The Science of Subtle Signals
Researchers from the Human Dynamics Group at MIT's Media Lab set up electronic devices that analyzed the speech patterns of operators on a call center floor in Scotland, capturing neither the words used nor the logic, but only the variations in tone and pitch. Amazingly enough, they predicted accurately, after only a few seconds of listening, the ultimate success or failure of almost every call. T... posted on Dec 26, 3060 reads

Extreme Philanthropy
The 50% League is an unusual group of people who contribute at least half their income, business profits, or net worth to charity. Members from across the country have been welcomed into an elite circle of givers and asked to share their stories publicly, even if anonymously, to inspire other givers. Many are anonymous philanthropists, and not all of them have great wealth: Some are members of th... posted on Dec 31, 2294 reads

Keeping Your New Year's Resolutions
The top resolutions for 2008 are the old standbys -- get out of debt and save more, lose weight and exercise. Getting organized and spending more time with family also top the list. But according to time management firm FranklinCovey, four out of five people who make New Year's resolutions will eventually break them. Experts say the real problem is that people make the wrong resolutions. The typic... posted on Jan 2, 3918 reads

A 71-Year-Old Web Star
Walter H. G. Lewin, 71, has now emerged as an international Internet guru, thanks to the global classroom MIT created to spread knowledge through cyberspace. A physics professor, who has long had a cult following at MIT, 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 ... posted on Jan 5, 3181 reads

If I Live To Be 100
In 1999 and 2000, veteran radio producer Neenah Ellis spent a year traveling the country, recording interviews with people who've lived past age 100. She listened to their stories about coming of age in the early 1900s, about the Great Depression, about the second World War -- and she listened, she says, "just to the sound of their voices." Her work became a yearlong Morning Edition series, One Hu... posted on Jan 7, 2702 reads

Storytelling That Moves People
Why is persuasion so difficult, and what can you do to truly inspire people? In search of answers to those questions, Harvard Business Review paid a visit to Robert McKee, the world's best-known and most respected screenwriting lecturer. McKee believes that executives can engage listeners on a whole new level if they toss their PowerPoint slides and learn to tell good stories instead. He argues th... posted on Jan 19, 6620 reads

A $10 Assignment in Giving
A Professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison did a little experiment with his class, leaving each student $10 to explore giving. Stories unfolded. Katrina Kapetanovic, like everyone else, struggled mightily with what to do with her $10. "It suddenly dawned on me. This $10 serves as a reminder that I need to be doing something for a good cause. This is enough. I'm going to find a picture ... posted on Jan 23, 3045 reads

The Six Myths of Creativity
Teresa Amabile has been grappling with the question of creativity in the workplace for almost 30 years. She has collected nearly 12,000 daily journal entries from 238 people working on creative projects in seven companies in the consumer products, high-tech, and chemical industries. She didn't tell the study participants that she was focusing on creativity. She simply asked them, in a daily email,... posted on Feb 8, 5926 reads

Teen Survivor Pays-It-Forward
"How did this happen to me? Why did this happen to me? What will my future look like? Will I have a future? On May 4th, 2006, I was diagnosed with Adenoid Cystic Carcinoma of my left submandibular gland, or salivary gland cancer. My life was put on hold, and my priorities changed from worrying about my SATs to fighting cancer. Three risky surgeries left me with a six-inch scar tucked under my jaw ... posted on Feb 10, 2990 reads

Today's Change Agents: Social Entrepreneurs
In the '60s, perhaps the most remarkable change agents were the civil rights workers and antiwar protesters. Today the most remarkable young people are the social entrepreneurs, those who see a problem in society and roll up their sleeves to address it in new ways. Take Andrew Klaber, a 26-year-old playing hooky from Harvard Business School, who is an example of the social entrepreneur. He spent t... posted on Dec 11, 2584 reads

A Tax We Might All Benefit From
Dublin -- there is something missing from this otherwise typical bustling cityscape. There are taxis and buses. Every other person is talking into a cellphone. But there are no plastic shopping bags, the ubiquitous symbol of urban life. In 2002, Ireland passed a tax on plastic bags; customers who want them must now pay 33 cents per bag at the register. There was an advertising awareness campaign. ... posted on Feb 12, 3375 reads

12 Minute Cab Ride
""Penn Station," I told the cab driver. The young, heavy-set man peered at me through his sunglasses and motioned me to get in. "I've got to get to JFK airport by 2:30PM. You think I'll be able to get there by train or should I cab it all the way?"" With that harmless question begins a most unusual 12-minute cab-ride and a conversation that demonstrates how every chance encounter in this world h... posted on Feb 24, 5499 reads

An Unusual Punishment
What punishment should be imposed on a man who shot a police officer almost 40 years ago and fled to Canada, but went on to live an upstanding life as a husband and father who worked in a library? There was a rare answer here on Friday: Require him to give $250,000 to a foundation that helps the families of injured Chicago police officers. Joseph Pannell will serve just 30 days in jail and two yea... posted on Mar 5, 3460 reads

Donor Match Over Coffee
Annamarie Ausnes is known for holding up the line at her favorite coffee shop, carefully counting out her coins to pay for her "short drip, double-cupped" daily jolt. Over the years, Sandie Andersen, a friendly barista behind the counter, has taken these morning moments to make conversation, to make friends. And then there was the small talk that day last fall. "She reached over the counter and sa... posted on Mar 7, 2907 reads

A Stroke of Insight
Neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor had an opportunity few brain scientists would wish for: one morning, she realized she was having a massive stroke. As it happened -- as she felt her brain functions slip away one by one, speech, movement, understanding -- she studied and remembered every moment. In her TED talk, Taylor shares a powerful story about how our brains define us and connect us to the wor... posted on Mar 14, 5701 reads

A Small Dose of Hope 30 Years Ago
"When I was in my first year of college, I hit a stretch where every area of my life was a disaster, I felt hopeless and alone, and more depressed than I knew was possible.On one such day, I was walking from class across campus to catch my bus home, head down, fighting tears of total despair, when a guy came down the sidewalk toward me. I had never seen him before. Embarrassed at being seen in su... posted on Mar 19, 1705 reads

The Soccer Boy Effect
Brian Mullaney's epiphany occurred back in 1994 in Vietnam. He was traveling as a board member with Operation Smile, a charity that performed cleft-repair surgery on poor children around the world. In a small Vietnamese village near the Chinese border, there was one kid who played soccer every day with the volunteers; they took to calling him Soccer Boy. When the mission was over and Mullaney and ... posted on Mar 22, 3301 reads

A Small Dose of Hope 30 Years Ago
"When I was in my first year of college, I hit a stretch where every area of my life was a disaster, I felt hopeless and alone, and more depressed than I knew was possible.On one such day, I was walking from class across campus to catch my bus home, head down, fighting tears of total despair, when a guy came down the sidewalk toward me. I had never seen him before. Embarrassed at being seen in suc... posted on Mar 20, 5093 reads

Laser Monks
In 2002, Bernard McCoy founded an online ink and toner business that today has grown into a multi-million-dollar operation, but contrary to the way most businesses work, his own salary hasn't increased in proportion to the company's profits. "I'm probably the worst-paid CEO in the country," he says joyfully. His annual pay? Zero dollars -- the same as when he started the business. McCoy is a mo... posted on Mar 25, 3102 reads

The Runner's High
The runner’s high: every athlete has heard of it, most seem to believe in it and many say they have experienced it. But for years scientists have reserved judgment because no rigorous test confirmed its existence. But now, researchers in Germany, using advances in neuroscience, report that the folk belief is true: running does elicit a flood of endorphins in the brain. The endorphins are associa... posted on Mar 30, 2944 reads

A Victim Treats His Mugger Right
He was walking toward the stairs when a teenage boy approached and pulled out a knife. "He wants my money, so I just gave him my wallet and told him, 'Here you go,'" Julio Diaz says. As the teen began to walk away, Diaz told him, "Hey, wait a minute. You forgot something. If you're going to be robbing people for the rest of the night, you might as well take my coat to keep you warm." Rather stu... posted on Mar 29, 6506 reads

Strengthening our Willpower Muscle
It is true that research studies have shown that the brain's store of willpower is depleted when people control their thoughts, feelings or impulses, or when they modify their behavior in pursuit of goals. In fact, Psychologist Roy Baumeister and others have found that people who successfully accomplish one task requiring self-control are less persistent on a second, seemingly unrelated task. But ... posted on Apr 3, 4285 reads

Why Aren't We All Good Samaritans?
Daniel Goleman, psychologist and award-winning author of "Emotional Intelligence"(EI) and other books on EI, challenges traditional measures of intelligence as a predictor of life success. In this 20 minute TED Talk video, he asks why we aren't more compassionate more of the time. Sharing the results of psychological experiments, and using personal anecdotes, he explains how we are all born with t... posted on Apr 7, 4897 reads

The Boy Who Gave It All Away
Drew Friend's 5th birthday party had been in full swing for less than half an hour -- and toys, board games, clothes, and stuffed animals were stacked on the dining room table. The pile kept getting bigger as guests poured into his home with armfuls of birthday gifts. But Drew didn't pay much attention to the pile. And a few hours later, he gave all the presents away. He had made an unusual decisi... posted on Apr 15, 3850 reads

The Mowing Mailman
Iron banisters flank the front steps of Jack's little blue house. Two summers ago, they were covered with vines. To get the mail to the front door, mailman Eric Wills had to fight through a jungle. Wills didn't know much about Jack, except that he was old and seldom got out. For weeks, the mailman struggled through the thicket, frustrated with the man's unkempt grounds. One day, he heard a voice i... posted on Apr 17, 3124 reads

A Pianist Like No Other
"When I arrive at Derek Paravicini's home, he is giving a glittering rendition of Cole Porter's "It's De-Lovely" on his shiny, black piano. When I leave three hours later, he is being spoon-fed lunch from a plastic bowl. Derek is 27, blind, has severe learning difficulties, cannot dress or feed himself -- but play him a song once, and he will not only memorize it instantly, but be able to reproduc... posted on Apr 20, 2886 reads

Gift Economy Health Clinic
After 22 years in private practice, Dr. Lorna Stuart found herself frustrated with the number of insurance companies and the rules and restrictions that came with them. "The day-to-day time that I spent on paperwork was increasing, while my patients weren't getting the good care that I wanted to give them -- face-to-face time, one-on-one time," she recalls. "I vowed to do whatever little I could ... posted on Apr 25, 2520 reads

Being the Change & Singing It
In this lovely and listenable new music video by singer/songwriter Kat Edmonson, intentions are set forth one-by-one, hand-scrawled and held proudly aloft on makeshift cardboard banners. A short-order cook seeks to "include everyone." A young boy whose smile betrays a missing tooth says he'll "make friends with the world." A woman kneels in her garden with a sign saying she'll "support small farms... posted on May 5, 2855 reads

Tornado-Hit Town's Green Recovery
A year after it was practically wiped off the map by a tornado, Greensburg is rising again -- and going green, too, with solar panels, wind turbines, tinted windows, water-saving toilets and other energy-efficient technology. Environmentalists and civic leaders have seized on the disaster as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to re-engineer the town."I would never say the tornado happening was a goo... posted on May 8, 3363 reads

A Polio Survivor Serves the Dying
From the neck up, John Welton looks like Santa Claus before his beard turned white. From the chest down, he is atrophied. He walks with crutches, his right leg bearing the weight of his 130-pound body. Welton, 60, has survived polio. And yet, he serves dying patients at Montefiore Medical Center, working there as a Physician Assistant. He does not wear a long white coat because it might tangle his... posted on May 9, 2200 reads

Meditation Literally Saves a Life
It was a cool early spring day in the eastern coastal port of Ningbo. 52 year old, Wang Jianxin was on a construction site digging a 5-metre ditch. Without warning, a wall of the ditch collapsed, burying Mr. Wang under a huge pile of earth. "It was suddenly dark and I realised what had happened and found that there was a small air pocket in front of me," Mr. Wang said. That was when he turned to... posted on Jun 1, 7817 reads

A Turtle Who Taught Kindness
"Enlightenment and epiphanies can show up in some pretty strange ways. The Buddha found it under a Boddhi tree, Nelson Mandela in prison and Ram Dass through psychedelics. Little did I know, mine would arrive in the form of a hard-shelled reptile simply trying to cross the road -- a turtle. But this wasn’t just any turtle, this was the world’s most optimistic one. He was tenaciously determine... posted on Jun 2, 4227 reads

Israeli Takes Palestinian Citizenship
World reknowned Israeli pianist, Daniel Barenboim, recently became the first person known to hold both Palestinian and Israeli passports. "It is a great honor to be offered a passport," he said after a Beethoven piano recital in Ramallah, the West Bank city where he has been active for some years in promoting contact between young Arab and Israeli musicians. "I have also accepted it because I be... posted on Jun 8, 1878 reads

Virutally Waterless Washing Machine
British inventors have designed a washing machine that takes eco-friendliness to a new level: it uses just a single cup of water to wash a load of clothes. Instead of water, the Xeros machine uses special plastic chips in each wash, and when that single cup of water is heated, these chips absorb the dirt -- including tricky stuff like coffee and lipstick. Though it's still in prototyping, the inve... posted on Jun 17, 4089 reads

A Dad's Wisdom
"Come on," my dad would say, "let's do some gardening." It wasn't a question, but a demand -– and I wasn't exempt, no matter if I said, "Dad, I'm playing baseball." Or football, soccer, or going sailing. It was a chore. I resented it. My dad's garden was a kaleidoscope of color, including dozens of roses in a bed that needed constant attention. "Roses are the greediest flower of all," dad told m... posted on Jun 15, 4244 reads

Vision Without Eyes: Caroline Casey
She's legally blind and can't see beyond one meter. But Caroline Casey managed to achieve, at age 34, the three dreams she held as a teenager: to become an elephant handler, to work for herself, and to drive a race car at 185 km/h. As Caroline puts it, "You don't need eyes to have a vision!" She went on to start the Aisling Foundation, which looks deeply at disability, its attendant loneliness and... posted on Aug 21, 2404 reads

A Homeless Man's Gift
"On New Year's eve my husband and I stopped in San Francisco for dinner on our way back from a retreat. While eating we felt that we should do something different this year. I took a $20 bill and asked the restaurant owner to give me $5 bills." So begins this heart-warming real-life story of a couple who ventured out on the streets to give and in the process received. ... posted on Jun 25, 5410 reads

The Best Education Money Can't Buy
Berea College, founded 150 years ago to educate freed slaves and "poor white mountaineers," accepts only applicants from low-income families, and it charges no tuition. "You can literally come to Berea with nothing but what you can carry, and graduate debt free," said Joseph P. Bagnoli Jr., the associate provost for enrollment management. "We call it the best education money can't buy."... posted on Jul 25, 4023 reads

A World Without Waste
Kamikatsu may be a small backwater in the wooded hills and rice terraces of south-eastern Japan but it's become a world leader on waste policy. Kamikatsu residents have to compost all their food waste and sort other rubbish into 34 different categories. There are no waste collections from households at all, instead people take full responsibility for everything they throw away. This BBC story sha... posted on Jul 28, 2698 reads

Finding A Lost Sunset
"Around 5:30pm, I was on the bus one day and everybody on the bus was quiet. People had just gotten off from work, students had just finished their last class and everybody was a little tired from a long day. I was just looking outside of the window without any specific thought in my mind. It was the same view I have seen many times before, people hurrying home. In front of me, there was a guy si... posted on Jul 30, 5817 reads

Towards More Tolerance
Today's students are the most racially tolerant generation our nation has ever seen. According to recent studies, they are more likely to have friends, or to date, across racial and ethnic lines than the generations who came before them. On the whole, they believe racism is wrong. But we still have a long way to go. According to federal statistics, one in four students report being targets of raci... posted on Aug 11, 2138 reads

13 Best Energy Ideas
"Investments in energy projects will total $16 trillion in the next two decades. That investment -- along with spending for long-lived buildings, transportation, manufacturing, and public works -- could lock us into climate chaos. Or it could set us on the path toward a sustainable future. How can we make sure that this new infrastructure is climate friendly? For starters, it will have to be both ... posted on Aug 9, 2819 reads

Bank Employees Pay-it-Forward
You think everyone would have something they dislike about their job -- with the notable exception of the people at State Bank and Trust in Fargo, North Dakota. "What do you hate about this company?" Steve Hartman of CBS asked some workers. One said: "I haven't found anything yet." Another: "No, this is a good place to work." And it doesn't stop there. Last Christmas, the bank gave each of the 500... posted on Aug 6, 4794 reads

The Responsibility Project
It all began when the insurance company Liberty Mutual ran a TV commercial about people doing things for strangers. The response was truly overwhelming. Thousands of emails and letters from people all over the country thanking them. Which led the company to think, "If one TV spot can get people thinking and talking about responsibility, imagine what could happen if we went a step further?" So they... posted on Aug 23, 3535 reads

Tell Me Your Story
Dan Gottlieb, the celebrated family therapist and radio show host who has helped thousands of people in difficulty has definitely faced his own challenges. A near fatal accident 29 years ago left him paralyzed chest down -- but it didn't take away his profound connection to others. "It came to me in the middle of the night a couple of weeks ago, four words that could change the world: Tell me your... posted on Sep 10, 3368 reads

An Unexpected Thank You
"You probably don't remember me," she began, "but I have come back to file for Graduation with Distinction" And then she pulled out a piece of paper from her wallet and gave it to me to read. It was my handwriting, but I didn't remember writing it. As the Assistant Director of the Honors Programs at the university, one of my jobs was to review student transcripts to make sure they met requiremen... posted on Oct 6, 4861 reads

Alex's Lemonade Stand
In 2000, a 4 year old cancer patient named Alexandra "Alex" Scott announced a seemingly simple idea -- she was holding a lemonade stand to raise money to help "her doctors" find a cure for kids with cancer. The idea was put into action by Alex and her older brother, Patrick, on their front lawn in July of 2000. For the next four years, despite her deteriorating health, Alex held an annual lemonade... posted on Oct 10, 2564 reads

Choosing Life: The Story of Jim Maclaren
A 300-pound, 6-foot-5 All-American football player, Yale student and aspiring actor Jim MacLaren's life literally ended after he was hit by a 40,000-pound city bus in his early twenties. Pronounced dead at the accident scene, he awoke from a coma eight days later, his left leg missing below the knee. Fast-forward a few years. MacLaren, supported by a prosthetic leg, becomes the top amputee triathl... posted on Oct 20, 4477 reads

The Generosity Gene
The thought of not receiving presents on a birthday, bar or bat mitzvah, or any other gift-getting occasion is hard to accept for most children. So, where would such an idea come from? Teachers, older siblings and parents are the inspiration. Sometimes, it's just another compassionate stranger. For Gwenna Heidkamp, 11, who requested animal shelter supplies in lieu of presents for herself, it was h... posted on Nov 5, 5834 reads

A Table For Three
"My fiancee and I decided today was the day to finally treat ourselves to a nice dinner. It started off as 'our' day' but little did we know that it would turn into much more. I didn't want the whole day to be about yearning to leave the office for the upcoming dinner and I didn't want the dinner to be just another romantic night for two... So, I felt compelled to turn up the notch of giving that ... posted on Nov 7, 5882 reads