Sustainable Extravagance: The World as Cherry Tree
"Nature is nothing if not extravagant. Responding to unique local conditions, ants have evolved into nearly ten thousand species, several hundred of which can be found in the crown of a single Amazonian tree. Fruit trees produce thousands of blossoms -- an astonishing abundance of blossoms -- in order that another tree might germinate, take root, and grow. Over the past 150 years, however, human i... posted on Aug 14, 3503 reads

Stepping It Up For The World
Jon Warnow's passion for tackling the Earth's climate crisis was the basis for his role in Step It Up 2007. This project used the Internet to stage a highly coordinated National Day of Climate Action involving over 1400 communities in all 50 states. Every action was united by a common message "Step It Up Congress! Cut Carbon 80% by 2050." For Step It Up 2007 Jon developed and deployed the Internet... posted on Aug 3, 1669 reads

A Month Without Plastic
"I am giving up plastic for the whole of August. By this I mean not buying or accepting anything which contains plastic or is packaged in plastic. So, no take-away coffees, bottles of water or pre-packed sandwiches." A BBC Journalist takes on an experiment and in this article reflects on why she undertook it, and the challenges she faces.... posted on Aug 13, 3955 reads

No I Won't Lend You 30 Dollars But ...
In 1996, Conor Bohan stepped over the open sewers of Cite Soleil, a teeming slum on the harbor in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, to visit a promising former student at the Catholic high school where he was teaching. The student, Isemonde Joseph, asked Bohan if he would give her thirty dollars to attend secretarial school. He briefly considered Joseph's request, but declined. Instead, Bohan offered to spon... posted on Aug 20, 2670 reads

Listening to Failure
"Failure is the rule rather than the exception, and every failure contains information. One of the most misleading lessons imparted by those who have reached their goal is that the ones who win are the ones who persevere. Not always. If you keep trying without learning why you failed, you'll probably fail again and again. Perseverance must be accompanied by the embrace of failure. Failure is what ... posted on Sep 13, 4968 reads

Dirty Car Art
Scott Wade is the Da Vinci of dirt. The artist from Wimberly, Texas loves nothing better than a dirty car. With brushes and other tools, he creates amazingly detailed images in the window dust of his car. The range of tones and detail create the look of charcoal on paper. That is, until it rains. But for Wade, the short life span of his work just adds to its power. This short video shares some of ... posted on Sep 15, 4215 reads

The Boy Who Loved Trains
Twelve-year-old John Thomas Robertson has always had an affinity for trains. "I've been into trains probably from the day I was born," said John, who's nicknamed JT. "When I was very little my grandpa got me a train set. I would just watch it go round for hours and hours." When he realized that some of his friends couldn't afford train tickets, JT saved money from bottles and cans he collected ove... posted on Sep 17, 3142 reads

The Boys of Baraka
How would the futures of four 12-year old boys change if you extracted them from their poor Baltimore neighborhood and sent them to a school 10,000 miles away in the African wilderness? The film, "The Boys of Baraka" documents this experiment, following the boys journeys in discovering the fertility of their hopes and dreams, even amidst poverty.... posted on Sep 23, 2818 reads

The Link Between Memory & Imagination
While most children can easily imagine themselves as astronauts, athletes or superheroes, make-believe might not be so easy for older generations. Recent brain imaging studies have shown that people use the same mechanisms in the brain to imagine as they do to remember, suggesting that older adults may have as much trouble imagining as they do remembering. A new study, detailed in the January issu... posted on Oct 1, 2821 reads

Pune's Unusual Doorstep Schools
72-year-old Rajni Paranjpe is helping educate hundreds of children at, of all places, various construction sites in Pune and Mumbai. Two decades ago, Paranjpe had often wondered how to educate the kids of construction workers who have to travel from one site to another with their parents. That's when she was had the idea of taking the school right to the site. Paranjpe came up with the first Door ... posted on Oct 11, 2348 reads

The Non-violent Soldier of Islam
Little known in the West is a figure named Abdul Ghaffar Khan, who argued that religiously justified violence was "not God's religion." Known as Badshah Khan to his followers, the devoutly Muslim leader was called "The Frontier Gandhi" and built an Islamic parallel to Gandhi's violence-eschewing ideals of compassion for one's enemies and peaceful resistance to oppression as a means of overcoming i... posted on Nov 29, 3427 reads

The Plastic Battle
Has this ever happened to you after you've purchased a consumer item? Winner of the Friend's of the Earth Best One-minute Green Film Award, director Ulla Jackobsen from Denmark makes a simple yet dramatic statement with the help of a child and her toys. This video reminds us, in a most poignant way, to reduce, reuse, and recycle.... posted on Nov 3, 3990 reads

The Good Life For $5000 a Year
Most people monitoring the current fiscal crisis are fixated on what they could lose. Vermonter Jim Merkel is focused on what everyone could gain. After the 1989 oil spill, Jim set out on a mission to radically simplify his life. "There I was," Merkel recalls in his book, "a jet-set military salesman who voted for Reagan by day, and a bleeding-heart pacifist, eco-veggie-head-hooligan by night." ... posted on Nov 30, 5674 reads

6 Tips for Living in the Moment
We live in the age of distraction. Yet one of life's sharpest paradoxes is that our brightest future hinges on our ability to pay attention to the present. Living in the moment -- also called mindfulness -- is a state of active, open, intentional attention on the present. Mindfulness involves being with your thoughts as they are, neither grasping at them nor pushing them away. Instead of letting y... posted on Dec 2, 15240 reads

Best Friends Are Good For Business
Best friendships are good for business -- companies are coming to discover this, yet are at a loss at what to do about it. Diversity proponents worry that they have made too many strides to see it all disintegrate into the office version of high school cliques. Yet it's widely accepted that the winning companies during the next generation will be those that have employees eager to come to work and... posted on Dec 1, 2904 reads

Ivy Leaguers Play Chess With Inmates
David Wang is a young man who's clearly going places. The Princeton University sophomore is gifted with a brilliant mind, a movie-star smile and an understated self-confidence. Kelvin Washington is a middle-aged man who's not going anywhere for the next 44 years. He's a career criminal who has spent 29 years behind bars for a string of robberies and burglaries. An unlikely pairing, the two men wen... posted on Dec 3, 3742 reads

Flow: The Movie About Water
The world is running out of fresh water and the privatization of water is making it increasingly a commodity available only to the wealthy. Should water be an industry, or a basic resource available to all? This trailer for the film "Flow" poses that and other questions surrounding a resource long taken for granted.... posted on Dec 7, 6822 reads

Designing For Generosity
Internet guru Clay Shirky has a unique ability to present the chaos of the Web in stunningly clear terms, as he does in this video from Pop!Tech, documenting what a "spontaneously, self-assembling, online philanthropic venture" tells us about the nature of human motivation. Listen as he explains the concept of "designing for generosity," and what we can learn about it from the Josh Groban Foundati... posted on Dec 16, 3359 reads

The Legacy of Secret Santa
At a suburban Goodwill store on Friday, Theresa Settles selected a large, black comforter to warm her family until she can raise the money to turn the gas heat back on. A petite woman approached, her face obscured by dark sunglasses and a wrapped winter scarf, and handed Settles two $100 bills stamped with the words "secret Santa." "The only condition," she said, "is that you do something nice for... posted on Dec 23, 4238 reads

Ohio's Blind Marching Band
At the Ohio State School for the Blind in Columbus, Ohio, no one sees obstacles - especially not band director Dan Kelly. "My philosophy is - if it can't be done, let's do it anyway," he said. Not long ago, Kelly asked the kids if they'd be willing to take the school's concert band in a whole new direction. Their reactions varied from "thrilled" to "scared" to "how can blind people do this?" But n... posted on Dec 26, 3381 reads

Sara Tucholsky's First Home Run
In a small town in the middle of Washington State, in a field inside a chain linked fence, in a game fewer than a 100 people saw, a home run was hit -- not memorable for the distance it traveled or the game it decided, but for the meaning it carried. Western Oregon senior Sara Tucholsky had never hit a home run in her career. Central Washington senior Mallory Holtman was already her school's caree... posted on Jan 2, 3326 reads

The Science of Smiling
"My personal trainer sometimes gives me an odd piece of advice during workouts: "Relax your face." For a long time, I found this advice confusing. Isn't physical exertion supposed to be expressed in grimaces? I thought of the face as a pressure-relief valve that helps emit the pain the body is experiencing. But the trainer suggested I think about it the other way around -- that controlling the fac... posted on Jan 16, 7859 reads

Pen Pals -- Then and Now
Pen pals -- in the age of technology, chat rooms and social networking -- are slowly becoming a thing of the past. But not for the kids of two second grade classrooms, who are keeping the practice alive for a special reason. Their respective teachers met each other as pen pals nineteen years ago... posted on Jan 23, 3159 reads

Three Words of Wisdom
"One evening I was parked in front of the mall wiping off my car. I had just come from the car wash and was waiting for my wife to get out of work. Coming my way from across the parking lot was, what society would consider, a bum. From the looks of him, he had no car, no home, no clean clothes, and no money. There are times when you feel generous but there are other times that you just don't want ... posted on Jan 24, 10770 reads

20 Simple Tools for Happiness
"Happiness is ephemeral, subject to the vagaries of everything from the weather to the size of a bank account. We're not suggesting that you can reach a permanent state called "happiness" and remain there. But there are many ways to swerve off the path of anxiety, anger, frustration, and sadness into a state of happiness once or even several times throughout the day." This Reader's Digest article ... posted on Jan 26, 17156 reads

A Violinist Plays His Gratitude
The melodic strains of a violin that emanated Friday from a lobby at Barnes-Jewish Hospital carried the gratitude of a former patient who nearly lost the ability to play the instrument. "I suppose it's a way of saying 'thank you' to the hospital, but it's a lot of things." Ken Wollberg said. "It's a way to share a beautiful thing." An intense truck accident left Wollberg, a trained Viola performer... posted on Feb 2, 2683 reads

The Magic of Free Parking
Composer turned filmmaker Kurt Kuenne calls it "a fable about the magic of free parking." A short film about one parking attendant named Hugh Newman is really the story of the small acts of goodness and everyday smiles that truly make people's day, and sometimes, their lives. ... posted on Feb 3, 7474 reads

Blessings In A Backpack
On Friday afternoon, fifth grader John Gonzalez takes home more than homework. When John and his little sister meet up with their mom outside Normandy Elementary School for the quick walk home, they both carry an extra backpack -- what's inside will help sustain them through the weekend. The food, store coupons and menu are all provided free to the struggling family as part of the Blessings in a ... posted on Feb 13, 3567 reads

Another King At Gandhi's Memorial
In 1959, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. came to India to further understand Mahatma Gandhi's tactics of passive resistance. Gandhi's methods of nonviolent protests had worked a decade earlier to bring independence to a nation. In '59, King was in the midst of formulating and carrying out his own plan to help bring freedom and equality to the oppressed in the United States. Their legacies were for... posted on Feb 18, 3877 reads

If I Had Three Wishes
Hurrying to get out the door on a Monday morning, Kathy Smith started to scratch her name on her son's homework assignment when she stopped to read what he had written. The fourth-grade creative assignment was pretty straightforward: If I Had Three Wishes. Kathy smiled as she read the first item on her son's bucket list: a golden retriever. His second wish was to play professional basketball, hard... posted on Feb 19, 6920 reads

Caring For Other People's Children
19-year-old Anjana Damraji is a first year science student. She lives in a girl's hostel in Pune, manages to pay her fees through a government scholarship and tutors five children during her spare hours to earn an extra bit of money. None of this would seem extraordinary had it not been for the fact that Anjana's parents work on a construction site as laborers and have been doing so for the past 2... posted on Feb 20, 4489 reads

Estonians Build a Happiness Bank
In times of economic woe, Estonians are banking on ideas to lift their spirits above the gloom and doom of recession with an online "happiness bank" and forums on better governance. In the virtual "happiness bank", people will be able to earn virtual money on their accounts by doing good deeds for those in need. Organisers hope it will give people the idea that doing good is as valuable as earnin... posted on Mar 2, 4718 reads

The Great Mystery of Consciousness
"To make scientific headway in a topic as tangled as consciousness, it helps to clear away some red herrings. Consciousness surely does not depend on language. Babies, many animals and patients robbed of speech by brain damage are not insensate robots; they have reactions like ours that indicate that someone's home. Nor can consciousness be equated with self-awareness. At times we have all lost ou... posted on Mar 8, 4242 reads

Seven Sisters with 80 Rupees in 1959
The "seven sisters", as they are fondly remembered, gathered on the terrace of an old building in a crowded South Mumbai locality and rolled out four packets of "papads" (crisp, traditional Indian meal starters) to sell. It was 1959. They had borrowed 80 Rupees (today's $1.50), to cook and sell papad as a way to supplement the household income. Three months later, they had 25 women. Just recen... posted on Mar 13, 5377 reads

A Hospital's Sacrifice
It wasn't the kind of meeting the management looks forward to, but this time it was going to play out uniquely. "I want to run an idea by you that I think is important, and I'd like to get your reaction to it," Paul Levy, President of the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center began. "I'd like to do what we can to protect the lower-wage earners - the transporters, the housekeepers, the food service ... posted on Nov 18, 3509 reads

4 Students, A Camera & A Balloon
Teenagers armed with only an inexpensive camera and latex balloon have managed to take stunning pictures of space from 20-miles above Earth. Proving that you don't need Google's billions or the BBC weather center's resources, the four Spanish students managed to send a camera-operated weather balloon into the stratosphere. Taking atmospheric readings and photographs 20 miles above the ground, the ... posted on Mar 20, 4690 reads

An Everday Subway Hero
Subway heroes, as they are inevitably tagged even before the grease from the tracks is rubbed off, come along every now and then -- indeed, as the story of Chad Lindsey suggests, perhaps more often than we know. Minutes after rescuing a man who had fallen onto the subway tracks at the Penn Station stop on Monday, Mr. Lindsey managed to melt back into the anonymity of the city, escaping the notice ... posted on Mar 28, 2719 reads

Playing the Smart Move
On a recent afternoon, Orrin Hudson, a former Alabama state trooper, is teaching chess to 14 students in an after-school program. He uses the ancient game to instill a fundamental life lesson: They will win or lose because of choices they make -- in real life and on the chess board. Hudson, 41, figures he has taught chess to 15,000 kids in Georgia, Alabama, Kentucky, Nevada and Washington state.... posted on Mar 31, 2771 reads

Rowing For Hope
After almost 3,000 miles of rowing, bouts of seasickness, equipment failure and salt sores, Paul Ridley is back on land. On day 88, Ridley, 25, completed his solo rowing trip across the Atlantic Ocean, becoming the youngest American ever to do so. For nearly three months, Ridley has been rowing up to twelve hours a day on the 2,950-mile journey to raise cancer awareness and hopefully raise money f... posted on Apr 1, 2966 reads

Does Art Heal?
Seven-year-old Catriona Chennell's room is filled with samples of her artwork: strings of differently-shaped beads, a painting of a rainbow blazing across a blue sky. Cat's art decorates her room in the pediatric intensive care unit at Shands at the University of Florida, the hospital in Gainesville where she has spent six months waiting for a heart-lung tensplant. Through the Arts in Medicine pro... posted on Apr 6, 4287 reads

No Time for Complaining
There may be a positive byproduct of our troubled times: a decrease in the urge to complain. Job satisfaction is actually up, and according to a December 2008 survey almost 38% of respondents said they were "very satisfied" with their jobs, compared with 28% in 2007, a likely sign that people are grateful they're still employed. And every week now, we hear reports of workers accepting pay cuts or ... posted on Apr 7, 4549 reads

1 Piece of Advice
Patricia Moser-Stern and Barbara Moser knew there were plenty of successful women with advice to share when they decided to pen their book, 1 Piece of Advice. But the Markham cousins say the process of gathering almost 50 examples of remarkable women gave them even more inspiration. "There were these women across the globe that have achieved so many things ... stories so amazing, but we didn't eve... posted on Apr 9, 5672 reads

The Faces of Others
Dr. Yehonatan N. Turner was accepted to both film school and medical school. He was eventually drawn to radiology as the most visual field in medicine; when he began his residency in radiology, he was frustrated that the CT scans he analyzed revealed nothing about the patients behind them -- only their internal organs. So to make things personal, he imagined each patient was his father. But then h... posted on Apr 10, 2986 reads

The Best Weekend Ever
On the eve of April Fools' Day, a 29-year-old Pittsburgh man posted an ad on Craigslist Chicago offering "help with something this weekend" to any Chicagoans in need of an extra pair of hands for tasks small or large. His only request to those asking for help was that they "pay it forward" by doing a good deed to someone else. That next weekend, he drove nearly 1,200 miles to Chicago and back, del... posted on Apr 20, 4430 reads

Student Buys Orphanage
Amy Lambert, 24, spent eight weeks last summer caring for the 150 boys and girls, who were crammed six to a single bed. All the children -- who had lost parents to Aids -- were starving and dehydrated, with most wracked with malaria. So when Amy, an undergraduate at Bath Spa University, returned to Britain she organized a series of charity events -- raising 30,000 pounds in seven months. She then ... posted on Apr 29, 4868 reads

Angels on the Atlantic
Vince and Jeanie Hubach always wanted to share the sandier side of life with others. The couple now run a nonprofit called Angels on the Atlantic that makes it easy -- and free -- for local city kids to visit the beach. Some of the kids have never felt sand between their toes, inspected a seashell, or even seen waves. It's not that they live so far inland -- they're from the Philadelphia area, onl... posted on May 6, 2443 reads

Wake Up Economics
Last September, Anna Rowinski took a boldly visible sign that read "Just for today don't be afraid" to Park Square. "I got this idea and it wouldn't let me go -- to sit on the circle with this sign. It was my way of being proactive, of not just laying down," she said. "It made me realize how dry we are, how much we are looking for permission to connect" to one another, she said. When talking to he... posted on May 8, 3384 reads

My House to the White House
At age 11, Zach Bonner has already walked farther and done more for charity than many grown-ups. Now he's about to make good on his vow to walk more than 1,200 miles from Tampa to Washington to bring attention to the plight of homeless kids in the United States. The boy with the spiky red hair came up with the idea in 2007, then hiked nearly 300 miles from his home near Tampa to the state capital,... posted on May 17, 3352 reads

What Would It Look Like?
What if the world embodied its highest potential? What would it look like? As many of the structures of modern society crumble, this video contemplates a set of unexamined assumptions that form the very basis of our civilization. In a beautifully shot 25-minute retrospective, it asks us to reflect on the state of the world and ourselves -- and to listen more closely to what is being asked of us at... posted on May 22, 4385 reads

The Genius of Leonardo
Leonardo da Vinci is known for the "Mona Lisa" and other art masterpieces. But the Renaissance man also invented fluid dynamics and, perhaps, the scientific method. Fritjof Capra, author of the best-selling, The Tao of Physics writes about Leonardo's investigations of the natural world in his new book, The Science of Leonardo. Capra claims that Leonardo applied the empirical method a century befor... posted on May 24, 3198 reads