ForeignPolicy.com: The Top Ten Stories You Missed in 2006

Hackable Passports
What’s Worse Than Bird Flu? The Cure.
Petro Powers Drop the Dollar
The Gender Gap Gets Smaller
Iran and Israel Hold Secret Talks
United States Funds the Taliban
Russia Fuels Latin American Arms Race
Bush’s Post-Katrina Power Grab
China Runs up African Debt
India Helps Iran Build the Bomb, While the White House [...]

50 Things We Know Now (That We Didn’t Know This Time Last Year) 2006 Edition
Here are the first 10:

1. U.S. life expectancy in 2005 inched up to a record high of 77.9 years.
2. The part of the brain that regulates reasoning, impulse control and judgment is still under construction during puberty and doesn’t shift into [...]

Time magazine has named their Person of the Year - and it’s you! What?!? I think they’re taking the easy route out this time…

Here’s an interesting article written in 1998 about some experiments done by one individual to help reduce traffic jams:
Traffic Wave Experiments
The basic idea is “ANTITRAFFIC DESTROYS TRAFFIC,” with antitraffic being empty space. Take a quick read and see if you can do your part to do away with traffic, or at least be [...]

Interesting reading, giving insight into what it’s like living on the International Space Station: Anousheh Ansari Space Blog
Anousheh Ansari Space Blog was made by friends at the X PRIZE Foundation to support Anousheh in her wish to inspire others with her historic spaceflight — the first woman to buy her own ticket to space.
Here’s [...]

Here’s a new tidbit that may interest some of you:
Unfinished Tolkien work to be published in 2007
An unfinished tale by J.R.R. Tolkien has been edited by his son into a completed work and will be released next spring, the U.S. and British publishers announced Monday.
Christopher Tolkien has spent the past 30 years working on “The [...]

Sad news…Everyone’s favorite crocodile hunter has died.
Via CNN.com
Steve Irwin, the TV presenter known as the “Crocodile Hunter,” has died after being stung by a stingray in a marine accident off Australia’s north coast.
Media reports say Irwin was snorkeling at Batt Reef, a part of the Great Barrier Reef about 9 miles (about 15 kilometers) from [...]

Via News.com.au

[Ringxiety] a familiar and unnerving sensation: the false belief that you can hear your mobile phone ringing or vibrating.
Now the phenomenon is so widespread it has an official name: “ringxiety”.
People have grown emotionally dependent on their mobiles for feelings of self-worth, claim psychologists.
So when we “hear” an imaginary ring, or think vibrations on a [...]

Happy Tax Freedom Day!
Today’s the day when, on average, Americans have worked enough days to pay off their taxes for the year and can now work to support themselves. Tax freedom day was three days later than last year, but a week earlier than in 2000. The average Americans will work 77 days [...]

For those who haven’t heard about it yet: College Student in Wal-Mart for 41 Hours
I’m really surprised it took them that long to notice him.