Artwork stating 'Education Destroys Barriers', 'We Demand Treatment', and 'I Need A Chance'

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  • Gambia's United Effort to Tackle COVID-19

    In an effort to contain the spread of coronavirus variants throughout the country, Gambia has launched a genome sequence initiative that to monitor active strains. For a country that has received very few doses of the vaccine, this effort is important for identifying potential outbreaks before they become unmanageable.

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  • The mechanical stomach powering homes by digesting old food scraps

    The electricity powering 3,000 Perth homes might have started out as moldy bread and rotting lettuce. The city of Cockburn collects food waste from supermarkets and restaurants to be fed into a mechanical "stomach" that converts the waste to energy. Methane is trapped and used to power electric generators. The remainder of the "digested" food is turned into compost and liquid fertilizer. The operation has recycled 43 tons so far, removing 81,000 kilograms of gases that otherwise would escape landfills and warm the atmosphere.

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  • Using drones to save lives

    A drone company and Kentucky Homeplace, a University of Kentucky initiative to address rural health, have used drones to deliver personal protective equipment packages to isolated, rural homes that can become inaccessible by road flooding or other bad weather. The flights, called the Jericho Project, so far have served as tests that the sponsors hope will lead to deliveries of medicine and other necessities during natural disasters or simply to speed delivery in remote areas.

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  • ‘Somebody cares': How schools are helping with student well-being

    To combat the mental health impacts of pandemic-era remote and hybrid learning, Palmer Middle School in Georgia established a grief-support group, a "stress busters" group, a book club, and a series of virtual lunch sessions with games and music to help students make connections and learn coping skills. More than 90% of students reported decreased stress levels after participating in the stress busters program, and their school attendance records also improved.

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  • How satellite images are helping one country hand out cash

    "Poverty maps" that combine satellite imagery and survey data enabled the Togolese government to target emergency pandemic charitable aid to the people in greatest need. Togo officials relied on the expertise of University of California-Berkeley researchers whose system interprets aerial images showing such factors as the density and condition of housing. Initially, 35,000 people received $13-$15 per month for five months to make up for the loss of jobs and small-business income during pandemic shutdowns. Applications were sought from targeted areas through advertising, and money was sent via mobile phones.

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  • Babyl Rwanda bridging healthcare gap through mobile technology

    Babyl Health provides over 3,000 daily e-health consultations to bridge the gap between Rwandan providers and patients. The two million registered users can dial *811# to book an appointment and are triaged, with those needing more extensive care referred to one of the 483 partner clinics around the country. The country’s universal health coverage pays for 90% of the appointment and the patient pays 200 RWF. The platform works on an app available on most citizens’ phones and doesn’t require an internet connection. When needed, patients receive prescriptions via SMS that they can bring to a local pharmacy.

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  • Pricey textbooks holding Fresno college students back. Could this fix the problem?

    For many college students, the cost of a textbook is often cost-prohibitive and instructors are looking at ways to address that. At Reedley College in California, instructors are curating their own teaching content through the use of open educational resources, which "are openly licensed content, freely available online to be reused, adapted, redistributed, or changed without permission from the creator." This "Zero textbook cost course" approach has been used in 23 colleges in the state, and showed increases in students' grades.

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  • The equalizers

    Costa Rica’s Ministry of Public Education quickly pivoted when COVID-19 led to school closures by training teachers to teach online, providing email addresses, and giving families autonomous learning guides. The Ministry also digitized its enrollment data so that it could track and stay connected with students, while also ensuring that all families had the food and nutrition they needed while children were not able to attend school in person.

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  • Real-time monitoring of 911 calls: A new tool for cops

    The Chula Vista Police Department uses the Live911 system to live-stream 911 calls to police officers on patrol. The system enables quicker responses to emergencies and reduces the risk of unnecessary confrontations between people in crises and cops who lack critical information because it was filtered through a dispatcher. Despite fears that hearing panicked callers would increase police officers' agitation en route to a call, the system has had the opposite effect by communicating nuances and details that assure officers the emergency is less dangerous than originally assumed.

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  • Hot Trash

    Prison visiting rooms provide an irreplaceable connection between incarcerated people and their family and friends from outside prison. The in-person visits, despite the many rules that complicate the simple act of conversation, offer a grounding in what's happening in the lives they left behind, along with opportunities to have an intense dialogue about past mistakes and regrets. Interviews produced inside San Quentin Prison reveal the mixed blessing of video visits, the only form of contact for a year during the pandemic.

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