200,000 jobs were added in December, pushing the unemployment rate, down to 8.5 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today.
Job gains occurred in transportation and warehousing, retail trade, manufacturing, health care, and mining.
The jobless rate continued its downward trend declining by 0.6 percent since August, as 100,000 jobs or more were added in each of the last six months. That hasn’t happened since April 2006, according to the Associated Press.
Schools are being encouraged by the UK’s top scientific body to bring cutting edge science into the classroom.
Projects, funded by the Royal Society, include a bioreactor being built by secondary pupils in Cornwall to test the viability of getting fuel from marine algae and a particle accelerator being built by a team of Nottingham teenagers.
The Royal Society offered £45,000 in grants to bring science alive.
Cancer death rates are continuing to fall, dropping by 1.8 percent per year in men and 1.6 percent per year in women, according to the American Cancer Society’s annual report on cancer statistics released on Wednesday.
The drop is significant, even though it is small, because it has continued falling each year for the past 10 years.
Advances in cancer screening and treatment have prevented more than a million total deaths from cancer since the early 1990s.
The hunger-fighting game FreeRice.com announced yesterday that it has reached a milestone of one million registered players, who together are feeding the world’s hungry through donations of rice to the UN World Food Programme.
Since the game’s launch in 2007, Freerice players have already triggered the donation of nearly 100 billion grains of rice —enough to feed almost five million people for a day.
It wasn’t a veteran detective or even a full-time cop who finally caught the man suspected of lighting 52 fires in Los Angeles last week.
The hero is an Iranian-born real estate attorney by day, who patrols the LA streets by night as a “reserve deputy” working for the sheriff’s office on nearly a volunteer-basis.
The sheriff called Shervin Lalezary a “true hero,” saying his salary remains $1 a year.
The reserve deputy, who qualified in December to ride a car solo, was beyond his eight-hour shift when made the “arrest of his career.”
(READ the story in the LA Times)
The Duchess of Cambridge has chosen the good causes that will benefit from her publicity and volunteer work.
Kate Middleton did the research herself and chose to support youth hospices, a group working with addiction, a group that boosts kids through art, the National Portrait Gallery, which reflects her love of photography and painting, and the Scout Association’s outdoor programs.
The past 10 years have been the safest in history for the US aviation industry with a remarkable tenfold improvement in safety rates.
A more experienced workforce has helped the industry learn from past mistakes: New planes and engines are designed with prior mistakes in mind. Investigations of accidents have led to changes in procedures to ensure the same missteps don’t occur again.
Other improvements, like computer technology, has led to a greater assurance of safety.
US Passengers have more than a 99.99% chance that they will reach their destination safely.
The worldwide aviation industry is also improving.
Syrian authorities have released more than 500 prisoners accused of involvement in anti-regime activities, state TV reported Thursday, in what appeared to be another gesture to comply with the Arab League plan to end the regime’s 9-month-old crackdown on dissent.
If you’re the parent of a teenager, you likely find yourself routinely embroiled in disputes with your child. It’s a vital part of their growing up.
Now researchers suggest that those spats can be tamed and, in the process, provide a lifelong benefit to children.
Researchers from the University of Virginia want parents to think of those arguments not as a nuisance but as a critical training ground for learning how to resist negative peer pressure.
Manufacturing grew in December at the fastest pace in six months, the latest sign that the US economy gained momentum at the end of last year. Manufacturing has expanded for more than two years. Factories were one of the first areas of the economy to start growing after the recession officially ended in June 2009.
Stocks rose sharply this week as investors returning from the holiday were encouraged by this and other positive economic reports from the United States and around the world.
Scientists say in a new study that the return of gray wolves has dramatically altered the landscape in portions of Yellowstone National Park by curbing foraging elk herds that prevented new aspen, willow, and cottonwood trees from taking root.
Wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone in 1995 and 1996 after being killed off early last century.
Wasabi lovers may want to add more than a small pinch to their soy sauce the next time they go to their local sushi bar. The green paste, made from a fiery root called Wasabia Japonica, it is not only the perfect accompaniment to raw fish – it has also been found to possess numerous health benefits.
In ancient times the now popular condiment was used more as a medical herb than a complement to food.
Jason Witten, the Cowboy tight end superstar, is seeking to break the cycle of family violence by encouraging male mentors to volunteer in domestic violence shelters, be positive role models for women and children, and coach boys on how to treat girls.
Witten’s mother thankfully fled from a violent household, taking Jason and his two brothers with her.
As an adult, Witten established the SCORE foundation four years ago to fund education programs and building projects. His 2011 domestic violence prevention program called “Coaching Boys Into Men” launched in high schools across Arlington, Texas this year to train coaches to educate their players on the dangers of dating violence.
Over the holidays, he brought his team’s quarterback to help deliver Christmas cheer and gifts to all the transitional families in the local shelter.
Telling everyone about your New Year’s diet — or exercise plan or whatever your big 2012 goal may be — may hurt your chances of actually doing whatever it is you intend to achieve, say a slew of psychology studies, some dating as far back as the 1920s.
The pats on the back that you receive when announcing your resolutions to others, psychologists call “social reality”. Those social rewards essentially trick the brain into thinking what you intended to do has pretty much already been done.
READ the report from Today, click here, BUT ALSO WATCH some of these motivational New Year videos below, with tips to help kick-start your new habits…
A paralyzed man who suffered brain damage in a car crash almost 20 years ago spoke for the first time – and said ‘I Love You’ to his devoted mother.
Doctors said Simon Ellis, now 37, would never be able to talk again after suffering two skull fractures in a smash in 1992 when he was just 18-years-old.
But he stunned his mother Diane Franklin, 61, by also wishing her a Merry Christmas from his care home bed.
(READ the story in Daily Mail)
“In the future we might not prescribe drugs all the time, we might prescribe apps,” said executive director of FutureMed Dr. Daniel Kraft.
In the near future, Artificial Intelligence, big data, 3D printing, social health networks and other new technologies will help you get better medical care.
For example, an X-ray gun in remote Africa could send shots to the cloud where an artificial intelligence augmented physician could analyze them. Pap smears and some mammograms are already read with some AI or elements of pattern recognition.
Good Samaritans are undoubtedly the reason three children who were trapped in a car submerged in the Logan River are alive to experience the New Year.
On a snowy, slick Utah road, a car slid down a 10-foot embankment and overturned in the river. The driver was able to free himself, but his 9-year-old daughter, 4-year-old son and a 9-year-old friend were trapped.
“We came around a turn and then…we looked under the bridge and we saw a car upside down in the water,” said Chris Willden, who was driving down the canyon with his family. Willden said he and his father were the first of about eight men who jumped into the icy water to try to free the children.
One even used a handgun to shoot open a window.
(READ the story in DeseretNews – or the AP story in Houston Chronicle)
Neglected orphanages in Afghanistan are being revamped by a dedicated public official, just 29 years-old.
In a country desperately in need of a hero, Sayyid Abdullah Hashemi applied for the job seven months ago and has wasted little time shaking things up at the government agency in charge of orphanages.
Even government-run orphanages were known for having caregivers that steal food from children’s plates. Now, they are clean, efficient places of education and learning.
Let’s take a moment to thank the people who do nice things, who take the high road, and who strive to do good every day. They’re all around us, and they need to be recognized even if they don’t dominate the headlines. Here are some of the little known acts of heroism and honesty that happened in the great state of Canada…
For instance, in April 2011 a Toronto man discovered a pattern in the scratch-and-win lottery tickets. Instead of using his knowledge to win lots of money, he reported the pattern to the Commission so that they could make changes to make it fairer.
For years, the story told about the Amazon has been one of destruction. But in Brazil the environmental battle is actually being won.
In 2004 the nation declared it would cut deforestation by 80% by 2020.
Seven years later, it has almost reached its goal. The latest figures, released just weeks ago, show that 2011 had the lowest rates of deforestation since records began three decades ago.
Learn how they did it…
(READ the feature story in the BBC)
