Newlyweds in Indonesia are planting trees under a program to replenish forests. Couples agree to plant 10 trees before they marry. But if they divorce, they must plant 50 more.
Photo courtesy of Sun Star
Newlyweds Turn Back Clock on Deforestation
Odd Science Projects Get $100K From Bill Gates
Can tomatoes be taught to make antiviral drugs for people who eat them? Would zapping your skin with a laser make your vaccination work better? Could malaria-carrying mosquitoes be given a teensy head cold that would prevent them from sniffing out a human snack bar?
These are among 81 projects that received $100,000 grants on Monday by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in a bid to support innovative, unconventional global health research on infectious diseases, such as HIV, malaria, tuberculosis, pneumonia and diarrheal diseases.
Student’s Letter to Congress Leads to School Makeover
Highlighted in Obama’s speech, a South Carolina teen’s plea to improve her run-down school inspired a quarter million dollar donation from local businessman.
Students who had grown resigned to old, “nasty” furnishings at their dilapidated middle school were elated on Monday to find new furniture and a freshly painted cafeteria, thanks to a student’s plea, a president’s speech and a businessman’s response.
SC Court Halts Thousands of Home Foreclosure Sales
South Carolina‘s highest court has temporarily stopped thousands of pending foreclosure sales so homeowners can take advantage of a new federal program to refinance mortgages.
(Continue Reading AP story in Yahoo)
No Acceptance Letters from Colleges? Don’t Panic
While some students are rejected from colleges everywhere, the more common scenario is for a student to be sitting on multiple wait-lists but to have no firm offer in hand. Thankfully there is a great resource out there.
The National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC) compiles an annual list of schools that still have openings after May 1; go to www.nacacnet.org.
Read more great tips for students without college acceptance letters in the Charlotte Observer.
Vitamin E May Slow Alzheimer’s Disease
An analysis of “real-world” clinical data indicates that vitamin E, and drugs that reduce generalized inflammation, may slow the decline of mental and physical abilities in people with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) over the long term.
Devices Could Help Children With Autism to Speak
Imagine feeling ill and being unable to tell anyone what hurts. Or longing for pizza on your eighth birthday but ending up with Chinese takeout because you couldn’t explain what you wanted. These are the kinds of frustrations, experts say, that are faced by the more than 1 in 150 children in the United States who have a diagnosis of autism.
The solution to some of those problems could be the push of a button away.
Iraq Commits $30 Million for Children
The government of Iraq has committed $30 million to projects this year that will assist children in rural areas of the Marshlands region, an area with some of the worst development indicators in the country. The allocation marks the first government investment focused exclusively on improving the lives of Iraqi children.
“This is a major achievement by the government as it’s the first-of-its-kind investment targeting children not only in Iraq but also globally,” stated Sikander Khan, UNICEF Iraq Representative. “This sets the standard and will be the beginning of a series of child-friendly investments that will help realize the long-deprived rights of all Iraqi children, specifically improving their prospects for survival and to fully develop their capacities.”
Angola Puts Faith in Farming
Angola’s farming sector could finally resolve what its oil and diamond exports have for years failed to do: lift millions of Angolans out of poverty.
Thousands of kilometres of roads have been rebuilt after a civil war that ended in 2002, enabling farmers from banana plantations in the south to coffee producers in the north to bring their products to market on time and at affordable prices.
Buddhist Leader Promotes Secular Ethics as MIT Opens the Dalai Lama Center
On the campus of the country’s premier scientific university, the world’s best-known Buddhist leader Thursday called on educators to teach ethics and compassion without a basis in religious belief.
Hundreds gathered at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as the Dalai Lama, speaking from the seated, cross-legged position of a sage, officially opened MIT’s Dalai Lama Center for Ethics and Transformative Values.
“The majority of the 6 billion people on earth, I think, we can categorize as non-believers,” the Dalai Lama said. “So we must find a way to promote ethics and values with these nonbelievers.”
(READ the full story from BeliefNet News)
Teachers of the Year Honored at the White House
President Obama last week honored a retired New York police captain, special education teacher Anthony Mullen, as the nation’s top teacher.
Teaching is not just about a paycheck — it’s a passion and it’s a calling,” Obama said. “Now, nobody, I think, exhibits that more than our honoree today.”
Watch the president celebrate all the regional Teachers of the Year in his first Rose Garden ceremony as president.
(Read more about Anthony Mullen via MSNBC)
National & State Teachers of the Year from White House.
Thousands of Dolphins Block Somali Pirates
Thousands of dolphins blocked suspected Somali pirate ships as they approached Chinese merchant ships passing the Gulf of Aden, the China Radio International reported on Monday.
Chinese merchant ships under escort in the Gulf of Aden received some help from thousands of dolphins. Suddenly they leaped out of the water creating a barrier between suspected pirate ships and the merchants. The suspected pirates turned back.
Nuns on the Run in London (Video)
Hundreds of runners dressed as nuns sprinted through the streets of London. ‘The Nun Run’ raises money for charity.
Watch the video.
Bush-era Endangered Species Rule Revoked
The Obama administration last week revoked a rule enacted toward the end of the Bush administration that it said undermined protections under the Endangered Species Act.
Federal agencies must “once again consult with federal wildlife experts at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration — the two agencies that administer the ESA — before taking any action that may affect threatened or endangered species,” the Interior and Commerce departments said in a statement.
Quirky Sports Win at Inner City School
“Why are you so good?”
The kids like the sound of this question. Here’s a stranger with a notepad, wanting to know how a bunch of third-, fourth- and fifth-graders became one of the greatest Seattle sports stories nobody knows.
But they struggle to explain. We practice three times a day, suggests one. We can run like nobody else, says another.
Yonatan Tadesse, 10, raises his hand. Like most of the others, he’s a refugee in America, arriving from Ethiopia in 2005.
“It’s Mr. Jamshid,” he says. “He makes us play all kinds of sports that aren’t, like, normal.”
(Continue Reading at the Seattle Times)
Photo courtesy of Sun Star
Scientists Document Dancing Birds (w/ Video)
Previously, it was thought that only humans had the ability to groove.
But, some birds have a remarkable talent for dancing, two studies published in Current Biology suggest.
Footage revealed that some parrots have a near-perfect sense of rhythm; swaying their bodies, bobbing their heads and tapping their feet in time to a beat.
(Continue Reading and watch video at BBC)
Shelter In A Box Reaches Quake Victims in Italy
ShelterBox tents were erected in the village of Assergi earlier this month, 20kms from the town of L’Aquila, Italy where an earthquake displaced many.
“The old part of the village was badly damaged and last night 200 people had to sleep out in the open,” said ShelterBox Response Team member John Diksa (France) the day ShelterBox erected the first tent. ShelterBox began working in Italy with local Rotarians and the Civil Protection Agency.
Senators Want to Expel Junk Food Vending Machines in U.S. Schools
U.S. schools with vending machines that sell candy and soda to students could soon find the government requiring healthier options to combat childhood obesity under a bill introduced on Thursday by two senators. While school meals must comply with U.S. dietary guidelines, there are no such rules on snacks sold outside of school lunchrooms.
Blue Laser Could Lead to Autism Cure
Lasers could one day cure, or at least aid in the search for drugs that treat diseases ranging from autism to schizophrenia, according to two new studies from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford University and published in the online issue of the journal Nature.
A blue laser shined into a live mouse brain triggered gamma waves, which are a kind of brain wave necessary for concentration and cognition that people with autism and schizophrenia often lack.
The World’s Weirdest Festivals
From rolling cheese in Gloucestershire to wife-carrying in Scandinavia, the world is full of quirky, colourful – and downright bizarre – events. They may not be to everyone’s taste, but here is a selection of some of the unusual festivals you can find around the world this year.
(Watch the Slideshow at the UK Telegraph)