Amercia’s prison population rate is among the highest in the World. There are several reasons for this including draconian drug laws and mandatory sentencing. But in one state, Louisiana, the prison population is high due to economic factors. Private for-profit prisons, often run by the local sheriff, have an incentive to keep the population high and the cells full. Bonus: link to infographics in the article!
Stephen Greenblatt’s book, “The Swerve: How the World became Modern” has won the Pulitzer Prize. The book recounts the story of a Renaissance era discovery of an ancient poem, translated as “On the Nature of Things,” that denies the existence of the Greek gods and intimates the world was made of small energy particles. It is believed this work had influence on such world-class thinkers as Galileo, Freud, Darwin and Jefferson.
A mashup of Adele’s Set Fire to the Rain and Baltimora’s Tarzan Boy by The Reborn Identity
A “ring of fire” solar eclipse will be visible
along the East coast of North America as well as parts of Asia on Sunday. Do not look directly at the sun!
The current issue of mental_floss
has stories on black days of the week other than Friday, pleonasms (more words than necessary; redundant), and islands that are uninhabited (typically for good reason). And what you should know about the Swiss Army Knife.
A mathematical model, created by Carson Chow for the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, provides the means to determine caloric intake according to specific conditions. You enter your vital statistics into the model, determine the weight you’d like to be after so many days and viola! Note that it takes time for your body to adjust to its new weight and regime. However, the claim is that if you can reduce your daily caloric intake by, say 100 calories, you’ll lose an average of ten pounds over a three-year period. (via gizmodo)
In another mashup of augmented reality and the real world, Ogmento, a game company, has demonstrated a system for Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) that gives the game ability to draw a tank in real time and space without any prior preparation and discover surfaces therein which can then be targeted.
Quantum tunneling is when particles leave a system even though they may appear to be trapped within it. Preciously measuring this departure has uses in physics. The wavefunction is the probability that what we see during measurements is accurate. It confines the particle, yet may be weak enough at certain points to allow the particle to tunnel out of the atom, ionizing it. The value of the quantum wavefuntion at any point is space is a complex number including the imaginary part!. Yet it can be modeled that real results can be obtained using these imaginary numbers. More detail in the arstechnia article
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Teachers from Abby Kelly Foster High School in Massachusetts prank their students with fake interviews while teachers dance, unseen by the student, in the background. Good fun was had by all! Mike Penny was the main instigator, who then set the video to background music by Whitney Houston. (via gawker)
