More and more professionals are moving to small towns. The good news is they're not having to move back in with their parents. These professionals are responding to Web-based recruitment campaigns from rural areas - campaigns that offer both good jobs and a better quality of life. In rural southwest Virginia the program's called "Return to Roots" and lists jobs in technology, engineering, education and health care - jobs provided by companies moving to rural areas to save money. Similar programs have been started in other states. In fact, more than 500 job seekers have moved to South Dakota since it started its program in October 2006. Obviously, "Build it and they will come" applies to fields other than the "Field of Dreams".

Text messaging may subvert letters and numbers to produce ultra-concise words and thoughts, but there's good news. It's not ruining the English language. In a 2007 British experiment children who texted scored higher in reading and vocabulary tests. The better they were at text abbreviating, the better they were in spelling and writing. It seems the more exposure children have to any kind of language, the more verbally skilled they become; and the children who had cell phones longest scored highest. That's a message all phoneless children want their parents to get.

Ford's good news is it's introducing a blind spot mirror on its 2009 Ford Edge. This small mirror in the outer corner of the side mirror will give drivers a view of the area alongside their vehicle. Unlike aftermarket add-ons, these mirrors will be specifically designed for each car and truck model, thus providing an optimized field of view. Although a spokesman wouldn't say how much the feature will cost Ford, it's definitely af-ford-able.

LS9, a biotech company in San Francisco, has developed a good news fuel. It has the same properties as fossil fuel, but without the 100-million-year production wait. The fuel is a genetically-altered, harmless form of E coli bacteria that eats sugar and excretes the equivalent of diesel fuel. Unlike ethanol, which is made from corn, LS9's fuel can be made from plants with no food value. Unlike ethanol, it won't corrode oil pipelines or require cars to have special adjustments to use it. LS9 may not end oil dependency; but because it can program the bacteria to also produce gasoline and jet fuel, LS9 may be the Rumplestiltskin of the 21st century.

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