An apple a day keeps the doctor away.
A study has found that women on an ‘apple diet’ saw their cholesterol drop by almost a quarter in six months. Another added benefit is they also lost weight.
11 Worst Airlines in America
American Eagle had the worst Airline Quality Rating score of all the airlines rated.
Airlines are getting better in America. But that may be hard for the bedraggled frequent fliers among us to believe. The overall quality of air travel has shown improvement over the last year according to an annual assessment of U.S. airlines.
10% Increase in Computer Science Enrollments
There is a jump in the number of computer science enrollments.
Computer science enrollments have increased for the third year. This ends the decline in enrollments that followed the bursting of the dot-com bubble in 2000-2001. But it could be years before enrollments reach the high of the dot-com booms.
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Growing Concerns Over Problems with the Indian Trade Mark Office
Over 44,000 trade mark files have gone missing in India.
Justice Muralidhar of the Delhi High Court on April 7 asked the government to reform the Trade Mark Office. This was after an investigation revealed that the office had lost 44,404 trade mark registrations without even realizing.
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The Day of the Drone is Upon Us
Futurist Thomas Frey: Sometime over the coming months you can expect to see a version of the following help wanted ad:
“Help Wanted: Full-time aerial drone drivers needed to help manager our growing fleet of surveillance, delivery, and communication drones. We are also looking for drone repair techs, drone dispatchers, and drone salesmen.”
Authorities In Tajikistan Plan Ban On Divorce By Text Message
Convenient but soon to be banned.
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…
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Sold to the Highest Bidder: 3 Used Space Ships
Blasting off to the highest bidder.
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.
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Scientists Created Embryonic Eye in Test Tube
Eye see you!
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.”
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Meet Pluto-kun, the World’s Cutest Plutonium Mascot
Heeeeeeerrrre’s Pluto-kun!
Pink Tentacle has a post about Pluto-kun, created by Japan’s Power Reactor and Nuclear Fuel Development Corporation in the 1990s. The helium-voiced fellow stars in a “pro-nuclear PR cartoon entitled ‘Pluto-kun, Our Reliable Friend.’ The aim of the animated film, which features the company mascot Pluto-kun, is to dispel some of the fears surrounding plutonium.”
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Creating Holes in the Fabric of the Future
Futurist Thomas Frey: I often get asked the question, “How do you become a futurist?”
When I get this question, I know that the person asking is secretly thinking that being a futurist is one of the coolest professions of all times, which it is. And they want some concrete process for becoming a futurist, which there isn’t one.
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200 Million Chinese Workers in Danger of Occupational Disease
Health officer talks to factory workers.
The biggest danger to Chinese workers is not workplace accidents, but occupational disease. There are potentially 200 million workers in China that are under the threat of contracting an occupational disease according to a senior trade union official.
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We’re In a Higher Education Bubble According to Peter Thiel
The bubble that has taken the place of housing is the higher education bubble.
Peter Thiel, PayPal co-founder, hedge fund manager and venture capitalist has a special talent for making money. He also has a talent for making people mad.