DIRS.INFO The most relevant business & tech news

☆ The Happy Meal inventor says McDonald’s didn’t want it at first
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-29 | by ( Nathaniel Meyersohn | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +9 min

But four decades ago, when the first Happy Meal debuted, the company didn’t quite get it. They didn’t immediately embrace it,” Bob Bernstein, an advertising executive who created the Happy Meal in the late 1970s, said in a video interview from his Kansas City office, which is decked out with Happy Meal memorabilia and original art. The meal’s name was an offshoot of a 1960s McDonald’s jingle, in which it called itself the “happy place.” “It’s such a happy place / Hap, hap, hap, happy place,” it went. For some reason, the company’s corporate offices outside Chicago were reluctant to roll out the Happy Meal nationally. Mario Anzuoni/ReutersIn the 1990s, Beanie Babies, Transformers and Power Rangers Happy Meal toys were massive hits for McDonald’s.

☆ Climate Change Is Real. Markets, Not Governments, Offer the Cure. - The New York Times
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-28 | by ( Bret Stephens | Mr. Stephens Is An Opinion Columnist. Mr. Winter Is A Staff Photographer On Assignment In Opinion. | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +32 min

worse-case, highest-carbon-emission scenario.” (The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is the U.N. body that assesses climate change.) How do we weigh the risks of underreacting to climate change against the risks of overreacting to it? While he’s not an expert on climate change, he has spent decades thinking deeply about every manner of risk. That’s particularly true if climate change is akin to cancer — manageable or curable in its earlier stages, disastrous in its later ones. Maybe, I realized, in assessing my newfound concerns about climate change, my long-held beliefs might provide a solution — look to the market.

Former Defense Secretary Ashton Carter died Monday evening after a "sudden cardiac event," his family said. He served as Defense Secretary in the Obama administration from 2015 to 2017. His sudden loss will be felt by all who knew him.”During his time as defense secretary, Carter was behind the campaign to defeat ISIS in Iraq and Syria. He held multiple positions within the Department of Defense, including Deputy Secretary and Under Secretary Defense for Acquisition Technology and Logistics, in addition to serving as Secretary. President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden applaud Ashton Carter after Obama announced his nomination to be the next defense secretary on Dec. 5, 2014.

WASHINGTON, Oct 25 (Reuters) - Ash Carter, who served as a U.S. defense secretary during the Obama administration, died late on Monday at the age of 68 after a sudden cardiac event, his family said in a statement on Tuesday. Under Carter, the U.S. military opened all military roles to women and also ended a ban on openly serving transgender service members. "To choose service members on other grounds than military qualifications is social policy and has no place in our military," Carter said at the time. Before becoming defense secretary, Carter served as deputy defense secretary and chief operating officer in the Pentagon. Since leaving public service, Carter led the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard's Kennedy School.

☆ Hair-straightening chemical products linked to increased uterine cancer risk in new study
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-18 | by ( Jacqueline Howard | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +6 min

CNN —Scientists are uncovering new details in the connection between using certain hair straightening products, such as chemical relaxers and pressing products, and an increased risk of cancer in women. The study, published Monday in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, estimates that among women who did not use hair-straightening chemical products in the past 12 months, 1.6% developed uterine cancer by age 70, but about 4% of the women who frequently use such hair-straightening products developed uterine cancer by age 70. That finding “also communicates that uterine cancer is indeed rare. “In this study, women with frequent use in the past year had an over two-fold higher risk of uterine cancer,” she said. The researchers found a strong association between hair straightening products and uterine cancer cases but the use of other hair products – such as dyes and perms or body waves – was not associated with uterine cancer.

☆ Mountain Girl’s heartbreaking memoir: An icon of the Sixties opens up about Jerry Garcia, Ken Kesey, and what the age of free love was really like
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-09 | by ( David Kushner | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +40 min

Now 76 and living in Oregon, Mountain Girl has gave us an exclusive look at her memoir. Altamont, the free concert that Mountain Girl and Jerry Garcia helped organized, was meant to revive the spirit of the Sixties. Today, 60 years since she took that ride with Neal Cassady, Mountain Girl is still forging her own path. Before I leave Kesey's farm, Mountain Girl and I walk outside to the old brown barn where Furthur now rests. But for Mountain Girl, it lives forever, an emblem of everything her generation believed in, and all that they achieved.

☆ ‘I’ve always wanted to be a tree’: Human composting starts to catch on
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-27 | by ( Evan Bush | Evan Bush Is A Science Reporter For Nbc News. He Can Be Reached At Evan.Bush Nbcuni.Com. | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +8 min

The bill took cues from Washington state, where lawmakers in 2019 became the first in the U.S. to legalize human composting and where a nascent industry is growing. Four Washington state funeral facilities are now licensed to perform natural organic reduction, according to Rob Goff, the executive director of the Washington State Funeral Directors Association. California’s law will give regulators with the state’s Cemetery and Funeral Bureau until 2027 to create regulations for a human composting program. The know-how behind human composting began in ranchers’ fields. Human composting could instead help soils sequester carbon and provide nutrients for plant life.

☆ A biotech trying to bring back the woolly mammoth just launched its first spinout company. See the 15-slide pitch deck Form Bio used to raise $30 million.
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-27 | by ( Andrew Dunn | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Colossal Bio, a biotech trying to resurrect the woolly mammoth, just spun out its first company. The new company, Form Bio, sells manufacturing software to life sciences companies. Colossal Bio, a Texas-based biotech trying to bring back the woolly mammoth, announced its first spinout company on Tuesday. Form is the first spinout from Colossal Bio, which plans to commercialize technologies it develops while chasing the audacious task of resurrecting extinct species. Colossal CEO Ben Lamm told Insider that Form won't be the last spinout company from his company.

☆ Cancer death rates fall steadily in the US, with more survivors than ever
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-21 | by ( Carma Hassan | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

CNN —More people are surviving cancer than ever before in the United States, according to a new report from the American Association for Cancer Research. The report notes that there were only 3 million US cancer survivors in 1971. Declines in smoking and improvements in catching and treating cancer early are driving the change, according to the AACR Cancer Progress Report 2022, released Wednesday. The reversal of Roe v. Wade is also expected to affect cancer care by limiting health care options for pregnant women with cancer, the report said. The Covid-19 pandemic had an effect on cancer in the US, with nearly 10 million breast, colorectal and prostate cancer screenings missed in 2020.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has announced the partial mobilization of his country's reservists. According to Russian officials, 300,000 reservists will be drafted immediately. Conscripts and students will not be called up and will affect only those with combat experience, according to Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu. In his speech, Putin reiterated that the goal of Russia's invasion of Ukraine was the liberation of the Donbas region. Ukrainian officials in response slammed the referendum as a "sham" and said it won't change anything.

☆ Former US general says he is 'even more concerned' about Putin using nukes as Ukraine makes astonishing progress in its counteroffensive
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-13 | by ( John Haltiwanger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Western officials and experts have said Putin may use nukes in Ukraine if he gets desperate enough. After failing to take Kyiv, Ukraine's capital, in the early days of the war, Russia shifted its focus to Ukraine's eastern Donbas region, which is made up of Donetsk and Luhansk. And as we know, that is a trigger for using nuclear weapons." But not everyone is convinced that Putin would do something as drastic as using a nuclear weapon to achieve his goals in Ukraine. If Russia used a nuclear weapon in Ukraine, it could trigger a military response from the US, which could spiral into a direct conflict between Russia and NATO — a 30-member alliance.

☆ Side-by-side photographic glass plates and James Webb images show how telescope technology has evolved since the 1800s
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-10 | by ( Paola Rosa-Aquino | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

In the 19th and early 20th centuries, astronomers catalogued the universe on glass photographic plates. Compared to faint objects stamped on plates, the James Webb Space Telescope's images show dramatic improvements in telescope technology. The exposures were made on glass plates coated with photosensitive emulsions, with astronomers later developing the plates like film in a darkroom. Compared with Webb's infrared images, photographic plates of the same parts of the night sky show how developments in technology led to clearer and deeper views of the cosmos. Webb's clear views of interacting galaxies offer sharper detail than faint glass plate imagesA glass plate image of Stephan's Quintet taken in 1974, left.

That doesn’t mean you’re doomed to wake up in a daze because you’re prone to mouth breathing when you sleep. “Even if you don’t have sleep apnea, or you have mild sleep apnea, opening your mouth makes it much, much worse.”How do you know if you’re mouth breathing at night? How to stop mouth breathingWhen Nestor blocked his nose for science, he experienced an extreme version of mouth breathing. If you’re tackling your nighttime mouth breathing, Park suggested you start by taking care of your nose to minimize congestion. But even if you get your nose to clear, nighttime mouth breathing can be a hard habit to break.

Search resuls for: "for Science"

13 mentions found