Lucas Jatoba was a Brazilian searching for a way to celebrate his 30th birthday. Since moving to Australia he has fallen in love with the people. So he decided to give 30 present to 30 strangers in Sydney and his friends made a video.
The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Tuesday named 22 new MacArthur Fellows for 2011 who will each receive one half million dollars in no-strings-attached support for their creative endeavors. Among the 'Geniuses' chosen were an architect, a sports medicine researcher, a cellist, a developmental biologist, a radio producer, a neurologist, a conservator, a poet, a technologist, and a public historian.
Candy Chang turned the side of an abandoned house in her neighborhood into a giant chalkboard that invited people to write down what they aspired to do before they died.
Fred Stamm is a formerly homeless amputee whose life was turned around thanks to a chance meeting with a dog and its owner in Severna Park. Chuck Beck was impressed with the man who gently pet and talked to the golden retriever. Afterward, Beck ended up changing the course of Stamm's life.
Gov. Mitch Daniels joined with officials to publicly grieve at a memorial service today on the site of the tragic Indiana State Fair stage collapse that killed five on Saturday. They also praised the reactions of hundreds of ordinary citizens and off-duty rescue workers who rushed to help the victims.
Following the riots in London, crowds of people turned out Wednesday to help clean up the glass and ashes left on the streets of cities across the country. Andrew Bayles' photo of brooms raised in the air has become an internet sensation via Twitter, and used by journalists around the world to underscore the decent citizens, which have come out in full force to outnumber the troublemakers.
Festival goers at a nationalist, right-wing concert in Germany were taken by surprise when souvenir t-shirts they were given had a secret anti-far right message that emerged only after being washed. Once washed, the slogan turned into a message from a group offering help to right-wing extremists break away from the neo-Nazi scene.
Burning Man isn't just about getting crazy on in the Nevada desert anymore. The organization is now taking on urban revitalization, aiming to fix up a run-down area in San Francisco.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has taken its revolutionary OpenCourseWare initiative, launched 10 years ago, to another level. Moving beyond the web, the new initiative extends higher education to anyone with a mobile phone. With initial funding from Google, the MIT Center for Mobile Learning was launched yesterday.
The earthquake and tsunami that walloped Japan left much of its coastline ravaged, but left one thing intact: the Japanese reputation for honesty. In the five months since the disaster struck, people have turned in thousands of wallets found in the debris, containing $48 million in cash.
The group of altruistic technology professionals working under the name Apps for Good is now recruiting immigrants or unemployed youths from East and South London to develop phone programs relevant to their needs, and in the process teaching entrepreneurial skills and encouraging confidence.
The first memorial on the National Mall in Washington, DC, dedicated to a non-president, or a black American, opens today in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr.
89 year-old Aaron Biber's barbershop has been a mainstay in his Tottenham neighborhood for 41 years, but it took one night of rioting to nearly destroy it. But some kindhearted strangers launched a fundraiser online to help restore the shop to its former condition.
Canadians of every political stripe continue to show their love and admiration for a national leader, Jack Layton, days after his death. Known as Smilin' Jack, he wrote a letter to the Canadian people expressing his hopes for the future and showing optimism even in face of death. His last words have resonated throughout the nation.
After a deadly cancer diagnosis, he dedicated his life to helping hundreds of kids from Haiti's slums. After nine months of treatment and recovery, he returned home determined to start living the life he'd always wanted: helping children from Haiti's poorest slums.
When one of China's most popular Internet portals started offering Open University–style lectures in English last October, eager Chinese netizens flocked to subjects that surprised most observers. Instead of Marketing, Computer or Robotics courses, two contemplative courses — one on happiness, the other on justice — trumped all others.
Susanne Janson's life was shattered in 2004 when her two young daughters were killed in the tsunami that ravaged Southeast Asia. She found solace and healing by starting a new life in Thailand, where she has provided daily care to more than 100 children in need, as a way to turn disaster into hope.
A non-profit fitness center in Massachusetts providing free gym memberships to low-income and homeless women was nearly forced to shut its doors recently, until an anonymous donor came forward and gave money enough to keep the center open for the summer.
When Sam Johnson first picked up a shovel and mobilized 10,000 fellow students to help clean up Christchurch's streets after last September's earthquake in New Zealand, he never imagined his efforts would turn him into an international star.
Judges of the Eye Remember photography contest in Canada had no idea Tara Miller had any vision problem whatsoever, let alone having only 10 percent vision in one eye. The blind commercial photographer won the contest with her stunning landscape entitled, Fortuitous Twilight.
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