National Drink Beer Day

Today is National Drink Beer Day, an annual “holiday” dedicated to beer lovers and beer connoisseurs across America.  If you were thinking about grabbing a few cold ones with friends, this is the perfect excuse.

A Wikipedia entry on "Beer in the United States" claims that he U.S. produced 196 million barrels of beer in 2009, and consumes roughly 20 gallons of beer per capita annually.  Beer  is the most popular alcoholic beverage in America and accounts for roughly 85% of the volume of alcoholic beverages sold.

Ain't the beer cold! ... Enjoy the holiday!

Google Maps Now Underwater

The street view feature on Google Maps now lets you explore under the water. Specifically, you can currently digitally investigate six ocean coral reefs using the popular Google tool.

Still Too Fat to Fight

A USA Today article this week summarizes some of the results contained in a report released by Mission: Readiness, a group of more than 300 retired generals and admirals.  In 2010, the group released a report titled "Too Fat to Fight."  This follow-up, called "Still Too Fat to Fight," contains some sobering facts about child obesity in America.

Apparently, three-quarters of those ages 17 to 24, cannot serve in the military.  A quarter of them are simply too overweight or obese.  Others don't have a high school diploma, have criminal records, or suffer from other health problems.  Additionally, many accepted recruits must be diverted to special training to address inadequate physical fitness before they can even begin basic training.  The group considers childhood obesity not only as a health crisis but also a national security issue.

The retired-military group is urging the government to move quickly in updating nutritional standards for all food served in schools (including those sold in a la carte lines, vending machines and stores).

The ROI of a College Degree

A Fox Business article, last Friday, evaluates the long-term worth of earning a college degree.

While college graduates typically out-earn those with just high-school diplomas, the difference is highly dependent upon the specific career field.  For workers such as such as electricians, janitors and postal service mail carriers, there's actually no difference.  In a few job categories, such as carpentry, college graduates may actually have lower lifetime earnings.

Regardless of the choice of career and major, though, a four-year degree still hones leadership, critical thinking, problem-solving skills and the ability to see a long-term task through from beginning to end.  Sometimes, a degree can represent a level of credibility or help get your foot in the door.  Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs and Michael Dell provide examples of those who built impressive empires without degrees.  Of Fortune 500 CEOs, however, 93% have bachelor's degrees and 50% have graduate degrees.  

The following career choices provide some examples where a college degree provides a seven figure advantage in median lifetime earnings:
     Chief executive officers and legislators: $1.9 million
     Securities, commodities, financial services sales agents:  $1.5 million

     Financial manager:  $1.3 million

     Miscellaneous manager:  $1.3 million

     Models, demonstrators, and product promoters:  $1.3 million

     Marketing and sales managers:  $1.3 million

     Salespeople in wholesale and manufacturing:  $1.3 million

     First-line managers and supervisors (non-retail):  $1.2 million

     General and operations managers:  $1.1 million

     Construction management:  $1.1 million

Memory Mysteries

A CNN Health article last week reported the findings of a study published recently in the Journal of Neuroscience.

Anyone who's tried hard to remember something knows that repetition helps.  The more times you retrieve a memory, the longer you will remember it.

The problem is that every time we retrieve a memory, we might forget, add, or slightly change small parts of it.  Apparently, the next time we recall the information we remember what we remembered incorrectly.  This is similar to the game of "telephone" we played as kids, where a message is passed from person to person via whisper.  When the last person indicates what he or she heard, it is usually much different than what was first communicated (the cumulative effect of small changes made as the message is relayed from person to person).

One theory is that our brain has an access problem. Each time we remember something, our brain creates a new item similar to the first and stores it up front. When we go to grab that memory again, we grab the one that's easiest to access (the most recent version).

The other theory is that our brain has a storage problem.  Every time we access a memory, we might lose part of it and/or alter it slightly.

Text Neck

According to this CNN article, your smartphone may be a serious pain in the neck.  The average human head weighs 10 pounds in a neutral position (when your ears are over your shoulders). When you use a mobile device, however, it is probably likely that your head is tilted forward and your shoulders are curved. For every inch you tilt your head forward, though, the pressure on your spine doubles. So if you're looking at a smartphone in your lap, your neck is holding up what likely feels like 20 or 30 pounds and is putting a lot of extra pressure on your spine, possibly leading to muscle strain, disc herniations and pinched nerves. Over time, it can even flatten or reverse the natural curve of your neck.

Now there is even a Text Neck Indicator app to tell you whether or not you are holding your phone at a viewing angle putting you at risk for text neck.

Best and Worst Airline Seats

A FOX News article back in April provided the results of a Skyscanner.com airline passenger poll on seat preferences. Apparently, the best (or at least most sought after) seat is 6A.  This up-front window seat seems to represent the best compromise between comfort and safety.

As passengers board and de-plane from the front of the plane, 45% of passengers prefer the first few rows.  Middle seats over the wings also ranked high in the survey because some claim that location may limit the effects of turbulence somewhat.

By contrast, the worst rated seat (the one nobody wanted) was 31E, a middle seat near the rear of the aircraft.