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Google’s ‘Alphabet’ Announcement Leaves Rural Small Business in the Dust

Contrary to widespread belief, Google is not just a search engine. Rather, it is a powerful advertising tool, utilized by millions of businesses across the globe to help increase traffic and awareness, and ultimately, sales.

For small businesses, Google’s belief in web democracy is especially important. There are approximately 27 million small businesses, and they account for up to 80% of all jobs in the United States. Using Adwords and Google analytics, these businesses gain leverage against big competitors, and develop the online visibility and traffic necessary to keep their businesses thriving.

However, despite Google’s insistence on web democracy, their recent announcement regarding “Alphabet,” the new parent company that will oversee not only the search giant but also its experimental projects like Google Glass and self-driving cars, is severely affecting the online traffic for a small business in rural Pennsylvania.

Alphabet Signs is a sign manufacturer and distributor with humble beginnings.

The company began out of the back of owner and operator Daniel Keane’s car. Today, all of the company’s business is achieved through its website.

Since Google’s announcement, the company has seen a 30% decrease in website traffic.

“At this point, our overall search traffic is down around 30 percent total,” Keane told Huffington Post. “We’re a mid-size sign shop in Pennsylvania, and online is our bread and butter.”

Since the announcement, the statistics haven’t seemed to improve in Keane’s favor. He is, however, remaining proactive about the situation.

“Sometimes there’s nothing you can do about it but restrategize,” said Keane.

As part of his new strategy, the sign store owner has started using negative keywords in order to gain web traffic while not having to spend money on keywords that have seen a spike in price such as “Alphabet” (we’re looking at you, Google!).

For small business owners, the fate of Alphabet Signs serves as a cautionary tale. As Google Analytics constantly changes, it’s important to stay on top of Adwords and online traffic.

As for Alphabet Signs? They may have lost their ranking for “Alphabet” but at least this news coverage is making up for it in traffic!

Accidental DNA Discovery Suggests Multiple Migrations Comprised the ‘First’ Americans

We know that a group of early humans crossed the Bering land bridge from Siberia over to the North American continent about 23,000 years ago, but scientists have always assumed that this group spread out across North America before venturing farther South.

Now, it seems that at least two groups of travelers made the perilous journey — leading researchers to state, for the first time, that another “ghost population” managed to cross the Bering bridge and venture down to Central and South America, without leaving any traces of their passing along the way.

A new report published in the online academic journal Nature states that researchers have found DNA evidence linking two Amazonian tribes, the Surui and the Karitiana, to current populations in Papua New Guinea and Aboriginal Australian tribes. This newly discovered genome means that the Surui and the Karitiana are more closely related to populations across the Pacific than to Native Americans in the north.

According to Fox News, lead author and researcher Pontus Skoglund of the Department of Genetics at Harvard Medical School stated that his team made the “unexpected discovery by using statistical methods that test whether a set of populations are equally related to a set of other populations.”

The team expected to find that Amazonian tribes have more in common with descendants of Native American tribes, which would have confirmed that there was just one major voyage of early humans across the Bering bridge.

This new “ghost population,” which appears to have no direct descendants on any continent, is now being called “Population Y” — a term derived from the word “Ypykuera,” which means “ancestor” in the ancient language of the Surui and Karitiana people.

Scientists often refer to “ghost populations” to reference villages or cultures that vanished without explanation; early U.S. history dating back before the Revolutionary War even boasts of the Lost Colony of Roanoke, which vanished into thin air after shipments of supplies from England were delayed for three years.

Similar to the multiple journeys that early American colonists made, scientists now believe that there was a period of mass migration from Siberia over to the Americas, but that several groups made individual journeys and settled in different locations.

There are no confirmed dates when each of these migrations likely occurred, nor do researchers know why each group decided to make the journey.

Study: Almost 14% of Our Coastline is Now Covered in Concrete

As of 2015, almost 14% of U.S. shoreline is covered in concrete.

Researchers working with data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration found that up to 22,842 kilometers of the country’s coast is “armored” with concrete barriers and seawalls, and that includes ocean, bay, and tidal river shorelines. Concrete installations can easily last up to 50 years, and the scientists say that unless trends change, they expect the amount of new concrete on our coasts to at least double this century.

One of the lead researchers behind the new study was Rachel K. Gittman of Nahant, Maryland. She and her fellow scientists concluded:

“The demand for coastal defense strategies against storms and sea-level rise (SLR) has increased with population growth and development along coastlines. Shoreline hardening, a common defense strategy that includes the use of seawalls and bulkheads, is resulting in a ‘coastal squeeze’ on estuarine habitats.”

That confirms findings from other scientists and environmentalists in the Chesapeake Bay region. In the National Wildlife Foundation’s report on “Sea-Level Rise and Coastal Habitats of the Chesapeake Bay,” scientists found that such seawalls and dikes posed a serious threat to local marine life habitats. If sea levels rise in the 21st century, as most scientists agree that they will, then concrete barriers and seawalls can prevent coastal habitats from naturally migrating inland with rising tides.

The NWF wrote, “We may be able to preserve habitats in some areas by restoring natural replenishment of sediments, for example, by removing seawalls…or reconsidering the use of river dams.”

Communities looking for an alternative to artificial, armored sea walls can encourage the replenishment of natural “living barriers,” which include vegetation planting or offshore breakwaters. But that might be a hard sell for developers in the South Atlantic and Gulf States, where the bulk of new concrete seawalls are installed. Although living barriers might benefit marine habitats, the effectiveness of living barriers in protecting human habitats has not been extensively studied.

New Studies Show that Frozen Donor Eggs May Reduce Chance of Pregnancy

According to a new study, patients who are undergoing in vitro fertilization (IVF) might reduce their chances of give birth by freezing their donor eggs.

One in eight couples, or 12% of married women, have trouble getting pregnant or sustaining a pregnancy. Infertility experts use methods such as IVF as a treatment for couples trying to have a baby. During the IVF process, donated egg and sperm are fertilized in a lab environment, and the egg is placed into the woman’s uterus to carry.

CBS News reports that the new study, published in August’s edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association, examined over 11,000 IVF procedures that used donor eggs. Twenty percent of the eggs in the study had been frozen.

The results of the study showed that only 47% of the IVF procedures that used frozen eggs resulted in a live birth. When a fresh donor egg was used, 56% of women were able to give birth.

“Our research demonstrated that – contrary to some claims made mostly by commercial interests – frozen eggs offer a lower change of a pregnancy and delivery chance after IVF than fresh eggs,” Says Dr. Norbert Gleicher, co-author of the study and chief scientist with the Center for Human Reproduction in New York City.

So far, it is not clear how the freezing of the eggs results in fewer birth rates. The authors of the study hypothesize that the quality of the egg is lessened during the freezing or thawing processes.

The study had some limitations. Since the statistics were anonymous, researchers were unable to control variables that may have skewed with the results, such as the ages of the donors or patients, or the specific reasons for their issues with infertility. Until more research can be done, doctors recommend that patients discuss all the advantages and disadvantages of their treatment options.

D.C. Electronic Billboards Show Pictures Of Missing Children

A billboard campaign started by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children was launched on August 12. The billboards featured the faces of missing children, such as Sarah and Jacob Hoggle, who have been missing since September 7th, 2014.

The campaign is referred to as the “Summer of Hope,” and was designed to spread the word about young children who have been reported missing. The plan is to distribute these advertisements to the D.C. and Baltimore area, and then spread the campaign to the rest of the country. The ads will be shown in 50 Metro stations in D.C., and 14 shelters and billboards in Baltimore.

Recent research by OTX, a global consumer research and consulting firm, showed that 63% of adults find that advertising on digital signage catches their attention. This is what the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children are counting on.

“Now that I’m not capable of being out there on TV every day. I’m back at work. I’m capable of keeping it out there the way that I am, this really helps,” says Troy Turner, the father of Sarah and Jacob Hoggle. Turner expresses how grateful he is for the campaign, “The fact that it’s a national campaign also helps since we have leads all over the place.”

Bethesda Magazine reports that the mother of the children, Catherine Hoggle, has been placed in a mental hospital for schizophrenia. Though she has been charged with abducting the kids, Hoggle has not provided the police with any information on their whereabouts.

The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children reported that there were over 460,000 missing children claims made to the U.S. police in the last year.

The billboards are expected to stay up throughout all of August. In the coming weeks, the campaigns is expected to spread across other major cities, including Chicago and Los Angeles.

Bing Wants to Stop You From Buying Harmful Counterfeit Medication

If you’re in need of prescription medication these days, you no longer have to wait in line at your local pharmacy.

Rather, you can be like the millions across the globe flocking to the internet to find cheap generic brand prescription pharmaceuticals.

But due to the increased proliferation of dangerous counterfeit medications on the internet, it isn’t always the safest idea to do so.

That is, until Bing decided to make our lives easier. In early August, the search engine announced that it would be warning users when they come across unsafe online pharmacies via their search engine.

America’s healthcare system is in a strange state these days. While lifespan has increased significantly, more and more individuals are being diagnosed with chronic, life-threatening illnesses, such as diabetes, hypertension, and cardiovascular disease.

Because of this, our country is heavily dependent on pharmaceuticals. In fact, almost 50% (48.5%) of Americans have used a minimum of one prescription medication in the past month.

Taking fake medication can be harmful to a person’s health in more ways than one. Not only could their condition could go untreated and get worse, but the fillers used in the counterfeit drugs could put users in serious harm.

It can often be difficult to tell whether drugs are counterfeit or not, particularly if they come in the form of a generic brand. This becomes doubly difficult when purchased on the internet.

But now, when users search for online pharmacies using Bing, the search engine will pre-emptively alert them that the website is illegitimate. According to Search Engine Journal, Bing makes its warnings based off of a list compiled by the FDA.

Search Engine Journal additionally reports that the warnings will function similarly to when a user visits a site containing malware.

While the warning will inevitably pop up, Bing will not definitively prevent the internet user from navigating the site. The choice is ultimately in their own hands.

Retirees Can Expect Big Healthcare Costs

Even with nearly 81% of retirees citing good health as the most important key to retirement, finding retirement health care is notoriously challenging. According to a recent report from TIME, certain states can promise lower costs than others, depending on circumstances like insurance. A recent analysis by HealthView Services details the differences in out-of-pocket health care costs after retirement from state to state.

The cheapest health care costs for retirees are in Hawaii, with the average patient expected to pay $2,818 after their first year of retirement, and a total of $112,528 over the following 20 years. That being said, Hawaii is also the most expensive state to live in. A close runner-up is Vermont, with first-year expenses totaling $3,074, for a 20-year total of $112,528.

In the most expensive retirement health care states, retirees can expect a different set of costs. In Michigan, first-year costs are around $3,707, with a total of $151,175 over the next 20 years. This creates a cost difference between Michigan and Vermont of around $28,000 in 20-year costs. The costs of retirement living in Michigan also exceeded the costs of more typical high-cost living states like New York and California.

According to a separate HealthView report, a healthy couple of 65 will have lifetime costs totaling $266,589 for Medicare parts B and D, along with supplemental coverage. Including other out-of-pocket costs typical to healthcare, the number grows to $394,954, which leaves three out of every four pre-retirees worried about their costs level. In order to cover 90% of costs, retirees will need at least $271,000 in savings.

Experts suggest the best thing you can do to prepare for retirement health care costs is monitor your health in the years before it. Make choices to keep your body and mind healthy, and you can reduce the inevitable healthcare bill that retirement brings with it.

Oil Prices At Record Low Due to New Oil Drilling

Oil prices in the U.S. have fallen to a new six-year low as of August 11th, reports the Wall Street Journal. This drop is likely due to a surge in gasoline stockpiling during the summer season. Over the past decade, global provided oil reserves have increased by 27%, or over 350 billion barrels. As summer is reaching an end, the demand for fuel starts to decrease, which is likely to result in a product surplus.

Crude oil fell 2.5%, or $1.07, below the low for this year’s average oil price. At $42.23 a barrel, oil prices dropped below the previous record set in March 3, 2009. Despite the falling prices, many U.S. oil companies refuse to cut back on their oil production.

Since early June, oil prices have fallen by more than 31%. Many analysts are speculating that the fall in prices is not going to end any time soon, and believe that the price could soon go below $40 a barrel.

“We are trading at levels not seen since the depths of the great recession,” says Stephen Schork, president of The Schork Group. “The overall trend in this market is very bearish.”

Other macroeconomic factors may have contributed to the recent drop of oil price. The strengthening of the U.S. dollar makes it more profitable for non-U.S. investors to sell crude oil. In addition, the demand for U.S. oil in China has been slowly decreasing, which has lead to an increase of local supply.

While many U.S. refineries have begun to slow production as the summer season draws to an end, other companies continue to add to stockpiles. Because of this, crude oil prices will continue to fall as demand goes down and supply goes up.

Researchers Create Composite That Converts Engine Heat to Electricity in Cars

Being able to harvest engine heat from cars and redirect it into charging batteries or powering supplementary systems is likely the best way to improve efficiency in next-generation hybrid cars, according to a team of scientists from the University of Manchester.

As Phys.org reported Aug. 4, about 70% of the energy that cars currently generate through fuel consumption is lost to heat. A thermoelectric material — one that can generate an electrical current from heat — would therefore allow cars to become much more efficient. Already, hybrid vehicles are much more efficient than gas-powered cars (which allows owners to recoup their investments, given that hybrid vehicles cost 15-20% more, on average).

Previously, most of the thermoelectric materials available were highly toxic and only worked at temperatures higher than those produced by cars. But the team’s new research has found that adding graphene to a composite material would allow cars to convert heat to usable electricity and reduce global carbon emissions from vehicles.

“Our findings show that … introducing a small amount of graphene to the base material can reduce the thermal operating window to room temperature, which offers a huge range of potential for applications,” lead researcher Ian Kinloch told Phys.org.

The composite still doesn’t allow for total heat capture, he said, but it’s a start. “The new material will convert 3-5% of the heat into electricity. That is not much but, given that the average vehicle loses roughly 70% of the energy supplied to it by its fuel to waste heat and friction, recovering even a small percentage of this with thermoelectric technology would be worthwhile,” he explained.

The team’s findings have been published in the journal ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces.

Fuel efficiency is becoming increasingly important in hybrid and completely gas-powered cars alike, especially as the government has imposed new efficiency goals on the auto industry. By 2015, any manufacturers selling vehicles on the U.S. market will have to achieve an average fuel economy of 54.5 miles per gallon.

Interestingly enough, however, consumers don’t seem to be willing to pay more for higher-efficiency vehicles, according to recent comments from Forrest McConnell, last year’s president of the National Automobile Dealers Association.

But an executive for electric car maker Tesla says that’s a short-sighted view. Diarmuid O’Connell, vice president of business development, recently commented at an auto event in northern Michigan that automakers need to be focused on attaining even higher efficiency than the government is mandating.

“We’re living in a time of cheap gasoline, but this is probably an ephemeral event,” he cautioned.

Droughts Affecting Trees Ability To Absorb Harmful Gases

New research shows that trees that are affected by droughts take two to four years to recover, hindering their ability to absorb harmful carbon dioxide from the air. The data concludes that areas with frequent droughts will see higher amounts of harmful chemicals such as carbon dioxide in the surrounding atmosphere.

Until recently, scientists assumed trees and other plant life would be able to quickly recover after a drought. The new study, which was conducted by Northern Arizona University researchers, shows that these assumptions are incorrect. By examining tree ring data, the researchers found that many trees take a while to return to their normal growing pattern after a long drought.

Trees are the longest-living organisms on Earth. Each year, trees are responsible for absorbing about one quarter of the carbon dioxide that is emitted by humans. When a tree’s growth is stunted, it loses much of its ability to photosynthesize, limiting the tree’s ability to store the harmful gas.

“This really matters because future droughts are expected to increase in frequency and severity due to climate change,” says William Anderegg in a study by Princeton University. Anderegg goes on to say that the frequent droughts can make it impossible for trees to recover, greatly limiting their ability to absorb the increasing amounts of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

The study was done on trees in a semi-arid ecosystem, which is only one type of tree. More research is being planned for other species of trees, such as trees found in tropical areas. However, Anderegg predicts that droughts will also have lasting effects on these types of trees as well.

Scientists suggest that the effect that droughts have on tree recovery can reduce the amount of carbon storage capacity in certain ecosystems by over 1.6 metric gigatons over the next century. This information has not yet been factored into current climate model predictions, suggesting that global warming researchers may have underestimated the severity of climate change in the future.