Oliver Sacks wrote in the New York Times, “My father, who lived to 94, often said that the 80s had been one of the most enjoyable decades of his life. He felt, as I begin to feel, not a shrinking but an enlargement of mental life and perspective.”
“Eighty! I can hardly believe it.”
His 80th birthday is today, but he still feels like the youngest guy in the room.
Solar Impulse has had a long journey since May 3, when the manned plane began its first flight across the U.S., flying day and night without a single drop of fuel.
At 11:09 p.m. local time Saturday, Solar Impulse safely touched down in New York City, bringing its journey to a close.
But the adventure, which started as an idea in Switzerland, continues to inspire the world. Next up, a circumnavigation of the globe.
As a foster child, Brittney finished her freshman year with a 0.00 GPA and just didn’t care. And yet four years later she is graduating from Novato High School, with honors, and going to college.
What changed? She got the right foster parents — Roy and Claudia Asprer.
Only about a 3 percent of foster kids go to college. But your odds improve dramatically if you’re one of the 90 lucky children who have been nurtured and guided by Claudia and Roy.
One of the world’s largest offshore wind farms has been opened by Prime Minister David Cameron off the east Kent coast.
The London Array has been built in the Thames Estuary – 10 miles north of Ramsgate.
Its backers say the 175 turbines will produce enough electricity to power nearly 500,000 homes.
The Sacramento Food Bank used to hand out bags of processed foods, carbohydrate-laden government commodities and day-old breads and sweets.
One day five years ago, then-new CEO Blake Young had an epiphany: “I kept seeing people coming through the line and they were getting fatter and fatter. I realized we were killing them.”
So Young set about to remake how food banks operate, especially ones that are situated in California’s rich agricultural heartland.
From the lawns of Wimbledon to the lochs of Scotland, all of Britain can celebrate.
Andy Murray made it possible Sunday, winning his country’s hallowed tennis tournament to become the first British man in 77 years to raise the trophy at the All England Club.
Yes, this was history, and Murray’s hard-fought 6-4, 7-5, 6-4 victory over top-seeded Novak Djokovic was a fitting close to nearly eight decades of British frustration in its own backyard.
The Mayor of Newark, N.J. has saved another dog — after getting a Tweet from someone reporting that the dog was locked in a small crate.
Cory Booker responded to the tweet on Thursday and traveled to the scene to investigate.
In January, the mayor rescued a freezing dog from the cold. And the year before, he saved a neighbor from a burning building.
Among the more than 2,500 breweries in the United States, MillerCoors said it has accomplished something no other brewer can claim: a zero-waste factory.
MillerCoors changed its production process at its largest facility, in Golden, Colo., so it reuses or recycles 100 percent of the waste it generates, including all glass, paperboard, plastics, metal and brewing byproducts, such as spent grain. No waste is sent to any landfill.
Palestinian singer Mohammad Assaf received world-wide media coverage recently for winning the second season of “Arab Idol” and bringing joy to the Palestinian people.
Dear Mohammad Assaf,
You may be wondering why I, a young Israeli, am writing you, the winner of Arab Idol from Gaza City.
You may think we are not alike. True. We were raised an hour away from each other, but lived light-years apart: you in Gaza City and me in Jerusalem. At many crossroads, we took different paths. At 20 you sang at weddings, whereas I was serving in the Israeli Defence Forces. However, we have much in common: we are both young, we have seen too much blood and we both call this piece of land home.
You are the most beloved young Palestinian today. When you sang in the Arab Idol finals, you charmed Arabs and non-Arabs worldwide. I wanted to write to you because for people in Ramallah and Khan-Yunis you are not only charming, you are a source of hope — rare commodities for all of us living between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.
A married couple, who have spent years battling with depression, have a new lease a life after taking part in a positive-thinking workshop.
Laura and Gemma Ellison, from Latchford, were determined to close the negative chapters in their lives so signed up to Be Your Own Kind Of Beautiful – a series of workshops which aim to empower, enlighten and heal peoples’ minds.
In his fourth year as CEO for the Rusal Aluminum company, rather than accepting a bonus for himself, Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska will use the money to reward his employees.
The corporate executive is using his $3 million bonus to purchase shares for approximately 120 employees.
In Oregon, where the cost of tuition has soared as public funding for higher education declined, the state legislature this week approved an idea called Pay It Forward.
The program would call for students to attend public universities tuition- and loan-free. In exchange, students would have three percent deducted from their post-graduation paychecks for about a quarter-century. The money would go into a fund to pay for future students.
Four Iowa kids exploring a cool creek found a 20,000-year-old mastodon tooth turned upside-down like a rock beneath the water.
The five-pound (2.5 kilo) tooth is still attached to the huge roots.
Professors say because of the good condition of the tooth, there could be even more remains from the Ice Age animal in this same creek where the tooth was found in the northeast region of the state.
Here’s another story about a 3-year-old diagnosed with autism. She hadn’t been performing the “normal” tasks like speaking, playing, and interacting with others, but beneath the facade was a mind and personality busy with other talents.
Iris Grace Halmshaw has benefitted from therapy, since her diagnosis in 2011. Her anxiety levels and sleep are much improved. Painting is one of the talents that have come pouring forth as a result. Rather than talking, she can express herself through art.
Reminiscent of Monet, the little girl’s ethereal artwork has amazed not only her parents, but others who have looked at her work.
After the finale of Friends in 2004, Matthew Perry had been in and out of rehab programs trying to overcome addiction to alcohol and pain medication.
Now sober, Perry, who played Chandler on the NBC hit, is on a mission to help other addicts find a path to recovery.
In fact, the “Friends” star has turned his beautiful beachfront cliffside house in Malibu, Calif., into a sober living residence where men can transition from rehab to the real world.
The Virginia family sold its first Chesapeake Bay oysters in 1899 to supplement their farming income. But the Croxtons’ son, who took over the Rappahannock River Oyster business, ultimately cautioned his own kids against it because pollution, disease and over-fishing were wiping out the species.
But in 2001, two 4th generation cousins felt nostalgic about their grandfather and drawn to their family’s heritage. Less than two years after they started, Travis and Ryan Croxton sold their first oysters to a top New York City restaurant.
A 16-year-old girl from Istanbul, Turkey spent two years perfecting a plastic created from banana peels, substituting fruit waste for the typical petroleum base.
On Thursday, Elif Bilgin’s idea paid off when Scientific American named her the winner of its $50,000 Science in Action prize, a stepping stone to the Google Science Fair for young inventors in California this September.
“The method I designed is so simple, it is possible to say that one could actually do it at home,” writes Elif on her Google Science Fair page.
(READ the announcement from Scientific American)
Today, on July 4th, the Statue of Liberty will be reopened, inviting visitors to visit the pedestal and the crown for the first time since Superstorm Sandy pummeled the Mid-Atlantic region last fall.
Visiting Liberty Island, or circling it in on the ferry is one of the most rewarding experiences of any trip to New York City.
Three years after the Panchots received the ultimate bad news delivered on their doorstep by two soldiers, a compassionate response from a stranger arrived via FedEx truck, essentially delivering the memory of their son Dale, back home.
“There’s definitely a lot of love going in that box,” says goat rancher and artist, Kaziah Hancock.
She started Project Compassion, a fund that helps provide personal hand-painted portraits of soldiers killed in action, “so their faces will never be forgotten.”
It started years ago when Kaziah painted a portrait of Utah’s first fallen soldier. Since then, she has personally painted on canvas — and framed — over 800 portraits of US soldiers killed in action and shipped them across the country as gifts for their families.
Though her landscapes in oil normally sell for thousands of dollars, Kaziah accepts no money from a soldier’s family.
She started the non-profit organization (www.heropaintings.com), so many more tributes could be painted. Three other artists are now creating portraits; more than 2,500 families have received them as gifts.
Visit her website to see the portraits that Kaziah painted in Manti, Utah.
(MUST SEE the unforgettable video from KARE-TV)
In honor of Independence Day, Clint Carter of Men’s Health magazine shares some items for your closet, your yard and your kid that all support companies that have made products in the United States — including Stetson hats, New Balance shoes, Crayola Crayons and a company that makes cutting boards in the shape of any of the 50 states, which you can see here: aheirloom.myshopify.com.
