The Economist took a look at the current state of the Nobel Prizes:

• A Nobel prize is only worth about $1 million and is often split by multiple recipients.
• When the prize was established this was about 25 times the salary of the average Professor. Now it is only about 10 times an average salary.
• Other prizes such as the Breakthrough prize will net a scientist $3 million.
• Plutocrats trying to brighten up their legacies are establishing even better endowed prizes that more scientists will have an incentive to strive for.
• One way to increase the value of the prize would be to accept donations, but the Nobel foundation worries that this will infringe upon their independence.
• The prize categories themselves no longer seem as relevant. Chemistry gets its own prize but most of the prizes being awarded to chemists are really for advances in physics, physiology, or medicine rather than pure chemistry.
• Meanwhile important fields such as ecology or neuroscience languish without a prize at all.
• The Nobel foundation isn’t sitting idle however. It is hoping to maintain the importance of its brand by opening a visitor and conference center in Europe.

Read more about the state of the Nobel prizes here.

Source: The Economist

The history of the bikini is fascinating:

• The invention of the bikini was driven in part by war-time rationing of fabric during WW2.
• It was called the bikini after the atoll on which the US tested nuclear missiles. Like the atom bomb it was “small and devastating”.
• The name also fit because before the bikini the most popular swimsuit was a one-piece called the atom. Just like the bomb, the bikini “split the atom” into a two piece.
• There are various bikini styles, but its creator thought that the best ones revealed “everything about a girl except for her mother’s maiden name”.

Read more about the history of the bikini here.

Source: Wikipedia

Via: Reddit

You’re not going to be in a plane crash. If you assume that every single person who visited Centives since the website began was a unique visitor, then about one fifth of one Centives reader has been in a plane crash.

But Sophia Warren took a look at what happens if you were to survive one:

• International law stipulates that if a crash causes injury then each victim must be paid a minimum of $176,000.
• The average settlement in the US though is $4.5 million across all victims of crashes.
• Beyond that things depend on things like the amount of emotional suffering that a passenger went through in the lead up the crash.
• Air incidents are uniquely well investigated with a report that will make clear who deserves the most blame. If it is found that the manufacturer was 60% at fault, then they will pay 60% of the settlement.

Read stories from air crash survivors and the amounts they received over here.

Source: Hopes and Fears

Ellie Woodward and Rebecca Hendin looked at the unfortunately sexist fall and, then subsequent rise of Taylor Swift:

• Rewind back to 2013. Taylor Swift was ranked 18^th on the list of most hated celebrities and articles such as “Swift is a feminist’s nightmare” were frequently published.
• In part this was because she seemed to criticize other women by having songs revolve around negatively portraying a sexy woman who stole a boy away from an innocent girl.
• Then came her latest album, 1989, where the focus wasn’t on a boy or another woman – but Swift’s own relationship experiences and feelings.
• It includes songs such as “Clean” which discuss getting over a partner single and happy.
• It probably helped that during the album’s promotional period the country singer remained single.
• She also used the album to make jokes about herself. In “Blank Space” she mocks the idea of unstable serial daters, and in “Shake It Off” she lampooned her own dancing ability.
• By owning the jokes, she robbed her critics of the ability to make the same attacks against her.
• And she seemed to spend more time with a “squad” of iconic feminist friends – some who make appearances at her live performances.
• She revamped her social media strategy by directly reaching out to some of her Tumblr fans and offering them relationship advice.
• The results speak for themselves. She is the most followed celebrity in the world after recording a 73% increase in Instagram followers this year.
• She has used her influence to change the industry. She criticized Apple’s music policies and forced them to implement changes.
• And her album sold five million copies in five months. Her previous album took 2.5 years to reach that mark.

The full article is much longer and includes many more details. It discusses Swift’s scruffle with Nicki Minaj, the unfair pressure on her to remain single, how she eased back into having a relationship, and the privileged history that aided her success. You can find it here.

Source: Buzzfeed

The prize for the Powerball lottery drawing for today is estimated to have grown to US$1.3 billion. It’s actually the result of a rather clever strategy by the team behind Powerball – they recently increased the jackpot, and made it less likely that any one person would win, in the hopes of generating the types of headlines that have dominated the American media cycle over the past week.

But this bulletin is about lottery winners past, courtesy of Ed White:

• In 1984 a 42-year-old man won a lottery prize that guaranteed $1,000 a month for the rest of his life.
• Now 73, he’s looking to cash out in order to pay off accumulated debts.
• One buyer has offered $40,026 for the ticket that will only pay out as long as the original winner remains alive.
• This indicates the buyer expects the original winner to live for roughly another three years.
• It may not be a bad deal – according to the Social Security Administration (SSA), the average 73-year-old will live another 13 years.
• If the SSA is right, then the ticket should pay out about $156,000 by the time the original winner passes away.

You can read the full article here. Centives has previously covered a similar story about the elderly auctioning off their life insurance – you can read that here.

Source: Detroit Free Press

Via: Marginal Revolution

Maybe the super-rich aren’t so different from the rest of us after all. The Associated Press wrote about how the uber rich approach membership rewards points:

• When Chinese Billionaire Liu Yiqian bought a $170 million Modigliani painting he paid for it with his American Express “AmEx” card.
• This will allow him and his family to fly anywhere in the world in First Class for the rest of their lives.
• Yiqian was the owner of AmEx’s black card – an invitation only card with no credit limit.
• The card comes with a membership reward program not too different from the one that plebs with common cards are enrolled in.
• The $170 million purchase will give him enough points to fly 3,000 times between the US and Europe in Singapore Airlines’ decadent Suites Class (pictured) – a ticket that normally costs $17,800.
• The real loser is Christie’s – the auctioneer that Yiqian will be paying. AmEx takes a 2-3% cut from merchants of all sales paid for by its card.

Read more here.

Source: CBC News

Via: Marginal Revolution

In the age of Amazon and e-commerce your next book is just a click away. But Michael S. Rosenwald wrote about the smaller guys that are thriving in this competitive market place:

• As Baby Boomers are retiring and downsizing they’re looking to give away their books to people who they know will respect them.
• Thus bookstores are able to acquire books for about 10% of the original cover price, and sell it for half the price of a new book. This works out to a 400% markup – substantially more profitable than the business of new books.
• In fact, Amazon can be a help instead of a hindrance. Bookstores are able to list their books on Amazon’s third party marketplace and access a broader customer base.
• The startup costs can be as high as $85,000.
• But canny bookstore owners will turn their shops into cultural centers with meet the authors and other events.
• They can also target customers who enjoy the thrill of the hunt, or who like to wrestle with the notes and comments that past readers leave in the margins of used books.
• Some just enjoy the surprise of having a postcard or love letter fall out of a used book.

The full article talks about some strategies that bookstore owners use to sell books, and contains other details. You can read it here.

Source: The Washington Post

Derrick Rossignol wrote that more than Taylor Swift, Adele, or Beyoncé, it’s Drake that’s showing the way forwards for the music industry:

• Drake and other artists released multiple albums in 2015.
• This is because the music business is increasingly about name recognition. Money is made from live performances, not from album sales.
• To draw audiences to their performances, music artists need to stay on top of consumers’ minds.
• They used to be able to do so through “low priority content” like podcast appearances, blog posts, or Twitter updates.
• Now however we’re saturated with those and they no longer draw attention.
• The only way to really keep people aware of your music is to stay in the headlines – preferably by continuing to release new and good music.
• More frequent releases makes sense. Artists only used to release an album every few years because the process of manufacturing and distributing CDs and advertizing materials took months.
• Now with the internet this is less of a concern and artists can release songs on a more frequent basis.

The full article goes into more detail about the history of the music industry, and details other artists that are starting to shorten their release cycle. You can find it here.

Source: The Guardian

Via: Marginal Revolution