Pumping in sea water could solve two issues - the lower level of the canal, and rising sea waters from the warmer climate. Feels like it should be much easier to pump in water than to dam up and dig out, but that is my very much non-expert opinion.

If they must be the same size, then that wouldn't be an upgrade - merely a repair.

I will keep polluting unless all the worlds governments give me one TRILLION dollars! [chew on pinky while laughing evilly]

Didn't Google do an April Fool's about this. People would receive their cables and flush them down the toilet to be later collected and hooked up?

Yes, here it is: Toilet Internet Service Provider (April Fool's Day - 2007)

One thing that doesn't make sense to me about this is that the manufacturers with the Trump law changes were now being allowed to make less efficient cars which should be cheaper for them. Designing and then making more efficient cars costs them a lot of money. The bill never forbid them from making the more efficient cars. So I don't understand their backlash.

Interesting statement: "hamper innovation, create a mountain of electronic waste and irk consumers." That is exactly my attitude with having so many different connectors and standards now for phones. I don't know how many old chargers I have thrown away, and how much time have I wasted trying to find the correct plug out of the multitude of different USB and other barrel-type plugs over the past years. I am definitely irked.

Or Duck Dodgers in the 24 1/2 century. :)

If you search through YouTube, you can see many examples where people have done this using rubber bands already. It works to some extent, but not enough to be commercially viable, mostly for fun. Would be interesting to see if this can be scaled up.

Also a very common flavor in Indian snacks. I imagine it is very common across much of Asia.

I don't think this has to be the case at all. It is true that there are a lot of courses that we force students to take, especially at the high school and college levels, that won't really help them in their career choice. For example, when was the last time you needed to convert moles to something else (how many just went to google to find the formulas)?

I would agree that there should be a basic understanding, but really, most of what you need to know for daily life could be done in a month or two at most freeing up time for other subjects.

Granted, I have no idea how this would play out in a normal high school setting. But as I see it, we aren't exactly doing the greatest job teaching skills that are needed to compete in today's world and perhaps more choice/customization of a learning curriculum would produce more viable people for the workforce.