This is the tale of Mei Mei: A Taylor Swift-loving parakeet who was spotted flitting around New York’s Central Park at the end of last summer — thus launching a mission to bring her inside before the cold weather hit. Dedicated local birder JP Borum spent 10 weeks tracking and mapping Mei Mei’s whereabouts before the bird was finally still enough to be captured. Now, she lives happily at a wildlife sanctuary in Rhode Island: Watch the full story.
Must Reads
Little ways to make daily life a bit less convenient — and a bit better for your brain
“First of Its Kind”: World’s Longest Outdoor Escalator Opens in China
CFOTO—Future Publishing/Getty Images
At first glance, it may look like a giant water slide is cascading through Wushan County in Chongqing, China. But the 3,000-foot-long structure seen above doesn’t belong to an amusement park — it’s actually the world’s longest outdoor escalator, transporting passengers 800 feet in elevation.
Called the “Goddess” escalator, the transit system opened Feb. 17 and includes 21 escalators, eight elevators, and four moving walkways, The Standard reports, encompassing an area of around 2,969 feet.
Not only is it an architectural marvel, but the escalator solved a debacle for residents and tourists alike: Instead of spending an hour climbing Wushan’s steep Goddess Avenue, they can now travel the entire distance within about 20 minutes. As a bonus, the glass covering allows passengers to enjoy beautiful views of the Three Gorges.
“As far as I know, there are no similar projects nationwide, either exceeding or equal to ours, either under construction or already started,” said Huang Wei, the project’s chief designer told the Financial Times. “It’s the first of its kind.” Take a virtual ride up.
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Health
How Music Therapy Is Helping a Hospital’s Preemie Patients Head Home Sooner
ER Productions Limited—DigitalVision/Getty Images
In the NICU at Cedars-Sinai Guerin Children’s hospital, Laura Cellini hums, sings, and strums a guitar for a performance fine-tuned to help premature babies heal faster. “It’s a process. It’s not just me going and playing the guitar,” Cellini, a board-certified music therapist, explained to ABC News. “It’s a lot more of me looking at the monitors, making sure they’re stabilized.”
The music is a tool that can help improve the babies’ development, support feeding, and shorten hospital stays, all while providing a much-needed emotional lift to their families. “This gives them the opportunity to create those meaningful moments to strengthen their bonds in a special way,” said Joanne Ordono, a child life specialist at the Los Angeles hospital.
While past research has shown that music can help premature infants’ brain development and stabilize their heart rates, these programs are still not a standard offering and often rely on philanthropic support. That support recently came full circle when 14-year-old twins Joey and Ryder Corleto donated $20,000 from bar and bat mitzvah gifts and personal fundraising to the Guerin Children’s NICU, where they were once patients. See the twins today.
Culture
No QR Codes Necessary: Phone-Free Bars and Restaurants Are on the Rise
Maxine Wallace—The Washington Post/Getty Images
Want to give your phone the silent treatment and have a bite while you’re at it? You’re in good company. Just as many schools are increasingly requiring students to lock up their phones on campus, a similar scene is unfolding at phone-free bars and restaurants, where patrons are asked to refrain from using their devices or tuck them away in pouches, like a coat check for screens.
Axios reports that “at least” 11 U.S. states have individual restaurants or bars with some form of phone restriction or digital detox incentive. For example, at Washington, D.C.’s first official phone-free bar, Hush Harbor (pictured), phones are turned in at the entrance to give guests “a space to be present.” There are even two Chick-fil-A locations (in Maryland and Georgia) offering free ice cream to families who keep their phones out of sight at the table.
But the perks go far beyond free treats. Anna Lembke, a psychiatrist at Stanford University, recently told NPR that phone-free spaces remove the ability for people to “escape” into digital worlds, which paves the way for socialization. “This is exactly what people are yearning for,” she said.
In Other News
Rare printings of the Declaration of Independence will be showcased in Philadelphia starting tomorrow (read more)
An experimental ALS treatment is offering patients at risk for the disease a chance to prevent it (read more)
The writers union and Hollywood studios reached a “tentative” agreement on a deal covering health plans and AI (read more)
Some lightning strikes on Jupiter have 100 times the power of those on Earth, per a recent study (read more)
In creepy-crawly news, a 500 million-year-old fossil could shed light on the origin of spiders (read more)
Inspiring Story
A gift for music lovers, from music lovers
Since 1989, a man named Aadam Jacobs has recorded more than 10,000 concerts from greats like Nirvana, The Cure, and Björk. Now, a group of music-loving volunteers is cataloging and digitizing those recordings — some on cassette tapes — so they can be preserved and streamed online for free. Take a look at his extensive archive.
Photo of the Day
Maddie Meyer/Getty Images
It’s one of the cutest events in professional sports: The Masters Tournament Par 3 Contest. The highlight of the competition is not who wins, who sinks a hole-in-one, or which celebs show up (looking at you, Kevin Hart). Rather, it’s the adorable kiddos donning caddie whites and giving golf a go. Seen here is a nearly 2-year-old Bennett Scheffler, whose dad Scottie is favored to win the tournament this weekend — see more pics from the day.
1440: News As It Should Be
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