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Turns out movie popcorn is just as yummy—and gloriously bad for you—today as it was 15 years ago.

The L.A. Times (via Hacking Netflix) reports that the Center for Science in the Public Interest just wrapped up its latest survey of movie popcorn (the last one was 15 years ago, apparently) and in terms of nutritional value, "little has changed."

Ostrom, who has devoted her career to studying the interaction of people and natural resources, told the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences by telephone that she was surprised by the Nobel.

It's Nobel Prize announcement week, and if you had Carol W. Greider, Elizabeth Blackburn, or Jack Szostak in your office pool, you're off to a good start (the trio will share this year's Nobel Prize in Medicine). As we await news of the rest of the winners, here are some stories about past Nobel laureates

Numbers Drop for the Married With Children
Institution Becoming The Choice of the Educated, Affluent

By Blaine Harden
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, March 4, 2007; A03

PORTLAND, Ore. -- Punctuating a fundamental change in American family life, married couples with children now occupy fewer than one in every four households -- a share that has been slashed in half since 1960 and is the lowest ever recorded by the census.

As marriage with children becomes an exception rather than the norm, social scientists say it is also becoming the self-selected province of the college-educated and the affluent. The working class and the poor, meanwhile, increasingly steer away from marriage, while living together and bearing children out of wedlock.

"The culture is shifting, and marriage has almost become a luxury item, one that only the well educated and well paid are interested in," said Isabel V. Sawhill, an expert on marriage and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

Marriage has declined across all income groups, but it has declined far less among couples who make the most money and have the best education. These couples are also less likely to divorce. Many demographers peg the rise of a class-based marriage gap to the erosion since 1970 of the broad-based economic prosperity that followed World War II.

"We seem to be reverting to a much older pattern, when elites marry and a great many others live together and have kids," said Peter Francese, demographic trends analyst for Ogilvy & Mather, an advertising firm.

In recent years, the marrying kind have been empowered by college degrees and bankrolled by dual incomes. They are also older and choosier. College-educated men and women are increasingly less likely to "marry down" -- that is, to choose mates who have less education and professional standing than they do.

Married couples living with their own children younger than 18 are also helping to drive a well-documented increase in inco

Recently, it came to my attention that the Department of Justice has asked several U.S. Attorneys from around the country to resign their positions -- some by the end of this month -- prior to the end of their terms not based on any allegation of misconduct. In other words, they are forced resignations.

I have also heard that the Attorney General plans to appoint interim replacements and potentially avoid Senate confirmation by leaving an interim U.S. Attorney in place for the remainder of the Bush administration.

The Peace Corps and Globalization
Dominican Republic RPCV Mark Ridoff writes:

Productivity doesn't aid middle class
"Forty years ago, I began two years of service as a Peace Corps volunteer in Latin America. That experience left me with a great appreciation of the opportunities and advantages that I was given as a member of what was then a vibrant and growing American middle class. I have watched with increasing dismay the accelerating erosion of the American middle class. Indeed, I began to think that there was much about America of the late 20th century and the early 21st century that reminded of the highly class-stratified Latin America countries I saw as a Peace Corps volunteer. It is again time for broad debate on a fundamental question: Why should the workers whose productivity makes greater wealth possible not share in the benefits of that wealth? How can America be America without a strong and stable middle class?" Read more.