The eight-hour work day is becoming obsolete, as companies pressure employees for “productivity”—that is, long work days. But employees ‘may pay the ultimate price for overworking, a new British study finds. Researchers followed more than 7,000 healthy, middle-aged U.K. government employees for roughly 12 years and discovered that those who reported clocking 11-hour days had a 67 percent higher risk […]
Read more
Men who average three drinks a day and women who average two face a significantly higher risk for stroke in middle age, a new study has found. The study by Swedish scientists examined drinking habits of more than 11,000 twins over four decades, and found that those they defined as “heavy” drinkers in their 50s and 60s have a 34 […]
Read more
Stare out upon the ocean at sunset and you can almost convince yourself that all is well beneath the surface. Sadly, the exact opposite is very true. Three new studies reveal just how sick the oceans are, as well as just how big a role humans are playing. Let’s begin with climate change: according to a report from NASA and […]
Read more
“Harper Estelle Wolfeld-Gosk has 6,282 Twitter followers,” said Joe Coscarelli in NYMag.com. “She’s 2 weeks old.” The infant daughter of Today show correspondent Jenna Wolfe is just one of thousands of kids who have Twitter accounts that are written in their voices but are “set up, maintained, and authored by parents.” Here’s a sample of little Harper’s tweets: “Pooped AND […]
Read more
Human-like sounds made by a captive beluga whale suggest that cetaceans could learn to mimic our voices, and perhaps even converse with us. Researchers at the National Marine Mammal Foundation first noticed in the 1980s that one of their whales was attempting to copy the speech patterns of his handlers and they began recording his human-like vocalizations. Recently, they analyzed […]
Read more
CAPE LEGOUPIL, ANTARCTICA: From the ground in this extreme northern part of Antarctica, spectacularly white and blinding ice seems to extend forever. What can’t be seen is the battle raging thousands of feet below to re-shape Earth. Water is eating away at the Antarctic ice, melting it where it hits the oceans. As the ice sheets slowly thaw, water pours […]
Read more
Second-generation biofuel made from natural grass species challenges ethanol derived from maize crops as the US seeks to reduce its fossil fuel use. LONDON, January, 2016 – In tomorrow’s world, it won’t be just the corn on the great American plains that is as high as an elephant’s eye. It will be the elephant grass as well. To deliver on […]
Read more
“Colony collapse disorder” the mysterious, decade-long die-off among honeybees, is getting worse. A survey of about 5,000 beekeepers in the U.S. has found that they’ve lost about 42 percent of their colonies over just the past year. Even more alarming is the fact that honeybee deaths spiked in the summer, when bees are usually healthiest. “What we’re seeing with this […]
Read more
Polar bear numbers are expanding The Effects of Global Warming on Polar Bears has been quite significant. “A main Canadian power on polar bears, Mitch Taylor, said: ‘We’re seeing an increment in bears that is truly phenomenal, and in spots where we’re seeing an abatement in the populace it’s from chasing, not from environmental change.’” (Scotsman.com) Polar bears are found […]
Read more
Despite long-running drought, overall food situation appears similar to previous years. North Korea’s spending on imports of cereals decreased again in August, after recovering slightly the previous month, data from Chinese government figures show. Cereals – which include rice imports – decreased along with nearly every other food as classified by trade groups, and continued a downward trend that contrasts […]
Read more