LOVE ANGELES PROJECT®

Bring on the Learning Revolution!

Source: TED - Why don't we get the best out of people? Sir Ken Robinson argues that it's because we've been educated to become good workers, rather than creative thinkers. Students with restless minds and bodies -- far from being cultivated for their energy and curiosity -- are ignored or even stigmatized, with terrible consequences. "We are educating people out of their creativity," Robinson says. It's a message with deep resonance. Robinson's TEDTalk has been distributed widely around the Web since its release in June 2006. The most popular words framing blog posts on his talk? "Everyone should watch this."

A visionary cultural leader, Sir Ken led the British government's 1998 advisory committee on creative and cultural education, a massive inquiry into the significance of creativity in the educational system and the economy, and was knighted in 2003 for his achievements. His latest book, The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything, a deep look at human creativity and education, was published in January 2009.

"Ken's vision and expertise is sought by public and commercial organizations throughout the world." - BBC Radio 4

Adora Svitak: Why Childish is a Good Thing?

Source: Ted.com - A voracious reader from age three, Adora Svitak's first serious foray into writing -- at age five -- was limited only by her handwriting and spelling. (Her astonishing verbal abilities already matched that of young adults over twice her age.) As her official bio says, her breakthrough would soon come "in the form of a used Dell laptop her mother bought her." At age seven, she typed out over 250,000 words -- poetry, short stories, observations about the world -- in a single year.

Svitak has since fashioned her beyond-her-years wordsmithing into an inspiring campaign for literacy -- speaking across the country to both adults and kids. She is author of Flying Fingers, a book on learning.

"A tiny literary giant." - Diane Sawyer, Good Morning America

Check out Adora's Talk below:

Links for Love

Source: Links for Love - Links for Love is a whole brained link tank, a ticking, clicking, linking, thinking action oriented company that creates and facilitates innovative and visionary philanthropic campaigns that link communities together, both online and offline, for the purpose of generating viable revenue streams and forging positive and lasting change. Our inventive programs are designed to be fun, long term, cross platform and to engage, inform and encourage personal, professional and global development. Our services include, but are not limited to business development, sales, marketing, fun(d) raising, advertising, public relations and consulting. www.linksforlove.org

Baby, I'm Born to Dance!

Source: LiveScience - Babies love a beat, according to a new study that found dancing comes naturally to infants.

The research showed babies respond to the rhythm and tempo of music, and find it more engaging than speech.

The findings, based on a study of 120 infants between 5 months and 2 years old, suggest that humans may be born with a predisposition to move rhythmically in response to music.

"Our research suggests that it is the beat rather than other features of the music, such as the melody, that produces the response in infants," said researcher Marcel Zentner, a psychologist at the University of York in England. "We also found that the better the children were able to synchronize their movements with the music, the more they smiled."

To test babies' dancing disposition, the researchers played recordings of classical music, rhythmic beats and speech to infants, and videotaped the results. They also recruited professional ballet dancers to analyze how well the babies matched their movements to the music.

During the experiments, the babies were sitting on a parent's lap, though the adults had headphones to make sure they couldn't hear the music and were instructed not to move.

The researchers found the babies moved their arms, hands, legs, feet, torsos and heads in response to the music, much more than to speech.

Mixed-Gender Dorm Rooms are Gaining Acceptance

Source: LA Times - About 50 schools in the U.S., including a few Ivy League campuses and several in California, are allowing men and women to room together. Participation is still relatively low.

They weren't looking to make a political statement or to be pioneers of gender liberation. Each just wanted a familiar, decent roommate rather than a stranger after their original roommates left to study abroad.

That's how Pitzer College sophomores Kayla Eland, female, and Lindon Pronto, male, began sharing a room this semester on Holden Hall's second floor. They are not a couple and neither is gay. They are just compatible roommates in a new, sometimes controversial, dormitory option known as gender-neutral housing that is gaining support at some colleges in California and across the nation.

Eland, a biology major who hopes to become a doctor, said that a roommate's personality and study habits are more important than gender. "This might not be right for everyone," she said of sharing the small, cinder block-walled room with a man. "But I think it's important to have the right to choose where you want to live, how you want to live and who you want to live with."

Pronto, an environmental studies major who works each summer as a forest firefighter, agreed. Apart from remembering to lower the toilet seat, he said, living with a woman friend is not much different from rooming with a man. "As far as I'm concerned, a roommate is a roommate," he said.

Although the number of participants remains small, gender-neutral housing has gained attention as the final step in the integration of student housing.

In the 1970s, many U.S. colleges moved from having only single-sex dormitories to providing coed residence halls, with male and female students typically housed on alternating floors or wings. Then came coed hallways and bathrooms, further shocking traditionalists. Now, some colleges allow undergraduates of opposite sexes to share a room.

Pitzer, which began its program in the fall of 2008, is among about 50 U.S. schools with the housing choice, according to Jeffrey Chang, who co-founded the National Student Genderblind Campaign in 2006 to encourage gender-mixed rooms. Participating schools include UC Riverside, UC Berkeley, Stanford, Cornell, Dartmouth, Sarah Lawrence, Haverford, Wesleyan and the University of Michigan.

College officials say the movement began mainly as a way to accommodate gay, bisexual and transgender students who may feel more comfortable living with a member of the opposite sex. Most schools say they discourage couples from participating, citing emotional and logistical problems of breakups. Officials say most heterosexuals in the programs are platonic friends.

"College students are adults," said Chang, who is gay and is now a law student at Rutgers University in New Jersey. "They have every single right to choose the person they feel most comfortable living with."

He estimates that at schools where the option exists, only 1% to 3% of students living on campus choose a roommate of the opposite sex.

Officials at the Assn. of College & University Housing Officers - International say the trend has accelerated, but they don't expect most schools to adopt it. Experts note that most students prefer a same-sex roommate, and some colleges are reluctant to antagonize parents, legislators and donors who view the option as immoral or even dangerous.

Pepperdine University in Malibu, which is affiliated with the Churches of Christ, maintains separate dorm wings and apartments for men and women. Asked whether it would consider going gender neutral, Sue Gamboa, a housing department office manager, said: "Not in the wildest dream would Pepperdine move in that direction."

Harvey Mudd College, next to Pitzer in the Claremont Colleges, began gender-neutral housing last fall mainly as an option for gay and transgender students, said Guy Gerbick, dean of residential life. Seven students joined; among them are a man and two women, all straight, who share a triple room.

Parents cannot veto such a decision at Harvey Mudd, but Gerbick asks students to discuss it with their families ahead of time. He also asks applicants whether they are romantically involved; all of this year's participants said no. But if they were, the school could not forbid them from rooming together.

"If we are going into a post-gender world, then the regulation of private behavior is just not practical," he said.

Several years ago, an earlier proposal for gender-neutral housing was killed at Harvey Mudd by skeptical administrators and older, more conservative trustees, Gerbick recalled. More recently, 74% of Harvey Mudd students voted in a survey to allow the option and, to Gerbick's satisfaction, a new administration agreed.

UC Berkeley senior Rose DeLeon-Foote, who has a male roommate, laughed at fears that gender-neutral housing might promote promiscuity. In fact, she said, the opposite is true when roommates see each other "all gnarly in the morning."

"It's not sexual, it's just not," said DeLeon-Foote, 19, of Sacramento.

Many schools restrict the option to upperclassmen, to certain floors or to residence halls with gay themes. Pitzer, which has about a dozen students participating this year, avoids such limits out of concern that they may marginalize students, said Chris Brunelle, director of residence life.

Pitzer housing applications ask whether students prefer a roommate to be woman, man, "other," or have no preference. Or students can request to live together, as Eland and Pronto did after losing their original roommates.

Their room, which shares a tiny bathroom with two men next door, has the usual collegiate trappings of beer bottles and political posters. The only unusual sight is women's clothes in one closet and men's in another.

The pair seem to have a warm brotherly-sisterly friendship and, while they try to be respectful, they say they are not inhibited about being in underwear or even nude while changing clothes in the room. They insist their living situation does not interfere with romantic relationships with other people. And although they have not been teased on campus, they face curious questions from relatives and friends.

"I definitely think it's generational," said Eland, 20, of Seattle. "For my grandparents, living with someone of the opposite sex, if he is not your serious boyfriend or husband or brother, would be very strange."

Pronto, 21, of Weimar, north of Sacramento, said his mother at first worried that he might be distracted by having a female roommate. And fellow firefighters at his "macho" summer barracks may joke about it, he said.

But at colleges, he said, "I think those old-fashioned ways of thinking are kind of dissipating. . . . Over the years, this division between men and women, which was so big, is slowly closing."

Eland's and Pronto's living arrangement won't last long.

Both will be studying overseas next fall, she in Spain, he in Costa Rica, and they are not sure where -- or with whom -- they will live when they return to school.

Scientists Go 'Gaga' to Find Creatures Beneath 600 Feet of Ice

Source: Yahoo - In a surprising discovery about where higher life can thrive, scientists for the first time found a shrimp-like creature and a jellyfish frolicking beneath a massive Antarctic ice sheet.

Six hundred feet below the ice where no light shines, scientists had figured nothing much more than a few microbes could exist.

That's why a NASA team was surprised when they lowered a video camera to get the first long look at the underbelly of an ice sheet in Antarctica. A curious shrimp-like creature came swimming by and then parked itself on the camera's cable. Scientists also pulled up a tentacle they believe came from a foot-long jellyfish.

"We were operating on the presumption that nothing's there," said NASA ice scientist Robert Bindschadler, who will be presenting the initial findings and a video at an American Geophysical Union meeting Wednesday. "It was a shrimp you'd enjoy having on your plate."

"We were just gaga over it," he said of the 3-inch-long, orange critter starring in their two-minute video. Technically, it's not a shrimp. It's a Lyssianasid amphipod, which is distantly related to shrimp.

The video is likely to inspire experts to rethink what they know about life in harsh environments. And it has scientists musing that if shrimp-like creatures can frolic below 600 feet of Antarctic ice in subfreezing dark water, what about other hostile places? What about Europa, a frozen moon of Jupiter?

"They are looking at the equivalent of a drop of water in a swimming pool that you would expect nothing to be living in and they found not one animal but two," said biologist Stacy Kim of the Moss Landing Marine Laboratories in California, who joined the NASA team later. "We have no idea what's going on down there."

Microbiologist Cynan Ellis-Evans of the British Antarctic Survey called the finding intriguing.

"This is a first for the sub-glacial environment with that level of sophistication," Ellis-Evans said. He said there have been findings somewhat similar, showing complex life in retreating ice shelves, but nothing quite directly under the ice like this.

Ellis-Evans said it's possible the creatures swam in from far away and don't live there permanently.

But Kim, who is a co-author of the study, doubts it. The site in West Antarctica is at least 12 miles from open seas. Bindschadler drilled an 8-inch-wide hole and was looking at a tiny amount of water. That means it's unlikely that that two critters swam from great distances and were captured randomly in that small of an area, she said.

Yet scientists were puzzled at what the food source would be for these critters. While some microbes can make their own food out of chemicals in the ocean, complex life like the amphipod can't, Kim said.

So how do they survive? That's the key question, Kim said.

"It's pretty amazing when you find a huge puzzle like that on a planet where we thought we know everything," Kim said.

Building a Better Teacher

Source: NY Times - "On a Winter day five years ago, Doug Lemov realized he had a problem. After a successful career as a teacher, a principal and a charter-school founder, he was working as a consultant, hired by troubled schools eager — desperate, in some cases — for Lemov to tell them what to do to get better. There was no shortage of prescriptions at the time for how to cure the poor performance that plagued so many American schools. Proponents of No Child Left Behind saw standardized testing as a solution. President Bush also championed a billion-dollar program to encourage schools to adopt reading curriculums with an emphasis on phonics. Others argued for smaller classes or more parental involvement or more state financing.

Lemov himself pushed for data-driven programs that would diagnose individual students’ strengths and weaknesses. But as he went from school to school that winter, he was getting the sinking feeling that there was something deeper he wasn’t reaching. On that particular day, he made a depressing visit to a school in Syracuse, N.Y., that was like so many he’d seen before: “a dispiriting exercise in good people failing,” as he described it to me recently. Sometimes Lemov could diagnose problems as soon as he walked in the door. But not here. Student test scores had dipped so low that administrators worried the state might close down the school. But the teachers seemed to care about their students. They sat down with them on the floor to read and picked activities that should have engaged them. The classes were small. The school had rigorous academic standards and state-of-the-art curriculums and used a software program to analyze test results for each student, pinpointing which skills she still needed to work on.

But when it came to actual teaching, the daily task of getting students to learn, the school floundered. Students disobeyed teachers’ instructions, and class discussions veered away from the lesson plans. In one class Lemov observed, the teacher spent several minutes debating a student about why he didn’t have a pencil. Another divided her students into two groups to practice multiplication together, only to watch them turn to the more interesting work of chatting. A single quiet student soldiered on with the problems. As Lemov drove from Syracuse back to his home in Albany, he tried to figure out what he could do to help. He knew how to advise schools to adopt a better curriculum or raise standards or develop better communication channels between teachers and principals. But he realized that he had no clue how to advise schools about their main event: how to teach.

Around the country, education researchers were beginning to address similar questions. The testing mandates in No Child Left Behind had generated a sea of data, and researchers were now able to parse student achievement in ways they never had before. A new generation of economists devised statistical methods to measure the “value added” to a student’s performance by almost every factor imaginable: class size versus per-pupil funding versus curriculum. When researchers ran the numbers in dozens of different studies, every factor under a school’s control produced just a tiny impact, except for one: which teacher the student had been assigned to. Some teachers could regularly lift their students’ test scores above the average for children of the same race, class and ability level. Others’ students left with below-average results year after year. William Sanders, a statistician studying Tennessee teachers with a colleague, found that a student with a weak teacher for three straight years would score, on average, 50 percentile points behind a similar student with a strong teacher for those years. Teachers working in the same building, teaching the same grade, produced very different outcomes. And the gaps were huge. Eric Hanushek, a Stanford economist, found that while the top 5 percent of teachers were able to impart a year and a half’s worth of learning to students in one school year, as judged by standardized tests, the weakest 5 percent advanced their students only half a year of material each year.

This record encouraged a belief in some people that good teaching must be purely instinctive, a kind of magic performed by born superstars. As Jane Hannaway, the director of the Education Policy Center at the Urban Institute and a former teacher, put it to me, successful teaching depends in part on a certain inimitable “voodoo.” You either have it or you don’t. “I think that there is an innate drive or innate ability for teaching,” Sylvia Gist, the dean of the college of education at Chicago State University, said when I visited her campus last year..." Continue reading at NY Times.

Talking to Tweens about Healthy Eating

Source: CNN - Michelle Obama brings the campaign against childhood obesity to "Larry King Live" at 9 p.m. ET Tuesday. Send us your questions for the first lady at CNN.com/LarryKing.

It's an uneasy topic when moms discuss their daughters' weight. It's no different for the first lady.

When Michelle Obama mentioned her daughters' weight once had gotten "off balance" in speeches about childhood obesity, she came under criticism from parenting bloggers and anti-eating-disorder activists. They said the first lady inadvertently brought attention to her two young daughters' weight when they are at a sensitive age.

Obama's mention of her girls in this context raised an issue many parents may confront. When parents become aware of a possible health problem related to their children's weight, how can they address the problem without causing self-esteem issues for youngsters?

It's better to address a weight problem with children directly rather than pretending it doesn't exist, said Dr. Tom Robinson, the director of the Center for Healthy Weight at the Stanford University School of Medicine.

"In our experience, obese children know that they are heavy. They may compare themselves with their peers or kids they see in the media and, not infrequently, they may have been teased about their weight," he said.

Parents should have an open dialogue with their children and assure them they are loved regardless of weight, he said.

Obama on Tuesday is unveiling more details of a nationwide campaign tackling childhood obesity. Although her discussion of her daughters sparked controversy, observers say Obama had good intentions by personalizing a glaring public health problem.

"Probably what she was doing was making people realize she's saying this as a mother, that she has faced this issue," said Marilyn Tanner-Blasiar, a spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association. "She was bringing it home, but it was perceived the wrong way. It's a delicate issue, and being honest about it is important, but you have to be careful, because kids listen.

"They become on high alert when the topic is about them even though they act like they are not listening. They will overhear. If it's going to be hurtful to them or harm them, you don't want to go there," said Tanner-Blasiar, who works with children.

Obama talked about how at one point, the family's pediatrician "warned that he was concerned that something was getting off balance" with her children's body mass index, in a January 28 speech in Alexandria, Virginia.

She said the family addressed the issue with small changes: Daughters Malia and Sasha drank water instead of sugary drinks, low-fat milk instead of whole milk and reduced their TV time.

Blogger Jeanne Sager questioned the effect Obama's comments might have on the girls. Sager wrote on a Strollerderby blog: "Their mother is trying for the greater good, but she's taken an extremely touchy subject out into the open.

"They are being raised in front of everybody. There are some things that should be kept private," said Sager, who battled bulimia as a teenager.

Dr. Ovidio Bermudez, the medical director of the Eating Disorders Program at Laureate Psychiatric Clinic and Hospital in Tulsa, Oklahoma, said weight matters are usually a sensitive subject and should be discussed within the family.

"Imagine if a child is losing their hair," he said. "That's something that would be addressed in a private fashion with a lot of sensitivity for their emotions and their implications. It's the same thing addressing weight. You have to be really careful that you don't take something so tightly close to emotion [and put it] into the public eye. These things need to be dealt [with] as private matters."

Nutritionists and pediatricians offered tips on ways to address children's diet and fitness issues:

Focus on health, not weight

Compliment your children on lifestyle behaviors like "Great snack choice" or "You really run fast" rather than on the loss of a pound or two, said Tanner-Blasiar, a registered dietitian.

Be a partner in health, not the police officer

It doesn't work if a parent hovers and monitors what the child eats and his or her activities. Parents can improve the whole family's health by not buying junk food, sugary drinks, avoiding fast foods and planning weekend activities for the entire family. Not being the police does not mean children get a free-for-all. Parents need to set firm limits, Robinson said.

Treat children equally

Even if one of your kids has issues related to obesity and another doesn't, make sure one isn't getting a cookie and the other is getting a stalk of broccoli. The disparity in treatment breeds resentment and negativity, experts said.

Create an open environment to discuss issues

Sudden fluctuations in weight may have nothing to do with food. The child could have emotional issues that trigger eating disorders, said Lynn Grefe, chief executive officer at the National Eating Disorders Association.

Move

Don't just talk about eating right and exercising. Lead by example by making lifestyle changes as a family. Turn off TVs and computers. Look for ways to spend fun, active time together.

Here are things to avoid:

Don't play the blame game

Avoid yelling, bribing, threatening or punishing children about weight, food or physical activity. These issues can turn into parent-child battlegrounds that breed shame and anger. The worse children feel about their weight, the more likely they are to overeat or develop an eating disorder.

Don't label your children

Some parents give labels to their children. Tanner-Blasiar said she runs into families who label their children as the slow, fast, skinny or fat one. Be careful, she said, because sometimes kids "live up to their labels."

Don't criminalize the cupcake

An occasional treat is OK, as long as treats are eaten in moderation. Making something forbidden tends to have unintended effects.

Don't disparage your own weight

Kids are always listening and internalizing what their parents say and do. Parents who belittle themselves and their own figures inadvertently could pass that on to their children.

Avoid the f-word

Getting to a healthy weight is not about becoming skinnier or prettier. Emphasize health over appearances.

Plug-in Hybrid School Bus...Alright!!!

Source: LA Times - Ventura gets first plug-in hybrid electric school bus in Southern California. The Ventura Unified School District will put the $200,000, state-of-the-art bus into service this week. It's expected to achieve 30% better fuel economy than a conventional bus.

Major automakers are readying a wave of plug-in hybrid and electric vehicles for consumers, but one local school district is already taking advantage of the technology.

The Ventura Unified School District unveiled a $200,000, state-of-the-art, plug-in hybrid electric school bus Tuesday, the first in Southern California. The bus will start hauling students this week and replaces a polluting, 1977 model.

The bus, built by the IC Bus subsidiary of Navistar Inc., is powered by a lithium ion battery pack and is expected to improve fuel economy up to 30% and reduce emissions up to 40% over a conventional gasoline-powered school bus.

Michael Chiacos, transportation specialist with the Community Environmental Council in Santa Barbara, believes the bus will do even better, improving fuel economy more than 60% compared with a traditional school bus.

"The bus reflects our commitment to being a green school district as we ensure safe and healthy learning environments for our students," said Trudy T. Arriaga, superintendent of Ventura Unified School District. The district "is on the cutting edge of providing safe, healthy and environmentally sound transportation to our students."

The bus comes to the district through a nationwide initiative called the Plug-In Hybrid Electric School Bus Project. The Community Environmental Council applied for funding through the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Ventura County Air Pollution Control District.

"While school buses are first to the market, consumer plug-in hybrid cars will soon be available from many manufacturers," Chiacos said.

"Plug-in hybrids and electric cars are the largest revolution in a century of vehicles," he said. They "will help us transition to a future free from dependence on imported fossil fuels."

Doctors Communicate with Vegetative State Patient

Source: BBC - British scientists said they could communicate with a patient who has not shown any sign of outward consciousness for five years.

They used a new brain scanning technique to 'talk' to the 29 year old Belgian man who damaged his brain in a car accident and has been classified as being in a vegetative state.

The patient was able to communicate "yes" and "no" using just his thoughts during a research conducted by a team from Cambridge University.

The study was published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Dr Adrian Owen, who led the team, said this is a rare case.

The research raises many ethical issues including whether or not to allow patients in a permanent vegetative state to die by withdrawing all treatment.

Dr Ranaan Gillon is professor of medical ethics at Imperial College in London.

Listen to Dr. Adrian Owen here:

100 Year Old Teacher Gets Degree a Day Before Dying

Source: Yahoo -  It was Harriet Richardson Ames' dream to earn her bachelor's degree in education. She finally reached that milestone, nearly three weeks after achieving another: her 100th birthday.

On Saturday, the day after receiving her diploma at her bedside, the retired schoolteacher died, pleased that she had accomplished her goal, her daughter said. Ames had been in hospice care.

"She had what I call a 'bucket list,' and that was the last thing on it," Marjorie Carpenter said Tuesday.

Ames, who turned 100 on Jan. 2, had earned a two-year teaching certificate in 1931 at Keene Normal School, now Keene State College. She taught in a one-room schoolhouse in South Newbury, and later spent 20 years as a teaching principal at Memorial School in Pittsfield, where she taught first-graders.

Through the years, she had taken classes at the University of New Hampshire, Plymouth Teachers College and Keene State to earn credits for her degree. With her eyesight failing, she stopped after retiring in 1971 and was never sure if she had enough credits.

Her wish for a degree became known when a Keene State film professor interviewed her a couple of years ago for a piece on the college's own centennial, which the school celebrated last year.

The school decided to research her coursework and see if it could award Ames her long-sought diploma. The offices of the provost, registrar and other departments worked quickly in the last month to determine, that indeed, it could.

"She wanted to be the best that she could be," said Norma Walker, coordinator of the Keene State College Golden Circle Society, an alumni group for classes that graduated 50 or more years ago.

Walker said when she mentioned to Ames during a recent visit that the college was working on the degree, Ames started to cry and said, "'If I die tomorrow, I'll know I'll die happy, because my degree's in the works.'"

College officials, including Walker, drove the document to Ames' bedside on Friday.

Walker, who first met Ames in 1997 at an alumni gathering, said she enjoyed listening to her talk about her students and how she encouraged them to read.

"She's the kind of person that every parent would want their first-graders to have as a teacher," very loving and caring, Walker said. She will read Ames' diploma at a memorial service this Saturday, "if I can do it without crying."

Paula Finnegan Dickinson of Gilford, who was Ames' student back in 1956 and became an educator herself, regarded her as a mentor and dear friend.

"Mrs. Ames, along with Dick, Jane, Sally, Spot and Puff, became our friend," Dickinson said, recalling the "Dick and Jane" series that was used in class reading groups. "With her enthusiasm, these characters came to life. ... Mrs. Ames showed us how reading opened the doors to other experiences we in Pittsfield might never have known."

Barry Blanchard Puts the Active in 'Activist'

Source: Patagonia - “I think that we need a cultural/social shift in our approach to life. Poverty isn't the problem, affluence is. Most of us need to get our own houses in order to live less consumptive lives and choose ‘less/cleaner/more-efficient’ every time we make a decision.”

Barry is one of our first ambassadors and member of our R&D team. Described as the "Bonatti of the Rockies," and Canada's greatest alpinist, the Canmore-based writer and photographer spends his time romping around the globe in search of adventure on high alpine faces. Barry has been featured ice climbing in the IMAX Extreme film and Vertical Limit. His exploits include the first ascent of the epic North Pillar of North Twin, first ascents in winter on the north faces of Les Droites and two successful expeditions to Mt. Everest. In 2002 he opened a new route on the Emperor Face of Mt. Robson. It was Barry's seventh start over many years, and partners Eric Dumerac and Philippe Pellet insisted on the name Infinite Patience (VI, WI5, M5, 5.9). In addition to recent routes on the southwest face of East Kahiltna Peak, the southeast ridge of Mt. Asperity and the north face of Bravo Peak, Barry lists as one of his, and wife Catherine’s, greatest accomplishments the birth of their daughter Rosemary in November 2004.

“My fight, right now, is with my provincial government, the Progressive Conservative Party of Alberta. There are now about 700 grizzly bears left in Alberta, a number below the threshold 1,000 needed to keep a species viable. Despite recommendations from the governments own biologists, and a strongly worded letter signed by 16 leading North American bear experts, my Premier, the right honorable Ralph Klein, and his ministers refuse to list the grizzly as a threatened species and continue to allow an annual hunt for the heads and pelts! After seeing the amount the public and scientific community opposing this policy I can only conclude that there is a ruling (which should be a serving) attitude of arrogance at work here.

“I value the great bear personally because when I am in the bear's domain, which is almost all of the area that I approach climbs through in Western Canada in spring, summer and fall, I know that the bear is, or may be, out there, and that I have to announce my presence. I am lesser than the bear. Any humility that I, and by extension we, can gain is a good thing because I know that my species is far, far, too arrogant; and that is definitely a bad thing.

“Through the Patagonia Ambassador program I have been asking for donations to Wildcanada.net, instead of admission, at a number of public mountaineering slideshows that I present. I raise money, talk to people and actively campaign for the protection of grizzly bears in Alberta. I do not want to live in a Canadian Rockies absent the great bear.”

Some of Barry’s most recent projects include:
2002, Spring - attempt on the South Face of Nuptse in true alpine style.
2002, October - opened a new route on the Emperor Face of Mt Robson
after his seventh start. "My partners, Eric Dumerac and Philippe Pellet, insisted that we name the route Infinite Patience."
2004, May - variation the Callis/Kennedy route on the Southwest face of
the East Kahiltna Peak called Homage to Pat (as in Callis).
2005, April/May - ascents of the Southeast ridge of Mt. Asperity and North
Face of Bravo Peak, Waddington Range, BC.

Carbon 14 Will Award 50K Toward Your Action

Are you doing something good for the environment and wish you had a few more bucks to assist you in doing more good?

Well, the eco-chic watch brand Carbon 14 wants to help and they're putting their money where their mouth is - they've recently announced that they will be giving away a top prize of $50,000 toward your Environmental action or cause! Oh yes, 20 finalists will receive the Carbon 14 watch of their choice.   

If you, or someone you know, is doing something extraordinary, make sure to submit the cause or action (by nominating yourself or others) and how the 50K award will help out.

According to the C14 website, this opportunity is for everyone, and that means everyone - not just the eco-geeks who seem to be inventing the next fuel-efficient jet (although their submissions are also encouraged!) Don't feel shy at all about submitting your action even if you simply want to make your house or yard more environmentally friendly - you can still enter and win!

Most important of all, we need YOUR help in identifying worthwhile environmental causes. We have created an interactive discussion forum for each nomination, so you have the ability to share your ideas and comment on other's nomiations.

They need to get all your nominations by February 28, 2010 - then the voting begins. Who are the judges? Find out for yourself - we've included pics of a few of them above, recognize anybody?

So make sure to tell your friends, neighbors, and everyone you know to vote for your idea. The Top 20 nominees who receive the most votes will be reviewed by a panel qualified judges. Check out the panel of judges below. From those Top 20 nominees, the judges will choose the Top 5 finalists - then through another round of voting YOU will decide who wins the C14 $50000 Environmental Award.

Check out the the contest rules and deadline dates here.

“Unchopping a Tree” Debuts In Copenhagen

Source: ecorazzi - Artist and architect Maya Lin has unveiled her latest addition to her conservation memorial “What is Missing” called “Unchopping A Tree”. It’s a moving piece of work enriched with ethereal music and visuals. The Fast Company blog gives us the details saying,

The video, which is inspired by a W.S. Merwin poem of the same name, focuses on how we would feel if deforestation came to the city parks that we love the most. Lin decided the debut the video at the Support REDD+ Gala in Copenhagen to highlight the importance of enacting REDD, a UN program that will pay developing countries to cut down on deforestation. “I want to get out the message that by preventing deforestation, we can reduce emissions and save species,” Lin said.

Check it out below (the ‘unchopping’ bit comes near the end):

UCLA Announces AIDS Breakthrough

LA Weekly - "Huge AIDS Breakthrough From UCLA Announced (Application, Though, Still Likely Far Off) - UCLA researchers this week published data that for the first time shows human blood stem cells can be engineered to attack HIV-infected cells and that the process could not only prove to be a breakthrough for AIDS patients but also for the sufferers of other viral diseases.

The UCLA AIDS Institute study was published this week in the online journal Plos ONE. The research proves the feasibility "that human stem cells can be engineered into the equivalent of a genetic vaccine," according to an institute statement.

"We have demonstrated in this proof-of-principle study that this type of approach can be used to engineer the human immune system, particularly the T-cell response, to specifically target HIV-infected cells," states lead investigator Scott G. Kitchen, assistant professor of medicine in the division of hematology and oncology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and a member of the UCLA AIDS Institute. "These studies lay the foundation for further therapeutic development that involves restoring damaged or defective immune responses toward a variety of viruses that cause chronic disease, or even different types of tumors."

The researched used human cells and tissue, but the next step is to find out if the process would actually work within the human body.