Barack Obama, the US president, launches a new effort on Monday to build business and social ties to the Muslim world. Obama hosts a two-day presidential summit on entrepreneurship that will bring together about 250 successful business and social entrepreneurs from more than 50 countries, most with large Muslim populations, fulfilling a pledge he made in his Cairo speech to the Islamic worldlast June. The aim is to bring together successful business and social entrepreneurs from different countries, venture capitalists, development bankers and other business experts to discuss ideas and share experiences with a view towards creating support networks that will help promote development in the region. However, one businesswoman in Jordan does not require a summit to make a profit. Maisoon Zaidan set up an initiative in 2006 to capitalise on Jordan’s natural resources. Al Jazeera’s Nisreen El-Shamayleh travelled to the village of Anjara to meet Zaidan and her profitable garden.
Mrs Manju Bharatram was a simple child for whom school wasn’t a happy experience. Just like many others. And the day she saw her own children feeling the same as well, she became a social entrepreneur.
CNBC TV 18 profiled Rajendra Joshi of Saath after the Schwab Foundation announced the winners of the India Social Entrepreneurs 2009 Award. The winners were honored at the India Economic Summit in New Delhi, India, held from 8th -10th November, 2009. The Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship, in collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), selected three social enterprises with significant impact in India as winners of the India Social Entrepreneurs Award for 2009: Rajendra Joshi, Managing Trustee, Saath; Brij Kothari, Director, PlanetRead and Faculty, IIM Ahmedabad; and Padmanabha and Rama Rao, Co-Directors, RIVER.
Illicit pot plantations, floating cars, bloody lakes and possible clues to the location of Atlantis – all of these things and more have been spotted on Google Earth, that mesmerizing satellite imagery software that allows you to explore every corner of the globe without ever leaving your seat. Some people may find Google’s ubiquitous cameras invasive, but there’s no doubt that it plays an important role not just in voyeurism and entertainment but in science, as well – and it has even led a man to what may be billions in buried treasure.
Is it the site of some stomach-turning atrocity? A dumping site for slaughterhouse blood, as suggested by a BoingBoing commenter? Nay, the extremely vivid red hue of this lake outside Sadr City in Iraq is most likely due to something much less exciting – like chemical pollution or a wastewater treatment process.
Swimming or boating in the waters of Teifi Estuary in Wales, you’d never guess that the rocks beneath the surface were anything other than a natural reef. But archaeologists using Google Earth to study geological features instantly recognized it as something else entirely – a vast man-made fish trap built some 1,000 years ago. Back then, fish would have been trapped in the V-shape during low tide, but the stones have since sunken into the sand.
When marijuana farmers planted their illicit crop in an open field in Switzerland as if it were corn or broccoli, they apparently weren’t counting on a Google Earth satellite spying on their land. Aerial images of the site caught the attention of police in 2007, but earlier photos seem to indicate that the farmers got away with it for at least a decade.
What exotic locale could be better for a romantic vacation than a heart-shaped island off the coast of Croatia, complete with a border of sandy beaches? It’s now known as “Lover’s Island”, but even its owner didn’t realize how perfectly heart-shaped it really is until he was inundated with requests by sentimental folks who saw it online.
What happens to old airplanes when they’re no longer safe to fly? Apparently, they get dumped into a vast aircraft graveyard in the middle of Arizona. These planes sit until their useful parts are fully exploited, and desert conditions keep them from corroding in the meantime.
Glance at this Google Earth image, and you’ll likely do a double-take – yes, that white car parked all by its lonesome in the grass certainly does appear to be floating at least ten feet in the air. It’s still not clear exactly what was happening here, as the flat black shape lacks the reflections that a dark-colored vehicle might have sported and is perfectly situated to be the white car’s shadow.
It looks ordinary enough to those unfamiliar with China’s landscape, but this little plot of earth is actually a roughly 1:500 scale model of a disputed border region between China and India. Located near what seems to be a military complex, the model likely serves as an important visualization tool for officials planning action.
Many odd sights found in Google Earth have been proven mere computer anomalies, but there’s no denying that this car is actually parked on the side of a building. However, there’s also a perfectly reasonable (but still amazing) explanation: it’s a piece of public art by Theo van Laar.
Could a Google Earth geek really have located billions of dollars in buried treasure, all through aerial imagery? Musician Nathan Smith believes that he did, investigating an unusual shape and deciding that it must be the wreck of a Spanish barquentine from 1822 that sunk in the area of Aransas Pass. Legally, the treasure is Smith’s if it’s located in a waterway and he gets to it first. Unfortunately for him, that formerly underwater area is now dry land and belongs to a family that isn’t keen on a bulldozer invasion.
Why, oh why would a fighter jet be tucked away in what appears to be a residential parking lot? It seems like an odd place to rest. Perhaps it’s a model of some sort, given that it’s located next to the Paris Institute of Technology.
When eagle-eyed Google Earth explorers spotted a strange pattern in the water off the coast of Turkey, they couldn’t help but see a tantalizing glimpse at what could be the remnants of a long-forgotten civilization – Atlantis, perhaps? But alas, Google quickly rained on their parade, saying “What users are seeing is an artifact of the data collection process. Bathymetric (or sea floor terrain) data is often collected from boats using sonar to take measurements of the sea floor. The lines reflect the path of the boat as it gathers the data.”
Did Google Earth’s cameras just happen to catch an underwater earthquake at the very moment it occurred? A gas eruption, perhaps, or a meteorite at the moment of impact? Not quite. The harsh, frigid water of reality was thrown upon speculators when a commenter at Google Sightseeing pointed out what appears to be a jet ski in the center of the ripples.
It has never been easy to get to the mountainous region of Mozambique in Africa, thanks to difficult terrain and civil war – so it has remained mostly untouched and undiscovered. But the virtual sightseeing capabilities of Google Earth piqued the curiosity of a group of British scientists who were amazed to find an unexpected patch of green. They decided to set out on foot, and discovered hundreds of new species in just three weeks.
Another scientist found that using Google Earth to keep track of various known caves and fossil deposits in South Africa paid off in a big way: namely, helping him identify an ancient human ancestor. Professor Lee Berger from Witswatersrand University in Johannesburg found a correlation between the site locations and then, using Google Earth’s aerial imagery, identified 50 previously unidentified caves and fossil sites – one of which contained the bones of a new hominid.
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Amid troubled neighbors like Burma and Cambodia, Thailand is a sanctuary — drawing in tons of foreign business investment and over 14 million beach-seeking tourists a year. But recent events in the capital are a reminder that all’s not well in paradise.
For the last six weeks, a bloody battle has been waging in Bangkok’s streets. It’s led by the “Red Shirts” — or the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD) — a group of mostly poor laborers and farmers who call the current government illegitimate and undemocratic. On March 14, they started a rally in the capital city to demand a dissolution of parliament and new general elections. The riots turned deadly on April 10 when government forces tried to crackdown on the group of pro-democracy protesters, killing 25 people and injuring hundreds.
This isn’t the first time thousands of Thais donning red shirts have taken to the streets. The UDD was formed in 2006 to oppose a military coup that ousted former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra. Thaksin, now the main financier of the Red Shirts, is a former telecommunications tycoon who was elected Prime Minister of Thailand in 2001. Many say that his billion-dollar fortune was built on corruption and tax evasion. Which begs the question: what are thousands of poverty-stricken peasants doing protesting on behalf of a billionaire crook?
I’d say a bit of the traditional good news deficit comes from the misguided conviction among some news people that happy endings and serious journalism don’t mix.
But I’d lay some of the blame with audiences too. There’s more good news out there than some of you have recognized.
Let’s start with one of the most basic tenets of journalism — that “news” is what we don’t expect. We pull out our notepads for the unexpected: Man bites dog. Plane cartwheels off runway. Jon Stewart goes Mike Wallace on interview subject.
To that old rule most big outlets apply a corollary: A complete paper or newscast must include a “mix,” of breaking news and features, of photos and words, covering subjects both trifling and transcendent.
Most networks, cable outlets and big newspapers try to cover the entire spectrum, but their hearts really soar for the weighty, heavy stuff. That means lots of focus on dark stories, regardless of whether they hint at a resolution, or even much hope.
Prize-winning investigative reporter Frank Greve of McClatchy newspapers talked about the queasy reaction he got from some colleagues a couple years ago when he announced he would start a “good news” beat.
“Some of my old friends, when I told them what I was doing, reacted as if I’d told them I had cancer,” Greve told the Poynter Institute, a nonprofit school for professional journalists. “Most, but not all” of those reporters encouraged Greve when they saw that he still reported and wrote with rigor.
Greve has noted how delayed licensing of drivers has driven down the teenage accident rate. He’s written about how many old people remain sexually active. He’s raised doubts about whether we should really need to worry about pharmaceutical contamination in drinking water.
That list of topics might seem like a hodgepodge, but there’s a common theme. Bad news grows out of conflict or loss. Good news often means just following the conflict through to a resolution.
From daredevil damselfish and borneo ninja slugs to super-seeing bees and incredibly strong dung beetles, animals that seem rather ordinary on the surface will occasionally surprise us humans with incredible feats or unusual behavior reminiscent of fictional superpowers.
While recently studying personality traits of damselfish, researchers were surprised when this species of fish suddenly became more aggressive and bold in the water. Turns out that increases in water temperature cause these fish to be more active than usual, particularly when another fish was made visible outside the water during a controlled study. On average, the damselfish were four times more aggressive and bold than normal when water temperatures increased. Since damselfish are cold-blooded to begin with, warmer temperatures provide them with more energy to pursue food and take more chances, which could also be their end doing if not keeping lookout for larger predators. Such are the risks of being damselfish daredevils.
Recently in the mountains of the Malaysian port of Borneo, researchers discovered a slug with a tail three times the length of its head and a unique ability to initiate the reproduction process. Shooting calcium carbonate and hormone-filled darts at potential mates, the new species was dubbed the Borneo ninja slug, even though its martial arts skills are up for debate.
How it’s currently good to be a bumblebee. With spring having arrived, these fellas will be out and about in droves soon enough, ready to invade summer picnics and even sting when necessary. With the ability to see the world five times faster than humans, it’s no wonder that bees are so quick to pick up on freshly served food during summer grill outs and to navigate many different situations in the wild, including shady, unclear bushes. And it appears that some super-seeing bees are only getting stronger. To combat a recent decline in honeybees killed by a parasite called varroa mites, scientists have bred super-sniffing bees that will better allow them to locate and root out these pests when present in their hives. Guess this superpower is worth having if it will ensure future populations of honeybees and bottles of honey. In related news, super-smelling wasps have recently been trained to mimic sniffing dogs capable of uncovering illegal drugs and toxic chemicals while desert ants also have been shown to use olfactory cues like maps when navigating back to their nests.
Like desert ants, the greater mouse-eared bat always seems to know where it’s at in relation to its roosting site. Despite being creatures of the night, these bats utilize the position of the sun at sunset to determine direction. These bats then calibrate their magnetic fields with the sun, ultimately using this gigantic orb as a compass to orient themselves, according to recent research in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. Even when placed in unfamiliar settings, these bats were able to find their way home rather quickly based on this uncanny and envious tracking system.
Stop-and-Go Elephants: Equipped with Four-Wheel Drive
Not only do elephants look like SUVs, they work like them. According to fascinating new research, elephants are believed to be the only four-legged animals in the wild to have four-wheel drive, which refers to power being applied independently to each limb, ultimately allowing them to brake and accelerate with each leg. All other four-legged animals are believed to have rear-wheel drive, where the hind legs are used to accelerate and the front legs are used to brake. According to researchers, four-wheel drive makes elephants less efficient and much slower runners. However, elephants do have more power over their movements as a result of their self-contained 4-wheel drive.
Dung Beetles: Super Strong and Apparently Steroid Free
The dung beetle (Onthophagus taurus) was recently declared the world’s strongest insect after demonstrating the ability to pull 1,141 times its body weight. In comparable terms, that would be equivalent to a human being lifting almost 180,000 pounds. Not all dung beetles are this strong; for those that are not, they compensate in different ways. According to recent research in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, dung beetles that are not blessed with the strength to fight other males for female mates are known for having much bigger testicles than their stronger counterparts. With this advantage, these less strong dung beetles are able to produce much more sperm, thus giving them their own special appeal to females.
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Watch highlights from the second day of the 2010 Skoll World Forum in Oxford, UK. The Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship (www.skollworldforum.com) accelerates the impact of the worlds leading social entrepreneurs by uniting them with essential partners in a collaborative pursuit…
Amid troubled neighbors like Burma and Cambodia, Thailand is a sanctuary — drawing in tons of foreign business investment and over 14 million beach-seeking tourists a year. But recent events in the capital are a reminder that all’s not well in paradise.
