Remarkable stories from the web in a new, easier format.
What’s it like to grow up in a world where no-one has brothers or sisters? Are siblings really that important? Researchers have been asking those questions for years – and China, with its famous one-child policy, has been a good place to look for an answer.
BBC News – No siblings: A side-effect of China’s one-child policy
Today, junk food consumption is a much bigger problem than smoking ever was. It is a leading contributor to many chronic diseases… including obesity, type 2 diabetes, metabolic syndrome, Alzheimer’s and heart disease. The cost of chronic diseases, most of which are preventable and unknown in non-industrial cultures, now amounts to over 75% of health care expenditures (1).
Junk Food Companies Are Targeting Kids, And It’s Why We’re All Getting Fatter – Business Insider
However, that really is not a cause for concern. The whole saturated fat, cholesterol and heart disease myth has been thoroughly debunked (2, 3, 4).
Grass-fed Butter is a Superfood For The Heart
Health policy researchers are starting to describe something that they call a “November surge”: After anemic enrollment in October, states have seen a much faster pace of sign-ups in November.
There’s a ‘November surge’ in Obamacare enrollments
On Nov. 22, 1963, Zapruder, the co-owner of a women’s clothing company, created one of history’s most famous, and expensive, pieces of film, and forever linked his name with a great national tragedy.
As he filmed, Abraham Zapruder knew instantly that President Kennedy was dead – The Washington Post
Ferenc Puskas, the captain of the Hungarian side, was short and overweight, more resembling a barrel of sweet Hungarian Tokaji wine than a footballer. He did not know how to head and he never used his right foot. Apart from that he was brilliant.
BBC News – England v Hungary – a football match that started a revolution
Two hundred years ago, no-one knew aluminium existed. Today it is everywhere – in cans, window frames, packaging, even car bodies. New uses for it are constantly being discovered – but it’s possible that one day we’ll be able to stop mining the ore, and rely completely on recycling.
BBC News – Aluminium: The metal that just keeps on giving
“Solar power is philosophically consistent with the Republican Party,” Rose added. “If you’re going to be for healthcare choice and school choice, how can you not be for energy choice? Conservatives, overwhelmingly, get that. If the Republican Party stops standing for the empowerment of the individual, what does it stand for?”
Solar Power Fight Raging in GOP | New Republic
A seed is an information file that tells the soil around it to self-organise into a tree.
Viral video philosopher Jason Silva: “We’re going to cure aging” | New Republic
a pile-up of big bank abuses have eroded Wall Street’s reputation in Washington. Most importantly, a new report detailing the extraordinary largesse granted banks during the financial crisis, and questioning whether Dodd-Frank would prevent a rerun, could set off a fresh spark.
Elizabeth Warren and the GAO Will Soon Reignite Financial Reform | New Republic
This just might be my favorite chart about health care costs as of late. And it’s one that contains billions of dollars’ worth of good news!
This chart is amazing news for our health cost problem
Ours has been the only health care system in the world designed to avoid sick people. For-profit insurers have spent billions finding and marketing their policies to healthy people — young adults, people at low risk of expensive diseases, groups of professionals — while rejecting people with preexisting conditions
What would it be like to live in a village that you can only get around by water or on foot? That is the reality for the residents of Giethoorn in the Netherlands. While roads have been built on the outskirts, the old part of the village is only accessible by water.
BBC News – Close-up: The Dutch village with no roads
