Category Archives: News

Retirement: Colleges Cater To Baby Boomers By Building On-Campus Living Facilities (WSJ)

From a Wall Street Journal online article:

Mirabella Senior Living at Arizona State UniversityMirabella Senior Living at Arizona State UniversityMore schools are building or planning senior-living facilities on or near campus to cater to baby boomers who view college as a stimulating alternative to bingo at an archetypal retirement home. Some savor the pursuit of academic and cultural interests. Others are lured by the promise of interaction with younger students, for whom many hope to act as mentors.

It is the latest way for universities to profit from one of their greatest assets, land. Colleges have already taken advantage of this privilege by developing hotels and high-end student housing. Now, some see sales of upscale senior housing as the next step.

Lasell University, just west of Boston, built one of the first on-campus senior communities two decades ago. It requires members to take 450 hours of coursework or activities each year. Other programs have since sprouted up in places like the University of Michigan and Oberlin College in Ohio. Some communities are on campus; others are situated nearby and may have only a loose affiliation with the school. Many offer assisted living and nursing options.

To read more: https://www.wsj.com/articles/seniors-want-to-go-back-to-class-universities-want-to-sell-them-real-estate-11576751403

Top New Science Videos: “Breakthrough” Of The Year, Top Stories & Books 2019 (ScienceMag)

As the year comes to a close, we review the best science, the best stories, and the best books from 2019. Our end-of-the-year episode kicks off with Host Sarah Crespi and Online News Editor David Grimm talking about the top online stories on things like human self-domestication, the “wood wide web,” and more.

News Editor Tim Appenzeller joins Sarah to discuss Science’s 2019 Breakthrough of the Year, some of the contenders for breakthrough, also known as runners-up, and a breakdown—when science and politics just didn’t seem to mix this year.

Finally, Science books editor Valerie Thompson brings her favorites from the world of science-inflected media. She and Sarah talk about some of the best books reviewed in Science this year, a food extinction book we should have reviewed, a pair of science-centric films, and even an award-winning birding board game.

Travel: Innovations Inside Carnival’s “Mardi Gras” (2020), The Largest Cruise Ship Ever (WSJ Video)

Cruise ships are getting larger and the activities on board more extreme. WSJ’s Scott McCartney visits a shipyard in Finland to see how the cruise operator Carnival is able to pack so much on a ship — including a rollercoaster — and still have it float.

Future Of Flight: Rolls-Royce Unveils “Accel Aeroplane”, World’s Fastest Electric Plane

Rolls-Royce is leading a highly specialised challenge to build the world’s fastest all-electric aircraft

This zero-emissions plane is expected to make a run for the record books with a target speed of 300+ MPH (480+ KMH).

ACCEL Aeroplane

Rolls-Royce has rolled out to the public for the first time its Accel aeroplane which it hopes will earn the blue-chip engineer a place in history by smashing the current speed record for an electrically-powered aircraft. The battery-powered Accel is targeting a top speed in excess of 300mph over four 3,000-metre runs during a single flight when goes for the record off the Welsh coast in the summer.

To read more about Rolls-Royce’s electric plane: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/…

Space Exploration: NASA Goddard “Modernizing For The Future” (Video)

“We are modernizing Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) and its six sites for the future. A comprehensive Facilities Master Plan is an essential element in developing a blueprint for the future of our Center. Goddard recognizes the importance of fostering a work environment that is enjoyable, rewarding and aligned with meeting the challenges of tomorrow. The Master Plan will develop the infrastructure to support our business goals and missions, inform future investment decisions and respond to the growth and diversity of our mission and customer requirements. Its content will be informed by site visits, stakeholder interviews and workshops at all campuses, starting at the Greenbelt campus. This will be followed by similar efforts at the Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility in Texas, White Sands Complex in New Mexico, Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, and Katherine Johnson Independent Verification & Validation Facility in West Virginia.Goddard’s master plan process is scheduled to continue through 2021.

Website: https://www.nasa.gov/goddard

Electric Cars: “Why Ford Is Risking Mustang To Take On Tesla” (CNBC Video)

Ford is introducing a new, eco-friendly electric four-door crossover. The Mustang Mach-E is making waves in the electric car community and will compete with Tesla for satisfied drivers. Some car enthusiasts challenge Ford’s decision to replace Mustang’s namesake 8 cylinder engine. But others argue a Mustang is a Mustang.

Housing Market: Seniors’ Home Equity Rises $24 Billion In 3rd Quarter 2019 To All-Time High

From a NRMLA online news release:

NRMLA logo“Research suggests that as we age, Americans will spend more of our hard-earned retirement assets on health care, such as insurance, prescription drugs, in-home care and other services that help us remain independent,” says NRMLA’s President Steve Irwin. “A retirement plan that includes the responsible use of home equity may be the best option that can help ensure healthcare spending doesn’t become a financial burden for many retired couples.”

(December 17, 2019) – Homeowners 62 and older saw their housing wealth grow by 0.3 percent or $24 billion in the third quarter to a record $7.19 trillion from Q2 2019, the National Reverse Mortgage Lenders Association reported today in its quarterly release of the NRMLA/RiskSpan Reverse Mortgage Market Index.

nrmla_senior_home_equity.jpg

The RMMI rose in Q3 2019 to 259.19, another all-time high since the index was first published in 2000. The increase in senior homeowners’ wealth was mainly driven by an estimated 0.5 percent or $40.7 billion increase in senior home values, offset by a one percent or $16.5 billion increase of senior-held mortgage debt.

To read more: https://www.nrmlaonline.org/about/press-releases/senior-housing-wealth-reaches-record-7-19-trillion

Technology: Ikea Is “Picking Winners, Setting Trends” In Smart Home Market (The Verge Video)

For seven years, Ikea has treated the smart home as a hobby. That’s changing now that Björn Block’s Home Smart division has been promoted to the same importance as Living Room, Bedroom, and all the other Ikea businesses that have come to define the company.

Ikea faces the challenge of teaming up with Google, Amazon, Apple, and other tech giants while also battling them for primacy in the home.

Read the full feature here: http://bit.ly/38VyVH9

Travel: “The Fight To Stop Venice From Flooding” (BBC News Video)

t’s a month since high tides struck Venice, causing devastating flooding. The city’s mayor estimated damage at over a billion euros.

A system of floodgates called MOSE, under construction for years, should have prevented the disaster. But it’s been delayed and mired in corruption.

The fight to stop Venice from flooding BBC News Video Dec 18 2019

So is MOSE the lifeline Venice needs – or is it doomed to failure?

Studies: “Home Hospital” Model Of Care Reduces Costs By 38%, Improves Recovery (Harvard)

From a Harvard Gazette online article:

“This work cements the idea that, for the right patients, we can deliver hospital-level care outside of the four walls of the traditional hospital, and provides more of the data we need to make home hospital care the standard of care in our country,” said corresponding author David Levine, a physician and researcher in the Division of General Internal Medicine and Primary Care.

“It opens up so many exciting possibilities — it’s exciting for patients because it gives them the opportunity to be in a familiar setting, and it’s exciting for clinicians because we get to be with a patient in that person’s own surroundings. As a community-minded hospital, this is a way for us to bring excellent care to our community.”

The home hospital model of care — in which select patients receive hospital-level care for an acute illness from the comfort of their own home instead of in a traditional hospital — has become increasingly popular across the U.S.

To read more: https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/12/home-hospital-model-reduces-costs-by-38-improves-care/