Froot Loops, Apple Jacks and Pop Tarts are a few of the breakfast foods that young children will no longer see advertised on TV unless the foods can be reformulated to meet specific nutritional guidelines for calories, sugar and fat. Under pressure from watchdog groups, The Kellogg Company announced the voluntary change today and also said it would "stop using licensed characters or branded toys to promote such foods unless they meet the nutrition guidelines." (NY Times)
GNN 10th Anniversary Coming Up: Any Ideas?
EDITOR'S BLOG The 10th anniversary of the Good News Network is coming up at the end of August. HOW CAN WE MARK THE EVENT?
I would like to do something unique or exciting, something that would attract media publicity. Since I am a social creature and usually spend my time behind the computer, I would LOVE to have a gala party associated with this special birthday. (It would be in D.C. — which is where I live and where the news media will be itching for stories on the slowest week of the year.) Can I find a sponsor to pay for the party? I want your creative ideas. Let's brainstorm and throw ideas around. Use the comments below. THANKS!
Google, Intel Launch Energy-Efficient Computer Plan
"Search engine giant Google and U.S. semiconductor firm Intel have thrown their weight behind a massive scheme to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by cutting the amount of energy computers consume. They expect to cut emissions by 54 million tons a year — equal to 11 million cars or 20 coal-fired power plants." (BBC) Wow, thanks for the link, Andrew!
Hanoi Restaurant Turns Poor Kids into Gourmet Chefs
Since 1999, "street kids have learned to cook delicious Vietnamese and Western dishes, tend bar, wait tables and speak some English" through the work of a non-profit restaurant in Hanoi. The beautiful Koto grounds are famous for an 11th-century pagoda and university, but for the 200 graduates of the training, some moving on to 5-star kitchens, "It is the discovery that they can achieve their potential, that they are valued and that they are loved." (Reuters) View the Koto website and consider a donation.
Citizen Proposes 10 Steps to Citywide Peace
Dwayne Lee of Milwaukee proposed a Summer Peace Plan for city residents and sent it to the major newspaper for publishing. He was tired of the “self-defeating choices” people made that only increased neighborhood unrest. His calls for understanding others’ shortcomings and challenges, and for getting to know your neighbors, are just as useful to those who may not live in the city. E-mail him with encouragement after reading the article. (Milwaukee Journal)
Govt. Encouraging Employment of Muslims by Debunking Myths
"In a bid to encourage employers to hire Muslims, the Australian Queensland Government has invested a sum of 19,100 dollars to debunk the 'myths' surrounding the faith." Employers believe they would need to make special accommodations for their prayers or diet. It's not clear from the article what the myths are. (NewKarala.com)
City’s Anti-Gang March Renamed Peace March
CICERO, Ill — The gang intervention group CeaseFire aims to foster new perspectives this year by organizing a softball tournament between police and inner city youth; hosting a week of community events; and by prompting police to rename the fifth annual “Anti-gang March" with the anti-confrontational moniker, "Peace March." (ChicagoSuburbanNews)
Huge Wildlife Migration Discovered in Africa
"More than a million animals, including elephants, buffaloes, ostriches, lions, giraffes and a rare type of stork, have been unexpectedly seen living and migrating across Southern Sudan," where 25 years of war caused conservationists to believe no wildlife remained. Certain animals even appeared to be thriving more than before — "the numbers of Mongalla gazelle, for example, sky-rocketed." (LiveScience)
Islamic Development Bank Launches $10 Billion Poverty Fund
The Islamic Development Bank launched a multi-billion-dollar Islamic Solidarity Fund for Development, which aims at combatting poverty and its causes in member Islamic countries around the world and in Africa.
Top Ten Guide to the World’s Greenest Companies
Presenting a guide to the greenest companies in the UK and the world. On the top ten lists are Danish and Dutch companies (wind and banking), Swedish and Australian (paper and banking), Japanese and British (electronics, retail and telcom), but, alas, none from America. (The Independent)
How to Get Closer to Your Dad (Book Review)
Like many people’s relationship with their father, mine has never been very close. Yet, if he died today I would be very sorry I didn’t ask him more questions. That’s why I am glad to have met Stuart Gustafson, who co-wrote the new book, Questions to Bring You Closer to Dad. I met him at the National Publicity Summit in New York in March. After looking at his book, I telephoned my father last week. We talked happily for an hour, or more, about his time in the U.S. Marines and what it was like for him to visit his childhood home, and we engaged in small talk, which turns out to be the glue that holds the important stuff together…
Yoga May Help Treat Depression, Anxiety Disorders
Experiments showed improved conditions in people battling depression and anxiety disorders when yoga was introduced, leading researchers to conclude that it could prove a useful tool…
Dell Intends to be Greenest Technology Company on the Planet
"Dell has launched a long-term, global effort to become the greenest technology company on Earth by setting an ambitious Zero Carbon goal whereby it will maximise the energy efficiency of Dell products, and over time offset their carbon impact." (Tech Digest) Thanks, Andrew!
English Fans Pool Cash to Buy Their Own Soccer Team
"As more billionaires buy out clubs, raising ticket prices, fans are gathering online to take back the game. 30,000 fans have already joined in. With an average of 500 signing up daily on their website, myfootballclub.co,uk, they may have more than £1 million ($1.98 million) to shop with within a month." (CS Monitor)
New Device Helps Patients to Grow Back Own Teeth
"Scientists have created a device that can make human teeth grow back. The tiny ultrasound machine fits into a patient’s mouth and gently massages gums stimulating dental growth from the root. It should be available to the public within 2 years." (Scotsman)
Tom’s of Maine Pays Employees To Be Healthy
Tom’s of Maine, which makes natural care products, encourages its employees to choose healthier lifestyles. The company operates two Wellness Centers that offer yoga, personal training, fitness and nutrition classes for workers, and each employee is given a $300 benefit per year to use towards personal wellness. This year, an innovative rewards-based "Wellness Challenge" earned cash awards to employees for eating right and getting fit. No wonder the company was recently honored with the 2007 Healthy Workplace Award by the Governor of Maine.
90-Year-Old Rock Band Takes England By Storm (Video)
Meet The Zimmers, the oldest rock group in the world. Lead singer Alf is 90 and anchors this amazing cover of The Who’s My Generation, already viewed 2 million times on YouTube. Documentary filmmaker Tim Samuels traveled across Britain recruiting isolated and lonely old people from dingy flats and care homes bringing them together for a rock and roll recording session at Abby Road Studios. The story was featured in a BBC-TV documentary in May and on Power to the People, the TV show that started it all. You can buy the CD from Tescos, Woolworths, HAV and Virgin Megastores or buy it online at Amazon-UK. (Click READ MORE for a brilliant video interview with Alf.)
Low-Income Florida Homes Get Hurricane Help
Low-income residents in 12 Florida counties are getting a little extra help this hurricane season to protect their homes from storm damage.
Under the state-funded My Safe Florida Home program, a total of 4,000 homes will be getting hurricane-rated storm shutters, stronger exterior doors, sturdier garage doors and improvements to roofs, all free of charge.
The preparedness program is an attempt by the Florida Legislature to alleviate high home insurance costs while allowing residents to strengthen their homes to better withstand hurricane damage.
“Everybody who lives in the state of Florida should know the importance of having shutters on their windows and just how much more secure you can be,” said 22-year-old Vanessa Hernandez, who was watching as her mother’s home in Broward County was being outfitted with the window coverings. “I feel more secure for them, too.”
Residents in the counties of Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach, Martin, Escambia, Osceola, Glades, Hendry, Pinellas, Polk, Santa Rosa and St. Lucie are participating in the program, which is being coordinated by non-profit agencies in each county and overseen statewide by the Volunteer Florida Foundation.
Strengthening the homes with such things as hurricane-rated window shutters and stronger exterior and garage doors will make them less vulnerable to wind damage during a hurricane.
“If we do all that we can prevent the wind from coming in,” said Yack, who also serves as director of Neighbors to the Rescue and the Florida Faith-Based and Community-Based Advisory Council. “Once the wind comes in the roof tends to come off.”
She said the program would also help maintain the limited amount of affordable housing available in many areas. The program does not include mobile or manufactured homes, apartments, condominiums or businesses.
“It’s really critical that we save as much of our affordable housing inventory as we possibly can,” said Suzanne Yack, a staff member with Volunteer Florida Foundation. “We lost so much with Hurricane Wilma all across southern Florida. Nobody is building new affordable housing, so what we have left we’ve got to protect.”
Dale Hirsch, executive director of Volunteer Broward, one of two non-profit agencies running the program in Broward County, said the program’s $20 million total price tag for the 12 counties is a small amount to pay compared to the monetary damages a hurricane might cause.
“The building process is so expensive, the cost of fixing something is so expensive, it’s cheaper to mitigate it,” Hirsch said.
Several hundred homes have been strengthened so far with another 400 or so undergoing fortifications, according to the My Safe Florida Home website. Yack admitted that many of the homes enrolled so far in the program would not be ready for much of the 2007 Atlantic hurricane season, which officially began June 1. It ends Nov. 30.
The majority of homes being strengthened are in the south Florida counties of Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach and Martin, Yack said.
The program began earlier this year. The non-profit agencies responsible for the programs publicized the project, then took applications from residents. In Broward County, 150 homeowners are scheduled to have work done this year; other Broward residents were on a waiting list.
“We had lines out the door,” said Sandy Lloyd, disaster specialist with Volunteer Broward. “There’s way more than 150 we could really help. Way more.”
Once a homeowner has been selected, the Volunteer Florida Foundation sends a certified inspector to the home to conduct a free inspection. The agencies in each county then work with the homeowner to schedule the work, arrange for necessary building permits and hire contractors. Two contractors have been hired in Broward County.
The local groups are asked to find matching funds as well as consider the use of volunteers to assist the contractors in order to leverage the project, Yack said. She said volunteers from faith-based groups, such as Mennonite Disaster Service which have construction experience, were especially welcome, as were people who can help find discounts on shutters, doors and roof bracing materials. “Right now, we have about 20 volunteers waiting for us to tell them what homes to go to,” Lloyd said.
“It’s not just about getting the funds,” Hirsch added. “It’s about layering the project with volunteers. Some actually have some construction background, although probably not a lot. But the ones that don’t can still do a great deal of work that doesn’t require hammering and nails.”
Each project is limited to a maximum of $2,500, eliminating the need for competitive bidding, Yack said. Homeowners can pay extra to upgrade the industrial-style hurricane shutters or have additional work done that may not be covered under the program, she said.
Yack said that the non-profit agencies were quickly learning about construction.
“They didn’t start as experts in shutters,” she said. “They will end this project as experts in shutters (and) be incredibly valuable.”
The low-income home strengthening project is just one part of the My Safe Florida Home program. Another much larger part, with a $250 million budget, involves matching grants of up to $5,000 to homeowners for upgrades. At the start of 2007, the My Safe Florida Home program had received more than 65,000 applications for wind inspections, officials said.
Yack said she expected the low-income program to continue for another year or two, with funding expected to double and the project expanded into other vulnerable counties.
Yack said she expected the low-income program to continue for another year or two, with funding expected to double and the project expanded into other vulnerable counties.
“More money is going to be transferred into the low-income portion of the program because the need is so great,” she said, adding, “And because we’re doing a good job.”
Reproduced with permission from Disaster News Network www.disasternews.net
(c) 2007 Village Life Company
This Online Encyclopedia Catalogs All Life on Earth
Ever wanted to know how many species of birds live on the island of Crete? Or perhaps how many species of animals live in your own home state? Thanks to an ambitious global biodiversity initiative led by groups like the MacArthur Foundation, Smithsonian, and Harvard, the answers to these questions could literally be at your fingertips within the next few years with a new online encyclopedia that promises to catalog all life on Earth.
Consider this: there are 1.8 million known species of plants, animals and other forms of life and this encyclopedia will catalog them all and continue to grow as additional species are discovered placing all of the information in one place. Scientists around the globe have been cataloging life for 250 years in traditional encyclopedias and texts. Gaining access to all of them at present is essentially impossible. The Encyclopedia of Life will change this. Similar to Wikipedia, the Encyclopedia of Life will allow users to add information and details, such as species sightings and photos; however all content will be authenticated by scientists.
$12.5 million in grants have already been provided by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation with a total of $50 million pledged from various sources.
Access to information will be the key however and copyrights may present a problem. At present, the Biodiversity Heritage Library, one of the partners, is planning to provide a collection of works, totaling 25 million pages, published prior to 1923 as these works are outside of copyright restrictions. Efforts are underway to gather more recent scientific publications however whether all for profit publishers will permit free access to their works in unclear implying that some information may have to be purchased by the user in order to be viewed. Ultimately, the project’s designers say that they want all of the information to be available for free.
This project isn’t exactly unique, however. Another project called the Tree of Life Web Project is already well underway as a collaborative effort from biologists around the world. Begun officially in 1994, the project has had to exist on much smaller sums of money than the encyclopedia of life has secured (thousands versus millions of dollars) funded by the U. S. National Science Foundation and the University of Arizona. The primary difference between the two endeavors, is that the Tree of Life focuses both the branches and leaves of the tree. The branches represent the connections between species, their genetic lineages and the leaves represent the species themselves. The encyclopedia of life will focus exclusively on the species (leaves) suggesting that the Tree of Life Web Project may be more useful for scientific studies involving the genetic linkages between species. The organizers of both projects have arranged for the Tree of Life to be an essential partner for the Encyclopedia of Life. Both projects will result in tremendous benefits to the population of the planet giving us the ability to understand the life around us in ways we never thought possible.
Visit the Encyclopedia of Life online at www.eol.org.
(CC Photo by Andrea Oconnell)
Michael Little works in analytical chemistry and has almost 20 years experience in the research based pharmaceutical industry. Michael resides in Laval, Quebec, with his wife and three children. Michael has written occasional science articles for GNN since 2007.
Ivory Cross-Border Trading Banned by eBay
eBay announced this week a ban on international trading of elephant ivory from all its sites worldwide after an animal welfare group found that 94 percent of the ivory up for auction there was potentially illegal.