A Basketall Superstar's Turning Point
NBA All-Star Kevin Johnson never forgot the inner-city Sacramento neighborhood where he grew up. In 1989, he returned to his hometown to launch a nonprofit afterschool program that is now his full-time passion. Why? His freshman year at University of California, Berkeley, when a professor asked how many people knew what "euphemism" meant, 31 out of 32 students raised their hands. Johnson wasn't on... posted on May 5, 1874 reads

A Prisoner's Last Request
53-year-old Philip Workman's final request before his execution in Nashville, Tennessee touched thousands of people. He requested that his final meal be a vegetarian pizza donated to any homeless person located near Riverbend Maximum Security Institution. When Prison officials refused, saying that they do not donate to charities, a deeply moved public joined hands to fulfill the request. Homeless ... posted on May 11, 2438 reads

Music As A Tool For Learning
Plenty of elementary schools teach music, but how many require students to attend a 45-minute music class every day, to take half-hour violin lessons twice a week, and to practice every night? How many organize the entire educational experience around music? There's a waiting list of more than 600 for a spot in the Conservatory Lab Charter School, an elementary school for mostly low-income Boston ... posted on Jun 2, 1773 reads

Dogs Think More Than We Know
Dog owners have long maintained that their pooches have a lot more going on between their furry ears than scientists acknowledge. Now, new research is adding to the growing evidence that man's best friend thinks a lot more than many humans have believed. The provocative new experiment indicated that dogs can do something that previously only humans, including infants, have been shown capable of do... posted on Jun 10, 3184 reads

A Little Boy Says 'Thank You'
Told he needed a tonsil operation at the age of three, Ben Grocock was terrified. So terrified, he insisted he would never speak again if the surgery went ahead. His parents brushed off his threat (he was three, after all) and the operation took place. But when Ben awoke, he stuck to what became his final word. For the next ten years he retreated into a world of silence. Until now. At 13, Ben has ... posted on Jun 23, 2281 reads

Bamboo Bicycles: A New Way To Pedal
Ten years ago, Luna the dog was gnawing on a piece of bamboo growing behind Craig Calfee's bicycle shop in California. Luna was adept at crushing wooden sticks with her powerful jaws. But the best she could manage with the hard, round stalks of bamboo was a tooth mark or two. Calfee wondered: If bamboo was strong enough to withstand Luna, why couldn't it be a bicycle frame? Calfee since has built ... posted on Jul 1, 2498 reads

What Makes You Eat More?
What makes you eat more food even when you are not hungry? In a compelling photo series, Time Magazine gives us seven answers to that question. Time of day for instance, is one of them. "Through routine, we condition our bodies to expect breakfast, lunch and dinner at the same time each day, says Randy Seeley, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Cincinnati." Part of the reason you're hu... posted on Oct 8, 6150 reads

Bubble Wrap & An Inventive Teen
Grayson Rosenberger's mother lost both her legs in an auto accident when she was a teenager. Both his parents now work with prosthetic patients in Africa. The 15-year-old from Nashville found a way to join their effort when he was recognized as the grand prize winner in a Bubble Wrap Competition for Young Inventors. Rosenberger was able to turn a basic artificial leg into a more realistic one usin... posted on Jul 28, 1623 reads

The Compliment Machine
When walking along 14th Street NW, you might be surprised to hear a chime followed by a reassuring voice: "People are drawn to your positive energy,” or, “You’re a star in the face of the sky.” A small sign explains, "The Compliment Machine." This red-and-white striped sidewalk contraption plays a series of one hundred unique compliments for pedestrians through the day. It was designed by ... posted on Jul 26, 2291 reads

The Rose Man
In Lake Placid, Florida, the local superhero is an 85-year-old retiree known simply as "The Rose Man." The Rose Man -- a.k.a. Willard Campbell -- started using his petal power 20 years ago: "The idea hit me -- Well, if I've got excess roses, why don't I take 'em and give 'em to the patients in the hospital?" Today, he not only brings free, weekly roses to just about every business in town, he bri... posted on Aug 7, 2839 reads

CEOs Turn to Meditation
The crowd of Harvard Business School alums who gathered at their reunion to hear networking expert Keith Ferrazzi speak earlier this summer might have expected to pick up strategies on how to work a room, remember people's names, or identify mentors. But tactical skills, it turns out, aren't what turned Ferrazzi into a bestselling author or sought-after speaker. Instead Ferrazzi let his fellow alu... posted on Aug 13, 2809 reads

Message in a Wallet
"Many years ago, when I was in high school and working weekends to pay for the extras that my folks couldn't really afford (like a school ring, class trip, etc.), I lost my wallet.' So begins this real-life short story about a long-ago episode that held a lifelong lesson in its hands.... posted on Aug 25, 3849 reads

Ten Amazing Women You've Never Heard Of
There are plenty of women in the news, and while some are good role models, many aren't. So where are the role models? Sure, there are high profile heavyweights but what about the women who have blazed trails or championed causes who don't get daily headlines? There are thousands of them out there, yet their names don't often make the nightly newscasts or get mentioned in dinner party conversation... posted on Sep 5, 6107 reads

A Village Transformed By Light
In Gudda, a village with very little, residents are literally beaming. Just two years ago, villagers had never seen light after dark, unless it came from the moon. Then, solar light arrived and changed everything. There are no real roads that lead to this tiny village in Rajasthan that houses about 100 families. There is no electricity -- power lines don't extend out here. Water is scarce, too. T... posted on Sep 7, 1814 reads

Language: A Window to Human Nature
In "The Stuff of Thought," celebrated Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker sets out to explain how language reveals our inner nature. Terming us "verbivores, a species that lives on words," Pinker argues that our verbivorous, highly biased perception of reality differs radically from the findings of science yet allows us to thrive in a complex universe. The meanings of words matter profoundly, for w... posted on Sep 17, 2517 reads

Bangladesh's Floating Clinic
She'd always known that most of her 147 million fellow Bangladeshis lived in poverty. But when Runa Khan travelled through the country, she understood for the first time just how hard life could be. Back home, she cried for days. "There was so much misery, there," she remembers. "I couldn’t walk away from this problem." Khan, 48, resolved to find ways to help residents of northern Bangladesh get... posted on Sep 27, 2043 reads

Secrets of a Successful Relationship
The division of household labor is one of the most frequent sources of conflict in romantic relationships. But according to researchers Jess Alberts and Angela Trethewey, a successful relationship doesn't just depend on how partners divide their household chores, but on how they each express gratitude for the work the other one puts in. This article from The Greater Good Magazine shares more, incl... posted on Nov 7, 5362 reads

Strangest Sights on Earth
Ever since Google first let people scour the planet from the comfort of their computers through the Google Earth software program, fans have been on a virtual scavenger hunt from the North Pole to the South Pole looking for anything interesting, unusual, or unexplained. From shipwrecks to crop circles, from ads big enough to be read from space to a giant pink bunny nearly the size of a football fi... posted on Oct 28, 5998 reads

Six-year-old Piano Prodigy
Emily Bear is hardly typical for her age. Emily was two years old when she simply sat down at a piano and started playing rhythm patterns she had overheard. "I have so much music in my heart that it just falls out," Emily said.... posted on Dec 2, 3132 reads

6-Month-Olds Show Social Intelligence
Babies are good judges of character long before they learn to speak, according to a new study at Yale University. Infants as young as six months preferred characters which helped rather than hindered others in a simple puppet show. "This is the very first experiment in anywhere near this age that shows babies develop preferences for individuals based on their actions," says Karen Wynn at Yale, who... posted on Dec 4, 2428 reads

Restaurant Ripples: Kindness in Action
A real-life story of an anonymous act of kindness starts simply: "So there we are sitting in our little booth, finishing up a, tasty meal. It dawns on us, it’s time. Who will it be? Who will it be? Hmmm…. them! Who? Them, the couple behind me over my left shoulder. All right, lets do it! Our waiter comes over and asks: Would you like to take the rest with you? 'Yes, we would. Could we have our... posted on Dec 5, 5092 reads

Kindness Among Kin in Somali Crisis
In the narrow streets that wind through Mogadishu, it is difficult to find even one encampment of displaced people or a family that has been turned away. This is particularly remarkable because after nearly a year of brutal urban war, an estimated 600,000 people -- more than half the Somali capital city's population -- have been driven into the countryside. The tired and hungry arrivals have been ... posted on Dec 15, 1522 reads

Secret Santa 2.0
Larry Stewart, Kansas City's original Secret Santa, anonymously wandered city streets doling out $100 bills to anyone who looked like they needed it. For about a quarter century, Stewart quietly gave out more than $1.3 million to people in laundromats, diners, and thrift stores, saying it was his way of giving back for all that he had received in his lifetime. Stewart died of cancer earlier this y... posted on Dec 24, 1396 reads

Saving Hearts in the Caribbean
"Fifty percent of people having heart attacks die within 24 hours without the proper medical treatment. Even if you are rich enough to own a plane, it may be too late," says Nigerian cardiologist Earnest Madu, CEO of the Heart Institute of the Caribbean (HIC), which is proving that it's possible to provide high-quality health care in a developing country like Jamaica. The hospital maintains a poli... posted on Jan 11, 1917 reads

A Friend in the Cubicle Next Door
How friendly are you with your co-workers? Although close relationships at work are sometimes discouraged, it turns out that employees who are friendly with each other are better able to cope with office stress. Researchers have long known that work stress can take a heavy toll on health. Studies have shown that stress at work increases the risk for depression, heart attack and other health worrie... posted on Jan 17, 3559 reads

The Healing Power of Dogs
Dogs have long had special standing in the medical world. Trained to see for the blind, hear for the deaf and move for the immobilized, dogs have become indispensable companions for people with disabilities. But dogs appear to be far more than four-legged health care workers. Over the years, data on the larger role dogs play in health has trickled out from various corners of the world. ... posted on Jan 25, 4730 reads

Bicycles in Zambia
World Bicycle Relief is a stunningly simple idea. It delivers tens of thousands of bicycles to the poorest people in the world. Why? Because simple transportation improves people’s lives more than you can imagine. All of a sudden, a child can get to school, a parent can find work, and a rural medical worker can reach eight families with AIDS. A journalist talks here of what the gift of a bicycl... posted on May 22, 2517 reads

Don't Just Stand There, Think!
When you read something confusing, or work a crossword puzzle, or try to remember where you put your keys, what do you do with your body? Do you sit? Do you stand? Do you do anything with your hands? Do you move your eyes in a particular pattern? How you answer questions like these, it turns out, may determine how long it will take for you to decipher what you're reading, solve your puzzle, or get... posted on Jan 22, 4869 reads

Exercise Really Does Make You Younger
People who exercise regularly are biologically younger -- by up to nine years -- than those who don't. This striking recent finding may explain why exercise reduces the risk of heart attacks, diabetes, cancer, and other degenerative diseases. It actually suggests that active adults have cells that are measurably "younger" than those of inactive ones. This Times online article shares more about the... posted on Feb 2, 5619 reads

J-Mac: A Shot of a Lifetime
Jason McElwain, an autistic high school basketball team member in Rochester, New York, served as the team manager and spirit coach for several years. On the final game of the season the coach let him put on a uniform with the rest of the team. What happened next you have to see to believe.... posted on Feb 4, 5372 reads

My Hour on the Streets of New York
"On Nov 11 of 2006, I made a deal with myself that I would give $1 to every homeless person who asked. Call it a moment of clarity or whatever, but I woke up from a rough night of partying and just felt like this model of taking wasn't working for me anymore." So begins this real-life story of one man's unique experiment in unconditional giving on the streets of NY.... posted on Feb 6, 4402 reads

An Unexpected Dinner Table Conversation
It's like an episode from the old TV show "The Millionaire," in which a man who never appeared onscreen — except for his hands — gave out shockingly large checks to people on the condition that the source of the money never be revealed. It was a script come to life for a couple named Alissa and Barry as they sat down at a cafe in Iowa last Thursday.... posted on Feb 9, 4081 reads

Slow Medicine
A group of culinary mavericks took a giant step backward down the evolutionary trail with the "slow food" movement. Now doctors are following suit, rejecting the assembly line of modern medical care for older, gentler options. For many of us, a big challenge is to decide what kind of medical care our parents should get. Dr. Dennis McCullough, a professor of medicine at Dartmouth College, shows in ... posted on Feb 28, 3064 reads

The Beauty of Planet Earth
An Emmy Award-winning BBC nature documentary, Planet Earth is the first high-definition video series to provide, in the words of its makers, a "definitive look at the diversity of our planet." The series' narrator, Sir David Attenborough, notes: "Planet Earth is more a celebration of our planet than a lament about the state of it. It shows what is still there. In some areas there is no doubt that ... posted on Mar 1, 2910 reads

Meet the Proverbial Scholar
Paremiology -- the study of proverbs, from the Greek "paroimia." I stumble across this curious word in my background research, but I haven't a clue what it really means until I meet Wolfgang Mieder from the University of Vermont. This animated gentleman has built up a worldwide reputation during his 30-plus years of reveling in the common phrases people use to persuade, humor, or moralize. But the... posted on Mar 6, 3346 reads

A Book Club for the Homeless
At a time when book-reading is declining and is especially low among poorer people, the book club at 2100 Lakeside seems ill-fated. But, while 1 in 4 people polled admitted to having read no books in 2006, homeless men here are reading two a month. The books are supplied by the Cleveland Public Library in partnership with Care Alliance, a health care provider for the homeless. Donna Kelly, an outr... posted on Mar 15, 2056 reads

The Day So Far
"It's a grey, blustery Wednesday morning here on the west of Scotland. A nothing much kind of day. The plan was, I would take the "weans" to school, walk out to the supermarket, pick up a few things, and then my day could begin.Well the walk to the supermarket takes you, literally, across the forecourt of a Fire Station. As I came up to it I heard sirens. Not fire sirens though." So begins this si... posted on Apr 4, 4101 reads

A Teacher's Lessons for Business Leaders
Ron Clark used to be an elementary school teacher in North Carolina -- but after watching a program about a New York City school that had a hard time attracting qualified teachers, he decided to head to New York with the goal of teaching in one of its toughest schools. Clark eventually landed a job doing just that -- in Harlem. He asked if he could teach a class of fifth-graders who had been perfo... posted on Apr 16, 7423 reads

World's Largest Group Hug
Thousands of students from 10 Canadian high schools think they may have squeezed into the Guinness Book of World Records with the world's biggest bear hug. Organizer Peter Lamothe, who works at St. Matthew Catholic High School, estimated that 12,000 students, teachers and parent volunteers took part in a gargantuan group embrace Friday as part of an effort to raise more than $150,000 for local no... posted on May 29, 3451 reads

7 Year Old Takes Six Bullets to Save Mother's Life
Seliethia Parker always saw her role as protector for her 7-year-old daughter, Alexis Goggins. But it was Alexis who ended up saving her mother's life by using her little body to shield her mom from a fusillade of bullets. Doctors told Parker that her heroic little daughter, who was shot six times, would never walk or talk again. But Alexis has surprised people with her gritty toughness. She's no... posted on May 28, 6028 reads

Doing Good, While Wearing Tuxedos!
"Two fools, one adventure, no idea." That was their tag line. Heath Buck and Doug Campbell barely knew one another when they decided to set out on what they dubbed a "crazy adventure of the charitable kind." For six months, the duo traveled from Hong Kong to London raising money for local causes they encountered along the way. The catch? They wore tuxedos the whole time.... posted on May 27, 3404 reads

Dance Like No One Is Watching
There are no weekend box office charts for online videos. But if there were, at the top of nearly every list right now might well be a four-and-a-half-minute video called "Dancing." In just a month since its online release, it has been viewed by more than ten million people. After 14 months of traveling in 42 countries, it's the story of a guy named Matt doing the gratitude dance with a cast of th... posted on Oct 3, 8338 reads

How To Live With Just 100 Things
Excess consumption is practically a modern-world religion. But as anyone with a filled-to-the-gills closet knows, the things we accumulate can become oppressive. With all this stuff piling up and never quite getting put away, we're no longer huddled masses yearning to breathe free; we're huddled masses yearning to free up space on a countertop. Which is why people are so intrigued by the 100 Thing... posted on Jun 11, 6785 reads

The Baseball Player With One Leg
Adam Bender is eight years old and loves to play baseball -- not unusual for boys his age. What is remarkable is the fact that he plays with just one leg. When he was a year old Adam lost his left leg to cancer, but his parents were determined not to let this stop him from living a regular life. "I was a little hesitant when we first brought him up here for baseball," admits his mother, "I thought... posted on Jun 19, 3859 reads

Peace on a Billboard
Seeing Peace: Artists Collaborate with the United Nations, is a visionary initiative that brings the imagination, through the presence of the artist, to the table of the General Assembly of the UN. The goal is to embed the creative process into the great global dialogues of the day. Former Secretary of Defense of the United States, Robert McNamara, commenting on wars of the 20th century, wrote: "... posted on Jun 23, 2550 reads

How to Stop Procrastinating
More than once during your ongoing game of dodge-the-guy-in-accounting, you have pondered the obvious: Why don't I just fill out the form already? Why is it that I still haven't turned in an expense report from months ago? You can take solace in the fact that you are, at least, not alone. "Everyone procrastinates," says Joseph Ferrari, a DePaul University psychology professor who has extensively r... posted on Jun 24, 5340 reads

First Woman To Walk Lost Arrow
Last July, nursing school graduate Libby Sauter became the first woman to successfully cross the Lost Arrow Spire Highline, located 2,890 feet high above the Yosemite Valley floor in Yosemite National Park. Considered by many who practice the art of balance sports to be a kind of Mecca, Lost Arrow Spire's height is equal to two Empire State buildings stacked on top of the other, plus 390 feet. It ... posted on Jun 28, 3581 reads

Are You The Favorite Person of Anybody?
A man stands on a sidewalk, waiting to ask passersby a single question: "Are you the favorite person of anybody?" Remarkably simple, yet profound its implications, this script, penned by indie phenom Miranda July, asks viewers to take an inward glance at their own lives. With subtle direction and wonderfully quirky performances, the film was also recently selected for YouTube's online screening.... posted on Jul 5, 4750 reads

Gut Feelings: The Intelligence of the Unconscious
Two years ago, when Malcolm Gladwell published his best-selling “Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking,” readers throughout the world were introduced to the ideas of Gerd Gigerenzer, a German social psychologist. known in social science circles for his breakthrough studies on the nature of intuitive thinking. Before his research, this was a topic often dismissed as crazed superstition.... posted on Jul 12, 5626 reads

Africa's Great Green Wall
Three years after it was first proposed, preparations for an African 'wall of trees' to slow down the southwards spread of the Sahara desert are finally getting underway. The 'Great Green Wall' will involve several stretches of trees from Mauritania in the west to Djibouti in the east, to protect the semi-arid savannah region of the Sahel -- and its agricultural land -- from desertification.... posted on Jul 14, 2648 reads