Sunday, January 2, 2011 Social Ties Boost Survival by 50 Percent  The benefit of friends, family and even colleagues turns out to be just as good for long-term survival as giving up a 15-cigarette-a-day smoking habit. Despite this hyperconnected era, social isolation is on the rise. More people than not report feeling that they don't have a single person they can confide in - a percentage up threefold from 20 years ago. In fact, the decades of research that Julianne Holt-Lunstad and her colleagues at Brigham Young University examined showed that social support and survival operate on a continuum: "The greater the extent of the relationships, the lower the [mortality] risk." Their studies also conclude that complex social networks can increase survival rates by 91 percent! Read More >>
back to top  Saturday, January 1, 2011 Top Ten Kindness Stories for the New Year  An unexpected display of love at an airport, a ten-year-old returns 200 lost dollars to a stranger, a homeless man helps a single mother smile on a bad day, an orphaned dog finds strength from one small gesture of compassion... These humble stories are a reminder of the power of kindness to transform a moment, a day, a person or lifetime. Start the new year off with some down-to-earth inspiration from these ten lessons of generosity. Read More >>
back to top Friday, December 31, 2010 New Kind of New Year's Resolution  "I'm not going to shrink my hips or grow five inches in 2011. I didn't in 2010, 2009, or 2008, despite my penchant for making New Year's resolutions that defy common sense and human physiology. The only thing more depressing than a personal pledge unmet is one so unrealistic it couldn't be kept even if plastic surgery was free," Philadelphia Inquirer's Monica Yant Kinney writes. That's why this year, she is following Chaz Howard's lead to turn New Year's resolutions inside out. "What if," Chaz asks, "we made resolutions that were about serving and caring for others?" Read More >>
back to top Thursday, December 30, 2010 How to Change the World While Traveling  In 1989, while touring India, Marc Gold found himself "thunderstruck" when he realized he could save a woman from a deadly ear infection by paying the $1 for her antibiotics. "I thought you had to be wealthy to do such things," he recalls. Since then, Gold has trekked through Asia, handing out money to the needy in amounts as little as 50 cents and rarely exceeding $500. In Vietnam, a small donation was enough for a widow to buy a sewing machine and start a business. In Indonesia, a fisherman fixed his boat and returned to self-sufficiency. Compared with global aid organizations, Gold's budget is tiny. But he has touched over 50,000 lives. Read More >>
back to top Wednesday, December 29, 2010 Kids on Love  A group of adults posed this question to a group of 4 to 8 year-olds: "What does love mean?" The answers were broader and deeper than anyone could have imagined. One 6-year old wrote, "If you want to learn to love better, you should start with a friend who you hate." Read More >>
back to top Tuesday, December 28, 2010 How Consumers Power Innovation  In many fields, the user is often the innovator. In the space of scientific instruments, 77 percent of the innovation comes from end users. Yet we generally believe the opposite: that users satisfy their own, personal needs while manufacturers dominate innovation. As a result, our understanding of intellectual property tends to protect manufacturers, not users: firms are likely to patent their (internal, otherwise invisible) innovations and not share them, while individuals working in similar spaces usually don't seek patent production and often share their processes. This may reveal basic biases in how individuals and firms behave. MIT Professor Eric von Hippel notes that it's counterintuitive that we expect manufacturers to innovate - we should expect them to manufacture efficiently, but perhaps to look to their users for design innovation. Read More >>
back to top Monday, December 27, 2010 5 Ways Giving is Good for You  As the spirit of giving wraps up this last week of 2010, here's some food for thought: Research suggests generosity is good for you. New studies attest that giving benefits not only the recipients but also the givers' health and happiness, while bringing strength to entire communities. Of course, you don't have to shop to reap the rewards of giving, the same benefits can come from donating to charities or volunteering time to a good cause. UC Berkeley's Greater Good Science Center offers up 5 ways giving is good for you. Read More >>
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