2012 drought reaches proportions not seen since the ‘Dust Bowl’ era

dust-bowl-farmer

Over 50% of the U.S. is under drought conditions.

More than half of the United States is under drought conditions right now, putting 2012 in the same category with some of the worst droughts in the nation’s history. This makes 2012 the sixth worst drought on record with a 54.6 percent figure (not counting Alaska and Hawaii) in terms of area covered, behind only the brutal droughts of the mid-1950s and the “Dust Bowl” era of the 1930s. Other more recent droughts — such as 2000, 2002, and 1998 — saw a greater percentage of the country suffering from the “severe” or “extreme” drought categories. However, even by that standard, June 2012 still ranks among the top 10 worst droughts of all-time.

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Top 5 fitness trends from the IDEA World Fitness Convention

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Elaine LaLanne and Dr. Pam Peeke keynote speaker, doing pushups during the IDEA Convention.

The IDEA World Fitness Convention got together 6000 fitness professionals from around the world.  For three days they listened to expert lectures, attended workshops, workouts, panels and a trade show.  From this you get the latest in exercise, nutrition and fitness and 5 of the latest fitness trends.

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Most trusted source of info is still traditional media

televisions

TV most trusted source of information.

Digital has caused some traditional media to suffer in terms of consumer time and attention—notably, print and radio—TV still takes up the bulk of US adults’ time with media. And Triton Digital research, a digital service provider for online and traditional radio, shows the medium also garners the most trust from consumers.

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Pinterest traffic beats Google referral, Bing, Twitter and StumbleUpon

pinterest

Pinterest is now beating out Twitter, StumbleUpon, Bing, and Google in referral traffic (not Google organic, of course) according to new data just released by the online sharing service Shareaholic.  The study is based on Shareoholic’s network of over 200,000 publishers, which reaches more than 270 million people monthly.

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Young tablet users more willing to pay for online news

digital news

People who pay for online news are still the minority – but participation may be growing thanks to tablet computers.

According to the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism’s new Digital News Report 2012 those who have paid for digital news ranges from 12 percent in Denmark to four percent in the UK. And only six percent of survey respondents said they would be willing, in future, to pay for news from sources they liked.

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Wireless carriers see double-digit increase in surveillance requests

surveillance

Cell companies have seen double-digit percentage increases in law-enforcement requests for subscriber information for each the past five years.

Cell phone carriers say they received 1.3 million requests last year from law enforcement agencies for subscriber text messages, caller locations, and other information, reflecting a steady increase during the past five years.

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Big push for more scientists in the U.S. but there are too few jobs

scientists

U.S. pushes for more laboratory scientists.

Michelle Amaral planned a traditional academic science career to become a brain scientist to help cure diseases.  She planned on her PhD, university professorship and, eventually, her own lab. But three years after earning a doctorate in neuroscience, she gave up trying to find a permanent job in her field.

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Big retailers luring online shoppers offline

shipping

Walmart began allowing shoppers to order merchandise online and pay for it with cash at a store when they picked it up.

Online shopping has surged. Traditional retailers have lost millions in sales to so-called showrooming.  Showrooming is when shoppers check out products in stores that they then buy from Web sites like Amazon. It has gotten so bad that Best Buy even replaces standard bar codes with special Best Buy-only codes on big ticket items so they cannot be scanned and compared online.

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Automate or perish – has it come to this?

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Robots made by Kiva Systems move product shelves on a warehouse floor.

Author and entrepreneur Christopher Steiner tells the story of stockbroker Thomas Peterffy, the creator of the first automated Wall Street trading system in the new book due next month, Automate This. Using a computer to execute trades, without humans entering them manually on a keyboard, was controversial in 1987—so controversial that Nasdaq pressured him to unplug from its network. Then, with a wink, Peterffy built an automated machine that could tap out the trades on a traditional keyboard—technically obeying Nasdaq rules. Peterffy made $25 million in 1987 and is now a billionaire.

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