The annual billionaire issue of Forbes magazine, published earlier this week, has a bit of everything. You can thumb these pages, in print or online, and find out how much billionaires pay for opera tickets in Moscow ($1,300 for a box at the Bolshoi) or a haircut in Los Angeles ($750 at the Frédéric Fekkai Salon). You can learn, from the new Forbes, the trick to pricing mansions or identify all the world’s billionaire bachelors. You can even figure out whether you’re born to be a billionaire yourself. You simply need, says Forbes, guts, optimism, an insatiable need to win - and a ‘divine-like vision to see around corners. Forbes coverYes, the new Forbes billionaire issue does have everything. Except maybe perspective. The editors at Forbes might quibble about that. They do, after all, take great pains in this new special issue to compare and contrast their raw numbers. We can learn from Forbes, for instance, that billionaires are multiplying much faster outside the United States than in. Russian billionaires have nearly doubled their numbers since last year, from 32 to 62. In Turkey, the billionaire tally has jumped from 12 to 28. In China, an […]
The vote was 11 to 4, with 10 Republicans and one Democrat voting for the curriculum, and four Democrats voting against. The board, whose members are elected, has influence beyond Texas because the state is one of the largest purchasers of textbooks. In the digital age, however, that influence has been diminished as technological advances have made it possible for publishers to tailor books to individual states. In recent years, board members have been locked in an ideological battle between a bloc of conservatives who question Darwin’s theory of evolution and believe the Founding Fathers were guided by Christian principles and a handful of Democrats and moderate Republicans who have fought to preserve the teaching of Darwinism and the separation of church and state. Since January, Republicans on the board have passed more than 160 amendments to the 120-page curriculum standards affecting history, sociology and economics courses from elementary to high school. The standards were proposed by a board of teachers. Efforts by Hispanic board members to include more Latino figures as role models for the state’s large Hispanic population were consistently defeated, prompting one member, Mary Helen Berlanga, to storm out of a meeting late […]
HADDONFIELD, N.J. — An American seized in Yemen in a sweep of suspected al-Qaida members had been a laborer at six U.S. nuclear power plants, and authorities are investigating whether he had access to sensitive information or materials that would be useful to terrorists. Sharif Mobley, 26, worked for contractors at plants in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Maryland from 2002 to 2008, mostly hauling materials and setting up scaffolding, plant officials said. Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokesman Neil Sheehan said Friday that investigations are under way into which areas Mobley entered. But he noted that areas containing nuclear fuel are tightly controlled, and that a laborer typically would not have access to security information or other sensitive matters. The plants are also checking areas where Mobley worked to ensure everything is in order, said NRC spokeswoman Diane Screnci. Mobley, a U.S. citizen of Somali descent, has not been linked to any wrongdoing at any of the plants. And officials said nothing he did when he worked there aroused any suspicion. Officials said Mobley passed the necessary screenings, which include criminal background checks, drug testing, psychological assessments and identity verification. Nevertheless, Edwin Lyman of the […]
Americans are increasingly less worried about global warming and less convinced its effects are already happening, according to an annual Gallup survey released Thursday. Nearly half, 48%, now believe its seriousness is exaggerated, up from 41% in 2009 and 31% in 1997, when Gallup first asked the question, according to the Gallup Social Series Environment poll of 1.014 adults taken March 4-7. Nearly half, or 48%, of U.S. adults now believe the threat of global warming is exaggerated. The poll also finds a sharp turnaround in views about what’s causing the rise in global temperatures. Half, or 50%, now agree with most climate scientists that human activities are the cause, down from 61% in 2003. Half of U.S. adults now agree with most climate scientsts that human activities are the cause of rising global temperatures, down from 61% in 2003, according to a Gallup poll released Thursday. ‘The survey results show that the reversal in Americans’ concerns about global warming that began last year has continued in 2010 — in some cases reverting to the levels recorded when Gallup began tracking global warming measures more than a decade ago,’ Gallup says. The […]
WASHINGTON — US researchers have decoded the entire genome of patients to identify the root cause of their diseases paving the way towards individual genomic treatments, according to newly published studies. James Lupski of Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, sequenced his own genome to locate the gene responsible for the rare neurological disorder he suffers from, Charcot-Marie-Tooth syndrome. Although not life threatening, the disorder affects nerve function in the body’s limbs, hands and feet, leading to trouble walking and frequently to deformation of the feet. ‘This is the first time we have tried to identify a disease gene this way,’ Lupski, vice chair of molecular and human genetics at Baylor College of Medicine. ‘It demonstrates that the technology is robust enough that we can find disease genes by determining the whole genome sequence,’ he said. He said the technology can now be used ‘to interpret the clinical information in the context of the sequence of the hand of cards you have been dealt. Isn’t that the goal or dream of personalized genomic medicine?’ Lupski’s research, published online Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine, identified several inherited mutations in copies of […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
