What is an umwelt? This fascinating German term describes the particular way a being experiences the world. For example, our umwelten as humans is defined by our senses and perceptions. CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta recently talked to award-winning science journalist Ed Yong about how umwelten differ between animals. "Imagine that you're sharing a room with an elephant and a bee and rattlesnake, a spider, a bat," Yong says in a new episode of Dr. Gupta's podcast, Chasing Life. "You could all be in the same physical space, but you would have radically different experiences of that space. The rattlesnake will be able to sense the body heat of the animals around it; the elephant could make low infrasonic rumbles that the other creatures couldn't hear." It's scary isn't it? Scary and wondrous, to know that there is so much of reality that we simply can't experience. It certainly brings a new appreciation for the tiny, glorious slivers we can sense -- as well as the creatures around us who likely know things about our world we could never imagine.
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Our favorites this week
Get going with some of our most popular good news stories of the week
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Come play with us!
Every year the Strong National Museum of Play inducts new items into the National Toy Hall of Fame, and every year we are overwhelmed by waves of nostalgia. This year's 12 finalists include Breyer Horses, He-Man figurines, NERF toys, Pound Puppies and the Piñata. The funny part is, almost all of these toys have such a specific scent. Not that we all go around sniffing bits of hard plastic, but if you were like me and owned dozens of Breyer horses at some point, you know exactly what they smell like: sweet, with almost a touch of citrus. NERF toys have that chemical tang of, well, whatever NERF toys are made of. "By inducting toys every year, it allows us to start a bigger conversation about the important role of toys in our childhoods and culture," Shane Rhinewald, senior director of public relations at the museum told CNN. "Play is universal, and everyone has fond memories of their favorite toys. They're a part of our shared history."
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Image credit: Asia Salman/Aga Khan Trust for Culture |
Building compassion
It's easy to forget that architecture isn't just about creating beautiful buildings. The Aga Khan Award is an important reminder that good architecture can also build advocacy, compassion and justice, and create spaces for the human spirit to grow. Awarded every three years for new buildings in "communities in which Muslims have a significant presence," the six winning projects will share a $1 million prize pot that is among the profession's largest. One of the winning projects is a remarkable set of six temporary community spaces for refugees in Cox's Bazar in Bangladesh, where hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims fled to following Myanmar's brutal military crackdown. Award organizers recognized the project for providing "a dignified, sensitive and ingenious response to emergency needs related to the major influx of Rohingya refugees," and for specifically addressing the needs of women.
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Twinkle, twinkle little planet
NASA's James Webb Space Telescope continues to provide us with stunning glimpses of our corner of the universe -- and beyond. New images this week reveal our distant neighbor, Neptune, along with the planet's hard-to-detect rings. In the new images, Neptune looks white, as opposed to the typical blue appearance it has in views captured at visible wavelengths of light. This is because gaseous methane, part of the planet's chemical makeup, doesn't appear blue to Webb's Near-Infrared Camera. Also visible in the images are methane-ice clouds -- bright streaks and spots that reflect sunlight before it is absorbed by methane gas. Webb is a more than 10-year mission run by NASA, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency.
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Action star Tom Hardy, who won gold at the 2022 UMAC Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Open Championships. The English actor entered the competition with little fanfare, which sounds nice unless you're the athlete who showed up and saw your opponent was a literal action movie icon. Hardy said it was an honor to represent the non-profit organization REORG, which works with veterans, active military and first responders to use Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and fitness training as a form of therapy. "Simple training, for me (as a hobby and a private love ) has been fundamentally key to further develop a deeper sense of inner resilience, calm and well being," Hardy said on Instagram.
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"Pocket park" is such a cool term. That's how some describe a series of micro-parks nestled amid the thick urban center of Hong Kong. There are known correlations between mental health and access to nature and open spaces, which makes these little havens extra important. The pleasing colors, calm surroundings and natural elements of pocket parks can provide a lot of relief in a place as crowded as Hong Kong, where residents can expect to have just 2.7 square meters of public space each. Four of these pocket parks are now getting makeovers thanks to non-profit Design Trust.
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Here's our latest contribution to your cocktail party small talk: "Do you know how many ants there are in the world?" According to a newly calculated estimate, the answer is about 20 quadrillion. That's 20, followed by 15 zeroes. Describing the results, one of the researchers in the study said the same thing I say whenever I accidentally leave an unfinished Starbucks latte in my truck: "We were very surprised about the large number of ants we found." The new estimate (antstimate?) was based on data from nearly 500 individual studies encompassing 1,306 sampling locations, covering all continents and major biomes where ants live.
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Rec of the week
Brought to you by CNN Underscored
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Shameless animal video
There's always time for cute animal videos. That time is now.
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A newsletter for the good in life |
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