Greek Debt, Secret Millionaire's Club, Smoking, Giggles

Greece has defaulted on its debt and Greek voters have rejected the terms of an international bailout. Since that weekend vote, the ball has been in Greece’s court to come up with a new proposal its international credits can accept. But today, Greece’s finance minister showed up for an emergency meeting in Brussels empty-handed. Meanwhile Greek banks are running out of cash and face the danger of collapse within days without new aid. Korkut Erturk is a professor of international economics at the University of Utah.

Warren Buffett’s legendary business and investment success comes wrapped in folksy wisdom that makes him even more popular with the tens of thousands of people who flock to his company’s shareholder meeting every year in Nebraska. Buffett himself has lately turned his expertise toward a younger audience. For the last four years, he’s hosted a business challenge for young entrepreneurs. The winners Buffett chose recently got $5,000 cash and shares in his company. Buffett also lends his name to an animated web series called “Secret Millionnaires Club” which has aired on The HUB Cable Network and the Discovery Family Channel.  Buffett voices his own character and he finishes every episode with the adage: The more you learn, the more you’ll EARN. Amy Heyward is the President of Genius Brands where she helped develop the Secret Millionaires Club series with Warren Buffett.

What’s the value of a forest? Is it in the wood that can be used for construction or paper making? Or the campers and hikers it draws? Or some other environmental advantage all those trees in close proximity provide? Around the world, there are governments, organizations and companies starting to look more closely at the value of natural resources beyond their short-term value – such as logging forests for lumber. Oregon State University professor Jane Lubchencho calls says the approach requires viewing nature as form of economic capital. By assigning a dollar figure to all of the value nature provides, communities can create better economic incentives to preserve it. She spoke with James Perkins of our staff about this concept of “natural capital,” which she recently wrote about in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Pregnant women are generally well-aware that smoking is bad for their baby. But there’s not been much research to date on what exposure to second-hand smoke does to the bodies of young children. Psychologist Linda Pagani has found a strong link between that exposure and obesity in children. She’s a professor of psychoeducation at the University of Montreal, where she’s also a senior investigator at St. Justine’s Children’s Hospital.  Her study on Smoke Exposure and Metabolic Risk appeared this month in the journal Nicotine and Tobacco Research.

Are you prone to getting the giggles? Ever wondered why some people can’t seem to keep a straight face when something strikes them funny while others don’t? New research out of UC Berkeley and Northwestern University indicates the reason is partly genetic. Their work appeared recently in the journal Emotion. Robert Levenson is a psychology professor at UC Berkeley and specializes in researching emotion.