Leaf Cutter Ants Display Intelligent Labor Skills

It has been known for a long time that ants have a seriously evolved societal structure within their anthill colonies. Scientists have recently observed that they are also capable of dividing labor skills based on which members of the colony are most suitable for certain tasks. Scientists in Oregon have noticed that the younger leaf cutting ants are always the ones that use their sharp mandibles to cut leaves into smaller sections in order that they can be more easily carried away. They have observed that over time as the ants grow older and their mandibles grow more dull and less effective at cutting leaves they shift away from doing it and give that task over to younger ants while they take over the task of exclusively carrying away the cut leaves, which scientists call leaf disks. In case you are wondering A Leaf Cutter Ant Queen can live for about 14 years and deliver in excess of 150 million offspring in her lifetime.

Constitution Misread Aloud On The Floor Of The House

January 6th was opening day for the 112th Congress in the U.S. House of Representatives. The new Republican leadership led by the permanently orange faced new Speaker of the House John Boehner of Ohio who again cried openly during the proceedings. Boehner cries so often that his new nickname is "The Weeper of the House." They began the Congress this time by reading the entire U.S. Constitution out loud on the floor of the House. Well that sounds good enough being the the Constitution is only about 5 or 6 pages if you include all 26 amendments. Right away there was some dispute about whether they should read some parts of it out loud like the amendment which prohibited alcohol. The Amendment no longer is valid because it was repealed. After some mild bickering they decided to read the entire thing as it is. The most embarrassing part of the whole proceeding has to be the fact that they skipped over some key paragraphs of the document because two of the pages got stuck together. No one noticed this for a while until it was finally pointed out and then they went back and read the parts that were skipped. An interesting and embarrassing start for the 112th Congress.

The Number Of MIllionaires Is Growing In The U.S.

In what some people see as a positive development in the economy the number of millionaires in the U.S. is growing over the last several years. A millionaire is defined as a person or family who have assets in excess of 1 million dollars after you exclude the value of their primary residence. In other words, if they have more than 1 million dollars in assets after you subtract the value of their primary residence or home. In 2009 the number rose to 7.8 million. This was up from 6.7 million in 2008. The all time high in the U.S. was 9.2 million in 2007. The number of people who are considered "ultra rich" has risen too. The ultra rich are defined as individuals or families who have a net worth of over 5 million dollars after excluding the value of their primary residence. That number rose to 980,000 in 2009. This is up from 840,000 in 2008. Usually rich people are a little older as well. The average age of an individual with assets of over 1 million dollars in the U.S. is 62 years old. The Average age of the "ultra rich" is 67.

Your TV Will Soon Be 3-D

Do you remember when the Movie "Avatar" came out? It was in 3-D and it made almost 3 billion dollars at the box office (2.8 billion more precisely) and it spawned about a thousand other movies that came right after it that had the 3-D feature and pretty much stunk? Well the same type of revolution is getting set to occur with television. The 3-D tv is here already. It is expected that by the end of 2010 there will be over 3.2 million 3-D tv sets that will have been sold in the USA. By 2014 the projection is that over 90 million will be sold that year. The price of the Tv's themselves will not be so much more than an ordinary 2-D HDTV set either. Some 3-D tv sets can even be found now priced at under $1000 for a 50 inch set. The problem right now however is this. There Ain't a whole lot of good stuff to watch on tv in 3-D yet. A lot of shows on tv are reality shows. Who needs 3-D for that? Comedy shows, a lot of channels with talk shows, a lot of channels with old tv shows from the past like "The Brady Bunch" or "Gilligan's Island." This kind of content does not call for a 3-D set. It is however fantastic for sports like the Superbowl or the World Series but these events are only once a year and unless your a real sports fanatic it does not have that much of an appeal.
Another big problem with 3-D tv is that you have to buy a lot of stuff to go with your 3-D tv in order to get it to work right. Of course there are the 3-D glasses. They will run about $150 a pair. If you have a lot of people in your family that can add up quick. You might have to get a new 3-D Blu Ray player if you want to watch movies in 3-D, which of course you will want to do because you just bought a 3-D tv, thats about another $250 or so. Some of these 3-D glasses will only work with certain 3-D tv's too so there will be that to worry about. They are only now introducing the very first sets of 3-D glasses that are universal so maybe that wont be as much of a problem as originally feared. 3-D is going to be a brave new world that will require the consumer to make brave new choices. The best advice here perhaps is to proceed with caution as you go and to wait for the 3-D revolution to shake out a little more and develop before you join in.

The Postal Service is Shrinking Fast

The United States Postal Service is lobbying Congress hard to reduce its number of delivery days from the current six a week to five a week. The USPS wants to eliminate Saturday mail deliveries in order to reduce costs and cope with less revenue from the dwindling number of pieces of "Snail Mail" that the public sends out in the new age of E-mails and texting options. In the year 2000 the postal service handled a record number of pieces of mail. That year it was over 55.1 billion. In 2010 the projected number is set to be about 29.8 billion. The argument against the reduction in the weekly number of delivery days has to do with some of the things that the public receives through the mail that they cannot do without such as prescription drugs, Social Security checks, and getting their bills on time. Those in favor of the change argue that most people wont miss the reduced amounts of junk mail that may occur and that nowadays many people pay their bills online and can have their SSI checks directly transferred to their bank accounts and such. The Postal Service is expected to suffer a loss this year of over 8.5 billion dollars due to the reduced volume of mail and by reducing the delivery days to 5 instead of 6 it would go a good deal of the way towards reducing that operating loss. If Congress approves the change (which is required) the USPS will be able to cut its work force of over 600,000 employees by about 80,000.

NYPD Fighting Crime By Taking Fewer Shots

If you are a cop in the NYPD you know that there is the possibility that at some point you may have to take a shot at a suspect in your career. Over the last several years, decades even, that likelihood has become less and less likely. In 2009 the NYPD set a record for the fewest shots that it has ever fired at suspects in it's history for a twelve month period since they started keeping records of it in 1971. In 09 The NYPD fired 296 total rounds from their guns which resulted in the killing of 12 suspects. This broke their previous record low of 352 rounds in 2004.
It has not always been this way. In the past the NYPD has had to use many more rounds in order to police the city streets. Back in 1971 they fired a total of 2113 rounds and ended up killing 93 total suspects. Since 1971 the trend has definitely been downward. In 1995 they fired 1728 total rounds. In 1997 1040. In 2000 that number dropped to 504. In 2005 it spiked up a bit and rose to 616. By 2008 it had dropped back down to 364 which was just an average of 1 bullet a day.
The reason the numbers trend downward over the years may have to do with less crime on the streets but may also have to do with policy changes in the department. Back in 1971 when the NYPD fired over 2000 shots police officers were in the habit of firing "Warning Shots" at suspects which is a policy that the NYPD no longer practices.

Complete History Of NYC MTA Fare Increases

If you live in New York City you have not been able to escape the current debate about how much the MTA Bus and Subway fare is going to increase again this year. It seems like it goes up every year now and that this has become the new normal. If you might be interested in a brief recap of how many fare increases have occurred since the subway system first opened in 1904 then here is a complete list of them all:

• Oct. 27, 1904 - Subway Opens, Fare: 5 Cents


• 7/1/48 - Fare: 10 cents


• 7/25/53 - Fare: 15 cents


• 7/15/66 - Fare: 20 cents


• 1/1/70 - Fare: 30 cents


• 1/1/72 - Fare: 35 cents


• 9/1/75 - Fare: 50 cents


• 6/29/80 - Fare: 60 cents


• 7/4/81 - Fare: 75 cents


• 1/1/84 - Fare: 90 cents


• 1/1/86 - Fare: $1


• 1/1/90 - Fare: $1.15


• 1/1/92 - Fare: $1.25


• 11/12/95 - Fare: $1.50


• 7/4/98 ---30 day metro card debuts. Cost $63


• 5/4/03 - Base fare rises to $2/30 day metro card cost $70


• 2/27/05 - 30 day metro card cost $76


• 3/2/08 -- 30 day metro card cost $81


• 3/25/09 - Base fare rises from $2 to $2.50/30 day metro card now $103