The proportion of Americans who read e-books is growing, but few have completely replaced print books for electronic versions.
The percentage of adults who read an e-book in the past year has risen to 28%, up from 23% at the end of 2012. At the same time, about seven in ten Americans reported reading a book in print, up four percentage points after a slight dip in 2012, and 14% of adults listened to an audiobook.
Though e-books are rising in popularity, print remains the foundation of Americans’ reading habits. Most people who read e-books also read print books, and just 4% of readers are “e-book only.” Audiobook listeners have the most diverse reading habits overall, while fewer print readers consume books in other formats.
This year more than ever, Americans prefer that stores and businesses welcome them with the more generic “Happy Holidays” or “Season’s Greetings” than “Merry Christmas,” according to a survey released Dec. 17 by the Public Religion Research Institute in partnership with Religion News Service.
And for one in four American adults (26 percent), Dec. 25 is simply a cultural holiday, not a religious holy day.
The percentage of people who say the Bible’s Christmas story is historically accurate has fallen more than 17 percentage points since a 2004 survey reported by Newsweek.
Even so, almost half (49 percent) of those who do celebrate Christmas (including 80 percent of white evangelicals) believe that the Virgin birth is historically accurate, that shepherds really saw a star over Bethlehem and that three wise men truly visited baby Jesus in a manger.
Read more: Christmas is a commercial holiday, not a sacred holy day, for many
A group of researchers say you should buy paintings if you like looking at them, but not to make money.
Art has been emerging as a new asset class for the well-diversified portfolio. The reported returns are enough to catch anyone’s eye: the index of fine art sales, used by art advisors to sell art funds, shows an average annual return of 10% over the past four decades.
Investors are eager to buy: Many so-called passion investments have been gaining in popularity, and a handful of funds, such as The Fine Art Fund Group, led by CEO Philip Hoffman, are making it easier for investors of all income levels to put their money into fine art.
In short, investors are embracing art-as-an-asset-class as if it were a newly discovered van Gogh. But is it?
White paper: Environmental Assessment of Cloth vs. Disposal Diapers
In recent years there has been a growing awareness of the many environmental problems that exist such as global warming, ozone depletion, water and air pollution, excessive resource consumption and hazardous waste to name a few. These issues affect people, societies and ecosystems. Due to this growing awareness and its political importance, governments are trying to reduce this negative impact through various legislative measures. Similarly corporations are seeking to build a “greener” more sustainable image of the way they do business as more people seriously consider more eco-friendly ways of living and there is a greater support for more sustainable development. Finally there are the actions of the individual (who is a consumer) to consider.
The phrase “Think global, act local" (attributed to Scots town planner and social activist Patrick Geddes in 1915) is the best way that people as individuals can help to mitigate the problem. Since humans, in aggregate, are responsible for most of the environmental problems, yet we as individuals are directly responsible only for our own activities, it is important that each person takes responsibility for his or her actions and become aware that the individual (and their family unit) has a significant effect on the natural environment through choices he or she makes.
There are certain foods that you should try to buy organic as much as possible. These foods are those fruits and vegetables whose conventionally grown "alternatives" have been found to contain high levels of pesticide residues.These are presented in descending order in terms of pesticide residue frequency (the uppermost food contains pesticide residues on the most frequent basis, and the next food down contains pesticide residues at the second highest frequency):
Read more: Which fruits and vegetables contain the most pesticide residues?
