Will all coins go away now?
Finally, after years of talking, the Canadian government killed the penny in its recent budget. Finance Minister Flaherty was clearly thinking of decluttering and interior design, noting “Pennies take up too much space on our dressers at home.”
There is also a real green side to this; the weight of all those pennies adds up, as does the cost and footprint of shipping them.
Continue reading… “Canada kills the Penny”
Researchers have generated isobutanol from CO2 using a genetically engineered microorganism with solar electricity the sole energy input.
Electric vehicles have come a long way in the past decade, but they still have many disadvantages when compared to internal combustion engine-driven vehicles. The lithium-ion batteries that power electric vehicles have a much lower energy storage density when compared to liquid fuel, they take longer to “refuel,” and they lack the supporting infrastructure that has built up around conventional vehicles over the past century. Now researchers at the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science have developed a process that could allow liquid fuel to be produced using solar generated electricity.
Continue reading… “Creating liquid fuel with electricity”
According to government estimates, the over-65 set is the fastest growing segment of the working population: More than 7 million are punching the clock.
Ailika Thomas’ husband brought her coffee in bed after she woke. It was 7 p.m., and the 73-year-old was facing a long, moonlit drive from her rural Indiana home to Chicago; Dean wanted to make the journey as easy as possible for his wife. He warmed the car and stocked it with snacks while she got dressed. When Ailika emerged from the back door in a pink-and-white pants combo accompanied by her two Yorkshire terriers, Dean gave her a warm goodbye kiss and made her promise to call at journey’s end.
Researchers studied 75 people at a manufacturing company where each day for a week 20 to 30 people were allowed to bring their dogs to work.
Bringing a dog to work could come with practical difficulties, but a trial at an American company suggested it improved people’s job satisfaction.
Cheers!
You are told before you reach 21 that drinking alcohol is bad for you . Then you’re suddenly told that, really, it’s drinking alcohol and driving that’s bad. The latter is definitely true. But the former? Scientists aren’t so sure.
Continue reading… “Drink beer and live longer: Study”
When faced with pathogenic fungi, bees line their hives with more propolis – the waxy, yellow substance seen here.
Research from North Carolina State University shows that honey bees “self-medicate” when their colony is infected with a harmful fungus, bringing in increased amounts of antifungal plant resins to ward off the pathogen…
Continue reading… “Bees ‘Self-Medicate’ when infected with some pathogens”
Google Earth strikes again!
It looks like simple mounds of earth from ground level, but when archaeologist Robert Benfer looked at Google Earth images of Peru, he discovered that they look like orcas, condors, and even a duck.
Archaeological evidence at the sites pegged the mounds at more than 4,000 years old – making them the oldest animal-shaped structures made by man…
Continue reading… “Oldest man-made animal structures found by Google Earth”
Don’t take away the iPad!
At five years-old, it’s no fun getting interrupted while you’re focused on something. As a parent, I compensate for that by employing a series of intricately planned measures to guide my son from whatever he happens to be doing towards whatever it is that I want him to do instead.
The extremity of these measures depends entirely what’s being interrupted. If he’s playing outside with his sister, the steps I take are fairly mundane. I give him a few, gentle time checks (“five minutes until dinner” … “3 minutes until dinner” …), and then offer something enticing enough to make putting down the ball seem like less of an intrusion (“Tonight’s chicken has both teri and yaki on it!”).
If I need to transition my son from building a cardboard village with grandma to going to bed for the night, I need to combine my time checks with some subtle threats and an Obi Wan Kenobi-like response to his three hundred or so repetitions of some variation of, “No. I don’t want to. But you said. Why are you doing this to me?”
The techniques are all pretty simple and effective. Until it’s time to get him to put down the iPad.
Continue reading… “Screen rage is the new temper-tantrum”
According to a new Nielsen report, there is a big shift happening right before our eyes: Smartphones now account for 50% of all mobile phones in the United States.
Continue reading… “Fifty percent of mobile phone owners in the U.S. have smartphones”
Robo-readers are computers programmed to scan student essays and spit out a grade.
High school students in the U.S. are terrible writers, and one education reform group thinks it has an answer: robots.
Continue reading… “Robo-readers: new helpers for teachers in the U.S.”
No-hour work week.
The 9 to 5 workday is outdated. Happy workers are more healthy and more creative, so it’s time to start giving our workers the leeway to be happy (because otherwise they work all the time). The secret: Treat them like people.
Continue reading… “The 9 to 5 is dead – redesigning work for the modern economy”
Dialect regions as defined by the Atlas of North American English.
Lately, there has been a lot of discussion over whether the American public is becoming more and more politically polarized and what this all means for the future of our democracy. You may have wrung your own hands over the issue. But even if you have, chances are you’re not losing sleep over the fact that Americans are very clearly becoming more polarized linguistically.
Continue reading… “A changing accent shows how language parallels politics”
By delving into the futuring techniques of Futurist Thomas Frey, you’ll embark on an enlightening journey.
Learn More about this exciting program.