Buzz

A group of five students from Normandale Community College in Bloomington embarked on a road trip March 31 with a modest plan: save Detroit, writes Christine MacDonald in the Detroit News.

The plan, which came out of an assignment for a city politics class, involves "rebuild[ing] from the core," increasing the size of Wayne State University, and making it an "education epicenter," with Midtown Detroit modeled after Dinkytown, according to the article.

Calling Detroit a "laboratory for urban reformers," MacDonald notes that the five students are not the only ones bringing their visions to the motor city: The American Assembly public policy forum will "discuss proposals" there April 14�17.

Fairview Health Services in Minneapolis is singled out in a yearly analysis by Thomson Reuters as one of the top 10 health systems in the country, the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal reports.

The study, which has been done every year since 1993, hones in on 2,914 short-term acute-care, non-federal hospitals, using public information, according to the Business Journal.

"These award-winning facilities demonstrate that high-quality patient outcomes can be achieved while improving efficiency," the Thomson Reuters website states.

Several other Minnesota hospitals are recognized on the list, which breaks down the data into various categories. Included are the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Mercy Hospital in Coon Rapids, the Mayo Foundation, and Park Nicollet Methodist Hospital in St. Louis Park, the Business Journal states.

When it comes to bicycle commuting, Minneapolis is a leader nationwide, according to a map from a recent analysis that came out of the Environmental Studies program at the University of Oregon.

The map is pictured on the League of American Bicyclists website, which a City Pages blog also picks up on. 

On a national level, Minneapolis comes in second place for its number of bicycle commuters, the map illustrates. In terms of its general bicycle-friendliness, the city similarly earns "silver." (Number one is Minneapolis' perennial two-wheel rival, Portland, OR.)

Kory Northrop, the master's student who created the map, is studying GIS and bicycle transportation. He combined public data, ArcMap, Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop, to visually represent the data, the blog states.

Kory, a bicycle commuter himself, did the project because he wanted to raise awareness about bicycle transportation.

Two Minnesota companies landed on Fast Company's most innovative companies lists in March.

White Bear Lake-based Envoy Medical ranked number seven of the 10 most innovative medical companies. In a March 14 post by Ellen McGirt and Chuck Salter, Envoy is recognized for "creating the first FDA-approved surgically implanted hearing system to address hearing loss caused by aging, noise and viral infections."

And in the food category, Cargill was ranked number four "for charging into the sweetener market with a plant-based product that's aims to be eco-aware and health-friendly."

None of the 50 most innovative companies in the main list hails from Minnesota.

The April 1 issue of the Journal of Biological Chemistry publishes University of Minnesota researchers' step toward making renewable petroleum fuels using bacteria, sunlight and dioxide.

Janice Frias, who earned her doctorate in January, successfully used a protein to transform fatty acids produced by the bacteria into ketones, which can be cracked to make hydrocarbon fuels, according to a press release.

The university is filing patents on the process.

The research is funded by a $2.2 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy's Advanced Research Projects Agency-energy (ARPA-e) program. The U of M proposal was one of only 37 selected from 3,700 applicants for the grant.

MTV's "The Real World," a long-running reality TV show, recently visited downtown Minneapolis to discover potential cast members for an upcoming season, a City Pages story notes.

Writer Jessica Armbruster writes that "producers are especially on the lookout for applicants who are working through timely issues--or who at least have a timely look."   

It could mean that someone has a hard time with their weight, is grappling with a tragedy, has an alternative background, or wants to bring attention to a social issue, it states.

The show's executive producer, Jonathan Murray, is also quoted saying, "we look for characters from real life; people with strong personalities who are unafraid to speak their minds."

The University of Minnesota is featured in a list of a dozen of the country's most eco-friendly colleges and universities on the website of the Ethiopian Review, a Washington, DC-based journal of Ethiopian and world affairs.

Schools are often "epicenters for environmental activism and change," with advanced recycling, composting and green building initiatives, for example, the post states.

At the University of Minnesota specifically, energy efficiency is a big priority.

Some of the other projects at the university that the website lauds have to do with recently installed cogeneration and biofuels plants, university fleet vehicles that run on alternative fuels, LEED sustainable construction, numerous green-focused student groups, and a popular organic teaching farm, it states.   

San Francisco restaurateur Nicole Cronin gave a shout out to Minneapolis-based Mrs. Meyer's Clean Day in the March/April issue of Sierra magazine.

Cronin replaced bleach products with "greener cleaners" in her Japanese-Mexican fusion restaurant Mas Sake, including Mrs. Meyer's countertop spray. (Cronin asked customers to put their money where their mouth is to pay for this and other green measures by adding a 25-cent surcharge to each bill, according to author Avital Binshtock.)

"Mrs. Meyer's does the job just as well as brands that aren't environmentally friendly, and their products aren't tested on animals," says Cronin.

The expert-advice column also includes a recommendation from Bethany Buchanan, who owns "eco-conscious" nursing home Grace Homes in Minnetonka, where she uses Young Living Essential Oils' Thieves Household Cleaner.

Reporter John McCormick details some of Minnesota's census and economic data in a March 17 Bloomberg Businessweek article.

Minnesota's population grew 7.8 percent from 2000 to 2010--80 percent of that increase from minorities, according to U.S. Census Bureau data released March 16.

Non-Hispanic whites account for 83.1 percent of the population (down from 88 percent in 2000). The Hispanic population grew by 74.5 percent, the black population by 59.4 percent, and Asians by 51 percent.

That "economic diversity has helped Minnesota weather economic downturns that have hurt other cold-weather states," writes McCormack.

The state's two largest cities saw slight population declines: Minneapolis fell by a mere 40 residents to a population of 382,578, while St. Paul fell 2,083 to 285,068.

Minnesota's unemployment peaked at 8.4 percent in May and June 2009, and never rose above the national average during the recent recession. Minnesota stocks perform better than the national average as well, as measured in the Bloomberg Star Tribune 100 Index, a price-weighted measure of Minnesota companies.

He notes that Minnesota companies exported a record $4.6 billion in products in the fourth quarter of 2010.

In the April issue of Men's Journal, the magazine touts Minneapolis's longstanding love affair with water and woods, which makes it, says the magazine, an ideal place to hang outdoors.

Parks, rivers, and lakes have been taken into consideration in the city's development from the get-go, it states. As a result, residents are always within six miles of a city park while an expanding bike and walk path system has more recently spurred a record number of bicyclists. Running, skiing, and canoeing are also popular recreational activities, says the article.

Despite the cold that's known to last half the year, the magazine notes that natives find plenty of ways to enjoy the outdoors. Stephen Regenold, a local who has a website called Gear Junkie, is quoted, saying, "You put on some winter gear and snowshoes and trek into the woods at Three Rivers Park. Staring up at the stars, you might as well be 400 miles north."  

On March 9, the city of Minneapolis was recognized as a top 'bike-friendly business' with a Gold Award from the League of American Bicyclists at a National Bike Summit in Washington, D.C., according to city information about the honor.

The city was one of six employers, and the lone government body, to get the Gold Award for what it's doing to create a bike-friendly and green work atmosphere, the city web page states. 

Among its strides in this area, Minneapolis has offered all kinds of biking classes on everything from navigating busy downtown streets to bike care, according to the city information. It hosted some special events for Bike Walk Week, while an internal group from the Department of Health and Family Support is working to make the city more supportive of employees who walk and bike to work.

The city also subsidized part of the cost for employees to purchase an annual membership in the Nice Ride Minnesota bike-sharing program.   

University of Minnesota computer science professor Nikolaos Papanikolopoulos saved the institution more than $100,000 by using an Xbox Kinect to monitor child subjects in his $4 million research experiment, writes Frank Bi in the Minnesota Daily in a March 10 article.

Papanikolopoulos is "exploring the use of technology to diagnose children who show symptoms of an array of mental disorders"--a collaboration between the Institute of Child Development, the University of Minnesota Medical School and the College of Science and Engineering.

The university's Center for Distributed Robotics designed the research monitoring system. The $150 controller-free video game device, which detects users' motions, not only costs far less than an alternative system, it eliminates the need for attached skin sensors, reports Bi.

This hot item made news as far as LaCrosse  and Wahpeton, N.D., and it led to this classified on the website of the IAFF Local 21 firefighter's union:

"Wanted - One St. Paul Firefighter to go up against a Minneapolis Firefighter in a wing eating contest at the Buffalo Wild Wings on the U of M campus."

Yes, Minneapolis and St. Paul firefighters took up the cause of Minnesota FoodShare Month by staging a 6-minute fiery-wing-eating contest.
 
Kowalski's Markets pledged 10 pounds of food to The Salvation Army for every wing eaten, and an extra 100 pounds for the victorious department.

Whether it's through Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn, Minneapolitans know how to build a buzz.

Minneapolis is the country's fourth most socially-networked city, according to a recent study from Men's Health magazine, which ranked 100 metropolises. At the top of the list is Washington, D.C., followed by Atlanta and Denver. Seattle follows fourth-place Minneapolis. At the bottom: El Paso, Texas.

Men's Health studied the number of Facebook and LinkedIn users per capita, plus overall Twitter usage, it states. What kind of traffic came from various social media sites also factored into the results, as did an estimate of chat room conversationalists and blog readership.  

With information from the recruiting firm, Ajilon Professional Staffing, Forbes lists Minneapolis as the best U.S. city for job-seekers. Austin, Texas, comes next.

Jodi Chavez, senior vice president of Ajilon, says in the story that Minneapolis has the lowest unemployment rate of all the cities that were studied.

It has to do with its large companies in financial services, health care, retail and manufacturing.

To get the results, Ajilon also studied the diversity of industries, cost of living, company size and education levels, the piece states.

For example, several large medical device manufacturers in the metro area continued adding jobs even amid the economic downturn. Additionally, the city now has a "demand for highly specialized positions like specialty tax, IT audit or compliance-related jobs that were not available during the recession," she says in the story.

High quality of life is also a factor. The market is "in somewhat of a sweet spot of offering jobs with relatively high pay while having a low cost of living."

Source: Forbes