The Long, Politically Fraught History of Seeds in the U.S.

We’ve come a long way from the government giving away free seeds.
Read more: http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-long-politically-fraught-history-of-seeds-in-the-us?source=Snapzu

Scottish banks promise their notes are vegan-friendly

All of Scotland’s producers of new polymer bank notes have confirmed that their cash is free of any animal products. Royal Bank of Scotland, Bank of Scotland and the Clydesdale Bank were all asked to make statements about the contents of their notes after vegans throughout Britain reacted angrily yesterday to news that the Bank …
Read more: http://www.scottishfinancialnews.com/11090/scottish-banks-promise-their-notes-are-vegan/?source=Snapzu

Robots are growing tons of our food. Here's the creepy part.

It's not what you think.
Read more: http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2016/09/monsanto-farming-precision-agriculture?source=Snapzu

China Warns of Safety Risks as Rally in Coal Price Spurs Mining

Soaring coal prices have spurred a surge in potentially dangerous mining activity in China, prompting a government warning about the risk of increased casualties in a country that is home to some of the world’s deadliest mines.
Read more: http://www.wsj.com/articles/china-warns-of-safety-risks-as-rally-in-coal-price-spurs-mining-1480504725?source=Snapzu

Trump to reveal deal to keep nearly 1,000 Carrier jobs in Indiana

The incoming Trump Administration and UTX have reached an agreement that will keep close to 1,000 jobs at Carrier in Indiana.
Read more: http://www.cnbc.com/2016/11/29/trump-to-reveal-deal-to-keep-nearly-1000-carrier-corp-jobs-in-indiana-sources.html?source=Snapzu

Peter Thiel Insider Picked to Oversee Donald Trump’s Defense Department Transition

Trae Stephens is a principal at billionaire Peter Thiel’s venture capital firm Founders Fund and used to work at Thiel’s controversial Palantir. By Lee Fang.
Read more: https://theintercept.com/2016/11/28/peter-thiel-dod/?source=Snapzu

It will soon be illegal to punish customers who criticize businesses online

Consumer Review Fairness Act bans customer gag clauses, awaits Obama signature.
Read more: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/11/congress-passes-law-protecting-right-to-post-negative-online-reviews/?source=Snapzu

How an Award-Winning Economist’s Weird Discovery May Challenge General Relativity

In 2004, The Economist reported on a study by Chris Duif with the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, who was convinced after further research of his own that the phenomenon known as the Allais effect is not only real, but that it could still qualify as being unexplained… By Micah Hanks.
Read more: http://mysteriousuniverse.org/2016/11/how-an-award-winning-economists-weird-discovery-may-challenge-general-relativity/?source=Snapzu

CBC asks for $400M to go ad-free

CBC/Radio Canada has submitted a position paper to the federal government proposing the public broadcaster move to an ad-free model, similar to the one used to pay for the BBC in the United Kingdom, at a cost of about $400 million in additional funding. "We are at a critical juncture in our evolution, continuing to operate under a business model and cultural policy framework that is profoundly broken," says the CBC's document, released on Monday afternoon. "At the same time, other nations are moving their cultural agendas forward successfully — and reaping the benefits of strong, stable, well-funded public broadcasters."
Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/cbc-radio-canada-ad-free-proposal-1.3871077?source=Snapzu

Ivanka Trump’s Terrible Book Helps Explain the Trump-Family Ethos

What can a woman born with a silver spoon in her mouth teach people who use plastic forks to eat salads at their desks?
Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/ivanka-trumps-terrible-book-helps-explain-the-trump-family-ethos?source=Snapzu

Google Asked to Remove a Billion "Pirate" Search Results in a Year

Copyright holders asked Google to remove more than 1,000,000,000 allegedly infringing links from its search engine over the past twelve months. A new record, in line with the continued rise of takedown requests and the increase in pressure on Google to do more to tackle piracy.
Read more: https://torrentfreak.com/google-asked-to-remove-a-billion-pirate-search-results-in-a-year-161128/?source=Snapzu

Silicon Valley Has an Empathy Vacuum

Silicon Valley fails to take into account the human consequences of its technological wizardry. By Om Malik.
Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/silicon-valley-has-an-empathy-vacuum?source=Snapzu

Why We Need a New Democratic Party

As a first step, I believe it necessary for the members and leadership of the Democratic National Committee to step down and be replaced by people who are determined to create a party that represents America – including all those who feel powerless and disenfranchised, and who have been left out of our politics and left behind in our economy. By Robert Reich.
Read more: http://billmoyers.com/story/need-new-democratic-party/#.WDu9kRPU5wo.twitter?source=Snapzu

No logo: Why un-branded luxury goods are on the rise

‘Consumers want to be one in a million, not one of a million,’ says analyst
Read more: http://www.scmp.com/news/world/article/2050081/no-logo-why-un-branded-luxury-goods-are-rise?source=Snapzu

Creepy Futures: Nicholas Carr’s History of the Future

The history of the future is replete with horrible utopias. By Geoff Nunberg.
Read more: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/creepy-futures-nicholas-carrs-history-future/?source=Snapzu

Theranos Sued for Alleged Fraud by Robertson Stephens Co-Founder Colman

Robertson Stephens & Co. co-founder Robert Colman accused Theranos Inc. in a lawsuit filed Monday of making false and misleading claims about its operations and technology while soliciting money from investors.
Read more: http://www.wsj.com/articles/theranos-sued-for-alleged-fraud-by-robertson-stephens-co-founder-colman-1480364852?source=Snapzu

Chocolate vs vegetables: The true environmental costs

When it comes to carbon emissions, certain unhealthy snacks may carry an unexpected blessing compared to healthier options.
Read more: http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20161125-the-true-costs-of-our-favourite-foods?source=Snapzu

This 'bank for the poor' could hold the key to ending poverty and inequality

In 2016, Oxfam estimated that the total wealth of 99 per cent of the global population was barely equivalent to the wealth of the top one per cent - and it would get worse each year. Over the past few months, Bernie Sanders has made the point that, in the US, the top ten per cent owns almost as much wealth as the bottom 90 per cent.
Read more: http://www.wired.co.uk/article/stop-wealth-concentration-grameen-bank?source=Snapzu

India's Modi calls for move towards cashless society

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday urged the nation's small traders and daily wage earners to embrace digital payment channels, as a cash crunch following the government's surprise ban on high-value bank notes drags on.
Read more: http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-india-modi-digital-payments-idUKKBN13M083?source=Snapzu

Choke Point of a Nation: The High Cost of an Aging River Lock

A symbol of America’s ailing infrastructure, Lock No. 52 on the Ohio River is responsible for a shipping bottleneck that hobbles commerce far and wide.
Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/23/business/economy/desperately-plugging-holes-in-an-87-year-old-dam.html?source=Snapzu

First Brexit then Trump. Is Italy next for the west’s populist wave?

Italians will soon vote in a referendum on constitutional reforms which could have dramatic results for all of Europe. By Julian Coman.
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/nov/27/matteo-renzi-politics-italy-european-union-brexit-trump?source=Snapzu

Railway Market: Urban Train Track Doubles as Shopping Alley in Thailand

Southwest of Bangkok, the Maeklong Railway Market is one of the most popular places to shop for seafood in Thailand. But buyer beware: oncoming trains may spoil your trip if you fail to step out of the way. By Kurt Kohlstedt.
Read more: http://99percentinvisible.org/article/railway-market-urban-train-track-doubles-shopping-alley-thailand/?source=Snapzu

No Credit History? No Problem. Lenders Are Looking at Your Phone Data

Financial institutions, overcoming some initial trepidation about privacy, are increasingly gauging consumers’ creditworthiness by using phone-company data on mobile calling patterns and locations. By Olga Kharif.
Read more: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-25/no-credit-history-no-problem-lenders-now-peering-at-phone-data?source=Snapzu

Bernie Sanders meets Spike Lee: ‘Where do we go? Where is the hope?’

The senator and the film-maker discuss Trump, where Clinton went wrong – and how to make a difference in 2017. By Emma Brockes.
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/nov/26/bernie-sanders-spike-lee-conversation-donald-trump-us-politics?source=Snapzu

Giving Thanks: Hedge-Fund Managers Are Still Super Rich Edition

Happy Thanksgiving, you bastards. By Bess Levin.
Read more: http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/11/giving-thanks-hedge-fund-managers-are-still-super-rich-edition?source=Snapzu

What it's like inside the doomsday vault that stores every known crop on the planet

If climate change or nuclear war wipes out most of life on the planet, there's still a place where we've got genetic copies of hundreds of thousands of crops.
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/svalbard-doomsday-seed-vault-photo-tour-2016-11/#backups-are-sent-to-svalbard-in-case-a-disaster-ruins-the-samples-at-the-home-seed-bank-6?source=Snapzu

Donald Trump’s stock in company behind North Dakota oil pipeline raises concern

President-elect Donald Trump holds stock in the company building the disputed Dakota Access oil pipeline, and pipeline opponents warn that Trump’s investments could affect any decision he makes on the $3.8 billion project as president. Concern about Trump’s possible conflicts comes amid protests that unfold daily along the proposed pipeline route. The dispute over the route has intensified in recent weeks, with total arrests since August rising to 528. A recent clash near the main protest camp in North Dakota left a police officer and several protesters injured.
Read more: http://www.denverpost.com/2016/11/25/trumps-stock-in-oil-pipeline-company-raises-concern/?source=Snapzu

Who Invented Agriculture First? It Sure Wasn't Humans

Ants in Fiji farm plants and fertilize them with their poop. And they've been doing this for 3 million years, much longer than humans, who began experimenting with farming about 12,000 years ago.
Read more: http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/11/25/503069741/who-invented-agriculture-first-it-sure-wasnt-humans?source=Snapzu

Millennials on Spirit Quests Are Ruining Everything About Ayahuasca

Ayahuasca was a sacred medicine. Now it’s a global ‘it’ drug, and the trendiness is threatening the source. By Marina Lopes.
Read more: http://motherboard.vice.com/read/millennials-on-spirit-quests-are-ruining-everything-about-ayahuasca?source=Snapzu

Perils of Climate Change Could Swamp Coastal Real Estate

Homeowners are slowly growing wary of buying property in the areas most at risk, setting up a potential economic time bomb in an industry that is struggling to adapt.
Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/24/science/global-warming-coastal-real-estate.html?source=Snapzu

Squeeze on living standards 'worse than after financial crisis'

The size of the challenge facing a chancellor who has pledged an economy "that works for everyone" is becoming increasingly clear. And it is not just down to Brexit. After an Autumn Statement which abandoned pledges to hit a government budget surplus by 2020, new analysis claims the squeeze on living standards could be worse during this Parliament than between 2010 and 2015.
Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38089190?source=Snapzu

To keep the cranberry industry in its birthplace, a farm turns to drones, data, and automation

Keith Mann faces the same problem each year: frost. The icy condensation is detrimental to his crop in Buzzards Bay, Massachusetts, the birthplace of the modern American cranberry industry. As the temperatures drop into the fall months, the owner of 150 acres of cranberry bogs throws on some layers and preps a network of sprinklers, which spray enough temperate water to keep the vines above freezing until the sun rises.
Read more: http://www.theverge.com/2016/11/23/12640282/farming-technology-cranberry-industry-dji-phantom-drone-data?source=Snapzu

Digg CEO Gary Liu is leaving to head up Alibaba-owned newspaper SCMP

Digg, the one-time internet sensation, is losing the CEO that has nursed it back to good health. Gary Liu is leaving the company to become CEO of South China..
Read more: https://techcrunch.com/2016/11/23/digg-ceo-gary-liu-joining-scmp/?source=Snapzu

Venezuela’s Currency Just Had the Biggest Monthly Collapse Ever

Venezuela’s currency - the so-called “strong bolivar” - is weakening beyond levels that analysts had forecast just a few weeks ago as an expanding money supply chases a limited amount of U.S. dollars.
Read more: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-24/venezuela-s-currency-just-had-the-biggest-monthly-collapse-ever?source=Snapzu

Facebook's ideals: As fake as its fakest news

To the social network, you're just a stack of numbers.
Read more: http://mashable.com/2016/11/23/facebook-china-censorship/?utm_cid=hp-hh-pri#wmHuQTcvcPqW?source=Snapzu

Rice farming in India much older than thought, used as 'summer crop' by Indus civilisation

Thought to have arrived from China in 2000 BC, latest research shows domesticated rice agriculture in India and Pakistan existed centuries earlier, and suggests systems of seasonal crop variation that would have provided a rich and diverse diet for the Bronze Age residents of the Indus valley.
Read more: https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/rice-farming-in-india-much-older-than-thought-used-as-summer-crop-by-indus-civilisation?source=Snapzu

Why Trump is right, and wrong, about killing off the TPP

The United States and other countries are right to reject the TPP, but President-elect Donald Trump's claims about it are misguided.
Read more: https://theconversation.com/why-trump-is-right-and-wrong-about-killing-off-the-tpp-69045?source=Snapzu

Most students can’t tell the difference between sponsored content and real news

Most students can’t tell the difference between real news articles and sponsored content, according to a study from Stanford University, raising concerns over how young people consume online media.
Read more: http://www.theverge.com/2016/11/22/13712996/fake-news-facebook-google-sponsored-content-study?source=Snapzu

Genalyte raises $36 million from Khosla for its one-drop blood test

Theranos competitor Genalyte just announced it has raised an equity round of $36 million in funding led by Khosla Ventures and Redmile Group.
Read more: https://techcrunch.com/2016/11/21/genalyte-raises-36-million-from-khosla-for-its-one-drop-blood-test/?source=Snapzu

Judge blocks Obama rule extending overtime pay to 4.2 million U.S. workers

A federal judge on Tuesday blocked an Obama administration rule to extend mandatory overtime pay to more than 4 million workers from taking effect, imperiling one of the outgoing president's signature achievements for boosting wages.
Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-employment-overtime-idUSKBN13H2JY?source=Snapzu

Obama: World partners(Corporations) want TPP...of course they do.

President Obama, speaking at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit on Sunday, said leaders from the region want to move forward with the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal.
Read more: http://thehill.com/policy/international/trade/306966-obama-world-partners-want-tpp?source=Snapzu

No Evidence of Aloe Vera Found in the Aloe Vera at Wal-Mart, CVS

The aloe vera gel many Americans buy to soothe damaged skin contains no evidence of aloe vera at all.
Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-22/no-evidence-of-aloe-vera-found-in-the-aloe-vera-at-wal-mart-cvs?source=Snapzu

The Rockefeller Family Fund vs. Exxon

For over a quarter-century the company tried to deceive policymakers and the public about the realities of climate change, protecting its profits at the cost of immense damage to life on this planet.
Read more: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2016/12/08/the-rockefeller-family-fund-vs-exxon/?source=Snapzu

Silent, less deadly: Methane nearly eliminated from cow farts by seaweed

A P.E.I. farmer has helped lead to a researcher's discovery of an unlikely weapon in the battle against global warming: a seaweed that nearly eliminates the destructive methane content of cow burps and farts. Joe Dorgan began feeding his cattle seaweed from nearby beaches more than a decade ago as a way to cut costs on his farm in Seacow Pond. He was so impressed with the improvements he saw in his herd, he decided to turn the seaweed into a product.
Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/prince-edward-island/pei-cow-farting-1.3856202?source=Snapzu

Sneakers Show Limits of Trade Policy in Reviving Jobs for Trump

American companies from appliance makers to auto parts suppliers have lined up to offer a quiet caution to President-elect Donald Trump as he considers pulling the United States from trade deals: most lost manufacturing jobs aren’t coming back, but higher costs for consumers could.
Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-trade-shoes-idUSKBN13G1BF?source=Snapzu

Big Banks are more Excited about Donald Trump than any other President in almost 100 Years

Under a Trump administration, Wall Street is in line for a bonanza.
Read more: http://qz.com/841359/big-banks-are-more-excited-about-donald-trump-than-any-other-president-in-almost-100-years/?google_editors_picks=true?source=Snapzu

Olive Killer Disease Arrives on Mallorca

A disease posing a "very serious threat" to the EU's olive industry is recorded on the Spanish island of Mallorca for the first time.
Read more: http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-38050625?source=Snapzu

Barney Frank admits 'mistake' in Dodd-Frank

Former congressman says namesake legislation should have been more lenient on smaller banks.
Read more: http://thehill.com/policy/finance/banking-financial-institutions/306906-barney-frank-admits-mistake-in-dodd-frank?source=Snapzu

Intel is laying off a major portion of its wearables group

According to sources close to the company, Intel is about to step back from wearables in a big way. In 2014, the company purchased Basis, a little-known producer of some truly excellent fitness watches. The acquisition was clearly a piece of a much larger puzzle for Intel, as it folded the brand into NDG — the New Devices Group — a new wing designed to make a big play for the booming wearables market, while hitting back against rival chipmaker, Qualcomm.
Read more: https://techcrunch.com/2016/11/18/intel-layoffs/?source=Snapzu

The Emotional Labor of Waitressing

Marie Billiel, who has worked in the restaurant industry for 10 years, talks about having to have a ”mask on” for eight hours at a time. By Adrienne Green.
Read more: http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/11/waitress/507842/?source=Snapzu