Hank Pellissier's blog

Living in the USA is killing people, quite early. Prodigious wealth and scientific achievement isn’t keeping Americans around very long. Quite the opposite. Longevity rankings tabulated by the United Nations show the North American behemoth wheezing behind in 36th place, with a croak-time of 78.3 years, dying nearly four years earlier than the durable Japanese (82.6). Cubans live as long as Americans; Chileans and Costa Ricans live longer; so do workaholic South Koreans (2,357 person-hours) and hard-drinking Finland, where alcoholism is the #1 cause of death.

American atheists are elevating their presence in activism and charitable giving. Here's the evidence:

Enjoy forecasting? Seeking a community you can discuss predictions with? Enjoy arguing, en masse, about the course of humanity? Welcome to Facebook.

The Pirate Party of Berlin, Germany, garnered a shocking 8.9% of the votes in the city-state’s election two weeks ago, to place 15 representatives in Berlin's parliament. In a story on the result, the New York Times described Pirate Party leaders as "disarmingly honest... in their 20's and 30's... with no lack of confidence."

Researchers are discovering that only 50% of IQ is based on genetics. Environment determines the remaining half. Neurologists and other scientists are also pinpointing the myriad factors that elevate or decimate intelligence. PubMed.gov—the website of the USA’s National Institutes of Health and National Library of Medicine—lists 12,708 research studies that analyzed what makes us stupid or smart. Soon, I believe, we will be utilizing this data at home, in schools, and via government sanctions and support.

thwaaack! OUCH! thwaaack! OUCH! thwaaack! OUCH!
Many Westerners regard Singapore as a weird tropical tyranny where: 1) You get caned with a bamboo stick for spray-painting graffiti. 2) Chewing gum is prohibited. 3) You get executed via hanging if you're convicted of drug-dealing.
The tiny archipelago-on-the-equator is all that, it's true, but it's also an astonishing model mega-city success, with astute futuristic sensibilities in its environmental, business, educational, infrastructural, and technological policies.

A bulky research report titled The Global Gender Gap Index has been published annually since 2006 by the World Economic Index. The current 325-page report analyzed the status of women relative to men in 134 nations (out of the world’s 193) in four categories: Health, Education, Economy, and Politics. Every nation was then ranked, from 1-134, in a list of best-to-worst nations for women. What nations were picked in 2010 as the best in the world for women?

What can stop eco-disasters? Advanced technology? Perhaps, but the savior also might be a 40-million-year-old plant… Bamboo is shooting into prominence as a flexible friend of humanity. The skinny stalk with the whispering leaves and white roots is exhibiting a husky talent as a cure for multiple planetary illnesses.

On November 1, 2010, Dilma Rosseau was elected President of Brazil. The daughter of a Bulgarian immigrant, she was a revolutionary guerilla in the 1970's who was imprisoned for three years and tortured for 22 days with electric shock, but most importantly, today, she's a female leader, one of several political women selected recently to guide Latin American nations.

Israel's Natural Gas Discovery: Possible Scenarios

Israel's recent discovery of huge natural gas reservoirs in its territorial waters of the Mediterranean Sea has released a gushing torrent of hyperbolic hopes, ambitious export and alliance-building plans, aggressive threats from envious neighbors, pious religious references to Biblical prophecy, and even some cautious suggestions.