American life expectancy takes a hit, cooling Earth with antacid, and more top insights

•  Scott Olster. Published on December 2, 2018

During the week, the Daily Rundown brings you the day’s trending professional news.

On the weekend, we try to keep you current on the big ideas that can help you see what’s coming. Read on and join the conversation.

American life expectancy continues to fall: Life expectancy in the U.S. fell to 78.6 years, declining by 0.3 years since 2014, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The CDC attributes the decline — a concerning reversal after a century of improvement — to a spike in suicide deaths and drug overdoses. Not all Americans are faring the same, though: Rural areas are at greater risk than urban centers, and northern and coastal states are doing better than southern states. • Here’s what people are saying.

Cooling Earth, by dimming the Sun: A team of researchers from Harvard is planning to release calcium carbonate — a white powder commonly found in antacid — into the stratosphere via balloon.

The goal? To determine if these particles can effectively reflect sunlight, cooling Earth and potentially mitigating the effects of climate change. It’s early days for such solar geoengineering efforts: The initial $3 million test will release 100-gram plumes of calcium carbonate, the amount you’d find in a typical bottle of antacid. • Here’s what people are saying.

International students are skipping the U.S.: Over the past two years, foreign student enrollment in American universities declined by 10%, according to the International Institute of Education.

The decline — a major reversal from recent years — threatens the nation’s $42 billion higher education market.

What’s keeping students away? Immigration concerns, tuition costs and fears about physical safety in the U.S., the BBC reports. The situation would be worse if not for China, which had 360,000 students in the U.S. in 2018, up from 60,000 in 2000. • Here’s what people are saying.

Nurses turn to second jobs to make ends meet: Between 10% and 14% of nurses who began their careers from 2006 to 2016 have second jobs, according to new research from New York University.

Some are picking up extra shifts, others are driving for Uber, selling crafts on Etsy or consulting.

What’s behind the shift? Stagnant wages and student loan burdens, reports LinkedIn’s Jaimy Lee. Such extra work comes at a cost: studies have found that nurses with side jobs collaborate less with clinicians and patient satisfaction suffers. • Here’s what people are saying.

An airbag that works like a cocoon: Auto supplier ZF is looking to develop an “external side airbag” that can spring into action from the outside, shielding the entire side of a car.

The same kind of sensors that sound alarms when you’re driving too close to another vehicle could detect if another car is approaching at an unsafe speed, triggering the launch of the external airbag.

Such protection could significantly reduce the impact of a crash, help internal airbags do their job better and limit the risk of crash-related fires. • Here’s what people are saying.

One last idea:  Many of us associate our embarrassing moments, or our slip ups, with failure. But, as actor and entrepreneur Jennifer Lopez recently told LinkedIn’s Dan Roth, it’s only when we’ve given up on trying altogether that we have failed.

“Failure is not falling down and making a mistake, or choosing the wrong movie, or doing the wrong thing at the wrong time. It’s stopping. Stopping is the failure, not continuing forward is the failure, not keeping going.”

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