12yo Inventor Will Blow Your Mind And May Save Your City; Plus, Top 10 Good News Stories of the Week!

1. Incredible 12yo Inventor Peyton Robertson Will Blow Your Mind
   Peyton’s parents taught him that whenever he saw a problem, he could invent a solution to fix it. Recently the twelve-year-old Florida boy was named America’s Top Young Scientist for 2013. Among his impressive inventions is one created after Superstorm Sandy. He created sandbags that better protect against flooding but are super lightweight, expand when wet, and shrink after drying.
2. Occupy Activists Pay Off $15 Million of Americans’ Personal Debt
   In one year, a group of Occupy Wall Street activists has managed to buy almost $15 million of Americans’ personal debt helping them pay off their outstanding credit. Under the name, Rolling Jubilee, the Occupy activists purchase anonymous debt cheaply from banks and then "abolish" it, freeing individuals from their bills.
3. FedEx Sends 17,000 Fresh Christmas Trees to Troops
   FedEx is spreading holiday cheer to America’s service members and their families this season with a special delivery of more than 17,000 freshly cut Christmas trees. Now in its ninth year, Trees for Troops brings together tree farmers across America with FedEx to transport thousands of real Christmas trees to service members stationed overseas, and on military bases in the U.S.
4. City Comes Together to Cheer Bat Kid Whose Wish Came True
   A conspiracy of kindness in an American city made a wish come true for a five-year-old battling cancer. San Francisco turned into the comic book downtown of Gotham City, and thousands of its citizens and cops, came together to cheer the boy as he foiled bad guys like the Riddler and Joker.
5. Australian Principal Faces Down Gangs to Turn Around a School
   When Jihad Dib was appointed principal of Punchbowl Boys High School at age 33, it was a hotbed of violence and trouble. His modern and successful approach to reforming the school has transformed the student body and staff into a family, and recently earned him a Pride of Australia medal.
6. Moscow Gives Free Subway Ride to Anyone Who Can Do 30 Squats
   To promote the February Sochi Olympics, the Russian Olympic Committee has added a machine in the Moscow subway that gives a free ticket if you can complete at least 30 squats within two minutes. The Vystavochaya Station has a special squat sensor and counts to 30. (WATCH!)
7. New Billboard Proclaims ‘You Are So Freaking Awesome’
   Another randomly positive billboard has popped up in Portland this week. The yellow sign towering above Sandy Blvd., at 35th street, declares, "You are so freaking awesome". New messages will be going up during each of the next six months thanks to the Joy Team. (PHOTO)
8. Stop Being Negative, Live at Least a Decade Longer A 1986 study from which researchers analyzed the autobiographical essays of 678 nuns, written in their early 20s, who had entered an American convent in the 1930s, found that those in the top 25 percent on the optimism scale lived on average up to 10 years longer. The implications of this astonishing finding in our increasingly health-conscious age should be enormous.
9. Vancouver Launches World’s First Cigarette-butt Recycling Program The City of Vancouver, B.C. has launched the world’s first cigarette butt recycling program in its bid to become the greenest city. The pilot project began last Tuesday with the installation of 110 receptacles in four downtown areas where discarded butts are a messy problem. Fortunately, cigarette filters are made of cellulose acetate, which can be recycled into building materials.
10. Strangers Flock to Funeral for WWII Soldier Who Died Alone
    His death at 99, one of the last survivors of successful British battles of World War II, might have been a lonely service in an almost empty chapel. But on Monday, after a newspaper appeal led to an internet campaign highlighting the forgotten war veteran, hundreds of people who never knew him came to pay their respects at his funeral – poignantly held at 11am on Armistice Day, 11/11.

Video of the Week: Toddler’s First 15 Seconds of Walking on Ice!

Watch this video that went viral last week and made 3.8 million people, to date, laugh out loud. This slice-of-life moment captures a Russian toddler as she experiences walking on ice for the first time. (So Cuuute!)