Month: March 2013

Crowdfunding for Political Change

- Adam Clare

Sites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo have changed the way some projects get funding by using contributions from individuals on a large scale. There have been many art projects and products that have come into existence thanks to this new trend in crowdfunding.

Todd Aalgaard has wondered if crowdfunding can be used to encourage progressive politics. His insights into what crowdfunding can mean to political movements is a good read.

Expanding on the social remedy to this crisis that crowdfunding provides, the white paper goes on. “Besides the obvious benefit of increased fundraising potential,” it reads, “crowdfunding also offers a creative and engaging approach to raising awareness of your mission and, ultimately, growing your brand.”

“Think about it like this. It’s what we like to call the Rule of 10,” it reads. “First, imagine your organization has a donor list of 100 people. Now imagine your organization builds a crowdfunding campaign, and 10 of your supporters participate. Those 10 people create personal fundraising pages and then broadcast these pages to their social networks on a site like Facebook.”

The knock-on result, it suggests, is that the ripple-effect outreach brings a message, political, humanitarian, or otherwise, to roughly 10 times your initial donor base. In an emerging reality where democracy is influenced by a select and very powerful few, fundraising working in tandem with outreach—a basic strategy in both of Barack Obama’s successful presidential campaigns—is a way to resist the forces working against the public at every turn.

Read more at the Bankless Times.

EU Bans Cosmetics Tested on Animals

- Adam Clare 1 Comment

The European Union has banned the selling of cosmetics that have been tested on animals. This will make the lives of many animals better and may encourage innovations in cosmetic testing .

The ban applies to all new cosmetics and their ingredients sold in the EU, regardless of where in the world testing on animals was carried out.

The 27 EU countries have had a ban on such tests in place since 2009. But the EU Commission is now asking the EU’s trading partners to do the same.

Read more at the BBC.

Dynamic Systems Modelling for Better Prediction of Emissions

- Adam Clare

Canada has a large pulp and paper industry and it produces tons of waste in the form of wastewater and greenhouse gas emissions. Collectively the industry spends hundreds of millions of dollars to lower their environmental damage, so even a marginal increase in environmental efficiency can have a large impact on their bottom line.

A study from Concordia University looked into using dynamic systems modelling to asses what the output of processing facilities to predict waste output.

“With dynamic modeling, we can better understand the behaviour of the treatment plant over time,” says senior author Fariborz Haghighat, professor in Concordia’s Department of Building, Civil and Environmental Engineering and Concordia ResearchChair in Energy and Environment. “With this knowledge, we can then recommend a strategy to reduce the emission of greenhouse gas and also improve energy efficiency.”

“Models such as this are used to simulate the behaviour of a particular management system either in the early stages of system design or in later development to incorporate changes,” adds Yerushalmi. “We want to make sure that we use the most accurate method possible and the dynamic model isbest predictor yet.”

Read more at Concordia.

Get Rid of Stuff, Do What You Love

- Adam Clare

Often we hear that spending on experiences make for a happier life than buying into consumerism. In concept it sounds great, but many people think that it’s hard to rejig their life to be focused on doing things rather than consuming things. This TED talk is about breaking free of that passive normality and living life to its fullest.

Low-Protein Diet Can Help Manage Parkinson’s

- Adam Clare

Researchers in Toronto are looking into ways to help people who are suffering from Parkinson’s by altering diets. So far their research has shown that by embracing a low-protien diet some symptoms of Parkinson’s can be managed better.

“Diet is very important in Parkinson’s disease because the main medication called Levodopa may interact with protein,” says Kleiner-Fisman pointing out that in some people high protein may numb the effectiveness of the medication. “Food is a really important part of people’s social lives. If you now have this wacky diet, it makes it hard to enjoy food. A lot of people become quite isolated.”
…

In total, the students developed 14 recipes: three for each major meal and five snacks. There’s the ginger and vegetable stir-fry chock full of veggies and rice noodles, but only three grams of protein. Or the hearty roasted breakfast potatoes with tomatoes salad also falling within the low-protein requirements. For heavier protein meals, the students came up with a southwestern-style chicken and quinoa dinner and some delicious salmon fishcakes. They also included a list of necessary equipment to make the meals and made sure the ingredients were easy to find in the average grocery store.

Read more at Yonge Street Media.

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