Human Rights Watch (HRW) is one of the world’s leading independent organizations dedicated to defending and protecting human rights.  Since its inception in 1978, Human Rights Watch has become a real force in the human rights movement. HRW is widely recognized for its in-depth investigations, informed policy recommendations, and ability to generate intense pressure to confront human rights abusers and defend basic freedoms. Through vigilant monitoring and advocacy in over seventy countries, HRW is dedicated to advancing the protection and promotion of human rights for all.

Human Rights Watch is dedicated to protecting the human rights of people around the world. HRW stands with victims and activists to prevent discrimination, to uphold political freedom, to protect people from inhumane conduct in wartime, and to bring offenders to justice. HRW investigate and expose human rights violations and hold abusers accountable. HRW challenge governments and those who hold power to end abusive practices and respect international human rights law. HRW enlist the public and the international community to support the cause of human rights for all.

By focusing international attention where human rights are violated, HRW gives voice to the oppressed and hold oppressors accountable for their crimes. The HRW rigorous, objective investigations and strategic, targeted advocacy build intense pressure for action and raise the cost of human rights abuse. For more than 30 years, Human Rights Watch has worked tenaciously to lay the legal and moral groundwork for deep-rooted change and has fought to bring greater justice and security to people around the world.

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Joshua Foer is a science journalist who ‘accidentally’ won the U.S. Memory Championship. “Memory training is not just for the sake of performing party tricks,” says Foer, “it’s about nurturing something profoundly and essentially human.”  There are people who can quickly memorize lists of thousands of numbers, the order of all the cards in a deck (or ten), and much more. Foer describes the technique — called the memory palace — and shows off its most remarkable feature: anyone can learn how to use it.

In 2005, science writer Foer went to cover the U.S. Memory Championship in New York. A year later he was back — as a contestant. A year of mental training with Europe’s top memorizer turned into a book, Moonwalking with Einstein, which is both a chronicle of his immersion in the memory culture and wonderfully accessible and informative introduction to the science of memory. Much more surprisingly, that year of training also turned into a first-place victory at the national competition in New York and the chance to represent the U.S. at the World Memory Championship.

Foer’s writing has appeared in National Geographic, Slate, the New York Times, and other publications. He is the co-founder of the Atlas Obscura, an online guide to the world’s wonders and curiosities, and is also the co-founder of the design competition, Sukkah City.

Photographer Rick Guidotti sees a rich beauty in our genetic diversity and works to expose that vision to everyone. Guidotti is a fashion photographer with a passion project:finding and sharing the unmistakable beauty of kids with albinism and other conditions that affect their physical appearance — and the way society treats them. In this heart-warming video, he shares some of their stories and the empowering effects of a little glamour as he redefines their beauty in a flash.

Guidotti spent fifteen years as a fashion photographer working in New York, Milan, Paris, and London for everyone from Elle to Yves Saint Laurent. Then, in 1998, he founded Positive Exposure, a non profit organization dedicated to highlighting the beauty of genetic diversity and challenging the stigmas associated with differences in appearance. He lectures frequently and his show “Positive Exposure, The Spirit of Difference” — which premiered in June 2001 at the People’s Genome Celebration at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History — continues to tour internationally.

Exploring Relationships and Reflection in the Cultivation of Well-Being.

I saw Dr. Siegel and other professionals present their latest findings at an Interpersonal Neurobiology Conference at UCLA in 2012. Dr. Siegel is an outstanding speaker and the author of several books on parenting and the neuro-psychology of child development. “His lecture and his interdisciplinary view of life draws on over a dozen branches of science to create a framework for understanding our subjective and interpersonal lives.” After reading his books and hearing him speak, it is clear we need more doctors and psychologists with Seigel’s mindful approach to parenting and conscious living altogether. -scott morrow

Daniel Siegel, MD, is Clinical Professor of psychiatry at UCLA, Co-Director of Mindful Awareness Research Center, Executive Director of Mindsight Institute, author, and recipient of numerous awards and honorary fellowships.

Siegel explores the neural mechanisms beneath social and emotional intelligence and how these can be cultivated through reflective practices that focus on the inner nature of the mind. This informative and sensitive TED talk examines how relationships and reflection support the development of resilience in children and serve as the basic ’3 R’s” of a new internal education of the mind; Reflection, relationships, resilience.

“Aside from keeping the rain out and producing some usable space, architecture is nothing but a special-effects machine that delights and disturbs the senses.” -Liz Diller

In this video Liz Diller reveals her latest project at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington D.C.. The controversial structure resides along the National Mall and has been a source of much architectural debate since it was built in 1974. Adding to the controversy, Ms. Diller and her firm have conceived of way to capture the available space and shed more usable light inside the museum’s outer walls. The result is unique and once again, a source of much architectural conversation.

Liz Diller and her maverick firm DS+R bring a groundbreaking approach to big and small projects in architecture, urban design and art — playing with new materials, tampering with space and spectacle in ways that make you look twice.

Diller’s firm, Diller Scofidio & Renfro, might just be the first post-wall architects. From a mid-lake rotunda made of fog to a gallery that destroys itself with a robotic drill, her brainy takes on the essence of buildings are mind-bending and rebellious. DS+R partakes of criticism that goes past academic papers and into real structures — buildings and art installations that seem to tease the squareness of their neighbors.

DS+R was the first architecture firm to receive a MacArthur “genius” grant — and it also won an Obie for Jet Lag, a wildly creative piece of multimedia off-Broadway theater. A reputation for rampant repurposing of materials and tricksy tinkering with space — on stage, on paper, on the waterfront — have made DS+R a sought-after firm, winning accounts from the Juilliard School, Alice Tully Hall and the School of American Ballet, as part of the Lincoln Center overhaul; at Brown University; and on New York’s revamp of Governer’s Island. Their Institute for Comtemporary Art has opened up a new piece of Boston’s waterfront, creating an elegant space that embraces the water.

What role does climate change play in altering the characteristics and impacts of extreme weather and climate events? What approaches exist for reducing vulnerability and exposure and for managing impacts and disasters associated with extreme events? In the video above, scientists discuss the findings of a new international report that brings together, for the first time, expertise in climate science, disaster risk management, and adaptation.

Last year, 350.org founder Bill McKibben wrote an op-ed in the wake of a series of extreme weather events in the US. A local 350.org supporter made the video above, which helped spark the idea for Climate Impacts Day and the Connect the Dots project at ClimateDots.org.

Record-breaking heat waves in Russia, wildfires in Australia, floods in Thailand. Every time we pick up the newspaper and read about another record-breaking natural disaster, it becomes increasingly clear that climate change is not a future problem — it’s happening right now.

Connect the Dots is a project of 350.org and their partner organizations, to shine a spotlight on the connections between extreme weather and climate change. 350.org will use those connections to issue a wake-up call for communities, media, and politicians worldwide.

GMOs (genetically modified organisms) are plants or animals created through the gene splicing techniques of biotechnology. These are organisms that would never occur naturally in nature. There are many risks associated with GMOs, but for me I keep them out of my home because I have no interest in feeding my family experimental foods. I feel very unsettled about the studies showing potential long-term health consequences from the consumption of GMOs-there is so much that we don’t know about these engineered “foods.” I also believe that one of the most powerful things I can do as a consumer is to vote with my wallet – why would I purchase food that is unhealthy for my family and the environment? -Mike Adams, The Health Ranger

10 Ways to Spring Clean GMOs Out of Your Home

1) Kick-out the high GMO risk breakfast cereal
If your breakfast cereal contains corn, soy, or canola (as most do), it likely contains GMOs. Make sure that your cereal is Non-GMO Project Verified. The Non-GMO Project has a fantastic selection of verified breakfast foods.

2) Use canola oil wisely
Approximately 90% of the canola in the United States is GMO, so if you choose to use canola oil make sure you buy a Non-GMO Project Verified product. If you can’t find a verified canola oil in your local store, you can also switch high-risk canola for a low-risk alternative like olive oil (for low temperature cooking) and unrefined coconut oil (for high temperature cooking).

Countries all over the world are leading the way towards a green economy. Unfortunately lobbying by the oil, gas, coal and nuclear industries are hindering progress. Very soon, perhaps even now depending on the cost of electricity in your area, solar technology will be more economically cost effective than traditionalforms of electrical production.

If it were up to the sun, we would have no energy problem. Every half hour on the Earth’s surface, there is more than enough light to provide energy needs for the whole world in a year. We don’t have an energy problem, we have a conversion problem. If we are able to harvest sunlight in smart way, then we can prevent a global energy crisis.

That sounds nice but that does not mean it will succeed, at least that is what many different bodies want us to believe. It’s too expensive, takes too much space, too much material, it costs more energy than it brings, and it is still not efficient enough. While all these doubts play a role for solar energy in the distant future, it is still a marginal player in the global energy game. Back-light takes the edge off these myths and shows that a solar economy is much closer than we think. Next year, there are already rolling Giga Watts of solar cells on the conveyor belt. The industry has mastered the technology and the machines.

Radical German government measures have proved that it is possible. Villagers have completely installed solar power on empty lands. Power stations contribute to the network and where they are deserved. Many countries follow the German example: The Americans have their Grand Solar Plan and the French President Sarkozy is talking about a solar plan with the countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea. According to the Spanish electricity producers, oil companies will be left out. So what energy crisis? The sun is coming!

“If we’re going to get this country out of its current energy situation, we can’t just conserve our way out. We can’t just drill our way out. We can’t bomb our way out. We’re going to do it the old-fashioned, American way. We’re going to invent our way out, working together.”   – Donald Sadoway

What’s the key to using alternative energy, like solar and wind? Storage — so we can have power on tap even when the sun’s not out and the wind’s not blowing. In this accessible, inspiring talk, Donald Sadoway takes to the blackboard to show us the future of large-scale batteries that store renewable energy. As he says: “We need to think about the problem differently. We need to think big. We need to think cheap.”

The problem at the heart of many sustainable-energy systems: How to store power so it can be delivered to the grid all the time, day and night, even when the wind’s not blowing and the sun’s not shining? At MIT, Sadoway has been working on a grid-size battery system that stores energy using a three-layer liquid-metal core. With help from fans like Bill Gates, Sadoway and two of his students have spun off the Liquid Metals Battery Corporation (LMBC) to bring the battery to market.

I recently went to see Dutch health-care pioneer Johan Boswinkel speak in San Francisco. The information he shared was fascinating. I wasn’t able to video his lecture, but I found what he had to say, no pun intended, illuminating in every way. The 10min. video above is not from that talk, but gives the viewer a pretty good idea of what Johan is doing with healing and light!. . . Biophotons are particles of light that are emitted from almost every single living being. The light is 1,000 times less intense than we can detect with our eyes but is emitted in a stable, phased, laser-like manner to create a field of light used by our cells for communication.

Biophotons were discovered way back in the 1920’s but it wasn’t until the 1970’s that the work of Fritz-Albert Popp proved their coherent laser-like nature. Today, using an instrument that detects biphotons and corrects incoherent light patterns in the body, Johan Boswinkel has helped thousands of people banish serious diseases and troublesome ailments. For the last 20 years, Boswinkel has been using this form of light to marry acupuncture with homeopathic principles. He has treated tens of thousands of patients and claims to have an 80% success rate on any disease.

Scott and Johan in San Francisco.

Recently the first scientific studies of the remarkable results achieved with Boswinkel’s method have been published. Boswinkel is founder of the Institute of Applied Sciences Biophoton, located at the Willemsplein in Rotterdam. This institute offers training to those interested in biofoton therapy.

The program trains therapists to work with the equipment Boswinkel has developed so that they are capable of treating even the most serious ailments. Qualified therapists can obtain master’s degree in complementary medicine at the University of Graz in Switzerland. The new study of biophotonics is a key part of this master. This is a unique opportunity for those interested in a new challenge and want to contribute to the spread of this extraordinary new healing method that has no harmful side effects.  -scott morrow, The Blue OK
For more information: biontology.com