Will the "Green Revolution" Ever Hit Africa?

To most people in the developed world, agricultural science is a bit of an afterthought. We go to the grocery store and decide between small, vibrantly red cherry tomatoes and charmingly misshapen heirloom tomatoes. We buy big, juicy oranges and know that when we peel them the juice will run over our fingers and the sticky scent will linger. We can choose between 10 different kinds of apples, no matter the season. At no point during our shopping do most of us stop to think about the technology used to produce this bounty.

Despite the nostalgia many Americans feel for the image of a farm in the country with a red barn, only 2% of Americans are still classified as farmers by the government

Leap Months and Kings

The Hebrew calendar is lunar, so that a leap-month has to be inserted every once in a while to keep the seasons and holidays at appropriate times. But when to insert the month, and what group should decide?

According to the Talmud (Sanhedrin 18b), the king was excluded from the group. Because he paid his soldiers on an annual basis, it was felt that he would have an incentive to insert extra months, since that lengthened the year and saved him money.

If the king only expected to be in power for a few years, or if he had a very high discount rate and didn't care about the future, this explanation might make sense. But the calendar couldn't get too far off because the king couldn't keep inserting months year after year. Otherwise, for example, harvest holidays would come during planting times. One might even argue that the king had the opposite incentive: by avoiding excessive intercalations, he would demonstrate to the soldiers and the people his confidence in a long reign. (Hat tip: M.A.H. and S.C.H.)

Friend Turnover

Seven years from now, a new study reports, your friend group will probably look entirely different, even though it'll still be the same size. Utrecht University sociologist Gerald Mollenhorst surveyed 604 people about their friends and again seven years later, and found that only 48 percent of people's original friends were still part of their network after that time period. How will social networking tools like Facebook and Twitter affect the rate of friend turnover in the next seven years?

Precision Hacking

Take a look at the final vote tally in Time magazine

Who Gets Hurt In A Crisis?

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Fantasy Stocks

For those who are still too scared to invest in the stock market, you can buy some imaginary stock at UpDown, a "practice investing" site that simulates the stock market and lists real-life companies without meting out real-life consequences.