The Five-Second Rule disproved
When you drop food on the floor, it's generally OK to pick it up and eat it, according to this article from ScienceDaily. You knew this already, considering how you act when no one is watching!
Al Jazeera English “for real news”?
Where do you turn if you really want to know what’s going on in Burma?
Harry Shearer compares the Al Jazeera English coverage to domestic news services and finds that Al Jazeera wins hands down. CNN’s domestic feed is pathetic, while CNN has been working hard to make its international feed unavailable to those in the U.S.
How bad is domestic coverage of international news:
Once you watch BBC, CNNI, AJE–any of services we’ve been talking about today–and then venture back to the domestic swill, you realize the difference: the international channels are, despite their faults and differences, talking to grownups, the domestic channels are talking either to somewhat bright or somewhat dim children.
The comments fleshed out Shearer’s short post:
…Whenever something significant happens in the world – I either go to CBC or to a lesser extent the BBC for a real news account. The American counterpart is 1% news and 99% hot gas telling us how we should feel about it.
Somewhere along the line – people like Rupert Murdoch, Michael Eisner, and Sumner Rothstein decided that news was supposed to make money and pacify a nation of imbeciles – not inform the citizens of a self-governed nation. . . . And with names like those above – is it any wonder that the American public has been fed 35 years of anti-arab bias? I think back to my childhood watching cartoons – and even in the Bugs Bunny cartoons, the arab is always portrayed as an
A billion here, a billion there
This week, President Bush has said he will veto the proposed funding bill for child healthcare, known as "S-CHIP" legislation. He claims the bill, which could cost as much as $50 billion (above the current baseline) over the next five years, is too expensive. Meanwhile, despite overwhelming public opposition, Bush is also calling for…
The advantages of covering one’s roof with plants.
It's the concept of greenroofing, and it's explained in great detail at Greenroofs.com. Basically, greenroofs are vegetated roof covers, with growing media and plants taking the place of bare membrane, gravel ballast, shingles or tiles. The number of layers and the layer placement vary from system to system and greenroof…
Why aren’t more women becoming scientists?
Here's a 3-part series from Cognitive Daily updating the research. The bottom line? It's possible that there are some subtle cognitive differences between men and women, but it's not clear, but its's not clear that these really account for the differences. There do appear to be missed opportunities for encouraging…