Mercyvill

(Thinkstock) A company is planning to go public sometime in the next year and I know everything about it. I know management’s strategy, which board members they are planning to "dump", which employees they are going to ease out and replace before they announce the IPO, who the company’s main competitors are, who its bankers are, how management plans to finesse the filing to make negatives sound more positive… Suffice it to say, I know a lot about them.

Sometimes a talented person can be an ineffective manager. (Jeff Vinnick/Getty Images) When hiring, promoting, even just putting together your team, you should look for the smartest people in the room, right? Not so fast. Intelligence is one of those characteristics where there is a minimum level needed to be in the game. Once past that, too much intelligence can be a drawback or worse. The Enron management team, for example, were known as “the smartest guys in the room.”  Consider how well that turned out. The former US energy trading company tapped its top talent to run some of its most-profitable divisions, almost without supervision. The managers, despite their smarts, were an arrogant, insecure bunch who took wild chances and lost billions of dollars. The company dissolved in 2001.

(Thinkstock) Kunan Zaveri reckons he's applied for more than 1,000 jobs online since being made redundant earlier this year. But, he said, he heard back from exactly… none. For some job seekers, hitting the “submit” button on an online job application feels like launching a CV into a black hole, never to be seen or heard from again. For Zaveri, a former human resources analyst for Cisco, it sure feels that way. “I haven't heard anything from anyone,” said Zaveri in an email.

Each hive may have medical specialists that prescribe antibiotic-laced honey to sick workers They are among the most industrious creatures on the planet, but honeybees still struggle when they’re ill. Once a disease takes hold inside a hive, the bees can become sluggish and disorientated, and many may die. Now it seems honeybees may have a way of helping to keep their workforce healthy - by employing bees that feed "medicinal honey" to other members of the hive. A group of worker bees called "nurse bees", if they are infected with a parasite, selectively eat honey that has a high antibiotic activity, according to Silvio Erler of the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg in Halle, Germany and his colleagues.

(Shutterstock*) On October 26 2002, to end a three-day siege on a theatre in Moscow by Chechen terrorists, Russian security forces used a secret incapacitating chemical agent (ICA) weapon believed to affect the central nervous system. Although most of the 900 people being held hostage were freed, well over 100 of them were killed by the chemical agent; many more continue to suffer long-term health problems. To this day, the Russian authorities refuse to disclose what weapon they used. Nor will they provide any details of the nature and levels of any incapacitating chemical weapons they may have developed or stockpiled.

(Getty Images) What is it like to see again after years of blindness? Rose Eveleth asks a woman whose sight was restored with a remarkable new eye implant. Fran Fulton is 66, and she’s been fully blind for about 10 years. A few weeks ago, all that changed. “When they ‘turned me on’ so to speak it was absolutely the most breathtaking experience”    — Fran Fulton Fulton suffers from retinitis pigmentosa – a degenerative eye disease that slowly causes light-sensitive cells in the retina to die off. Over the course of several years she lost her sight, and for the past 10 years she hasn’t been able to see anything at all. But in late July, Fulton was outfitted with a system called the Argus II. A pair of camera-equipped glasses are hooked up to electrodes implanted in her eyeball, which feed her brain visual information.

(Getty Images) Your phone could help diagnose rare diseases like Ebola, finds David Robson – and one day it might even replace the doctor’s surgery too. As fear of the Ebola virus escalates, Eric Topol thinks that we’re missing an important weapon. And you just need to reach into your pocket to find it. “Most communicable diseases can be diagnosed with a smartphone,” he says. “Rather than putting people into quarantine for three weeks – how about seeing if they harbour it in their blood?” A quicker response could also help prevent mistakes, such as the  patient in Dallas who was sent home from hospital with a high fever , only to later die from the infection.

(Shutterstock*) The forefront of hair care today is to refrain from washing it every single day. A rinse in the shower is allowed but in this brave new world, popular hair-care products—shampoos, conditioners, etc.—are to be used intermittently, if at all. Curly-haired woman have been given this advice for years (for the love of your scalp and your boingy curls, do not subject them to oil-stripping shampoos!), but in the past few years, straight-haired woman have been getting in on this, too.

(Stefan Marjora The Hakskeen Pan desert in South Africa is perhaps the emptiest stretch of land on Earth. As far as the eye can see, you will simply find the sun-baked clay, mottled like cracked enamel. But when you are travelling at 1,000mph (1,609km/h), even the clearest terrain presents hidden dangers. “You are travelling faster than a bullet, says Mark Chapman. “So if you go over a stone, it’s like someone shooting at the wheel.”

A district pastor of a church in Ilorin, the Kwara State capital,Nigeria, has been remanded by a Lagos Magistrate’s Court sitting in Ikeja. The 37-year-old pastor, Adebambo Adetunji, was alleged to be one of the gang members, who robbed motorists at the Ojota Bus stop, between April and July, 2014. PUNCH Metro  learnt that Adetunji and other suspects, who were still on the run, were notorious for snatching cars and robbing victims of their valuables at gun point.

It’d be nice to assume that all food sold in U.S. supermarkets is safe to eat—or at least, that it’s government inspected. Sadly, it’s not the case. China allows unsafe and toxic products to leave its borders and get into our stores all the time. You may recall some of the many China food scandals in recent years, from deadly melamine in milk products , harmful honey , and poisonous dog treats . Since the FDA examines only 2.3% of all food imports, there’s every reason to be more than a bit cautious when buying food imported from China. Here are the top 5 products from China that you should really watch out for.

(Shutterstock*) As predicted, fear about Ebola is quickly spreading as the virus fans across the nation. Two schools in Ohio were closed on Thursday after staff members reported possibly coming into contact with the second Dallas nurse who contracted it from Thomas Eric Duncan, and another school was disinfected just to be sure that the virus wasn’t lingering on surfaces. Schools in both Ohio and Texas, in fact, canceled classes or shut down completely last week due to Ebola fears stemming from the travel of Amber Joy Vinson. The Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital nurse visited the Cleveland area to make wedding arrangements, only to develop Ebola symptoms before traveling back to Dallas.

(Shutterstock*) For those who are new to the idea of eating to enhance and support wellness, integrating more veggies into the diet can seem like hard work – and it is if you don’t have a plan! As getting lots of nutrient-rich foods into your body is mission critical, I’ve come up with a few tips on how to painlessly increase your veggie (and some fruit) intake, from sun-up to sun-down. Your mission? Five-to-seven servings of high quality, preferably organic fruits and vegetables every day. Take these tips to heart and in time, eating your daily dose of health-sustaining foods will become your default setting and one that’s all gain, no pain:

No turning back On 26 July 1971 Apollo 15 blasted in orbit from the Kennedy Space Center, at Cape Canaveral, Florida. (Copyright: Nasa) What’s it like to be the most isolated human in all eternity? Our space correspondent meets Al Worden, command module pilot of Apollo 15, who holds that dubious honour. Seven men in the history of humanity stand apart from the rest of us. These are the Apollo command module pilots who spent time alone in orbit around the Moon, while their colleagues walked on the lunar surface. When they were on the far side of the Moon, these astronauts were completely out of contact, and further from Earth, than anyone had ever been before. Or has ever been since.

(Thinkstock) Many optimists believe that technology can transform society, whether it’s the internet or the latest phone. But as Tom Chatfield argues in his final column for BBC Future, the truth about our relationship with technology is far more interesting. BBC reports from Las Vegas tech meeting Lecturing in late 1968, the American sociologist Harvey Sacks addressed one of the central failures of technocratic dreams . We have always hoped, Sacks argued, that “if only we introduced some fantastic new communication machine the world will be transformed.” Instead, though, even our best and brightest devices must be accommodated within existing practices and assumptions in a “world that has whatever organisation it already has.”

Antibiotics: End of the line Antibiotics are important medicines that have been used to treat bacterial infections for 70 years. They work by either disrupting processes bacteria need to survive or preventing them from reproducing. But these drugs are becoming less and less effective against bacterial infections and could one day run out. Right now there aren’t any alternatives that could take their place. It’s conceivable that in 20 years, treatments such as chemotherapy and simple surgery will become impossible because they rely on antibiotics. We are facing a future where a cough or cut could kill once again.

(Getty Images) Procrastinate often? Caroline Williams does, so decided to find out if brain training could tackle her wandering mind. What she discovered could help everyone. I am about to be zapped in the head with an electromagnet, once a second, for eight minutes. I fidget, trying to get comfortable in a huge black chair with jointed metal arms that stand between me and the door. I feel faintly ridiculous wearing a tight headband with what looks like a coat hook on the top. “All you need to do is relax,” says Mike Esterman, the researcher about to zap me. That’s easy for him to say – he’s holding the magnet.

(Sundance Selects) Blue Is the Warmest Colour and Nymphomaniac have attracted attention for their graphic sexual content. But what does the explicit trend mean for films? Nicholas Barber reports. The most talked-about eight minutes in cinema last year were in the French film, Blue is the Warmest Colour. The movie’s graphic lesbian sex scene was so explicit and prolonged - frankly, it looked exhausting − that Abdellatif Kechiche’s three-hour coming-of-age drama could have been dismissed as pornography. And yet, while there was much debate concerning the morality of a 52-year-old male director telling two naked young actresses to contort themselves into human reef knots, the film won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, and went onto garner rave reviews. Most critics accepted that Blue is the Warmest Colour wasn’t a blue movie – but an honest, unflinching portrayal of first love.

SURUC, Turkey—In a significant shift, Turkey’s top diplomat announced on Monday that his country is helping Iraqi Kurdish fighters cross into Syria to “give support” to fellow Kurds defending the border town of Kobani from Islamic State militants. The remarks by Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, at a press conference in Ankara, followed the announcement by the U.S. military that it had for the first time airdropped weapons, ammunition and medical supplies provided by Kurdish authorities in Iraq to the Kurdish forces in Kobani. Sunday’s airdrops followed weeks of U.S. and coalition airstrikes in and near Kobani, along the Syrian-Turkish border. There was no immediate confirmation by Kurdish officials of the airdrop or what kind of weapons it included.

For a president once mocked by his critics as little more than a celebrity , it was the ultimate indignity: Scores of people left a packed campaign rally Sunday before President Obama finished speaking. It wasn't immediately clear why, according to Reuters , "a steady stream of people" departed the event held for Maryland's Democratic gubernatorial nominee, Anthony Brown. Reporters guessed they just wanted a photo of the president, or they wanted to beat the inevitable traffic jam caused by the 8,000 some-odd people who stayed. Per...

SURUC, Turkey—In a significant shift, Turkey’s top diplomat announced on Monday that his country is helping Iraqi Kurdish fighters cross into Syria to “give support” to fellow Kurds defending the border town of Kobani from Islamic State militants. The remarks by Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, at a press conference in Ankara, followed the announcement by the U.S. military that it had for the first time airdropped weapons, ammunition and medical supplies provided by Kurdish authorities in Iraq to the Kurdish forces in Kobani. Sunday’s airdrops followed weeks of U.S. and coalition airstrikes in and near Kobani, along the Syrian-Turkish border. There was no immediate confirmation by Kurdish officials of the airdrop or what kind of weapons it included.

The Earth's shadow begins to fall on the moon during a total lunar eclipse, as seen above Miami, Wednesday, Oct. 8, 2014. (AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee) Whether you’re into mining, energy or tourism, there are lots of reasons to explore space. Some “pioneers” even believe humanity’s survival depends on colonising celestial bodies such as the moon and Mars, both becoming central hubs for our further journey into the cosmos. Lunar land peddlers have started doing deals already – a one-acre plot can be yours for just £16.75  (about $27). More seriously, big corporations, rich entrepreneurs and even US politicians are eyeing up the moon and its untapped resources. Russia has plans for a manned colony by 2030 and a Japanese firm wants to build a ring of solar panels around the moon and beam energy back to Earth. We need to be clear about the legal validity of extraterrestrial real estate as the same ideas that were once used to justify colonialism are being...

"Some fractures are slow-healing for no obvious reason, and we wondered if there is a genetic basis for those cases," says J. Spence Reid.(larkin.family, CC BY-NC 2.0) About 10 percent of the eight million bone fractures in the United States every year fail to heal normally. Smoking, diabetes, use of certain pain medications, low vitamin D levels, and old age are known risk factors, but in a significant subset of cases, unknown factors appear to be involved. “Some fractures are slow-healing for no obvious reason, and we wondered if there is a genetic basis for those cases,” says J. Spence Reid, professor of orthopaedics and rehabilitation at Penn State. He and his colleagues selected from their records 33 patients diagnosed with “atrophic nonunion”—the failure of a fracture to knit together on its own within six months. As controls, they selected 29 patients whose fractures had healed normally.

Prince Charles, Prince of Wales speaks to guests during a reception to celebrate the 21st anniversary of Duchy originals products at Clarence House on Sept. 11, 2013, in London, England. (Dan Kitwood/Getty Images) A former personal chef for Prince Charles says that the prince is a good man but that he and Palace officials were paranoid that the prince could get poisoned. So paranoid, in fact, that a dedicated secret service agent spent most of his time watching over the chef in the kitchen. Michelin Star chef Atul Kochhar says that the personal minder watched his every move as he prepared dishes for the prince.

 Vladimir Putin Threatens West with Russia’s 5,000 Nuclear Warheads. Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks at a news conference after the ASEM summit of European and Asian leaders in Milan, Italy, Friday, Oct.17, 2014. Putin met with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and key Western leaders in an attempt to negotiate a full end to hostilities in Ukraine that could ease sanctions against Russia. (AP Photo/Vasily Maximov, Pool) Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has threatened the West with his country’s 5,000 nuclear warheads. Putin has raised the specter of nuclear war for the third time in the past two months as he and Western countries such as the United States clash over the Ukraine conflict, which has been bringing to light other deep-seated animosity. Putin made his latest comments while en route to the annual Asia-Europe Meeting in Milan, a summit of 50 nations...