Crime fighting rats

Hey fam,

It's that time of week! We made it to Friday. We can hopefully all have a relaxing weekend.

Sometimes when we have a tough week, we have to remember the little things.

Some personal highlights from my week: I got a back massage, had some exciting calls for an upcoming project (more on this soon), caught up with a friend I haven't seen in a while, pet a bunch of incredibly cute doggos, and made a delicious tofu stir fry.

And I reported 21 stories of progress from rats helping end wildlife trafficking to the world's first wind turbine made of wood, and many things in between. Enjoy!

On with the show...

Friday, February 14 (watch here)

💐 Flower farmer Lucy Copeman and florist Cissy Bullock started a school to teach the next generation of florists how to use locally grown flowers instead of imported varieties and incorporate reusable materials in bouquets, which is better for the planet but honestly gifting local native flowers feels more special too (Hannah Partos|Positive News)

🐋 Whales and humans are more alike than we knew per a new study finding the structure of humpback whale song is the same as our languages, where shorter sounds are used more often than longer ones in similar statistical patterns, hinting that humans have deep commonalities with other species through communication (Cristen Hemingway Jaynes|Ecowatch)

🦬 540 more buffalo have been brought back to their ancestral homeland in an indigenous-led program restoring thousands of this keystone species vital for a thriving ecosystem, helping all sorts of other species by grazing which creates bird nesting grounds and stomping puddles that helps amphibians breed (Marnie Cook|Native Sun)

🧑‍🌾 And today’s community win comes from silver_lavender99 who’s coming together with their neighbors to start a garden full of produce and native flowers.

Monday, February 17 (watch here)

Giant rats are fighting real-life crime.

The origin story of these real-life rat superheroes starts in 1995, with engineer Bart Weetjens trying to save lives through better landmine detection.

A study on the superior sense of smell in gerbils made Bart consider his pet rat and wonder if their superior intelligence, smell, and low cost could be the secret.

And crazy as it sounds, he was right, founding the nonprofit APOPO to train African giant pouched rats to discover 169,000 landmines freeing over 2 million people from these explosive threats.

But that was just the start, with these giant rats sniffing out tuberculosis in 32,000 people, and now combating illegal wildlife trafficking. 

These smart critters are given a harness with a bell on the front, ringing it when they detect a key item like ivory or pangolin scales, and getting rewarded with avocado and bananas.

The promising project is still relatively new but scientists are finding about 90% accuracy rates at detecting illegal wildlife products, which can be very difficult for authorities to find on their own, signalling that these rodents that usually disgust us might actually be the secret to finding crime networks and ending the illegal wildlife trade, protecting threatened species, and preserving biodiversity. 

So if a hated rodent can help save the natural world, it makes you wonder what other unique solutions are out there waiting to get started?

Tuesday, February 18 (watch here)

🦊 The global animal fur trade has massively declined over the past decade thanks to changing behavior in designers and consumers as well as lawmakers passing fur farming bans in dozens of countries and big cities, with supply of mink and fox pelts hitting record lows and continuing to drop (Statista)

🍫 Chocolate would be completely deforestation-free in Europe from literally a $0.01 raise in prices, per a study analyzing the EU’s deforestation law called EUDR which makes companies prove their products don’t contribute to deforestation, with minimal costs even if it falls to consumers (Profundo, ClientEarth)

⚠️ Those product labels that say an item has harmful chemicals known to California appear to be working despite mockery, as they’re part of the state’s right-to-know law that makes companies warn people about 900 different harmful chemicals in their products with a new study showing companies have since changed formulas and reduced these chemicals (Hiroko Tabuchi|NYT)

😌 And today’s community win comes from coffeeb33anie who helped their roommate work through some childhood trauma.

Wednesday, February 19 (watch here)

🧑‍🍳 Michelin Star chef Adam Simmonds is running the world’s first nonprofit fine-dining restaurant staffed by people who’ve experienced homelessness, with Home Kitchen giving training and support to employees to get back on their feet, with their success leading to plans of expanding around the world (Isobel Lewis|Positive News)

🐠 The Chel snakehead fish disappeared in 1933, with several searches for the bright freshwater species in the Himalayas ending empty handed, leading scientists to believe they were gone for good until three were just collected and confirmed, reminding us that we must continue to explore while protecting these habitats (Julia Jacobo|ABC)

💨 The world’s first wind turbine made of wood is being tested, with blades made from layers of wood glued together called laminated veneer lumber that have similar performance to fiberglass but are cheaper, fully recyclable, and could substantially reduce waste when replacing older blades (Jason Ross|Woodcentral)

⚡️ And today’s community win comes from the_willow_buckingham who finished their first semester of an electrical engineering degree with the goal to develop clean energy.

Thursday, February 20 (watch here)

🚄 The first high speed train line is moving forward in Canada which will connect Toronto and Quebec with fully electric rail moving 185 miles per hour, that will cut travel time in half compared to driving, create 51,000 jobs, and boost GDP by tens of billions of dollars (Peter Zimonjic, Mathieu Prost, Stéphane Bordeleau|CBC)

🐵 A baby boom of endangered species hit the London Zoo, bringing two golden lion tamarins named Pomelo and Clementine, a white-faced saki monkey named Fia, a critically endangered Alaotran gentle lemur, and two Asian short-clawed otters, each of which will help conserve these under threat species (London Zoo)

🔋 A whopping 10% of China’s GDP last year was generated by clean energy, largely driven by solar, batteries, and electric vehicles, with so much clean energy investment by the nation that it just about matched the fossil fuel investment for every other country combined (Lauri Myllyvirta|Carbon Brief)

🎭 And today’s community win comes from vegforce3 who’s creating a community theater to tell stories from marginalized groups.

Bonus!

🫐 My favorite headline I read this week: "Cockatoos prefer their noodles dunked in blueberry yogurt".

🌊 In case you missed it, a deep sea anglerfish made it to the surface on her last swim.

🪱 You can nominate the invertebrate of the year until March 4!

😁 Is joy an important part of taking action? Pattie Gonia thinks so.

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This newsletter was written by Jacob Simon. 800,000+ people are in our community across Instagram, TikTok, Threads, YouTube, and Bluesky. You can say hi on LinkedIn, or by emailing jacob@jacobsimonsays.com.