I wasn't aware of Switzerland - "Switzerland is one of the few modern nations without a minimum-wage law. In 2003, the Economist magazine reported: 'Switzerland's unemployment neared a five-year high of 3.9% in February.' In February of this year, Switzerland's unemployment rate was 3.1%. A recent issue of the Economist showed Switzerland's unemployment rate as 2.1%. Most Americans today have never seen unemployment rates that low. However, there was a time when there was no federal minimum-wage law in the United States. The last time was during the Coolidge administration, when the annual unemployment rate went as low as 1.8%. When Hong Kong was a British colony, it had no minimum-wage law. In 1991 its unemployment rate was under 2%."
"The next medevac helicopter won't need a pilot" - It was kind of amusing to see IEEE Spectrum publishing an article on automated helicopters for search and rescue just after I'd posted an article suggesting they'd be great for the Canadian Arctic. Even if they're only semi-automated, you could also have have a separate pilot base in a non-Arctic (i.e. lower cost) area which manages a number of almost-entirely-automated bases.
"There is a surprising amount of water bound up in the soil of Mars ... Curiosity researcher Laurie Leshin and colleagues tell Science Magazine that Mars' dusty red covering holds about 2% by weight of water."
"The Bristol University researchers gauged how much time both men and women spent looking at each of the male and female characters in those pictures, as well as what part or parts of the individuals caught the participants’ attention, he said. Women spent 61-percent of their time looking at McCutcheon and Hepburn and only 39-percent focusing on Grant or Peppard, while men spent 53-percent of their time staring at the actresses and 47-percent of their time looking at the actors. Furthermore, men were more likely to focus on the ladies’ faces, while the women’s eyes tended to survey their entire bodies, Adams added."
"The country is so frightened of germs that 64 percent of people who use public bathrooms press the toilet flusher with their feet, according to the company's survey of roughly a thousand Americans. That means if you use your hands to do so, you're in effect stroking the nasty sole of a stranger's shoe. A full 60 percent use paper towels as gloves when opening bathroom doors, whereas 37 percent do that for faucet handles. Nearly half of the people surveyed reported opening and shutting doors with their hips."
"Engineers from Blizzident have invented a new kind of toothbrush that is tailor-made to fit into a person's mouth using 3D scanning and 3D printing. According to the company, By simply biting and grinding, Blizzident automatically cleans all teeth perfectly within six seconds, and you can even floss and clean your tongue at the same time."
"Two very similar species of Amazonian electric fish share a key difference: One uses direct current (DC) and the other alternating current (AC), according to research that formally describes the two species for the first time."
"While earlier studies have argued that [children held back by their parents as a result of being near an age cutoff] do better both socially and academically—citing data on school evaluations, leadership positions, and test scores—more recent analyses suggest that the opposite may well be the case: the youngest kids, who barely make the age cutoff but are enrolled anyway, ultimately end up on top—not their older classmates."
