awareness
 To help raise awareness of Colony Collapse disorder Haagen-Dazs produced this video and put together the website Help the Honey Bees.
It is a fact of nature: When a honey bee returns to the hive after finding a good source of nectar, it will perform a unique dance for its hive mates, detailing the distance, quality and quantity of the new food supply. Sadly, honey bees are mysteriously vanishing in staggering numbers - a crisis known as Colony Collapse disorder - which is alarming considering honey bees are responsible for pollinating one-third of our natural food supply.
Link to video. Link to Help the Honey Bees. [via Neatorama]
Here is an interesting poster put together by EuroRSCG Amersterdam for Doctors of the World, Netherlands, which depicts the patient to doctor ratio in different countries around the world.
aki over at meshly writes:
In case you don't know David Droga's Tap Project, it's basically a scheme whereby, for one day, restaurants ask customers if they'd like to pay a dollar for a glass of the local tap water. Droga hatched the idea with the aim of helping Unicef provide clean water to the hundreds of millions of people around the world who don't have it. In its first year, only in New York, Unicef estimates it raised $6 million. Next year it'll roll out in more cities. Wieden + Kennedy has already volunteered to execute the scheme in Portland, Ore., Goodby in San Francisco, and Leo Burnett in Chicago. R/GA will bring an overarching digital component to it. Taxi is ready to take it to Canada and Dentsu wanting to implement it in Japan. Mayors and governors are getting involved. Marketers are standing by to become global sponsors. Unicef is already describing it as its biggest project in 60 years.
"Wouldn't it be amazing if, through our reach, creativity and networks of contacts, we could really change access to clean drinking water all over the world? Our industry will be able to say, 'We, the ad industry, did that,'" said Droga.
Link to article.
 Mandy Sellars suffers from a rare condition called Proteus syndrome, which is thought to only affect about 120 people worldwide.
Her legs and feet, weighing 70kg, continue to grow while the rest of her body remains average size. Because there is no known cure for this condition, doctors may need to amputate in the future, however, Sellars wants to raise the awareness of this condition before any such thing is done.
 The Autism Society of Minnesota will be hosting the 2007 Minnesota State Autism Conference on May 2-5, 2007 in Minneapolis. (It looks like the deadline for registration has already passed, but I'm sure there is no hurt in contacting AuSM if you really want to go.)
Highlights of the conference will be talks given by Temple Grandin, Martha Herbert and Nick Dubin. The Keynote Address will be given by Roy Richard Grinker who is a friend of BlogCadre contributor and autism advocate, Kristina Chew.
Roy Richard Grinker is the Professor of Anthropology and Director at George Washington University Institute for Ethnographic Research, and a father to a child with autism. He recently had a book published, Unstrange Minds, where he discusses a controversial idea.
When you scan the globe using Google Earth you will notice a large portion of Central Africa outlined in orange. Zoom in closer and you will see the words "Crisis in Darfur".
Google has teamed up with United State Holocaust Memorial Museum in hopes people around the world will be able to visualize the vast devastation and genocide occuring in the Darfur region.
"It's our hope that by combining this up-to-date satellite imagery with authoritative data and evidence from the ground in Google Earth we can make it harder for people to stand idly by when genocide happens,' " said Lawrence Swiader, the museum's chief information officer.
The Holocaust museum has also begun using Google Earth on their site to map Holocaust locations in Europe during WWII. Previously: 'Dying for Darfur' Online Game, Ayiti: the Cost of Life
 Autism Speaks created a music video of the Five for Fighting song, "World", which features images of autistic children and their families. Five for Fighting is donating $0.49 to Autism Speaks for each time the video is viewed. They are aiming for 10,000 hits, but hopefully it will be more. Here is the link to the video.
(Thanks, Pinggy!)
This is a print ad for Compulsory Auto Insurance of Puerto Rico which uses the Nativity Scene to remind drivers to drive safely over the Christmas season.
"Don't let irresponsible driving wreck Christmas."
[via Neatorama]
Previously:
Premature Christmas Card
Finally, here is a story about an autistic child named Nathan where the family focuses on the positive and not the negative.
Who once was a boy who "screamed when he was frustrated, spinned in circles to entertain himself and banged toy cars against the wall," Nathan is now a boy who has made amazing progress over the past few years. Nathan is not an autistic "savant" or "cured" from his diagnosis -- He is a boy who has made gains that will help him in his daily life and be more involved in family activities.
Nathan, she says, isn't composing symphonies and does not entirely blend in with his classmates. But thanks to years of intensive speech, behavioral, play and occupational therapy — and an intelligence his parents suspected from the start — Nathan is doing things they did not think possible back in 2003. Among them:
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In 1984, the "Fonz" (Henry Winkler) put together a PSA called 
