It's the eternal conundrum: What color dress shoes go with a navy or brown suit?

Style aficionado and redditor stRafaello put together this handy graphic showing which types of shoes match with which suits. It even lets men know which colors match best for a traditional look, and which are fashion-forward.

Next time you're suiting up for a special event or considering buying a new pair of oxfords, we suggest you refer to this neat visual guide, which we first saw on /r/malefashionadvice. 

SEE ALSO: 9 Bad Fashion Tips Men Should Stop Following

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When you buy a home, a lot of the money you spend isn’t going towards your home equity. The cost of homeownership includes the money you spend on fees, taxes and interest. These costs do not increase the value of your home nor do they reduce the principal on your mortgage.

We did some analysis on the cost of home ownership versus the cost of renting. Rental costs are offset by the interest you make on the cash you did not have to put towards a down payment. Homeownership costs are offset by the tax deduction you get on your mortgage interest payments.

The cost of owning a home will typically exceed the cost of renting when the price-to-rent ratio (the cost of buying a home divided by the annual rent of similar property) is greater than 20. We use the data provided by Zillow for this analysis.

There are a number of other factors that should be considered when deciding whether to rent or buy a home. But start by figuring out if the cost of owning is relatively cheap or expensive based on your specific needs. Go out and do your own research. Find homes for sale and for rent in your ideal neighborhood that are the size you want. Calculate the ratio of sale price to annual rent. If home prices are cheap (less than 20 times rent) it may be time to jump into homeownership.

Research and voice-0ver by Sara Silverstein. Video produced by Sam Rega. 

SEE ALSO: Here's How Much Soda You Have To Drink To Make It Worth Buying Your Own SodaStream

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Graham Hill, founder of minimalist design firm LifeEdited, made headlines last year when he transformed a tiny, 420-square-foot apartment in Manhattan's trendy SoHo neighborhood into a livable — and fashionable — home.

Now he's put the apartment on the market for $995,000 — that's $2,369 per square foot, according to Curbed New York.

The idea for the apartment was to fit 700 square feet into 420 square feet with the creative use of space. The result is a home that doubles as a treasure trove of storage space, featuring fold-up beds, hidden cabinets, removable walls and more. It can be transformed from a living room to bedroom, workspace, dining room and entertainment space.

"A simpler life is a happier life," Hill told Business Insider in an interview last year. 

Hill spent around $300,000 buying the space, plus an extra $250,000 to $300,000 in renovations. He walked us through the stunning space last year. It's being sold with all furniture, and is listed with Corcoran.

Megan Durisin contributed to this story.

Here's the floor plan of Hill's apartment. At 420 sq. feet, it could fit inside the average American home about four times.

Here's what the space usually looks like as a bedroom. Hill says it can transform into five different spaces — including a living room, bedroom, dining room, entertainment center and workspace.

This is the view from the opposite angle. Hill said he loves the apartment and it hasn't been very difficult getting used to living in the small space, although he had lived in some other small spaces previously.

By now you've heard of this couple, or at least seen their photos on Instagram.

Photographer Murad Osmann takes photos of his girlfriend Natalia Zakharova leading him through rice fields in Bali, the streets of Barcelona, and the luxury hotels of Singapore.

Millions of people were captivated by the beautiful images that emerged on the couple's "Follow Me To..." Instagram feed.

Inspired by Osmann, a man named Samy Ayachi created a video version of the concept with his girlfriend on a recent trip to Mayanmar (via EliteDaily), and it's absolutely gorgeous.

It really brings Ossman's photo concept to life:

 And captures the people and culture of Mayanmar beautifully:

You can watch the entire video here and below:

SEE ALSO: Photographer's New Pictures Of His Girlfriend Leading Him Around The World Will Inspire You To Travel

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The Upper East Side has long been associated with high-end shops, hoity-toity residential buildings, and ladies who lunch at overpriced restaurants. However, there was a dearth of affordable, cool, high-quality restaurants. 

All that has changed as rents in the area have become increasingly affordable, luring in young people who are priced out of the more trendy neighborhoods downtown.

And with the young people come more innovative and affordable restaurants. When I moved to the Upper East Side last year, I was surprised to see how many cool new restaurants have made their home there. 

For the purpose of this list, we're defining the Upper East Side as the area between 70th and 96th Street and between 5th Avenue and the East River. 

Here are 25 UES restaurants and bars that are hip, affordable, and excellent.

Best Brasserie: Cafe D'Alsace

1695 2nd Ave.

Sample stinky cheese, mussels Provencale, steak frites, and other classic Alsatian dishes at Cafe D'Alsace, a quaint brasserie. Sit at the long, open bar or in one of the cozy banquettes while enjoying your meal. 

Best Date Spot: Felice 83

1593 1st Ave.

With its ambient lighting, cozy banquettes, and vintage vibe, Felice 83 is a great spot for a date. There's an extensive wine and cocktail list, and a nice array of Italian bar snacks, like veal meatballs, fried artichokes, and gooey burrata. There are also heartier mains. 

Best Mediterranean: Beyoglu

1431 3rd Ave.

Named after one of the hippest neighborhoods in Istanbul, Beyoglu serves delicious Turkish food that's meant to be shared. Order a bunch of different meze and some Turkish wine. 

The restaurant has been around for awhile, but still feels buzzy and cool.

When vascular dementia forced Gerda Saunders to retire as a university director of gender studies in her early 60s, she decided to document her decline. “In it I’ll report my descent into the post-cerebral realm for which I am headed,” Saunders wrote in a 2011 journal entry. “No whimpering, no whining, no despair. Just the facts.”

Her writings have been compiled into an essay published in the Georgia Review and reprinted by Slate, offering insight into the devastating effects of vascular dementia.

Vascular dementia is the second leading cause of dementia after Alzheimer’s, accounting for 20% to 30% of dementia cases, according to the Alzheimer's Association. This underdiagnosed condition is usually caused by strokes that block brain blood vessels and deprive brain cells of necessary oxygen and nutrients, resulting in a decline in thinking skills.

Saunders intended to focus her writings on “the most formidable issue I face: my ever-changing identity.” The result is a deeply honest and emotional look inside her gradually deteriorating mind. She reveals her hopes, fears, and memories of her mother Susanna, who also suffered from a severe case of dementia and wrote about her condition before her 2006 death.

Saunders' reluctant acceptance of her own condition begins the moment her neurologist tells her at age 61 that she is “dementing,” a verb she’d never heard before and thought absurd. “But in my heart I already knew: I am dementing I am dementing I am dementing,” Saunders wrote, echoing her mother's realization before her.

Saunders’ writings recount a period of many months, marked by grim milestones like the day in 2012 she quit driving after a dementia-induced car accident. She recalled the feeling of losing her identity, since it meant she could no longer volunteer to take her elderly neighbors shopping. “I could not bring myself to tell anyone else,” she wrote. “It wasn’t so much the actual driving, but rather the change in what I think of as a core of my self: helping other people.”

Saunders documented the steady progress of her symptoms — inability to follow her own lecture notes as a professor, susceptibility to getting lost, and difficulty following normal tasks as basic as cleaning the kitchen counter. She was particularly self-conscious that her IQ had dropped by more than 20 points.

After her diagnosis, Saunders wondered why she has still been able to write despite her dementia. She became intrigued by studies suggesting people who spend most of their lives mastering particular skills may maintain those skills long after dementia disrupts their other functions. This gives Saunders hope that she will be able to continue writing, but her deep honesty with herself forces her to admit a harsher reality. “I want to believe this will be my story, too. But in truth writing is getting slower and harder…”

Saunders also expressed her concerns about research conducted at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University, indicating the memory of a highly educated person may deteriorate much faster than someone with minimal education.

Although hopeful in the short term, Sanders' long-term outlook is not naive. She has accepted that patients like her, “are always still dementing, never done. Until they die.”

You can read the full essay, reprinted on Slate, here.

SEE ALSO: The Number Of People Worldwide With Dementia Will Triple By 2050

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Sure, you have that "classic" bottle of cologne sitting on your dresser. Every day you reach for it hoping to make a good impression.

But you've probably wondered many times if you're making the right choice. What's the best scent to wear to work? A black tie event? A night out on the town?

We went to the Bloomingdale's in Manhattan to find out once and for all.

SEE ALSO: Men Have Been Putting On Cologne All Wrong

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Students of the British Higher School of Art and Design in Moscow presented a project in which they reinterpreted famous Russian paintings and replaced the people in them with characters from the animated series "The Simpsons."

Check out these strange yet comical takes on some of Russia's most famous art:

Valentin Serov's "Girl with Peaches"

 Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin's "Bathing of a Red Horse"

 Vasily Pukirev's "The Unequal Marriage"

 Vasily Perov's "Troika" 

 Viktor Vasnetsov's "Ivan Tsarevich Riding the Gray Wolf"

Viktor Vasnetsov's "Three Bogatyrs"

 Ivan Kramskoy's "Prayer of Moses after the Israelites Go Through the Red Sea" 

 Vasily Perov's "Hunters At Rest"  

Pavel Fedotov's "The Fresh Cavalier" 

Fedor Reshetnikov's "Low Marks Again" 

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Los Angeles may be notorious for its traffic, but it turns out the city's northern California neighbors are even more addicted to their cars. 

According to a report in the Silicon Valley Business Journal, 86.8% of the residents of Santa Clara County — which encompasses Silicon Valley — commute by car, compared with 83.1% of Los Angeles County residents. Of those who commute by car, only 11.9% of Santa Clarans drive with a carpool. 

The data was compiled from the 2012 American Community Survey, part of the U.S. Census. 

There are a number of reasons for congestion in Silicon Valley, and a lack of practical public transportation is a big one. Only 3.3% of commuters in Santa Clara County use public transit, compared to 32.4% of commuters in San Francisco County and 7.1% in L.A. 

"There’s not transit between (jobs and housing) and we’ve really made it challenging to use transit," Leah Toeniskoetter, director of the San Jose office of city-planning organization SPUR, said to the Silicon Valley Business Journal.

Work has begun on new BART extension stations in San Jose and Milpitas, and a bus rapid transit system will break ground in San Jose this month. 

Still, many of Santa Clara County's office developments offer free parking for employees, which is a huge incentive to drive. Parking in nearby San Francisco, on the other hand, can be costly and hard to find.

"Free parking is one of those 'If you build it, they will come,'" Jeff Hobson, deputy director for public-transit advocacy group TransForm, said. 

Plus, as large companies like Yahoo and HP ban working from home, it's inevitable that thousands of people will continue to drive to work each morning.

SEE ALSO: Here's More Proof That The San Francisco Real Estate Market Has Exploded In The Last Decade [MAP]

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A great recent story from Curbed chronicles the long and contentious history between New York University and the East Village neighborhood it calls home.

NYU is currently embroiled in a legal battle to move forward with NYU 2031, an expansion plan that local critics say will ruin the historic low-rise neighborhood. If the plan is eventually approved, NYU will add four more buildings to its growing dominance in the area.

However, as Curbed points out, it didn't always have to be this way. As they report:

For all the controversy in the Village, there are signs that if the school had decided to build elsewhere, it would have been welcomed with open arms. Leaders in lower Manhattan, struggling to renew development after the financial crisis, contacted NYU in 2010, urging it to consider expanding into the Financial District. "It could have been a win-win for everyone," says Catherine McVay Hughes, currently the chair of Community Board 1, who says she and her predecessor, Julie Menin, met with NYU administrators about the possibility.

Leaders in other boroughs, too, say they have sought out the school. "With the troubles they've had in Manhattan with expansion in the Village, I've offered them, urged them to say, why not consider Brooklyn?" says Marty Markowitz, who as Brooklyn's borough president until 2014, saw the number of college students in Downtown jump from 35,000 in 2006 to more than 57,000. "We're only—how many subway stops away? 2, 3, 4? It's around the corner practically from NYU."

Markowitz goes on to say that he could envision NYU moving its theater and arts programs to Brooklyn, which he argues would be a natural fit.

According to Curbed, NYU is wasting any economic benefits that derive from the university on the Village:

As they point out, the economic benefits brought by a school like NYU diminish in already thriving areas like Greenwich Village. A study commissioned by the plan's opponents in April 2012 found that the plan could serve as a "potent economic development tool" wherever it was situated, but that this upswing in sales would be significantly smaller scale in the Village—an increase of $23 million that would only account for a growth of about 2.5 percent, in contrast to 10 percent in a place like Downtown Brooklyn. In other words, NYU could potentially do for another neighborhood now what it did for the Village long ago.

NYU has a simple answer to why they didn't consider either of these offers — they need more academic space where they already are. "You can't just create a whole second campus for things that are already happening at the square." Alicia Hurley, a vice president in the university's public affairs department, told Curbed.

Such a move would not be unprecedented in New York though. Fordham University currently has two undergraduate campuses in the city — a central campus in the Bronx and a smaller one in Manhattan near Lincoln Center, which hosts its BFA program.

Rather than divide the school, Fordham emphasizes the benefits of their Manhattan campus, including the easy accessibility of major artistic outlets.

Additionally, NYU itself is already expanding partially into Brooklyn. The university recently merged with Polytechnic University to create a new engineering program, as well as taking money from the city to develop a new tech campus in an abandoned MTA building in Downtown Brooklyn.

While the long term benefits of this development remain to be seen, it will likely do more good than its consistent building-up of the East Village.

Read more about the NYU-East Village real estate battle at Curbed >>

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Scientists have long explored the inner lives of animals. Primates, in particular, have inspired research suggesting they have human-like emotions.

In an effort to document some of these emotions, photographer Anne Berry has spent several years traveling to small zoos from Germany to South Africa to capture intimate portraits of primates living in captivity. 

Berry shared a number of the photos with us here, but you can check out the rest at her website or in her upcoming book for Northlight Press.

Berry traveled to small zoos, primarily in Germany and Belgium to photograph the primates.

Most small towns have their own zoos, which aren't crowded.

Each zoo has its own "monkey hut" that houses the primates. In addition to the monkey hut, there is usually a large outdoor habitat where primates are free to go.

Audi is going after a new segment of the market — the first time luxury buyer — and that calls for a reasonably affordable car.

The result is the 2015 A3, which starts for just $29,900. Last week, I headed out to Silicon Valley to test the sedan on roads populated by the potential Audi customers: The young guys and gals who are finally making real money and want to show it by driving something other than a fully loaded Honda Accord.

Audi did a good job keeping some nice features standard in the A3, including a panoramic roof, 4G LTE connectivity, and real leather. The base engine option is a perfectly adequate 1.8-liter four-cylinder that produces 170 horsepower, good for a 0 to 60 mph time of 7.2 seconds. One journalist on our trip actually preferred it to the more expensive 2.0-liter.

But pushing a luxury car below the $30,000 mark requires making sacrifices. Sit down in the A3, and you quickly notice it's not a top-of-the-line choice. Here's what we missed the most:

• Power seats: Yes, you have to engage muscles to move your seat backward or forward.
• Heated seats: This feature may come standard in low-cost electric cars, but you'll have to pay extra to get it in your new Audi A3.
• Key-less start: As obnoxious as it sounds, I can't remember the last time I had to physically turn a key to start a luxury car — until last week.
• Big wheels: 17-inch rims just don't look that cool.
• Added safety for backseat passengers: It's $350 extra if you want thorax (chest-protecting) air bags for the car's rear seats.
• Rear-view camera: This is especially disappointing because cameras are increasingly common and really helpful. You get one standard on the $18,190 Honda Civic Coupe.
• Navigation: More forgivable, since anyone buying this car will have a smartphone. But it would be nice to have.

Overall, I liked the A3. I think it looks stubby in profile, but I admire the simplicity and elegance of the interior, and it's a lot of fun to drive with either engine option.

Disclosure: Audi paid for travel and accommodations for our trip to California to test the A3.

SEE ALSO: The 27 Coolest Cars At The Geneva Motor Show

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After a year of speculation, Kim Kardashian has finally landed a Vogue cover. 

The star is pictured on the front of the magazine with her fiancé, Kanye West. She's wearing a wedding gown, and her hair is sleekly pulled back. 

Here's the cover, which Kardashian posted on her Instagram account. She also tweeted "This is such a dream come true!!! Thank you @VogueMagazine for this cover! O M GGGGGG!!!" 

 West also reacted on his Twitter account. 

#TRILL Thank you @voguemagazinehttp://t.co/C4O8XOeJjS

— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) March 21, 2014

West is rumored to be friends with Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour. While Kardashian is incredibly famous, the magazine typically puts models or A-list actresses on its cover.

Last year, New York Magazine ran a story explaining why the fashion world turned up their noses at Kim Kardashian. 

"Kim Kardashian—a sexpot with curves and a prodigious behind, a sybarite as well as a full-on capitalist—is an affront to everything it holds dear," Benjamin Wallace wrote. "It’s hard to imagine a model who converted her looks into a business empire being perceived as anything other than impressive—an entrepreneur—but for this world Kim may be the wrong kind of model."

The Vogue cover shows that Kardashian has made it in fashion. 

SEE ALSO: 35 Companies Changing The Way We Eat And Shop

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Facial symmetry is often pointed to as one of the chief indicators of attractiveness in males and females. But how true is that hypothesis?

Fashion photographer Alex John Beck recently decided to test the symmetrical theory of attractiveness by photographing regular people and then making symmetrical versions of each person's face, by using first the left and then the right side. 

Beck's results are definitely odd and a little disconcerting. He shared a few with us below, but you can check out the rest of his work at his website:

Beck took a portrait of each person and then divided it into the left and right side of the face. Then he mirrored each to create symmetrical portraits from each side.

For people with more naturally symmetrical faces, the effect is far more subtle.For each portrait session, he made the symmetrical version immediately so that he could show his subjects.Those with more symmetrical faces were pleased with the results.

According to Beck, in most cases, subjects looked more like a long-lost sibling than a version of him or herself.People with less symmetrical faces were less enthusiastic, even if one of the portraits looked very flattering.The effect was disturbing for some.Certain features get pronounced in each portrait. This man's face and neck looks thin from his left side, but far more thick and full on the right.Beck says that they tried to maintain the structural integrity of each face because they wanted each one to look realistic.Beck declined to include the original portrait of each person because then people would focus on finding the differences between the faces. Instead, he wanted viewers to look critically at each face by itself.

NOW WATCH: Scientists Discovered What Makes Someone A Good Dancer

SEE ALSO: Buy This Incredible Transforming 'Micro Apartment' In New York City For $1 Million

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When companies set out to design logos to brand their products, they often go above and beyond to create recognizable and memorable graphics.

Over and over again we see examples of corporate logos with hidden visual messages buried inside.

NOW WATCH: 5 Subliminal Sex Messages Hidden In Ads For Wholesome Brands

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An Austin, Texas startup is trying to help people establish better relationships with local farmers. 

The startup, called CitySprout, serves as a virtual farmers' market, connecting customers directly with Austin-area food growers through an online network.

The concept isn't new. A number of startups are currently trying to capitalize on the locavore food trend. 

But CitySprout differs from some of its competitors, like Good Eggs and Relay Foods, in that it doesn't handle any of the packaging or delivery of the food. That's all left to the farmers. 

"We want our customers to be able to build relationships with their local food merchants," CitySprout CEO Will Trienens said in an interview with Business Insider. "We're not packaging any of the food in warehouses, like some of our competitors... When our customers buy honey, they actually pick it up from the beekeeper." 

The company wants to simply be a "conduit" for farmers to sell their meat, produce and other products, he said. In return, the company charges a 20% fee to the farmers.

"This is the eBay for local food," Trienens said. "We want to be as removed from the actual process as possible."

Here's how it works: The website allows consumers to "join" a pickup location where the farmers will deliver their groceries. Each location has a separate web page, where users can connect with each other to discuss recipes, comment on specific produce, or vote on pickup dates and times.

When farmers select a pickup location as part of their delivery route, their produce becomes available to the customers who are members of that location. Customers can then make orders online.

Here's an example of available produce from various farms:

CitySprout members can also "sponsor" a new pickup location and solicit friends, coworkers or neighbors to join the location via email or social media. 

The online tools enable customers to establish and grow their own communities of local food enthusiasts.

Since launching with one pickup location last February, CitySprout is now adding roughly 1,000 members weekly. The company has 11,000 members total and is seeking $2 million in their second round of financing. 

The next step for the company will be expanding into a new market, Trienens said.

First on the list for possible expansion is Boston, followed by Dallas and Portland.

SEE ALSO: Get Ready To Drink Wine And Beer At Starbucks

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Laying bare supply and demand in the oldest profession.

It's hard out here for a pimp," complains the Three 6 Mafia, a rap group. A new study by the Urban Institute, a think-tank, casts doubt on this assertion. After investigating the sex trade in eight big American cities, researchers concluded that pimps can do rather well for themselves. Some in Atlanta bring in $33,000 a week, the study estimates.

Tracking the sex trade is hard. It is legal only in parts of Nevada. Elsewhere there are no receipts; researchers relied instead on interviews with lawyers, police, prostitutes and pimps. Their fat report, commissioned by the Justice Department, brought squeals of pleasure from journalists everywhere, who tended to play up evidence that the oldest profession is booming.

But it doesn’t appear to be. In five out of seven cities, the underground sex industry shrank between 2003 and 2007, the study found. (In one place, Kansas City, Missouri, there was not enough evidence to decide.) In Washington, DC, takings fell by 34%. In Denver, with a population of 2.5m in 2007 if you include the suburbs, the sex trade grossed a mere $40m.

The demand for sex probably does not change much over time, but other things do. A century ago, when sexual mores were stricter, prostitution was more common and better paid (see table). Men’s demand for commercial sex was higher because the non-commercial sort was harder to obtain--there was no premarital hook-up culture. Women were attracted to prostitution in part because their other job opportunities were so meagre. And they commanded high wages partly because the social stigma was so great--without high pay, it was not worth enduring it.

The price for a trick today ranges from miserable ($15) to ample ($1,000 or more). Prostitutes have many options besides street-walking. The internet makes it easier for them to set up "dates" and negotiate prices, and harder for the police to catch them. They feel less vulnerable using social-media sites than doing the "stroll". But 36% nonetheless report that some clients were violent or abusive.

Pimps, who are often women, tend to follow a business plan. They impose rules, such as "no drugs" or "no young clients" (who are more likely than older men to be violent). They are flexible with pricing, offering special deals for loyal customers and swiftly adapting to economic downturns. A third of pimps delegate management, training and even recruitment to an experienced employee called a "bottom girl". About 15% admitted to beating up their staff. Others, however, thought violence was bad for business. One pimp said: "One bad girl can knock your whole stable loose. Get rid of the bad apple. If I needed to hit them, I didn’t need them."

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What a Manhattan apartment block tells us about the American economy.

House of Outrageous Fortune: Fifteen Central Park West, the World’s Most Powerful Address. By Michael Gross. Atria Books; 394 pages.

"Limestone Jesus" is the nickname of 15 Central Park West, Manhattan’s residential building of the moment, and not just because its 201 extraordinary apartments are clad in expensive rock.

"It represents the resurrection and the life of our era’s aristocracy of wealth," writes Michael Gross in "House of Outrageous Fortune", the "story of the property-lust-making building and the cohort that calls it their tower of power".

If anyone needs convincing that the richest of the rich have continued to get richer, unaffected by the financial crash of 2008 and the subsequently misfiring economy, here is the proof. In 2005 when Carl Icahn, a septuagenarian billionaire activist investor, was outbid for a penthouse in the then-unbuilt building, his successful rival, Daniel Loeb, a younger hedge-fund boss, paid $45m. In 2011 Sandy Weill, a former boss of Citigroup, sold his slightly smaller penthouse for $88m, twice what it had cost him four years earlier and the highest price ever paid for a Manhattan apartment.

15CPW, as it is known locally, has special appeal to the new-money types frowned upon by the sniffy blue-bloods across the park on Fifth Avenue.

There are hedgies and investment bankers galore, especially from Goldman Sachs, which helped the Zeckendorf brothers finance the development, and got a discount for its boss, Lloyd Blankfein, when he splashed out $26m on a duplex. Russian oligarchs, left out of the initial sales process due to concerns about their character, have been busy buyers in the secondary market.

Celebrity residents include Sting, Denzel Washington and Alex Rodriguez, a steroid-pumping batter for the New York Yankees who, one anonymous neighbour tells Mr Gross, is "not a nice guy, an unfriendly narcissist" and is thus the "exact opposite" of the delightful Mr Blankfein. (For anyone expecting serious tittle-tattle, this is about as good as Mr Gross gets, alas, along with his account of Mr Loeb’s failed attempt to lower the temperature of the water in the swimming pool and subsequent resignation from the building’s gym committee.)

When the Occupy Wall Street movement heard that Mr Blankfein lived in the building it organised a protest outside, and Bill de Blasio, New York’s mayor, got elected last year by attacking the sort of wealthy people who call 15CPW home.

If only Mr Gross had made a serious attempt to analyse whether their rise is really due to policies that simultaneously harmed the less well-off, and whether there have been more of the sort of special favours for residents like those apparently extended by the police to the triple-parked limos out front. Still, he demonstrates conclusively the abiding truth of Clare Boothe Luce’s observation, "Money can’t buy happiness, but it can make you awfully comfortable while you’re being miserable."

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At the American Copy Editors Society's annual conference this week, the Associated Press issued a decision that made journalists gasp: Writers can use "over" to compare quantities rather than "more than."

Previously, the AP Stylebook taught that "over" "generally refers to spatial relationships," while "more than" was preferred with countable items, like salaries and years. 

For instance, the old style would require you to write "I gave her more than 100 candy bars," rather than "over 100 candy bars."

The new rule lets writers choose.

In reality, many people have long ignored this distinction. Nevertheless, to some, the change signaled the grammatical apocalypse:

More than my dead body! RT @TheSlot Some @APStylebook changes at #ACES2014 ... "over" is fine for "more than," ...

— Mike Shor (@MikeShor) March 20, 2014

Where is your god now? RT @Poynter AP changes style: "over" now OK with a number; don't have to change to "more than" http://t.co/iHzxPStgsk

— Justin Megahan (@justinrmegahan) March 20, 2014

Bridgegate equivalent scandal for editors: @AP says there's no difference now btwn "over" and "more than" http://t.co/CjrTVztZgM

— Heather Long (@byHeatherLong) March 21, 2014

YOUR MOM HAS BECOME COMMON USAGE. MT @Poynter@AP Stylebook Editor Darrell Christian: it has "become common usage" http://t.co/FITKhaVjwP

— Claudia Koerner (@ClaudiaKoerner) March 20, 2014

The infuriated/forlorn/bewildered reactions go on and on.

Merriam-Webster calls the AP's former disapproval of "over" a "hoary [tiresome] American newspaper tradition." That tradition reportedly began in 1877 when William Cullen Bryant, the longtime editor of the New York Evening Post, put "over" on his famous list of words he hated, aka the Index Expurgatorius.

The New York Times' grammar guru, William Safire, maintained the same preference in 1992 when he criticized Bill Clinton's language use during a presidential debate. Apparently, Clinton should have said "more than 150,000 AIDS deaths" instead of "over."

While the original distinction might have meant to add clarity, an AP representative explained to Poynter that it made the change because "over" has become common usage. While editors might hate the phrase "He made over $1 million," it wouldn't faze readers at all.

SEE ALSO: Saying "I'm Good" Is Correct — And Anyone Who Says Otherwise Is A Fool

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How one doctor helped develop the weapons to battle cancer.

Hopes were high when Richard Nixon declared war on cancer in 1971. If scientists could build a nuclear bomb, send a man to the moon and cure polio, they could surely defeat cancer.

But over 40 years later millions still die from the diseases that fall under this broad banner. Can it therefore be said that the war on cancer has failed?

No, says Paul Marks in "On The Cancer Frontier". But the goal should be containment, not victory, because the enemy is uniquely intractable. Cancer sabotages cells, then uses their resources to destroy the body. Treatments often kill good cells along with the bad. Even when forced to retreat, cancers return in more potent forms. "Medical science has never faced a more inscrutable, more mutable, or more ruthless adversary," says Dr Marks.

He would know. As the former head of Memorial Sloan-Kettering, a leading cancer centre in New York, Dr Marks has taken part in many of the developments that have enhanced the understanding of the disease. Like an intellectual Forrest Gump, he has worked with Nobel prizewinners, counselled first ladies and been sought out by a shah.

But it is the story behind the science that makes this book a compelling read, even for non-boffins, who can rely on good metaphors to decipher the jargon. (A virus that contains only RNA, and no DNA, is like "a functioning automobile with a transmission but no engine".)

Human cells mystified scientists until the 1950s, when James Watson and Francis Crick discovered the structure of DNA. As researchers began to unravel how cells worked they also began to understand how cancer attacked and reprogrammed them. But the medical community, long focused on visible symptoms, was slow to embrace the idea of looking at cancer from the inside out. And when the government began pouring money into the anti-cancer effort in the 1970s, the debate over how to confront the scourge intensified.

Although the science behind cancer was still in its infancy, some argued that the funds should go to finding cures quickly based on existing, but incomplete, leads--the "moon shot" approach. Penicillin, after all, had been discovered without anyone knowing its exact molecular workings. Sceptical scientists wanted to continue studying cancer’s biology--they still hardly knew how the enemy worked. But Nixon’s war led to high expectations. "The politics had got way ahead of the science," says Dr Marks. The result was a muddled policy and a disappointed public.

Nevertheless Dr Marks claims America is winning this particular war. The death rate from cancer has fallen, though total deaths are up because of a growing and ageing population. If Dr Marks is right, then some of the credit must go to efforts aimed at prevention--the fact that Americans smoke less than they used to has little to do with advances in cellular biology. But he gives this short shrift. And though he encourages screening in order to catch more cancers early, he makes little of the controversy surrounding the needless treatments that can result.

These quibbles hardly detract from Dr Marks’s fascinating journey through the world of cancer research. Scientists have made great strides in working out how cancer cells conduct their guerrilla war on the body. As a result, they have been able to develop precision weapons to replace the carpet-bombing treatments of old. Cancer is now a less lethal enemy. Still, Dr Marks doubts it can be eliminated. Many will have trouble seeing that as success.

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