Matt's Favorites: Another Argument For Breastfeeding, But Skip The Pop, And Much More
So what's the latest and greatest from the wide, wild world of high tech? Hey, no matter what the Supreme Court rules on nine zillion issues this week, you can always catch the latest high tech fun right here...
* Breast-feeding a child may give him or her a leg up towards the top of the social ladder. A new study published in BMJ journal Archives of Disease in Childhood on June 24 revealed that children who were breast-fed moved higher up in social class than their counterparts.
* A 31-year old woman's heart problems and fainting might have had something to do with the fact that she drank only soda for about half her life, according to a report of her case.
* The habitable zone of a nearby star is filled to the brim with planets that could support alien life, scientists announced Tuesday. An international team of scientists found a record-breaking three potentially habitable planets around the star Gliese 667C, a star 22 light-years from Earth that is orbited by at least six planets, and possibly as many as seven, researchers said.
* Here's more on our next crazy menace -- the Asian tiger mosquito.
* And in more climate change fun, a heat wave into the 80s is hitting Alaska.
* The Olympic Torch Relay is heading to new territory. According to the president of Russia's Sochi Olympic Committee, cosmonauts will soon carry the torch to orbit. The Eurasian nation will host the Winter Olympic Games in February 2014.
* On the fracking front, new research in Pennsylvania demonstrates that it's hard to nail down how often natural gas drilling is contaminating drinking water: One study found high levels of methane in some water wells within a half-mile of gas wells, while another found some serious methane pollution occurring naturally, far away from drilling.
* "Star Trek" fans may soon get a chance to have their own Dr. McCoy moment with the world's first real-life medical tricorder, which will be available to the public soon thanks to a crowdfunding campaign that raised more than $1 million for the Space Age technology.
* Web sites you think are safe but have been compromised to distribute malicious software are far more prevalent than sites that are intentionally dangerous, according to a new Transparency Report from Google released on Tuesday.
* The three ride-sharing apps Uber, Lyft and Sidecar get cease-and-desist letters from the Los Angeles Department of Transportation. However, the companies say there aren't grounds for such demands.
* Hot dang, another reason to go back to Florida: NASA's Space Shuttle Atlantis has a new $100 million home at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex.
* A former Oregon gubernatorial candidate has pleaded guilty in a $13 million securities scam to sell pre-IPO shares of Facebook before the social network went public. Craig Berkman, a Florida financier who ran for governor in 1994 and once chaired the Oregon Republican Party, pleaded guilty Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Manhattan to one count each of securities fraud and wire fraud, each of which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.
* State-run media from our great and good friends the Chinese are suddenly sharply critical of U.S. IT products, calling them a terrible security threat. Wonderful!
* Here's a look at the first boat to circle the globe on solar power. Of course, it has to haul 8.5 tons of batteries to accomplish this feat.
* Barnes and Noble is in serious trouble, and may soon be joining our Ann Arbor friends, Borders, in oblivion.
* Nearly overshadowed by other news Tuesday, the Obama administration has outlined a plan to slow down global climate change.
