One mile offshore, search teams in Japan have rescued a survivor – a dog stranded at sea for three weeks atop an expanse of floating debris.
A helicopter searching for missing people spotted the dog on Friday afternoon.
The dog appeared to be in good condition and wore a collar, but it had no contact information. Officials are broadcasting photos so the owner might be found.
The U.S. government is sending some robotic help to Japan to help regain control of the tsunami-damaged nuclear plant.
A top Energy Department official told a Senate panel Tuesday that a shipment of “radiation hardened robotics” from the Department’s Idaho National Laboratory is being shipped to Japan along with several radiation-hardened cameras and operators to train people in how to use them.
In what is the largest single-hospital kidney swap in the state, five patients received new kidneys from five healthy donors in a marathon series of operations performed Friday at California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco.
Loved ones were able to contribute kidneys even though they were not a match for their family members. Strangers were matched up with others to produce a transplant chain 10 organs long.
(READ the story in the San Francisco Chronicle)
For the first time, women’s death rates from lung cancer are dropping, a long-anticipated drop coming more than a decade after a similar decline began in US men.
In the early 1990s, death rates in men began dropping and declined 3 percent per year between 2005 and 2007. Researchers had anticipated the same pattern would appear among women, and it has now begun.
Israeli Defense Force reservists treated families of Palestinian children diagnosed with cancer to a fun day on snowy Mount Hermon.
The children, accompanied by their families, enjoyed the slopes on March 14 as part of a decade-long project in which soldiers from the Alpine Unit bring up groups of mentally or physically disabled children, as well as children with terminal illnesses, to the mountain in northern Israel for a day of VIP treatment, fun and relaxation.
The project is partly funded by the Civil Administration, an Israeli body responsible for administering and coordinating civilian and humanitarian needs in the West Bank.
(READ more at Israel21c.org)
All the teachers at Stevenson Elementary school wore their new tee shirts on Friday. “Everyone was so appreciative and touched by the shirts,” says Lisa Otto, who originally wrote the note asking for ‘Good Happens’ shirts for the staff. (Read her touching plea for help, expressing her desire to close the negativity gap at her school.)
“It has helped me to hear the positive comments from my co-workers,” she added. “I want to thank everyone for their kind words of encouragement. It really works.”
Principle Debby Root was so grateful to Lisa for contacting the Good News Network on behalf of the Dayton, Ohio-area school. “Their generosity was overwhelming.”
All the teachers at Stevenson Elementary school wore their new tee shirts on Friday. “Everyone was so appreciative and touched by the shirts,” says Lisa Otto, who originally wrote the note asking for ‘Good Happens’ shirts for the staff. (Read her touching plea for help, expressing her desire to close the negativity gap at her school.)
“It has helped me to hear the positive comments from my co-workers,” she added. “I want to thank everyone for their kind words of encouragement. It really works.”
Principle Debby Root was so grateful to Lisa for contacting the Good News Network on behalf of the Dayton, Ohio-area school. “Their generosity was overwhelming.”
A new study released Tuesday by the University of British Columbia found that people were inspired to do good when they see media stories about uncommon acts of human goodness.
“The news media have a tendency to celebrate bad behaviour, from Charlie Sheen’s recent exploits to articles that focus the spotlight on criminal and other aberrant behaviour,” says lead author Karl Aquino, a professor at the Sauder School of Business who studies issues such as forgiveness, reconciliation and moral behavior.
To appear in a forthcoming issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, the research shows a direct link between exposure to media accounts of extraordinary virtue and one’s desire to be a better person and act or donate on behalf of others.
“Our study indicates that if more attention was devoted to recounting stories of uncommon acts of human virtue, the media could have a quantifiable positive effect on the moral behaviour of a significant group of people,” asserted Aquino.
A new study released Tuesday by the University of British Columbia found that people were inspired to do good when they saw media stories about uncommon acts of human goodness.
“The news media have a tendency to celebrate bad behaviour, from Charlie Sheen’s recent exploits to articles that focus the spotlight on criminal and other aberrant behaviour,” says lead author Karl Aquino, a professor at the Sauder School of Business who studies issues such as forgiveness, reconciliation and moral behavior.
To appear in a forthcoming issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, the research shows a direct link between exposure to media accounts of extraordinary virtue and one’s desire to be a better person and act or donate on behalf of others.
“Our study indicates that if more attention was devoted to recounting stories of uncommon acts of human virtue, the media could have a quantifiable positive effect on the moral behaviour of a significant group of people,” asserted Aquino.
A pair of pandas that arrived from China a few weeks ago made their first public appearance at a zoo in Tokyo on Friday, providing a little light relief for victims of the tsunami that hit the country in March.
About 300 people who were forced from their homes by the tsunami joined thousands of others at Ueno Zoo to welcome male panda Ri Ri and female Shin Shin, both 5 years old.
We all know that most garden crops want as much sun as possible. Tomatoes, melons and peppers will suffer if they don’t get oodles of light.
What you may not realize is that many other garden crops will do quite well with limited sunlight.
Which plants will put up with lower light levels?
A British scientist and author of the book, The Rational Optimist, makes the case that mankind’s progress has been vigorous, widely spread, and not just benefiting the privileged few.
Matt Ridley says, “Average citizens are becoming healthier, cleaner, smarter, kinder, happier, and more peaceful.” And he has the facts to back it up. (Read his essay below…)
________________________________________
A British scientist and author of the book, The Rational Optimist, makes the case that mankind’s progress has been vigorous, widely spread, and not just benefiting the privileged few.
Matt Ridley says, “Average citizens are becoming healthier, cleaner, smarter, kinder, happier, and more peaceful.” And he has the facts to back it up. (Read his essay below…)
________________________________________
The unemployment rate fell to a two-year low of 8.8 percent in March, capping the strongest two months of hiring since before the recession began.
The economy added 216,000 jobs last month, the Labor Department said Friday. Factories, retailers, the education and health care sectors and professional and financial services all expanded payrolls. Those job gains offset layoffs by local governments.
Organized crime networks have been sending tons of relief goods in trucks from the Tokyo and Kobe regions to deliver food, water, blankets and toiletries to evacuation centers in northeast Japan, the area devastated by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.
As with the devastating 1995 Kobe earthquake, government workers were slow in reaching afflicted areas, so the “yakuza” groups — society’s outcasts — stepped in quickly, and in many cases, were first on the ground.
Age wasn’t about to stop Libyan-American Ibrahim Elfirjani from joining the fight to oust Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi. So the 60-year-old owner of an auto repair shop left his home in Illinois and trekked to Libya to help the opposition on the frontlines of the conflict.
“I decided my birth country needs me today. … I’m an old man but I have energy to kick this dictator out,” Elfirjani, of Orland Park, Ill., told msnbc.com by phone from Libya, during a stop near the Egyptian border to pick up communications equipment for the rebel fighters. “My heart is still young … 25 years old.”
13,000 low-income workers in Pakistan are getting nearly-free health care thanks to Asher Hasan and his micro-insurance program, Naya Jeevan, founded in 2007.
The surgeon-turned-social entrepreneur left a successful career in the United States to return to Pakistan, where he had spent his formative years, on a mission to provide affordable health care to low-income workers.
(READ the full story at the CS Monitor) – Donate at Naya Jeevan!
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is upgrading the status of the Okaloosa darter from endangered to threatened saying that the population is being managed so well, the small fish is making major strides on its road to recovery. Much of the praise goes to a U.S. Air Force Base.
Originally listed as endangered in 1973, the Okaloosa darter is a small, perch-like fish known to occur only in six clear stream systems in Walton and Okaloosa counties in northwest Florida. About 96 percent of this watershed drainage area is under the management of Eglin Air Force Base.
Fly ash, a byproduct of coal-burning electric power plants, could save billions of dollars if used in the repairing of U.S. bridges and roads, researchers say.
Using fly ash to coat the concrete used to rebuild America’s infrastructure could extend the life of those roads and bridges by decades, saving billions of dollars of taxpayer money, scientists told a meeting of the American Chemical Society in Anaheim, Calif., Tuesday.
A struggling Baltimore parish received a surprising donation two Sundays ago, when a winning lottery scratch-off ticket arrived in the collection plate.
The Maryland Lottery ticket, which was already scratched revealing the prize, was discovered by the church’s pastor when tallying the day’s contributions.
