Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Facelift!

The Good Times is getting a facelift! Our new design will be ready in a few days.

Meanwhile, let us know what you are doing to bring about positive change or make a difference, or send us information on the current scientific exploits, achievements, inventions, breakthroughs in medicine or other fields you know about.

Let's disseminate the positive news!

Saturday, March 31, 2012

Peter Diamandis: Abundance Is Our Future

Peter Diamandis is Chairman and CEO of the X PRIZE Foundation, a non-profit organization whose stated mission is "to bring about radical breakthroughs for the benefit of humanity, thereby inspiring the formation of new industries and the revitalization of markets that are currently stuck due to existing failures or a commonly held belief that a solution is not possible."

The X PRIZE is a $10 million award presented to the winners of a specific challenge set by the X PRIZE Foundation. The Foundation also conducts competitions for the X CHALLENGE, a $2.5 million award for a breakthrough in solving a certain technical problem.

Both the X PRIZE and the X CHALLENGE competitions are divided into four prize areas: Exploration (Space & Deep Ocean); Energy & Environment; Education & Global Development; and Life Sciences.

Click on this link to hear Peter Diamandis remind us of humanity's amazing progress over the last 100 years and why abundance is our future. 

Sunday, March 25, 2012

Harmony in Music and Effort

The Harmony Program is a New York-based non-profit music education organization that “provides daily after-school music lessons to children from economically disadvantaged communities. Harmony's unique model taps the city's college- and graduate-level music students as teachers, training them to develop the talents of young people who would not ordinarily be exposed to music education.”

The program is modeled on a popular music project started in Venezuela 36 years ago called El Sistema. It’s a social activity that is less about music than about developing the child. Music is used to help children commit to something, including time and effort. And the music is also used as a tool to teach children to listen to each other, and to give them the sense that they belong to something. It gives them self-confidence. Since it was started in 2008, students in the Harmony Program have attended school more regularly.

Public school 129 in Harlem is one school that has adopted the Harmony Program. It is offered every day after classes to 3rd through 6th graders from 3:00-5:00 PM. The students are provided free instruments and free instruction, as well as a safe and supportive environment to develop their talents, strengths, and potential.

The Program is funded through private donations. Learn more here.

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Making the Impossible Possible

It's expensive to keep people poor!" Those are the words of Bill Strickland, CEO of Manchester Bidwell Corporatio​n. His business aims "to create empowering educational environments for adults-in-transition as well as urban and at-risk youth, enriching Southwestern Pennsylvania and, eventually, the world." In particular he has built the Bidwell Training Center in Pittsburgh, an adult career training institution that offers horticulture, pharmaceutical and culinary art studies. But Bill believes in bringing art and business practices together, so his educational centers also teach orchid care, real estate, music and ceramics.

As described on his website, Bill Strickland is indeed a "visionary leader who authentically delivers educational and cultural opportunities to students and adults within an organizational culture that fosters innovation, creativity, responsibility and integrity." He calls himself a "wild dreamer" and says "life is about exposure - if exposed to opportunity, you can start to conceive them." He also says his dream is constantly evolving - it's a process. What is sure is that Bill has given opportunity and hope to a multitude of disadvantaged people and a second chance to those who want to seize the opportunity he offers.

His book is Make the Impossible Possible.

Saturday, March 17, 2012

Humanity among Tragedy

"This story is ultimately about how small acts of kindness can bring a little humanity, even in a tragedy that defies all imagination." It's an account of what a retired undertaker has achieved in Kamaishi, Japan. Atsushi Chiba took it upon himself to clean and tend to the dead bodies of hundreds of last year's earthquake and tsunami victims, preparing them for their family members (in case they're found) and burial.

Read the moving story in The New York Times as we recall the events of one year ago.

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Aung San Suu Kyi Is Allowed to Make a Campaign Speech

Today, as reported by the BBC, Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi was allowed to deliver a campaign message and even to criticize her country's political system. A clear sign that things are changing positively in Burma, she was able to speak for 15 minutes on national television and radio as part of a new government provision that gives parties in the 1 April by-elections the right to outline their political themes and aspirations for the country. Forty-eight parliamentary seats are being contested in the upcoming election. Hopefully her National League for Democracy (NLD) party will win many.

Dramatic changes are occurring in Burma. That's good news!

Sunday, March 11, 2012

How a Titanic Telescope Could Equal African Development

Africa is a contender, along with Australia and New Zealand, in a project to build a really huge telescope – the Square Kilometer Array. Although the decision on where to build it won’t be known until late March or early April at the earliest, the project is already in full swing. Made up of 3,000 radio-frequency receivers, it will cover a collective area of 1 square kilometer, hence its name (see artist’s rendering of SKA dishes below, courtesy SKA website). The receivers will range from large dishes to small fish-eye antennas, all aimed at a different radio frequency in the sky.

Only 20% of the antennas would be located in this square kilometer, 50% would be located within 5 kilometers and some would be located as far away as 3,000 kilometers – giving the scientists who will eventually work on the project access to the entire universe, and giving the project access to an entire continent, and maybe more. If it is built in Australia, the SKA could stretch all the way to New Zealand. If built in southern Africa, it could stretch to the Indian Ocean islands.


Astronomers and engineers from more than 70 institutes in 20 countries are designing it. It will be 50 times more sensitive, and will survey the sky 10,000 times faster, than any other telescope. And they are looking to study some pretty cool things:
  • How do galaxies evolve and what is dark energy? (See artist’s rendering of dark energy below, courtesy SKA website.)
  • Are we alone? It will be able to detect very weak extraterrestrial signals and will search for complex molecules, the building blocks of life, in space.
  • How were the first black holes and stars formed?
  • What generates the giant magnetic fields in space?
  • Was Einstein right? It will investigate the nature of gravity and challenge the theory of general relativity; it will explore the unknown and, if history is any guide, it will make many more discoveries than we can imagine today.
The 20 participating countries share the nearly $2 billion cost, as well as its operating costs of $130 to $200 million per year. That is a lot of money, especially for countries in southern Africa where the development possibilities attached to such a huge project are endless: millions for power, communications and data processing alone. And let’s not forget all of the side businesses and other business spin-offs that would come from the work.

“The impact on Africa would be very far-reaching and a lot more than anywhere else in the world,” said Bernie Fanaroff, Project Director, South Africa, in a recent Time magazine article on “Africa’s Eye in the Sky”. “It would be good for getting business into Africa, and we would be creating people with skills and expertise to solve problems not just in astronomy, but energy, water, food security, disease and transport.”

As a matter of fact, some smaller dishes that will be used for the project are already in the pipeline or active in Africa, and it is local populations, not foreigners, who are reaping the benefits. These include general investments in the regions where they are being built, and full-fledged programs aimed at training local populations – scientists, engineers, physicists, especially women and blacks – creating world-class astronomy teams.
Thus this program isn’t only about reaching out into the cosmos, but about the far-reaching impacts it can have right here on planet Earth.

First published as an S3 communiqué on Scientifically Yours at www.spacebridges.com/S3-blog-English/.



Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Good News from the United Nations

This story has been reported by several news channels in the last few days, but it's worth repeating.

The UN has reached one of the millennium development goals ahead of schedule. Goal number 7 is to "Ensure environmental sustainability." Within that goal, target 7C is to "Halve, by 2015, the proportion of the population without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation". That's the one that's been achieved. As UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon says, "The successful efforts to provide greater access to drinking water are a testament to all who see the MDGs not as a dream, but as a vital tool for improving the lives of millions of the poorest people.”

Read more here.

Saturday, March 3, 2012

Congratulate India on 1 Year Without Polio!

Yes! It's time to rejoice and congratulate all those who contributed to an entire year without polio in India! Do so here.

Make the news...

Make the news...
and tell everyone about it!