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National

Key To Securing Online Accounts May Be Just A Squiggle Away

8:25am October 14, 2014

by Vignesh Ramachandran

Engineering researchers at Rutgers University have discovered that the free-form symbol might be the ultimate password. The uniqueness of someone's squiggle makes it a tough password to rip off.

School Facilities Strained By Boom In Petroleum Engineering

8:00am October 14, 2014

by Dan Boyce

Students want to cash in on that growing job market. Those high paying jobs are also attracting petroleum engineering professors. So there are fewer professors to teach ballooning classes.

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Astros' Turnaround Costs Furniture Mogul

8:00am October 14, 2014

Jim McIngvale promised that if the Astros won 63 games, he's reimburse the first 500 customers to spend more than $6,3000 at his store. They won 70 games. That promise cost McIngvale $4 million.

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National

Fiery Oil-Train Derailments Prompt Calls For Less Flammable Oil

4:58pm October 13, 2014

by Emily Guerin

Trains carrying oil from North Dakota pass through American towns daily — and sometimes they derail and explode. The oil industry is now under pressure to make the oil less volatile before shipping.

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Native American protesters have been demonstrating against Columbus Day in Seattle for several years. Protest organizers say Columbus should not be credited with discovering the Western Hemisphere at a time when it was already inhabited.

National

Seattle Swaps Columbus Day For 'Indigenous Peoples' Day'

1:50pm October 13, 2014

by Tristan Ahtone

The city is the latest to honor Native Americans instead of Christopher Columbus. But not everyone is happy about the change.

And so continues Code Switch's battle with illustrating studies about the subtle biases that inflict our email outboxes.

What's In A Name? It Could Matter If You're Writing To Your Lawmaker

9:42am October 13, 2014

by Shankar Vedantam

To test subtle biases, researchers sent state legislators identical emails about voting requirements. Some emails came from a man with a "Latino" name, and others from an "Anglo" name.

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Principal Makes Good On Bet With Students

9:42am October 13, 2014

School principal Mike Neubert of South Dakota told elementary students if they collectively ran 200 miles, he would run a marathon. Neubert ran the equivalent of a marathon around the school.

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How Much Damage Can A 6-Year-Old Boy Do Over 10 Years?

9:42am October 13, 2014

A satirical website compiled the cost of property damage if Calvin — of the comic strip "Calvin and Hobbes" — was a real kid. The total: nearly $16,000.

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Children's Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, Mo., was the first to report a surge of children with serious respiratory illness in August.

4 Things We've Learned About Enterovirus D68, And 1 Mystery

8:15am October 13, 2014

by Nancy Shute

The outbreak of serious respiratory illness in children was a big surprise; it was caused by an obscure virus rarely seen in the U.S. Two doctors on the front lines explain what they've learned.

The slide on the right has been treated with a coating that repels blood.

Slippery When Coated: Helping Medical Devices Prevent Blood Clots

8:13am October 13, 2014

by Joe Palca

When blood flows over an artificial surface, whether it's an implanted pacemaker or tubing for a dialysis machine, there's an increased risk that a dangerous clot will form.