China & US Jobs

During the 2nd US Presidential Debate, Mitt Romney said that China’s currency currency manipulation and intellectual property theft has allowed it to become the largest manufacturer in the world, causing the loss of 500,000 American manufacturing jobs in the last four years. Anthony Tao defends China:  Even now, when China’s per [capita] GDP is still nearly six times less than the US’s, China is just artificially keeping its currency down cause it really wants to stick it to Americans, right? Because there are just so many Americans who dream about working in an iPhone-assembling factory.

Destruction

The leading bird in a European project to develop a method to save a rare species of ibis was killed last weekend by illegal hunters in Italy. Goja, a northern bald ibis (Geronticus eremita), was on her way to wintering grounds in Tuscany when she was shot down, along with two other birds that she was leading.

Human Powered Helicopter

The Sikorsky Prize from the American Helicopter Society has promised $250,000 to anyone that build’s a human-powered helicopter that can “hover for a minute, reach a height of 3 meters (about 10 feet), and stay in a 10-meter box.” No one has claimed this prize in 30 years. And not for a lack of trying. 
But students at the University of Maryland, Team Gamera HPH, are now closer than most to reaching this goal. Watch the video above and read more about them on NPR.