Man Mails $5 to Strangers to Spread Good Will
Daniel Simonton has been sending $5 bills to strangers in the mail. And in return, he wants nothing. The idea came while he was walking down Broadway Avenue in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood. He "distinctly noticed how a lot of people seemed really cranky." "I started to wonder when the last time it was someone did anything nice for these people," Simonton said. And so the experiment began...... posted on Jan 13, 3762 reads

Graphene Wins Nobel Prize
Two University of Manchester scientists were awarded the Nobel Prize in physics for their pioneering research on graphene, a one-atom-thick film of carbon whose strength, flexibility and electrical conductivity have opened up new horizons for pure physics research as well as high-tech applications. Graphene is one of the strongest, lightest and most conductive materials known to humankind. It's al... posted on Feb 3, 3908 reads

7-Month-Old Babies Can 'Read Minds'
Babies as young as 7 months old may be able to take into account the thoughts and beliefs of other people, a younger age than previously demonstrated. 7-month-olds have little experience with conversation, which has long been thought to play a key role in acquiring this capacity. As a result, this study is thought to be significant in building new theories about how this capacity develops. In the ... posted on Feb 13, 1724 reads

Giant Water Lily: Nature's Hidden Designs
In still or slowly-moving waters there is one easy way to collect light: a plant can float its leaves upon the surface. No plant does this on a more spectacular scale than the giant Amazon water-lily. First surfacing as a simple bud, within a few hours, it bursts open and starts to spread. Expanding at the rate of half a square yard in a single day, the leaf grows until it is six feet across and s... posted on Jan 8, 4876 reads

Stem Cell Transplant Helps Athletic Student See Again
Taylor Binns was nearly blind by the time he met Allan Slomovic this fall at Toronto Western Hospital. A rare, extremely painful disorder that damages stem cells in the cornea had blurred his vision. Sometimes it felt as if he was being stabbed in the eyes with a knife. But the fourth-year Queen's University student is celebrating the gift of sight thanks to his kid sister, Tori, and a new stem ce... posted on Jan 9, 1598 reads

Jogging for a Smile
Lots of people jog for exercise. And as long as you're going for a run, why not run an errand for someone who needs the help at the same time? That's the idea behind The Good Gym, an organization that matches runners with elderly and less mobile people in their neighborhood who need groceries, errands, or just some friendly human connection. On top of runner's high, The Good Gym volunteers finish ... posted on Jan 23, 1715 reads

Being the Change In Bihar
In an under-construction school building in India's Bihar village, children are learning algebra, chemistry, Newton's laws of motion. There's no teacher in the classroom, no blackboard. The teacher is hundreds of miles away, and he is teaching via Skype. In this very unsual school, teachers mark their attendance using a biometric fingerprinter, and students log their attendance in a computer. The ... posted on Jan 26, 4163 reads

A Light in India
When we hear the word "innovation," we often think of new technologies or silver bullet solutions - like hydrogen fuel cells or a cure for cancer. But some of the greatest advances come from taking old ideas or technologies and making them accessible to millions of people who are under-served. One off-the-grid electricity company based in Bihar is doing just that. With an innovative solution to th... posted on Feb 1, 3482 reads

Building Green Houses from Garbage
Texas home builder Dan Phillips transforms trash into artful treasures, creating intricate floor mosaics with wood scraps, kitchen counters from ivory-colored bones and roofs out of license plates. The fantastical houses which spring from his imagination cost as little as $10,000 and are made almost entirely with materials which would otherwise have ended up in a garbage dump.... posted on Jan 28, 6473 reads

London's Cycle Superhighways Hailed as a Success
Transport for London say the two new Superhighways have been a big success, with an average usage increase of 70%. The traffic on these Superhighways, which connect parts of London to the financial City, is bicycles. Mayor of London's transport advisor, Kulveer Ranger, said: "This research shows that people do believe the routes are of value, make them feel safer, and are allowing them to take di... posted on Feb 18, 3165 reads

Southern Masked Weaver
They call it home. The delicate orb that sits on the tree branch, a woven tangle of grass and twigs all strategically placed. It's small and inconspicuous enough that you'd probably miss it walking by. Luckily, one photographer didn't. "It was a priceless opportunity to watch these amazing builders constructing their homes from the very beginning till the end, from the first framework made of a fe... posted on Feb 9, 4081 reads

Museums Without Walls
Walk through Philadelphia and you'll see public art poised throughout the city. "Museum Without Walls: AUDIO" brings these sculptures to life with audio stories, told by people from all walks of life and somehow connected to the sculpture by knowledge, experience or affiliation. Nearly 100 "voices" at 35 stops explore 51 sculptures. These stories can be discovered while touring the city or sitti... posted on Mar 19, 2946 reads

What Lies Beneath
In 2000, the Census of Marine Life embarked on a 10-year mission to deepen our knowledge of the ocean. The study involved 2,700 scientists, 80 countries, 600 institutions, 500 expeditions and a staggering 9,000 days at sea. On top of recording tens of millions of individual marine organisms and their locations, it also identifies important climate changes. Among the discoveries of 6,000 potentia... posted on Mar 3, 2556 reads

Shhh! Quiet People at Work
Justice Clarence Thomas has not spoken during a Supreme Court argument in five years. In the past 40 years, no other member has been totally silent through a whole term-- not to mention, five terms. Loud People, of course, get all the attention. But if we take a look around, we'll notice that quiet people are everywhere. Quiet People are different from loners or introverts or recluses. And quietne... posted on Feb 28, 7791 reads

Roses of Peace Bloom
"The rose is a universal symbol, liked by everyone. It appeals equally to everyone's heart. The exchange of roses, the shaking of hands and extending goodwill between people of different races, religions or parties in conflict, helps to create a more conducive and positive atmosphere." A 28 year-old peace activist in Nepal is bringing people in conflict areas together through one simple act: givin... posted on Apr 23, 8744 reads

The Technology of Compassion
The term "compassion" -- typically reserved for the saintly or the sappy -- has fallen out of touch with reality. Journalist Krista Tippett deconstructs the meaning of compassion as she traces the word through secular and spiritual icons like Mother Theresa, Gandhi, and Einstein, as well as everyday heroes like Matthew, a paraplegic yoga teacher. Through her stories, Tippett proposes a new, more a... posted on Mar 23, 4723 reads

Restaurant Chain Displaced By Students
When a 1,300-outlet fast-food chain announced plans to open a branch on the campus of the University of California Berkeley, a group of students protested. Given the nature of the city's resonance with local, seasonal and organic food, this wasn't a surprise. However, the students not only defeated the chain but also took their victory one step further by raising $100,000 to replace the fast-foo... posted on Apr 18, 5740 reads

Bell Curve of Empathy
Rhesus monkeys can be trained to pull a chain to obtain food but will refuse to do so if this means another monkey receives an electric shock. How do those monkeys compare with Nazi concentration camp guards? It was childhood tales of Nazi atrocities that first set the Cambridge psychologist, Simon Baron-Cohen, on the path of studying human cruelty and empathy. Instead of "evil", Simon frames such... posted on Apr 17, 8650 reads

Retailing With Heart
Venture into a Panera Cares cafe and you'll see the same menu and racks of freshly baked breads that are staples at the 1,400 Panera Bread restaurants across the United States. The only thing missing is the cash register. Instead, there's a donation box where customers pay on the honor system. Since opening its first "restaurant of shared responsibility" last May, Panera Bread is poised to take i... posted on Apr 29, 5981 reads

Nursery Rhymes Bring Down the House
Over the weekend, Edward Reid became an instant celebrity when he brought down the house on "Britain's Got Talent" -- with nursery rhymes! The crowd laughed and jeered when 35-year-old school teacher opened with "Old MacDonald." But his undulating voice won them over as he moved into "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star." By the time he concluded with "If You're Happy and You Know It, Clap Your Hands," ... posted on Apr 26, 18833 reads

Mother of All Languages
The world's 6,000 or so modern languages may have all descended from a single ancestral tongue spoken by early African humans around 50,000 years ago, a new study suggests. The finding could help explain how the first spoken language emerged, spread and contributed to the evolutionary success of the human species. Quentin Atkinson, an evolutionary psychologist and author of the study, found that t... posted on Jun 27, 5352 reads

Grounded For Good
After spending 18 months abroad, McMillans were inspired to return home to Scotland with as little environmental impact as possible. En route from Singapore, they journeyed across 14 countries over 85 days, using 22 buses, 14 trains, 11 boats and numerous rickshaws. They enjoyed it so much that they started a website to help others do the same -- flightless travel. Aircrafts currently produce 4... posted on May 29, 7363 reads

Third Way Leadership
"Cultural anthropologist Angeles Arrien suggests we're shifting from an either/or to a both/and culture -- one that requires opening the aperture of our irises to better perceive the truth that surrounds apparent paradox. Though two conflicting views may seem irreconcilably opposed, when we expand our vision enough to encompass a whole that's larger than both, a new reality often emerges -- a thir... posted on Oct 2, 12147 reads

Secrets from 17 Years of Silence
In 1971, after the devastating 800,000-gallon oil spill in the San Francisco Bay, John Francis, then a young man, pledged to never ride a motorized vehicle again. Two years later, he added voluntary silence to his vow, spending 17 years in silence as he walked the world and became known as The Planetwalker. The first words that he spoke again were in Washington, D.C., on the 20th anniversary of Ea... posted on May 5, 13021 reads

A Change of Heart Changes Everything
Did you know that briefly re-experiencing a cherished memory creates synchronization in your heart rhythm in mere seconds? It increases the release of healthy, energizing hormones, while decreasing levels of damaging stress hormones, and strengthening the immune system. HeartMath, an emotional physiology research institute, has also discovered that if someone has a coherent heart rhythm, it has a ... posted on Jun 26, 15997 reads

Why Are Easy Decisions So Hard?
"Why do I squander so much mental energy on the mundane purchases of everyday life? I think I've found a good answer. Although I know that every floss will work well enough, sometimes I still can't help waste an embarrassing amount of time on the decision. What I believe happens is that instead of realizing that picking a floss is an easy decision, I confuse the array of options and excess of info... posted on Jul 28, 5316 reads

The Man Who Stopped A Nuclear War
Ever heard of Stanislav Petrov? Probably not, even though he saved the world as we know it. Petrov, a former member of the Soviet military, didn't actually do anything, but that was precisely the point. In 1983, Petrov held a very important station: as lieutenant colonel, he was in charge of monitoring the Soviet Union's satellites over the United States, and watching for any sign of unauthorized ... posted on May 14, 8231 reads

Freedom Rider Named James Zwerg
Looking out the window, James Zwerg accepted his worst fear: He was going to die today. Only the night before, Zwerg had prayed for the strength to not strike back in anger. He was among the 18 "Freedom Riders", white and black college students from Nashville who had decided to take the bus trip through the segregated South in 1961, to desegregate public transportation. In the midst of the ensu... posted on May 26, 4531 reads

The Impossible Floating Village Football Team
This is the true story of a football team that lived on a little island in the south of Thailand called Koh Panyee -- a floating village in the middle of the sea that does not have an inch of soil. The kids that lived there loved to watch football on TV, and really wanted to play for themselves. Watch this stunning short film on how they used innovative thinking, hard work, and determination to ma... posted on May 18, 17878 reads

The Intellect in Insights
At first glance, insights seem to come out of nowhere. But in hindsight they make perfect, logical sense. What happens is that we (sometimes unconsciously) recognize patterns that enable us to see things in a new way. Albert Einstein put it succinctly when he said insight "comes suddenly and in a rather intuitive way. But intuition is nothing but the outcome of earlier intellectual experience." Th... posted on Jul 21, 6048 reads

Cup of Compassion and Grandma's Beautiful Hat
"Suddenly, we heard the sirens of a fire truck and an ambulance parking in front of our house. We are new in this neighborhood, moving in only 3 months ago; opening the door I noticed that some paramedics were running up the stairs of our front neighbor's house. On the side walk, a woman in her thirties was in deep commotion crying on the phone. A scared, desperate 13 year old was half way up the ... posted on Jun 8, 8500 reads

Fostering Virtue
"How can we foster more virtue in our societies?" A question sparked for researcher Kentaro Toyama by a one-time interaction with a rickshaw driver in India. This reflective piece goes on to propose ideas for fostering virtue in three areas: Education, Measurement, and Mentoring. And of course, the question "How can I foster more virtue in myself?" comes up as well. There we're left with the intr... posted on Jul 18, 12972 reads

The Science of Self-Control
In the classic Stanford Marshmallow Experiment, researchers gave children a choice between one marshmallow right away, or two later. Most struggled to resist the treat and held out for less than three minutes. "A few kids ate the marshmallow right away," Walter Mischel, the Stanford professor in charge of the experiment, remembers. "They didn't even bother ringing the bell. Other kids would stare ... posted on Jul 10, 11995 reads

A Love Affair With Questions
In this beautiful black-and-white vignette, filmmaker Nic Askew interviews a man named Julio Olalla. Julio candidly speaks about an encounter with his father that changed his life, and what he learned: "Gratitude in so many ways is so dramatically missing in the world today. Without gratitude nothing is enough." Over this 10-minute video, he reflects on his own experiences, ranging from exploring ... posted on Jul 3, 5357 reads

Going Beyond Profit
The simple for-profit model that has guided business practice in the past appears to be shifting towards a new paradigm. Profitability is important, but only when it serves the more fundamental goal of creating value for others through our gifts. And when a company's strategy loses touch with this key principle, the potential for true value-creation is also lost. In this article, Decision Analyst ... posted on Aug 8, 14772 reads

Sister Cyril's Compassionate Vision
As principal of Loreto School in Calcutta, Irish Catholic nun Sister Cyril has worked some real-world miracles. Her school serves 1500 female students, of which 721 are so poor that they need food, medicines, and even money to meet the rent. By bringing children together like this, she is showing a way for middle class schools to integrate the poor living around them into their educational mainst... posted on Aug 7, 7979 reads

What Makes Extreme Do-Gooders Tick?
"From protecting our natural environment to improving our children's education to combating global poverty and disease, we've come to rely on extreme do-gooders to tackle the world's toughest problems. Few of them will make as much as they could in the private sector. They may lose a relationship with a loved one to their work, or miss their kids' big moments. All of which raises the obvious: Why?... posted on Aug 18, 4865 reads

A 21-Year-Old's Solution to Homelessness
As a design student in Detroit, Veronika Scott was keenly aware of the increasing numbers of homeless people suffering deeply during the relentless winters. At the tender age of 21, she created The Detroit Empowerment Plan to provide much-needed warmth to the city's 20,000 street dwellers. Scott is the creator of Element S, a coat that is self-heated, waterproof, and transforms into a sleeping bag... posted on Aug 23, 14944 reads

School Superintendent Gives Up $800k
Some people give back to their community. Then there's School Superintendent Larry Powell, who's literally giving back. As in $800,000 -- his expected compensation for the next three years. Until 2015, Powell will run 325 schools and 35 school districts with 195,000 students, all for $31,000/yr. "How much do we need to keep accumulating?" asks Powell, 63. "There's no reason for me to keep stockpil... posted on Aug 30, 6016 reads

The Doctor Who Would Not Give Up
Dr. Richard Olney is racing to finish what is almost certain to be his last research paper. The 63-year-old neurologist is considered one of the country's top clinical specialists for ALS, popularly known as Lou Gehrig's disease. ALS is also the reason Olney is in a hurry to finish his paper: He was diagnosed with it in 2004 and now has almost no muscle function left. But Olney's most enduring con... posted on Aug 31, 4524 reads

The Best Goal is No Goal
"These days, however, I live without goals, for the most part. It's absolutely liberating, and contrary to what you might have been taught, it absolutely doesn't mean you stop achieving things. It means you stop letting yourself be limited by goals. Consider this common belief: 'You'll never get anywhere unless you know where you're going.' This seems so common sensical, and yet it's obviously not... posted on Sep 1, 29093 reads

An Accidental Activist
"So many of us have good ideas for helping the world. But we tuck our ideas away. I did. I'd tell myself that if the idea were any good someone else would have already done it. That I'm not capable of making a difference. I'd sit on my ideas, get on with my 'life,' and then feel angry at the world because the problems I cared about didn't get solved. I had that fear of going first. Then I took my ... posted on Sep 2, 9325 reads

Disrupt Yourself
When Whitney Johnson decided to walk away from a stellar career on Wall Street, even close friends thought she might be making a mistake. But in Johnson's own words, "Notwithstanding the considerable career and financial risks involved, it was time to leave my comfortable perch and become an entrepreneur. Time to disrupt myself. We typically define disruption as a low-end product or service that ... posted on Sep 4, 15277 reads

Gifting Art
A controversial statue led conversations.org founder Richard Whittaker to an unusual artist, Fredric Fierstein. The art piece itself was inspired from a place far off the beaten track. In Fredric's words: "When I've gotten out of the cities I've met people of the earth, I call them. They're not the kind of people you meet in the cities who are trying to hustle you. My guide, who spoke Thai and a f... posted on Sep 6, 2375 reads

The Ripple Effect of Kindness
"Over the last few years, I've become a big proponent of Smile Cards. The premise behind these small cards is simple: do an anonymous act of kindness and leave a card behind, inviting the recipient to pay-it-forward. If he/she does, the chain keeps going, resulting in "ripples" of kindness radiating out. Smile Cards are wonderful in ways I cannot count. Small, simple, humble -- yet powerful, becau... posted on Sep 11, 23478 reads

Planning & Other Paths To Less Stress
A recent survey by psychologist and self-help author Robert Epstein found that 25% of our happiness hinges on how well we're able to manage stress. The next logical question is, of course, how best can we reduce our stress? The stress management technique that worked best, according to the survey: planning. In other words, "fighting stress before it even starts, planning things rather than letting... posted on Sep 12, 8892 reads

Feeding the World From A Garden Shed
The corrugated tin hut crouching in the undergrowth, dwarfed by dripping firs, looks like a wartime relic nobody could be bothered to clear away ... a sign reading "Mary's Meals" has been stuck above the doorway. To Magnus MacFarlane-Barrow, his father's shed in Dalmally, Argyll, has acquired a talismanic significance. It's where he stockpiled food and clothes for Bosnian refugees in the 1990s -- ... posted on Sep 13, 3720 reads

In Praise of Selflessness
"Who are you doing it for? Asked that question, many entrepreneurs would answer, 'me.' There's nothing wrong with that. Plenty of great companies were built by people for whom CEO is an imperfect acronym for "He who must be obeyed." Servant leaders, by contrast, put their people and their organizations before themselves. They don't view employees as a means to an end; rather employees' happiness a... posted on Oct 12, 6536 reads

The Dumpster
"'We can't use these. They look like heirlooms!' Gina, a guest at my holiday gathering, holds up one of the elaborately embroidered napkins from the buffet table. 'Where'd you get them?' 'Out of a dumpster. The tablecloth and those candleholders were in there, too.' 'You can't be serious! Why would they be in a dumpster?' The shock in her voice carried across the room, and others looked up. It's c... posted on Sep 17, 5926 reads

Why Does Beauty Exist?
"Why does beauty exist? What's the point of marveling at a Rembrandt self portrait or a Bach fugue? To paraphrase Auden, beauty makes nothing happen. Unlike our more primal indulgences, the pleasure of perceiving beauty doesn't ensure that we consume calories or procreate. Rather, the only thing beauty guarantees is that we'll stare for too long at some lovely looking thing. Museums are not exactl... posted on Sep 20, 4084 reads