Category: Current Events

The New York Times has an interesting article which theorizes on how and why humans lost their fur. The article covers how dark skin evolved: Three years ago Dr. Rosalind Harding of Oxford University and others made a worldwide study of the MC1R gene by extracting it from blood samples and analyzing the sequence of… Continue reading Why Humans Have No Fur

There’s some good blackout coverage at Gothamist (with pictures) and the Blackout MoBlog (even more pictures). I especially like the ‘Dancing in the Dark in Union Square’ pic at Gothamist… reminds me of the Zion scene in the Matrix Reloaded. Update: Here’s a nice collection of pictures by John Wehr, including pics of a ‘bongo… Continue reading NYC Blackout Coverage

Follow-up to the man-made diamonds story: For the few that haven’t seen this already — Anil Dash just highlighted his excellent diatribe on the diamond industry and the diamond ring culture. (And I thought Anil was only passionate about blogging & technology) It’s definitely worth a read, and there’s a good discussion in that post’s… Continue reading Anil on Diamonds

Prometheus 6 highlighted this Gallup poll on people’s views on the Kobe Bryant sexual assault case. He represents my views on the poll very well when he says he’s not surprised by: USA Today and CNN found it necessary to hire Gallup to do a poll on people’s opinion on a certain basketball player’s legal… Continue reading Why the News Media Sucks (More on Kobe & Race)

Time Asia has a very interesting article about the surge in plastic surgery in Asia. One of the more interesting aspects of all this surgery is that people are trying to look more Caucasian: The culturally loaded issue today is the number of Asians looking to remake themselves to look more Caucasian. It’s a charge… Continue reading Plastic Surgery Boom in Asia

According to CNBC — Warren Buffett will serve as Arnold Schwarzenegger’s senior financial and economic advisor. I’ll put up a link as soon as I find one. Update: Here we go — Ah-nold teams up with Buffett

The New York Post has an article about the obesity rate in New York City. It says that 1 out of 6 (17%) New Yorkers is obese and half are overweight. But New York’s obesity rate is less than that national average of 21%. Amazing numbers which I’m sure will only get worse with today’s… Continue reading American Obesity Running Wild

Here’s an interesting article about the issues Greece is having in preparing for the 2004 Olympics.

The Weekly Standard has an interesting article about the practices of dictionary publishers. Not that I’ve ever been mistaken for ‘Mr. Vocabulary’, but there are some things in this article that have bothered me for years. And the more blogs & online forums I read the more these things bother me. Here are some of… Continue reading The Decline of the Dictionary

Coffee and soda drinkers may want to take heed of this report on oral health concerns of common beverages, and the health benefits of white tea. It appears that white tea, which is minimally processed, has many health benefits: