They Said This Air Would Be Breathable

My little sister all dressed up for prom, and her boyfriend’s reaction when he saw her. Justine said he stopped breathing and she had to drag him inside our house.

amazonpoodle:

ROSA, WE HAVE YOUR BACK!

Hi everybody,

So I’ve been on-and-off Tumblr a lot recently, but for the last two weeks it’s been because of a family emergency. Rosa, my little sister (well, okay, she’s 23, but she’s little to me), had a serious fall while she was rock climbing with a friend in Moab. She fractured some ribs, got a concussion, and injured her spine really badly — she’s paralyzed from the waist down. I’ve been out in Colorado, first with Rosa at the hospital in Grand Junction to which she got coptered from Moab, and then to get her settled in for longer-term rehab in Denver.

My family and Rosa’s friends are running a fundraising campaign to pay for Rosa’s medical expenses (two months of inpatient spinal rehab alone is looking like it’ll cost us at least $40,000, and that’s even with insurance paying for 80% of the first month. Just the ambulance transport from Grand Junction to Denver cost $4,000); for my mom, my stepdad and me to take turns visiting Rosa at Craig Hospital in Denver this summer as all of us live 2,000 miles away on the East Coast; and to give Rosa some support post-rehab — accessible housing, continued occupational and physical therapy, the whole shebang.

Rosa is one of the most active, athletic, stubborn, badass people I know. She hikes, races, mountain bikes, skis, snowboards, rock climbs, and works as a guide for several different wilderness programs. Sometimes she does all of this at 10,000 feet above sea level. She’s got a ridiculous puppy named Hank that she’s training as a therapy dog. She’s in school for nursing. All of that stuff is what motivates Rosa and gives her joy, and all of it is still completely possible for her (she’s already got her eye on the Paralympics, not kidding), but she’ll need a lot of support to get there.

My family just started a fundraising website here. Any amount you could donate would be a huge help, and if you can’t donate money — believe you me, I understand being broke as a joke — I’d be so grateful if you’d give this post a reblog. Rosa and her girlfriend are reaching out to their network of people who also dig living at high altitudes; my stepdad’s got his academic peeps; my mom’s got her fellow social workers and therapists. I have you guys. <3

Thank you so much,

Z

8bitfuture:

Video: ‘PediPower’ energy harvesting shoe.

A team at Rice University has shown off their energy harvesting shoe, designed to take energy normally wasted when the heel of a shoe strikes the ground, instead turning it into useable energy to power medical devices or other low energy gadgets.

The PediPower hits the ground before any other part of the prototype shoe. A lever arm strikes first. It is attached to a gearbox that replaces much of the shoe’s sole and turns the gears a little with each step. The gears drive a motor mounted on the outside of the shoe that generates electricity to send up to the battery.

“It may be worth looking into having both the heel and the ball of the foot produce power, especially if this shoe could be used while running,” Armada said.

The students expect the project to be picked up by another team at Rice in the fall, with the hope they can refine the materials, shrink the size and boost the power output, all of which will get PediPower closer to being a commercial product.

“If we could prove that we could produce some usable power, store it in a battery and discharge that battery on a mobile device or an MP3 player, then we could prove this device works,” Armada said. “Now the next team can come in and make it smaller and lighter without sacrificing power.”

(Source: youtube.co amazzingphils reblogged fishtwigz 1 Custom URL )