1. Oppulent homes of the 99. Some of those OWS protesters seem to be pretty well off for people who claim to be protesting against the wealth of the people at the top. 2. The EU has prohibited the use of airport body scanners that use x-rays. In related news, the Transportation Security Administration in the United States has failed to follow through on its promise to conduct safety studies on the x-ray machines currently being used in many US…
Over at GNXP, Razib Khan points out the errors1 some media commentators have made when they’ve claimed that if Mitt Romney wins the 2012 presidential election, he would be the first non-Christian president in the United States, or at least the first president outside of “orthodox” Christianity.2 3 Razib points out that this is simply not true – we have had non-Christian presidents before, and cites President Taft (a Unitarian) as an example. Well, as it turns out, we have…
1. The hundred year starship project. A new DARPA initiative to explore what it would take to develop interstellar travel over the next hundred years. 2. The genetics of happiness. Recent research suggests that about one-third of the variation in people’s happiness levels is heritable. The gene which seems to account for increased happiness was found least often among those of Asian ancestry and most often among those of African ancestry, with Europeans falling in the middle. 3. More jobs…