15 Times People Did Their Part to Help out the Environment

These gestures might be small, but small things add up in the end. And we all need to do our part to help out the environment cause it is not doing great, folks.

Whether it’s recycling, using less water, cutting down on electricity, or any number of things, DO YOUR PART.

These people sure did, and the ideas are wonderful.

Take a look.

1. A great idea.

The Cafe at my closest beach gives free drinks to people who collect a bucket of litter from the beach from mildlyinteresting

2. That is very impressive.

Turns out my pencil is made of recycled newspaper! from mildlyinteresting

3. Good beer, too!

Carlsberg using glue to make six packs instead of plastic. from mildlyinteresting

4. Plant it when you’re done with it.

Got an event bracelet that can be planted from mildlyinteresting

5. Get rid of those pesky cups.

An ice cream cup made of banana leaves from mildlyinteresting

6. Bake some bread!

My grocery store started selling overripe bananas for cheap with a recipe for banana bread on the bag from mildlyinteresting

7. Keep it going.

You can charge this battery with a micro USB from mildlyinteresting

8. Eliminates so many bottles.

Refill Station at Simon Fraser University, Canada. from ZeroWaste

9. Not plastic, but plant starch.

This cup is made from plant starch, not plastic from mildlyinteresting

10. Plant your pencil.

My pencil has seeds on the tip, so when it’s too small to use it you can plant it and a tree will grow out of it from mildlyinteresting

11. Reducing more waste is crucial.

This super market had tiny paper bags instead of plastic containers to reduce waste from mildlyinteresting

12. Much better than discarding it.

Every day after closing, this local bakery leaves out a bag of their unsold pastries that people can take from freely instead of throwing them away and make unnecessary waste from mildlyinteresting

13. These look great!

The bowling alley in my neighbourhood tore up old lanes and used them to renovate the washrooms. from pics

14. Get rid of those butts.

I bought a pack of cigarettes and they came with a postage paid recycling pouch. from mildlyinteresting

15. This is awesome!

I don’t know about you, but I find all of those examples very inspiring.

What are you doing to help out the environment? Share your ideas in the comments!

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After Almost Losing His Mother, This Teen Invented a Bra That Can Detect Breast Cancer Early

I bet we’ll be hearing from this young man for many years.

After Julián Ríos Cantú watched his mother endure two bouts with breast cancer, the 18-year-old from Mexico decided he wanted to help out other women who might not have access to affordable healthcare.

Posted by Julián Ríos Cantú on Monday, November 20, 2017

Cantú’s mother ended up having a mastectomy. Standard screenings missed the lumps in his mother’s breasts because her high breast density obscured the growths. Cantú said, “At that moment, I realized that if that was the case for a woman with private insurance and a prevention mindset, then for most women in developing countries, like Mexico where we’re from, the outcome could’ve not been a mastectomy but death.”

Cantú took matters into his own hands, inventing Eva, a “bio-sensing bra insert” that uses thermal sensing and artificial intelligence to create a thermal map of women’s breasts. Abnormal temperatures and tumor growth are related, and an Eva insert can help women detect cancerous growths. It also helps with the self-examination process.

As things stand today, patients don’t have a lot of options for early detection of breast cancer. If you’re under 45, you can’t receive mammograms due to concerns about exposure to radiation. Even if you’re over that age, mammograms can be very expensive.

The Eva technology does not emit any radiation, and women of all ages can wear the insert.

The company has performed clinical trials on more than 2,000 women in Mexico. Eva’s website says,

“Eva’s technology is approved by the FDA as an adjunct method for breast cancer detection in section 884.2980 Teletermographic Systems. Similarly, Eva Clinic operates under the highest ethical standards, strictly following the Official Mexican Standard NOM-041-SSA2-2011, for the prevention, diagnosis, treatment, control, and surveillance of breast cancer.”

The product is now available for use at certified Eva clinics, but who knows? Maybe someday it’ll be in our houses, helping women detect breast cancer even earlier.

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Scientists Say That North America Has Lost 3 Billion Birds in the Last 50 Years

We’ve heard all about the plight of the bees that are disappearing at an alarming rate across the world, but the situation with birds doesn’t look too great, either.

A new article in the journal Science estimates that North America has lost a quarter of its bird population – roughly 3 billion birds – in the past 50 years. The researchers looked at populations of 529 different bird species since 1970 to reach their conclusion. They collected data from surveys with the help of volunteer bird spotters and combined that with ten years worth of data on flocks of migrating birds detected by 143 different weather radar installations.

Ken Rosenberg of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology said, “We saw this tremendous net loss across the entire bird community. By our estimates, it’s a 30% loss in the total number of breeding birds. But we also knew that other bird populations were increasing. And what we didn’t know is whether there was a net change.”

The data showed that more than 90% of the losses came from only a dozen bird families, including warblers, blackbirds, finches, and sparrows. Meadowlarks and red-winged blackbirds are two examples of common birds that have seen their numbers decrease.

The news isn’t entirely bad, though; some bird populations have increased, such as raptors (influding bald eagles), and waterfowl. Rosenberg continued, “The numbers of ducks and geese are larger than they’ve ever been, and that’s not an accident. It’s because hunters who primarily want to see healthy waterfowl populations for recreational hunting have raised their voices.”

Mike Parr, another one of the study’s authors, said, “We’re making the wrong moves now to sustain nature for the future, and this is an indication that nature is unraveling and that ecosystems are highly stressed. Our generation is going survive it, and probably the next generation will, but who knows where the tipping point is.”

The researchers say that climate change played only a small role in the overall loss of the birds so far, but it is likely to become more of a threat in the future because of rising seas, draughts and wildfires.

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The Nearly Extinct Northern White Rhino Might Live on Thanks to Lab-Created Embryos

Finally, some good news!

For all the destruction and mayhem that humans have caused around the planet, sometimes we actually do some good things, too. Things like preventing (hopefully) the complete extinction of the northern white rhino.

The last male northern white rhino died in 2018, and only two females, Fatu and Najin, remain of the species. Neither of them are capable of bearing a child. It was believed that once the two females passed away, that would be the end of the northern white rhino.

But scientists recently announced they were able to extract immature eggs from the two remaining females, and the eggs were flown to a laboratory in Italy.

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BREAKING NEWS – WE NOW HAVE TWO NORTHERN WHITE RHINO EMBRYOS! We are happy to announce that two northern white rhino embryos have been successfully matured and fertilised. This development marks a turning point in the race to save the northern white rhino from near extinction. The two embryos were created using eggs collected from Fatu, the youngest of the two northern white rhinos and frozen sperm from Suni a deceased northern white rhino male. The embryos are now stored in liquid nitrogen and will be transferred into a surrogate southern white rhino female in the near future. To make this procedure a reality, Fatu’s eggs were injected with Suni’s sperm while Najin’s eggs were injected with Saut’s sperm. Saut’s semen was of really poor quality and scientists had to thaw additional samples to find viable sperms for the procedure. Unfortunately, Najin’s eggs did not make it to a viable embryo despite the fact that one egg initiated segmentation. This landmark effort was achieved at Avantea Laboratories in Cremona, Italy thanks to Prof. Cesare Galli and his team. We have only gotten this far because of your unending support. To be part of the journey towards making a northern white rhino, go to donate.olpejetaconservancy.org/projects/sudan ? ? Jan Zwilling, Ami Vitale, Cesare Galli @kenyawildlifeservice @tourism_wildlifeke @leibnizizw @biorescue_project @bmbf.bund @leibnizgemeinschaft @safariparkdvurkralove #OlPejeta #NorthernWhiteRhino #OvumPickUp #NorthernWhiteRhinoRecovery #NajinandFatu

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The eggs were then injected with sperm from two dead male northern white rhinos. Only two of the eggs from one of the rhinos developed into viable embryos, and they were immediately frozen. Because Fatu and Najin can’t carry a pregnancy, the embryos will be transferred to a surrogate mother—a southern white rhinoceros.

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With Najin and Fatu, the last two northern white rhinos, unable to carry a pregnancy, the future of the northern white rhino species solely depends on artificial reproduction. ? Over the past few years, scientists have been working very hard on perfecting a procedure for both harvesting and fertilisation in vitro. ? The successful harvest of 10 eggs from the northern white rhinos yesterday (August 22nd, 2019) means that scientists are now closer to saving the species from complete extinction. ? @amivitale ——————————————————————— @kenyawildlifeservice @tourism_wildlifeke @leibnizizw @biorescue_project @bmbf.bund @leibnizgemeinschaft @safariparkdvurkralove ? #OlPejeta #NorthernWhiteRhino #OvumPickUp #NorthernWhiteRhinoRecovery #NajinandFatu #SaveOurRhinos #OnlyTwoLeft #EndExtinction

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Jan Stejskal, Director of Communication and International Projects at the zoo in the Czech Republic where Najin and Fatu were born, said:

“Five years ago it seemed like the production of a northern white rhino embryo was [an] almost unachievable goal — and today we have them. The technique for collection of eggs was developed in cooperation with many European zoos and we are happy that this unique cooperation can continue even with attempts at successful embryo transfer.”

Scientists must now transfer the embryos to a surrogate mother and track the embryos’ development into fetuses. From there, scientists still face an enormous uphill climb—the species lacks genetic diversity, and there are very few ways to get it back once there are so few individuals left. Plus, rhinos are slow developing creatures, so to rebuild the population in any meaningful way will take decades.

Sadly, the northern white rhino reached this point mainly due to poaching—they were targeted for their horns, which, though they have no medicinal properties of any sort, are highly prized in traditional Chinese medicine.

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A Tiny Fish That Weighs Less Than 1 Gram Became UK’s Smallest-Ever Surgery Patient

Every being on Earth deserves a second chance at life — even a teeny-tiny fish.

This tiny molly fish weighs less than one gram. After its owners noticed a large lump on its belly, they rushed it to the veterinarian. Highscoft Vets in Bristol, U.K. diagnosed the lump as a tumor right away, and soon after, the fish became the UK’s smallest-ever surgery patient.

In the emergency procedure, vets catheterized the fish’s mouth, anesthetized it, and removed the mass. The surgery took about 40 minutes, and it cost the owners less than £100 (or about $123).

So unbelievably small

Posted by Highcroft Rabbit, Small Mammal & Exotic Vets on Friday, August 30, 2019

The vets say that the fish is the smallest patient they’ve ever worked on, as they usually operate on animals like snakes, rabbits and iguanas.

“It’s not common across the UK to bring your fish to the vets but it is here. We are seeing more and more fish which is great,” exotic species vet Sonya Miles told The Daily Mail. “It was definitely the smallest animal we’ve seen here. It barely registered on our scales.”

She added that the operation required “steady hands and good eyesight.”

The mass being removed.

Posted by Highcroft Rabbit, Small Mammal & Exotic Vets on Friday, August 30, 2019

Luckily, the surgery was a success. The tiny fish made a full recovery and went home the same day, with no clue that it had just made national history.

Since it’s a fish.

“The little one is now back to normal and eating well,” Highcroft Vets wrote on Facebook.

Once the mass was removed the deficit if coated in waterproof gel to protect the area.

Posted by Highcroft Rabbit, Small Mammal & Exotic Vets on Friday, August 30, 2019

“We’re glad to have been able to help the fish before the tumor started to upset its balance.”

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Meet 5 Teenagers Who Have Changed the World

Some people believe that you have to have a lifetime of knowledge and experience to change the world, or even to try – but these 5 teenagers don’t have any time to listen to that kind of crap because they’re too busy actually changing the world.

From gun rights to climate change to terrorism, there’s no problem too daunting…and honestly maybe their lack of experience gives them just the right amount of idealism needed to actually get sh*t done.

I just wish – I truly wish – that their passion and activism hadn’t so often been sparked by personal trauma.

But if you have to go through something terrible, using your experience and pain to stop other people from going through the same thing seems like the healthiest way to deal.

5. Emma Gonzalez

It was February, 2018 when a gunman entered Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida and gunned down 17 people in cold blood.

Many of the teens who survived that day have gone on to support a campaign against gun violence, but 18-year-old Emma Gonzalez emerged a leader from the beginning. She co-founded the gun-control advocacy group Never Again MSD and, shortly after her classmates were buried, gave a powerful speech at the March for Our Lives rally in Washington D.C.

Since then, her work and others’ have encouraged lawmakers in Florida to pass a Public Safety Act, which raised the age to buy a firearm from 18 to 21 and instituted a three-day waiting period for most weapons. She is still working to prevent gun violence, and Never Again is going strong.

4. Jack Andraka

When he was only 15, Jack Andraka invented what appeared to be a new, cheap way to detect pancreatic cancer. He won $75k at the 2012 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair for the test, which he created after reading free science papers on the internet.

The test is still undergoing official studies, but if it works like he imagines, it could save lives and millions of dollars.

3. Malala Yousafzai

At the tender age of 11, Malala Yousafzai wrote and published a diary about her life under Taliban rule in Pakistan. Though the diary was anonymous, she began to speak publicly at home about her passion for girls’ education.

Three years later, when she was 14, a Taliban gunman shot her in the face on a bus to put a stop to her activism.

Amazingly, Malala survived the attack, and though she can never return home, she works tirelessly on behalf of underprivileged girls around the world.

In 2014, she became the youngest person ever to win the Nobel Peace Prize, and her passionate acceptance speech is one for the ages.

“This award is not just for me. It is for those forgotten children who want education. It is for those frightened children who want peace. It is for those voiceless children who want change. I am here to stand up for their rights, to raise their voice. It is not time to pity them.”

2. Amika George

Amika read an article about girls in the U.K. who couldn’t afford menstrual products and was astounded that there were so many in her home country living in such poverty.

When she was 17 she founded #FreePeriods, organized a protest of over 2,000, and demanded the government take appropriate action.

In response, the U.K. government announced in March of 2019 they would be funding free sanitary products in all English schools and universities.

1. Greta Thunberg

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Here we go again… As you may have noticed, the haters are as active as ever – going after me, my looks, my clothes, my behaviour and my differences. They come up with every thinkable lie and conspiracy theory. It seems they will cross every possible line to avert the focus, since they are so desperate not to talk about the climate and ecological crisis. Being different is not an illness and the current, best available science is not opinions – it’s facts. I honestly don’t understand why adults would choose to spend their time mocking and threatening teenagers and children for promoting science, when they could do something good instead. I guess they must simply feel so threatened by us. But the world is waking up. See you in the streets this Friday! #fridaysforfuture #schoolstrike4climate #climatestrike #aspiepower

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This 16-year-old Swedish girl has dedicated her young life to being an activist for climate change activism across the world.

In 2018 she began striking – alone – on the steps of the Swedish parliament in Stockholm in an attempt to get them to take meaningful, immediate action.

Since her solitary striking began, more than 1 million teens have joined her by walking out of their classrooms around the world.

“Since our leaders are behaving like children, we will have to take the responsibility they should have taken long ago. We have to understand what the older generation has dealt to us, what mess they have created that we have to clean up and live with. We have to make our voices heard.”

She recently spoke at the UN, and it’s really worth watching:

 

These teens are an inspiration, for sure – they make 18-year-old me look like a lazy loafing loser.

Do you believe young people can make a real difference? How can you not?!

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The Loch Ness Monster Might Just Be a Giant Eel

Nessie fans, pay attention.

The first sighting of the rumored monster swimming in Loch Ness dates back to the 6th century; since then, scientists and regular people alike have been searching for answers.

Sturgeons, trees, elephant trunks, dinosaurs and just about everything else you can think of has been blamed at one point or another, but one New Zealand scientist is claiming he’s come up with the most plausible answer – an oversized eel.

Neil Gemmell of the University of Otago made the assertion after a recent environmental DNA project analyzed the genetic material of everything living in the loch. Gemmell and his team collected 250 water samples from various spots in the lake – no small feat given that the lake is 23 miles long and 788 feet deep – and came up with 500 million gene sequences.

They then compared the sequenced DNA with global databases of known organism, and found nothing to suggest there’s anything new or unknown in the lake. Their findings also ruled out some previous guesses, like Greenland sharks, catfish, and sturgeon.

What they did find, however, were unusually high amounts of eel DNA.

“The remaining theory that we cannot refute based on the environmental DNA data obtained is that what people are seeing is a very large eel,” the project’s website reads. “Eels are very plentiful in Loch Ness, with eel DNA found at pretty much every location sampled – there are a lot of them.”

We also know that the British Isles are home to some pretty large eels. Conger eels can grow up to 10 feet or longer in length, and in 2001, two 7-foot eels were discovered on the loch’s shores. Gemmell and others maintain that an eel near the surface could be easily mistaken for the back of a larger, bulkier “monster.”

The evidence, while compelling, doesn’t prove anything conclusively, which means believers are still likely to traipse out to the lake in search of the elusive and enduring mystery of Nessie.

That said, the eel theory is pretty interesting…

Just not as exciting as a mythical monster emerging from the depths and stunning tourists year after year.

Sometimes the mystery is better than the truth.

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This Is Why Airplane Engines Are Never Painted on the Front Edges

Look closely at the engines on the planes at the gates next time you’re at the airport. All of them will have an unpainted band near the front edge. As sleek as this kind of paint job may look, the reasons behind the styling goes beyond just looking trendy.

Photo Credit: Needpix

YouTuber Mentour Pilot, who runs a channel about everything to do with being an airline pilot, created a video explaining why the front edge of the engine is never painted when the rest of the aircraft is.

It’s something I’d never have thought about in a million years, but someone clearly did.

The first explanation is because of the heat the engines generate. Ice can form quickly on engines and wings when flying through clouds, creating a real safety hazard. Planes use the heat already coming from their engines to keep dangerous ice from accumulating.

Small holes in the unpainted ring of the engine, as well as on the wings, help the ice melt. If this part of the engine is left naked, then the metal heats best for minimized ice formation. Paint would only protect the ice from heat by creating an intermediate layer.

Not safe.

Another reason is that eventually the paint on the intake would begin to degrade, and chips of paint could get sucked into the engine. As this happened, the uneven coats of paint would affect how air flows into the engine, creating mini vortices and disrupting overall efficiency.

Photo Credit: YouTube

He also touches on why most planes are painted white or predominantly white. This one’s a little easier to guess: white paint reflects heat. If a plane is painted white, the air-conditioning system doesn’t have to work as hard to keep the interior cooled – thus better engine efficiency.

Painting an aircraft white is also faster and cheaper, and airlines can place and replace branding as needed without repainting.

If this is interesting, deifnitely check out more of Mentour Pilot’s channel – aside from his cool airplane knowledge, he wears his uniform, has a great accent and an adorable apricot poodle-ish dog, and generally makes you feel good about who is at the controls of these high flying tubes.

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Americans Share the Most Absurd Medical Bill They Ever Received

Healthcare is on many people’s mind these days, and the 2020 election is full of ideas on how to take our broken system and hopefully improve it.

Senator Bernie Sanders is and has been passionate about the topic for much of his career, and is championing a controversial Medicare for All plan that would see the end of private insurance offerings for good.

Regardless of what you think about Medicare for All, I’m sure we can all agree that healthcare costs are too damn high, and something has to be done.

Recently on Twitter, he asked his followers to share the most absurd medical bill they ever got in the mail, and you guys.

They delivered.

 

20. Always decline the ambulance ride.

19. Nobody should be worrying about the bill.

18. Yeah, that’s not a choice.

17. This one might win for most ridiculous.

16. I’m not sure that’s really science.

15. Heartbreaking AND absurd.

14. A whole new level of insult to injury.

13. We need equal opportunity healing.

12. I’ll bring my own Band-Aid.

11. Only the rich get to live.

10. I mean what else can you do?

9. It would be funny if it wasn’t so infuriating.

8. Answer: hardly anyone.

7. That’s a pretty penny for stuff you could have gotten at Walgreens.

6. You need a surgeon for that?

5. That’s a pretty high price for wielding a pair of tweezers for under 5 minutes.

4. Kidney stones are the worst and if $16k would help, I would have paid it.

3. I think they’re billing the wrong person.

2. Everyone should have a problem with this.

1. What on earth does most of that even mean?

 

I’m not here to discuss politics, but I think we can all agree that most of these are pretty darn silly.

If you were running for president, how would you solve the problem of rising healthcare costs, access to care, care for veterans, and all the rest?

There’s no easy answer, of course, but give it a go!

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A Man Was Tested and Has the Oldest American DNA Ever Recorded

A lot of us who have sent in our DNA to be tested are expecting results that tell us where we came from before our ancestors immigrated to America – if our families have been here a very long time (since the “beginning”), then perhaps we’ve been on American soil for 7 or 8 generations.

My own family came here on the Mayflower, but, obviously, folks met us when we arrived.

When Montana native Darrell “Dusty” Crawford sent in his DNA at his late brother’s request, he was expecting to find Native American heritage. His family lived on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation in Heart Butte, and their oral traditions were that they came to North America during the Ice Age, perhaps over the Bering Land Bridge.

What the DNA company, CRI Genetics, found, though was something far, far more incredible.

The results, they said, were so unprecedented it was “like finding Bigfoot.”

Crawford’s line could be followed back 55 generations.

The company has never traced anyone’s DNA back that far, making his the oldest American DNA ever found.

The DNA also indicates that the Crawfords’ ancestors came from the Pacific, not over the land bridge, settling in South America before traveling north. Though it’s still just a theory, it is one that has some science behind it.

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Browning is built on a vast open prairie, backlit by the jagged skyline of the Rocky Mountain Range. Cattle, horses and dogs roam freely. Cheap, wind-worn houses are scattered along rolling hills, amidst tall grass and endless fields of wheat. The gas station north of town also serves as a convenience store, grocery, restaurant and gift shop—teeming with residents of the reservation and a few passers by. In this place the historical consequences of an institutionalized doctrine of manifest destiny are palpable—boundless westward expansion by white settlers and the subjugation of the American Indian having generational effects. Further into town I find the Sleeping Wolf Campground. I lay on the grass and am both cooled by the steady winds and warmed by the eternal sun. #sleepingwolfcampground #browning #blackfeetindianreservation #blackfeet #montana #rockymountains #horses #prairie #roam #ontheroam #manifestdestiny #westwardexpansion #subjugation #bicycletouring #sleepingwolf More at www.tecumsehclark.com

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There are four major Native American groups that populated North America, each of which trace back to a female ancestor – Ai, Ina, Chie, and Sachi. Crawford and his family hail from the Ina clan, or the mtDNA Haplogroup B2, and CRI genetics isn’t sure how that particular line migrated around the world.

“Its path from the Americas is somewhat of a mystery as there are no frequencies of the haplogroup in either Alaska or Canada. Today this Native American line is found only in the Americas, with a strong frequency on the eastern coast of North America.”

Other experts, like professor Shelley Eli, dismisses the idea that this or any other Native American line migrated to the Americas from elsewhere at all, since their oral histories and indigenous histories cite nothing of the sort.

“There’s no oral stories that say we crossed a bridge or anything else. We’ve always been here, since time immemorial.”

She gets her information from 2017 research that dated human activity in North America back more than 100,000 years.

The truth isn’t likely to be uncovered any time soon, but Crawford’s results remain an important moment for the scientific community. Before his tests came back, the oldest American DNA was 17,000 years younger than Crawford’s, and with new information comes the opportunity for better understanding.

As for Crawford himself, it’s a personal validation that what his family has always believed is true.

He does wish, though, that he and his brother could have marveled in that reality together.

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