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The U.S. birth rate has dropped for the second year in a row, and experts think the wrenching recession led many people to put off having children.

Births fell 2.7 percent last year even as the population grew, numbers released Friday by the National Center for Health Statistics show.

“It’s a good-sized decline for one year. Every month is showing a decline from the year before,” said Stephanie Ventura, the demographer who oversaw the report.

The birth rate, which takes into account changes in the population, fell to 13.5 births for every 1,000 people last year. That’s down from 14.3 in 2007 and way down from 30 in 1909, when it was common for people to have big families.

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There are 96 million people in the United States who have no spouse. That means 43 percent of all Americans over the age of 18 are single, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

“Single” is defined as adults who have never been married, are divorced or are widowed in the bureau’s America’s Families and Living Arrangements survey of 2009.

Of the singletons, 61 percent of them have never said “I do.” Twenty-four percent are divorced and 15 percent are widowed.

An increasing number of these single Americans — more than 31 million — are living alone, according to the census. They make up 27 percent of all households, up from 17 percent in 1970.

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In 1973, Martin Cooper changed the world, although he didn’t know it yet.
Cooper and his team at Motorola, the communications company, created maybe the only thing that runs the lives of business professionals and teenagers alike — the cell phone.

It was the size of a brick and wasn’t commercially sold for another decade. But as Cooper demonstrated on a New York sidewalk, it worked.

The concept of cellular technology had already been created by Motorola’s rival, AT&T, whose Bell Labs introduced a system allowing calls to be moved from one cell to another while remaining on the same channel. But AT&T was focusing this technology on the car phone.

Cooper wanted people to have freedom to talk on the phone away from their cars. So in reaction, he and Motorola embarked on a project to create a more portable device.

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The penny: most people would rather toss it into convenience store trays or coffee shop tip bars than carry around in their pockets. It’s the coin most frequently seen laying on streets, sidewalks or parking lots.

While it might seem foolish to waste money (however small an amount), the public’s disregard for pennies is not as irrational as it sounds. In fact, it now costs more than one cent to produce a penny in the first place.

How did the penny came to cost more than its face value?

Mint.com

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One in five licensed drivers — some 38 million Americans — lack the knowledge necessary to pass a written driving test, and even more are distracted while driving, according to a survey released Thursday.

The annual GMAC Insurance National Drivers test polled 5,202 licensed drivers from 50 states and the District of Columbia with a 20-question test derived from state department of motor vehicles exams. A passing grade was 70% or better.

The survey also asked about distracting habits such as texting while driving…

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