In the 1990s, subcontractor Third Generation hired 35 female South Carolina inmates to sew lingerie and leisure wear for Victoria's Secret and JCPenney. In 1997, a California prison put two men in solitary for telling journalists they were ordered to replace "Made in Honduras" labels on garments with "Made in the usa."
German design students recently installed a temporary exhibit at Munich's Modern Art Museum called The Third Space. The students built this heavenly bird's nest-like space using almost 1,300,000 cable ties -- those things we all use to organize the mess of wires under our desks...
Biologists have constructed a genetic map of Europe showing the degree of relatedness between its various populations. Of the 100 strongest genomic sites, 17 are found in the region of the genome that confers lactose tolerance, an adaptation that arose among a cattle herding culture in northern Europe some 5,000 years ago. Most people switch off the lactose digesting gene after weaning, but the cattle herders evidently gained a great survival advantage by keeping the gene switched on through adulthood.
The Hubble Space Telescope has completed its 100,000th orbit of the Earth since its launch 18 years ago, and to celebrate, astronomers used it to image an opalescent region of starbirth in a nearby galaxy.
By Normann Copenhagen
1. The pop of a bottle of wine being opened
