Picasso is a pit bull, Chihuahua, and Pomeranian mix who was born with "wry mouth" - an upper jaw deformity.
@picassothewonkyandwacku /SWNS.COM
His unconventional look gave him the name Picasso because he looks like one of the artist's famous abstract portraits.
Picasso's condition has disfigured his face with his nose pushed to the right and his overbite pushed to the left - but he can still eat, bark, and play like any other pooch.
@picassothewonkyandwacku /SWNS.COM
He was abandoned two days before Christmas 2016 with brother Pablo - who did not suffer from the defect - and taken in by dog shelter owner Liesl Wilhardt, 51, a few months later.
Despite only intending to foster the two pups for a few months, Pablo died suddenly of a brain aneurysm in October 2017.
Devastated by the loss of his brother, Picasso, 3, now lives with eight other rescue dogs, two cats and a rescue pig named Pax.
@picassothewonkyandwacku /SWNS.COM
Owner Liesl Wilhardt who runs Luvable Dog Rescue in Oregon said:
"People feel sorry for him at first because they think he was hurt. But he was born that way. He is perfectly imperfect."
"Once they know he isn't in any pain and nothing horrible happened to him, they relax and his appearance makes them laugh."
@picassothewonkyandwacku /SWNS.COM
"He was actually almost killed as a puppy because he ate some plastic and it caused a blockage in his system."
"Nobody knows why some animals are born with this condition. Something just happens when they are developing in the womb."
@picassothewonkyandwacku /SWNS.COM
"He is not in any pain, and does not need corrective surgery. He can still do all the things other dogs can do. "
"He can do everything a normal dog does, but he is a bit of a messy eater. But he can only lick to his left."
@picassothewonkyandwacku /SWNS.COM
"He knows tricks and commands. He can play dead, wave, walk backwards in circles, jump through hoops. You know it, he can do it."
"He often does it with Pax the pig too. I fell in love with his face right away. We are the best of friends."
@picassothewonkyandwacku /SWNS.C
"His jaw line is fine and he can open his mouth normally as you can see with his amazing yawns."
@picassothewonkyandwacku /SWNS.COM
To keep up to date with Picasso's escapades follow him at @picassothewonkyandwacku on Instagram.
Jade Brown, 24, went into labor in the middle of the night and it happened so quickly she had to give birth at home on the sofa.
Rhys Darby's left arm was in a huge plaster cast because he had just broken his thumb in three places, leaving him unable to use it at all.
But that didn't stop Rhys, 28, who safely caught baby Ariana in one had - while also juggling towels and a phone.
Paramedics arrived minutes later and Rhys quipped "I've done your job for you" before they cut the cord and took mom and baby to the hospital.
The family are now safely back home in Sunderland, Tyne and Wear, England - and Rhys joked changing diapers with one hand was just as hard as delivering babies one-armed.
Alex Cousins/SWNS
He said:
"I had the cast on one hand and a phone in the other - trying to deliver a baby! I was running around trying to find towels while the woman on the line was trying to give me instructions."
"I bent down and stuck my hand out and the baby just came out. The ambulance arrived two minutes later and they cut the umbilical cord. I said: 'It's alright - I've done your job for you!'"
"It's funny - Jade was adamant in the run up that she didn't want me near the business area during the birth. I should have brought my baseball glove - then it would have been fine! But it was quite scary."
Alex Cousins/SWNS
Jade said:
"I was so glad that Rhys got to be so involved with the birth of our baby girl and I am so proud of him for delivering her - especially with a cast on his arm."
"He was amazing during and after the birth and he's an amazing dad to Ariana."
Rhys broke his thumb when he fell backwards playing five-on-five soccer for the first time in six years.
His arm was put into a bright blue plaster cast from his knuckles to the middle of his forearm for eight weeks.
A week later girlfriend Jade's water broke when she bent down to pick up a sock, and they went to the hospital, but she wasn't dilated enough and they were sent home, on June 19.
Alex Cousins/SWNS
Rhys added:
"We were told to come back the next afternoon if nothing happened and they would start her off, so we went home. Jade tried to get some sleep, but by 2am the pain was overwhelming."
Jade said:
"I was trying to just breathe through [the contractions], but they were getting more intense so I went downstairs and sat with Rhys."
"I was squeezing his hand every time I got a contraction but as time went on I couldn't cope with the pain and told Rhys we needed to go to the hospital."
They called for a taxi, but when things got more serious Rhys dialed 999 and was connected to an operator who told him the ambulance was on the way.
But the situation escalated and he had to get involved.
"After a few pushes, our baby girl Ariana was born on the settee," said Jade.
"I remember lying with her on my chest and I couldn't believe how quick it all happened."
Ariana's official time of birth was 4:23am.
Alex Cousins/SWNS
Rhys said:
"Jade had no pain relief apart from a couple of paracetamol and some gas and air in the ambulance."
"I had wanted to do the honor of cutting the umbilical cord but the paramedics said I shouldn't, because of the situation."
"Apparently we were quite lucky. Lots of stuff could have gone wrong. Ariana is a miracle, really. She was conceived two months after Jade had a miscarriage."
A spokesperson for North East Ambulance Service confirmed a crew attended.
Sora the small framed Ragdoll cat, known to her owner as 'MeowMeow' is 11-years-old and lives with her owner Clara Lin in Taiwan.
Clara adopted 'MeowMeow' around 10 years ago and shared adorable images of her online.
Clara Lin / SWNS
The internet was very quick to point out the feline's uncanny resemblance to the internet icon 'Grumpy Cat' who passed away in 2019.
Carla Lin, 33, said:
"MeowMeow has a Japanese name was 'Sora', means sky, because she has a beautiful blue eyes. But her grandma always call her MeowMeow. I think it's her name now."
Clara Lin / SWNS
"I adopted her around 10 years ago. I support 'adopt, don't shop.' Since I have my cats, they have taught me a lot things."
"I met her in 2009 on October 10th. That day is her new birthday. She is like my child. We've lived together for a long time."
Clara Lin / SWNS
"Grumpy Cat is very cute, and does look like my cat. When my friends asked me is it your cat on TV?
"I was contradicting because I thought MeowMeow's eyes were more gentle not grumpy."
"When I posted pics of her on Imgur in just one night I had gotten so many likes and messages."
Clara Lin / SWNS
'MeowMeow' certainly seems like a legend in the making!
The groundbreaking technique sheds fresh light on the barren world - and could make colonization a reality.
Moon dust, known as regolith, could be made into construction materials for a domed or underground city.
They may also be used to protect the first human settlers from heat, cold and radiation.
NASA/JSC
First author Jennika Greer, a PhD student in geophysical sciences at the University of Chicago, said:
"We are analyzing rocks from space, atom by atom."
"It is the first time a lunar sample has been studied like this. We're using a technique many geologists haven't even heard of."
Paraphrasing Neil Armstrong, she added:
"One small grain of moon dust is one giant leap for lunar studies."
The moon is the only place we can go to find traces of the geological record from the earliest epochs of our own planet when life emerged.
NASA/Ames Research Center/Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project
NASA plans to return this decade - for the first time in more than half a century. Permanent habitation may begin within 20 years.
Co author Professor Philipp Heck, a curator at the Field Museum, Chicago, said:
"We can apply this technique to samples no one has studied."
"You are almost guaranteed to find something new or unexpected. This technique has such high sensitivity and resolution, you find things you would not find otherwise and only use up a small bit of the sample."
Called APT (atom probe tomography), it worked on the sharp and gritty grain samples brought back by Apollo 17 geologist Harrison Schmitt in 1972.
The study published in Meteoritics & Planetary Science will help us learn more about conditions there and the formation of precious resources like water and helium.
Apollo 9 Mission image - Command Module
NASA/JSC
APT is normally used to improve industrial processes such as making steel and nanowires.
Most Apollo samples are stowed in a bank style vault at Johnson Space Center, Houston.
They are loaned to researchers sparingly. Ms Greer required just one single grain, about as wide as a human hair.
In that tiny speck she identified products of space weathering, pure iron, water and helium that formed through the interactions of the lunar soil with the environment.
Ms Greer said:
"Extracting these precious resources from lunar soil could help future astronauts sustain their activities on the Moon."
She used a focused beam of charged atoms to carve a tiny, super-sharp tip into its surface.
This was only a few hundred atoms wide. To put this in context, a sheet of paper is hundreds of thousands of atoms thick.
Prof Heck said:
"We can use the expression nano-carpentry. Like a carpenter shapes wood, we do it at the nano-scale to minerals."
Once the sample was inside the ATP scanner, Greer zapped it with a laser to knock atoms off one by one. As they flew off, they struck a detector plate.
NASA/JSC
Heavier elements, like iron, take longer to reach the detector than lighter elements, like hydrogen.
By measuring the time between the laser firing and the atom striking the detector, the instrument is able to determine the type at that position, and its charge.
Finally, Ms Greer reconstructed the data in three dimensions using a color-coded point for each atom and molecule to make a nano-scale 3D map of the Moon dust.
SWNS
It's the first time scientists can see both the type of atoms and their exact location in a grain of lunar soil.
Nobody had ever tried using the device for lunar samples before. The researchers encourage other cosmo-chemists to try it out.
Ms Greer said:
"It is great for comprehensively characterizing small volumes of precious samples."
"We have these really exciting missions like Hayabusa2 and OSIRIS-REx returning to Earth soon - uncrewed spacecrafts collecting tiny pieces of asteroids."
"This is a technique that should definitely be applied to what they bring back because it uses so little material but provides so much information."
Studying soil from the moon's surface gives scientists insight into an important force within the solar system - space weathering.
Space is a harsh environment with tiny meteorites, streams of particles coming off the Sun and radiation in the form of solar and cosmic rays.
While Earth's atmosphere protects us, other bodies like the Moon and asteroids don't have atmospheres.
NASA/Artemis
As a result, the soil on the Moon's surface has undergone changes caused by space weathering, making it fundamentally different from the satellite's interior rock.
Ms Greer said:
"It is kind of like a chocolate-dipped ice cream cone - the outer surface does not match what is inside."
Her nano-sized tip also means her original grain of moon dust is still available for future experiments.
Future generations of scientists can make new discoveries and predictions from the same precious sample.
Prof Heck said:
"Fifty years ago, no one anticipated someone would ever analyze a sample with this technique, and only using a tiny bit of one grain."
"Thousands of such grains could be on the glove of an astronaut, and it would be sufficient material for a big study."
Lunar dust is fine, like a powder, but it cuts like glass. It is formed when meteoroids crash on the moon's surface, heating and pulverizing rocks and dirt, which contain silica and metals such as iron.
Since there is no wind or water to smooth rough edges, the tiny grains are sharp and jagged, and cling to nearly everything.
Added Ms Greer:
"It is important to understand these materials in the lab so we understand what we're seeing when we look through a telescope."
"Because of something like this, we understand what the environment is like on the Moon."
"It goes way beyond what astronauts are able to tell us as they walk on the Moon. This little grain preserves millions of years of history."
NASA was so impressed it is funding the team for the next three years to study different types of lunar dust with APT to quantify its water content and investigate other aspects of space weathering.
*A version of this story originally appeared on SWNS and was written by Mark Waghorn
The poll of 2,000 Americans — who have ever vacationed with their significant other — found 61% have gone on a vacation with their partner in an effort to reignite the romance.
In fact, over half say they used their trip as a way to get some much-needed alone time.
SWNS
A study, conducted by OnePoll in conjunction with Apple Vacations, examined the travel habits and experience respondents and discovered 61% tend to experience more romance when on vacation with their partner than in their everyday lives.
From receiving compliments (37%) and getting all dressed up (53%), to giving compliments (50%) and going out for fancy meals (57%), Americans tend to experience more romantic vibes when on vacation with their significant other, compared to their normal routine.
It's becoming increasingly popular to propose to a significant other on vacation. Forty-one percent had it in their mind their partner would pop the question while on a trip together.
Of those who thought their partner was going to pop the question while on their trip, four in five had their suspicions confirmed.
SWNS
But it's not just engagements that occur during a romantic getaway. Thirty-one percent have eloped while on vacation with their partner, while 64% received a surprise gift.
The results showed that you can tell your partner is in an extra romantic mood if they open the door for you (43%) or give you more compliments than usual (48%).
“Many resorts offer romantic amenities such as dinner for two on the beach, couples massages and mimosa breakfasts in bed," said Anna Maria Addesso, Marketing Director for Apple Vacations.
"For even more excitement, book a tour together and immerse yourselves in the destination. It's very easy to add any of these options to your vacation and surprise your loved one."
Results reveal the average American will go on three separate romantic getaways with their partner in a single year.
But, after a romantic vacation with bae, it just takes a week — or seven days — before the romance fizzles.
“Chances are if you vacation in a destination that lends itself to romance. Take a sunset walk on the beach or capture a special photo of the two of you to cherish for years to come," added Addesso.
"All-inclusive resorts give you endless options to celebrate one another through various daily activities, spa and wellness — and of course, dining."
TOP 5 REASONS FOR A VACATION WITH A PARTNER
- To spend more quality time with significant other 72%
- To experience something new with partner 72%
- To see a part of the world never seen before 66%
- To go on an adventure 63%
- To reignite the romance 61%
TOP 5 WAYS TO TURN UP THE ROMANCE
- Giving compliments 48%
- Showering with affection 47%
- Going out on a planned date 43%
- Holding the door for me 43%
- Buying gifts 42%
*A version of this story originally appeared on SWNS and was written by Zoya Girvis