Legacy of Freedom
While Rosa Parks spent most of her life campaigning for civil rights, it was her famous refusal to give up her seat on a city bus to a white man that led to the rise of an unknown clergyman named Martin Luther King Jr., that moved her entire community to boycott city buses for 13 months, that outlawed the segregation of city buses by the US Supreme Court, that sparked the civil rights movement in ... posted on Oct 26, 1127 reads

Generating Power
After Dannachadh McCarthy addressed his neighbors' mistaken concerns about pets being harmed, the Southwark city council approved a wind turbine for his South London home. These domestic turbine's low cost and easy maintenance, along with the energy independence they provide, will probably make them common fixtures in the urban skyline in the not so distant future. ... posted on Oct 27, 1086 reads

Renewable Retail
Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott announced that over the next three years he wants to get 100 percent of Wal-Mart's energy from renewable sources. If Wal-Mart was a city, it would be No. 5 in the country, meaning the mega-retailer could have a huge impact not only on their buildings and trucks, but on their suppliers as well. ... posted on Nov 10, 1470 reads

Population Growth
Despite many dire warnings about overpopulation, the world's population growth rate seems to have steadily decreased over the past 15 years. The biggest contributing factors seem to be education of women and the mass migration of people to cities. ... posted on Nov 15, 1250 reads

Cerebral Calasthenics
Research suggests that meditation may slow brain deterioration related to aging. The recent study of 20 lay people revealed that the cerebral cortex, the brain region associated with decision making, memory, and brain-body interactions, was thicker in the sample group that meditated. ... posted on Nov 22, 2862 reads

One Laptop for Every Child
The UN revealed a prototype for the $100 laptop for children in impoverished countries. Dubbed the "Green Machine", the lime green laptops are powered with a wind-up crank, have very low power consumption and will let children interact with each other while learning.... posted on Nov 19, 2559 reads

Google Books
Imagine a world where all the world’s books are available at your fingertips. This is Google’s vision, to digitize millions of books and make them available on the net. ... posted on Nov 23, 2771 reads

PhotoVoice
PhotoVoice empowers refugees, street children, orphans, HIV/ AIDS sufferers and special needs groups around the world with photographic skills so that they can transform their lives. Through establishing in-field photojournalism workshops its projects enable those who are traditionally the subjects of photography to become its creator. ... posted on Dec 5, 1100 reads

Harvest of Love
When tragedy hit the family of farmer Richard Winger in the small town in Indiana, the community wasted no time in extending a helping hand. On a mid-October morning, as the Wingers worried about how they would get the 700 acres of their fall crop harvested, 40 neighbors showed up with their combines, trucks and grain carts to bring 87 semi-tractor trailer loads of corn to market.... posted on Dec 14, 1097 reads

Mother Wright
Twenty-five years ago Mary Ann “Mother” Wright woke up screaming with a vision to feed the hungry. Then 63 years old and with 12 children of her own, Mother Wright started a food program with just one meal a week prepared in her home with food purchased with her Social Security checks. Today, the Mary Ann Wright Foundation feeds more than 450 people a day on a shoestring budget of $137,000 a y... posted on Dec 21, 1713 reads

The Woman Who Gave Away College Educations
Oral Lee Brown is on a mission to get Oakland kids into college. It's a commitment she made on the spur of the moment two decades ago."I don't know where it came from, but in my wildest imagination I would never have been involved with kids," says Brown. In 1987 on the spur of the moment she promised a first grade class of 23 students a free college education. Brown isn't the only person to send k... posted on Oct 5, 2699 reads

Tsunami Service
This time last year, Andy Brash had just finished his carpentry apprenticeship in Scotland, Patricia Byron was living in south London with the youngest of her eight children and Aaron Sangster was backpacking in Australia. But that was before the tsunami. Now all three are living in Thailand, each giving what they can to rebuild the devastated resort town of Khao Lak.... posted on Dec 26, 1520 reads

Heart of the Matter
The heart produces an electric field 60 times stronger than that produced by the brain, and it's electromagnetic field is 5000 stronger than the field generated by the brain. This is why the quality of the variation of the heart beat can also subtly influence people who are in our proximity. ... posted on Dec 29, 1821 reads

Helping The Children Left Behind
While mentoring and inspiring elementary kids in a low income neighborhood of Roxbury, Massachusetts, Harvard Law student Earl Phalen learned the hard truth about how far behind these kids were academically. Out of his living room he set out to change that by launching BELL (Building Educated Leaders for Life), a rigorous after-school program that now serves 7,000 kids in four cities. The results,... posted on Dec 30, 1071 reads

Year Up
As a Big Brother volunteer while working on Wall Street, Gerald Chertavian, 39, "saw that urban young adults, who are wonderfully talented, supersmart and capable, didn't have a path into the mainstream." For his business school essay, he wrote about starting a school that would fix that. In 1999 Gerald turned that essay into a reality with Year Up, a school that provides 18-24 adult from disadva... posted on Jan 3, 1585 reads

Social Capitalists
How long has it been since you were surprised by hope? As you browsed the morning newspaper, when did you last feel a sense that the world was becoming a better place? That the forces propelling the future were on the right track? That the power of imagination was serving those with healing ideals rather than those with darker agendas? Wait no more. Fast Company's 2006 Social Capitalist Award hi... posted on Jan 5, 1932 reads

Women in Politics
The world witnessed some major political achievements for women in 2005, which included the election of Africa's first female president and Germany's first woman chancellor. Last year also saw the highest percentage of female members of parliament worldwide, 16.1%, up from 11.7% eight years ago. ... posted on Jan 6, 1435 reads

Applying Technology to a Good Cause
Hamish Fraser, Partners In Health's Director of Informatics and Telemedicine, has earned a new title – "do-gooder." Fraser was one of a half-dozen people singled out by Red Herring magazine in early January for a cover story featuring "Six Who’ve Applied Tech to a Good Cause." ... posted on Mar 1, 1277 reads

Banking Change
When Dutch artist Van den Baar needed a loan for a new space to live and work, he faced a lot of furrowed brows among the bankers who considered his loan too risky. Van den Baar finally found his mortgage in a bank that didn’t see artists so much as financial risks but important players in the effort to create a sustainable society. For the past 25 years, Triodos Bank, a $1.2 billion institutio... posted on Jan 14, 1510 reads

Honey Bee Network
Think of a honeybee: it collects its pollen from the flowers, but benefits them rather than improverishing them. Much in the same way, Anil Gupta -- a professor at Indian Institute of Management -- started the HoneyBee Network, a grassroot entrepreneurship program where ideas are produced by village entrepreneurs. Under Professor Gupta's inspiration, the network has captured thousands of inventi... posted on Jan 19, 1943 reads

Since Sliced Bread
What's your best idea since sliced bread, in 176 words or less? That's the question that SEIU asked to everyday folks. Winner gets $100,000 and two finalists get $50,000 each. Of the 22,000 folks that responded, 21 ideas were selected as finalists ... ranging from creating a Civil Work Corps to starting tax-free savings accounts at work for first-time homebuyers to providing free or low-cost w... posted on Jan 25, 1461 reads

Research Links Meditation With Compassion
Like athletes or musicians, people who practice meditation can enhance their ability to concentrate -- or even lower their blood pressure. They can also cultivate compassion, according to a new study. Specifically, concentrating on the loving kindness one feels toward one's family (and expanding that to include strangers) physically affects brain regions that play a role in empathy."There is such ... posted on Oct 26, 2799 reads

Paradox of Choice
A radio producer in Washington, D.C., got a promotion a few years ago on the grounds that he was a "good decision-maker." Self-deprecating to a fault, he reminded his bosses that many of the decisions he'd made since joining the station hadn't exactly worked out. They didn’t care. "Being a good decision-maker means you’re good at making decisions," one executive cheerily told him. "It doesn’... posted on Jan 29, 1727 reads

Infinite Worth
On the site of an old copper paint factory and whiskey warehouse in Baltimore, stands the eclectic American Visionary Art Museum. Founded by former psychiatric nurse, Rebecca Hoffberger, on the idea that each of us has unlimited creative potential, the museum trumpets the wonders of raw human creativity by featuring art work from self-taught individuals with no formal training. ... posted on Jan 31, 1424 reads

Dolphin Telepathy
Dolphins don't keep secrets. According a recent study, wild dolphins listen in on one another's echolocation clicks, which in addition to telling where food may be, also carries all sorts of complex information about whether a dolphin is pregnant, what mood it's in, and what's around it. This may be a contributing factor to the evolution of cooperative behavior in dolphins.... posted on Feb 5, 2346 reads

Cultural Capital
A child growing up in a family earning over $90,000 has a 1 in 2 chance of getting a college degree by age 24; a child in a family earning $35,000 to $61,000 has a 1 in 10 chance; a child in a family earning under $35,000 has a 1 in 17 chance. Yet the main problem is not that poor students can't afford college; nor is the main problem that these poorer students don't have access to college. The ... posted on Feb 11, 969 reads

Clean
A self-cleaning bathroom is on the way. Nanotechnology may yet rescue us from the drudgery of the weekly ritual of blitzing the bathroom. Scientists in Australia have developed an environmentally friendly coating containing special nanoparticles that could do the job of cleaning and disinfecting for us. ... posted on Feb 13, 1268 reads

Olympic Green
Organizers of the Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy, promise that their games will be "the greenest ever." They have vowed to put together a "carbon neutral" event—meaning it will have no net impact on climate change—by investing in forestry, energy efficiency, and other measures to offset carbon dioxide emissions from the event. ... posted on Feb 15, 1187 reads

Jason McElwain
Jason McElwain, an autistic high school basketball team member in Rochester NY, served as the team manager and spirit coach for several years. On the final game of the season the coach let him finally put on a uniform with the rest of the team. What happened next you have to see to believe... ... posted on Feb 25, 9605 reads

A Path With Heart
Optimists seem less likely to die of heart disease or stroke than pessimistic people, a Dutch study says. The Delfland Institute of Mental Health study of 545 men found the most optimistic were about half as likely to die from cardiovascular disease. Researchers thought it was likely to be because optimists exercised more and were better at coping with adversity, the Archives of Internal Medicine... posted on Mar 2, 1725 reads

The Miracle of Positive Thinking
Wake Forest University researchers found in a recent study that positive thinking reduced activity in parts of the brain that process pain information, and was as powerful as an actual shot of morphine in relieving the pain.... posted on Mar 10, 2711 reads

Hopi Runners
Relying on their own feet and centuries of tradition, Hopi Native American runners 12 to 75 years of age will run from their desert mesa homelands of Arizona some 1,500 miles south to Mexico starting March 2. Although they don't have an official invitation, the Hopi will carry an ancient message about water to Mexico City's 4th World Water Forum: a spiritual ceremony to place water as a living sen... posted on Mar 15, 1480 reads

Restoring A Tropical Rainforest
Half a century after most of Costa Rica's rain forests were cut down, researchers from the Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Sciences on the Cornell campus are attempting what many thought was impossible -- restoring a tropical rain forest ecosystem. When the researchers planted worn-out cattle pastures in Costa Rica with a sampling of local trees in the early 1990s, native species of plants bega... posted on Nov 16, 2505 reads

Pros Work With Cons
When she chanced upon a tour of the Texas prison, venture capitalist Catherine Rohr soon discovered a surprising pool of entrepreneurial talent right there in the prison. Chucking her VC job, she started the Prison Entrepreneurship Program that uses Fortune 500-type business executives as volunteer mentors, harnesses the entrepreneurial skills inmates had demonstrated while running the successful... posted on Mar 14, 1427 reads

Heart of Gold
For Olympic speed skater Joey Cheek, it was a magical moment — winning a gold medal — that turned into something even more meaningful. "After years of other people sacrificing so that I can be the best in the world, I feel that it is imperative to give something to someone who's less fortunate than myself." Cheek used his time in the limelight to channel support for kids in war-torn countries... posted on Mar 18, 2875 reads

Small Clicks with Great Love
What if you could have money donated to good causes every time you searched the internet? Welcome, GoodSearch.com, a Yahoo-powered search engine that has developed a way to track and redirect a portion of its proceeds so that with each search, 50 percent of the revenue generated by advertisers goes to the school or charity selected by the user.... posted on Mar 22, 1728 reads

Found Art
You are finishing up your usual overpriced latte in your local java joint when you notice it at the next table -- a tiny sculpted wall plaque leaning against the sugar caddy. You look around, wondering whether someone forgot it. It has a sticker on it saying "Found Art!" with a Web address. Suddenly, it clicks: You've just found a free piece of art and an invitation to join a growing global art pr... posted on Apr 3, 1961 reads

49,000 Grandmothers of Nepal
Twenty years ago, Nepal's infant-mortality rate was 133 for every 1,000 births, with most of the babies claimed by pneumonia and diarrhea. By the 1980s, they had found the culprit -- lack of Vitamin A in the Nepalese diet. But no one could implement an effective program to deliver a low-cost vitamin-A capsule that could be taken as infrequently as twice a year. That was until Ram Shrestha hit up... posted on Apr 26, 2766 reads

From Guns to Guitars
He is a classically trained musician and composer who studied at Colombia's best conservatory. But instead of concert hall performances Cesar Lopez plays on the streets of Bogota. There’s something that speaks even louder: his musical instrument looks much like a Winchester Rifle. That’s because it used to be one. But now, six metal guitar strings are threaded over the weapon's barrel, ending ... posted on May 8, 1884 reads

Japan's Carbon Footprint Labels
Japan is planning to label consumer goods to show their carbon footprints in a bid to raise public awareness about global warming, an official said Tuesday. Under the plan, a select range of products from beverages to detergent will carry markings on the carbon footprint -- or how much gas responsible for global warming has been emitted through production and delivery. The ministry's research show... posted on Oct 4, 3788 reads

Urban Takes Over Rural
Sometime this year, a woman will give birth in the Lagos slum of Ajegunle, a young man will flee his village in west Java for the bright lights of Jakarta, or a farmer will move his impoverished family into one of Lima’s innumerable pueblos jovenes. The exact event is unimportant and it will pass entirely unnoticed. Nonetheless it will constitute a watershed in human history. For the first time ... posted on Jun 2, 1737 reads

Alabama's Anniston Star
At many newspapers, the top priority is how best to prop up revenues. But the family that owns 'The Anniston Star' in Alabama is quietly planning to devote the paper's profits to training new generations of reporters. The Star is a small daily that packs an outsized punch, situated in a town west of Atlanta. The paper has a circulation of just 27,000. But it fights above its weight class -- they ... posted on Jun 14, 1663 reads

Kids on Love
A group of adults posed this question to a group of 4 to 8 year-olds: "What does love mean?" The answers were broader and deeper than anyone could have imagined. One 6-year old wrote, "If you want to learn to love better, you should start with a friend who you hate."... posted on Dec 29, 642743 reads

Doc Pauses Surgery, Gives Patient Blood
Open heart surgery does require a patient's heart to be opened, but how often is it that the doctor's heart must also be open? Dr. Samuel Weinstein had started a critical operation on an 8-year-old patient about 12 hours earlier, when they started running out of the rare-type blood to give the boy. So what does Dr. Weinstein, who was volunteering his cardiac surgery skills in El Salvador, do? He t... posted on Jun 17, 1657 reads

Volunteer Computing Fights Cancer
Researcher David Baker believes the key to an AIDS vaccine or a cure for cancer may be that old PC sitting in your closet or the one idling on your desk. Baker, 43, a professor of biochemistry at the University of Washington, realized that he didn't have access to the computing horsepower needed for his research — nor the money to buy time on supercomputers elsewhere. So he turned to the kindnes... posted on Jun 22, 1701 reads

Mystic of the Holocaust
Little is known of the external life of Etty Hillesum, a young Jewish woman who lived in Amsterdam during the Nazi occupation, one of the millions who suffered during the Holocaust. This obscurity is in contrast with her well-documented internal life. Etty Hillesum wrote in her diary: "Sometimes when I stand in some corner of the camp, my feet planted on earth, my eyes raised towards heaven, tears... posted on Jun 26, 2149 reads

10-Second Film Festival
Too often, thought Chris Pennington, people don't consider what they create to be art because their perceptions of "real art" are limited to what they see in elite museums. So what did he do? Create a film festival, where filmmakers weren't allowed to create their movies with real video cameras. Rather, they used digital cameras and camera-equipped cell phones to create unedited films that last no... posted on Jul 12, 1914 reads

Anonymous Kindness Catches On!
Before Bob Haslam had a chance to thank her, she was gone. In the drive-up lane at a Starbucks in Lynnwood, Haslam reached out for his usual nonfat raspberry latte with two Splendas stirred in, but the barista wouldn't take his money. "She leaned way out and said, 'You're not going to believe this, but the lady ahead of you paid for your latte. She said she wanted to make your day.'" Events like... posted on Jul 20, 2125 reads

Bus Stand Autobiographies
An incarcerated person, a bilingual 5th grader, and a former go-go dancer are among 20 people whose creative autobiographies are on display at bus shelters throughout Philadelphia! It's all part of the 'Autobiography Project' to commemorate the 300th birthday of Benjamin Franklin. After inviting residents to share their own life stories, in 300 words or less, these inspirations were plastered as... posted on Jul 21, 2252 reads

Homeless Man Rewarded By Honesty
Charles Moore stumbled across $21,000 worth of savings bonds while rummaging through a trash can for reusable bottles. The 59-year-old homeless man off the streets of Detroit turned the bonds in at a homeless shelter that then tracked down their rightful owner. Moore was given $100 by the owner for his honesty. But citizens from around the country moved by his integrity have stepped forward to han... posted on Aug 4, 2498 reads