Stylized Facts

"Weightlessness is like heroin, or how I imagine heroin must be."

The heroin imagery, I suspect, has as much to do with the motion-sickness meds as with the microgravity. They are a potent combination of scopolamine (an anti-emetic sedative) and dextroamphetamine (a stimulant).

PACKING FOR MARS
The Curious Science of Life in the Void
By Mary Roach
Illustrated. 334 pp. W. W. Norton & Company. $25.95

BOOKS
Astral Bodies
By M. G. LORD
Published: August 6, 2010
Highlights of Mary Roach's look at the way humans adapt to spacefaring include zestful accounts of human-waste disposal, body odor control and astral sexual desire.

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Despite clear views of the High Line, not one unit at +aRt, a condominium in Chelsea at 540 West 28th Street referred to as "Plus Art," sold in the fall of 2008, said Stephen Kliegerman, the director of development marketing for Halstead Property. By November of that year, 90 unsold condos ranging from $850,000 to $1.4 million were taken off the market.

After marketing resumed in May, brokers at a grand reopening gala suggested that prices remained too high. Mr. Kliegerman and others involved with the project agreed to keep some units at 2008 levels while reducing prices by 10 percent for a second group of units. Mr. Kliegerman said several units had since gone into contract. "We really wanted the market to speak to us," he said. "In retrospect, if we had a crystal ball and we were able to jump back in time, we probably wouldn't have done anything differently because you never know until you get to the marketplace where those prices are going to be."

Real Estate
What Recession? Condo Prices That Held Up
By JOTHAM SEDERSTROM
Published: July 30, 2010
Many condominium projects are returning to the market after waiting out the downturn, and some haven't reduced prices.

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