The Bottom Line

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Americans will spend $22 billion on luxury bathrooms this year---about 10 times what the federal government will spend on AIDS research.

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Although difficult, it's possible to start a fire by rapidly rubbing together two Cool Ranch Doritos.

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When immersed in liquid, a dead sparrow will make a sound like a crying baby.

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Spam accounted for 64% of global e-mail traffic in June.

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Americans spent on average, about $65 per person to celebrate Halloween, with $23 going towards costumes, $20 for candy, $18 for decorations, and $4 for greeting cards.

USA Today

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The U.S. is back on top as the world's most competive economy, according to a survey of 11,000 business leaders by the World Economic Forum. The U.S. was No. 6 in the survey last year. Strong innovation fed by top universities helped the U.S. overcome low marks for high budget and trade deficits.


The Wall Street Journal

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Mexico's silver mines are the most productive on earth.

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You can actually sharpen the blades on a pencil sharpener by wrapping your pencils in aluminum foil before inserting them.

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Quinine, one of the most important drugs known to man, is obtained from the dried bark of an evergreen tree native to South America.

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The price of natural gas is plunging as oil soars. It now takes $48.37 of natural gas to produce the same amount of energy as a barrel of oil, which costs $94.45 at current prices

The New York Times

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A median pay of college presidents has grown 37 percent in the past five years, to $528,105. William Brody of Johns Hopkins in Baltimore is the highest-paid president, earning almost $2 million in salary and benefits last year.

Financial Times

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In a sign that deal fever is cooling, half of Wall Street's IPOs last week were priced below their expected ranges. Several closed their initial offering price.

The Wall Street juornal

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Amid falling revenue and profits, investment bank UBS for the first time will limit cash pay for employees this year to $750,000, while sharply increasing the portion of compensation paid in company stock.

The Wall Street Journal

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U.S. moble phone users received an estimated 1.1 million spam text messages in 2007, up 38 percent from 2006.

BusinessWeek.

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Since 2002,investments in postwar art have posted a 20 percent compound annual return, besting the Standard & Poor's 500.

Fortune

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Louisiana is now the third largest movie production center in the U.S., after California and New York. The state's film-related employment is growing at 23 percent a year.

marketwatch

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China's domestic air traffic is expected to increase 500 percent in the next 20 years. Analysts anticipate that the country's current aircraft fleet will quadruple, making China the world's second larges aviation market after the U.S.

Los Angeles Tines.

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Lahde Capital, a California hedge fund, has returned more than 1,000 percent this year by betting that the value of mortgage securities would fall. It's one of the richest hedge-fund returns of all time.

Financial Times

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The Tucson Citizen daily newspaper raised the price of its Thanksgiving edition from 35 cents to $1.50. A Note to readers said the increase "reflects the value of the giant size advertising load; in that day's paper.

Tucson Citizen

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The median price of a new home in the U.S. fell to $217,800 in October, a 13 percent drop from October 2006. it's the biggest decline since 1970, when the medium price of a new home was $22,600.

CNNmoney