This 81-yr-old baby cuddler who gave $1 million to the NICU is your new favorite human.

Is there anything sweeter than seeing an old man cuddling a newborn baby? No, there isn't.

Except maybe when that gentleman donates a million dollars to the NICU where he's volunteered for the past year and a half.

Screenshot via ​University of South Alabama/Youtube​.

81-year-old Louis Mapp has become enamored with his role in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at USA Children's and Women's Hospital in Mobile, Alabama. Every Tuesday, he drives 45 minutes to the hospital to rock, feed, and burp babies whose families aren't able to be there 24/7. As a grandfather of eight and great-grandfather of two, he's an experienced baby cuddler, but he doesn't seem to tire of it.

"I love to look at their expressions when I rock them. This one is smiling at me right now, and it just makes your day to do that,"  Mapp told WKRG news.

Swoon.

Mapp's generosity of spirit is reflected in his million dollar donation to the hospital.

Through their foundation, Mapp and his wife, Melinda, have donated $1 million to the NICU be used however the doctors and nurses choose.  

“After being there and seeing what a special place it is, and what an impact they have on people’s lives, my wife and I decided we wanted to do something for them,” Mapp told PEOPLE. “We have been blessed, and we said, ‘What a good place, to share some of those blessings, with the NICU.’”

The Mapps wanted their endowment to be large enough that when the caregivers recognize a need that might not be in the budget, they'd have a pool of funds to draw from. He told WKRG that he was happy to give the money to a place that "has his heart."

Screenshot via ​University of South Alabama/Youtube​

Mapp says he's using his time left on earth to help others, giving us all a fresh round of #aginggoals.

Mapp has given out around 600 grants through his foundation, which have helped fund free clinics, food banks, and drug rehab programs. But he doesn't stop at donating money.

“Every day, I ask the Lord, ‘Show me, somebody, where I can help them,’ ” Mapp told PEOPLE. “It may not be financially, it may be giving them a ride, or making a phone call, but I figure, while I’m here on earth, I need to do everything I can to help others.”

Once a week, the answer to that prayer looks like rocking newborn babies, giving them the vital, hands-on care they need. The hospital serves families from a wide area, and some aren't able to stay at the hospital with their babies because they have to return to work, care for other children, or other reasons. So volunteers like Mapp provide the essential human touch newborn babies need, and get a regular dose of newborn wonder in return.

"These babies are so precious," Mapp told the University of Southern Alabama, "It's just hard to put it in words."

See? New favorite. Keep up the awesome humaning, Mr. Mapp.

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When mindfulness goes wrong.

Image by geralt via pixabay

By now, almost everyone is familiar with the purported benefits of meditation.

What was once a fringe spiritual practice in the West has, within the space of decades, transformed into a mainstay of modern culture and wellness advice.

Over the past few years, science has increasingly started to back popular claims about the effects of mindfulness and contemplation.

And studies now link regular attempts to focus our minds and calm our bodies via breathing exercises, chanting, or other meditative techniques to a host of benefits—everything from decreased stress and blood pressure, to increased cognitive abilities, to fundamental shifts in the way we process the world. Last January, Time even ran a cover story on America’s meditative “Mindful Revolution.”

Yet this rush to validate, package, and promote meditation as a universal good may actually come with unforeseen risks.

Although sitting and thinking may seem like an innocuous process, the fact remains that meditation is an altered state that we use as a tool to transform our bodies and minds.

And like any tool, although intended for good things—like introspectively confronting our thoughts and feelings and coming to terms with troubling realities—it can wind up causing harm when set towards tasks that it just isn’t meant for (like acting as a quick-fix concentration booster or anesthesia for emotional strife). In the case of meditation, as the practice proliferates in the West, we’ve become increasingly aware that for some people, especially those with mental or personality conditions, mindfulness can trigger anxiety, depressive episodes, or flashbacks to past traumas.

“Because meditation cultivates a type of witness awareness (I’m witnessing my thoughts, I am not my thoughts),” wrote Andrew Holecek, Buddhist spiritualist and teacher, “which if done properly can help us distance ourselves safely and beneficially from the contents of our mind, it can also exacerbate certain kinds of dissociative and depersonalization disorders.”

The Buddhist teachers and scriptures from which many Western teachers draw in creating their local adaptations of meditation regimens have long recognized these risks, with some texts describing anxiety and emotional pain as typical stages in one’s progress through meditative studies.

Some even describe these stresses as the mirror state to enlightenment, the confrontation of which is vital.

“There is a sutta [Buddhist scriptural verse]” where monks go crazy and commit suicide after doing contemplation on death,” writes Chris Kaplan of the Mind and Life Institute.

Photo by MeditationMusic.net via Flickr.

Most Buddhist teachers believe that, through the idiosyncratic personal guidance of a spiritual teacher and the supportive structure of institutions that have dealt with similar cases in years past, we can move past or benefit from confrontations with these troubling experiences.

But extracting good from the bad takes time, guidance, and patience that many of us in the meditative hoi polloi just don’t have access to or the inclination to use.  

Western practitioners have not completely ignored the risks that meditation poses. Groups like the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine have long included disclaimers in their descriptions of meditation and its benefits, pointing towards its potential dark side:

“Meditation is considered safe for healthy people. There have been rare reports that meditation could cause or worsen symptoms in people who have certain psychiatric problems, but this question has not been fully researched.”

Western practitioners have not completely ignored the risks that meditation poses. Groups like the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine have long included disclaimers in their descriptions of meditation and its benefits, pointing towards its potential dark side:

“Meditation is considered safe for healthy people. There have been rare reports that meditation could cause or worsen symptoms in people who have certain psychiatric problems, but this question has not been fully researched.”

Even this disclaimer (as is the wont of disclaimer style) makes the problem seem miniscule.

And it’s true that we don’t have a real sense of the scale of the problem in terms of the number of people it effects or the impact of negative meditative states. But the lack of research the NCCAM points to is now being filled by studies like Willoughby Britton’s Dark Night Project—a combination psychological study and recovery home for those damaged by meditation.

Britton was inspired to launch the project by two encounters during her psychiatry residency, when patients claimed severe emotional trauma caused by meditation.

These incidents were swiftly followed by her own personal case of meditative malaise that hit the problem home to the young psychiatrist and meditator.

“I thought that I had gone crazy,” recalls Britton of the experience. “I thought I was having a nervous breakdown. I mean I had no idea why I was suddenly having all these… like terror was a big symptom of [my own negative meditative episode].”

As of now, the Dark Night Project has catalogued several dozen cases of negative meditative experiences so powerful they resulted in months to years of psychological incapacitation; this is why Britton established a recovery center alongside the study.

It will be years until this data is actually compiled into a meaningful body of information. But even these initial anecdotes—along with other lurid and haphazard accounts of “spiritual sickness” and erratic, dangerous behavior brought on by extreme meditative retreats and practices—seem to suggest that the perils of meditation, even if niche, are worth popular consideration and address.  

Photo by Ruth Hartnup via Flickr.

As we await definitive studies, one of the best ways to resolve the issue may be to appeal to older meditative traditions that already recognize and cope with the downsides of meditation.

Some meditation researchers, like Pacific University’s Sarah Bowen, suggest that trauma may arise because Western meditative traditions bypass the rigorous practices and intensive guidance of older meditation cultures.

By treating meditation like a spiritual smoothie rather than an intense and complex practice, we run the risk of confronting meditation’s dark sides, or at least sinking into them more easily than those who have a framework of coping and recovery in place.

There may, then, be some benefit, even if only prophylactic, in seeking out meditation traditions that privilege structure. Promoting this style of meditative practice may help to deter those who don’t want to take meditation seriously from pursuing the practice too far down risky, fast track paths. Yet encouraging this type of moderation will be difficult, as humanity loves a simple, silver bullet solution (as so many believe meditation to be).

It seems likely that people will continue to suffer under the dark side of meditation until high profile cases reach a critical capacity or—as the pendulum of pop obsession starts to swing in the other direction—the meditative trend begins to regulate itself. Until then, if your post-yoga om session has your mind turning to anxious or disturbing thoughts that you just can’t process or move past, it might be a good idea to just get up and walk away, rather than pushing yourself into the void. Or if you’re dead set on meditating, at least find yourself a therapist or spiritual guide familiar with the practice who can help you work through the dark states you’re coming up against.

This article originally appeared on GOOD.

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This mom left an abusive relationship and fell into poverty. Here’s how she got out.

Almost 10 years ago, Stephanie Land and her baby daughter Mia had no choice but to check into a homeless shelter.

Stephanie was fleeing an abusive relationship. She had no family to turn to, and she couldn't afford a place of her own. For the next three months, she and Mia lived in the Port Townsend homeless shelter in Washington.

Stephanie knew she needed help — and that's why one of the places she turned to was the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).

Applying for SNAP benefits can be an an ordeal under the best circumstances, but it was even more challenging for Stephanie because she lacked internet access. Thankfully, her persistence paid off and she soon began receiving benefits to help her pay for food.

Photo via iStock.

Her SNAP benefits were usually $200 to $300 a month — a mere $7 to $10 a day — and it was often all she had to pay for food.

But the SNAP benefits went a long way for her family. Mia was a picky eater, so Stephanie had to get creative to make sure she was getting as much nutritious food as she could afford. Sometimes that meant adding vegetables and a homemade sauce to packages of instant ramen to get Mia to eat them.

It was a process, but ultimately, SNAP, along with other welfare benefits like health care and child care, helped them stay afloat while Stephanie looked for work.

Photo via iStock.

Unfortunately, looking for work was easier said than done during the 2008 recession.

"All the jobs that were available during normal child care hours were more professional jobs," Stephanie recalls.

The only jobs she could get were entry-level, minimum-wage jobs that usually involved her working late hours, when affordable child care services are rarely available.

This balancing act of working low-paying jobs, caring for her daughter, and living on welfare wore on Stephanie. But she knew that college could be her ticket out of it.

The Land family in their studio apartment in low-income housing. Photo via Stephanie Land.

Stephanie applied for and received the Pell Grant and the Women's Independence Scholarship, which helps survivors of domestic violence pay tuition. She also took out student loans.  

While these helped significantly, she had to keep working because the federal benefits she needed to survive — like food stamps — would only continue if she was working at least 20 hours a week.

As a full-time student and single mom, working that much proved near impossible. But Stephanie kept pushing forward, relying on her resourcefulness and persistence to make it to each next day.

"I learned the only person I really had to depend on is myself," she says.

Stephanie Land. Image via Stephanie Land/Stepville.

Stephanie didn't feel comfortable turning to friends for support during this time because she knew some of them believed that people who rely on federal benefits are lazy, entitled, and refuse to work hard.

It's a hurtful stigma and, unfortunately, one that many believe about people who have no choice but to rely on programs like SNAP.

"Being on food stamps and on Facebook at the same time, you learn what your friends really think of people on welfare," Stephanie explains. "You learn pretty quickly not to offer that information readily."

While Stephanie is proof positive that this stigma's message is false, she still felt embarrassed about needing federal assistance. In fact, it was that discomfort that made her all the more determined to change her situation.

After six years of hard work, she graduated with a bachelor's degree in English and started making a living wage writing.

Stephanie and Mia. Photo via Stephanie Land.

She wrote about various aspects of her day-to-day life, like working as a house cleaner and being a single mom living on $6 a day.

"I found a niche that not too many people can write about from a first-person perspective," Stephanie says.

She can  provide a window into a world that's often just speculated over rather than clearly seen. Many people push away the idea of poverty because they want to believe it could never happen to them. Through her insightful writing, though, Stephanie has proven no one is immune.  

"While it’s terrifying to come out and openly admit those things, it was also something people needed to read about," Stephanie says. "Especially from someone who doesn’t fit the stereotypical image of what people connect with someone living in poverty."

When an article Stephanie wrote for Vox about cleaning houses went viral, she got a call from a well-known literary agent the same day asking to sign her. A year later, she was offered a book deal.  

Today, Stephanie lives in her first real house with her two daughters.

"It was quite a moment finally watching my girls play in a backyard," she recalls.

But, she says, she'll never forget those years she lived in poverty.  

Stephanie with her daughters Coraline (left) and Mia (right). Photo via Stephanie Land.

She's written about her experience for a number of publications, including The New York Times and The Washington Post. She's also a regular writer for the Center for Community Change, whose mission is to help improve low-income families' lives. And she's received a number of emails from people who were, or currently are, dealing with the issues she's faced, thanking her for giving them a voice.

As a result, she looks at the world through a different filter — one of compassion for everyone she comes across.

"I try not to make any assumptions about other people’s lives because it’s so easy to suddenly be in that place where you have nowhere to go," Stephanie explains. "And you never know who’s going through something like that."

If you or someone you know is living in poverty or with food insecurity, a good first step for them to take is to call 211 or check out 211.org online. There, you can find information about the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) as well as many other federal assistance programs.

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Coming out of invisibility.

In September 2014, novelist and activist Julie Sondra Decker released a personal yet rigorous work of non-fiction. The Invisible Orientation: An Introduction to Asexuality made waves as one of the first majorly distributed and easily accessible books exploring asexuality, one of the world’s least understood, and only recently defined, sexual identities.

But what’s more important is the fact that the book debuted on the heels of this year’s second International Asexuality Conferenceheld in Toronto and the asexual community’s largest ever presence in Pride parades worldwide. After years of rejection by, isolation from, and being pathologized by straight and queer communities alike, it seems as if asexuality is now approaching a breakthrough in acceptance and visibility, thanks in large part to the culmination of more than a decade’s worth of work by activists to form a cohesive community.

Despite the progress made, the concept of asexuality is new enough that relatively few have a truly firm grasp on what the term actually means. In brief, asexuality refers to those who identify their sexual orientation by a lack of sexual attraction—not to be confused with celibacy, which is a choice, but rather a natural lack of interest. Beyond that, the identity gets far more complex. Many actually consider picking apart and analyzing the layers of their sexuality, the differences between arousal, sex drive, and attraction, to be part of asexual life.

You may encounter asexuals who have no interest in sexual intercourse, but do enjoy bonding emotionally and showing physical affection to a partner.

You may meet others who have no interest in relationships of any kind. You may meet some who remain virgins and some who will have sex for a partner’s sake, others who can feel limited attraction after getting to know someone and others who are asexual but only bond with members of the same gender. There are dozens of subcategories by which one can divide and niche one’s asexuality before even approaching the notion of fluid and ever-changing sexual identities and preferences.

Asexuality didn’t emerge as a clear category or identity until at least 1948, when the seminal Kinsey Report identified a group, at least 1.5 percent of the population, which didn’t fit within its scale of sexual attraction.

Early surveys of this population found that between 64 and 71 percent were women and that 17 to 18 percent were completely uninterested in relationships. But it wasn’t until 2002, when a study at Brock University in Canada revealed that 15 percent of healthy rams—with no physical or hormonal defects—shared this lack of interest in sexual bonding, that the mass media started to seriously consider a lack of sexual interest as a legitimate state of sexual existence rather than an aberration or the side effect of some trauma. In 2006 the Brock University researchers, who had branched into studying humans as well, went on to place asexuality on equal footing with the commonly accepted categorizations of hetero-, homo-, and bisexuality in human experience.

But as soon as people started to publicly equate asexuality with other queer identities, like homosexuality or transgender, there was backlash from LGBTQIgroups. Some believed that asexuality as an identity and asexuals as individuals were trying to hop onto the LGBTQI train without facing the same levels of visible discrimination; some accused them of being closeted queer folk unwilling to disclose their true sexual identity and thus hiding behind a false label.

Asexual activists refute this by noting that they are still classified as a pathological disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders and described as individuals with low self esteem, social anxiety, and depression in studies on their identity. They also point out that they face the constant discrimination of people denying their identity and trying to “fix” them by bringing them into a world of sexual engagement, not to mention the fact that, without sex, their relationships are often denied legal legitimacy, they face the risk of spousal rape, and they have no real protection under federal non-discrimination legislation.

As for the claim that they hide from sexual identity, activists note that their entire identity is built around constantly questioning their sexual feelings, with one asexual writer excerpting a stereotypical asexual conversation: “Ah, yes, you appear to be a demiromantic panromantic demisensual repulsed asexual, but have you thought about your aesthetic attractions and libido yet? Here, let me show you 40 different models…” Given this complexity, asexuals point out, many asexuals may actually intersect in their non-sexual attractions with LGB, trans, and non-binary identities and attractions. Although many still contest the legitimacy of the identity, arguments like this have earned asexuals inclusion in major LGBTQI resources like the Trevor Project’s suicide prevention hotline.

As for where all these arguments and asexual activists are coming from, we largely have one lonely teen to thank: David Jay, now a 32-year-old asexual activist who tried to Google non-sexual identities back at the start of the millennium and began to feel isolated when the search only yielded studies of amoebas.

So, in 2001, he launched the Asexuality Visibility and Education Network as a resource for those who felt similarly sequestered, including those who are simply questioning or curious about their identities. Now with 80,000 active members (including Julie Sondra Decker who first explored her identity through AVEN), it’s the largest asexual community in the world with resources detailing how to assess one’s identity, handle relationships, and come out to friends and family.

In the years since AVEN was founded, countless other resources and meeting places have sprung up for asexuals: from Tumblr communities to storytelling projects to a community site called Acebook replete with asexual symbols and jokes. As of 2009, asexuals started showing a visible and united presence at Pride parades, creating their own flag in 2010 and launching the International Asexuality Conference and Asexuality Awareness days and weeks by 2012. And thanks to a slew of articles following the release of the documentary (A)sexual in 2011, the identity is starting to reach mass consciousness.

Perhaps most importantly, though, even if the identity is not totally accepted even in sexual rights communities, it is now a cohesive community itself. It has developed its own terminology, like Ace for asexuals, and fictional icons like Dr. Who or Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory. And it’s even seen members of the community highlighted explicitly in soap operas and other elements of mass media. There’s still a ways to go yet before the asexual community will have addressed much of the stigma against it and achieved true mainstream recognition, though, but it’s no longer quite as brutally lonely to be an asexual in 2014, and that’s certainly something worth celebrating.

This article originally appeared on GOOD.

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Someone Dumped A Cat At A Shelter Overnight In A Terrible Condition, But After Shaving Its Fur They Saw A True Beauty

Sadly, the folks at Douglas County Animal Care & Services in Gardnerville, Nevada, are well accustomed to receiving anonymous animal dumping outside of regular work hours, but this one was even more heartbreaking than usual.

On arrival at the shelter one morning, shelter supervisor Liz Begovich and her collegues came across an animal carrier, with a huge ball of unidentifiable fluff inside. “All we saw was a matted mess,” Liz told The Dodo.

What could this poor creature be? The shelter staff’s first guess was that it must be a dog, given that dogs are generally less fastidious about their grooming than cats. It was time to open the carrier and find out. “We couldn’t turn him around because of the way he was shoved in the carrier,” Liz said. “So we took the top off and thought, ‘Oh my gosh, it’s a cat!’ I’ve never seen a cat in that sort of condition.”

It was really bad. The cat was a prisoner of its own fur, barely able to move under the tangled, matted layers. He was overweight due to lack of exercise, and whoever had owned him must presumably just brought food and water and put it right under his nose.

“We immediately took him to the vet where they sedated him,” Liz continued. “They shaved about 4.5 pounds of hair off of him. It filled a full-size kitchen trash bag.” The sudden freedom immediately lifted the confidence of the previously dreadlocked cat, who they cheekily named Bob Marley. “Once the hair was off, he was walking around. I saw him looking up at the counter thinking, ‘I can jump up there.’ I thought, ‘No you can’t.’”

Bob now has a loving home, who can help him recover from years of neglect, as well as shed all those excess pounds he is carrying around. At 10 years old he still has many good years ahead of him! He has turned out to be such a handsome devil, and was adopted within a few days.

The authorities are making inquiries to try to find Bob’s previous owner, the man who dumped him was captured on CCTV and the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office is asking for the public’s assistance in identifying this person. Perhaps he was a Good Samaritan, having rescued Bob and dropped him at the shelter for treatment, nobody knows. Liz herself is unsure, but has doubts about any good intentions from the mystery man. “Normally, when someone leaves an animal after hours, there’s usually more to the story. It’s typically not a Good Samaritan who found an animal on the side of the road,” she said. “We would really like to know the backstory. There could be other animals in this house, wherever this cat came from, who are in the same condition.”

Either way, the truth will surely emerge eventually. The main thing is that Bob is happy, loved and free of his shackles. Scroll down below to check him out for yourself, and let us know what you think in the comments!

An unidentified man was caught on CCTV leaving an animal carrier in front of an animal shelter recently

Image credits: Douglas County Sheriff’s Office

Image credits: Douglas County Sheriff’s Office

The shelter staff’s first guess was that it must be a dog, given that dogs are generally less fastidious about their grooming than cats

Image credits: Douglas County Animal Care & Services

“We couldn’t turn him around because of the way he was shoved in the carrier”

Image credits: Douglas County Animal Care & Services

“So we took the top off and thought, ‘Oh my gosh, it’s a cat!’ I’ve never seen a cat in that sort of condition”

Image credits: Douglas County Animal Care & Services

The cat was a prisoner of its own fur, barely able to move under the tangled, matted layers

Image credits: Douglas County Animal Care & Services

“They shaved about 4.5 pounds of hair off of him. It filled a full-size kitchen trash bag”

Image credits: Douglas County Animal Care & Services

It turned out the formerly dreadlocked cat, who the shelter cheekily named Bob Marley, was also severely overweight

Image credits: Douglas County Animal Care & Services

The new dashingly handsome Bob was put up for adoption, and now has a loving home

Image credits: Douglas County Animal Care & Services

As for the previous owner, some people came to defend the man that was caught on tape

However, others weren’t buying it

What do you think? Let us know in the comments!

420Kviews

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This insect-inspired robot can fly a kilometer on a charge with its flappy wings

The incredible agility of the common house or fruit fly puts every drone and robot to shame, but devices inspired by them are beginning to catch up. A new four-winged flapping robot not only successfully imitates the fruit fly’s hyper-agile flying method, but can travel for up to a kilometer before running out of juice.

Robotics researchers at the Delft University of Technology wanted to create a flying platform that could imitate and test theories on how insects fly the way they do, but without tethers or non-animal propulsion like propellers.

It’s not just that they want a cool robot: The way insects respond to things like gusts of wind or an imminent slapping hand demonstrate incredible reaction times and control feedback, things that could inform autonomous craft like drones or even small airplanes. Wouldn’t it be nice to know your jet could autonomously and smoothly dodge a lightning bolt?

The trouble is that when you get much bigger than an insect, that method of flying doesn’t always work any more due to the differences in mass, drag and so on. As the researchers put it in their paper, which made the cover of Science:

Because of technological challenges arising from stringent weight and size restrictions, most existing designs cannot match the flight performance of their biological counterparts; they lack the necessary agility, sufficient power to take off, or sufficient energy to fly for more than a minute.

Not only that, but tiny robots like the Robobee require a wired power connection, and other tiny flapping craft require manual piloting. Can’t have that! So rather than slavishly imitate the biology of a single animal, the team focused on how to achieve similar flight characteristics at a realistic scale.

The four-winged, tailless style of their creation, the DelFly Nimble, is novel but evidently effective. Their robot can go 7 meters per second, or about 15 MPH, hover in place or perform all kinds of extreme motions like dives and rolls smoothly. It’s no joke doing that using rotors with continuous thrust, let alone via coordinated wing movement. You can see it perform a few more capers in the video here.

Perhaps most amazing is its range; the robot can travel for a kilometer on a single charge. That sort of spec is the kind that military R&D directors love to hear about.

But the DelFly Nimble is already producing interesting scientific data, as lead researcher Matěj Karásek explains:

In contrast to animal experiments, we were in full control of what was happening in the robot’s ‘brain.’ This allowed us to identify and describe a new passive aerodynamic mechanism that assists the flies, but possibly also other flying animals, in steering their direction throughout these rapid banked turns.

Development is continuing, and no doubt biologists and three-letter agencies have tendered letters of interest to the Dutch inventors.

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New Breakthrough For Early Diagnosis Of “Silent Killer” Ovarian Cancer

The discovery of a new protein has real potential to save thousands of people’s lives.

Ovarian cancer is known by many as a “silent killer". The American Cancer Society estimates that 22,240 women will receive a new diagnosis of ovarian cancer this year. About 14,070 of them will also die from the disease.

Early symptoms are usually hard to spot or are fairly nondescript, such as indigestion and discomfort in the lower abdomen, meaning it’s difficult to diagnose the disease early and treat it before things get worse.

“The majority of diagnoses for ovarian cancer come during stage three, when the cancer has spread to other areas of the body, which has a direct impact on the chances of patients’ surviving,” Dr Barbara Guinn, a cancer immunologist at the University of Hull in the UK, explained in a statement.

Now, scientists have identified a biomarker protein that’s found within the tissues of people still in the early stages of the disease. The research, led by a team at Hull, was presented at the British Science Festival earlier this week. Their preliminary research has found the biomarker was detectable in 18 percent of stage one cancers, 36 percent of stage two cancers, and 17 percent of stage three cancer samples.

The detection of proteins in urine has proved a great way to diagnose other cancers promptly and accurately, so the researchers are hoping next to find out whether the biomarker is present and easily detectable in people's urine. Although this research is very much in its early days, the hope is that scientists will eventually be able to utilize the newly identified protein to create a urine test that's non-invasive, low-cost, and effective.

Provided all of this goes to plan, the researchers estimate that this could really make a difference when it comes to saving lives.

“A stage three diagnosis can mean survival rates as low as 20 percent, but with early detection, that can be increased dramatically to around 90 percent,” added Dr Guinn.

Ovarian Cancer Action, a UK-based research charity, was cautiously optimistic about the “exciting” breakthrough. In a blog post, they explained: “While many of these studies show exciting early promise, identifying proteins in tissue samples in a laboratory is far simpler than identifying these cells in the human body. Until a diagnostic test has gone through the full stages of testing in animals and people, we cannot be certain that it works.”

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Ariana Grande Skipped Out On The Emmys To Heal And Mend WithPete Davidson – Perez Hilton

Ariana Grande decided to sit this one out.

The Sweetener singer was expected to attend the 2018 Emmys on Monday to support her fiancé Pete Davidson, making what would have been her first public appearance since

Fans grew excited over the weekend when a preliminary seating chart surfaced showing the couple’s place cards next to each other in Los Angeles’ Microsoft Theater. Come award night, however, Ari was nowhere to be found.

According to the 25-year-old’s rep, she decided to take the night off to “heal and mend” instead — and super-fiancé Pete ended up staying home with her, despite his show Saturday Night Live landing 21 nominations.

The rep explained in a statement to People:

“Contrary to reports, Ariana will not be attending the Emmys tonight. Pete has also opted to not attend to be with her in New York.”

We don’t blame her for wanting to lie low.

Based on the rest of the statement, though, it may be a while until fans get to see Ariana in the flesh again. The rep added:

“Given the events of the past couple of years, Ariana is going to take some much needed time to heal and mend. She will be staying close to home and using this period to spend time with her loved ones and work on new music without deadline. She thanks her fans for their understanding.”

Come back when you’re good and ready, girl.

[Image via Patricia Schlein/WENN.]

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Trust No One: Weekly Horoscopes For September 17-21 Betches

Heads up, Uranus and Mars are acting insane this week, and they’re turning you into a crazy person. Think twice before making any rash decisions and, for the love of God, run any late night Insta stories by your most levelheaded friend. You’ll be grateful that you did, trust me. Here are your weekly horoscopes for September 17-21.

Aries

Repeat after me:Put. The. Amex. Down. Your mind wants to go on a spending spree this week that your (already maxed out) credit card can’t handle. Resist the urge to hit “proceed to checkout.” Don’t pop into that cute little boutique just to “try stuff on.” And whatever you do, do not—I repeat, do not—even look at Sephora. Nothing good can come of it. 

Taurus

Um… there’s no delicate way to put this, Taurus, but you’re horny as hell this week. It’s fine. It’s natural. Just make sure you don’t scare the object of your affections away with this intense thirstiness. There’s nothing wrong with remaining a little mysterious. And, as always, please remember to cut your face out of any nudes before sending.

Gemini

This week you’re at risk of falling for someone’s bullsh*t, so keep on high alert, Gemini. Whether it be the date who had to cancel last minute because his sister’s cat was sick (again), the frenemy who said she only screenshotted your latest snap for “style inspo”, or the coworker who keeps accidentally-on-purpose taking credit for your work, people are testing you this week. Don’t fall for it. Demand to see the receipts. Be that b*tch.

Cancer

Hmmm okay Cancer, are you a mixture of sweet preserves made from fruit that people spread on toast? Because this week you are jelly. (See what I did there?) This week is full of jealousy and suspicion for you, Cancer, so do what you can to limit your Instagram intake. The scroll will absolutely f*ck you up. And when you’re having a hard time not losing your sh*t over Megan from middle school’s beach bod in Mykonos, remember: no one’s life is actually as good as it looks on social media.

Leo

Your hard work is going to pay off this week, Leo, you just have to show the f*ck up. You’re poised for big things to happen with your career, so this is not the time to call out sick or slack off. You want to make sure you’re right in the boss’ face while they’re looking for who to give the next big opportunity to, so pop an Emergen-C and get to work.

Virgo

To cancel plans, or not to cancel plans? That is the question facing you this week, Virgo. On the one hand, you’ve filled your plate with tons of obligations you can’t get out of. On the other hand, you’ve got a strong urge to say “f*ck it!” and cancel everything in favor of a Netflix binge. They key will be finding a balance. Take a good look at your schedule and decide what things have to happen this week, and what can be procrastinated away. You’ll get that binge in, we promise.

Libra

You’re feeling glam this week, Libra, so embrace it. The urge for a personal brand update is strong, so why not give in and treat yo’self to a personal makeover. A blowout, a facial, or just trying out some new hair and makeup tutorials on YouTube could help you to finally feel like your outsides and your fabulous insides are in sync.

Scorpio

You’re antisocial this week, Scorpio, and that’s fine. We all need time to recharge, and you’ve been Queen Bee-ing it socially all month. No wonder you’re exhausted. Do yourself a favor and drop out of those weekend plans now so you can make room in your schedule for what you really want: a face mask and reruns of The Office. Your friends will still be there once the weekend is over, we promise.

Sagittarius

IDK how to say this nicely, Sagittarius, but this week you really need to shut the f*ck up. Your communication skills (which are usually on point, btw) are totally out of whack and it’s probably best if you keep your opinions to yourself (and/or your most sacred group chat). No need to subtweet or post a cryptic Insta Story. Even if you’re right, it’s just not a good look and you’re in no place to articulate your opinions in a normal, non-psycho way. But don’t worry, your killer instincts will be back soon and you can resume talking sh*t.

Capricorn

Good Lord, Capricorn, ever heard of impulse control? Slow down. Take a breath. Download a meditation app and think before you buy/speak/text/post. You’d do well to second-guess literally everything you want to do this week. Do you really need those boots? Should you really text your ex that amazing comeback you just thought of for something he said three years ago? Does your mom really need to hear all the details of that weird hookup you had last weekend? The answer is no. No to all. Try to keep that in mind.

Aquarius

You’re torn between being good to yourself and being good to your friends this week, Aquarius. On the one hand, your best friends is going through her fourth breakup with the same old f*ckboy and this time it seems really serious. On the other hand, if you have to listen to Jessica talk about Brad one more time you might actually kill her. Be honest with yourself about what you can and can’t handle, and try to meet your friend halfway. Meeting up with Jess to swipe through Hinge and find her a new man over coffee: good. Meeting up with Jess to watch her cry for 10 hours then re-draft the same angry text she’s sent Brad 100 times before: bad.

Pisces

Stop focusing on the past, Pisces! This week you’re going to feel tempted to re-hash every argument you’ve had since MTV still played music videos, and it’s going to do you absolutely no good. Should that guy you met at Coachella in 2010 have texted you back? Of course. Should your ex have run it by you before asking out your younger cousin? Definitely. Will it help you to go Facebook and put them all on blast publicly? Absolutely not. It’s time to move on.

Images: Giphy (6)

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The Atlantic poaches Alex Hardiman from Facebook to lead product

The Atlantic has hired Facebook’s Alex Hardiman to head up its business and product efforts. She’ll join in the fall from Facebook, where she’s been serving as the social media giant’s head of news products.

In her new role, Hardiman will focus on digital consumer revenue, audience experience and product strategy, leading The Atlantic’s product, engineering, data and growth teams.

“I’ve always been a news person,” Hardiman said in a Facebook post. “It’s my passion during the workday and my guilty pleasure on nights and weekends. It’s why I spent a decade at The Times before coming to Facebook to help tackle some of the company’s formidable news challenges, and it’s why I’m now joining The Atlantic at a unique moment in its history.”

Hardiman joined Facebook in 2016, just as criticism against the platform for its role in spreading “fake news” began to spread like wildfire. She was promoted to lead its news efforts on the product side in May 2017. Before that, she spent more than a decade at The New York Times, completing her tenure as vice president of news products.

Alex Hardiman, former VP of product at The NY Times, will take the lead on Facebook’s news products

“Her leadership positions at both Facebook and The New York Times give her an unrivaled perspective on digital media, and her audience-first focus will sharpen the appeal of our work,” The Atlantic president Bob Cohn said in a statement. “All this will serve us extremely well as we aggressively expand our ambitions for 2019 and beyond.”   

At Facebook, Hardiman was involved in a variety of projects, including removing the trending feature and launching Facebook Watch. Both initiatives were part of a greater effort to remove fake news from the site and provide new avenues for more reliable news from trusted sources.

“Alex is a true leader who built a fantastic team,” a representative from Facebook told me. “She helped develop a framework and key news products for both people on Facebook and publishers. We wish her nothing but the best at The Atlantic.”

Here’s Hardiman’s full statement:

A Personal Update

I have some news to share: after two deeply gratifying years at Facebook, I’ve decided to leave and join The Atlantic in the fall.

I’ve always been a news person. It’s my passion during the workday and my guilty pleasure on nights and weekends. It’s why I spent a decade at The Times before coming to Facebook to help tackle some of the company’s formidable news challenges, and it’s why I’m now joining The Atlantic at a unique moment in its history.

Facebook has given me so many things for which I’m profoundly grateful: wildly talented colleagues, great relationships with news organizations that are reinventing their future, and deep humility for the difficulty of solving nuanced problems at Facebook’s scale. Facebook has a long way to go, but there’s important progress being made to rebuild trust with consumers and publishers. The people behind the scenes work like crazy to make that happen and they often fly under the radar, but you can read more about some of them here: https://www.cnet.com/…/the-cure-for-facebooks-fake-news-in…/. I’m proud of the News team’s mission-driven ethos and I couldn’t be more confident and optimistic about its future.

It therefore required an extraordinary opportunity to compel me to move on. The Atlantic has always been a part of my life when things got complicated. When I was conflicted about how to pursue professional ambition and motherhood at the same time, I found Anne Marie Slaughter’s perspective to be the most refreshing and relatable take on the issue. When I was trying to make sense of President Obama’s foreign policy, Jeffrey Goldberg’s reporting brought radical clarity and honesty to my understanding of America. Since before the Civil War, The Atlantic has consistently defined the most ambitious and contentious ideas of the moment. In today’s political and social climate, its role has never been more vital.

So when I met with The Atlantic and Emerson Collective teams to learn about the next phase of investment and growth, I already knew how much of a privilege it would be to join them. In my new role, I’ll be partnering with teams across The Atlantic to create digital products that people love, grow the company’s consumer revenue line, and transform The Atlantic from a media-centric organization to a leader in media and product. After having built products with hundreds of news organizations at Facebook from the outside, I’m particularly excited to return to tackle these opportunities with The Atlantic from within.

Facebook friends: thank you for everything. I’ve learned so much from you and have an unwavering appreciation for all that you do to better serve the people and publishers who use your products.

Future Atlantic colleagues: I can’t wait to get to work and join you on this important mission. Thank you for having me.

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Emmys 2018: Winner Proposes To Girlfriend On Live TV! WATCH HERE! – Perez Hilton

Now THIS is good TV!

On Monday, at the 2018 Emmys, Glenn Weiss won the award for Directing for a Variety Special for his work on the Oscars.

However, while on stage, the director asked his girlfriend Jan Svendsen for her hand in marriage!

After the lucky woman walks up, Glenn gets on one knee and proposes! As seen here:

And the award for first (and best) proposal at the #Emmys goes to! pic.twitter.com/SRXxlBpuoW

— IGN (@IGN) September 18, 2018

Out of everyone in the audience, Leslie Jones had the BEST reaction!

We were all @Lesdoggg during that #Emmys proposal! pic.twitter.com/kiDdbVPW48

— TODAY (@TODAYshow) September 18, 2018

After the moment went viral, social media couldn’t contain their excitement! See all the reactions (below):

I DON’T KNOW WHO THIS GUY IS BUT SHOOT YOUR SHOT BRO #Emmys pic.twitter.com/ZbceeFcT1m

— Debra Greene (@msdebragreene) September 18, 2018

No pressure, Jan. You’re just getting proposed to on stage on national TV during the #Emmys. At least 300 people are watching.

— April (@ReignOfApril) September 18, 2018

This dude for real is proposing to his girl at the #Emmys pic.twitter.com/tsKN4d9mmo

— Erica Bush (@elbush) September 18, 2018

Maybe the greatest Emmys moment ever??!!

A proposal! Wow!! Even I’m tearing up…#Emmys pic.twitter.com/fvMMPqGq85

— Elex Michaelson (@Elex_Michaelson) September 18, 2018

#Emmys: a proposal on live television between 2 people whose names I don't know and whose relationship I have no investment in.

Me: pic.twitter.com/IEFTPp60kI

— JW (@Jesst_Lovely) September 18, 2018

[Image via Twitter.]

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Facebooks new SapFix AI automatically debugs your code

Facebook has quietly built and deployed an artificial intelligence programming tool called SapFix that scans code, automatically identifies bugs, tests different patches and suggests the best ones that engineers can choose to implement. Revealed today at Facebook’s @Scale engineering conference, SapFix is already running on Facebook’s massive code base and the company plans to eventually share it with the developer community.

“To our knowledge, this marks the first time that a machine-generated fix — with automated end-to-end testing and repair — has been deployed into a codebase of Facebook’s scale,” writes Facebook’s developer tool team. “It’s an important milestone for AI hybrids and offers further evidence that search-based software engineering can reduce friction in software development.” SapFix can run with or without Sapienz, Facebook’s previous automated bug spotter. It uses it in conjunction with SapFix, suggesting solutions to problems Sapienz discovers.

These types of tools could allow smaller teams to build more powerful products, or let big corporations save a ton on wasted engineering time. That’s critical for Facebook as it has so many other problems to worry about.

Glow AI hardware partners

Meanwhile, Facebook is pressing forward with its strategy of reorienting the computing hardware ecosystem around its own machine learning software. Today it announced that its Glow compiler for machine learning hardware acceleration has signed up the top silicon manufacturers, like Cadence, Esperanto, Intel, Marvell, and Qualcomm, to support Glow. The plan mirrors Facebook’s Open Compute Project for open sourcing server designs and Telecom Infra Project for connectivity technology.

Glow works with a wide array of machine learning frameworks and hardware accelerators to speed up how they perform deep learning processes. It was open sourced earlier this year at Facebook’s F8 conference.

“Hardware accelerators are specialized to solve the task of machine learning execution. They typically contain a large number of execution units, on-chip memory banks, and application-specific circuits that make the execution of ML workloads very efficient,” Facebook’s team writes. “To execute machine learning programs on specialized hardware, compilers are used to orchestrate the different parts and make them work together . . . Hardware partners that use Glow can reduce the time it takes to bring their product to market.”

Facebook VP of infrastructure Jason Taylor

Essentially, Facebook needs help in the silicon department. Instead of isolating itself and building its own chips like Apple and Google, it’s effectively outsourcing the hardware development to the experts. That means it might forego a competitive advantage from this infrastructure, but it also allows it to save money and focus on its core strengths.

“What I talked about today was the difficulty of predicting what chip will really do well in the market. When you build a piece of silicon, you’re making predictions about where the market is going to be in two years” Facebook’s VP of infrastructure Jason Taylor tells me. “The big question is if the workload that they design for is the worlflow that’s really important at the time.You’re going to see this fragmentation. At Facebook, wew want to work with all the partners out there so we have good options now and over the next several years.” Essentially, by partnering with all the chip makers instead of building its own, Facebook future-proofs its software against volatility in which chip becomes the standard.

The technologies aside, the Scale conference was evidence that Facebook will keep hacking, policy scandals be damned. There was nary a mention of Cambridge Analytica or election interference as a packed room of engineers chuckled to nerdy jokes during keynotes packed with enough coding jargon to make the unindoctrinated assume it was in another language. If Facebook is burning, you couldn’t tell from here

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