Month: October 2010

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Lucky Errors

Where Good Ideas Come From: 6 Brilliant, World-Changing Mistakes

Making mistakes turns out to be a strangely generative process: it sends you down a new path, allows an interesting new connection to form in your mind. The history of being spectacularly right has a shadow history lurking behind it: a much longer history of being spectacularly wrong, again and again…And not just wrong, but messy. A shockingly large number of transformative ideas in the annals of science can be attributed to contaminated laboratory environments.

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Lots of People Are Working Really Hard to Change the World for the Better

Scotland to Run Off 100% Renewable Energy by 2025

While many countries are complaining about the Copenhagen requirements, other countries are striving to go above and beyond the call of duty. Last week Northern Ireland stated that they were hoping to have 40 percent of the country running off renewable energy. This week, new First Minister of Scotland Alex Salmond went even further, stating that the country could be running off of 100 percent renewable energy by 2025.

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Surprising and Secret Helpers Actually Exist

“Use of the word ‘miracle’ is not an overstatement”

What would it cost, the caller asked the founder of DonorsChoose.org, to fund every California teacher’s wish list posted on the Web site?

The founder, Charles Best, thought perhaps the female caller would hang up when he tossed out his best guess: “Something over $1 million,” he told her.

Twelve hours later, the woman, Hilda Yao, executive director of the Claire Giannini Fund, sent Best an e-mail.

It said, in short, OK.

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Maybe You’re Capable of Being Happier Than You Think

Happiness levels are not predetermined. Genes and early life experience don’t set a limit on a person’s happiness.

The idea that happiness is a genetic trait influenced by early life experiences has been challenged by new research from Germany.

It found feelings of happiness and well-being respond to external factors such as healthy lifestyle, religion and working hours.

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Pronoia Sneaks Into the Workplace

A company that respects workers’ rights, health, and their union — and not just in theory, but every working day.

Eurofresh workers receive full family healthcare coverage with no premium costs, and earn approximately 65 percent more than non-union agricultural workers. Their union leads orientation and training programs for raising safety standards, to make sure the produce we buy in our supermarkets is not only delicious and refreshing, but entirely safe to eat as well.

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Not Quite As Good As the Lion Lying Down With the Lamb, but Close

Baby hippo licks crocodile

This video from National Geographic shows some brazen hippopotamuses and their audacity to romp freely among African crocodiles, even amidst intense feeding sessions. If that isn’t enough, the hippos also lick and gnaw at the crocodiles’ armor. A baby hippo is even seen to treat a croc like its personal chew toy!