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2014 is shaping up to be the year when renting an apartment became a more popular choice than owning a home. According to a June 20 CNBC article, the national apartment occupancy rate continued to soar throughout the month of May, reaching its highest level in six years. An amazing 95% of apartments across America are currently occupied -- and developers are rushing to construct more to meet demand. Americans' gravitation toward renting an apartment rather than buying a home marks an important shift away from the traditional "American dream," in which everyone was expected to own a home to be considered successful. “The American people believe that the country’s housing environment is changing,” a MacArthur Foundation report called “How Housing Matters: The Housing Crisis Continue...

Unicode is getting an update which will include 250 more "emoji" symbols, as well as other updates for languages around the world. Smartphone users around the world, rejoice. Among the many updates are a hammer, a spider, an arriving airplane, a hot pepper, and a satellite. The update release is Unicode Version 7. Unicode is a system that came into existence during the early 90s as a way to provide a uniform code for different character and letters. Years ago, many countries and languages used their own systems for text encoding. Before the internet, this worked out fine. After the introduction of the World Wide Web, however, a problem quickly became apparent. When a page was written on one standard but seen by a web browser as another standard, the page would appear on the screen as tota...

Drones are typically associated with military invasions. But can they be used for something more innocent -- artwork? Two military aviators who work with drones had the idea to use their machines to take photographs that no human would be able to capture. Their remote-controlled aerial devices were able to create unique shots. One of their photos, "Lost" -- which features a woman walking alone along sand dunes -- won an aerial photography prize. The prize made them think that their work might be more than just a passing hobby. "We realized that some of the stuff we were creating was really, really aesthetically pleasing," said one pilot. Right now, the pilots only wish to be known by their pseudonym, DroneArt31 -- since they are still in the military, security is a likely concern. Th...

According to several dentists, "selfie" culture could be bringing increased popularity to orthodontia. As kids are becoming more aware of the way their teeth look through self-shot camera photos, many are choosing to opt in for teeth-straightening orthodontia earlier in life, rather than waiting until later."I think that soon I'll be able to take a selfie and show off my teeth, so its okay," said Jessica Corona, a rising sophomore in college, in an interview with PIX11. Many teenagers say they look forward to taking better photos in the future that they can share with their friends. Of course, selfies aren't the only reason children, teenagers, and young adults decide to get orthodontic treatment. The health benefits of having teeth that are properly aligned are explained to children...

When a basement floods, who's at fault? According to one man in Omaha, Nebraska, it's the city's responsibility in his case. Charles (whose last name has not been reported for confidentiality reasons), says that, in the 60 years he had lived in the area of 24th and Maple, he had never experienced flooding. "There’s never been a flood in this area since I've been living," he said in an interview with KETV. Earlier this year, Omaha started water main work and sewer separation in the neighborhood. The Environmental Protection Agency's federal guidelines required that the crews working on the pipes have a stormwater pollution prevention plan in place. Why does the EPA regulate stormwater in the first place? Throughout the nation, stormwater is actually one of the main sources of water po...