The emergence of empires of one, business colonies and seed capitalists
The importance of stimulating entrepreneurship has not been lost on Asian nations. Communist Youth League of China will set up a fund to help young people establish their own businesses, as part of efforts to ease employment pressures, particularly among graduates, China.com reported in February.

 
University of Chicago postdoctoral scientist Philipp Heck with a sample of the Allende meteorite.
The interstellar stuff that became incorporated into the planets and life on Earth has younger cosmic roots than theories predict, according to the University of Chicago postdoctoral scholar Philipp Heck and his international team of colleagues.

Digital textbooks to replace printed textbooks in schools 
In the state that gave the world Facebook, Google and the iPod, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger says forcing California’s students to rely on printed textbooks is so yesterday.

New words are popping up everywhere!

A new English word is created about every 98 minutes, according to the website The Global Language Monitor. Based on that rate, English passed the millionth word mark earlier today.
Here are the 10 latest words in the English language:
1,000,000: Web 2.0 – The next generation of web products and services, [...]

Big shift in homeschooling
Parents who home-school children increasingly are white, wealthy and well-educated – and their numbers have nearly doubled in a decade, a new federal government report says.

Ringing cell phone is a distraction in the classroom
Just the ring of a cell phone can pose a dangerous distraction for drivers, especially when it comes in a classroom setting or includes a familiar song as a ringtone, says a new study.

Science Express Exhibit 
How will we feed nine billion people in the future? Can we ever have a disease-free world? Can robots play football?  
These and many others are the questions posed and answered on the “Science Express” — an innovative mobile exhibition showcasing cutting-edge German technology that has raised interest as far afield as India and [...]

Afghan School Girls
To my family and friends,
As some of you know, I have just started my tour in Afghanistan.  Everything is going really well, so no worries.  This country is beautiful and has a lot of problems but that makes being here so worth it.  I have received emails from a few of you asking [...]

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos with the new Kindle DX 
Amazon unveiled the Kindle DX this morning, an e-reader with a 9.7 inch screen that is 2.5 times larger than the Kindle 2, which debuted earlier this year. (Pics)

The German anatomist Gunther von Hagens has stirred controversy and curiosity with his Body Worlds exhibition. 
By now, people around the world have become used to the periodic provocations eminating from the plastinated human corpses displayed by Gunther von Hagens. But he may have outdone himself in a new Berlin exhibition. (Pics)

So many crazy color names.

Who doesn’t remember the feeling of opening a brand new box of crayons? Some of us may even remember how crayons smell or taste, but who can forget all the amazing colors to choose from?
Click through the link to see the hex codes for all 120 colours as well as learn some [...]

 
Chewing gum reduces stress
In a study likely to make school janitors cringe, US researchers said on Wednesday that chewing gum may boost academic performance in teenagers.

Herb Rubenstein, Brent Green, Arjun Sen and Mike Cote at the Startup Junkie Underground
Monday’s Startup Junkie Underground featured ZenMango President Arjun Sen on “Winning Big in a Down Economy.” Sen, bringing experience from retailers including Einstein Bagels and Papa John’s Pizza, began by highlighting the core mantra of his consulting firm: “Guest experience enhancement.” Sen’s [...]

 Music Phone
Design firm Pilotfish unveiled on Monday plans to make an advanced music phone, hoping to tap untested demand for music editing on the go. (Pics)

Do You Hear What I Hear?

65-year old Toshiko Fukuda of Hyogo Prefecture, Japan, lost her husband to asbestos on April 17th last year. Her husband, Motoo, was diagnosed with mesothelioma in 2006, probably from the steel pipe factory he worked at. He got worker’s comp, but the disease ultimately destroyed his lungs and left him [...]

 
68% of students who use Facebook have a “significantly” lower grade
Fresh research has confirmed what many parents and teachers already feared: social networking sites are damaging students’ academic
performance.

YouTube EDU
College too expensive? Try YouTube. It might seem counterintuitive to look for higher education alongside Avril Lavigne music videos, but the video-sharing site has become a major reservoir of college content.

Dry ice vs. soap 
I’m sure we all still fondly remember sitting in our high school science classes, marvelling at how cool liquid nitrogen is. I mean, it freezes anything in seconds – what’s cooler than that? You’ll be surprised – in this week’s video selection we take a look at some of the even cooler [...]

Chocolate calculator 
Bad at math? Gorge on chocolates before you attempt your next examination.

People using the “Conversation Clock” 
Karrie Karahalios can show a child with Asperger’s Syndrome when he’s lost in a conversational riff or a taciturn spouse when he doesn’t speak very much.

 
Harshvardhan Nawathe won India’s “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” in 2000.
The film “Slumdog Millionaire,” in which a poor Indian boy wins a quiz show, won eight Oscars. The country is home to a man with a similar story — Harsh Nawathe, who became a millionaire in 2000 as a TV contestant. Today he is [...]

 
A robot named Cosmo has become six-year-old Kevin Fitzgerald’s unlikely ally in his uphill everyday battle with developmental difficulties.
At a strip mall clinic in suburban Maryland, Kevin is at the unlikely intersection of new efforts to treat symptoms of autism, cerebral palsy and other developmental disorders with robotics and computer work.

Neil Strauss has a new book, “Emergency: This Book Will Save Your Life”, which reveals the secrets of people who in a hypothetical apocalypse will be roasting your femur over oil barrels. He made this video showing how to make a knife from a cigarette for Danger Room. Too bad my cigarettes use cotton filters.

In search of a future for Brentwood, CA … and the U.S. work force
Raymond Alvarez:  Earthquakes, a great flood, fires – seemingly nothing could stop the rocking ’90s and California’s Contra Costa County, an area bounded by high tech companies to the south and industrial giants in the north.
Then came the fourth horseman of the [...]

The Fab Four

A Liverpool university has launched a Masters degree on The Beatles, popular music and society. Liverpool Hope University claims the course is the first of its kind in the UK and “probably the world”.
The course looks at the studio sound and compositions of The Beatles and how Liverpool helped shape their music.
Mike Brocken, [...]