STUDENT-RUN SERVICE LEARNING PROJECTS

POSTED BY: YOUR TEACHER
FROM: EDUTOPIA
http://www.edutopia.org/blog/service-learning-cafe-freedom-rosemary-owens-blake-oconner

A Formula for Creating Successful Student-Run Service Learning Projects

May 19, 2011

Editor's Note: Today's guest blogger is Rosemary Owens, assistant principal for curriculum at Freedom High School and Tampa FL.
  Tampa's Freedom High School was transformed by a student-led initiative beginning in the summer of 2009. A rising senior, Blake O'Connor, and I had the privilege of attending the Aspen Ideas Festival (AIF) on a scholarship from the Bezos Family Foundation. The AIF is an annual gathering of big thinkers from all areas of society, from the arts to science to religion, culture, economics, and politics. Each year, the festival challenges participants to tackle some of the more pressing issues of our times, and figure out ways to replicate solutions. 

Our Inspiration

The year we went the festival theme was "Exploring Ideas, Deepening Dialogue, Inspiring Action," and the scholars had lots of freedom in choosing speakers to hear and sessions to attend. Education, naturally, was important to our fellow student and educator  scholars. It was fascinating to listen to Michelle Rhee discuss her experience with D.C schools. Howard Gardner provided much insight on learning styles and Tom Friedman was a driving force in declaring the responsibility of youth to be agents of change in our world: "Get off Facebook and into peoples' faces!" A highlight was spending a scholars-only hour with Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. New to his position, he requested the time to listen to us - educators and students - tell him about our classroom experience and hopes for its future.
As part of our grant, we were challenged to return home and create a festival for our own community, a Local Ideas Festival.

Turning Inspiration into Action

Inspired by the profound needs to improve literacy in our community and around the world, Blake and his peers created Café Freedom, named after the salons of the French Revolution. As a team, they worked to change local statistics: 35% of children in third grade were not ready to read when they arrived.   
This is an important year in Florida public schools, as third-grade students begin to take standardized tests that determine their placement in their own educational progression.   
Meeting with peers, faculty and administration at the beginning of the new school year, Café Freedom got to work. A plan was formed and implemented to promote literacy awareness through numerous stages.

• Book donations: Freedom High students encouraged others to donate books to take to 12 second grade classrooms in Title 1 elementary schools. They asked for help gathering donated books from the entire school's educational community, including the PTSA, Liberty Middle School, parents, teachers and early childhood programs at nearby universities.
• Readings at elementary schools: High school students read books to the second graders, created "I Feel the Need to Read" activities and made sure they all received books that could be given away to each student.
• Parent Night: The targeted elementary school parents were invited for a discussion on how to raise readers and an exploration of techniques to make it happen. A panel of experts from local media, education university faculty and librarians were asked to share their advice, while separately their children were entertained by Freedom High School's Drama Club productions of children's stories.
• Day-long "I Feel the Need to Read" celebration The major push of the initiative was the Literacy Festival on Dr. Seuss' birthday in which 280 second graders filled the Freedom High School football field for a day of literacy-themed games, activities, food and prizes. Not only was each student encouraged to read throughout the day, but each also took a literacy oath and received a bag of books and school supplies to take with them.

Bringing the Literacy Project to Other Schools

Because of the overwhelming success of Blake's project, Café Freedom expanded their effort this year. Two additional high schools were supported to start their own literacy initiatives, reaching a thousand more elementary school students. In its second year, over 1000 students benefited from books raised by this expanded group. The second annual Family Literacy night drew close to 400 parents and students. Sponsorship of this program has expanded from the original Bezos grant to include local support from Target, Publix and the Rotary Club of New Tampa.

Is heaven real?

POSTED BY: MARIA MUIXI
FROM: NEWSWEEK

'It was a place of butterflies, joy and big puffy pink clouds' says Dr. Eben Alexander.

Dr Eben Alexander spent 15 years as an academic neurosurgeon at Harvard but he was struck with a nearly fatal bout of bacterial meningitis in 2008 and had no brain activity when he lay comatose for seven days at a Virginia hospital. During this days when he lay comatose he affirms had seen heaven. He explains his experiences in an article published on the Newsweek.

Heaven Is Real: A Doctor’s Experience With the Afterlife

Oct 8, 2012 1:00 AM EDT

When a neurosurgeon found himself in a coma, he experienced things he never thought possible—a journey to the afterlife.   

As a neurosurgeon, I did not believe in the phenomenon of near-death experiences. I grew up in a scientific world, the son of a neurosurgeon. I followed my father’s path and became an academic neurosurgeon, teaching at Harvard Medical School and other universities. I understand what happens to the brain when people are near death, and I had always believed there were good scientific explanations for the heavenly out-of-body journeys described by those who narrowly escaped death.

The brain is an astonishingly sophisticated but extremely delicate mechanism. Reduce the amount of oxygen it receives by the smallest amount and it will react. It was no big surprise that people who had undergone severe trauma would return from their experiences with strange stories. But that didn’t mean they had journeyed anywhere real.

Although I considered myself a faithful Christian, I was so more in name than in actual belief. I didn’t begrudge those who wanted to believe that Jesus was more than simply a good man who had suffered at the hands of the world. I sympathized deeply with those who wanted to believe that there was a God somewhere out there who loved us unconditionally. In fact, I envied such people the security that those beliefs no doubt provided. But as a scientist, I simply knew better than to believe them myself.

In the fall of 2008, however, after seven days in a coma during which the human part of my brain, the neocortex, was inactivated, I experienced something so profound that it gave me a scientific reason to believe in consciousness after death.

I know how pronouncements like mine sound to skeptics, so I will tell my story with the logic and language of the scientist I am.

Very early one morning four years ago, I awoke with an extremely intense headache. Within hours, my entire cortex—the part of the brain that controls thought and emotion and that in essence makes us human—had shut down. Doctors at Lynchburg General Hospital in Virginia, a hospital where I myself worked as a neurosurgeon, determined that I had somehow contracted a very rare bacterial meningitis that mostly attacks newborns. E. coli bacteria had penetrated my cerebrospinal fluid and were eating my brain.

When I entered the emergency room that morning, my chances of survival in anything beyond a vegetative state were already low. They soon sank to near nonexistent. For seven days I lay in a deep coma, my body unresponsive, my higher-order brain functions totally offline.

Then, on the morning of my seventh day in the hospital, as my doctors weighed whether to discontinue treatment, my eyes popped open.

There is no scientific explanation for the fact that while my body lay in coma, my mind—my conscious, inner self—was alive and well. While the neurons of my cortex were stunned to complete inactivity by the bacteria that had attacked them, my brain-free consciousness journeyed to another, larger dimension of the universe: a dimension I’d never dreamed existed and which the old, pre-coma me would have been more than happy to explain was a simple impossibility.

But that dimension—in rough outline, the same one described by countless subjects of near-death experiences and other mystical states—is there. It exists, and what I saw and learned there has placed me quite literally in a new world: a world where we are much more than our brains and bodies, and where death is not the end of consciousness but rather a chapter in a vast, and incalculably positive, journey.

I’m not the first person to have discovered evidence that consciousness exists beyond the body. Brief, wonderful glimpses of this realm are as old as human history. But as far as I know, no one before me has ever traveled to this dimension (a) while their cortex was completely shut down, and (b) while their body was under minute medical observation, as mine was for the full seven days of my coma.






In this website you'll see a video where this doctor speaks about his experience while he was in coma.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/10/07/proof-of-heaven-a-doctor-s-experience-with-the-afterlife.html 




By: Maria Muixí

Imagine

Posted by Gemma Sanz

Silicon Valley-Imagine

ABOUT THE CENTER

Imagine Creativity Center is a center that identifies problems and suggests World Changing solutions. The ideas will be pursued by multidisciplinary team which will work in the Silicon Valley environment for one month.
During one month, dreamers will live a radical life changing experience while finding ways to make the world a better place. Imagine will open its doors to dreamers twice a year. In every edition, 12 talented people will be chosen to work on 4 disruptive projects. The results will be presented in a public event at the end of each edition and will be permanently exhibited in the center's showroom.

ABOUT THE PROJECTS

• In each edition of Imagine teams will work on 4 projects that propose disruptive solutions to different problems in the world.
• Projects are chosen by a committee of experts who evaluates the proposals submitted by applications. 12 talented people will work on these projects. The results will be presented in a public event and permanently exhibited in the center’s showroom.
• For this edition of imagine the following 4 projects have been selected: smart mobility, happiness, solidarity, collective intelligence.

PROGRAM OVERVIEW SUMMER
EDITION 2012

• 1 WarmUp weekend in Barcelona and Cadaqués.
  Creative group activities (15,16, 17 of June)
• 1 Month at Imagine Creativity Center at San Francisco (from 27th of June to 29 of July)
• Flight to San Francisco (27th of June)
• 4 Teams, 12 Dreamers (Different ages and backgrounds)
• Group of mentors (Stanford, Ideo, Google,…) + In-House Guest Sessions + 2 team directors
• 2 Stanford Interactive Sessions with Professors
• 8 Networking events around the Silicon Valley (chosen to fit each dreamers needs)
• Silicon Valley Company visits and Hotspots (Google, IDEO, Craigslist, etc.)
• 4 Outdoor Activities
• 1 Final Public Event to expose projects (26th of July)
• Flight back to Spain (29th of July)
• Reconnect meetings and presentation of the results to Spanish Media in Barcelona, Madrid, Tenerife, etc.

A ‘Party Drug’ May Help the Brain Cope With Trauma

A ‘Party Drug’ May Help the Brain Cope With Trauma

Gretchen Ertl for The New York Times

ALTERNATIVE TREATMENT Rick Doblin of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, which is financing research into the drug Ecstasy.

By BENEDICT CAREY

Hundreds of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans with post-traumatic stress have recently contacted a husband-and-wife team who work in suburban South Carolina to seek help. Many are desperate, pleading for treatment and willing to travel to get it.

The soldiers have no interest in traditional talking cures or prescription drugs that have given them little relief. They are lining up to try an alternative: MDMA, better known as Ecstasy, a party drug that surfaced in the 1980s and ’90s that can induce pulses of euphoria and a radiating affection. Government regulators criminalized the drug in 1985, placing it on a list of prohibited substances that includes heroin and LSD. But in recent years, regulators have licensed a small number of labs to produce MDMA for research purposes.

“I feel survivor’s guilt, both for coming back from Iraq alive and now for having had a chance to do this therapy,” said Anthony, a 25-year-old living near Charleston, S.C., who asked that his last name not be used because of the stigma of taking the drug. “I’m a different person because of it.”

In a paper posted online Tuesday by the Journal of Psychopharmacology, Michael and Ann Mithoefer, the husband-and-wife team offering the treatment — which combines psychotherapy with a dose of MDMA — write that they found 15 of 21 people who recovered from severe post-traumatic stress in the therapy in the early 2000s reported minor to virtually no symptoms today. Many said they have received other kinds of therapy since then, but not with MDMA.

The Mithoefers — he is a psychiatrist and she is a nurse — collaborated on the study with researchers at the Medical University of South Carolina and the nonprofit Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies.

The patients in this group included mostly rape victims, and experts familiar with the work cautioned that it was preliminary, based on small numbers, and its applicability to war trauma entirely unknown. A spokeswoman for the Department of Defense said the military was not involved in any research of MDMA.

But given the scarcity of good treatments for post-traumatic stress, “there is a tremendous need to study novel medications,” including MDMA, said Dr. John H. Krystal, chairman of psychiatry at the Yale School of Medicine.

The study is the first long-term test to suggest that psychiatrists’ tentative interest in hallucinogens and other recreational drugs — which have been taboo since the 1960s — could pay off. And news that the Mithoefers are beginning to test the drug in veterans is out, in the military press and on veterans’ blogs. “We’ve had more than 250 vets call us,” Dr. Mithoefer said. “There’s a long waiting list, we wish we could enroll them all.”

The couple, working with other researchers, will treat no more than 24 veterans with the therapy, following Food and Drug Administration protocols for testing an experimental drug; MDMA is not approved for any medical uses.

A handful of similar experiments using MDMA, LSD or marijuana are now in the works in Switzerland, Israel and Britain, as well as in this country. Both military and civilian researchers are watching closely. So far, the research has been largely supported by nonprofit groups.

“When it comes to the health and well-being of those who serve, we should leave our politics at the door and not be afraid to follow the data,” said Brig. Gen. Loree Sutton, a psychiatrist who recently retired from the Army. “There’s now an evidence base for this MDMA therapy and a plausible story about what may be going on in the brain to account for the effects.”

In interviews, two people who have had the therapy — one, Anthony, currently in the veterans study, and another who received the therapy independently — said that MDMA produced a mental sweet spot that allowed them to feel and talk about their trauma without being overwhelmed by it.

“It changed my perspective on the entire experience of working at ground zero,” said Patrick, a 46-year-old living in San Francisco, who worked long hours in the rubble after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks searching in vain for survivors, as desperate family members of the victims looked on, pleading for information. “At times I had this beautiful, peaceful feeling down in the pit, that I had a purpose, that I was doing what I needed to be doing. And I began in therapy to identify with that,” rather than the guilt and sadness.

The Mithoefers administer the MDMA in two doses over one long therapy session, which comes after a series of weekly nondrug sessions to prepare. Three to five weeks later, they perform another drug-assisted session; and again, patients engage in 90-minute nondrug therapy before and after, once each week.

Most have found that their score on a standard measure of symptoms — general anxiety, hyperarousal, depression, nightmares — drops by about 75 percent. That is more than twice the relief experienced by people who get psychotherapy without MDMA, the Mithoefers said.

The couple works as a team, sitting with the patient for as long as the altered state lasts. “It’s very much a nondirected therapy,” Dr. Mithoefer said. “We’re with them for 8 to 10 hours, usually, and we alternate between having them talk to us and having them focus on the trauma. Part of what we’re trying to do is help the person stay with the memory even if it’s difficult.”

For many people, the experience in treatment is emotionally vivid, Dr. Mithoefer continued. The drug does not produce a “high,” but it usually brings some tranquillity.

Studies of people taking MDMA suggest that the drug induces, among other things, the release of a hormone called oxytocin, which is thought to increase sensations of trust and affection. The drug also seems to tamp down activity in a brain region called the amygdala, which flares during fearful, threatening situations.

“The feeling I got was nothing at all for 45 minutes, then really bad anxiety, and I was fighting it at first,” said Anthony, the Iraq veteran, who patrolled southwest of Baghdad in 2006 and 2007 amid relentless insurgent harassment and attacks with improvised explosive devices. “And then — I don’t know how to put it, exactly — I felt O.K. and messed up at the same time. Clear. It was almost like I could go into any thought I wanted and fix it.”For instance, he could think and talk about an attack that occurred in a town near Baghdad, in which Iraqis posing as allies — and who had been armed by the American military — turned their guns on American troops, killing several. The unit could not quickly evacuate its wounded because of weather conditions. Anthony’s rage and grief were so overwhelming that he had to suppress them and did so for years.

“The military does a great job of turning you into a soldier, of teaching you how to control your reactions, and it is hard to turn those habits off,” Anthony said.

He said he no longer struggled with post-traumatic anxiety or guilt, more than a year after undergoing the MDMA-assisted treatment. In the new report, the Mithoefers write that they found 80 percent of the patients treated in the early 2000s reported that much or all of the initial benefit they achieved on this standard test persisted a year to five years after the therapy ended.

If the results among veterans are anywhere near as powerful and lasting, researchers said, it is likely that the government would be willing to pay for a larger trial.

“That is really what we’re aiming for, and we’re doing it carefully,” said Rick Doblin, the executive director of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, which financed the MDMA study. “After all this cultural turmoil, the split between the military and the psychedelic community, it would really be something if we could come together and use some of these drugs to help people.”

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: November 21, 2012
An article on Tuesday about using MDMA, or Ecstasy, in combination with psychotherapy to treat post-traumatic stress described incorrectly the office arrangement that a husband-and-wife team use to conduct therapy sessions using MDMA. The couple, Michael and Ann Mithoefer, hold the sessions in an office in a converted house; they do not conduct the sessions in their home office. And because of an editing error, an accompanying picture carried an incorrect credit. The photograph of the Mithoefers was taken by Hunter McRae, not by Gretchen Ertl.

An Alzheimer’s Detection Method is discovered By: Victor Marroquin

http://amazingnews.org/researchers-discover-alzheimers-detection-method/565027/

When Robotic Surgery Leaves Just a Scratch

POSTED BY: Andrea Carmona

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/18/business/single-incision-surgery-via-new-robotic-systems.html?ref=science

By ANNE EISENBERG                                                                                                         Published: November 17, 2012

SURGEONS once made incisions large enough to get to a gallbladder or other organs by using conventional tools they held in their own hands. Today, many sit at a computer console instead, guiding robotic arms that enter the patient’s body through small openings not much larger than keyholes.

But even this minimally invasive surgery usually requires multiple incisions: one for the camera system showing the way to the surgeon at the console, and others for each of the robotic arms that do the cutting and stitching.

Now there are robotic systems — one on the market, others in development — that are even less intrusive. They require only a single, small incision through which the robotic arms and camera enter.

This could lead to faster recovery, said Dr. Michael Hsieh, a Stanford professor and a urologist at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital and Stanford Hospital. “There’s only one wound to heal with this procedure, rather than three,” he said.

Dr. Hsieh, who performs abdominal surgery on small children, uses minimally invasive techniques that typically now require three incisions. His patients generally go home a day or two after surgery, he said, “but I think they would recover more quickly if I could reduce my multiple incisions to just one,” he said. “And there will be less scarring, or even no scarring, if you enter through the navel.”

He will soon have a chance to try out the new method on his patients. Stanford Hospital is buying a system from Intuitive Surgical called Single-Site that requires only a single incision of about one inch. The system, approved by the Food and Drug Administration only for gallbladder removal, is used as an add-on to a basic robotic system from Intuitive, known as the da Vinci Si.

The Si costs $1.3 million to $2.2 million, said Angela Wonson, a spokeswoman for Intuitive, based in Sunnyvale, Calif. The Single-Site can add $60,000 or more to the bill, or far less, depending in part on the equipment that hospitals might already have.

The East Jefferson General Hospital in Metairie, La., has bought a Single-Site system. Seated at a computer there, Dr. Joseph Uddo Jr. can control the instruments, which can enter the body by way of one incision in the navel. Surgical instruments like scissors are at the ends of the robotic arms. “To change a tool, you take out one instrument and load in another,” he said.

ANOTHER surgical robotic system, now in development, enters the body through a remarkably small incision — six-tenths of an inch, or 15 millimeters. The robot was designed by Drs. Dennis Fowler and Peter Allen of Columbia University and Dr. Nabil Simaan of Vanderbilt University. Once inside the body, it unfolds to reveal a camera system and two snakelike arms that perform the surgery. The system has been licensed to Titan Medical in Toronto.

Minimally invasive surgery through a single incision can also be performed with long, thin laparoscopic tools that surgeons wield as they watch a video monitor. But single-incision laparoscopic surgery with hand-held instruments can have problems, said Dr. Adrian Park, chairman of the department of surgery at the Anne Arundel Medical Center in Annapolis, Md., who specializes in minimally invasive gastrointestinal surgery. One difficulty is its ergonomic challenge to doctors, while another is the pressure that the tools place on tissue during single-incision operations.

Robotic systems, by contrast, are likely to ease single-incision surgery, said Jeffrey J. Tomaszewski, a fellow in urologic oncology at the Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia.

“Robots are an extension and multiplier of our own surgical hands,” Dr. Tomaszewski said. He has done traditional laparoscopic surgery with hand-held instruments, including operations through a single incision. “But you can be working at constrained angles,” he said. “A robot can improve the angle of workability.”

Robotic systems, though, have yet to show that they are always worth the extra money they cost. Such proof will take time, said Allison Okamura, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at Stanford who directs the Collaborative Haptics and Robotics in Medicine Lab. “The jury is still out because of the longevity of the studies that are required,” she said.

Dr. Tomaszewski agreed. “We surgeons love using the robot,” he said. “But the question is, and what we all have to fight hard to do, is to determine for what procedure the robotic approach provides the best benefit.”

Dr. Hsieh says he hopes that single-site robotic systems will someday bring a benefit he’s long dreamed about.

“We may get to the point where we do outpatient, scarless robotic surgery,” he said. “That’s what I’m shooting for.”

CHOCOLATE AND NOBEL PRIZES, by Marta Casado

Chocolate and Nobel Prizes - your theories

A Magazine story on Sunday explored the curious fact that countries where chocolate-consumption is high tend to produce more Nobel Prize winners. Readers supplied possible explanations for the link - here is a selection.

Michael Johnson, Manchester As an inventor myself, I find my most creative ideas come out when I have some time to myself, either relaxing or pacing up an down pondering about something. As chocolate is not a necessity product but rather more of a luxury product you might eat for enjoyment. It may be that people who have more time to relax and ponder, rather than worry about work or necessity of life... are most creative.

Liz Pearce, Cardiff I had my IQ measured by Mensa a few years ago and it came out at 159 which is apparently in the top 1% of the population. I am also well known for my chocolate addiction and once ate 23 Cadbury Creme Eggs at one sitting. (I felt a bit sick afterwards though.)

Baantu Kaano, Hayes, UK I believe chocolate does have certain aspects or properties which do promote better cognitive functioning. We Somalis consume a type of chocolate called ha'are, which we believe increased intelligence as old tribe leaders used to eat it during times of war.

Apostolos Papoutsis, Athens, Greece Eating chocolate when hungry is definitely a sign of superior intelligence. To start with, it saves hours in preparation and washing up, not to mention the time it takes to consume the food. The quality and taste of the former is always guaranteed, while the latter entails a great degree of luck. As well, as far as we know, Earth is the only planet blessed with both chocolate and intelligence beings. How is this for correlation?

Ken Yoshikawa, Portland, Oregon What if people who eat more chocolate have more leisure time, and leisure time is the variable that must be focused upon?

 

Ayub Ayub, Amman, Jordan Chocolate is full of minerals, is a stimulant, and is expensive. People who eat it, especially from an early age, will develop better brains, be more alert/sharp minded, and because they come from richer countries will have better education, a richer environment and more stable/easy life (they can ponder more), and will have more resources hence making them better achievers.

 

George Chilton, Salisbury, UK Chocolate is consumed in greater quantities in colder climates as it's a comfort food, and doesn't melt quite as much. Looking at the countries in the chart, we can see that they are highly affluent, and Northern. The combination of cold weather and money means people sit and work, rather than sit on the beach. Who wants to use their brain when it's 35 degrees [C] outside? I currently live in Spain. There aren't many Nobel prizes being won here, it's mostly because we're all at the beach, not because we're not eating enough chocolate.

Andrea Valdes Veracruz, Mexico You must consider that the Mayas, who probably domesticated cacao, used to drink a lot of chocolate and they were capable of amazing discoveries in astronomy. Was chocolate the reason for their intelligence?

James Winters, Edinburgh Me and my co-author, Sean Roberts, actually submitted a response to this paper that showed a correlation between the number of serial and rampage killers. In short, you can make the argument that there are positive and negative benefits to higher consumption of chocolate. Or, more seriously, the central point is that you shouldn't take these cross-cultural correlations too seriously.

Johanna, California, USA Chocolate (for the most part, pure dark) makes me feel good. When I have an exam to study for, or ideas to come up with for a creative project, or the need to feel relaxed in an upcoming challenge, chocolate ALWAYS helps. Chocolate differs from other foods eaten at these times, because I don't feel slowed down by digestion and I don't feel tired or sleepy; rather I feel invigorated and, most importantly, inspired. This doesn't prove that chocolate is responsible for my successes, or others' successes. But it might mean that certain people - those who have a predilection and a taste for it - may ''need'' what chocolate offers biochemically (for improved emotional, physical and/or mental state) and consequently function better with it. I know I do.

Marta Sandberg, Bridgetown, Australia I don't care if this is true or not - I will use it as an excuse anyway.

William, Halifax, Canada If you look closely at the flags on the graph you will see that it makes the outline of Cornwall, UK. This Cornish connection ought to be pursued - and can I have a Nobel Prize now?!

Brian Makin, Bassersdorf, Switzerland The explanation is obvious. The Swiss make the best chocolate!

 

"Does chocolate make you clever? It might not surprise you that Switzerland came top of the chocolate-fuelled league of intelligence, having both the highest chocolate consumption per head and also the highest number of Nobel laureates.Sweden, however, was an anomaly. It had a very high number of Nobel laureates but its people consumed much less chocolate on average."

INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT FELIX BAUMGARTNER'S SPACE JUMP! (Angela Blasi)

Felix Baumgartner broke both the sound barrier AND the record for the highest freefall. What would make a man hurl himself from a balloon-lifted capsule, dozens of miles above earth? Science! Baumgartner’s drop will help professionals develop new parachute systems, provide info to aid in emergency spacecraft evacuation, and — most importantly — offer valuable data about high-velocity impacts on dirt fields by Austrian feet. But that’s just the beginning of what we can learn from this momentous man-hurling!

 

Chinese boy allegedly has cat-like night vision by: germán

If you’re a comic book or superhero fan, you’ve probably dreamt of having special powers of some sort. Fanboy or not, it’s safe to assume that at some point in our lives the majority of us have wished we could fly like a bird, possess super strength, or even read people’s minds. Well, now it appears that one boy in China may exhibit some super powers of his own.

As reported by Dvice earlier today, a story of a Chinese boy who may have cat-like night vision is circulating the internet. Allegedly, the young Chinese boy’s, Nong Yousui’s, eyes are similar to those of a cat, allowing him the uncanny ability to see in the dark.

According to Alien Disclosure Group, doctors were made aware of the boy’s condition when he was two months old after his father inquired about the boy’s unique blue eyes. At the time, doctors assured Nong Shihua, Yousui’s father that there was no cause for concern and the boy would be fine when he got older.

As time progressed and Yousui got older, it became apparent that his eyes were displaying some “special” properties, which according to the video below, troubles the young boy’s vision during the day. His teachers began to notice when outside, Yousui would begin to squint and complain of difficulty seeing, while other the other children around him would not.

Despite his daytime difficulty, Yousui appears to display a superior ability to see at night — apparently he can catch crickets without the need of a flashlight — and when reporters from Heng County Television Station in Guangxi administered a test in which they gave him cards to fill out in a darkly lit room, he was able to do so without any problems. As you can see in the clip, when reporters shined their light on the boy’s eyes they seem to emit a blue-green light similar to a cat’s.

What caused the boy’s eyes to exhibit such special properties? Could Yousui’s eyes be the next step in human evolution,  an odd and rare mutation, or simply a hoax? For now, the answer remains unclear

http://news.yahoo.com/real-life-x-man-chinese-boy-allegedly-cat-205218952.html

25 CURIOSITIES ABOUT THE WORLD WE LIVE IN! (Daniela Abelló)

1. The largest venomous snake in the world is the Royal Cobra. It can reach lengths of up to 5.5 meters.

2. A chicken may lay, on average, up to 19 eggs per year.

3. The largest McDonald's restaurant is in ... Beijing, China. It covers an area of 2.6 square kilometers and has no less than 29 cash registers.

4. Want to know what country is given the longest holidays? Well, in France the state provides for employees five weeks of vacation per year. Most french receive, however, two months per year .

5. An adult horse can consume in a year an amount of food that exceeds 7 times its own weight.

6. You know who are the biggest consumers of fast food on the planet? The correct answer is ... chinese. 41% of chinese people eat at least once a week at a fast food restaurant. Only 35% of Americans do so.

7. Among African elephants, both males and females have ivory, while only the male asian elephants boast ivory.

8. There are many people who learn english in China than those who speak it officially in the United States (300 million).

9. Leg bones of a bat are so thin that no bat can use them to move.

10. The espectacular development of real estate prices occurred in Iraq. If a house in Baghdad before the r was not sold more than $ 15,000, today the price rose to $ 150,000.

11. In the U.S. alone there are about 7,000 tigers kept as pets.

12. In 2004, a study shows that one in six girls enter puberty at age 8 years. After a century, only one girl in 100 reached puberty at that age.

13. So far, Congress has allocated a sum of $ 152,600,000,000 for the Iraq war. The amount was sufficient to raise 17,500 schools.

14. Average daily products who are offered for sale on Ebay is 18 million.

15. Only 5% of surface covered by oceans on Earth has been mapped in such detail as it was the planet Mars.

16. You think playing the lottery? Then you should know that there are far more likely to die on the way to buy the ticket than to win a lottery prize to any of the lotteries of the world.

17. Adhesive stamps of Israel has been treated so as to be considered "kusher".

18. If you speak at your cell phone for an hour, the number of bacteria in your ear will grow at least 700 times.

19. Wingspan of a Boeing 747 is greater than the distance traveled by the Wright brothers in their first flight.

20. About 12 children are offered daily, by maternity, other than their natural mothers. This statistic includes all countries.

21. A female ferret can die if, once in heat, will not find a male partner.

22. Absolutely all children are born without rotule. They are formed completely in the 2-6 years age range.

23. An average person has 1,460 dreams every year.

24. A man consumes, on average in his life, a quantity of food equal to the weight of six elephants mature.

25. In space, astronauts can not cry. In zero gravity, tears can not flow (or flatulence is not possible in a state of weightlessness).
http://www.gossip-celebs.com/news/another-25-curiosities-about-the-world-we-living-in-7961.html

Will Catalonia's independence fracture Spain? By: Victor Marroquín

As Catalonia prepares for a vote which could redraw the map of Spain, in this article we can see ordinary people's stories who are in favour of independence.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/nov/21/catalonia-tales-in-favour-independence

Obama's respons to gay marriage letter by Siso Escrigas

http://intentblog.com/barack-obama-writes-encouraging-letter-to-young-girl-bullied-for-having-gay-parents/

Barack Obama Writes Encouraging Letter to Young Girl Bullied for Having Gay Parents

By Intent on November 7, 2012 in politics

 

A couple weeks ago, 10-year-old Sophia Bailey Klugh wrote a thoughtful and heartfelt letter to President Barack Obama. In the handwritten note, she praised Obama for his support of family’s like hers, and talked about how sad it made her feel to be bullied for having two gay dads.

I am so glad that you agree two men can love each other because I have two dads and they love each other, but at school kids think that it’s gross and weird, but it really hurts my heart and feelings…

Her two fathers, Jonathan Bailey and Triton Klugh, posted Sophia’s letter on Facebook and it was quickly picked up by major news outlets and media websites. Not surprisingly, the letter made its way into the hands of President Obama, and last week he took the time to write her back with words of encouragement and support:

“In America, no two families look the same. We celebrate this diversity. And we recognize that whether you have two dads or one mom what matters above all is the love we show one another. You are very fortunate to have two parents who care deeply for you. They are lucky to have such an exceptional daughter in you.”

Here is the full letter:

Reading as teenager gets you a better job

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/8435031/Reading-as-teenager-gets-you-a-better-job.html
By: Elena Marroquin

Teenagers who read for pleasure are much more likely to get a better job when they become adults, according to an in-depth and long-running sociological study.

Of all the free-time activities teenagers do, such as playing computer games, cooking, playing sports, going to the cinema or theatre, visiting a museum, hanging out with their girlfriend or boyfriend, reading is the only activity that appears to help them secure a good job.

This is one of the conclusions of an Oxford University study into 17,000 people all born in the same week in May 1970. They are now grown up and in their early 40s and the sociological study has tracked their progress through time.

At the age of 16, in 1986, they were asked which activities they did in their spare time for pleasure. These answers were then checked against the jobs they were doing at the age of 33, in 2003.

Mark Taylor, the researcher at Nuffield College, Oxford found that there was a 39 per cent probability that girls would be in professional or managerial posts at 33 if they had read books at 16, but only a 25 per cent chance if they had not. For boys the figures rose from 48 per cent to 58 per cent if they read books.

The results of the study are being presented at this week's British Sociological Association’s annual conference in London.

Playing with computer games – or at least the versions that were around in 1986 – harmed the children's prospects. Playing computer games regularly and doing no other activities meant their chances of going to university fell from 24 per cent to 19 per cent for boys and from 20 per cent to 14 per cent for girls.
Playing a musical instrument or playing team sports, activities that careers teachers often implore children to do so that it improves their CVs, were completely unconnected to whether they landed a good job or not.
He said: "Obviously reading is in itself a good thing. But we don't think that is the main reason why they ended up going to university and securing good jobs."
He explained that reading, and the chance it gives the child to sound eloquent and knowledgeable, is likely to have impressed interviewers when it came to landing a good job. However, curiously, reading at the age of 16 is not connected to actually being paid a better salary.
Mr Taylor explained that this was down to two possible explanations. At the age of 33, many highly desirable jobs such as being a doctor or architect have required many years of training and though the individuals will end up earning better money, the discrepancy is not apparent at this relatively young age.
He added: "And of course sounding knowledgeable in an interview does not mean that when you actually start working, you have the skills to do the job well and be promoted."

Panda's living conditions are endangered By: Javier Framis

Pandas' home range may move as climate changes

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/346413/description/Pandas_home_range_may_move_as_climate_changes

Warming might force animals’ food source, bamboo, to higher elevations

China’s famous Qinling pandas may run out of their favorite food by the end of this century. Scientists have simulated how three bamboo species native to central China’s Qinling Mountains might move around as climate changes. And the news is bad for hungry pandas: All three plant species shrink in range.
Bamboo, pandas’ dietary staple, is vulnerable to change because the plants take a long time to reproduce and can’t spread their seeds very far. Mao-Ning Tuanmu and his colleagues at Michigan State University in East Lansing mapped the climate conditions best suited to three bamboo species in the Qinling Mountains, home to some 270 pandas, or about 17 percent of the total wild population.
The scientists then took four popular climate simulations and calculated how conditions would change throughout the Qinling region. The results suggest that areas suited to bamboo growth would shift to higher elevations and become more isolated from the surrounding areas.
Maps of different scenarios for bamboo survival revealed that if the bamboo species manage to spread well and temperature increases stay small, then “a considerable amount of panda habitat is projected to persist over the entire century,” the scientists write online November 11 in Nature Climate Change.
But more likely is a fragmenting of panda habitat and overall bamboo shortages.
Scientists need to pay more attention, the team writes, to how changes in one part of the ecosystem (like bamboo) affect others within the same ecosystem (like pandas).

By Alexandra Witze

Web edition: November 13, 2012