These women are so brave and humble--Inspriational! Loved Desmond Tutu's dance!

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Amazing. Three women share this year's Nobel Peace Prize.

Three women's rights activists win Nobel Peace Prize

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Nobel Peace Prize: The Nobel Peace Prize is awarded to three women from Africa and the Middle East who symbolized the nonviolent struggle to improve their nations and advance women's rights throughout the world.

Worried Moms/Meatless Mondays

Blog for a Livable Future:

MAY 5TH, 2011

Nationwide Poll: 80% of America’s Moms are Concerned About Antibiotic Use in Industrial Food Animal Production

When moms talk you can bet lawmakers listen, not to mention food retailers. That is exactly what the Pew Campaign on Human Health and Industrial Farming is counting on following the release of a nationwide poll of 804 American moms, which found that 80 percent are concerned that food animals produced on industrial farms are being given large amounts of antibiotics. Each of these moms is a  registered voter and has kids aged 16 or younger.  Not only were most of the moms polled concerned about antibiotic use, more than three-quarters said they would support federal regulations to limit its use of antibiotics in food animals.

No doubt this news has the animal agriculture industry concerned. Despite the warnings from scientists and public health experts of the risks of the low-dose use of antibiotics in livestock and poultry,  food animal producers have for years fought proposed federal regulations claiming there is little proof the practice poses a risk to humans. Top leaders of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration disagree with animal producers. Former FDA Deputy Commissioner Joshua Sharfstein testified in front of Congress stating the links are undeniable and in a letter to the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future (CLF) the director of the CDC, Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, confirmed that the CDC, “feels there is strong scientific evidence of a link between antibiotic use in food animals and antibiotic resistance in humans.”

More and more research continues to pour in, almost on a daily basis, linking antibiotic-use in intensive food animal production facilities to the growing threat of antibiotic resistant infections in people. Earlier this month, a Pew funded nationwide study of grocery store meats revealed nearly 50 percent of the meat and poultry we buy carries antibiotic-resistant Staphylococcus aureus and that DNA tests indicate the animals themselves were the primary sources. Continue reading »

By Ralph Loglisci. Filed under: Agriculture, Environment, Food Production, Food and Farm Policy,Industrial Food Animal Production, Public Health, Uncategorized.

Children are Artists

"Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist when you grow up._
Pablo Picasso

Think Garageband is New?

Electronic and Computer Music BY NATHAN BREWER, IEEE HISTORY CENTER Computers play an integral part in today’s music industry. From recording and production to composition, many of today’s popular artists use computers in their work. While it may evoke images of high-tech and sophisticated machinery, computer music and electronic music are not recent phenomena; electronic music has been produced for over a century, and music has been made using computers since before the era of rock and roll. While the widespread use of computers in recording and production may have only gained favor within the mainstream industry in the past 30 years, the genre has a very rich and deep history. Electro-acoustic instrumentation dates back to the mid 18th century with the Denis d'or (1753) and the Clavecin électrique (1759). The Denis d’or is known only through written accounts, but diagrams from the Clavecin électrique survive. The Clavecin électrique employs a globe generator which charges a pair of bells hanging from iron bars, and a musician can press a key which will oscillate a clapper between the bells, producing a certain note. These instruments were developed almost a century before the phonautograph (1857), the earliest known device for sound recording. Clavecin électrique Elisha Gray’s acoustic telegraph (1875) is widely considered to be the first synthesizer. Other electronic instruments would soon follow; the Telharmonium, developed byThaddeus Cahill between 1892 and 1914, was one of the first to be used for live performances. The instrument was used for playing live in a music hall and its music would be broadcast over telephone lines. However, its enormous size (over 200 tons and 60 feet in length) and tendency to cause crosstalk on its telephone broadcasts ultimately caused the instrument to fall out of favor. Other early electronic instruments such as theAudion Piano (1915), the Theremin (1920), the Croix Sonore (1926), and the Hammond Organ (1934) proved to be more successful. These instruments led to new approaches to sound and music composition that was previously not possible with traditional instruments. "Sketch of a New Esthetic of Music," published in 1907 by Ferruccio Busoni, was one of the most influential papers in the development of electronic music. It discussed several approaches to music now made possible, including microtuning, which is the use of scales based on increments smaller than semitones. Futurist Luigi Russolo’s "The Art of Noises" also took an avant-garde approach, valuing noises such as roars, whistling and buzzing. In 1914, the first concert to perform Russolo’s manifesto featuring his Intonarumori, acoustical noise instruments, was so ill received that it caused a riot. These ideas and approaches to music later influenced electronic avant-garde composers such as Pierre Schaeffer, Edgard Varèse, John Cage, Pierre Henry, George Antheil and Karlheinz Stockhausen. Luigi Russolo’s Intonarumori The advent of the computer furthered the possibilities of electronic music composition. The first computer used for playing music was the CSIR Mk1, developed in Sydney in the late 1940s by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research. Built and designed by Trevor Pearcy and Maston Beard and programmed by Geoffrey Hill, the CSIR Mk1 publicly played "Colonel Bogey" in 1951. Later renamed the CSIRAC in 1955, the machine was programmed to accept a punched paper data tape in standard music notation. No recordings of the CSIRAC exist, and the first known recorded computer generated music was a medley of "God Save the King," "Baa Baa Black Sheep" and "In the Mood" played by the Ferranti Mark 1 at the end of 1951. Hired by Bell Labs in 1954, Max Mathews is widely considered to be one of the founding fathers of computer music. Mathews wrote MUSIC-I, which was the first program to produce digital audio through use of an IBM 704 computer; the CSIRAC and Ferranti only produced analog audio. With John Chowning, Mathews helped set up a computer music program using the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory’s computer system in 1964. Chowning would later develop the FM synthesis algorithm in 1967, and founded the Center for Computer Research and Musical Acoustics in 1975. The Center for Computer Research and Musical Acoustics would later employ John Pierce, a long time employee of Bell Labs, who contributed pioneering work to digital speech synthesis. CSIRAC, Photo Courtesy John O’Neill Early computers used for music could not process data fast enough to play in real time, but could be used to generate scores. One of the first composers to utilize computers was Iannis Xenakis.  Nathan Brewer is Global History Network Administrator and Librarian at the IEEE History Center at the IEEE History Center at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J. Visit the IEEE History Center's Web page at:www.ieee.org/organizations/history_center. Comments may be submitted to todaysengineer@ieee.org. Copyright © 2011 IEEE

Innovation: Quotes and Ideas

The way to get good ideas is to get lots of ideas and throw the bad ones away." — Linus Pauling "The uncreative mind can spot wrong answers, but it takes a very creative mind to spot wrong questions." — Anthony Jay "That so few now dare to be eccentric marks the chief danger of our time." — John Stuart Mill "Genius is one percent inspiration, and ninety-nine percent perspiration." — Thomas Edison "Some men look at things the way they are and ask why? I dream of things that are not and ask why not?" — Robert Kennedy "In every work of genius, we recognize our once rejected thoughts." — Ralph Waldo Emerson "Creativity is thinking up new things. Innovation is doing new things." — Theodore Levitt "The innovation point is the pivotal moment when talented and motivated people seek the opportunity to act on their ideas and dreams." — W. Arthur Porter

Innovation and Education- Barack Obama

Cutting the deficit by gutting our investments in innovation and education is like lightening an overloaded airplane by removing its engine. It may make you feel like you're flying high at first, but it won't take long before you feel the impact.
Barack Obama

From Brainy Quotes

Backyard Ecology

Link: check out what these kids in Ohio are doing to bring ecology into the backyard!


blackandn2green.blogspot.com/.../urban-swag-urban-agriculture-innovation. htm