Have More Fun On Your Business Trips In These 10 Cities

All too often, business trips are a blur of early-morning airport shuttles, followed by a whirlwind day of meetings, ending with a long night on an extremely uncomfortable hotel bed.

See what to do on your next business trip >

Unless you have a bit of downtime in between meetings, there’s usually no time for sight-seeing or venturing outside the confines of your hotel or convention center. But what’s the point of traveling if you don’t take a little time to explore your destination?

Imagine taking a quick helicopter tour over Manhattan during your lunch break or a dumpling-making class with a local chef in Shanghai before your next client dinner. In the quest to add some inspiration and enjoyment into business travel, we have taken the top 10 US and international cities for business trips and pulled together some of the most exciting tours and activities for each.

So, instead of scheduling that ump-teenth working lunch, punch out for a little sight-seeing, or just schedule your next meeting on a boat tour around the city!

New York City

If your visits to New York are limited to the conference rooms of Midtown or Wall Street, consider putting aside a few minutes to explore what’s on the other side of that window you’re gazing out of.

If you’ve only got half-an-hour, there are a few excellent ways to see Manhattan. You could spend your lunch on a helicopter tour, taking in the city’s most iconic sites, or instead of indulging in yet another steak at Peter Luger, spend a relaxing two hours on a twilight sail of the Hudson.

Or, push your flight home an hour later, and take a behind the scenes look viewing of your favorite TV shows during an NBC studio tour.

Las Vegas

While Las Vegas is best known for attracting flocks of partiers, it’s also the second most traveled-to city in the U.S. for business travelers.

While some might take this opportunity to gamble away their hard-earned money, there are plenty of adventures off the strip. You could experience the vivid colors and towering spires of Red Rock Canyon from behind the wheel of a Lamborghini, on a supercar tour of the conservation area.

Or, you could flee the confines of the convention center and try out zip lining in Bootleg Canyon, where you’ll zoom down Red Mountain at fifty miles-per-hour. If death-defying stunts aren’t quite your thing, why not relax and sip champagne on a gondola cruise on the crystal waters of Lake Las Vegas?

Chicago

If you’re the one of the lucky ones who can avoid Chicago in the winter, there are a slew of options to explore Chicago’s incredible cultural offerings in the warmer, more enjoyable months.

Skip the workout in the hotel gym and book a walking tour of Chicago’s Gold Coast instead, where you take in the best of the city’s Gilded Age opulence. In the evening, a progressive “dine-around” of the city’s best restaurants is the perfect way to gobble up as much Chicago cuisine as possible. Instead of passing out to a Seinfeld re-run at the hotel, take in a jazz performance in one of the city’s famous blues music emporiums.

See the rest of the story at Business Insider

Please follow Careers on Twitter and Facebook.

Read More

The Warm Air Of Cities Creates Bug Infestations

We often think of cities as dampening zones for wildlife, with bustling human activity and inhospitable concrete surfaces keeping many critters at a distance. But in reality the opposite might be the case, at least for insects: They seem to love basking in the toasty air of the urban heat island.

That's the take-away of a new study out of Raleigh conducted by Emily Meineke at North Carolina State University and entomology enthusiasts around the state. Meineke and friends wanted to know if urban pest outbreaks had anything to do with the warm air wafting off of cities. So they set their sights on Parthenolecanium quercifex, or the oak lecanium, a type of scale insect whose extreme slothfulness makes it the Al Bundy of the bug world.

Many people have probably seen the creatures without even realizing they're there. They look like small, unmoving bumps, coated in wax or cottony fluff, sucking plant juices and pooping out sweet nectar that's sometimes farmed by opportunistic ants. Meineke's posse tromped through Raleigh examining street oak trees to establish where the arthropods lived. They then compared population numbers between cooler and warmer neighborhoods while eliminating factors like the presence of natural predators. Their conclusion: The insects really prefer to hang out in the warmer 'hoods, with infestations as much as 13 times larger than those in chillier nabes.

This is a thermal map they made showing scale-insect populations scattered throughout the warmer areas of Raleigh. The black dots represent bug abundance per 30.5 centimeters of plant stem:

The study is kind of a groundbreaking effort in the research niche where insects, cities and weather intersect. As the scientists note:

Urbanization of an area changes the species that dwell in it. Previous studies have analyzed these effects in terms of loss of resources or changes to habitat, but this is the first research to focus on the effects of "heat islands" created in cities. Meineke explains that, "Urban warming can lead to higher insect pest abundance, a result of pest acclimation or adaptation to higher temperatures."

The study concludes that since current urban warming is similar in magnitude to the higher temperatures predicted by global warming in the next fifty years, their results may indicate potential changes in pest abundance as natural forests also grow warmer.

That doesn't sound too bad until you start wondering if the heat island influences the multitudes of other pests – mosquitoes, obviously, and <shudder> bed bugs. Get on that follow-up study immediately, guys. (Here's the full paper in PLOS ONE.)

Please follow Science on Twitter and Facebook.

Join the conversation about this story »

Read More

The 10 Happiest And Healthiest Cities In America

Gallup recently came out with the results of its annual wellbeing index, and today takes a closer look at the metropolitan areas that ranked highest on its scale.

The index ranks wellbeing by averaging scores in six categories: Life evaluation, emotional health, work environment, physical health, healthy behaviors, and access to basic necessities. 

Lincoln, Nebraska topped this year's list, jumping 20 spots from 2011. And Lancaster, Pennsylvania, which topped last year's wellbeing index, did not make it into the top 10 this year.

#10 San Luis Obispo-Paso Robles, CA

Overall score: 71.2/100

The metro area jumped 47 spots on this year's index. It scored 7th on emotional health and 4th on healthy behavior, which looks at lifestyle habits such as smoking, exercise frequency, diet, and consumption of fruits and vegetables.

Results are based on phone interviews with a random sample of 353,563 adults in the U.S. Metro areas are based on the Metropolitan Statistical Areas defined by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget.

Source: Gallup Well-Being Index

#9 Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC, MD, VA

Overall score: 71.3/100

The area moved up three spots in 2012. It jumped 53 spots to #41 on the work environment index, which measures participants' perception on their work experience including job satisfaction, treatment, and office environment and interactions.

Results are based on phone interviews with a random sample of 353,563 adults in the U.S. Metro areas are based on the Metropolitan Statistical Areas defined by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget.

Source: Gallup Well-Being Index

#8 Ann Arbor, MI

Overall score: 71.4/100

Ann Arbor dropped five spots, from #3 in 2011. For the second year in a row, its residents topped the index for life evaluation, a self-evaluation of one's current personal wellbeing and expected wellbeing in five years.

Results are based on phone interviews with a random sample of 353,563 adults in the U.S. Metro areas are based on the Metropolitan Statistical Areas defined by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget.

Source: Gallup Well-Being Index

See the rest of the story at Business Insider

Please follow The Life on Twitter and Facebook.

Read More

The 10 Happiest And Healthiest Cities In America

Gallup recently came out with the results of its annual wellbeing index, and today takes a closer look at the metropolitan areas that ranked highest on its scale.

The index ranks wellbeing by averaging scores in six categories: Life evaluation, emotional health, work environment, physical health, healthy behaviors, and access to basic necessities. 

Lincoln, Nebraska topped this year's list, jumping 20 spots from 2011. The city fared particularly well in terms of basic access to necessities and job satisfaction.

#10 San Luis Obispo-Paso Robles, CA

Overall score: 71.2/100

The metro area jumped 47 spots on this year's index. It scored 7th on emotional health and 4th on healthy behavior, which looks at lifestyle habits such as smoking, exercise frequency, diet, and consumption of fruits and vegetables.

Results are based on phone interviews with a random sample of 353,563 adults in the U.S. Metro areas are based on the Metropolitan Statistical Areas defined by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget.

Source: Gallup Well-Being Index

#9 Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC, MD, VA

Overall score: 71.3/100

The area moved up three spots in 2012. It jumped 53 spots to #41 on the work environment index, which measures participants' perception on their work experience including job satisfaction, treatment, and office environment and interactions.

Results are based on phone interviews with a random sample of 353,563 adults in the U.S. Metro areas are based on the Metropolitan Statistical Areas defined by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget.

Source: Gallup Well-Being Index

#8 Ann Arbor, MI

Overall score: 71.4/100

Ann Arbor dropped five spots, from #3 in 2011. For the second year in a row, its residents topped the index for life evaluation, a self-evaluation of one's current personal wellbeing and expected wellbeing in five years.

Results are based on phone interviews with a random sample of 353,563 adults in the U.S. Metro areas are based on the Metropolitan Statistical Areas defined by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget.

Source: Gallup Well-Being Index

See the rest of the story at Business Insider

Please follow The Life on Twitter and Facebook.

Read More