"A silver lining to this cloud is that the spillover costs of obesity have led various stakeholders to conclude that helping obese individuals lose weight can be a win-win proposition. For example, the Humana health insurance company has implemented the Vitality program that offers enrollees, in exchange for healthy behaviors, reward points that can be cashed in for prizes."

"We shouldn't expect a crackdown on "market manipulation" to have much of an effect because the market isn't being manipulated in any systematic way."

"The CornellNYC Tech campus has captured the imagination of New Yorkers. It will be very exciting to work on such an important project in the service of a world-class institution like Cornell."

"The situation has been made worse as this data has become a commodity. Some service providers are charging fees in return for providing their subscribers’ personal information without telling the subscribers about the transactions. All consumers should be annoyed – and alarmed." 

"Thus, evaluated through the frame of ordinary doctrine, the litigation looks like a slam-dunk for the government. But because the political stakes are so high, the litigation looks more like Bush v. Gore, making the result about as predictable as a 7-10 first-round matchup in March Madness."

“I’d like to correct a great misunderstanding among the public about swarms of honey bees, which will start appearing in three to four weeks. These swarms of bees won’t pose a danger.  Each one is just a bunch of bees hanging out somewhere for a day or two looking for a home."

"We currently spend tens of millions of dollars on making fruits and vegetables more available in schools. One of the key problems is that almost two-thirds of children don’t like fruits or vegetables. In addition to availability, we need to fund the programs that have been proven to get kids to try the foods and promote better eating habits."

"The transportation, energy and economic systems are closely related: Transportation is movement, movement requires energy and the use of energy has a price. Transportation is the single largest consumer of energy, and oil is the dominant energy source, with a share of about 95 percent, which is roughly 70 percent of the total oil demand."

"With its decision to require Catholic employers to provide health insurance that covers contraception, the Obama administration has done something few thought possible. It has managed to unite liberal and conservative Catholics in opposition. Whatever one thinks of the decision on policy or legal grounds, it is sure to have political consequences that reverberate through the election."

"In the masterpieces of his later years, Dickens attacked social injustice with a thoroughness and passion rarely equaled. Wherever he went during his visit to the U.S., he was mobbed, and he responded with similar enthusiasm to his fans; on the other hand, he despised slavery, and he held the slave owners he met–an argumentative, boastful sort–in contempt."

“For African Americans, there was a very welcome and notable decline in the unemployment rate. A drop from 15.8 percent down to 13.6 percent is significant, recognizing of course that this is still much higher than the overall unemployment situation of Americans. Unemployment also fell among Hispanics, down to 10.5 percent from 11.0 percent last month.”

“Woodchucks typically hibernate from late October through February. With milder weather and little snow cover, they may be active a few days earlier than usual. The same may be true for black bears, so damage to birdfeeders in spring could start earlier than usual. Bears could be out of their dens in late March and seeking food sources.”

"Government spending directed toward investment increases productivity. History supports this as the only route to lower deficits in the future. We should hope those in Congress who oppose government spending can see the wisdom of investing in our future productivity.”

“Really crusty gardeners sometimes say that they need to kill a plant three times to be certain it won't grow in their area. Especially with herbaceous perennials, which are relatively inexpensive, one should try to push the hardiness rating. You never know what might survive.”

“The northward march of the hardiness zones illustrates continued warming. By 2080, the hardiness zones that currently cover the area from southern Virginia to Northern Georgia, may replace those that we see across New York in the current update.”

"Gardeners like to experiment, and can lead the way in exploring what it is possible to grow in a changing climate. On the down side, some local favorite garden species may suffer, while invasive weedy plants like kudzu are likely to expand their range northward."

“Today's solar flare is class S3, implying a radiation hazard for passengers on high-latitude airline flights and astronauts on EVAs. Electromagnetic radiation from the sun can briefly interfere with cellular communications and satellite navigation systems like GPS.”

"Any one country banning oil doesn’t make much difference in a global market like oil. It will only begin to really bite if everyone bans Iranian oil.  Even then I would expect widespread cheating from the less scrupulous."

"Dogs and cats live in our homes and reflect the human situation. Their eating habits are directly related to ours and as a result their weight is climbing along with ours. As our companions, dogs and cats are subject to many of the same problems associated with obesity in people."

"Even those who defend Romney's 'vulture capitalist' days at the Bain Capital private equity fund are apt to balk at the revelation that he has been stashing millions of dollars in sheltered accounts in the money laundering capital of the world. That somebody who wishes to be President of the United States would funnel his money to such places is, to say the least, surprising."

"Iran has one of the largest known deposits of remaining conventional crude oil resources. The potential disruption of those supplies, and especially a security threat at the Strait of Hormuz, is a significant threat to the world crude oil market."

"Information about a customer can be used to 'de-anonymize' other databases on other Web sites, further invading customer privacy. Correlation attacks enabled by such data have been shown to strip anonymity from NetFlix, AOL and other databases that were assumed safe.

"Legalized casino gambling encourages people to pin their hopes on games of chance that are stacked against them. Those who are determined to gamble will find some way to do so, but why lend government's imprimatur to predators' efforts to exploit people who can least afford to bear the inevitable losses?"

"The core idea would be that Romney is willing to say or do anything to promote his own interests. In this approach, the flip-flopping manifests the political dimension to Romney's personal ambition, while the plutocrat-favoring shows the economic dimension."