Chicago Combats Food Deserts and Childhood Obesity One Seed at a Time

urban gardens chicago 543

Chicagoans that vote for their favorite seeds, get free seeds to plant in their gardens.

It seems like an oxymoron that childhood obesity could occur in food deserts, but in much of the country that’s exactly what’s happened. Food deserts, often located in impoverished urban environments, are areas where residents have little access to fresh fruits and vegetables because there are no grocery stores or farmers’ markets nearby. Such areas are often plagued with quickie marts where families feed themselves the processed junk that’s available, fostering an obesity epidemic. Read on to see how one program is working to change Chicago’s landscapes and make these infamous food deserts a thing of the past…

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Study Links Meditation to Telomerase, An Anti-Age Enzyme

meditation

Meditation may make the body age more slowly.

It’s always awesome when meditation is given a nod by science and shed of its commonly regarded view as a new-agey, inaccessible practice. In 2009 and 2010, we shared meditation’s practical application to common health ailments as studied by researchers: heart disease and depression.

I’m not sure how I missed this third incredible find from TIME that was issued at the tail end of last year. Could we meditators also have a leg up in the longevity factor?

According to researchers at the University of California-Davis, quite possibly…

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11-Year Old Is Building a House

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Opunake’s Dylan Karam, 11, got his first hammer for his fifth birthday and has never been far from a building site ever since.

Dylan Karam, 11, of Opunake, New Zealand, is building a house:

Since getting a hammer when he was five, Dylan has never been far from a construction site and has helped builders around Opunake in the last six years.

But it is his latest project that could be his most impressive…

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Verizon iPhone: Everything You Need To Know

verizoniphoneengadget

Hey Verizon! Can you hear me now?

Ah, the Verizon iPhone. In our bizarre careers as tech journalists, if there’s one question we’ve heard more than “When is Verizon getting the iPhone?” we can’t think of it. Also, outside the original rumors for the iPhone and iPad, we can’t think of another product so heavily teased by those in the know and those not in the know — though mostly by those not in the know.

But then we heard Verizon is having a little get together on Tuesday, which is particularly odd timing because Verizon has a huge presence and a large amount of announcements at this year’s CES. Rumors of the event being a Verizon iPhone announce immediately flared up, but there were still reservations: Apple usually announces its own products at its own corporate campus — why would Verizon be doing the honors in NY?

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Online Resources That Are Transforming Education

education not ammunition

Education needs transforming

Education technology has become a busy space in recent years. Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates continue to push the envelope with enormous philanthropic gifts toward education reform; Blackboard.com was traded at a $1 billion plus valuation; and Google is putting millions into education tech sites like KhanAcademy.

With so many startups on the scene, it is easy to get lost. Fortunately, most innovation is centered around a short list of fundamental ideas. In this post, we’ll walk through a few clusters of education tech companies…

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UK Scientist Suggests Rebranding GM Crops As “Vaccinated”

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Does ‘Vaccinated’ sound better than genetically raped?

The latest face-palm absurdity concerning genetically modified crops: One of the UK’s top agricultural scientists has floated the idea that GM crops should be rebranded as “vaccinated” or “inoculated” so that the public would embrace them more willingly…

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New Digital Mailbox Will Let You Receive, Pay & Archive Multiple Bills

Pitney logo

The same company that introduced the postage meter 90 years ago has announced it will launch a free digital mailbox in 2011 that will allow customers to pay multiple bills online without remembering more than one password.

Pitney Bowes’s multi-platform Volly will allow consumers to receive, pay and organize all their bills with bank-like security. In addition to bill-related features like a pay calendar and reminders, customers will also have an option to opt in to catalogs and coupons from the companies of their choice…

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Face Blindness Research at University of Minnesota in Minneapolis

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Researchers at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis are working with children who have face blindness (prosopagnosia) to try to come up with ways to treat people who have difficulty recognizing and distinguishing between faces. According to the researchers in this video face blindness affects 1 to 2% of all children…

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Newly Developed Cloak Hides Underwater Objects from Sonar

invisible sonar disc

An object that is invisible to sonar.

In one University of Illinois lab, invisibility is a matter of now you hear it, now you don’t. Led by mechanical science and engineering professor Nicholas Fang, Illinois researchers have demonstrated an acoustic cloak, a technology that renders underwater objects invisible to sonar and other ultrasound waves.

“We are not talking about science fiction. We are talking about controlling sound waves by bending and twisting them in a designer space,” said Fang, who also is affiliated with the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology. “This is certainly not some trick Harry Potter is playing with.”

While materials that can wrap sound around an object rather than reflecting or absorbing it have been theoretically possible for a few years, realization of the concept has been a challenge. In a paper accepted for publication in the journal Physical Review Letters, Fang’s team describe their working prototype, capable of hiding an object from a broad range of sound waves…

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Skype Acquires Qik for $100 Million

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Skype has acquired video streaming service Qik, the company announced at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas.

Skype CEO Tony Bates confirmed the announcement on the companyblog: “I’m happy to announce that we’ve entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Qik,” he wrote…

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Giant Tuna Sells For $396,000

giant tuna carcass

It’s beginning to look a lot like sushi…

In Tokyo, a giant bluefin tuna sold at auction for a record 32.49 million yen—nearly $396,000. The price for the 754-pound tuna beat the previous record set in 2001 when a 445-pound fish sold for 20.2 million yen. What do you do with a fish that sold for $526 per pound? Make sushi.

The massive tuna was bought and shared by the same duo that won the bidding for last year’s top fish: the owners of Kyubey, an upscale sushi restaurant in Tokyo’s Ginza district, and Itamae Sushi, a casual, Hong Kong-based chain…

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Discover the Hidden Patterns of Tomorrow with Futurist Thomas Frey
Unlock Your Potential, Ignite Your Success.

By delving into the futuring techniques of Futurist Thomas Frey, you’ll embark on an enlightening journey.

Learn More about this exciting program.