John Cleese takes us on a tour of a laughter therapy practice in India.
Laughter promotes stress reduction, community bonding, stronger immune system... and joy. What a simple solution!
American Bird watchers coast to coast are invited
to take part in the 13th annual Great Backyard Bird Count, Friday,
February 12, through Monday, February 15, 2010. Participants in
the free event will join tens of thousands of volunteers counting
birds in their own backyards, local parks or wildlife
refuges.
Each checklist submitted by these "citizen scientists" helps
researchers at the Cornell Lab
of Ornithology,the National
Audubon Society , and Bird
Studies Canada learn more about how the birds are doing--and how to
protect them. Last year, participants turned in more than 93,600
checklists online, creating the continent's largest instantaneous
snapshot of bird populations ever recorded.
Anyone can take part in the Great Backyard Bird Count,
from novice bird watchers to experts.
Participants count birds for as
little as 15 minutes (or as long as they wish) on one or more days of
the event and report their sightings online at www.birdcount.org. One 2009
participant said, "Thank you for the opportunity to participate in
citizen science. I have had my eyes opened to a whole new interest and
I love it!"
Winter is such a vulnerable period for birds, so winter
bird distributions are likely to be very sensitive to change.
There is
only one way--citizen science--to gather data on private lands where
people live and GBBC has been doing this across the continent for many
years.
GBBC has enormous potential both as an early warning system and
in capturing and engaging people in more intensive sampling of birds
across the landscape."
Bird populations are always shifting and changing.
For example, 2009 GBBC data highlighted a huge southern invasion of Pine Siskins across much of the eastern United States. Participants counted 279,469 Pine Siskins on 18,528 checklists, as compared to the previous high of 38,977 birds on 4,069 checklists in 2005. Failure of seed crops farther north caused the siskins to move south to find their favorite food.
Bird Count Website
On the www.birdcount.org website, participants can explore real-time maps and charts that show what others are reporting during the count. The site has tips to help identify birds and special materials for educators. Participants may also enter the GBBC photo contest by uploading images taken during the count. Many images will be featured in the GBBC website's photo gallery. All participants are entered in a drawing for prizes that include bird feeders, binoculars, books, CDs, and many other great birding products.
Canadian Bird Studies Birdcount
In 2010, Bird Studies Canada
(BSC) joins the GBBC as the program's Canadian partner. "Bird Studies
Canada is delighted to be the Canadian partner for this extremely
valuable program," said George Finney, President of BSC. "Participating
in the GBBC is an excellent way for Canadians to reconnect with their
love of nature and birds."
For more information about the GBBC, visit the website at www.birdcount.org.
At this time, experts believe that defective drywall imported from China was installed in homes built or remodeled after 2003.
Baby boomers may be popularly portrayed as whiners, complainers and narcissists, but a new study by University of Massachusetts Amherst psychology Professor Susan Krauss Whitbourne says the 50-somethings are getting a bad rap.
Connection to Younger Generations...Social Conscience
"It's wrong to say baby boomers are selfish and only care about staying young," says Susan Krauss Whitbourne. "They have a feeling of connection to younger generations and a social conscience."
Whitbourne's findings, based on three decades of data from two groups of baby boomers, were published in the September issue of the journal Developmental Psychology, published by the American Psychological Association.
The study began in 1966 at the University of Rochester in New York, when a group of students participated in a research project on personality development. Similar studies of successive generations of students at Rochester as well as follow-up surveys with participants in the earliest groups have yielded 34 years of information about the life changes experienced by leading edge boomers, who were in their mid- to late 50s, and trailing edge boomers, who were in their mid-40s, at the time of the most recent survey.
Boomers in Midlife
"What's most interesting is seeing what happened to baby boomers in midlife," says Whitbourne. "Some became more fulfilled, others became despairing, and yet others remained relatively stable. My research design allowed me to suggest which changes in their lives were most closely connected with a growth in fulfillment.
- More fulfilled
- Despairing
- Relatively Stable
According to Whitbourne, the results suggest that personality growth doesn't follow a ladder model where one stage succeeds another, but more closely resembles a matrix, in which issues associated with early stages of life are continuously revisited through life.
Matrix of Early Life's Issues
For Whitbourne, the study illustrates that we are not
locked into a narrowly defined life by the time we are of college age.
"I've seen people overcome social deficits over the course of the
study," she says. "This really shows that you don't have to give up on
yourself. People can change through their entire life."
Fulfillment Beyond the Workplace
Since the last study, the boomers have found fulfillment beyond the workplace, says Whitbourne. In the 1980s, the "me generation" was working hard and making a lot of money, but something was missing from their lives. At the time, Whitbourne said the results were shaped by Reagan-era social values.
Volunteerism
By the '90s, however, the volunteerism of the Clinton years seems to have taken root among those unfulfilled boomers, she says. "There is a real concern about social well-being that goes back to the core values they developed in college."
Industriousness
Another change Whitbourne notes concerns "industry," a personality trait associated with the work ethic. The oldest boomers in the study had measured far lower on industry than other age groups in earlier surveys, but the latest data show they've caught up with their peers.
"It would appear from the present analyses that the very lowest industry scores were obtained in college from participants who, in early adulthood, had jobs with extremely low prestige," says the study. "However, they managed to exceed their peers in industry scores throughout the course of the study."
Self-confidence and Determination in Women
For midlife women, the results also support other studies that found gains in self-confidence and determination through the workplace, says Whitbourne. "It is possible that for these leading-edge baby boomer women, feelings of competence were suppressed in college, when it seemed as though their careers would play an important role in their future success," she writes.
Intimacy and Relationships are Not the Only Change Agents
The study also reinforces the idea that individuals can
overcome early issues with intimacy and relationships, notes
Whitbourne, and "catch up" with their psychologically more fortunate
peers.
According to the data, participants who were not in a committed relationship early in adulthood showed continued gains throughout the period of the study and moved toward an increasingly favorable resolution that exceeded those peers who were in a committed relationship in early adulthood.
Later Parenting
"Enhanced development gains"
were also noted for boomers who became parents after the age of 31. By
waiting until their careers were established, those study participants
may have been "best able to enjoy their new parenthood status to the
fullest," says Whitbourne.
What Midlife Crisis?
Whitbourne says the study also lays to rest the myth of the midlife crisis. Based on the interviews and surveys, she says, "My study confirms others in the empirical literature that despite its popularity in the pop culture, the majority of adults don't freak out in their 40s or 50s."
That's not to say the study participants haven't had their ups and downs, says Whitbourne, but individuals grapple with their problems in a variety of ways. "People may experience depression in midlife, but it's too glib to write that off as a midlife crisis. Other factors must be considered."
The study is co-authored by Joel R. Sneed of Queens College, City University of New York, Columbia University and the New York State Psychiatric Institute, and Aline Sayer, visiting associate professor of psychology at UMass Amherst..
National Association of Housing Cooperatives
1614 King St.,
Alexandria, VA 22314
(703) 549-5201
The leading housing and community development advocate for the
provision of adequate and affordable housing and strong, viable
communities for all Americans particularly those for low - and
moderate- incomes.
NAHC Resources section offers library of cooperative housing information
Our FAQ section offers answers from our experts, the Glossary of Terms page contains definitions for commonly used cooperative terms, and our Resources for Professionals
section contains a number of useful sources. These are just a few of
the gems of information available from our continually expanding
Resources section.
Documents to help with cooperative management:
Cooperatives: A Housing Alternative for Rural America
Service Report 45. 32 pgs. 1995. Tracey Kennedy, Andrew Jermolowicz, Mary Ann Lambert, John Reilly and Beverly Rotan
USDA Rural Development
Keys to Successful Cooperative Housing
Service Report 44. 12 pgs. 1995. Tracey Kennedy, Andrew Jermolowicz, Mary Ann Lambert, John Reilly, and Beverly Rotan
USDA Rural Development
RESOURCE LIST:
http://www.uwcc.wisc.edu/
Co-op Net -- Co-opNet, is an electronic mailing list run by the Southampton Co-op Network to promote co-ops and co-operation, and to encourage constructive and diverse discussion on co-operative and related issues.
Cooperative-bus -- An e-mail discussion group for cooperative managers, volunteers and members worldwide. Sponsored by the UW Center for Cooperatives. If your subscription efforts fail please email mgrinnell@wisc.edu with your name and email address where you want your mail sent along with instructions to add you to the coop bus listserv manually.
Our genes determine only 30% of our destiny!A decade after the book was published, other studies have confirmed and advanced those findings.
The other 70 percent is up to us!
Kahn sees too little about why people are living longer and what longer life means, he adds. "Or what a longer and productive and happy life can be."
IDEAS: crossword puzzles and Sudoko and software such as [m]Power cognitive fitness technology
6 Dimensions of Wellness
- physical
- emotional
- intellectual
- social
- vocational
- spiritual
By 2030, 1 of every 5 people in the United States will be 65 or older, compared to 12 percent in that age group now.
And by 2050, there will be more than a million people over age 100.
A Portable Health Profile on a miniature CD and tiny flash drive made by Critical Access stores all sorts of medical records including X‐rays.
Many diabetics now carry cell phones that can analyze a strip of blood within seconds and send results to their doctors' offices.
Intel is researching how new technology can bring three pieces together: cell phones, inexpensive sensors that capture biological data and the infrastructure of health care.