+
upworthy
Most Shared

Meet Nora, one of the cuddliest research assistants to study climate change.

Like most 2-year-olds, Nora is curious, playful, and a little mischievous.

Unlike most 2-year-olds, she tips the scales at several hundred pounds.

That's because Nora is a polar bear at the Oregon Zoo in Portland.


Nora in the winter habitat at the Oregon Zoo. Photo by Michael Durham/Oregon Zoo.

This month, Nora hits the road for her new home at Hogle Zoo in Salt Lake City while the Oregon Zoo undergoes renovations. But during her time in Portland, she was able to serve as one of the the U.S. Geological Survey's youngest (and furriest) research assistants, helping scientists study the effects of climate change.

It seems so far removed: Desperate, hungry polar bears clinging to ice floes, ravaged by our changing planet. But it's happening right now.

Wild polar bears live in a unique and harsh environment and consume as many calories as they can when conditions allow and food is readily available. However,  there is a long period of time when the ice floes melt and polar bears are forced ashore, away from their primary food sources.

"They literally are starving, not eating anything for that four- or five-month period," says Amy Cutting, animal curator of the North America and Marine Life Exhibit at the Oregon Zoo. "The females are raising young and putting huge amounts of calories into milk they're producing while not eating. And we know they're at the limit of what they can do."

Polar bears are pushing it to metabolic extremes to survive the annual ice-free period. But what will happen as climate change extends the ice-free period even longer?

[rebelmouse-image 19529261 dam="1" original_size="750x421" caption="Photo by Andreas Weith/Wikimedia Commons. " expand=1]Photo by Andreas Weith/Wikimedia Commons.

Thankfully, Nora and researchers with the USGS are on the case, working to answer the question: What does it physically cost for a bear to swim from point A to point B?

To answer that question, the zoo built Nora a small pool adjacent to her tank with private donations.

All GIFs via Oregon Zoo

There, a flume of water acts as an infinity pool, allowing Nora (lured by yummy fish) to swim in place for a period of time.

While in the pool, researchers measured her oxygen output and other metabolic activity.

The talented keepers also taught Nora how to just relax in the small pool, so the research team could measure her numbers at rest.

It's not a complete set of data; the team will want to explore bears of different sexes, ages, and sizes. However, Nora's swims are one way for the USGS  to calibrate and improve the technology and get closer to cracking the case.

"It sure is exciting to have, for the first time ever, some quantification of the caloric cost of swimming for a polar bear," Cutting says.

While Nora's research is unusual, she is the latest in a series of polar bear research assistants at the Oregon Zoo.

Tasul, the Oregon Zoo's previous polar bear, who passed away last year at nearly 32, was trained to wear a research collar that measured her movement and sleep (almost like a polar bear Fitbit) as part of another USGS research project. And in an early version of Nora's experiment, Tasul  learned how to walk on a giant treadmill, The Horse Gym 3000. Since she was a geriatric bear (one of the oldest in the world at the time of her death) the keepers didn't push her too hard with training, but to be sure, her effort and training lead the way for projects like Nora's.

Nora is done with her research for the time being, but the Oregon Zoo will continue this work for years to come.

Nora may be off to Utah, but her flume and research area at the Oregon Zoo will remain as one of the new exhibit's primary functions will be conservation science.

"We're not done figuring out more about polar bears, using the flume," Cutting says. "And we know that there will be new requests that the biologists have that we might be able to facilitate."

Since the polar bears are doing their part, what about you?

It's not too late to act against climate change. Recycling or composting alone won't stem the tide. It's time for individuals to reconsider the products and foods they buy and how they're packaged. "We just need to buy less and consume less and travel less, and tread more softly on the earth," Cutting says.

But she admits our individual efforts alone may not be enough to get us there.

"I think a big part of it is bringing it into that public sphere and being willing to fight and being willing to say 'This is about the future of my kids and the future of my kids' kids.' It's not just an individualized thing anymore. ... We have to push for action, or we're gonna be complicit in one of the largest environmental disasters of the human era."

So reduce, reuse, recycle, but also reconsider your habits, support research projects like Nora's, and resist. Because if we want to save the habitats and animals that make this planet so special, it's going to take all of us. And if a two-year-old can do it, you can too.

Nora in the winter habitat at the Oregon Zoo. Photo by Michael Durham/Oregon Zoo.

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

A nasty note gets a strong response.

We've all seen it while cruising for spots in a busy parking lot: A person parks their whip in a disabled spot, then they walk out of their car and look totally fine. It's enough to make you want to vomit out of anger, especially because you've been driving around for what feels like a million years trying to find a parking spot.

You're obviously not going to confront them about it because that's all sorts of uncomfortable, so you think of a better, way less ballsy approach: leaving a passive aggressive note on their car's windshield.

Satisfied, you walk back to your car feeling proud of yourself for telling that liar off and even more satisfied as you walk the additional 100 steps to get to the store from your lame parking spot all the way at the back of the lot. But did you ever stop and wonder if you told off the wrong person?

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
Health

8 nontraditional empathy cards that are unlike any you've ever seen. They're perfect!

Because sincerity and real talk are important during times of medical crisis.

True compassion.

When someone you know gets seriously ill, it's not always easy to come up with the right words to say or to find the right card to give.

Emily McDowell — a former ad agency creative director and the woman behind the Los Angeles-based greeting card and textile company Emily McDowell Studio — knew all too well what it was like to be on the receiving end of uncomfortable sentiments.

At the age of 24, she was diagnosed with Stage 3 Hodgkin's lymphoma. She went into remission after nine months of chemo and has remained cancer-free since, but she received her fair share of misplaced, but well-meaning, wishes before that.

On her webpage introducing the awesome cards you're about to see, she shared,

"The most difficult part of my illness wasn't losing my hair, or being erroneously called 'sir' by Starbucks baristas, or sickness from chemo. It was the loneliness and isolation I felt when many of my close friends and family members disappeared because they didn't know what to say or said the absolute wrong thing without realizing it."

Her experience inspired Empathy Cards — not quite "get well soon" and not quite "sympathy," they were created so "the recipients of these cards [can] feel seen, understood, and loved."

Scroll down to read these sincere, from-the-heart, and incredibly realistic sentiments.

Keep ReadingShow less
Health

This woman's powerful 'before and after' photos crush myths about body positivity

"Body positivity is about saying that you are more than a body and your self-worth is not reliant on your beauty."





Michelle Elman, a body positivity coach, helps people who are struggling to find confidence in their own skin.

After persevering through numerous medical conditions and surgeries in her own life, Elman realized a few years ago that body positivity wasn't just about size or weight. Things like scars, birthmarks, and anything else that makes us feel different of self-conscious have to be a part of the conversation, and she tries to make the movement accessible to everyone.

Sharing her own journey has been one of her most effective teaching tools.

Keep ReadingShow less
via wakaflockafloccar / TikTok

It's amazing to consider just how quickly the world has changed over the past 11 months. If you were to have told someone in February 2020 that the entire country would be on some form of lockdown, nearly everyone would be wearing a mask, and half a million people were going to die due to a virus, no one would have believed you.

Yet, here we are.

PPE masks were the last thing on Leah Holland of Georgetown, Kentucky's mind on March 4, 2020, when she got a tattoo inspired by the words of a close friend.

Keep ReadingShow less