When I went from footloose freelancer to sessile nine-to-fiver in a huge building, I made a rule: unless an open elevator was waiting, always take the stairs. This is because I knew it was the healthy thing to do. Go figure—Im right, says a new JAMA study. But not only does the research show that taking fewer steps is unhealthy, it can actually cause disease.
Bye-bye, NoDoz.
I live in a hundred year-old house where most everything is original: the windows (drafty), the walls (uninsulated), the furnace (burns oil). I need only look at my heating bill every month to deduce what the Commission for Environmental Cooperation has determined through a two-year study—homes and office buildings in North America account for over one-third of the continent's greenhouse gas emissions. They are terribly inefficient.
digg_url = 'http://digg.com/general_sciences/Super_Mario_explains_parallel_universes_2'; You're unique. Aren't you? One of the more creative hypotheses surrounding quantum mechanics posits the exact opposite. Though we can readily see only one world, quantum mechanics says that when were not observing the particles that make up that world, those particles exist in multiple places at once. There are many theories that attempt to grasp what this means, but one of the most tantalizing is Hugh Everett's multiverse concept.
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Science is reinventing play, from extreme sports to gamification to ridiculous roller coasters to the playgrounds of tomorrow, and this issue is chock full of fun. Also, on a less fun note: Did global warming destroy my hometown?