Meet Kerith, the two-year-old dog who loves trail running, beach exploring, and helping firefighters feel better.

This sweet-natured golden retriever has one very important job. As a certified crisis response therapy dog, she’s tasked with helping exhausted firefighters get the kind of comfort only a four-legged friend can provide.

That’s especially important work right now, as hundreds across Marin County work extra long shifts to try and contain the Woodward Fire that’s currently blazing in Northern California.

Keith has her own sweet Instagram account, @kerith_the_golden_retriever.

It’s clear from the fun photos that this fluffy friend brings a lot of joy to others.

“Kerith is boosting morale during the crew’s morning briefing,” Heidi Carmen, Kerith’s human caretaker, told CNN. “She brings levity and a sense of playfulness even though they know the task of the day will be challenging.”

RELATED: When A Loving Brazilian Street Dog Kept Visiting A Car Dealership, They Finally Hired Him as a Salesman

Trained to be a guide dog, her super excitable nature made her not quite suited to her original task. Kerith went on to become a therapy dog in the emergency ward of a local hospital. But, explains Carmen to CNN, “her favorite people are firefighters.”

CHECK OUT: A Big Thank-You to Some ‘Angel’ Neighbors Who Wordlessly Assisted a Helpless Dog In Need

“She makes people feel loved, special and important. One firefighter told me ‘Kerith has the uncanny ability to make me feel like I am the most important person in the world.’”

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As a kid, Easton LaChappelle was always fascinated by robotics and how things worked, leading him to take his passion and learn more about prosthetics engineering.

That’s when he turned to YouTube to experiment and master everything from the core fundamentals of electronics to software interfaces and reading sensors.

RELATED: This Cheap, Amphibious, 3D-Printed Prosthetic Means That Amputees Can Now Enjoy the Water Without Stress

Eventually, 25-year-old Easton used his newfound skills and created a working device, making it all the way to the White House Science Fair with then-President Obama.

During his science fair days, Colorado’s Easton encountered a young girl with a prosthetic arm that looked “archaic” and cost about $80,000. He remembers thinking, is “this really her best available option?”

He tells GNN, “That’s when I decided to dedicate my life to solving the affordability of prosthetic devices and creating technology that can impact someone’s life on a deep level.

There are over 40 million amputees worldwide, and only about 5% of them have access to prosthetic devices. It was just not acceptable to me and I wanted to do something about it.”

After developing a working prototype, Easton founded a company, Unlimited Tomorrow, which makes low-cost, machine-printed prosthetic limbs.

MORE: Researchers Unveil Ultra-Precise, Mind-Controlled Prosthetic: ‘It’s like you have a hand again’

In under 30 days, the company was able to raise $1.568M to release its first product and provide millions of prosthetic devices to people worldwide at an affordable cost.

“We make a product called TrueLimb,” says Easton, “an affordable, 3D-printed prosthetic limb that uses a special remote-fitting process that is personalized to your skin tone, shape, and size for the perfect fit.”

“Because of YouTube,” he tells GNN, “I was able to turn my passion into a business that is having a positive impact on people’s lives.”

(WATCH Easton’s amazing story below).

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A pair of east coast scientists met and fell in love over an interest in researching mud, years before producing a paper that would change how the Eastern United States conducts river restoration.

Though controversial among mud experts, their work has created flourishing stream and river ecosystems that resemble their pre-colonial states of low-banked, ecologically diverse, marshy waterways: a big change from the high-banked meandering streams covered in reeds that we often see today.

Dorothy Merritts and Robert Walter, two scientists who started working together as peers, ended up producing a ‘mud-breaking’ research paper as husband and wife.

Their work showed that almost all streams and rivers in the Eastern United States are actually victims of colonial-era tampering that buried resilient and complex river ecosystems under yards of silt.

While this discovery may seem like the lifework of eccentric scientific specialists, to be debated in the obscurest of journals and classrooms, the real-world implications could be enormous for riverine construction and flood insurance firms.

RELATED: Sustainable Sand Gives Pollution a One-Two Punch by Soaking Up Toxic Metals and Purifying Water Supplies

They buried their heads in the mud

Dorothy Merritts, 62, is a geomorphologist at Franklin & Marshall College in Pennsylvania, who, after a long and adventurous career in the field, decided to shift focus in 2002 to concerns of silt erosion in rivers on local farmland.

On a research trip, her students produced a photo of a six-foot high bank of laminated layers of mud from the Little Conestoga River in PA.

Merritts would eventually show the photo to her future-husband Robert Walter, 69, also a geomorphologist at F&M, who was certain that the mud had been deposited in still water—originating because of a dam or lake, rather than through the flowing of a river.

Sure enough, after traveling to the Little Conestoga, they found the remains of an 18th-century milldam upstream—an artificial stopper in the river that would have channeled the water to power a grain mill.

“[Our] data, as well as historical maps and records, show instead that before European settlement, the streams were small anabranching channels within extensive vegetated wetlands that accumulated little sediment but stored substantial organic carbon,” explained Merritts and Walter in their 2008 paper which received over 750 citations and many critiques from fellow mud enthusiasts.

“Subsequently, 1 to 5 meters of slackwater sedimentation, behind tens of thousands of 17th- to 19th-century milldams, buried the presettlement wetlands with fine sediment.”

A billion dollar industry

Their discovery earned them a fair bit of criticism with other muddy-minded geologists who argued that the evidence gave them an inch and they took a mile. However, for private-sector business, and local government agencies, the discovery meant that they might be wasting millions on projects that would be done away if floods pushed tons of “legacy sediment” built up around the milldams, into newly dug rivers.

MORE: Scientists Use Tiny Spring Magnets to Harmlessly Dissolve Microplastics in Water

As state environmental agencies and private landowners began applying Merritts and Walter’s conclusions, the market would decide the outcome of the debates that had been set off in journals like Science and Nature, following their discovery. In 2011, one PA landowner, Joe Sweeney, hired a river-restoration firm to discover why trees he planted along a section of Big Spring Run that ran through his property couldn’t survive.

Walter and Merritts, along with their students, dug pits and determined that several yards of legacy sediment prevented the trees from reaching the groundwater. Together they decided to try and return Big Spring Run into what Walter and Merrits imagined it looked like before Europeans arrived on the continent.

MORE: Cheap 2D Material Can Cleanse 99.9999% of Bacteria From Water in 30 Minutes Simply by Using the Sun

After more than two years of planning and assistance from local and federal environmental agencies, 22,000 tons of mud were bulldozed off a four-square kilometer stretch of the river.

Underneath, the black, soaking wet soil of a past era revealed itself.

In just one year, Big Spring Run was a riverine paradise of bog turtles, geese, and trees centered around a low-banked river that slowly spills over a marshy area that contains triple the sequestered carbon than before, and that doesn’t have to regenerate after every severe storm.

Subsequent examinations on the economic effectiveness of the Big Spring Run restoration found it was 16 times more cost effective than comparable strategies.

Walter and Merritts’ love for mud and for each other has rearranged perspectives of rivers around the country, and their methods have been applied in states outside the mid-Atlantic, where milldams were most common, like Kentucky.

READ: Determined to Save His Country’s Water Supply, 26-Year-old Has Revived 10 Lakes From a Polluted Mess

For the sake of our rivers, it’s good to know there are people excited to get their hands muddy.

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A stormchaser, astrophotographer, and YouTuber recently documented a fascinating natural event known as a “sprite” in stunning detail. He uploaded it onto his YouTube page, and now a viewer can see lighting bolts express themselves in a completely different way, while also learning how to photograph them.

In a phenomenon that might have been more commonly seen by our ancestors, a sprite, as Michael from science out there describes, is a moment of extremely powerful lighting between the ground and the edge of space.

RELATED: Mesmerizing Photos Show the Patterns Created by Murmurations of Starlings

In his video, entitled ‘Bright Red Jellyfish Sprites’, Michael shares with his audience the images he captured of what look to be red water droplets running down a window, or a few jellyfish, or even ramen, suspended for only an instant in the Colorado sky.

To capture a sprite, says Michael, one has to be in a place where there is both very low light pollution, and a view out towards, above, and beyond, the “anvil” of a powerful storm.

If someone finds themselves in this very fortunate situation and focuses their gaze, not below where white and blue lighting illuminates the clouds, but on the night sky above, they might see a flash of an image that looks like something out of the movie Independence Day, or other Sci-Fi classics.

“Usually sprites are quite dim, and few of them are visible to the eye, but to see them in spite of the glow of twilight meant something extraordinary must be going on,” Michael recounts in his video.

MORE: NASA Finally Unlocks Mystery of Aurora ‘Pearl Necklaces’ and How They Form On Earth And Elsewhere

“Seeing them and photographing them perfectly blends my interests in astrophotography and stormchasing,” he explains.

(WATCH the ‘Bright Jellyfish Red Sprites’ burst into life below.)

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Did you know that the thousands of little florets in the middle of a sunflower actually grow with the mathematical precision of a Fibonacci sequence?

An evenly-growing spiral named after the Italian mathematician who described it, Fibonacci numbers form a sequence—often seen in nature—whereby each number is the sum of the two preceding ones.

The sunflower phenomenon is neatly illustrated in a video from the Instant Egghead YouTube series by Scientific American, which that today is celebrating its 175th birthday.

On this day in 1845, the magazine published its first issue, founded by inventor Rufus M. Porter who began reporting on what was happening at the U.S. Patent Office.

RELATED: Farmer Plants 4-Mile Sunflower Memorial to Wife, Sells Seeds for Hope

The oldest continuously-published monthly magazine in the US, it now reports on noteworthy advances in science and technology, and educates youth and adults alike with its YouTube channel and website.

Marking the milestone anniversary, the website is presenting a mix of Harry Houdini and M. C. Escher; is reinserting a regular poetry column; and making a deep dive into some of the most transformative, thrilling, dizzying discoveries of the past 175 years.

WATCH the sunflower unfold its mysteries below…

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175 years ago today, Scientific American magazine published its first issue. Founded by inventor Rufus M. Porter as a four-page weekly newspaper, it usually reported on what was happening at the U.S. Patent Office. It also reported on a broad range of inventions including perpetual motion machines, and even a 1860 device for buoying vessels by Abraham Lincoln.

Now published monthly, issues include a “This date in history” section, which features excerpts from articles published 50, 100, and 150 years earlier, as well as humorous incidents, wrong-headed theories, and noteworthy advances in the history of science. Marking the milestone anniversary, the website is presenting a mix of Harry Houdini and M. C. Escher, reinserting a regular poetry column, and a deep dive into some of the most transformative, thrilling, dizzying discoveries of the past 175 years. Happy Anniversary! (1845)

MORE Good News On This Day:

• Florence Welch, the English indie rock leader of Florence + the Machine, was born (1986)
• Ukraine declared its independence from the Soviet Union (1991)
• Pakistan‘s legislative house, the National Assembly, passed a constitutional amendment to make the “Qur’an and Sunnah” the “supreme law” but the bill was defeated in the Senate (1998)

And on this day in 1837, pharmacists John Lea and William Perrins manufactured Worcestershire Sauce for the first time. They devised the complex recipe in Worcester, England after a nobleman of the area was eager to recreate an exciting taste he had acquired in India.

From that day forward, the ingredients used to manufacture the Lea & Perrins condiment were required to mature for 18 months before being blended and bottled into the famous sauce. The ingredient is often used in Welsh rarebit, Caesar salad, Oysters Kirkpatrick, deviled eggs, and chili or beef dishes. The sauce is also used to flavor cocktails such as the Bloody Mary.

On this date in 1963, Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his ‘I Have a Dream’ speech envisioning racial harmony. During the March on Washington D.C. for Jobs and Freedom, he called on people to judge each other by the “content of their character.” 250,000 attended the rally and watched him on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. King described his dreams for freedom and equality which arose in a nation of slavery and hatred. With a single phrase, Martin Luther King Jr. propelled forward the Civil Rights Movement that was fighting for equality in a nation that tolerated hatred… WATCH this famous portion of the speech.

Also, on this day in 1908, Roger Tory Peterson, the inventor of the modern field guide, was born. The American naturalist, ornithologist, artist, and educator published his groundbreaking Guide to the Birds in 1934, at age 25, and its first printing sold out in one week. The Peterson Field Guide series eventually included topics ranging from rocks and seashells, to reptiles and edible or medicinal plants. He won numerous awards, like the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom, after igniting in our hearts a curiosity and love for the natural world.

His guides utilized what became known as the Peterson Identification System, a practical method for field identification which highlights readily noticed visual features (field marks, as he called them) rather than focusing on scientific details. It was called the greatest invention for naturalists since the binoculars—and Peterson created the guides, unlike Audubon, without shooting the birds. WATCH a short biography…

Happy Birthday to the actor, comedian, and musician Jack Black who turns 51 years ago today. In Almost 20 years ago, Black had his breakout performance co-starring and singing in the film High Fidelity with John Cusack. He soon won leading roles in Nacho Libre, Gulliver’s Travels and School of Rock, which earned him critical acclaim and a Golden Globe nomination. He later voiced the title role in Kung Fu Panda, and co-starred in Tropic Thunder and Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle. Inducted into Hollywood’s Walk of Fame in 2018, Black is the lead vocalist of the Grammy Award-winning comedic rock duo Tenacious D.

WATCH Jack Black meet Jack White (another guitar-shredding frontman) for a recording session in Nashville that funnyman Black describes as “Jack Gray.” (1969)

– 2016 photo by Eva Rinaldi, CC license

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Do you remember your very first day at school? For most of us, it was so exciting to meet a teacher for the first time. It was great fun to have new classmates and a real desk to sit at.

For children this year, things are a little different. It’ll still feel thrilling to be in a new environment, to wear a special uniform. But it might also be a little scary to be sitting at a desk surrounded by strange plastic screens as a six-year-old.

These two Florida teachers have figured out a way to make those plastic dividers—installed on desks to protect children during the age of COVID-19—less nerve-wracking, and more totally, joyfully brilliant.

First-grade teachers Patricia Dovi and Kim Martin, of St. Barnabas Episcopal School in DeLand, Florida have turned coronavirus dividers into the windshields and windows of, yes, Jeeps.

“Anything that we can do to add some silliness and some creativity to get them excited is going to be really important in the longevity of this school year,” Dovi told Insider.

RELATED: Hero Teacher Spent Every Day in Lockdown Preparing Food for His Pupils and Delivered 7,500 Packed Lunches

The school supplied the plexiglass; Dovi and Martin paid for the decorations out of their own pockets. Martin estimates that the desks took about a week to complete. Wasn’t all that work worth it?

Family and friends of these two inspiring teachers helped turn the desks into colorful Jeeps with personalized license plates.

Each student arrived just yesterday, to find their very own ‘car’ waiting for them.

MORE: Teachers Visit a Bridge Everyday to Create a Classroom for Children of Migrant Workers Stuck in India’s Lockdown

“It’s going to be more fun to say, ‘Hey, purple Jeep, you’re getting out of your lane,’” Martin joked. “I think it will be a smart way to keep the kids engaged.” We have no doubt about that.

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From darkness comes light. From despair comes hope. From injustice comes determination, and from passion comes change. In the wake of the violent aftermath of the George Floyd protests, a group of teenagers in Chicago’s Austin neighborhood were looking for a way to uplift their marginalized West Side community—and they found it.

“With a little help from their friends,” a galvanized group of young entrepreneurs transformed a gutted liquor store into Austin Harvest, a pop-up food market whose goal is to provide healthy food alternatives for their underserved neighborhood.

The genesis of the project began with listening circles led by By the Hand Club for Kids. “What I heard coming out of that was that students wanted to take all those raw and powerful emotions and turn them into something good, and do something from a social justice standpoint,” the group’s executive director Donnita Travis told Book Club Chicago.

One of the issues the kids felt about most urgently was the shortage of healthy food options in the area; the result of years of systemic neglect and racism.

For areas like Austin classified as “food deserts,” groceries and fresh produce are difficult to come by even in the best of times. The situation worsened when several area grocery stores were forced to close temporarily after being looted.

Within the half-mile radius surrounding 423 North Laramie Avenue where Austin Harvest has since sprung to life, there were formerly a dozen liquor stores but only two food markets.

“Food is a basic necessity” Azariah Baker, a teen who’d been with Austin Harvest since its inception, told BCC, “but it’s also a basic necessity we don’t have access to.”

RELATED: This Sweet Family-Style Restaurant Has No Prices, and Feeds Anyone in Alabama–WATCH

When the discussion turned to the idea of repurposing one of the looted properties into a much-needed community resource, “the kids took the idea and ran with it,” Travis said.

The project got enthusiastic backing from a number of professional athletes. Former Chicago Bears’ linebacker Sam Acho led the charge. “People care. It’s a time for people to show up. I think our world has changed,” Acho told BCC. “So for us to be able to come together and say we’re going to lead that change, it means something.”

Other athletes who contributed to the cause included the Blackhawks’ Jonathan Toews, Bears quarterback Mitch Trubisky of the Bears, White Sox pitcher Lucas Giolito, Cubs outfielder Jason Heyward, and St. Louis Cardinals first baseman Paul Goldschmidt. Together, they raised $500,000 in seed money to get the project rolling.

While By the Hand brought in architects and branding experts for guidance, the vision for Austin Harvest was shaped and implemented by its youthful participants. “We’ve been behind the scenes completely,” Baker said. “We’ve discussed how we want to show our market, where we wanted our market to be, what we sell, what we look like. This is who runs it.”

Taking a “teach someone to fish rather than give someone a fish approach,” The Hatchery Chicago also pitched to offer hands-on lessons in real-world business skills including licensing and customer service, as well as a culinary pathways program to geared toward helping interested teens work toward careers in the food industry.

MORE: Tennessee Teen Raises Thousands of Dollars For Food Banks By Making and Selling His Own Vanilla–WATCH

“This is a real entrepreneurship opportunity for them,” Travis noted, “but also an opportunity for them to bring food justice to our neighborhood.”

Austin Harvest, officially opened on August 24, is set to run for 12 weeks. Hours are Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from 3 to 6 p.m.

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When Roy Austin went on his first wildlife safari back in 2018, his only goal for the leisurely vacation was to catch sight of some African wildlife in its natural habitat—but he ended up finding something much more meaningful.

Although Austin enjoyed seeing lions and tigers across several East African countries, he was most captivated by the people he met in rural Kenya—particularly at the Amboseli Primary and Secondary School in Amboseli National Park.

In addition to befriending many of the students and teachers, Austin was surprised to learn how difficult it was to get books and school supplies for the children.

“In rural Kenya, the government does not build school buildings. You either build it yourself or raise the money to have it built,” says Austin. “A teacher was asked if they had a library. [She] replied, ‘No, but we would love to have a library.’ That stuck in my mind.”

When Austin eventually returned to his home in Bluffton, South Carolina, he launched Libraries for Kids International with the goal of sending books to the Kenyan schoolchildren.

MORE: After Chicago Becomes One of the Biggest US Cities to Ditch Overdue Library Fees, Book Returns Surge by 240%

Since starting the charity, Austin has managed to ship more than 1,000 books to 11 schools across Kenya and Tanzania. He says that he has managed to keep shipping costs down by sending the books through the post office rather than FedEx.

Not only has the charity supplied the schools with books, it has also given Austin a new sense of purpose and determination since his wife passed away in March.

RELATED: Anonymous Donor Gives Away $82,000 Worth of Gift Cards to All 1,400 Residents of Small Iowa Town

As they continue to collect books and donations for additional shipments, Austin tells WJCL that the nonprofit is now helping to move a shipping container of 22,000 books from Atlanta to Kenya. In the future, the philanthropist hopes to start sending donations to South America as well.

“Many people told me that it can’t be done, it’s too expensive to ship books, and they will disappear going through customs,” Austin writes on the organization’s website. “However, one of my life philosophies is ‘Focus on the Objective, Not the Obstacle.’

“Every worthwhile project will have problems and obstacles. If you focus on the problems you will never start. Conversely, if you focus on the objective and solve the problems as they arise, most anything is possible.”

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Although COVID-19 cases have been on the rise in São Paulo, Brazil, many of the city’s residents have decided to take action.

Notably, high school student Gabriel Aun Klinger organized a project intended to help people from favelas in Brazil defend themselves against the virus.

Favelas are slums (or highly-populated communities) where many people live in extreme poverty. Many favela residents struggle to feed themselves and have to live in dangerously unhygienic conditions.

“Some people from these communities can’t even afford to buy a soap bar,” stated Klinger.

After reading several documents and scientific papers on COVID-19, Klinger stumbled upon a simple, affordable, and effective solution against COVID-19—something he described as being the “perfect weapon of self-defense against the virus.” When he realized that this solution was also much cheaper and easier to obtain than 70% alcohol gel, he immediately launched his project aiming to use it for the benefit of the people in favelas.

WATCH: 17-Year-Old ‘Angel’ Cashier Picks Up $173 Grocery Bill for Senior Shopper Who Found Himself Short on Cash

“​The core of the project has been to share information I had regarding a home-made solution for combatting the coronavirus with some of the most vulnerable people in São Paulo,” he explained.

In March, his crowdfunding campaign raised enough money to purchase hygiene products and food items for over 500 families in those communities. As a part of the project, he then distributed these products to the community, making sure to teach those people how to prepare the solution with the items they received.

LOOK: Selfless Teen is Local Hero After Daily Trips During Lockdown To Clean Dirty Road Signs And Cut Back Town’s Hedges

According to him, the project was a success. “We were able to distribute all the kits in an organized and smooth way,” Klinger said. “It felt incredible to be involved in the community in this way, and be able to make a real, tangible contribution during a time like this.”

In June, Klinger organized a second round of this project so he could help even more people.

MORE: 3D-Printing Teen Makes Hundreds of Ingenious Devices to Alleviate Ear Pain for Healthcare Workers

“If this project was able to save even one life, it was worth it completely,” he said.

Through his project, Klinger learned that small actions like this one can go a long way. In times like these, he hopes to remind people that everyone has the power to make an impact on people’s lives and help those who need it most.

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Growing their own vegetables, switching to one-ply toilet paper and eating lots of leftovers—these are just a few ways people are pinching pennies during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to this new survey.

Interestingly, over half of Americans polled credit the COVID-19 pandemic with finally teaching them how to be smart with their money.

In fact, a similar survey from two years ago shows that the number of US adults who feel very smart with their money has actually risen from just 42% in 2018 to 51% in 2020.

Another two in three participants said the pandemic has turned them into a frugal person.

The polls of 2,000 Americans, both conducted by OnePoll on behalf of Slickdeals, looked into how the pandemic has changed people’s mindsets about their money and how they define being “cheap” versus being “frugal.”

MORE: Most Americans With Cats Say They Couldn’t Have Gotten Through Lockdown Without Their Feline Friend

The latest survey was meant to mirror the one run in 2018 as a means of comparing just how much the results have changed over the course of two years and a global pandemic.

Tipping the minimum (15–20%) regardless of service was found to by people in 2020 be “cheap;” however, skimping on the tip in 2018 was voted to be an act of frugality. Perhaps this can be explained by a shift in gratitude towards frontline workers?

CHECK OUT: Americans Say They Are Thankful For ‘Little Joys’ More Than Ever These Days – Their Top 10 Favorites

Declining to be part of rounds at the bar was considered cheap by respondents, as was calculating your share of the group bill down to the cent.

Other cheap actions? Still using very outdated electronics, re-gifting, and diluting soap containers with water.

Conversely, purchasing clothes at a secondhand store was found to be “frugal,” as was buying off-brand food products, buying no-name electronics, and always seeking out deals or coupons when going shopping.

Participants also considered tracking their electricity and heating usage at home to keep the utility bills down to be frugal behavior.

According to the survey, the average American becomes a frugal person at the age of 31, with one in four saying they became thriftier when they were even younger. Two in three Americans also said they consider being called frugal a compliment.

MORE: Americans Who Drink This Much Water a Day Were More Likely to Report Feeling ‘Very Happy’

“The coronavirus pandemic has impacted the financial situations of many people, and brought new focus to the importance of prioritizing spending,” said Josh Meyers, CEO of Slickdeals. “We see a shift toward smarter spending with 65% of respondents indicating that the pandemic has transformed them into a frugal person, and 67% reporting that being called frugal is actually a compliment.”

The survey also found that being financially conscious can be important on the dating scene.

Two-thirds of those polled said they actually think using a coupon on a first date is completely acceptable. In fact, 45% said they’d happily use a coupon on a first date.

RELATED: Survey Finds Working From Home Has So Many Benefits, 48% of Workers Would Take Pay Cut to Continue

Three in four say that the more they age, the more desirable it is for a romantic prospect having a smart financial mindset.

CHEAP OR FRUGAL?

CHEAP
– Tipping the minimum acceptable amount (15–20%) regardless of service
– Declining to be a part of rounds at the bar
– Calculating your part of a group bill to the cent
– Keeping outdated or worn out electronics, as long as they still barely work
– Reusing tea bags or coffee filters
– Eating food a few days past its expiration date
– Lengthening longevity of soap by diluting soap bottles with water
– Re-gifting

FRUGAL
– Regularly tracking electricity use (switching off lights/appliances when they aren’t in use)
– Regularly tracking the home thermostat (keeping the heat as low as possible)
– Watching movies at home instead of in the theater
– Shopping at second-hand clothing stores
– Buying off-brand food products
– Buying no-name electronics (such as ear buds from the corner stone)
– Giving up drinking while at bars or restaurants / only having alcohol at home
– Seeking out deals or coupons for all purchases

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91 years ago today, the Kellogg-Briand Pact (or Pact of Paris, named for where it was signed) was agreed to by 60 countries as an international treaty “providing for the renunciation of war as an instrument of national policy.” Though it ultimately failed to stop wars, the pact was significant for its influence on later international law. It was named after the American secretary of state, Frank B. Kellogg, and French Foreign minister, Aristide Briand, who together drafted the pact. (1929)

MORE Good News on this Day:

• Radio Argentina first broadcast a live show from a theater in Buenos Aires, one of the first live radio transmissions in the world. (1920)
• The first jet aircraft flew, the Heinkel He 178, piloted by Erich Warsitz and powered solely by turbojets (1939)
• Negotiations between West Germany and Israel over reparations for Nazi atrocities ended in Luxembourg, with the European country agreeing to pay 3 billion Deutschmarks (1952)
• Moldova declared independence from the USSR (1991)
• Pearl Jam released their debut album, “Ten,” which was the Seattle group’s most commercially successful album, selling over 13 million copies, and producing three hit singles: Alive, Even Flow, and Jeremy (1991)
• Sen. Barack Obama, a senator from Illinois, became the first-ever black American nominated for president by a major party at its national convention (2008)

On this day in 1953, the Hollywood film Roman Holiday was released. Shot at iconic locations all around Rome, the romantic comedy by Dalton Trumbo stars Gregory Peck as a reporter and (the relatively unknown) Audrey Hepburn as a royal princess who snuck out from her boring state duties to explore the Eternal City of Rome on her own. From among 8 Oscar nominations, Hepburn won the Academy Award for Best Actress—and Trumbo’s screenplay, and the costume designer also won. Roman Holiday created a boon for international sales of Vespa scooters, previously only popular in Italy, after they were featured throughout the film. WATCH a clip…

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A blind mom was able to ‘see’ her unborn baby—thanks to a 3D-printed ultrasound.

Taylor Ellis was born with glaucoma and has very little vision. When she went in for her 20-week scan and was unable to see her baby, she was left in tears.

When doctors found out she was upset, they conducted a special ultrasound and made a 3D print out of her unborn daughter’s face.

26-year-old Taylor and her husband Jeremy, who is also visually impaired, received the special scan in the post a week later. They were able to feel the baby’s face as a result, and it was a dream come true.

Baby Rosalie is now ten weeks old, and mum-of-three Taylor said the 3D printing technology—most commonly use to make car parts—has been “life changing.”

RELATED: Micro-Preemie Proved Doctors Wrong and is Now Paying It Forward by Knitting Hats for Other Preemies

Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore usually uses the technology to create models of unborn babies with spina bifida. It allows surgeons to get a clear image of the spines of babies to see if they need in-womb surgery. When an ultrasound sonographer at the same hospital found out, he suggested the technology be used to help blind parents. It is thought to be the first hospital in the world to offer the service.

MORE: After Miracle Baby Wakes From Coma Smiling At His Dad, Thousands Rally to Help Save His Life

Taylor, a stay-at-home-mother, from Cockeysville in Maryland, said, “I always thought about what my baby would look like and was always saddened to know I wouldn’t have the same opportunity as seeing mothers.

“My sight wasn’t as bad with my first two children, so I could see the 2D ultrasound.

When she received the 3D ultrasound, Taylor said of the exciting moment, “I had the realization that this was my baby’s face, it was so heart-warming. I showed off my scan to my daughters and my parents on video chat.”

Proud mom Taylor, added: “This pregnancy has been so scary but so exciting the whole way through, I just wanted this [moment] really really bad.”

Multiply The Good News And Share This Sweet Story With Your Friends…

An interactive online map allows you to punch in your home address and superimpose the global geography of epochs gone by to see how the earth has changed over 750 million years.

Seeing the results can be super surprising. 600 million years ago, for example, when multicellular life was just beginning to emerge in the ocean, our nation’s capital of Washington D.C. was smushed into the coast of West Africa as part of a jumbled ball of land stretching to the South Pole that would eventually break off, drift away and form the Americas.

The love-labor of paleontologist Ian Webster, the map tool is attached to the world’s largest digital dinosaur database, also created by Webster, who drew on geographical data from another resource called Ancient Earth. Created by paleographer Christopher Scotese, Ancient Earth was a culmination of work 30 years in the making called the Paleo Maps Project.

Together, the project allows users to enter most towns, cities, and countries into the search bar, and a 3D rotatable globe will show you approximately where they were on a 750 million-year timeline. Ancient Earth comes with a variety of tools that allow you to learn interesting information, or select a time period based on the emergence of specific features, such as the first flower to ever bloom on Earth.

Given that Webster is an expert in dinosaurs, any location you enter in the search function will also provide you with a list of dinosaurs that would have been your neighbors—all with inline links to that particular dinosaur’s profile on Webster’s database; all-in-all it represents an incredible educational resource for children and adults interested in paleontology or geography.

RELATED: World’s Last Known ‘Dinosaur Trees’ Saved From Australian Bushfires Thanks to Determined Firefighters

Paleo-perspective

Even with modern GPS technology and programs like Google Maps, globes and 2-dimensional paper maps continue to shape our perception of the sphere we call Earth.

A great example of our reliance on maps is the Chinese word for China—“Middle Kingdom.” This perception as China being the land between heaven and Earth is reflected on Chinese maps, where it is the Pacific Ocean that occupies the right-central areas instead of the Atlantic, and where Asia and Africa clog up the left side with the other continents situated to the right.

Another example can be found in maps dated in the 1980s or earlier, when given the importance of the Northern Hemisphere to most scholars, the Equator was positioned at 10 degrees north longitude, making the continents of the Southern Hemisphere appear smaller.

Ancient Earth is the ultimate in perspective-shifting educational tools—especially for kids, as they get to see their very own homes move around in the tectonic dance that’s been going on for billions of years.

“I’m amazed that geologists collected enough data to actually plot my home 750 [million] years ago, so I thought you all would enjoy it too,” Webster wrote in a comment on Hacker News.

MORE: After Decades of Work, Scientists Have Mapped the Entire Surface of the Moon for the First Time

“Obviously we will never be able to prove correctness,” Webster concludes. “In my tests I found that model results can vary significantly. I chose this particular model because it is widely cited and covers the greatest length of time.”