Episode Description:

Every player at this year’s World Cup is wearing the end result of 500 years of iteration on a single piece of equipment. It started with factory workers hammering hardware store nails into their boots for traction on wet British turf.

Ten solutions this week with Arielle and Karissa: the world’s first exome therapy for burn patients, a California canal that generates electricity while cutting water evaporation by 70 percent, a copper compound that goes after Alzheimer’s in a completely novel way, and what will truly help you when you feel… “off.”

Special shout-out to Karissa’s friend Amy! (Listen to this episode to find out why.)

If you have questions, comments, feedback, suggestions, or just want to say hi, send a message to: podcast@optimistdaily.com.

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The Optimist Daily is a project of the World Business Academy.

Donate link: https://www.optimistdaily.com/donate-to-support-the-optimist-daily/?lsc=41ef528d

Theme and all original music by Marvin Lanes

Transcript:

Arielle: 

Hello, everyone. It’s Arielle here. 

Karissa: 

And I’m Karissa, and welcome back to The Optimist Daily’s weekly roundup. 

Arielle: 

How are you doing, Karissa? 

Karissa: 

Great. We are right in the middle of summer here, and I mean, I’m enjoying the sunshine but trying to stay cool. How about yourself, Arielle? 

Arielle: 

I’m good. I have a lot of bureaucratic things on my mind, as I told the team in our team meeting this week, but I’m not gonna bore all the listeners with it. Other than that, things are, things are okay. Did you have any fun experiences last, uh, last weekend for 4th of July? 

Karissa: 

Well, uh, some friends and I set off a couple of fireworks, some unicorn poop fireworks to celebrate 250 years of our country.

It was a lovely celebration, and always nice to have that mid-year, uh, holiday. Time is just flying, because I feel like it’s the summer holiday for us, 4th of July, and then it’s the holidays of the end of the year so quickly after. Another year coming and going, just so quickly. 

Arielle: 

Yep, another year of focusing on good news.

Speaking of which, if you aren’t already getting our solutions and would like to get our daily newsletter, then you can definitely sign up for that. Uh, the link is in the show notes. We also offer a weekly newsletter. So, you would just get all 10 solutions that we share on The Optimist Daily in one convenient email.

Karissa: 

Yeah, and in those free newsletters, we offer a little bit more than what we offer here on the podcast. We go deeper into each solution. We have some quotes, some fun little bonuses, some extra solutions from our archives. So, definitely check that out if you’re not already subscribed. We’re also on every social media channel basically, @optimistdaily on just about everything, except X, where we are @odetooptimism.

Arielle: 

And we always appreciate when you guys send us comments, questions, any kind of feedback. So, you can do that on those social channels, or you can email us at podcast@optimistdaily.com. 

Karissa: 

Yeah. Please, we love to chat with you and hear about what makes you optimistic. We do not have any Emissary shout-outs this week.

But if you would like to become an Emissary and shout out something that does make you optimistic, that is a perk you get for financially supporting The Optimist Daily. So, the link to do that is in the show notes. A big thank you to our Emissaries who are already supporting us. And of course, we have to say thank you to all of you Optimists as well for making The Optimist Daily possible, sharing our solutions, and spreading the optimistic mindset.

You guys are the reason why this exists, and we’re so happy to be able to be this source of good news. 

Arielle: 

We really, uh, appreciate all of you, and we understand that not everyone can always support financially. But if you wanted to do something for free, then just sharing the podcast and sharing our articles already goes such a long way.

Rating, reviewing, subscribing, following, leaving comments, all of that also helps us a lot. So yeah, those are just some free ways that you can help support this work. All right, well, I’m gonna jump into the solutions that we had this week. We had a few really practical ones. I’m sure a lot of you optimists out there will be able to relate to them.

Plus, there’s a lot of exciting things happening news-wise. The first one is titled “Job instability is pushing people to rethink their lives, not just their resumes.” When work gets precarious, most people update their resume and sharpen that LinkedIn profile, but career counselors are describing something different lately.

Now, a lot of their clients don’t necessarily want help finding the next job. They want help figuring out what they actually want in their professional lives. The question has shifted from how do I get back on track to was I on the right track in the first place? I like the way people are thinking about their careers now, and how they’re trying to untangle self-worth from their professional identity, and how people are also just looking for more fulfillment, not just in their workplace, but in their lives as a whole.

Do you have anyone in your life right now who is in the middle of trying to figure out what career they might want to pivot to? 

Karissa: 

Actually, yes. Shout-out to my friend Amy, who quit her corporate job last year and is traveling… well, was traveling the world for a year, kind of shifting more towards sharing her experiences, doing YouTube videos, and stuff like that instead of the traditional nine-to-five.

And I, I know she wants to travel some more, and help people also just leave that kind of career path and do what they actually want to do. So I definitely give a big shout-out to her. And if you wanna do that too, you can check her out. But, um, yeah. Are we gonna get a plug? Yeah. I’ll- we’ll plug it in the show notes, so All right.

And I’ll definitely tell her. She doesn’t know, but I know she’ll love this promotion, so But yeah. Yeah. So I think this is an article that she would find fascinating as well. 

Arielle: 

Okay. Well, if this sounds relatable to you and you’re thinking about doing a little bit of an intentional reset while you rethink, uh, your professional life, then definitely check this article out.

The second solution is called “California canal solar project reduces evaporation and generates power.” California has thousands of miles of irrigation canals, and covering them with solar panels turns out to solve two problems at once. It generates electricity and stops water from evaporating into thin air.

A small pilot project south of Modesto just posted results that make the numbers very difficult to argue with. So this project is called Project Nexus, and it’s a collaboration between UC Merced, Turlock Irrigation District, and Solar Aqua Grid that installs solar canopies above two irrigation canals, covering roughly one and a half football fields.

So the results are 70% reduction in water evaporation over a full irrigation season, 85% reduction in aquatic weed and algae growth, and 1.6 megawatts of combined power generation. 

Karissa: 

Woo! I think this is super awesome, and actually, this solution is in my backyard, very close to me. Um, I didn’t even propose this solution either, so I was glad to see it on The Optimist Daily, and it’s making, uh, international headlines.

Reducing water evaporation in a state where droughts are very frequent is, of course, important, and reducing the aquatic weed and algae growth is also important because it takes a lot of money and resources to clean it up from the canals, which is something I didn’t know, but makes a lot of sense.

And because of these kind of side effects of the solar panels going over the canals, it adds even more rationale and reasoning for why the state should continue to fund putting more solar panel canopies over, uh, more canals in the state. There’s, like, 4,000 miles of canals. And it’s not logistically possible to cover all of them, ’cause they’re different shapes and different, like, terrain, but I think it’s a good move forward and a good indication that maybe this could be something more.

Arielle: 

And speaking of something more, there are similar projects that are running all over the world. The article mentions one in India. Yeah. So this is not just a California solution. This is a solution that can be adopted in other places that need to, uh, conserve water and generate more energy, which I think is most places.

Karissa: 

Exactly. Absolutely. And I just love solutions that tackle more than one problem at once, so hopefully we’ll see more of this. And congratulations to the success of Project Nexus. 

Arielle: 

The third solution is a bit of a, a lifestyle solution for the men out there. It’s called “Five grooming habits every man should build into his routine.”

Men’s grooming gets filed under vanity, but dermatologists keep making the case for a few small additions that have real evidence behind them. Most take under a minute and cost under $20. These five habits and the science on at least one of them will probably surprise all you listeners out there. So facial skin is thinner and more sensitive than body skin.

For everyone out there using the same bar of soap on your face that you use on your body, that causes dryness and irritation over time. A dedicated face cleanser fixes that for generally under $20. Um- Mm … do people in your life have the same kind of one bar of soap for everything attitude? 

Karissa: 

Um, yes. My own boyfriend I know is a one soap or just like water on the face kind of situation, so I definitely have to give him some of these tips from this solution.

Arielle: 

Yeah, I was also thinking of my partner when I was reading this article, but shout out to his brother who actually bought him like a whole skincare set for- 

Karissa: 

Yay … 

Arielle: 

um, for I think it was Christmas, and I was like, “Oh my gosh, amazing.” And he’s actually enjoying it, so you know, it’s also a little bit of a self… 

Karissa: 

Love it! 

Arielle: 

Care moment for all the men out there, which I think it’s not as, I don’t know, encouraged in um- 

Karissa: 

Mm-hmm

Arielle: 

in a lot of guys’ circles. You know, I don’t wanna overgeneralize, but yeah, I think at least with my friends who are men, they’re less likely to, you know, light a candle and- 

Karissa: 

Yeah … 

Arielle: 

take care of their skin and have like a little ritual just for themselves. So I’m not gonna go through all five habits, but did you have a favorite one, Karissa?

Karissa: 

Well, mine was about putting on daily SPF. Probably as women we hear that a lot more of how important SPF is, but of course it’s important for all genders, everybody to put on that daily SPF. The most visible signs of aging are from skin, I mean sun damage, sun exposure. That’s what causes wrinkles, uneven tone, fine lines.

But SPF isn’t just for summer. UV radiation can reach the skin year-round through clouds and even windows, and it’s also the leading environmental cause of skin cancer, so- 

Arielle: 

Mm … 

Karissa: 

if you have any step, I think SPF is definitely one of the most important ones. 

Arielle: 

Yeah. And it actually kind of segues into the next solution, which doesn’t have to do with sunburns, but it does have to do with a burn.

The fourth solution is called “Exome therapy heals burn patient’s face in world first.” Kaitlin Jeffrey was 18 years old when rubbing alcohol ignited at a party and left her with severe facial burns. She became the first burn patient in the world to receive experimental exome therapy. When you hear what the alternative was, and I’m sure a lot of people will already know that it’s skin grafting, and see the difference in outcomes, it’s hard to think about burn treatment the same way.

This actually happened at Western University, uh, a university in London, Ontario, which is the rival university of the one that I went to. 

Karissa: 

Oh, interesting. 

Arielle: 

Yeah. So this one kind of hit close to home. I think it’s– I mean, for me anyway, it’s a very friendly rivalry. But, uh- Yeah … yeah, definitely in the area where I also went to university.

She was at this party, suffered severe facial burns in December 2025, um, and she wasn’t the only one who had burns, unfortunately. Dr. Mark Jeschke, it’s J-E-S-C-H-K-E, so I’m sorry if I am mispronouncing it. But this doctor at Hamilton Health Sciences applied injections containing one trillion exomes, and exomes are tiny cellular particles naturally released by cells that facilitate healing and reduce inflammation.

So they’re not a drug in the traditional sense. They act as messengers, triggering repair processes in surrounding tissue without surgery, which is huge. The standard option, skin grafting, like I mentioned, is surgical. It leaves scars because you’re taking, um, skin from another part of the body and putting it on where the, the burn is in order to heal it.

And the doctor was direct. “You can do the best graft on the planet,” he says, “but you won’t return the skin to normal.” Kaitlin Jeffrey healed with notably superior results compared to another fire victim from the same incident who did receive the traditional skin grafting. And yeah, she thinks it’s a miracle that she’s had such good results, especially to her face.

So that, I’m sure, is helping her, you know, gain confidence. This experience sounds so traumatic to me, and to, to have your appearance change so much in a place that’s very visible I’m sure would just add to that trauma. But thank goodness they’ve, they’ve developed this experimental treatment, and hopefully more burn patients will be able to benefit from this.

The last solution that I’m going to share with you guys before I hand it over to you, Karissa, is titled “Copper compound targets Alzheimer’s at the blood-brain barrier.” Hundreds of Alzheimer’s drug trials have tried to clear the toxic proteins building up in the brain, and unfortunately, almost all of them failed.

Researchers at Monash University tried a completely different method. Instead of chasing the proteins directly, they asked why the brain’s own waste-clearing system had stopped working. The answer involved copper, and we’re about to talk about these super successful results. The brain has its own waste-clearing mechanism at the blood-brain barrier.

There are B-glycoprotein pumps that actively expel amyloid beta, and that’s the toxic protein implicated in Alzheimer’s, um, and they expel that from the bloodstream. When Alzheimer’s develops, those pumps become less abundant, and the brain’s trash dep- disposal system, if we can call it that, slows down.

That means that these toxic proteins accumulate instead of being cleared. But researchers found a copper compound that restored those pumps. Rather than attacking amyloid beta directly, it repairs the mechanism that removes it. And the copper compound is, uh, Cu parentheses ATSM parentheses. I guess you would call it Cu-ATSM.

Um, I’m not gonna get super into the science of it. If you’re interested, then check out the article. The main thing is that this works, and hopefully it can be further developed so that we can finally cure Alzheimer’s. 

Karissa: 

And even though this study, uh, focused on a mouse model, the compound, the copper compound, Cu-ATSM has already undergone human testing for Parkinson’s disease and ALS, so it already has this human safety record, which puts it much closer to actual patient trials than most lab-stage compounds. So that’s encouraging because it could be used a lot sooner. 

Arielle: 

Mm-hmm. 

Karissa: 

Well, I’m gonna take over the solutions from here, Arielle.

The sixth solution we had to share this week is “Digital decluttering tips that work without clearing your whole schedule.” So you know that feeling when you sit down to find one photo in your camera roll, and then somehow, you know, it’s been 30 minutes, and you’re already back in 2019, and it’s just a mess of a whole bunch of photos?

I’m definitely guilty of having that 20,000-plus photo camera rolls in different locations. I have it on my phone. I have it on my Google Photos backup, and it’s just a complete mess. And I really wanna clean it, but I feel like I never have the time. Luckily, professional organizers show us that most of us are overthinking digital decluttering, and the answer isn’t just taking, like, a whole free Saturday to do it.

It’s just a few small habits that take less time than waiting for your coffee to brew. Um- 

Arielle: 

Yeah, this one I can definitely relate to. It feels a little bit personal, but… 

Karissa: 

Yeah, exactly. Arielle, are you also someone who has tons of photos in your camera roll, or- 

Arielle: 

Oh my gosh. I can’t even think about it. The worst is when you’re trying to tell a story to someone, and you’re like, “Wait, I have the perfect photo.”

And and you’re, like, awkwardly just there scrolling through everything, and they’re awkwardly staring at you waiting for you to, like, produce this photo that you can’t find. 

Karissa: 

Yeah, exactly. I admit I have, like, outdated apps and stuff around, too, and a lot of unread notifications, and emails piling up that are so many, like, promotions and stuff.

So I think this, like you said, Arielle, this felt like a targeted solution. And one certified professional organizer, Michelle Rosen, suggests using a few small pockets of time, like waiting in line at the doctor or something, to delete a few emails, apps, or messages, and that practice adds up really fast.

And I also liked advice from Isabelle Dervaux, who said the three Ds for computer workers is very effective. You can check documents, downloads, and desktop monthly. Sort by file size to find what’s secretly eating your storage, and clean that up. 

Arielle: 

I guess it’s true that you can tackle it a little bit at a time.

I never really thought about decluttering in that way, but it’s way better than just blocking off a whole afternoon, being like, “I’m, I’m gonna do this today,” ’cause it’s also not the most fun task. 

Karissa: 

No, it’s not. So putting this into your routine is important because, I mean, the average American spends seven-plus hours a day on screens, and that is just from, you know, our own leisure.

And I know I spend a lot of time just for work, too, and there’s a lot of digital clutter there from saving files, sharing files . Mm-hmm. And these digital environments affect your mental load just as much as physical spaces do. So it’s really important to take care of your digital spaces. Digital minimalism has become its own wellness category as well.

Well, the next solution is very timely because we are in the middle of the World Cup right now. It’s all about “How the soccer cleat evolved from hardware nails to engineered fabric.” I love a bit of fascinating history, especially one that features a long-term solution, in this case, the beginnings of the humble soccer cleat to what it is now, which is a very technical piece of footwear.

Arielle: 

Mm-hmm. 

Karissa: 

Yeah, I mean, the fact that every player at this 2026 World Cup is wearing the end result of about 500 years of iteration on a single piece of equipment is something that almost nobody thinks about, but it’s a real testament to solutions finding over literal centuries. 

Arielle: 

Hmm. 

Karissa: 

I won’t give it all away, but this story involves hardware store nails, a family feud that split into two of the biggest sports brands in the world, and at some point, engineers having to understand the molecular structure of mud.

Soccer cleats actually started as literal factory work boots, and players just hammered hardware store nails into the soles for traction on wet British turf. 

Arielle: 

Sounds so dangerous, like Yes. I’m sure if someone stepped on you or accidentally kicked you, then you were out of the game. Like, that’s it. You’re done.

Um, but yeah, great to learn about this during the World Cup, but unfortunately the US is already out, and Canada. 

Karissa: 

Yeah. They’re out, but still lots of good football, soccer to go, and I’m looking forward to see who wins it all. All right, and coming back to California again, another solution is “The bill that brings green hydrogen into California’s clean energy grid.”

So good news, California just signed a law that could solve one of renewables energy’s most stubborn problems, and it’s not about building more solar panels or wind farms. It’s about what happens when the sun goes down and the wind stops. The answer might be a fuel that doesn’t exist in nature on its own, and of course, that is green hydrogen.

So Governor Newsom just signed SB 1350, which qualifies green hydrogen electricity as a renewable energy source under California’s renewables portfolio standard. This solves a real gap because roughly 60% of California’s electricity comes from renewables, which is great, but overnight and in winter, stored renewable energy runs out and fossil fuels kick in.

So we need a fuel to solve that gap, and green hydrogen, which we love here at Optimist Daily and the World Business Academy, our parent organization, could be the solution to this. Green hydrogen has been talked about for years, but this law gives it actual financial infrastructure in California for the first time ever.

Moving on to another lifestyle solution, “Seven simple rituals that help you feel like yourself again.” There’s a specific kind of off that doesn’t quite have a name. You don’t feel sick, sad, not burnt out, just kind of off. And this article isn’t about overhauling your wellness routine to figure out what is off, but it’s just about a few small, deliberate things that can interrupt that feeling when it settles in, and most of them take less than 10 minutes.

The article mentions that when something does feel heavy or off, our instinct is to push through it or solve it, but that usually doesn’t help. What often works better is a slow, intentional reset. So there are a lot of great tips in this to, you know, just help you get past that feeling. One tip from this article was clearing physical clutter as an emotional reset, and maybe even digital clutter.

Now that’s … Uh, digital clutter is such a prominent issue, but I know for me, that always makes me feel so much better. When I was in college, I would just start cleaning and organizing everything. My roommates loved it because, uh, you know, they got a clean house out of it. 

Arielle: 

Hmm. Yeah, I am with you on that one.

I always think of cleaning as a physical manifestation of what’s happening in my mind, if that makes sense. Like, I’m clearing my mind as I clear all the clutter. 

Karissa: 

Me too. 

Arielle: 

Um, yeah. Another one that I, that I like, it’s a classic, but you know, it, it’s a classic for a reason. It works. Journaling, writing things down, naming the things that you’re struggling with, I think also is very, very helpful.

Karissa: 

Well, the final solution we had to share this week is how environmental DNA turned river water into a global wildlife census. This story frames this solution in a way that if two trained ecologists visit the same river and come back with two completely different species lists, they’re both incomplete, and they’re both useless for tracking whether wildlife is actually declining.

And that’s been the major problem with biodiversity measurement for decades. But a company just built something that changes that, and it starts with a water bottle that even a five-year-old can use, which means it must be a pretty simple technology. I think that’s great, because the simpler, the better. So this company, NatureMetrics, has built a system around eDNA, which is environmental DNA, the genetic material that all living things shed into their surroundings through skin cells, saliva, and other traces.

One liter of river water contains enough eDNA to identify every species that passed through it recently: fish, amphibians, mammals, insects. This new sampling kit requires no specialist training to use. Like we said, they tested it out with a five-year-old to prove the point, and she got excellent results from her test kit.

So I think that’s a testament to how accessible it is. This test kit will use a filter, and then that filter is returned to a lab where DNA sequence- sequencing technology is used, the same kind used in forensic science, and identifies every species present. And nothing is trapped, netted, or disturbed in trying to figure out, uh, the biodiversity in water environments.

This platform also offers a map for species detections. It tracks ecosystem health over time, and it can show whether restoration work in a degraded area is producing measurable results. Well, those were all the solutions we had to share this week. But before we go, we have a quote to leave you off with.

Arielle: 

“I’m touched by the idea that when we do things that are useful and helpful, collecting these shards of spirituality, that we may be helping to bring about a healing.” And that’s from Leonard Nimoy, who is my favorite. He played Spock, um, and he’s- … also an American director. And yeah, he’s just the coolest. Um, so yeah, hopefully that is inspiring to all you Optimists.

Karissa and I wish you a very happy weekend, and yeah, stay, stay cool if you’re somewhere hot. 

Karissa: 

Yeah. Stay cool, and we’ll be back next week with more solutions.