Новости за 26.10.2011

Actor Simon Baker rarely reads the financial pages in the newspaper, but in 2008 when the economy cratered, he started paying attention. [...] the arcane details of the crisis struck him as almost like a foreign language. [...] he's come to a deeper understanding of it, as one of the key players in "Margin Call," writer-director J.C. Chandor's sleek thriller set in one of those "too big to fail" investment banking firms at the dawn of the debacle. Realizing that they are teetering on the brink of disaster... Читать дальше...

Plus, news on a 6-minute "Dark Knight Rises" prologue.

Wired Senior Editor Adam Rogers interviews Regents Professor of Paleontology Jack Horner.  Horner argues that chickens are the direct descendants of dinosaurs.

Klout gives users of Facebook, Twitter and other social networks a score based on their online influence. WSJ's Andy Jordan looks at how the score is calculated, what it means for getting freebies, and why the score is so valuable to advertisers.

Only a few decades back, there were serious scientists who thought that planets might be miraculous. Not miracles like a burning bush or a docile teenager, but highly improbable objects. These researchers figured that the conditions necessary for making small, cold worlds could be rare---perhaps extremely rare. Most stars were believed to live their luminous lives alone, bereft of planetary accompaniment. Well, those thoughts have been banished. In the last 15 years, hard-working astronomers hav