On the day I was born, the UK’s top single was The One and Only, the break-out song that made British singer Chesney Hawkes a one-hit wonder. That personalized tidbit of data came courtesy of Your Story, a new feature from the BBC.
In the US, there’s generally one word that a large number of non-Indians use to describe most Indian clothes: Sari. But it is just one of the many traditional outfits that are popular among women in South Asia.
E-cigarettes have been controversial since manufacturers started touting them as the solution to smoking—no tobacco, and instead of smoke they produce a vapor that makers claim is much less harmful than traditional cigarettes.
As predicted, US President Barack Obama discussed student privacy, early childcare, and free community college during his State of the Union address (and he left the controversial topic of No Child Left Behind and the future of standardized testing for another time, it seems).
The International Monetary Fund downgraded its projections for global growth (pdf) this month, as well as for a number of countries, individually. One of those countries is China, which is projected to see slowed growth this year and the next. The economy left almost untouched? India, which means it’s on track to surpass China as the fastest-growing large economy, the Wall Street Journal notes.
James Mickens is a Microsoft researcher and an MLK visiting professor at MIT. Yesterday (Jan. 19) he took to Reddit for an “Ask me Anything” session focused on his experience as an African American computer scientist. In an interview with Quartz after the AMA, Mickens said the overarching theme to his advice is to “be intentional.” Figure out what it is you want professionally, and act with the purpose to achieve that goal. That advice is even more important for people from underrepresented communities in the field, because they have less benefit of the doubt and fewer connections to start with, Mickens tells Quartz. Here’s his advice on how to get ahead in computer science:
There are two education topics that US president Barack Obama will definitely talk about during his State of the Union speech—increasing online privacy measures for schoolchildren, and providing free community college for all Americans.
Elon Musk may be a tech guru, but it turns out he’s just as scared of robots taking over the world as anyone else who grew up watching Terminator movies. So the CEO of Tesla Motors and SpaceX announced yesterday that he is giving $10 million to fund research that ensures artificial intelligence will be used for good, not evil.
Reports of the death of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) may have been greatly exaggerated, but predictions of a pivot toward MOOCs that are more vocational in nature (as opposed to a pathway to a liberal arts degree) appear to have been right on target.
The cartoon starts with a smiley-faced penis, tap dancing its way to the front of the screen. Soon he’s joined by friends—one has a top hat, one has a moustache, pants float by in the background. Then vaginas bop their way across, all big eyes, eyelashes, and in one case, a cane and glasses—because old ladies have vaginas, too.
The Harvard name goes a long way for students who earn the privilege of calling it their alma mater. It’s no wonder, then, that the school attracts a healthy alumni following.
If you want your baby to remember a lesson, teach them right before a nap.
British chocoholics have not been happy since the American company Kraft bought Cadbury in 2010. They’ve expressed displeasure with a variety of offenses, including a factory shutdown, the new shape of the brand’s iconic Dairy Milk chocolate bars, and a decision by Mondelez (the candy business that Kraft spun off in 2012 and left in charge of the Cadbury brand) to quit giving Christmas gifts to Cadbury pensioners.
The Hollywood Foreign Press has made diversity big news this year.
There are a lot more talented white men than any other demographic group, if Forbes’ annual 30 Under 30 lists are to be believed. The lists aim to identify “young disruptors, innovators and entrepreneurs who are transforming our world,” according to a Forbes press release. This year there were 20 lists covering a wide range of industries including entertainment, sports, music, science, healthcare, and technology.
This article has been updated.
If President Barack Obama has his way, about 9 million Americans will be getting associates degrees for free each year. He announced the proposed initiative on Jan. 8 (via a video shot on Air Force One).
If it felt like more people around you were getting sick last month, that’s because they were.
As hard as it is for the northern hemisphere to grin and bear the subzero temperatures this time of year, the season might be harder still for the southern hemisphere, where extreme heat can melt the internet.
In US households that earn $100,000 or more per year, 64% of children age three or four attend preschool. In US households making less than $50,000, only 40% of kids are getting education before kindergarten. That’s a 24 percentage-point difference.
If your New Year’s resolution is to eat healthier, don’t turn to raw food or a Paleo menu in 2015. Those were two of the least effective regimes in US News & World Report’s ranking of 2015 diets.
The myth that cold weather can give you a cold is not, as it turns out, a myth. Researchers at Yale found that cold temperature causes the most common cold virus to replicate more easily and quickly in a mouse’s nasal cavity than at normal body temperatures, according to a recent study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Zim Ugochukwu started the website Travel Noire in September of 2013, to show that even though the travel industry wasn’t catering or marketing to them, there were plenty of young black professionals traveling the world. She had just spent a year in India, working and traveling throughout Southeast Asia, discovering the pleasures of solo travel.
In 2015, minimum wage workers in 23 states and Washington, DC. will see bumps to their paychecks, to varying degrees.
