Welcome to the ezine produced by SGI Buddhists that prompts the positive, kindles the constructive, highlights the hopeful and leaves you feeling - well, up!
Published on Wednesday, 10 December 2008 19:00 | | 
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More than 400 universities and colleges worldwide now offer
undergraduate or graduate degrees in peace studies, as well as individual courses and
certificates. Dana Macucci investigates
Los Alamos, New Mexico:The Bradbury Science Museum in this drab high-desert town studded with old army barracks houses life-size replicas of Little Boy and Fat Man, chilling reminders of the human capacity for unspeakable violence. The cutely named atomic bombs, which were invented here, were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, in August 1945.
Less than 100 miles away, or 160 kilometers, in Montezuma, New Mexico, lies United World College of the American West (UWC-USA), a two-year pre-university residential school offering an international baccalaureate diploma, with a special emphasis on peace studies and conflict resolution.
Published on Thursday, 11 December 2008 19:00 | | |
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Found in the nearby Large Magellanic Cloud, 30 Doradus is one of the largest massive star forming regions close to the Milky Way. Enormous stars in 30 Doradus, also known as the Tarantula Nebula, are producing intense radiation and searing winds of multimillion-degree gas that carve out gigantic bubbles in the surrounding cooler gas and dust.
Other massive stars have raced through their evolution and exploded catastrophically as supernovae, expanding these bubbles into X-ray- brightened superbubbles. They leave behind pulsars as beacons of their former lives and expanding supernova remnants that trigger the collapse of giant clouds of dust and gas to form new generations of stars.
Published on Friday, 05 December 2008 15:09 | | |
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Good news for those of us who have already begun preparing for the festive season – uncorking a bottle of wine revives the spirits while protecting some of the world’s rarest forests.
Ancient trees that provide 15 billion corks a year and are home to some of the world’s rarest creatures including black storks and the Iberian lynx, could soon be destroyed by a single enemy – the metal screw-top cap. Sometimes the simplest choices we make in our everyday lives can have a huge impact on the natural world.
And be honest, how can a scrawny screw-top cap ever match the soft pop of real cork?
Published on Friday, 05 December 2008 19:00 | |
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AGONY
The day after I was made redundant last July, I was on the tube when I suddenly felt dreadful. I was convinced I was having a heart attack.
After tests my doctor told me my heart was fine and that it was probably just a panic attack. Since then it’s happened to me again on the tube, in the supermarket and once at a football match. I’ve always been an outgoing person - now I’m scared of going out.
Published on Thursday, 04 December 2008 19:00 | | |
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‘It is not
really my fault if some people are hungry, but it would be my fault if nothing
changed,’ maintained Michel Colucci, better known as the French
comedian, Coluche.
So in 1985 he created the 'Restos du Coeur' charity to distribute hot meals and food packages to the needy and the homeless.
by Geraldine Royds
Published on Tuesday, 02 December 2008 19:00 | | |
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Journalist, author and practising Buddhist Mariane Pearl came to international attention when her husband, Wall Street Journal
reporter Daniel Pearl, was kidnapped and beheaded by Islamic militants
in Pakistan in 2002. She was five months pregnant at the time.
Currently based in Paris, Mariane Pearl reports on women working for social change as well as culture, science, immigration, and politics.
Published on Thursday, 27 November 2008 09:34 | | |
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New research is proving that music has a powerful healing effect, helping with a range of conditions from high blood pressure to acute pain.
A surgeon in Hawaii recently tested the effects of playing the piano while his patients were prepared for surgery, monitoring changes in vital signs such as heart and breathing rates. While teams of researchers around the world have conducted numerous experiments to record the different effects of music on our health, finding that certain types of music affect hormone production and can boost the immune system.