A little late to the table on this one, I've just been sent info on the American Express Member Project, and it's not too late to participate in the voting, even if the time has passed for nominations.

This project is for American Express members, and it takes only a registration click or two to contribute a dollar to the winning idea ... up to a possible $5 million.

More than 7,000 ideas were submitted, and the top fifty are impressive and run the gamut from arts to finance to community development, education, health, environment and history.

One I'm especially drawn to is Help African Children Orphaned by AIDS, a project that "... empowers communities to care for orphans living with AIDS through education and access to treatment. Additionally the program will provide food, clothing, medicine, and counseling, while developing sustainable solutions for each orphan family."

Here's the voting schedule for those who would like to participate:

Tuesday, July 17 : Top 25 Announcement
(Vote for Top 5 Project Ideas from 12:00AM EST on July 17 through 11:50PM EST on July 22)
Tuesday, July 24: Top 5 Announcement
(Vote for one Winning Idea from 12:00AM EST on July 24 through 11:59PM EST on August 5)
Tuesday, August 7: Finale/Winning Idea Announcement This round ends July 17 (July 15 is final voting for Top 25) and then there are more rounds up until August 7 when the top project is announced.

Good luck!

Anyone traveling (Mary of Ethiopia adoption, that means you!) will be interested in this news that indicates there may be more to the discomfort of long haul flights than previously thought.

Apparently, dehydration and cramped conditions aren't the only reasons you arrive at your destination feeling like the well-worn left sock of a pair stuffed into scruffy cowboy boots for a day and a half.

Blame it now on altitude sickness.

Yep. A clever test that compared ailments between people stuck on a plane for hours on the ground and those in the same metal tube at only 7,000 to 8,000 feet found that how high you are while being served instant mashed potatoes and gray peas really does matter.

The New England Journal of Medicine adds that women and younger people suffer the most.

According to Boeing ... they financed the study ... the way to go is to maintain a cabin altitude of 6,000 feet or lower through pressurization. Typically, the pressure is kept at the equivalent of 5,500 to 7,500 ... the lower the pressure the more fuel is required and the faster aluminum planes wear out.

The new 787 Dreamliner will have cabin pressure set to 6,000 because of what they've learned.

And finally, a really cool tool for anyone, but especially those with kids from other countries.

The Modern Language Association site has an interactive map that shows languages spoken in the USA. You can break the information down by number of speakers, percentage, by state, county ... whatever.

I'm sure there are practical applications, but I had so much fun looking at communities of Khmer speakers that I forgot to think about such mundane matters. The list of languages covers about all I could think of, and it's astonishing to see just how diverse much of America now is, language-wise.