dramatically

So long, 6% commission.For decades, real estate commissions have been somewhat standardized, with most home sellers paying 5% to 6% commission to cover both the listing agent and the buyer’s agent. On Friday, everything changed.A landmark agreement from the National Assn. of Realtors paved the way for a new set of rules that will likely shake up the entire industry, affecting sellers, buyers and the agents tasked with pushing deals across the finish line.The most pivotal rule change pertains to how buyers’ agents are…

Bitcoin hit an all-time high of $69,170 Tuesday morning, according to CoinMarketCap, breaching the previous all-time high of $68,990 in November 2021. The price then slipped back under $68,000 soon after reaching its peak. The Biggest Crypto Heists of 2022…So FarEthereum, which currently sits at $3,815, has also been steadily climbing, though it still has a ways to go before reaching $4,721, the all-time high from November 2021.Bitcoin and every other cryptocurrency rather famously nosedived in 2022, a year that opened…

Climate change is having detrimental effects on children's health as an increasing number of infants are born preterm, presenting to hospital, and experiencing respiratory disease, putting society's most vulnerable at greater risk of death.New research by an Australian team of scientists reviewing 163 health studies from across the world reveals an extremely troubling picture of how childhood health measures have already worsened as a result of climate change, which shows no sign of abating anytime soon.An estimated 600…

2. LUTsThis is where it gets serious. I'm going to simplify this, so you don't get bogged down in terminology or the science of it all.LUT stands for Look Up Table and they make it very easy to change the look of your clips. LUTs use predetermined sets of mathematical formulas to make adjustments to gamma, contrast, saturation, luminance, and hue to alter the look. With LUTs you can achieve very dramatic effects without having to go through hours of manually altering the various values for color. Essentially, you load…

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain China has announced that in 2023 its population declined from 1.4118 to 1.4097 billion people. Forecasting by the UN suggests China's population will dip to 1.313 billion by 2050 and then down to about 800 million by 2100. This is a significant change and will have ramifications well beyond its borders. There are two…

Sometimes it's the simplest solutions that get lost in the kerfuffle of scientific progress.Since the advent of vaccines more than two centuries ago, researchers have studied all sorts of ways in which inoculation with a weakened pathogen (or parts thereof) can prepare the immune system for a full attack – exploring different dosages, vaccine agents, and forms of administration.In all that time, very few experts have investigated the question: Does it matter which arm gets vaccinated?Researchers at Oregon Health &…

Scientists are predicting a worldwide fall in family sizes before the end of the century, as families get more 'vertical' – meaning more grandparents and great-grandparents, and fewer cousins, nieces, and nephews.In a new study by an international team of researchers, mathematical models were used alongside existing population records and projections to calculate an average drop in family size of 35 percent by 2095.The reduction will vary from country to country – as families in some nations are typically much larger…

The number of relatives will decrease worldwide in the future. Credit: MPIDR The number of relatives that an individual has is expected to decrease by more than 35% in the near future. At the same time, the structure of families will change. The number of cousins, nieces, nephews and grandchildren will decline sharply, while the number of great-grandparents and grandparents will increase significantly. In 1950, a 65-year-old…

January 3, 20244min readSeveral new studies reveal that getting multiple COVID vaccine doses provides strong protection against lingering symptomsBy Shannon Hall At least 200 million people worldwide have struggled with long COVID: a slew of symptoms that can persist for months or even years after an infection with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID. But research suggests that that number would likely be much higher if not for vaccines.A growing consensus is emerging that receiving multiple doses of the COVID…

Of all the senses we love to indulge, scent is often neglected – but the right smells could be just what your brain needs to keep it whirring in old age.Researchers at the University of California, Irvine have uncovered strong evidence that enriching the air with fragrances improves cognitive performance by strengthening a critical connection between neurological areas involving memory and decision-making.Their experiment, involving 43 men and women aged 60 to 85, suggests cognitive decline and conditions such as…