New potential (logical?) use of social media: spotting disease/illness trends ahead of time

From here: “The big advantage of social media is you can get a lot more data, and you can get it more quickly and more economically,” said Henry Niman, a biomedical researcher and president of Pittsburgh-based Recombinomics Inc., which analyzes… Continue Reading

Urban sprawl and politics: Republicans tend to live in sprawling metros, and Democrats tend to live in compact ones

Here’s a new report (PDF) from Smart Growth America on the portions of America with the largest (and smallest) amount of sprawl. I’ll break it down for you quickly. The three parts of America with the most sprawl are: 1. Hickory/Lenoir/Morganton (NC) 2.… Continue Reading

What are the biggest differences between what the rich and poor spend money on? (And what can that teach us?)

I saw this article the other day and I was interested; here’s why. I grew up in the 10128 zip code — one of America’s richest — then ended up teaching elementary school in 77013 — one of America’s poorest.… Continue Reading

156 of 383 major U.S. metro areas saw their population grow faster than the national average from 2010 to 2013. No. 1? Austin, Texas.

It’s always interesting to see what areas of America are growing faster than others — it ties back to where jobs are, where quality of life is perceived to be highest, and where the ideas of the city about attracting… Continue Reading

If we can extend the length of human telomeres, can we basically end the era of humans dying?

That’s a trailer for a movie that was accepted into South x Southwest this year called The Immortalists. You can read more about it here, but essentially the film follows two guys — not exactly or really scientists, per se —… Continue Reading

30 percent of couples still meet through friends, and 15 percent of people may never get married

Because How I Met Your Mother is ending tomorrow night, The Wall Street Journal decided to do a story about how people actually met your mother (i.e. their significant other), and it turns out that 30 percent of people still meet their S.O. through friends. (I’m in… Continue Reading

Is there a racist undertone to attitudes about the death penalty in the United States?

There has long been discussion about how the death penalty in America is quite possibly racist, and there’s even been discussion about how there might be a gender bias (only 14 women have been executed since 1976). There’s an element… Continue Reading

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You spend probably 1/3 of your day at work, if not more. But there’s no science around how to make work great. Can Google change that?

The Framingham Heart Study, detailed a bit in the video above and also here, began monitoring 5,000 people in the late 1940s and continues to this day; the super-longitudinal nature of the study allows for broader observations about health, heart… Continue Reading