Inspiring News Articles
Excerpts of Highly Inspiring News Articles in Major Media
Below are one-paragraph excerpts of highly inspiring news articles from the major media. Links are provided to the original inspiring news articles on their media websites. If any link fails, read this webpage. The most inspiring news articles are listed first. You can also explore the news articles listed by order of the date posted. For an abundance of other highly inspiring material, see our Inspiring Resources page. May these inspiring news articles inspire us to find ever more ways to love and support each other and all around us to be the very best we can be.
Doramise Moreau toils long past midnight in her tiny kitchen every Friday – boiling lemon peels, crushing fragrant garlic and onion into a spice blend she rubs onto chicken and turkey, cooking the dried beans that accompany the yellow rice she'll deliver to a Miami church. She's singlehandedly cooked 1,000 meals a week since the pandemic's start – an act of love she's content to perform with little compensation. Moreau, a 60-year-old widow who lives with her children, nephew and three grandchildren, cooks in the kitchen of a home built by Habitat for Humanity in 2017. Her days are arduous. She works part-time as a janitor at a technical school, walking or taking the bus. But the work of her heart, the reason she rises each morning, is feeding the hungry. As a little girl in Haiti, she often pilfered food from her parents' pantry – some dried rice and beans, maybe an onion or an ear of corn – to give to someone who needed it. Her mother was furious, constantly scolding and threatening Moreau, even telling the priest to refuse to give her communion. But she was not deterred. Decades later, Moreau is still feeding the hungry. She borrows the church truck to buy groceries on Thursday and Friday and cooks into the wee hours of the night for Saturday's feedings. Notre Dame d'Haiti Catholic Church pays for the food, relying on donations. Moreau prepares the meals singlehandedly, while church volunteers serve or deliver them to shut-ins.
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India on Friday imposed a ban on single-use plastics on items ranging from straws to cigarette packets to combat worsening pollution in a country whose streets are strewn with waste. Announcing the ban, the government dismissed the demands of food, beverage and consumer goods companies to hold off the restriction to avoid disruptions. Plastic waste has become a significant source of pollution in India, the world's second most populous country. Rapid economic growth has fueled demand for goods that come with single-use plastic products, such as straws and disposable cutlery. But India, which uses about 14 million tons of plastic annually, lacks an organized system for managing plastic waste, leading to widespread littering. India's ban on single-use plastic items includes straws, cutlery, ear buds, packaging films, plastic sticks for balloons, candy and ice-cream, and cigarette packets, among other products, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government said. PepsiCo, Coca-Cola, India's Parle Agro, Dabur and Amul had lobbied for straws to be exempted from the ban. In a relief to consumers, the government has for now exempted plastic bags but it has asked manufacturers and importers to raise the thickness to promote reuse. Some experts believe that enforcing the ban might be difficult. The government has decided to set up control rooms to check any illegal use, sale and distribution of single-use plastic products.
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Claes Nordmark, mayor of Boden, steps out into a vast clear-cut area. He ... motions toward an electrical substation nearby. "Listen to that," he says. "The atmosphere in Boden is crackling, just like that switchgear." If all goes to plan, in July start-up H2 Green Steel (H2GS) will start building the world's first "fossil-free" steelworks in this Swedish town of 17,000, just below the Arctic Circle. It's a multibillion-dollar project that would make a multimillion-ton impact on the climate, cutting over 90 percent of a regular steel factory's carbon dioxide emissions. A boom of renewable-powered industries has given rise to what has been dubbed a "green revolution." A massive revamp is underway to decarbonize the state-run mines. Besides steel mills, the region hosts Europe's first battery mega factory, called Northvolt Ett, along with fossil-free fertilizer and aviation biofuel factories. In the coming two decades, an estimated $100 billion to $150 billion will be invested and up to 100,000 jobs created in this sparsely populated and often overlooked region. Put together, this is the centerpiece of Sweden's 2045 net-zero carbon pledge and the country's ambitions to become a front-runner in the quest for a fossil-free economy. "We need a shift from an administrative mind-set to a courageous one," says CEO Henrikkson, a gust of wind rearranging his hair while he walks near the H2GS office in Stockholm. Nowadays, Henriksson says, major projects often grind to a halt because politicians and bureaucrats fear making mistakes.
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For the first time in 30 years, legislation has been put forward to address catastrophic wildlife loss in the EU. Legally binding targets for all member states to restore wildlife on land, rivers and the sea were announced today, alongside a crackdown on chemical pesticides. In a boost for UN negotiations on halting and reversing biodiversity loss, targets released by the European Commission include reversing the decline of pollinator populations and restoring 20% of land and sea by 2030, with all ecosystems to be under restoration by 2050. The commission also proposed a target to cut the use of chemical pesticides in half by 2030 and eradicate their use near schools, hospitals and playgrounds. Frans Timmermans, executive vice-president of the commission, said the laws were a step forward in tackling the "looming ecocide" threatening the planet. Around â‚Ź100bn (Ł85bn) will be available for spending on biodiversity, including the restoration of ecosystems. The target of 2030 to cut the use of pesticides will give farmers time to find alternatives. The proposals, which campaigners have hailed as a potential milestone for nature, could become law in around a year. Member states would have to create restoration plans to show the commission how they would reach the targets set, and if they fail to follow through they would face legal action. Priority ecosystems include those with the greatest power to remove and store carbon, as well as buffer the impacts of natural disasters.
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Thousands of potentially harmful chemicals could soon be prohibited in Europe under new restrictions, which campaigners have hailed as the strongest yet. The EU's "restrictions roadmap" published on Monday was conceived as a first step to transforming this picture by using existing laws to outlaw toxic substances linked to cancers, hormonal disruption, reprotoxic disorders, obesity, diabetes and other illnesses. Industry groups say that up to 12,000 substances could ultimately fall within the scope of the new proposal, which would constitute the world's "largest ever ban of toxic chemicals", according to the European Environmental Bureau (EEB). Tatiana Santos, the bureau's chemicals policy manager, said: "EU chemical controls are usually achingly slow but the EU is planning the boldest detox we have ever seen. Petrochemical industry lobbyists are shocked at what is now on the table. It promises to improve the safety of almost all manufactured products and rapidly lower the chemical intensity of our schools, homes and workplaces." The plan focuses on entire classes of chemical substances for the first time as a rule, including all flame retardants, bisphenols, PVC plastics, toxic chemicals in single-use nappies and PFAS, which are also known as "forever chemicals" because of the time they take to naturally degrade. All of these will be put on a "rolling list" of substances to be considered for restriction by the European Chemicals Agency. The list will be regularly reviewed and updated.
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When Jonathan Tiong was an infant, a neurologist told his parents that he wouldn't live past the age of two. He was diagnosed with type two spinal muscular atrophy, a rare genetic condition that causes muscles to become weak and break down. It is also a progressive disease, meaning he has become ... weaker with time. But in October, the same day he turned 24 years old, he was crowned valedictorian for the National University of Singapore's (NUS) Class of 2021, with the equivalent of a first class honours. He has also landed a prestigious job at sovereign wealth fund GIC, where he currently works full-time as an editorial writer. Speaking to CNA in his home, Mr Tiong candidly described himself as "a very plain and average student" throughout university. In his spare time, he immerses himself in the online game Runescape and watches Twitch streams. He regularly pens columns and blogposts, owing to a love of writing sparked in recent years. "I didn't think I'd be valedictorian for the simple reason that I was not a typical valedictorian. I didn't lead a (co-curricular activity), I wasn't the captain of some sports team, that kind of thing. "I studied a lot, got good grades, but so did a lot of other people. So I didn't really feel outstanding." This is despite the extra challenges he had to grapple with throughout school – namely, fatigue and accessibility in a world mostly built for able-bodied people. Poking fun at NUS' infamously hilly terrain, Mr Tiong joked that the university is also known as the "National University of Stairs".
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It's no secret that exercise, even in small doses, can improve your mood. Researchers even have a name for it: the feel-better effect. And while any physical activity – a walk, a swim, a bit of yoga – can give you an emotional boost, we wanted to create a short workout video specifically designed to make people happy. What would a "joy workout" look like? I'm a psychologist fascinated by the science of emotion. I've also taught group exercise classes for more than 20 years. To design a happiness workout, I turned to the research I leverage in those classes, to maximize the joy people get from moving their bodies. Imagine fans erupting when their team clinches a playoff spot. Researchers have identified several movements like this that are recognizable in many cultures as inspired by joy: reaching your arms up; swaying from side to side, like concertgoers losing themselves in the music; other rhythmic movements, such as bouncing to a beat; or taking up more space, like dancers spinning, arms outstretched. These physical actions don't just express a feeling of joy – research shows they can also elicit it. The resulting eight and a half–minute Joy Workout lets you test these effects yourself. It leads you through six joy moves: reach, sway, bounce, shake, jump for joy and one I named "celebrate" that looks like tossing confetti in the air. I based these moves on research and on the movements that produce the most joy in my classes, among people of all ages and abilities.
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Barrister Lincoln Crowley QC will become the first Indigenous judge to preside over an Australian superior court, after he was appointed to the supreme court of Queensland. Colleagues said Crowley, a well-regarded barrister and former crown prosecutor who was made Queen's Counsel in 2018, had broken a significant barrier for First Nations people. "It has taken a long time for Indigenous people in Australia to be appointed to any superior court and it's very significant that Lincoln Crowley is the first such appointment," said Tony McAvoy, who in 2015 became the first Indigenous Australian appointed senior counsel. "It is a matter of some significant shame and embarrassment for the legal professional in Australia that there are not more First Nations judicial officers through all levels of the court. "I have watched Lincoln rise through his career and he's always struck me as a very compassionate person and a fantastic lawyer and it comes as no surprise to me that the attorney-general of Queensland has appointed him to this position." Crowley, a Warramunga man ... was expelled from a private school in year 11 after a run-in with a teacher. "The deputy principal called me into the office one day and said to me: â€Your family is Aboriginal aren't they? They're the type that end up in jail'," he said. "He was picking on me and trying to put me down, basically saying I had no prospects in the future and that's where I was going to end up. "I remember thinking, â€you wait and see, mate'."
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She didn't say a word – and that only made her message resonate more powerfully. Valedictorian Elizabeth Bonker recently delivered the commencement speech at Rollins College in Florida, urging her classmates to serve others and embrace the power of sharing. Bonker, who is affected by nonspeaking autism, hasn't spoken since she was 15 months old. But thanks to an accepting attitude from her peers and teachers and help from technology, she has overcome many challenges and graduated at the top of her class at the Orlando-area school. Bonker used text-to-speech software to deliver the commencement address – an honor for which she was chosen by her fellow valedictorians. "I have typed this speech with one finger with a communication partner holding a keyboard," she said. "I am one of the lucky few nonspeaking autistics who have been taught to type. That one critical intervention unlocked my mind from its silent cage, enabling me to communicate and to be educated like my hero Helen Keller." In her speech, Bonker also evoked another hero: Fred Rogers, the Florida college's most famous alumnus. Last year, the school unveiled a statue of the man widely known as Mister Rogers. And it has long embraced his lessons. "When he died, a handwritten note was found in his wallet," Bonker said. "It said, 'Life is for service.'" She urged her classmates to rip off a piece of paper from their program, write those words down, and tuck the message away in a safe place.
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The Kindness Test involved over 60,000 people from 144 different countries around the world, making it the largest public study of kindness ever carried out. You can listen to the full rundown of the results in the three-part BBC Radio 4 documentary, The Anatomy of Kindness, airing this month. The research will also soon be submitted for publication so their findings can be used to forward research in the future. Here are a few interesting findings from the test. Kinder people, or simply people who are more aware of kindness experience higher levels of life satisfaction and wellbeing. Two-thirds of participants believe the pandemic has made people kinder, perhaps by giving us a collective struggle that increased our empathy for each other. The study also found that nearly 60 percent of the people who partook in the research claimed to have received an act of kindness within the previous day. "It is a big part of human nature, to be kind – because it's such a big part of how we connect with people and how we have relationships," says Claudia Hammond, study collaborator. "It's a win-win situation, because we like receiving kindness, but we also like being kind." The overarching trend from the data is that your personality determines how kind you are to others and also how kind they are to you. People who are open to new experiences, agreeable, like talking to strangers, or are extraverted all reported higher levels of kindness in their lives.
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It's a common misconception that most hearing-impaired people can easily read lips. But while many are indeed practiced lip readers, only 30 to 40 percent of English can be understood through watching the mouth. Much of spoken English occurs without lip movement. This leaves many hearing-impaired people at a loss when communicating with the hearing. Now, a company is hoping to help the hearing-impaired in a more seamless way. The Live-Time Closed Captioning System (LTCCS) instantly turns speech into scrolling text displaying on a tiny screen clipped to a pair of glasses. LTCCS's founders say it "restores the user's ability to engage in a naturally flowing conversation." LTCCS creator Daniil Frants was inspired to design the device when his guitar teacher asked him if he thought Google Glass might be able to somehow help him communicate with his hearing-impaired father. "I started messing around with Google Glass, seeing if it could do some closed captioning function," he says. "But after six months it became obvious that there was no way to do that effectively using Glass." So Frants decided to do it himself. He created a system built from existing or modified parts–a Raspberry Pi microcomputer, a voice recognition system and a display. The user wears a microphone, which is connected to the microcomputer. The microcomputer picks up sounds and translates them to text using the voice recognition software, then sends them up to the display in a pair of glasses.
Note: Two other versions of glasses allowing voice to text for the deaf can be found on this webpage and this one. Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.
Kindness is great to give, and especially nice to receive. But isn't something you can see, or touch. So how can science research it? There is a way, and it's concerned with how our brains are behaving when we're doing a good deed for someone else - behaviour that can be recorded and analysed. Have you ever done a selfless act for someone and felt great about it afterwards? That's because part of ... something called the reward pathway. Dr Dan Campbell-Meiklejohn, a senior psychology lecturer ... described that reaction as: "At the moment when you help someone, you donate to charity, etc, the processes that happen in your brain are quite similar to other positive experiences. It activates the reward processing areas of the brain." The brain rewards us for being kind - in the nucleus accumbens - but there is another part where we can learn to be good to others. In 2016, [Dr Patricia Lockwood] led a study at University of Oxford that uncovered a part of the brain which lights up when we help others, compared to when we help ourselves. In the experiment, volunteers made use of a series of symbols. One symbol rewarded them, while another only benefited others. The part of the brain that activated when people deliberately chose to help others is called the subgenual anterior cingulate cortex. When the study was published, it became known as the 'generosity centre'. Dr Lockwood said: "Put another way, the subgenual anterior cingulate seems to be especially tuned to benefiting other people."
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We've all heard stories about extraordinary climbers. These are people who defy the stakes in an attempt to beat the odds every time they summit a mountain that others have only seen in photos. Whereas the average hiker has seen upwards of only 10,000 feet, extreme athletes and professional alpinists have explored the summits of mountains towering well over 18,000 feet. For some, the ultimate summit sits at a harrowing height of 29,032 feet. It's unimaginable: A temperature so cold that few living organisms can survive its inhospitable conditions. A lack of oxygen at its highest peak, where not even a helicopter can reach those who might be stranded. Despite all of those dangers, one woman holds the world record for surviving this not once, but nine times. That remarkable woman is Lhakpa Sherpa, a Nepali native born in the small Himalayan village of Balakharka who is about to reset her own record this year. Lhakpa Sherpa currently holds the Guinness World Record for the female climber with the most successful ascents of Everest to date. This is a record that she has held consistently for more than two decades now. Lhakpa is one of 11 children, five of whom have summited Everest. It was here that her love began, and it would become a lifelong affair with the mountains that she grew up admiring every single day. As an adult, Lhakpa is a single parent of three children, with whom she also shares her love for mountain climbing and hiking.
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A Chilean start-up has been launched to open up some of the world's most iconic tourist attractions to disabled visitors. The idea for Wheel the World was borne out of an expedition three years ago to Chile's Torres del Paine National Park in Patagonia by a group of friends from the University of California at Berkeley. The group crowd-funded a special wheelchair for their friend, Ălvaro Silberstein, who was left quadriplegic following a car accident when he was 18. They documented their trip [and] began investigating other bucket-list vacations that could be adapted for the disabled. Since its inception last year, Wheel the World's seven-man team has arranged trips for more 900 people, including to Chile's driest desert, San Pedro de Atacama, scuba diving off Easter Island in the Pacific Ocean, ziplining in Costa Rica and a trek along the Inca Trail to Peru's Machu Picchu. Today, the group has 16 destinations both in Chile and four other countries on its online platform, and aims to increase that to 150 by 2020. Silberstein, the firm's chief executive, said the Patagonian trip had made him realize that nothing was impossible. "We realized that with the right equipment and the right information, we can help people with disabilities have these kind of experiences, to open their minds to see that we are capable of anything," he said. "There are many initiatives to make tourism more accessible ... but no one is doing it on a global level, matching tourism services with the specific needs of disabled people. That's what we do," he said.
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A lucky Frenchman has decided to dedicate most of his record-breaking $217 million lottery jackpot to a nature foundation he created. The winner, nicknamed "Guy" by French lottery group Françaises des Jeux (FDJ), won the sum in December 2020. "From my point of view, the priority today is saving the planet," Guy [said]. "We must act. It is an absolute emergency. If nothing is done in this regard, all other actions will be in vain. We will no longer exist." Revisiting the moment of his win, Guy [said] he could still remember his doubts and disbelief. After it became clear he was indeed the winner, he said, he made up his mind to put the money to good use. "The minute I found out I was the lucky winner of the EuroMillions, I had the will to share my luck," he said. He was already determined to create his own foundation at the time of his win. The result of Guy's determination is Anyama, a foundation named after a town in Côte d'Ivoire where he spent several years during his childhood. "I have passed on most of my prize money and will gradually give away almost all of it," he said. The Anyama foundation website explained it was Guy's memory of watching trucks loaded with trees in Côte d'Ivoire which motivated him to create an environmental foundation. "This procession of trucks left a deep impression on me and filled me with outrage," he said. The lottery group FDJ welcomed Guy's decision to donate most of his prize to saving the environment ... calling it an exceptional and generous gesture.
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Evan, a middle-class Black man, doesn't come across as a psychedelic enthusiast. He's a 23-year-old quantitative economics graduate student who takes pride in steaming his sweater vests to maintain a studious appearance. In 2015, Evan's father was arrested for misdemeanor drug possession. A teenager at the time, he swore off drugs forever. But six years later, magic mushrooms have become Evan's remedy to cope with racial trauma. Like most Americans, Evan followed the widespread media coverage of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor's deaths in 2020. And like many Black Americans, he experienced traumatic-stress symptoms triggered by the constant exposure to cases of police brutality and racial discrimination. Debilitating panic attacks incapacitated him multiple times a day; insomnia drained his ... energy. After unsuccessfully trying three different anti-anxiety medications, he finally stumbled upon a study on psychedelics for racial trauma. He wondered: could psychedelic therapy be the solution? Psilocybin, the active compound in magic mushrooms, has been found to mitigate acute anxiety among patients with life-threatening cancer. A state-sponsored study in Texas is investigating psychedelics as a treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder in veterans. But one lesser-known benefit has been documented by researchers at the University of Ottawa: psychedelics may alleviate symptoms of race-based traumatic stress.
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Scientists have discovered a way to capture solar energy and store it for nearly two decades, before releasing it when it is needed. Using a system called molecular solar thermal energy storage (MOST), researchers at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden and Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China developed an ultra-thin chip to act as a thermoelectric generator. "This is a radically new way of generating electricity from solar energy," said Kasper Moth-Poulsen, a professor at the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering at Chalmers who led the research. "It means that we can use solar energy to produce electricity regardless of weather, time of day, season, or geographical location." The MOST system uses a specially designed molecule that reacts to sunlight in order to capture the Sun's energy. After loading it with solar energy in Sweden, Chalmers University sent it to their colleagues in Shanghai where they were able to convert it into electricity. "Essentially, Swedish sunshine was sent to the other side of the world and converted into electricity in China," said a statement released by Chalmers University. The researchers hope the technology can lead to self-charging electronics that use stored solar energy on demand, as well as holding the potential to transform renewable and emissions-free energy production. More research and development is required before the system can be implemented at scale, thought Chalmers University said it has already attracted "great interest worldwide."
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The Human Library challenges stereotypes and prejudices through dialogue. In the Human Library, people, instead of traditional books, are on loan to readers. Founder, Ronni Abergel says the Human Library was started to create a space "where you can walk in, borrow a human being and talk to them about a very challenging topic. Ideally, we wanted people to talk about issues that they normally would not talk about, or potentially don't like to talk about, but that we need to talk about." These human "books" are volunteers that come from diverse backgrounds and have experiences that they are willing to share with their human readers. Just like traditional books, the human books have titles that describe their experiences like Black Activist, Chronic Depression, Survivor of Trafficking, Muslim, Latino, Transgender and many more. Sometimes one-on-one and sometimes in small groups, the Human Library creates a safe space where people can engage with someone different from themselves. When the library aids in corporate diversity and inclusion efforts, the readers are the organization's employees who are encouraged to ask difficult questions of the human books–things they always wanted to know but never had the opportunity to ask."It's easy to hate a group of people, but it's harder to hate an individual, particularly if that person is trying to be friendly and open and accommodating and totally non-threatening," says Bill Carney, a volunteer book in the Human Library.
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Giraffe numbers have increased across Africa, new research shows, a rare spot of good news in the conservation world. According to a recent analysis of survey data from across the African continent, the total giraffe population is now around 117,000, approximately 20 percent higher than it was thought to be in 2015, when the last major survey was published. This rise is a result of genuine growth in some areas, but also stems from more accurate census data, says Julian Fennessy, executive director of the Giraffe Conservation Foundation, based in Namibia. "It's great to see these numbers increasing," says Fennessy, a co-author of the new research. Giraffes were once considered a single species. But recent genetic evidence shows there are likely four species of giraffe, three of which have increased considerably in number: northern, reticulated, and Masai giraffes. The fourth, southern giraffes, have remained relatively stable. Data were collected during the last few years across 21 countries, by governments, researchers, nonprofits, and even citizen scientists. Fennessy and six co-authors then analyzed this vast trove of information and published the results ... in the peer-reviewed research volume Imperiled: The Encyclopedia of Conservation. Northern giraffes, the most threatened species, live in isolated populations across Central and West Africa, as well as Uganda and parts of Kenya. The new paper estimates there are more than 5,900 of this species, a significant increase from 2015, when there were 4,780.
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The deep-ocean floor is teeming with undiscovered life-forms that help to regulate Earth's climate, a new study finds. Researchers sequenced DNA from deep-sea sediments around the world and found that there is at least three times more life on the seafloor than there is higher up in the ocean. What's more, nearly two-thirds of that life has not been formally identified yet. "It's been known since the 1960s that species diversity is very high in the deep sea, so very high numbers of species," co-author Andrew Gooday [said]. "What was new about this study was that there was a lot of novel diversity at the higher taxonomic level." In other words, there are a lot of unknown evolutionary lineages – like whole families of species – waiting to be discovered. The deep-ocean floor covers more than half of Earth's surface but is home to some of the least-studied ecosystems, according to the study. Previous research analyzed DNA collected through the water column, from above the ocean floor up to the surface, so this latest study sought to complete the picture and give a global view of biodiversity in the ocean by looking at seafloor DNA within deep-sea sediments. The researchers also learned more about the role the deep ocean plays in the so-called biological pump, the process by which ocean organisms such as phytoplankton absorb carbon from the atmosphere near the surface and sink to the deep sea, where the carbon is sequestered in the sediments.
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