Sunday, August 15, 2010 How to Live and Die  Death is rarely spoken about in our homes. "I wonder why," remarks Khushwant Singh. At 95, Singh thinks of death very often. But he does not lose sleep over it. A self-described agnostic, Singh states that ultimately, he does "not know what happens to us after we die but one should help a person go in peace--at peace with himself and with the world." From his 95 years of experience, Singh offers eight insights into a life of peace and happiness. They include: good health, understanding companionship, fulfilling hobbies, time for introspection, and patience. Read More >>
back to top  Saturday, August 14, 2010 The Little Red Wagon  "Some boys like to play baseball, some boys like to play football. He likes to do charity work," explains Zach Bonner's mom, chuckling. In 2004, six-year-old Zach went door to door with his little red wagon to collect water for the victims of Hurricane Charlie. Inspired by helping others, he started his own charity, aptly named, The Little Red Wagon Foundation. Since then, Bonner has raised thousands of dollars to purchase school supplies, food, and support services for homeless children in Florida and Louisiana. Today, the twelve-year-old is walking across the country to raise even more funds for the homeless. "It takes a lot of hard work, but it's a lot of fun," he remarks. Wise beyond his years. Read More >>
back to top Friday, August 13, 2010 Ice Cream Truck of the Digital Age  Ice cream: the sweet taste of summer. It's the cool reward of a job well done, a game well-played, or a tasty excuse to prolong a classic first date. While the song of the ice cream truck has the power to bring forth a lot of smiles, one company has taken this to a whole new level with their latest invention: the world's first smile-activated ice cream vending machine. Using cutting-edge technology, the creators are on a mission to encourage people everywhere to share life's small moments of happiness. Through the power of facial recognition, 3G and Facebook, the vending machine gifts each grinning user with a tasty ice cream treat. All you need to bring is a smile! Read More >>
back to top Thursday, August 12, 2010 The Beautiful Brain  Elizabeth Jameson found her art when her own brain lost one of its most basic functions. After suddenly finding herself unable to speak, Jameson was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) in 1991. She soon came to know the geography of her own mind through countless MRI sessions. For the anxious patient, the black and grey pixels of MRI images can appear ugly and frightening. With a strong urge to reinterpret this medical imagery, Jameson writes that her MS inspires her "to create images that provide new insights into the brain and, at the same time, makes medical imaging and its representative humanity more accessible" for all who view them. Her striking artwork reinterprets the brain's scientific mysteries with a raw degree of humility and awe. Read More >>
back to top Wednesday, August 11, 2010 Can You Teach Emotional Intelligence?  "Our kids need a peaceful place," says elementary school Principal Eileen Reiter who works in Harlem, New York. "It has to be a place where kids can come and feel relaxed and feel safe and get a lot of support." Support, in this case, means more than just academic training and a hot lunch. Reiter has embraced a philosophy known as Social and Emotional Learning (SEL), which teaches students ways to moderate their own emotions and manage conflicts with others. Through activities like guided meditations, conflict resolution workshops, and reflective writing exercises, SEL offers children the space to calm themselves, observe the world, and reduce emotional distractions so that they are free to concentrate more effectively on what they are learning. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan agrees with SEL's revolutionary potential. "These are learned skills," he says. "Children can have huge challenges, but when you help them learn how to handle them, you have a chance." Read More >>
back to top Tuesday, August 10, 2010 Secret Agent of Kindness  For the past year, Laura Miller has been living a double life of sorts: administrative assistant by day, secret agent of kindness by night. The 32-year-old only recently revealed herself as the woman behind "Secret Agent L," a giver of random acts of kindness that has been brightening the days of unsuspecting Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania residents since July 2009. What started with a friend's request to do a random act of kindness in honor of her birthday has rippled happiness across the city, in the form of flowers on windshields, a roll of quarters at a laundromat, chocolate bars on desks, the list goes on... Her project even attracted 80 "Secret Agent Affiliates" who are spreading kind anonymous acts around the world. "I think people are so hungry to not feel alone," she remarks. "There's so much hurt out there and my project is an attempt to heal some of that." Read More >>
back to top Monday, August 9, 2010 An Experiment in Generosity  Sally Anderson had 500 dollars to give away. How and where to give it? As she writes, "My husband suggested Goodwill. He said, 'Why not give some money to a family? It should be easy.' So we stopped at Goodwill. I saw a young man buying T-shirts and said, 'I'm part of a generosity project. I'd like to give you $20.' He said, 'Wow, thanks, that's great! Are there more people like you out there?' I was feeling very successful, so as I passed by a man, woman and child with a cart looking like they were going to do some serious shopping, I offered again, much as I had with the young man. this man looked horrified, said, 'No!' and walked away. There I was again with that awful feeling of embarrassment and awkwardness. I went over to where my husband was looking for jeans and said, 'Why do I feel like crying?' He shook his head and shrugged, 'Look, I'm not even gutsy enough to try it. Don't ask me.'" Read More >>
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When all is silent, what do you hear? The first widely observed national moment of silence occurred in Britain in 1919. For two minutes, switchboard operators declined to connect telephone calls, subway cars and factory wheels ground to a halt, and ordinary citizens held their tongues. Within 10 years, the somber annual tradition had grown so popular that the BBC began to air the sound of the silence. Authors George Prochnik and Garrett Keizer unravel surprisingly poignant perspectives on silence, from the red-eyed tree frog's ability to discern vibrations to theories on why iPods are so ubiquitous. In a world of noise, silence easily slips through the cracks. Prochnik and Keizer remind us of its unassuming yet powerful presence. "When we ourselves are in silence, we are speaking the language of the soul," Prochnik remarks. [ 
When one woman runs into a childhood neighbor, she falls to tears after learning the hardships that have cast a shadow over his life. After his parents died, he lost two older siblings. He had become a husband and a father, but found himself lost for meaning. "Fighting back tears, I asked him if he needed some help getting back on his feet. He said he wanted to start a small business of his own. And so, I then gave him some money which I must say, he has wisely used. Last week he came to see me... He said from the amount that I had given him, he had made a significant profit which he has reinvested in his business. The young man is now happy, able to take his son to school and pay for his rent." And the happiness came full circle as the woman beamed at the opportunity to serve, and the possibilities of transformation. [ 
It was an experiment. Peter Bregman was returning an item to a store. The item was well within the return period, but there would be a 20 percent restocking fee. Having recently decided to live life as an experiment, Bregman decided to see if he could tap into the store manager's compassion to waive the fee. In the grand scheme of things, it was a small act. Yet in the process of experimenting, the most powerful lessons emerged. "What I learned is the power of framing... Because when we live life as an experiment, we are far more willing to take risks, to acknowledge failure, to learn and develop," he sums up. "If it's an experiment, then taking a risk is the win - whether it pans out or not." [ 
For a serious distance runner, 7 hours, 48 minutes is not a great marathon time. But for Brian Fugere, it's a miracle. He'd been diagnosed with synovial sarcoma -- a rare soft-tissue cancer -- in his lung. Yet during his fourth cycle of chemotherapy, he still managed to drag an IV pole for all 26.2 miles. Oh, and this marathon took place in a hospital hallway. Inspired by Lance Armstrong's book that stresses how important it is to "keep moving," Fugere started doing laps around the cancer ward. Realizing it would take 144 laps to do a marathon, he wanted "to show other chemo patients that you don't have to accept the notion of lying in bed all day getting liquid Drano pumped into you." Those 144 laps raised $42,000 for the Sarcoma Foundation of America. And since then, Fugere has kept moving. [ 
On the dusty streets of Pushkar, India, a few men stop for a smoke. When an old woman asks for a rupee to buy lunch, they promptly refuse and walk away. Eyes on their backs, the woman observes, "These young men will burn more than a rupee for their bad habit, but will never give a rupee to a hungry person." With her words echoing in his ears, one man returns to offer her two rupees. An hour later, he finds the same beggar under a tree feeding a young girl in torn dress. "Amma, who is that girl?" he asks. "She couldn't arrange a rupee today, so I have brought lunch for her out of the money you gave for dinner. Don't worry, God will arrange for my dinner." Astonished at her generosity, he reflects, "I got the strength to quit the [smoking] habit in that moment. No 'statuary warning' on the packet could teach me the lesson that the beggar woman did that day," he remarks. [ 
A wealth of recent scientific papers on the early diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease is announcing groundbreaking discoveries, thanks to an unprecedented initiative by key players in public, private and academic sectors: a collaborative effort to find the biological markers that show the progression of Alzheimer's disease in the human brain. The key to this Alzheimer's project was an agreement as ambitious as its goal: not just to raise money and do research on a vast scale, but also to share all the data, making every single finding public, immediately available to anyone with a computer anywhere in the world. No one would own the data. No one could submit patent applications, though private companies would ultimately profit from any drugs or imaging tests developed as a result of the effort. The collaboration is already serving as a model for similar efforts against Parkinson's disease, such as a $40 million project to look for biomarkers for Parkinson's. [ 
