Nature's air filter
From The Intelligent Optimist Magazine Fall/Winter 2016 Air pollution is responsible for roughly 7 million deaths worldwide every year. Air-borne pollutants also cause heart disease, stroke, skin diseases, reduced fertility and miscarriage, and cancer. There’s a solution: Plants that clean the Read More...
The dehydration myth
From The Optimist Magazine Fall/Winter 2016 If you find yourself confused about whether to drink eight glasses of water a day or twenty, chances are you’re overthinking it. There’s a perfect system that tells you when you need to drink: It’s called thirst. By KARIN KLEIN Dehydration has Read More...
Speaking from the heart
Possibility From The Optimist Magazine Summer 2014 When it comes to avoiding heart attacks, new studies suggest the best medicine might be music, prayer, and just having someone to talk to. “Coronary heart disease is not just physical but also has a psychological component,” says Zoi Read More...
I don't believe in diets
From The Optimist Magazine Summer 2014 Kris Verburgh knows how you can age well and lose weight, but don’t call him a diet guru. By Marco Visscher Many pages into writing his new book, Kris Verburgh realized the truth. Darn it, he was writing a diet book! This from someone who dislikes diet Read More...
I don't believe in diets
From The Optimist Magazine Summer 2014 Kris Verburgh knows how you can age well and lose weight, but don’t call him a diet guru. By Marco Visscher Many pages into writing his new book, Kris Verburgh realized the truth. Darn it, he was writing a diet book! This from someone who dislikes diet Read More...
Find your own way
From The Optimist Magazine Summer 2014 Whether they choose traditional or alternative therapies, cancer survivors all embrace these six habits of mind. By Laura Bond When Laura Bond’s mother, Gemma Bond, was diagnosed with ovarian and uterine cancer in March 2011, she refused chemotherapy and Read More...
Inspiration: A year without processed food
From The Optimist Magazine Fall 2015 Megan Kimble, a journalist based in Tucson, Arizona, decided to spend one year eating only whole, unprocessed foods. Her book Unprocessed: My Busy, Broke City-Dwelling Year of Reclaiming Real Food tells about her journey. Why did you decide to stop eating Read More...
Possibility: How to become like Steve Jobs
From The Optimist Magazine Fall 2015 This article previously appeared in What Doctors Don’t Tell You Fruit may well have contributed to the mental sharpness and creativity of Steve Jobs, the late founder of Apple. And it’s not just Jobs who benefited: anyone who regularly eats fruits that are Read More...
Possibility: Kale is dead. Long live watercress.
From The Optimist Magazine Fall 2015 Marketing is an art, and more often than not it doesn’t produce the best results for the consumer. Take the case of kale. In recent years, this vegetable has become the darling of the health-conscious movement. There’s hardly any healthy-cuisine restaurant Read More...
A warming blanket to save millions of newborn babies worldwide
Fifteen million hypothermic babies are born every year around the world, including three million who die during the first month of life. Embrace has developed a tiny sleeping bag with proprietary technology that stabilizes the temperature of the newborn for 1.5 percent of the cost of regular Read More...