Rotundus.com

Poll Shows Budget-Cuts Dilemma

"Less than a quarter of Americans support making significant cuts to Social Security or Medicare to tackle the country's mounting deficit ... Even tea party supporters, by a nearly 2-to-1 margin, declared significant cuts to Social Security 'unacceptable.'" Raising the retirement age is something that attracted a fair bit of support, but are they raising it high enough? (The original German example set it to the age at which 95% of the population had died.

Wall Street Bets on Debt That Doesn't Exist

"Fresh from Wall Street's alchemy labs: Credit derivatives tied to General Motors Co. debt. The rub is, no such debt exists." - perhaps this is related to the $4.6 billion they're planning to pay off this year? Otherwise a "promising" sign for a return by bankers to a sane state.

Debunking the myth of specialized running shoes

"For Dr. Nigg, the realization came gradually. While study after study showed that shoes could manipulate impact forces, no one could produce any evidence linking these forces to injury rates." Seems there's a lot of options left to sell shoes, but they may be on the basis of looks or degree of comfort rather than safety. (Or you could opt for uncomfortable, unsafe shoes... like high-heels. I've never quite figured out how men are supposed to be attracted to women wearing such footwear - it seems to me to be the equivalent of foot binding).

Google cooks up recipe search feature

I don't see this in my Google search results at the moment, even if I try searching for a recipe. Perhaps the rollout is currently US-only. Sounds like it might be useful, although even without such a thing Google still is a decent place to find recipes.

ScienceAGoGo had an article posted entitled Women Drivers Crash More Than Men which was kind of interesting. On one hand

As reported in the June issue of Epidemiology, American women were involved in 5.7 crashes per million miles driven. Men, on the other hand, clocked up just 5.1 crashes per million miles. Given the fact that men drive an estimated 74 per cent more miles per year than women, the figure is surprising indeed.

On the other hand men are three times as likely to die when they crash. Which is worse?

Some of the above statistics might also be accounted for by a higher percentage of professional drivers amongst men who, with more experience, seem less likely to crash while racking up a lot of mileage. Running up against the clock (i.e. potentially falling asleep) and driving larger vehicles might also account for higher-damage collisions.

Another thing to note is that there's also a fairly significant age dependency in these figures - teenage boys do indeed crash more than teenage girls, but older women crash more often than older men.

Darpa’s Cheetah-Bot Designed to Chase Human Prey

Seems like something out of a Terminator movie.

Middle school student suspended for opening door

Must be a candidate for the most wanted list. The student in this case "opened the door for a woman he knew, who had her hands full" rather than following the school's security system restrictions.

Parents Are Taking the Fun Out of Toys

"Why do classic playthings need to be promoted as occupational therapy meets intensive tutoring? That's what I asked Susan Linn, author of 'The Case for Make Believe.' 'Because otherwise, no one would buy them'"

The 30 Healthiest Foods

Stuff to eat: most of which looks actually fairly delicious.

... our democracy might work a bit better if we recognized that all of us possess values that are worthy of respect: if liverals at least acknowledged that the recreational hunter feels the same way about his gun as they feel about their library books, and if conservatives recognized that most women feel as protective of their right to reproductive freedom as evangelicals do of their right to worship.

- Barack Obama, The Audacity of Hope, p. 70

Given that the majority of US women seem to want tighter restrictions on abortion, I guess the logical corrolary here is that evangelicals want their religious freedom more restricted.