Cool! ~ Lots Of Interesting Images Today...

The Big Picture spots National Geo's photo contestants... Las Vegas alight at night... US Navy Sea Lion... Saturn's moon venting... Stunning stairwells, including this Aussie delighter...

Awesome Space ~ Intangible But Essential!

Many thanks to the crew at Go Boldly -- those with a passion for exploration actively advocating and supporting human spaceflight -- for pointing to this stellar shot Orbital Sunrise As Seen From ISS... Sign me up for a trip to the Space Hilton!

Population Density ~ Room For Many More...

Thanks to AcceleratingFuture for this map of Population Density...

Asia's Rise ~ Hans Rosling @ TEDIndia...

Data überguru Hans Rosling speaks on Asia's Rise at TEDIndia... ...and predicts convergence on his 100th birthday, 27 July 2048;-)

Terraced Green Roof ~ Lovely Dutch Inhabitat...

The nicest thing Inhabitat spotted this past week is this terraced green roof building planned for Groningen in the Netherlands...

Factory Surgeries ~ On Indian Hearts and Eyes...

Fascinating cover story in the WSJournal by Geeta Anand on The Henry Ford of Heart Surgery ~ In India, a Factory Model for Hospitals Is Cutting Costs and Yielding Profits. Pioneered by Dr Devi Shetty, this new approach...

"...offers cutting-edge medical care in India at a fraction of what it costs elsewhere in the world. His flagship heart hospital charges $2,000, on average, for open-heart surgery, compared with hospitals in the U.S. that are paid between $20,000 and $100,000, depending on the complexity of the surgery. The approach has transformed health care in India through a simple premise that works in other industries: economies of scale. By driving huge volumes, even of procedures as sophisticated, delicate and dangerous as heart surgery, Dr. Shetty has managed to drive down the cost of health care in his nation of one billion. His model offers insights for countries worldwide that are struggling with soaring medical costs, including the U.S. as it debates major health-care overhaul."

Perhaps even more widely known is the story of the Aravind Eye Hospital as reported on by PBS NewsHour's Fred de Sam Lazaro in Two Decades On, India Eye Clinic Maintains Innovative Mission...

"The late ophthalmologist Govindappa Venkataswamy founded Aravind in 1976, after he retired at fifty-five from the government hospital in Madurai. Dr V, as he was widely known, combined a religious zeal to serve and his fascination with businesses like McDonald's and the "other chains you have in America" that were able to provide a uniform product on a massive scale. Methodically, he built on the concept of high quality assembly line patient care, forging close ties to public health experts at the University of Michigan and to the Berkeley-based Seva Foundation. [...] Aravind began by offering care to paying patients, using the proceeds to offer free care to those who could not afford it."

Both of these are excellent examples of innovative healthcare approaches emerging out of developing countries!

Micro-Gardens ~ From Concrete to Community

Thanks to the FT's Tracey Taylor for spotting the shift From concrete to community in the Mission District of San Francisco. Local resident Jan Martin tore out the fugly concrete and planted instead a small garden. And despite nay-sayers and skeptics...

"...her garden thrived. In fact it attracted the attention of the local community and passers-by for positive reasons. People stopped to chat when she was out weeding and several neighbours asked her how they might go about planting their own front-of-house gardens. Indeed this modest patch of succulents, evergreens and native flowers in one of the city’s densest neighbourhoods became the launch-pad for an ambitious greening project that has seen significant expanses of pavement replaced with gardens across San Francisco."

This spawned a boom in planning applications and a community volunteer body, Plant*SF, to advocate and spread more such gardens. What a great little story of DIY urbanism making for every more beautiful, livable, and vital cities!

A Better Mountain ~ From Stones Into Schools!

I love a great human-interest story and Parade delivers! Greg Mortenson writes about his work Fighting Terrorism With Schools. It started after a disasterously failed attempt to climb K2, the world's second-highest peak which located on the Pakistan-China border...

"I staggered into a tiny village called Korphe, where the impoverished residents gave me food, shelter -- and a mission. One afternoon, I watched 82 children scratch their lessons in the dirt with sticks. Among them was a girl named Chocho, who appealed to me to come back one day and build Korphe a school -- one that would be open to all children, even though, in that part of the world, the privilege of learning to read and write has traditionally been reserved for boys. Three years later, I kept my promise. The organization I founded, the Central Asia Institute (CAI), has kept right on building. Today, in the mountains of rural Pakistan -- where schools are scarce and all too often supported by the same radical Islamist money and ideology that fuels al-Qaeda and the Taliban -- CAI now has 91 schoolhouses. We serve 19,000 students -- three-quarters of them girls."

Mortenson's written about his experience in a to-be-published book, Stones Into Schools: Promoting Peace With Books, Not Bombs, in Afghanistan and Pakistan. About that aborted climb, though?

"A few months ago, I gave a talk in Durango, CO. A young girl raised her hand. "Will you ever go back and try to climb K2 again?” she asked. "No," I replied. "I’ve found a better mountain."

How beautiful is that -- A Better Mountain to climb!

Biking to School ~ Normal Mode in Netherlands!

Thanks to David Hembrow for this video of everyday kids biking to school in the Netherlands. Note how normal it is, even in winter, and how much the basic infrastructure is competently designed and built... Curiously enough, this was my normal mode growing up in Los Altos, CA and biking to school every day at Egan Junior High!

The Thrivers ~ Alive at the Four Seasons Lodge

Thanks to MIT Sloan alumna Beth Pollack for pointing out her grandparents story. The Four Seasons Lodge movie follows Holocaust survivors who come together each summer in the Catskills to dance, cook, fight and flirt and celebrate living in freedom -- thriving, really. Just the trailer alone makes me want to see the whole film...

Recovery ~ Beyond Justice in Sierra Leone...

Recent BBC coverage asks Did Sierra Leone get war crimes justice? The atrocities committed there -- and the tremendous resulting economic and social disruptions -- should never be forgotten. See also this BBC slideshow of photos by Nick Danziger on Recovering in Sierra Leone... The rebel terror tactic of chopping limbs -- and the resultant great need for solutions -- is one reason I'm an enthusiastic supporter of our MIT Developing World Prosthetics class in the D-Lab family.

iRobot Looj ~ "Less Chores, More Life!"

Brad Feld suggested his MIT fraternity brother Colin Angle's business -- iRobot -- to the Daily Grommet -- specifically their Looj gutter router! Great motto: "Less Chores, More Life!"

Lawrence Walmsley ~ Clean Energy on MP.tv!

Wonderful to have MIT alumnus and MIT $100K Lead Organizer Emeritus Lawrence Walmsley on MaximizingProgress.tv tonight! With UN-connected parents, he lived a very cosmopolitan youth, growing up in Peru, India, Brazil, and Paraguay. Then inspired at a young age to be an astronaut, Lawrence studied engineering at Princeton. Waylaid by Goldman Sachs and banking temporarily, he ended up at MIT Sloan and Harvard's Kennedy School pursuing dual-degrees. While at MIT, he co-led the MIT $100K business plan competition with then doctoral student Jason Fuller -- and, in fact, was instrumental in doubling the size of the Competition from the then $50K prize fund to today's $100K! After schooling, Lawrence joined premier global strategy consultancy McKinsey, and today is in their cleantech and energy innovation practice. Fantastic to have Lawrence share his experiences with us tonight. And I personally very much look forward to seeing what entrepreneurial directions he heads into next...

12 TW in 40 Years ~ Saul Griffith @ NextAgenda

Saul Griffith articulates case for building ~12 Terawatts of new clean energy by mid-century -- 2050...

Imaging Wishlist ~ Raskar Keynote @ 6Sight!

My MIT Media Lab colleague Ramesh Raskar's imaging wishlist!

Raskar 6Sight Keynote Talk Nov09

Stormy Anime ~ Time-Lapse Atlantic Weather!

Thanks to the Map Scroll for spotting this Stormy Anime...

Global Corruption ~ Transparency Int'l Map 2009

Thanks to the BBC for spotting War-torn nations 'most corrupt' and serving up Transparency International's worldmap 2009...

Bigger Bites ~ Lessons From Animal Kingdom...

The DailyMail delivers again, this time showing how morono-croc fails to escape hippo vengeance...

Fighting Epilepsy ~ 60 Minutes on Seeking Cures

60 Minutes spotlights a very disruptive neurological disorder -- and the search for solutions -- in this piece Epilepsy: Fighting For A Cure...

"More Americans are suffering from epilepsy than Parkinson's, cerebral palsy and multiple sclerosis combined. Katie Couric reports on a disease that may not be getting the attention it deserves."

Riding Bikes ~ Yes, The Dutch Get It!

Trailer for Riding Bikes with the Dutch by Michael Bauch!