Backpack Tent for Disaster Areas

When natural disasters strike people can lose their homes and end up with no place to stay. This is obviously a problem because people will have no place for shelter. Here’s a neat idea for a tent that can be carried around as a backpack or be dragged around on its wheels.

Intended toward disaster victims, the “Temp-pack” by Asher Dunn is a shelter cum cart that folds into a portable backpack for quick and easy transportation. Comprising two pieces, the body and the door, made in recycled plastic, the portable shelter folds open and snaps the door into a right angle to create a dolly. Featuring two straps, with elastic core, to be used as bungee cords, the backpack straps other items either onto the dolly or in front of the shelter when the door is closed. The backpack also includes a handle that extends upwards to roll it on two wheels, while hooks on either side of the handle add more storage options to the unit. A compartment behind the expendable handle keeps the shelter intact. Made of waterproof fabric, the shelter includes a spring steel wire frame to maintain a freestanding tent structure and extend outward up to seven feet, resting the occupant in comfort. Users may simply push one end of the tent to fold it safely within the backpack.

See it at the Design Blog.

Good Ideas from 2010

Foreign Policy magazine has compiled a list of some of the best ideas from 2010. It’s an inspiring list that should make everyone feel a little more hopeful for the future of humanity.

And yet, all the bad news came with a surprising upside. Driven by the need to do more with less, the year’s boldest innovators turned up better, simpler ways to use our shrinking resources to improve global quality of life: ideas like creating demand for development so that poor people can better help themselves and handing money directly to those who need it, as well as new approaches to measuring and mapping that offer better, faster information about what aid needs to go where. This moment of global insecurity has also called into doubt some old shibboleths — not least that national borders as we know them are good and that resource wealth is bad.

In what sometimes looked like the worst of times, it was actually the best of times for ideas — and these ideas will shape how the world recovers in the years to come.

Read the selection of good ideas here.

Teenagers Should Get Dirty

Cleaning too much and using too many strong cleaning products can hinder the development of a robust immune system in teenagers. That’s right, it’s imperative that teenagers do what they do best: get dirty.

It seems teenagers are becoming over-exposed to a compound called triclosan, widely used in household products such as soaps, toothpaste, pens and nappy bags.
Allison Aiello, associate professor and principal investigator, said: ‘The triclosan findings in the younger age groups may support the hygiene hypothesis.
‘Triclosan may play a role in changing the micro-organisms to which we are exposed in such a way that our immune system development in childhood is affected.
‘It is possible that a person can be too clean for their own good.’ Adults also can suffer a weakened immune system because of exposure to plastics.

Read more

Being Grateful Can Lengthen Your life

Being grateful and appreciating the world around you can contribute not only how good you feel but also to how long you’ll live. New research has drawn a connection between positive thoughts and enjoying them to a gernally happier life.

Hopefully this isn’t a surprise to anyone.

Adults who frequently feel grateful have more energy, more optimism, more social connections and more happiness than those who do not, according to studies conducted over the past decade. They’re also less likely to be depressed, envious, greedy or alcoholics. They earn more money, sleep more soundly, exercise more regularly and have greater resistance to viral infections.
…

Much of the research on gratitude has looked at associations, not cause-and-effect relationships; it’s possible that people who are happy, healthy and successful simply have more to be grateful for. But in a landmark study in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology in 2003, Dr. Emmons and University of Miami psychologist Michael McCullough showed that counting blessings can actually make people feel better.

The researchers randomly divided more than 100 undergraduates into three groups. One group was asked to list five things they were grateful for during the past week for 10 consecutive weeks. The second group listed five things that annoyed them each week and the third group simply listed five events that had occurred. They also completed detailed questionnaires about their physical and mental health before, during and after.

Those who listed blessings each week had fewer health complaints, exercised more regularly and felt better about their lives in general than the other two groups.

Read the full article

Random Hacks of Kindness

Random Hacks of Kindness is a chance to get tech people together with creative people to make the world a better place. One in Toronto is happening on Dec. 4th so if you can make it, do it. The world will thank you.

We will need Hackers, storytellers, software engineers, programmers, university students, marketers, web content creators, emergency planners,international policy and development students, teachers, librarians, videographers, event planners, organizers, project managers and YOU. Creating humanitarian software in a hackathon is a very special collective collaboration.
Participants can select from a number of problem definitions. (These will be posted in the new few weeks.)
Video screens and online tools like IRC, blogs, wikis and more tools will connect the world. You could be collaborating with any of these countries to solve problems and brainstorm. Yes, there is even some healthy competition in store.
Help us make this global event RHoK. RHoK 2.0 is happening in Toronto (Canada), Chicago (USA), Berlin (Germany), Bangalore(India), Mexico City(Mexico), New York(New York), Sao Paulo (Brazil), Aarhus (Denmark), Nairobi (Kenya) and Lusaka (Zambia).

Check out Random Hacks of Kindness.