A dog that got stuck at the bottom of an abandoned well was happy to see the Italian firefighters who rescued it.
The footage was released on Nov. 7 by the Vigili del Fuoco, Italy’s institutional agency for fire and rescue service. The dog was rescued in the woods near the town of Guidonia in the region of Lazio.
The video shows the firefighters arriving at the large hole and setting up a winch system to safely reach and rescue the distressed dog.
One member of the Vigili del Fuoco is carefully lowered to the bottom of the well, which was nearly 20 feet deep.
As the firefighter slowly approaches the bottom, the dog becomes increasingly excited, wagging its tail, as it realizes help is on the way.
A dog was rescued by firefighters after falling into an abandoned well. (Vigili del Fuoco/Zenger)
The dog begins to run around in circles and rub itself against the firefighter. That makes his job even harder, as he attempts to get hold of the canine and buckle it in for its ascent.
After attaching a full-body harness to the dog, the firefighter is hauled out by his colleagues, while the dog waits for its turn to be brought to the surface.
The dog can be seen flailing about as it is slowly rescued from the well, where it spent an unspecified number of days.
As the dog approaches the top of the well, it reaches out with its paws and tries to grab onto some solid ground, as the firefighters achieve a successful rescue.
Once it’s safe, the dog becomes very excited, jumping on several of the firefighters that saved it from the well.
The rescue team can be heard shouting “bella, bella.” The rescue mission involved at least half a dozen workers and some heavy machinery.
Once rescued, the dog happily jumped on firefighters and did not appear to have any visible injuries. No word on how long it had been trapped in the well. (Vigili del Fuoco/Zenger)
The dog was in good health and has since been returned to its owners, according to a statement made by The Vigili del Fuoco,
No further information about the dog or its owners was provided, and it is unclear how long it was in danger.
The Vigili del Fuoco did not state whether the dog suffered any injuries when it fell into the well, but in the footage, the animals appears to be walking, running and jumping around without any problem.
A week earlier, on Oct. 29, the Italian fire service posted footage of a man and dog rescued after being trapped by water in Syracuse, Sicily. The flooding was due to a Mediterranean cyclone, known as a Medicane.
Migrants’ journeys to the United States are fraught with danger.
Central American migrants often experience theft, abuse of authority and extortion.
Mexico’s Human Rights Commission estimates that 42.2 percent of migrants crossing the country are victims of robbery, followed by kidnappings (10.7 percent) and organized crime (10.2 percent).
Despite the risks, Fernando Hernández, then a 20-year-old high school graduate, wanted to secure the American dream. Along the way, he changed his mind.
He used to live in Santa Bárbara, a town located about 124 miles from Tegucigalpa, Honduras’ capital. Insecurity and unemployment forced him out of his hometown.
Hernández and three friends left Santa Bárbara in a bus on Oct. 15, 2018, intending to join a migrant caravan heading to Guatemala. Hernández left his town with 500 lempiras ($23), which he spent on the bus.
Crossing the Honduras–Guatemala border, they spotted the caravan, which was adding passengers daily. They joined the group, and Hernández called his family, since he was the only one of the four friends carrying a cell phone.
The journey was not easy. He woke up every day at 5 a.m. to walk with his fellow migrants. “We rested 15 minutes per hour to be able to walk the whole day. Sometimes a truck would stop and give us a ride,” he told Zenger.
When the caravan crossed Mexico’s southern border, agents from the country’s federal police and the National Migration Institute were waiting for them at the Rodolfo Robles border bridge. But there were so many migrants crossing that Hernández and his friends managed to continue their trip.
During his journey, two caravan members died, one in Córdoba, Veracruz, and the other in the state of Puebla.
“We hung ourselves from a double trailer. The truck hit a bump, and a fellow migrant who was not holding on well fell. When the second trailer ran over him, the truck stopped. He died instantly. … It could have been a friend, someone traveling next to me, or it could have been me,” he said.
In Mexico City, the caravan rested at a temporary shelter that provided migrants with food. An estimated 5,500 people from different countries, primarily Hondurans, made up the caravan, according to a government census.
Fernando Hernández and the three friends who left Honduras with him are seen on a Mexico City subway. (Julio Guzmán/Zenger)
At that point, one of his friends was homesick and concerned for his family. So he boarded one of the buses bound for Honduras provided by the mayor’s office.
Hernández’s caravan left for Querétaro, where the state government provided buses that drove the migrants to Mexicali, Baja California, on the U.S. border.
Some Mexicans helped Hernández and his friends. The aid usually ranged from a coin to a piece of bread. Even so, Hernández says they slept on the streets, went hungry for several days, and traveled crammed inside trailer containers.
“Once, we were sleeping on the sidewalk, and it started to rain. We woke up and looked for a dry place to sleep. I was not feeling well, and I said to myself, ‘I think this is as far as I’ll make it.’ I wanted to quit, but then I thought about my future,” he said.
Twenty days and 2,300 miles later, the caravan reached Mexicali. One of Hernández’s friends tried to cross to the U.S. but got arrested and was deported to Honduras.
After Hernández and the last friend still with him appeared on a local TV show, an employer invited them to work in construction. However, the friend, missing his wife and children, returned to his homeland a month later.
A work project allowed Hernández to move to Monterrey, in the Mexican border state of Nuevo León, in 2019. The immigration policies that then-President Donald J. Trump put in place, including the increase in deportations, had lengthened his stay in Mexico.
In Monterrey, he rented a house with some roommates. “I slept on the floor for two months. But I saved some money, bought a bed, and rented a room on my own. I was already getting to know the city,” he said.
He was working for a cable television company in Monterrey when he met a Mexican woman. They fell in love and moved in together. One day, after work, “I went home and learned I was going to become a dad. A Honduran [baby] was on the way. She was three and a half months pregnant, and I was the happiest person in the world,” he said.
Fernando Hernández and his partner got married. He was born in Honduras and she is Mexican. They later became parents of a son. (Courtesy of Fernando Hernández)
That was a turning point for Hernández. He reflected on his life perspectives and chose to live his dream in Mexico. He married his partner in August 2021, and today, they both work to provide a better future for their son.
“Now that we have the baby, I don’t want to go. I’m not going to leave him. I want what’s best for him. He needs to have a mom and a dad, a family. … Of course, I plan to go one day [to the United States], but I will … get a tourist visa.”
He also hopes to adjust his immigration status in Mexico.
Hernández’s friends feel inspired when seeing him achieve his dreams far from his homeland. Gibson Estanley Rodríguez, who left Honduras with him, also wanted to reach the United States. Along the way, he learned to value other things.
“Reaching the United States seems to be the goal, but … what we truly seek is financial stability, emotional stability, and Fernando was able to achieve all that. I’m happy for my friend, and I know that he will meet new friends,” he told Zenger.
Not all migrants are as fortunate.
Many lose their lives on the journey north. Hernández’s family is grateful he is still alive to pursue his dreams. More than three years after his departure, they all hope to see him again.
“Fernando is the youngest sibling. He taught me to be courageous and to take decisions aimed at obtaining a better quality of life. I learned we must make sacrifices if we want to achieve our dreams and that dreams are possible. Fernando and we — the family — are in constant communication, and we look forward to seeing him again,” Jerar Hernández, Fernando’s brother, told Zenger.
Hernández does not forget the challenging path he endured. Whenever he can, he supports migrants on their journeys.
He believes the essential thing migrants do is “overcoming, not giving up, believing in themselves, that they can and do achieve things. Other people’s opinions don’t matter. Back there [in my homeland], I had nothing. And I said: ‘I’m going to get through this.’ Throughout the journey, I felt bad for my family. My mother and my grandparents cried, asking me to come back. I felt pretty bad, but I didn’t give up.”
Translated by Gabriela Alejandra Olmos, Edited by Gabriela Alejandra Olmos and Fern Siegel
When Zenab Grabia was a young girl, she didn’t know any female ceramic artists in her community. There simply weren’t any. But thanks to her, nowadays young women from the Bedouin community have a successful role model in this craft.
Grabia lives with her family in the Bedouin town of Segev Shalom in the Negev, which is also home to her gallery exhibiting ceramics embellished with traditional Bedouin embroidery motifs.
Her journey toward becoming a ceramic artist was unusual, not least because she wasn’t a big fan of clay to begin with.
“At first I didn’t really understand ceramics,” she said. “I was always so afraid of getting dirty, but it was a mandatory course at college without which you couldn’t get your diploma. So I signed up for a ceramics summer course and began doing ceramics. I started making time for it and creating dishes.”
Then she had the idea of adding Bedouin embroidery to her pieces.
Grabia incorporates traditional Bedouin embroidery into her work, whether by painting it or sewing it in. (Courtesy of Zenab Grabia)
“I wanted to give my mother a gift that would last a lifetime, and she’s the one who taught me our embroidery. I discussed it with my art professor, and no one had previously done it.”
After some trial and error, Grabia reached her desired result.
“In some of the dishes, I just paint the embroidery using different colors, and in others I actually add the embroidery to the dish; I sew it in,” she said.
Grabia learned traditional Bedouin embroidery from her mother, who inspired her artwork. (Courtesy of Zenab Grabia)
“It came out really well, and I receive very good responses. People always ask me how I came up with the idea. I see how happy and excited people are with the work, how they just hold the dishes and examine and ask how it’s done.”
Going against the grain
Making it in the art world took her some time, and in some ways included going against the grain of her community.
“Aside from me, I don’t know anyone else who does ceramics at all, although there are people who learned painting or finished a bachelor’s degree in art,” she says.
“All my studies took place at a later stage. I completed my 12 years of studies at the age of 24, and then started to head in a more academic direction. Now I’m [planning to study toward] a PhD in arts,” she says.
“With all the difficulties that were involved, I survived it and got my bachelor’s degree and my teaching certificate, and that’s when I started thinking differently — that I could do a master’s and that I want it to be in art.”
Grabia does her ceramic work on the side; she works full time as a schoolteacher and preschool teacher for the Education Ministry. Nevertheless, she’s been quite successful. Her gallery became a popular stop for tourist groups in Israel, and she has done exhibitions abroad.
One of Zenab Grabia’s unique pieces. (Courtesy of Zenab Grabia)
Blazing a path
“A Bedouin woman really can develop her art this way, but when I was starting out it wasn’t an easy thing to do — even nowadays there’s some difficulty with doing art and teaching art — yet with all of these obstacles I insisted on it with my family until they agreed,” Grabia says.
“It makes me happy to see my success and realize that the sky’s the limit for me,” she adds. “I’m pleased with it, and also serve as somewhat of a role model — you can now matriculate in art in Segev Shalom.”
Grabia with her two children. She serves as a role model to young people in her community. (Courtesy of Zenab Grabia)
Grabia said her husband, Suleiman al-Abid, is supportive of her ambitions and even assists her.
“My husband never studied it, but he caught the ceramics bug from his wife. He helps me a lot. Sometimes we have joint ideas, we travel together to exhibits. He loves it.”
She has been especially appreciative of his support through the pandemic.
“I couldn’t have done it without him; I would have broken down a long time ago if I were by myself,” she says. “COVID really affected us. Before, we used to have buses coming to the gallery all the time, but [during the pandemic] only one group came to us.”
It’s not yet possible to purchase Grabia’s works online, but she hopes to get an ecommerce option up and running so that she can reach customers anywhere.
“Lots of people approach me and ask me for my artwork and I really think that once we also go online, we’ll market what we do abroad too. Inshallah, it will happen,” she says. “I can see that once I put my things online, they’ll get snatched up.”
Ever since the first websites demonstrated the power of aesthetics, the web continues to experience surges of new creative ideas. In waves, every couple of years, we have been noticing specific patterns and trends rising in popularity, only to be replaced with something fresh after a while. From the early ’90s, where only major companies had websites, the popularity of this media exponentially expanded. Fast forward to today, and every small business and every writer, designer, influencer, and others have their own versions of websites. As a result, it led to incredible competition for visibility, visitors, and ranking positions in search engines. But only those who follow the latest web design trends manage to stay on top.
Web design trends that will be popular in 2022
We live in a digital age where having a well-designed website is becoming a necessity. Often, it’s the only way for some businesses to reach their valuable viewers. However, modern web designs go far beyond just aesthetics. Especially today, where prominent search engines place the focus on user experience. That’s why it becomes crucial to combine design with website functionality and allow visitors to have a memorable browsing experience. If you want your website performance to improve in the future, there are a few web design trends you should be ready for in 2022:
Bright and bold colors
Design that manifests performance
White space medley
Outdoor hunger
Interactive and customizable web design
1. Bright and bold colors
For a while, neutral minimalism was the name of the game. A simple website layout with fewer elements that “looks” more professional. With such a design, navigation is easy to understand and follow. And there was a minimum amount of screen objects that would cause a distraction for viewers.
However, it seems like vibrant colors and bold combinations are coming back in a big way in 2022. All the previously awkward combinations that were primarily used for advertising purposes are now finding their place everywhere. Of course, it won’t go to the extreme. Considering it can be hard to match font and background colors that satisfy the WCAG 2.1 standard, it has to be a more discrete combination. But, what was once used to design CTA buttons and other distinctive elements is now becoming a trend.
One of the probable reasons for this trend is that people grew tired of “corporal neutrality”. Especially lately, due to the recent not-so-pleasant global events. They want to see more colorful content that will spark positive emotions while they are on the web.
Colorful pages can cheer up even the most gloomy faces. (Photo by: Greyerbaby | pixabay.com).
2. Design that manifests performance
Fast loading times and satisfying page speeds are some of the prerequisites for a good user experience, especially since Google introduced their update that favors performing websites for rankings over slow and clumsy ones. This means that now more than ever, speed will be crucial for UX and SEO.
In other words, anything longer than 2-3 seconds will drive your visitors and search engines away, which will directly impact success if you are managing and maintaining a business website. You will need to cover all steps of the website designing process properly and ensure nothing slows your website down. From images to video and every element on the page, everything will have to be fully optimized for performance.
3. White space medley
Colorful websites are not the only type people are expecting to see in the future. We have all seen a variety of websites that are simply overcluttered. While elements are not placed randomly, sometimes it just feels like it. Many websites that want to accomplish too much end up with:
Too much content on a single page
Text that is not properly formatted
Unnecessary elements that are occupying the white space
Difficulties in finding information with such an interface
Wrong use of colors for fonts and background
and many more
However, what websites should actually have is quite the opposite. Visitors want to have some space while focusing on their search and reading. They don’t want to be additionally stressed, feeling restrained with distractions. To avoid this in 2022, focus on a clean design that leverages the use of white space. Let the main subject of the page be the only element in focus. This will be particularly useful since less clutter also means faster loading and better performance of a website.
Abundance of white space can emphasize the impact of the message. Photo by: No-longer-here | pixabay.com).
4. Outdoor hunger
Again, recent events have left many people with an increased desire for traveling and outdoor activities. Now more than ever, people genuinely miss the opportunity to go outside and explore, hike, play, or simply spend some time relaxing in nature. This is reflected in web design trends through the rising popularity of websites that use natural and landscape motives. Generally speaking, this design uses a variety of themes based on calm and neutral colors, images, and tones. It makes visitors feel less constrained and initiates a sense of tranquility while browsing the pages.
Something is mesmerizing in the design that combines natural elements with the content. (Photo by: Mystic Art Design | pixabay.com).
5. Interactive and customizable web design
The way we use websites is constantly changing. Before we got to use the “mouse,” we had to rely only on the keyboard. But today, you can access and navigate websites in a variety of ways. For example, people with visual impairments do it quite successfully with voice technology. And that is only one example of how interactivity can come in different shapes.
On the other hand, business websites vastly implement different on-site chat technologies where you can directly speak with designated agents. In addition, web design layouts allow you to manipulate the pages in creative ways, not only by scrolling down the page and clicking on buttons. Finally, the possibility for visitors to customize the whole appearance of the pages they often visit is just a cherry on top. This designing approach can help you accomplish several things at the same time:
Makes websites more interesting
Makes it possible for everyone to use them
Allows a bit of control to the users
Allows everyone to configure the layout according to their preferences
Everything on the web constantly changes, including web design trends. Something that was once popular and considered modern, tomorrow will be a remnant of the past. While some trends are not exactly new, they are given a chance to evolve until their time arrives. Given these points, every website owner should be prepared to at least consider the possibility of adjusting to the new web design trends in 2022.
Author Bio: Janet Hopkins has years of experience working as a graphical and web designer. Today, she mostly deals with writing and offering creative advice to WP Full Care and other websites that focus on design and development. During her time off, she enjoys taking long strolls through nature where she can find additional inspiration.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. – The nation’s first non-profit software boot camp,Nashville Software School (NSS), announces today it is launching a new software engineering program in collaboration with Amazon to expand opportunities and access to tech careers in Nashville and beyond. The Software Engineering with Java/AWS Specialization online program is available to highly motivated adults across the U.S. who want to acquire the skills necessary to build complex and high-performance software applications, and qualify for in-demand, entry-level software engineering jobs at tech companies and enterprise IT organizations.
The U.S. Department of Labor projects growth for software engineers at 22% through 2029 and that rate is even higher and is projected to continue to run higher, in Nashville. A key driver for this growth is building and deploying—or redeploying and modernizing—applications to public cloud platforms like Amazon’s AWS. According to a recent Deloitte survey, 68% of CIOs ranked migrating to the public cloud and/or expanding the private cloud as the top IT spending driver in 2020.
John Wark, Director of NSS (Courtesy Photo)
“We were excited when Amazon approached us with the chance to collaborate with them on using Amazon Technical Academy’s proven in-house curriculum as the basis for our Software Engineering program. This is a major milestone in our nine years of opening doors to tech careers in Nashville,” says John Wark, founder, and CEO, Nashville Software School. “Our new program opens yet another pathway for both local residents and those outside our region to acquire the skills required to launch a rewarding and lucrative career in software development. Consistent with our mission and our other programs, this program is for motivated adults with aptitude—irrespective of whether they have any prior tech training—including the underemployed, financially fragile, or economically disadvantaged as well as those from backgrounds underrepresented in tech careers, including Blacks, Hispanics, women, and veterans.”
The NSS program is based on the curriculum fromAmazon Technical Academy, one of Amazon’s unique skills training programs, developed by Amazon engineers, to help non-technical Amazon employees with no prior coding experience move into entry-level software engineer roles. Amazon Technical Academy has placed 98% of its internal graduates into software development engineer roles at Amazon. The program is part of Amazon’s $1.2 billion Upskilling 2025 pledge to help more than 300,000 of its own employees transition into higher-paying, in-demand roles at Amazon and beyond by 2025.
“At Amazon, we work to eliminate barriers like time and money for our employees so they can pursue skills training and education opportunities critical for the jobs of the future. This aligns well with the Nashville Software School’s nonprofit mission and focus on affordability and reducing financial barriers,” said Sarah Castle, director, Amazon Technical Academy. “We are excited to work with the Nashville Software School because of their proven track record of increasing the diversity of the Nashville tech community and their strong employment outcomes. We are hopeful that Amazon Technical Academy’s curriculum will help more prospective students advance their careers and pursue in-demand software engineering roles.”
Preparing Students for Success
NSS is adapting Amazon Technical Academy’s original curriculum in a number of ways for this new program. Commonly used industry developer tools and technologies are being integrated into the curriculum and the instructional approach will also incorporate techniques used in other NSS programs such as the broad use of real-world, hands-on group projects.
Software Engineering with Java/AWS Specialization combines practical training in on-the-job software engineering practices and tools, with a comprehensive introduction to applied computer science concepts and training in cloud computing concepts and technologies. Students apply the skills learned in class through hands-on coding exercises and building and deploying server-side applications. Students will also work with NSS’ career development team so they are prepared to succeed in the job search after graduation. Software Engineering is a nine-month, full-time program delivered in an online, synchronous classroom. Classes are Monday through Friday from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. CT.
Graduates of the program will earn an NSS software engineering certificate with specializations in Java and AWS and will be able to apply for junior software engineering roles with the most selective employers. For example, NSS graduates who apply at Amazon for full-time, entry-level software development engineer roles will undergo the same hiring and evaluation process as graduates from four-year computer science Bachelor’s degree programs.
Students will have access to multiple tuition options including payment plans, student loans, and scholarships. The NSS Opportunity Tuition Plan, a shared risk deferred tuition plan plus scholarship, will also be available to qualified applicants in this program.
NSS is also rolling out a number of ways to help interested adults with no prior programming experience determine if they want to pursue this career path and gain the coding skills required for enrollment in Software Engineering. These prework options combine self-study, mentoring, and instructor-led pathways to learning introductory programming concepts and the Java programming language
The World Health Network, an international grassroots task force in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, includes independent scientific advisory and advocacy teams and citizens’ action to achieve progressive elimination of the disease globally.
The initiative is spearheaded by physicist and professor Yaneer Bar-Yam, head of the New England Complex Systems Institute in Boston.
“Our connected world is vulnerable to pandemics, and we must learn how to stop them. With COVID, the main challenge is to make a decision to achieve elimination locally and to use all of the tools that we have learned from in many parts of the world to achieve it,” said Bar-Yam.
Pandemic expert professor Yaneer Bar-Yam, head of the World Health Network (Courtesy of Yaneer Bar-Yam)
The American-born son of Israeli parents, he analyzes the origins and impacts of market crashes, social unrest, ethnic violence, military conflict and pandemics, and the structure and dynamics of social networks.
“Different communities have learned how to suppress the outbreak. We can combine those tools together, technological ones including but not limited to vaccinations, and social actions,” Bar-Yam said.
The Lancet article says that the COVID-19 pandemic has cost more than 4 million lives, left millions of people with persistent symptoms (long COVID), and has devastated disadvantaged communities in particular.
“The tragedy is that much of this harm was preventable, as shown early on by many Asia-Pacific countries that pursued elimination of COVID-19 and protected both their public health and economies,” the authors wrote.
“The rest of the world can still work towards elimination. … Elimination means bringing cases down to sufficiently low numbers so that no community transmission occurs for extended periods of time. Outbreaks might occur but will be rapidly detected and controlled.
“Despite the manifest success of this approach, many governments rejected it outright, and after repeated lockdowns and substantial losses to life and economy, these governments now speak of learning to live with the virus.”
World Health Network members “aim to achieve elimination by assembling rigorous scientific evidence and guidelines; sharing experience and expertise between countries; coordinating international strategies and actions; empowering citizen actions to improve public health, support vaccine uptake, and shape policy; addressing the role of inequality, inequity, and marginalization in health; campaigning for vaccine equity and sharing; and challenging misinformation, nationalism, and exceptionalism.”
“For years, the whole issue of sustainability really deterred me. Because I’m not going to walk around in cloth shoes, start traveling by bus or give up my washing machine,” says Tammie Ronen.
“But every one of us can choose what and how much they’d like to do. Once I don’t have to do absolutely everything, it means that I don’t have to become a strange creature who hugs trees. Instead, I’m very active. I don’t litter, I recycle, I don’t use single-use plastics and I try using products that are more environment-friendly,” she said.
Tel Aviv University professor Tammie Ronen. (Courtesy of Tammie Ronen)
“Each person can contribute their share. The moment you don’t come to people and tell them what not to do, but encourage them to choose what they can do to contribute to the environment in a way that doesn’t screw up their lives but does contribute to the environment — a lot can happen.”
This, in a nutshell, is the basis of the emerging field of positive sustainability. Ronen, a senior professor at Tel Aviv University, is researching this with her colleague Dorit Kerret.
Ronen comes from the field of positive psychology, and until recently was head of TAU’s social sciences faculty.
Tel Aviv University’s Dr. Dorit Kerret. (Courtesy of Dorit Kerret)
Kerret comes from the field of public policy, where she specializes in law, environment studies and public health. The two joined forces when they realized that their respective fields could bring to the fore an innovative approach to positive sustainability.
Good for us and the Earth
“At the heart of it, positive sustainability is not about what we mustn’t do because we’re harming the environment, but about what each and every one of us can do to do good both for us and the environment,” Kerret said.
This is because our personal wellbeing often correlates to the wellbeing of the environment.
“The part that overlaps between what is good for us and what is good for the environment is much bigger than what we tend to think,” she says.
“Let’s say that I want to buy clothes. I might think that I’ll be much better off buying loads of clothes and stuffing my wardrobe, but there’s also lots of disadvantages to this in terms of my wellbeing. While it does provide a spike in happiness, it then brings me down, because it requires money, time, closet space and a lot of other things that are less good for me,” she said.
An alternative and greener course of action could be to attend a clothes-swapping party.
“Each person brings their own clothes — which are pretty and in good condition — and you meet at a social event and swap things. It’s good for the environment, and it’s good for you because in terms of positive psychology social networks are one of the most important things for personal wellbeing.”
Create meaning, create happiness
Another way in which caring for the environment contributes to personal wellbeing is the opportunity to create meaning.
“Nowadays, we don’t want only to exist, but we want to be well and feel fulfillment and satisfaction and to be happy,” says Ronen.
“We examined to what extent the curriculum at green schools changes the environmental behavior of children,” she said. “We saw that children who invest in something and feel invested — by helping clean their surroundings or by taking care of animals, for example — are happier.”
Meaning is also about engaging in something with societal value, Ronen says.
“The issue of sustainability is becoming more and more socially valuable across the world. We see that people who are engaging with things that society cares about are happier.”
Yet another connection, the researchers note, is that being close to nature simply does us good.
“Since the outbreak of COVID, I’ve been getting up in the morning, making myself a coffee and going out to the yard,” Ronen says. “I sit in the yard at 5 o’clock in the morning and listen to the birds while surrounded by my wonderful plants. I start the day with a much better feeling compared to starting it stuck in traffic.”
“People who have a good and strong connection to nature act in a more environmental manner,” Kerret said. “The younger the age that connection is built, the stronger it is and the longer it lasts.”
A positive spiral
Kerret describes a positive spiral: “Each person starts with that small thing that they’re willing to do, and slowly it begins to grow. You see that you’re managing to create change, and that’s a good feeling. You also create a social norm around it, which is how you make an impact. You have influence as a consumer. It builds your environmental identity and makes you want to do more and more.”
And what about the doomsday headlines that have been appearing lately?
“First of all, I think that we’ve seen that scaring people doesn’t work,” Ronen said. “For years, I heard about the ozone hole, and it didn’t contribute anything to me. The media coverage on sustainability left me feeling that there’s nothing left for me to do, that I’m small, that the world is being destroyed and I’ll be destroyed.
“I think that giving people power back is key. People want to feel control, to know that they have the ability to influence things and to know that their smallest actions are valuable,” she adds.
By way of example, she notes how Israelis don’t leave the tap open while brushing their teeth. Since childhood, it’s been drilled into them that to preserve precious water resources they must not waste a drop.
Hope as a strategy
The researchers note that plenty of research has been done regarding climate-change coping strategies, and that hope is one such strategy.
“Not hope in the sense of the feeling, but in the sense of the courses of action that you can take to improve the situation,” Kerret said.
“There’s always a middle path. It’s good that a person will be a little worried and anxious. Low-level anxiety encourages action. When you’re indifferent you don’t care what you do. But here, you can say ‘I care, I’m worried, but I’m going to channel my anxiety into action,’” Ronen adds.
Teenagers, who are susceptible to anxiety, looking for meaning and generally care more about the environment, can also be encouraged to act in order to mitigate their fears.
“I think that the right direction is to balance out the catastrophes that are taking place and tell them that they do have the ability to influence things, and that even the smallest course of action will give them a sense of meaning,” Ronen says.
“It’s always a question of how much we’re flooding them with information and how much we give them a sense that something can be done alongside it all,” she said.
Israeli venture capital fund Firstime Ventures has launched a $100 million fund dedicated to sustainable investments. The announcement came on the opening day of the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow, Scotland.
The sustainability fund, Firstime’s third investment fund, is aimed at Israeli entrepreneurs operating in line with any of the U.N.’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals, which include zero hunger, clean water and sanitation, affordable and clean energy and responsible consumption and production.
The fund has already invested in two startups, BeeHero and Hygieia. BeeHero’s sensors are installed inside hives to predict bee disorders and help beekeepers address their colonies’ health in real time, while Hygieia has developed an insulin management program for people with diabetes.
“We are rapidly changing our climate and are witnessing a global breakdown. We can longer continue with ‘business as usual’ as the impact of the climate crisis is affecting our health, our economy, and our lives,” Firstime said.
“We are looking for founders that are helping to solve the world’s most urgent challenges, from reaching net-zero carbon goals which will help mitigate the climate crisis, to precision agriculture tools that will help us adapt our farming and food industry to our new climate to accessible digital health solutions that can help billions of patients.”
Firstime’s sustainability fund has reportedly already raised some $50 million and is set to raise the remainder in coming months. The fund is also being supported by Israeli-Canadian investor Jonathan Kolber.
A 120-person Israeli delegation joined world leaders in Glasgow last week for COP26). Meanwhile, many Israeli scientists, entrepreneurs, activists, educators, clergy and artists are working to understand and address the global climate crisis and its consequences, from food insecurity to natural disasters.
A multidisciplinary approach is critical, said University of Haifa marine geoscientist Beverly Goodman-Tchernov.
“Solving the problems of climate change is not going to happen using any single approach. It’s going to require that everyone comes to the table with their strongest tools,” she said.
“We’ve passed the point where we can ask if climate change is really happening and who’s to blame. The real question now is whether we’re going to carry on the same ‘normal’ that our parents, grandparents and great-grandparents gave us or whether we’re ready to take on a new normal where we can use the technology and knowledge we have to slow, and perhaps even reverse, the damage we’ve already done.”
Ahead of COP26, Israeli President Isaac Herzog appointed government officials, academics and businesspeople to a new Israeli Climate Forum to craft Israel’s role.
Herzog said the climate crisis is “an opportunity for us as a country to do “tikkun olam,” to repair the world, and to be part of the greatest positive development of our generation. Although we as a small country are not a major actor in the creation of the crisis, we can certainly be a meaningful actor in the response to it.”
The government is poised to approve new projects in clean transportation, energy efficiency, reducing carbon emissions and encouraging climate-tech innovation.
A year ago, they finished fourth in defensive rating and No. 22 in offensive rating. They embraced the grind-it-out ethos of their head coach, Tom Thibodeau, to stifle teams into submission and cobble together enough offense to routinely cross the finish line with more points than their opponents. Now, after a summer with offense on their mind, the New York Knicks find themselves third in offensive rating and No. 23 in defensive rating through eight games.
The offseason additions of Kemba Walker and Evan Fournier have helped immensely. Both are shooting above 41% beyond the arc. Walker’s even drilled (an unsustainable) 51% of his 49 triples. A healthy Mitchell Robinson is providing elite play-finishing from the center position (86% shooting at the rim), an element this club missed after he went down in mid-February and was sidelined for the rest of the season.
Incumbents like Derrick Rose (48.1%), Alec Burks (41.9%) and RJ Barrett (41.7%) are cooking from downtown to open the year, and helping mitigate star forward Julius Randle’s slow-ish scoring start (53.1% True Shooting). The play-calling has been more creative and effective. Last year, the Knicks ranked 24th in three-point rate and third in three-point percentage. This year, they rank ninth in the former and second in the latter. The upgraded personnel is more conducive to higher volume long-range shooting, and the offense is reaping profits.
Last year, the Knicks ranked 24th in three-point rate and third in three-point percentage. This year, they rank ninth in the former and second in the latter. (depositphotos)
All of it, though, ties back to Randle as the hub of the attack. The supporting cast is designed to accentuate him in that role to magnitudes it failed to achieve a season ago. Fournier has proven to be an incredible release valve for Randle and the entire offense. Together, they’ve quickly established synergy, particularly in dribble-handoffs, ball-screens and post-ups, where their respective dribble-pass-shoot equity presses defenses into a bind. Nineteen of Randle’s 47 assists have been gifted to his French running mate.
Fournier is a shrewd off-ball nomad and can fire movement threes. When the ball swings his way off an advantage, he strikes. When he and Randle team up on side pick-and-rolls or DHOs, they’re boogying into success. Already, they’ve fashioned one of the NBA’s more dynamic two-man games, something this offense didn’t really offer Randle in 2020-21. Reggie Bullock helped as an off-ball shooter, but Fournier’s creation chops — supplemented by his own off-ball shooting — instill vital wrinkles to juice up possessions like these.
Whether it’s a byproduct of newfound talent, individual growth or a combination of the two, Randle has also been a more impactful facilitator to begin his eighth NBA campaign. Last season, according to PBP Stats, 81% of his assists came at the rim or beyond the arc. This year, that clip has spiked to 96%, the highest percentage among the league’s top-30 assist leaders.
Although his scoring has suffered thus far, he’s been a maestro playmaker. He’s shoveling interior dimes through traffic to big men for scores, and spraying skip passes to vacant shooters on the perimeter. His distributing was quite good in 2020-21, but it feels heightened now; a touch of more timeliness, creativity and discernment. New York constructed a roster better equipped to complement its star, and he’s delivering to help spearhead an elite unit at this juncture.
The other splashy offseason signee, Walker, has brought a different (yet nonetheless welcomed) skill set than Fournier. He sports a career-high three-point rate of .590, and has cashed 45.5% of his 33 off-the-bounce triples. With a pop-gun release and dizzying screen navigation, he’s consistently able to manufacture *just enough* space to fire away in narrow quarters. No other starter each of the last two years brings that sort of pull-up zeal or late-clock bail-out option when the “Randle Well of Offense” runs dry.
Internally, Barrett has built off his breakout sophomore season to take further strides in Year 3. He’s a craftier and improved driver, and has upped his three-point rate from .292 to .429, while still converting north of 40% beyond the arc. Not only has he become a more willing three-point bomber, the difficulty of those looks and his comfort in them appears to have blossomed as well.
After taking just 20 pull-up threes last season, he’s hoisted 14 through eight games and knocked down five of them. He’s also experimenting with a smidge of off-movement volume, and is unbothered by well-executed closeouts — both of which were less frequent facets of his 2020-21 shooting portfolio. Neither of these starters is functioning in tandem with Randle like Fournier, but both are critical to the Knicks’ elite offensive brigade and easing the burden for the man who organizes most possessions.
Schematically, the approach has been enhanced with some fairly basic, albeit useful, concepts. They’re setting more weak-side flare and pin-in screens to spring free shooters during Randle’s face-ups. They’re running Spain pick-and-rolls to utilize their lob threats, ball-handlers and snipers.
On Fournier-Randle actions, there’s typically an empty corner to maximize their operating space and bestow greater emphasis on the responsibilities of defenders directly involved in the play rather than inviting help. When Walker is commandeering possessions up top, many plays are run out of a Horns-based alignment that present two screeners with contrasting skill sets (Robinson and Randle), which enables Walker’s ball-screen savvy to shine (evident on his bucket against Orlando in the montage above).
A few questions to answer moving forward do exist. Walker will not shoot 51% from three all year, and his 38.2% mark inside the arc is troubling, given his size, age and declining burst; although, it should stabilize somewhat. He’s also only shot *gulp* 11 free throws in eight games.
Despite polishing up the playbook, stretches of Randle iso-ball still pop up and overextend him, while ostracizing the surrounding offensive talent. It’s what happened during a portion of the first half of their loss to the Toronto Raptors and allowed Toronto to trim a double-digit deficit to four before the break and, ultimately, snagging a victory.
In crunch time, they occasionally seem a bit too reliant on Walker’s pick-and-rolls. While he can run those in spurts, banking on it as a primary source of late-game creation probably isn’t viable because the pull-up three is his only consistent move these days (it’s a darn good one, to be fair). Running actions that pair Randle with one or multiple ball-handlers could produce more fruitful results when the game is on the line.
Given their playoff struggles last spring, establishing counters to prevent most tasks from resting on one guy’s shoulders is imperative. For much of this year, they’ve done so, and that’s why the Knicks are thriving offensively. Randle remains the do-it-all star.
Doing it all has just become simplified and increasingly potent.
With the rise of telemedicine during the COVID-19 pandemic, it stands to reason that digital diagnostic tools would increase in popularity.
The latest such tool is a chatbot from Israeli startup Kahun.
After opening the website, a user types in a symptom — “floaters,” for example, where dislodged pieces of collagen bounce around in the vitreous fluid of the eye, casting annoying shadows on the retina.
The chatbot then asks a long list of relevant questions — “Is it in both eyes or just one?” “Is your vision blurrier at night or during the day?” “Are your eyes dry or excessively teary?” — as well as some other questions, including “Do you have a rash? Joint pains? A sore back?”
At the end of the comprehensive Q&A, Kahun’s chatbot spits out an answer: “Sjögren’s syndrome,” an autoimmune disorder that can cause all the symptoms to which the user answered yes.
In this example, however, the floaters had started following complications from cataract surgery and were not part of the unusual syndrome in the chatbot’s reply.
How could the app have gotten it so wrong?
Kahun CEO Eitan Ron knew exactly where the problem was: The chatbot has not been programmed yet to ask about other procedures a patient may have had, such as cataract surgery.
“It’s a bug,” Ron said. “We should have asked. We need to add that to the flow.”
Another explanation, Ron said, would be that when the chatbot asked a question about joint pain and received an affirmative response, it went down that path. “The algorithm is always trying to find the best explanation for the provided clinical presentation,” he said.
Kahun’s chatbot asks users a host of questions before offering its “diagnosis.” (Courtesy of Kahun)
A competing chatbot — from the Israeli startup StuffThatWorks — given the same information came up with a correct “diagnosis,” but did not respond with any reasonable treatments.
StuffThatWorks is primarily a community of patients that gets its information from what the patients themselves report.
In contrast, Kahun scours the web for medical information from articles and books written by and for physicians, not patients, then uses artificial intelligence to order the data in a user-friendly way.
“We created the company to describe medical knowledge not as text but in a structured way, as part of what Google calls a ‘knowledge graph,’” Ron said.
A knowledge graph is comprised of nodes and links that show the relationships between different entities — in this case, between conditions, symptoms, tests and treatments.
Kahun taps into the 30 million articles and books written on medical topics (with more added every day) that are regularly accessed by specialized search engines such as PubMed. Kahun has already mapped in its database some 20 million associations between clinical features.
For use in conjunction with physician
Kahun’s chatbot just launched, so the appellation “beta” is appropriate.
The interface is multilingual, with English, Hebrew and Arabic, and more to come.
Ron said Kahun’s chatbot is not meant to diagnose, but rather is to be used in conjunction with one’s physician.
Kahun is meant to be used in conjunction with a physician. (Courtesy of Kahun)
“We view our results as ‘possible or likely causes’ and not as a diagnosis. In most cases, we will show a few options,” he said.
There are two main ways Kahun’s new chatbot might be deployed: Before a visit to the doctor, as a pre-appointment diagnostic, and as part of a telemedicine checkup.
Kahun may not be perfect, but it does better than most medical students.
On the “clinical skills” section of American medical licensing exams, Kahun’s app answered 85 percent of the questions correctly — far exceeding the minimum passing grade. Ron and his team wrote a paper on the results, available as a pre-print at The Lancet.
COVID tool for hospitals
Kahun was preparing to launch in early 2020 when COVID-19 hit. The novel coronavirus had already generated some 4,000 medical papers, and this was just at the beginning of the crisis.
Ron decided to pivot the company to focus on just one disease and to provide physicians with a tool to rank symptoms and diagnose COVID. The goal was to help hospitals manage their wards.
“We had the knowledge, and we had the infrastructure,” Ron said. “So, we asked, ‘How can we help?’”
The results from a joint study with Israel’s Rabin Medical Center were published in the American Journal of Emergency Medicine. Out of 18 patients in critical condition, 17 were correctly diagnosed. Out of 127 patients with non-critical illness, 104 were accurately identified.
“Our tool could help predict which patients could be sent home in the next few days and which patients would deteriorate,” Ron notes.
Kahun “has become my go-to gear to have in a tense hospital shift,” Israeli medical intern Yohai Shraga said last year. “I can use it to make sure I don’t miss anything or to consult with before turning to a senior physician.”
But over time, doctors and researchers became less reliant on Kahun’s COVID diagnostic tool.
“Physicians developed their own gut feelings about this disease,” Ron said. “If someone came in and is obese or has hypertension or lung disease, they’d know it’s high risk. They didn’t need our calculator.”
That turned out to be a blessing in disguise, as now Kahun could return to its original mission.
Before the doctor visit
A tool for physicians to use in their offices with patients was the first product to be released. It’s a key part of Kahun’s portfolio. Ron said several thousand physicians and medical students around the world are using it.
The pre-appointment chatbot diagnostic came next.
Running through the chatbot can take up to 10 minutes. That’s time saved in the actual appointment, allowing the doctor to focus on diagnosis rather than intake. The results of a Kahun chat can be copied and pasted as a simple text summary.
The tool is more up to date than many doctors who struggle to follow the deluge of new medical papers.
Moreover, Kahun’s physician interface asks questions and suggests tests the doctor might not have thought about. It’s not just a list of mostly unchanging questions, as is the case for other Israeli diagnostic startups. Kahun’s questions change depending on the answers the patient provides, mimicking a doctor’s thought process.
Kahun physician interface shows potential diagnoses and suggested follow-up tests. (Courtesy of Kahun)
Kahun is transparent about the data it presents: Every recommendation or suggestion includes links to the original articles or papers so that physicians understand where the information comes from.
That should help counter physician resistance — you know, the doctor who says, “Please don’t Google your symptoms, talk to me instead.”
Ron said that, compared with doing a web search on what ails you, Kahun’s structured question-and-answer approach “is already better than a Google search. We may uncover an important question the physician might have missed, like asking a patient if he or she suffers from night sweats.”
‘Waze for doctors’
That said, Kahun isn’t really a consumer application; the chatbot and other tools will be licensed directly to third parties — HMOs, clinics, scheduling services and telemedicine providers like Teladoc — which will pay a fee based on the size of the organization or by the session.
Kahun partners will be able to brand it any way they choose.
Kahun was founded in 2018 by Ron and Tal Goldberg. The pair previously established the customer service application Human Click, acquired by LivePerson in 2000. Ron and Goldberg, who served as general manager and CTO of Human Click, stayed with LivePerson for seven years — nearly unheard of in the fast-moving tech industry following an acquisition.
A third co-founder, Michal Tzuchman, was a software engineer at Waze before enrolling in med school to retrain as a pediatrician.
The Waze connection is not just through Tzuchman and Goldberg (who also worked at Waze following Human Click).
Former Waze CEO Uri Levine was the first seed investor in Kahun and serves as the company’s chairman of the board. It’s no wonder that Kahun sometimes calls itself “Waze for doctors.”
Making sense of medical knowledge
Kahun has raised $5.5 million including a $2.5 million grant from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 program. A team of 26 works out of the company’s Tel Aviv offices.
The name Kahun has an appropriate backstory: it comes from one of the first-known medical documents in history — the nearly 4,000-year-old “Kahun Medical Papyrus,” found in the Egyptian village of Kahun.
“All medical knowledge in the world today is in text and the only way to make sense out of it is if a doctor or medical staff are reading it,” Levine said.
Kahun proposed a different approach. “What if we could convert that into data and build apps to use it? This is exactly what we do.”
