When Holden Thorp, the chancellor of the University of North Carolina, was looking for ways to cut the university’s budget, he did what many executives in private industry do — hired a management consultant.
 

A late-night class on writing, ending at 2:30 a.m., at a community college in Boston
Winston Chin hustles on Tuesdays from his eight-hour shift as a lab technician to his writing class at Bunker Hill Community College, a requirement for the associate’s degree he is seeking in hopes of a better job.
 

Do you like to block the world out completely when you’re working at your desk? Copenhagen-based design team GamFratesi has created a prototype for a sleek, dinosaur egg-like work environment that they call Rewrite. It reminds me of those cubicles they had at my grad school library, except they’re a lot nicer-looking.

Low-income Americans with no more than a high school education appear more likely to get vaccinated against H1N1 swine flu than people with more money and better schooling, according to a poll released on Friday.   A telephone survey of 3,003 U.S. adults conducted by Thomson Reuters found that 49.8 percent of people with lower education [...]

Students use digital materials instead of traditional textbooks
The dread of high school algebra is lost here amid the blue glow of computer screens and the clickety-clack of keyboards.   A fanfare plays from a speaker as a student passes a chapter test. Nearby, a classmate watches a video lecture on ratios. Another works out an equation [...]

On any given day, nearly 23 percent of all young Black men ages 16 to 24 who have dropped out of high school are in jail, prison, or a juvenile justice institution in America, according to a disturbing new national report released today on the dire economic and social consequences of not graduating from high [...]

Featured product at the Colorado Inventor Showcase 2009
ZipLS is an educational software system that will be sold to schools and individuals. The software uses a drill and practice approach primarily aimed at rote memorization and problem solving. Current subjects include math facts, math problems, geography, spelling, and foreign language vocabulary.
 

Women have been earning the most college degrees
What started as a “man-cession” is turning into a “Great He-pression.”  The unemployment rate for men is running 2.7 percentage points higher than for women — a “just unprecedented” spread, according to economist Mark Perry at the University of Michigan at Flint.

Dorm life has become a central part of the
college experience, but may soon go away
Students starting school this year may be part of the last generation for which “going to college” means packing up, getting a dorm room and listening to tenured professors. Undergraduate education is on the verge of a radical reordering. Colleges, like [...]

Undergrads at Engines and Energy Conversion Lab (EECL), Colorado State University, tinker with a prototype laser ignition system on an industrial Caterpillar engine.
So you want to explore the deepest caves? Design the cars of the future? Fire rockets? Don’t wait until you graduate. Here are 7 college programs that offer the most fun per credit—and can help [...]

Pestival
It’s called ” Pestival A Festival of Insects in Art” and as crazy as it sounds–it works! It’s an examination, in the nicest possible way, of how insects shape our world and how humans shape the world of insects. There is art, music, food, activities, lectures and lots more. (Pics)
 

No. 1 Harvard University
Want your kid to become one of the richest people in the world? Send them to Harvard.
The Cambridge, Mass., school tops our first-ever billionaire college study with an alumni base that features 54 10-figure titans, more than 5% of the world’s billionaires. Of those 54 plutocrats, 11 received an undergraduate degree, 41 [...]

It’s every investor’s dream: buy into a theme before any one else has caught on; ride it all the way up until it gets bubbly; sell to the suckers who bought at the top.
 

3-D visualisaztion is a critical part of the development of young minds and is a vital part of keeping aging minds young.   After learning this game you will simply have a better life with more money, more respect from your friends and neighbors, and more love.  3D Classic Cube Chess from AllTerraSkates – 3$ from [...]

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 [...]