It's never too late!

Yup! I'm back!
Sorry for the delay in posting, between life and life, there can only be moving forward :-)
(Thanks T. Harv Eker for sharing the above image).

Its Giving Tuesday!

It's giving Tuesday!
Please help in raising awareness and funds to build a school in Nepal!

Well, friends and family, your princess warrior has decided to join a group and head to Nepal (for a few days early 2014) and help build a school with BuildOn. Why? because I'm passionate about education, helping women, and live to travel :-)
I cannot do it without your help though; would you please please please help me fundraise by donating, and/or sharing my fundraising link below to everyone you know?

http://act.buildon.org/zinasahib

Together we can share the gift of education among our fellow human beings. That's a gift that lasts forever! (and yes, I really really really wanna visit Nepal ;-)

Science Ambassador Program! @ Aviva Community Fund

Program Overview

The SA program was established in 2006 by the NSERC/Cameco Prairie Chair for Women in Science and Engineering (WISE)—computer science professor Julita Vassileva—physics professor Chary Rangacharyulu, and chemistry professor Lee Wilson with funding support from the U of S, Cameco Corporation, and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council.

The goal of the SA program is to provide teachers in Aboriginal communities with practical, hands-on support, both in the sciences classroom and through extra-curricular science activities. Science ambassadors are undergraduate or graduate students in science and engineering whose primary role is to help teachers in the classroom teach science in an interesting, engaging manner. Most of their work is aimed at children in grades four to nine, years that are critical in determining whether students develop a keen interest in science and a desire to pursue science education in later years. Our ambassadors are young, energetic and committed individuals who have proven their ability to make real connections with the kids.

What makes this program so unique is the duration of the support our students provide. Unlike many other science outreach programs, our science ambassadors spend extended period of time in the community, generally six consecutive full weeks, or four days every six weeks from September to May. Since its inception, the program has reached over 1200 students, in 12 schools, in Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and Alberta. With demand growing every year, we are confident this program will continue to grow well into the future.

Please vote here:

Sparking the Joy of Science Discovery in Aboriginal Kids

International Women's Day

Happy International Women's Day :-)

Breakthrough for mobile television

ScienceDaily (2010-02-14) -- Long Term Evolution, a new mobile telecommunications standard, is poised to revolutionize mobile internet. High transmission rates will soon be possible on mobile devices. For this purpose, researchers in Germany developed the cross-layer design SVC over LTE -- a coding method that offers HD films in real-time in the appropriate format for cell phones or netbooks.

Full article is here.

Social networking sites could solve many communication problems when disaster strikes

ScienceDaily (2010-02-10) -- Online social networking sites could solve many problems plaguing information dissemination and communications when disaster strikes, according to a new report.

Full article is here.

Reaching for the stars to create music of the universe

ScienceDaily (2010-02-03) -- While a supernova can be seen, it can't be heard, as sound waves cannot travel through space. But what if the light waves emitted by the exploding star and other cosmological phenomena could be translated into sound? That's the idea behind a "Rhythms of the Universe," a musical project to "sonify" the universe by Grateful Dead percussionist and Grammy award-winning artist Mickey Hart that caught the attention of Nobel Prize-winning astrophysicist George Smoot of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

Full article is here.

Design vs. Dyslexia: Innovation promises new hope for children with dyslexia

ScienceDaily (2010-01-27) -- Researchers are designing a 21st century electronic toolkit to speed learning for children with dyslexia.

Full article is here.

Fareed Lafta: first to represent Arabs to space, an Iraqi astronaut :-)

From: Taipei Times:

THE GUARDIAN, LONDON
Friday, May 29, 2009, Page 6

“My parents still think I’m crazy.” — Fareed Lafta, a Dubai-based Iraqi extreme sports fanatic

He has been hailed as Iraq’s superman: a role model for the nation’s youth who flies, glides, dives and races motorcycles. He has already made the Guinness World Records by taking part in the first skydive above Mount Everest. But last week Fareed Lafta, a Dubai-based extreme sports fanatic, returned to Baghdad to seek backing for his ultimate ambition — to be the first Iraqi in space.

“I want to represent my country, and to be one of the men like Neil Armstrong and Yuri Gagarin, who showed with all humility what it is to be a good human,” he said.

In his badged blue flightsuit and cap, he cut a curious figure as he lobbied for support among the suits, robes and turbans in Iraq’s parliament.

“I don’t know the mechanisms, I am not a politician, and I don’t want to be. I just need help to send me into space,” he said.

Before he leaves the earth’s atmosphere, Fareed, 30, plans to become the first civilian to skydive above Baghdad since the war — a mark of the improved security environment. He has brought his rig and parachute with him and is ready to go as soon as he can get clearance from the authorities.

“Diving over a city that has suffered from war is recognized in the skydiving community as a symbol that the war is over. Because I want to say to all the world that we are now in peace, and it’s not war any more,” he said.

Fareed’s growing fame in Iraq is timely.

“Iraqi youth need a role model like Fareed to take their mind off guns and violence,” said Ammar Shaabandar of the Institute of War and Peace Reporting in Iraq.

Fareed has been addicted to adventure since he was a boy.

“I would climb to the top of the cupboard in my bedroom and jump off. My mum got mad and punished me because I made a mess of my room. But it was the informal start of my career, aged five. My parents still think I’m crazy,” he said.

Raised in Baghdad, he left with his family for Dubai at the outbreak of war in 2003. There he continued a boyhood passion for motorcycle racing, quickly turning professional. He also became a scuba diving instructor and started freediving, achieving a lung-busting depth of 80m. He then took to the air, hang-gliding and paragliding to an international standard and gaining a private pilot’s license.

But it was the decision to take up skydiving that really changed his life, he said. He moved to Russia last year as part of an international team planning a record-breaking jump over the Himalayas. In Nepal they spent 21 days acclimatizing before the jump last October.

“We jumped from 9,000m, only about 500m or so above the peak of Mount Everest,” recalled Fareed, who sports the Iraqi flag on his jumpsuit. “It was amazing, truly amazing, to be soaring above Mount Everest. For a few minutes, I was emperor of world. I reached nirvana, absolute happiness.”

The kick from his Everest exploits was not enough, however. So in March, the restless Fareed returned to Russia to train as Iraq’s first cosmonaut. His fitness and skill levels meant that he completed the training in two months. Usually it takes trainees six months to learn how to breathe properly and cope with the G-forces, he said.

He specialized in space video and photography, and he wants to film while doing a walk outside the space shuttle.

For all his achievements, Iraq’s lone superman confesses to being lonely.

Iraqi girls do not want to come near a man who lives life at such a breathless pace, it seems.

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An updated version of his status (as of 28th January 2010) is available (in Arabic only) here.

Cool School - Where Peace Rules - Human Development Scientists And Computer Game Developers Design Video Game That Teaches Conflict Resolution To Kids

ScienceDaily () -- Human development scientists and computer game developers designed a video game that teaches kids how to resolve conflicts peacefully amongst themselves. Inanimate objects, such as pencils and erasers, come to life to lead players through a series of common scenarios in which arguments are about to occur. The player is prompted for the non-violent solution and is rewarded for choosing correctly.

Full article is here.