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Mildred Robbins Leet is an unusual philanthropist. She's not wealthy. And for 25 years, she's given away just $50 at a time. But her "micro grants" have helped transform thousands of lives around the globe. They buy fishing rods or frying pans, a farm animal, a sewing machine or a barrel of seeds, enabling "the poorest of the poor" to launch their own businesses. Leet, an 81-year-old New Yorker,... posted on Oct 18 2003, 596 reads

According to researchers at Duke University Medical Center, cardiac patients who received prayer in addition to coronary treatment had better clinical outcomes than those treated with standard therapy alone. Their results further suggest that studying the therapeutic value of prayer and other noetic interventions appears feasible and warrants larger-scale, more definitive investigations. Noetic i... posted on Oct 17 2003, 688 reads

The Little Engine that Might
He didn't set out to help Third World countries but he just might end up doing it! Dean Kamen, the technologist famed for inventing the self-balancing Segway scooter, has developed a machine that he thinks can bring two desperately needed things -— electricity and clean water -— to the villages of Africa. He has spent millions of his own money on it and has even given it a nickname: slingsho... posted on Oct 16 2003, 1,285 reads

Ike Says "Vamos" to Poverty in Mexico
In 1987, three neighbors in tiny Weston, Vermont, gathered over coffee to compare notes on their recent trips to Mexico. Years later one of them, Ike Patch, would say it was the best cup of coffee they ever had. Mexico has more billionaires than any other third-world country, yet 40 percent of its people live in extreme poverty -- compared with 25 percent in India -- and are not helped by their g... posted on Oct 15 2003, 956 reads

If someone offered you a million dollars to stop drinking lattes, would you take it? Scott Burns looked at how much money a 25 year old would spend over a lifetime on a Starbucks latte a day habit. Scott found that if that person instead invested the money, by retirement age he would have almost a million dollars.... posted on Oct 14 2003, 690 reads

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Lonely hearts have spent millennia trying to capture the pain of rejection in painting, poetry and song. Now neuroscientists have seen it flickering in some remarkable brain images from college students suffering a social snub. The brain scans reveal that two of the same brain regions that are activated by physical pain are also activated by social exclusion. "This doesn't mean a broken arm hurts ... posted on Oct 11 2003, 1,042 reads

Pavarotti Teaches for Free
Opera legend Luciano Pavarotti announced that he's going to become a teacher, pass on his experience to aspiring singers. After a difficult year, in which he lost his mother, father and a baby son during child birth, he boldly declared, "I'm going to teach for free."... posted on Oct 10 2003, 1,547 reads