Husband spends 2 years planting thousands of flowers to bring his blind wife joy

Flowers are a great way to express your feelings for someone. Red roses say, "I love you," but a whole garden of pink flowers screams it. One husband took the romantic gesture of getting your wife flowers to the next level.

Mr. and Mrs. Kuroki got married in 1956, and Mrs. Kuroki joined her husband on his dairy farm in Shintomi, Japan, The Telegraph reports. The couple lived a full life and had two kids. After 30 years of marriage, the couple planned on retiring and traveling around Japan, but those plans were soon dashed.

When she was 52, Mrs. Kuroki lost her vision due to complications from diabetes. Her blindness hit her hard, and she began staying inside all day. Mr. Kuroki knew his wife was depressed and wanted to do something to cheer her up.

Mr. Kuroki noticed some people stopping to admire his small garden of pink shibazakura flowers (also known as moss phlox) and got an idea. He couldn't take his wife to see the world, so he had to make the world come to his wife.

Mr. Kuroki decided to plant more of the flowers in his garden, hoping they would attract more visitors and cheer up his wife. He knew she wouldn't be able to see them, but she would be able to smell them, and their pleasant aroma might bring her some joy. Mr. Kuroki spent two years planting thousands of flowers just so he could put a smile on his wife's face.

The plan worked and the stunning garden began drawing visitors to the location. A decade after Mr. Kuroki first planted the garden, the amazing love story behind it has turned the dairy farm in rural Japan into a major tourist attraction.

The garden draws up to 7,000 people a day when the flowers are in bloom in March and April. Their cowshed, which once held 60 cows, has been turned into a display telling their love story. Most importantly, Mrs. Kuroki loves the visitors and can be seen walking around the garden and smiling.

You can visit Mr. and Mrs. Kuroki's flowers with your significant other, but they better be prepared to answer questions as to why they've never done anything like that for you.

(Source: Up Worthy)

Brazil mother narrates football matches for blind son

A passionate Brazilian football fan has drawn nationwide attention for narrating her local team's football matches live to her blind and autistic son.

Silvia Grecco and her son Nickollas (12) have become minor celebrities for the Sao Paulo team Palmeiras after the mother was spotted on TV last year narrating one of their matches from the stands.

Silvia Grecco and her son Nickollas at one of Palmeiras’ home match.

"I describe details: this player is wearing short sleeves, the colour of their football boots, hair color," Grecco (56) said during a recent game between Palmeiras and Botafogo de Ribeirao Preto.

Nickollas jumped up and down with friends at the right moments during the match, in unison with the thousands of other enraptured fans wearing the club's dark green shirts.

Sempre muita emoção. 💚🐷💙 pic.twitter.com/Nzl0qAcpLK

— silvia grecco (@pringrecco) 10 September 2018

“My narrating is something of my emotions. I’m not a professional. Everything I see and feel, I tell him, even when I need to curse the referee!” It is not the first time disabled fans have caused a social media sensation simply by following the sports they love.”
Silvia Grecco, Nickollas’ mother

During the 2018 World Cup in Russia a video of a Colombian fan narrating a match against Poland to his deaf friend using hand movements went viral.

A Brazilian interpreter then showcased a similar technique with a group of deaf fans in Sao Paulo.

The Grecco mother and son have been featured on various Brazilian TV programmes, and even visited a Palmeiras training session.

Silvia and Nickollas with the Palmeiras team during one of their training session.

 The boy's father and sister however support other teams -- so to avoid family divisions his die hard Palmeiras fan mother came up with a scheme.

She resorted to the skills of none other than the boy's idol, PSG star Neymar, when they met at an event.

Silvia and Nickollas with Palmeiras coach Luiz Felipe Scolari.

“Neymar lifted him on his shoulders and he passed his hand through Neymar’s hair, it was a big moment! So I asked Neymar what team he used to support as a child, and he said he was a Palmeiras fan! So I said ‘Do you see, Nickollas? Your mother, your player ... I think your team should be Palmeiras!”
Silvia Grecco, Nickollas’ mother

Esse é o time de amigos do Nick q ele vai levar no @AllianzParque amanhã no jogo @Palmeiras X Botafogo. Todos com deficiência! Time de Campeões. 💚🐷💚 valeu @camarotefanzone e @maurobeting10 pic.twitter.com/IuPZqMxo82

— silvia grecco (@pringrecco) 23 January 2019

A local businessman recently hosted the duo and some of Nickollas' friends for the season opening match in a stadium box at the Allianz Park in Sao Paulo.

One little boy with Down Syndrome, who wore huge earphones and the national football jersey, threw his arms in a trusting hug around every stranger.

Another, with autism, wildly rocked to the live DJ music.

But when the match started all attention was on the football pitch, with Grecco narrating throughout.

They weren't disappointed. Palmeiras won 1-0.

(Source: The Quint)

Goodbye surgery? Scientists just made eye drops that dissolve cataracts

It could mean a cheap, painless way to restore vision to thousands.

Most of us take our vision for granted. As a result, we take the ability to read, write, drive, and complete a multitude of other tasks for granted. However, sight is not so easy for everyone. Indeed, for many people, simply seeing is a struggle.

There are more than 285 million people worldwide who have vision problems. According to the Fred Hollows Foundation, an estimated 32.4 million people around the world are blind. Ultimately, 90% of these people live in developing countries, and more than half of these cases of blindness are caused by cataracts. Indeed, cataracts are the leading cause of blindness in the world.

Fortunately, there is a treatment; however, the only option is surgery, and it is prohibitively expensive. This means that, unfortunately, for individuals in developing nations, who often lack access to basic medical care, treatment is not an option.

But of course, this isn’t just a problem faced by developing nations.

According to the American Academy of Ophthalmology, nearly 22 million Americans who are over age 40 have cataracts. By the time they reach 80, more than half of all Americans will have cataracts, and many will have to undergo painful and expensive surgery or suffer severe vision problems.

There are, however, other treatment options. Researchers based in the US have created a drug that can be delivered directly into the eye via an eyedropper. And it can dissolve cataracts.

Despite its remarkable promise, the treatment has yet to be tested on humans. The drug is slated to enter clinical trials, but because of the strict regulations put in place to ensure there are no extreme side effects associated with new drugs, it will be some time before these drops make it to market and can be utilized as a viable alternative to surgery.

Regardless, this is a great step forward.

How It Works
Cataracts result from the structure of the crystallin proteins that make up the lens in our eyes. Specifically, they form when this structure deteriorates, which causes the proteins to clump together, forming a milky layer over the eye that obstructs vision.

Scientists aren’t entirely sure what causes the proteins to do this (in other words, they’re not entirely certain why cataracts form in the first place). That said, there are some ideas, and this is where the new drug comes in.

This treatment was created based on a naturally-occurring steroid, which is known as “lanosterol.” Scientists recently discovered two siblings who had cataracts when their parents did not. These siblings shared a mutation that stopped the production of lanosterol. Notably, their parents did not have this mutation.

The scientists then thought, if the parents are producing lanosterol and don’t have cataracts, then perhaps their kids have cataracts because they aren’t producing lanosterol. Thus, adding lanosterol to the eye (or something that is similar to it) might stop the crystallin proteins from clumping together and forming cataracts.

The scientists tested this hypothesis on rabbits, and the results were very promising. After just a week, all but two of their 13 test subjects had gone from having severe cataracts to mild cataracts (or none at all). This drug was also tested on dogs, and it had the same results.

If the trials on humans are successful, and they make it to market, these eye drops could be used to change the lives of millions around the globe. It could literally mean the difference between blindness and sight. Ruben Abagyan, who co-authored the paper, hopes that the lanosterol drops will have the same impact on cataracts in humans. In the press release, he states, “I think the natural next step is looking to translate it into humans. There’s nothing more exciting than that.”

(Source: Futurism)