It may be laborious to see from the headlines generally, however not all information is unhealthy information. That is the Good Information round-up, a weekly digest of constructive tales to make you are feeling higher in regards to the state of the world.
This week we cowl the lady bringing computer systems to kids in distant African communities; a breakthrough in transportation for donated hearts; the genetically modified mosquitoes which are wiping out dengue fever in elements of Brazil; South Korea’s new pet safety scheme utilizing ‘nostril prints’; and the Indian village practising ‘digital fasting’.
Click on the video above to get the complete digest or proceed studying to search out out extra about this week’s constructive headlines:
- The girl bringing computer systems to kids in distant African communities
Nelly Cheboi is on a mission to make sure kids in rural Kenya do not miss out on important IT training.
She based Techlit Africa, an NGO that collects previous laptops from establishments and firms, refurbishes them and brings them to varsities in distant communities so that youngsters can be taught laptop expertise.
Many of the college students that participate within the undertaking “wouldn’t have used a pc as a result of we’re focusing on probably the most distant elements of Africa,” she says.
“Proper now we’ve college students who do not even communicate Swahili [the most widely used language across East Africa], but they know learn how to use a pc and construct web sites, and the best half is that they will nonetheless try this in their very own village. They don’t have to go to Nairobi to try this, they don’t have to go to America to try this.”
Cheboi was impressed to start out Techlit Africa by her personal story. She had by no means touched a laptop computer till she gained a scholarship to check in america, and he or she wished it to be completely different for the scholars of her village.
Sammy Ruto, a scholar on the Zawadi Yetu Academy says he’ll make his personal web site utilizing HTML and CSS due to the “visible studio code” he has been taught learn how to use.
“I used to be taught about OpenShot and about NASA to make my very own rocket once I develop up. So I hope this class will assist me in my future to be an IT professional,” he stated.
Elysee Dusabinema, a instructor on the identical academy, says the IT expertise will assist youngsters learn the way they will “model themselves on-line and the way they will do enterprise on-line, as a result of that’s the place the world is heading.”
Techlit Africa is at present working in 13 colleges throughout Kenya, educating laptop expertise to round 5,000 four- to 12-year-olds.
2. A breakthrough in transportation for donated hearts
Till just lately, donation after circulatory demise (DCD) transplants (people who happen after a affected person’s coronary heart has stopped beating) have been very uncommon, with most hearts being transplanted after mind demise.
In keeping with Dr Yashutosh Joshi, a cardiothoracic registrar at St Vincent’s Hospital in Australia, the issue with DCDs is that “you do not know the harm that is occurred to the guts whereas it has stopped.”
However that has all modified due to a brand new machine that enables DCD hearts to be carried whereas nonetheless beating, moderately than packed in ice.
This permits docs to evaluate whether or not it’s really viable for transplant.
“That is primarily what we have applied since 2014, and it is made a giant distinction to our transplant programme, in that we have been in a position to improve the variety of coronary heart transplants that we have been in a position to do,” stated Dr Joshi.
As an alternative of placing a coronary heart in a conveyable ice field for transportation, docs use the brand new ‘Coronary heart in a Field’ machine, which circulates blood by the guts.
“This heat oxygenated blood permits for the guts to be reanimated. It permits the guts to beat and we will then visually assess it, we will carry out some blood exams on it, after which, whereas it is on that machine, we will type of see if it is usable or not,” he stated.
Dr Carmine Gentile, senior lecturer on the College of Biomedical Engineering on the College of Expertise, Sydney, thinks the Coronary heart in a Field is a “terrific thought,” and that it’s going to enhance the variety of hearts that may be transplanted in Australia and the world.
“It’s resulting in improved outcomes for the affected person, in addition to stopping appreciable issues which are related to the transplantation itself.”
3. Genetically modified mosquitoes are wiping out dengue fever in elements of Brazil
Mosquitoes kill more people than any other creature worldwide, and are accountable for about 17 per cent of worldwide deaths from infectious illness.
The Aedes aegypti mosquito is the world’s main transmitter of the dengue, chikungunya, Zika and yellow fever viruses.
The excellent news is {that a} groundbreaking large-scale pilot introducing new Pleasant™ mosquitoes achieved 96 per cent suppression of the dengue-spreading mosquito inhabitants in city communities in Brazil.
What exactly are Pleasant™ mosquitoes?
They’re non-biting, genetically modified, male Aedes aegypti that mate with wild females and go on a deadly gene that stops feminine offspring from reaching maturity.
If you happen to eliminate the feminine mosquitoes, “you clearly additionally cease the manufacturing of any mosquitoes since you want them to have the ability to lay eggs. And so once we’ve executed this in Brazil,” Dr Nathan Rose, head of malaria programmes at Oxitec, instructed Euronews.
Oxitec is the corporate behind the design and execution of the Pleasant™ mosquitoes initiative, and a number one developer of organic pest management options, based on the College of Oxford in 2022.
What does a world with out mosquitoes appear like? We requested Dr Rose.
“The vital factor right here is that we’re not going to have a world with out mosquitoes. That is one mosquito species out of about three and a half thousand completely different species of mosquito.”
One different factor in regards to the dengue-spreading mosquitoes that Oxitec is focusing on in Brazil is that it’s an invasive species. “It initially comes from Central Africa, it shouldn’t be in Brazil in any respect. So it is not a important a part of the ecosystem there,” says Dr Rose.
“Different methods of controlling mosquitoes embody spraying chemical substances, and people will clearly hit not simply the species however many different issues within the setting which are actually useful. So we expect that this can be a actually focused manner simply to eliminate this mosquito, which is inflicting important issues for human well being.”
Oxitec says its tech is the primary genetically engineered pest-control product for buy by governments, households, companies and communities. It really works by merely including water to the eggs of the mosquitoes, which then hatch inside a number of days.
4. South Korea’s new pet safety scheme utilizing ‘nostril prints’
Because of a brand new biometric recognition know-how developed by a South Korean firm, canines can now be recognized by their nostril print.
With the brand new know-how, which works by merely scanning a canine’s nostril with a cell phone digicam, individuals who discover misplaced canines can immediately find the house owners by an app known as Anipuppy.
The Seoul-based firm says every canine’s nostril is as distinctive as a human fingerprint and that the scans are 99.9 per cent correct.
“It is a 3D biometric algorithm primarily based on AI and deep studying that we’ve put into smartphones with the intention to take photos of the nostril patterns and use it to establish every animal,” explains Sujin Choi, director of iSciLab Company.
Presently, it’s obligatory to register pets with a microchip or an exterior ID in South Korea and lots of locations in Europe, however solely 38 per cent of South Korea’s pet canines are registered.
Chae Il Taek, a coverage workforce supervisor of the Korean Animal Welfare Affiliation, says the normal drawback of the nationwide canine registration system is that “it was not doable to establish who the animal’s unique guardian was if the ID was eliminated arbitrarily or deliberately.”
The nostril recognition know-how can be a viable choice for some canine house owners who’re involved about “potential well being issues attributable to microchip implantation.”
The nostril ID shouldn’t be intrusive and far faster to manage than inserting a chip, the corporate says.
Choi says they’ve just lately agreed to roll the know-how at a nationwide degree. “We’re about to begin to set the regulatory sandbox that was accredited by the Korean authorities, and that may occur till 2024, and hopefully by then the federal government will use the biometric know-how, the nostril ID, as a way of figuring out and registering canines.”
The corporate says that sooner or later, animals resembling cats, cows and deer will also be tracked with the identical know-how.
iSciLab’s biometric recognition know-how is at present patented in South Korea, america, Europe, Canada and Japan.
Read the full story by Euronews’ Roselyne Min.
5. The Indian village practising ‘digital fasting’
A number of research have proven we decide up our telephones even once we don’t wish to. Others have instructed us that extreme use of know-how could make us really feel lonely and miss out on real-life interactions.
A village of round 3,000 folks in India has taken an lively strategy to the issue of modern-day addictions: all residents have agreed to do a digital quick for a few hours day-after-day, collectively.
A siren has been put in above the village temple, which fits off at 7pm each night in Vadgaon, within the Sangli district, telling all residents to change off their TV units and cell phones.
One other siren sounds once more at 8.30 pm to announce the tip of the detox.
Vijay Mohite, president of the village council, instructed BBC Hindi they determined to behave as a result of they observed kids and adults have been spending an excessive amount of time on their gadgets and never speaking to one another, particularly after the coronavirus pandemic.
Dr Michael Wealthy, founding director of the Digital Wellness Lab and the Clinic for Interactive Media and Web Problems at Boston Kids’s Hospital, instructed Euronews we might all be taught from the Vadgaon digital detox.
“I feel it is a fantastic experiment and so they can lead the world in educating us all that we may benefit from reducing our hyperstimulation,” he says, including that we’ve fallen into the unhealthy behavior of our telephones each time we’ve a free second “as a result of we’re so averse to boredom.”
“I feel we’ve to embrace and treasure boredom as a result of boredom is the place we expect the brand new boredom is, the place we’re inventive and imaginative.”
Dr Wealthy says boredom is key not solely as a result of it opens a quiet house during which to create new ideas, “however as a result of it is just a little uncomfortable, which motivates us to assume the brand new, to strive issues out, to place issues collectively in numerous methods in our head, versus leaping on-line and following the gang towards regardless of the crowd goes towards at this second.”
Nonetheless, “it’s each unrealistic and unfeasible to dispose of digital know-how altogether for any time period,” says Dr Wealthy, who helps a aware use of know-how. “This [technology] is the way in which that we talk, the way in which we be taught, we work, we join with one another right now. Nonetheless, it is too straightforward to slip into simply by default.”
“So I feel [Vadgaon] has a really wholesome strategy to understanding that whereas this has an vital half in our lives, it’s not crucial factor. We’re in a world stuffed with distractions, and we have to handle these distractions and truly deal with the issues that are vital to us.”
A standard technique Dr Wealthy recommends to his sufferers on the Clinic for Interactive Media and Web Problems at Boston Kids’s Hospital is to always keep in mind that we’ve a finite period of time every day and that once we are on our digital gadgets, we must always use that point “purposefully and in a planful manner, as a substitute of simply having it’s default behaviour to maintain us distracted.”
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