Here are a few interesting things I’ve come across in the past few days:

gladwell.com: U.S. versus U.K. Malcolm Gladwell, writer for the New Yorker and author of The Tipping Point and Blink, writes in his blog about the great health divide between Americans and British. Who spends more money on health care? Americans. Who has much poorer health? Americans. That’s what a recent report in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) concludes. And that leads us to the question, Why? Why are we in such a bad physical state? Gladwell agrees with New York Times columnist Paul Krugman that “this is evidence of how much more stressful living in America is than living in England” and adds that “it is one more nail in the coffin of the notion that good health is something that can be purchased through fancy, high-tech drugs and doctors and hospitals.”

google.com: Explore Shakespeare with Google. The headline on the page reads “The complete plays of Shakespeare. Now at your fingertips.” Well, they’ve actually been at our fingertips for a long time. I don’t know. Maybe there’s something extra cool about Google’s version, but I’m not seeing it. Besides, nothing beats a good book.

Kevin Kelly’s Cool Tools blog links to a Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides in Produce. Good for deciding when it’s especially smart to go organic.

equasystem.com: Light Delight taps. These faucets illuminate water in three different colors, depending on the temperature: blue for cold; violet for warm, and red for hot. Could help prevent a scalding. (via popgadget.)