‘Happier Girl:’ Obesity Surgery Already a Boon, Mom Says

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Apr 9, 2014

Alexis-shapiro-surgery-mom-FBPhoto — Alexis Shapiro - family photo on public Facebook page

Alexis Shapiro - family photo on public Facebook page — Alexis Shapiro – family photo on public Facebook page

A 12-year-old Texas girl who had weight-loss surgery to correct a rare metabolic problem is back home, visibly slimmer and healthier, but also much happier, less than three weeks after the potentially life-saving operation, her mother said.

Alexis Shapiro was in the news recently because the sleeve gastrectomy surgery was originally rejected by her father’s insurance company.

More importantly, she’s in good spirits and has hope for the first time since a brain tumor operation more than two years ago knocked her metabolism haywire and sent her soaring past 200 pounds.

The insurer reversed the decision and well-wishers raised more than $86,000 to help offset the family’s expenses.

(READ the story from TODAY)

Family photo on Facebook

Spinal Cord Injury May No Longer Mean Permanent Paralysis

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Apr 8, 2014

crutch — Photo by Twm™ via Flickr - CC license

Severe spinal cord injury results in a permanent loss of function and sensation — understandable because the connection between the brain and the lower body has been severed. No one had ever discovered a way to induce the body to repair such connections.

And yet, researchers have found — unexpectedly — that by using an electrical device to stimulate the spinal cord below the site of the injury, it is possible for paralyzed people to assert limited control over muscle movements, something that was thought to be impossible.

The discovery ignited the hope that, one day, there may be a way to further restore function to such people, which would help prevent the serious long-term side effects suffered when someone remains immobile for a long period of time.

The concept, written about in the Oxford Journal, is similar to the one used for auditory implants, which are now viable commercial products.

At one time, it was thought that when someone’s ears had lost the ability to hear, the person was deaf forever. But now there are devices to bypass the ear and stimulate the nerves directly. As a result, many people who were “permanently” deaf can now hear.

(READ the HealthDay story in the Philadelphia Inquirer)

Thanks to Harley Hahn for submitting the link

Soda Sales Rapidly Decline Across the U.S.

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Apr 8, 2014

old_town_CocaCola_sign-story_sky-Pete_Zarria-Flickr-CC — Photo by Pete Zarria via Flickr - CC license

Photo by Pete Zarria via Flickr - CC license — Photo by Pete Zarria via Flickr – CC license

Americans are drinking 20 percent less soda than they did in 1998, according to trade tracker Beverage Digest.

Diet drinks are losing market share even faster — a 6% drop in 2013, compared to a 3% drop for sugar beverages.

Since 1998, the drinking habits of Americans have been steadily moving away from carbonated sodas such as Coca-Cola and Pepsi, to healthier alternatives like bottled and tap water for years.

With diabetes, obesity and tooth decay on the rise in the 1990s, people started to turn away from soft drinks because of health concerns around sugary processed drinks. During the same period, the practice of purchasing convenient single-serving bottled water became widely accepted and commonplace.

With health and environmental concerns becoming even more key in the twenty-first century, look for the trends to bend even further — away from bottle water and toward drinking filtered tap water from home or the office.

(READ more from the AP via ABC)

Thanks to Harley Hahn for sending the story tip!

Teacher Keeps Promise to Send Letters Students Wrote to Themselves 20 Years Ago

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Apr 8, 2014

For the past four decades, a Saskatchewan high school English teacher has kept his commitment to thousands of former students by mailing them all a handwritten letter they had written to themselves as high school freshmen, to be read by their eyes only when they reached adulthood.

The 72-year-old retired teacher has spent countless hours tracking down students who’ve long grown up, moved away from home and married, using social media and good old-fashioned detective work. This year especially, former students’ Facebook news feeds have been awash with people delighted — and surprised — to actually get the letters.

(READ the story in the National Post)

Clean, Green Indoor Fish Farming Produces Protein for Your Table

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Apr 8, 2014

Farm-raised fish and shellfish are taking over the seafood section at your supermarket, and the vast majority is imported.

The shrimp and tilapia typically come from warm-water ponds in southeast Asia and Latin America. Farmed salmon come from big net pens in the coastal waters of Norway or Chile. But many have voiced strong environmental concerns about these practices.

Now there is a way to make aquaculture clean and green, and locally grown, according to entrepreneurs and researchers in the United States.

American aqua-farmers are successfully delivering tilapia to grocery stores, from landlocked locations like Martinsville, Va, reducing the carbon footprint of the product and eliminating environmental problems of waste and water degradation.

Bill Martin’s self-sustaining factory Blue Ridge Aquaculture is the largest tilapia farm in the world. 15,000 live fish leave the local facility every day. The plant recycles about 85 to 90 percent of it’s water (used by the fish) and also captures its own waste and does not rely on the ocean to feed its tilapia.

(READ the story or LISTEN to it at NPR)

Oakland Artist Turns Illegally Dumped Trash Into Homes For Homeless

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Apr 7, 2014

homeless tiny homes by Greg-NBCBayAreaProud

Each morning, Greg Kloehn takes a cup of coffee and drives around the streets near his home studio looking for the piles of illegally dumped trash that show up every night. One man’s trash can be another man’s construction materials.

He takes anything that might help him build a home: pallets, 2x4s, refrigerator doors and shelving, and paint.

A team of volunteers helps Greg mold those pieces into tiny, moveable structures.

Since his first home give-away, Greg has built more than a dozen small homes on wheels and gifted them to the area’s homeless.

(WATCH the video or READ the story in NBC’s Bay Area Proud)

Photo credit: NBC’s Bay Area Proud

Relief in Afghanistan After Largely Peaceful Historic Elections

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Apr 7, 2014

voting women Afghanistan-Photo-UNAMAZachary Golestani

Afghanistan’s presidential election closed on Saturday amid relief that attacks by Taliban fighters were fewer than feared for a vote that will bring the first-ever democratic transfer of power in a country plagued by conflict for decades.

It will take six weeks for results to come in from across Afghanistan’s rugged terrain and a final result to be declared in the race to succeed President Hamid Karzai.

“The millions of women and men who cast their ballots are a testament to the courage and the commitment of Afghans to exercise their rights and shape their future,” said United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon in a statement highlighting the “momentous achievement,” despite threats and intimidation.

Noting the strong participation of women in the polls, as election workers, observers, candidates and, above all, as voters, Mr. Ban said the elections marked “another step forward for Afghan women in taking their rightful place in society and having a say in their country’s future on an equal basis with Afghan men.”

The Secretary-General commended the Afghan national security forces who, in the face of serious Taliban threats, showed “professionalism and dedication that enabled citizens to vote on 5 April.”

The head of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan reported, “Ordinary Afghans turned out to vote in remarkable numbers, defying Taliban attacks and threats. Often in long queues and bad weather, voters patiently waited to exercise their basic human right to vote.”

(READ the report from Reuters)

Photo credit: UNAMA/Zachary Golestani

Muslim Groups are Putting Their Faith in Food Banks to Help the Poor

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Apr 7, 2014

Muslim family in colors-Jim Boud-CC-flickr

Ali Jawad, a 22-year-old business student and regular volunteer at a Muslim food bank in London, sees a constant stream of people picking up packaged goods to feed themselves over the next five days.

Food banks in the UK are overwhelmingly operated by church-affiliated groups, including the 421 outlets run by Christian charity, the Trussell Trust. Yet Sufra, meaning “come to the table” in Arabic, is one of a growing number of Muslim organizations also attempting to tackle food poverty.

(READ the story in the Guardian)

Photo credit: Jim Boud via flickr, CC license

Polluted Chesapeake Bay Revived by Oysters Galore

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Apr 7, 2014

20 years ago oysters had nearly disappeared from the Chesapeake bay. Today, the mollusk’s reintroduction is playing a vital role in the health of world’s third largest estuary.

An oysterman who has worked these waters for 40 years says in recent summers thick algae thrived in the sweltering temperatures.

But last year “all summer long, I was able to see the bottom, which means the oysters were filtering and cleaning,” he told AFP.

Oysters have also been starring on the menus a thriving seafood restaurant scene in Virginia, Maryland and Delaware.

(READ the story from AFP)

Photo: oysterman Perry Raso, by NOAA

Top 6 Books for Growing Your Own Produce

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Amy Grant

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Apr 6, 2014

Nothing can compare with the freshness and incredible flavor of home grown fruits, herbs and vegetables. My family can hardly wait to harvest the first tomatoes from the garden to use in homemade tomato basil soup and a BLT sandwich!

Home gardens minimize your exposure to dangerous pesticides, chemicals and tainted produce. You have complete control over what goes in your food.

Not only will the food make you healthier, the exercise you get while working in a garden is such a benefit. Focus on all the calories you’ll burn while tilling, weeding, and harvesting your bounty. Finally, for me, digging in the dirt inspires peace, relaxation and a closeness with the earth.

Growing your own will save you money in several ways. Fewer trips to the store will cut impulse buying. Seeds and plants are cheaper than grocery store produce, and extras can be preserved and dried for the future.

Planning and growing your own garden is a great family activity. Children of all ages enjoy selecting, planting, watering and picking vegetables. It conjures a feeling of pride and teaches responsibility and self-sufficiency. You’ll also have a bounty to share with friends, neighbors or the local food bank.

Those of you who live in apartments or densely populated areas and don’t have your own plot of land may be able to rent a garden plot – check your local newspaper for information, or grow a few plants in pots on a balcony.

Check out my favorite six best selling gardening books – most are available in hardcover, paperback or ebook:

vegetable gardeners bible The Vegetable Gardener’s Bible is an invaluable resource for home food gardeners. It has friendly, accessible language; full-color photography; comprehensive vegetable specific information in the A-to-Z section; ahead-of-its-time commitment to organic methods; and much more.

Square Foot Gardening: The Revolutionary Way to Grow More In Less Space is the most practical, foolproof way to grow a home garden. In this new volume, the author discusses one of the most popular gardening trends today: vertical gardening. An expanded section on pest control helps you protect your produce.

The secret to growing bountiful harvests throughout the season is knowing exactly when to start seeds indoors, transplant them into the ground, pinch off the blossoms, check, for bugs and pick for peak flavor. The Week-by-Week Vegetable Gardener’s Handbook: Make the Most of Your Growing Season eliminates the guesswork with weekly to-do lists that break gardening down into easily manageable tasks for the best vegetable-growing experiences possible.

For the gardener on a budget, check out this book with money saving ideas for a great garden in a short space of time. Low Cost Gardening: A Recycled Garden covers taking cuttings, collecting seeds, dividing root balls, and making your own mulch from kitchen scraps, garden waste and newspaper. Many items can be recycled to make pots for plants and garden edges. Natural products are recommended to get rid of weeds, pests and diseases.

FOR KIDS: Plant a pumpkinseed with a child, and cultivate wonder. Roots, Shoots, Buckets & Boots: Gardening with Children includes 12 easy-to-implement ideas for theme gardens that parents and kids can grow together. Each garden includes a plan, the planting recipe — seeds, seedlings, and growing instructions. There’s the Pizza Patch, a Flowery Maze to get lost in, a Moon Garden of night-blooming flowers, plus a list of the top 20 plants guaranteed to make gardeners out of kids.

And finally, a must-have for all gardeners: Preserving Summer’s Bounty: A Quick and Easy Guide to Freezing, Canning, and Preserving, and Drying What You Grow includes instructions for harvesting, freezing, canning, preserving, pickling, and drying your herbs and vegetables. This book also includes canning recipes and root cellar use.

Gardening is not for everyone. If the work and planning is too daunting and you have a little extra cash, a weekly visit to your local farmer’s market will get you the same flavors as home-grown food.

Happy growing!

Photo: Amy Grant in her tomato patch

Breakthrough Discovery Uses Sunlight to Create Solar Devices Themselves

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Apr 6, 2014

Researchers at Oregon State University have found a way to make the sun a “one-stop shop” that both produces the materials for solar devices and the energy to power.

The discovery could drastically reduce the carbon footprint of manufacturing solar materials, according to Chemical engineering professor Chih-Hung Chang.

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Former Students Show Teacher, 97, How Much She Meant to Them

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Apr 6, 2014

classroom 1950s teacher Azella Taylor-familyphoto

When she was still traveling, and at 84 she was climbing mountains, someone asked Azella Taylor if she’d ever married and had children.

“I never married,” she responded. “But I have 20 or 25 children.”

Students from Olympia, Washington who were in Azella Taylor’s class still stay in touch decades later, inspired by her independent spirit and unique teaching approach, which often involved puppetry.

Recently they gathered to throw her a 97th birthday party, and they arrive annually for her “December 23rd party”.

“She was our Forrest Gump,” Paige Porter told the Tacoma, Washington News Tribune. “If there was something important that happened, it seemed she’d been part of it.”

A world traveler before becoming a teacher, she had stories about meeting Ernest Hemmingway, Chiang Kai-shek and Ansel Adams.

(WATCH the video below and READ the FULL story from the News Tribune)

Thanks to Judy Ritchie for submitting the link!

3 of Internet’s Biggest Companies are the Greenest: Apple, Google, Facebook

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Apr 5, 2014

Google Apple Facebook-Greenest tech cos-GreenpeaceGraphic

Apple, Google, and Facebook are the powerhouse internet companies all sourcing their energy with renewable power, according to the new Greenpeace annual report on energy sourcing by technology companies.

Apple’s commitment to derive all its energy from renewables like solar and geothermal earned it the number one spot on the list. It surged to the top after building the largest privately owned solar farm at its North Carolina data center.

Facebook, at #2, has made huge strides forward since 2012, and a significant wind energy investment in Iowa, to become one of the clear green internet leaders.

34% of Google’s operations are powered by clean energy earning the massive company the #3 slot. By sheer volume of renewables purchased, it leads the lot.

Amazon.com and Twitter are two black spots on an otherwise green landscape, receiving 3 F’s and a D on each of their renewable report cards and failing miserably in their transparency with regards to energy sources.

– READ about the companies studied at GreenPeace.org

– ANALYSIS at Sydney Morning Herald

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US Finally Regains the Jobs Lost in the Recession

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Apr 5, 2014

The U.S. economy has reached a milestone: It has finally regained all 8.8 million private-sector jobs it lost during the Great Recession. March 2014 job growth figures also signaled that stronger gains could lie ahead. -AP

Meals-on-Wheels for Animals Helps Low-income Pet Owners

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Apr 5, 2014

Meals on Wheels programs and their volunteers deliver hot meals daily to thousands of elderly people nationwide. The food sometimes was being diverted from feeding the elderly, so they could give it to their household pets.

San Diego’s “Animeals” program addresses that problem by providing free pet food to owners who can’t afford it otherwise.

“We feed 250 animals every week,” said a spokesperson in December.

Doing a search on “Animeals” in Google reveals that many programs like this have been serving pets and their owners in other regions of the country too.

(WATCH the AP Video below)

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Homeless Man’s Life Repaired by Support of Strangers and Theatre

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Apr 5, 2014

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With the help of a group in Victoria, Canada calling themselves the Power of 10, a homeless man name George has learned to cook, drive and has passed Grade 10.

“I know it sounds cliché, but I want to be a better man than what I am already,” he says.

Now, George is moving into his own apartment and it is all thanks to the inspiration from a stage play called Home is a Beautiful Word.

The play, produced by the Belfry Theatre in Victoria in January, is based on interviews playwright Joel Bernbaum conducted with local residents about homelessness. The surprising result, beyond the play, was the Power of 10 group, a support network for homeless individuals that founded by Bernbaum and the artistic director Michael Shamata.

(READ the story from the Globe and Mail – Watch a clip from the play below)

Thanks to Craig Withers for submitting the link!

Google Gives $600K to Calif. Teachers to Spend in Classrooms

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Apr 4, 2014

Because most teachers spend their own money to simply buy classroom supplies, imagine the joy across San Francisco area schools last week, when 604 teachers opened the mail to discover that Google would spend more than $600,000 to fund special requests teachers made for outside money to fund pet projects.

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‘HACKtivation’ Matches Nonprofits Serving Homeless With Tech Talent

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Apr 4, 2014

HACKtivation-event-photo by-ReallocateDotOrg

Nearly 100 mostly tech workers acted as angels this weekend by donating their expertise to a dozen homeless nonprofit organizations in San Francisco.

The HACKtivation for the Homeless the last weekend in March paired nonprofit organizations with volunteers to address technical challenges that would otherwise be out of reach for the cash-strapped organizations.

(READ the story from the CS Monitor)

FDA Approves Drug That Reverses Heroin Overdoses

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Apr 4, 2014

After steadily increasing for more than a decade, drug overdose deaths, driven largely by pain prescription drugs like oxicodone, are now the leading cause of injury death in the United States – surpassing motor vehicle crashes.

In response, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration yesterday approved a prescription treatment that can be used by family members or caregivers in an emergency to aid a person who may be overdosing on heroin, morphine or other opiates. The injection treatment rapidly delivers a single dose of the drug naloxone via a hand-held auto-injector that can be carried in a pocket or stored in a medicine cabinet.

Naloxone is the standard treatment medication that rapidly reverses the effects of opioid overdose, characterized by decreased breathing or heart rates, or loss of consciousness. However, existing naloxone drugs require administration via syringe and are most commonly used by trained medical personnel in emergency departments and ambulances.

“Overdose and death resulting from misuse and abuse of both prescription and illicit heroin has become a major public health concern in the United States,” said Bob Rappaport, M.D., director of the Division of Anesthesia, Analgesia, and Addiction Products for the FDA. “Evzio is the first combination drug-device product designed to deliver a dose of naloxone for administration outside of a health care setting. Making this product available could save lives by facilitating earlier use of the drug in emergency situations.”

Once activated, the device provides verbal instruction to the user describing how to deliver the medication, similar to automated defibrillators.

Because naloxone may not work as long as opioids, repeat doses may be needed and the person administering Evzio should seek further, immediate medical attention on the patient’s behalf.

The FDA reviewed Evzio under the agency’s priority review program, which provides for an expedited review of drugs that appear to provide safe and effective therapy when no satisfactory alternative therapy exists, or offer significant improvement compared to marketed products. The product was granted a fast-track designation, a process designed to facilitate the development, and expedite the review of drugs to treat serious conditions and fill an unmet medical need.

Evzio’s approval is also the result of efforts by several federal agencies, including the White House’s Office of National Drug Control Policy since 2012.

(Source: FDA)

Neuroscience Sleep Program Free to Any Bullied Youth Who Needs Healing

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Apr 4, 2014

When Teri Mahaney’s grandson was relentlessly bullied and suffered negative effects, she created an audio program to play while he fell asleep. The positive affirmations helped to guide the boy down a healing path, so she decided to give away the program to other youth who could benefit, rather than selling them as a businesswoman through her SuperSleep line of programs.

Mahaney uses theta brain wave technology to create recordings to be played during sleep. “The theta state, or sleep state, is when our brains download the day’s events and consolidate its memories,” said Mahaney. “My programs simply neutralize the negative memories and introduce new positive thought patterns, so the person can heal and move on – usually better than before.”

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