Jill Abramson was recently ousted from her position as the executive editor of The New York Times. Her defenders said it was because of her gender (yet she got the job) and her demand for more compensation (she was paid more than her predecessor and the New York Times is hemorrhaging money) while critics called her polarizing and brusque. Some used the term 'pushy' which was codespeak for sexism, it was said.

She was not the first difficult person to end up running a newsroom and the response her firing got from subordinates and other media leaders likely surprised her - difficult people never know they are difficult, according to a new paper from the Columbia Business School .

In previous articles I’ve demonstrated how to use littleBits and erector set parts to build a magnetic stirrer and a sample rotator. Since I was able to drive Erector set machines with the littleBits motor I decided to try to use it to drive K’nex contraptions.

Recently findings could help to reduce health care charges while also protecting childhood cancer survivors from heart ailments caused by drug therapy. 

The paper reviewed data from patient histories to show that current standard medical guidelines for protecting childhood cancer survivors from drug treatment-related heart disease and heart failure later in life through periodic heart scans (echocardiographs) are overly cautious.

According to the data, the frequency of such post-cancer screenings can be safely reduced for low-risk patients – with large cost-savings and little reduction in overall quality of patient care.

The Jacobi iterative method, a 169-year-old math strategy, may soon get a new lease on life.

In a recent study, researchers at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center used video observation to assess 
anesthesia provider
hand hygiene compliance.

They observed an average of 149 hand hygiene opportunities per hour of anesthesia time. Hand hygiene compliance was lowest during the first and last 20-minute time periods. The low hand hygiene compliance rates at case start and case end corresponded with sharp peaks in bacterial contamination of the 20 most frequently touched objects during these same time periods. 

It's unclear why there is a natural medicine craze in the modern era. Real medicine was invented because natural medicine didn't help people. If natural medicine survived double-blind clinical trials, it became regular medicine.

Antihistamines, which help reduce watery eyes and runny noses during allergy season, might also help ward off tumors too. A new report suggests that antihistamines may have significant anti-cancer properties as they interfere with the function of a type of cell that is known to reduce the body's ability to fight tumors - myeloid derived suppressor cells.

Surveys show that managers hold more negative attitudes to private use of social media at work - they should know what a time waster it is, they use it more than subordinates.

11,000 Norwegian employees participated in a study called 'Predictors of Use of Social Network Sites at Work'.

"It is very interesting that top executives, who are negative to private web-surfing during working hours, are the ones who surf the most for private purposes when at work," says Dr. Cecilie Schou Andreassen at the University of Bergen Department of Psychosocial Science, who suggests that this can be explained by the fact that top executives have longer working hours, and that work and leisure are much more integrated than it is for staff.

At first glance, Titan, the largest moon of Saturn, has little in common with Earth. Titan's surface temperature dips tp nearly 300 F below zero, its seas slosh with liquid methane, and its sky is a murky shade of creamsicle.

It's not a bad idea to think about water. Though Earth is literally overrun with water only 2% is usable and current energy and technology limitations make it impractical to bring it to the areas that need it most, so management is important.

Water is the limiting factor for many plants and trees and climate models project hotter and drier summers for much of the globe. An international research team is studying which factors govern the resistance of tropical trees to periods of drought and fins that stored carbohydrates play a key role in the resilience of the individual plant.