Podcast: Play in new window
BOB HIRSHON (host):
An eternal calendar. I’m Bob Hirshon and this is Science Update.
This year, New Years Day fell on a Sunday. And if Johns Hopkins astrophysicist Richard Conn Henry and economist Steve Hanke have their way, that’s the way it’ll stay. They’ve come up with a calendar that remains constant, year after year. That means holidays, sports schedules and the school year would never have to vary.Their calendar still has twelve months, each with thirty or thirty-one days, but no leap years. Instead, they add a leap week every five or six years.
In other news, researchers at Columbia and Stanford have found a direct correlation between being impatient and having a low credit score. Volunteers played a game in which they could either get a quick reward now or a bigger reward later. Players who tended to choose the quicker reward were found to have significantly lower credit ratings. I’m Bob Hirshon, for AAAS, the science society.