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Big Climate Change Numbers and Other Fascinating News on the Web

September 27, 2013

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  1. Poll: Climate Change Exaggerated

    In a recent poll, about 41% of Americans indicated that they believe the news about climate change is exaggerated. Not too many of them were scientists. Here’s how one climate scientist described the summary of findings issued by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: “I do not know of any other area of any complexity and importance at all where there is unanimous agreement.” So what exactly are all these scientists agreeing about? Climate change is real, it’s getting worse, and it’s most likely caused by us. The full 2,500 page report is due out next week. Let’s hope they use recycled paper.

    + If we stop emitting carbon dioxide, temperatured will still remain “at elevated levels for many centuries.” Here are six scary conclusions from today’s report.

    + Hot hot will it get in your lifetime?

  2. Against the Grain

    We’ve seen a rise in Celiac Disease and we’re hearing more and more about people with gluten allergies and other ailments that they connect with consuming wheat products. Humans don’t change all that fast. So does that mean that the wheat itself is what’s changed? At least one doctor/author thinks so. But like everything associated with this topic, there’s much disagreement.

  3. Weekend Reads

    Rosario Crocetta smokes several packs of cigarettes a day. But that may not be the habit that’s most dangerous to his health. For starters, he’s going after the Mafia in Sicily. From the NYT Magazine: Can a Gay, Catholic Leftist Actually Squelch Corruption in Sicily?

    + Second Life is one of the old school virtual worlds. It might surprise you to learn that it’s still going, and sort of growing. From The Verge: Second Life’s Strange Second Life.

  4. Google’s 15th Birthday

    On its fifteenth birthday, Google is rolling out a massive revamp of its search engine. The user interface looks the same, but behind the scenes, Google is attempting to answer much more complex questions — like the ones we ask via voice on our mobile devices. In the last decade an a half, it’s hard to remember a time when Google held such a dominant position in the search market.

    + Here’s a look at 10 milestones that have shaped Google Search.

    + Rebecca Greenfield looks back at the web before Google.

    + For fifteen years, we’ve all been Googling ourselves. We used to ego search hoping to find something. Now we hope we don’t find too much.

  5. The Goo

    It’s the goo that helps Cinnabon’s signature product reach the lofty 880-calorie mark. It’s the goo that helps drive one social media mention of Cinnabon every ten seconds. And its the goo that helps explain inspired descriptions like this one from BloombergBusinessweek’s Duane Stanford: “The sensation of pure sugar can be overwhelming. It coats the mouth and clogs the back of the throat. Halfway through the roll, the body cries out for water or, even better, Diet Coke, which has a way of cutting through the varnish laid by the fats and sugars. Deep inside the roll, the bun’s core is hot and yet just barely cooked. Once gone, the bottom of the clamshell box is left smeared like a crime scene with a mash of syrup and cream cheese.” Cinnabon President Kat Cole: Hustling the Gut Bomb.

  6. Mariano Rivera’s Last Night

    Last night, Mariano Rivera took his last trip to the mound at Yankee Stadium, closing a chapter on one of the most impressive careers in baseball history.

    + Mariano Rivera: A 21-stat salute.

    + Baseball’s facial hair audit.

  7. Kimye

    Jimmy Kimmel produced a video that made fun of Kanye West. Kanye West, predictably, went on one of his all-caps Twitter tirades, initiating what Kimmel called his “first rap feud.” But really, can you regularly appear on (and in) The Kardashians and then argue that someone else is making you look bad? See all the action here.

  8. Government Shutdown Looming

    The Congressional budget wrangling is expected to continue throughout the weekend. From The New Republic, here are simple answers to the top five questions about the government shutdown.

  9. The Power of One

    In my earliest days of blogging and newslettering (and I’ve been at this awhile), a couple of mainstream publications featured stories about a tech newsletter I had just just launched. On the same day, a blogger named Jason Kottke wrote about my site. Jason’s link provided a lot more traffic than any of the other big media sites. It was on that day, staring at my web stats, that I began to truly understand just how powerful indie sites and personal brands would become as the Internet evolved. As most of you know, Jason is now a NextDraft syndication partner. We exchange a story each week. It it his 40th birthday, and like every other day, it’s a good day to visit his site.

  10. The Bottom of the News

    Meredith Fitzmaurice wasn’t expecting to win a marathon in Ontario. In fact, she wasn’t even expecting to run one. She had signed up for the half-marathon. But then she took a wrong turn.

    + Epic NYT correction: “The brothers Mario and Luigi, who appear in this and other Nintendo games, are plumbers, not janitors.”

    + A Walmart slumber party.