A young woman of 23 is helping to turn pizza crusts, leftover lasagna, and other food waste into methane gas to fuel electric generators at an alternative energy start-up that is transforming the way North America manages organic materials.
At its Waltham plant, Harvest Power uses airtight reactors to allow plant and animal wastes to decompose and produce biogas and other useful products, such as fertilizer.
“We are basically creating a facility where bacteria happily feed on waste and produce lots of useful bioproducts,’ said Molly Bales who also researches and develops composting facilities for municipalities, colleges, military bases, stores, and even theme parks.
Scientific studies come and go. But there is evidence that accumulates slowly over many years that support often ancient claims that herbs can provide medicinal help for ailments such as stomach upset, hot flashes, depression, nausea and indigestion.
The weight of the evidence clearly shows that these 16 herbs, some of which are already in your kitchen, are safe (with certain caveats) and effective. Many can be used regularly to promote health and deserve a place in your medicine cabinet.
Aloe for Burns and Cuts
Black Cohosh for Hot Flashes
Chamomile for Indigestion and Relaxation
Cranberry to Prevent Urinary Tract Infections
Echinacea for Colds, Immune System
Flaxseed for Menopause and Prevention of Osteoporosis and Heart Disease
Garlic for Cholesterol Control and Cancer Prevention
A 7-year-old boy from California had the opportunity to be the one to push the button and implode a massive ConAgra grain silo in Erie County, Ohio.
Maxwell Hinton, a cancer patient, never thought he would get a chance to play with explosives at such a young age. But on Sunday the little boy’s big dream came true thanks to an organization that turns wishes into realities.
“I watch MythBusters and they inspired me to blow a building up,” said the young boy from Fresno, Calif.
The presidents of South Korea and China agreed Monday to work together to achieve peace and stability on the Korean peninsula, in their first summit since Kim Jong Il’s death opened the chance for major changes in North Korea.
China’s Hu Jintao said he is willing to make ‘unremitting efforts’ to safeguard peace and stability between the Koreas, China’s official Xinhua News Agency reported.
Giselle Osborn was among a handful of youth chosen to travel to Haiti this past August as part of a delegation to build eco-friendly homes. Working side-by-side with the local villagers, they not only had to contend with oppressive heat, humidity and mosquitoes, but also the torrential rains of Hurricane Irene.
Giselle laughed off the hurricane. “It was pretty scary for the parents back here to think that we were in a remote village with a hurricane bearing down on us, but it was just one day with a lot of rain.”
Despite the miserable conditions, the Georgia teen is headed back again in mid-January to help a group of girls orphaned by the catastrophic earthquake of 2010.
Giselle is no stranger to community service work. A Girl Scout since age 5, she has taken on project after project including making blankets for a nursing home and making equestrian equipment for a Girl Scout camp. She traveled to India in 2009 as part of a leadership program where she met and worked with girls in a Muslim Orphanage and in 2010 she was one of 12 girls chosen to represent the United States at the 100th Anniversary of Girl Guiding in Leeds, England.
During her trip to Haiti, she was touched most by the children. “They were amazing, just beautiful and happy. They taught us Haitian freedom songs, we taught them Disney songs and we sang them while working together. I took about 40 pounds of school supplies with me, reams of paper, books, pencils, and book bags. This one little girl, Vanessa, was so sweet; I gave her the book bag that was my favorite when I was little.”
“While I was there, I learned about a place called Camp Oasis. It’s a refugee camp for 40 girls who were rescued from the general refugee camps after the quake. These girls had no family left to provide for them and if left in the camps would have been forced into prostitution just to stay alive. This is a group of girls that I know I can help.”
And help she will. Not one to sit back and wait for others to fix a problem, Gigi is returning to Haiti to take even more supplies than she did the first time around.
“These girls need books in French. 10% of the people in Haiti speak French, but it is the language of the elite, the government, and the media. If these girls hope to become leaders in their community, they have to understand French.”
Gigi has been sending messages through Facebook about her project – and her efforts have finally begun to pay off. She came home one day to find a package on her doorstep – Harry Potter in French – sent to her by an anonymous donor.
“This is exactly what I need,” said Gigi. “I want books that will make these girls want to learn French.”
She laughed, when asked why she would travel a second time when she could easily ship the items and stay safely in the States:
“I went to Mumbai just months after the 2008 bombings; I arrived in Iceland on the same day that Norway was terrorized by a gunman. There are dangerous places in the world for sure, but I won’t live my life in fear.”
“There was nothing that would have replaced being with the children in Papaye, those are memories that I will carry with me always. I know that meeting the girls at Camp Oasis will be the same. I only know a little Creole, but I do know some freedom songs to sing – and maybe I could teach them some Disney songs.”
Gigi will leave for Haiti in mid-January, carrying suitcases full of books in French. Afterward, she plans to start her own non-profit to remove barriers to education for girls in other countries.
“HIPPO (Helping Initiate Powerful & Positive Opportunities) will be my way of keeping the project going. First, I need enough money to buy the books for Haiti, and then I have to cover my plane ticket. After that, I need enough money to file my non-profit corporation. It will be a lot of work, but that doesn’t scare me. I don’t give up easily.”
Hurricane Irene may not have affected Haiti, but Hurricane Gigi? Well, that might just be an impact felt for years to come.
WATCH the video about Giselle’s travels and humanitarian service below…
To donate a book in French, please send to:
Girl Scout Troop 27552, PO Box 446, Social Circle, GA 30025-0446
Or, donate to the Fundrazr link on the Hippo Facebook page.
Giselle Osborn was among a handful of youth chosen to travel to Haiti this past August as part of a delegation to build eco-friendly homes. Working side-by-side with the local villagers, they not only had to contend with oppressive heat, humidity and mosquitoes, but also the torrential rains of Hurricane Irene.
Giselle laughed off the hurricane. “It was pretty scary for the parents back here to think that we were in a remote village with a hurricane bearing down on us, but it was just one day with a lot of rain.”
Despite the miserable conditions, the Georgia teen is headed back again in mid-January to help a group of girls orphaned by the catastrophic earthquake of 2010.
A substitute cricket player, Bevan Small, 19, was a surprise hero last week when he made an amazing play for New Zealand by simultaneously jumping over the boundary line and throwing the ball back to his teammate.
The ball looked to have cleared the boundary but Small soared into the air back over the boundary rope and, still airborne, flicked the ball into the hands of teammate Michael Mason, saving six in the process.
Almost half a million people have so far viewed the clip since it was posted on YouTube, with some hailing it as one of the greatest catches ever.
As grasslands diminish on prairies and savannas around the world, an innovative ranching technique that reverses the environmental damage of desertification makes its way to the US.
For a rancher whose livelihood depended on those diminishing grasslands, it was an oncoming economic and ecological disaster in slow motion.
But in Colorado, the grass came back. Today, “the grass has covered the sand.” A dozen or more sandy, wind-blown basins have become lush and green.
Trying to keep a New Year’s resolution to practice yoga? It might benefit you to schedule classes in a local studio, but for others, like blogger, Starre Vartan, the answer is a collection of online yoga classes from a website called YogaGlo.
Vartan pays just $18 per month to access more than 1,000 different yoga classes available online from the website.
The Danish navy says it has captured a suspected pirate mothership off the Horn of Africa and rescued 14 people from Iran and Pakistan who were being held hostage on it.
While participating in NATO’s Ocean Shield anti-piracy force, the Danes encountered the ship Saturday and after boarding it they arrested 25 suspected pirates.
A dog, presumed dead after being buried by an avalanche that killed one of his owners, dug himself out and walked for four days to find the rest of his family and their hotel.
On Wednesday a Cooke City resident noticed a Corgi outside Room 17 of the Alpine Hotel, where the Gaillards had stayed the night before the Montana ski trip, the Bozeman Daily Chronicle reported.
Scientists said Thursday they have designed tiny wires, 10,000 times thinner than a human hair but with the same electrical capacity as copper, in a major step toward building smaller, more potent computers, ushering in the quantum computing age.
The advance, described in the US journal Science, shows for the first time that wires one atom tall and four atoms wide can carry a charge as well as conventional wires.
The long-running joke about interns is that they do little more than get coffee and collate papers.
While there’s usually no escaping menial labor as an intern, some programs provide worthwhile career experience. For those lucky enough to land a position at one of the following companies, a full-time job might even be waiting at the finish line.
Read about the internships at NBCUniversal, L’Oreal, Garmin (for engineering students), and MTV Networks.
A Navy destroyer in the Arabian Sea rescued 13 Iranian fishermen who had been held hostage by a band of pirates for weeks, the Pentagon announced late Friday.
Sailors from the USS Kidd, a guided-missile destroyer, boarded the Iranian ship and arrested 15 Somalis early Friday after one of the fishermen revealed over the radio that the vessel’s crew was being held captive.
The Iranian “pleaded with us to come over and board their vessel,” said Cmdr. Jennifer L. Ellinger, who added that the Navy ship had a linguist on board who could understand Urdu, a South Asian language.
The crew of the Kidd not only gave the “ecstatic” Iranians food, water and medical attention. They handed out souvenir Kidd baseball caps that the Iranians wore proudly, smiling and waving as they headed out to sea.
“Actor Charlie Sheen quietly donated $25,000 in December to help tornado relief in Alabama, making good on a pledge to help survivors of the deadly twisters even though some had doubted his promises,” reports CBS.
The head of Tuscaloosa’s tourism agency, Don Staley, said a representative of Sheen recently turned over money that came in through a fundraising website that the actor set up after tornadoes last spring killed about 250 people in Alabama, including 52 in the west Alabama city. Sheen wrote a check that covered about $15,000 of the total amount given.
A businessman has come forward to write a $5,000 check to Armando Fontaine, a disabled Miami man whose car was stolen on Monday night.
After seeing a news report on NBC Miami, the Coral Springs businessman – who wishes to remain anonymous – made the donation to help replace the car with wheelchair lift which is still missing.
New Yorkers rang in the new year with continued generosity as donations kept pouring in for the scholarship fund for the children of slain NYPD cop Peter Figoski with totals nearing $1.9 million.
Figoski, was gunned down on Dec. 12 while backing up other officers at a home-invasion.
The Peter Figoski Scholarship Fund was launched by The New York Post and New York City Police Foundation.
200,000 jobs were added in December, pushing the unemployment rate, down to 8.5 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today.
Job gains occurred in transportation and warehousing, retail trade, manufacturing, health care, and mining.
The jobless rate continued its downward trend declining by 0.6 percent since August, as 100,000 jobs or more were added in each of the last six months. That hasn’t happened since April 2006, according to the Associated Press.
A young woman of 23 is helping to turn pizza crusts, leftover lasagna, and other food waste into methane gas to fuel electric generators at an alternative energy start-up that is transforming the way North America manages organic materials.
And help she will. Not one to sit back and wait for others to fix a problem, Gigi is returning to Haiti to take even more supplies than she did the first time around.
