Mini Good News // Current

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4 months ago

Superconducting train

This is just awesome.

ansar_lawi
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School Custodian Has Big Role — And Big Heart

Chloe Smith, 13, is a student at Our Lady of the Assumption Catholic School in Atlanta. She wanted to interview someone important... more

JulyJones
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The Longest Way 1.0 - one year walk/beard grow time lapse on Vimeo

This video brought to us by Christoph Rehage is an in-the background walk through China, and a dedication to a very special man.

quanta
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Be lucky - it's an easy skill to learn - Telegraph

Over the years, I interviewed these volunteers, asked them to complete diaries, questionnaires and intelligence tests, and invited... more

quanta
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California's food banks go locavore

ONCE A MONTH a tractor-trailer rolls up to the Family Early Learning Center, a one-room preschool in East San Jose, Calif., that doubles as a food pantry for poor families with young kids. On a bright Friday in August, a dozen or so women from the neighborhood gathered for the truck’s arrival. Volunteers as well as customers, they had come to help unload the monthly delivery of groceries from the local food bank.

The truck driver moved a huge pallet of potatoes onto a pallet truck and rolled it to the door of the school. Then came big, round watermelons; then purple onions.

“Cantaloupe?” the driver called out, wondering where to unload it.

“We’re going to do that outside,” a woman answered.

The women broke down the pallets as fast as they could. A crowd of customers would gather soon. Anything the women could carry went inside the school — boxes of celery, onions, eggs, pinto beans, generic corn flakes, rice and creamy peanut butter. Outside, the driver unloaded green peppers, plums, apricots, bags of potatoes, ears of corn and pears, arranging everything in two rows of big, open bins.

It didn’t look like food for the needy. It looked like a farmers’ market.

Traditionally food banks have gathered mostly leftover or damaged boxes and cans from supermarkets, food processors and other mass distributors and then passed along the food to soup kitchens and food pantries like the one in East San Jose. Food banks have always found some fresh produce to give away; a few have managed to give away a lot. But for the most part, they have trafficked in processed foods — widely available free, simple to transport and warehouse and quick to fill empty stomachs.

Increasingly, though, food banks have been looking to agriculture. California is at the forefront of this change. Since 2005, the California Association of Food Banks has struck deals with farms and packers across the state, where, on behalf of its members, it collects truckloads of fruits and vegetables that are too small, ripe or misshapen for supermarkets to sell.

This shift toward more healthful food is partly about obesity and its rise among the poor. But it’s also a product of necessity: the food industry has become more efficient, squeezing the traditional supply of surplus cans and boxes. Fresh food offers a big, new food supply — and maybe, for the food banks themselves, a beneficial new role.

“There’s an almost unlimited supply of produce that’s not being adequately distributed,” says Vicki Escarra, the president of Feeding America (formerly America’s Second Harvest), the national network of food banks. Last month she formed a fruits-and-vegetables task force and plans to bring in 25 percent more farm produce through national donors in the next fiscal year. “Identifying where it is and how we can get it and how we can subsidize it — there are a lot of lessons that can be learned in California,” Escarra says. “What they’re doing is really innovative.”ONCE A MONTH a tractor-trailer rolls up to the Family Early Learning Center, a one-room preschool in East San Jose, Calif., that... more

JanforGore
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4 months ago

Cute owl

Man I thought owls were supposed to be ugly.

joshuaheller
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2 comments

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4 months ago

The 2nd largest tank in the world

I ussually like funny clips, but this is amazing.

Stacy8888
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1 comment

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4 months ago

Lee’s Complete Game Lifts Phillies

PHILADELPHIA — The flag adorned with 2008 whipped and thrashed in the gusting winds Wednesday afternoon. It is a red-and-white reminder of the Phillies’ recent glory, that any team wishing to unseat them as World Series champions must come through Philadelphia and tame the ferocious offense and brilliant starting pitching that spanked the Colorado Rockies and began their title defense.

The largest crowd in Citizens Bank Park history exulted as Cliff Lee, making his postseason debut, pitched all nine innings in the Phillies’ 5-1 victory over the Rockies in Game 1 of their National League division series. Lee was not a member of the Phillies last season; he joined them in a late July deal with Cleveland that was made for one specific purpose: to add an ace to pitch in front of Cole Hamels.

Over one stretch Wednesday, Lee retired 16 consecutive batters, and his efficiency (113 pitches) rendered moot the Phillies’ most pressing question: Who would close? Hardly anyone in their bullpen stirred, even to stretch, until there were two outs in the ninth, as Lee overwhelmed a Colorado lineup already vulnerable to left-handed pitching.

Every member of the Phillies’ lineup except for Pedro Feliz had at least one hit, with the Nos. 4, 5 and 6 hitters — Ryan Howard, Jayson Werth and Raul Ibanez — combining for six hits and four runs batted in. Held in check by Ubaldo Jimenez through four innings, they scored two in the fifth and three more in the sixth to back Lee.

Uncertain as the rest of the Phillies’ pitching plans are, Manager Charlie Manuel had two and only two options to start Game 1: Hamels, the reigning World Series most valuable player, and Lee, the reigning Cy Young award winner in the American League. A difficult decision, perhaps, but Manuel preferred a fully rested Lee over Hamels on short rest. Lee started 5-0 with a 0.68 earned run average with the Phillies but ended 2-4 with a 6.13 earned run average in his last seven starts.

end of excerpt

Source: The New York TimesPHILADELPHIA — The flag adorned with 2008 whipped and thrashed in the gusting winds Wednesday afternoon. It is a... more

current89
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4 months ago

Lapp: Drawing by Light

Performance photography, Light Sculpture called Light Art Performance Photography created by JanLeonardo and Jorg Medza.

quanta
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4 months ago

Driving on Glass? Inventor Hopes to Lay Down Solar Roads

A truck tire supporting a 36,300-kilogram load repeatedly traverses an 18-meter stretch of road, day in and day out, rolling up... more

franksalot
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77 comments

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4 months ago

Herb Brooks' Pre-Game Speech

Herb Brooks' pre-game pep talk before the famous 1980 "Miracle" game against the Soviet Union. as performed by... more

TravG73
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4 months ago

Saving the National Parks one photo at a time: Ian Shive

In case you missed Wild Exposure with Ian Shrive, a documentary of his experiences photographing the National Parks for "Photos Across America" on Current, All is not lost. Current Green caught up with Ian between signings (Literally. I think he was driving).

Current Green: How did you get into photography?

Ian Shive: It started as an attempt to share new experiences and places with friends and family when I first moved to Montana for college after growing up in New Jersey. Montana was so radically different that I had to find ways to send photos back home to “prove” to friends what I was seeing out west. Most of my friends back then had not seen the American West and once you see it – it never leaves you. I remember one experience in particular where I had photographed a scene in the Crazy Mountains of Montana and when I got the film back – the photos were so disappointing. I had failed to accurately capture what I was hoping for and so began an inadvertent journey of teaching myself photography. Still, photography wasn’t an obvious career choice for me, despite the fact that my father is a photographer specializing in architecture. I simply saw it as a means of sharing and that continues to this day.

Current Green: What came first? Love of wilderness or love of photography?

Ian Shive: My first experience of wilderness outdoors was in New Jersey, and so that’s pretty much where I spent all of my time. Most people don’t think of New Jersey as a place with great outdoors but it is and was amazing. We had wildlife refuges and parks that for a 5-year old up until my teen years, were more than enough to spark my interests. When I was 14 years-old, my parents took me on my first trip to a major National Park – the Grand Canyon. That trip left an indelible mark and opened my eyes to the immensity of the west and especially the magic of the national parks. When I returned to Montana for college, I was never in class because Bozeman was so close to Yellowstone National Park (only 90 miles north), so photography and the parks and the love of wilderness all started in earnest. About six years later, I was completely obsessed and engrossed in the outdoors and photography.

Current Green: You have said that there is a difference between nature photography and conservation photography. Can you explain the difference?

Ian Shive: Nature photography and conservation photography frequently appear the same. It could be a bird in the backyard feeder, a beautiful landscape of a national park or a great wildlife shot. The place where the two diverge is that nature photography takes no action – the image is for yourself or for a magazine. Conservation photography takes the process a step further by taking that same image and using it for advocacy, education and to bring awareness or aid to the subject or ecosystem depicted in the image. It’s sort of like giving back to the landscape that you’ve borrowed from as a photographer.

Catch the full article, more pictures, and the videos on the blog post:
http://blogs.current.com/green/2009/09/30/saving-the-national-parks-one-photo-at-a-time-ian-shive/In case you missed Wild Exposure with Ian Shrive, a documentary of his experiences photographing the National Parks for... more