Where can I afford to live? Whether you are house-hunting or just daydreaming, try using this calculator to see where in the country you could afford to live - and would it be cheaper to rent or buy? Enter your requirements and how much you'd like to pay on rent or mortgage repayments each month to see places in your price range. The "Where can I afford to live? " calculator uses pricing and rental data for May 2014 to October 2014 provided by residential property analysts Hometrack.
The affordability of housing varies widely across the country and will depend on whether you want to rent or buy. House prices and rents can differ as a result of market factors such as the state of the local economy, transport links and the supply of housing. More about this calculator Monthly mortgage payments are based on the figures calculated by the Bank of England from rates currently being offered by banks and building societies. The rents are based on monthly prices being asked for by landlords. Continue reading the main story. Hall of Fame honour for web activist Aaron Swartz.
'Proof' Jamestown settlers turned to cannibalism. 1 May 2013Last updated at 18:24 ET By Jane O'Brien BBC News, Jamestown, Virginia "The evidence is absolutely consistent with dismemberment and de-fleshing of this body" - Doug Owsley, forensic anthropologist Newly discovered human bones prove the first permanent English settlers in North America turned to cannibalism over the cruel winter of 1609-10, US researchers have said. Scientists found unusual cuts consistent with butchering for meat on human bones dumped in a rubbish pit. The four-century-old skull and tibia of a teenage girl in James Fort, Virginia, were excavated from the dump last year.
James Fort, founded in 1607, was the earliest part of the Jamestown colony. 'Starving Time' Researchers fashioned a three-dimension replica of the girl's face "The evidence is absolutely consistent with dismemberment and de-fleshing of this body," said Doug Owsley, a forensic anthropologist at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington DC. Continue reading the main story. Cannibalism at Jamestown: Listening to the Bones. She was thrown out, or at least her head was, with the remains of other animals — dogs, horses, squirrels — and other debris that the colonists discarded during the winter of 1609–10.
There are no records of the young girl’s life, no diaries that record the perilous journey — likely through an ocean hurricane — from her native England to the shores of Virginia. There are no town ledgers that make note of her family, where she lived or how she spent her days. There are only her bones, which in the hands of forensic archaeologists, are speaking volumes on her behalf. Discovered deep in a cellar where trash was collected, two-thirds of her skull and a fragment of her right leg show the strongest scientific evidence yet that after she died, she may have been a victim of cannibalism. (MORE: Richard III’s Fate) “Let me tell you that when you see these cuts on the bone, all over the bone, and the chops … I deal with violence all the time, with people who were dismembered and had traumatic deaths. Reinhart, Rogoff... and Herndon: The student who caught out the profs. This week, economists have been astonished to find that a famous academic paper often used to make the case for austerity cuts contains major errors.
Another surprise is that the mistakes, by two eminent Harvard professors, were spotted by a student doing his homework. It's 4 January 2010, the Marriott Hotel in Atlanta. At the annual meeting of the American Economic Association, Professor Carmen Reinhart and the former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, Ken Rogoff, are presenting a research paper called Growth in a Time of Debt. At a time of economic crisis, their finding resonates - economic growth slows dramatically when the size of a country's debt rises above 90% of Gross Domestic Product, the overall size of the economy.
Word about this paper spread. Policymakers wanted to know more. And so did student Thomas Herndon. Thomas chose Growth in a Time of Debt. No matter how he tried, he just couldn't replicate Reinhart and Rogoff's results. "My heart sank," he says. Oops. Does technology hinder or help toddlers' learning? 19 April 2013Last updated at 17:38 ET By Philippa Roxby Health reporter, BBC News Screen time could help children as young as two to learn words and be curious Children under five years old have an uncanny knack of knowing how to master new technology. From smart phones to tablet computers and game consoles, it is not unusual to see toddlers intuitively swiping screens and confidently pressing buttons.
Even if parents enjoy the momentary peace that comes with handing a small child a gadget to play with, parents secretly worry that this screen time is damaging their brains. But it appears that screens can be beneficial to learning - and the more interactive the experience the better. Research from the University of Wisconsin, presented at a meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development this week, found that children aged between two and three were more likely to respond to video screens that prompted children to touch them than to a video screen that demanded no interaction. Escaping the train to Auschwitz. 19 April 2013Last updated at 23:50 GMT By Althea Williams and Sarah Ehrlich BBC News Simon Gronowski, pictured aged nine with his parents, two years before he and his mother were arrested On 19 April 1943, a train carrying 1,631 Jews set off from a Nazi detention camp in Belgium for the gas chambers of Auschwitz. But resistance fighters stopped the train. One boy who jumped to freedom that night retains vivid memories, 70 years later.
In February 1943, 11-year-old Simon Gronowski was sitting down for breakfast with his mother and sister in their Brussels hiding place when two Gestapo agents burst in. They were taken to the Nazis' notorious headquarters on the prestigious Avenue Louise, used as a prison for Jews and torture chamber for members of the resistance. Today, Gronowski lives a two-minute walk from this building, where he was held for two nights without food or water. Detainees were taken from Kazerne Dossin directly to the death camp Conditions inside the train were atrocious. The Data Miners: Tech Secrets From Obama’s Re-Election Geek Squad. Message is one thing, but in modern presidential politics, it can’t go very far without a machine. And during Obama’s 2012 campaign, that machine was fueled with new methods devised by a geek squad convened from multinational ad agencies, corporate consultancies and high-tech start-ups.
The goals were the same as ever: more money in the bank, more door knocks, more phone calls, more voter registrations and more voters at the polls. But the methods for achieving those ends in 2012 bordered on the revolutionary. A squad of dozens of data crunchers created algorithms for predicting the likelihood that someone would respond to specific types of requests to accomplish each of those goals.
Vast quantities of information were collected and then employed to predict just which television shows various target voters in certain cities were watching at just what time of day — the better to decide where to place TV ads. (MORE: Barack Obama, 2012 Person of the Year) Person of the Year | TIME picks the person who most influenced the news each year, for better or worse | TIME.com. “Shattered”: The Australian DJs Behind Royal Prank Call Apologize.
The two Australian radio hosts at the heart of the royal hospital prank call that is believed to have led to the death of nurse Jacintha Saldanha say they are “gutted and heartbroken.” In their first televised interviews since the death, with Australia’s “A Current Affair” and rival program “Today Tonight”, presenters Mel Greig and Michael Christian wept openly as they spoke about the nurse. (MORE: Scrutiny Builds at Radio Station That Prank Called London Hospital) Jacintha Saldanha, a nurse at the Kind Edward VII hospital in London, died last week in what is believed to be a suicide. The 46-year old nurse was working on reception when on Tuesday morning she answered a phone call from the two Australian presenters. The prank involved Greig impersonating the Queen and asking about the health of the Duchess of Cambridge, who at the time was being treated for an acute form of morning sickness, hyperemesis gravidarum.
(MORE: Family Grieves for Nurse Who Died After Royal Prank Call) Is God Dead Time Magazine Cover April 08 1966 - ha - You Wish.