Author Archives: Vanessa King

About Vanessa King

Vanessa is a co-founder and the in-house artist of ThingsAreGood.com. She is a fundraising administrator working on behalf of various charities and dreams of being the sole person who, through synchronistic and somewhat accidental circumstance, ends up saving the World. After her 13 year stint as a professional actress in film and television, Vanessa is now pursuing her musical ambitions as a singer as she also hopes to save the World through music.

Dancing Therapy Helps Children with Mental Illness

A research project in Sweden, the first of it’s kind, has shown that dance therapy is effective in treating AD/HD in boys and depression in girls. For sullen teenagers who often refuse or are unable to talk about what is troubling them, dance therapy helps to loosen them up and shake off their mental shackles.

Boys affected with AD/HD start out with frenetic, high energy dancing, and then move on to slower, more methodical exercises which require them to pay attention and mimic.

Depressed and self-destructive teenage girls learn self-esteem, setting limits and saying ‘no’ through flamenco dancing.

The researchers are hoping that other countries will introduce dance therapy as a compliment to traditional psychotherapy.

New HIV Drug in Trials

A new class of HIV drug is in trial in the United States. Doctors have noticed that patients on a retroviral “cocktail” often develop resistance to the drugs. This new class of drugs attacks the virus in a novel way, and researchers are hoping that it will be an effective weapon against HIV.

HIV Virus DiagramThe drug, called PA-457, attacks the virus’ ability to produce capsid protein. The capsid is a conical membrane which protects the viral RNA genetic material.

Peace Education In Schools

The National Council of Education Research and Training in India has started up a program to provide life skills for peace to its students. 35 teachers from across the country will take part in a 6 week training program which aims to educate teachers in conflict resolution, suppression of aggression and coping with stress. Lessons will be taught by example and through respectful guidelines and values taught in class. This will in turn pass on such values from teacher to class and the goal is to positively influence the students and help to shape a healthy and more harmonious society.

Many of the teachers are excited by this prospect and look forward to helping curb violent behaviours in their schools through the program. “The programme aims to arm teachers with skills to promote a sense of harmony in oneself and social environment among students for avoiding conflict with law,” NCERT Director Prof Krishna Kumar said.

NCERT also does a great deal of work in helping to promote gender equality in schools and empowerment and self reliance for girls.

Bionic Hand Controlled By Thought

The Japanese are developing a bionic hand that is controlled by the brain, the same way that a normal hand is controlled.

The researchers mapped the brainwave patterns of a person making “rock”, “paper” and “scissors” shapes with their hand, and then programmed those patterns into the robotic prosthesis.

Before the technology can be deployed on a wide basis, there must be more breakthroughs, particularily in the areo of brain/hardware interface.

The Poop-Powered Generator of the Future?

Scientist at Ghent University in Belgium and University of Queensland in Australia are working on a prototype device that generates electricity from the solid waste that we humans produce every day.

The process works by harnessing the energy that waste-eating bacteria make and turning it into electricity.

Not surprisingly, the researchers are hoping to use the technology to power water treatment plants, but they say a domestic power plant is also possible in the future