American Idol
The “American Idol” finale hit a new low this week with nearly 22 million TV viewers tuning in to watch, down 31% from last year.
31.4% of homeowners in the U.S. are underwater on mortgages
American homeowners who are underwater on their mortgages actually are only running a “paper loss.”
According to real estate site Zillow, nearly 16 million homeowners – not quite a third of people with mortgages – owe more on their home loans than their properties are worth.
Continue reading… “31.4% of homeowners in the U.S. are underwater on mortgages”
Recently bankrupt Vallejo, California is now a model for other U.S. cities
Vallejo, CA became the largest city in America to declare bankruptcy in 2008.
The working-class port city of Vallejo, California became the largest city in America to declare bankruptcy in 2008. Crime and prostitution surged as the police force was thinned by 40 percent. Firehouses were shuttered, and funding for libraries and senior centers was slashed. Foreclosures multiplied and home prices plummeted.
Continue reading… “Recently bankrupt Vallejo, California is now a model for other U.S. cities”
Rapid DNA sequencing could soon become a routine part of your medical record
The latest technological competition involves the idea of threading a single strand of DNA through a tiny, molecular-scale eyelet known as a nanopore.
Rapid DNA sequencing can provide enormous amount of information previously sequestered in the human genome’s 3 billion nucleotide bases and soon may become a routine part of each individual’s medical record.
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Average web page surpasses 1MB in size
Bigger isn’t always better. The average web page is now more than 1 megabyte (MB) and that’s bad for site owners and for mobile users.
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Do women in the U.S. have the best quality of live?
Australia gets top honors for overall wellbeing.
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development has recently released the Better Life Index and according to the index women in the United States have the best quality of life of any developed nation.
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Has college become too easy?
Amount of time students study has dwindled.
Is college too easy? Survey data shows that over the last 50 years, the amount of time college students actually study — read, write and otherwise prepare for class — has dwindled from 24 hours a week to about 15.
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Jonathan Ive – Apple’s quest for simplicity
Jonathan Ive
Jonathan Ive, the London-born head of design for Apple says “design is a word that’s come to mean so much that it’s also a word that has come to mean nothing. We don’t really talk about design, we talk about developing ideas and making products.”
A visualization of airplane flight paths in the U.S.
[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/5368967[/vimeo]
How may airplanes fly above our heads everyday?
Aaron Koblin knows the answer: It can be more than 19,000 in the United States. And thanks to his wizardry with FAA data, we can see how these aircraft drift from city to city in this mesmerizing computer visualization.
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Scientists restore sight to blind mice by regenerating optic nerve
Scientists restore vision to blind mice.
There are three blind men who have an inherited eye disorder that had destroyed the light-sensing cells of their retinas many years ago. Now one of the blind men can walk around at night navigating by streetlight and headlights. Another can read his own name. And the third mean has been able to see his fiancée’s smile for the very first time. All of this has been made possible by the retinal implants they have been fitted with. The implants took over from the broken cells. They sense incoming light by converting it into electrical impulses delivered to the brain. They aren’t close to having 20/20 vision, but they have restored sight to people who have lived without it for years.
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How Private Is Your DNA?
How is my DNA NOT private?
Unlike the contents of your inbox, bank statement, or Facebook timeline, your DNA quite literally defines you. It’s strange, then, that in an age where sequencing the genome is becoming trivial, we don’t give a second thought about the privacy issues surrounding the chemicals that make us who we are.
In fact, most states in the US have absolutely no laws whatsoever to govern surreptitious genetic testing. If that surprises you, it gets worse. Back in 2006, the particularly forward-thinking state of Minnesota passed a law demanding that written consent had to be obtained for collection, storage, use, and sharing of genetic information. In 2011, however, the Minnesota Supreme Court judged that the state’s own department of health was in violation of that very law.
So, quite literally millions of US citizen have their DNA records stored on databases, and there are few laws governing what’s done with the data. Something has to be done about that—but it’s not necessarily as easy as it sounds.
Clamp down on DNA privacy…
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Nebula Award winners announced
Congratulations to the winners of the 2011 Nebula Awards, especially to Jo Walton, who won for her magnificent novel, Among Others. Here they are…
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