The loneliest human being – Al Worden [Interview]

Seven men in the history of humanity stand apart from the rest of us. These are the Apollo command module pilots who spent time alone in orbit around the Moon, while their colleagues walked on the lunar surface. When they were on the far side of the Moon, these astronauts were completely out of contact, and further from Earth, than anyone had ever been before. Or has ever been since. Discover the difference between being alone & loneliness in this fascinating interview with Apollo 15 command module pilot Al Worden

How Facebook and Brooklyn Killed America’s Obsession With Cars [Article]

Why aren’t kids interested in cars anymore, at least in the US? Brian Merchant has some part of the answer.

That “liberation” you get from the car is fleeting—it quickly fades, first into schlepping your buddies around town, then into speeding tickets, and eventually into brain-numbing commutes across smoggy, congested highways. You realize that cars are ultimately confined to roads clogged with other cars, running on the same limiting rails—like trains, just more dangerous, and no drinking.

The Story of an eyewitness – the 1906 earthquake in San Francisco [Article]

Jack London wrote about the 1906 earthquake that almost destroyed the city. Om Malik shared a link to this story that makes the tragedy come alive a century later.

San Francisco, at the present time, is like the crater of a volcano, around which are camped tens of thousands of refugees At the Presidio alone are at least twenty thousand. All the surrounding cities and towns are jammed with the homeless ones, where they are being cared for by the relief committees. The refugees were carried free by the railroads to any point they wished to go, and it is estimated that over one hundred thousand people have left the peninsula on which San Francisco stood. The Government has the situation in hand, and, thanks to the immediate relief given by the whole United States, there is not the slightest possibility of a famine. The bankers and business men hare already set about making preparations to rebuild San Francisco.

Cleared student goes to space camp – [article]

A few weeks ago, a 16 year old high school student experimenting in her school lab in Florida, US, caused a minor explosion, & a major  uproar – she was charged with a criminal offence, & arrested. Better sense has prevailed since, with her being cleared of charges, and through the benevolence of a NASA veteran, with whose help she wll be going to Space Camp

Spending checks: US vs the rest of the world [Blog]

Economist Timothy Taylor puts the results of the one of the findings of the US Consumer Expenditure Survey into perspective – that the average US household spent $61.4 billion on their pets.

America spent about nine times as much on pet care as it did on choosing all its federally elections in 2012. 

and

the average U.S. household spends more on pets than the poverty line for humans in the developing world. And the statistics don’t include the fact that pets live rent-free. 

Persistence pays: Unknown Mathematician Proves Elusive Property of Prime Numbers [Article]

Yitang Zhang couldn’t find work in academia after earning his doctorate in 1991, so he’s worked for several years as an accountant and even in a Subway sandwich shop. Two weeks ago, he became a sensation across the mathematics world for his theorem on the properties of prime numbers, although it has no known applications. How / why did he become famous? Read on

“The big experts in the area tried and failed. I personally didn’t think anyone was going to be able to do it any time soon.” said Andrew Granville, a number theorist at Montreal University.  It took Zhang several months to work through all the details, but the resulting paper is a model of clear exposition. “He nailed down every detail so no one will doubt him. There’s no waffling.”