Food aficionados have long known that fruits and vegetables need not be thrown out just because they no longer look bright and fresh. Indeed, many food companies and chefs alike specialize in taking less than glorious produce and transforming it into something else. While most of the time these end products are edible, a company […]
Malvika Iyer is a model and role model. She’s an example of a person who has maintained a hugely positive attitude despite great adversity. And adversity seems like a weak word when you know what happened to her. When Malvika was 13, she lost both her hands and sustained severe injuries, nerve damage and multiple fractures […]
In his book, Before Happiness, Shawn Achor, writes about “actionable strategies to create a positive path to success”. Here are some tidbits: – “You can summon all your cognitive, intellectual, and emotional resources to create positive change, because you believe that true change is possible.” – “The better your brain is at using its energy to […]
Solar Impulse, the Swiss solar-powered aircraft, has set a new record. Pilot André Borschberg achieved the longest non-stop solo flight of 5 days and nights as part of Solar Impulse’s enterprising journey around the world. The plane took off from Nagoya, Japan, and landed in Kalaeloa, Hawaii, earlier this month. Without one drop of fuel! The […]

Drag queens are not new but, in that role, Conchita Wurst (or is it Tom Neuwirth?) has forced us to rethink gender stereotypes. He’s a bearded woman. Conchita is not the first person to win the Eurovision Song Contest whose self-identity does not conform unambiguously to conventional notions of male or female gender. But she has […]
InSitu Foundation is a tax-exempt non-profit organization dedicated to training dogs to detect cancer in humans. According to the Foundation, “Dogs’ accuracy levels have been proven to be 88% specific, and 99% sensitive in the early detection of lung and breast cancer.” So just as dogs have been trained to find narcotics, explosives, insects (lice or […]
It’s a fact that deep sleep reactivates and strengthens specific memories. How does that work? Through replay. The neurons that make new connections in the brain when you are in the process of learning something reactivate during sleep. So, if you study for a test just before going to bed at night or before a nap, you’ll remember better […]
The Good Times came across this story recently, about one person’s masterpiece. James Hampton was a janitor for the General Services Administration in Washington, DC. Nothing much is known about him, except that in around 1950, when he was in his early forties, he rented a garage in his neighborhood. He would work in that garage until his death […]