A new Climate Central analysis of 1,338 global cities finds the average person loses nearly 56 hours of sleep a year to high overnight temperatures — and the share attributable to climate change has at least doubled since the early 1970s. Also: a UCLA study of third- and sixth-graders in Los Angeles County finds that kids who own cell phones score significantly lower on reading comprehension — and the twist is that it doesn't matter whether the phone is present during the test. Ownership alone is the variable. And a landmark study published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B by UC Berkeley and Project CETI finds sperm whale communication includes vowels, diphthongs, and phonetic structures that parallel human speech so closely researchers are now asking what it means for animal legal rights. Plus the eBay cockroach settlement, evangelical plane preachers, the bride who set the church on fire, and Colonel Sanders' bow tie.
","author_name":"Keith Conrad"}