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• Wheels for Women Only
• Flunking Out of The Dorm
• How Many Watts in A Walk?
• Don't Blame Columbus
What Would Obama Say?
When Jon Favreau first started working for Senator Barack Obama in 2005, he took down almost every word the Senator said and tried to absorb it. The effort paid off: Favreau, 26, is now Obama's chief speechwriter and heads up a team of two other young writers. It can be a challenge working for a candidate known for his speaking ability: Favreau says that when he sits down to write, he just channels Obama—his ideas, his sentences, his phrases. A graduate of the College of the Holy Cross in his hometown of Worcester, Mass., Favreau says being Obama's speechwriter is like being the batting coach for a home-run king. Lots of coffee helps him weather the campaign trail, where he's often up until all hours writing and revising. Before Favreau wrote Obama's Iowa victory speech in January, he and the Senator discussed it for about 30 minutes. They settled on a theme of unity and an opening line: "They said this day would never come."
Wheels for Women Only
Body-to-body contact is inescapable on Mexico City's crowded buses and subways. But many women complain that not all the contact is incidental. Among the 22 million daily passengers, they say, are men who take advantage of the crowds to leer and grope and then quietly disappear. To cut down on the harassment, Mexico City began running women-only buses in January. With pink placards and drivers who growl at any man who tries to board, the buses are a hit among women. Some of them even cheer each time a man is prevented from boarding. "We are tired of their machismo," says Catalina Garduño, a saleswoman. "We don't feel sorry for them at all."
Flunking Out of The Dorm
If their grades dip below a 2.0 average, students living on campus at the State University of New York at Old Westbury can start packing: They will be kicked out of the residence halls. "If you want to live in the dorms, you have to be serious about studying," says Michael Kinane, a spokesman for the Long Island college. He adds that students can be readmitted to campus housing if they bring up their averages. Thirteen of the 87 students ousted from the dorms in January have done so. But 23 have left school altogether. Denisha Dennis, 20, who lost her room, says a long daily commute from her parents' house makes it difficult to concentrate on studying. She adds, "It feels like they just want the struggling students to drop out."
How Many Watts in A Walk?
Some people exercise by "power walking," but now, walking can actually provide electrical power: Researchers have developed a knee-mounted electrical generator that turns walks into watts. The device, resembling a knee brace, harnesses power from part of the stride. One device on each leg can produce about five watts of electricity—enough to run 10 cell phones—says J. Maxwell Donelan, the lead researcher at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia. The generator could potentially power medical devices like prosthetic limbs, and the power generated could be stored in batteries. Harvesting energy from human movement has long been a dream of scientists. The energy stored in body fat is the equivalent of a battery weighing more than a ton, says Donelan. But harnessing that energy is an enormous challenge. Other efforts have included shoe-mounted devices and energy-generating backpacks.
Don't Blame Columbus
Scientists had long thought that Christopher Columbus and his crew were responsible for bringing lice to the New World, along with diseases like measles and smallpox. But DNA evidence has absolved Columbus from responsibility for the lice. Two 11th-century Peruvian mummies provided the clues in the form of well-preserved lice in their long, braided hair. Scientists analyzed the louse DNA and established that the critters arrived in the Americas as far back as 15,000 years ago. (Lice found on ancient Egyptian mummies have not yet undergone genetic analysis.) In the U.S., lice are mostly a nuisance. But in other parts of the world, they spread diseases like typhus. Studying lice may become a valuable new tool in understanding human migrations and the spread of disease.
