For thousands of years, the people of China, Japan, India, and Thailand have consumed green tea and used it medicinally to treat everything from headaches to flatulence.
Over the past few decades, research in both Asia and the West has begun providing scientific evidence of green tea’s numerous health benefits — slowing or prevent conditions including high cholesterol, heart disease, rheumatoid arthritis, impaired immune disease and liver disease.
READ the recent article at Health News…
An innovative Dutch company, recently developed an organic-based glass coating called Smart Energy Glass. Windows made with this glass are transformed into solar energy collectors. The energy captured can either be used immediately or fed back into a power grid, adding to a building’s energy efficiency and sustainability. (Ode)
The windows can be adjusted as the sun changes to allow in more light or create more privacy, and thus effecting the amount of energy generated.
WATCH the marketing video below from PeerPlus.nl
Katie Spotz is a 22 year-old endurance athlete rowing across the Atlantic Ocean. Alone.
Endurance is her strong suit, she’s run 150 miles across the Mojave Desert and biked 3,300 miles across the US, averaging 85 miles per day — not to mention an impressive swim the full 325-mile length of the Allegheny River. Now, it’s a 2,500 mile row from Senegal to French Guiana
Along the way she’s raising awareness for her cause: clean, viable drinking water.
This should, at the very least, make us think twice about leaving the water running when brushing our teeth. Aside from raising awareness, another important goal was to raise $30,000.
READ the story in the New York Times .
Jill Starr works to save American mustangs and domestic horses from abuse. Her organization now includes Red Horse Nation, which helps Native American youths by enabling them to connect with the rescued horses through direct contact, teaching and more.
One sunny afternoon, when they had finished their tasks, the students and a few elders within their group brought a tribal drum to the site. The students sat around the instrument and began to chant and drum.
Suddenly, the horses followed the drums and, mesmerized, made a semi-circle around the students, gathering just 12 to 20 feet away.
READ MORE at Discovery.com …
Actress Demi Moore is among those credited with preventing yet another suicide late last night, thanks to Twitter.
When a young man from Casselberry, Fla., just north of Orlando, wrote of his plans to hang himself, she responded immediately, “R U rlly asking 4 help?” The man proceeded to send several more messages to the actress.
(READ More at E Online)
Actredd Demi Moore is among those credited with preventing yet another suicide late last night, thanks to Twitter.
When a young man from Casselberry, Fla., just north of Orlando, wrote of his plans to hang himself, she responded immediately, “R U rlly asking 4 help?” The man proceeded to send several more messages to the actress.
(READ More at E Online)
Would you be happier if you spent more time discussing the state of the world and the meaning of life — and less time talking about the weather?
A new study published in Psychological Science finds that people who have a greater number of substantive conversations are more likely to rate themselves as happy. In fact, the researchers found that the happiest participants spent about 70 percent more time talking and had twice as many substantive conversations as the unhappiest participants. And, the happiest students had roughly one-third less small talk.
(READ MORE of the story at the New York Times )
Few people understand what the past five years have been like for the family of West Virginia assistant coach Billy Hahn.
His wife, Kathi, is healthy enough to travel after overcoming ovarian cancer in June 2008 and recovering from a bone marrow transplant following a leukemia diagnosis two months later.
(Read this story of healing and family at the Washington Post)
Spanish actor Antonio Banderas has agreed to act as U.N. Goodwill Ambassador for the fight against poverty, the United Nations Development Program announced Wednesday.
In his new role as an advocate for the poor, Antonio Banderas will set his sights on the Millennium Development Goals, a set of eight globally agreed targets that seek to halve world poverty by 2015 by combating hunger, disease, illiteracy, environment degradation and discrimination against women.
“Poverty robs us of our potential as a people, preventing us from being all that we can be,” said Banderas. “This is why it is so important to mobilize all of our efforts to defeat it, especially if today we have the knowledge, the tools and the resources to do it.” Banderas said he will work with UNDP to spur action at all levels of society in pursuit of the MDGs with a particular focus on Africa and Latin America.
One cup of coffee — even decaf — can bring you some health protection, lowering stroke risk by 30 percent.
Previous studies suggested you needed more than just a cup, but new research suggests that drinking just a cup of any coffee – high-octane or decaf – may do the trick.
It also may lower cancer risk. A 13-year study of Japanese men and women found that drinking a cup or more a day was associated with 50 per cent fewer cancers of the mouth, pharynx and esophagus than in people who didn’t drink coffee.
More coffee offers even more protection from diseases like alzheimer’s and diabetes.
READ the story at Health Zone.ca)
The Postmaster General unveiled new Animal Rescue commemorative postage stamps on the Ellen DeGeneres Show yesterday, launching the Stamps to the Rescue promotional campaign.
The Postal Service is working with DeGeneres and Halo, a holistic pet care company she co-owns, to promote the campaign and to bring greater attention to the cause of pet adoption.
DeGeneres and Halo are donating one million meals to shelter pets as part of the campaign. “By working together, we can find good homes for millions of adoptable, homeless and abandoned pets.”
“These stamps continue a Postal Service tradition of bringing attention to serious social issues of the day … one letter at a time,” said John E. Potter, the USPS chief. He hopes the campaign will increase public awareness about sheltered pets and encourage pet adoption.
The stamps go on sale April 30, and features a website you can utilize with a pet-finding tool that shows photos of specific animals available for adoption in your zip code.
The Adopt a Shelter Pet Commemorative 44 cent Stamps feature photographs of five cats and five dogs taken by veteran stamp photographer Sally Andersen-Bruce. All ten animals were adopted from a shelter in New Milford, CT.
Cats and dogs have been featured on other U.S. postage stamps. In 2002, photographs of a kitten and puppy were featured on the “Neuter or Spay” stamps.
Every year, 6 to 8 million cats and dogs enter animal shelters, and of that number, nearly half are euthanized. Although the problem seems overwhelming, the key to the solution is adopting a shelter pet when seeking a new companion and ensuring that the animal is spayed or neutered.
On April 30, DeGeneres will join Potter for the official stamp dedication ceremony at the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences in Hollywood, when the stamps will go on sale at post offices nationwide.
Animal Rescue: Adopt a Shelter Pet is the Postal Service’s 2010 social awareness stamp. Past social awareness stamps have highlighted important issues such as children’s health, literacy, breast cancer awareness, organ and tissue donation, philanthropy and Alzheimer’s awareness.
The Postmaster General unveiled new Animal Rescue commemorative postage stamps on the Ellen DeGeneres Show yesterday, launching the Stamps to the Rescue promotional campaign.
The Postal Service is working with DeGeneres and Halo, a holistic pet care company she co-owns, to promote the campaign and to bring greater attention to the cause of pet adoption.
DeGeneres and Halo are donating one million meals to shelter pets as part of the campaign. “By working together, we can find good homes for millions of adoptable, homeless and abandoned pets.”
How much soap should I put in my washing machine and dishwasher? Should I rinse dishes before putting them in the dishwasher?
Because most appliances have evolved radically since we learned how to use them from our parents and they are made to use far less water now than older machines, we’re probably not using these appliances correctly. Our dishes and clothes may not be coming out as clean as they could be. And we may also be damaging the machines.
Learn what you are doing wrong in this article from the New York Times.
Media mogul and long-time environmentalist Ted Turner is making good on his intentions to invest in a large-scale solar utility project in the Southwest – in this case, a 30 megawatt AC solar power station slated for northern New Mexico.
The facility to be completed by the end of 2010 under contract to Turner Renewable Energy is expected to supply electricity to approximately 9,000 homes, displacing over 45,000 tons of CO2 on an annual basis.
READ More in Earth Techling blog …
As a rule, Irishmen only cry at football games. But on a recent walk around New York City, I ended up publicly emoting, with nary a football in sight.
In the middle of downtown Manhattan’s financial district, was a springtime Irish hillside, complete with a tumbledown stone cottage, bracken and grasses.
It was a tiny park, the Irish Hunger Memorial, containing stones from every county in Ireland.
During the Great Famine of 1847 and the exodus that followed, as one and a half million died, and two million more fled, many found shelter on these very quaysides of the Hudson River in New York City.
(READ the tribute to the Irish in New York City, on Irish Central )
As a rule, Irishmen only cry at football games. But on a recent walk around New York City, I ended up publicly emoting, with nary a football in sight.
In the middle of downtown Manhattan’s financial district, was a springtime Irish hillside, complete with a tumbledown stone cottage, bracken and grasses.
It was a tiny park, the Irish Hunger Memorial, containing stones from every county in Ireland.
During the Great Famine of 1847 and the exodus that followed, as one and a half million died, and two million more fled, many found shelter on these very quaysides of the Hudson River in New York City.
(READ the tribute to the Irish in New York City, on Irish Central )
UNICEF is helping to build child-friendly schools in Niger, where school attendance rates are among the lowest in the world and just 31% of girls become students.
Partnering with IKEA home furnishing stores, which over the 2009 holiday raised $6 million in its Soft Toy Drive to provide schools supplies, UNICEF delivered school materials, teacher training and water and sanitation facilities to the students here. The result is a new school that has become the heart of a community and part of the exciting trend of increasing access to education in this West African nation.
UNICEF is transforming not only education, but age-old practices as well, like the forced marriages of young girls before they are 18.
Jacquelin Marin has no running hot water at home. For a while, she had no real home at all. But soon she’ll have both, with the sun heating water for her showers.
Marin and her neighbors are part of a pilot program to install solar water heaters in the houses of low-income families. For Chile—a country with stark economic inequality and few fossil fuels—it’s a way to help the poor while also reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
(READ the story in GlobalPost.com)
An 80-year-old grocery magnate is donating $20 million to help train teachers for Catholic schools and universities.
Patrick Roche, 80, co-founder of the Roche Brothers chain of 18 supermarkets in Massachusetts, credits his childhood Catholic school with embracing his family after his mother died.
Boston College will funnel the donation to the renamed Roche Center for Catholic Education to train college students to administer and teach in Catholic schools and universities nationwide, while also conducting research on issues concerning Catholic schools.
(READ More in MSNBC) Editor’s Note: Ignore the typo which reads “$30 Million”
After experiencing a “tsunami of happiness” from orphans in Cambodia, a bike messenger from New York City started an organization that donates bikes to orphans around the world.
88 Bikes has donated hundreds of bicycles to children and given them a photo of the person who bought the bike — spreading smiles, two wheels at a time.
WATCH the video report at CBS News.com…
