Commerzbank stops speculating on basic food prices
Germany’s second-biggest lender, Commerzbank, says it will no longer participate in market speculation on basic food prices. The move came in response to international studies claiming that such speculation had played no small role in artificially pushing up food prices, contributing to widespread hunger in many parts of the world.
Clearing metabolic garbage from your thought center
Every organ produces waste, and the brain is no exception. But unlike the rest of our body, it doesn’t have a lymphatic system, a network of vessels that filter out junk. Now, a new study of mouse brains suggests how ours handle waste: by rapidly pumping fluid along the outside of blood vessels, literally flushing waste away. The finding, reported Aug. 15 in Science Translational Medicine, could hint at how diseases like Alzheimer’s develop and might be treated.
Getting practical about searching for a new kind of toilet better suited for preventing disease and death in developing countries.
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has launched a search for a new toilet better suited to developing countries to help prevent disease and death.
A charitable foundation founded by Gates and his wife kicked off a "Reinvent the Toilet Fair" in Seattle and awarded prizes for promising innovations.
President of Uruguay donates 90 percent of his salary to charity
The president said that the only big item he owns is his VW car, valued at $1,945 dollars. The farmhouse in which he lives in Montevideo is under his wife’s name, Lucía Topolansky, a Senator, who also donates part of her salary.
"I do fine with that amount; I have to do fine because there are many Uruguayans who live with much less," the president told El Mundo.
Intricate crop circles of Buddhist symbol for infinite time and wisdom appears in crop field
The mysterious pattern resembles the ancient Tibetan Buddhist symbol of an ‘endless knot’ – a complex loop of lines and circles used to illustrate the eternal flow of time.
To overcome our neural bias for negativity, we must repetitiously and consciously generate as many positive thoughts as we can.
Positive words and thoughts propel the motivational centers of the brain into action[17] and they help us build resilience when we are faced with life’s problems. According to Sonja Lyubomirsky, one of the world’s leading researchers on happiness, if you want to develop lifelong satisfaction, you should regularly engage in positive thinking about yourself, share your happiest events with others, and savor every positive experience in your life.
Every year the UN selects six “Champions of the Earth”
The United Nations Environment Programme established Champions of the Earth in 2004 as an annual awards programme to recognize outstanding environmental leaders at a policy level. Six awards are given out each year to a Laureate representing different geographical regions with one additional special prize.
Germany produced a record high amount of renewable energy in the first half of 2012, an increase of 19.5 percent from the same period last year.
Renewables now account for 25 percent of energy production, up from 21 percent last year, the country’s energy industry association (BDEW) said in a statement that reinforced Germany’s position as a leader in green technology.
Wind energy was the largest contributor of green power, accounting for 9.2 percent of all energy output, BDEW said.
Empirically speaking, does the experience of compassion toward one person measurably affect our actions and attitudes toward other people? If so, are there practical steps we can take to further cultivate this feeling? Recently, my colleagues and I conducted experiments that answered yes to both questions.
The Future is Better Than You Think
People think the world is falling apart, and many are in a very dark contemporary mood. But what is curious about this situation is that in nearly every measurable way, the world is much better off than it has ever been.
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