+
upworthy
More

1 year later, the Ice Bucket Challenge funds this breakthrough in ALS research.

Money raised by the viral campaign is making a big difference.

Remember the Ice Bucket Challenge?

Of course you do. It was that viral video campaign that took off last summer where you'd log into Facebook and see a steady stream of your friends dumping water on themselves in the name of awareness and research for the ALS Association.


For science! Brrrrrr. Photo by Clive Mason/Getty Images.

Some brushed the movement off as an example of "slacktivism," but it actually helped raise more than $100 million. When you compare it to the $2.8 million raised by the organization during the same period a year earlier, it's clear that the Ice Bucket challenge paid off.

ALS, also known as amyotrophic laterals sclerosis or Lou Gehrig's Disease, affects an estimated 30,000 living people at any given time.

It's a disorder that affects nerve and muscle function. Just 20% of those with the disease will live more than five years following diagnosis. It's brutal.

But there's good news — due, in part, to the money raised by the Ice Bucket Challenge.

While that man doesn't seem to be having such a great time, I really need to find out what kind of seemingly IBC-proof makeup the woman on the left is using. Photo by Scott Barbour/Getty Images.

During a reddit "Ask Me Anything" session, ALS researcher Jonathan Ling unveiled a major breakthrough in his work.

Ling wanted to do an "Ask Me Anything" to debunk some of the negative things being said by skeptics about the success of the Ice Bucket Challenge.

"I mainly wanted to do this ["Ask Me Anything"] because I remember reading a lot of stories about people complaining that the ice bucket challenge was a waste and that scientists weren't using the money to do research, etc. I assure you that this is absolutely false," Ling writes.

"All of your donations have been amazingly helpful and we have been working tirelessly to find a cure. With the amount of money that the ice bucket challenge raised, I feel that there's a lot of hope and optimism now for real, meaningful therapies."

So what's the big breakthrough? Well, it has to do with protein — or rather, one specific protein.

Ling's research focuses on TDP-43, a protein in cells that's he's been able to link to ALS.

Ling breaks down the purpose of TDP-43 with an analogy involving a library that's easy for us non-scientist types to understand:

"DNA is located in the nucleus of a cell. You can think of a nucleus as a library except that instead of having books neatly lined up on shelves, the books in a nucleus have all of their pages ripped out and thrown around randomly.

To sort through this mess, the cell has great librarians that go around collecting all these pages, collating them and neatly binding them together as books. These librarians then ship these 'books' out of the nucleus so that other workers in the cell can do their jobs. Think of these books as instruction manuals.

TDP-43 is a very special type of librarian. TDP-43's job is to ensure that nucleus librarians don't accidentally make a mistake and put a random nonsense page (usually filled with gibberish) into the books that they ship out.If one of these nonsense pages makes it into an 'instruction manual,' the workers in the cell get really confused and mess things up. For terminology, we call these nonsense pages 'cryptic exons.'"



His team found that in 97% of ALS cases, TDP-43 wasn't doing its job. And now that they know this, they've been able to begin work on new therapies to do TDP-43's job for it. If successful, he believes this can slow down the progression of the disease.

How cool is that?

Baseball Hall-of-Famer Lou Gehrig became the face of ALS after he tearfully retired from baseball upon diagnosis. Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images.

But what about the other 3%? Well, we don't have all the answers just yet.

One redditor asked that question, and essentially, it boils down to the fact that ALS is still pretty unpredictable. While TDP-43 may play a large part in the disease's progression, it's not the whole picture. For those individuals for whom ALS runs in the family, that seems to be linked to a gene called SOD1, and not TDP-43.

That's why research needs to continue.

"When you look at ALS from a genetics perspective, about 10% of the cases are called 'familial', [that is], lots of people in the family have ALS and it seems to be passed down. The other 90% of ALS appears to occur completely by unfortunate chance and we call that 'sporadic.'

As researchers, we look to the genetics for clues to study the disease. One of the first family-linked genes discovered was a gene called SOD1 that is found in about 30% of familial cases. But it's starting to seem like SOD1 is an outlier because TDP-43 doesn't seem to be messed up. Instead, SOD1 seems to clump together due to the mutation. We get the 3% because 30% of 10% familial is 3%." — Ling

But yeah, this is pretty neat, exciting stuff!

Ling hopes to have therapies based on his research making their way to clinical trials within the next two-three years.

And from there, who knows? Maybe this is the breakthrough that sets up the next big step in finding a cure for this absolutely ruthless disorder. 76 years after it first entered the public consciousness with Lou Gehrig's emotional farewell speech, a cure feels closer than ever before.

Last year, we shared a video by Anthony Carbajal, a man who had been recently diagnosed with ALS.

ALS runs in Carbajal's family. His grandmother, his mother, and he have all been diagnosed with the disorder. His Ice Bucket Challenge video was powerful because it put a face to the research and the desperation for a cure.


GIF via Anthony Carbajal.

The research made possible by the Ice Bucket Challenge gives hope to people like Anthony. It's just so important.

Saying that 30,000 people live with ALS doesn't mean a whole lot until you see the pain it causes those living with it and watching their loved ones do battle. When you watch Anthony's video, his tears welling up in his eyes, it's clear just how much the world needed something like the Ice Bucket Challenge to fund the research we need to put an end to ALS once and for all.

A pitbull stares at the window, looking for the mailman.


Dogs are naturally driven by a sense of purpose and a need for belonging, which are all part of their instinctual pack behavior. When a dog has a job to do, it taps into its needs for structure, purpose, and the feeling of contributing to its pack, which in a domestic setting translates to its human family.

But let’s be honest: In a traditional domestic setting, dogs have fewer chores they can do as they would on a farm or as part of a rescue unit. A doggy mom in Vancouver Island, Canada had fun with her dog’s purposeful uselessness by sharing the 5 “chores” her pitbull-Lab mix does around the house.

Keep ReadingShow less
Joy

5-star Scottish resort offers whimsical afternoon tea experience with 'naughty sheep'

Cameron House's Woolly Wellness retreat includes tea in the garden with adorably rude guests.

Cameron House/Naughty Sheep

Cameron House's Woolly Wellness retreat includes a unique sheep encounter.

Remember when "goat yoga" was all the rage? And then "cow cuddling" and "turkey cuddling" made everyone's bucket lists?

Now we can add "nuzzling with naughty sheep" to the mix, but with a fancy Scottish twist.

Less than an hour from Glasgow, Scotland, the Cameron House resort sits on the bonnie banks of Loch Lomond, looking as if it were plucked straight out of a fairy tale. Sprawling green grounds, gorgeous lake views and a four-story castled mansion greet guests as their "home away from home" (only better), and a perusal of the reviews show guests raving about the 5-star resort's elegance, beauty and exceptional service.

I mean, just look at this place:

drone view of cameron house grounds and lakeCameron House sit on Lake Lochmond in Scotland.Cameron House


Keep ReadingShow less
Innovation

A student accidentally created a rechargeable battery that could last 400 years

"This thing has been cycling 10,000 cycles and it’s still going." ⚡️⚡️

There's an old saying that luck happens when preparation meets opportunity.

There's no better example of that than a 2016 discovery at the University of California, Irvine, by doctoral student Mya Le Thai. After playing around in the lab, she made a discovery that could lead to a rechargeable battery that could last up to 400 years. That means longer-lasting laptops and smartphones and fewer lithium ion batteries piling up in landfills.

Keep ReadingShow less
@caitlin.the.realtor/TikTok, used with permission

Wait, so 90's fashion is in, but 90's hair is out?

Every era has its own version of what’s attractive. And very rarely does that aesthetic hold power with the following generation. In fact, it often becomes the opposite of cool.

Just think of Elvis. He might have been a universal sex symbol for a time, but it also wasn’t long before his pompadour became passé. Same goes for Paul Newman’s rugged manliness, David Cassidy’s babyface, Tom Selleck’s mustache. Indeed, for everything a season.

Which brings us to the 90s. The age of beach blonde surfer boys (real surfing skills not required, but a plus). Of flannel, lots of flannel, and super chiseled bodies. Let’s not forget this was the dawning of the term “metrosexual,” and also the time period that brought us that Calvin Klein ad with Mark Wahlburg.

How exactly would these guys measure up with the Gen Z kids today?

Keep ReadingShow less

A Eurasian crow.

A family from Denmark has created a touching video montage documenting their unique friendship with a wild Eurasian crow. This crow, affectionately named Russell, has become an honorary member of their household, forming special bonds with each family member, including the pets.

However, the crow's relationship with their son, 2-year-old Otto, is truly extraordinary. “They could spend hours just playing,” Otto’s mother, Laerke Luna, says in a video shared by The Dodo. "When Otto is outside, he will never leave Otto’s side.”

Russell, the free-spirited crow, ventures away from the family's home from time to time, but never for too long. He always comes back and announces his return by tapping on the door, swooping in to lounge on the sofa, or awaiting Otto's return from school atop their roof.

“When we are inside, he will sit inside the window because he wants Otto to go outside with him,” Laerke said.

The family’s relationship with Russell didn’t come out of nowhere. When Russell was a young bird, he had health problems so the family took him and nursed the bird back to health. Eventually, they witnessed his first attempts to fly.

Recently, Russell became friends with another family member, their second child, Hedwig. Although he does get a little annoyed with the bird’s frequent attempts to nab his pacifier.

Even though it’s rare for humans to strike up such a close bond with a crow, according to research, it’s not that surprising. Audubon says that crows are “some of the smartest animals in the world” with an intelligence “on par with chimpanzees.” They are also very social and family-oriented, so no wonder Russell loves Otto and his family.

Crow Named Russell Waits For His Favorite Kid To Get Home From School | The Dodo


Learning

Why you shouldn't throw your dishwasher pod into the bottom of your dishwasher

Dishwashers actually use the dirty water to know how to wash your dishes.

Photos by cottonbro studio and PhotoMIX Ltd. via Canva

Why your detergent shouldn't go in the bottom of the dishwasher

There always seem to be something going on with the pods and powders you're supposed to use in the dishwasher to clean your dishes. Either the pods don't dissolve completely or the powder gets all goopy and hard, never really fully dispensing into the dishwasher.

The inconsistency in product dispensing can leave you wondering if the dishes are even getting cleaned, causing some to toss the detergent pod into the bottom of the dishwasher. It would seem that placing the detergent at the bottom would allow for it to actually reach your dirty dishes. But Melissa Pateras, a domestic expert, explains that doing it that way isn't doing what you think it's doing.

Pateras actually breaks down exactly how dishwashers work to clean your dishes while explaining why putting the detergent on the bottom is ineffective.

Keep ReadingShow less