Good Morning! 🌞 

Did you know that February is the only month that can pass without a full moon? 🌙 Because of its shorter length, some years—like 2018—completely skip a full moon in February, making it a rare and eerie phenomenon known as a “Black Moon.”

Health Sciences

Single-Dose Treatment

Researchers at the University of Illinois have developed a compound called ErSO-TFPy that shows remarkable potential in treating estrogen receptor-positive (ER+) breast cancer. ER+ breast cancer affects 13.1% of women in the U.S. over their lifetime and makes up 15% of all cancer diagnoses. Current interventions—mainly surgery and hormone therapy—carry significant side effects such as blood clots, osteoporosis, and sexual dysfunction, and they don’t always prevent cancer recurrence or resistance.

In animal tests, a single dose of ErSO-TFPy completely eradicated small tumors and dramatically shrank large ones in mice and rats, with no observed side effects. Notably, the compound triggered necrotic cell death in tumors without relying on the body’s immune system. These findings hold promise even for advanced cases, including human breast cancer tumors transplanted into mice, which also responded robustly to the new treatment.

Published in ACS Science, this work led by Paul Hergenrother, Ph.D., underscores the rarity of seeing complete tumor regression from a single dose. Hergenrother expressed optimism that ErSO-TFPy could be a breakthrough treatment option for breast cancer, providing an avenue to reduce the side effects and drug resistance that often undermine current therapies. Further research and clinical trials will help determine how this compound can be used to improve patient outcomes.

Sports

Hall of Fame Election

The Baseball Hall of Fame revealed that all 394 ballots in this year’s election were cast anonymously, sparing the one voter who didn’t choose Seattle Mariners icon Ichiro Suzuki from public criticism. Ichiro earned a staggering 99.7% of the vote—just shy of the unanimous mark set by Mariano Rivera—leading MLB.com’s Daniel Kramer to call it a fitting conclusion to “one of the sport’s most remarkable journeys.”

Ichiro took the Major Leagues by storm in 2001, leading the league in hits, batting average, and stolen bases in his debut season. He made history as only the second player ever to win both Rookie of the Year and MVP in the same year. During his career, he broke the single-season hits record (262) and tied the MLB record by reaching 200 or more hits for 10 straight seasons. Counting his time in Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball, Ichiro ended up with 4,367 total hits—the most in professional baseball history.

More than his numbers, Ichiro became a global ambassador for the game. Known for his relentless work ethic and impeccable style of play, he bridged baseball cultures in the United States and Japan. In Seattle, he was a beloved fixture—fans packed the stadium to watch him dominate on the field and celebrate every moment at the plate. Now, as a Hall of Famer, Ichiro’s legacy extends beyond his remarkable statistics: he’s forever etched in the hearts of Mariners fans and revered across the world of baseball.

World News

5,300-Year-Old Writing System

The Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, M.K. Stalin, has offered a $1 million reward to anyone who can definitively decipher the ancient script of the Indus Valley Civilization—an urban culture dating back over 5,000 years. This announcement follows a study linking graffiti marks on ancient Tamil pottery to the Harappan script, suggesting a surprising connection between two regions thousands of miles apart. If proven, it would redefine historical ties between the Indus Valley and southern India.

Despite decades of research, the script remains unreadable. It appears on roughly 4,000 artifacts—mostly pottery, sandstone, and copper—and each inscription tends to have only a few characters. Scholars debate whether these brief strings of symbols indicate a logographic system (similar to Chinese) or something else altogether. Without a “Rosetta Stone” equivalent, attempts to match the script to known languages (such as Sumerian or proto-Elamite) have thus far failed. Although IT professionals and AI researchers are among those vying for the prize, many experts doubt that algorithms alone can solve the puzzle, noting that successful decipherment often relies on a deeper understanding of the culture itself.

This challenge echoes a similar prize last year, when a Silicon Valley entrepreneur offered $750,000 for deciphering carbonized scrolls from Pompeii. AI-driven analysis uncovered some Greek text, netting portions of the reward for a team of students. Just as that discovery rekindled interest in ancient mysteries, Tamil Nadu’s million-dollar offer underscores an enduring fascination with cracking lost scripts—and the prestige that awaits those who finally unlock one of history’s greatest linguistic riddles.

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Mind Stretchers

⁉️ 

I’m short but sweet, a fleeting delight,
I play with hearts in the chill of night.
I vanish fast, just 29 tall,
Or sometimes less—hardly there at all.
What am I?

Answers to yesterday’s Mind Stretchers

I’m often with you, but not quite a treat, I last a while, but you can't eat me. I stick around, but don't leave a mark, What am I? — a gum! Linda Runatz got this correct first 🌞 

Be the first to send us the correct answer for today’s mind stretcher for a shout-out with the answer tomorrow. Just send us the answer and your name to [email protected] or reply to the email.

If you have any uplifting stories and experience you might want to share, send those over to [email protected] for the chance to be featured.