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These 7 inventions could've been invented by MacGyver or your 7-year-old neighbor. But they're real.

Some folks are addressing climate change in fun ways. Read on and prepare to *not* be depressed about the future!

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Unilever and the United Nations

Climate change: It's happening.

We need to care about it, sure. But how? A water bottle? A bike? Turning off the water? Recycling? Yes to all those things, but we're not here for that.


We're here for the 7 MacGyver-est ways to care about climate change.

Don't believe me?

1. Ask this donkey carrying your Internet on its butt.

Donkeys in Turkey carry cargo, and also ... the Internet. No, seriously. Herdsmen are using donkeys to carry solar panels that are powering Internet connections for them.

2. Or ask this floating bike highway that is also super beautiful.

The Hovenring, located in the Netherlands, is the first suspended bike roundabout in the world. It carries cyclists and pedestrians over a busy highway.

3. Or this electric school bus. Pretty magical.

There are nearly half a million school buses in the United States. While they are far more energy-efficient than single rides to school, they aren't exactly environmentally friendly. Until now! A school district in California became the first to order the modified school buses.

4. Or this electric super-insanely-speedy rechargeable boat.

This 75-foot ferry that carries 100 passengers in Sweden was retrofitted to run on electricity. Even better, a full charge takes just 10 minutes. I wish my iPhone recharged that quickly.

5. Or this super-efficient hair salon. 87% is a LOT.

Élan Hair Design, a salon in Aberdeenshire, committed to becoming an environmentally friendly place of business. The salon made changes in *every way* it could, including composting hair waste and recycling the aluminum foil used in hair services, and cut its energy usage by 87%.

6. Or this electric garbage truck!

In September 2014, Chicago got its first fully electric garbage truck. With the route it's set for, using this electric truck over a traditional one will eliminate the use of 2,688 gallons of diesel fuel every year. And more trucks are on the way.

7. A sun-powered hospital? Yep.

Nepal has 6,000 health centers and clinics, and every single one of them faces issues with power cuts. As you can imagine, having the power go out for nine hours or more, which it often does, is dangerous in hospitals where machines that run on power keep folks alive. Rent-to-own solar systems are keeping some of these hospitals running while cutting carbon emissions at the same time.

To see even more awesome innovations from across the globe, (like an amusement park in Japan that is heated with seawater or electric taxi trikes in Taiwan), head over to #itshappening for more real-life problem-solving that's also super cool.

Positive news, smart people, problems being solved? #itshappening!

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.

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Joy

Kudos to the heroes who had 90 seconds to save lives in the Key Bridge collapse

The loss of 6 lives is tragic, but the dispatch recording shows it could have been so much worse.

Representative image by Gustavo Fring/Pexels

The workers who responded to the Dali's mayday call saved lives with their quick response.

As more details of the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse in Baltimore emerge, it's becoming more apparent how much worse this catastrophe could have been.

Just minutes before 1:30am on March 26, shortly after leaving port in Baltimore Harbor, a cargo ship named Dali lost power and control of its steering, sending it careening into a structural pillar on Key Bridge. The crew of the Dali issued a mayday call at 1:26am to alert authorities of the power failure, giving responders crucial moments to prepare for a potential collision. Just 90 seconds later, the ship hit a pylon, triggering a total collapse of the 1.6-mile bridge into the Patapsco River.

Dispatch audio of those moments shows the calm professionalism and quick actions that limited the loss of life in an unexpected situation where every second counted.

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A woman looking at her phone while sitting on the toilet.


One of the most popular health trends over the last few years has been staying as hydrated as possible, evidenced by the massive popularity of 40-oz Stanely Quencher cups. The theory among those who obsess over hydration is that, when you pee clear, you’ve removed all the waste in your body and are enjoying the incredible benefits of being 100% hydrated. Congratulations.

However, according to Dr. Sermed Mezher, an NHS doctor in the UK, peeing clear isn’t always a sign of being healthy.

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Joy

Yale's pep band had to miss the NCAA tournament. University of Idaho said, 'We got you.'

In an act of true sportsmanship, the Vandal band learned Yale's fight song, wore their gear and cheered them on.

Courtesy of University of Idaho

The Idaho Vandals answered the call when Yale needed a pep band.

Yale University and the University of Idaho could not be more different. Ivy League vs. state school. East Coast vs. Pacific Northwest. City vs. farm town. But in the first two rounds of the NCAA basketball tournament, extenuating circumstances brought them together as one, with the Bulldogs and the Vandals becoming the "Vandogs" for a weekend.

When Yale made it to the March Madness tournament, members of the school's pep band had already committed to other travel plans during spring break. They couldn't gather enough members to make the trek across the country to Spokane, Washington, so the Yale Bulldogs were left without their fight song unless other arrangements could be made.

When University of Idaho athletic band director Spencer Martin got wind of the need less than a week before Yale's game against Auburn, he sent out a message to his band members asking if anyone would be interested in stepping in. The response was a wave of immediate yeses, so Martin got to work arranging instruments and the students dedicated themselves to learning Yale's fight song and other traditional Yale pep songs.

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An English doctor named Edward Jenner took incredible risks to try to rid his world of smallpox. Because of his efforts and the efforts of scientists like him, the only thing between deadly diseases like the ones below and extinction are people who refuse to vaccinate their kids. Don't be that parent.

Unfortunately, because of the misinformation from the anti-vaccination movement, some of these diseases have trended up in a really bad way over the past several years.

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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.

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