The NCAA tournament is always filled with heart-warming stories. Perhaps the sweetest one involves Michigan State’s star forward and an 8-year-old girl named Lacey Holsworth who found out in 2011 that she had neuroblastoma.
She’d been in the hospital for a month when the Michigan State team came for a visit. She immediately forged a bond with Adreian Payne the 6’10” senior with a big smile.
Stanford bioengineering professor Manu Prakash was worried that because the developing world could not afford microscopes, they were prescribing malaria pills without identifying specific strains, and unwittingly boosting the resistance of some of the bugs. So he set out to make the best possible disease-detection instrument he could and make it cheap enough to distribute almost for free.
He and his students came up with an origami-like folded cardboard device called the “Foldscope”. It can be produced with just 50 cents for materials and is so durable that it can be stomped on and dropped into a bucket of water, and it still works.
Scientists have discovered that a gene-regulating protein that protects the developing brain of a fetus resurfaces in old age and may stave off dementia, a finding that could open a new path in Alzheimer’s research.
The research by Harvard University scientists published yesterday in the journal Nature, showed the protein is depleted in brains of people with Alzheimer’s.
(READ the article from Bloomberg)
Overall crime in Colombia has plunged to levels not seen in more than 30 years, thanks to the efforts of the country’s security forces. (Dialogo-Americas.com)
Because of his nasty demeanor on the streets of a South Carolina town, homeless man Ben Richardson, known as Rock Man, didn’t have any friends— and maybe didn’t want any friends.
That didn’t matter to a group of adults and youth who talked at their church about how missionaries often overlook those in need right in their hometowns. To them he was simply a man who didn’t have a home.
“It wasn’t until the kids partnered together that Ben started to accept anyone’s help,” said Lynn Sargent, a Kindergarten teacher who, along with another man in town named Quinn, was the catalyst for the compassion campaign.
The community-wide effort secured a spot on the edge of a property owned by a Richardson relative, and plans for a tiny one-room cottage with a bathroom and porch were drawn up.
People in the small town, 60 miles south of Greenville, donated time, materials and labor to construct the one-room cottage.
A Facebook page titled “A Home for Rock Man” helped bring in donations of furniture, kitchen items, food, a crock-pot, paper products and toiletries.
“He’s beginning to trust and smile,” Sargent told WYFF-4. “He’s a different person.”
“His heart is filled with hope and his face shines with joy,” said Angela Cogburn on Facebook.
(READ the full story from WYFF-4)
On March 4, a YouTube magician and prankster name Rahat set aside his mischievous pranks to do something really kind for a homeless man he’d often seen hanging around his shopping mall.
He heard that the man named Eric was a “nice and respectable guy,” so he gave him a lottery ticket telling him it was a winner and that he should come to the shop and claim his prize. The store clerk was privy to the stunt and pretended the ticket was indeed a winner and handed over $1,000 in cash to the homeless gentleman.
Rahat, who had secretly given the clerk the cash to give to Eric recorded a video of how excited Eric was to “win” the money.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he repeated. The money was now his, and even though poverty had been his constant companion for a long time, he offered to give Rahat half the money, saying, “I want to share it.” They both began crying with the emotion of the moment.
Rahat decided to set up a fundraising page for Eric online at Fundly.com, with a goal of raising $20,000 to help Eric improve his life. Within just three days that goal was met and, as of today, 2650 people have donated a total of $42,000 online.
Rahat tweeted his thanks to people and met with Eric for lunch on March 9 to share the news and post a new photo.
Surely, the YouTube magician never pulled off a stunt that better earned his YouTube name — “Magic of Rahat” – than this one.
Few companies have done as much damage to the world’s tropical forests as Asia Pulp & Paper. But under intense pressure from its customers and conservation groups, APP has embarked on a series of changes that could significantly reduce deforestation in Indonesia and serve as a model for forestry reform.
The company committed itself to a series of forestry reforms, including a pledge of zero deforestation in woodlands that sequester large amounts of carbon or have high conservation value, a commitment to strict monitoring of its forestry practices, a vow to acquire prior consent from communities for new tree plantation development, and an agreement to set up a disputes resolution process.
(READ the story in Yale’s 360 blog)
Challenging the notion that people are stuck with the character attributes they are born with, a new 8 minute film reveals how it is possible for anyone to learn, practice, and cultivate their character strengths.
The film called The Science of Character (watch it below) urges everyone to build up their core character strengths and use them to achieve personal and professional success and happiness.
What are your top five strengths? How can you bolster them to help you live the life you want?
Fourteen-year-old Ke’onte is full of life and laughter — largely because of his new parents.
But his happiness is also thanks to a television news anchor who featured the boy’s story in Dallas, Texas, not just once, but twice, after a failed adoption brought disappointment.
In 2007, when Ke’onte was just eight years old, Gloria Campos featured him as a “Wednesday’s Child,” a feature produced locally by five US television stations around the country which showcases children in foster care who need loving parents.
The boy, now happy and off medication wrongfully prescribed, wanted to thank Gloria for her persistence in finding him a home, and he surprised her on the air.
(WATCH the touching video below READ the story from WFAA) Thanks to Harley Hahn for submitting the link!
Brazil has reduced the number of its citizens living in extreme poverty by 89% in the last 10 years through the Bolsa Família income support program, with 70% of recipients being the working poor who now buy products and bolster the economy.
What would make a man pack up his wife and seven children and move from a safe Arizona suburb to one of the deadliest neighborhoods in Los Angeles County? For Pastor Todd Grant, 49, it was a strong sense of calling.
Today, seven years later, Powerhouse Church in Watts is bringing healing to a hurting community through numerous free programs including a dental clinic, mobile crisis pregnancy unit, job placement, counseling, tutoring, and an onsite medical clinic, which opened up the same week in 2007 that the nearby Martin Luther King Jr. Hospital closed its doors.
Dark clouds of soot and gases spewed by tractors, bulldozers, and backhoes are becoming a thing of the past under new federal standards that have forced cleaner diesel engines this year.
In the wake of trucks and buses already modernized by higher U.S. standards, engines and fuel used by farm and construction equipment are next on America’s green agenda. More and more dealers are building their inventory to have equipment like this.
They are producing cleaner emissions: lower-sulfur diesel fuel, particle-trapping filters, and more efficient engines with fuel-injection software, recirculated exhaust systems, or catalysts that prevent pollutants from forming.
(READ the story from Environmental Health News)
Margaux Traboulsee never intended for her homemade deodorant to become a full-blown business. Traboulsee and her husband Josh were simply trying to find a chemical-free deodorant. When they couldn’t find an effective product, they made one themselves.
Traboulsee says the original recipe was simple: some coconut oil, baking soda and essential oils. The ingredients have since evolved into a mixture that the Traboulsee’s friends and relatives couldn’t get enough of.
‘The Best Deodorant in the World‘ was born.
When a scrap metal dealer from U.S. Midwest bought a golden ornament at a junk market, it never crossed his mind that he was the owner of a $20 million Faberge egg hailing from the court of imperial Russia.
The 3-inch golden egg was spirited out of St Petersburg after the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution and then disappeared for decades in the United States.
An unidentified man in the United States spotted the egg while searching for scrap gold and purchased it for $14,000, hoping to make a fast buck by selling it to the melting pot.
This is the photo from the auction house in London, where, after a man in sneakers wondered in with this priceless antique, the antiques dealer was shocked.
“He couldn’t talk. He knew it was real.”
(READ the story in the Washington Post)
A bed-ridden employee of the Rotterdam Zoo who was dying of cancer asked Netherland’s Ambulance Wish Foundation to help him visit the animals one last time. The touching goodbye offered by one giraffe, and caught on camera, is warming hearts worldwide.
Mario has cleaned the cages at Rotterdam’s Diergaarde Blijdorp zoo for 25 years. When the ambulance workers wheeled his bed into the giraffe enclosure, the 54-year-old man had a sweet visit with the animals he loved.
This lovely photo was posted on Facebook by Stichting Ambulance Wens Nederland
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RELATED: Wild Animals Gather Inexplicably to Mourn the Death of The Elephant Whisperer
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In a striking example of poetic justice, a Massachusetts teenager who says she was fired from 7-Eleven for giving a cup of coffee to a homeless man has landed a new job within days—at a homeless-services organization.
“My lesson learned is that good deeds pay off,” Ava Lins, 19, tells Yahoo. “Do what you believe is the right thing, and stand up for what you believe in. Only good things will come of it.”
(READ the story from Yahoo News)
RELATED: Teen Seen Walking Miles in the Snow to Get a Job Lands Another at 2x the Pay
Walmart is dramatically increasing its investment in hydrogen fuel cells to get away from dirtier battery and fueling options, giving a boost to high-profile supplier Plug Power.
The world’s biggest retailer has ordered another 1,738 of them, almost 40% of Plug Power’s total existing installed base of about 4,500 units and representing the company’s single biggest order ever.
Hydrogen fuel cells are one of the cleanest technologies available, along some types of solar power, because their use creates zero emissions, unlike some electric motors that rely on a power plant already emitting greenhouse gases.
(READ the article from Forbes)
The United States government is helping to save the lives of thousands of linemen who work for Pakistan’s electricity distribution companies (DISCOs) through a worker safety training program.
“Historically in Pakistan, over 100 experienced linemen lose their lives and the same numbers of linemen are severely disabled every year,” said Michael Curtis, Director of USAID’s Energy Office.
To help save lives and improve safety, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) developed training programs for DISCO linemen, staff, and senior management. The sessions were designed to instill a culture of safety and by so doing reduce deaths, which represent an irreplaceable loss to families and also cause significant losses to the power grid.
His family’s desperate call for a donor has been answered, and the 10-month-old Spanish infant suffering from juvenile myelomonocytic leukemia will undergo an operation in April expected to cure his disease.
He had a 1 percent chance of finding a donor until a worldwide campaign started last August to find donors for Mateo Schell and other leukemia patients around the world succeeded in finally turning up a bone marrow donor to save the baby’s life.
(READ the article from Yahoo.ca)
All the Wheel of Fortune player knew was that the answer was a ‘thing’, it was three words of varying length and started with an “NE”.
Incredibly, Emil, who the host Pat Sajak called a very good puzzle solver, pulled the answer out of nowhere.
Sajak was so amazed, he became suspicious and playfully pretended to search him for hidden devices.
