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How 'Hookup Culture' Is Helping Women Gain Power

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woman dancing

The "hookup culture" is helping women gain the independence they need to take over the world. 

Most scholars think the phenomenon of young people replacing serious relationships with casual ones hurts women, but the opposite is true, according to Hanna Rosin's new book The End of Men: And the Rise of Women

Seeing relationships in a more casual light actually helps young women free themselves of relationships that might keep them from their professional goals, Rosin told us in an interview. 

"We tend to be myopic when we think about the hookup culture but we tend to miss that avoiding getting tied down in relationships that influence your career decisions is critical to success when you're that young," Rosin said. 

Her book explains further: 

To put it crudely, now feminist progress is largely dependent on hook-up culture. To a surprising degree, it is women--not men--who are perpetrating the culture, especially in school, cannily manipulating to make space for their success, always keeping their own ends in mind. Today's college girl likens a serious suitor to an accidental pregnancy in the nineteenth century: a danger to be avoided at all costs, lest it thwart a promising future.

Rosin's book comes out September 11. 

DON'T MISS: Porn And Video Games Are Ruining This Generation Of Men >

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The Coolest Movie-Inspired Items You Can Actually Buy

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tron motorcycle

The Tron Light Cycle. Lightsabers. The Hoverboard.

They're not just fictional items in film favorites anymore. 

Now, you can buy nearly anything from a movie ... with enough cash.

This is why I'm Broke features a bunch of high-tech toys, movie and game-themed items for sale. 

We scoured the site and the Web to find outrageously expensive and more affordable movie replicas.

From the Ring of Mordor to a live-talking R2-D2, see what movie toys you can actually buy.

Tron Light cycle: $55,000

Yes, the Tron motorcycle exists.  

Even better, it's street legal.  

Parker Brothers Choppers produced an electric light cycle replica with spinning rims that lights up. The only thing the bike doesn't do is produce a beam of light protruding from its backend.



Batsuit: $1,540

Much more affordable than a real life Batsuit, you can purchase a Batman motorcycle suit. The only thing it's missing is the cape and cowl.

The alternative? You could just settle for a Batman snuggie.



Sex Panther Cologne: $34.95

With "Anchorman 2" in the works, it's time to bring out the scent banned in nine countries.



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Here's The Real Reason There Are Abandoned Luxury Cars Around The UAE

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car

Abandoned luxury cars left at airports across the United Arab Emirates may not entirely be the fault of expats escaping tough debt laws.

Recent reports have highlighted high-end sports cars gathering dust at Dubai and Abu Dhabi airports from panicked expats fleeing the country to avoid prison sentences for money owed.

Images of a limited edition Ferrari Enzo , worth more than £1 million, allegedly abandoned in Dubai by a British expat have been circulated widely. He was believed to have defaulted on a loan for the supercar and fled the city to escape possible imprisonment.

Under Sharia law which is observed across the Middle East, non-payment of debt is a criminal offence. As the UAE has no bankruptcy laws, there is no protection for those slipping into debt, even accidentally.

There have been cases of foreigners being prevented from leaving the emirates after being blacklisted for simply missing a credit card payment or bouncing a cheque.

But the spate of abandoned luxury cars – of which more than 3,000 were discovered last year – is not an exclusive tactic of expats on the run.

One British expat said: "It's not just expats to blame for the irresponsible act of leaving expensive cars behind as they flee their debts but many locals too. The aftermath of the global financial crisis affected people from all walks of life, not just foreign workers.

"Many took out big loans to finance flashy cars to keep up with their peers. But when things slowed down they have struggled to make repayments and have fallen into debt. Foreigners and locals have been caught out alike."

A recent tranche of cars impounded by the Municipality of Abu Dhabi included a mix of foreign and Emirati owners.

A chief drawback of the abandoned cars is that they take up much-needed spaces at airport car parks. On the plus side, many of these luxury cars are auctioned by the police at bargain prices.

Once a vehicle is suspected of being abandoned, local government inspectors will issue a warning notice. If the owner fails to respond within 15 days the car will be taken to a police scrapyard where it can still be reclaimed for a small fee.

Most impounded vehicles however are never reclaimed, with hundreds of cars auctioned off each year.

While the global economic slowdown has dented growth within the Gulf states, the UAE is still one of the region's strongest economies.

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The Grim Truth About Life As A Japanese Hostess

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japan hostessWell-paid, fun and pressure-free, working as a hostess in a Japanese bar sounded too good to be true. So it turned out ...

Welcome to Aphrodite’s Hostess Club – the Tokyo nightclub where I was paid to flirt and drink with Japanese businessmen. Beside me a grey-haired Japanese man slides his hand on to my leg. I smile and move it away, reaching to light his cigarette and top up his glass of whisky.

On my other side an arm creeps around my shoulder. 'Would you like to go to a hotel later?’ a customer whispers in my ear. Hostessing is a very unusual job. We have nothing quite like it in Britain. Like geishas, Tokyo hostesses are paid to smile and party with rich men. As a hostess I poured drinks, sang karaoke and tried to ignore the customers who invited me to hotel rooms after work. Hostesses aren’t supposed to have sex with customers, but many do.

Back in London I’d first learnt about hostessing from my twin sister, who’d worked as a hostess in Tokyo for a few weeks. She told me it was a great job – especially the wages, which were about £30 an hour. I was having my self-esteem battered in London, applying for hundreds of graduate jobs and being rejected for all of them.

I thought working abroad, no matter what the job, would be a great confidence boost so I used my savings to book a flight. My family and friends were worried about me going to Japan alone but my sister reassured them that hostessing was perfectly safe.

A day after I arrived in Tokyo I found work at Aphrodite’s Hostess Club. It was in the sex district, where prostitutes walked the streets and bars had names like Fetish Palace and Red Sex. At Aphrodite’s I was paid £30 an hour and I received bonuses if I was requested to come to a table. It sounded easy but, actually, the way many hostesses got their 'requests’ was to promise sex to customers after work.

The longer I stayed the more I was pressured to get requests. Every night I saw stunning, twentysomething girls go to hotel rooms with old, overweight businessmen just so the club manager would leave them alone. These were girls just like you and me – normal, educated and seemingly with everything going for them. Many hostesses became addicted to alcohol, cocaine or crack just to cope with what they were doing.

The longer I stayed the more I drank and the more the hostessing world became normal. Soon I started asking myself, Would I, could I, and what’s my price? Deep down, I knew I’d never be able to have sex with customers but I certainly thought about it. I knew my job would be safer if I did it, and I was often offered huge sums of money to do so.

The pressure to get requests soon became so intense that I left Aphrodite’s. But when I returned to London I found myself at the bottom of the pile again – a bright graduate among many, struggling to find work. It wasn’t long before I was back in Japan where I could earn £30 or £40 an hour for doing little more than drinking in a bar and fending off sleazy men. I moved bars every few months to keep the pressure for requests at bay.

After three years as a hostess a friend of mine married a customer and it scared me enough to decide it was time to leave Japan for good. By then I was a different person. I couldn’t bear my face without make-up and I drank every day. Slowly I rebuilt my confidence and began working as a journalist.

When I told people in Britain about hostessing it sometimes affected their view of me. Women didn’t like me being around their boyfriends, and men wouldn’t know what to say. It felt strange having sexual relationships after spending so much time fending off men, and not all my boyfriends understood what hostessing meant. Some of them had a hard time dealing with the fact that I’d been in such a sleazy environment, but my current partner is fine with it.

I’m lucky I got out when I did; I saw so many girls trapped in the geisha life with much sadder stories to tell. I wish I could help them but, sadly, for many it’s already too late.

Glass Geishas, by Susanna Quinn, is published by Hodder & Stoughton at £7.99

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Cuba Plunged Into Darkness In Mass Blackout

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cuba blackout

A large swath of Cuba was plunged into darkness on Sunday night in a widespread power failure, the cause of which was not disclosed.

Electricity went out from the city of Ciego de Avila in southeastern Cuba all the way to Havana, 250 miles to the northwest, and beyond to the westernmost province of Pinar del Rio.

Phone calls around the island indicated power was returning in many areas, but not yet in the Cuban capital, which is the Communist country's biggest city with 2.2 million people.

There were unconfirmed reports that the outage was caused by the failure of a generating plant in Cienfuegos on Cuba's southern coast.

In Havana, street and traffic lights were out across the city, causing police officials to call in off-duty officers to direct traffic.

Weather on the island was clear and calm. No one at the state-owned electrical company could immediately be reached to explain the outage.

Blackouts are not uncommon in Cuba, due to its aging electrical system. But this one was more extensive than usual and reminded some of the 1990s when the country was short of energy and outages were a daily occurrence.

The shortages of the 1990s followed the collapse of the Soviet Union, Cuba's top benefactor. The government called that era the "Special Period."

"We have candles lit. It's more or less like the Special Period, except in those days, blackouts were so common we had lanterns with kerosene. We don't have that now," Rosanna Garza said in her Havana home.

Source: agencies

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Kim Jong-Un Gives Fitness Advice At Pyongyang Gym

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kim jong-un ri sol-ju

Kim Jong-un, the portly head of North Korea, has toured a state-of-the-art gym in Pyongyang and provided expert "field guidance" to the staff.

The three-storey Physical Exercise Centre is part of the development of Thongil Street – "thongil" means reunification – which has seen the construction of modern apartment buildings, shops, theatres, hospitals and schools for the elite of the regime.

North Korea 's KCNA state media said Kim was accompanied by his new wife, Ri Sol-ju, and that the exercise centre had been "built according to the direct initiative and plan" of the Young General, as he is known.

It added that Kim is "always deeply concerned for the promotion of people's health and living standards."

Kim, wearing his trademark baggy Mao-style suit, examined the gym equipment and toured the wave therapy pool, the recovery room and a room for table-tennis.

According to KCNA, the gym covers nearly 148,000 square feet and has 138 exercise machines, including apparatus for running, cycling and rowing.

Kim told the staff that if office workers who work indoors all day, "take exercise and receive medical treatment at the centre, they can devote themselves to revolutionary work in good health."

Kim and his glamorous wife have recently undertaken a series of well-publicised visits to industrial and public facilities, suggesting that Kim is attempting to come across as a caring and benevolent leader.

Efforts to impress the North Korean public have coincided with the country experiencing the worst drought in a century in the early summer months, while the countryside has been devastated by torrential rains and flooding in recent weeks.

Aid agencies have warned that while the privileged classes in Pyongyang will not go hungry, many people in rural areas are suffering malnutrition.

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A Bunch Of Models Just Rocked Google Glasses At New York Fashion Week

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Diane von Furstenberg Sergey Brin DVF Google Glasses

Google took its presence at New York Fashion Week to a new level yesterday when it invaded the Diane von Furstenberg runway.

The company, which has live streamed shows from The Tents at Lincoln Center on YouTube for a few seasons now, gave the Furstenberg team glasses in carrot orange, white, and turquoise to use for the show.

Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google, walked with von Furstenberg during her finale — showing off the glasses.

"Beauty, style and comfort are as important to Glass as the latest technology," Brin said in a statement. "We are delighted to bring Glass to the runway together with DVF.”

Here's Google Glass in white...





...some turquoise...



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Chinese Man Allegedly Pretended To Swallow A Diamond—While His Accomplice Stole The Real Thing

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diamond

A Chinese man accused of swallowing a diamond worth £8,500 at a gem show in Sri Lanka actually ingested a fake stone in an elaborate bluff to allow the real thief to escape, police said on Tuesday.

Detectives discovered the ruse after waiting until the man, 32, passed the fake stone that he had swallowed at the Facets Sri Lanka annual jewellery exhibition in Colombo last week.

"The man with the real stone vanished while all the attention was on the man who was seen swallowing a stone that turned out to be fake," police spokesman Ajith Rohana told AFP.

"Investigations are now under way to track down the accomplice and recover the stolen diamond."

Police said the man appeared to swallow a tiny 1.5-carat diamond – creating a distraction as the stall owner shouted to nearby police who arrested him.

The accused man was taken to Colombo National Hospital where X-rays showed a stone lodged in his stomach before a dose of laxatives brought it out on Saturday.

Police said the man had been constantly monitored by armed guards to ensure the stone was not lost.

Suresh de Silva, director of the Belgrade International gem store, told AFP last week how the two Chinese men approached his stall and asked to examine some diamonds closely.

De Silva then saw one man put something in his mouth.

"When I shouted, one ran away and we managed to catch the man who swallowed the stone," de Silva said.

Photographs showed the captured man, dressed in a black shirt and jeans with his head bowed, being escorted from the exhibition centre by uniformed policemen.

Sri Lanka does not mine diamonds but it has a large gem and jewellery industry and is famed for its blue sapphires.

Source: AFP

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MIT Claims Top Spot In World University Ranking

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MIT campus

Four of the world's top six universities are now found in Britain but Cambridge loses its top spot to MIT, according to new rankings published today.

British universities make up four of the top six universities in the world for the first time, according to the new QS World University Rankings published today.

University of Cambridge, which was ranked top in 2011, loses its top spot to the Boston-based Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and ranks second, while University College London (4), University of Oxford (5) and Imperial College London (6) comprise the rest of the unprecedented British quartet.

"The UK is again the next most successful country [after the United States]," said John O'Leary of QS. "Its four universities in the top ten and 18 in the top 100 show a system continuing to punch well above its weight."

UCL moves up three places from seventh last year to fourth, overtaking both Oxford and Imperial as well as Yale University (7).

University of Edinburgh, which ranked in the top 20 in 2011, narrowly slips out of that bracket this year and is placed 21st. Kings College (26) and University of Bristol (28) have both risen slightly in the overall rankings this year.

The QS World University Rankings rate universities according to reputation among academics, reputation among employers, citations per faculty, staff-to-student ratios and international attractiveness.

In total, eight UK universities were in the top 50, and 18 overall in the top 100.

American universities continue to dominate the top 100 however, with 130 of the top 700 universities based in the United States.

The growing internationalisation of higher education was a major feature of this year's rankings. In keeping with significant growth in recent years, the number of international students across the top 100 institutions rose by another 10 per cent year on year.

A boost in foreign student and staff numbers particularly contributed to the success of MIT, whose pioneering " massively open online course " project MITx has helped it to foster a strong international reputation.

MIT also now ranks top in 11 of the 28 subject tables produced by QS along the same criteria.

“The rise of MIT coincides with a global shift in emphasis toward science and technology”, says QS head of research Ben Sowter. “MIT perfects a blueprint that is now being followed by a new wave of cutting-edge tech-focused institutions, especially in Asia”.

Harvard University, placed third in this year's rankings, had topped the table for six consecutive years between 2004-2009. Harvard remains the highest ranked world university according to the "reputation among academics" criterion.

There is less good news for other European universities, as France claims only two universities in the top 50 and Germany none, although Switzerland boasts two in the top 30 – ETH Zurich (13) and EPFL Lausanne (30).

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Andy Murray Panicked When He Couldn't Find His Sponsor's Watch

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andy murray

After becoming Britain's first male grand slam winner on an emotional night in New York, Andy Murray dropped to his knees, took off his wristbands and discovered one element of his timing was missing on the night. Rather than a roar of victory his first words were: "I don't have my watch."

Even with the backdrop of thousands of cheering fans television microphones captured the Scots less than edifying first words as a grand slam champion.

"I don't have it, I don't have it," he said, pointing to his wrist and looking up to his girlfriend Kim Sears for help.

"Have you got my watch? I don't have my watch," he asked of her, before she helpfully pointed to one of his bags.

It may seem strange that at such a time Murray's thoughts would turn to his personal timepiece. Less so when you consider he recently signed a sponsorship deal with watchmakers Rado and he was moments away from having his picture taken lifting his night's spoils with bare wrists.

After digging in his bag Murray retrieved his £2,500 D-Star Automatic Chronograph in plenty of time to show it off to the world.

A seven figure sponsorship deal, it seems, can concentrate the mind even at the moment of triumph.

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Pakistan McDonald's In Trouble For Enforcing Its Own Moral Code

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mcdonald's pakistan

McDonald's is at the centre of a row over Islamic values in Pakistan after a customer complained he was told not to sit beside his wife because managers feared it would damage the restaurant's family reputation.

Noman Ansari, who stopped at a branch in Karachi for a diet Coke on Saturday night, said the episode was a symptom of an increasingly intolerant nation.

A spokesman for McDonald's said it was investigating the complaint.

Mr Ansari said trouble started when he sat next to his wife and slipped an arm behind her shoulder.

A member of staff told the couple to move but when they again sat beside each other in an adjacent booth it became clear that the issue was not their location, but the proximity of a man and a woman in public.

In an account posted on his blog, Mr Ansari said he was told: "Sir, this is a family restaurant. Couples sitting together is against the policy of McDonald's Pakistan, as it goes against the family atmosphere of the restaurant."

Two managers then told him that couples sitting together damaged the "Islamic family atmosphere" of McDonald's, according to the account.

The alleged incident highlighted a difficult issue for Pakistan's restaurants, particularly fast food chains where loud music and glitzy American decor try to coexist with the country's strict rules on modesty.

Many – including some branches of McDonald's – have partitioned areas for families, to separate men from women.

Ali Arsalan, McDonald's Pakistan assistant marketing manager, said the company tried to foster a family atmosphere and confirmed it was looking into Mr Noman's grievance.

"If there is some physical action it is possible that a family might have raised a complaint and asked the couple to have sit on a separate seat because we have sisters or mothers there," he said.

Multinational fast food companies frequently struggle with local religious and cultural sensibilities.

Last month, Pizza Hut Pakistan was forced to withdraw its "all you can eat" offer during Ramadan in order to end what it called an "invitation to gluttony" as customers gorged themselves at the end of a day of fasting.

And in India, McDonald's is planning to open its first vegetarian branches close to two holy sites, leading to threatened protests by Hindus and Sikhs.

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Here's The Real Reason Why People Are Going Crazy For Steak

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Vic & Anthony's Steakhouse

Can London handle another 300-cover steak restaurant? The Danish restaurant group Copenhagen Concepts - which will open a branch of its steakhouse MASH in Soho this November - clearly thinks so. The company is convinced that the capital's current bloodlust, its almost insatiable desire for steak, is no flash in the grill pan.

Tim Hayward seems to agree. Writing in Olive Magazine recently, he identified the Steakationers (a group of moneyed, macho suits who, when they aren't studying Meat, frequent Square Mile steak restaurants), as one of Britain's most significant new "food tribes". Not that it's solely City slickers who fill the tables at Hawskmoor and Goodman.

Nor is the phenomenon confined to London. In Belfast, you can eat steaks from the obligatory charcoal-fired Josper at James Street South Bar & Grill. In Manchester, you could visit Malmaison's Smoak. Variations on the theme are also emerging, such as Cattle Grid (budget), Bull Steak Expert (Argentinian) and Cau (budget and Argentinian). MASH, patronisingly, claims that one of its USPs is its female-friendly decor.

This rebirth of steak as a popular gourmet product is one of the most remarkable episodes in recent restaurant history. Five years ago, foodists did not get excited about steak: the only people who ordered it were people who didn't really like food. It was a boring menu staple for risk-averse diners. It was what your dad liked, well-done, and preferably topped with a little rosette of garlic butter, as he had first eaten it at a Berni Inn decades ago.

Beef has also taken a pounding in the media. Beef, particularly that from intensively-reared, grain-fed animals is now considered to be one of the least sustainable foods that you can eat. It doesn't come cheap, either. At Hawksmoor, where they use grass-fed British beef, a 10½ oz (300g) steak with chips and a side starts at £23. Head over to Mayfair, to Cut and a 10oz, 35 day aged New York sirloin will set you back £38 (pdf), before fries or onion rings (crazily, £7 each).

Yet, even in the midst of this grisly recession, steak is back, back, back. Why? The quality has improved enormously: steak got a reputation for being bland and conservative at a time when, generally, we were being served rubbish steak. In these pages just eight years ago Jay Rayner described a good steak as an, "appallingly rare joy", and sure, you can still eat bad steak. But, more tellingly, I have recently eaten sensational steak in the midst of otherwise mediocre meals.

Even at home, armed with a solid-fuel grill or a blisteringly hot ridged grill pan any reasonably competent cook can produce great steaks. As Hawksmoor's Huw Gott told us last year, buy properly aged, British, rare-breed beef, and most of the work has already been done for you.

These days, from the silky, sinewy, highly-flavoursome flat steaks (a flash-fried hanger or a piece of frilly, soy-marinated skirt), to a bone-in sirloin, edged with perfectly seared fat, steak offers all sorts of variety in different cuts, breeds, even mouthful by mouthful from one end of a steak to the other. Be it sweet, grassy, richly buttery, invigoratingly bloody, highly mineral, livery and gamy, tinged with a ripe and cheesy or long-hung farmyardy tang, steaks offer a full spectrum of interesting flavours. All of that wrapped up in one of life's primary savoury pleasure: a densely-charred exterior.

Plus, this might be our last chance. Fast forward 30 years and - even if we haven't all embraced vegetarianism - beef will probably be prohibitively expensive. The only people still eating it will be Cut's super-wealthy regulars.

This article originally appeared on guardian.co.uk

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The Top 100 Universities In The World

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MIT

The top three spots on the QS World University Rankings changed this year, with MIT taking the top spot for 2012. MIT overtook the University of Cambridge, which took second place ahead of Harvard, located in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

British schools took four of the top six spots, but American colleges and universities occupy 13 of the top 20 spots in the annual ranking.

This ranking is based on reputation among academics, reputation among employers, citations per faculty, staff-to-student ratios and international attractiveness.

Check out the entire list:

1 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) United States
2 University of Cambridge United Kingdom
3 Harvard University United States
4 UCL (University College London) United Kingdom
5 University of Oxford United Kingdom
6 Imperial College London United Kingdom
7 Yale University United States
8 University of Chicago United States
9 Princeton University United States
10 California Institute of Technology (Caltech) United States
11 Columbia University United States
12 University of Pennsylvania United States
13 ETH Zurich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology) Switzerland
14 Cornell University United States
15 Stanford University United States
16 Johns Hopkins University United States
17 University of Michigan United States
18 McGill University Canada
19 University of Toronto Canada
20 Duke University United States
21 University of Edinburgh United Kingdom
22 University of California, Berkeley (UCB) United States
23 University of Hong Kong Hong Kong
24 Australian National University Australia
25 National University of Singapore (NUS) Singapore
26 King's College London (University of London) United Kingdom
27 Northwestern University United States
28 University of Bristol United Kingdom
29 Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne Switzerland
30 The University of Tokyo Japan
31 University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) United States
32 The University of Manchester United Kingdom
33 The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology Hong Kong
34 École Normale Supérieure, Paris France
35 Kyoto University Japan
36 The University of Melbourne Australia
37 Seoul National University Korea, South
38 University of Wisconsin-Madison United States
39 The University of Sydney Australia
40 The Chinese University of Hong Kong Hong Kong
41 Ecole Polytechnique France
42 Brown University United States
43 New York University (NYU) United States
44 Peking University China
45 University of British Columbia Canada
46 The University of Queensland Australia
47 Nanyang Technological University (NTU) Singapore
48 Tsinghua University China
49 Carnegie Mellon University United States
50 Osaka University Japan
51 University of Copenhagen Denmark
52 The University of New South Wales Australia
53 Technische Universität München Germany
54 University of Glasgow United Kingdom
55 Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg Germany
56 University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign United States
57 University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill United States
58 The University of Warwick United Kingdom
59 University of Washington United States
60 Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München Germany
61 Monash University Australia
62 University of Amsterdam Netherlands
63 KAIST - Korea Advanced Institute of Science & Technology Korea, South
64 Boston University United States
65 Tokyo Institute of Technology Japan
66 The University of Sheffield United Kingdom
67 Trinity College Dublin Ireland
68 University of Texas at Austin United States
69 London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) United Kingdom
70 University of California, San Diego (UCSD) United States
71 Lund University Sweden
72 The University of Nottingham United Kingdom
73 University of Southampton United Kingdom
74 University of Geneva Switzerland
75 Leiden University Netherlands
75 Tohoku University Japan
77 University of Birmingham United Kingdom
78 University of Helsinki Finland
79 The University of Western Australia Australia
80 National Taiwan University (NTU) Taiwan
81 Uppsala University Sweden
82 KU Leuven Belgium
83 The University of Auckland New Zealand
84 Washington University in St. Louis United States
85 Utrecht University Netherlands
86 Nagoya University Japan
87 Freie Universität Berlin Germany
88 Georgia Institute of Technology United States
89 Aarhus University Denmark
90 Fudan University China
90 University of Zurich Switzerland
92 Durham University United Kingdom
93 University of St Andrews United Kingdom
94 University of Leeds United Kingdom
95 City University of Hong Kong Hong Kong
95 Purdue University United States
97 Pohang University of Science And Technology (POSTECH) Korea, South
98 University of Pittsburgh United States
99 Erasmus University Rotterdam Netherlands
100 University of California, Davis United States

Based on those criteria its not surprising that MIT won.

For a more pragmatic approach, read our list of the 50 best schools for your career >

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Marc Jacobs Messed With Heads At New York Fashion Week

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marc jacobs

Marc Jacobs is not your average fashion designer. Other designers want to sell you a dress; Jacobs wants to mess with your head.

The Marc Jacobs catwalk show is the gravitational centre of New York fashion week. This collection is the one which, more than any other, points to the direction ahead. Over six months, a team of hundreds and a budget of millions go into producing a collection of, in this instance, 45 outfits.

The show began on the stroke of 8pm. Although the industry has mostly adjusted to Jacobs' latter-day obsession with punctuality, this still forced more than a few Hollywood names to break into a run to claim their front row seats. By 8.05pm, the show was over, such was the breakneck speed at which 45 models stomped down the runway, and Jacobs had taken his bow.

Anna Wintour, a keen tennis fan, was out of the building by 8.06pm, no doubt to get back to the final of the US Open, then in its final set. The rest of the audience were left on their padded benches, gawping at the now empty catwalk and trying to make sense of what they had just seen.

Putting the catwalk on fast-forward is a psychological trick invented by Christian Dior 65 years ago. One of Dior's many innovations was to have catwalk models change walking style, swapping the traditional stately parade for a brisker stride. The effect was to make an audience who were used to taking notes at a languid pace sit up and concentrate: there is nothing like making people feel they might miss something, for getting their attention.

If Dior changed the walking pace from stately to brisk in the 40s, Jacobs is now experimenting with putting it on fast-forward. And it is an experiment of which we may not yet have seen the conclusion. Backstage after the show he commented cheerfully that "every season, I try and beat my speed record. My ideal is to have the show over before you've even sat down."

Jacobs' approach is both twisted, and perfectly logical. The scale of the fashion industry is such that any catwalk show for a major brand is a taster of what the collection as sold on the shopfloor will be, rather than an exhaustive menu. What matters is to convey a message, an image strong enough to sear into the retinas of the industry and ensure that brand has a voice in the fashion conversation for the season. And this show, for all the tripped-out energy, did just that.

"It's brutal. Just sex appeal and strength, with no romance and no emotion," was how Marc Jacobs described the collection. Thick deckchair stripes and all-over giraffe prints were stamped on to boxy dresses, coats and a new concept in skirt suits, aimed squarely at the brave: a cropped sweater with a matching A-line pleated skirt. Pointed-toe shoes and winged eyeliner added a Mod twist.

The collection began, Jacobs said, with a T-shirt dress to the floor, and a flat shoe. "We wanted a look that would accommodate a long, quick stride." After last season's eccentric, maximal, nostalgic show Jacobs and his team felt that the only way forward was to strip the aesthetic right back.

The first model wore a black-and-white striped T-shirt, with plain knickers, her hair powdered white and sprayed in a sweep over one eye. It was a look which seemed to reference both Edie Sedgwick and Andy Warhol. Jacobs denied any 60s influence and claimed Sedgwick had been a reference only for make-up. This may or may not be the truth. Like I say, for Jacobs, fashion is a way to mess with your head.

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Finally, A Book Explains The Difference Between Modern Art And Children's Art

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Why Your Five-Year-Old Could Not Have Done ThatSusie Hodge’s guide tells us that to appreciate modern art you need to understand it.

For anyone who has ever demonstrated indefatigable wit in a gallery of modern art by quipping that the canvas with the pretentious label in front would sooner serve to line the cat litter than the walls of even Elton John’s stairwell, the book Why Your Five Year Old Could Not Have Done That is a saving grace.

In its admirable lack of pretentious description, it is equally good reading for those seeking to understand how it is that in the world of modern art, the provocative can conquer the aesthetic.

The basic premise of Susie Hodge’s guide is that to appreciate modern art you need to understand it.

Hodge is impressively impartial. She doesn’t imply, for example, that the viewer who shrugs his shoulders at Piero Manzoni’s 90 tins filled with his own excrement has mistaken a masterpiece. She focuses, instead, on contextualisng the work in the history of ideas so one can appreciate what motivated it.

And so Manzoni, she explains, intended to parody the heady valuations attached to art and put a spin on 1960’s consumerism. How nice for him, though, that no one yet has dared open a single tin of his Artist’s Sh-t to verify its contents for fear of denting its own heady valuation. Few children, indeed, could appreciate, let alone execute that.

Hodge’s explanations as to why a five-year-old could not have made each of the hundred selected artworks in this book always go beyond the standard daddy come-backs ‘could have done it, but didn’t’, or ‘it’s all in the idea, not the execution’.

Occasionally, they’re slightly over literal. ‘It is possible that a young child could make a squirrel, perhaps out of felt’ Hodge says of Maurizio Cattelan’s staged representation of a stuffed squirrel post suicide (Bidibidobidiboo), but no child could so ridicule the art world or contemplate mortality.

But, contrary to what the book’s title implies, these explanations are relegated merely to side boxes; the greater part of the book comprises more general introductions to the world of Conceptual and Abstract Expressionist art.

The trouble is, there are five different boxes on each page spread, and while there’s a key to explain what each means, there's no consistency in the colour used, making this far less accessible than the standard museum guide it seeks to resemble.

Seeing as it’s often the provocation of modern art that makes it so alienating, it would also have been interesting to hear a little more about what distinguishes, say, Cy Twombly’s often indiscernible (yet inspired) scribbles from the output of other artists, especially in terms of contemporary response. Hasn’t art always sought to shock?

No criticism of the selections, however. Every artist who should be in a book like this is – Mark Rothko with his colour block canvases, Marcel Duchamp with his cast of a urinal, Claes Oldenburg with his fast food fantasies, and Grayson Perry’s nouveau-antique vase paintings. This is deceptively wide-ranging and inquisitive coffee-table reading.

Why Your Five Year Old Could Not Have Done That, by Susie Hodge (Random House)

Daisy Dunn is an art academic and writer

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These 'Booze Pouches' Are Now A $100 Million Trend In Drinking (And Laziness)

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Arbor Mist

Can't be bothered to mix a cocktail yourself?

Or are you too poor to ask a bartender to make one for you?

Then squeezable pre-mixed alcohol pouches are for you!

The new trend in booze-you-can-use is pouches — soft, squeezable packets normally associated with children's snacks — serving pre-mixed cocktails. Ad Age reports:

Sales of alcohol pouches jumped 153% to $154 million in the year ending June 23, according to Nielsen.

smirnoffSmirnoff, Arbor Mist, and Parrot Bay are among the cocktail brands which have pouches on offer. Arbor Mist has positioned its pouch as an easy way to make frozen cocktails—just store it in the fridge, squeeze it out, and you're done. No blender or fruit needed.

Arbor Mist launched its line in Walmart (in Merlot Blackberry, Pinot Grigio White Pear and White Zinfandel Strawberry flavors), and already a booze brand Class War has begun: A spokesman for Brown Forman (owns Jack Daniels) said the company had no plans to join the fad.

Of course, the packs do carry the stigma of being invented by food marketers to feed babies. But consumers are not expected to punch the tops with a little straw, like a juice pack. They open with a cap on the top because they're designed for pouring out, not sipping directly from the pouch like a toddler.

Unsurprisingly, people are already figuring out ways around that. This blogger notes, "there’s nothing stopping you from popping one in yourself (except maybe your date of birth, but hey, that’s what Bigs and RAs are for). So just grab a few, freeze them overnight and get yo’ illegal classroom-drank on the next day—all without ever using a blender or fake ID."

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A Must-See For Serious Whiskey Drinkers

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How The Private Sector Revolutionized The Space Race In A Few Short Years

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Astronaut with For Sale sign

Before 2004, the only people who could have dreamed of entering space were astronauts who had trained for years before being afforded the privelege.

But all that changed when George Bush announced his Vision for Space Exploration, which encouraged space exploration and called for the completion of the International Space Station.

President Barack Obama further encouraged private space exploration when he retired the U.S. Space Shuttle program last year, which means that NASA now has to rely on private companies to send astronauts into space.

So now the space race is on.

At least a dozen private companies have created their own Suborbital Reusable Vehicles (SRVs)—private and reusable space ships that can carry humans or cargo into space—and are competing to haul cargo and people into space.

"We're making space more American. We're making space more democratic. We're making space more available, approachable and real to the average American," James Muncy, president of the space policy consulting firm PoliSpace in Alexandria, Va, told USA Today.

These SRVs are already transporting cargo to the International Space Station. The next step is carrying and transporting humans. And people who want to visit space will have the opportunity in the near future—as long as they're prepared to pay for it.

According to a report from Space Florida, six firms are trying to build suborbital vehicles that will transport humans into space. Aspiring space explorers may soon be able to book tickets on one of the following space airlines: UP Aerospace; Armadillo Aerospace; Masten Space Systems; XCOR Aerospace; Blue Origin, backed by Amazon's Jeff Bezos; and the biggest and best-known carrier, Virgin Galactic; among others.

Although seats on these flights can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, it's clear that the prices are getting lower and soon may actually be affordable. XCOR Aerospace is offering space flights on their vehicles for just $95,000 per person; they're scheduled to start space flights by 2013.

Virgin Galactic SpaceshipTwoAt the Farnborough International Air Show in July, Sir Richard Branson announced that he'll be on board Virgin Galactic's first commercial space tourism flight, which will take place sometime next year. He said that his two adult children will accompany him on the flight, along with three other passengers plus two pilots.

After blasting off from a spaceport in New Mexico, passengers aboard Virgin Galactic's Spaceship Two (SS2) aircraft will travel 62 miles above the Earth. The journey into space is scheduled to take about two and a half hours, with five minutes of weightlessness. (SS2 has already completed several successful test flights.)

Presumably, if all goes well with the initial launch, Virgin Galactic will make this a regular spaceflight. The company said that over 530 passengers have already signed up for the journey, at the cost of $200,000 per person per flight. Besides Branson, some famous clients will undertake the journey, including Stephen Hawking and Ashton Kutcher, who was reportedly the 500th passenger to sign up for the flight.

Sir Richard Branson, Virgin Galactic"Most people on Earth would love the chance to become astronauts if they could afford it, so it's up to us to try to make sure it's affordable," Sir Richard Branson told Business Insider's Aly Weisman in an exclusive interview. "Initially $200,000 is not going to enable the average joe to go in, but we have about 500 people signed up to go into space so far. I think they will be the pioneers and in time the price will come down."

Although Virgin Galactic has already gained a toehold on commercial space travel, it's not the only company that's flying into space. They're competing against several other companies which offer similar suborbital flights. And that means that the space travel frontier is wide open for business.

"We don't know which will be the companies that are going to make money in space," Muncy told USA Today. "It's like 1976 and we don't know who is going to be Apple computer and who is going to be one of the five companies that dies within a few years."

Regardless of which companies fail and which companies succeed, one thing is certain: space travel has the potential to be huge. Space tourism could generate as much as $1.6 billion in revenue in the next decade with multiple launches per day, according to a report from Space Florida. The same report also forecasted that the demand for seats and cargo space aboard these SRVs will grow significantly over the next decade, from 370 seats/cargo equivalents to 533 in just ten years. And of course, as the price drops, the demand for space tourism will increase.

"I think in your lifetime, space travel could be nearly as commonplace as, say, traveling to another continent is," Branson told Business Insider's Weisman. "I'm sure that your children will definitely be able to think: I'd love to become an astronaut, maybe I'll go up next weekend. That will enable us to then push space travel forward."

Watch the video below to hear Branson talk about why he thinks space travel is the world's next major innovation.

Tour Spaceport America: the world's first purpose-built spaceport >

Read more about how Commercial Spaceflight Is Getting Really Cheap, Really Fast >

See our list of Game Changers: 30 Innovations That Will Change The World >

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Take A Look Inside Apple Exec Jony Ive's New $17 Million Mansion In San Francisco

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Willis Polk designed San Francisco Home $25 million

Apple executive Jonathan Ive just bought a stunning home on San Francisco's Gold Coast for $17 million, according to The Wall Street Journal. The home was originally listed for $25 million.

Ive, Apple’s senior vice president of industrial design, is credited with the look of the iPod, iPhone, and other products.

The home is one of San Francisco's most historically significant properties—designed by Willis Polk, a well known local architect.

The house has four bedrooms and 7.5 bathrooms.

Completed in 1927, the house still looks very well kept and has a beautiful brick facade.

The house has a signature slate roof, and deep portico entry.



The Palace of Fine Arts has commended the home.



The formal sitting room has a lovely pattern on the ceiling.



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