Simwinga's green model

Hammerskjoeld Simwinga wins $125,000 for the award, sometimes called the Nobel prize for the environment.

He helped set up bee-keeping and fish-farming projects for people in the North Luangwa valley, where elephant numbers had shown a dramatic fall. He persuades local people they can earn money by keeping elephants alive.

Mirroring the experience of Muhammad Yunus, who said over 95% of loans go to womenfolk:

Over 70% of loans are made to women and Mr Simwinga says they are the backbone of the programme. "We deliberately pushed our resources to the womenfolk in the community because we knew that working with the women was the strongest part of persuasion," he told Reuters news agency.

As an inspiring story of resolve and progress, Mr. Simwinga describes:

He inherited the North Luangwa Wildlife Conservation and Community Development Programme (NLWCCDP), when its US founders Delia and Mark Owens were forced to leave in 1996.

Despite fears it would collapse, Mr Simwinga, known as "Hammer" and named after UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold who died in a 1961 air crash in Zambia, instead managed to expand the project.

"If I had left as well then the work we had worked for so many years to build would have just collapsed," he said.

news link: BBC World Service

local ad search

FindBuffalo:

Q: With a $1,000 or less annual budget, what 3 things should a small business execute online?
Paul: Getting their correct business information to the online portals, get social (online), and proactively encourage customers to provide online ratings and reviews … and up the budget (ok, that’s four).

Matt: Less than $100/month? That’s ultra-small budget. Okay… 1) A blog. 2) A listing in all the free local search sites. 3) A PPC campaign on low-cost, long tail phrases (including geo-targeting).

Local Ad sites: truelocal iBeginsource yelp

Nina Hale shares her views on strategic internet marketing:

What do you think of Google getting into Pay Per Action (PPA) advertising? Do you see yourself recommending this for some of your clients?

This is a fascinating idea, and I’m studying it seriously for some clients. This is another great form of disintermediation that Google is getting into, but also supports their goal of building their user base by providing successful web experiences, because they will rank good converters higher.

Aggregators like Lending Tree, Search for Colleges, etc., have made enormous amounts of money in this space and I love the idea of putting some of that power back into client’s hands. Of course, the aggregators will also love it! I think it will be most successful overall in fragmented industries.

Gandhi: love and truth as supreme moral law

Gandhi says how he perceives God. In all of the 6 minutes he appeals not to religion or spirituality but to humanity. I suspect even a majority of secular humanists will find themselves in agreement.

Science with a bang

Boomer has a new approach to teaching, "anything that makes a bang or a noise is good".

One day the cops showed up as a result of a half-baked Boomer stunt. He was testing whether a 1.5-million-volt Tesla coil could shoot a spark across the room. In the process, he cut off all police radio communications for miles.

Boomer’s reaction: “Neat!”

Would you have liked him as your science teacher?

While Shane Totten won the Golden Apple award for teaching.

Students line up in pairs and hold balloons attached to sticks over a candle. The balloons filled with the students’ breath, regular carbon dioxide, make small pops. The balloons filled with hydrogen the students got by combining hydrochloric acid and zinc in a flask pops and creates a small fire ball, eliciting screams from some of the kids in the class.
It’s a lesson on mini-Hindenbergs, complete with Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven” in the background. --[Excerpt from Naples News]

for your viewing pleasure: What would happen when, at low gravity, balloons filled with water are pinched? NASA has posted some demo videos on this.

Richard Engel: War time coverage

Engel has an eye-opening perspective on wartime reporting. It is not that there are not many stories to be told, but how it can be told without blowing oneself up. He did emphasise that mostly Iraqi's believe the security situation is worse that what is depicted on TV.

the link also carries a video link to Engel's piece. Very interesting to watch and learn. This might even be a problem in (war)science. Can it enable the journalists in any way?