Month: August 2008

Dreams in a Bank

- Adam Clare 1 Comment

Dream Bank is a website to list your dreams. It’s a simple idea, from the site:

First, we provide a fun, easy way for you to fund your dreams. By posting a dream on www.dreambank.org, friends, family and fans can contribute to your dream fund. Each contribution brings your dream closer to reality. Funding dreams is important, but so is support. DreamBank is also built as a community so you can connect and communicate with fellow Dreamers to: follow their progress, share ideas and resources, or just cheer them on.

Second, DreamBank is about helping the planet. By contributing to a dream, you spare the planet some of the nasty side effects of manufacturing, packaging and shipping gifts that, although we appreciate, we often don’t really need or want. Did you know that 83% of Americans received unwanted gifts during the 2006 holiday season? All that ‘stuff’ puts a strain on the environment.

Community Welsh Farm Still Going Strong

- Adam Clare

Five years ago a community wanted to stop developers from building on a farm, so they literally bought the farm. The Guardian takes a look at this successful non-profit farm run by the local community.

This is no ordinary Welsh mountain farm – and yet, until five years ago, that is exactly what it was. In 2003, intensively grazed and in the aftermath of the foot and mouth outbreak, its 320 acres were unable to support the farming tenant. But when the estate owner decided the farm should be sold – possibly for holiday accommodation – the local community had different ideas. Residents from Tregarth, Rhiwlas and Mynydd Llandegai, the three villages that surround Moelyci, in the shadow of Snowdon, dug deep and bought it.

Around 200 people invested in the farm, forming a not-for-profit industrial and provident society (IPS), with the help of loans from Triodos Bank and ICOF, a community development finance institution that invests in areas of deprivation. It was the first venture of its kind in Wales and one of just a handful in the UK.

Five years on, Moelyci IPS supports around 16 jobs and has 500 community shareholders. The original loans have been replaced by a mortgage, and when that is paid off, in 18 years’ time, the farm and its mountain – much of which is now designated a site of special scientific interest and a special area of conservation – will really be theirs.

Green Tea is Great for Your Health

- Adam Clare

Green tea may be one way to fight breast cancer based on a new study on female mice. The scientists examined an ingredient in green tea called ECCG which is an antioxidant. The results in the ice are promising so people should start drinking more delicious green tea.

Epidemiological studies suggest that green tea and its major constituent, EGCG, can provide some protection against cancer. Because these studies were very limited, the anti-cancer mechanism of green tea and EGCG was not clear. As a result, the researchers examined whether drinking EGCG (just the antioxidant infused in water) inhibited the following: expression of VEGF (vascular endothelial growth factor, which is found in a variety of breast cancer types); tumor angiogenesis (thought to help tumors expand by supplying them with nutrients); and the growth of breast cancer in female mice.

Improve Your Fitness by Being Simple

- Adam Clare 4 Comments

Unsurprisingly being fit and staying fit is easy for some people and not so easy for others. If you are finding it difficult to maintain a healthy body because you don’t have access to proper equipment there is no reason you can’t work out minimally. Zen Habits has an article on how to have a minimalist workout.

It takes no equipment to get a great workout and get in shape, and with one or two pieces of simple equipment, you can turn that great workout into a fantastic one, you magnificent beast, you.
And with little or no equipment required for a fantastic workout, you can do it at home, or wherever you are. Even if you’re in solitary confinement.
It’s hard not to find time for this type of workout — you can do it while watching TV, for goodness sake!

Not into working out for your fitness? Well there are other things that you can do, in fact 25 things you can do to improve your health.

11. Get friends that live healthy
The ongoing interaction with people who have the health you desire will be a positive influence on you. It is far easier to make the transition to healthy living when you have the social support.

12. Find healthy foods you enjoy
Just because you are eating healthy does not mean you need to suffer eating foods you hate. Look for healthy foods you enjoy and eat them more often. Find recipes online that are both healthy and enjoyable.

13. Take your lunch to work
Not only will brown bagging your lunch save you some money, it will help you avoid eating unhealthy foods for lunch. Take the extra time to make your lunch in the morning or make extra for dinner and eat the leftovers.

Dandelion Rubber for Tires

- Adam Clare 1 Comment

Dandelions can be used to create a natural rubber that can be used in tires. This weed will be put to a good use!

“No matter how much chemistry we’ve applied, we still haven’t been able to find an artificial substitute for natural rubber,” said William Ravlin, a researcher involved in the project. “We’re still harvesting [rubber] the same way they did 1,000 years ago; by cutting into the tree and letting the sap drip into containers. It’s not a very efficient system.”

I keep noticing that a lot of these natural solutions to our current problems were actually being used years ago. Our civilization just gets wrapped up in its own “progress” and we forget what we knew. From the same article on dandelions:

The price for rubber, which has doubled in recent years, along with technological advances, makes alternative sources of natural rubber more attractive than past efforts, which reach all the way back to World War II, when the Soviets made TKS-based tires.

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