I am Only a Child
When she was 12, Severn Cullis-Suzuki and three Vancouver schoolmates raised money to go to the Rio Earth Summit. Her speech to delegates had such an impact that she became a frequent invitee to U.N. conferences. Now 22, with a B.S. in biology from Yale University, she will be in Johannesburg as a member of Kofi Annan's World Summit advisory panel.... posted on Mar 31 2004, 1,723 reads

Unknown Nobel Laureate
Of the three living American Nobel Peace Prize laureates, one is almost unknown and yet he is responsible for saving millions of lives. Norman E. Borlaug won the Nobel in 1970 for the "green revolution" -- using high yield crops to grow more grain, for more people on only marginally more land. Not only did he save entire countries from famines, he also saved millions of square miles of wildlife f... posted on Mar 27 2004, 1,212 reads

Ultimate Garbage Bag
An estimated 450,000 scavangers pick over trash heaps in Jakarta, Indonesia, collecting anything they think they can resell. When artist Ann Wizer moved there in 2000, she did the unthinkable: "I made shoulder bags from garbage, employing the scavengers I had watched for months." The experiment worked! Wizer pays the scavengers for trash and then employs some of them to wash, sort, and sew the ... posted on Mar 26 2004, 2,356 reads

Wish upon a Star
If anyone's ever promised you the sun, the moon and the stars, tell 'em you'll settle for BPM 37093. Astronomers have discovered that the heart of this burned-out star with the no-nonsense name is a sparkling diamond that weighs a staggering 10 billion trillion trillion carats. That's one followed by 34 zeros. This hunk of celestial bling is an estimated 2,500 miles across!... posted on Feb 27 2004, 1,114 reads

Buildings As Parks
His Fukuoka building in Japan is a park when viewed from one side and a 15-story building when viewed from the other. Emilio Ambasz is a man who breaks architectural moulds, designing houses which are nearly invisible under mounds of earth, and high-rise buildings hidden behind screens of greenery. His architecture seamlessly brings the built and natural environments together -- evaporatively co... posted on Feb 24 2004, 1,560 reads

Giving Opens The Way
"One person's trash is another person's treasure." That's the motto of a new movement in town -- not recycling but freecycling. It's goal is to use online technologies to connect people who want to get rid of their old junk with those who just want free stuff. Since inception last year, over 200 cities now have freecyling centers.... posted on Jan 30 2004, 1,325 reads

Chirping Birds
The chirping of two pet canaries from beneath the rubble of a destroyed house in Bam saved two children after the birds attracted the attention of rescue workers, Iran's official news agency reported Tuesday. "The two children were stuck in the debris next to their broken bird case," the IRNA news agency said. "After hearing the birds singing, rescue workers went to the location and were removing ... posted on Jan 15 2004, 1,227 reads

A Bird's Song
This Christmas, while most of us are fiddling with new toys and trying on new sweaters, over 50,000 people around the Western Hemisphere will be grabbing coats and binoculars and trudging out to look for birds. Migratory birds around the world are in deep trouble, with plummeting populations and, scientists say, insufficient existing research to know exactly how best to help them. The Christmas B... posted on Dec 26 2003, 1,034 reads

Dog's Life Over Christmas
Josie was in bad shape by the time the veterinarians at the University of Minnesota saw her after her accident: broken back, dislocated hip, internal injuries. Surgery would be expensive, they told the dog's owner. Death would be much cheaper. But Stella Twedt borrowed $3000 from her Dad, explained to her 14 and 5 year olds that they won't get Christmas gifts this year, told her 15 year old that ... posted on Dec 24 2003, 990 reads

Top Notch Plumber in 535BC
Imagine 535BC, you're Eupalinus, a top notch plumber in Greece. A tyrant, Polycrates, commissions you to build a massive, 4500 foot water tunnel across a steep, rocky hill that'll bring fresh spring water to town. With nothing more than mathematics and geometry, your team starts about 1,350m apart, on two opposite sides of a hill, and meets - precisely - in the middle! Being just a metre or two o... posted on Dec 23 2003, 1,069 reads