Not Without My Daughters
Pharmacologist and medical researcher Vimala Seshadri lives with 10 girls between the ages of 4 and 20 who come from underprivileged backgrounds. "We're an all-women household," says Vimala, who has brought up the girls as her own daughters in a small home in India for the past nine years. The girls live with her through the year and visit their parents during holidays. "We go back for a while, bu... posted on Jan 30 2011, 1,478 reads

Fairness Driven By Culture, Not Genes
Human behaviors are often explained as hard-wired evolutionary leftovers of life on the savannah or during the Stone Age. But a study of one very modern behavior, fairness toward total strangers one will never meet again, suggests it evolved recently, and is rooted in culture rather than biology. In a series of behavioral tests given to 2,100 people in societies around the world (from hunter-gathe... posted on Jan 29 2011, 3,268 reads

Building Green Houses from Garbage
Texas home builder Dan Phillips transforms trash into artful treasures, creating intricate floor mosaics with wood scraps, kitchen counters from ivory-colored bones and roofs out of license plates. The fantastical houses which spring from his imagination cost as little as $10,000 and are made almost entirely with materials which would otherwise have ended up in a garbage dump.... posted on Jan 28 2011, 6,385 reads

The Blanket of Laughter Cure
About two years ago, LuAnn Kessi started a group called Living Well with Cancer and Healing Through Quilting. The Harlan resident has three aunts who are cancer survivors, and all had been making things to sell to raise money for cancer research. But she felt moved to do more. "You knew that you were doing something good, but we just wanted to help in a more personal way," she said. So she decided... posted on Jan 27 2011, 2,765 reads

Being the Change In Bihar
In an under-construction school building in India's Bihar village, children are learning algebra, chemistry, Newton's laws of motion. There's no teacher in the classroom, no blackboard. The teacher is hundreds of miles away, and he is teaching via Skype. In this very unsual school, teachers mark their attendance using a biometric fingerprinter, and students log their attendance in a computer. The ... posted on Jan 26 2011, 4,104 reads

An Academic Sparks Giving to Charity
Toby Orb is a researcher at Oxford University who lives off little more than 300 pounds a month. Yet he's inspiring a movement of charity-giving that's even more impressive than Zuckerberg, Gates, and Buffett. In the past year, Ord has given more than a third of his earnings to charities working in the poorest countries. Why? For Ord, the question is: why not? "If you only have a certain amount of... posted on Jan 25 2011, 4,085 reads

The Best Place for a Break
In the age of multi-tasking, constant communication, and overwhelming stimuli, studies show that a 20 minute walk helps refocus our minds and revive our spirits. Researchers explain, "Nature engages your attention in relaxed fashion- leaves rustling, patterns of clouds, sunsets, a bird, the shape of an old tree. It captures our attention in subtle, bottom-up ways and allows our top-down attention ... posted on Jan 24 2011, 5,837 reads

Jogging for a Smile
Lots of people jog for exercise. And as long as you're going for a run, why not run an errand for someone who needs the help at the same time? That's the idea behind The Good Gym, an organization that matches runners with elderly and less mobile people in their neighborhood who need groceries, errands, or just some friendly human connection. On top of runner's high, The Good Gym volunteers finish ... posted on Jan 23 2011, 1,689 reads

Pilot Holds Plane for a Dying Child
Time was running out, and Mark Dickinson wasn't sure whether he'd get to see his dying 2-year-old grandson one last time. A long line in security had kept him from getting to his gate on time. In a desperate last attempt, Dickinson's wife called the airline to ask them to hold the plane for him. That's when the pilot stepped up and held the flight at the gate until Dickinson arrived, running in so... posted on Jan 22 2011, 9,787 reads

The Wisdom of Old Ted
"I placed Ted's ashes in the ocean and watched as they made a rainbow before dissolving into the sea." So begins the story of an unlikely friendship between Jimpa, a monk, and Ted, a hobo in his 80s who lives in freedom and dignity in a homeless camp. The friendship started when Ted saw Jimpa and said: "I'm hungry can you feed me?" It was to become a sweet refrain from a dear friend. Jimpa fed Ted... posted on Jan 21 2011, 4,394 reads