[hija]

Climate positive polyester



At San Francisco-based Mango Materials, a team of engineers, entrepreneurs and scientists are capturing methane, a potent greenhouse gas that contributes to the climate crisis, and turning it into polymers that offer a sustainable alternative to petroleum-based polyester.

The company directly pipes waste methane gas from a digester to a fermentation vessel, as CEO Molly Morse explains. Inside this vessel is water and bacteria, which feed on the methane, rapidly growing until a type of bio-plastic known as PHA is produced.

“When the bacteria have produced an optimal amount of PHA, the biomass and PHA granules are separated, cleaned, purified and dried before being ready to formulate into pellets,” explains Morse.

These pellets (inset) form the basis of biodegradable bio-polyester fibres. The company has already signed deals with leading activewear and outdoor clothing brands, adds Morse, with plans to announce further details in the near future.

[goldie0608]

This High School Opened a Campus Grocery Store–And Students Pay in Good Deeds



When most of us make a trip to the grocery store, we pay with credit cards, cash, and coupons. But for a unique supermarket that’s been set up at a North Texas high school, the cost of staples is good deeds. And the change? Human kindness and valuable life lessons.

The unique enterprise, set up with the aid of Texas Health, Albertsons, and First Refuge Ministries, has been a boon to the students, families, and faculty that form the close-knit Linda Tutt High School community in Sanger, Texas.

Students purchase goods via a point system. The currency is based on completing criteria such as helping clean up around the school and forms of positive reinforcement.

“A lot of our students come from low socioeconomic families,” school principal Anthony Love said in an interview with CBS. “It’s a way for students to earn the ability to shop for their families. Through hard work, you can earn points for positive office referrals. You can earn points for doing chores around the building or helping to clean.”

But aside from being able to help families cope with food insecurity, students who participate in the program on the sales side are also learning about everything from math and supply management to customer service and a solid work ethic; lessons that will serve them in good stead when they start to look for first jobs.

“We all had our first jobs and it taught us how to work, and what you got for your work,” said Sanger’s mayor, Thomas Muir. “I think this will do that for them too, and [also] meet an immediate need.”

Hunter Weertman, the grocery store’s student manager says he’s already learned important life skills such as budgeting and making good spending choices based on what you’ve got.

In addition to partnering with local food drives and other neighborhood initiatives, its founders hope that once the program hits its stride, this good deed grocery store can serve as a pilot program for other small communities where food insecurity has become an all-too-common way of life.

[FRKJ]

Rare Wangarru Wallaby Colony Grows in Leaps and Bounds After Australian Rains

After years of decline, a critically endangered species of rock wallaby in Australia is finally growing in population following recent rainfall.

The beloved Wangarru, or yellow-footed rock wallaby as it’s commonly called, is found only in Mutawintji National Park and Nature Reserve in the Far West and outback-South Australia.



In New South Wales’ longest ariel population survey program, the NSW government has been keeping tabs on the Wangarru for 40 years. Recently, drought and invasive predators like foxes and cats have reduced their numbers from 150 to just 60 individuals.

“But rain from March caused the ground cover to grow back and the wallabies have started breeding again, and this latest count in July we recorded 75 wallabies,” says project officer, Sarah Bell.

Dr. Bell works for the Save Our Species conservation action program facilitated by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, which works to save endangered species the world over.

“We were getting quite concerned, because 60 in one population is such a small number of animals to represent a species distribution in NSW,” noted Dr. Bell.

“If you put the population count on top of rainfall data, it’s really quite amazing how closely it corresponds.”

Leroy Johnson is a Barkindji Aboriginal man, and the Park Manager of Mutawintji. For him, the Wangarru is a special animal. The Mutawintji Aboriginal Land Council has it on their logo, and Johnson told ABC news Australia that his people “take it very seriously to look after not only those animals, but the habitat they live in.”

He and his staff put out feeding and watering stations throughout the park to help the animals through the dry period.

“If the numbers are good then the land and the country is healthy too… we take pride in the fact that they’re there.”



However attached the Barkindji are with the cute rock wallaby, another bad drought could easily wipe out the remaining population, so Dr. Bell is working with the Mutawintji Land Council on relocation projects to create subpopulations elsewhere in the state.

This tactic, used to help restore California condors for example, is quite common when there are few animals but ample territory where they can live.

Natural disasters, drought, or a new disease can all decimate a delicate population, and the more places in NSW that Dr. Bell and Leroy Johnson can create stable populations, the better the chance that the Mutawindji Land Council can have them on their logos for years to come.

[johngriffen]

I sometimes get REALLY DEPRESSED reviewing the news these days.
It's always about a global pandemic threatening life as we know it,
protests around the world, stupid politicians, natural disasters,
or some other really bad story.
ENOUGH IS ENOUGH

Welcome to The mobi weekly news magazine
IN OTHER NEWS
SATURDAY DECEMBER 5
What is it?
Here is your chance to become an "ACE REPORTER" for our weekly news magazine.
It is your job to fine weird, funny or "good feel" stories from around the world and share them with our readers in our weekly magazine

How do you play?
Just post a story that you have come across that made you smile, laugh, feel good...
BUT NOTHING DEPRESSING

EXAMPLE POST

​Naked sunbather chases wild boar through park after it steals his laptop bag

A naked sunbather was seen chasing wild boar through a park after it stole his laptop bag.
Amusing photographs from Germany show the man running after the animal to try and claim the plastic bag back.
But the cheeky boar and its two piglets appear to be too quick for the sunbather, who can't keep up with their speedy little trotters.
As the incident unfolds, groups of friends and family sat on the grass watch on and laugh.
Heads are seen turning in surprise and amusement in the hilarious photographs.
The incident happened at Teufelssee Lake - a bathing spot in the Grunwell Forest in Berlin, Germany.

Rules:
Each Edition of IN OTHER NEWS will be open for 7 days...
You may post One Story in any 24 hour period
So in other words, you can enter only once a day
Each news day will start when I post announcing it
OR at:
9:00 AM CHICAGO TIME (UTC -6)
3:00 PM GMT (UTC -0)
on those days I space out and forget to post or can't due to Real Life
Stories may be accompanied with images - but No big images, please! 800x800 pixels wide maximum
Videos are allowed, but please keep them to under a minute, and post a short summary for those that don't like to click on videos
No Duplicate stories - Where a post has been edited resulting in duplicates, then the last one in time gets disallowed.
And please limit this to reasonably family friendly stories

Reward:
Each news story posted that I feel is acceptable (must be a real story, too few words or simply a headline are not considered acceptable) will earn you 50 WRZ$
If you post multiple stories on any given day, you will only earn 50 WRZ$ for the first story of the Day
Special Bonus - Each week I will award "The Pulitzer Prize" for the best story of the week
The weekly winner of the "The Pulitzer Prize" will receive a 100 WRZ$ bonus
It's just my personal opinion, so my judgement is final

So help bring GOOD news to the members of mobi, and join our reporting team...

IN OTHER NEWS

[Fivetide]

‘Dead’ men; brides and Fiona’s flame


Barista Lee Kang Bin applies the finishing touches to a recreation of a couple's Niagara Falls vacation photo,
at his coffee shop in Seoul, South Korea. The South Korean barista is charming customers at his coffee shop
by drawing intricate artworks on the foamy cream toppings of their
drinks. (AP Photo/Dino Hazell)

Would you like cream, sugar and art with that?

A South Korean barista is charming customers at his coffee shop by drawing intricate artwork on the foamy cream topping their drinks.

Lee Kang Bin uses food coloring and small brushes, spoons and tools that look like mini ice picks to draw people, animals, Disney characters and landscapes on coffee.


This photo shows a portrait of Associated Press writer Ashley Thomas with her dog Sandra, designed atop a
cup of cold java by Barista Lee Kang Bin at his coffee shop in Seoul, South Korea. The South Korean barista
is charming customers at his coffee shop by drawing intricate artworks on the foamy cream toppings of their drinks. (AP Photo/Dino Hazell)

Lee has recreated famous paintings such as the 1893 Edvard Munch masterpiece “The Scream.” This month the mocha master reproduced a couple’s Niagara Falls vacation photo atop a cup of cold java.

Lee creates the designs at the C. Through coffee shop in Seoul and calls them Creamart. He said the delicate process takes him about an hour per cup and customers have to order in advance.

[johngriffen]

IN BREAKING NEWS

NOTE: I CAN NOT WIN ANYTHING IF I POST SOMETHING
I don't think this one has been posted yet...
You just have to love those Brits

Pub landlord renames ale in cheeky bid to get around new Covid restrictions

A pub landlord has jokingly renamed an ale 'Substantial Meal' in a cheeky bid to get around new Covid-19 restrictions.
Brett Mendoza, 40, who owns the Caxton Arms in Brighton, East Sussex, came up with the idea while discussing what constitutes a substantial meal with another landlord after the latest measures were announced last week.
An image of the spoof beer pump clip, which is from the 'made up brewery' and described as 'hearty, filling and flavoursome', was posted to social media last Wednesday, captioned: 'Bring on Tier 2'.
It comes ahead of Brighton and Hove being placed under Tier 2 restrictions tomorrow, meaning diners in England are not allowed to linger or order more booze after their food is finished.
Tier 2 pubs can only serve alcohol if bought with a 'substantial meal', leaving drink-led pubs weighing up whether it was even commercially viable to trade.

[Fatima99]

Anonymous Korean War veteran purchases hundreds of meals for local hunger relief effort

What started as an average Monday morning last month at a grocery store in Raeford, North Carolina, turned into something extraordinary when a 91-year-old Korean War veteran walked in and headed straight for the customer service counter.



The man, who asked to remain anonymous, walked into a Food Lion store and wrote a $1,500 check for the store's "Holidays Without Hunger" program. He also wrote a $500 check for 100 pre-packaged meal boxes -- also part of the program -- which contain food for a family of four and are donated to local food banks.

It was the largest single donation by an individual in the program's 17-year history.

"I was completely caught off guard when he handed them to me, and it took me a few seconds to gather my thoughts," store manager Charles Campbell told CNN. "I finally asked him what his motivation was for this generous gift."

The veteran told Campbell that he spent two years as a prisoner of war in the Korean War and was rarely fed. That led him to a dangerous weight of 90 pounds. The man said he knew what it's like not to know where the next meal is going to come from, or when.

The generous donation comes as more than 54 million Americans face food insecurity, according to the nation's largest hunger-relief organization, Feeding America. That is 17 million more than before the coronavirus outbreak.

When Campbell asked the veteran if he'd like to speak with any of the media representatives at the store's corporate office, the man said: "I'm not doing this for any publicity or recognition. I just plain and simple don't want people to be hungry."

[HogwartsExpress]

German museum to restore Enigma machine found on seabed



German divers who fished an Enigma encryption machine out of the Baltic Sea have handed their rare find over to a museum for restoration.

The code machine – which was used by the Nazis to send coded messages during the second world war – was discovered last month by divers on assignment for the environmental group WWF. The group was searching for abandoned fishing nets in the Bay of Gelting off the north-east coast of Germany.

“A colleague swam up and said: there’s a net there with an old typewriter in it,” Florian Huber, the lead diver, told the DPA news agency.

The team quickly realised they had stumbled across an historic artefact and alerted the authorities.

Dr Ulf Ickerodt, the head of the state archaeological office in Schleswig-Holstein, said the machine would be restored by experts at the state’s archaeology museum.

The delicate process, including a thorough desalination process after seven decades in the Baltic seabed, “will take about a year”, he said.

After that, the machine will go on display at the museum.

Dr Jann Witt, a historian from the German Naval Association, told DPA he believed the machine, which has three rotors, was thrown overboard from a German warship in the final days of the war.

It is less likely to have come from a scuttled submarine, he said, because Adolf Hitler’s U-boats used the more complex four-rotor Enigma machines.

The allied forces worked tirelessly to decrypt the codes produced by the Enigma machine, which were changed every 24 hours.

The British mathematician Alan Turing, who is seen as the father of modern computing, spearheaded a team at Britain’s Bletchley Park that cracked the code in 1941.

The breakthrough helped the allies decipher crucial radio messages about German military movements. Historians believe it shortened the war by about two years.

source: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/ ... und-seabed

[Morgan2498]

Divine decision saves a near stranger’s life

Zane, who now runs a podcast, was walking down the stairs of his home on a Saturday this May when he mumbled the name of an old high school classmate. He can’t, for the life of him, remember why.

His wife, Diana, overheard it and asked who it was. Zane brushed it off as some guy he knew from high school. But his curiosity led him online, where he learned the classmate from Cousino High School in Warren now had a successful film career in Los Angeles.

“Someone interviewed him because he’s a filmmaker. He makes shorts,” Zane said. “I go, ‘oh wow, he looks very prominent and successful. This is terrific.'”



Zane went to Facebook. He saw that there was already a friend request from his LA acquaintance. After accepting it, the two started messaging right away. Zane soon learned that life was anything but terrific.

“He revealed that he has a health issue, and I didn’t ask. I didn’t think anything of it,” Zane said.

The conversation stretched into Sunday and turned into a phone call.

“He said it’s stage five kidney disease. Now, I don’t know anything about kidney disease. But I’m assuming that stages — when you think about cancer — four and five are pretty grim. And it is.”

It was at that moment that Zane says something divine happened. A voice in his mind said to him, “do my will.” In that instant, he had decided he would give his kidney to this now virtual stranger.

“When it comes to religion, I am probably the most flawed idiot on the planet. I am judgmental. I am mean. I have a horrible mouth. I swear like you wouldn’t believe,” Zane said. “I look at people like me and think, you’re lucky a lightning bolt doesn’t strike you when you’re in a church.”

And yet, here he was, in his kitchen, believing that God was talking to him, committing to giving away a kidney to a man he hadn’t seen in over 30 years.

“My wife is across from me at that island there,” Zane said. “I know God’s talking to me, I’m committed to that, but I still need to talk to my earthly boss here. I’m like, OK, God, look, sit tight. Let me just take care of this formality. I think I know what she’s going to say but hang tight there. No disrespect, please.”

With God on hold, Zane brought it up to his wife. He asked her if she had found a friend, she only kind of knew from high school, who was struggling with kidney disease if she would give them her kidney.

“To her credit, she goes, ‘yes, oh my gosh. Yes, I would do that,’” Zane said. He then went on to explain what had just happened to him.

Within a matter of minutes, both decided to go online and fill out the hospital’s live donor form — a 10-minute process that changed the story for two lives.

“By the end of that evening, we had a phone conversation. He’s super emotional, and he is crying like a baby. He can’t believe it,” Zane said about when he told his friend his decision. “And I go, ‘I’m telling you.’ This is going to work, and he goes, ‘you don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.'”

Zane soon learned it was a precise process, blood work, the most extensive physical of his life, testing, board meetings, phone calls, even a trip out to Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center in California.



It was a thorough search that ultimately found both he and Diana were matches. Zane was a better match and was given the green light to give his organ to a man he now had a better relationship with than ever before.

When Zane called to share the news, it was an emotional three minutes, filled with thanks, tears and hope.

“I can’t even imagine. I mean, imagine having a horrible disease that will ultimately kill you, and leading up to that final period of time as your organs are slowly dying, they’re like ‘oh, we’ve had it with his dialysis machine.’ It’s awful, living like that,” Zane said.

His heart broke thinking about this man wouldn’t be able to watch his two boys grow up or live out his golden years with his wife.

“I just, I can’t really put into words where, how it’s, how it’s taken hold of me,” Zane said with tears in his eyes.

He says he did not research about kidney transplants. He didn’t want anything to detract his mind from his mission. But he did learn from his doctor that there were no out-of-pocket costs for him, that he could continue to do normal activity when he was recovered from surgery, and that statistically, those who give a kidney live longer.

What started with a random thought nearly seven-months ago came to a head Wednesday in Los Angeles. In a hospital room at UCLA, with his wife anxiously waiting close by, Zane had one of his kidneys successfully removed and given to a man he once only shared hallways with.

His mission now is to spread the word, inspire others to act, and be moved to with kindness and compassion.

He wants to share how easy it is to save a life. How life-changing that donation is for the recipient but more profoundly for the donor; restore a little bit of humanity he thinks the world has lost by conveying the importance of “appropriately caring for people who may not have anything to do with your life.”

“By God, by the time I rest my head at the end of my days, I want somebody to have been able to have committed to doing something like this and, and coming to me so that I can take them and say, ‘look, this is not that big of a deal. You can absolutely do this,'” Zane said.

Proof from a scar and a connection now running through the veins of two former strangers.

Source: https://www.woodtv.com/on-your-corner/t ... gers-life/

For Rats That Coat Themselves In Poison, These Rodents Are Surprisingly Cuddly


The African crested rat is the only mammal known to sequester lethal plant toxins.

A poisonous rat that licks deadly toxins onto its own fur sounds like some kind of made-up nightmare species. But these creatures are real, and scientists now say they are also unexpectedly affectionate—at least with their own kind.

To would-be predators, the African crested rat, Lophiomys imhausi, is trouble. They dwell in forested areas on the eastern side of the continent, and people there have long known to steer clear of these elusive black and white rodents.

"If a dog tried to attack them, the dogs would get sick and die. So that information has been sort of circulating around for a very long time," says Sara Weinstein, a researcher with the Smithsonian Institution and the University of Utah who has worked with colleagues in Kenya to trap and study the rats.

The animals don't look at all like a typical city rat. "They're actually about the size of a small skunk," she says. "A lot of that is fluff. They are pretty fuzzy." Like a skunk, these creatures have black and white markings that may serve as a warning. When the animal is threatened, it flares its fur to expose black and white stripes on its flanks.

Intriguingly, those flanks have rows of weird hairs. They're much thicker than normal hairs, says Weinstein, "and they've got this really interesting honeycomb structure."

That structure appears to let the hairs act like a sponge for absorbing poison, which the rat obtains from a plant and deliberately applies to its own body.

That's been known since 2011, when a team of researchers reported that they had captured a crested rat and offered it a branch from the local Acokanthera schimperi tree, which is also known as the "poison arrow tree." It contains a toxin purportedly potent enough to kill an elephant, when applied to an arrow head. The scientists watched as the rat chewed on the bark, mixing it with saliva. Then the animal coated its specialized hairs with the foul mixture.

The discovery thrilled mammologists. "Basically, it's the only known mammal to date, at least that we know of, that co-opts toxins from a plant to make itself venomous," says Adam Ferguson, a mammal expert at the Field Museum in Chicago who says he's obsessed with these rats.

Weinstein and her colleagues wanted to confirm that this unusual behavior seen in a single rat was, in fact, widespread in this species. They also wanted to check to see if this rat's health really was unaffected by this poison.

The research team eventually managed to trap and observe 25 rats. In the Journal of Mammalogy, they say about half of them chewed on the tree branches and applied poison to their hair.

"Every once in a while they did it, but not always," says Weinstein, who says what triggers a rat to anoint itself remains a mystery.

The behavior truly seemed to have no negative effect on the animals, which remained perfectly active and healthy inside their enclosures, she says, noting that "if I was to go out there and start chewing on this tree, I would get incredibly sick and probably die."

The scientists had assumed these rats lived solitary lives, since they're rarely seen and usually seen alone. Then they happened to trap a male and a female rat living in the same area.

When their cages were next to each other, though, "they started making these really interesting purring vocalizations that we'd never heard before," says Weinstein.


The African crested rat was long thought to be solitary. A new study discovered an unexpectedly rich social life.

It sure looked like two knew each other and wanted to be together.

When the two rats were put in the same enclosure, "they started grooming each other and they went into the nest box together," says Weinstein, "which totally changed how we were thinking about these animals and their behavior."

From that point forward, if they trapped an animal in one location, they'd set up other traps to try to trap more—and they often did. Now researchers believe the creatures may live in bonded pairs, and their young may stay with them for a long time.

"This latest paper is a very nice piece of work," says Jonathan Kingdon, a zoologist at the University of Oxford who led the team that first observed a rat chewing bark and applying poison.

After a childhood spent growing up in East Africa, Kingdon was familiar enough with these creatures to be able to describe them in the 1974 opus he wrote on African mammals. Still, he says, there are many unanswered questions that "scream for attention, most notably the precise chemistry and evolutionary history of crested rat saliva."

Ferguson says this rat has long been almost "mythical, in that it's eluded our understanding, and there's been speculation. But now we're finally trying to get at what really goes on with this rat."

He and some colleagues are working to sequence the entire genome of African crested rats, to try to understand what it is about their biological make up that lets them casually gnaw on such a super-toxic plant.

"This thing is unique," notes Ferguson. "As mammologists and biologists, and humans in general, we're obsessed with rare things."

https://www.npr.org/2020/11/27/93887861 ... gly-cuddly

[FRKJ]

Airplane in trouble lands in middle of freeway near Minneapolis

Drivers on an interstate near Minneapolis were presented with quite a sight this week -- a small airplane, with engine trouble, coming down to land right in the middle of the highway.



The plane made an emergency landing on Interstate 35 West in Arden Hills, about seven miles northeast of Minneapolis, expertly merging in between several cars on the highway late Wednesday.

The Ramsey County Sheriff's Federation said the plane appeared to have experienced an engine failure.

Cameras operated by the Minnesota Department of Transportation captured the unusual landing.

Police said the Bellanca Viking aircraft collided with a car after landing, but no one was hurt. The pilot was identified as 52-year-old Craig Gifford, of Minneapolis. In fact, He's a seasoned pilot and a member of an international aerobatic flight team, WCCO-TV reported.

Authorities closed the freeway's northbound lanes for several hours.

[goldie0608]

A Rare ‘Christmas Star’ is Coming This December for the First Time in 800 Years



Look up at the night sky on winter solstice this year, and you’ll be able to catch a rare sight. On December 21, Jupiter and Saturn will appear closer to one another than they have in eight centuries.

Alignments between the planets, known as a ‘conjunction’, is “rather rare,” Rice University astronomer Patrick Hartigan explained in a statement, “but this conjunction is exceptionally rare because of how close the planets will appear to one another.”

The last time these gas giants appeared so closely, at a visible separation of only 0.1 degrees, was in the Middle Ages: at predawn on March 4, 1226.

Of course, the appearance of the ‘Christmas Star’ or ‘Star of Bethlehem’—so named because the closeness of the planets creates a shining point of light—is a phenomenon only observed from Earth. In reality, Jupiter and Saturn remain millions of miles apart.

Where to see the ‘Christmas Star’

Saturn and Jupiter have been moving steadily closer to each other since summer 2020.

Taking the time to look for these planets over the coming nights is worth it. “You can watch [the planets] move which is super cool, because you’re actually seeing planets in orbit” Hartigan told USA Today, and watching for the pair coming together before solstice night will make identifying them that bit easier on the 21st.

Though visible around the world, the best place to see the conjunction is close to the equator, between dusk and just after nightfall, when the sky is dark enough for fainter Saturn to appear, but when it’s not so late that the planets have moved below the horizon for the evening.

Looking low on the western horizon, on winter solstice the two planets will appear to be separated by less a fifth of the diameter of a full moon.

If you can access a telescope, several of the planets’ largest moons will also be visible in the same field of view that night.

If it’s cloudy where you are on December 21? Jupiter and Saturday will still appear extra near to each other for the week surrounding solstice. And if you miss the phenomenon completely? There’s always March 15, 2080. That when the next close conjunction of the planets is expected to occur.

[hija]

She donated a kidney to her financial adviser



When Scott Giles found himself in need of a new kidney, Kate Kirkpatrick, a customer at his bank, knew she wanted to give him hers.

Kirkpatrick and Giles had first met around 2005, after she’d moved to Shubenacadie from Scotland after marrying a Canadian. But by the time she walked through the doors of Giles’s financial adviser office, her marriage was dissolving, she had five-year-old twins in tow and she was at her wits’ end. The two simply connected, she recalls. In addition to helping Kirkpatrick get set up financially, Giles offered support and advice. “I had no family here, so I’d ask him everything,” she says. “If I wanted to take a vacation, I’d ask him where to go.” When her divorce was finalized, Kirkpatrick cried in Giles’s office; when her kids needed bank cards, they knew exactly where to go.

After Giles had to take a leave from work to tend to his health, and it became clear that he needed a kidney transplant to survive, she offered to get tested. In January 2018, they found out they were a match.

The donation process stretched out over two years, during which they both underwent a battery of tests. Today, Giles is off dialysis. Kirkpatrick didn’t start to process the magnitude of what she’d done until it was over. “I didn’t think it was any different from paying it forward at the Tim Hortons drive-through,” she says. “I try to live life to the fullest, and it was a privilege to help somebody do the same.”

[PennySerenade]

How two Canadian entrepreneurs convinced their mother-in-law and 'turned $35,000 investment into a billion-dollar cannabis company'



It took five years for brothers-in-law Adam Miron and Sébastien St-Louis to launch Ottawa-based cannabis company, Hexo Corp. Titled Billion Dollar Start-Up, the following is an excerpt from their entrepreneurial journey.

Meena reclined on the crisp white hotel bedspread, air conditioning on “arctic blast.” She was flipping through a magazine while the baby slept. Every now and then, Iyla would make sweet little snuffling, grunting noises, followed by a sigh. For a six-mon-old, she was a pretty good traveler. Meena smirked to herself. It helped that the kid was so damn cute — part Rajulu, mostly mini-(Adam) Miron. Every time she peeped those big, brown eyes at people, they practically shoved each other out of the way trying to elicit a gummy smile from her. Total future princess, Meena thought. As it should be.

During the previous four weeks in India, Iyla had been the centre of her own travelling universe, populated by her doting Indian grandmother, Reva, as well as her aunties, uncles, and extended family. And that was a good thing, considering how much time Adam and Seb had spent together, talking, planning, and scheming about what they would do once their application to become an LP was approved. Once Seb (Sebastien St-Louis) and Aruna showed up in Coimbatore, the guys basically disappeared into their own world. It’s not that they were intentionally inattentive or not present, they were just being Adam and Seb.

Plus, a conversation took place on Seb’s first day in India that made it all okay.



Indian weddings are not quick afternoon events in which the “I do’s” occur 10 minutes before the end of the ceremony. Rather, they are life celebrations incorporating three days of feasting, dancing, blessings, and parties, highlighted by everything from a groom on a white horse and a parade of dhol drumming to a women’s day of mehndi, dizzyingly intricate henna patterns drawn on hands and feet. There was plenty to do, plenty to eat, plenty of family to see. The groom’s father had managed to borrow a wealthy colleague’s luxurious three-bedroom apartment. The well-appointed condo, with its beautiful art and grand rooms, was big enough to house both couples, the baby, and Grandma Reva, who had travelled from her home in Edmonton.

The morning after everyone flew in, Reva and Seb both awoke early, around 7 a.m., bleary-eyed and restless from travel. They liked each other and, over the years, had fallen into a comfortable relationship punctuated by long, interesting conversations. Seb was a dynamic straight shooter, and Reva admired her son-in-law for it. That morning, the topic turned to Seb’s latest business venture. As he enthusiastically discussed the plans he and Adam had come up with, Reva’s face crumpled first with anxiety, then into tears. Taking risks in business was one thing, but marijuana? Wasn’t it illegal? And run by gangs?

“I wanted you and Adam to be close as brothers,” she wailed, “but I never saw it like this!”

Seb pressed on. If he needed anyone’s blessing, it was that of this strong, intelligent matriarch who’d raised her equally independent daughters on her own. He quickly went through an abbreviated version of the pitch he’d given Adam a few months earlier, adding that both men were putting in $100,000, and that Rajan Uncle — her trusted and successful brother-in-law, Rajan Govindarajan — was already investing some of his wealth earned as a valve manufacturer. Rajan too? By then, Reva’s tears had dried, her fears allayed. She listened intently to Seb, asked a few questions, and listed some more.

“Okay,” she finally said.

Seb’s eyebrows shot up, then he grinned in delight. Their own mother-in-law, an investor! The conversation had gone full circle before anyone had even had breakfast.

With Reva’s blessing, Adam and Seb were able to grab what time they could from the wedding and family visits to focus on getting the company on its feet. For the moment, it was okay just with the two of them — three if you counted Seb’s dad, Jean, back in Canada volunteering to translate documents into French — but if this was going to work, they’d need staff. They needed a place. And they needed a name.

And so, they broke it all down in between wedding festivities, battling time zone challenges, the spotty Internet, and the limited charms of a tablet. Still, they managed to find a small HR firm in Ottawa, discussed what they wanted for company culture, wrote and rewrote their mandate, and did video meetings in the middle of the night with people back in Ottawa. It wasn’t idea. They were used to working in their narrow slice of a basement, with their roomy computer screens and whiteboard.

But Adam and Seb made it work.

Billion Dollar Start-Up will hit the stands on February 2, 2021, and is being published by Toronto-based ECW Press. Available for pre-order wherever books are sold.

[HogwartsExpress]

Japan's Hayabusa2 mission delivers the first subsurface asteroid samples to Earth


A Japanese capsule returned to Earth on Saturday carrying a special delivery: the first rock samples from beneath the surface of an asteroid. When it plummeted to Earth, the capsule provided a stunning show above the Australian outback, streaking across the sky as a dazzling fireball.

Project manager Yuichi Tsuda called the mission a "rare event in human history." It marks just the second time pristine, untouched material directly from an asteroid has been brought back to Earth.

Japan's Hayabusa2 probe, which is roughly the size of a refrigerator, launched in December 2014, thrilling scientists when it landed on the diamond-shaped asteroid Ryugu, which means "dragon palace" in Japanese, located 185 million miles away.

On Saturday, the probe successfully released a capsule for Earth, according to JAXA, Japan's national aerospace and space agency. The 15-inch capsule separated from the probe about 136,701 miles above Earth ahead of its planned descent into the Australian outback, near Woomera, South Australia.



At 12:29 p.m. ET, the capsule streaked across the sky as a bright fireball. It was "slower than we expected," officials said during a live stream of the event. At 12:32 p.m. ET, the parachute successfully deployed and the direction searcher received a beacon radio wave signal from the capsule, indicating its location.

Shortly after, the capsule landed. The capsule landing point was estimated at 1:07 p.m. ET.

The rescue mission lasted nearly two hours, as officials raced around the outback in search of the tiny capsule. At 2:47 p.m. ET, the team found the capsule and its parachute in the planned landing area, thanks to the helicopter search.

"The operation was perfect," JAXA tweeted. JAXA streamed the entire event live on Twitter and YouTube.

Scientists expect the capsule to contain a small amount of asteroid material, collected last year, with the goal of learning more about the origins of the solar system and life on Earth. Scientists believe that the rocks that compose the asteroid are around four billion years old.

The samples could shed light on "how matter is scattered around the solar system, why it exists on the asteroid and how it is related to Earth," Tsuda told reporters, according to a Friday news release.

The samples were collected during two separate landings on Ryugu last year. During the first, the probe collected dust and blasted a hole in the asteroid's surface to find additional material beneath it. Several months later, the probe returned to the crater it created to collect more samples.

"We may be able to get substances that will give us clues to the birth of a planet and the origin of life... I'm very interested to see the substances," mission manager Makoto Yoshikawa told reporters.



Now that the capsule has arrived, the samples will soon be processed and flown to Japan, then divided between researchers at JAXA, NASA and other international organizations. Some samples will be set aside for future studies when technology has further advanced.

JAXA plans to extend Hayabusa2's mission for more than a decade, with its sights set on two new asteroids, 2001 CC21 and 1998 KY26.

Soichi Noguchi, a JAXA astronaut currently aboard the International Space Station, tweeted that he saw the spacecraft fly past the ISS. "Just spotted #hayabusa2 from #ISS! Unfortunately not bright enough for handheld camera, but enjoyed watching capsule!"

The NASA OSIRIS-REx mission recently collected a sample from another near-Earth asteroid — Bennu, which is similar to Ryugu. The sample will return to Earth in 2023.

source; https://www.cbsnews.com/news/watch-japa ... 020-12-05/