Mama Agave

12/03/2025

At 70 years old, Robyn Yerian from Texas used about $150,000 of her retirement savings to build something extraordinary — an all-women tiny-home community called The Bird’s Nest.

On five acres near Cumby, Texas, she created a place for women, many single, widowed, or divorced, who wanted independence, friendship, and affordable housing. Residents live in tiny homes or RVs, paying around $450 a month for their lots while sharing chores, meals, and laughter. In a world where women are increasingly targeted and in danger, this community feels like a safe space for women to watch over one another and build upon their creative dreams.

Robyn’s dream was simple: to build a place where women could age with dignity, not loneliness. Today, about a dozen women call The Bird’s Nest home, and hundreds more are on the waiting list to join.

The need for ideas like this is real. Nearly 43% of women over 75 live alone. About 14% of Americans aged 65 and older live below the poverty line. And women are far more likely than men to struggle financially in retirement.

Affordable, community-based living like The Bird’s Nest can ease both financial strain and isolation — proving that sometimes, the most valuable investment isn’t money at all, but connection, courage, and care.️

12/03/2025

Dr. Laura Stachel was stunned on a trip to Nigeria when she watched doctors performing an emergency cesarean section: "The lights went out, and I said, 'How are they going to finish?'... You didn't even see people reacting because it was something they were so used to." During that two-week trip, Stachel observed midwives using all kinds of makeshift light, including candles, flashlights, and cell phones. One midwife even told her about a delivery where the power went out just as the baby was coming and, in desperation, they were forced to light a wall calendar on fire to provide light for the birth. It was during that trip in 2008 that she first came to realize that her "skills as an obstetrician-gynecologist were utterly useless [without] something as basic as light and electricity."

Inspired to find a way to help the many midwives and health clinics around the world without access to stable electricity, the California-based doctor worked with her husband, Hal Aronson, a solar energy educator, to design a "solar suitcase" to help doctors and midwives have adequate electricity and light to save moms and babies during childbirth. They created a small kit that included several solar panels, lights, and a pair of walkie-talkies. She intended the kit to be for demonstration, solely for use in seeking funding and to show Nigerian doctors what she was hoping to achieve; instead, the doctors said, "This is incredible. You have to leave this with us.... This could help us save lives right now."

That urgent response convinced Stachel and Aronson to turn their prototype into a mission. In 2010, they founded We Care Solar, a nonprofit organization dedicated to bringing reliable solar power to health facilities lacking electricity. Over the years, they have refined the kit significantly. The third-generation Solar Suitcase includes four high-efficiency LED lights, a fetal Doppler for monitoring heart rate, rechargeable headlamps, USB charging ports, and a cell phone charging unit; it also comes with a 100-watt solar panel that secures to the roof. The system's lithium ferrous phosphate battery provides 240 watt-hours of energy storage -- enough to run the lights on high for 12 hours, or on low for 60 hours.

As Kristi Raube, former Director of the Institute for Business & Social Impact at University of California, Berkeley, explains, the kits are designed to be easy to maintain and repair, which is critical: "Some of these clinics are literally littered with equipment that well-meaning people send from overseas that isn't built for those environments, and there are no strategies to keep it running."

The needs for such kits remain high in countries like Nigeria where women face a 1 in 19 lifetime risk of dying during pregnancy or childbirth. According to the latest WHO estimates released last April, an estimated 260,000 maternal deaths occurred worldwide in 2023 -- equivalent to 712 deaths each day, or approximately one maternal death every two minutes. Approximately 92% of all maternal deaths occurred in low- and lower-middle-income countries, with Sub-Saharan Africa alone accounting for 70% of maternal deaths.

Today, every 10 seconds, a baby is born in a clinic illuminated by a Solar Suitcase. Its life-saving impact is evident in the countless stories shared by health workers. A nurse in Tanzania recounted one emergency: "A mother came in very early in the morning, at about 5am. She had already delivered at home, but had continuous bleeding so she came to the facility. She had a retained placenta. The Solar [Suitcase] light helped me remove the retained placenta and save the mother. Before the Solar [Suitcase], the light from the cellphone would not be enough to take care of this woman. If I was to wait until morning she would die from too much bleeding."

Joe Mende, a community health worker in Sierra Leone, described the transformation after installing a solar suitcase: "The clinic is an island of light in a sea of darkness."

Research backs up their powerful stories. A study in 2020 on the use of Solar Suitcases by researchers from Harvard School of Public Health and Innovations for Poverty Action, found that, before installation, providers performed only 42% of essential care actions and accumulated 76 minutes of delays during nighttime deliveries. After installation, quality increased and delays decreased, with the largest impacts on infection control, prevention of postpartum hemorrhage, and newborn care practices.

Since its founding, Dr. Stachel's organization has equipped over 10,000 health facilities with Solar Suitcases and trained over 42,000 health workers in more than 25 countries, providing access to safer deliveries for over 18 million mothers and newborns.

For her part, Stachel remains determined to transform maternal health care around the world: "I really want a world where women can deliver safely and with dignity, and women don't have to fear an event that we consider a joy in this country."

You can help support Dr. Stachel's life-saving work by making a donation to We Care Solar at http://wecaresolar.org/

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If you'd like to introduce your kids to the power of solar energy, we recommend Snap Circuits Alternative Energy Kit for ages 8 and up at https://www.amightygirl.com/snap-circuits-alternative-energy-kit

For an excellent book about female innovators and inventors throughout history: "Girls Think of Everything," for readers 8 to 13, at https://www.amightygirl.com/girls-think-of-everything 　

For an inspiring book for tween girls who love to invent and tinker, which includes a variety of hands-on STEM projects, we highly recommend "Gutsy Girls Go for Science: Engineers" for ages 8 to 11 at https://www.amightygirl.com/gutsy-girls-engineers

For two fun picture books about Mighty Girls who love to invent, both for ages 4 to 8, we recommend "Interstellar Cinderella" (https://www.amightygirl.com/interstellar-cinderella) and "Mazie's Amazing Machines" (https://www.amightygirl.com/mazie-s-amazing-machines)

For invention kits and toys to encourage your Mighty Girl's interest in inventing, visit our blog post "Building Her Dreams: Building and Engineering Toys for Mighty Girls," at https://www.amightygirl.com/blog?p=10430

11/20/2025

The standard method for closing the uterus after cesarean delivery, used for over 50 years, may be causing a host of long-term health issues for millions of women.

According to Dr. Emmanuel Bujold and Dr. Roberto Romero, leaders in obstetrics and gynecology, current closure practices—where sutures join the uterine lining with surrounding muscle—fail to restore the uterus’s natural structure, leading to serious complications.

Their exhaustive review reveals the risks: abnormal placenta attachment affects up to 6% of women, uterine rupture up to 3%, and premature births up to 28%. Many suffer pelvic pain (up to 35%), excessive bleeding (up to 33%), and endometriosis or adenomyosis (up to 43%). Such complications are linked directly to the scarring produced by the conventional closure method.

Bujold and Romero propose a nuanced technique: suturing tissues only of the same type, carefully reconstructing the muscle layer while leaving the uterine lining untouched for natural regeneration. Although this new method takes 5–8 minutes—twice as long as the traditional approach—the additional blood loss is minimal and outweighed by better outcomes for future reproductive health.

With cesarean rates rising globally, especially in countries like Canada where 27% of births are by C-section, prioritizing meticulous uterine repair is a critical public health concern. This shift in surgical thinking may help millions experience safer subsequent pregnancies and better long-term well-being.

Follow Science Sphere for regular scientific updates

📄 RESEARCH PAPER

📌 Emmanuel Bujold et al, "Uterine closure after cesarean delivery: surgical principles, biological rationale, and clinical implications", American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology (2025)

11/07/2025

Decades of research have shown that round-the-clock fetal monitoring does not reliably predict fetal distress, and experts say it leads to many unnecessary surgeries. But it’s still used in nearly every birth in the U.S. because of business and legal concerns, a New York Times investigation found. https://nyti.ms/3WF7yLx

08/04/2025

This baby beaver’s lodge was being excavated when the workers heard a tiny little cry and out popped a vulnerable newborn baby beaver. Just moments before, the baby’s mother had swum out of the lodge trying to get away from the destruction of the lodge. We almost never suggest baby beaver reuniting because baby beavers are extremely prone to pneumonia and it’s often an emergency situation when one was found. But this was a rare case where we knew mom was right there and so we gave it a chance.

The machinery was cut off and the baby was placed in a cardboard box next to the water. After just an hour, the crew returned to check on the baby beaver and there was a clear track where the momma beaver came up the bank, smashed the cardboard box down and retrieved the baby. The work was stopped and the remaining lodge was left alone.

Moral of the story: Wild animal moms are incredible. They love their babies fiercely and, when given the chance, will do whatever it takes to get them back. While reunions aren’t always possible, they should always be a priority when they are. We can care for orphaned animals, but we’ll never be a true replacement for their natural mothers. Their love and instincts are real—and powerful. ❤️

08/02/2025

07/11/2025

We’re hoping for a miracle for these tiny little lives, which have been in our care for fifty days. In May, a woman called us demanding that we remove a large snapping turtle who was getting ready to lay eggs in her yard. The mother turtle was in a trance-like state, completely harmless, as she readied to lay her eggs. We told this woman to leave the turtle alone.

She then called multiple other rescues, who told her the same thing: just give the turtle some space. Finding this answer unacceptable, she demanded that her landlord put the mother turtle into the trunk of his car as the poor animal was involuntarily laying eggs. He drove her to the Chattanooga Zoo, which again reiterated that she should have been left alone.

The poor mother turtle must have been scared, confused, and physically and mentally stressed. She should have had a clutch of at least 20, up to 100, but only ten eggs left her body. The Chattanooga Zoo collected them and we rushed over to try to save the eggs.

She may have ultimately become egg-bound and passed away due to this trauma. This majestic, dinosaur-like mother was ultimately driven down the road and dumped in the lake because a woman couldn’t stand the idea of sharing a planet with other life forms.

Survival for snapping turtle eggs is low, and getting lower each year because of human causes, like habitat fragmentation and invasive species, such as feral hogs and black rats, that prey on snapping turtle eggs and hatchlings . Loss of apex predators, like pumas and wolves, has caused smaller predators that eat turtle eggs to overpopulate. It’s all very bad news for these long-lived animals. One study estimated that only one-tenth of one percent of snapping turtle eggs will ever become adult snapping turtles.

This clutch of eggs could have been this mother turtle’s only chance to have surviving young, but instead, she was forced to lay eggs in the trunk of a car. By the time we got to them, all but one of them had collapsed due to the hostile environment and jostling. We tried to save all ten eggs anyway, incubating them carefully in an incubator at the correct temperature and humidity..

The results have been a bit of a surprise. One “chalked”— the first sign of viability— right on time. Two eggs died and began to rot, as we expected of the whole clutch. But, amazingly, seven of the eggs are showing signs of viability despite the fact that they had already collapsed in on themselves. They were late to chalk, but were able to see blood vessels and embryos inside all the eggs when candling them.

If only one of the eggs hatches and produces a viable baby turtle who can go home to the wild, we’ll be thrilled beyond measure. But if the seven collapsed eggs also give us live babies? That will be a true miracle.

Thank you for making our work possible.

07/04/2025