September 2011
2 posts
Somalia worst for child mortality, U.N. agency...
Somalia now has the world’s highest mortality rate for children under the age of five, according to new data released by the UN Inter-agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation. “Somalia’s child mortality rate in 2010, stood at 180 deaths per 1,000 live births which now ranks worst in the world,” the United Nations Children’s Fund said in a media statement. ...
Obama Tax Plan Would Ask More of Millionaires
Scott Eells/Bloomberg News, left; Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images The investor Warren E. Buffett, left, inspired the name of President Obama’s proposal. By JACKIE CALMES WASHINGTON — President Obama on Monday will call for a new minimum tax rate for individuals making more than $1 million a year to ensure that they pay at least the same percentage of their...
August 2011
6 posts
New drug may treat virtually all viral infections
In a recently published article in the journal PLoS One, researchers at MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory claim to have developed a new drug that has the potential to cure nearly all types of viral infections ranging from the common cold to highly deadly hemorrhagic fevers. The new drug, known as DRACO (double-stranded RNA activated caspase oligomerizer), is able to discriminate between healthy...
1 tag
Overworked America: 12 Charts that Will Make Your...
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Visualizing US expansion through post offices
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1 tag
Are Stocks Cheap Or Expensive Right Now? Maybe...
Another Way Of Looking At The Stock Market Ratio of stock prices to long-term earnings Source: Robert Shiller, irrationalexuberance.com via npr.org Posted via email from stuffkevfinds’s posterous | Comment »
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Dow plunges 635 after S&P downgrade
Click the chart for more market data. NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — Wall Street had its worst day since the 2008 financial crisis, as fearful investors reacted to the United States losing its coveted AAA credit rating. All three major U.S. stock indexes sank between 5% and 7%, pushing the Dow below 11,000 for the first time since last November. 3091 53 Email—> Print U.S....
The Flavor Of Your OJ Is A Chemically-Induced...
There’s a dirty secret in your glass of orange juice. Even though it says “not from concentrate,” it probably sat in a large vat for up to year with all the oxygen was removed from it. This allows it to be preserved and dispensed all year-round. Taking out all the O2 also gets rid of all the flavor. So the juice makers have to add the flavors back in using preformulated recipes...
July 2011
5 posts
1 tag
$14.3 Trillion in Debt Who Borrowed? Who Loaned?
In particular, who racked up $6.1 trillion in debt? For more graphs, see here and here. Update 9:20am 7/29: Reader CoRev excoriates me for using a graphic along FY lines (well a lot of spending is baked in, so Presidents usually are more responsible for the FYs that the NY Times allocated). Well, since we have a set of magical instruments called the Internet, and Excel, we can easily see...
If the World Lived Like New Yorkers, We’d All Fit...
The wonderful density blog Per Square Mile gives us a graphic rendering of how much space the world’s population of 6.9 billion would need if it were as dense as certain cities. If everyone on earth were packed together like Parisians (above, click to enlarge), we’d only need about 128,000 square miles — an area roughly the size of Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi. To live like Singapore we...
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"NOT THOUGHT TO BE SUSPICIOUS"...
One of the first journalists to go on the record and allege phone hacking at News of the World was found dead Monday, the British Press Association said. Sean Hoare, a former News of the World employee who said Andy Coulson “encouraged” phone-hacking, “was discovered at his home in Watford, Hertfordshire, after concerns were raised about his whereabouts,” the press...
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Growth: Recent history
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The rich: Who wants to be a millionaire?
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June 2011
5 posts
Life expectancy by county, sex, and race (US),...
Male Life Expectancy, 2007 View Larger Map via healthmetricsandevaluation.org Posted via email from stuffkevfinds’s posterous | Comment »
Two New Elements Added to Periodic Table
The elements were recognized by an international committee of chemists and physicists. They’re called elements 114 and 116 for now — permanent names and symbols will be chosen later. You’re not likely to run into any of this stuff. Scientists make them in labs by smashing atoms of other elements together to create the new ones. “Our experiments last for many...
What’s Your College Degree Worth?
Ten highest earning majors Here are the ten majors with the highest median annual earnings: Petroleum Engineer ($120,000) Pharmacy/Pharmaceutical Sciences and Administration ($105,000) Math and Computer Science ($98,000) Aerospace Engineering ($87,000) Chemical Engineering ($86,000) Electrical Engineering ($85,000) Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering ($82,000) Mechanical...
How U.S. forces killed Osama bin Laden
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1 tag
Paralyzed man can stand and walk again, thanks to...
via engadget.com a 25-year-old paraplegic is now walking again, thanks to a groundbreaking procedure developed by neuroscientists at the University of Louisville, UCLA and Cal Tech. The Oregon man, Rob Summers, was paralyzed below the chest in 2006, after getting hit by a speeding car. This week, however, doctors announced that Summers can now stand up on his own and remain standing for up to...
May 2011
2 posts
The statehood movement needs a widely visible...
via greatergreaterwashington.org Posted via email from stuffkevfinds’s posterous | Comment »
1 tag
What probably should have been taught in school
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April 2011
8 posts
Economics: Jonathan Levin wins the John Bates...
THE American Economic Association has announced that Jonathan Levin, an economist at Stanford University, has one the prestigious John Bates Clark medal, which is given to the most promising economist under 40. Previous winners include Milton Friedman and Paul Krugman; last year’s winner was Esther Duflo. Here’s the AEA’s introduction of Mr Levin: Jonathan Levin is a leading...
Boston Marathon: Geoffrey Mutai runs fastest...
BOSTON — The rest of the world can debate whether Geoffrey Mutai set a record when he blistered the Boston Marathon course in 2 hours, 3 minutes, 2 seconds — the fastest anyone has ever run 26.2 miles. From Hopkinton to Copley Square, there is no doubt. “We had a stunning performance and an immensely fast time here today,” Tom Grilk, the head of the Boston Athletic...
Slavery - Chart Porn
The trans-atlantic slave trade database has been assembling historic records of slave ship voyages. The stunning fact to me: of the 12 or so million slaves brought to the new world, only about 400,000 came to mainland North America. The database itself can be explored through a system of searches and pivot tables, right down to the names of the ships’ captains. via chartporn.org ...
Snookinomics
Total Publicity Value: $345,835 I’m going to go out on a limb here and bet that a Nobel laureate’s commencement lecture probably does not attract the same amount of coverage — unless that laureate is being written up precisely because she’s earning less than a reality TV star. via economix.blogs.nytimes.com Posted via email from stuffkevfinds’s posterous | Comment »
1 tag
Japanese earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster:...
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The Shutdown And The Deficit
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Unrest in the Middle East
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1 tag
Natural disasters: Counting the cost
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March 2011
1 post
1 tag
Tsunami wave spills over seawall, smashes boats,...
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February 2011
6 posts
1 tag
Madoff: Banks and hedge funds 'had to know' about...
Convicted Ponzi schemer Bernard Madoff, in a jailhouse interview published Wednesday, said banks and hedge funds were “complicit” in his multi-billion dollar fraud. “They had to know,” Madoff told New York Times reporter Diana B. Henriques, who is working on a book about the case. “But the attitude was sort of, ‘If you’re doing something wrong, we...
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A Nine-Planet Solar System Once More? NASA...
Evidence gathered by the NASA space telescope, Wise, could prove that this gas giant is hidden in the outer Oort Cloud, the most remote part of the solar system. The suspected planet has been named Tyche (pronounced ty-kee) by the two astrophysicists proposing it for “planet” status, Daniel Whitmire and John Matese from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. The first batch of...
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How to Keep Your Facebook Secure (by Enabling...
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Hacker’s Arrest Offers Peek Into Russian Criminal...
MOSCOW — On the Internet, he was known as BadB, a disembodied criminal flitting from one server to another selling stolen credit card numbers despite being pursued by the United States Secret Service. And in real life, he was nearly as untouchable — because he lived in Russia. BadB’s real name is Vladislav A. Horohorin, according to a statement released last week by the United...
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Two Suns? Twin Stars Could Be Visible From Earth...
Earth could be getting a second sun, at least temporarily. Dr. Brad Carter, Senior Lecturer of Physics at the University of Southern Queensland, outlined the scenario to news.com.au. Betelgeuse, one of the night sky’s brightest stars, is losing mass, indicating it is collapsing. It could run out of fuel and go super-nova at any time. When that happens, for at least a few weeks,...
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How Egypt Switched Off the Internet: Tech News and...
Instead, the signs are that the Egyptian authorities have taken a very careful and well-planned method to screen off Internet addresses at every level, from users inside the country trying to get out and from the rest of the world trying to get in. “It looks like they’re taking action at two levels,” Rik Ferguson of Trend Micro told me. “First at the DNS level, so any attempt to resolve any...
January 2011
5 posts
1 tag
Arizona enacts funeral protest legislation
Tucson, Arizona (CNN) — Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer signed emergency legislation Tuesday that bars protests within 300 feet of a funeral and within an hour from its beginning or end. Earlier in the day, the state legislature passed the measure, which targets a Kansas church whose members announced they plan to picket the funerals of the victims of Saturday’s shootings in Tucson. ...
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Cocaine vaccine could make drug addiction a...
The first ever vaccine for drug addiction has just been created. By combining a cocaine-like molecule with part of the common cold virus, you get a vaccine that turns the immune system against cocaine, keeping it away from the brain. So far, the vaccine has only been tested on mice, but the results are extraordinary. Mice given the vaccine no longer exhibited any of the hyperactive signs of a...
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2011: A hiring boom, even at 9% unemployment
After three years of economic pain, a growing number of economists think 2011 will finally bring what everyone’s been hoping for: More jobs and a self-sustaining recovery. “We’re looking at some leading indicators on employment, and they’re all flashing green lights,” said Bernard Baumohl of the Economic Outlook Group, a Princeton, N.J. research firm. ...
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Dead Birds Fall From Sky AGAIN In Louisiana, 300...
Around 500 dead birds have fallen from the sky in Louisiana, found scattered along a quarter-mile portion of highway in Point Coupee Parish, the AP reports. The discovery is approximately 300 miles south of Beebe, Arkansas, where just days earlier thousands of the same species of birds also fell from the sky. Initial tests conducted by biologists on the red-winged blackbirds and starlings...
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Woman who cannot feel fear may help in treating...
Lead researcher Justin Feinstein said: “Because she is missing her amygdala, she is also missing the ability to detect and avoid danger in the world. “It is quite remarkable that she is still alive.” Adam Perkins, a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London who specialises in researching the causal basis of anxiety and fear looked...
December 2010
4 posts
1 tag
Just Made the World a Whole Lot Easier - Word Lens...
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U.S. official: Al Qaeda in Yemen bigger threat...
Washington (CNN) — The administration’s top counterterrorism adviser said Friday that the al Qaeda group based in Yemen poses a greater threat to Americans than Osama bin Laden’s group based in Pakistan. John Brennan, assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism, said the Yemen-based group, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, is “increasingly...
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NASA Finds New Life Form | Wired Science
via wired.com “At its conference today, NASA scientist Felisa Wolfe-Simon will announce that NASA has found a bacteria whose DNA is completely alien to what we know today. Instead of using phosphorus, the bacteria uses arsenic. All life on Earth is made of six components: carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and sulfur. Every being, from the smallest amoeba to the largest...
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Tigers threatened by extinction as only 3,000 left
Leaders from the 13 countries where tigers still live in the wild have been meeting in Russia to discuss how to keep the species going. Only around 3,000 of the big cats remain but the aim is to double the number over the next dozen years. Russia’s Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is hosting the meeting with China’s Wen Jiabao and wildlife experts. Steve Rosenberg reports. ...
November 2010
13 posts
1 tag
Smart People Stay Up Late and Sleep Late
via asylum.com “Researchers from the London School of Economics have found that people with high I.Q.s are more likely to be night owls, whereas folks with lower I.Q.s are more likely to wake up early and function their best during the day. Other studies have found a link between “eveningness” and getting good grades in school. However, all is not well with those who burn the...
Man in disguise boards international flight...
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Mining social networks: Untangling the social web
via economist.com “Where is network analysis headed? The next step beyond mapping influence between individuals is to map the influences between larger segments of society. A forecasting model developed by Venkatramana Subrahmanian of the University of Maryland does just that. Called SOMA Terror Organization Portal, it analyses a wide range of information about politics, business and...
Economists are making the case politicians are...
via slate.com “Immigrants will solve our housing crisis. One major reason why housing prices remain in the doldrums and sales remain slack is that there are simply too many houses for sale. The National Association of Realtors reported that in July, there were 3.98 million existing homes on the market, representing a 12.5-month supply at the current pace of sales. That’s an exceptionally...
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Snake Oil? The scientific evidence for health...
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Pakistan Suicide Bombing in Mosque Kills at Least...
via voanews.com Pakistani officials say a suicide bomb has ripped through a mosque in northwest Pakistan, killing at least 50 people and critically wounding more than 80 people. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack. Posted via email from stuffkevfinds’s posterous | Comment »