British adventurer Felicity Aston became the first athlete ever to ski across Antarctica alone, using only her own muscle power.
She completed the crossing of the icy continent today, becoming the first woman to make the trek alone on skis. She accomplished her goal in 59 days, pulling two sleds with supplies for 1083 miles (1744 km) from her starting point on the Leverett Glacier on Nov. 25.
Egypt’s military ruler has pardoned 1,959 people convicted by military courts in the year since President Hosni Mubarak’s ouster, including activist Michael Nabil whose hunger strike had brought him close to death.
The pardon comes just four days before the first anniversary of the Egyptian uprising which began on January 25 igniting the Arab Spring protests that swept the region.
Chinese around the world will be wearing lots of red today, to celebrate the Lunar New Year marking the end of the disaster-filled “Year of the Rabbit” and to usher in a new year with more prosperity.
January 23 begins the Year of the Dragon, which should bring relief following 2011, which was foreseen by the Chinese calendar as a “very bad year.” (Remember the bevy of natural disasters (Japan’s tsunami, New Zealand’s earthquake, Joplin’s tornado and Mississippi’s flood, to name a few?)
“The dragon in Chinese culture is signified as very powerful. Very powerful and very strong,” says Peter Lung, a Chinese zodiac expert at World of Feng Shui. “America will be very strong this year.”
Most people stay up late on the eve of the lunar New Year, the most festive season for the Chinese, watching TV specials, eating dumplings and other snacks and cozying up with their families. At midnight they light fireworks, which continues for many days thereafter.
The fireworks and the red decorations in front of many homes and businesses were originally intended to ward off bad influences.
READ more in two articles: One in China’s People Daily, which tells you how to celebrate using the traditional customs of the Chinese; and, in the Las Vegas Review-Journal, which forecasts the New Year ahead, including one for President Obama, who was born in the Year of the Ox.
Chinese around the world will be wearing lots of red today, to celebrate the Lunar New Year marking the end of the disaster-filled “Year of the Rabbit” and to usher in a new year with more prosperity.
January 23 begins the Year of the Dragon, which should bring relief following 2011, which was foreseen by the Chinese calendar as a “very bad year.” (Remember the bevy of natural disasters (Japan’s tsunami, New Zealand’s earthquake, Joplin’s tornado and Mississippi’s flood, to name a few?)
“The dragon in Chinese culture is signified as very powerful. Very powerful and very strong,” says Peter Lung, a Chinese zodiac expert at World of Feng Shui. “America will be very strong this year.”
Children who get more exercise also tend to do better in school, whether the exercise comes as recess, physical education classes or getting exercise on the way to school, according to an international study.
The findings, published in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, come as many U.S. schools are cutting recess and P.E. classes in favor of more academic test preparation.
U.S. home sales hit an 11-month high in December and the number of properties on the market was the fewest in nearly seven years, pointing to a nascent recovery in the housing sector.
The National Association of Realtors said on Friday existing home sales increased 5 percent, marking the third straight monthly increase, with all four of the nation’s regions recording gains.
Vittana, the Seattle non-profit that’s facilitating micro-loans to students in developing countries, has received a $250,000 grant from Google.
Seattle tech CEOs are also backing the non-profit Vittana, whose founder Kushal Chakrabarti — a former Amazon.com employee — says that hundreds of students are getting Vittana loans every month across four continents.
When it comes to education in the developing world, student loans simply don’t exist. Although microfinancing usually raises funds for small businesses, the Seattle-based Vittana has been helping students around the world graduate from post-secondary schools by asking donors to pay for their tuition.
With more international boats patrolling the high seas, piracy in 2011 dropped for the first time in five years. Pirate attacks in the South China Sea were cut by almost two thirds and Bangladesh incidents plunged by more than half. -Associated Press
Over the past 12 years, the world has made stunning progress toward the goal of increasing the number of children attending primary school — adding 37 million kids to school rolls, an increase of 35 percent. – NY Times
Energy experts believe that seaweed holds enormous potential as a biofuel alternative to coal and oil, and US scientists say they have unlocked the secret of turning its complex sugar into energy.
Unlike other microbes before, the Berkeley, Cal., team engineered a form of E. coli bacteria that can digest all the seaweed’s sugars into ethanol, potentially making it a cost-competitive alternative to petroleum fuel, without the use of agricultural land, said the report yesterday in the journal Science.
New York high school senior Samantha Garvey appeared Thursday as a guest on the “Ellen” talk show, where she received a $50,000 scholarship from AT&T to the college of her choice.
Last week, Garvey was named a semifinalist in the prestigious Intel science contest. The story of the aspiring marine biologist attracted national attention after it was reported that she and her family were forced to move to a homeless shelter on New Year’s Eve. (See original story on GNN.)
She hopes to attend either Brown or Yale universities.
(READ the AP story in Atlanta Journal-Constitution)
Over the past 12 years, the world has made stunning progress toward the goal of having more children attend primary school.
In sub-Saharan Africa, enrollment in primary school is up 18 percent; and globally, we added 37 million kids to school rolls, an increase of 35 percent — a huge achievement.
Countries have made progress on this UN Millennium Goal by abolishing school fees, building schools in remote areas, switching the language of instruction to the one the children actually speak and giving families incentive to send children to school.
A year and a day after she set out to sail single-handed around the globe, Dutch teenager Laura Dekker will finish her 27,000 mile voyage on Saturday.
Miss Dekker, who is 16 years and four months old, has cut six months off the unofficial record set in 2010 by Australian teenager Jessica Watson, who was days away from her 17th birthday when she completed her own non-stop voyage.
The voyage, on a 38 ft boat called Guppy, also raised money for Sea Shepherd Netherlands, an organization whose mission is to end the slaughter of wildlife in the world’s oceans.
(READ the story at the Telegraph)
The billionaire philanthropist David M. Rubenstein will donate $7.5 million to help fix the shuttered, earthquake-damaged Washington Monument, government officials announced Thursday.
The gift once again confirmed Rubenstein’s status as a generous repeat benefactor for Washington’s endangered national icons.
It comes a month after he donated $4.5 million to the National Zoo’s cash-strapped giant panda program and seven months after a $13.5 million gift to the National Archives.
Jake Barnett, an Indianapolis 13-year-old, has been acing college math and science courses since he was eight years old. At 13, he is a college sophomore taking honors classes in math and physics, while also doing scientific research and tutoring fellow students.
No one could have predicted that Jake would even make it to college. At age two, Jake began to regress – he stopped speaking and making eye contact. The diagnosis: autism.
Jake is proud of his autism. “That, I believe, is the reason why I am in college and I am so successful.”
(WATCH the 60 Minutes Video below, or READ the story at CBSNews)
Scientists working in the dense jungles of Indonesia have “rediscovered” a large, gray monkey so rare it was believed by many to be extinct.
They were all the more baffled to find the Miller’s Grizzled Langur — its black face framed by a fluffy, Dracula-esque white collar — in an area well outside its previously recorded home range.
The blackout of Wikipedia and other websites protesting against the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act, have prompted eight US lawmakers to withdraw their support for the law.
Two of the bill’s co-sponsors, Marco Rubio and Roy Blunt, are among those backing away.
Wikipedia and Reddit shut down their operations for 24 hours yesterday urging American viewers to call their Congressmen to protest the bill that would use court orders to immediately shut down websites whose users upload copyrighted content. Craigslist, Google, Facebook and WordPress also protested against the bill, believing that its severe tactics to combat to piracy constituted the wrong approach.
Studies conducted by positivity psychologist Sonja Lyubomirsky point to 12 things happy people do differently to increase their levels of happiness. These are things that we can start doing today to feel the effects of more happiness in our lives. (Check out her book The How of Happiness: A Scientific Approach to Getting the Life You Want
I want to honor and discuss each of these 12 points, because no matter what part of life’s path we’re currently traveling on, these ‘happiness habits’ will always be applicable.
Studies conducted by positivity psychologist Sonja Lyubomirsky point to 12 things happy people do differently to increase their levels of happiness. These are things that we can start doing today to feel the effects of more happiness in our lives. (Check out her book The How of Happiness: A Scientific Approach to Getting the Life You Want
I want to honor and discuss each of these 12 points, because no matter what part of life’s path we’re currently traveling on, these ‘happiness habits’ will always be applicable.
About 5,000 disabled veterans live on the streets in New Mexico. So Shane D’Onofrio, a disabled vet who served in the U.S. Navy, created a non-profit organization called “What Would U Give“.
D’Onofrio opens his home to veterans to help get them off the streets. He uses his own disability checks to run the job-training and resource programs — about $1,700 a month. He also gets local and national businesses to donate services and items to the veterans in need.
