A survey by Gallup on the relationship between well-being and community service shows a direct positive correlation. The overall pattern cut across income and age group. The Gallup analysis also found a connection between community service and key indicators of emotional health, such as stress and worry. Sadly it seems that many more U.S. adults …
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Author:astraea
Toxins in your drinking water?
It happens regularly now. Tonnes of agricultural fertiliser and sprays running off the land in to the water system causing eutrophication. Algae bloom and everything else dies. And even massive municipal treatment plants can’t clean the water. Farming practices and climate change cause the problem, which will not go away until we all choose to …
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Happiness = …
This is the equation for happiness: What does all that jibberish mean? Basically that expectations determine happiness. That is why looking over the garden hedge at the grass on the other side (the lawn that you can’t have because to belongs to someone else) is a sure way to be unhappy. And why appreciating the …
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Cows are eating the planet.
Since primary school it has been clear that animals require more food than plants. Those food pyramids with grass at the bottom and lion at the top made it quite clear that it takes far more land and resources to fee a lion than a patch of grass. Later on, as an observer of human …
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Even big brother thinks big brother can be dangerous.
The UN has warned against the dangers of too much data and too much surveillance. In a report, the UN body said more needed to be done to ensure that surveillance was balanced against its harm to personal privacy, noting that: mass retention of data to aid surveillance was “neither necessary nor proportionate”. “disturbingly little” …
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A guide to your body clock.
The BBC offers a handy slide show summarising natural biorhythms. It gives an insight in to why moods and energy levels change during the day. You can see their presentation here and read the main points below. 00:00-02:59 Body enters shutdown Sleep hormone melatonin peaking Minimum levels of attention and vigilance Brain washes itself and …
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What’s So Scary About Smart Girls? They might fix things.
What’s So Scary About Smart Girls? is a provocative read in the NYT. It makes some sad observations and reiterates what evidence proves: that education makes life better and that emancipating and liberating females is the way to realise the great potential of humanity’s “better half”. For example: If you want to mire a nation …
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Climate change is happening “even” in the USA.
“Climate change is already affecting the American people in far-reaching ways.” So begins an extensive report issued by the U.S. Global Change Research Program on May 6, 2014. Among the changes is an increase in temperature, as illustrated in this image. Acquired 1991 – 2012 And scientists also observed changes in precipitation. acquired 1991 – …
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Tamiflu and others are expensive and don’t work.
Expensive, convenient solutions can be ineffective. But often the perceived convenience obscures this. The treatment of common ailments often falls in to this category, because natural remedies work effectively. The rapid spread of new diseases, like AIDS, BSE (mad cow disease) and bird flu, raise the fear of pandemics and the willingness to seek strong, …
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The numbers are staggering – over 1/6th of carbon emmissions come from deforestation.
The numbers are staggering and often hard to absorb. Close to 25 million square kilometres of tropical forest are spread across 75 countries on three continents. The trees in those forests store 225 to 250 billion tons of carbon. Each year, vast tracts of those trees are lost to development and agriculture—about 90,000 square kilometres …
Continue reading The numbers are staggering – over 1/6th of carbon emmissions come from deforestation.