The great, echoing moans of blue whales have gradually grown lower in pitch over the last few decades, and scientists say that could be a good sign for this endangered species.
As blue whale populations boom, the frequency of their calls has decreased – probably because potential mates are a lot closer than they used to be.
(READ More in Mother Nature Network)
Two pet goats befriended a little orphan foal who previously was sickly and dying. With the new friendship, the foal’s health immediately improved and now they’re one big happy family — with the goats jumping like horses, and the young horse head-butting.
Watch the wonderful video from WPTZ in New Hampshire.
After nearly 35 years on PBS, the NewsHour is hitting the web with expanded video access to provide viewers with NewsHour content however they want to access it, starting with a major new initiative on YouTube.
The NewsHour channel on YouTube (youtube.com/pbsnewshour) will host nightly reports from the NewsHour television broadcast, posted the same night the broadcast airs on PBS. The NewsHour will also post web-original videos featuring its new online correspondent Hari Sreenivasan. These news segments will be archived on the NewsHour YouTube channel, ensuring that those looking for video of past news events will easily be able to find it.
Progress has already been made in Copenhagen at the UN Climate Change Conference in the realm of renewable energy. Nine European countries, it was announced on Monday, signed the North Seas’ Countries Offshore Grid Initiative, a plan to create an offshore wind power supergrid in the North and North West seas.
The plan, signed by Denmark, Germany, France, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Ireland, will link offshore wind parks in various countries –so wind power from Ireland could be used in Germany, for example. Ireland said the plan will allow Irish wind farms to “connect directly to Europe, not only securing Ireland’s energy supply but allowing us to sell the electricity produced here on a wider market.” The same holds for all countries involved in the deal.
(READ MORE from Ariel Schwartz at Fast Company)
Several hundred women in Kabul, Afghanistan, many holding pictures of relatives killed by drug lords or Taliban militants, held a loud but nonviolent street protest today, demanding that President Hamid Karzai purge from his government anyone connected to corruption, war crimes or the Taliban.
500 men trailed behind the unusual display of political activism by women.
(Continue reading in the LA Times)
Thanks to Paola for submitting the link!
Principal Sherrie Gahn said she was shocked when she first came to Whitney Elementary School seven years ago. “The kids were eating ketchup packets,” trying to scrape a meal together.
About 75 percent of her 622 students are homeless, or nearly so. Under Gahn’s leadership, Whitney Elementary has become a lifeline for families — at once a food bank, clothing drive, Christmas charity, dental clinic and hair salon all in one.
After this moving story ran on CNN about the Las Vegas school over Thanksgiving — when famous Vegas chefs came to the school preparing lunch — donations have poured in, over $75,000 worth. “There are bread donations and shoe donations, and local physicians donate their time to give physicals and eye exams.”
See how Principal Gahn cares for school children, and their families going beyond the typical model of education.
11 year-old Tanner asks everyone he meets to consider what life would be like without socks.
Launching a holiday sock drive to benefit needy children in Orlando, so far, he’s collected more than 500 pairs — and he’s hoping for more by his Dec. 14 deadline.
In the wake of a recession, he decided to give people a small economical way they could help others. “Instead of spending $20 or $30 [on Toys for Tots], it would be $1 or $2 [for socks],” he said.
Tanner, who is in a lull between football and basketball seasons, has a history of helping kids through his own charitable giving.
READ MORE, w/ photo, at the Orlando Sentinel
Photo from whitknits.wordpress.com
Two weeks shy of the 106th anniversary of Wright Brothers first flight, the Solar Impulse aircraft left the ground and completed its first flight in Switzerland last week. Solar Impulse founder and president Bertrand Piccard says it was an unforgettable moment.
“For over ten years now, I have dreamt of a solar aircraft capable of flying day and night without fuel” he said in a press release. “Today, our plane took off and was airborne for the very first time.”
Following a time schedule that would make some of the larger airplane makers jealous, the Solar Impulse team followed up recent taxi tests with a short ‘flea hop’ over the runway at the Dübendorf Airfield where the program is based.
(READ MORE: w/ photos, in Wired)
Even though he is 60, one of Frank Hrabanek’s biggest thrills these days is being able to tie his shoelaces by himself. Until a short time ago, that two-handed task would have been impossible for Hrabanek, who lost all four fingers on his dominant hand following an industrial accident.
But two months ago, he was fitted with a prosthesis featuring what are being called the world’s first bionic fingers.
His wife, Zlata, calls the bionic fingers “a miracle.” (Read and see photos from the Canadan Press)
A miracle of survival in Baghdad among horrific bomb blasts this week: A man who was presumed dead stunned neighbors when he returned to his toppled home to find his pet dog remarkably unharmed in the blast. The dog had been chained to the roof, which had collapsed into rubble, and was met with enthusiastic petting from the man.
Watch the video below, from Clip Syndicate…
Thanks to James Pavoldi for submitting the link!
Acclaimed actor and filmmaker Nicolas Cage, whose action roles have included both a contract killer and a federal anti-terrorist agent, stepped into the real world of crime on Friday when he was named Goodwill Ambassador for Global Justice for the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).
The UNODC Executive Director mused, “Until today, justice has been ‘A Cause Without a Rebel’… Now we have one!”
Mr. Cage, who has produced, directed and acted in films often dealing with issues of global justice, terrorism, drug and arms trafficking, has shown a long-standing commitment to global justice and philanthropy. As an Amnesty International advocate, he raised awareness about the horrors faced by child soldiers, arms trafficking, violence against women and other human rights tragedies.
He has already worked closely with UNODC, this year launching its ‘Welcome to Gulu’ benefit exhibition at UN Headquarters in New York featuring paintings by former child soldiers and abducted girls. He also recently returned from a week-long mission to Uganda and Kenya, focused on child soldiering and other forms of human trafficking, as well as piracy, prison conditions, HIV/AIDS and drug addiction.
He donated $2 million to establish a fund to help former child soldiers, providing support for rehabilitation shelters and medical, psychological and reintegration services. He led a campaign around Lord of War to raise awareness about international arms control.
Actor Robert De Niro and rocker Bruce Springsteen were both lauded at the Kennedy Center Honors Sunday at a black-tie gala in Washington D.C. by the President and Michelle Obama and a host of Hollywood’s biggest stars.
Other honorees included jazz musician Dave Brubeck, comedian Mel Brooks and opera singer Grace Bumbry.
Watch the first video from NBC, and the second, below, from AP…
Alpine Cabinet Company of Timnath, Colorado doesn’t have enough work these days to keep employees busy, so they’ve come up with a creative way to get through the holidays without resorting to layoffs. They are building dollhouses for children in need.
It’s a team effort with some employees creating dollhouse furniture, others sewing curtains, and others making the actual structures. Completed dollhouses will be given away to Project Self-Sufficiency and the Windsor Optimist Club, who will distribute them to children in need.
“I thought it would be a great morale boost for our people and lots of kids who need help,” said Bill Chinn, vice president of production.
(READ the story in the Coloradoan.com)
The Treasury now estimates that over the next 10 years TARP will cost $141 billion at most, down from the $341 billion the White House projected in August. The reduction stems in large part from faster-than-expected repayments by some of the nation’s largest banks.
The government’s efforts appear to have helped stabilize the financial sector, and banks have already repaid the Treasury about $70 billion.
Bank of America Corp. has said it will return its $45 billion investment this week, and the government now expects total repayments to reach as much as $175 billion by the end of next year. Altogether, it invested $204 billion in 690 firms.
The Treasury has also collected more than $10 billion in interest and dividend payments from firms in which it has invested.
This holiday season not every child will get a chance to verbally tell Santa what they want for Christmas. That’s why he made a special trip to visit some hearing impaired children in Columbus, Georgia.
Santa Claus told the TV-9 News crew, “They’re excited that Santa knows how to sign and that makes them feel (especially) connected.”
(Read more or watch the video at WTVM.com)
Numbers of new cancer cases continued declining and death rates from all cancers combined declined significantly for both men and women in the United States, according to a report from leading health and cancer organizations.
The drops are driven largely by declines in rates of new cases and rates of death for the three most common cancers in men (lung, prostate, and colorectal cancers) and for two of the three leading cancers in women (breast and colorectal cancer). New diagnoses for all types of cancer combined in the United States decreased, on average, almost 1 percent per year from 1999 to 2006. Cancer deaths decreased 1.6 percent per year from 2001 to 2006.
Doctors and Researchers attribute the success to better screening and early detection, better treatment for the disease and better lifestyle choices in Americans. (Watch the NBC video below for a neat summary of report.)
To cure the blind. It sounds impossible. Biblical even. And that’s exactly why Geoff Tabin—adventure climber, medical pioneer, human dynamo—is just the guy to do it.
Geoff Tabin leads a medical team organized by his Himalayan Cataract Project with the goal of conducting the largest eye surgery camp in Africa’s history, restoring sight to as many as 800 people.
The writer of Three Cups of Tea provides a great read as he features Geoff’s exciting and inspiring quest — seen on the cover of National Geographic magazine — trying to restore sight to most of the 150 million people who are functionally blind, but don’t need to be. (Read the story at Nat’l Geo)
Photo credit: Eye patients w/ Dr. Tabin, courtesy of Ace Kvale
Doris Buffett is 81 and has the kind of reputation money can buy.
She’s given away a fortune — over $80 million — and wants to keep giving until it’s all gone.
Her money comes from her mother’s investment funds managed by her little brother, Warren Buffet, the millionaire known as the Oracle of Omaha.
(READ the story at CBS News, or WATCH the video below)
It was hard not to feel a little yuletide cheer after seeing only a five-digit number representing national job losses for November. Yet, I almost shrugged off the latest national unemployment report as having no real influence on job growth, until I saw another report the same day from the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM).
Culling data from 500 manufacturing firms and 500 service firms, SHRM released its Leading Indicators of National Employment (LINE) report, which makes predictions on nationwide hiring trends each month. For this December, the report said, responding companies said they would hire more people than they planned to lay off. In the manufacturing sector, a net total of 10.7 percent of companies surveyed said they would increase hiring, while in the services sector a net total of 18.8 percent said they would add new jobs.
After nearly two disheartening years of monthly reports showing more than 100,000 jobs lost (peaking at 741,000 in January 2009), the 11,000 jobs that the Bureau of Labor Statistics said had vanished last month almost–almost -felt like good news.
Of course, no loss of employment could ever be considered good in this economy, with one out of every 10 American workers sitting idle. The best we can do with the information right now would be to call it “encouraging.” – Randy Woods, NWjobs
