How long do we commute to work ?

The average daily commute to work (one way) is 25.1 minutes in 2005, according to data released this week by the Census Bureau. The nation’s longest commute, at 39.6 minutes, is in the Vineland, N.J., metropolitan area, about 40 miles south of Philadelphia. The New York area had the second-longest commute (34.2 minutes), and the Washington area was third (33.4 minutes).

Are marriage and science compatible for women?

Marriage has been shown to have an adverse impact on the careers of female scientists. Data from the National Science Foundation show Doctoral women scientists and engineers are far less likely than men to be married: 66% of women doctoral scientists and engineers are married, compared with 83% of men. Doctoral women are 2 times as likely as men never to have married or to be divorced.

Among those married, however, women are more likely to confront problems accommodating a two-career marriage--one reason being that they are twice as likely as men to have a spouse who works full-time. Add children to the mix, and the problem is compounded.

Americans fail the test on evolution

1/3 American adults do not believe in evolution, a far larger fraction than in most European countries, a new study revealed. Of the 34 countries surveyed, only Turkey had a smaller percentage of adults who believed in evolution.

Michigan State University's Jon D. Miller, who carried out the research, theorized that "Individuals who hold a strong belief in a personal God—and who pray frequently—were significantly less likely to view evolution as probably or definitely true than adults with less conservative religious views."

Where have America's money gone to ?

1) over last 35 years, the rise in wages and salaries in the wide middle of the income distributions was 11%. The rise in wages and salaries at the top 0.01% of the income distribution was 617%.

2) between 1966 - 2001, only 10% of America workers saw their income rise at least as fast as economy-wide productivity did.
3) from 1997 - 2001, the top 1% of people captured far more of the real national gain in wages and salary income than did the bottom 50%.

Source: The Atlantic, Sept. 2006.

Women are still uncertain about their financial futures

Although increasing number of women are controlling more money, running countries and companies, and taking care of their family, still 90% of the 1,925 women surveyed said they feel financially insecure, according to a study about women and money released by Allianz Life Insurance Co.

Why the fear? Women have longer life expectancies, but typically earn less than men. Some spend years out of the work force raising children, to name few reasons.

Effect of mood on employee performance

If harsh words from your spouse or a near-miss with some freeway creep have you fuming when you walk into the office, there's a good chance your bad mood will affect your work all day.
Conversely, if you walk in happy, odds are you'll stay that way, even if customers are mean to you, and you'll do better work.

We all know that the mode of employee affect their job performance. Here is a number to show for it - in a recent examination in an insurance company call center, researcher found that unhappy workers took 15% fewer calls than the average.

Source: usnews.com, August 28, 2006

How many people work for Wal-Mart ?

Wal-Mart employs 1.8 million associates worldwide and more than 1.3 million in the United States. Wal-Mart is the largest private employer in both U.S. and Mexico.

Who has killed more, Satan or God?

According to Bible, God killed 2,038,334, compared to Satan's 10.

Weird Roman numerals

Here's a great blog post about Roman Numerals and Arithmetic. You got read it if you asked questions like -
why does a clock use IIII instead of IV? or
why do we still use roman numerals? or
Is there a roman numeral 0?

How to lose weight ?

Easy, try eating off smaller plates and bowls.

Study shows that using smaller bowls and spoons may curb the amount of food eaten.
There was a earlier study found that teenagers poured 77% less juice into tall narrow glasses than they did into short wide glasses. In a recent study, participants were randomly given a 17 ounce or 34 ounce bowl along with a 2 ounce or 3 ounce ice cream scoop and allowed to serve themselves ice cream. Altogether, those with large bowls and large serving spoons served themselves — and ate —nearly 57% more ice cream than those with smaller bowls and spoons.

Harry Potter is more familiar to us than British premier

More Americans know who Harry Potter is than who Prime Minister Tony Blair is, according to a recent pop culture survey. Of the 1,213 Americans questioned by the poll, 57% knew of J.K. Rowling's boy wizard Potter. That compares with the 49.5% who could name Blair as the British prime minister when asked.

Doubt those numbers? Try Paris Hilton.

Thank Jemima Jemima the Secretary for this number.

Should I have my surgery done in the morning or afternoon ?

Earlier surgery, better recovery.

Analysis of more that 90,000 surgeries performed at Duke University Medical Center from May 2000 to August 2004 showed anesthesia-related problems such as postoperative nausea and inadequate pain relief occurred more than 4 times as often at 4 pm - affecting about 1 in 25 patients - as at 9 am. Staff fatigue, shift changes, and the same afternoon slump in caregivers' body rhythms that affects other people could be among the many causes.

The same thing can be said for most of things we do. Don't you say ?

Source link

How competitive are you ?

Recently, Business Week (Aug, 2006) commissioned a poll trying to get a pulse on the state of business competition in America. The results underscore just how driven managers in the U.S. really are. For example, 40% of 2,500 respondents (all managers and executives) check e-mail once a day or more while on vacation. Some 91% admit to going to the office on the weekend. And 22% even said they would fire a good friend to get ahead at work.

Economical numbers

"There are 10^11 stars in the galaxy. That used to be a huge number. But it's only a hundred billion. It's less than the national deficit! We used to call them astronomical numbers. Now we should call them economical numbers".
-Richard Feynman, physicist, Nobel laureate (1918-1988).
Source

Six degree of separation

Six degrees of separation is the hypothesis that anyone on Earth can be connected to any other person on the planet through a chain of acquaintances with no more than 5 intermediaries.

The latest proof of this hypothesis - in 2001 Duncan Watts, a professor at Columbia University, used an e-mail message as the "package" that needed to be delivered, and after reviewing the data collected by 48,000 senders and 19 targets (in 157 countries), Watts found that the average number of intermediaries was, 6.

Numbers for the day

1) As of July, 2006, there about 175,000 new weblogs were created each day, which means that on average, there are more than 2 blogs created each second of each day. Total posting volume of the blogosphere continues to rise, showing about 1.6 Million postings per day, or about 18.6 posts per second.

2) According to one report, there are more than 8 million millionaires in the US. Even if you don't count real estate, it's still more than 3 million.

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3) A woman uses about 20,000 words per day; a man uses about 7,000.

(Source - The Female Brain )

Sex Differences in the Brain

Chart above is a summary of recent a study on psychological gender differences.
In comparing differences between the sexes, researchers use a statistical measure called d. This indicates how far apart the averages of two groups (in this case men and women) are, taking into account the range of values that contribute to each average. For example, the value of d for adult height is around 2. There is no arguing that in any given population men, on average, are taller than women. For behavioural and psychological phenomena, a value of d greater than 0.8 is considered large, of 0.5, moderate, and of 0.2, small. Any d less than 0.2 is a negligible difference.
Of the 124 cognitive tasks studied, 30% had a value of d close to zero and in a further 48% of cases, d was small. In other words, only 22% of reported behavioural differences between the sexes are worth raising an eyebrow over.
In summary, men and women think differently, but not that differently.

Can money buy happiness ?

A survey conducted earlier this year by the Pew Research Center reports that 49% of respondents with an annual family income above $100,000 say they are very happy. When income falls between $75,000 and $100,000, the very-happy contingent falls to 38%. Just 24% of those with incomes below $30,000 said they were very happy.

Girls gone wired

A study found:
77% of women surveyed would prefer a new plasma TV to a diamond solitaire necklace;
56% would opt for a new plasma TV over a weekend vacation in Florida;
86% would prefer a new digital video camera to a pair of designer shoes.

How many people read ?

58% of the US adult population never reads another book after high school.