good for kids

It used to be that cakes for special occasions were pretty ordinary.  But TV shows like Cake Boss and Ace of Cakes have changed that…elevating cake decorating to a new art form. Nicole learns from an expert that if you have the right talent, becoming a pastry chef is a piece of cake.

The ancestors of the pants you’re wearing today could be include ancient Peruvian dyeing techniques, scientists say, after the discovery of a 6,200-year-old piece of indigo dyed fabric.

Archaeologists discovered the ancient cloth samples during the 2009 excavation of a Peruvian ceremonial mound known as Huaca Prieta. After dating the dyed cotton scraps, researchers discovered that their samples were at least 1,800 years older than the next-oldest instances of indigo dye use, found in Egypt.

"The cotton used in Huaca Prieta fabrics, Gossypium barbadense, is the same species grown today known as Egyptian cotton," the study's lead author, Jeffrey Splitstoser, said in a press release. "And that's not the only cotton connection we made in this excavation – we may well not have had blue jeans if it weren't for the ancient South Americans.

This ancient scrap of fabric, decorated with indigo blue stripes, was found embedded in a concrete-like material that made up Peru's Huaca Prieta temple.

Peru is famous for its cotton – in fact, a particularly hardy cotton was domesticated at an undetermined site in Peru, likely along the northwest coast. The country's modern-day cotton is practically insect-resistant, and often grown without insecticides or fertilizers.

The cloth scraps at Huaca Prieta were found sandwiched in-between layers of a ramp that led up to the temple. Originally, their blue coloring was hidden from archaeology workers, because of the sooty material used to build the temple, as Dr. Splitstoser, an anthropologist at The George Washington University, told LiveScience. 

After gently washing the cloth and using a technique called high-performance liquid chromatography, however, researchers discovered that they were holding the oldest indigo-dyed fabric in the world.

Five of the eight samples that researchers put through testing procedures were confirmed to contain traces of indigo. The remaining three samples may have been degraded over time.

Traditional indigo dye comes from an organic compound called indigoid, generally found in plants such as the plant Indigofera, the likely source of the Huaca Prieta indigo dye. Ancient Egyptians, however, extracted their indigo coloring from sea snails. Today, the dye used for the ubiquitous blue jean is usually produced synthetically.

While the researchers knew that blue dyes were used in the Americas at least 2,500 years ago, and that Egyptians had been using indigo for at least 4,400 years (prior to this discovery, the oldest scrap of indigo dyed cloth was an Egyptian sample from about 2,400 BC), the Huaca Prieta samples prove that the great-great-grandfather of blue jeans might actually have first been created by our neighbors to the south.

"The people of the Americas were making scientific and technological contributions as early and in this case even earlier than people were in other parts of the world," Splitstoser told LiveScience. "We always leave them out. I think this finding just shows that that's a mistake."

"Many people … remain mostly unaware of the important technological contributions made by Native Americans, perhaps because so many of these technologies were replaced by European systems during the conquest," he said in the press release. 

By Amy Crawford

In the morning of October 21, 1892, children at schools across the country rose to their feet, faced a newly installed American flag and, for the first time, recited 23 words written by a man that few people today can name. “I pledge allegiance to my Flag and to the Republic for which it stands—one nation indivisible—with liberty and justice for all.”

Francis Bellamy reportedly wrote the Pledge of Allegiance in two hours, but it was the culmination of nearly two years of work at the Youth’s Companion, the country’s largest circulation magazine. In a marketing gimmick, the Companion offered U.S. flags to readers who sold subscriptions, and now, with the looming 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’ arrival in the New World, the magazine planned to raise the Stars and Stripes “over every Public School from the Atlantic to the Pacific” and salute it with an oath.

Bellamy, a former Baptist preacher, had irritated his Boston Brahmin flock with his socialist ideas. But as a writer and publicist at the Companion, he let ’em rip. In a series of speeches and editorials that were equal parts marketing, political theory and racism, he argued that Gilded Age capitalism, along with “every alien immigrant of inferior race,” eroded traditional values, and that pledging allegiance would ensure “that the distinctive principles of true Americanism will not perish as long as free, public education endures.”

The pledge itself would prove malleable, and by World War II many public schools required a morning recitation. In 1954, as the cold war intensified, Congress added the words “under God” to distinguish the United States from “godless Communism.” One atheist, believing his kindergarten-aged daughter was coerced into proclaiming an expression of faith, protested all the way to the Supreme Court, which in 2004 determined that the plaintiff, who was not married to the child’s mother, didn’t have standing to bring the suit, leaving the phrase open to review. Still, three of the justices argued that “under God” did not violate the constitutional separation of church and state; Sandra Day O’Connor said it was merely “ceremonial deism.”

Today, 46 states require public schools to make time for the pledge—just Vermont, Iowa, Wyoming and Hawaii do not. It’s a daily order of business for the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. And hundreds of thousands of newly minted citizens pledge allegiance each year during the U.S. naturalization ceremony. The snappy oath first printed in a 5-cent children’s magazine is better known than any venerable text committed to parchment in Philadelphia.

Yet the pledge continues to have its critics, with some pointing out the irony of requiring citizens to swear fealty to a nation that prizes freedom of thought and speech. The historian Richard J. Ellis, author of the 2005 book To the Flag: The Unlikely History of the Pledge of Allegiance, acknowledges that the oath is “paradoxical and puzzling,” but he also admires the aspirational quality of its spare poetry. “The appeal of Bellamy’s pledge is the statement of universal principles,” he says, “which transcends the particular biases or agendas of the people who created it.”

Bellamy did some transcending of his own. The onetime committed socialist went on to enjoy a lucrative career as a New York City advertising man, penning odes to Westinghouse and Allied Chemical and a book called Effective Magazine Advertising. But his favorite bit of copy remained the pledge—“this little formula,” he wrote in 1923, with an ad man’s faith in sloganeering, which “has been pounding away on the impressionable minds of children for a generation."

In establishing the first U.S. marine national monument in the Atlantic Ocean, President Barack Obama is protecting an ocean area that harbors whales, puffins, 1,000-year-old corals, undersea mountains, and chasms deeper than the Grand Canyon.

The designation of the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument protects 4,913 square miles and begins about 150 miles southeast of Cape Cod. Although little fishing occurs there now, the designation phases out commercial fishing and prohibits other extractive activities such as mining and drilling.

The monument is the latest addition in a movement to protect special ocean areas across the country and the globe. Unlike the Administration’s other marine monument designations, it is located offshore from major urban population centers: according to the U.S. Census Bureau, at least 25 million people – more than 8 percent of the U.S. population – lived in counties with ocean coastline from Maine to New York in 2010.

President Obama’s move to protect the area comes after scientists associated with the New England and Mystic aquariums catalogued its rich, healthy ecosystem. In 2013, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration sent a deep-sea submersible vehicle to probe the region and capture video of the abundance of marine life there.

On their missions to the area, researchers discovered rare species and explored a series of canyons and underwater mountains that rise as high as 7,000 feet from the seafloor—the only such formations in the U.S. Atlantic.

The protected area includes three canyons and four underwater mountains, where scientists have documented hundreds of species. Brilliant cold-water corals, some the size of small trees, form the foundation of deep-sea ecosystems, providing food, spawning habitat, and shelter for fish and other marine animals. The region is also home to tunas, sharks, seabirds, dolphins, and other marine mammals, such as endangered sperm whales and rare North Atlantic right whales.

While the U.S. has a long tradition of protecting lands—Yellowstone, our first national park, was established in 1872—marine monuments are part of a newer generation of preserved areas. President George W. Bush established four U.S. marine national monuments in the Pacific Ocean in 2006 and 2009. President Obama has expanded two of those—the Pacific Remote Islands and, last month, Papahānaumokuākea, in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, which regained the mantle as the world’s largest marine reserve; it held that distinction when President Bush created it in 2006 but had been surpassed by larger reserves in other countries’ waters. The expanded Papahānaumokuākea is more than four times the size of California.

When the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument was proposed, itdrew support from hundreds of thousands of scientists, educators, business owners, boaters, surfers, beachgoers, Connecticut legislators, and members of faith-based organizations—together with the region’s leading aquariums and conservation organizations, representing millions more people.

Robust ocean food webs are the foundation of New England’s whale watching, recreational fishing, and seabird viewing industries. Research has shown that protected areas increase the likelihood that marine life will reproduce and boost the abundance, individual sizes, and diversity of sea life. Given sanctuaries in which to feed and breed undisturbed by humans, more fish and fish larvae can spread out beyond the reserve’s boundaries and support more fishing opportunities.

Today, limited fishing occurs in the canyons and seamounts area, much of which is too deep and rugged for bottom trawling, the dominant fishing mode in the region. Bottom trawling is prohibited in two canyons already. But the president’s action protects against future extractive activities as the push to fish, drill, and mine in new places puts these fragile habitats at risk. And with climate change already affecting ocean conditions–recent research has found the nearby Gulf of Maine warming faster than 99 percent of the world’s marine waters – the monument will serve as an increasingly important refuge for the region’s sea life.

The monument creates a safe haven for marine resources that have helped define New England’s maritime culture. It’s a major step forward and an investment that will reap dividends for generations to come.

Hannah gets a first hand look at what it takes to be a food critic. She sits down with teen food writer David Fishman for a meal at New York’s “Good Enough to Eat.” They sample everything from tacos to cupcakes and then deliver the verdict! 

Tyler reports on the 9/11 Tribute Center.  The goal of the Center is to not only remember what happened, but to teach future generations about it.  The Center believes that through education, comes understanding.  The founders strive to have 9-11 added to classroom curriculum across the country.

You’re in a bind. Whether it’s for a pitch, presentation, new product, or an important meeting, you need to be armed with a brilliant idea in your back pocket. However, no matter how hard you rack your brain, you’re coming up short and drawing a total blank.

We’ve all been there—feeling like you’re completely tapped out of genius creativity is definitely a discouraging and disheartening experience. But, what if there were certain things you could do to help you avoid that panic-inducing scenario altogether?

Luckily, there are. Use these four easy strategies and you’re sure to train your brain to have bigger, better, and altogether awesome ideas.

1. Keep a List

You probably could’ve guessed that this would appear here somewhere, so we might as well get it out of the way right off the bat.

If you’ve ever had one of those moments when you know you’ve had an amazing idea, only to be completely unable to remember it mere moments later, you already know how frustrating that situation can be.

Jotting things down the second they pop into your brain is a surefire way to combat this all too common problem.

I use a notes app on my phone to make sure I always have a method for keeping track of those fleeting bits of insight. I even keep one list that doesn’t have a specific, designated purpose—it’s just a place to drop all of those little nuggets of wisdom that aren’t yet a fully formed idea, but could serve as some great inspiration down the road.

Yes, it takes just a little bit of extra time and effort. But, you’ll be happy you have that easily referenced list when it comes time to think on your feet.

2. Use Yourself as Inspiration

I’ll be the first to admit that using yourself as a source of inspiration can seem almost unbearably conceited and self-centered. But, if you take just a minute to think about it, it starts to make a lot of sense.

Some of the best products were invented by people who had a specific problem they wanted solved. Some of the greatest discoveries were made by people who wanted an answer to a question that they had.

So, if you’re feeling fresh out of inspiration, don’t hesitate to look inside yourself. This process can even include looking back at some of your older work.

For example, when I’m really churning to come up with a solid article idea, I’ll read through some of my previous posts to see if there’s a smaller idea or tip that I could expand on in a totally new piece.

If you learn to implement tactics just like that for yourself, your own brain will transform into an endless well of resources.

3. Think Small

We tend to put a lot of pressure on ourselves when it comes to generating ideas. Our internal critics convince us that every single proposal we make needs to be solving a huge problem or making an immeasurable impact.

But, placing all of that weight on your shoulders will only make you crack. So, you shouldn’t be afraid to start small. Little ideas can often turn into bigger ones—and they’re much easier to come up with than those grand plans that seem impossible to wrap your mind around.

Don’t be so tight-lipped with your minor suggestions. They may not offer the answer for world peace, but they can still make a pretty big difference.

4. Leave Yourself Enough Time

Some of us work really well under the wire. But, when it comes to coming up with thoughtful ideas, it’s usually best not to pressure yourself with a ridiculously tight deadline.

Of course, sometimes those oppressive time restraints are unavoidable. However, when you have the option, leave yourself plenty of time to tap into your inspiration, brainstorm, and elaborate.

After all, hearing that subconscious ticking of the clock or the Jeopardy theme song playing on a loop in your brain will probably cause you to choke—leaving you with zero ideas to share.

We’ve all experienced those times when we feel like we’re fresh out of thoughts. However, that doesn’t mean you need to toss your hands up and deem yourself useless and uninspired.

Put these four easy tips to work, and you’re sure to be overflowing with brilliant suggestions in no time.