Things I learned lately 15 Feb

• Almost 44% of Americans polled agree with the New Green Deal being proposed by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. 24.3% said they didn't know enough to decide.
• Higher quality chocolate makes a louder snap when you break a piece off.
• Google pays Apple to be the default search engine on the iPhone, a deal worth as much as $9.46 billion in 2018, for what's called "traffic acquisition costs".
• Canadian forests now emit more carbon than they absorb, partly due to the increase in fires and dying trees infested by disease and pests.
• Mars One, the reality show / one-way Mars mission that kicked off in 2011, is now bankrupt. Mission scrubbed!
• NASA's Opportunity Mars rover is no longer communicating with earth after a massive dust storm likely disabled it for good. It was designed to last 90 days and almost went 15 years. It's twin, Spirit, lasted 6 years.
• Sweden's 'Right to Leave to Conduct a Business Operation Act' affords Swedish employees who have worked at least 6 months at their full-time job the right to take an unpaid sabbatical to try creating their own business, as long as it doesn't compete with the business they worked for. It's one reason Stockholm is the leading European start-up hub.
• It's often argued that marijuana, if legalized, would be a gateway to harder drugs. Studies have shown that in fact it's smoking cigarettes before the age of 15 that is likely to result in trying hard drugs. Also binge drinking.
• Speeding is taken very seriously in Norway. Doing 150 km/h could land you 15 days in jail.
• The price of gasoline in Norway is 1.96 Euros per litre (CAD$2.95). That works out to $7.40 Euros per US gallon or USD$8.40.