Quirky census facts… iPhone excitement builds… Altruism hardwired… Top 10 US small public companies… Quote of the day

• Quirky census facts
• iPhone
• Altruism hardwired
• Top 10 small US firms
• Quote

Quirky census facts

Big salaries: The best salaried suburb in Australia is the home of public servants: our national capital. In Canberra’s Forrest, 24% of adults earn gross personal incomes of $2000 or more per week. This is closely followed by Perth’s Shire of Peppermint Grove, which also has 24% of adults earning more than $2000 a week.

Housework: Just over 39% of males and almost 29% of females aged 15–19 years did no housework in the week before the census. Of the people aged 15–19 who did nil hours of housework, 86% were dependent students or non-dependent children living with their parents.

Internet connection: The suburb of Pullenvale in Brisbane had the highest internet connection rate of 92% for its occupied private dwellings, slightly ahead of the Canberra suburb of Fadden (91%) and the Brisbane suburb of Chapel Hill (91%).

Recent arrivals, place of settlement: Of the 756,000 people who had arrived since 2001 to stay in Australia for one year or more, 31% settled in Sydney, 24% in Melbourne, 11% in both Perth and Brisbane, 5% in Adelaide and 3% in the Gold Coast.

Women dominate higher education: Of people attending TAFE institutions and university, 52% and 57% respectively were women.

Shift to private schooling: In 2006, 35% of students in primary and secondary school attended private schools. In 1996 the proportion was 30%. One per cent of the increase can be attributed to attendance at Catholic schools and the remaining 4% to other non-government schools.

iPhone Excitement builds

Apple has created such a hype for the iPhone that there are Americans queuing in the street to buy one when it goes on sale in the US on Thursday. Check out this gizmodo.com interview with the guy who is first in line! on gizmodo.com.

Aussies must be more patient – iPhone won’t make it here until 2008.

Altriusm is hardwired

In a German experimental study performed with chimpanzees and humans, researchers found that altruism (or unselfish behaviour) is found in young chimps that helped human infants they thought needed help, reports ITWire.

In two different settings, chimpanzees helped human infants to a stick they could not reach. In a third setting, a chimpanzee helped another chimp get into a closed room full of food.

Previously, scientists thought that altruism (help toward others without the possibility of personal reward) only developed within humans after humans evolved away from chimpanzees.

Because of this study, it is now considered that altruism may have arisen further back than six million years ago – the time when it is believed humans and chimpanzees evolved separately from their primitive ape ancestor.

Top small public companies in America

Fortune magazine has released the Fortune Small Business 100, America’s fastest-growing small public companies in 2007.

Mining and industrial companies dominate, but number four made its fortune when Hurricane Katrina struck. HSOA moved in to help residential and commercial property owners restore and rebuild. The company, whose services include cleanup, fire and water damage restoration, and construction, remains most active in the Gulf Coast region. There are a couple of innovative health and IT companies too.

Here’s the top 10.

Rank	Company	Employees	Revenue
1	Arena Resources	52	59.8
2	Goodrich Petroleum	84	116.2
3	Dynamic Materials	210	113.5
4	Home Solutions of America	458	127.2
5	Bolt Technology	110	32.6
6	American Science & Engineering	293	163.6
7	Dawson Geophysical	1,023	168.6
8	Palomar Medical Technologies	210	126.5
9	Perficient	972	160.9
10	Smith Micro Software	128	54.5

 

SmartCompany Quote of the Day

“Sometimes you have to be a bitch to get things done.”
Madonna