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The number of chronically hungry people in the world is set to fall from 776 million now to 440 million in 2030, says the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. But instead of halving by 2015 - the goal adopted by the 1996 World Food Summit - the number of the undernourished will fall only by 11 per cent by that time.... posted on Mar 14, 1178 reads

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Spend one day volunteering in the community with Red Lion hotels program, and they'll give you a free night's stay at their hotel!... posted on Mar 19, 846 reads

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He was ordained as a Presbyterian minister in 1962 with a charge to continue his service with children and families through television. His show "Mister Roger's Neighbordhood" is the longest running show (30 years) in history of public TV; in its peak, it was watched by 8% of the U.S. households! On February 26, at the age of 74, Mr. Rogers passed away but left behind a culture that will remembe... posted on Mar 11, 1278 reads

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British biologist Rupert Sheldrake has documented on videotape how some dogs appear to anticipate the arrival of their owner. Regardless of the time of day that the owner begins their journey home, some of these dogs appear to sense their human companion coming without receiving any known physical signals, and wait for them next to the door or window.... posted on Jun 5, 1055 reads

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He signed his name with an "X" for almost a century, as a grandson of a slave. Then, at the age of 98, George Dawson started learning to read and write! So much so that he published a celebrated book -- 'Life Is So Good' -- when he was 101 years old.... posted on Mar 15, 1884 reads

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More than half the world lives on less than two dollars a day. Ever wonder if you could take those 5 bucks for coffee and buy something from a rural artisan in a developing country? How 'bout if you knew that there were no middle-man costs? Welcome to yet another fully volunteer-run project of CharityFocus that is getting rave reviews -- Community Shops!... posted on Aug 5, 1378 reads

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While the developed nations agonise over their GNP (gross national product) and we fret about the GST, "60 Minutes" reports of a place, perhaps the only place in the world, where the official government policy is GNH - gross national happiness. It's the tiny kingdom of Bhutan, where the government not only legislates for happiness, it also tries to protect its people from encroaching globalisation... posted on Mar 27, 1365 reads

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Halfway around the world, American Sufi Muslims join in. Fundamentalist Christians add their prayers, as do Orthodox Jews at Jersualem's Western Wall. "Jimmy P," a heart patient at Duke University Medical Center in North Carolina, is part of a global scientific experiment trying to find out: Does prayer heal? Yes, is the answer of more and more experiment in this arena.... posted on Apr 5, 1111 reads

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What do Australian Aboriginal Grandmothers and Coalminer’s Daughter in West Virginia have in common? They just won the coveted Goldman prize -- often referred to as the Nobel Prize for Environmentalism -- for their grassroots activism.... posted on Apr 25, 1060 reads

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Michael Moore put 1,000 dollars in a long-term account at North Country Bank in Michigan, they did the background check, and, within an hour, he walked out with his complimentary gift -- a gun! Michael Moore opened his Oscar winning documentary with live scene from this encounter.... posted on Apr 12, 1069 reads

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More than 50 years ago, a little book called 'The Power of Positive Thinking' took the world by storm. Written by a minister, Dr. Normal Vincent Peale, the book was a mix of natural psychological insight and faith-based principles applied to everyday problems of living. The publishers are re-releasing the book now.... posted on May 2, 1096 reads

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500 tons of good intention. That's right. For five years, they've been planting a row for the hungry and donating the produce. Couple months back, volunteers at Village Harvest hit their million pound mark!... posted on Oct 3, 494 reads

A Garden of Giving
Rudy Viereckl worked on experimental flowers all day, tended a home garden at night, but still, felt the need for more. What he wanted was a garden designed to benefit others, not himself. So he planted a row for the hungry, rallied his friends and ended up collecting 41,652 pounds of produce!... posted on May 16, 1185 reads

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Do you have an idea that will change your community for the good? Are you between 18 and 29? If so, 'Ideas Happen' is willing grant 12 inspired ideas with 25,000 bucks.... posted on Apr 24, 776 reads

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Meditation is fast appearing in unexpected places throughout modern culture. Secretaries do it as part of their daily noon yoga classes. Preadolescent teenagers dropped off at the YMCA by their mothers on a Saturday morning are learning it as part of their karate training. Truck drivers and housewives in the Stress Reduction Programs use it to control hypertension. Prisoners engage in 10 days o... posted on Apr 26, 2591 reads

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Often when animal lovers travel, they see animal abuse that disturbs them. Compassionate Traveler's website gives them a place to learn more about a tourist destination before they travel, and it also gives them an opportunity to do something about animal welfare issues they might observe.... posted on May 3, 1019 reads

Peace through 'Guru Currency'
If you're ever in the Netherlands, you can officially use 'guru currency'. The group founded by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, famous for being a spritual teacher to Beatles, has issued a currency named after an Indian diety -- "raam" -- that they hope will alleviate poverty and create world peace.... posted on May 15, 1849 reads

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Each year water-related diseases kill more people than AIDS and cancer combined. Just today, more than 25,000 people will die because of unsafe drinking water.... posted on May 10, 1024 reads

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Research by Paul Ekman, at the University of California San Francisco Medical Center, suggests that meditation and mindfulness can tame the amygdala, an area of the brain which is the hub of fear memory.... posted on May 30, 1166 reads

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In the first year of Sprint Project Connect, a nationwide wireless phone collection and recycling program, Sprint raised nearly 600,000 dollars for charity.... posted on May 31, 532 reads

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An average American child watches as many as 40,000 television commercials every year. With children either spending or influencing 500 billion dollars worth of purchases, marketing techniques have been turned upside down. In the past the most effective way to sell children's products was through mom and dad. Now the opposite is true, children are the focal point for intense advertising pressure ... posted on Jul 15, 904 reads

Infinite Hugs
A 50 year old woman travels the world and gives thousands of hugs everyday! She is not only the world record holder for hugs but also is known as the "hugging saint" who has dedicated her whole life to service. Meet Ammachi.... posted on Jun 14, 984 reads

Understanding 'AND'
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500 Years of Peace
Dr. Ariyaratne is often called the 'Gandhi of Sri Lanka'. Under a tree, he started the 'Saravodaya Sharmadana Movement' for spiritual and material upliftment of the rural Sri Lankans, through their own labor. Today, Dr. Ari's is working with 200,000 people in 12,000 of the 25,000 villages, with some remarkable results. He's got a peace plan, not for 10 or 50 years, but the next 500 years!... posted on Aug 8, 1900 reads

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Want to save the world? Just save the world's women. New international research is proving that women may hold the key to ending many of the world's ills -- if only they'd have the chance. For example, more literacy among women translates into lower HIV infection rates for adults of both sexes and is the greatest factor in declining child malnutrition in 63 countries!... posted on Jul 24, 892 reads

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Talking on a cell phone behind the wheel is more dangerous than driving drunk, researchers from the University of Utah conclude in a new study. And it makes no difference whether the telephone is hand-held or, as permitted by New York State law, used hands-free.... posted on Aug 12, 1038 reads

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Ten years ago, a Canadian school teacher had an idea -- connect classrooms across the world via the radio. It worked wonders. With a twist of a dial, students heard each other in French, German, Spanish and various English accents across different times zones around the globe ... heck, even an astronaut tuned in one time!... posted on Jul 26, 897 reads

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Nearly three-fourths of the teens surveyed recently said they got along quite well with their parents or guardians, about a quarter described those relationships as OK, and only 3 percent said they did not get along with their parents.... posted on Aug 29, 883 reads

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Astronomers in Australia say there are 10 times more stars in the visible Universe than all the grains of sand on the world's beaches and deserts. From the darkest parts of Earth, the naked human eye can see about 5,000 stars; from a brightly lit city street, only about 100. But modern telescopes tell a different story -- 70 sextillion, or seven followed by 22 zeroes.... posted on Aug 26, 1158 reads

Inspiration to Action
You know it when it hits you. It's in the photograph you can't get out of your mind. It's in the poignant words that describe unimaginable human suffering or stoic perseverance. It's that conviction that something should be done, and maybe you should be the one to do it. National Geographic, last week, published a list of their top stories that inspired people to action.... posted on Jan 15, 3157 reads

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More than 300 million people worldwide are at risk of developing diabetes and the disease's economic impact in some hard-hit countries could be higher than that of the AIDS pandemic, diabetes experts warn.... posted on Aug 27, 838 reads

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Luxury spending in the United States has been growing four times faster than overall spending. In "Living it Up: Our Love Affair With Luxury", James Twitchell says that this necessary consumption of unnecessary items and services is going on at all but the lowest layers of society: J.C. Penney now offers day spa treatments; Kmart sells cashmere bedspreads. He even finds ways to compare hotels to... posted on Sep 10, 1144 reads

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The longest lasting symphony, scientists just discovered, has been playing for three billion years. And it's coming from a black hole that's 250 million light years away. Astronomers at Cambridge detected the sound to be B flat, the same pitch as a key near middle C on the piano. But the song of the Perseus Black Hole is 57 octaves below that middle C -- a frequency more than a million billion ... posted on Sep 13, 863 reads

Work is Love Made Visible
He owns several successful cloth factories - yet he seldom wears any clothes himself. Lush green, rolling hills surround Mr Fabre's retreat. He is a French citizen of India, a Hindu holy man, who has renounced the material world - yet he is also a business tycoon who employs thousands of people and runs a hermitage. Still, that's only half the story. The other half -- 'I do not keep a single p... posted on Sep 17, 3074 reads

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Leaf me alone! When plants get eaten, they send out distress signals to recruit predators to eat their assailants. Plants enlist bodyguards from higher up the food chain to kill the things that eat them. Scientists are now looking at ways to harness these chemical messages and offer fresh routes to crop protection.... posted on Sep 18, 973 reads

Sewing an African Ivy League
Two decades after Patrick Awuah sought help tapping into the standard American dream, he is going home to Ghana to pursue one of his own making: Awuah, who studied engineering at Swarthmore College and made a small fortune at Microsoft, is building a university — one that he hopes becomes the seed for an African Ivy League. ... posted on Sep 23, 1252 reads

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According to a Business Week/Harris poll, 95 percent of people think that corporations should sometimes sacrifice some profit for the sake of making things better for their workers and communities. So attorney Robert Hinkley had a few words that he'd like to tack onto the corporate world. Just twenty-eight words, to be exact, that will protect the environment, public health, workers' rights--as ... posted on Oct 28, 1507 reads

Blind Leading the Blind
She's blind herself. So when she arrived in Tibet to help the blind, the community could hardly believe their eyes! Sabriye Tenberken is a German voyager to this Himalayan region known as the "roof of the world" and created the first Tibetan Braille system. Her 'Braille without Borders' program is also expanding to various other regions of the continent.... posted on Oct 2, 1250 reads

Monks' Brains During Meditation
The task was to practice "compassion" meditation, generating a feeling of loving kindness toward all beings. The subjects ranged from novice meditators to Buddhist monks (including the Dalai Lama) who had spent more than 10,000 hours in meditation. As Prof. Davidson compared their brain activity, he was able to clearly show that meditation alters structure and functioning of the brain!... posted on Nov 12, 3251 reads

Minnie Takes a Stand
Oscar nominee Minnie Driver is putting her Hollywood career on hold to work in a sweatshop in Cambodia. She will leave behind her tennis star boyfriend, Robby Ginepri, and her Notting Hill flat to experience poverty in South-East Asia. Her plan is leverage her fame to raise awareness for unfair global trade agreements: "I will be working alongside other young women for as long as it takes for me... posted on Nov 4, 796 reads

Deep Sleep
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) conservatively estimates that vehicle crashes due to driver fatigue cost Americans $12.5 billion per year in reduced productivity and property loss. The greatest cost? More than 1,500 people die every year in fatigue-related crashes.... posted on Feb 7, 3009 reads

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Penelope Trunk of Seattle Times has a suggestion: abolish the word "busy." We all have the same 24 hours to fill. Everyone's are filled with something. The difference is that the "busy" people feel frenetic during those hours. Being busy gives you an excuse for poor performance. It gives you a way to ignore parts of your life that are falling apart and need attention.... posted on Nov 13, 1041 reads

Tasaday
Some call it the greatest discovery of the last century. A tribe of 26 hunter-gatherers in the Philippines rain forest, discovered for the first time in 1971 after having been isolated geographically and culturally for over 2,000 years!... posted on May 12, 1349 reads

Corporate Volunteers
CEO's of GE, Levi's Strauss, Pitney Bowes and Walt Disney all agree on one thing -- being a good corporate citizen influences business success. Donating a percentage of company profits to charity, giving employees four hours a month out of the office to do volunteer work, buying recycled products or setting up a recycling program are practical day-to-day business considerations that actually imp... posted on Nov 26, 2634 reads

Bridges I Crossed
To the litany of arguments against prejudice, scientists are now adding a new one: Racism can make you stupid. That is the message of an unusual and striking new series of experiments conducted at Dartmouth College; with the help of brain-imaging equipment, scientists found that the more biased people are, the more their brain power is taxed by contact with someone of another race, as they strugg... posted on Nov 25, 1373 reads

The Only Slavery
Ideo. Ever heard of it? The four-lettered firm has shepherded some of the most popular innovations of the past few decades. Apple's first mouse. Prada's ultrahip Manhattan store. Stand-up toothpaste tubes that don't get icky. The Palm V. How does Ideo do it? The secret, it turns out, reduces to one of those touchy-feely terms that make MBAs squirm: "empathy." In the Ideo universe, great design do... posted on Jan 20, 1625 reads

Unusual Surrender
In Africa, where ethnic wars in Rwanda and the Congo have killed millions of people, a top Hutu rebel military commander suddenly turned himself in with several colleagues at an airport in Kigali. Emerging from the Congo jungle bases where they battled the Rwandan government for years, the leader of the Democratic Liberation Forces said, "We have decided to put down guns. War is not the best solut... posted on Dec 2, 873 reads

Riding The Waves
In late October, a 13 year old lost her arm to a shark bite while surfing in Hawaii. Eye witnesses say she never screamed or panicked, although she lost more than half her blood and all but four inches of her arm. "There's no need for that," she told the press three weeks later. Bethany Hamilton was a top amateur surfer who was expected to turn pro; now, she may never be able to compete again b... posted on Nov 29, 1684 reads

Ten-Percent Myth
There is no scientific basis to the often heard claim that we use only 10% of our brains. Brain imaging research techniques such as PET scans and fMRI clearly show that the vast majority of the brain does not lie fallow. Indeed, although certain minor functions may use only a small part of the brain at one time, any sufficiently complex set of activities or thought patterns will indeed use many ... posted on Apr 9, 1712 reads

Love and Power
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