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Startup Profile
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Two Moms Give Birth to Their Green Baby: GreenMoms.comby Scott Cooney / author of Build a Green Small Business: Profitable Ways to Become an Ecopreneur
May 15, 2009
Launching for Mother's Day 2009, GreenMoms.com aims to help Moms bring healthier and more environmentally-friendly living to their families, their communities, and their world.
GreenMoms started as a San Francisco Bay-Area group of women who met regularly to discuss their childrens' health, eat eco-friendly vegetarian food, go berry-picking, and generally get active in their community. Melinda McNaughton, the group's founder, said that, “Once the group got going, it felt so good to have a network of people to share successes and challenges that it made it much easier to stay motivated to make green changes. We’re constantly inspiring each other with new ideas.”
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Health
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Certain foods may thwart age-related vision loss
 NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – A new study suggests that older adults who eat diets rich in citrus fruits, leafy greens and fish oil, but low in "glycemic index," may have a lower risk of age-related macular degeneration -- the leading cause of vision loss among older U.S. adults.
AMD, also known as "age-related macular degeneration" refers to gradual damage to the macula, a structure in the retina that allows for seeing fine detail. The condition affects more than 1 million Americans, usually after the age of 65.
A number of studies have suggested that individual nutrients, including the antioxidants lutein, vitamin C and vitamin E, can help protect against AMD. This latest study, published in the journal Ophthalmology, looked at the overall diet patterns of 4,000 older adults and the links to AMD risk.
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Life
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Surprise! Daydreaming Really Works the Brain
Got a tough problem to solve? Try daydreaming.
Contrary to the notion that daydreaming is a sign of laziness, letting the mind wander can actually let the parts of the brain associated with problem-solving become active, a new study finds.
Kalina Christoff of the University of British Columbia in Canada and her colleagues placed study participants inside an fMRI scanner, where they performed the simple routine task of pushing a button when numbers appear on a screen. The researchers tracked subjects' attentiveness moment-to-moment through brain scans, subjective reports from subjects and by tracking their performance on the task.
Until now, scientists had thought that the brain's "default network," which is linked to easy, routine mental activity, was the only part of the brain that remains active when the mind wanders. But in the study subjects, the brain's "executive network" — associated with high-level, complex problem-solving — also lit up.
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Psychology
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Creative minds: the links between mental illness and creativity
All too often, creativity goes hand in hand with mental illness. Now we're starting to understand why. Roger Dobson reports
The Independent
Tuesday, 5 May 2009
 At first glance, Einstein, Salvador Dali, Tony Hancock, and Beach
Boy Brian Wilson would seem to have little in common. Their areas of
physics, modern art, comedy, and rock music, are light years apart. So
what, if anything, could possibly link minds that gave the world the
theory of relativity, great surreal art, iconic comedy, and songs about
surfing?
According to new research, psychosis could be the answer. Creative minds in
all kinds of areas, from science to poetry, and mathematics to humour, may
have traits associated with psychosis. Such traits may allow the unusual and
sometimes bizarre thought processes associated with mental illness to fuel
creativity. The theory is based on the idea that there is no clear dividing
line between the healthy and the mentally ill. Rather, there is a continuum,
with some people having psychotic traits without having the debilitating
symptoms.
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Random Sound Bytes
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391.8 mln mobile subscribers in India in March 2009 [more ]
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Biz Models
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Coupon Web Sites: Never Pay Full Price Again?
by Melissa Korn
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
provided by Wall Street Journal
These
days, it seems there's no sense buying something unless you can get at
a steep discount. That goes for big-ticket items like houses and cars,
down to such smaller purchases as vacation packages, electronics and
clothes.
According to research group comScore Inc., 27 million Americans
visited coupon sites in October, up 33% from a year earlier. And from
last January to September, the number of coupon-related Web searches
doubled. So it's clear more of us are hunting for deals.
Scores
of Web sites aggregate coupons and promotional codes that help people
shop online without ever having to pay full price. Some, like Coupons.com,
are geared toward grocery and drug store staples. (Today, that site is
featuring $1 off Velveeta cheese and $2 off Perdue Frozen Fully Cooked
Chicken on its home page.)
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Making $$ on the Web
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Time to Hang Up the Pajamas
I learned the hard way: while blogs can do many wonderful things, making huge amounts of money isn't one of them.
TECHTONIC SHIFTS / Daniel Lyons
Published Feb 7, 2009
From the magazine issue dated Feb 16, 2009
For two years I was obsessed with trying to turn a blog into a
business. I posted 10 or 20 items a day to my site, The Secret Diary of
Steve Jobs,
rarely taking a break. I blogged from cabs, using my BlackBerry. I
blogged in the middle of the night, having awakened with an idea. I
rationalized this insane behavior by telling myself that at the end of
this rainbow I would find a huge pot of gold. But reality kept
interfering with this fantasy. My first epiphany occurred in August
2007, when The New York Times ran a story revealing my identity, which
until then I'd kept secret. On that day more than 500,000 people hit my
site—by far the biggest day I'd ever had—and through Google's AdSense
program I earned about a hundred bucks.
Over the course of that entire
month, in which my site was visited by 1.5 million people, I earned a
whopping total of $1,039.81. Soon after this I struck an advertising
deal that paid better wages. But I never made enough to quit my day
job. Eventually I shut down—not for financial reasons, but because
Steve Jobs appeared to be in poor health. I walked away feeling burned
out and weighing 20 pounds more than when I started. I also came away
with a sneaking suspicion that while blogs can do many wonderful
things, generating huge amounts of money isn't one of them.
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