Factories making Apple iPhones and iPads forced staff to sign pledges not to commit suicide before they were taken on. At least 14 workers at Apple’s Chinese supplier Foxconn have killed themselves in 16 months.
And more have either survived suicide bids or were stopped from trying at plants in Chengdu and Shenzhen.
Continue reading… “Factory Workers Forced to Pledge Not to Commit Suicide”
Parenting in the age of social media is no easy endeavor.
On the one hand, the web has allowed thousands of parents greater flexibility, either by working in traditional jobs from their home or starting and promoting their own businesses with the help of Facebook and Twitter. No longer needing to “go to work,” parents can be at home and conduct business in their free time, while still being available to their kids.
On the other hand, living “constantly connected” as many of us do can result in less quality time with one’s kids. While parents may physically be in a room, often their attention is elsewhere. In one tragic case, a 13-month old boy died in the bathtub while his mom was distracted playing games on Facebook. While this an extreme case, more parents are continuously pulled away by their ringing phone or the latest posts on Facebook or Twitter, resulting in less attention to their kids.
Continue reading… “4 Lessons for Parents in a Constantly Connected World”
Last week President Obama spoke at Facebook, emphasizing during the townhall that the US needs to be bullish on Science and Math education if we are to pull out of the recession, “We want to start making Science cool. I want people to feel about the next big energy breakthrough and the next big Internet breakthrough the same way they felt about the moonwalk,” he said.
Taking off on that idea, Nancy Conrad, the wife of late astronaut Pete Conrad, has founded the Conrad Foundation in the memory of her husband. Pete Conrad was expelled from one school in the 11th grade because he had dislexia and then went on to graduate from Princeton and walk on the moon because he was taken under the wing of an educator who saw promise in the young man…
Frederick Kaufman’s piece for Foreign Policy examines how the Goldman Sachs Commodity Index (GSCI) is responsible for the increase in food prices.
You know the drill … You open iTunes and there’s a popup that asks you to download a new version. You download the newest version and there’s another popup asking you to agree to Apple’s Terms of Service. But it’s over 55-pages long! You scroll to the bottom and hastily click “Agree,” because what’s the worst that can happen right? Right?
Continue reading… “South Park Scares You Into Reading Apple’s Terms And Conditions”
A handful of venture capital firms and other companies are expected to make News Corp. offers for one of its most disappointing properties:MySpace.
News Corp. declared it was ready to sell MySpace in an earnings call in February. At that time, in spite of significant layoffs and a massive redesign, the company “recorded a $275 million pre-tax charge for the impairment of goodwill related to the Digital Media Group and an organizational restructuring at MySpace…
Continue reading… “MySpace For Sale: The Bidding Begins”
Bloomberg was first to report today that two iPad/iPhone users have filed a class action lawsuit accusing Apple of invasion of privacy and computer fraud, and of “secretly recording movements of iPhone and iPad users.”
What kind of logic prevails when environmental impact statements
on biotech crops are outsourced to the GMO industry itself?
The U.S. is already cultivating 165 million acres of genetically modified crops, up 7 million acres from just two years ago. Modified seeds and large monocultures in general, are monopolizing our nation’s agriculture system like never before and crop after crop are deemed “safe” by the USDA. We’re headed full speed down a dark, winding road and it seems we’re driving blindfolded. And most recently, according to a story on Grist, the USDA is starting a new program which will outsource environmental impact statements on biotech crops to the GMO industry. Obviously, biotech companies are thrilled with the idea…
Continue reading… “USDA Outsources Biotech Crop Evaluation to the GMO Industry”
The effects of noise pollution in the oceans, such as from powerful sonars that can make dolphins go deaf, are still being uncovered by researchers. The latest victims are squids and octopuses (including the ‘cheeky’ ones…), which are affected by low-frequency soundwaves produced by human offshore activities…
Continue reading… “Oceans Noise Pollution Causing Massive Trauma to Squids & Octopuses”
Tajikistan’s Council of Ulema is set to issue a fatwa banning a so-called SMS-divorce, the state religious committee have announced. The move comes amid growing complaints that some Tajik men – working as migrant laborers in Russia – divorce their wives by sending a mobile-phone text message or just making a phone call.
Sunni Islamic traditions allow men to divorce their wives by merely saying “talaq,” an Islamic term for a declaration of divorce. Tajik religious leaders, however, insist that ending a marriage is not such a simple matter…
Continue reading… “Authorities In Tajikistan Plan Ban On Divorce By Text Message”
Last week there were used battleships for sale on e-bay, this week we’ve got used space shuttles. But not going as cheaply as the warships and not being turned into pots and pans either.
NASA has been trying to flog these space shuttles for a while now; they have already been marked down from $42M to $28M. And it looks like they may have finally found a new, earth-bound, home.
Continue reading… “Sold to the Highest Bidder: 3 Used Space Ships”
Scientists from the Institute of Physical and Chemical Research in Japan cultivated embryonic stem cells in a test tube and added proteins to coax them into developing. They had wanted it to form a recognizable organ, but were stunned to find that over 10 days, the stem cells had formed an embryonic eye:
Professor Yoshiki Sasai, lead author said: “What we’ve been able to do in this study is resolve a nearly century-old problem in embryology, by showing that retinal precursors have the inherent ability to give rise to the complex structure of the optic cup.”
Continue reading… “Scientists Created Embryonic Eye in Test Tube”
By delving into the futuring techniques of Futurist Thomas Frey, you’ll embark on an enlightening journey.
Learn More about this exciting program.