Weta Workshop, the special FX house behind the costumes and props in the Lord of the Rings and Chronicles of Narnia films, have given a double leg amputee the ability to swim.
Auckland native Nadya Vessey lost both her legs as child due to a medical condition, but always loved swimming.
After all the attention given to air traffic controllers caught sleeping on the job in recent months, it only seems fair to point to controllers at the Atlanta Air Route Traffic Control Center in Hampton, Ga., who stayed at their work stations on April 27 to guide planes around tornadoes, even though the twisters were headed right at them and at the homes of their families.
(READ the story at NPR News)
The University of Pennsylvania received a $225 million gift for its School of Medicine to create an endowment for providing more financial aid to students, recruiting more physicians and scientists and supporting innovative research.
The School of Medicine will be able to increase its financial aid budget by at least 20 percent for the school year starting in 2012.
The Philadelphia Ivy League university described the gift by philanthropist Raymond G. Perelman and his wife as the largest in its history and one the biggest ever nationwide given to a medical school.
“Ruth and I believe the future of medicine depends on the ability to produce world-class clinicians,” said Raymond Perelman, who will see the School of Medicine renamed for him and his wife.
A prominent Philadelphia philanthropist, Raymond Perelman is president and chairman of the board of RGP Holdings Inc., a privately held holding company comprised manufacturing, mining and financial interests.
The Perelmans’ gift brings Penn’s Making History campaign total to $3.31 billion – 94.6 percent of the campaign’s $3.5 billion goal – with more than 19 months to go.
The gift brings the Perelmans’ total contributions to Penn’s Making History capital campaign to more than $250 million.
US exports hit a record high in March, returning to levels not seen since before the global financial crisis.
US exports grew 4.6% in March to USD 172.7 billion, surpassing the record set in July 2008 before world trade took a sharp downturn. The March export rise was the biggest month-to-month gain in 17 years, the Commerce Department said in a report on Wednesday. (MoneyControl)
Jobs Continue to Increase
For the first time in nearly 140 years, the Indian tribes of northeastern Montana are preparing for the return of wild buffalo that are descended from herds that once thundered across the vast American West.
A plan long in the making between federal, state and tribal managers will transfer custody of dozens of Yellowstone bison to Native Americans in Montana to cultivate new herds on tribal lands.
A softball fan working in the prosthetics field in the Department of Veteran Affairs has assembled the first all-amputee softball team in the world. They are winning games because their athletic ability was not left behind on the battlefield that once claimed their limbs.
Louisville Slugger, a manufacturer of bats and other gear, has outfit the Wounded Warrior Amputee Softball Team to help the talented veterans to shine.
As the Mississippi River reaches its highest level in more than 70 years, threatening to inundate dozens of cities and towns, a hero has emerged: the region’s $13 billion flood-control system.
Built after the devastating floods of the early 1900s, the levees and four large corridors are emergency flood outlets that became necessary after Mother Nature’s flood buffer along the Mississippi was turned into farmland.
Amidst major renovation work on the Dumbarton Bridge spanning San Francisco Bay, officials with the California Department of Transportation are taking every precaution not to disturb a pair of nesting peregrine falcons that made their home under the bridge.
Cameras are continuously monitoring the falcons and workers remain at least 175 feet from the nest.
With more than three million hits on YouTube, an advertising company for a bank in Japan produced a mini-documentary about elderly men who revive their broken lives by taking a cross-country trip on motorcycles.
The SF Mirrors Project is a public art project with one simple purpose at it’s core – to spread a bit of random happiness. The idea is to create a public art installation overnight throughout the city of San Francisco spreading messages of inspiration, encouragement, and hope.
More about this project:
www.kickstarter.com/projects/akinbilgic/the-sf-mirrors-project
Thanks to an outpouring of dress donations, Alabama classmates will be able to attend their prom Friday night and enjoy a blissful return to normalcy.
The mother of a school administrator asked a principal from elsewhere in the state, if there might be girls willing to donate prom dresses.
An e-mail went out, Tweets and Facebook messages were posted, and more than 1,000 dresses piled in from area teens, shops and even donors in other states.
Thanks to an outpouring of dress donations, Alabama classmates will be able to attend their prom Friday night and enjoy a blissful return to normalcy.
The mother of a school administrator asked a principal from elsewhere in the state, if there might be girls willing to donate prom dresses.
An e-mail went out, Tweets and Facebook messages were posted, and more than 1,000 dresses piled in from area teens, shops and even donors in other states.
Saving energy has evolved from a moral calling to a financial imperative for businesses that have broadened the concept of energy efficiency to one of sustainability.
Just look at Principal Financial Group, where employees are using less paper. Or the University of Iowa, where power bills have been cut by $1.5 million a year. Or Van Meter Industrial in Cedar Rapids, where new high-efficiency warehouse lights will pay for themselves in a year and a half.
“His fingers are now every bit as perceptive as his eyes once were.“
The artist, whose oil paintings are known for their brilliant color, started painting after he lost his sight at age 30.
“His fingers are now every bit as perceptive as his eyes once were.“
The artist, whose oil paintings are known for their brilliant color, started painting after he lost his sight at age 30.
A decade later John Bramblitt visits classrooms teaching young children his technique, covering their eyes and asking them to paint.
WATCH the video below, or READ the story at CBS News…
If happiness is a state of mind, Boulder, Colorado would be its capital.
Where you live, it turns out, makes a difference in the happiness level, but plenty of other factors can make up for a less than ideal hometown.
The Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index is a 25-year in-depth study of Americans’ overall satisfaction with life. Gallup has interviewed more than a million Americans since 2008, enough to map our happiness.
If happiness is a state of mind, Boulder, Colorado would be its capital.
Where you live, it turns out, makes a difference in the happiness level, but plenty of other factors can make up for a less than ideal hometown.
The Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index is a 25-year in-depth study of Americans’ overall satisfaction with life. Gallup has interviewed more than a million Americans since 2008, enough to map our happiness.
Ever wonder how your tiny carbon footprint really impacts the big picture of climate change? Though you might feel like your lifestyle is insignificant compared to things like oil extraction or vehicle emissions, the choices we make in our day-to-day life — how we get around, what we eat, how we live — play a major role in slowing climate change.
Here’s a list of 10 ways you can join in the fight to reduce our carbon footprint. Whether you save it on your desktop, share it with friends, or print a copy (in PDF) and stick it on your fridge, this quick reference guide breaks down what you can do today to protect the planet for future generations.
Jeffrey Hanson is a talented young artist who’s eager to put his money to work in a lot of different ways.
He’s plowed profits from the sale of color-splashed canvases into the stock market, and his blue chips include Coca-Cola, General Electric, Microsoft and Berkshire Hathaway.
Not only that, Jeffrey is a visually-impaired artist.
He has helped raise more than $275,000 over the last five years for local, national and international charities through the sale of his paintings.
(READ the story in Richmond.com) – More info at www.jeffreyowenhanson.com.
Iraq’s first book fair in 20 years concluded on Thursday with organizers and attendees hailing it as a return to the global literary scene for the violence-wracked country.
The two-week exhibition featured more than 200 publishing houses from 32 countries displaying about 37,000 books at a massive conference hall in Mansur, west Baghdad, according to the event’s organisers.
