Elinor Ostrom And Oliver Williamson Win Economics Nobel

The Economic Science Nobel was given to Oliver Williamson and Elinor Ostrom, the first women to receive this prize.

Together they have worked on economic governance, organization, cooperation, relationships and nonmarket institutions which has earned them the Economics Nobel prize of 2009.

Marge Simpson Playboy Pics

Marge Simpson Playboy Pics will be hitting a stand near you on October 16th.

In celebration of the 20th birthday of the TV show The Simpson’s, Marge Simpson will be posing nude for the magazine in a cover that won’t need a camera! There will also be a centerfold! This is the first time Playboy puts a cartoon character in the cover.

Yard Sale Treasure Map

Yard sales are always very popular during the summer and with these rough economic time they are a great way to save money.

One man’s garbage is another man’s treasure and to help you plan our your yard sale hunt there is the Yard Sale Treasure Map.

Here is the description of the Yard Sale Treasure Map service according to lifehacker.com:

Yard Sale Treasure Map is a Google Maps mashup designed to help you find and easily get to Craigslist-posted yard sales in your area.

You enter a starting address, a driving radius, and select from Friday, Saturday, or Sunday. Yard Sale Treasure Map then queries Craiglist for your area, and returns a route that will take you to all the yard sales it finds. You can click on the markers for each sale to see additional information about the sale and delete them if you’re not interested. You can also add in sales that you find from other sources, like your local paper, by either putting the address in the left sidebar or double clicking on the map to place a new marker. This surprisingly elegant hack is free to use.

Elizabeth Blackburn Wins Nobel Prize

Elizabeth Blackburn, Carol Greider and Jack Szostak where awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize thanks to their research on cancer.

According to San Francisco Business Times:

The trio found that chromosome-capping telomeres — which Blackburn has compared to the plastic ends of shoe laces — and the enzyme telomerase protect chromosomes as cells divide.

Blackburn and Szostak discovered that a unique DNA sequence in the telomeres protects the chromosomes from degradation while Blackburn and Greider identified telomerase, the enzyme that makes telomere DNA.

If the telomeres are shortened, cells age. Higher telomerase activity, meanwhile, maintains telomeres length.

The discoveries have an impact on cancer research as well as research into aging and other diseases. Blackburn and her UCSF colleagues have found, for example, that telomeres are worn down in people who are stressed for long periods of time, like a parent caring for a chronically ill child.

The $1.4 million prize will be shared among the trio. Congrats to all the 2009 Nobel Prize winners!

NYS Unemployment

The New York State (NYS) unemployment rate is at its highest since the 80’s. But Google says that there is no reason to panic.

According to Google graphs New York is doing pretty well compared to other states. It is easy to see that these metrics follow pretty much the same trend whenever there is a recession. New York being somewhere in the middle by these accounts, with Michigan obviously being hit much harder.