University of Michigan economist George Fulton said this afternoon that the state’s economy is still on track to add more than 60,000 jobs this year, but he slashed his forecast for job growth next year.

One of PopSci’s Brilliant 10: Hashim Al-Hashimi: “Soon after he started his Ph.D. at Yale, a labmate visualized a protein called myoglobin and couldn’t fit it to any single 3-D configuration. To Al-Hashimi, it seemed obvious that the protein was moving—everything in biology moves—but at the time, most biologists did not realize the extent to which biological macromolecules were moving.”

Our society is more focused on risk avoidance, than on intelligent risk taking. The reason our country is so great, is because our forefathers and our foremothers took huge risk. But now I often see ourselves, living in a society where the highest priority is risk avoidance, out of the fear that our kids can’t recover from possible failure. For me, risk and failure are among the most important things we can expose our kids to.

For decades, we knew my grandfather was struck by lightning because he had the burns to prove it. Indeed, it was that lightning attack that led to his eventual discharge from the military. But in my father’s case, his lightning story was family lore. Now, as a Jew, I understand that a family funeral allows some room for exaggeration. Here, I wanted truth.

“It’s very simple,” Sandler told public TV’s top DC lobbyist in a confrontation. “You change it to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and you change it to the Public Broadcasting Act.”
“Well, the word broadcasting doesn’t have the right sound. It’s not television,” the TV lobbyist retorted.
“You’re damn right, it’s not television,” Sandler shot back.

University of Michigan researchers have proposed a new power management system for smartphones that could dramatically improve battery life. Professor Kang Shin has created a proof-of-concept system known as E-MiLi, or Energy-Minimizing Idle Listening, that addresses the energy waste that occurs when “sleeping” phones are looking for incoming messages and clear communication channels.

For the first time in Craig Roh’s football career, someone told him he wasn’t perfect. And told him. And told him. And told him. He broke down. He eventually hit rock bottom. He cried. “In the first game, I didn’t perform that great,” Roh said. “I just had that break down after the first game.”

When Andra Rush started her trucking company, all she had was a beat-up van, a pair of used pickup trucks, and the naive certainty of a 23-year-old. She figured it would take her about four years to make her fortune. Then she could use her newfound millions to accomplish her true goal: tackling poverty on Native American reservations across North America. “I thought I could retire by the time I was 27.”