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.
Called “The Nile of North America, the Colorado River flowed freely across the Mexico border 50 years ago and fed the delta to the sea. Until the 1960’s, when the dam in Glen Canyon was built along with a series of canals built to divert the water.
After decades of dismay in Mexico over the state of the delta, there is reason for some optimism.
In the fall of 1972, then-President Richard Nixon signed the Marine Mammal Protection Act, providing sweeping protections for whales, dolphins, seals and other species swimming in U.S. waters whose populations had dwindled due to commercial fishing and accidental killing.
More than 40 years later, a new report shows that the law has been effective: It not only prevented extinctions that seemed imminent, but also helped some species bounce back in strong numbers, researchers say.
(READ the story in LiveScience.com)
The number of Americans who say things are going well in the country has reached 50% for the first time in more than six years, according to a new national poll from CNN.
Mr. Rogers famously answered the question of what to tell children when scary things happen on the news. It holds true for all of us if we want to learn about what happened in Boston yesterday: “Look for the helpers.”
We can always focus on the actions of the helpers, if we want to feel better.
1) College fraternities on Commonwealth Avenue offered food and beverages to runners and passersby walking from the scene of the explosions. (right)
2) Cell phone service was shut down in the city so locals were unlocking their WiFi service so people could easily connect and reach out via email and social media.
3) NBC Sports reported that runners in the Boston Marathon who crossed the finish line continued to run to the nearby hospital to volunteer to give blood. Later, the Boston area Red Cross tweeted, “Due to the generosity of our donors, we don’t need blood at this time.”
4) New England Patriots athlete Joe Andruzzi was photographed helping an injured woman after the blast. Deadspin reported that Joe’s Twitter feed fell silent while he continued helping.
5) An inspiring spreadsheet was created using Google Docs on Gmail for people to donate rooms, rides and couches to people who were stranded or in need. Google itself also set up a webpage as a “People finder” for helping loved ones to connect and share information.
6) A Boston area restaurant, El Pelon Taqueria opened its doors to runners and locals, tweeting, “We have cold drinks, bathrooms, place to charge a phone and a calm place to sit”. They never shut their doors, apparently giving away refreshments, with the manager tweeting, “my coworkers+staff deserve alot of credit, not one blinked when ask(ed), not one when home when they could, those not working came in”.
(With thanks to the Business Insider for some of the tips)
“42” is an old-fashioned inspirational and ultimately uplifting drama about perseverance in the face of turbulent opposition. And the greatest credit to writer-director Brian Helgeland is that none of this is shown through grand melodramatic movie monologues, but through the simple restraint of Chadwick Boseman’s portrayal of a determined and resilient Jackie Robinson.
From the smoke in Boston today heartening stories arose of kindness emerging from tragedy: people on Twitter urging others to note the people who run towards the explosions, not a way from them; stories of heroism from runners.
To the Nebraska college football team and fans, this play was truly one of your finest moments the school has ever seen. Little Jack Hoffman, who has cancer, led a very special Husker play into the end zone with the ball.
Watch the heartwarming video below…
The Harvard Business School took some time last week to show their gratitude for all the work that goes into the MBA experience.
The Give Thanks project involved faculty and students being kind to the staff who works so hard every day.
The school’s Harbus News reported some plans to deliver more than 900 personally written thank-you notes, as well as bringing coffee and bagels to the staff break room.
“It’s our hope that these small demonstrations serve as a catalyst to remind us all to be thankful on an ongoing basis for all that the staff does for us,” wrote Barnes Hauptfuhrer, in the Harbus Online.
(WATCH the video they made below – READ the full story in the Harbus Online)
Recycling rivalries added another level of “madness” to March this year, as 523 schools competed in the RecycleMania Tournament, harnessing the competitive spirit to increase campus recycling and waste reduction.
Colleges and universities across the United States and Canada participated in the eight-week competition in which schools are ranked according to the amount of recyclable materials and food waste they collect. Between the Feb. 3 and March 30, participating schools collectively recovered 90.3 million pounds of recyclables and organic materials — the equivalent of preventing the release of nearly 121,436 metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
Thomas Hircock first visited India when he was 12 years old and joined his father on a business trip. He was shocked by the poverty and now he’s helping children of the ‘Untouchable’ caste by giving them bikes.
The youngsters wanted bikes so they could travel to school many miles away and lift themselves out of poverty.
