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Heroes

Eco-friendly concrete could make your morning commute a lot smoother.

Imagine a world with no more spilled coffee because of bumpy roads.

Road salt — nearly 1 million tons of it just in the state of Pennsylvania — is used to keep cars safe on the road.

In the aftermath, however, it means thousands of cracks, potholes, and other damages in roads that need to be repaired each year because the chemicals in the salt "dice up" asphalt and concrete when the salt causes the water in snow to stick around, freeze, and do some damage.

All images via iStock.


Fortunately, there may be a new type of concrete coming to town.

It's made from coal furnace leftovers and uses less calcium hydroxide — the ingredient that reacts with road salt and causes that frustratingly pore-like reaction in concrete — which means you'd be riding a bit smoother on it.

The concrete is even more durable than what we use now because it doesn’t react with road salt and is made from recycled materials.

"Many departments of transportation have reduced the amount of calcium chloride they use to melt ice and snow, even though it is very efficient at doing so — because it has also been found to be very destructive," said Dr. Yaghoob Farnam, assistant professor at Drexel University in Philadelphia and lead researcher on the team behind the new mixture.

By recycling power industry byproducts such as fly ash, silica fume, and slag that would normally get tossed and become harmful to the environment to make the concrete, Farnam's team came up with a solution to the thousands of road-related repairs caused by salt damage that is also environmentally friendly.

Not all roads are made of concrete, but many sidewalks and parking lots are.

This new concrete could be a relief to anyone who's ever broken a carton of eggs after guiding a shopping cart over a cracked parking lot or ended up with a lap full of joe while drinking a cup of coffee on a morning commute.

(Since so many people drink java and drive, this could be a major game changer when it comes to safety as well — although, you may want to rethink that when so many accidents are caused by distracted coffee-sippers behind the wheel.)

This may not be in your city tomorrow, but you can help move things along.

Safe, healthy, durable infrastructure takes time to build the right way, Farnam cautions, but it’s important for government leaders and local municipalities to consider infrastructure decisions as long-term plans and spend the time to come up with intelligent, sustainable solutions. That may include the need for this type of research to be done for other road-building materials like asphalt.

Try attending local municipal meetings and talking to decision-makers about how they gather information about infrastructure choices. You may also want write in to state legislators to suggest sustainable solutions like this one.

If you want to start at the source, you might even try asking those legislators to support funding for research on projects like this with your own local department of transportation.

"This would help scientists understand what are real challenges in our society, and it will also help the leadership and contractors to learn about the new technologies that they can use on a daily basis," Farnam says.

Joy

Sorry, Labradors. After 31 years, America has a new favorite dog.

The American Kennel Club has crowned a new favorite.

via Pixabay

A sad-looking Labrador Retriever

The sweet-faced, loveable Labrador Retriever is no longer America’s favorite dog breed. The breed best known for having a heart of gold has been replaced by the smaller, more urban-friendly French Bulldog.

According to the American Kennel Club, for the past 31 years, the Labrador Retriever was America’s favorite dog, but it was eclipsed in 2022 by the Frenchie. The rankings are based on nearly 716,500 dogs newly registered in 2022, of which about 1 in 7 were Frenchies. Around 108,000 French Bulldogs were recorded in the U.S. in 2022, surpassing Labrador Retrievers by over 21,000.

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Family

Pediatrician shares two simple tips that could save a child's life at a pool party

"The more folks present, the safer the pool is, right? Wrong."

Photo by Ash Dowie on Unsplash

If there's a body of water anywhere, a designated adult needs to have their eyes on it.

It's that time of year when the weather across the country is warm enough for families to enjoy outdoor barbecues, picnics and pool parties. That means it's also the time of year when tragedy will strike a certain percentage of families who get blindsided by how quickly and easily a child can drown in a backyard pool, even when they're surrounded by people who care about them and their safety.

We've all been at a gathering where adults are coming and going, chatting, setting up food, taking trips to the bathroom, all while kids are busy playing in the water. In such scenarios, it's easy to assume that someone else is keeping an eye on the pool.

But as pediatrician Diane Arnaout has shared, the harrowing reality is that the more people there are at a pool party the more likely it is that a child could slip into the pool or become distressed in the water without anyone noticing.

In a Facebook post that has been shared more than 77,000 times, Dr. Arnaout wrote:

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Drew Barrymore speaks during the FLOWER Beauty launch at Westfield Parramatta on April 13, 2019, in Sydney, Australia.

Drew Barrymore, 48, has been in the public consciousness since she starred as Gertie in 1982’s mega-blockbuster, “E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial,” a performance that earned her an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress. So, it makes sense that many people of a certain age feel as if they’ve grown up with her.

Now, she’s an even more significant part of people’s lives as the host of “The Drew Barrymore Show,” which runs every weekday on CBS.

On May 25, the show’s Instagram page posted a touching video of an off-the-cuff moment between Barrymore and a fan during a taping of her show. In the clip, Barrymore realizes that someone in the audience is crying. So, instead of ignoring the fan, she jumps to action to see what is the matter.

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Pop Culture

Musician uses traditional Chinese instrument to create hypnotic cover of 'Hotel California'

There are literally hundreds of covers of this song floating around on the internet, but this one has its own unique flair.

Moyun/Youtube

Moyun peforms "Hotel California" on the guzheng.

The Eagles' hit song, “Hotel California,” has been covered countless times over the years by a variety of artists, including the likes of Nancy Sinatra, the Gypsy Kings and that guy at your local karaoke spot.

And while every rendition gives the song a fresh dynamic, one musician with a penchant for mystery has transformed the rock n’ roll staple into something entirely new.

Using a traditional Chinese string instrument called a guzheng, Moyun plays the song focusing mostly on its two guitar solo arrangements, creating a sound that has all the otherworldly beauty of an ancient folk tale.
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Pop Culture

Man rewatches shows from his childhood and his recaps of the bonkers storylines are priceless

Rob Anderson's hilarious recaps of shows like "Mighty Ducks," "Beethoven," and "7th Heaven" might make you wonder how they got made in the first place.

@hearthrobert/TikTok

These plots makes zero sense.

While there are no doubt some timeless classics from our childhood that remain every bit as amazing as we remember, many are straight-up cringey upon a later viewing. Really, it’s to be expected as societal viewpoints change…sort of a marker of how far we’ve collectively come.

And so, what do we do with these problematic pieces of old-school pop culture? Well, we can certainly update them to better reflect a more modern attitude, but that also comes with a set of potential problems. Or we could simply never watch them again. Certainly an option given all the content out there. But then we might miss an opportunity to better understand what seemed to work for the mainstream then, and why it doesn’t work now.

And then there’s the third option—allow ourselves to be entertained by their cringiness.

That’s certainly the route taken by Rob Anderson. Over on TikTok, Anderson has taken ultra-popular movies and television shows from his childhood and given them hilarious recaps capturing how absurd some of the storylines are.
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Joy

Woman decides that she is the love of her life and marries herself at her retirement home

“I said, you know what, I’ve done everything else. Why not?”

77-year-old woman decides she's the love of her life and marries herself.

We joke about marrying ourselves or a platonic friend if some arbitrary amount of time has passed without a proposal from an imaginary suitor. And sure, some people do wind up marrying a friend in more of a business arrangement, but it's not very common that someone follows through with marrying themselves.

Dorothy "Dottie" Fideli, decided that she was going to break the mold. The 77-year-old sat down and thought about all of the things she had done in life and who was with her the entire time cheering her on. It was an easy answer: herself. She was her biggest cheerleader, the person who always showed up and the love of her life, so Fideli made the plan to marry herself.

On a beautiful May day, friends and family gathered in the O’Bannon Terrace Retirement Community, where Fideli is a resident, to witness the ceremony.

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