1. The person now running Google Glass is not exactly who you'd expect.

"The Glass job would seem to be tailored for yet another young male engineer soliloquizing about bits and bytes. But Google, indeed, just weeks ago selected a 58-year-old woman with a background as an artist and marketer to lead Glass' critical transition from its beta Explorer program to commercial launch, which the company says has no timetable other than when it's ready. 'I know they'd been talking to people more like them, more engineering-oriented,' says Ross in an exclusive conversation with USA TODAY. 'But they connected the dots. (At companies such as Mattel, Coach and the Gap), I designed products, came up with marketing campaigns and solved consumer needs with innovation. And somewhere in there I also designed eyeglass frames for seven years.'"

2. Should we pay to put humans in space? And if so, why? 

"Pathways to Exploration explores the case for advancing this endeavor, drawing on the history of rationales for human spaceflight, examining the attitudes of stakeholders and the public, and carefully assessing the technical and fiscal realities. This report recommends maintaining the long-term focus on Mars as the horizon goal for human space exploration. With this goal in mind, the report considers funding levels necessary to maintain a robust tempo of execution, current research and exploration projects and the time/resources needed to continue them, and international cooperation that could contribute to the achievement of spaceflight to Mars. According to Pathways to Exploration, a successful U.S. program would require sustained national commitment and a budget that increases by more than the rate of inflation."

3. How to make a poison dart blowgun.

"The Chocó blowgun is of Yde's type IV, two long and tapering, semi-cylindrical sections of palm wood glued together and wrapped with bast. There are two principal ways of making the bore in type-IV blowguns. Some tribes (Jívaro and Yagua) scratch initial grooves on the half-shafts, which are then joined and the bore enlarged and smoothed with a ramrod and sand. The Chocó and Cofán finish the grooves before the half-shafts are joined; use of metal implements by present-day Chocó and Cofán probably is a simple improvement over such objects as mammal teeth, said to have been used for the same purpose by Pasé Indians over a century ago. The Chocó weapon differs from most other type-IV blowguns in lacking a separate mouthpiece and in rarely being water-proofed. The blowgun is for hunting, but, unlike some Amazonian tribes, the Chocó may have no superstitious strictures against turning it occasionally on man. The Chocó are the only Indians known with certainty to use frog toxins as the sole ingredient of dart poison."

4. The perfect elementary school for the post-apocalypse.

"Abo Elementary is entirely underground, and its roof served as a playground for the kids. There were three separate stairways where kids entered  the building, each equipped with a 1,800-pound steel blast-door and decontamination showers. Abo Elementary was designed by architect and civil defense enthusiast, Frank Standhart. He claimed it could withstand a 20 megaton blast and resist radiation. The school included a morgue and stockpiles of medicine, food and bedding for would-be inhabitants.  It also had a generator, a well for drinking water, and a ventilation system."

5. A historically informed dive into San Francisco's development problems.

"This antidevelopment sentiment led to the strictest set of planning guidelines in the United States, rules that capped office construction to a set amount each year, required review of all designs, and economic justification for any new building’s construction. The cap on square footage was later halved to 475,000 square feet per year by a ballot referendum in 1986, smaller than the floor area of many individual skyscrapers (the Transamerica Pyramid, as a comparison, contains 530,000 square feet on forty-eight floors)."

Today's 1957 American English Usage Tip

café is naturalized in the sense of coffee house or restaurant; in the sense coffee it is a French word (café noir, black coffee; café au lait, half milk, half coffee), and should be set in italics. 

Department of Corrections: As several perspicacious readers noted, yesterday's linguistic tip was, in fact, incorrect. The caduceus—as a symbol of the medical profession—is often confused with another famous staff, "The Rod of Asclepius." And our dictionary made that mistake. All apologies. 

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