May 2013
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April 2013
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The Youngest Person Executed in the United States
George Junius Stinney Jr. was, at age 14, the youngest person executed in the United States in the 20th century.
Stinney, of Alcolu, South Carolina, was convicted of murdering two young girls after police said he confessed to the murders. But the question of Stinney’s guilt, the validity of his alleged confession and the judicial process leading to his execution has been criticized as a...
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Re-Writing The Hobbit
In the original 1937 edition of “The Hobbit” Gollum was genuinely willing to bet his ring on the riddle game, the deal being that Bilbo would receive a “present” if he won. Gollum in fact was dismayed when he couldn’t keep his promise because the ring was missing. He showed Bilbo the way out as an alternative, and they parted courteously. As the writing of LotR...
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Why is the alphabet in alphabetical order?
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
This may seem like a joke, but it is a fair question. Who prescribed the order of the alphabet?
Unfortunately, it’s not a question that is easy to answer. The ABC order as we know it now has survived more or less intact for upwards of 3,000 years.
The alphabet used in English, and with some variations in most other European languages, comes...
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Why Doing a PhD is Often a Waste of Time
As this year’s new crop of PhD students bounce into their research, few will be willing to accept that the system they are entering could be designed for the benefit of others, that even hard work and brilliance may well not be enough to succeed, and that they would be better off doing something else.
Between 2005 and 2009 America produced more than 100,000 doctoral degrees. In the same...
March 2013
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Scientists Put Working Eyeball On Tadpole's Tail
It’s hard to say what’s crazier: the fact that Tufts University researchers spent a year cutting out the tiny eyeballs of tadpole embryos and sticking them back on to the tadpoles’ tails, or: the fact that, when they hatched, a few of the tadpoles could actually see out of the eyes on their tail.
As you know, this is not the way vision is supposed to work—your eyeballs...
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“Thought leaders often ask me: Aren’t innovation and entrepreneurship like...”
– Jim Clifton, Chairman and CEO of Gallup
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When?
Here are ten interesting words related to particular relationships with time:
1. nudiustertian adj. of the day before yesterday
2. ereyesterday adv. on the day before yesterday
3. yestreen n. yesterday evening
4. yesternoon n. yesterday at noon
5. pridian adj. of or relating to the previous day
6. yestern adj. of yesterday
7. hesternal adj. of yesterday
8. yesternight adv. last night
9....
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The Other Los Angeles: Southwest Gangland
If you are a resident of South Central, a student at USC or a visitor to Exposition Park you are probably aware of the existence of nearby bad neighborhoods. While crime is an issue around the entire USC/Expo Park area, you should be particularly wary when traveling south into an area referred to as Gang Reduction Zone Southwest II.
The 4-square-mile Southwest II has a population of 32,922...
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Where does 'OK' come from?
There is no consensus on the origins of “okay.” Several possibilities exist.
1. English Initials of “oll korrect”
Coined during a fad for comical misspellings and abbreviations. First used in 1839, first documented by Allen Walker Read in 1964, and subsequently widely accepted by dictionaries and etymologists.
2. English Initials of “Old Kinderhook”
Nickname for US President...
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Toronto now fourth-largest city in North America
A Toronto city hall report, released Tuesday, says the city’s population of 2,791,140 has surpassed that of Chicago, which used to hold fourth spot but now has 84,020 less people than Toronto. The top three spots are held by Mexico City (pop. 8.9 million), New York (8.2 million) and Los Angeles (3.8 million).
Except for a brief rise in the 1990s, Chicago’s population has been steadily...
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February 2013
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The Most Hated Company on Earth
There are few companies in history that have attracted as much hate as Missouri based biotechnology firm Monsanto. Despite helping to feed half the planet, the company is a common target of scorn with both environmentalist and those in the agriculture industry. The primary sources of criticism are Monsanto’s efforts to monopolize the global seed market with genetically modified products...
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New York City's Pizza Principle
In 1980, New York patent lawyer Eric Bram correctly predicted that the city’s transit fare would increase. He explained his reasoning to the New York Times: “Since the early ’60s, the price of a slice of pizza has matched, with uncanny precision, the cost of a New York subway ride. Right now, it is impossible for any discerning New Yorker to find a decent slice of pizza for less than 60 cents. The...
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The World's Strangest Prison
San Pedro Prison is the largest prison in La Paz, Bolivia renowned for being a society within itself.
Significantly different from most correctional facilities, inmates at San Pedro have jobs inside the community, buy or rent their accommodation, and often live with their families. The sale of cocaine and other goods to visiting tourists gives those inside a significant income and an unusual...
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Who sold you those Rotten Tomatoes?
Though it is not well publicized, Warner Brothers is now the owner of the film review website Rotten Tomatoes. Does this conflict of interest have any impact on the functioning of the website? Consider this:
Warner Brothers Studios also owns Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy. Right before The Dark Knight Rises was released in July of 2012 RottenTomatoes.com suspended all user comments on the...
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The Penis Is the Central Character of The Big...
Here’s a thought: The Big Lebowski is all about the penis. The dick, the rod, the johnson.
More specifically — and not to get all grad thesis on you — it contemplates the projection of masculinity versus the penis itself. The former, of course, is represented by Jeffrey Lebowski, the Big Lebowski of the film’s title, confined to a wheelchair and obsessed with outward displays of...
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Lorem Ipsum Dolor Sit Amet
In publishing and graphic design, lorem ipsum is placeholder text commonly used to demonstrate the graphics elements of a document or visual presentation by removing the distraction of meaningful content. The lorem ipsum text is typically a section of a Latin text by Cicero with words altered, added and removed that make it nonsensical in meaning and not proper Latin.
The text is derived...
January 2013
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How are Coffee Beans Decaffeinated?
The process is usually performed on unroasted (green) beans, and starts with the steaming or soaking of the beans. They are then rinsed with a solvent that extracts the caffeine while leaving the other essential chemicals in the coffee beans. Coffee contains over 400 chemicals important to the taste and aroma of the final drink: It is, therefore, challenging to remove only caffeine while leaving...
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Human Hands Evolved For Fighting
A new study, by David Carrier at the University of Utah suggests that evolution shaped our hands not for dexterity but to form fists so we could punch other people.
About the same time as we stopped hanging from trees and started walking upright, our hands become short and square, with opposable thumbs. These anatomical changes are thought to have evolved for tool manipulation, but according to...
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“There is an overwhelming consensus on the part of those who study the structure...”
– Brian C. Rathbun, The ‘Magnificent Fraud’: The Hidden Domestic Politics of American Multilateralism
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Half of All Food Wasted, 2 Billion Tons Annually
A new report states that more than 2 billion tons of food is wasted each year. The bulk of this waste is being caused by poor storage, strict sell-by guidelines, bulk offers and consumer finickiness, according to a report by the Institute of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE). The report also found that as much as 550 billion cubic meters of water were being used to grow crops that never made it to...
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“The history of civilization is closely tied with the history of the fence. Human...”
– The Culture of the Fence: Artifacts and Meanings by Christina Kotchemidova 