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clipped from www.coolhunting.com

To document MoMA's wonderful, monumental exhibit spanning design, science and technology, "Design and the Elastic Mind," we enlisted the help of the show's esteemed curator, Paola Antonelli. Paola speaks in detail about several of the exhibits, including "The Afterlife," a system for turning corpses into batteries, robots that act as personal climatizers and DNA origami. She also weighs in on her curatorial approach, addressing the role of the designer, her mission to shift public perception of design and how design revolutionizes our lives.

As always, but especially in this case, we hope CH inspires you to experience this show firsthand. It's up through May 2008, see details below.

If you absolutely can't make it in person, the website, designed by the renowned
Yugo Nakamura, is full of information organized into an extremely pleasing UI and the book (available online from the MoMA store) is a must-have resource for designers, educators and the curious.

clipped from www.reuters.com

German beard and moustache championship draws more than 100 men from various countries to compete for most extravagant look.

Organized by the Eastern Bavarian Beard and Moustache Club, the event drew competitors from many countries including Britain, Germany and Switzerland.

clipped from tvdecoder.blogs.nytimes.com

Monday’s New York Times noted that CBS News recently introduced the “Fast Draw,” an animated series using dry-erase markers that tries to shed light on news developments. The feature, created by two new CBS employees, debuted on “CBS News Sunday Morning” last month and appeared on the “CBS Evening News with Katie Couric” on Feb. 8:

But “Fast Draw” is not the only instance of animation on television news, as several readers noted. Three days before the CBS segment, the ABC correspondent Robert Krulwich used cartoon drawings to explain the delegate rules for each party. Andrew Tyndall, a television news analyst, said he preferred the illustrations used by ABC to the metaphors used by CBS.

The Fox Business Network has also dabbled with animation. Each Friday on the new business network’s “Happy Hour” show, a pair of computer-generated characters named Hoofy and Boo present a short cartoon newscast. The segments are created by a financial entertainment Web site called Minyanville.

clipped from www.goodmagazine.com

In 2002, UNICEF compared public education in 24 nations around the world. The U.S. ranked 18th. So what's the problem? Are we spending enough per student? Are students spending enough time in school?

America needs to do some extra credit if its public education system is going to stay competitive.

To boost America’s economy we must focus on strengthening K-12 education.

Why? Economists estimate that if America raises student skills closer to that of European nations, the U.S. economy would grow by an additional 5% over 30 years resulting in an extra $1.5 trillion in 2037 alone—more than triple current U.S. spending on K-12 public education.