In the U.K., a teetotaling study declared that extended pub hours make more workers show up late for work or not show up at all. Meanwhile, at 3:56 a.m. in New York City, a grizzled barfly muttered the word "amateurs" before ordering a nightcap and putting the Velvet Underground's "Sweet Jane" on the jukebox.

The study's authors at Lancaster University insist that when the U.K. changed its nationwide pub closing time from 11 p.m. to 5 a.m. -- and eventually to 24 hours a day – more workers began showing up for work late or calling out "sick." Towns that maintained the old closing times apparently didn't see such problems.

Prime Minister David Cameron hasn't exactly been thrilled with the country's reputation as a pub-crawling, football-song-slurri​ng rabble.

 

If federal workers being furloughed for days doesn't make the sequester seem real enough for you, maybe getting turned away at a cancer clinic will help the mandatory round of tax hikes and spending cuts sink in.

According to The Washington Post's Wonkblog, cancer clinics across the country are turning away thousands of patients after cuts that went into effect on April 1 made administering expensive chemotherapy drugs too costly for many facilities to sustain. Clinics are funneling patients to already busy hospitals while saying that continuing the status quo would bankrupt them in six months to a year.

The cuts are particularly troublesome for Medicare patients, roughly a third of whom are losing their treatments as a result. Lawmakers tried to limit the impact on Medicare patients by keeping cuts to the program at 2%. Unfortunately for cancer patients, that 2% is falling almost squarely on the portion of the program that doles out their drugs.

 

In Ireland, the U.K. and elsewhere, beer and hard cider coexist peacefully on adjacent taps at the local pub as equals. Hard cider hasn't quite earned that respect in the U.S., but it's coming.

The Craft Brew Alliance (BREW), which produces Widmer Brothers, Redhook and Kona beers, announced the launch of its Square Mile Cider Company brand on Tuesday, and it says original and Spur and Vine varieties should be available on the West Coast starting in May.

That in itself isn't such a big deal. But added to Samuel Adams producer Boston Beer's (SAM) jump into the cider industry, Anheuser-Busch InBev's (BUD) cider experiments and a recent spate of cider company buyouts, these are big moves by brewers to get a small piece of a growing segment.

 

The burger is no longer the undisputed king of the fast food world.

According to the website BurgerBusiness, market researcher Mintel has found more chicken sandwiches than burgers on the menus of quick-service restaurants since beef prices shot up in 2010.

As of 2012, chicken held a slim 330 to 323 lead. Burgers have regained some ground from 2011, when their numbers stood at 314. Chicken, though, is hardly on the ropes, with many consumers eating less red meat for health reasons.

"Consider the barrage of new menu items introduced by Burger King (BKW) in January," the site says. "Yes, it included an Avocado Swiss Whopper, but the wave also brought Philly Original Chicken and Italian Original Chicken sandwiches, as well as the introduction of new Chicken Nuggets." 

Facebook (FB) didn't announce its own phone Thursday. It didn't make a new operating system. Instead, the company has created essentially an app on steroids that gives Facebook prime real estate on Android devices.

 

Facebook messages and chats are right there on your home screen. You won't have to go into a Facebook app anymore to see them. The platform works on top of the Android mobile operating system from Google (GOOG) and will start showing up pre-installed on devices from HTC and Samsung.

 

Oh, and there will be ads, too.

 

Art and money often go hand-in-hand, especially in the high-priced realm of auction houses. But that marriage of art and commerce can get controversial when the artwork in question is of a religious nature -- and the faith involved takes issue with what it considers its sacred, priceless objects being put up for sale.

That's the international scenario unfolding as the Hopis of Arizona and their supporters call on the U.S. government to stop a planned auction in Paris next week. Reports say the auction of 70 Hopi artifacts at the Néret-Minet Tessier & Sarrou auction house, one of the largest-ever auctions of its kind, could bring in up to $1 million.

Hopis view the objects known as katsinas, or “friends,” as being imbued with living, divine spirits -- for use in many of their rituals and ceremonies.

 

Bitcoins are taking a step into the real world, with an entrepreneur planning to introduce ATMs for the digital currency in Los Angeles and Cyprus. 

But there's a catch: Rather than dispensing cash, the Bitcoin ATMs will transform your hard-earned real money into the digital currency. On top of that, the ATMs will charge fees of about 3%, which is slightly more than what regular ATMs charge, according to CNN.

The ATMs will convert cash into Bitcoins stored in a Bitcoin wallet, or else will transform the cash stored in a personal Bitcoin account into the digital currency, according to the report. 

 

What's expensive, aims to revolutionize entertainment and wants to put a ring on it? It's Apple's (AAPL) so-called iTV, which a report says will be on the market later this year with a price tag as high as $2,500. 

But the most unusual aspect of the report, which comes from a research analyst who met with suppliers in China and Taiwan, is an add-on device called the iRing, according to Apple Insider.

The iRing is a ring-shaped accessory that, yes, one wears on a finger. It's a new concept for the television industry, allowing viewers to use their hand as a navigation pointer for the TV set. It will give the TV set the ability to detect motion and replace some aspects of the traditional remote control.