Inspirational News StoriesExcerpts of Key Inspirational News Stories in Major Media
Note: This comprehensive list of news stories is usually updated once a week. Explore our full index to revealing excerpts of key major media news stories on several dozen engaging topics. And don't miss amazing excerpts from 20 of the most revealing news articles ever published.
A sugar pill, a salt solution, a doctor in a white jacket -- these all have the power to cure as long as the patient believes in their healing qualities. That seems impossible. So what does science say about the elusive placebo effect? Very little research has been done in this area of medicine. The pharmaceutical industry can’t profit; after all, they can’t make money from sugar pills. It is often forgotten that the effect could help people and shave billions off spiralling health-care costs. If researchers could gain more insight into how the effect works, it would stand as one of the biggest medical breakthroughs in history. Some people are convinced that the effect proves that strength of mind is sufficient to heal the body. Placebos have...proven successful in treating depression, anxiety, stress, warts and ulcers -- sometimes in as many as 60 to 70 percent of the cases. There are...objective effects everyone can measure. Placebo treatments have been shown to lower blood pressure and cholesterol levels as well as improve reaction speeds, pulse rates and immune-system activity. Ultimately, the placebo phenomenon points to a strange paradox in modern medical science. As soon as an alternative-health treatment proves successful, it is dismissed as the placebo effect. It works only because people believe in it. Yet this explanation appears to contradict one of the foundations of medical science, which stresses that the mind and body are separate, therefore ruling out the possibility of healing through belief.
Note: For ideas on why the placebo effect has rarely been studied, see our two-page health cover-up summary at http://www.WantToKnow.info/healthcoverup
Stanford University and UC Berkeley have joined a trend among the nation's elite universities and are developing centers dedicated to fighting poverty worldwide as economic inequalities grow ever starker. Both are fledgling efforts aimed at marshalling their respective academic forces...to tackle some of the most vexing and enduring problems facing humanity. A few universities, such as Harvard, have established track records in this arena, but a number of academics believe the trend is accelerating among major universities. Northwestern University and the University of Chicago have been running the Joint Center for Poverty Research since late 1996. Harvard established the Multidisciplinary Program in Inequality and Social Policy a couple of years later. In 2002, the University of Michigan created the National Poverty Center, which is largely funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Last year...Princeton University started the Global Network on Inequality. Capitalism...has been immensely successful in generating high-GNP societies, but one side effect has been "massive inequality (that) can be debilitating." Poverty and inequality have always plagued the world, but that doesn't mean universities can't develop new ways of solving the problems, said Stanford's Grusky. "It's time again to think in ways that are utopian...and imagine systems that are different from the ones we have."
Note: For two excellent articles on tackling poverty and how you can make a difference:
http://www.weboflove.org/051023microcredit - Breaking the Cycle of Poverty: Microcredit and Microfinance
http://www.time.com/time/archive/preview/0,10987,1034738,00.html - Time magazine "The End of Poverty"
For 2,000 years Judas has been reviled for betraying Jesus. Now a newly translated ancient document seeks to tell his side of the story. The "Gospel of Judas"...portrays Judas as a favored disciple who was given special knowledge by Jesus -- and who turned him in at Jesus' request. The text, one of several ancient documents found in the Egyptian desert in 1970, was preserved and translated by a team of scholars. It was made public in an English translation by the National Geographic Society. A "Gospel of Judas" was first mentioned around 180 A.D. by Bishop Irenaeus of Lyon, in what is now France. The bishop denounced the manuscript as heresy because it differed from mainstream Christianity. The actual text had been thought lost until this discovery. Christianity in the ancient world was much more diverse than it is now, with a number of gospels circulating in addition to the four that were finally collected into the New Testament, noted Bart Ehrman, chairman of religious studies at the University of North Carolina. Eventually, one point of view prevailed and the others were declared heresy, he said, including the Gnostics who believed that salvation depended on secret knowledge that Jesus imparted. The newly translated document's text begins: "The secret account of the revelation that Jesus spoke in conversation with Judas Iscariot."
I was deployed to Iraq in April 2003 and returned home for a two-week leave in October. Going home gave me the opportunity to put my thoughts in order and to listen to what my conscience had to say. I realized that none of the reasons we were told about why we were in Iraq turned out to be true. Coming home gave me the clarity to see the line between military duty and moral obligation. By putting my weapon down, I chose to reassert myself as a human being. I have not deserted the military nor been disloyal to the men and women of the military. I have not been disloyal to a country. I have only been loyal to my principles. Many have called me a coward, others have called me a hero. I believe I can be found somewhere in the middle. To those who have called me a hero, I say that I don't believe in heroes, but I believe that ordinary people can do extraordinary things. Today, as I sit behind bars I realize that there are many types of freedom, and that in spite of my confinement I remain free in many important ways. What good is freedom if we are afraid to follow our conscience? What good is freedom if we are not able to live with our own actions? I am confined to a prison but I feel, today more than ever, connected to all humanity. Behind these bars I sit a free man because I listened to a higher power, the voice of my conscience.
[AJ] remembers every day and almost every detail of her life. James McGaugh is one of the world's leading experts on how the human memory system works. But these days, he admits he's stumped. McGaugh's journey through an intellectual purgatory began six years ago when a woman now known only as AJ wrote him a letter detailing her astonishing ability to remember with remarkable clarity even trivial events that happened decades ago. Give her any date...and she could recall the day of the week, usually what the weather was like on that day, personal details of her life at that time, and major news events that occurred on that date. Like any good scientist, McGaugh was initially skeptical. But not anymore. "This is real," he says. "In order to explain a phenomenon you have to first understand the phenomenon," McGaugh says. "We're at the beginning."
Note: The human mind and spirit are much more powerful than many scientists might imagine.
It was about 10 seconds long and showed gondoliers rowing in the canals of Venice, Italy, while a Latin-sounding man's voice said: "Your heart is where your treasure is, and you must find your treasure in order to make sense of everything." And then more words appeared on the screen: "Everyday grace: MTV." In late January, MTV, the arbiter of all things hip, quietly launched a campaign of 24 of these little films. They call the campaign "Spiritual Windows." "We wanted to create little, short moments, almost breaths of peace, for the channel," Kevin Mackall, the...senior vice president of on-air promos for MTV explained. "There's a genuine appetite for spirituality these days." According to a little-known poll...53 percent of 18-to-29-year-olds said "religion" was "extremely important" or "very important" to their daily lives. Only 14 percent said religion wasn't important to them at all. One spot, with the tag line "Consume mindfully," shows a Tibetan nun hauling two plastic garbage bags to the curb in front of her Buddhist temple. Then there's "Everyone," with a Chinese dragon dancing...accompanied by a voice-over that says, "We need other human beings to be human." And one of the longer spots...shows the sun setting over a pyramid in Egypt as the Brazilian magical realist author Paulo Coelho's voice announces, "The desert will give you an understanding of the world. How do I immerse myself in the desert? Listen to your heart." Mackall...insists the "Spiritual Windows" are no gimmick. "It really, truly is answering a call from our audience," he said. "Hopefully it's a first step into some other content like this."
It was the stuff of Hollywood, but it was real. Senior Jason McElwain had been the manager of the varsity basketball team of Greece Athena High School in Rochester, N. Y. McElwain, who's autistic, was added to the roster by coach Jim Johnson so he could be given a jersey and get to sit on the bench in the team's last game of the year. Johnson hoped the situation would even enable him to get McElwain onto the floor a little playing time. He got the chance, with Greece Athena up by double-digits with four minutes go to. And, in his first action of the year, McElwain missed his first two shots, but then sank six three-pointers and another shot (video), for a total of 20 points in three minutes. "I've had a lot of thrills in coaching," Johnson says. "I've coached a lot of wonderful kids. But I've never experienced such a thrill." The crowd went wild, and his teammates carried the excited McElwain off the court.
Note: The video of this inspiring piece is most excellent (though you have to watch the 30-second commercial first). It is available at the above link to CBS.
If you are looking to banish pesticides from your child's diet, new research suggests that organic food will do the trick, at least when it comes to two common pesticides. Researchers found that pesticide levels in children's bodies dropped to zero after just a few days of eating organic produce and grains. "After they switch back to a conventional diet, the levels go up," said study co-author Chensheng Lu, an assistant professor of environmental and occupational health at Emory University. Lu said the impetus for the new study was a previous research project that examined pesticide levels in 110 children and only found one child whose body was pesticide-free -- a child who regularly ate organic food. The findings were to be discussed Sunday at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in St. Louis. The study, funded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, appeared online last September in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives. Learn more about organic diets from CNN.com.
They have always had their critics, but corporations are having an especially hard time making friends of late. Scandals at Enron and WorldCom destroyed thousands of employees' livelihoods, raised hackles about bosses' pay and cast doubt on the reliability of companies' accounts. Big companies such as McDonald's and Wal-Mart have found themselves the targets of scathing films. Labour groups and environmental activists are finding new ways to co-ordinate their attacks on business. But those are just the enemies that companies can see. Even more troubling for many managers is dealing with their critics online -- because, in the ether, they have little idea who the attackers are. One of the main reasons that executives find bloggers so very challenging is because, unlike other 'stakeholders', they rarely belong to well-organised groups. That makes them harder to identify, appease and control. When a company is dealing directly with a labour union or an environmental outfit, its top brass often take the easy route, by co-opting the leaders or paying some sort of Danegeld. Until a couple of decades ago, that meant doling out generous union contracts and sticking shareholders, taxpayers or consumers with the bill. Increasingly, companies are learning that the best defence against these attacks is to take blogs seriously and fix rapidly whatever problems they turn up.
You don't have to live in a remote mountain kingdom to rise above the world's frantic pursuit of wealth and consumer goods. Anyone can do it, says his Excellency Lyonpo Jigmi Thinley, minister for home and cultural affairs for the Himalayan nation of Bhutan. He wants to encourage others to do as his country has done, which is to seek "Gross National Happiness [GNH]" more than gross national product [GNP]. "What we need," Thinley said in a phone interview Friday, "is a more caring and compassionate society. Bhutan has made Gross National Happiness -- which its officials also call GNH -- its official index for evaluating development. Production-oriented societies suffer from high rates of mental illness, crime, alcoholism, family breakups and personal alienation; their devotion to the profit motive and self-satisfaction undermines human harmony and fosters the plundering of the Earth's resources, he said. "How many governments are truly committed, how many communities are truly committed to equity, to sustainability?" he asked. To achieve GNH, Thinley said, Bhutan has committed itself to sustainable and equitable development, environmental conservation, preservation of culture and good governance.
Making tiny loans to poor entrepreneurs in developing countries has long been a popular charitable cause, but it is now gaining traction as an investment. Microfinance, as these loans are known, is aimed at lifting some of the world's most destitute people out of poverty by providing seed money for small businesses. Funding for the loans traditionally has come from charities and government-aid organizations. Now, an increasing number of private funds are steering capital to microfinance. Many of the new investment instruments have been launched by nonprofit organizations long involved in the industry, including Grameen Foundation USA, the Foundation for International Community Assistance, both in Washington. Microfinance investing got a boost this fall when eBay Inc. founder Pierre Omidyar and his wife, Pamela, gave $100 million to Tufts University to create a fund that invests in microfinance vehicles. Microfinance investment funds...lend money for small-scale businesses, such as vending fruit, weaving shawls or operating small farms in poor countries around the world. Calvert Foundation offers Community Investment Notes, which require a minimum $1,000 investment, and can be earmarked to invest in developing countries or other initiatives, including post-Katrina recovery on the Gulf Coast.
Note: Microfinance is one of the most empowering movements in the world. When we let go of our fears around finances and put our money where our heart is, we invite major transformation into both our personal lives and our world. For how to get involved, see http://www.WantToKnow.info/051023microcredit
Carrie Rodgers is so engrossed by cable-television news shows that her husband calls her a news addict, but lately she has found another source to balance the onslaught of stories about war, crime and natural disasters. Two or three times a day, the 28-year-old insurance agent in Columbia, South Carolina, turns to a Web site called HappyNews.com. She often clicks first to a section called "Heroes," which recently featured stories about U.S. troops rescuing two cheetah cubs in Ethiopia and the induction of 12 people into the Hall of Fame for Caring Americans. Editor Patricia Meyer and a small staff select about 40 items to post on the site each day. They reject any story that may draw objections from more than 5 percent of their estimated 100,000 regular readers. The staff favors stories about health, science, the arts and heroes. A new section called HappyLiving offers tips on everything from barbecuing to finding a baby sitter.
Note: We fully support the reporting of good news to balance all of the disturbing news that we share and that is published in the media in general. Don't miss our collection of inspiring articles.
The son of [a] rocket scientist thinks he is close to perfecting...a machine that might make cheap, clean electricity from the ocean. "I believe it'll change the world," said second-generation inventor Tom Woodbridge, a NASA engineer. In theory, the idea is simple. Spinning copper wires through a stable magnetic field makes electricity — lots of electrons jumping off the magnetic field and zooming through a conductive metal. And since the ocean waves are already moving, why not cobble together a machine to harness that energy? Think Pogo Stick inside a floating drum. The rocking motion of the waves pushes a long cylinder of magnets up and down a copper coil. His small model generates 10 watts of power in a 6-inch wave chop. A full-scale version could generate 160 kilowatts. That one buoy is enough to power 160 houses, following the rule of thumb that the average U.S. home uses about 1,000 kilowatts of electricity each month.
Note: The Houston Chronicle actually cut off part of the original article, including the last three sentences above. To read the entire article, click here. For lots more on new energy inventions, see click here.
Even 91 years after peace interrupted the war, French generals still can't fathom why their soldiers disobeyed orders and joined the German enemy in the silenced battlefields for a forbidden Christmas truce. But Christian Carion, director of a stirring new film about the spontaneous 1914 ceasefire in World War One, said he was moved all the more when the British military asked to send copies of his decidedly anti-war film to their troops overseas. French generals said: 'You go ahead and make your movie but without us, we don't want to be partners to this rebellion.' I said: 'Rebellion? It was 90 years ago? Is that still a 'rebellion'? They said 'Yes'. The heart-warming film of the real-life story about enemies who left the trenches in northern France, east of Paris, to sing carols together, swap chocolate, drink toasts and bury their dead for a few days in 1914 has nevertheless been seen by a lot of French people. "Joyeux Noel" ["Merry Christmas" in English] rose to the top of the French box office after its November 9 premiere at home with 600,000 tickets sold the first week. Carion said the box office count hit the 1 million mark on Thursday -- a record for a film with subtitles in France.
Note: It is most interesting that an Internet search reveals the Yahoo News was the only media outlet to pick up this engaging Reuters story. There is a clear trend in the media to avoid stories that paint war in a negative light. For the full, inspiring Christmas truce story: http://www.WantToKnow.info/christmastruce
Several major media articles have sung the praises of microcredit, also known as microfinance and microlending: New York Times: Tiny Loans Make a Big Difference in Lives of Poor; Wall Street Journal: A new way to do well by doing good; BusinessWeek: Microfinance funds lift poor entrepreneurs—and benefit investors; The Economist: Microcredit in India, High finance benefits the poor; Excellent general article in Time magazine titled "The End of Poverty" CNN/Associated Press: Bankers for poor win peace Nobel. Without donating a penny, you can help to break the cycle poverty in a very real way. Microcredit investments are not donations or charity. Like other investments, the money is always yours. You even earn a small amount of interest. Yet for every $1,000 you invest, several entire families in the developing world can be pulled out of poverty every year. That is part of the reason why the United Nations declared 2005 to be the International Year of Microcredit and why the individual and group who originated the microcredit concept were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006. To download a free 24-page guide to microcredit and community investing, click here. And note that these investments are not influenced at all by market fluctuations.
Note: For more detailed information on this incredibly inspiring means of decimating poverty, click here.
Armed conflicts have declined by 40 percent since the end of the Cold War primarily because the United Nations was finally able to launch peacekeeping and conflict-prevention operations around the world, according to a new study. The first Human Security Report paints a surprising picture of war and peace in the 21st century: a dramatic decline in battlefield deaths, plummeting instances of genocide, and a drop in human rights abuses. The only form of political violence that appears to be getting worse is international terrorism, a serious threat but one that has killed fewer than 1,000 people a year on average over the past 30 years. Tens of thousands were killed annually in armed conflicts during that time. A Rand Corp. study earlier this year concluded that the United Nations was successful in 66 percent of its peace efforts, but even the 40 percent success rate some believe is more accurate would be an achievement considering that prior to the 1990s "there was nothing going on at all."
Note: See also New York Times article reporting US murder rate at lowest in 40 years.
Both inventors and investors are betting that flexible sheets of tiny solar cells used to harness the sun's strength will ultimately provide a cheaper, more efficient source of energy than the current smorgasbord of alternative and fossil fuels. Nanosys and Nanosolar in Palo Alto -- along with Konarka in Lowell, Mass. -- say their research will result in thin rolls of highly efficient light-collecting plastics spread across rooftops or built into building materials. These rolls, the companies say, will be able to provide energy for prices as low as the electricity currently provided by utilities, which averages $1 per watt. The companies also say that the printed rolls of solar cells would be lighter, more resilient and flexible than silicon photovoltaics. Solar energy could furnish much of the nation's electricity if available residential and commercial rooftops were fully utilized. According to the Energy Foundation, using available rooftop space could provide 710,000 megawatts across the United States, whose current electrical capacity is 950,000 megawatts. Atluru of Draper Fisher Jurvetson [explains] "Our view is that government can cause big problems, and it is the entrepreneurs who will make the big changes." Current cost of solar energy, per watt: $4-$5. Average cost of energy from traditional fossil fuel sources, per watt: $1. Estimated cost of energy from nanotech solar panels, per watt: $2. Total energy-generating capacity of the United States: 950,000 megawatts. Potential total rooftop solar energy capacity in the United States: 710, 000 megawatts.
Eighty-five times [Dick Hoyt has] pushed his disabled son, Rick, 26.2 miles in marathons. Eight times he's not only pushed him 26.2 miles in a wheelchair but also towed him 2.4 miles in a dinghy while swimming and pedaled him 112 miles in a seat on the handlebars -- all in the same day. Dick's also pulled him cross-country skiing, taken him on his back mountain climbing and once hauled him across the U.S. on a bike. And what has Rick done for his father? Not much -- except save his life. This love story began in Winchester, Mass., 43 years ago, when Rick was strangled by the umbilical cord during birth, leaving him brain-damaged and unable to control his limbs. "He'll be a vegetable the rest of his life," Dick says doctors told him. But the Hoyts weren't buying it. [Eventually,] rigged up with a computer that allowed him to control the cursor by touching a switch with the side of his head, Rick was ... able to communicate. First words? "Go Bruins!" And after a high school classmate was paralyzed in an accident and the school organized a charity run for him, Rick pecked out, "Dad, I want to do that." Yeah, right. How was Dick, a self-described "porker" who never ran more than a mile at a time, going to push his son five miles? Still, he tried. "Then it was me who was handicapped," Dick says. "I was sore for two weeks." That day changed Rick's life. "Dad," he typed, "when we were running, it felt like I wasn't disabled anymore!"
Note: Don't miss the entire incredibly moving story with links to the Hoyt's beautiful website, inspiring photos, a deeply touching video clip, and lots more on this webpage.
A California institute demonstrates how people can actually make their heart beat in a healthier way. HeartMath's research shows that emotions work much faster, and are more powerful, than thoughts. And that–when it comes to the human body–the heart is much more important than the brain to overall health and well-being. Briefly re-experiencing a cherished memory creates synchronization in your heart rhythm in mere seconds. Using a simple prescription that consists of a number of exercises that anyone can do anywhere in a few minutes ... HeartMath is successfully battling the greatest threat to health, happiness and peace in this world: stress. A successful anti-stress strategy provides results precisely at the moment the stress is experienced. This is what HeartMath does, which is why its client list now includes such leading companies as Hewlett Packard, Shell, Unilever, Cisco Systems, and Boeing. HeartMath ... has published a large body of scientific research in established and respected publications such as the Harvard Business Review and the American Journal of Cardiology. You can learn the techniques in five minutes and get positive results if you do them a few times a day for 30 seconds. Feelings of compassion, love, care and appreciation produce a smoothly rolling ... heart rhythm, while feelings of anger, frustration, fear and danger emit a jagged ... image. When people experience love, they not only feel happy and joyful, but they also produce ... the hormone that prevents aging and gives us feelings of youthful vitality. HeartMath's slogan – a change of heart changes everything – pretty much sums it up. We can change the world, starting with ourselves.
Note: To visit the inspiring website of the Institute of HeartMath, see http://www.heartmath.org.
Since taking office two years ago, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has turned Brazil into a tropical outpost of the free software movement. Looking to save millions of dollars in royalties and licensing fees, Mr. da Silva has instructed government ministries and state-run companies to gradually switch from costly operating systems made by Microsoft and others to free operating systems, like Linux. On Mr. da Silva's watch, Brazil has also become the first country to require any company or research institute that receives government financing to develop software to license it as open-source, meaning the underlying software code must be free to all.
Important Note: Explore our full index to revealing excerpts of key major media news stories on several dozen engaging topics. And don't miss amazing excerpts from 20 of the most revealing news articles ever published.