Happening People – Page 23 – LOVE IN ACTION NOW

The Science World Is Freaking Out Over This 25-year-old’s Answer to Antibiotic Resistance

Could this be the end of superbugs?

FIONA MACDONALD

26 SEP 2016

A 25-year-old student has just come up with a way to fight drug-resistant superbugs without antibiotics.

The new approach has so far only been tested in the lab and on mice, but it could offer a potential solution to antibiotic resistance, which is now getting so bad that the United Nations recently declared it a “fundamental threat” to global health.

Antibiotic-resistant bacteria already kill around 700,000 people each year, but a recent study suggests that number could rise to around 10 million by 2050.

In addition to common hospital superbug, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), scientists are now also concerned that gonorrhoea is about tobecome resistant to all remaining drugs.

But Shu Lam, a 25-year-old PhD student at the University of Melbourne in Australia, has developed a star-shaped polymer that can kill six different superbug strains without antibiotics, simply by ripping apart their cell walls.

“We’ve discovered that [the polymers] actually target the bacteria and kill it in multiple ways,” Lam told Nicola Smith from The Telegraph. “One method is by physically disrupting or breaking apart the cell wall of the bacteria. This creates a lot of stress on the bacteria and causes it to start killing itself.”

The research has been published in Nature Microbiology, and according to Smith, it’s already being hailed by scientists in the field as “a breakthrough that could change the face of modern medicine“.

Before we get too carried away, it’s still very early days. So far, Lam has only tested her star-shaped polymers on six strains of drug-resistant bacteria in the lab, and on one superbug in live mice.

But in all experiments, they’ve been able to kill their targeted bacteria – and generation after generation don’t seem to develop resistance to the polymers.

The polymers – which they call SNAPPs, or structurally nanoengineered antimicrobial peptide polymers – work by directly attacking, penetrating, and then destabilising the cell membrane of bacteria.

Unlike antibiotics, which ‘poison’ bacteria, and can also affect healthy cells in the area, the SNAPPs that Lam has designed are so large that they don’t seem to affect healthy cells at all.

“With this polymerised peptide we are talking the difference in scale between a mouse and an elephant,” Lam’s supervisor, Greg Qiao, told Marcus Strom from the Sydney Morning Herald. “The large peptide molecules can’t enter the [healthy] cells.”

You can see the SNAPPs (green) surrounding and ripping apart bacterial cells below:

57d7b2081300002a0039b9da University of Melbourne

While the results are positive so far, it’s too early to get excited about what this could mean for humans, says Cyrille Boyer from the University of New South Wales in Australia, who wasn’t involved in the research.

“The main advantage seems to be they can kill bacteria more effectively and selectively [than other peptides]” Boyer told Strom, before adding that the team is a long way off clinical applications.

But what’s awesome about the new project is that, while other teams are looking for new antibiotics, Lam has found a completely different approach. And it could make all the different in the coming ‘post-antibiotic world‘.

That’s what she’s hoping, anyway.

“For a time, I had to come in at 4am in the morning to look after my mice and my cells,” she told The Telegraph. “I wanted to be involved in some kind of research that would help solve problems … I really hope that the polymers we are trying to develop here could eventually be a solution.”

Sourced from: http://www.sciencealert.com/the-science-world-s-freaking-out-over-this-25-year-old-s-solution-to-antibiotic-resistance

Pioneering Grandma Building Tiny Sustainable Homes Out Of Hemp

Vic Bishop, Staff Writer
Waking Times

The DEA considers hemp to be a dangerous substance and it’s still classified as a schedule I drug, alongside heroin and ecstasy, even though the plant contains almost no THC and has no psychoactive effects. Many believe this classification is the result of the oil industry’s grip on the legislative process in America, because hemp is one of the most viable alternatives to plastics, fuel and other building materials, in fact, it used to be an important domestically produced crop, and it even contains extraordinary health benefits.

“Hemp is the only plant that can feed you, house you, clothe you and heal you.” [Source]

The Tiny House Movement is Growing

As a response to unbridled consumerism and desire for infinite growth inherent in our economy, some are finding that satisfaction in life is not dependent on having and maintaining the ‘American Dream.’ Tiny houses are becoming widely popular, especially so for those not interested in participating in the debt economy which is driven by banks who’ve used the mortgage industry as a means of looting the nation.

“The tiny house movement is one of the latest innovations in personal freedom from an overly consumeristic and a debt-driven society.” ~Isaac Davis

Unity – Tiny Hemp Housing

In Bellingham, Washington, a local grandmother, Pamela Bosch, is making news for combining the philosophy of tiny home living with the growing innovation in building materials and practices made out of hemp. In what she considers a pioneering experiment in sustainable living, Pamela’s organizationHighland Hemp House is using hemp imported from Europe to make model energy and resource efficient homes.

The planet we live on is a rapidly changing environment that demands that human beings become more conscious of our living arrangements. Smaller spaces that require less energy are part of the emerging response to inefficient buildings, as are eco-villages with shared resources. Net Zero houses that produce the energy they will consume and permaculture designs that are mindful of the synergies of systems that support life in place.

So, as the Hemp House was envisioned, the role of the single family home in the setting of a small urban environment was contemplated. Can this ever ubiquitous bastion of American life transition to a future that supports a more integrated humanity? How should our contemporary castles of middle-America hold the spaces or be the places where we learn to thrive in balance with our living environment? How can our living spaces support our adaptation to a less consumptive way of living that is also of higher quality? [Source]

READ: US Government Declaring All Out War on Tiny House Living

Pam was recently featured on Seattle’s K5 News showing off the tiny home she is building by herself, proving that anyone can do it, so long as they have the desire to be a part of our sustainable future.

“We need to be building this way,” Bosch said. “We should have as many buildings as we can that are built out of a renewable resource that sequesters carbon, that is healthy and if it were legal would be very affordable. It’s an agricultural waste product we’re using.”

Hemp can be used for soil remediation, biofuels, plastic composites, organic body care and health foods, but until it’s regulated, farmers in Washington would need permission from the DEA. [Source]

Final Thoughts

Environmentally friendly, healthy, affordable, yet illegal, hemp offers great promise, yet the U.S. Federal government is prohibiting innovation by continuing the ridiculously un-warranted and unfair ban on hemp. Legalize hemp, now.

Prohibition against hemp is finally cracking, however, and some states are allowing farmers to cultivate the precious crop, and as technology and innovation move forward together, many ingenious people are finding excellent new uses for this cash crop, including the making of building materials.

“Alternative economies, open source governance, local food production, non-polluting energy generation, holistic health maintenance, to name a few of the many movements, are adaptive responses to the challenges of bringing human nature into alignment with Nature in balance.” [Source]

Virginia Woman Feeds 150 Hungry People For $20

Editor’s note: As this article states, this is proof we do not need government to fix our most important issues. Left to ourselves, without force and intrusion, we can accomplish great things.

By Daisy Luther

You know what I find absolutely beautiful?

When a person takes over something that is usually left to be done by the government, does it a thousand times more efficiently, and does it with a true sense of compassion.

One of the major arguments that people have against less taxation and smaller government is that there will be no one to help the poor. If you don’t want to see a huge percentage of your money extorted from your paycheck and funneled into expensive government programs, then you’re accused of “hating poor people” or being a racist.

But think about it: it’s human nature to resent being forced to do something like “give” your hard-earned money to the government so that they can dole it out to others. However, when force is not involved, then true compassion and generosity can shine through, and I believe it would do so far more often.

If charity is dying, it’s because the federal government is killing it. It’s because nonprofit organizations take our donations and pay their CEOs and directors enormous salaries. (The director of the Boys & Girls Clubs of America earns $1.8 million, the president of United Way Worldwide earns $1.2 million, and the CEO of Goodwill earns $850,000. source) Don’t even get me started on fake charities like the Clinton Foundation, which are just a way for rich folks get donations and shift around money that they don’t want to pay taxes on.

We can do so much better than that.

Never depend upon institutions or government to solve any problem. All social movements are founded by, guided by, motivated and seen through by the passion of individuals. ~ Margaret Mead

True charity is voluntary.

A common question asked of those of us who object to taxation and big government is, “Who will feed the poor?”

Here’s one answer: People like Lauren Puryear.

The 29-year-old Woodbridge, Virginia resident and founder of For the Love of Others, a community group that helps individuals in need, has set an impressive goal.

She’d like to feed 30,000 people by her 30th birthday.

Puryear, who is a mental health clinician, began helping to feed the hungry several years ago. She founded For the Love of Others in 2012 after her grandmother passed away.

“She just always had a really big heart, and taught us growing up to take care of other people, and love other people,” said Puryear of her grandmother.

And, she has found a clever way to make her goal a reality: Couponing.

Puryear began feeding those in need by conventional methods, but using coupons is helping her assist not just hundreds, but thousands of people, as she told What’s Up Woodbridge:

At first I just started off by doing Thanksgiving baskets for needy families, and Christmas wish lists for children. Then as years progressed, God laid other missions on my heart – one, feeding the homeless…I would just buy things in bulk from Costco and BJ’s. But then I was introduced to couponing, and once I learned how to coupon, and once I saw what I was able to buy for little to no money, I said ‘Oh my goodness, this is like going to be my ticket to really, really help people.’

There are coupons in the Sunday paper, or online that you can print … so I collect as many as I can, match them to the store and that is how I am able to get the items for free.

Puryear has delivered 5,000 meals so far, and is confident she will reach her goal next year.

She told NJ.com that “The joy of helping other people does not compare to any other accomplishment in my life,” and she is teaching her 5-year-old son to help others too.

It is very important to teach him to help other people. The little things we take for granted, the food we throw away every day…and if we just spread a little more love around, the world would be such a better place.

I could not agree more.

When the government gets involved, though, millions of dollars go to waste. Tax dollars go to pay high overhead expenses, nice offices, salaries, and other administrative costs. At the same time, they often squash the efforts of ordinary people who want to help, by citing public safety, food regulations, and anything else they can come up with to hide from us the fact that they’re obsolete. In 70 American cities, it is actually illegal to feed the homeless – kindness can get you arrested.

Lauren Puryear is a perfect example of what we can do voluntarily. She isn’t waiting around for the government to fix the problem. She is efficiently helping others because she is kind, generous, and intelligent.

If you’d like to make a donation to help Lauren Puryear feed the hungry, you can go here.

Sourced from: http://www.activistpost.com/2016/09/virginia-woman-feeds-150-hungry-people-20-proof-government-obsolete.html

School Replaces Detention With Meditation With Remarkable Results

Imagine you’re working at a school and one of the kids is starting to act up. What do you do?

Traditionally, the answer would be to give the unruly kid detention or suspension.

But in my memory, detention tended to involve staring at walls, bored out of my mind, trying to either surreptitiously talk to the kids around me without getting caught or trying to read a book. If it was designed to make me think about my actions, it didn’t really work. It just made everything feel stupid and unfair.

But Robert W. Coleman Elementary School has been doing something different when students act out: offering meditation.

Photo from Holistic Life Foundation, used with permission.

Instead of punishing disruptive kids or sending them to the principal’s office, the Baltimore school has something called the Mindful Moment Room instead.

The room looks nothing like your standard windowless detention room. Instead, it’s filled with lamps, decorations, and plush purple pillows. Misbehaving kids are encouraged to sit in the room and go through practices like breathing or meditation, helping them calm down and re-center. They are also asked to talk through what happened.

Meditation and mindfulness are pretty interesting, scientifically.

Photo from Holistic Life Foundation, used with permission.

Mindful meditation has been around in some form or another for thousands of years. Recently, though, science has started looking at its effects on our minds and bodies, and it’s finding some interesting effects.

One study, for example, suggested that mindful meditation could give practicing soldiers a kind of mental armor against disruptive emotions, and it can improve memory too. Another suggested mindful meditation could improve a person’s attention span and focus.

Individual studies should be taken with a grain of salt (results don’t always carry in every single situation), but overall, science is starting to build up a really interesting picture of how awesome meditation can be. Mindfulness in particular has even become part of certain fairly successful psychotherapies.

Back at the school, the Mindful Moment Room isn’t the only way Robert W. Coleman Elementary has been encouraging its kids.

After-school yoga. Photo from Holistic Life Foundation, used with permission.

The meditation room was created as a partnership with the Holistic Life Foundation, a local nonprofit that runs other programs as well. For more than 10 years the foundation has been offering the after-school program Holistic Me, where kids from pre-K through the fifth grade practice mindfulness exercises and yoga.

“It’s amazing,” said Kirk Philips, the Holistic Me coordinator at Robert W. Coleman. “You wouldn’t think that little kids would meditate in silence. And they do.”

I want to be as cool as this kid one day. Photo from Holistic Life Foundation, used with permission.

There was a Christmas party, for example, where the kids knew they were going to get presents but were still expected to do meditation first.

“As a little kid, that’s got to be hard to sit down and meditate when you know you’re about to get a bag of gifts, and they did it! It was beautiful, we were all smiling at each other watching them,” said Philips.

The program also helps mentor and tutor the kids, as well as teach them about the environment.

Building a vegetable garden. Photo from Holistic Life Foundation, used with permission.

They help clean up local parks, build gardens, and visit nearby farms. Philips said they even teach kids to be co-teachers, letting them run the yoga sessions.

This isn’t just happening at one school, either. Lots of schools are trying this kind of holistic thinking, and it’s producing incredible results.

In the U.K., for example, the Mindfulness in Schools Project is teaching adults how to set up programs. Mindful Schools, another nonprofit, is helping to set up similar programs in the United States.

Oh, and by the way, the schools are seeing a tangible benefit from this program, too.

Philips said that at Robert W. Coleman Elementary, there have been exactly zero suspensions last year and so far this year. Meanwhile, nearby Patterson Park High School, which also uses the mindfulness programs, said suspension rates dropped and attendance increased as well.

Is that wholly from the mindfulness practices? It’s impossible to say, but those are pretty remarkable numbers, all the same.

One Man’s Mission To End Homelessness On The Streets of Los Angeles

LOS ANGELES — After Elvis Summers built a tiny house on wheels for a woman who had been sleeping on the streets, he launched a crowdfunding campaign to construct similar shelters for other homeless people in his South Los Angeles neighborhood.

He had no grand ambitions beyond lending a helping hand in a city with thousands of residents without roofs over their heads.

“Honestly, I thought I’d raise enough money to help a dozen people, call it a day, and then go back to stressing about my job,” said the 38-year-old, who runs an online apparel store.

Summers never thought more than 5.6 million people would watch a YouTube video of him constructing the 8-foot-long house for Irene “Smokie” McGhee, a grandmother who’s been homeless for more than a decade. He estimates he spent less than $500 on plywood, shingles, a window and a door. The video ends with McGhee doing a little jig and hanging up a “Home Sweet Home” sign.

The GoFundMe campaign — called Tiny House, Huge Purpose — has brought in nearly $60,000 in less than a month. And Summers’ inbox is overflowing with offers for help from carpenters, homeless advocates, retirees and children as young as 6.

Now Summers, who sports a blue mohawk and wraparound shades, suddenly considers himself a man with a mission. He has started a nonprofit and reached out to Los Angeles officials to get the city involved in his plan to build more tiny homes for transients.

“People are calling it a movement,” he said Thursday. “I’m humbled. But now I can’t turn my back on it.”

Builders said they would donate materials, contractors offered to help in the design of the small, wheeled structures, and chefs said they would bring food to the construction sites.

Summers said he wants to hire homeless people to help with the construction. McGhee said she would be the first person to sign up.

“I’m ready to start building,” she said. “Give people a good night’s rest. Someplace warm.”

It is unclear if the city would enforce rules for these homes. McGhee said police have told her she won’t be bothered as long as she moves the home, which is small enough to fit in a parking space, every three days.

And the structure is so small that it wouldn’t require permits if built on private property, said Luke Zamperini, spokesman for the city Building and Safety Department.

“We do not consider it a dwelling or a building as it does not meet the definition of either,” Zamperini said.

Original source: http://www.mintpressnews.com/man-on-mission-to-build-tiny-houses-for-los-angeles-homeless/205442/

Gofundme page: https://www.gofundme.com/mythplawinter

Category: Happening People