Scientists flock to test 'free energy' discovery
2006-08-20, The Observer (one of the U.K.'s leading newspapers)
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1854305,00.html
A man who claims to have developed a free energy technology which could power everything from mobile phones to cars has received more than 400 applications from scientists to test it. Sean McCarthy says that no one was more sceptical than he when Steorn, his small hi-tech firm in Dublin, hit upon a way of generating clean, free and constant energy from the interaction of magnetic fields. 'It wasn't so much a Eureka moment as a get-back-in-there-and-check-your-instruments moment, although in far more colourful language,' said McCarthy. But when he attempted to share his findings, he says, scientists either put the phone down on him or refused to endorse him publicly in case they damaged their academic reputations. So last week he took out a full-page advert in the Economist magazine, challenging the scientific community to examine his technology. McCarthy claims it provides five times the amount of energy a mobile phone battery generates for the same size, and does not have to be recharged. Within 36 hours of his advert appearing he had been contacted by 420 scientists in Europe, America and Australia, and a further 4,606 people had registered to receive the results.
Steorn and free energy: the plot thickens
2006-08-19, Houston Chronicle Science Blog
http://blogs.chron.com/sciguy/archives/2006/08/steorn_and_free_1.html
Steorn has now posted a slick, five-minute video that features interviews with company CEO Sean McCarthy as well as the company's marketing director. For more background, see our earlier discussion. The video's slick, and not too heavy on scientific detail. But it's worth checking out. It does begin to explain the company's motivations for choosing to issue a challenge in the Economist. McCarthy: "The first roadblock is science. With the academic community, it might take five to seven years before being able to get to a consensus position. As a business, that makes absolutely no sense." The video explains that a "quiet" campaign was plan A. The direct marketing approach currently being taken is Plan B. McCarthy: "The claim does rail against so much thinking from ordinary people. We have to fight public opinion, we have to fight the scientific community and we have to fight the energy industry. We couldn't pick a worse battleground."
Note: For lots more on the many who have developed similar discoveries and how they have been either bought out or shut down: http://www.WantToKnow.info/newenergyinformation.
Electric cars lighting up again
2006-07-31, USA Today
http://www.usatoday.com/money/autos/2006-07-26-electric-cars-usat_x.htm
Several small, independent automakers are juicing up electric cars. Among the companies trying to lead the charge: Tesla. Tesla Motors...is taking orders for a $100,000 electric high-performance sports car...billed as capable of a Ferrari-like zero to 60 mph in four seconds. The car was designed in California but will be built by Lotus in Great Britain. Its sophisticated lithium-ion battery will allow a range of 250 miles on a single charge and a top speed of 130 mph. Wrightspeed...hopes to produce its own, $100,000 high-performance car within two years. It will have about a 200-mile range. Ian Wright, who heads Wrightspeed...says the new breed of electric cars could have three times the energy efficiency of gas-electric hybrids. "You can build something that's seriously fast and a lot of fun to drive." Zap. At the other end of the performance spectrum...Zap last month started selling a three-wheel electric "city car" imported from China that it says is capable of a top speed of 40 mph. Priced at $9,000, the Xebra has a range of about 40 miles. Tomberlin Group...plans to sell three versions of electric cars. Prices will range from $5,000 for E-Merge E-2 to $8,000 for the four-seat Anvil. The electric revival comes as...Who Killed the Electric Car? has started playing in theaters. The movie alleges that big automakers, oil companies and the government sank promising electric-car technology. The film singles out General Motors for...having created a futuristic electric car that became a Hollywood enviro-darling. When leases ran out, GM collected its Saturn EV1s and sent them to the crusher.
Note: I've heard that Who Killed the Electric Car? is an excellent, revealing film. For lots more on why car mileage has not significantly increased since the days of the Model T (which got 25 miles to the gallon), see http://www.WantToKnow.info/050711carmileageaveragempg
How to give death a good name
2008-06-23, The Telegraph (One of the U.K.'s leading newspapers)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/main.jhtml?xml=/health/2008/06/23/hdeath123...
The elusive concept of a "good" death has become a hot topic, inspired by the leave-takings of two great communicators, the Irish writer Nuala O'Faolain and the American computer science lecturer Randy Pausch. It is also the subject of a new book, The Art of Dying, a nod to the medieval texts Ars Moriendi that set out [advice] for dying. The authors, Dr Peter and Elizabeth Fenwick, argue that, obsessed with prolonging life, we have lost the habit of helping people to die a good death. "Hi-tech around the deathbed is sometimes more concerned with the feelgood factor of the relatives and the medical profession, who need to feel they have done everything they can, than with the peace and comfort of the dying," they say. We are very good at making sure that when people die they are as comfortable and pain-free as possible, they add, but not so good at catering for, and teaching others to care for, the spiritual needs of the dying. So it is time for those dying and those around them to think about where and how they want to die. "Our fear of death and love of life," say the Fenwicks, "mean that we seldom prepare either for death itself or the process of dying. So although all of us will die, hardly anyone is prepared to 'die right'?." By "right", they mean pain-free and in an untroubled frame of mind. A "good death", they say, is the death a person wanted - whether surrounded by family at home, in a hospice with professional carers, or even alone. But 67 per cent of people die in hospital among staff untrained and unequipped to answer their emotional, social and spiritual needs.
Note: For a highly inspiring 12-minute video by Prof. Randy Pausch about his impending death and gratitude for life, click here.
Spreading the Word on the Street
2008-05-24, San Francisco Chronicle (San Francisico's leading newspaper)
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/05/24/MN2C10P943.DTL
Ten-thirty p.m. in East Oakland. Sirens and gunshots ... punctuate the air. Dozens of homeless people are gathered beneath a street lamp - some in wheelchairs, some drunk, some ranting furiously to themselves. Then the Preacherman appears. Everything stops. And then, for the next half hour, there is church in the street ... where the homeless and even many criminals don't usually hang out this late at night. The Preacherman is Vincent Pannizzo, but most who come to his sermons don't know his name. Or that he was working on a doctorate at UC Berkeley when he dropped out nine years ago to begin preaching. Or that he comes from middle-class comfort in New Jersey, did a three-year hitch in the Army and once dreamed of being a history professor. To his street flock, Pannizzo is simply "the Preacherman," who shows up seven nights a week, rain or not, to gently sermonize and hand out sandwiches, blankets and the few dollars he makes through day labor. "I'm not nuts," Pannizzo said with a chuckle ... standing in the unusually tidy camp he keeps with a half-dozen other homeless people. "I'm basically just a regular guy. But at one point I began really reading the Scriptures, and they really blew me away. God gave me faith. This is what I must do." His transformation began when, as a history Ph.D. candidate, he began reading the Bible in one of its ancient Aramaic-language versions. Pannizzo said he didn't start sleeping outside until four years ago, when he decided the best way to reach his audience was to live like it. So he sold his collection of 300 scholarly books, turned in his apartment key and hit the street.
You’ve Seen the YouTube Video; Now Try the Documentary
2008-05-10, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/10/arts/television/10kruger.html?partner=rssus...
There is a moment of foreshadowing at the end of “Battle at Kruger,” the eight-minute African safari video that has drawn more than 30 million views on YouTube. David Budzinski, a tourist from Texas, has just recorded a stunning scene straight out of a wildlife documentary. A small pride of lions and a crocodile have pinned down a cape buffalo calf, prompting an angry herd of buffalo to fight off the predators and save the babe. A fellow traveler remarks, “You could sell that video!” After returning home, Mr. Budzinski tried, but National Geographic and Animal Planet were not interested. Only after the battle — alternately terrifying and heart-warming — became one of the most popular videos in YouTube’s history did the buyers come calling. Last summer the National Geographic Channel purchased the television rights to the video, and on Sunday at 9 p.m. Eastern time, it will devote an hour to a documentary deconstructing the drama. Adhering to the short-form spirit of YouTube, the complete tale concludes in slightly more than eight minutes. Mr. Budzinski tried unsuccessfully to sell it to television networks. “They all told us the same thing — they don’t accept any footage from amateurs,”he said. For almost three years the film essentially sat on the shelf. But a year ago, when Mr. Schlosberg used YouTube to share the video with a friend — it was easier than making a DVD copy and mailing it, he said — “Battle at Kruger” started spreading virally on the Internet. Before long, National Geographic [called].
Note: To watch this amazing 8-minute clip of a highly unusual battle between lions and water buffalo, click here.
At 71, Physics Professor Is a Web Star
2007-12-19, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/19/education/19physics.html?ex=1355720400&en=7...
Walter H. G. Lewin, 71, a physics professor, has long had a cult following at M.I.T. And he has now emerged as an international Internet guru, thanks to the global classroom the institute created to spread knowledge through cyberspace.
Professor Lewin’s videotaped physics lectures, free online on the OpenCourseWare of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, have won him devotees across the country and beyond who stuff his e-mail in-box with praise. “Through your inspiring video lectures i have managed to see just how BEAUTIFUL Physics is, both astounding and simple,” a 17-year-old from India e-mailed recently. Professor Lewin delivers his lectures with the panache of Julia Child bringing French cooking to amateurs and the zany theatricality of YouTube’s greatest hits. He is part of a new generation of academic stars who hold forth in cyberspace on their college Web sites and even, without charge, on iTunes U, which went up in May on Apple’s iTunes Store. In his lectures at ocw.mit.edu, Professor Lewin beats a student with cat fur to demonstrate electrostatics. Wearing shorts, sandals with socks and a pith helmet — nerd safari garb — he fires a cannon loaded with a golf ball at a stuffed monkey wearing a bulletproof vest to demonstrate the trajectories of objects in free fall. He rides a fire-extinguisher-propelled tricycle across his classroom to show how a rocket lifts off. “We have here the mother of all pendulums!” he declares, hoisting [himself] on a 30-pound steel ball attached to a [rope] hanging from the ceiling. He swings across the stage, holding himself nearly horizontal as his hair blows in the breeze he created. The point: that [the] period of a pendulum is independent of the mass — the steel ball, plus one professor — hanging from it.
Free-lunch foragers
2007-09-11, Los Angeles Times
http://www.latimes.com/news/la-na-freegan11sep11,0,4455123.story
[Madeline] Nelson, 51, once earned a six-figure income as director of communications at Barnes and Noble. Tired of representing a multimillion dollar company, she quit in 2005 and became a "freegan" -- the word combining "vegan" and "free" -- a growing subculture of people who have reduced their spending habits and live off consumer waste. Though many of its pioneers are vegans, people who neither eat nor use any animal-based products, the concept has caught on with Nelson and other meat-eaters who do not want to depend on businesses that they believe waste resources, harm the environment or allow unfair labor practices. "We're doing something that is really socially unacceptable," Nelson said. "Not everyone is going to do it, but we hope it leads people to push their own limits and quit spending." Nelson used to spend more than $100,000 a year for her food, clothes, books, transportation and a mortgage on a two-bedroom co-op in Greenwich Village. Now, she lives off savings, volunteers instead of works, and forages for groceries. Her annual expenditures now total about $25,000. Freeganism was born out of environmental justice and anti-globalization movements dating to the 1980s. The concept was inspired in part by groups like Food Not Bombs, an international organization that feeds the homeless with surplus food. Last year, Nelson asked her family if she could make Thanksgiving dinner out of foraged food. They ... agreed, and ended up enjoying an elaborate feast. She has never been happier.
Find your inner Paul Potts
2007-07-05, MSNBC
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19291117
“But my secret is hidden within me, my name no one shall know.” Those are the words, roughly translated, from the famous Puccini aria “Nessun Dorma.” You’ve probably heard Luciano Pavarotti sing it once or twice, and the song has made its way into many films. But it has never had so much meaning as it did on a stage in Great Britain, being sung by a mobile phone salesman named Paul Potts. Potts is an average-looking bloke whose teeth aren’t straight, and he admits to having battled self-confidence issues his whole life. Still, he decided to audition for a television show called “Britain’s Got Talent.” Beat box artists, break dancers and jugglers combined with a few people trying to be pop stars. On his first night, Potts took to the stage and sang that famous aria from “Turandot,” after telling judge Simon Cowell that he felt he needed to pursue his first love, opera. You could hear the snickers from the crowd, see Simon’s telltale eye roll, and practically feel the ... sweat rolling down Potts’ brow. But then he sang. From the first note floating from his snaggle-toothed beak, it was clear there was no competition for him in that room. The crowd gave him a standing ovation in what is now one of the Internet’s most popular viral videos. It has been viewed on YouTube alone more than 2.4 million times. What’s the reason for this Pottsmania? It’s something my high school English teacher called “the triumph of the human spirit.” Watch the video, seriously.
Note: To watch the incredibly moving four-minute video of Paul's audition, click here.
Montessori, Now 100, Goes Mainstream
2007-01-02, Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/01/AR20070101007...
More than 5,000 Montessori schools are spread across the United States. Once considered a maverick experiment that appealed only to middle-class white families in the States, Montessori schools have become popular with some black professionals and are getting results in low-income public schools. The stubborn Italian physician and her contemporary, U.S. philosopher and psychologist John Dewey -- who believed that learning should be active -- are considered perhaps the most influential progressive thinkers in the modern history of education. Maria Montessori ... was a pioneering doctor in Italy. She gained international notice when the severely learning-disabled students she worked with passed educational tests designed for non-disabled children. The private Henson Valley Montessori School in Temple Hills has grown 50 percent over the past decade. On a recent day at Henson Valley, children were putting together map puzzles, blowing seeds in the air to demonstrate plant dispersion and planning the construction of a space station. "They are learning how to learn," said Stephanie Carr, a federal government manager who has three children at the school. Despite the free-form nature of lessons, "they get very good test scores," Carr said. "My children are testing above grade level." The psychologist Lillard was at first skeptical of Montessori's ideas when she started her research 20 years ago. But she found that a strong body of evidence in developmental psychology supports Montessori's major conclusions -- among them ... that the best learning is active. "If schooling were evidence-based," Lillard wrote, "I think all schools would look a lot more like Montessori schools."
The twins who are 'one in a million'
2007-07-20, Daily Mail (UK)
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/femail/article.html?in_article_id=46965...
When 42-year-old Cathleen Gardiner's twins were born 17 years ago, doctors told her they were a "pair in a million". One had Down's syndrome, while the other did not. Here, Cathleen [tells] their touching and inspiring story: Since Sean was born 17 years ago, I have always taken the view that he is just as wonderful and special as my other two children. While he may have a disability, none of us have ever viewed him as a burden, and ... I refuse to see him as anything but a blessing. The doctors explained that as they were fraternal twins, meaning they came from two eggs ... Lisa was not affected by the condition. Lisa walked at 11 months, while Sean didn't take his first steps till he was three. By two, Lisa was quite the conversationalist, but Sean wasn't able to form sentences until he was nearly four. For the first five years of his life, Sean needed a great deal of care. There was no question of me going back to my job as a technical adviser in a computing company. Looking after him was a fulltime job. Yet despite the considerable difference between the twins, we never treated them differently. We gave them the same toys and spoke to them the same way. Our attitude was that by encouraging Sean to keep up with Lisa, even though he would never manage it, we would be helping him to fulfil his potential. We sent them to the same primary school after doctors advised us that Sean could go to a mainstream school, but we had to explain to Lisa that he wouldn't learn as quickly as she would. She told us ... that she'd help him with his school work. Having a non-disabled twin has really helped Sean to develop - the love they share has given him a unique support in a tough world, and I'm not sure he would have done nearly as well if he didn't have Lisa fighting his corner every step of the way.
We should never have survived!
2003-08-18, BBC
http://www.bbc.co.uk/lancashire/fun_stuff/2003/08/18/survive.shtml
According to today's regulators and bureaucrats, those of us who were kids in the 50's, 60's, and 70's probably shouldn't have survived. Our baby cots were covered with brightly coloured lead-based paint which was promptly chewed and licked. We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles. When we rode our bikes, we wore no helmets. As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags. We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle. We were never overweight because we were always outside playing. We shared one drink with four friends, from one bottle or can and no one actually died from this. We would spend hours building go-carts out of scraps and then went top speed down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back before it got dark. No one was able to reach us all day and no-one minded. We did not have Playstations or X-Boxes, no video games at all. No 99 channels on TV, no videotape movies, no surround sound, no mobile phones, no personal computers, no Internet chat rooms. We fell out of trees, got cut and broke bones and teeth, and there were no lawsuits. They were accidents. We learnt not to do the same thing again. We had fights, punched each other hard and got black and blue - we learned to get over it. We walked to friend's homes. This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers and problem solvers and inventors, ever. The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas. We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all. And you're one of them. Congratulations!
Global Violence Has Decreased, U.N. Says
2005-10-17, ABC/Associated Press
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=1225195
Armed conflicts have declined by 40 percent since the end of the Cold War primarily because the United Nations was finally able to launch peacekeeping and conflict-prevention operations around the world, according to a new study. The first Human Security Report paints a surprising picture of war and peace in the 21st century: a dramatic decline in battlefield deaths, plummeting instances of genocide, and a drop in human rights abuses. The only form of political violence that appears to be getting worse is international terrorism, a serious threat but one that has killed fewer than 1,000 people a year on average over the past 30 years. Tens of thousands were killed annually in armed conflicts during that time. A Rand Corp. study earlier this year concluded that the United Nations was successful in 66 percent of its peace efforts, but even the 40 percent success rate some believe is more accurate would be an achievement considering that prior to the 1990s "there was nothing going on at all."
Note: See also New York Times article reporting US murder rate at lowest in 40 years.
Woman With Perfect Memory Baffles Scientists
2006-03-20, ABC News
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=1738881&page=1
[AJ] remembers every day and almost every detail of her life. James McGaugh is one of the world's leading experts on how the human memory system works. But these days, he admits he's stumped. McGaugh's journey through an intellectual purgatory began six years ago when a woman now known only as AJ wrote him a letter detailing her astonishing ability to remember with remarkable clarity even trivial events that happened decades ago. Give her any date...and she could recall the day of the week, usually what the weather was like on that day, personal details of her life at that time, and major news events that occurred on that date. Like any good scientist, McGaugh was initially skeptical. But not anymore. "This is real," he says. "In order to explain a phenomenon you have to first understand the phenomenon," McGaugh says. "We're at the beginning."
Note: The human mind and spirit are much more powerful than many scientists might imagine.
Green funerals make for eco-exits
2008-04-20, Associated Press
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D905FE700&show_article=1
It's no longer enough to live a greener life—now people are being encouraged to be environmentally friendly when they leave the Earth too. Cardboard coffins, clothes sewn from natural fibers, a burial plot in a natural setting. Green funerals attempt to be eco-friendly at every stage. "People are trying to think about what's the best way to live and with that, what's the best way to die," said Roslyn Cassidy, a funeral director for Green Endings, which provides eco-friendly funerals. Britain has been a world leader in eco-friendly funerals for years and a source of green burial products and ideas for countries like the United States, where the trend is just starting to catch on. Over the weekend in London, those in the business showcased their products and services at the Natural Death Center's Green Funeral Exhibition. The Natural Death Center provides a handbook that suggests environmental targets for cemeteries. "You can take any funeral and make it greener," said Michael Jarvis, the center's director. In a green funeral, bodies are not embalmed and are dressed in pure fiber clothes. Green campaigners say refrigeration or dry ice is a good alternative to formaldehyde, which can seep into the water system.
Biodegradable coffins also differ from the traditional mahogany. Cardboard coffins—which are as thick as their wooden counterparts—can be decorated by family and biodegrade within three months.
Small details are important for green funerals, such as using smaller cars instead of limousines in funeral processions. "What people are wanting is to know that they're doing the best they can both for their loved ones and for the environment," Cassidy said.
Note: For many more inspirational reports from major media sources, click here.
Eggheads: How bird brains are shaking up science
2007-09-16, Boston Globe
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2007/09/16/eggheads/
The New Caledonian crow is surprisingly smart about its food. Its favorite insects live in tiny crevices that are too narrow for its beak. So the crow takes a barbed leaf and, using its beak and claws, fashions a primitive hook. It then lowers the hook down into the cracks, almost like a man fishing, and draws up a rich meal. Some scientists even suggest that crows are more sophisticated tool builders than chimps, since they can transmit their knowledge on to successive generations and improve the tools over time. These birds have a culture. The world lost its most famous bird brain this month: Alex, an African gray parrot who lived in a Brandeis laboratory and possessed a vocabulary of nearly 150 words. Yet as remarkable as Alex was - he could identify colors and shapes - he was not alone. The songs of starlings display a sophisticated grammar once thought the sole domain of human thinking. A nutcracker can remember the precise location of hundreds of different food storage spots. And crows in Japan have learned how to get people to crack walnuts for them: They drop them near busy intersections, then retrieve the smashed nuts when the traffic light turns red. These feats are part of a growing recognition of the genius of birds. Scientists are now studying various birds to explore everything from spatial memory to the grammatical structure of human language. This research is helping to reveal the secrets of the human brain. But it is also overturning the conventional evolutionary story of intelligence, in which all paths lead to the creation of the human cortex. The tree of life, scientists are discovering, has numerous branches of brilliance. "It used to be that people would only talk about intelligence in terms of primates," says Nicola Clayton, a professor of comparative psychology at the University of Cambridge. "But now I think that birds have achieved a sort of honorary ape status, just with a few feathers attached."
Don't Underestimate the Power of a Good Red Wine
2007-07-13, ABC News
http://www.abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=3376791
When a gunman crashed a garden party at [a] private Capitol Hill home ... around midnight on June 16, guests were just finishing up a summer meal ... when a man with a hood over his head entered through the back patio and put a gun to the head of a fourteen-year-old girl. "Everybody give me your money. I am being very serious," the gunman said, according to witnesses. None of the guests had any cash. Guest Michael Rabdau, 51, whose daughter was being held at gunpoint, even put his hands in his pockets and pulled them out to prove he had nothing. But another guest, Cristina Rowan, 41, had something different for the young man: a lecture. Striking a parental tone, she asked him what his mother would think if she saw him doing this. The gunman replied, "I don't have a mother." At this point, there was dramatic shift in the group dynamic. Rowan told the young man to calm down and have a glass of wine. "Damn, that's really good wine!," the gunman exclaimed. After a few sips, the man relaxed and slowly put his weapon away. "He took a piece of cheese and we filled his glass and he said, 'you know, I think I came to the wrong house,'" Rabdau recalled. Before leaving, the man asked if he could have a group hug. The group was perplexed. Just moments before, the man was threatening their lives. Nevertheless, they agreed to the unusual request. The gunman had one more sip of wine, then quietly apologized and left the same way he came in. After the police arrived, a lone crystal wine glass was found, carefully placed to the side in the alley near the home.
Extraordinary Kiwis: Saving the World
2007-06-23, TVNZ.co.nz (New Zealand's leading TV station)
http://tvnz.co.nz/view/page/413551/1181085
A garage in an Auckland suburb is an unlikely laboratory for a 57-year-old millionaire with a passion to change the world. But Ray Avery is anything but typical. A charismatic Kiwi ... he's taken a horrific childhood, combined it with a passion and prodigious aptitude for science and turned it into a motivation to change the world. Ray now runs Medicine Mondiale, a non-profit aid organisation dedicated to doing things differently. Medicine Mondiale is based from his home ... and his garage has been converted into high tech lab. Here Ray works designing and developing simple and sustainable medical solutions for the many health problems in the developing world. He enlists the help of other scientists and experts to work on specific projects with him. Ray dragged himself up by the bootstraps, from a childhood in orphanages and on the streets of London, to become a scientist, businessman and self-made millionaire. After coming to New Zealand, a chance meeting with Fred Hollows (world renowned eye surgeon) set him on a path to Eritrea and Nepal to build lens factories for the Fred Hollows Foundation. Exposure to the raw and real shortcomings of heath care in these regions made him determined to use his knowledge of pharmaceuticals, science, project management, design and development to tackle the issues at a very practical level.
In the Classroom, a New Focus on Quieting the Mind
2007-06-16, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/16/us/16mindful.html?ex=1339646400&en=d90283bf...
The lesson began with the striking of a Tibetan singing bowl to induce mindful awareness. With the sound of their new school bell, the fifth graders at Piedmont Avenue Elementary School here closed their eyes and focused on their breathing, as they tried to imagine “loving kindness” on the playground. “I was losing at baseball and I was about to throw a bat,” Alex Menton, 11, reported to his classmates the next day. “The mindfulness really helped.” Students at dozens of schools across the country are trying hard to be in the present moment. This is what is known as mindfulness training, in which stress-reducing techniques ... are wedged between reading and spelling tests. Mindfulness, while common in hospitals, corporations, professional sports and even prisons, is relatively new in the education of squirming children. But a small but growing number of schools in places like Oakland and Lancaster, Pa., are slowly embracing the concept ... and institutions, like the psychology department at Stanford University and the Mindfulness Awareness Research Center at the University of California, Los Angeles, are trying to measure the effects. During a five-week pilot program at Piedmont Avenue Elementary, Miss Megan, the “mindful” coach, visited every classroom twice a week, leading 15 minute sessions on how to have “gentle breaths and still bodies.”
Millions for Millions
2006-10-20, The New Yorker
http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/061030fa_fact1
This year’s Nobel Peace Prize winner and some high-tech entrepreneurs are competing to provide credit to the world’s poor. In November, 2004, [eBay founder Pierre Omidyar,] Sergey Brin and Larry Page, the co-founders of Google, and other leaders of the high-tech community gathered at the San Francisco home of the venture capitalist John Doerr for a weekend session with Muhammad Yunus, who is considered the godfather of microcredit. Yunus...is a highly gifted interlocutor between the extremely poor in the developing world and the West. This December, he will go to Oslo to receive [the Nobel Peace Prize]. During the famine of 1974 in Bangladesh...Yunus, an economics professor at Chittagong University, found the theories he was teaching maddeningly irrelevant; so he went into a neighboring village and began talking to the poor. He lent twenty-seven dollars to a group of forty-two villagers. Before long he became convinced that he had a remedy for their condition: providing very small individual loans to the impoverished to start activities ranging from making bamboo stools to buying a dairy cow. In 1976, after local banks refused his entreaties to make the loans...he founded the Grameen Bank. In early May, representatives from eight microfinance institutions around the world were invited to a three-day event at the Gates Foundation’s headquarters, in Seattle. At one point, the group met with Melinda and Bill Gates, and with Warren Buffett, too.
Note: If you want to be inspired by the amazing microfinance movement, which is transforming the face of poverty in our world, read this highly engaging, informative article. To be a part of this exciting global transformation, see http://www.WantToKnow.info/051023microcredit
