History Heartwarming / RealLifeScience

** The Laysan Duck (a tiny, nearly flightless relative of the mallard) had its population nosedive thanks to the introduction of non-native species like rats and rabbits to the Hawaiian Islands. The record low came in 1912, when it was estimated the entire species comprised of ''seven adults and five ducklings.'' After these invaders were eradicated in the 1920's the duck's population began to recover, with populations also being reintroduced to nearby islands. If all goes according to plan, the duck could be removed from the endangered species list as early as 2019.

* With all the politicized debate about climate change, the controversy over "greenwashing" by corporations, and the "doomers" who feel there is no real chance to stop the planet's destruction, very little media attention is being given to individuals who are already doing something. See [[https://youtu.be/T39QHprz-x8 The Al-Baydha Project]], [[https://youtu.be/415an1V0FxQ Dhun]], [[https://youtu.be/C08FAa-Vlj0 Sambhav]] and [[https://youtu.be/F-PLbGp123M the Loess Plateau Restoration Project]]. You can do something simply by planting native grasses, trees or bushes in your yard.

'''Hebrew Greeting:''' Peace.[[note]]For extra heartwarming, the word "Shalom", meaning peace, can also double as a greeting.[[/note]]

** A short message in Latin, not a greeting, but an encouragement: ''Per aspera ad astra''; Through hardships to the stars.

* When Opportunity was declared dead on February 13, 2019, Twitter users thanked the rover for everything, with some people starting [[https://www.change.org/p/nasa-bring-opportunity-home a petition to bring her home]];[[https://www.supercluster.com/editorial/can-we-rescue-the-opportunity-rover and there are speculations on how to repair her]], by the first human missions to Mars (either by NASA, or Elon Musk's Project Starship).

[[folder: Engineering]]

[[folder: Astronomy]]

-->'''Sumerian greeting''': May all be well\\
'''Cantonese greeting''': How's everyone? Wish you peace, health and happiness\\
'''Arabic greeting''': Greetings to our friends in the stars. May time bring us together\\
'''Hebrew Greeting''': Peace.[[note]] For extra heartwarming, the word "Shalom," meaning peace, can also double as a greeting.[[/note]]

* The Apollo 8 Mission. 1968 had been a really bad year, with the Vietnam War and many other things. Yet these three men went up there, knowingly risking their lifes, managed to become the first people to leave Earth's gravitational field... and one of the things they brought back was the photograph of an Earthrise, as seen from the Moon. TIME chose them as the Men of the Year. As the telegraph received by Borman said, "Thank you, Apollo 8. You saved 1968."

[[folder: Medicine]]
* [[http://youtu.be/HTzTt1VnHRM This video]] and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsOo3jzkhYA this video]], featuring a baby boy and a 29 year old woman respectively, both born deaf, hearing for the first time. Medical science gave them their hearing, no one who has seen these videos has failed to choke up in the good way.
* Jonas Salk's greatest achievement was developing the vaccine for Polio, a disease so widespread and crippling in parts of the world that China had 80 million people vaccinated in 1993, and is still a big problem in third world countries. A man who could have become one of the richest scientists in the history of humanity said these words when regarding a patent "Could you patent the sun?". Because of this work, Polio went from hundreds of thousands of cases per year to about a thousand... Tens of millions of children, able to walk, because a man would rather do the right thing rather than get rich...

[[folder: Psychology]]

[[folder: Ecology]]

[[folder: Archeology]]

* [[https://www.theguardian.com/science/2011/sep/30/stone-age-toddlers-art-lessons Children during the stone age loved finger painting.]] Archeologists studying the Rouffignac caves discovered that one of the caverns was so covered with children's drawings of animals that they believe the area was set aside specifically for them as a playroom. Some of them are too high up on the walls for a child to reach, so an adult must have held them up or sat them on their shoulders. One of the smallest children, a two year old, was believed to have been guided by an adult while they were drawing as a kind of art lesson. The article ends beautifully with a quote:

[[folder: Biology]]
* The [[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lazarus_taxon Lazarus Taxon]], especially the species thought to be extinct due to human causes turn out to be alive all this time.

[[/folder]]

** On a lighter note, a US Army base was thrown into chaos for a day when their million-dollar experimental bomb disposing robot vanished, at the end of the day, they learned the identity of the thieves- two soldiers on a day pass who had taken the robot fishing.

* In a poor Malawian village racked by cholera, famine, and superstition, a young boy gets kicked out of school because he can't afford the tuition. The boy, however, loves science and learning, and is determined to keep learning. So... he fishes out scraps of books from the local dumpster. He finds a book on basic electricity, and sees a picture of a windmill that generates electricity. His imagination sparked, he spends the next year and a half digging through trash cans and other stuff people have either thrown away or are about to throw away; to find the parts necessary to make his windmill. [[TheyCalledMeMad People call him mad]], but his parents tell him to keep working at it. One day, the boy calls his village together (Please keep in mind, the highest technology anybody in the village owns is an AA battery and maybe a Walkman) and holds up a single light bulb attached to a windmill that looks like a reject from a Dr. Seuss book. The villagers laugh at him... UNTIL... the light bulb flickers. As the wind picks up, the rickety windmill spins, and suddenly the light bulb shines, like a single candle in the night. The stunned villagers cheer the boy wildly. Soon word of the boy's genius spreads (remember, he basically just brought his village out of the third world, a feat that whole governments sometimes [[EpicFail fail]] to achieve). The new found hi-tech is used to aid in getting clean water to use for the crops, thus alleviating the devastating famine. And the kicker... the boy gets a scholarship to COLLEGE in South Africa and is called a hero by Al Gore himself. '''Nobody''' has the ''audacity'' to make up a story like this. Just Google William Kamkwamba. Better yet, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Kamkwamba here's a entry on him]] from Wiki/TheOtherWiki.

* When Opportunity was declared dead on February 13, 2019, Twitter users thanked the rover for everything, with some people starting a petition to bring her home.

* [[https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/video/details.php?id=1103 This]] video of the Jet Propulsion Lab as Curiosity lands on Mars. They start off sitting quietly, waiting with a mixture of nervousness and anticipation...and then they hear the announcement that it's landed safely and everyone just ''explodes'' with joy. Several scientists actually start jumping up and down in sheer delight.
* Astronaut Eugene Cernan, the last man to walk on the moon, wrote his daughter's initials- TDC- in the lunar dust before they returned to earth. Just like the astronauts' footprints, they'll remain up there for millions of years.

* The doctors and nurses during the SARS period, living and sleeping in wards and corridors, unable to see their families, facing an unknown and uncurable disease, yet never giving up and skipping town.

** This [[https://www.wsj.com/articles/hardwired-for-giving-1377902081?tesla=y article]] is about how selflessness actually makes us happy and want to do more good similar to cocain addiction.

-->''"What I found in Rouffignac is that the children are screaming from the walls to be heard. Their presence is everywhere. And there is a five-year-old girl constantly shouting: 'I wanna paint, I wanna paint'.""

->''What I found in Rouffignac is that the children are screaming from the walls to be heard. Their presence is everywhere. And there is a five-year-old girl constantly shouting: 'I wanna paint, I wanna paint'.''

* [[https://swanjolras.tumblr.com/post/102498776997/gosh-but-like-we-spent-hundreds-of-years-looking This Tumblr post]] about the drive behind space exploration and the building of the Mars rovers, especially the last line:

** On a similar note, [[http://pyrrhiccomedy.tumblr.com/post/132288328472/thebaconsandwichofregret-weepingdildo-send this post]] about how the Curiosity rover sings itself Happy Birthday every year.
-->We built a little robot and called it Curiosity and flung it into the stars to go and explore places we can’t get to because its name is in our nature and then just because we could, we taught it how to sing.

-->Hello Neil and Buzz. I'm talking to you by telephone from the Oval Room at the White House. And this certainly has to be the most historic telephone call ever made. I just can't tell you how proud we all are of what you've done. For every American, this has to be the proudest day of our lives. And for people all over the world, I am sure they too join with Americans in recognizing what an immense feat this is. Because of what you have done, the heavens have become a part of man's world. And as you talk to us from the Sea of Tranquility, it inspires us to redouble our efforts to bring peace and tranquility to Earth. For one priceless moment in the whole history of man, all the people on this Earth are truly one. One in their pride in what you have done. And one in our prayers that you will return safely to Earth.

* Astronaut Eugene Cernan, the last man to walk on the moon, wrote 'TDC' in the lunar dust. Those are his daughter Teresa's initials. Just like the astronauts' footprints, they'll remain up there for millions of years.

* [[https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/video/details.php?id=1103 This]] video of the Jet Propulsion Lab as Curiosity lands on Mars. They start off sitting quietly, intently staring at their screens...and then everyone just ''explodes'' with joy when it's confirmed they've landed safely. Several scientists actually start jumping up and down in sheer delight.