The movie box office isn’t doing too well right now, so when you watch the new spate of Christmas films, check to see how many of the characters smoke. Smoking may make you feel sexy, but it doesn’t sell tickets: A new analysis has found that films with scenes that show smoking make less money at the box office than their cigarette-free counterparts.
read more
People are avoiding long lines at the cash register by shopping online this year. A recent survey shows that almost half of all US shoppers say they plan to buy gifts online this holiday season, up from about a third last year. In order to get more Christmas customers into their premises, store managers are trying to make potential shoppers happier while they’re waiting in line.
Meanwhile, the shoppers would like to know the mathematics of shopping efficiency–is it better to stay in the same line or jump to a shorter one? Mathematicians and psychologists are trying to understand how people perceive waiting in line.
read more
There’s more confirmation from CERN (the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva, Switzerland) that the God particle–the Higgs boson–has been glimpsed (NOTE: Subscribers can still listen to this show). The Higgs is a sub-atomic particle that is predicted to exist, but has not yet been seen (until now).
Supposedly it explains how particles interact and is the means by which everything in the universe obtains mass. However, CERN won’t be sure they’ve really seen the Higgs until there is less than a one in a million chance that the data spike they’ve seen is a statistical fluke.
read more
We have a difficult relationship with Mexico and politicians in the Southwest are trying to get elected by using campaign rhetoric that stresses keeping out Mexican immigrants–especially those peddling drugs across the border. While they may be harming us, we are also harming them in a way that the average American has never heard of: We are sending spent batteries that have been turned in for recycling to Mexico, where their lead can be extracted by crude methods that are illegal here. This exposes workers and local residents to dangerous levels of lead.
read more