The patient: A 47-year-old woman in Canada The symptoms: The woman underwent a lung transplant to treat interstitial lung disease, which involves harmful inflammation and scarring of lung tissue. While recovering in the hospital, she ate a bowl of breakfast cereal, which activated a nearly two-hour episode of flushing, itching, shortness of breath and low…
A sunken World War II hospital ship off the coast of Albania has attracted both invasive devil firefish and rare Mediterranean monk seals, leading researchers to weigh the risks and benefits of these wrecks for local ecosystems. The ship, called the Po, sank off Vlora Bay in 1941 after being hit by a torpedo from…
A massive volcano erupts in Southeast Asia. Ash fall delays flights and destroys crops, while pyroclastic flows wipe out entire towns. Over the following weeks, the sulfur dioxide pumped out turns into a haze of fine acid droplets, eventually wrapping around the entire planet, scattering sunlight back to space. The sun turns pale, shadows go…
In Mumbai’s Byculla area is located Veermata Jijabai Bhosale Udyan, the city’s oldest public garden and zoo. It was formerly known as Victoria Gardens. At the garden’s entrance is a beautiful old clock tower. Known as David Sassoon Clock Tower, it was built in 1864 in the Palladian style of architecture. It is said that…
Rue Jankowski is a dead end in Le Mans’ Saint-Nicolas district, the kind of narrow passage you’d normally walk past without a second look. Then you turn the corner and the wall seems to fall away into a glowing, striped tunnel, arcing across the buildings around it as though the street itself had been punched…
The state of Oaxaca in Mexico’s south is often considered one of the country’s main artistic hubs. Its diversity in nature and indigenous cultures has created an atmosphere of inspiration for creative endavors. In the capital city of the same name, known fully as Oaxaca de Juárez, perhaps the clearest examples are its booming gastronomic…
Cartonería is one of the main forms of artes populares (folk art), also known as artesanías (handcrafts), to come out of Mexico City and its metropolitan area. The terms refers to cartón, what cardboard is called in Mexican Spanish, and cartonería works use a type of papier-mâché technique for their building. Cartonería is the original…
Considering that Mexican cities have been ranked among the ones with highest homicide rates, a large number of massacres committed by organized crime groups as well as human rights violations by authorities, the last century or so has been rough for Mexico. In this context, the country’s civilian population has often taken matters into their…
Welcome back to our weekly behind-the-scenes glimpse at what’s getting our team talking. Tell us what you’ve been reading at info@reasonstobecheerful.world and we just might feature it here. Call and response In Baltimore, when someone calls 911 about a mental health crisis, mobile crisis teams have long been able to step in and reroute the…
Screencap of Twitter/X video. Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine was recently interviewed by the liberal outlet Politico and made an absolutely hilarious and brutal comment about her Democrat opponent Troy Jackson. Journalist Jonathan Martin was asking her if Graham Platner would have been easier to beat, with his Nazi tattoo and accusations of sexual…
