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  • Imagine corn on the cob that naturally tastes creamy and buttery — no added fat required. Native Americans bred such a variety, but its kernels were almost lost to history. Now one chef is bringing back the heirloom corn — and hoping it will serve as a lesson in what can happen when crops are bred to be flavorful and colorful, not just big.
  • President Obama's big idea of linking federal financial aid to a new college ratings system — based on metrics like student debt levels — would require congressional action. That means it would have to make it through the GOP-led House, where Obama's initiatives don't have a great track record.
  • Scientists are always looking for a more accurate answer to the question, "What time is it?" Now they've built the most precise atomic clock yet — but it's not just telling time. It has the potential to investigate the accuracy of the General Theory of Relativity.
  • When Republicans on Capitol Hill want to hear reasons not to take strong action on climate change, sometimes they call on Judith Curry to testify. The climatologist has staked out an unusual position on the subject: She says the climate is changing and people are partly responsible, but we shouldn't bother regulating carbon dioxide.
  • More than 330,000 people filed new claims for unemployment insurance benefits last week. That sounds like a big number — and is a slight increase over the previous week — but it's being taken as some very good news. For a month, now, fewer new people are asking for unemployment insurance than at any time since November, 2007. That's before the Great Recession.
  • Attorney General Eric Holder's office has filed a lawsuit alleging that the state's voter ID law keeps minorities from the polls.
  • There are no strings attached. People can spend the money on whatever they want, and they never have to pay it back.
  • Lawrence Cumberbatch's parents thought their 16-year-old son was too young to walk from Brooklyn to the March on Washington in 1963. And enlisting Lawrence's uncle to dissuade him didn't have quite the effect they had hoped for, Lawrence tells his son, Simeon.
  • The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant is back in the news — more than two years after an earthquake and tsunami triggered a series of meltdowns. New leaks found this week prompted regulators to consider raising the alert level.
  • The bushy-tailed rodents have halted the flow of capitalism before. Once in 1987 and again in 1994. Squirrels chewed through a key Nasdaq computer cable.
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