Seasonal allergies such as hay fever can be seriously debilitating. A good air purifier can help by capturing airborne allergens and removing them from the air. If you choose the right model – taking into account specs such as circulation rate and filter type – it can significantly reduce the number of allergen particles floating around your home.
This article aims to help you understand what to look for, and how to use an air purifier to fight seasonal allergies. Once you’re clear on what you need, our roundup of the best air purifiers offers plenty of tried-and-tested recommendations. We’ve enlisted the help of Warburg Lee, a clean air technology expert and founder and CEO of Alen, to provide his expertise.
“The CADR indicates how quickly the purifier can clean the air. A higher CADR means faster, more frequent filtration,” explains Lee. “For example, the Alen BreatheSmart 75i has a CADR of 347 for pollen, delivering 347 cubic feet of clean air per minute, making it well suited for larger rooms during allergy season.”
Children experience all types of bullying when younger, some decide to speak up while others don’t. Health experts suggest talking to your child daily so they feel comfortable to open up.
Bullying can take a toll on your mental health and physical capabilities.
If a child is being bullied they may close off towards family and friends.
It can happen to anyone, no matter the age, race, or gender.
Annyaleese Linder is a freshman in high school at IQ Academy, she says she experienced bullying at a younger age. She tells me how it affected her daily life and why she had to get out of that atmosphere.
“It made me really sad and depressed. I was really anxious, the old school that I was going to they gave up on me, they made me feel unsupported and alone.” said Annyaleese
Brittnee Linder-Orocco, Annyaleese’s Parent, said “She was trying to quietly cope with things, but you could tell things were off. She just kind of withdrew, she got quiet, she would stick to herself didn’t want to talk to anybody.”
Jessica Rousset was COO of a healthcare tech company, head of innovation at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, and now serves as the Executive Director of the Interplanetary Initiative at Arizona State University. Sounds like science fiction, but it’s not.
“Every company should have a space strategy,” said Rousset. “Many of the innovations and the luxuries that we take for granted on Earth come from our investment in space. There’s a 7:1 ROI in terms of investment in space and economic benefit on Earth.”
On this episode of Talk PR, Rousset dives into what we could learn from space.
TRANSCRIPT:
Tracy Williams: Jessica Rousset has been a COO of a healthcare tech company, head of innovation at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, and she’s now director of interplanetary initiatives at Arizona State University. That sounds like science fiction, but I know it’s not. Can you give us an earthly explanation or translation.
Jessica Rousset: This is a ambitious, radical experiment led and sort of devised by the president of ASU, in fact, President Michael Crow, who’s a visionary to really rethink the role of a large public university as a steward of humanity in the design of, you know, the societies of the future on and off planet. So, what really intrigued me with this opportunity was an all of society approach to thinking about what it means to be human, as we are very much on the verge of existing off Earth, right? So it is looking at not just the technological challenges, but also the cultural and social dimensions, the economic issues, the political drivers, the environmental considerations, all of those systems, how do they come together, to build what we think of a society, but space is just this incredible, inspirational canvas that I think is one of those rare topics that do unite us all in our inspiration and hope, right? And it’s an opportunity to set, sort of hit the reset button, and think about, if we were to start over as a civilization, what are the good things that we would keep, and what are the things that we would change? And how would we do this together? Because space, you know, from space there’s, there are no borders, right? There are no national borders. So it is, anything we do in space affects everyone. And so, you know, our motto or tagline is, humanity will be interplanetary, and our success will depend on who we choose to become along the way. And so, you know, how are we all preparing for this trillion-dollar economy that’s upon us, and maybe 10 years, who gets to participate? How will we cooperate? Just all these really big questions. And so that’s what we’re attempting to address at ASU and the interplanetary initiative, which has been sort of figuring this out over the past eight years, and I joined about four years ago to contribute to answering all those big questions.
Tracy Williams: I mean, but you were trained as a biochemist, but you’ve been in business. So that’s business on Earth, as we’ve added, which is pretty unscientific, sometimes. It’s about customers and inventory and running a business. What can we learn from space?
Jessica Rousset: Well, our motto is also that every company should have a space strategy. We use space in our everyday life, financial transaction, GPS, many of the innovations and the luxuries that we take for granted on earth come from our investment in space. You know, there’s like a seven to one ROI in terms of investment in space and technology and economic benefit on Earth, right? So that is something that is sometimes not as appreciated as it should be. So, there is a PR element to how do we make sure that every, you know, voter, every citizen, really understands what those funds and the returns on those investments in space are to our everyday life. But they are significant. They’re material, they’re meaningful. And if those were to go away, life on Earth would look very, very different.
So I was actually just reading an article just around, the insurance industry and being able to use satellite data, which is more and more sophisticated, to be able to see environmental emissions and actually see what’s happening on the ground and the risks with human behavior, to inform that segment of the industry, the insurance market. So there are so many ways in which space data, that’s sort of the low hanging fruit, can be used to inform business better business decisions. And then there is, of course, the technology that we can develop in low Earth orbit. So in microgravity, more and more companies are understanding that they can develop new, drugs, culture cells, test even consumer products, in ways that will give you better insights into the physical properties or biological properties of a system that you can then intervene on and innovate around to provie a competitive event advantage on Earth. And in fact, we launched an accelerator program called Space edge. That’s for, you know, space adjacent industries, so terrestrial markets and the search terrestrial markets to think about, what can space do for your business? How can it provide you a competitive edge in terms of R&D and manufacturing, or how can you serve that market as more and more people are going to have to spend time and space, stay healthy, eat, do the things that humans do, right? And that is going to just increase. So how are we across all kinds of interest industries, how are we getting ready for that? Is this a short-term opportunity? Medium term, long term, either way, you should know how and when to insert yourself in this economy as it takes off.
Tracy Williams: Well, tell me about interdisciplinary. It always sounds good, right? But can tech companies pull it off? It means more than just a board of directors. How do you make it interdisciplinary?
Jessica Rousset: This is really sort of the foundational tenant for the interplanetary initiative, and how we approach research. So, we seed fund research projects that address big positive space futures, sort of topics and questions. And the way we go about funding our projects is we require a deeply interdisciplinary group of individuals, because these questions are so big you need not just the scientists or the engineers you need, the economists you need, the historians you need, the artists. You need all kinds of different thinkers that represent sort of all of society that is going to be affected by these big questions to contribute intellectually to the solutions. We funded dozens of projects in this way and produced all kinds of outputs and outcomes. For example, you know, one of the questions was little bit to your point about human health. How do we sustain human, healthy human communities in space? That was one question. And the team of social scientists, and there was a theater person, and all kinds of folks came together. These are, by the way, usually groups that grow very large team, sometimes dozens. They came up with a video game called port of Mars, where you cosplay a politician, or you’re a scientist or and you collect data. It’s research. But by playing the game, you can understand how human behaviors will lead to a, you know, a settlement that succeeds or that or that fails, or things in between, right? So that’s one example. We have a project called, “How can lessons from the past inform our decisions for a better space future,” and we’re creating a documentary in interviewing, you know, dozens of thought leaders, the naysayers, the optimists, everything in between, to really think about how we can learn from our experiences. You know, discovering, colonizing new territory on Earth and what do we take with us when we go and explore other you know, celestial bodies.
Tracy Williams: How does the program prepare the undergraduate. So, I assume there’s undergraduates for the technological leadership of the more current future, and how will that be different from today? What are the new ways of building teams?
Jessica Rousset: I joined four years ago. We grew from one degree program, we have about 12 sort of educational learning programs, from K 12, undergraduate student engagement, broadly, continuing professional education. So it’s really the whole gamut. The common thread in how we think about training the next generation is going back to this idea that it’s going to require all society. So, it’s not just going to be the aerospace engineers and the space scientists, the planetary scientists, the astrophysicists, etc. We need on-ramps for all kinds of talents, for marketers, for economists, for you know, artists, to find how they can contribute to our future in space, in the space economy. So, that’s the general sort of philosophy that we have. All of our degree programs, as well as our various educational programs, provide opportunities for students across all majors to do research on the lot. You just have some examples I just shared with you. As you can tell from the nature of these questions and projects, we need all kinds of talents, and so these interdisciplinary, and I think we counted, we have so far across our portfolio, about 99 disciplines represented over the last several years. And they are very collaborative. So, we don’t just stay within the university. We work with outside organizations all the time, private sector and government. And we also did a quick tally, and I think we have about 130 different organizations that have been involved in our various programs along the way, and that, you know, continues to grow.
Tracy Williams: This is so fascinating, because, you know, you’re really not bound to this earth with this, with the whole universe and your site, how do you pick projects?
Jessica Rousset: We’ve been cultivating a group that we’re calling, maybe call our brain trust, a group of thought leaders in industry, academia, government, that we bring together every year here in Arizona to for workshops, to essentially ask, what are the biggest questions as a sector that we need to answer, and what are tangible things we can do year to year together to start moving towards these big questions that presumably can take lifetimes really to answer. And that’s okay, it’s all about thinking big, but having the agency to take a first step. That’s also one of the philosophies that we have across all of our programs. Let’s be bold. Let’s not be afraid of the big challenges, the big questions, but let’s empower each other to take a first step. So that’s how we’ve been essentially funding a lot of our projects, is basically, relying on the thought leaders who come together collaboratively and say, here are the prior the questions that we think are the most important.
We’re going to continue to work with this group to guide our investments. I think there’s an opportunity for us to go a step further and articulate sort of common space development goals, like the UN SDGs, right? What are the big things that year to year, as a community, we think we can move the needle towards by taking collective action. And I think collective action is a little bit in the ethos, you know, in the air right now. And I think there’s a lot of uncertainty happening at the moment. It is a force of connection for and I think communities that have built trust, that have shared values, and we’ve been nurturing this community for many years. When adversity happens, challenges happen. That’s when the dividends pay off, right? That’s when you turn challenges into opportunity. You come together as a community, and I will say the space community is incredibly optimistic.
Tracy Williams: That’s actually my next question, which is, you hate to say it, but the interplanetary initiative sounds like an area of inquiry that would be most under fire right now in the current United States that we live in. I understand you’ve built this, you’ve created this, but there must be funding involved and threats to this growth and expansion, when you’ve got part of the country talking about, going back to mining coal, right? What’s happening for you realistically with the next few years?
Jessica Rousset: I think it. You know, all universities are under pressure, under fire, and across the board. There’s much work that needs to be done, right? So many big questions. The answer is, you adapt, and you don’t change your values. That’s number one. You keep your eye on the big picture and the purpose. Because administrations come and go. And, you know, we have the long view. We take the long view in this. And so you find the paths that have support, you know, space and AI, huge topic, you know, hugely relevant. Tons of opportunity, lots of talents, lots of ideas. You know, there are a lot of things that we can prioritize. It’s a matter of reprioritizing and also leaning on your community for thinking more creatively around resources.
Tracy Williams: It’s all great out of the box thinking Jessica, which is another way of saying what you’re doing just sounds really cool. We’re lucky to hear from you. Thanks so much.
Jessica Rousset: Thank you so much. Tracy, I love talking about this. It really is fun.
IN THE NEWS OWC secured a segment on Spectrum News 1 for K12’s iQ Academy
OWC secured a segment on Spectrum News 1 for iQ Academy in honor of Teacher Appreciation Day, featuring online teacher Ms. P., sharing how her virtual classroom creates a supportive, engaging space where students can thrive. Watch the full story here.
OWC lands feature for CompoSecure in The Block
CompoSecure, Baanx, and MetaMask launched the MetaMask metal payment card, which lets users pay directly from their self-custody MetaMask wallets without needing to preload, convert crypto into fiat, or rely on centralized exchanges. Read the full coverage from The Block here.
OWC won placements for Nuvve in Charged EVs and eight other publications
OWC secured coverage in various trade publications for Nuvve (Nasdaq: NVVE), a global leader in vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technology and grid modernization, and the company’s announcement of the acquisition of Fermata Energy LLC, a leading V2G platform provider in the U.S. Click here for the full coverage.
Vehicle-to-grid pioneer Nuvve has announced the acquisition of substantially all the net assets of Fermata Energy, through Nuvve’s newly formed subsidiary, Fermata 2.0. The purchase price reportedly came to $659,000, consisting of approximately $340,000 in cash and the remainder in assumed liabilities.
Fermata 2.0 will be jointly led by Gregory Poilasne as CEO and Hamza Lemsaddek as Chief Operating Officer. Several key members of the Fermata team will join Fermata 2.0, bringing expertise in V2G integration, software development, and OEM and utility engagement. The companies will continue to support and expand existing customer and partner relationships on both sides.
Software platform teams and AWS infrastructure will be consolidated within Fermata 2.0, reducing annual expenses by approximately $2 million, according to the company. Sales synergies are emerging as Nuvve expands its hardware offerings into markets previously served by Fermata.
Fermata 2.0 will deliver a new generation of white-label software solutions, combining Fermata’s optimization and forecasting capabilities with Nuvve’s grid intelligence. Customers of both companies will have access to an expanded suite of integrated hardware and software solutions, combining Nuvve’s grid aggregation and virtual power plant (VPP) expertise with Fermata’s specialized capabilities in distributed energy resource (DER) optimization and behind-the-meter solutions.
“By acquiring Fermata’s assets, we’re creating the leading platform to fully realize V2G’s potential,” said Gregory Poilasne. “Together, we accelerate the energy transition by making EVs integral to energy security and grid resiliency.”
Fintech company CompoSecure, Baanx, and MetaMask announced Monday the launch of the MetaMask metal payment card, which is set to debut worldwide in the second quarter.
The MetaMask Metal Card lets users pay directly from their self-custody MetaMask wallets without needing to preload, convert crypto into fiat, or rely on centralized exchanges. All transactions are authorized via smart contracts in under five seconds. Users must hold their crypto onchain on the Linea network.
“The future of non-custodial neobanking is here,” Simon Jones, chief commercial officer at Baanx, said in the release. “Our partnership with MetaMask and Mastercard will make spending crypto as easy as tap-to-pay. No conversions, no delays, no middlemen, just seamless, instant transactions. From inspiration to security technology, the team at CompoSecure made our dreams a reality, creating this beautifully designed metal payment card.”
MetaMask announced the pilot launch of its MetaMask Card in August 2024 and previewed the metal card at ETHDenver in March. The crypto wallet in February said it will add support for Bitcoin and Solana this year and plans to revamp its wallet application’s user interface.
By solving the “last mile” problem, the MetaMask Card aims to move the industry closer to mainstream use of digital assets.
Patrick Raycraft was planning to work on a freelance story in Ukraine last October and plenty of people who knew him were worried about his safety in the war-torn country.
But his life was threatened the week before he went; he never made it overseas. Raycraft, a photographer and part-time professor at UConn who lives in Hartford, had a massive heart attack on Oct. 5, 32 miles into a 42-mile cycling event in upstate New York.
That he survived, and was able to go back last month and complete the final 10 miles of the ride and thank first responders and doctors who helped him is a testament to the timely medical care he received and his overall good health prior to his cardiac event.
“For somebody to have a cardiac arrest in the field and make it out alive, there’s less than 10 percent chance that somebody like that makes it out alive with cognitive functions,” said Dr. Vijay Iyer, an interventional cardiologist and medical director of cardiovascular services at Kaleida Health in Buffalo, who treated Raycraft. “The system worked when a person was in need and worked effectively.
“I think it helped that he was a good athlete for his recovery. He had heart disease and despite everything he was doing, there’s still a small chance of bad things happening.”
Raycraft’s heart stopped while he was in the ambulance and a local doctor performed CPR on him as the ambulance raced toward a meeting point with another vehicle that was carrying an automated external defibrillator (AED). On the side of the road in upstate New York, he was shocked nine times before he responded and was stabilized. He was taken to a local hospital, then flown to Buffalo General Hospital, where Iyer and his team happened to be on call that day.
They implanted an Impella device, a heart pump which helped maintain Raycraft’s heart function while he recovered, and they also put in a stent to relieve an arterial blockage. He woke up in the ICU.
Five years ago, COVID forced schools and campuses nationwide to close, thrusting students into online learning. Although many were glad to return to their classrooms, some embraced online schooling.
In honor of National Teacher Appreciation Week, we’re learning about a completely online school in Southern California.
“That idea of having a classroom that is totally mine and all my responsibility was actually really scary the first time that I walked in,” said Mariann Papadopoulos, a full-time online teacher with IQ Academy.
She explained how her mother has been teaching for over 40 years and the last nine, she’s been following in her footsteps.
“I have to be a teacher. I love this, I have to do it. I went and got my teaching credential, and I have not looked back,” she said.
But after COVID, Papadopoulos said her classroom wasn’t the same.
“Coming back to the classroom after COVID, that was kind of the transition, I don’t know. There was something that was missing for me in that format,” she said.
So, Papadopoulos went to the IQ Academy, a fully online K through 12 school with 172 staff members supporting more than 2,200 students of all backgrounds. This is her third full year with the IQ Academy in Los Angeles, teaching five classes a day.
“These kids are here for a specific reason, and they need someone to help them and who’s willing to help them in this different format and that was something that also really appealed to me about teaching online,” she said.
There are students who are really involved in sports or the performing arts, students who may have health problems, and some students who may benefit from a quieter setting, like 10th grader Ajaylaa Brown.
“It was a little stressful for me and I think I needed a much quieter environment to focus on my schooling more,” Brown said.
She would be a junior next school year but said she’s graduating early thanks to IQ Academy and teachers like Papadopoulos.
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