#039 — The Best News of Last Week — May 9, 2022
🦦 — Read until the end for the best headline I read this week
1. Karine Jean-Pierre, an out lesbian, has been named the next White House Press Secretary.
Jean-Pierre will be the first out LGBTQ person and the first Black person to hold the office. She currently serves as Deputy Press Secretary under Jen Psaki. Jean-Pierre will replace Psaki, who had announced she would vacate the role after a year in the role for a job with MSNBC. Her last day will be May 13.
2. Tasmania now removing more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere than it’s emitting, researchers say
Tasmania has become one of the first parts of the world to become not just carbon neutral but carbon negative by reducing logging, researchers say. “Tasmania has gone from being the emitter of carbon dioxide to now removing more than it is emitting to the atmosphere,” Griffith University researcher Brendan Mackey said.
3. These seed-firing drones are planting 40,000 trees every day to fight deforestation
Using a fleet of highly advanced ‘octocopters’, AirSeed Technology is fighting deforestation by combining artificial intelligence with specially designed seed pods which can be fired into the ground from high in the sky.
“Each of our drones can plant over 40,000 seed pods per day and they fly autonomously,” says Andrew Walker, CEO and co-founder of AirSeed Technologies. The company has already planted more than 50,000 trees, and aims to plant a total of 100 million by the year 2024.
While the semi-aquatic mammals were once a common sight in Michigan, they were heavily hunted along with beavers during the fur trade of the 1800s. By the early 20th century, they were largely eradicated from the Detroit River.
“The Detroit Zoo is so excited to hear that the Detroit River is now clean enough for river otters and is committed to working with regional partners to further conservation efforts, including for river otters,” the Detroit Zoo’s Elizabeth Arbaugh told Great Lakes Now.
5. Scientists Discover Genetic Cause of Lupus, a Chronic Autoimmune Disease
An international team of researchers has discovered DNA mutations in a gene that senses viral RNA as a cause of the autoimmune disease lupus, paving the way for the development of new treatments.
Lupus is a chronic autoimmune disease that causes inflammation in joints and organs, affects movement and the skin, and causes fatigue. Symptoms can be debilitating in extreme cases, and consequences can be deadly.
A Massachusetts family got quite the surprise last week when they brought home what they believed was a lost puppy they found wandering by the side of a busy road. The lost “puppy” was actually a distressed baby coyote that had been separated from its family.
The lost coyote is now “recovering comfortably” in an isolation ward at the Weymouth wildlife center, and the nonprofit said he will soon have a foster sibling to keep him company.
7. ‘She’s my guardian angel’: DoorDasher saves Massachusetts woman’s life while delivering pizza
Caryn Hebert Sullivan put in the call for a late dinner on February 11, and DoorDash driver Sophia Furtado brought the order to an address in the small community of West Island Fairhaven, located on Buzzards Bay. But when she got to the house around 10 p.m., she spotted Sullivan lying on the ground outside, bleeding from her head.
Furtado has previous medical knowledge from her time training as an Emergency Medical Technician. According to Officer Jillian Jodoin of the Fairhaven Police Department, Furtado spoke with the dispatcher while rendering aid.
“At that moment Sophia became a part of our team to aid Caryn.” Jodoin told CNN, “I asked her if it was possible for her to keep stabilizing Caryn’s neck to keep her spine safe, her answer was, ‘I’m not going anywhere.’ “
also I had to share the best headline I read this week:
Canadian astronauts no longer free to rob and kill with abandon in space or on the moon
…thank God. Now the rest of us will finally be safe from the terror unleashed onto us by Canadian astronauts.
