Sursum

New currency, The Ven, built from basket of world currencies and carbon futures

An interesting way to "price in" environmental externalities.  Full description and story is here http://bit.ly/kZeg0U

Hat tip to @umairh.

Sir Ken Robinson on creativity and our education system

Sir Ken Robinson points to many opportunities as we seek to reform the way we think about "education."

 

NYC as super-organism

From the @longnow blog

Mindrelic - Manhattan in motion from Mindrelic on Vimeo.

 

Bus that "straddles" cars: cheaper than a subway

Great design innovation out of China.  Works great for straight highways :)

Haunting New Yorker Cover Art: Japan

I was blown away by this week's New Yorker cover (thx Russ).

Chinese Pop Star: A Nigerian who sings R&B in Mandarin

Nigerian born and raised, a star in China (singing in Mandarin), huge R&B influence ... a very interesting confluence of culture, tradition, and (yes) business ... specifically the oil business.

to==to se 

Which Republican Will Run for President? Great Infographic here.

Great chart in the NYT today.  A quick legend:

• Left-right axis shows moderate vs conservative.
• Vertical axis shows "insider" vs "outsider."  
• Size of bubble represents the likelihood of them running (as judged by prediction market Intrade.)  
• Color of bubble is their geographic location (blue is NE, Red is South, Green for MidWest, and Yellow for West.) 

Its interesting to think how the Tea Party will pull the campaign to the right (at least in the primaries.)  Would this favor a Pawlenty, Huckabee or Thune vs a Romney?  It will be fun to watch.

 

About 1 in 7 Americans are on Food Stamps

The WSJ ran a great article on Food Stamps today -- about 14% of Americans use them.

Some states currently have food stamp usage of nearly 20% with the number of folks using food stamps growing by ~2% per year.

Certainly this speaks to the structural nature of food insecurity in our country.  A great video about the program is below...

 

Google and Twitter partner to thwart Internet shut-down in Egypt

One of the coolest things that came across my desk today was an emerging partnership between Google and Twitter.  

Egypt has apparently shut down their Internet to prevent reformers from sharing information with each other and also with the outside world.

The Google / Twitter partnership allows reformers to call an international number and "record" a tweet that goes out with a #Egypt hashtag.  Awesome. 

Viva la Revolucion!  

Reasons for optimism - world health and prosperity trends

Sometimes its important to take a step back and see what the data tell us.  Hans Rosling helps us do just that in the video below.