Returned televisions are being prepared to be resold.
The holiday season brings us comfort and joy, good cheer and buyer’s remorse.
Continue reading… “Buyer’s remorse as shoppers return hot deals to stores before holidays”
Artificial Electronic Skin Device Capable of Detecting and Responding to Touch
Optical image of flexible and stretchable thin film transistor array covering a baseball shows
the mechanical robustness of this backplane material for future plastic electronic devices.
Imprinting electronic circuitry on backplanes that are both flexible and stretchable promises to revolutionize a number of industries and make “smart devices” nearly ubiquitous. Among the applications that have been envisioned are electronic pads that could be folded away like paper, coatings that could monitor surfaces for cracks and other structural failures, medical bandages that could treat infections and food packaging that could detect spoilage. From solar cells to pacemakers to clothing, the list of smart applications for so-called “plastic electronics” is both flexible and stretchable. First, however, suitable backplanes must be mass-produced in a cost-effective way…
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1 in 2 Americans are now poor or low income
“The reality is that prospects for the poor and the near poor are dismal.”
A record number of Americans are being squeezed by rising living costs. Nearly 1 in 2 have fallen into poverty or are scraping by on earnings that classify them as low income.
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Chevron admits oil leak in Brazil hasn’t stopped
When will the spill stop?
Things just keep getting worse for Chevron. First, a deepwater drilling mishap off the coast of Brazil last month caused thousands of barrels of oil to spill into the Atlantic, which only after some dodging did Chevron take responsibility for, followed by Brazil’s petroleum agency deciding to suspend the company’s drilling rights altogether. And then there are the fines which could end up costing Chevron close to $100 million. But lo, it get’s worst yet. Today, the oil giant admitted that the situation is far from resolved as many had assumed. That’s right, the leak continues, and Chevron’s not sure when it can be stopped…
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1 in 9 teens using synthetic drugs: survey
Synthetic drugs, such as K2, mimic the effects of marijuana.
Almost one in nine high school seniors have gotten high in the past year on synthetic drugs, such as “K2” or “Spice,” second only to the number of teens who have used marijuana, according to a new survey.
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Workers are healthier, happier when they work a flexible schedule
When employers are more flexible about how and when a job gets done, workers are healthier and happier.
A new study shows, companies that focus on results rather than face time in the office may end up with healthier employees.
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Marriage on the decline in the U.S.
New marriages dropped 5% last year.
The number of all U.S. adults who are married has dropped to a record low 51 percent, according to a new report. If the trend continues, the institution will soon lose its majority status in American life.
Continue reading… “Marriage on the decline in the U.S.”
Birds in cities sing at higher pitch: study
“Because sounds bounce and travel in different ways, birds have to use songs that can cope with this”.
Birds living in urban areas sing at a higher pitch to reduce the impact of echoes from surrounding buildings, a study claims. Higher-pitched songs travel further in built-up areas because their echoes fade more quickly, meaning the following notes are clearer and easier to pick out.
NTSB urges states ban all cellphone use by drivers
A sign in Havre, Mont., notifies drivers of the city’s handheld cellphone ban, which took effect in October.
The National Transportation Safety Board on Tuesday called for a ban on all cellphone use by drivers saying its decision was based on a decade of investigations into distraction-related accidents, as well as growing concerns that powerful mobile devices are giving drivers even more reasons to look away from the road. This is the most far-reaching such recommendation to date.
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YouTube makes its site classroom ready
Let’s play a quick game of word association. I say, “YouTube,” you say the first thing that pops in your head. Did the phrase “educational resource” come to mind? I didn’t think so, and therein lies a perception problem that often gets the video streaming site banned from schools.
To tackle this setback, the Google-owned property has created a safe-for-classroom network setting called YouTube Schools that restricts student access to just the content available on YouTube EDU. The subdomain contains hundreds of thousands of educational videos from YouTube’s more than 600 child-approved partners, including Smithsonian, TED and esteemed universities…
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The trillion-frame-per-second video
Captured light ‘scattering’ below the surfaces of solid objects.
MIT researchers have created a new imaging system that can acquire visual data at a rate of one trillion exposures per second. That’s fast enough to produce a slow-motion video of a burst of light traveling the length of a one-liter bottle, bouncing off the cap and reflecting back to the bottle’s bottom…
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Young people are giving up on the American Dream of a house in the suburbs
What American Dream?
There are many in America who don’t like or trust cities, primarily because they harbor a disproportionate number of Democratic voters. They don’t like investments in transit, either, preferring the privacy and freedom of the car. But whether they like it or not, America is changing…
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