You may have noticed that tomorrow is February 29th, sometimes labeled as Leap Day. Even if you haven’t, you probably noticed that the Summer Olympics and the U.S. presidential election is happening this year, which means this is a Leap Year. C.G.P. Grey explains why we have a February 29th, but only once every four years…
Continue reading… “What is a Leap Year?”
Chandra Bahadur Dangi with his certificates.
Chandra Bahadur Dangi of Nepal is now officially the world’s shortest living man. He’s 21.5″ (54.6 cm) tall. If you have a hard time estimating that, notice the, er, iPad included in the photo above for comparison. Dangi beat out the Philippine’s Junrey Balawing by two full inches. From Guinness World Records…
Continue reading… “New world’s shortest man”
According to California’s Legislative Analyst’s Office, Facebook going public could be very good to more than just investors and longtime employees. Their estimates have the IPO netting the state in the neighborhood of $2.45 billion from income taxes…
Continue reading… “Facebook’s IPO could net California up to $2.5 Billion in tax revenue”
Blood samples.
You probably know your blood type: A, B, AB or O. You may even know if you’re Rhesus positive or negative. But how about the Langereis blood type? Or the Junior blood type? Positive or negative? Most people have never even heard of these.
Yet this knowledge could be “a matter of life and death,” says University of Vermont biologist Bryan Ballif…
Continue reading… “Blood mystery solved: Two new blood types identified”
Kamagasaki, Japan. A slum in Nishinari-Ku one of 24 wards in Osaka, with a density of 30,000 people in every 2000 meter radius. Source: Androniki Christodoulou
Booming urban populations have seen poverty on the rise in some of the world’s biggest cities. Of the 3.49 billion people that now live in cities, 827.6 million are slum dwellers, according to a UN Habitat Report. Global slums can be vastly different in nature…
Continue reading… “A satellite tour of the world’s biggest slums”
Tech companies in Silicon Valley and in tech hubs across the United States are at war against each other, to find and hire quality talent that is in short supply. The competition is particularly fierce among startups, which means that it’s ever so important to make the right decisions when hiring your next rock star.
Here are six tips to set you on the right course…
Continue reading… “Six tips on how to hire the right person for your startup”
Tabasco tastes better in space.
That bottle of Tabasco may just be the secret sauce for interplanetary travel. That’s right, Tabasco.
Turns out that after spending some time in space, astronauts’ taste in food change…
Continue reading… “Tabasco: Secret sauce of space travel”
Non-human rights for cetaceans?
At the largest annual science conference in the world, finished a few days ago in Vancouver, the call was again made for a Declaration of Cetacean Rights, with the emphasis this time on the fact that dolphins’ level of self-awareness is such that they should be considered non-human persons, individuals with an innate right to exist.
It’s really a pretty big mouthful conceptually, “non-human persons”. But before we delve into attempting to break that down into more manageable bites, here are some of the statements made by the presenters…
Continue reading… “Do we have the language needed to grant Dolphins non-human rights?”
Hearts respond to natural rhythms.
Sudden cardiac death -catastrophic and unexpected fatal heart stoppage — is more likely to occur shortly after waking in the morning and in the late night.
In a report in the journal Nature, an international consortium of researchers that includes Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in Cleveland and Baylor College of Medicine explains the molecular linkage between the circadian clock and the deadly heart rhythms that lead to sudden death.
Continue reading… “Heart beats to the rhythm of a Circadian Clock”
Google forges forward with new privacy policies.
With Google’s privacy policy change looming, the Electronic Frontier Foundation has published a guide to turning off Google’s search-history logging, thus preventing your search-history from all of Google’s services, including YouTube, from being merged and tracked together. You can also erase your stored search-history while you’re there…
Continue reading… “How to turn off Google’s search-history logging and erase your stored history”
Yup, this app is super handy.
Clean drinking water is something we might take for granted at home, but travelers need to be really careful about the source of their water. If they haven’t done the groundwork to determine the safety of the tap water, they could be in for a world of hurt, as there are many places where the quality of the water coming out of the tap is sketchy.
When you’re on the road, how can you know if the tap water is safe to drink? If you’re in the U.S.A., chances are you can trust that the local municipal water supply is completely safe to drink, but if you get off of the beaten path, it’s a whole different ball game…
Continue reading… “Is it Safe to Drink? New App Guides Travelers in Tap Water Choices”
A plant has been generated from the fruit of the narrow-leafed campion.
Russian scientists have resurrected an arctic flower, the narrow-leafed campion, that died 32,000 years ago, which would make it the oldest plant ever grown from ancient tissue…
Continue reading… “Scientists resurrected a plant that died 32,000 years ago”
By delving into the futuring techniques of Futurist Thomas Frey, you’ll embark on an enlightening journey.
Learn More about this exciting program.