Lost Cat Returns Home After 16 Years; Owner's Purr-fect Surprise!

A long-lost feline has made a surprising return to her owner after 16 years. Sunshine, a pedigree Bengal cat, vanished from Carl Pullen's garden in Welwyn Garden City back in 2009 when she was just two-and-a-half years old. At the time, Pullen suspected theft due to the breed's high value and launched appeals for her return. Fast forward to this week and Pullen received an unexpected call from a veterinary surgeon in Welwyn. "The vet asked if I had a cat called Sunshine - she'd been handed in as a stray," said Pullen, now 51. Despite moving away and living in various places, including Switzerland and Bishop's Stortford, he never changed his phone number—a decision that proved fortuitous. Sunshine, now 19 years old, was found underweight with untrimmed claws and kidney issues, but is on the mend with some dental work and medication. "She's looking a lot better," Pullen reported. Pullen added: "I don't think she's been a stray all this time - maybe just in the last few months." He expressed disbelief at being reunited with his beloved pet after so many years apart. Sunshine is now settling back into family life for her twilight years.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Scientists Restore Activity In Frozen Mouse Brains For First Time

Deep-freezing a brain and bringing it back with memory and function intact still belongs to science fiction. But a team in Germany says it has moved a little closer, after restoring some brain activity in mouse tissue and whole mouse brains after cryogenic storage. The study, published on 3 March in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, describes a cryopreservation method that avoided ice formation and preserved some of the processes needed for brain function after thawing. Researchers have already shown that neuronal tissue from humans and other animals can survive freezing on a cellular level and function to some extent after thawing. But they have not been able to fully restore the processes needed for proper brain function, including neuronal firing, cell metabolism and brain plasticity. Alexander German, a neurologist at the University of Erlangen–Nuremberg in Germany and the study’s lead author, said the work tackled a central question. “If brain function is an emergent property of its physical structure, how can we recover it from complete shutdown?” he asks. German said the findings hint at the potential to one day protect the brain during disease or after severe injury, set up organ banks, and even reach whole-body cryopreservation of mammals. Mrityunjay Kothari, who studies mechanical engineering at the University of New Hampshire in Durham, said the study advances the state of the art in cryopreservation of brain tissue. “This kind of progress is what gradually turns science fiction into scientific possibility,” he says. He also said long-term banking of large organs or mammals remains well beyond what this study can do. The main problem in freezing brain tissue is damage from ice crystals. The crystals can displace or puncture the tissue’s nanostructure and disrupt key cellular processes. “Beyond ice, we must account for several considerations, including osmotic stress and toxicity due to cryoprotectants,” says German. To avoid that, German and his colleagues used vitrification, an ice-free method of cryopreservation. Vitrification cools liquids quickly enough to trap molecules in a disorganized, glass-like state before ice crystals can form. “We wanted to see if function could restart after the complete cessation of molecular mobility in the vitreous state,” says German. The team first tested the method on slices of mouse brain 350 micrometres thick. The slices included the hippocampus, a brain region linked to memory and spatial navigation. The slices were pre-treated in a solution containing cryopreservation chemicals, then rapidly cooled with liquid nitrogen at minus 196 degrees Celsius. The researchers then stored the tissue in a freezer at minus 150 degrees Celsius in a glass-like state for between 10 minutes and seven days. After thawing the tissue in warm solutions, the team tested it for signs of function. Microscopy showed that neuronal and synaptic membranes were intact. Tests for mitochondrial activity found no metabolic damage. Electrical recordings showed that the neurons’ responses to electrical stimuli were near normal, although the study reported moderate deviations compared with control cells. The researchers also found that hippocampal neuronal pathways still showed synaptic strengthening, known as long-term potentiation, which underlies learning and memory. The study said those observations were limited to a few hours because the slices naturally degrade. The team then applied the method to the whole mouse brain. Those brains were kept in a vitreous state at minus 140 degrees Celsius for up to eight days. That part of the process required repeated changes to reduce brain shrinkage and toxicity from cryoprotectants. After thawing, the researchers prepared brain slices and recorded activity from the hippocampus. Those recordings showed that neuronal pathways had survived, including hippocampal pathways involved in memory, and could still undergo long-term potentiation. But the researchers could not test if the animals’ memories had survived cryopreservation, because the recordings were made from slices of brain tissue rather than from revived animals. German said the team is now extending the work to human brain tissue. “We already have preliminary data showing viability in human cortical tissue,” he says. The group is also looking at how the same vitrification method might be used for whole-organ cryopreservation, especially for the heart. Kothari said there are still major limits. He pointed to the low success rate in the whole-brain protocol and said the results might not directly carry over to larger human organs. “Some of these challenges are related to heat-transfer constraints and higher thermo-mechanical stresses that may cause cracking,” Kothari says. German said further progress will depend on better methods and materials. “better vitrification solutions and cooling and rewarming technologies will be necessary before these principles can be applied to large human organs.”

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Researchers Film Rare Blue-Nosed Animals In Remote Forest

It is hard to miss the Tonkin snub-nosed monkey once you see it. Finding one in the wild is the hard part. Researchers from the international wildlife conservation group Fauna & Flora have recorded rare footage of the critically endangered primate during a survey in Khau Ca in northern Vietnam, according to Discover Wildlife. The group also shared several images of the monkeys on Facebook. The survey focused on an animal whose population has been in decline. Several decades ago, poaching, deforestation and urban development were driving losses for the Tonkin snub-nosed monkey, the source said. To carry out the survey, Fauna & Flora worked with local community groups. Researchers used traditional observation methods, along with thermal imaging drones, camera traps and sound detectors, to locate and record the blue-nosed primates. According to the source, trail cameras let scientists observe wildlife without human interruption. They can also work around the clock as a surveillance tool to discourage illegal poaching. Poaching is part of why many animals face extinction, the source said. It can also create problems for humans, including a higher risk of disease spread. For the Tonkin snub-nosed monkey, poaching was only one part of the problem. The animals were also losing habitat because of deforestation and urban development. Fauna & Flora’s Vietnam team found around 50 of the monkeys in 2002, according to the organization. By 2021, that figure had grown to around 200. Today, there are thought to be about 250 Tonkin snub-nosed monkeys in the wild, according to Discover Wildlife. "These numbers still aren't big," said Canh Xuan Chu, a project manager at Fauna & Flora, per the outlet. "But it is reassuring that we have been able to identify various family groups in Khau Ca and that there is no evidence of trapping or hunting." Chu’s comments point to some progress in Khau Ca, but the threats have not gone away. According to the source, habitat loss caused by agricultural expansion remains a major threat to one of the world’s most endangered primates. Fauna & Flora is working with government officials to protect conservation areas and restore wildlife corridors to support the monkeys’ survival, the source said. The footage and images have also drawn reactions online. "Extraordinary looking monkeys," one awestruck Facebook user wrote about the animals. "Aren't they beautiful," another gushed. A third commenter tied that reaction to the conservation work itself. "What a delightful creature! Well done with the efforts to preserve them! The only way to do it , help local communities protect the habitat!" a Facebook user shared. 📸 Credit: Fauna & Flora

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Astronomers Identify Source Of The Brightest Fast Radio Burst Yet

A flash that lasted about one fifth of a second has given astronomers their clearest shot yet at one of space’s strangest signals. An international team of astronomers, including researchers from the University of Toronto, has identified the brightest fast radio burst ever observed and traced it to a nearby galaxy using a coordinated network of radio telescopes. Fast radio bursts, or FRBs, are powerful flashes of radio energy that travel across vast distances in the universe. Scientists think extreme astrophysical events produce them, but the exact cause remains uncertain. Since 2018, the Canadian Hydrogen-Intensity Mapping Experiment, or CHIME, has detected thousands of these bursts, but finding their exact positions in the sky has remained a major challenge. The new signal, called FRB 20250316A and nicknamed RBFLOAT, for Radio Brightest Flash Of All Time, was localized using the CHIME/FRB Outrigger array. The outriggers are smaller versions of the CHIME instrument installed in British Columbia, Northern California and West Virginia. Working together, they allow astronomers to use Very Long Baseline Interferometry, a technique that combines signals from widely separated telescopes to determine an object’s position in the sky with exceptional accuracy. "We were ultimately extremely lucky that we were able to pinpoint the precise sky position of this rare event," said Mattias Lazda, doctoral student at the University of Toronto, and an author on both papers. "A few hours after we detected it, we experienced a power outage at one of our telescope sites that played a critical role in telling us where the burst came from. Had the event happened any later that day, we would've completely missed our chance." FRBs rank among the most intense radio sources known, but they appear only briefly. Each burst usually lasts from a few milliseconds to a few seconds and can briefly shine brighter than every other radio signal in its host galaxy. RBFLOAT was detected on March 16, 2025. "Cosmically speaking, this fast radio burst is just in our neighborhood," said Kiyoshi Masui, associate professor of physics and affiliate of MIT's Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, and a U of T alum. "This means we get this chance to study a pretty normal FRB in exquisite detail." The burst appeared exceptionally bright in part because its source is relatively close to Earth. It came from near the outer region of NGC 4141, a galaxy about 130 million light-years away in the constellation Ursa Major. Researchers narrowed the source to a region only 45 light-years across, smaller than the typical size of a star cluster. The team said that level of precision is comparable to spotting a guitar pick from 1000 kilometers away. "The discovery was very exciting, because we had our brightest ever event right after all three outriggers were online," said Amanda Cook, Banting Postdoctoral Researcher at McGill University and a U of T alum who led the paper describing RBFLOAT. "Immediately, even though it was a Sunday afternoon, a bunch of us piled into a zoom room and started hacking away at the research, hoping to get follow-up observations on source as quickly as possible." That precise location let the team carry out follow-up observations with the James Webb Space Telescope. During those observations, scientists detected a faint infrared signal at the same location where RBFLOAT originated. Researchers said the finding was unexpected and they are still exploring what it might represent. One possibility is a red giant star. Another is a fading light echo linked to the burst itself. "The high resolution of JWST allows us to resolve individual stars around an FRB for the first time. This opens the door to identifying the kinds of stellar environments that could give rise to such powerful bursts, especially when rare FRBs are captured with this level of detail," said Peter Blanchard, a Harvard postdoctoral fellow and lead author of the companion paper describing the JWST observation. Although this was the brightest FRB CHIME has detected, astronomers have not seen any repeat bursts from the same source. Scientists reviewed hundreds of hours of CHIME data covering the region across more than six years and found no additional signals. "This burst doesn't seem to repeat, which makes it different from most well-studied FRBs," said Cook. "That challenges a major idea in the field, that all FRBs repeat, and opens the door to reconsidering more 'explosive' origins for at least some of them." Two papers on the discovery were published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters. One covers the original radio detection and localization, and the other reports the JWST near-infrared observations of the same region. 📸 Credit: Danielle Futselaar

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Pet Flight Nannies Help Owners Transport Cats And Small Dogs Safely

If your pet needs to get on a plane and you cannot go too, there is a service built for that. Pet flight nannies travel with cats and small dogs on commercial flights, helping owners move animals safely when they cannot make the trip together. A pet nanny is a professional caretaker who travels with a pet on an owner’s behalf, usually by plane, though sometimes by another form of transport. The service is generally used for small animals that can ride in a carrier under an airplane seat. “In the case that you do want to take your four-legged friend with you, but aren’t able to bring them with you directly, there’s an easy solution: a pet nanny,” USA TODAY reported in its “Pawssport to move” series. Kevin Kinyon, co-founder of PetWorks, an online pet care booking platform, said one common example is a family move. “A typical example would be: a parent is moving from New York to LA and they are like, ‘we don’t want to drive our little doggy across the country,’” Kinyon told USA TODAY. In that case, the family could hire a pet flight nanny to fly the dog across the country instead of taking it on a long road trip. According to Kinyon, around 780,000 pets are transported by plane every year, and flight nannies are becoming a more popular option. “We launched it two or three years ago now,” he said. “We’ve since enlisted about 100 flight nannies now who do this type of service.” The basic job is to act as a chaperone for the pet during travel. Kinyon said owners pay that person to take the pet on the plane, following the airline’s rules and guidelines, with the animal riding in the cabin instead of the cargo hold. “(Pet owners) basically pay that person to take the pet on the plane,” Kinyon said. “They need to follow the guidelines and rules of the airline, but they fly it in the seat, it’s not in the cargo hold.” There is also a concierge element to the job. Pet nannies are typically responsible for finding and booking the flights they will take with the pet, though the owner usually pays for the ticket. “A lot of what the pet nanny individual themselves is doing, is they are finding an airline and a route that will allow the pet to be connected to their ticket,” Giulia Gebhardt, senior vice president of client relations at WorldCare Pet Transport, told USA TODAY. The service is mainly for animals small enough to fly in the cabin, meaning the carrier must fit under the seat in front. Larger animals usually have to fly as cargo, which is a separate process. Pet nannies are not eligible to travel in the cargo hold, though USA TODAY noted that some horse shipping containers have space for a caretaker. For pets that qualify, a nanny can handle the trip from start to finish. That can include picking the animal up from the owner’s home, taking it to the airport, handling check-in and meeting the owner or another contact at the other end. USA TODAY reported that nannies generally fly with cats or dogs, though some airlines also accept other animals, such as rabbits. If the owner and pet are not arriving at the same time, the nanny may also be hired to care for the animal until they can reconnect. “That pet nanny will be collecting them from your home, bringing your pet to the airport, going through all of the check-in processes, keeping you updated,” Gebhardt said. “You have a professional pet handler by someone who has been vetted by us. That person is with your pet at all times.” Kinyon said communication is a big part of the service. “One of the big things these days is communication and tracking,” he said. “Any good flight nanny or transporter would have no excuse not to give you as many updates as possible.” The price can vary based on the pet’s needs and the route, but USA TODAY reported that it is typically the cost of an airline ticket plus a service fee. Kinyon said many owners pay $175 to $225 to get health documents in order for a trip, then another $900 to $1,250 for costs including airfare and the nanny’s daily fee. USA TODAY compared that with Bark Air, a boutique airline that lets owners fly with pets on what it described as essentially private jets. The same New York-to-Los Angeles trip on July 22 would cost $6,725 per person, including the pet. “With a pet nanny specifically, what you are arranging is having a dedicated individual fly on a commercial airline that is pet-friendly with your pet,” Gebhardt said. Special needs can push the price up. Kinyon said medication or other specific services during the trip can affect the total cost. “Every pet is different, so you have to be really clear about your pet’s specific needs or idiosyncrasies,” Kinyon said. He also said booking early can help because the cost is often tied, at least in part, to airfare. At a minimum, he said, owners should plan to book a pet nanny two to three weeks before departure. Preparing the animal for travel matters too. USA TODAY said owners should make sure pets have the documents they may need on arrival, check with a vet that vaccines are up to date and be ready to confirm with the airline that the animal is registered to fly. Gebhardt said owners should pack a care package for the pet. “Pet owners should also make sure they have a care package to go along with their pets. Having a collapsible water dish with them, making sure they buy a water bottle while they’re behind security so they can bring that with them, and making sure there’s always water available for their pets,” she said. She also said pets should be comfortable with their carrier well before the trip, before they meet the nanny or get to the airport. Meal planning matters as well. According to a spokesperson for dog food brand Years, pets should get a simple, familiar meal before a flight. “Flying is unfamiliar for dogs, changes in pressure, temperature and routine can all affect digestion. The goal is to keep the gut calm, stable and predictable before travel,” Years said in an email statement.

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Paris Restores The World’s Oldest Circus To Its Original Glory

For more than 170 years, the Cirque d’Hiver in Paris has built its name on what happens in the ring. This time, the big surprise was above it. The circus, described as the world’s oldest, has revealed a set of painted canvas panels that had been hidden for more than 70 years. After the find, the Cirque d’Hiver, or Winter Circus, is set for a full restoration aimed at returning the building to its original 19th-century appearance. Louis-Sampion Bouglione, whose family has owned the circus since 1934, said the moment carried real weight for the family. “It’s marvellous to see them and an important part of our history. We knew they once existed because my father remembers seeing them, and we always hoped to be able to rediscover them one day. But we were afraid what condition they would be in or even if they were still there.” Bouglione, the circus’s co-director and historian, has spent decades in the archives and said he has often lain awake wondering what the building looked like when Napoléon III officially opened it on 11 December 1852. “We’ve only seen two [panels] so far, but we’re going to open everything up to find out what’s there,” he said. “What’s really exciting and important is it’s one of the few legacies of the circus from that era in painting.” The Cirque d’Hiver has a long history of headline acts and unusual moments. In 1859, gymnast Jules Léotard performed what was described as the first public leap from one swinging trapeze to another without a safety net. Later, the artist Rosa Van Been married the animal trainer Joseph Bouglione inside the circus’s lion cage. In 1955, the film Trapeze, starring Gina Lollobrigida, Tony Curtis and Burt Lancaster, was shot inside the 20-sided building in Paris’s 11th arrondissement. The restoration project grew out of a smaller plan. After the heritage-listed building underwent a €2.2 million exterior facelift in 2007, the first idea was to replace the tiers of red seats around the ring. Architect Stéphane Millet proposed a much larger renovation. “One of my tasks is to raise awareness of the importance of heritage and to seek government assistance for projects, so I convinced the family to go a little further than their initial ambitions,” Millet said. “What started with seats has become a global project that includes everything; a renovation from bottom to top. When you have heritage like this you have to showcase it.” Millet has brought in the culture ministry and other authorities to fund much of the work. He said the project will cost “several million euros”. The building was first called the Cirque Napoléon. It was built in eight months under architect Jacques Hittorff, who was also responsible for the Gare du Nord. The original polygonal structure had a diameter of 42 metres, 40 stained-glass windows and a wooden roof covered in decorated canvas designed to look like a tent, with fake poles and handmade gold-painted mouldings resembling ropes and ties. The newly found paintings were part of that original design. There were 20 in total, each 6 metres wide and almost 2 metres high, fixed to wooden frames. They show warriors on horseback and scenes linked to the equestrian arts. Nicolas Gosse and Félix-Joseph Barrias painted them, and the works mirror the bas-relief panels on the outside of the building that were renovated in 2007. The circus’s first performers were former cavalry officers, but the program soon broadened. Léotard later gave his name to the one-piece outfit and inspired the English song The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze, written three years before he died in 1870 at the age of 32. Alexandre Dumas, author of The Three Musketeers, was said to have been so struck by the interior that he wrote the shows were so popular crowds had to be turned away. Today, the building remains a Paris landmark. Wild animals no longer appear in performances after that practice stopped in 2017, but the shows are still hugely popular with Parisians. Work is expected to take four years and will begin in July, when the paintings are removed for restoration. They were covered with blue-painted wooden boards in the 1950s after smoke from the original oil lamps dulled them. The panels are also thought to have been damaged by leaking windows and several layers of later decoration. “It’s like wallpaper in old houses. Until we remove everything we won’t know exactly what is there and how much damage there is,” Millet said. “The canvas is very fragile but from what we have seen, it is wonderful work. That the panels have survived at all is testament to the quality of the painting.” For the Bougliones, the circus remains a family business in the most literal sense. When Rosa Bouglione died in 2018 at the age of 107, she left 55 descendants, including children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and the family has grown since then. Of the 20 family members still involved in the Cirque d’Hiver, Louis-Sampion’s father, Émilien, is the oldest at 91 and the two youngest are three. “It’s family and everyone is involved in one way or another, even if just with small things. It’s work and we have found a way to make sure both succeed,” Bouglione said. In recent years, outside the winter circus spectacular, which features a nine-musician orchestra, the building has also hosted private events and political rallies. The restoration will be carried out during the two-month summer holidays so the winter circus season can continue. Bouglione said the circus cannot close during the work. “We will do the work during what we call the dead season,” he said. “It will take longer but we can’t close down. It’s a business and so it has to work. Besides, people are passionate about the circus. They come when they’re children, then come with their own children and grandchildren. It’s a tradition.” 📸 "Concert « pour la Patrie, les Sciences et la Gloire » au Cirque d’hiver – 13 juin 2014" by Ecole polytechnique / Paris / France is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

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NASA Sent Twin Spacecrafts To Probe How Mars Lost Its Atmosphere

Mars lost most of what once made it look very different. Scientists say the planet had flowing water, a thicker atmosphere and a much warmer climate billions of years ago. Today it is frigid, dry and wrapped in a thin layer of air. NASA is now studying how that shift happened with its ESCAPADE mission, short for Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers. The mission launched on Nov. 13, 2025, and its scientific instruments were activated and fully operational as of Feb. 25. Researchers think the main driver behind Mars’ long change was the solar wind, a steady stream of charged particles flowing outward from the Sun. Over billions of years, scientists believe that flow gradually eroded the Martian atmosphere. As the atmosphere thinned, the planet cooled and much of its surface water disappeared. ESCAPADE will study how Mars lost so much of its atmosphere and how the Sun still shapes the planet. While traveling near Earth and on the way to Mars, the spacecraft will also gather new information about space weather. NASA says the data collected at Mars could also help it better protect astronauts who may one day explore the planet. “The pioneering ESCAPADE duo will not only investigate the Sun’s role in transforming Mars into an uninhabitable planet, but also will help inform the development of space weather protocols for solar events directed at Mars during future human missions to the Red Planet,” said Joe Westlake, heliophysics division director at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “By joining the heliophysics fleet of missions across the solar system, ESCAPADE will be another weather station making humans and technology in space safer and more successful.” The mission uses two spacecraft working together in orbit around Mars. NASA says that approach will let scientists observe the planet’s magnetic environment from two places at the same time. The pair will track rapid changes in Mars’ magnetosphere, the region around the planet influenced by magnetic forces. Researchers hope that will help them identify the processes that let the Martian atmosphere slowly leak into space. “Having two spacecraft is going to help us understand cause and effect, how the solar wind, when it comes to Mars, interacts with the magnetic field,” said Michele Cash, ESCAPADE program scientist at NASA Headquarters. Previous missions studied Mars’ atmosphere with a single spacecraft. ESCAPADE adds a simultaneous view from two positions. “It gives us what you might call a stereo perspective, two different vantage points simultaneously,” said Rob Lillis, the mission’s principal investigator at the University of California, Berkeley. When the spacecraft reach Mars, they will first fly along the same orbital path and pass over the same regions at slightly different times. NASA says that setup will help scientists pinpoint when and where changes happen in the planet’s magnetic environment. “When we have two spacecraft crossing those regions in quick succession, we can monitor how those regions vary on timescales as short as two minutes,” Lillis said. “This will allow us to make measurements we could never make before.” After about six months, the two spacecraft will shift into separate orbits. One will stay closer to Mars, while the other moves farther away. During that five month phase, researchers plan to watch the solar wind as it approaches Mars while also measuring the planet’s response inside its magnetosphere. “Prior spacecraft could either be in the upstream solar wind, or they could be close to the planet measuring its magnetosphere,” Lillis said, “but ESCAPADE allows us to be in two places at once and to simultaneously measure the cause and the effect.” The mission also has a direct link to future human exploration. Astronauts heading to Mars will face much greater exposure to solar radiation than people on Earth. Earth has a strong global magnetic field that shields it from the Sun’s high energy particles. Scientists say Mars once had a stronger magnetic field too, but it weakened over time. Today the planet has scattered regions of magnetism in its crust and a constantly shifting magnetic field created when solar wind interacts with charged particles in the upper atmosphere. Scientists call that combination a “hybrid” magnetosphere. The source text says it gives limited protection from the solar wind, allowing energetic particles from the Sun to reach the surface more easily. Mars’ thin atmosphere adds to that vulnerability. “Before we send humans to Mars, we need to understand what type of environment these astronauts are going to encounter,” Cash said. ESCAPADE will also improve scientists’ understanding of Mars’ ionosphere, a region of the upper atmosphere. Future astronauts are expected to rely on it to transmit radio and navigation signals around the planet. “If we ever want GPS at Mars or long-distance communications, we need to understand the ionosphere,” Lillis said. The mission is also testing a different route to Mars. Most Mars missions launch during a narrow window when Earth and Mars align in their orbits, which happens about every 26 months. Instead of going straight to Mars, the spacecraft are looping around a point in space about 1.6 million kilometres from Earth called Lagrange point 2. When Earth and Mars align again in November 2026, the spacecraft will swing back past Earth and use the planet’s gravity to send them toward Mars. The mission is expected to arrive in September 2027. During this stage, the spacecraft will follow a large loiter orbit stretching roughly 3.2 million kilometres from Earth. That path will take them through an unexplored part of Earth’s distant magnetotail, the part of Earth’s magnetic environment that extends away from the Sun. “We’re going to be doing some discovery science,” Lillis said. “No one has ever measured Earth’s tail this far away.” Later, during the 10 month trip to Mars, the spacecraft will keep studying the solar wind and magnetic conditions in interplanetary space, the same environments astronauts will one day travel through on the way to Mars. ESCAPADE is funded by NASA’s Heliophysics Division and is part of NASA’s Small Innovative Missions for Planetary Exploration program. UC Berkeley’s Space Sciences Laboratory leads the mission with Rocket Lab, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Advanced Space and Blue Origin.

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Dads Learn To Braid As They Take On Daughters’ Hair Care

It started with two braids at the park, and one surprised comment. After weeks of practice, Strider Patton finally managed double French braids in his toddler’s brown hair. He got her dressed and took her to the park, where a woman soon approached his daughter and said, “Your hair looks just wonderful. Did your mommy do those braids?” Patton said his daughter answered right away. “And my daughter, without skipping a beat, just points at me and says, ‘Dad braids.’ And that woman’s jaw hit the ground,” Patton told USA Today. “Then that lady said something that changed everything. She said, ‘You could teach my husband a thing or two.’” That interaction led Patton, 41, to start posting videos of his morning hair-braiding routine with his daughter on social media in 2024. He said the videos “took off immediately.” Divorced dads, stay-at-home dads, widowed dads and other fathers who wanted to do more at home began thanking him, he said. “I really tapped into something.” Patton said dads from all over have reached out for advice, and some are now meeting in person for hair tutorials. In one recent video from an event called “Pints & Ponytails,” more than 30 fathers sat with beer cans and mannequin heads and learned how to braid hair. The TikTok was posted on March 8 and got more than 6.6 million views in three days. The reaction online was enthusiastic. “I love this generation of dads,” one user commented. “This is SO important! Thank you dads!” another user wrote. “Your daughters will be so so grateful and will LOVE this.” The response lines up with broader changes in fatherhood. A 2023 survey from Pew Research Center found 85 percent of fathers said being a parent is the most or one of the most important aspects of who they are. Another Pew survey found fathers spend triple the amount of time on child care than dads did in 1965. Patton said dads learning to do their daughters’ hair shows how fatherhood has changed from previous generations and reflects what homes and families look like now. “It’s like, if only one of us was able to change diapers, that wouldn’t make any sense at all,” he said. “We’ve got to be able to help out in every way.” He said many people see doing a child’s hair as part of the morning routine, but he wants dads, parents and caregivers to think about it differently. For him, it can be a chance to connect. “This is all about presence over perfection. It doesn’t matter what the hair looks like,” he said. “All they care about is that you’re together. And if you’re making it fun and playful, then she’s going to have fun.” Patton said the time he spends doing his daughter’s hair has also changed him. In the mornings, they listen to stories together, talk about what she is doing at school, or sit quietly while she eats breakfast. He said those moments have taught him about listening and being more open emotionally. “It’s really taught me a lot about what it means to be a dad. An engaged dad,” he said. “And how to really, kind of, deepen my own emotional intelligence because I want to grow that for her and for my family, because that’s something us guys aren’t really taught.” 📸 credit: Stryder Patton

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