Ten years ago seeing any blue whales in Southern California would have been rare. This year already, there has been more than 500 sightings of the world’s largest creature.
The length of a basketball court, a blue whale visits this warm stretch of the Pacific Ocean to fill up on Krill, a tiny shrimp prevalent here this time of year.
Ten years ago seeing any blue whales in Southern California would have been rare. This year already, there has been more than 500 sightings of the world’s largest creature.
The length of a basketball court, a blue whale visits this warm stretch of the Pacific Ocean to fill up on Krill, a tiny shrimp prevalent here this time of year.
A new iPhone app launched this week, called LocalHero, lets friends help each other by identifying the people in a person’s social network who are nearby and have the right skills or interests to assist with any task or need.
The mobile networking application unveiled at the TechCrunch event in San Francisco matches a person’s location to the skills and interests of nearby friends, allowing helpers throughout a region to reach out and be a “hero”.
“While social networking applications have helped connect people in ways previously unimagined, there is currently no way to reach out to a select group of friends for help without broadcasting to the entire network,” said Ana Baltodano, CEO and co-founder of LocalHero. “With LocalHero, we have created a smart way for friends with specialized talents to take action and become real heroes to their friends and people nearby.”
LocalHero can be used for a range of requests, such as finding other friends who are interested in joining a group task, like a painting party, or to brainstorm on a specific problem.
The app categorizes friends by activities and interests and requests can be organized with tags.
“I had the privilege of attending a class in business school with a group of highly accomplished executives who shared their knowledge and skills to help each other out,” continued Baltodano, who is located in Palo Alto, California. “However, once we left the class, even though we were connected online, there wasn’t an easy way to continue that reciprocity that was so valuable to us all. That’s when I started to think about creating the LocalHero application.”
LocalHero, is available immediately for free download at the iPhone apps store and at the website:
Newsweek rated American cities on their job creation, sustainability, livability and transportation-infrastructure, to cull a list of the nation’s top performing metropolises.
Of the 20 cities topping the list, the highest rated were these ten which represented diverse areas of the country — west coast, east coast, south, center and northeast: El Paso, Oakland, Riverside, San Antonio, Omaha, Washington, D.C., Raleigh, Atlanta, Buffalo and Austin (pictured here).
Willow, a calico cat who disappeared from her Colorado home five years ago, was found Wednesday on a Manhattan street and will soon be returned to her family.
How she got to New York, more than 1,600 miles away, is a mystery, but thanks to an implanted microchip, Willow will be reunited with her owners, who had long ago given up hope, especially with all the coyotes in the area.
A 21-year old motorcyclist who collided with a BMW on the campus of Utah State University was lying unconscious beneath the burning wreckage when bystanders rushed to help.
Workers at a nearby construction site began to lift the car along with students, while a professor shot the scene on his camera phone from an upper window of a building.
A 21-year old motorcyclist who collided with a BMW on the campus of Utah State University was lying unconscious beneath the burning wreckage when bystanders rushed to help.
Workers at a nearby construction site began to lift the car along with students, while a professor shot the scene on his camera phone from an upper window of a building.
A solar leasing company has inked a deal to put solar panels on the housing in 124 military bases in 33 states.
SolarCity has had a big year, first with news that Google is creating a $280 million fund to finance its residential solar projects, and now with the announcement that it will double the amount of residential solar photovoltaic installations in the U.S.
As part of Project SolarStrong, SolarCity will team up with the big military housing companies that manage homes on military bases to build what may be the largest residential solar project ever.
The new World Trade Center in New York currently under construction promises to be the most environmentally advanced structure ever built on such a scale.
The WTC complex is striving for LEED Gold Certification—the second highest attainable below Platinum—requiring a Net Zero CO2 footprint for its electrical consumption and a level of energy consumption 20 percent below New York State’s energy code requirements.
In a project of this size, a Gold certification would be “a first of its kind,” according to Eduardo Del Valle, Director of Design Management at 1 World Trade Center, who has incorporated hydrogen fuel cells and rows of sunny windows into the skyscraper’s design.
A year ago, when chemotherapy stopped working against his leukemia and he had nothing to lose, William Ludwig signed up to be the first patient treated in a bold experiment at the University of Pennsylvania.
Doctors removed a billion of his T-cells — a type of white blood cell that fights viruses and tumors — and re-engineered them to attack his cancer. Then the altered cells were dripped back into Mr. Ludwig’s veins.
At first, his vital signs took a nose-dive and doctors thought he might die.
But, a few weeks later, “the fevers were gone. And so was the leukemia.”
(READ the amazing story in the New York Times) – Photo from University of Pennsylvania
On Sunday, 343 firefighters from across Texas donning their heavy coats and gear gathered in downtown Dallas to honor the lives of New York firefighters who died on 9/11.
They climbed 100 flights of stairs at Dallas’s Renaissance Tower to commemorate the lives of 343 from the New York Fire Department who died saving others on that day. Each carried the name and photo of one of their department brethren.
“It’s kind of an honor because he was a hero,” said Jacob Manceaux of the Port Naches,Texas Fire Department. “He went to go up and save people and he never came back. I’m doing this to finish his climb.”
To commemorate the tenth anniversary, more than 16,000 firemen around the world participated in a similar climb to remember the fallen of 9/11.
(WATCH the video below, or read the story from SMU-TV)
VIDEO: Dallas 9/11 Firefighter Stair Climb from SMU-TV on Vimeo.
On Sunday, 343 firefighters from across Texas donning their heavy coats and gear gathered in downtown Dallas to honor the lives of New York firefighters who died on 9/11.
They climbed 100 flights of stairs at Dallas’s Renaissance Tower to commemorate the lives of 343 from the New York Fire Department who died saving others on that day. Each carried the name and photo of one of their department brethren.
“It’s kind of an honor because he was a hero,” said Jacob Manceaux of the Port Naches,Texas Fire Department. “He went to go up and save people and he never came back. I’m doing this to finish his climb.”
To commemorate the tenth anniversary, more than 16,000 firemen around the world participated in a similar climb to remember the fallen of 9/11.
(WATCH the video below, or read the story from SMU-TV)
VIDEO: Dallas 9/11 Firefighter Stair Climb from SMU-TV on Vimeo.
Two American hikers sentenced to eight years in prison for espionage and illegal entry into Iran may be released “in a couple of days,” according to Iran’s president.
Josh Fattal and Shane Bauer will be released from Tehran’s Evin prison after a $500,000 bail is paid for each of them, their attorney, Masoud Shafiee, said Tuesday.
A daily spritz of insulin in the nose helped improve memory skills in people with Alzheimer’s-linked memory problems, U.S. researchers said on Monday.
Patients in a small study — who include people with mild to moderate Alzheimer’s and a pre-Alzheimer’s condition — showed improvement in overall cognitive function.
Do you have a collection of concert tee shirts in the back of your closet from your old rocker days?
A San Francisco artist named Ben Venom has come up with an unusual use for those old shirts — he sews them into quilts.
And the results are on exhibit in galleries in San Francisco and Birmingham, England.
Each of his beautifully crafted quilts can fetch thousands of dollars.
In the days following 9/11, Americans were in shock and grieving—but so were others around the world who offered extraordinary gestures of support to a country that had been devastated by terrorist attacks.
On distant shores, Iran’s then-President Mohammad Khatami condemned the attacks, Ireland and Israel held full national days of mourning, and the Afghan Taliban issued a statement to “American children” saying, “Afghanistan feels your pain”.
One of the most touching reactions of all came from a “destitute Kenyan boy-turned-Stanford-student who rallied his Masai tribe to offer its most precious gift” to America in her time of grief.
Earlier that year, Kimeli Naiyomah, a US-educated doctor and massai warrior had been in New York City, and the events of 9/11 touched him deeply.He had to figure out a way to help the country that had given him so much.
After telling the tribal leaders the story of the World Trade Center, it so moved them that they agreed to donate a living gift of cows.
(READ the inspiring story at CNN)
American homes are more cluttered than ever with devices, and they all need power. But something shocking is happening to demand for electricity in the age of the gadget: It’s not rising.
It may, in fact, be heading down: “Over the next decade, experts expect residential power use to fall, reversing a long upward trend.”
In part it’s because Edison’s light bulb is being replaced by more efficient types of lighting, and electric devices are getting much more efficient. But there are other factors.
If your company was listed in Fortune’s “100 Best Companies to Work For in America”, they had equity returns that were 3.5% per year higher than those of their peers.
That’s because employee satisfaction correlates positively with shareholder returns, according to a new study by Alex Edmans of the Wharton School.
After flooding ripped apart roads (now under construction) near Killington, Vermont, townspeople have marshaled their resources, taking a quiet half-mile trail over a mountain and in two weeks’ time turning it into the I-95 of wooded paths.
“More than a 1,000 people a day now walk it to get to their jobs and go food shopping on the other side.” School children were able to reach their buses for the first day of school.
“Porta-Pottys donated by A1 Sewer have been placed at each end and six golf carts from Green Mountain National Golf Course transport the elderly and infirm.”
All-terrain vehicles donated from local business patrol the path for safety, and snacks and drinks are offered by volunteers.
(READ the story in the New York Times)
It seems whenever we turn on the TV these days we witness disastrous scenes of flooding, fires, and typhoons forcing people from their homes and leaving businesses devastated.
Yet, studying the trauma left in the wake of these disasters has provided researchers a way to discover how positive responses can also bloom in the aftermath of trauma.
In the new field of positive psychology, it’s not enough to study how happiness flourishes when things are good. Researchers have developed a principle called “falling up” which refers to how some people — individuals with high optimism and success — manage to gain growth not despite a trauma, but because of it.
To see what I mean, try the following brief positive psychology experiment.
On a sheet of paper, quickly jot down three of the greatest moments of GROWTH in your life. Do it right now — before reading ahead.
When I do this simple exercise at companies, close to 90% of responses are connected to some highly stressful period of change. Many people cite going to college, studying abroad, playing in the finals, quitting a job to find a better one, the birth of a child, even depression. I’ve never had someone respond that a vacation was one of their greatest moments of growth.
In fact, think about it: name a single biography worth reading that does not involve an extremely stressful challenge or failure on the part of the protagonist. That is because stress and change are the engines of human growth.
Research, as well as experience, shows us that some people definitely experience negative effects from traumatic situations (PTSD). Other people are resilient, grieving at first, but then bouncing back to their original level of functioning. As a researcher, I’m not interested in those. I’m really interested in studying those “positive outliers” who are affected by trauma, but who turn it into long-term personal growth.
First, and this is extremely important, positive psychology never argues that trauma itself is good. Tragedies like 9/11 and the earthquake-tsunami in Japan are exactly that: tragedies. The loss of human life is unfathomable. Some authors mistakenly assume that looking for growth in the midst of challenge ignores the human suffering, which is why they rail against positive psychology. I’ve even seen therapists and spiritual leaders confuse post-traumatic growth with assuming that the trauma itself is good. A car accident, breast cancer, a flood, getting fired — these are traumatic and by definition should be avoided. But the catastrophe
is not the end of the story. Once a trauma has occurred, positive psychology prompts people to ask, “What now?”
Google “post-traumatic growth” and you will find a wealth of research on individuals who experienced growth after the worst traumas you can imagine: heart attack, breast cancer, military combat, refugee displacement. What fascinates me and other researchers is why, after a heart attack, some people become altruistic and get their priorities in line, or how the loss of a job leads to a shifting of career choice to one which aligns better with that person’s strengths, or why someone can walk away from a car accident with a new lease on life, or how someone with cancer can help deepen social support networks for survivors.
Research has illuminated differences between people who experience growth after trauma and those who do not. First, these individuals continue to believe that their behavior still matters, which is one of the components of optimism. If you have experienced a trauma, find one concrete action — something you know you can do — to decrease the negative feelings associated with the trauma. For example, if you had a heart attack, decide to give up desserts on Sundays. This gives your brain a “win,” allowing it to keep moving forward.
Second, post-traumatic growth blooms best in a soil of deep social support. If you experience a trauma, try to actively seek the support of your social network — rather than passively waiting for that network to approach you in the midst of hardship. Everyone has their own timetable for recovery, but post-traumatic growth can begin to occur at any point in the grieving process — whether it be one day or ten years later. Social support speeds the process of recovery.
Third, change the way you describe the trauma to yourself. For example, when I was at Harvard Divinity School, I went through two years of depression. At the time, it was terrible. And I could leave the story there. But that misses out on the reality that post-traumatic growth occurred. Because of that depression (not despite it), I began to understand what gets in the way of us creating positive change in our lives, and that jumpstarted my interest in positive psychology and my desire to help people change their mindsets and habits. If it were not for depression, I would not have the understanding, nor the compassion, to help people like I can today. Learning to tell myself that story — rather than the pessimistic version of what happened — has been key to my growth.
Trauma is always bad — but it’s also the beginning of the story, not the end. In the midst of tragedy, we must mourn, but also maintain a belief that our behavior still matters and that growth in life is still possible.
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Shawn Achor is the founder of Good Think, Inc. and the author of The Happiness Advantage: The 7 Principles of Positive Psychology That Fuel Success and Performance at Work
