The negative effects of air pollution may have some unexpected consequences.
The effects of air pollution on the human body has turned up a grim laundry-list of associated ills in study after study. Air pollution increases the risk of stroke, heart attack, and lung disease. And now, according to the latest research, it may actually be doing harm to our brains as well, ultimately leading to learning problems and even depression.
Some workers are being asked to work 50 hours or more, while others face night and weekend hours.
Is the 9-to-5 work week coming to an end? Higher income employees feel the pressure to work 50 or more hours per week while lower income employees are being forced to work less hours.
Scientists found a host of chemicals used to treat illnesses in animals and people in samples of cow, goat and human breast milk.
A cocktail of up to 20 painkillers, antibiotics and growth hormones, can be found in a glass of milk, scientists have shown.
Continue reading… “Glass of milk can contain a cocktail of up to 20 chemicals”
Misissippi has an adult obesity rate of 34.4 percent.
Sixteen states in the past year have seen obesity rates rise. According to a new report released Thursday, the obesity rate in a dozen states has risen above 30 percent.
Continue reading… “Mississippi tops list of fattest state in the U.S., Colorado least obese”
Pocket Penguins app will keep you up to date on penguins any time.
If you love penguins, this app is perfect for you. California Academy of Sciences has a highly popular African penguin exhibit, and now they’ve added cameras to it so that even if you can’t visit CAS, you can watch the penguins all day, any day, even from an underwater vantage point which I’m sure is amazing during feeding time.
Continue reading… “Free “Pocket Penguins” app offers live views of endangered penguins 24/7″
Catra can diagnose cataracts on your smartphone.
Researchers at MIT’s Media Lab have created a smartphone attachment called Catra that can diagnose cataracts in a matter of minutes. The screening tool is currently being tested on subjects.
Catra clips on to devices such as phones and iPods, and scans the lens of the eye to create a map of the position, size, shape and density of cataracts. “I like to think of this as a radar for the human eye,” says Ramesh Raskar, director of the MIT Media Lab’s Camera Culture group…
Continue reading… “Smartphone attachment diagnoses cataracts”
REALLY close up of a vinyl groove.
I’ve recently picked up several old vinyl LPs at thrift stores and garage sales. My musical taste is very eclectic, but these discs have one big thing in common: they’re all filthy. Similarly, we have dozens of kids DVDs and CDs in our house coated in toddler goo that would almost certainly beat the adhesive that holds the tiles on the space shuttle. This weekend, I plan to brew up a cauldron of the cleaning solution used by the master preservationists at the Library of Congress. Or maybe I’ll just go with Ivory dish soap, warm water, and an old t-shirt. Anyway, here’s the LoC’s recipe..
Miami appears on the list of many foreign real estate buyers.
Home sales in U.S. vacation hot spots decimated by the real estate crash, especially in southern Florida, are being lifted by foreign buyers.
Continue reading… “Foreign buyers helping U.S. housing market”
Some schools are already using textbooks displayed on notebook computers.
All of South Korea’s elementary-level educational materials will be digitized by 2014. And by 2015, the entire school-age curriculum will be delivered on an array of computers, smart phones and tablets. South Korea’s education ministry is yet to announce the make or model of the devices it will purchase, it has revealed it will spend $2.4 billion buying the requisite tablets and digitizing material for them.
Continue reading… “By 2015 all textbooks in South Korea will go digital”
Wal-Mart is trying to sock Amazon with a tax increase instead of competing with them fairly.
Wal-Mart is secretly backing a group that is lobbying to try to get states from California to Illinois to collect sales tax from Amazon on its affiliate sales.
Continue reading… “Group fighting Amazon to pay more taxes backed by Wal-Mart”
2D/3D Chairs
When you peek inside the windows of the Issey Miyake store in Tokyo, and you’ll think you’re looking at a room full of blue chairs. But that’s where you’d be wrong! The white floor only has blue chair backs popping out of the floor, the rest of the chair, the seats and legs, have been painted on the ground! (Pics)
Sleep suit
The urban sleep suit was designed by Forrest Jessee for the bustling non-stop lifestyle of contemporary cosmopolitans. The urban sleep suit is a take-anywhere, nap-anytime ensemble made to be slept in on the spot. Buckminster Fuller could have really used one of these outfits. Did you know he was a proponent of polyphasic sleep, taking just four thirty-minute naps a day for nearly two years? (Pics)