effort. "We were able to invite Governor Hochul into our warehouse in L.A., into our headquarters," said Weinstein. "She visited us in December, and after just a few minutes, packing the kits herself and having the program resonate with her, she made the decision to put $9 million into the state budget so that we can provide 100,000 of these kits to every mother giving birth on Medicaid next year across the state of New York." According to Baby2Baby, half of American families struggle with diaper affordability. Diapers rank as the fourth highest expense for low-income households after food, rent, and utilities. Under Patricof and Weinstein's leadership, Baby2Baby has developed a system that manufactures diapers at 80 percent less than typical retail costs. "We're able to distribute five times as many," Patricof noted about their distribution capabilities, "which is what has led us to distributing 250 million diapers." Nationally, Baby2Baby assists over one million families and children each year. Since its inception in 2011 under Patricof and Weinstein’s guidance, the organization has provided more than half a billion essential items for children in need. The partnership with New York marks their latest endeavor aimed at supporting low-income parents across the state.
Score (97)
NASA is Launching a Mission To Map the Sun's Protective Bubble And Predict Space Weather
The Sun doesn’t just light up the sky—it also creates an invisible shield that makes life on Earth possible. By constantly sending out streams of charged particles, the Sun inflates a protective bubble called the heliosphere. This vast cocoon stretches far beyond Neptune, deflecting cosmic radiation that would otherwise bombard our planetary system. Despite its importance, the heliosphere remains a mystery. Now, NASA is preparing to change that. On September 23, the agency will launch the Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe, or IMAP, on a mission to chart the boundaries of this solar bubble. The spacecraft will travel about 1.6 million kilometers from Earth to the first Earth-Sun Lagrange Point, a gravitationally stable spot between the two bodies. From there, IMAP will orbit the Sun, free of magnetic interference from Earth and other planets. Its task: to map the edges of the heliosphere and track the particles streaming through it. “With IMAP, we’ll push forward the boundaries of knowledge and understanding of our place not only in the solar system, but our place in the galaxy as a whole,” said Patrick Koehn, IMAP program scientist. “As humanity expands and explores beyond Earth, missions like IMAP will add new pieces of the space weather puzzle that fills the space between Parker Solar Probe at the Sun and the Voyagers beyond the heliopause.” The spacecraft is relatively compact, about 2.4 meters wide and 1 meter tall, and spins at four revolutions per minute. It carries 10 instruments, including three designed to detect energetic neutral atoms. These particles begin as solar wind ions but lose their charge after colliding with others in space. By mapping their movements, IMAP can help scientists pinpoint where the heliosphere ends and interstellar space begins. “IMAP will advance our understanding of two fundamental questions of how particles are energized and transported throughout the heliosphere and how the heliosphere itself interacts with our galaxy,” said Shri Kanekal, IMAP mission scientist. The mission also aims to provide practical benefits. By collecting near real-time data on the solar wind and energetic particles, IMAP could give Earth up to 30 minutes’ warning of potentially harmful space weather. Such storms can disrupt satellites, communications, and power grids, and pose serious risks to astronauts. “The IMAP mission will provide very important information for deep space travel, where astronauts will be directly exposed to the dangers of the solar wind,” said David McComas, the mission’s principal investigator at Princeton University. IMAP will also analyze interstellar dust—tiny grains that drift through space and eventually form the raw material of stars and planets. Understanding this dust could reveal more about the building blocks of the universe beyond our solar system. The probe follows in the footsteps of the Voyager spacecraft, which in 2012 and 2018 became the first human-made objects to leave the heliosphere. But while Voyager offered the first glimpse beyond the bubble, IMAP is designed to create a detailed map of its structure. By tracing the outlines of the heliosphere, IMAP could help answer some of the biggest questions in astrophysics—about how our solar system fits into the Milky Way, how cosmic rays are filtered, and how to keep future spacefarers safe.
Score (96)
Scientists Unearth 112-Million-Year-Old Amber Ecosystem in Ecuador Quarry
A quarry in Ecuador has yielded an extraordinary find: amber dating back 112 million years that has preserved an entire ecosystem, complete with insects, pollen, and even fragments of spider web. The discovery at the Genoveva quarry marks the first large-scale find of insect-bearing amber in South America. For paleontologists, it offers a rare window into life during the Cretaceous period in the Southern Hemisphere, a region far less represented in the global fossil amber record. At least five orders of insects were trapped in the amber, including fungus beetles, wasps, a caddisfly, and several kinds of flies. One piece even contains strands of spider silk, arranged in a way that suggests it could have belonged to an early orb-weaver. Unlike modern orb webs, though, it lacked the sticky droplets that snare prey today. "These findings provide direct evidence of a humid, resinous forest ecosystem and its arthropod fauna in equatorial Gondwana during the Cretaceous Resinous Interval," said paleobiologist Xavier Delclòs of the University of Barcelona and his colleagues in their report. Gondwana was the giant supercontinent that once connected what is now South America, Africa, Antarctica, and Australia. By the early Cretaceous, it was already breaking apart, reshaping ecosystems in dramatic ways. Amber is common in the Northern Hemisphere, with famous deposits in places like Myanmar and the Baltic region. But in the south, discoveries are far less frequent. The Ecuadorian amber formed during the Barremian age, about 122 million years ago, when coniferous trees released massive amounts of resin. Over time, this sticky material hardened into amber, locking away tiny traces of ancient life. In this case, the amber came from araucariacean trees, once abundant across Gondwana but now represented only by a few species scattered in the Southern Hemisphere. The researchers found two kinds of amber at the quarry: one from resin seeping underground through tree roots, and another formed above ground when resin oozed out into the open air. Most amber globally is root-derived, and usually lacks much in the way of fossilized insects. The Genoveva site, however, was unusually rich in insect specimens. It also lacked the abundant resin-eating fungi often found in other Cretaceous deposits, a difference the team suggests may have been due to unusually waterlogged soils that stifled fungal activity. Above ground, though, the resin acted as a natural trap, catching and preserving invertebrates in exquisite detail. For paleontologists, these finds are more than just curiosities—they help reconstruct ancient ecosystems and track how life adapted as continents drifted and climates shifted. "This discovery, and the associated plant remains in the amber-bearing rocks, enhance our understanding of the Gondwanan arthropod fauna and flora inhabiting forests along its western margin during a time interval of major ecosystem transformation," the authors wrote. The team hopes further exploration at the site and in similar regions will allow comparisons with other Gondwanan amber deposits, which remain largely unstudied. Such work could help piece together how South American life once connected with its counterparts in Africa, Antarctica, and Australia. The study was published in Communications Earth & Environment.
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Why New Zealanders Are Helping This Rare Snail Named Ned Find Love
Meet Ned, a snail with a problem—and an entire country trying to solve it. Ned looks like your typical garden snail, except for one key detail: his shell coils to the left instead of the right. That tiny twist makes all the difference. It means Ned can’t mate with the vast majority of garden snails, since their reproductive organs don’t line up. Only another left-coiling snail would work as a partner, and those are about one in 40,000. Ned was spotted in August in the Wairarapa region, north of Wellington, by illustrator Giselle Clarkson. At first, she thought she’d stumbled across a new species. “Something was different, but I couldn’t figure it out,” she told the Guardian. “After you see something thousands and thousands of times looking one way, and then you suddenly see it the other way around, it is quite uncanny.” She soon realized the shell spiraled left. Clarkson named him Ned, after Ned Flanders, the famously left-handed neighbor from The Simpsons. Then she realized the challenge: a lefty snail can only mate with another lefty. That’s where New Zealand Geographic stepped in. The magazine launched a nationwide campaign asking people to check gardens, vegetable patches, and even under flower pots to see if Ned’s elusive match might be hiding there. To make the odds easier to picture, evolutionary geneticist Angus Davison offered this analogy to the Washington Post: a London bus driver could lean out the window to chat with another London bus driver. But it wouldn’t work with a New York driver, because the steering wheel is on the opposite side. That’s Ned’s problem in a nutshell. For now, Clarkson has made Ned comfortable in a fishbowl with broccoli and silver beet seedlings. She even gave him a right-coiling friend for company. But if he’s to start a family, it will take another lefty. This isn’t the first time a snail like Ned has captured public attention. In 2016, a left-coiling snail named Jeremy in England became the subject of a similar campaign. Two potential mates were eventually found, though they initially paired up with each other. Jeremy eventually produced 56 offspring before dying in 2017. As for Ned, compatibility isn’t guaranteed even if a partner shows up. “They might be physically compatible once they get together, but it doesn’t mean that sparks will fly,” Clarkson told CNN. “Their personalities will have to match.” Garden snails aren’t native to New Zealand—they were brought in by humans, along with about 30 other snail and slug species. That means Ned doesn’t need to reproduce for conservation reasons. But the campaign is about more than matchmaking. It’s also about sparking curiosity. “We hope it’s also a doorway into deeper topics like gardening, understanding the natural world and the weird intricacies of reproduction,” Catherine Woulfe, editor of New Zealand Geographic, told the Guardian. She added that her kids have been excited to grab gumboots and torches and go snail-hunting after dark. “That feels like a win.” For Ned, the search continues. For New Zealanders, it’s a chance to slow down, explore their backyards, and maybe help a lonely lefty find love.
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A New Study Shows That Music Therapy Helps Critically Ill Heart Patients Heal
A new study suggests music could be just what the doctor ordered for critically ill heart patients. Researchers in Mexico found that music therapy significantly lowered heart rate and blood pressure among adults admitted to a cardiac intensive care unit (ICU). The intervention also reduced complications with ventilators, offering a safe, low-cost complement to conventional treatment. The study, conducted at the University of Guanajuato in León, followed 24 ICU patients between July and September last year. All participants were over 18 and free of hearing impairments. Half received standard care, while the other half listened to a 45-minute melody at 15 decibels once a day for five days. The results were clear: patients in the music therapy group showed a “significant” drop in systolic and diastolic blood pressure, lower heart rates, and fewer ventilator-related issues compared with the control group. “Music therapy has beneficial effects on physiological distress variables such as heart rate and blood pressure, suggesting that music therapy can be a non-pharmacological and non-invasive intervention to improve physiological stability in a high-stress setting such as the cardiac intensive care unit,” said Dr. Ilani Paola Santoyo Pérez, the study’s first author. She noted that music therapy is already recognized as a standard of care for critically ill patients in the guidelines of the Society of Critical Care Medicine (SCCM). “Clinicians should therefore consider incorporating music therapy into their practice, as it is a safe, low-cost, non-pharmacological and non-invasive intervention that complements conventional treatments,” Pérez said. Beyond its medical benefits, the research team emphasized that music provides comfort and supports a more holistic, patient-centered approach to care. “By reducing physiological distress, enhancing patient comfort, and promoting holistic, patient-centred care, music therapy ultimately improves both the patient experience and clinical outcomes,” Pérez said. The findings were presented at the American College of Cardiology’s Latin America conference in Mexico City.
Score (96)
This Childhood Brain Tumor Survivor is Joining Research Effort To Improve Life For Others
At four years old, Kat Watson-Wood was fighting for her life. Doctors in Bury, Greater Manchester, discovered a brain tumour the size of a tangerine, and she endured major surgery and intensive rounds of radiotherapy. More than three decades later, she remains cancer free — but the treatment left lasting scars. Now 37, Watson-Wood uses a wheelchair for mobility and battles fatigue, cognitive difficulties, and memory problems that eventually forced her to give up her nursing career. “I realise I’m very lucky. I’m here and I want to give something back to research to help keep improving things,” she said. Her determination has led her to join BRAINatomy, a transatlantic research project funded by Cancer Research UK, Stand Up to Cancer, and its U.S. counterpart. The programme links teams at The Christie and the University of Manchester with researchers in Memphis, Tennessee, and Groningen, Netherlands. Together they are studying the long-term side effects of radiotherapy on children with brain tumours, with the goal of designing gentler treatments. “By studying large sets of real-world data from children treated in the past, we have already identified areas of the brain where radiation exposure is associated with problems with learning and hormone regulation,” said Dr Angela Davey of the University of Manchester. Lead investigator Prof Marianne Aznar explained the project’s aim: “to help clinicians design kinder treatments for children and improve quality of life for cancer survivors.” Because clinical trials on young patients to test different radiation exposures are not feasible, the team relies heavily on survivor data and personal insight from patients like Watson-Wood. For her, those insights come from lived experience. She recalls the hormone treatments she needed to prevent premature puberty after her radiotherapy, and the emotional triggers that still linger. “Smells trigger memories for me and sometimes I’ll just burst into tears,” she said. There have been dark times. Six years ago, she left nursing, the profession she had been inspired to pursue by the care she once received. “My body just wasn’t able to do it,” she said. She has since retrained as an IT executive and married her husband, Matt, in 2021. Through it all, she insists on finding meaning. “I’m trying to make some good out of a bad thing. And show that you can live a successful and happy life even with side effects,” she said. Childhood cancer survival rates have improved dramatically since Watson-Wood’s diagnosis in the early 1990s, but long-term complications remain a major challenge. Jemma Humphreys of Cancer Research UK said childhood and young people’s cancers demand a tailored approach. “From the types of cancer that affect this age group, to the long-term effects of treatment such as hearing loss and infertility, it needs a different and dedicated approach that we’re grateful to our supporters for helping to make possible.” For Watson-Wood, the mission is personal. “Survival rates in the 90s weren’t fantastic. I don’t know anyone else like me. Nobody knew about the issues around side effects at the time,” she said. “I hope this research will help reduce if not eradicate long lasting side effects for future generations.”
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A Veteran Referee is Keeping Alabama's Football Spirit Alive At 97
At the University of Alabama, football tradition runs deep. The practice field, hidden behind security fencing, is where championships are forged and where one man, Eddie Conyers, has quietly shaped the team for more than six decades. Now 97, Conyers has been a fixture since 1962, when legendary coach Paul “Bear” Bryant first brought him in as a practice referee. For 60 years, Conyers lined up in the offensive backfield, tossing flags at some of the best players to ever wear crimson. This year, for the first time, he has stepped away from the field itself, taking on an off-field role overseeing scheduling and mentoring younger practice officials. “I can’t tell you how terrified and intimidated I was,” he said, recalling his first day under Bryant. At the time, he was working high school games and a day job at a hardware store. He ducked into a gas station restroom to change into his stripes before heading to practice. “Coach Bryant talked low and he mumbled. I didn’t have a clue what he said. And I just said ‘ok.’” Since then, Conyers has been part of 12 of Alabama’s 18 national championships, throwing flags at future stars like Joe Namath, Kenny Stabler, Derrick Henry, and Jalen Hurts. He also witnessed the team’s shift to a wishbone offense in the 1970s and its early integration as Black athletes joined the roster. The coaches he worked under left different impressions. “From Coach Bryant you learn that you can do more than you think you can do,” Conyers said. “He talked about 110%. And wanted that every play of every game.” Of Nick Saban, he added, “it may sound kind of trite, but you did everything right. Including the little things, like which arm you use to carry the ball.” Though his body shows the wear of years on the field—he needs a walker and his neck no longer straightens fully—his presence remains magnetic. He zips around practice in a golf cart, greeted by players and alumni alike. “Eddie’s the man. He’s the legend,” said Mark Ingram, Alabama’s first Heisman winner. “Always happy, always joyful. Made all of us happy to see him.” That joy has also been a calming influence. “A lot of times when everybody was going crazy, he was the calm one in the bunch,” said Tom Danner, who works with Conyers on practice scheduling. Jeff Allen, Alabama’s longtime athletic trainer, calls Conyers “a wonderful link to the history and the tradition of this place.” He even notes that Conyers is the only man he’s ever seen talk back to Saban. Conyers, a Navy veteran and former administrator at Alabama’s College of Continuing Education, has always treated the practice field as his passion. His son, Bubba, says his father values the playful connection with players. “It’s going to be funny. A lot of fun and no heartache,” he said. Even as he scales back, Conyers hasn’t let go of every ritual. He and Peggy, his wife of 76 years, still show up at the Tuscaloosa airport before every away game, waving the team off with a hearty Roll Tide. For Alabama football, Eddie Conyers isn’t just part of the history. He’s living proof of the traditions and relationships that have carried the Crimson Tide through generations.
Score (98)
These Ohio Inmates are Finding Meaning By Saving Orphaned And Injured Animals
Hidden inside an Ohio prison, a group of men spends hours every day hand-feeding robins, nursing rabbits, and watching over fragile opossums. Their patients are wild animals, many injured or orphaned, brought in from across the state for a second chance at survival. For more than two decades, the Ohio Wildlife Center has partnered with prisons to give animals a safe space to recover and inmates a rare opportunity to nurture life. What started in one institution has grown into a network of five. More than 60 incarcerated volunteers now participate, most at Marion Correctional Institution, which houses the only bird aviary in the system. The aviary is small, about the size of a one-car garage, but inside it teems with life: swallows, cardinals, finches, and young robins. Outside, cages hold squirrels and rabbits, and a gravel pen shelters ducklings. Each animal is in the hands of trained volunteers like 71-year-old Willie H., who has spent nearly half his life sentence at Marion caring for wildlife. “In the early days, I was the go-to guy,” he recalled. Educators would train him, and he would pass that knowledge on to others in their cells. Between January and August of this year alone, Marion received 284 animals and released 186 on the prison’s 1,032 acres of fields, groves, and ponds. Program coordinator and correctional officer Scotty Fuqua says his long-term goal is to rehabilitate 1,000 animals a year at Marion. The demand is growing. The Ohio Wildlife Center’s hospital in Columbus treated about 9,000 animals last year, everything from birds stunned by window strikes to mammals mauled by pets. Many of those in need of extended care ended up in prison aviaries and makeshift nurseries. According to the center’s operational director, Brittany Jordan, about 70 percent of home care placements now go to prisons. “They need time,” she said. “And prisons are one of the few places where that’s possible.” Time is what it takes. Some songbirds need feeding every 15 minutes. Mammals may require care throughout the night. At Mansfield’s Richland Correctional Institution, inmates have 24-hour access to a dorm room full of small animals so they can meet those demands. That level of attention has produced real results. In 2022, Richland volunteers noticed young opossums developing bone disease. With guidance from the center, they diagnosed a calcium deficiency in the formula and adjusted the mix themselves. The problem disappeared. “The femur heads weren’t forming,” said David Donahue, the center’s communications manager. “They figured it out.” For the inmates, the work offers more than just training. It offers purpose. “The effect that this program has on the offenders here is quite remarkable,” Fuqua said. He has seen participants stay out of trouble, steer clear of substance abuse, and show a new eagerness to learn. Experts say the impact can reach beyond prison walls. “Programs like this teach practical life skills like goal setting, problem solving, time management and overall responsibility,” said former correctional psychologist Tristin Engels, who once worked with a California prison program that trained dogs for veterans with PTSD. “It also boosts self-worth and confidence, which can really help break the cycle of recidivism.” For volunteers like Tierre M., who is serving a life sentence, the experience is transformative. “Some of these birds coming in, it crushes you to see them,” he said. “Then, to see one getting stronger and the life coming back in it, it’s awesome.” The rules are strict. Volunteers must keep a clean record to remain in the program. Willie knows the stakes well. Years ago, after another inmate clashed with the warden, 12 red squirrels were removed from his cell in the middle of the night and reassigned to Willie. If he were to break the rules, he would lose not only the animals in his care but also Bird, the pet cockatiel that perches on his shoulder during feedings. The program has grown steadily. The Ohio Reformatory for Women and London Correctional Institution both welcomed their first wildlife patients this summer, and the Wildlife Center hopes to keep newly paroled volunteers engaged in rehabilitation after release. Willie says he imagines himself continuing the work, even pursuing a job in animal care. “I actually think it’s fun,” he said. “Doing it and other people seeing it might make them want to help, too.” With almost 2,000 animals rehabilitated and released every year through prison programs, Ohio’s model is expanding. Behind the walls and fences, men who once took lives now find meaning in saving them.