If you are looking for something fun and fantastic to do with family and friends, head out to America’s national parks this week where nature and history come together — and it’s all free.
The National Park Service presents National Park Week, a presidentially proclaimed celebration of our national heritage. From Saturday April 20 through Sunday, April 28 every national park will have free admission.
HealthyWage and other websites now offer money in exchange for improving your health and fitness.
The company offers $10,000 when teams of five compete to lose weight in a healthy way. Its 10% Challenge allows users to double their money if they lose 10% of their weight in six months; and the BMI Challenge pays users $100 to go from an obese BMI to a healthy BMI in 12 months.
Smart phones are more sophisticated than ever, yet the batteries that power them have remained relatively archaic – until now.
Scientists at the University of Illinois have managed to develop the most powerful microbatteries ever created, making them almost 1000 times stronger than existing lithium batteries and paving the way for smartphones that could be charged in just one second.
Led by William P. King, a professor of mechanical science and engineering, the researchers published their results in the April 16 issue of Nature Communications.
A program to establish a wild population of Tasmanian devils free from facial tumors is showing early signs of success.
In response to the disease that has already killed up to 90 percent of the species, the Save The Devil program released 15 healthy devils on Maria Island, off the state’s east coast, in November.
Wildlife biologist Phil Wise says they have already started breeding.
A Reddit user posted this photo taken by his friend who lives in Watertown where families were ordered yesterday to stay indoors during a manhunt for the Marathon bomber suspect.
The family asked if they could go get milk for their 16 month old son. A policeman, working long hours already, went to the store for them and delivered the milk to the house.
The Watertown resident told Reddit user ZanePerry that the cop was very humble and would not want the publicity.
UPDATE: The policeman was later identified as a policeman from the Brookline community who was helping out in Watertown.
But, ZanePerry deciding to post the photo without permission gave the rest of us a chance to feel a happy warmth for the law enforcement community of Boston.
(Original photo on Imgur – Post on Reddit)
Brazil will provide 2.4 billion reais ($1.19 billion) of cheap loans and grants for renewable- energy research projects through 2016 as part of a government effort to spur investment in innovation.
The Inova Energia program is intended to create a culture of innovation in Brazil’s energy industry encouraging projects like efficient power lines connecting remote hydroelectric dams in the Amazon or factories that make silicon for use in solar panels.
From passing out lollipops to distributing free iced tea and hugs outside the library at finals, Happiness clubs on college campuses around the country are aiming to uplift their peers throughout the academic year.
Quick, simple attempts to make people feel special dominate these clubs’ agendas, such as a flash mobs or giving out compliments to pedestrians.
A wall at Harvard University is lined with Post-it notes about what makes students happy, messages that remind undergraduates to smile during finals, said junior Emily Lowe, 21, Happiness Project co-director.
(READ the story in USA Today)
Donors have flooded crowdfunding campaigns set up for individual victims of Monday’s bombings at the Boston Marathon, raising more than $1 million in a matter of days.
“Help for Patrick and Jess” — a campaign on crowd fundraising site GiveForward.com — raised $200,000 within 24 hours to benefit Patrick and Jessica Downes, newlyweds who both required leg amputation. As of this morning the campaign has raised $518,971.
Many of the donors are strangers to the couple, like the New Jersey resident who gave $18 and wrote, “You seem like a young couple that represents the best that our great Country can produce… While we don’t know each other, today your family is my family, your goals are our goals, your recovery is our recovery.”
The “Celeste & Sydney Recovery Fund,” set up on GoFundMe.com has also raised nearly a half million dollars for Celeste Corcoran and her teenage daughter Sydney, both severely injured by the blast.
(READ the story at CNN Money)
Whole Foods Market has partnered with Gotham Greens to build the nation’s first commercial-scale rooftop greenhouse for growing year-round local produce atop the store in Brooklyn.
The 20,000-square-foot greenhouse, currently under construction along with the forthcoming Whole Foods Market store in Gowanus, is scheduled to open later this fall. Gotham Greens will use the space to grow premium quality, pesticide-free produce for sale in Whole Foods Market locations throughout New York City.
Twelve-year-old Luka suffers from muscular dystrophy – a cruel degenerative disease which confines him to a wheelchair and will make him weaker and weaker over time.
But a friend and photographer Matej Peljhan has allowed him to create an imaginary world where he can shoot a basketball, climb stairs and even perform a handstand.
The magic is created when she places objects on the ground, and shoots the photos from above.
(READ the story w/ more photos from Daily Mail)
Infant mortality in the U.S. has declined 12% since 2005 after holding steady for many years, according to data released Wednesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The decreased rate highlighted improvements among all major racial and ethnic groups, the government report says. Some of the biggest gains were seen in Southern states.
The Harding family in Montgomery, Ala., decided to make studying fun by cultivating their kids’ natural curiosity and passions while they studied their lessons. They achieved amazing results: six children who started taking college classes before they were even teens.
Mona Lisa Harding has ten children (some already grown) and has home-schooled them all in the basics.
A heart attack can be one of the most traumatizing events in an individual’s life. But new research may help mend survivors’ ailing hearts.
In a recent study, a team of UW researchers discovered that gene therapy may be able to increase heart muscle function and strengthen weak hearts.
When researchers tested the new gene therapy approach on mice, it acted like a ‘super-fuel’ for the machinery of the heart.
Homes and buildings chilled without air conditioners. Car interiors that don’t heat up in the summer sun. Tapping the frigid expanses of outer space to cool the planet. Science fiction, you say? Well, not any more.
A Stanford team has designed an entirely new form of cooling panel that chills even with the sun at high noon. Such a panel could vastly improve the daylight cooling of buildings, cars and other structures by reflecting sunlight back into the chilly vacuum of space.
The power of social media was revealed on Reddit when regulars there rallied to provide aid to victims of the Boston Marathon bombings. Overnight, heroes were recognized and thousands donated everything from pizzas to places to take a hot shower or just recharge a cellphone.
Reddit provided a forum to coordinate aid for victims including food, transportation and housing. Users of the popular website offered hundreds of thousands of frequent flyer miles for those who needed to leave Boston and to victims’ family members who needed a flight into the city.
(READ the story in the Christian Science Monitor)
A Canadian man’s message in a bottle — a promise made 28 years ago to write to a woman named Mary — has been discovered in Croatia by a local surfer.
The note read, “Mary, you really are a great person. I hope we can keep in correspondence. I said I would write.
Your friend always,
Jonathon, Nova Scotia, 1985″
Harris Rosen owns seven hotels in Orlando, Florida, but hasn’t always been wealthy. The 73-year-old grew up a son of poor immigrants in New York City.
Twenty years ago, having amassed a fortune, Rosen decided to give back. He targeted the Orlando neighborhood of Tangelo Park — a crime-infested place where people were afraid to walk down the street and the high school graduation rate was 25 percent.
The first thing he did was provide day care for every parent. Next, he offered to pay the Florida state college tuition for any student from his adopted community of 2500 residents.
It was amazing what Rosen’s nine million dollar investment accomplished. Today, the crime rate has been cut in half and the graduation rate is near one hundred percent.
“When people have the resources to go and succeed, there’s a ripple effect,” said one high school senior who was part of the first pre-K class in the Tangelo Park Program. “It becomes generational. No one in my family ever went to college before, but now, my baby sister can’t even picture a life without college. My mother even went back and got her degree. I showed her that she could do it.”
(WATCH the video below from NBC, or READ the story from Central Florida University)
In what might be the sweetest resignation story ever told, Chris Holmes, 31, quit his secure airport job in England by handing in a cake printed with a message saying, he was quitting.
He wanted to pursue his passion of owning and operating his own cake-decorating business.
Registration has surged for the annual race since Monday and participants are being encouraged to honor the victims of the explosions by wearing the Boston Marathon colors of yellow and blue. There will also be an official tribute at the start line.
Jamie Pitblado, vice-president of promotion and community investment at The Vancouver Sun and Province, said 691 new participants signed up Monday, compared to 343 on the same day last year.
Integrative medicine regimens, including daily meditation, are being prescribed by doctors at hospitals and clinics across the country.
Recent research has found that meditation can lower blood pressure and help patients with chronic illness cope with pain and depression.
In a study published last year, meditation sharply reduced the risk of heart attack or stroke among a group of African-Americans with heart disease.
