Researchers at Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, near Oxford have invented a synthetic fuel, which costs just $1.50 per gallon and could run in existing cars. Because it is hydrogen based, it would produce zero carbon emissions.
The new technology, coming as gasoline prices soar, could be available in as little as three years.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, a longtime defender of large endangered animals announced that Russia has banned the hunting of polar bears this year, even for the indigenous people in far-eastern Russia across the Bering Strait, for whom officials have said hunting is vital.
Around 100 polar bears a year have been killed in Alaska in recent years, too.
Very poor women in Peru are improving the lives of their families, thanks to business smarts, determination and a small business micro loan from Finca Peru.
The family-run social enterprise helps educate its 16,000 micro-borrowers in savvy local business growth, without focusing on financial return or profit.
Most people dump junk mail like catalogues, coupons and menus straight in the bin.
But not Sandhi Schimmel Gold, from Phoenix, Arizona. She earns a small fortune from her creations made out of trash that arrives in her mailbox.
Gold, 56, makes intricate collages that sell for up to $10,000 a portrait – and all of her materials, apart from glue, don’t cost a dime.
Businesses in February posted the largest number of job openings in more than two years, evidence that hiring is picking up as the United States economy grows. A rise in employment advertisements is the latest sign that companies are stepping up hiring.
Despite having been born without lower arms, fifth-grader Nicholas Maxim received an award Monday from the Zaner-Bloser National Handwriting Contest.
The judges were so moved by the entry – sent by Nick’s teacher – they created an entirely new award for physically-challenged kids, and named it after the Maine youngster.
Despite having been born without lower arms, fifth-grader Nicholas Maxim received an award Monday from the Zaner-Bloser National Handwriting Contest.
The judges were so moved by the entry – sent by Nick’s teacher – they created an entirely new award for physically-challenged kids, and named it after the Maine youngster.
In their largest clean energy investment to date, Google will contribute $168 million to the new Ivanpah solar energy power plant under construction in California’s Mojave Desert.
Investment in the 370-megawatt BrightSource Energy project brings the total amount injected by Google into the clean energy sector to $250 million.
In their largest clean energy investment to date, Google will contribute $168 million to the new Ivanpah solar energy power plant under construction in California’s Mojave Desert.
Investment in the 370-megawatt BrightSource Energy project brings the total amount injected by Google into the clean energy sector to $250 million.
Oregon lawmakers from both sides of the aisle included snippets from the song lyrics to “Never Gonna Give You Up” into their speeches on the House floor and then stitched them together to make a video for April Fool’s Day.
“Your heart’s been aching / but you’re too shy to say it” were two lines that were particularly hard to get into speeches, especially considering that the rules of the game mandated that the lawmaker on the floor could not ask for extra time and had to work in the phrase assigned to them in a way that was germaine to what they were talking about.
WATCH the video below and read/listen to the FULL story at NPR…
After an intense three-year campaign, Africa’s first woman head of state, Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, has won international forgiveness of its crushing $4.9 billion debt, making way for the revitalization of the war-ravaged West African country.
Late last summer, Africa’s “Iron Lady” achieved a sound financial footing making the impoverished country much more attractive to foreign investors, who are pumping life into its economy.
My 12-year-old son Tim was killed on 20 March 1993 by a bomb planted by the Irish Republican Army in Warrington, England. He was shopping for football shorts associated with his favourite English football team, Everton, when the bomb exploded. Tim sustained horrific facial injuries from which he died five days later.
Tim’s death shattered my life and the lives of my wife Wendy, his older brother Dom, then 14 years old, and his younger sister, Abigail, then 11 years old. At the time, our pain and grief was too great to imagine that we could ever harness it to help others.
A few years later, Wendy and I established the Tim Parry Johnathan Ball Foundation for Peace. Initially the foundation was set up to help resolve the conflict between Britain and Ireland by placing victims at the heart of the healing and reconciliation process, and building understanding and friendships between individuals and communities that were divided across sectarian lines.
The Foundation’s first activity was The Tim Parry Scholarship exchange programme, which brought youth from Belfast, Dublin and Warrington together, challenging them to counter their prejudice, intolerance and bigotry which underpinned the conflict. So successful was the programme in changing youths’ attitudes toward one another that we committed ourselves to building a unique Peace Centre where we could expand our programmes beyond the conflict that led to Tim’s death to address other conflicts around the world.
By that time, the terrorist attacks in Britain, arising from the troubles with Northern Ireland, had all but ended when several years later they were replaced by terrorist attacks of a very different kind, evidenced by the devastation in London on 7 July 2005 when suicide bombers detonated bombs in the Underground during morning rush hour, killing 56 people and injuring over 700 more.
In this post-9/11 era, the emphasis of our work shifted dramatically towards interfaith and inter-racial relations in the UK, compelling us to create programmes for victims of all terrorist incidents to become, like us, ”survivors”.
Following the 7 July attacks in London, we were asked to teach the lessons we had learned and the skills we had developed in a high school in South Leeds where interracial and interfaith conflict between students was so serious that the police were on call and on site, daily.
To meet this challenge, we designed and delivered a leadership development programme to three groups of students and asked them to apply the programme, which countered racism and taught alternatives to violence, in their own style in interactions with the other 1,500 students in the school. The results have been remarkable in bridging the school’s interracial and inter-religious divides, and turning it into more of a tolerant, understanding community. This programme’s success has been officially acknowledged as groundbreaking by the British government.
In 2006, we hosted our first mixed Palestinian/Israeli group at the Peace Centre. The atmosphere between the two groups was anything but cordial and was, in fact, hostile. They did not know me, nor did they understand the symbolic importance of the Peace Centre until I addressed them. My message was simple: if my wife and I could do something positive after what we’d been through – losing Tim – so could they! And the message, in its simplicity, profoundly changed their behaviour. They crossed the floor and spoke to one another for the first time.
This is the power of dialogue.
We also developed the Survivors for Peace programme, which brings together victims and perpetrators of politically motivated terror attacks. Amongst those actively engaged in this programme is a victim who was injured when she was on a London bus that was blown apart on 7 July. She fully embraces the spirit and ethos of our work and has worked with British Muslims engaged in the programme.
The death of my son Tim devastated my family but it also propelled us to bring about powerful and positive change – in our lives and in those of others. Tim’s Foundation for Peace has helped thousands of individuals to take proactive, peaceful steps towards solving some of today’s most intractable conflicts.
Colin Parry is Director and Founder of the Tim Parry Johnathan Ball Foundation for Peace.
(Reprinted with permission of Common Ground News Service – CGNews)
My 12-year-old son Tim was killed on 20 March 1993 by a bomb planted by the Irish Republican Army in Warrington, England. He was shopping for football shorts associated with his favourite English football team, Everton, when the bomb exploded. Tim sustained horrific facial injuries from which he died five days later.
Tim’s death shattered my life and the lives of my wife Wendy, his older brother Dom, then 14 years old, and his younger sister, Abigail, then 11 years old. At the time, our pain and grief was too great to imagine that we could ever harness it to help others.
Anyone who has ever cried over the death of a pet will see this as great news, especially if you live near Ashland, Oregon.
Firefighters in southern Oregon now not only risk life and limb for fellow townspeople, but also for their furred, feathered and slithering neighbors.
At 17 years old, not only did Wilson Patton found a new, clever fundraising vehicle for charity, he also drove attention to the cause by breaking a Guinness World Record.
Standing on a balance board for nearly two hours, the teen’s sweat and pain were more than worth it. Using his gymnast background, Patton persevered on behalf of his Charity Bandz non-profit organization and the people it ultimately serves.
At 17 years old, not only did Wilson Patton found a new, clever fundraising vehicle for charity, he also drove attention to the cause by breaking a Guinness World Record.
Standing on a balance board for nearly two hours, the teen’s sweat and pain were more than worth it. Using his gymnast background, Patton persevered on behalf of his Charity Bandz non-profit organization and the people it ultimately serves.
Volunteering abroad between high school and college helps students to learn teamwork and build leadership skills, says Abigail Falik who has launched a non-profit called Global Citizen Year.
A graduate of Stanford University and Harvard Business School, Ms. Falik went to Brazil in her late teens to help street kids before later founding her one-of-a-kind, award-winning program in 2008.
As America’s young adults find themselves in a new global economy and job market, her idea has come to fruition at exactly the right moment.
(READ the story in CS Monitor)
A growing band of British economists, politicians and academics is thinking seriously about happiness — and they are putting theory into practice by starting a “mass movement for a happier society.”
Action for Happiness launched Tuesday in London, encouraging hugging, meditation and random acts of kindness. It is getting under way as the British government asks statisticians to measure the economically battered nation’s well-being.
(READ the article in the Toronto Star)
Bay Area scientists reported Monday that aspirin is proving to be a preventative breakthrough in an especially deadly common cancer — pancreatic cancer.
After being diagnosed, 95 percent of patients are dead in five years, but more than half die within six months.
Prof. Matthias Hebrok, a UCSF researcher told KTVU that his team’s remarkable discovery may help prevent this killer from getting started by reducing inflammation.
Since 2003, social and emotional learning has been a legislative mandate in Illinois. The programs are implemented to a greater or lesser degree in each school based on interest and finances. My son’s school is going at it like gangbusters.
Each week, my son and his fellow kindergartners, for instance, sit on the floor with their teacher and do exercises that help them to identify emotions (both others’ and their own), solve conflicts and reduce frustration. They also learn not to be bystanders. They give a mean handshake.
(READ the article in the Chicago Tribune)
