S2.E6 - Serotonin Saturday : Episode1

0:00This is the last episode of the month. This episode exists for one reason and one reason alone. To remind you that not everything is terrible, not every story ends in horror and that sometimes, quietly, good things still actually happen in this world. On this podcast, we spend a lot of time sitting in the dark. We talk about loss, injustice, unanswered questions and trauma. And as much as those stories matter, so do you and your mental health. So consider this your decompression episode, your nervous system reset. This entire episode is dedicated to hope, feeling and the smallest of victories. Welcome to serotonin Saturdays. Well, I'm not even going to do introductions. Good morning. Good morning. Hydrate you dehydrated houseplants. Take your meds. Because we're not even going in for

1:01pleasantries today because it has been one hell of a beginning of 2026. We're just going to go right into it. And I hope you're okay with that Rachel because too much has happened this month. I am perfectly okay with that. It's been a hell of a year already and we're still beginning. So of course, welcome. You feral party possums to serotonin Saturday. So we're changing a beat for today. I'm going to go over a couple of things that happen in 2025 that you party possums may have missed because I sure affected. I was under a rock. Okay. I was dealing with far too much. Working crud to deal. And I mean, you were under something. Alright. And so you got prego. We're not going to get into that. So California has become the latest and largest state to ban hat decline in the United States and what's considered

2:03a historic win for animal welfare. I have to say that's pretty pretty awesome. Also in California, a new bill will define and then ban ultra processed foods from school dinners and lunches. This is believed to be the first statutory definition of UPFs in the world. So starting off strong. Okay. With serotonin Saturday, we have some good things coming out of California. Not only that, you love goats. A herd of 300 hungry goats help prevent wild fires in the mountains of California, a Catalonia, excuse me, Northeast Spain this summer led by nomadic goat herders. The animals grazed on dry shrubs and other combustible vegetation to create natural fire breaks. This project helped reduce the number of wildfires last year in Spain. So the regional government decided to extend the scheme and allowed the goats to

3:05go further. Maybe we need to implement that a little bit. We do it in California. Okay. You don't want to, you never hear about it. But maybe we need to do that in like other states too. Like I think like the closest that I could rent a herd of goats to come and graze on my dead brush is from Georgia, which is the city that they're into me is like five hours away. So they have it in Texas, Virginia, Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee, California, Washington, Oregon, Nevada, New Mexico. And one more, I can't remember, but it's it's prevalent wildfire states. But like they should make it nationwide. Yes. Also, you think that because you know, hurricane state,

4:16that they would have the goats go in after the hurricanes and devour the down brush and like the down the trees. That way, then it's much easier to get the down trees and everything out. You would think that. Apparently, this state is bonkers and doesn't think like that. We're not going to talk about the validity of how bonkers your state is because Florida man do have a good thing on neurological diseases. Huntington's disease has been treated successfully for the first time in history, affecting around 75,000 people in the US, UK, and Europe. The hereditary condition of Huntington's disease is gene mutation cause proteins needed to the brain to decay over time. Now gene therapy trial by University College of London

5:18reported slowing progression of the disease by 75%, which could result in adding not just to decades on people's life, but significantly improving the quality of them. Because Huntington's disease slowly causes dead brain tissue, just like Alzheimer's and dementia, which you know I live with with my father. And it's not another topic. Well, it's fine. We have some indigenous people, happy serotonin information, nearly a century after she died. Three weeks, or mere weeks before handing in her thesis, my corretti papacura believed to be the first indigenous mawari woman to study at Oxford University has been honored with a post humorous degree. Okay. As a thrifty girl, I love this next one. The second hand clothing market is booming,

6:31expanding at about 2.7 times the rate of the general retail market with breadups annual resale in 2025 report predicting it will reach 275 billion pounds by 2029. Engineers from Northwestern University in Illinois, USA created the world's smallest pacemaker, which can be non-embasively injected into the body via syringe. While it can work on parts of any size, it's particularly suited for newborns with congenital heart defects and dissolves when it is no longer needed. I absolutely love that. Let me go cry in a quarter happy tears. I told you, I got some great stuff for today. The next one I got specifically for Joshua. He's listening while you're a partial to a deep pan or prefer a stone-baked thin crust.

7:41We have good news for the pizza lovers who listen to our podcast. A study of the University of East and Julia and Julia has found that the smell of freshly baked pizza is just a cause for salivating. It actively works to reduce stress and boost your mood and serotonin levels. But even if you're not the fan of the food, the research suggests that other familiar comforting smells could help improve your mood by 40%. That explains why you're not feeling good or you know, you're feeling nostalgic. You crave comfort foods because it grates the happy brain chemicals. Yep, acetosis. That makes sense. I'm so glad we both agreed on serotonin Saturdays because come on now. Right. For environmental news for Tina and Sylvia, which we love environmental news as well. But the ozone hole over Antarctica has shrunk to its fifth smallest size in more than three decades

8:46according to NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration or NOAA. The reduction has been made possible by regulations on ozone depleting substances outlined under the Montreal Protocol, an international environmental treaty intended to protect the ozone layer. The weaker polar vortex, a lower pressure system of cold air, also contributed to the reduction. The ozone layer functions as a global shield against harmful levels of the UV solar radiation. A weakened ozone layer can increase rates of skin cancer, cataracts, and significantly affect crops. So, props to that. I love that. We only have a page left. This next one is my favorite because it regards to violent crime.

9:46It is now plummeted in the United States. And beyond the US is, of course, one of the least violent years since modern records began and it's not alone. According to real-time crime index, which is natural thing, it tracks the data, the US murder rate is down by almost 20% so far this year. That's as of 2026. While violent crime has fallen by nearly 11%, it's not a blip. FBI figures from August show that the US murder rate saw its sharpest fall to date in 2024, dropping by 14.9%, eclipsing even 2023's substantial 10% decline. A similar trend is underway elsewhere, Brazil, which had the highest murder rate in all of the countries, plummeted by 20.3% of the last decades. Figures published in June suggest. Meanwhile in London, which our current office

10:56likes to claim is growing a crime problem, rate is at the lowest since records began in 2003. Recorded knife crime, meanwhile has been seen as a year on decline of 7%. I got this next one specifically for Sydney. Our local bumblebee enthusiasts, two lives in Virginia, the bumblebee population has risen dramatically in central Scotland after rewilding the former farmlands. So they turned former farmlands into wild preserves. I absolutely love that. But wait, get better. Only 35 bumblebees were recorded on the Denmark field, a 90 acre site north of Perk, which I know you know we're perk this. When the charity

11:57rewilding Denmark field began its work in 2021 by 2023, this had increased to 4,056 bumblebees. I absolutely love that. The soil and barley stubble was naturally colonized by 85 different plant species, attracting more pollinators. A buzz buzz buzz. Because without bees, we don't have fruits and vegetables and that's how cross pollination happens. I mean without pollinators, we don't have anything. We don't. Okay, now we're going to get happy. Okay, time to happy. The global mortality rate for children under five has fallen by 52 percent since 2000. In 2023, UNICEF recorded 37 deaths per 1,000 lifebirds down from 77 in 2000. And if the mortality rate had remained at the 2000 level, 95

13:04million more children would have died. UNICEF credits the efforts of donors, medics, governments, doctors without borders and communities over the past 25 years. Artificial blood could be used for transfusions as soon as 2030. Reducing preventable deaths due to shortages of donor blood because you do have the people with the golden blood and you do have people that are like positive or own negative or AB positive. Clinical trials have begun at NARA Medical University in Japan where scientists extracted the protein, came a globin, from expired donor blood to create a virus free particle at mimics red blood cells and are compatible with any blood type. Its shelf life is two years. And for donor blood, it's only 35 days.

14:17We have three more good things. Mind your serotonin Saturdays are going to be about 15 to 30 minutes long. So not too terribly long here guys. The first world's micro fiber recycling plant opened in bud cornwall. You heard that correctly. So this name is bud, B-U-D-E, or booty, booty, booty. We're going to go with booty because it makes me happy. So it opened in June aiming to stop 86 tons. A plastic fiber polluting the ocean annually. Shed from synthetic clothing during washing and fibers are too small to be filtered out entirely by waste treatment plants. The center developed by the Cleaner C's Group sells washing machine filters for 130 pounds. When the cartridge is full of microfibers, it goes back to the center for free composting.

15:19This affects you and your family. Child peanut allergy rates are falling in the United States. A study in the journal Pediatric shows that since 2017, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases formally recommended that parents give common allergens to infants. Allergy have since fallen by 43% and allergy rates for all foods have dropped by 36. And the last one is my favorite out of this whole thing because I love myself a good forest, a good tree, a nice little tree. Global deforestation has declined for the third decade in a row. According to the UN, falling from annual losses of 176 square kilometers in the 1990s to 109 square kilometers a year over the past 10 years. Nearly five million square kilometers of

16:19forest have been lost since 1990, but protection is rising one foot that the forests are now legally safeguarded with 2.5 million square kilometers added since 1990. And that is your summary of 2025 serotonin Saturday. I absolutely love that. And I'm so glad the deforestation is getting better. It's plummeting. It's gotten so much better. I love that. Not to mention a lot of the forests that I grew up with and that we used to well, I used to hike at anyways. He didn't like hiking all that much. Now he has to do it for work. But like a lot of the forests I used to hike at were under federal land protection and now they're covered under native federal land protection.

17:21And a lot of those lands have gotten given back. And it just makes me so happy along with that, you know, like the bumblebees and the goats come on. Like I love all of it. Thank you. I did that. You're welcome. It's not big. It's not huge. Um, we still haven't gotten anything in our email regarding serotonin Saturday. But, you know, it's only the first one. So let's see how things go. So if you guys like today, give us some information that we can use. Oh, the item got sent to sister's house. I mean, even just happy stories that happen to you and that you want to share good news or

18:22happy things like just anything guys send it in. Let us share with others. So if you want to send us your story or if you want to send us gossip, you can't tell anyone else, you can create a name or a persona. I send it to tpw3mpodcast at gmail.com or you can join our Facebook page or follow us on Instagram. Send us a message on there or, you know, send us a message on Facebook as well. We do have an actual business page. But yeah, that's, that's it for serotonin Saturday, guys. I hope you enjoyed it. A little, a little fluff, a little sprinkle of happiness. I know I enjoyed it. After yesterday's episode. Yes. I'm not sorry. That was a good episode for me because I was able to get it done and did the family some justice at least. I hope I'll find out when I get information

19:23from them. I hope. I know. It just, I needed it. Let's just go with that. I needed it. I need to eat because it is late in the day for me. It's late in the day for you, but I'm going to call you back here after we get off. Okay. But I hope you guys enjoyed today. And again, you want to send us anything? Please send us an email. All that fun stuff. As always, stay feral. I'm about to hand. And we'll see you guys next time. Okay. Bye. Bye. Well, party possums. That's today's dose of the pandemonium. Thanks for listening and watching the Audi HD chaos. Review, comment, and don't forget to subscribe. Tune in next week for more continued madness. And as always, stay feral.