Kruse Kronicle

Our ancestors did not live in balance with nature. They died in balance with it.

One of most important observations (among many) from the late Hans Roslings’ Factfulness:

When a population is not growing over a long period of time, and the population curve is flat, this must mean that each generation of new parents is the same size as the previous one. For thousands of years up to 1800 the population curve was almost flat. Have you heard people say that humans used to live in balance with nature?

Well, yes, there was a balance. But let’s avoid the rose-tinted glasses. Until 1800, women gave birth to six children on average. So the population should have increased with each generation. Instead, it stayed more or less stable. Remember the child skeletons in the graveyards of the past? On average four of six children died before becoming parents themselves, leaving just two surviving children to parent the next generation. There was a balance. It wasn’t because humans lived in balance with nature. Humans died in balance with nature. It was utterly brutal and tragic.

Today, humanity is once again reaching a balance. The number of parents is no longer increasing. But this balance is dramatically different from the old balance. The new balance is nice: the typical parents have two children, and neither of them dies. For the first time in history, we live in balance. (pp. 87-88)

Demographers refer to this as the Demographic Transition – the move from high fertility and mortality rates to low fertility and mortality rates. A few centuries ago, living standards in some regions began to rise via technology, specialization of labor, and extensive trade. That trend dramatically accelerated about 250 years ago with the Industrial Revolution. Fewer people died young and more people lived to old age, but the fertility rate lagged in its decline. The population explosion of recent generations was due to this lagging decrease in the fertility rate relative to the falling mortality rate.

The Demographic Transition began in Europe but we have seen it repeated in every part of the world in recent generations. The global fertility rate is now below 2.5 children per woman, down from 5.0 fifty years ago, and heading toward “balance” at 2.1 children within about twenty years.* Furthermore, life expectancy at birth in recent generations has risen from about 30 years throughout human history to 72 today – in excess of 80 in some affluent countries.

Every time I reflect on these numbers, I think of Isaiah 66:20, where Isaiah describes the new creation:

Babies in Jerusalem will no longer live only a few days. Old people will not fail to live for a very long time. Those who live to the age of 100 will be thought of as still being young when they die. Those who die before they are 100 will be considered as having been cursed by God.

We are approaching that reality. The world we live in today was positively Utopian until the past generation or two.

We did not get here by being content to die in harmony with nature. We decoupled from nature. We become radically more innovative and productive. The key to future well-being and the welfare of the planet lies in greater decoupling – climate friendly fuels, environment friendly production, more productive agriculture, and the eventual transition to endlessly recycled materials. It must be a world where everyone experiences abundance through their participation in networks of productivity and exchange. That is what "living in balance with nature" truly is.

(Note: At replacement rate fertility, the global population will grow from about 7.7 billion to between nine and eleven billion by century’s end. The children born in 2020 will likely have children at about the replacement rate. However, the population born in 2010 is larger than the coming 2020 population, and the population born in 2000 is larger than 2010’s. If all these age cohorts simply replace themselves in the next few decades, the population will continue grow but at a decelerating rate.)

World Social Indicators: Child Mortality

Alongside life expectancy, a second measure of prosperity demographers frequently use is the child mortality rate. The child mortality rate is the number of children that die between birth and their fifth birthday, per 1,000 live births. Because the first years of life are when human beings are most vulnerable, their ability to survive the first years of life says a lot about the state of their society; thus the significance of the child mortality rate.

So what can we say about this measure of prosperity throughout human history? Here are estimates of the infant mortality rate (deaths by age one) typical of social scientists and economists who study these issues:

In the year 1000, the average infant could expect to live about 24 years. A third died in the first year of life. Hunger and epidemic disease ravaged the survivors. By 1820, life expectation had risen to 36 years in the west, with only marginal improvement elsewhere. (Angus Maddison, Contours of the World Economy, 1-2030 AD, 69)

Before industrialization, at least one out of every five children died before reaching his or her first birth day; that is infant mortality measured as the number of children dying before the age of one, typically exceeded 200 per 1,000 live births. … In the United States, as late as 1900, infant mortality was 160; …” (Indur Goklany, The Improving State of the World, 27)

Estimates are that child mortality were over 40% prior to 1800.

Let's look at the change in the child morality rate for the last 200 years:

Globally, that is drop from 40 children per 1,000 to 4 children per 1,000. This graphic compares various nations at 1800, 1950, 1990, and 2013.

Note that the 2013 child mortality rate for all but a few small lagging countries is lower than the rate for all but a few of the wealthiest countries in 1950. The worst country in 2013 has a rate half that of the best country in 1800.

This is not to say that every nation, or every region within a nation, or every subgroup within in a nation, have prospered equally well. Still, there is dramatic improvement in all regions of the world.

During the 1990s, there was a small increase in the rate for the former Soviet nations but that trend has turned positive again. There are disparities between Anglos and non-Anglos in the United States. The African AIDS epidemic has been harmful. Other regions face other challenges. Yet the overall trend is dramatically downward.

Using child mortality as measures of prosperity, the world is far more prosperous than it has ever been and the gap is narrowing between the top and bottom rungs of the global social ladder. Again, most of this change has occurred over a time when the total world population grew sixfold, from less than 1 billion in 1800 to about 6.6 billion today!

So as we look at the trajectory of change in the world, we find an unprecedented rise in prosperity. It is uneven improvement but every corner of the planet has improved and the gap between top and bottom nations is closing.

Next we we will look at economic issues.

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Don't Forget the Good Stuff

It is easy to become obsessed with challenges and threats we see before us today. It is easy to lose sight of the bigger picture and to see the tremendous good that is happening in the world. Here are six social indicators pointing to improving quality of life for billions around the globe. Setbacks and momentary reversals are certain but increasingly the challenges we face are of our own making; like tribalism and authoritarianism. Let us be vigilant in addressing the challenges we face without losing sight of the bigger picture.

Rosling Univeristy (How to be smarter than a chimp)

Are you smarter than a chimp? When it comes to knowledge about global socioeconomic trends, there is a good chance you are not. For years, Swedish global health expert, Hans Rosling, has been giving Ted talks and making presentations about global trends. One his favorite teaching tools is to ask people a question like this:

Globally, over the past 20 years, the rate extreme poverty has:

1. Doubled.
2. Stayed the same.
3. Decreased by more than half.

Now chimps will select at random, giving a 33% chance of each answer. Yet when Rosling asks audiences, at least half will say A, a sizable percentage will say B, while a few will say C. Yet C is the correct answer! This is the case on one variable after another. Audiences routinely score worse than chimps, choosing the most negative option.

As an old adage has it, "It isn't what we don't know that gets us in trouble. It's what we know that ain't so." That we routinely pick the wrong answer more often than chimps shows that we clearly we have bias.

In the Ted talk, How not to be ignorant about the world, Hans' son Rosling notes that part of the problem is our education system. Teachers go to college at a particular point in time and learn the state of the world at that time. But they tend not to learn about ongoing developments. The data has often been hard to come by and hard to interpret. So teachers are biased by what they learned years ago. (Reporter have the same problem.) But there are other factors.

During our evolutionary history, our brains became wired to notice threats. Hunters walking through the brush who were attentive to the possibility of tigers lying in wait, likely survived those who went about carelessly enjoying a beautiful day. So when we reflect on broad human trends, we are disposed to fixate on perceived threats. What was useful for us in the wild, is counter-productive for us as we try to interpret socioeconomic trends. If you want to outscore a chimp on an exam about global well-being, Ola Rosling suggests that you must drop your predispositions and adopt these four rules of thumb:

1. Assume most things are improving.
2. Assume most people are in the middle of a distribution, not a binary of rich and poor.
3. Assume social development precedes becoming wealthy. (Don’t assume that a population must be rich before meeting basic social needs.)
4. Assume you are exaggerating the threat if the topic is something about which you personally have great fear.

Additionally, Hans, Ola, and others have been working to build the Gapminder website to provide you with data that can be presented in meaningful ways. But one of the most important contributions the Roslings have made is their collection of entertaining and informative videos. In this post I am including every video I can find with a brief annotation. (I'll add more as I find any.) Many of the videos overlap or cover similar data but they are all well worth viewing. So here is your resource for becoming smarter than a chimp. Don't say I never gave you anything.

(This link also has links to most of these videos including some shorts not listed here: Gapminder Video)

Hans Rosling's 200 Countries, 200 Years, 4 Minutes (2010)

If you are just getting acquainted with Rosling, I'd begin here. This 4 minute presentation gives you a quick sense of what he is talking about.

 

Hans and Ola Rosling: How not to be ignorant about the world. TED June 2014

This is the second video to watch. The front half is Hans making his case that the world is improving and the back half is Ola explaining, as I recounted above, why are so disinclined to see positive change.

 

Hans Rosling: The magic washing machine. TED December 2010

This is the third one to watch. This one of my favorites. While fully embracing the concern about environmental impacts of economic growth, Rosling shows the importance of economic growth through the story of the washing machine.

 

THE REST ARE IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER

Hans Rosling: The best stats you've ever seen. TED February 2006

The TED presentation that kicked it all off. He focuses on the positive changes underway in world and points to his efforts to liberate, integrate, and animate data, and to find ways to present data the public finds understandable.

 

Hans Rosling: New Insights on Poverty. TED March 2007

Rosling shows that social development tends to precede economic development. He addresses the issue that unfortunately to date, economic development has always been based on fossil fuels. Higher yields, technology, and markets are key to ending poverty but there are more dimensions that need our attention like human rights, environment, governance, economic growth, education, health, and culture. The ending has a great surprise!

 

Human Rights and Democracy Statistics- Gapminder c. 2008

Rosling describes why human rights are so hard describe and evaluate.

Source

Yes they can! - Gapminder c. 2008

Rosling explains that poor nations will one day become prosperous and we should welcome that.

Source

Poor Beats Rich in MDG Race - Gapminder c. 2008

Rosling shows that countries that have developed from poverty to well-being have done so at far faster rates that Western nations did. Poor countries today can make the transition much quicker because of what previous countries have learned.

Source

What stops population growth? - Gapminder c. 2008

The key to ending population is small families, and the key to small families is childhood survival.

Source

Hans Rosling: Insights on HIV, in stunning data visuals. TED February 2009

Uses Gapminder data to show nuances in how AIDS has spread and what it takes to  defeat it.

 

Hans Rosling: Let my dataset change your mindset. TED June 2009

This is the third video should watch. Rosling deconstructs the dichotomy of wealthy and developing nations, and challenges the idea of thinking in sweeping terms like "Africa."

 

The Joy of Stats with Professor Hans Rosling - Gapminder c. 2010

Rosling shows how making data available and animating is empowering people to make better decisions, sometimes without really realizing they are using statistics.

Source

Hans Rosling: Asia's rise -- how and when. TED Nov 2009

Rosling forecasts when China and India catches up with the USA and UK.

 

 Hans Rosling: Global population growth, box by box. TED June 2010

 Rosling says that child survival is the new green. This video explains why.

 

Hans Rosling: The good news of the decade? We're winning the war against child mortality. TED September 2010

Rosling breaks down the remarkable trends in child mortality. Education of women accounts for at least 50% of the drop.

 

 

Hans Rosling: Religions and babies. TED April 2012

Religion is not a factor in family size. No significant difference between Islamic and Christian countries when it comes to births per woman. The defining difference is economic well-being.

 

 DON'T PANIC — Hans Rosling showing the facts about population. BBC November 2013

 A one hour investigation into the dynamics of population growth using stories about real live families interspersed with Rosling's entertaining presentation of data.

 

Don't Panic - How to End Poverty in 15 Years. BBC September 2015

No embed is available.

You can view the video here.

Here is a link to a series of short videos on how to use development data visually.

An introduction to visualising development data

 

Global Life Expectancy Increases by About Six Years

Wall Street Journal: Global Life Expectancy Increases by About Six Years

Study in Lancet Says Rise Is Result of Dramatic Health-Care Advances

... The rise in global life expectancy is mainly the result of dramatic advances in health care. In richer countries longer lifespans are spurred by a big drop in deaths related to heart disease, while poorer countries have seen big declines in the death of children from ailments such as pneumonia, diarrhea and malaria. ...

Chronic Hunger Falling, But One in Nine People Still Affected

World Watch: Chronic Hunger Falling, But One in Nine People Still Affected

Although the proportion of people experiencing chronic hunger is decreasing globally, one in nine individuals still does not get enough to eat. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that 805 million people were living with undernourishment (chronic hunger) in 2012–14, down 209 million since 1990–92 (Figure 1).

Keep in mind that the global population grew by one third during the same time period. About 18.7% of the world lived with chronic hunger in 1991 while 11.2% do so today. Had the percentages stayed the same as in 1991 there would be 1,340,000,000 people in hunger instead of 805,000,000. Things are getting better but we have a long ways to go.

Dying Young Is Quickly Becoming A Thing Of The Past

Business Insider: Dying Young Is Quickly Becoming A Thing Of The Past

It shows the risk of dying at any given age, with the lighter-colored line representing the risk in 1970 and the darker line representing the risk in 2010. In 1970, people had a 28% chance of dying before they turned 50. By 2010, that risk had been cut in half. For children under five, the news is even better: mortality dropped from 14% in 1970 all the way down to 5% in 2010.

Air Pollution Replaces Poor Diet As World's Largest Preventable Health Risk

Forbes: Air Pollution Replaces Poor Diet As World's Largest Preventable Health Risk

Dirty air killed an alarming 7 million people – or, one of every eight human lives lost – in 2012, according to new estimates released today by the World Health Organization (WHO).

The new data shows that air pollution has become the world’s largest single environmental health risk.

n 2010, air pollution ranked as the fourth leading preventable health risk, behind poor diet, high blood pressure and tobacco smoke, according to a major study funded by the Gates Foundation.

Indoor air pollution, primarily caused by burning solid fuels for heating and cooking, accounted for slightly more than half – 4.3 million – of those deaths in 2012.

Outdoor air pollution accounted for the remaining 3.7 million deaths. ...

3 Myths That Block Progress For The Poor (2014 Gates Annual Letter)

2014 Gates Annual Letter:  3 Myths the Block Progress for the Poor

"By almost any measure, the world is better than it has ever been. People are living longer, healthier lives. Many nations that were aid recipients are now self-sufficient. You might think that such striking progress would be widely celebrated, but in fact, Melinda and I are struck by how many people think the world is getting worse. The belief that the world can’t solve extreme poverty and disease isn’t just mistaken. It is harmful. That’s why in this year’s letter we take apart some of the myths that slow down the work. The next time you hear these myths, we hope you will do the same." - Bill Gates

I sometimes have issues with Gates' optimism about aid but I think he does a fairly balanced job in this piece. There were also two graphs that I really liked. They demonstrate once again how misugided so many doomsayers are. There is reason for hope. How can we get more of this good stuff to happen better and faster, in sustainable ways is the big question.

The (Mostly) Improving State of the World

Washington Post: 40 charts that explain the world

Our friend and colleague Max Fisher over at Worldviews has posted another 40 maps that explain the world, building on his original classic of the genre. But this is Wonkblog. We're about charts. And one of the great things about charts is that they show not just how things are -- but how they're changing.

So we searched for charts that would tell not just the story of how the world is -- but where it's going. Some of these charts are optimistic, like the ones showing huge gains in life expectancy in poorer nations. Some are more worryisome -- wait till you see the one on endangered species. But together they tell a story of a world that's changing faster than at arguably any other time in human history. ...

As the author notes, we have challenges but we hardly descending into some global dystopia. I think these charts give a pretty holistic view. Here are a three examples.
It was commonly believed that primitive societies were more peaceful and that modern civilization gave rise to unprecedented violence. This chart compares death rates by war in primitive societies as calculated by anthropologists to the death rates for Europe/USA in the 20th century.
And then there is this:

The graphs point to environmental protection and adaptation as the biggest problems in the days ahead. Those challenges are not insurmountable. Energy sources like natural gas and nuclear power can be used in the interim on the way to practical renewable technologies. Genetically modified crops can help to reduce water consumption, increase yield, and improve hardiness. Innovations in fields like biotechnology, nanotechnology, and 3-D printing hold the promise of revolutionizing the world economy into a less wasteful and more affordable human existence for everyone. There is work to do but there is also much reason for hope of a better world.

 

Demography Links

1. A look at global population trends in the Christian Science Monitor.

"Too many people is a big problem, but too few is a concern as well." "The story of the 21st century has been one of falling birthrates, rising standards of living, and a revolution in food production. But the global picture is uneven: As populations decline in wealthier nations, in other countries – particularly in Africa, says a new report – they are rising at rates that may mire their people in poverty."

2. The end of global population growth may be almost here — and a lot sooner than the UN thinks

3. 232 Million People Left Their Countries for New Ones—Where Did They Go?

4. World Immigration Called 'Win-Win' For Rich Nations, And Poor

The number of people who leave their countries to work abroad is soaring, according to the United Nations. More than 200 million people now live outside their country of origin, up from 150 million a decade ago.

5. Two interesting articles about Japan and fertility: Want To See A 'Demographic Death Spiral?' Look At Japan, Not Russia and Almost Half Of Young Japanese Women Are Not Interested In Sex. From the second story:

"... Even though casual sex is becoming more common in Japan, a 2011 survey found that 61% of unmarried men and 49% of women aged 18-34 were not in any kind of relationship — a rise of 10% from five years earlier, according to Haworth.

One of the reasons for the decline in dating and sex among young Japanese adults seems to stem from the fact that men and women have different long-term values — while men have become less career-driven, women are valuing their careers more than romantic relationships, and don't want to give up their fulfilling (and time-intensive) jobs. ..."

6. Mapping 22 Different Latino Populations Across the U.S.A.

Where do America's Latino and Hispanic populations live? Let's start with where they're not living: in Montana, Wyoming, the Dakotas, and a whopping chunk of the Midwest that probably hears a sí as often as the cry of an Amazonian toucan. ...

 7. U.S. Women Are Dying Younger Than Their Mothers, and No One Knows Why

... In March, a study published by the University of Wisconsin researchers David Kindig and Erika Cheng found that in nearly half of U.S. counties, female mortality rates actually increased between 1992 and 2006, compared to just 3 percent of counties that saw male mortality increase over the same period. ...

8. Several articles about the most popular baby names in recent days. For example Here's The Most Popular Baby Name In Each State. I esepcially liked these two gifs: America's Most Popular Boys' Names Since 1960, in 1 Spectacular GIF and A Wondrous GIF Shows the Most Popular Baby Names for Girls Since 1960.

9. Census: Americans are moving again

Those on the move are once again setting their sights on their favorite Sun Belt places, like Florida, Arizona and Nevada, a demographer says.

10. U.S. obesity rate levels off, but still an epidemic

"More than a third of adults are obese, which is roughly 35 pounds over a healthy weight."

11. Where Are The Boomers Headed? Not Back To The City

... Indeed, our number-crunching shows that rather than flocking into cities, there were roughly a million fewer boomers in 2010 within a five-mile radius of the centers of the nation’s 51 largest metro areas compared to a decade earlier. If boomers change residences, they tend to move further from the core, and particularly to less dense places outside metropolitan areas. Looking at the 51 metropolitan areas with more than a million residents, areas within five miles of the center lost 17% of their boomers over the past decade, while the balance of the metropolitan areas, predominately suburbs, only lost 2%. In contrast places outside the 51 metro areas actually gained boomers. ...

 12. The Myers Briggs States of America

Sunbelt, Rustbelt, Energy Belt – geographers, economists and urbanists have long endeavored to map the economic, political and cultural structures of America's regions. But to what extent do these places have their own distinctive personalities?

We all have our handy stereotypes for regional personalities, of course. Stolid Midwesterners, indolent but mercurial Southerners, and nervous, fast-talking New Yorkers make repeat appearances in pop culture. But can we identify the actual psychology, the deep personality traits that define regional distinctiveness?

Those questions are at the center of a new study in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. ...

13. The Difference Between Democratic Congressional Districts And Republican Ones In 1 Chart. In short, as population density increases, so does a preference for Democrats.

Does a child die of hunger every 10 seconds?

BBC: Does a child die of hunger every 10 seconds?

But another major group that tackles food problems around the world, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), now disapproves of this tactic [a child dies every X seconds].

"There's a real temptation to use those kinds of statistics because they really do grab the headlines - you can't ignore that because it's such a horrifying image," says Jane Howard, from the WFP.

But, she says, it is "a bit misleading". ...

... she argues, "the science is actually saying something quite different".

So what is the science saying? Well, if, to you, the claim that one child is dying every 10 seconds because of hunger conjures up images of starving children, you might be surprised.

In most cases, that's not what's happening.

"There are certainly extreme circumstances where children starve to death - and I'm thinking of the recent famine in parts of Somalia," Howard says.

"But the truth is that the vast majority of those numbers that we're talking about, are children who, because they haven't had the right nutrition in the very earliest parts of their lives, are really very susceptible to infectious diseases, like measles.

"A child that's had good nutrition would just shrug it off, but for a child that's really fragile and has a compromised immune system it becomes really life threatening."

The If campaign highlights an important issue, but is it wrong to use the word "hunger" if it might inaccurately suggest children are starving to death? ...

... The fact that poor nutrition is identified as an underlying cause of death means that there's also some double counting going on. When you hear that one child dies every few seconds from water-related diseases, for example- or from poverty - some of these children will be the same ones that are said to be dying every few seconds from hunger.

Another surprise is to discover who these children are and that they are often not even, as the adverts sometimes put it, "going to bed hungry".

Most of the nutrition-related deaths are in countries that are not suffering from famine or conflict, according to Professor Robert Black of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in the United States, who calculated the three million figure that the 10-seconds statistic is based on.

"These are not the poorest countries in the world. They are countries such as India or Nigeria or many other countries in Asia or Africa that really could do better - that have the resources to feed children within the country.

"Certainly the poorest have the greatest problems with undernutrition, but even then there might be sufficient food to feed children. The difficulty is achieving a high enough quality diet - a diet that is dominated by cereals or starches would not be a high enough quality diet to achieve the nutrition that's needed in the first two years of life."

In most cases, the problem could be resolved through nutrition education, Black says. ...

... In some cultures, women don't get to eat the best food in the household, which can mean children are born underweight. Milk and meat may also be avoided for cultural reasons, as they are in parts of India for example. And sometimes it's just not fully appreciated how important fruit and vegetables are.

A quarter of the deaths can be attributed to inadequate breast-feeding, Professor Black estimates, -with many families not realising that, up to six months of age, babies need to be exclusively fed on breast milk for the nutrients it provides, but also because it protects them from exposure to contaminated food. ...

The Geography of Hunger in America

Atlantic Cities: The Geography of Hunger in America

"The U.S. Department of Agriculture defines food-insecure homes as those households that don't regularly have access to enough to eat for an active, healthy life, and the problem is more pervasive in rural America than in cities. ..."

Food Insecurity Rates

Leading Causes of Death in the 20th Century

As the disclaimer says at the bottom of the chart, this data is imprecise but it give us some idea. (Source)

As global poverty lessens and aid increases: Did famed UN development goals matter?

Christian Science Monitor: As global poverty lessens and aid increases: Did famed UN development goals matter?

Days before Sept. 11, 2001, a set of eight 'Millennium Development Goals' were declared to improve health, education, and welfare across the planet. As the goals expire on 2015, a sympathetic look at how they fared. ...

... The number of the world’s people living with hunger has dropped by 132 million, or from nearly 19 percent of the world’s population in the early 1990s to 12.5 percent last year, a new report by the World Food Program and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization finds. ...

... But even more important – and perhaps the part with the greatest potential for keeping hunger on the decline – are the innovative ways that international organizations are working with “host” governments to put a new emphasis on local food producers and farm families.

Much of the focus of new programs aimed at reducing hunger is on women and girls.

“If you look at the people suffering from hunger today, about half of them are farmers – and they are primarily women,” says Leach. He speaks of a “simple idea” recently implemented in parts of Africa that has organizations working with small farmers – on irrigation, better use of seeds, fertilization – and committing to buy their increased yields. ...

... Another new approach: Providing food rations to families that send their daughters to school and keep them going. ...

... “We’ve learned that we’re not going to determine in Washington what needs to happen in Uganda or Somalia, it needs to be led by the country and they need to own it,” Leach says. “It’s another example of how all of us – in the donor countries, the host countries, the international organizations, the private and corporate sectors – are together getting better and smarter about solving the hunger problem.”

Nanoparticle Tech Could Bring Clean Water to Rural Poor

Live Science: Nanoparticle Tech Could Bring Clean Water to Rural Poor

A water purification system that uses nanotechnology to remove bacteria, viruses and other contaminants may be able to deliver clean drinking water to rural communities for less than $3 a year per family, according to a new study.

Researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras in Chennai, India, developed a purification device that filters water through a specially crafted mixture of nanoparticles to remove harmful contaminants. Their study was published today (May 6) in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The device, which is currently being tested in communities in India, could offer an affordable way to provide small families with at least 10 liters (2.6 gallons) of safe drinking water per day, said study co-author Thalappil Pradeep, a professor in the department of chemistry at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras. ...

Suicide Rates Rise Sharply in U.S.

New York Times: Suicide Rates Rise Sharply in U.S.

Suicide rates among middle-aged Americans have risen sharply in the past decade, prompting concern that a generation of baby boomers who have faced years of economic worry and easy access to prescription painkillers may be particularly vulnerable to self-inflicted harm.

More people now die of suicide than in car accidents, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which published the findings in Friday’s issue of its Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. In 2010 there were 33,687 deaths from motor vehicle crashes and 38,364 suicides.

Suicide has typically been viewed as a problem of teenagers and the elderly, and the surge in suicide rates among middle-aged Americans is surprising.

From 1999 to 2010, the suicide rate among Americans ages 35 to 64 rose by nearly 30 percent, to 17.6 deaths per 100,000 people, up from 13.7. Although suicide rates are growing among both middle-aged men and women, far more men take their own lives. The suicide rate for middle-aged men was 27.3 deaths per 100,000, while for women it was 8.1 deaths per 100,000.

The most pronounced increases were seen among men in their 50s, a group in which suicide rates jumped by nearly 50 percent, to about 30 per 100,000. For women, the largest increase was seen in those ages 60 to 64, among whom rates increased by nearly 60 percent, to 7.0 per 100,000. ...

Unfit For Work

NPR: Unfit For Work

In the past three decades, the number of Americans who are on disability has skyrocketed. The rise has come even as medical advances have allowed many more people to remain on the job, and new laws have banned workplace discrimination against the disabled. Every month, 14 million people now get a disability check from the government.

The federal government spends more money each year on cash payments for disabled former workers than it spends on food stamps and welfare combined. Yet people relying on disability payments are often overlooked in discussions of the social safety net. People on federal disability do not work. Yet because they are not technically part of the labor force, they are not counted among the unemployed.

In other words, people on disability don't show up in any of the places we usually look to see how the economy is doing. But the story of these programs -- who goes on them, and why, and what happens after that -- is, to a large extent, the story of the U.S. economy. It's the story not only of an aging workforce, but also of a hidden, increasingly expensive safety net. ...

 

Humanity is not a plague on earth

USA Today: Humanity is not a plague on earth

... According to the World Bank, the world's fertility rate is 2.45, slightly above the replacement rate of 2.1. Some demographers believe that by 2020, global fertility will drop below the replacement rate for the first time in history. Why? Because the world is getting richer.

As people become wealthier, they have fewer kids. When times are good, instead of reproducing exponentially (like rabbits), people prefer to spend resources nurturing fewer children, for instance by investing in education and saving money for the future. This trend toward smaller families has been observed throughout the developed world, from the United States to Europe to Asia.

The poorest parts of the world, most notably sub-Saharan Africa, still have sky-high fertility rates, but they are declining. The solution is just what it has been elsewhere: more education, easier access to contraception and economic growth. Catastrophe avoided.

Consequently, no serious demographer believes that human population growth resembles cancer or the plague. On the contrary, the United Nations projects a global population of 9.3 billion by 2050 and 10.1 billion by 2100. In other words, it will take about 40 years to add 2 billion people, but 50 years to add 1 billion after that. After world population peaks, it is quite possible that it will stop growing altogether and might even decline.

Despite all indications to the contrary, global population cataclysm isn't at hand and never will be unless the well-established and widely researched trends reverse themselves. That's not likely.

Saturday Links

1. Christian History magazine has an entire issue devoted to Christians in the New Industrial Economy: The World Changed, the Church Responded. It is a priceless collection of essays on how various religious traditions responded to (or failed to) the challenges of the Industrial Revolution.

Issue 104 examines the impact of automation on Europe and America and the varying responses of the church to the problems that developed. Topics examined are mission work, the rise of the Social Gospel, the impact of papal pronouncements, the Methodist phenomenon, Christian capitalists, attempts at communal living and much more.

2. Orange County Register says Don't count out mainline Protestants yet.

As flocks shrink, denominations that once defined America fight to stay relevant with new ways of reaching out.

3. The Washington Post reports that Megachurches thriving in tough economic times.

"Despite the tough economy, many of the nation’s largest churches are thriving, with increased offerings and plans to hire more staff, a new survey shows.

Just 3 percent of churches with 2,000 or more attendance surveyed by Leadership Network, a Dallas-based church think tank, said they were affected “very negatively” by the economy in recent years. Close to half — 47 percent — said they were affected “somewhat negatively,” but one-third said they were not affected at all. ..."

4. Harvard Business Review: Steve Blank on Why Big Companies Can't Innovate

... It's not surprising that younger entrepreneurial firms are considered more innovative. After all, they are born from a new idea, and survive by finding creative ways to make that idea commercially viable. Larger, well-rooted companies however have just as much motivation to be innovative — and, as Scott Anthony has argued, they have even more resources to invest in new ventures. So why doesn't innovation thrive in mature organizations? ...

... First, he says, the focus of an established firm is to execute an existing business model — to make sure it operates efficiently and satisfies customers. In contrast, the main job of a start-up is to search for a workable business model, to find the right match between customer needs and what the company can profitably offer. In other words in a start-up, innovation is not just about implementing a creative idea, but rather the search for a way to turn some aspect of that idea into something that customers are willing to pay for. ...

... discovering a new business model is inherently risky, and is far more likely to fail than to succeed ...

... Finally, Blank notes that the people who are best suited to search for new business models and conduct iterative experiments usually are not the same managers who succeed at running existing business units. ...

5. A fascinating, if sobering, look at the conflict over islands off the coast of East Asia. Trouble at sea

6. The rise of post-industrial China? (Economist)

7. New Geography thinks, U.S. LATE TO THE PARTY ON LATIN AMERICA, AFRICA.

"President Barack Obama's proposed tilt of U.S. priorities toward the Pacific – and away from the historical link to Europe – represents one of the most encouraging aspects of his foreign policy. Although welcome, we should recognize that this shift comes about three decades too late and that it may miss the rising geopolitical centrality of sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America. The emergence of these longtime historically impoverished backwaters has been largely missed as American policy-makers and businesses are now obsessed with the challenges and opportunities posed by the emergence of China and, to a lesser extent, India. Sub-Saharan Africa, for example, over the past decade has produced six of the world's 10 fastest-growing economies. Through 2011-15, according to the International Monetary Fund, seven of the fastest-growing countries will be African, and Africa as a whole will surpass the slowing growth rates in Asia, particularly China.

This growth has caused the region's poverty rates, still unacceptably high, to fall from 56.5 percent in 1990 to 47 percent today. Further growth will likely push poverty levels down further."

8. New Geography also asks, Is the Family Finished? Some interesting thoughts about the impact of declining birthrates in the U.S.

9. A Portrait of U.S. Immigrants

Pew Research Center has compiled key findings from a new analysis of the nation’s foreign-born population, based on U.S. Census Bureau’s 2011 American Community Survey.

10. Marketing Daily says More Latinos See Themselves As Bicultural

With more than half the population of many U.S. cities who are multicultural and Hispanics comprising more and more of the U.S. population, when does it become meaningless and redundant to execute marketing strategy that is directed to a general market and a Latino market perceived to be homogenous?

11. Committee on Economic Development has an interesting piece looking at both the ideological and economic aspects underlying the debate about the minimum wage. Raising the Minimum Wage: “Which Side Are You On?”

"It is an easy call if you are either (a) a strict libertarian or (b) an enthusiastic advocate of the less fortunate with limited concern about the scarcity of resources.  (If you belong to both of those groups, there is little advice that I can offer.)  However, in between those poles of opinion, things become rather murky, rather quickly."

12. Being a Republican or a Democrat may all be in your head: Republican Brains Differ From Democrats' In New FMRI Study

... Comparing the Democrat and Republican participants turned up differences in two brain regions: the right amygdala and the left posterior insula. Republicans showed more activity than Democrats in the right amygdala when making a risky decision. This brain region is important for processing fear, risk and reward.

Meanwhile, Democrats showed more activity in the left posterior insula, a portion of the brain responsible for processing emotions, particularly visceral emotional cues from the body. The particular region of the insula that showed the heightened activity has also been linked with "theory of mind," or the ability to understand what others might be thinking. ...

... The functional differences did mesh well with political beliefs, however. The researchers were able to predict a person's political party by looking at their brain function 82.9 percent of the time. In comparison, knowing the structure of these regions predicts party correctly 71 percent of the time, and knowing someone's parents' political affiliation can tell you theirs 69.5 percent of the time, the researchers wrote. ...

13. Health Care Without the Doctors Coming to a Walmart Near You

STERLING, Va. - Perched by a computer monitor wedged between shelves of cough drops and the pharmacy in a bustling Walmart, Mohamed Khader taps out answers to questions such as how often he eats vegetables, whether anyone in his family has diabetes and his age.

He tests his eyesight, weighs himself and checks his blood pressure as a middle-aged couple watches at the blue-and-white SoloHealth station advertising "free health screenings." ...

... As Americans gain coverage under the federal health law, putting increased demand on primary care doctors and spurring interest in cheaper, more convenient care, unmanned kiosks like these may be part of what their manufacturer bills as a "self-service healthcare revolution." ...

14. Is this a case of marketing going too far? Young Japanese Women Rent Out Their Bare Legs as Advertising Space

15. Nanotechnology Rebuilds the Periodic Table

Recent developments in the field of nanotechnology might give new meaning to the phrase “nothing gold can stay.” Atoms and bonds developed not by Mother Nature, but by scientists, are gaining momentum as the building blocks for cutting-edge materials.

Using nanoparticles as “atoms” and DNA as “bonds,” Chad Mirkin, the director of Northwestern University’s International Institute for Nanotechnology, is constructing his very own periodic table. So far Mirkin has built more than 200 distinct crystal structures with 17 different particle arrangements. ...

16. ExtremeTech says NASA’s cold fusion tech could put a nuclear reactor in every home, car, and plane.

17. Atlantic Cities has some great maps showing the impact of railroads on travel time in the early 19th Century, thus shrinking the nation. A Mapped History of Train Travel in the United States

18. A soccer goalie's worst nightmare.

19. You might want to think twice before a game of horse with this cheerleader.

Printing Human Organs

Huff Post has an interesting article about using 3-D printing to print a human ear made of live tissue. Included in this post is a TED video about printing any number of organs. Late in the presentation is a presentation of a 3-D printed kidney. This is all still experimental and have no trials have been run on the printed organs, but the progress in this form of bio-tech is truly remarkable.

Wal-Mart Thinks It Can Fix India's Insanely Bureaucratic Food Supply System

Business Insider: Wal-Mart Thinks It Can Fix India's Insanely Bureaucratic Food Supply System

Last week I linked an article reporting that rich countries are trashing up to half of all food. Our distribution channels are good but we tend to waste a lot of food through our consumption habits. Emerging nations are wasting food too, but for different reasons. Distribution channels are so bad that great quantities of food are wasted in transit. Furthermore, because the distribution channels are so bad, and food must pass through so many middle-men, it is often more expensive than it would otherwise need to be.

Business Insider now reports:

Last fall, following a relaxation in India’s foreign-investment rules, [Wal-Mart] said it was planning to open its first stores in the country in the next two years, tapping into a prized $490 billion retail sector. But to cash in, Wal-Mart and other foreign retailers will have to solve a fundamental problem: how to move goods into stores efficiently in a country that offers big retailers little in the way of modern logistics and is plagued by dilapidated infrastructure.

The hurdles are particularly daunting in the food sector, which makes up more than half of the revenues at the Bentonville, Ark.- based company.

Watch this video by the Wall Street Journal as the document the route of food from field to table. Here the age old cry of the various agents in present decrepit system opposing streamlined distribution for fear of losing their positions. The reality is that if distribution improves, then food will become cheaper, people will have more disposable income, people will eat better, people will become more productive, and all this will in turn lead to the formation of new businesses and jobs. I'm not saying the change will be painless and that some will not suffer in the process but I suspect the trade-off for the masses in terms of improved quality of life is huge.

Indian Road Trip: Produce's Long Haul to Market by WSJ_Live

Saturday Links

1. Too often Westerners perceive African economy as a monolithic basket case. There are actually many regions of that are very hopeful. Ozwald Boateng explains Why entrepreneurs are back in Africa

2. Want a higher paying occupation? Here Are The Jobs With The Biggest Wage Growth Right Now

3. Lots of recent talk about whether or not e-books will ever actually totally supplant hard copy books. This week Mashable explores Why Are People Still Buying CDs? (And people are still buying them.)

4. Speaking of transitions to digital media, Business Insider shows that Old Media Is Alive And Rocking

5. This fascinating chart shows Inflation Since 1775 And How It Took Off In 1933

6. Want to live to a ripe old age? US News reports on What People Who Live to 100 Have in Common.

7. I almost didn't link this article because I could swear I've linked it before. Why Does Deja Vu Happen?

8. Several months ago I saw a speech expert interviewed has offered voice training to a number of famous figures. One was Margaret Thatcher. They showed her speaking in the 1970s and then in the 1980s, after receiving voice training. A big piece of the change was lessening the modulation in tone and pitch, which tends to vary more widely with female voices. The changes were intended to make her sound more authoritative, which both men and women, unjustified as it may be, more often associate with male vocal traits. But apparently, the thing that really triggers gender detection in our language is the way we use S's. Change Your Perceived Gender by Pronouncing S's Differently

9. This has to be a new low technological achievement: a sensor-filled smartfork that tells you when you're eating to much. Medieval Tines: A Brief History of the Fork

10. And this has to be the Holy Grail of technology cool! Star Trek-Inspired 'CommBadge' Gives You Handsfree Access to iPhone, Android

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Rich Countries Trashing Up To Half Of All Food: Report

Huffington Post: Rich Countries Trashing Up To Half Of All Food: Report

... People in developed countries throw away 30 to 50 percent of the food they purchase, according to a new report by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. In total, the researchers estimated, 1.2 to 2 billion tons of food is thrown out every year without reaching a human stomach.

A major reason we're tossing our food is that stores push us to buy too much of it, the report found. Additionally, supermarkets often reject shipments of vegetables and fruits that don't meet their marketing standards. As a result, 30 to 50 percent of food produced on the planet is discarded as useless, even if some of it is perfectly edible.

Similar studies have reached the same conclusion. Americans throw away about 40 percent of all food they purchase, according to a report by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) released in August. ...

My understanding is that there is also food waste in developing nations, though for different reasons. Poor infrastructure and technology lead to spoilage and waste as the food moves from the field to the dinner plate. A combination of more productive agricultural methods and just modest reductions in waste would make food more plentiful without using one more acre of land.

About That Overpopulation Problem

Five years ago I wrote a piece called, Technophysio Evolution and Demographic Transition, explaining the dynamics and trends of global population growth and decline. Slate has and excellent article explaining the Demographic Transition Model.

Slate: About That Overpopulation Problem

Research suggests we may actually face a declining world population in the coming years.

The world’s seemingly relentless march toward overpopulation achieved a notable milestone in 2012: Somewhere on the planet, according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates, the 7 billionth living person came into existence.

Lucky No. 7,000,000,000 probably celebrated his or her birthday sometime in March and added to a population that’s already stressing the planet’s limited supplies of food, energy, and clean water. Should this trend continue, as the Los Angeles Times noted in a five-part series marking the occasion, by midcentury, “living conditions are likely to be bleak for much of humanity.”

A somewhat more arcane milestone, meanwhile, generated no media coverage at all: It took humankind 13 years to add its 7 billionth. That’s longer than the 12 years it took to add the 6 billionth—the first time in human history that interval had grown. (The 2 billionth, 3 billionth, 4 billionth, and 5 billionth took 123, 33, 14, and 13 years, respectively.) In other words, the rate of global population growth has slowed. And it’s expected to keep slowing. Indeed, according to experts’ best estimates, the total population of Earth will stop growing within the lifespan of people alive today.

And then it will fall. ...

... Why is this happening? Scientists who study population dynamics point to a phenomenon called “demographic transition.”

“For hundreds of thousands of years,” explains Warren Sanderson, a professor of economics at Stony Brook University, “in order for humanity to survive things like epidemics and wars and famine, birthrates had to be very high.” Eventually, thanks to technology, death rates started to fall in Europe and in North America, and the population size soared. In time, though, birthrates fell as well, and the population leveled out. The same pattern has repeated in countries around the world. Demographic transition, Sanderson says, “is a shift between two very different long-run states: from high death rates and high birthrates to low death rates and low birthrates.” Not only is the pattern well-documented, it’s well under way: Already, more than half the world’s population is reproducing at below the replacement rate. ...

... One of the most contentious issues is the question of whether birthrates in developed countries will remain low. The United Nation’s most recent forecast, released in 2010, assumes that low-fertility countries will eventually revert to a birthrate of around 2.0. In that scenario, the world population tops out at about 10 billion and stays there. But there’s no reason to believe that that birthrates will behave in that way—no one has every observed an inherent human tendency to have a nice, arithmetically stable 2.1 children per couple. On the contrary, people either tend to have an enormous number of kids (as they did throughout most of human history and still do in the most impoverished, war-torn parts of Africa) or far too few. We know how to dampen excessive population growth—just educate girls. The other problem has proved much more intractable: No one’s figured out how to boost fertility in countries where it has imploded. Singapore has been encouraging parenthood for nearly 30 years, with cash incentives of up to $18,000 per child. Its birthrate? A gasping-for-air 1.2. When Sweden started offering parents generous support, the birthrate soared but then fell back again, and after years of fluctuating, it now stands at 1.9—very high for Europe but still below replacement level.

The reason for the implacability of demographic transition can be expressed in one word: education. One of the first things that countries do when they start to develop is educate their young people, including girls. That dramatically improves the size and quality of the workforce. But it also introduces an opportunity cost for having babies. “Women with more schooling tend to have fewer children,” says William Butz, a senior research scholar at IIASA. ...

Growth of Health Spending Stays Low

New York Times: Growth of Health Spending Stays Low

WASHINGTON — National health spending climbed to $2.7 trillion in 2011, or an average of $8,700 for every person in the country, but as a share of the economy, it remained stable for the third consecutive year, the Obama administration said Monday.

The rate of increase in health spending, 3.9 percent in 2011, was the same as in 2009 and 2010 — the lowest annual rates recorded in the 52 years the government has been collecting such data.

Federal officials could not say for sure whether the low growth in health spending represented the start of a trend or reflected the continuing effects of the recession, which crimped the economy from December 2007 to June 2009. ...

From the Law of Unintended Consequences File: Grocery Bag Bans

Social Science Research Network: Grocery Bag Bans and Foodborne Illness

Jonathan Klick - University of Pennsylvania Law School; Erasmus School of Law; PERC - Property and Environment Research Center

Joshua D. Wright - George Mason University School of Law

November 2, 2012

Abstract:    
Recently, many jurisdictions have implemented bans or imposed taxes upon plastic grocery bags on environmental grounds. San Francisco County was the first major US jurisdiction to enact such a regulation, implementing a ban in 2007. There is evidence, however, that reusable grocery bags, a common substitute for plastic bags, contain potentially harmful bacteria. We examine emergency room admissions related to these bacteria in the wake of the San Francisco ban. We find that ER visits spiked when the ban went into effect. Relative to other counties, ER admissions increase by at least one fourth, and deaths exhibit a similar increase.

Saturday Links

1. Building Congregations Around Art Galleries and Cafes as Spirituality Wanes

"... Although the number of evangelical churches in the United States declined for many years, the trend reversed in 2006, with more new churches opening each year since, according to the Leadership Network’s most recent surveys. This wave of “church planting” has been highest among nondenominational pastors, free to experiment outside traditional hierarchies.

“I hear a lot of pastors say, ‘I’m not just trying to be creative and avant-garde, I think this is maybe the last chance for me,’ ” said Doug Pagitt, the founder of Solomon’s Porch in Minneapolis.

Mr. Pagitt has written several books on church innovations, many of which were first developed in the “emergent” church movement of the last decade or among “missional” churches whose practices focus on life outside the church.

Many of their innovations are being adopted by an increasing number of pastors in the mainstream.

..."

2. Signs of Changes Taking Hold in Electronics Factories in China

... But in March, unbeknown to Ms. Pu, a critical meeting had occurred between Foxconn’s top executives and a high-ranking Apple official. The companies had committed themselves to a series of wide-ranging reforms. Foxconn, China’s largest private employer, pledged to sharply curtail workers’ hours and significantly increase wages — reforms that, if fully carried out next year as planned, could create a ripple effect that benefits tens of millions of workers across the electronics industry, employment experts say.

Other reforms were more personal. Protective foam sprouted on low stairwell ceilings inside factories. Automatic shut-off devices appeared on whirring machines. Ms. Pu got her chair. This autumn, she even heard that some workers had received cushioned seats.

The changes also extend to California, where Apple is based. Apple, the electronics industry’s behemoth, in the last year has tripled its corporate social responsibility staff, has re-evaluated how it works with manufacturers, has asked competitors to help curb excessive overtime in China and has reached out to advocacy groups it once rebuffed.

Executives at companies like Hewlett-Packard and Intel say those shifts have convinced many electronics companies that they must also overhaul how they interact with foreign plants and workers — often at a cost to their bottom lines, though, analysts say, probably not so much as to affect consumer prices. As Apple and Foxconn became fodder for “Saturday Night Live” and questions during presidential debates, device designers and manufacturers concluded the industry’s reputation was at risk. ...

3. Yet another reflection on the impact of 3-D printing in Spiegel: Technology May Bring New Industrial Revolution

4. Some states are no longer requiring that cursive writing be taught. The Wall Street Journal laments The Lost Art of the Handwritten Note

5. Speaking writing, an e-company has come up with a new spin on celebrity autographs: Is This Really the Future of the Autograph?

"...Launched in July, the Seattle-based Egraphs' business model is simple, but pretty clever. Fans can peruse the company website to see if their favorite athlete has partnered up with Egraphs. Each player's section has a number of professionally shot action photographs included, typically priced between $25 and $50. The fan pays and sends the athlete a message through the website, including some personal details or memories.

The athlete then receives that message on his custom iPad app, using the the information provided to write a personalized note and electronic autograph on the selected photo. The photo is then sent electronically to the fan, who can save it digitally, share it on social media or order a physical print. Revenue is split between company and athlete. ..."

6. Hispanic Pregnancies Fall in U.S. as Women Choose Smaller Families

7. Huffington Post ponders whether or not Biblical Baby Names Falling In Popularity

8. This month is the 40th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade ruling, legalizing abortion across the country. Time magazine has a feature article about the Pro-Choice movement this week that suggests 1973 may have been the high-water mark for the movement. Unfortunately, the article is behind a pay wall. Here is a short clip summarizing their take.

9. Why Are College Textbooks So Absurdly Expensive?

"...Academic Publishers will tell you that creating modern textbooks is an expensive, labor-intensive process that demands charging high prices. But as Kevin Carey noted in a recent Slate piece, the industry also shares some of the dysfunctions that help drive up the cost of healthcare spending. Just as doctors prescribe prescription drugs they'll never have to pay for, college professors often assign titles with little consideration of cost. Students, like patients worried about their health, don't have much choice to pay up, lest they risk their grades. Meanwhile, Carey illustrates how publishers have done just about everything within their power to prop up their profits, from bundling textbooks with software that forces students to buy new editions instead of cheaper used copies, to suing a low-cost textbook start-ups over flimsy copyright claims. ..."

10. Feeling thirsty? Consider that Bottled Water Is More Dangerous Than Tap Water.

11. Good news for history mystery buffs. Amelia Earhart Plane And Flight 19 Wreckage Could Be Found By New NOAA Technology

12. Baseball Pitchers like Phil Niekro, Tim Wakefield, and now, R. A. Dickey did their magic throwing a knuckleball. Pitchers who master usually do very well and it puts less stress on the arm. So why don't more pitchers throw it? Why the Knuckleball Isn’t Thrown by More Pitchers in Major League Baseball

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Saturday Links

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I hope you had a great Christmas and are enjoying the holidays.

1. The Huffington Post offers their top religion stories of 2012: 2012 Religion Stories: The Top 10

2. David Gushee reflects on Glen Stassen's A Thicker Jesus: Incarnational Discipleship in a Secular Age: The illnesses of American Christianity

"... The first kind of Christianity avoids reactionary authoritarianism but is often a therapeutic or vanilla mush that fails to ask anything of anybody out of fear of giving offense. The second kind of Christianity offers stern, clear moral directives that attract people seeking the “specific instruction, even confrontation that calls us to grow in discipleship” (p. 6), but disastrously embraces right-wing ideology and baptizes that as the content of Christianity.

Both of these versions of Christianity are so deeply flawed, says Stassen, that both are contributing to the alarming spread of secularism in the U.S. The first version of Christianity is so thin as to lack any particular reason why one would want to get out of bed on Sunday and go to church; the second is so reactionary as to drive thoughtful people into an anti-religious posture if they conclude that religion equals right-wing authoritarianism.

I believe this is a stark but actually quite accurate depiction of the primary problems afflicting the Protestantisms of the left and of the right in the current U.S. setting. ..."

3. When New England Progressives Won't Tolerate Evangelicals. "Once a center of 19th-century evangelism, Northfield, Mass., is unsettled by the prospect of a school with religious aims."

4. Peter Enns with yet another provocative post: What do Turkey, Bethlehem, and Tennessee Have in Common? They Don’t Bode Well for the Conservative Christian Subculture

5. Peter Liethart offers a book review of Peter Brown's new book, Through the Eye of a Needle: Wealth, the Fall of Rome, and the Making of Christianity in the West, 350-550 Ad, at Christianity Today: How the Early Church Made Peace with Prosperity. (And, no, I don't know why everyone seems to be Peter this week ... Enns, Liethart, and Brown.)

6. Why Latin Americans top the happiness rankings

"While not exclusive to Latin America, the culture of family, support, and living a life to spend time with your family, I think, is an important part of Latin American culture that keeps people positive. Being with those close to you and finding other friends and partners that value that way of life is a key part of Latin American culture. That might be the main reason why people remain positive: they are never truly alone. Interestingly, many discussions and documentaries about immigrant groups in the United States show an internal conflict among many who move to the US and who do not wish to lose their support systems in a new culture rooted in individualism. While being motivated and entrepreneurial is valued, a life being with your family, where you are never truly alone, is the basis for many cultures in many parts of the world. Many new Americans frown on the thought that children can detach themselves from their family at 18 years of age. They believe people can only truly thrive as a family."

7. In contrast to Latin American happiness based in family connection is this survey of British children that revealed that A 'dad' is tenth most popular Christmas list request for children.

8. Christian Science Monitor reports on Parental leave global comparison: US still among least generous

9. And in yet another story on familial collections China orders children to visit their elderly parents.

10. Scientific American reports some positive news: Early Childhood Obesity Rates Might Be Slowing Nation-Wide

11. Men may want to think twice before taking up yoga. It seems men are more prone to serious injury from yoga. Wounded Warrior Pose

12. What are the ten most popular books of all time? The 10 Most Read Books In The World

13. Traditional Books On Decline, Survey Says

"A Pew Internet Research Center survey released Thursday found that the percentage of Americans aged 16 and older who read an e-book grew from 16 percent in 2011 to 23 percent this year. Readers of traditional books dropped from 72 percent to 67 percent. Overall, those reading books of any kind dropped from 78 percent to 75 percent, a shift Pew called statistically insignificant."

14. Here are nine interesting findings about state by state data from the Census Bureau: Here Are The States Where People Are Leaving, Moving To, And Having Lots Of Babies

• Puerto Rico, Vermont, and Rhode Island are the only states (and territory) that saw a net decrease in population over the year.
• The fastest growing region was the South (1.06% population growth) followed by the West (1.03% population growth).
• North Dakota and the District of Columbia had the highest population growth, with 2.5% and 2.3% population growth, respectively. Texas, Wyoming, and Utah also saw major growth.
• West Virginia and Maine are the only two states where people are dying faster than they are being born, with 0.93 and 0.99 births for each death.
• Utah (3.44) and Alaska (3.33) had the highest birth to death ratio in 2012. That means 3.44 babies were born for each death in Utah.
• Domestic migration determines the rate that people leave and enter states to and from other states. Per capita, more natives left New York, Illinois, New Jersey, Connecticut and Rhode Island to move somewhere else than any other states.
• On the other hand, people flocked to North Dakota, D.C., Wyoming and South Carolina.
• The states that had the highest rates of international migration — that is, the rate of immigrants coming in — were Hawaii, New Jersey, Florida, New York and D.C.
• Puerto Rico is seeing a massive exodus — 1% of their population left last year.

15. When we think of transportation in the United States, few of us think about river and costal water transportation. Yet a great many goods and commodities are shipped on our rivers. The Midwest drought is having an impact on a major artery of that transportation network. The Mississippi River's Water Levels Are Dropping, And Could Shut Down Trade Next Week

16. Facebook?! Twitter?! Instagram?! We Did That 40 Years Ago. "Three decades before Yelp and Craigslist, there was the Community Memory Terminal. ..."

 

 17. America's Stuff Is Getting Really Old, And That's Bullish

"In other words, Americans are increasingly likely to have to purchase and replace these goods some time soon as they get more and more worn out.  That's bullish for spending, jobs, and the economy as a whole."

18.From right here in my hometown, just a mile or two from where I live: In a Kansas City Neighborhood, Deep Investments and an Uncertain Future. The Atlantic Cities reports on Kansas City's experiments with Green Impact Zones.

19. Why are men, in aggregate, better navigators than women? National Geographic: Of Men, Navigation, and Zits

"... Yet a few differences between the sexes do seem to hold up to scrutiny. One is spatial abilities. If men look at an object, for example, they are slightly faster at guessing what it would look like if it were rotated 180 degrees. There are plenty of women who do better than individual men. But overall there’s a stasticially significant difference in their average performance. This kind of difference carries over from one culture to another. It’s even detectable in babies. ...

... Whenever we reflect on human evolution, it pays to compare our species to other animals. And in the case of spatial abilities, the comparison is fascinating. Almost a century ago, the psychologist Helen Hubbet found that male rats could get through a maze faster than females. The difference can also be found in a number of other species. ...

... Clint and his colleagues propose a different explanation: male spatial ability is not an adaptation so much as a side effect. Males produce testosterone as they develop, and the hormone has a clear benefit in terms of reproduction, increasing male fertility. But testosterone also happens to produce a lot of side effects, including male pattern baldness and an increased chance of developing acne. It would be absurd to say acne was an adaptation favored by natural selection. The same goes for the male edge in spatial ability, Clint and his colleagues argue. They note that when male rats are castrated, they do worse at navigating a maze; when they are given shots of testosterone, they regain their skill. ..."

Saturday Links

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1. Several articles I saw this week are reflecting on data presented in The Pew Forum's The Global Religious Landscape: A Report on the Size and Distribution of the World’s Major Religious Groups as of 2010. Here is one interesting chart from the survey, showing what percentage of each religions's adherents live in minority religious status in their own country.

2. This is really fascinating. Smithsonian: Why Japan is Obsessed with Kentucky Fried Chicken on Christmas. “Kurisumasu ni wa kentakkii!” (Kentucky for Christmas!)

3. Four Harvard and MIT grads are experimenting with direct aid to the poor. "GiveDirectly, the brainchild of four Harvard and MIT graduate students, is so simple, it's genius. Give poor Kenyan families $1,000 -- and let them do whatever they want with it." Can 4 Economists Build the Most Economically Efficient Charity Ever?

4.From the Guardian, Private healthcare: the lessons from Sweden

"... Despite its reputation as a leftwing utopia, Sweden is now a laboratory for rightwing radicalism. Over the past 15 years a coalition of liberals and conservatives has brought in for-profit free schools in education, has sliced welfare to pay off the deficit and has privatised large parts of the health service.

Their success is envied by the centre right in Britain. Despite predictions of doom, Sweden's economy continues to grow and its pro-business coalition has remained in power since 2006. The last election was the first time since the war that a centre-right government had been re-elected after serving a full term.

As the state has been shrunk, the private sector has moved in. Göran Dahlgren, a former head civil servant at the Swedish department of health and a visiting professor at the University of Liverpool, says that "almost all welfare services are now owned by private equity firms". ..."

5. Scott Annan writes in The Future Of Business Is Morality, And The Future Is Now

"... We have reached a point in our economy where it is becoming increasingly clear that businesses are being measured not just for their profit, but also for their impact. And I’m not just talking about writing a check or funding a charity; I’m referring to business models for which community involvement and inspirational brand building are the profit centers. (Think Warby Parker, TOMS, and startups such as SOMA.) I recently went to a conference where the founders of a startup posited a powerful idea: the future of marketing is philanthropy. But I think the even bigger idea is the future of business is morality. My grandfather saw this early on.

At a time when the moral framework of America appears to be fractured – or at the very least confused – businesses are in the propitious position to espouse cultural standards that can help restore values that our youth can use to build the next generation of positive enterprise. In fact, whether businesses succeed in creating and promoting positive cultures might determine whether they stay in business at all. The future of business is morality, and the future is now.

Whether it’s the job of the corporation or not to set the moral tone for society, the expectation is trending towards companies setting the right example for others to follow. With the sharp rise in entrepreneurship, young companies have the opportunity to establish strong cultures early on and share them with their communities. Money must have a moral center, and from greater consciousness in business, greater profit will follow. ..."

6. Scientific American asks, After 40 Years, Has Recycling Lived Up to Its Billing?

7. AOL has a short piece about the rise of small nuclear reactors. The Next Big Thing in Nuclear Power: Going Small

8. Scientific American has a list of The Top 10 Science Stories of 2012.

9. Depression Surpasses Asthma as Top Disability Problem among U.S. and Canadian Teens

"New data show an increasing contribution of mental and behavioral disorders to deterioration in the health-related quality of life among teens in the U.S. and Canada over the past two decades, and increases elsewhere around the globe."

10. Robotic arm controlled by the mind allows paraplegic woman to feed herself

11. Interesting piece on Why We Prefer Masculine Voices (Even in Women).

12. Atlantic Cities looks into The Mystery of Our Declining Mobility.

13. People Are Leaving California In Record Numbers

More people moved out of California in 2011 than moved in, according to the latest report from the U.S. Census Bureau, signaling that the Democrat-run state’s economic woes continue to drive residents away.

Most statisticians attribute California’s net loss of 100,000 people last year to its high cost of living, increased population density and troubling unemployment rate.

The widening middle class in Mexico is also encouraging some immigrants to remain in that country instead of moving to California.

Texas — home to lower taxes, less regulation and what the Manhattan Institute calls a “labor pool with the right skills at the right price” — is one of the most attractive destinations for companies departing from California, according to the Census Bureau. ...

14. The United States Has Seen A Huge Drop In Executions Since 2000.

"The country reported 85 executions in 2000 but only 43 in 2012, according to a new report released by the Death Penalty Information Center. Plus, far fewer people are being sentenced to death row in the first place. The year 2000 saw 224 new inmates sentenced to death, while 2012 saw only 78, according to the report."

15. Conor Friedersdorf at the Atlantic had a great piece Why 'If We Can Just Save One Child ...' Is a Bad Argument, referring to a statement President Obama made at Newtown, CT. When we deal with complex topics like gun control, we are always talking about tradeoffs. For instance, I know how we can save more than 30,000 lives. The were 32,367 traffic fatalities last year. Let's set the speed limit to 5 miles per hour. Nearly all those lives would be saved. Should we do this "if we can save just one more life"? I, like Friedersforf, am not advocating any particular policy. I'm just pointing out the absurdity of making statements like this, as politicians often do.

16. The New York Times has an opinion piece  by John Dickerson, The Decline of Evangelical America

"I found that the structural supports of evangelicalism are quivering as a result of ground-shaking changes in American culture. Strategies that served evangelicals well just 15 years ago are now self- destructive. The more that evangelicals attempt to correct course, the more they splinter their movement. In coming years we will see the old evangelicalism whimper and wane."

He speaks of an Evangelical "collapse" having happened. That may be a bit premature but I think his articulation of trends is right.

17. I saw two interesting posts on the sociology Facebook this week. The New York Times had a piece about announcing bad news on Facebook: On Facebook, Bad With the Good. Mashable reports that Socioeconomic Status Predicts Number of Facebook Friends.

18. Gangnam Style hits one billion views on YouTube. K pop rules!

A Historical Perspective on Violence and Murder in the United States

The horrific massacre in Newton, Connecticut, is to sparking debate about guns and violence, as well it should. As the discussion gets underway, I think it is helpful to get a sense of where we stand in the flow of history as it relates to violence in the United States. Here are a few things to consider.

Below is data from the most recent FBI Uniform Crime Report (UCR). The annual report compiles reported crimes. It strength is the use of hard data. Its biggest weakness is the absence of unreported crime. The willingness of people to report crime varies by type of crime and their willingness to report may change over time. Also, law enforcement’s diligence with different types of crime may change over time. Tougher enforcement can lead to fewer incidents of actual crime, even as incidents of reported crime rise. Nevertheless, the UCR is an important measure.

Crimes are grouped in two categories:

• Violent - murder and non-negligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault.
• Property - burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, and arson.

Violent crime is at a forty year low.

A second measure is the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS). Twice a year, surveys ask members of households if they have been victims of particular crimes, reported or not. The strength of the survey is that it captures unreported crime. A weakness may be that some crimes, like domestic violence, are underreported.

The NCVS is also broken into two categories:  

• Violent - rape, robbery, and assault.
• Property - burglary, larceny, and motor vehicle theft.

(A different methodology was used in 2006 that makes it incomparable with other years. Also, 2011 data has been published and shows an uptick in crime. However, the 2002 and 2010 data in the recent report, used as comparison points, do not match earlier publications and I have yet to determine why. I chose not to include it here until I have a better understanding.)

An interesting question: Was there truly less crime fifty years ago or were people simply less likely to report crimes? I doubt there is a definitive answer. Murder is sometimes used as a proxy for overall violence in society. Here is the United States murder rate per 100,000 population:

 

Additionally, there is this estimation of the murder rate over the last 300 years. (Source: The Public Intellectual)

The lowest murder rate ever was 4.6 in 1963. It was 4.7 in 2011.

It can conclusively be said that that violence in American society is not spiraling out of control. We are living in one of the least violent eras in American history.  But this is not the whole story.

Duke sociologist Kiern Healy published this graph a few months ago. (Source: America Is a Violent Country)

(Go to the source linked above for info about individual countries.)

The 4.7 homicide rate for the United States is a near record low but it is still two or three times the rate of other Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development nations. Guns are a big part of this difference. The good news is the precipitous decline in aggravated deaths. The bad news is how much more violence there is in the United States compared to other nations, even at all-time lows.

The final issue is the number of mass shootings. The Associated Press had this article No rise in mass killings, but their impact is huge. The article notes:

… And yet those who study mass shootings say they are not becoming more common.

"There is no pattern, there is no increase," says criminologist James Allen Fox of Boston's Northeastern University, who has been studying the subject since the 1980s, spurred by a rash of mass shootings in post offices.

The random mass shootings that get the most media attention are the rarest, Fox says. Most people who die of bullet wounds knew the identity of their killer. …

… Grant Duwe, a criminologist with the Minnesota Department of Corrections who has written a history of mass murders in America, said that while mass shootings rose between the 1960s and the 1990s, they actually dropped in the 2000s. And mass killings actually reached their peak in 1929, according to his data. He estimates that there were 32 in the 1980s, 42 in the 1990s and 26 in the first decade of the century.

Chances of being killed in a mass shooting, he says, are probably no greater than being struck by lightning.

Still, he understands the public perception - and extensive media coverage - when mass shootings occur in places like malls and schools. "There is this feeling that could have been me. It makes it so much more frightening." …

Here is a graph showing mass public murders (defined as four or more murders in a 24 hour period) by decade over the past 100 years.  (Source: Opinion: The Rise and Decline of Mass Shootings – Grant Duwe)

 
(I realize that does not seem to square with the statement about mass shootings peaking in 1929. I suspect a typo and "1999" was what was intended.)

This data was reported in March of 2010. According to a recent Los Angeles Times article, Deadliest U.S. mass shootings, there have been nine mass shootings in the United States in the first three years of this decade. That projects out to thirty for this decade. But there have been five mass shootings in the last five months. There clearly has been an uptick in mass shootings over the past year.

On a final note, the Sandy Hook massacre involved young children at school. Over the past twenty years, the number of children 5-18 years old murdered at school has ranged from a low of 14 (school years ending in 2000 and in 2001) and a high of 34 (schools years ending 1993 and in 1998.) (Source: Indicators of School Safety: 2011) According to an article in the Guardian, Mass shootings at schools and universities in the US – timeline, over the last fifty years there have been six school mass shootings (including Sandy Hook) that have taken the lives of children 5-18. Three of the mass shootings were at primary schools (Stockton, CA, in 1989; Nickel Mines, PA, 2006; and now Sandy Hook.)

So here are a few observations and comments:

1. The United States has an excessively violent culture.
2. Violence has lessened significantly in recent years. We are not spiraling into chaos.
3. Guns are an important factor in the excessive homicide rates. I don't know why citizens need to own semi-automatic weapons. But there is more than access to these guns that needs to be addressed here.
4. While a case can be made that mass murders have been declining in the long run, the sudden frequency of them in recent months is alarming (five in five months).
5. Nothing that is said above should take away from our outrage at the senseless death of innocent children and their teachers. But Friday’s shooting should not send us into despair that things are spiraling out of control. Friday’s shooting should motivate us to ask anew how we can accelerate our march toward becoming a less violent society.

Update: You may also want to see 6 Timelines That Explain America's Persistent Gun Culture

Saturday Links

(Like the Kruse Kronicle at Facebook if you want links to daily posts to appear in your Facebook feed.)

1. Pray for Egypt Today!

More than 50 million Egyptians are voting today on a constitution that would be a giant step backward for Egypt and much of the Middle East, marginalizing women and religious minorities. A nation that has historically been a voice of moderation, the largest Muslim nation in the region, will likely move toward becoming an Islamist state. Remember to pray for Egypt. (See the Economist's The Founding Brothers)

2. Our prayers are with families of the victims at the Sandy Hook elementary school. Grace and peace to the entire community.

In the wake of the horrific shooting, more debate about gun control is certain to surface. The Atlantic has some useful charts showing the nuanced take Americans have on gun rights and gun control. Do Americans Want More or Less Gun Control? Both, Actually The Christian Science Monitor also has this piece: What gun control laws might US voters support?

3. Traffic deaths in 2011 fewest in six decades

Traffic deaths in the USA continued their historic decline last year, falling to the lowest level since 1949, the government announced Monday.

A total of 32,367 motorists, bicyclists and pedestrians died in 2011, a 1.9% decrease from 2010. Last year’s toll represents a 26% decline from 2005, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said. ...

4. Obesity in Young Is Seen as Falling in Several Cities

... The trend has emerged in big cities like New York and Los Angeles, as well as smaller places like Anchorage, Alaska, and Kearney, Neb. The state of Mississippi has also registered a drop, but only among white students.

“It’s been nothing but bad news for 30 years, so the fact that we have any good news is a big story,” said Dr. Thomas Farley, the health commissioner in New York City, which reported a 5.5 percent decline in the number of obese schoolchildren from 2007 to 2011....

5. In Girl’s Last Hope, Altered Immune Cells Beat Leukemia

....The experiment, in April, used a disabled form of the virus that causes AIDS to reprogram Emma’s immune system genetically to kill cancer cells. ...

... The research is still in its early stages, and many questions remain. The researchers are not entirely sure why the treatment works, or why it sometimes fails. One patient had a remission after being treated only twice, and even then the reaction was so delayed that it took the researchers by surprise. For the patients who had no response whatsoever, the team suspects a flawed batch of T-cells. The child who had a temporary remission apparently relapsed because not all of her leukemic cells had the marker that was targeted by the altered T-cells. ...

6. The CDC says Chlamydia, gonorrhea cases increasing

....In 2011, 1.4 million chlamydia infections were reported to the CDC. The rate of cases per 100,000 people increased 8%, to 457.6 in 2011 from 423.6 in 2010.

The CDC reported 321,849 gonorrhea infections. The rate increased 4% to 104.2 cases per 100,000 in 2011 from 100.2 in 2010. Like chlamydia, gonorrhea can lead to pelvic inflammatory disease, a major cause of infertility in women.

Last year, 13,970 primary and secondary syphilis cases were reported. The rate of 4.5 cases per 100,000 was unchanged from 2010. ...

7. You may be bilingual but can you write in two languages, one with each hand, at the same time?!

8. Washington State Senate: Republicans Claim Majority After Democrats Defect. That makes two states were Democrats have won majorities in the state Senate and then a small number of Democrats decide to caucus with Republicans, giving Republicans the majority. The same thing happened in the New York Senate last week.

9. One-party dominance grows in states

10. Kevin Drum of Mother Jones speculates on why liberals have more exaggerated perceptions of political differences. We Are More Alike Than We Think

11. A surprising "right to work" bill was signed into law in Michigan, of all places. That has spurred a lot of debate about unions and the right to work. Michael Kinsley wrote a thoughtful piece opposing RTW, The Liberal Case Against Right-to-Work Laws. David Henderson has piece in support of RTW, The Economics of "Right to Work".

12. Slate has a piece about The Great Schism in the Environmental Movement. Keith Kloor opines on the division between mondernist environmentalists (or eco-pragmatists) and conservation traditionalists.

... Modernist greens don't dispute the ecological tumult associated with the Anthropocene. But this is the world as it is, they say, so we might as well reconcile the needs of people with the needs of nature. To this end, Kareiva advises conservationists to craft "a new vision of a planet in which nature—forests, wetlands, diverse species, and other ancient ecosystems—exists amid a wide variety of modern, human landscapes."

This shift in thinking is already under way. For example, ecologists increasingly appreciate (and study) the diversity of species and importance of ecosystem services in cities, giving rise to the discipline of urban ecology. That was unthinkable at the dawn of the modern environmental movement 50 years ago, when greens loathed cities as the antithesis of wilderness. ...

13. One of the creepiest Twilight Zone episodes I remember from my childhood was when this woman ends up trapped in a department store at night. The mannequins begin calling to her. She discovers she is actually a mannequin who has over stayed her time out in the world and it is time for the next mannequin to spend some time outside the store. This story confirms my worst nightmares: In Some Stores, the Mannequins Are Watching You

14. Carpe Diem: World manufacturing output, 2011

15. One of the biggest concerns about fracking technology is the enormous amount of water it uses. A company has figured out how to recycle water so that far less water is used in the fracking process. Solving fracking's biggest problem

16. Scientific American has a interesting article on the potential impact of 3-D Priting: Why 3-D Printing Matters for "Made in U.S.A."

... 3D printing represents the latest version of what industry experts call "additive manufacturing" — a way to turn practically any computer designs into real objects by building them up layer-by-layer using plastics, metals or other materials. The technology could end up affecting every major industry — aerospace, defense, medicine, transportation, food, fashion — and have an even bigger impact on U.S. manufacturing than the robot revolution. ...

17. Popular Mechanics is celebrating its 110th anniversary. In celebration, they are publishing 110 Predictions For the Next 110 Years.

18. Scot McKnight has a great post reflecting on the (false, IMO) equation of progressive with prophetic: The Prophetic is the Progressive

19. Dirk Kurbjuweit offers some interesting insights into Why Germany Can't Shed Its Troubling Past.

20. Michael Cheshire has a great piece in Leadership Journal on "What I learned about grace and redemption through my friendship with a Christian pariah." Going To Hell with Ted Haggard

".... A while back I was having a business lunch at a sports bar in the Denver area with a close atheist friend. He's a great guy and a very deep thinker. During lunch, he pointed at the large TV screen on the wall. It was set to a channel recapping Ted's fall. He pointed his finger at the HD and said, "That is the reason I will not become a Christian. Many of the things you say make sense, Mike, but that's what keeps me away."

It was well after the story had died down, so I had to study the screen to see what my friend was talking about. I assumed he was referring to Ted's hypocrisy. "Hey man, not all of us do things like that," I responded. He laughed and said, "Michael, you just proved my point. See, that guy said sorry a long time ago. Even his wife and kids stayed and forgave him, but all you Christians still seem to hate him. You guys can't forgive him and let him back into your good graces. Every time you talk to me about God, you explain that he will take me as I am. You say he forgives all my failures and will restore my hope, and as long as I stay outside the church, you say God wants to forgive me. But that guy failed while he was one of you, and most of you are still vicious to him." Then he uttered words that left me reeling: "You Christians eat your own. Always have. Always will."

He was running late for a meeting and had to take off. I, however, could barely move. I studied the TV and read the caption as a well-known religious leader kept shoveling dirt on a man who had admitted he was unclean. And at that moment, my heart started to change. I began to distance myself from my previously harsh statements and tried to understand what Ted and his family must have been through. When I brought up the topic to other men and women I love and respect, the very mention of Haggard's name made our conversations toxic. Their reactions were visceral."

21. Leonardo Bonucci got a yellow card for faking collision during a soccer game. It should have been a red card. No one deserves to be a professional soccer player with acting skills this bad!

 

Life Expectancy Rises Around the World, Study Finds

New York Times: Life Expectancy Rises Around the World, Study Finds

A sharp decline in deaths from malnutrition and diseases like measles and tuberculosis has caused a shift in global mortality patterns over the past 20 years, according to a new report, with far more of the world’s population now living into old age and dying from diseases more associated with rich countries, like cancer and heart disease.

 The shift reflects improvements in sanitation, medical services and access to food throughout the developing world, as well as the success of broad public health efforts like vaccine programs. The results are dramatic: infant mortality has declined by more than half between 1990 and 2010, and malnutrition, the No. 1 risk factor for death and years of life lost in 1990, has fallen to No. 8.

At the same time, chronic diseases like cancer now account for about two out of every three deaths worldwide, up from just over half in 1990. Eight million people died of cancer in 2010, 38 percent more than in 1990. Diabetes claimed 1.3 million lives in 2010, double the number in 1990.

But while developing countries made big strides – the average age of death in Brazil and Paraguay, for example, jumped to 63 in 2010, up from 28 in 1970 – the United States stagnated. American women registered the smallest gains in life expectancy of all high-income countries between 1990 and 2010. The two years of life they gained was less than in Cyprus, where women gained 2.3 years of life, and Canada, where women gained 2.4 years. The slow increase caused American women to fall to 36th place in the report’s global ranking of life expectancy, down from 22nd in 1990. ...

... The World Health Organization issued a statement Thursday saying that some of the estimates in the report differ substantially from those done by United Nations agencies, though others are similar. All comprehensive estimates of global mortality rely heavily on statistical modeling because only 34 countries – representing about 15 percent of the world’s population – produce quality cause-of-death data. ...

Infant mortality and life expectancy at birth are probably the two best indicators of human well-being. So many interconnected factors must be present for improvement in these numbers to be realized. The reality is that human flourishing is getting better. Better does not mean utopia or the consummated Kingdom of God. Better means better. The challenge is to learn from what is going right and strengthen it.

Saturday Links

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Here are this week's Saturday links.

1. To celebrate the Christmas season, Deck the Halls with Macro Follies

2. The Explosion of 15th Century Printing: A Data Visualization

"... Drawing on data from the [Harvard] university's library collections, the animation below maps the number and location of printed works by year. Watch it full screen in HD to see cities light up as the years scroll by in the lower left corner. ..."

3. Drive-through fast-food not convenient enough for you? Burger King delivery: A new front in the fast-food wars?

4. There is a U-shaped happiness curve, consistent across cultures, that shows happiness declines from childhood until about our mid-forties and then begins to improve as me grow old. It appears it may hold true in primates as well. Our ability to discount bad news, even when we shouldn't, follows the same U-shaped curve. Our brains and experience are optimal for discerning bad news in middle-age. Turns out that ignorance (or maybe denial) truly is bliss. Viewpoint: How happiness changes with age. On a related note, it appears that Elderly Brains Have Trouble Recognizing Untrustworthy Faces.

5. The holiday season is in full swing and many people falsely believe this a time of elevated suicide rates. Actually, spring and summer have the highest rates and Nov - Jan have the lowest. In 2010, July was highest and December was lowest. Holiday suicide myth persists, research says

6. French sperm count 'falls by a third' but still within normal range. Researchers don't seem to know why.

7. The Atlantic has interesting article on Why Don't Parents Name Their Daughters Mary Anymore? It includes this graph.

"Michael" was in the top 3 names for boys from 1953-2010. It dropped to sixth last year. Want to know how your name ranks for each year since 1880? Go to the Social Security Online's Popular Baby Names. The Baby Name Wizard is also pretty cool.

8. More Dads Buy the Toys, So Barbie, and Stores, Get Makeovers.

"For the first time in Barbie’s more than 50-year history, Mattel is introducing a Barbie construction set that underscores a huge shift in the marketplace. Fathers are doing more of the family shopping just as girls are being encouraged more than ever by hypervigilant parents to play with toys (as boys already do) that develop math and science skills early on.

It’s a combination that not only has Barbie building luxury mansions — they are pink, of course — but Lego promoting a line of pastel construction toys called Friends that is an early Christmas season hit. The Mega Bloks Barbie Build ’n Style line, available next week, has both girls — and their fathers — in mind.

“Once it’s in the home, dads would very much be able to join in this play that otherwise they might feel is not their territory,” said Dr. Maureen O’Brien, a psychologist who consulted on the new Barbie set...."

And this reminds me of last year, or the year before, when cooking sets were becoming big with boys. They've been watching Emeril Lagasse on the Food Network. "Bam!" New merchandising angle.

9. Instead of indiscriminately sending kids off to college and saddling them with huge debt, maybe a New push for two-year degrees could be smart move for US, report says.

10. Business Insider lists The 12 Most Corrupt Countries In The World.

11. Love them or hate them, the Koch brothers are intriguing. Many political junkies know of them but few others seem to know about them. Forbes has an interesting feature article in the most recent issue on the Koch empire and its influence: Inside The Koch Empire: How The Brothers Plan To Reshape America

12. Is the two party system fracturing? Coalition Is to Control State Senate as Dissident Democrats Join With Republicans

13. How is this economic recovery different from others? The Scariest Jobs Chart Ever

14. "Data-driven healthcare won't replace physicians entirely, but it will help those receptive to technology perform their jobs better." Technology will replace 80% of what doctors do

15. Another bright idea. New plastic lighting saves energy. Goodbye, fluorescent lights?

"Scientists have designed an energy-efficient light of plastic packed with nanomaterials that glow. The shatterproof FIPEL technology can be molded into almost any shape, but still needs to prove it's commercially viable."

16. Yet another good story about the rise of vertical farming. Salad in the sky: The rise of the vertical farm?

17. The Conservation Law Center has an interesting piece about the potential changes nanotechnology will bring to use of resources and the economy. Nanotechnology: The Potential to Make Every Industry Sustainable

"... Last month, at the first ever conference of the Sustainable Nanotechnology Organization in Washington DC, Michail Roco of the National Science Foundation, and architect of the U.S. National Nanotechnology Initiative provided a response. He said, “every industrial sector is unsustainable…and nanotechnology holds the promise of making every one of them sustainable.”

It’s my belief that that is true: nanotechnology, or the ability to manipulate matter at a scale of one billionth of a meter, has far-reaching implications for the improvement of sustainable technology, industry and society.

Already, it is being used widely to enable more sustainable practices. Safer manufacturing, less waste generation, reusable materials, more efficient energy technologies, better water purification, lower toxicity and environmental impacts from chemotherapy agents to marine paints are all current applications of nanotechnology. There is no reason for this technology to develop in an unsustainable manner.

In the past, a lack of foresight has resulted in costs to society – people, businesses, and governments, and— that could have been avoided by proactive efforts to manage risks. Today, the tools to develop safer technologies and less harmful products exist. Let us not miss this opportunity. ..."

18. The American Enterprise Institute has an interesting summary of a Nielson report about social media usage. 8 fun facts about the incredible rise of social media

19. Death On Facebook Now Common As 'Dead Profiles' Create Vast Virtual Cemetery

"It used be that news of death spread through phone calls, and before that, letters and house calls. The departed were publicly remembered via memorials on street corners, newspaper obituaries and flowers at grave sites. To some degree, this is still the case. But increasingly, the announcements and subsequent mourning occur on social media. Facebook, with 1 billion detailed, self-submitted user profiles, was created to connect the living. But it has become the world's largest site of memorials for the dead."

20. From the "That's just not right!" file. Harvard Economics Department does their version of "Call me maybe."

Supporting Climate-Friendly Food Production

Worldwatch Blogs: Supporting Climate-Friendly Food Production

This [United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization] report, Innovations in Sustainable Agriculture: Supporting Climate-Friendly Food Production, discusses six sustainable approaches to land and water use, in both rural and urban areas, that are helping farmers and other food producers mitigate or adapt to climate change—and often both. They are:

• Building Soil Fertility: Alternatives to heavy chemical use in agriculture, such as avoiding unnecessary tilling or raising both crops and livestock on the same land, can help to drastically reduce the total amount of energy expended to produce a crop or animal, reducing overall emissions.
• Agroforestry: Because trees remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, keeping them on farms whenever possible can help mitigate climate change. Agroforestry also keeps the soil healthier and more resilient by maximizing the amount of organic matter, microorganisms, and moisture held within it. Agroforestry also provides shade for livestock and certain crops, and creates habitats for animals and insects, such as bees, that pollinate many crops.
• Urban Farming: Growing food in cities can mitigate the greenhouse gas emissions released from the transport, processing, and storage of food destined for urban populations. Urban agriculture also increases the total area of non-paved land in cities, making urban landscapes more resilient to flooding and other weather shocks, while improving the aesthetic value of these landscapes.
• Cover Cropping/Green Manure: Cover cropping, also known as green manure, is the practice of strategically planting crops that will deliver a range of benefits to a farming system, and often plowing these crops into the soil instead of harvesting their organic matter. Planting cover crops improves soil fertility and moisture by making soil less vulnerable to drought or heat waves. Cover crops also serve as a critical deterrent against pests and diseases that affect crops or livestock, such as corn root worm or Rift Valley fever, particularly as warmer temperatures enable these organisms to survive in environments that were previously too cold for them.
• Improving Water Conservation and Recycling: Innovations in water conservation, including recycling wastewater in cities, using precise watering techniques such as drip irrigation rather than sprinklers, and catching and storing rainwater, all help to reduce the global strain on already-scarce water resources.
• Preserving Biodiversity and Indigenous Breeds: Growing diverse and locally adapted indigenous crops, such as yams, quinoa, and cassava, can provide a source of income and improve farmers’ chances of withstanding the effects of climate change, such as heat stress, drought, and the expansion of disease and pest populations. Preserving plant and animal biodiversity also reduces farmers’ overreliance on a small number of commodity crops that make them vulnerable to shifts in global markets.

By tapping into the multitude of climate-friendly farming practices that already exist, agriculture can continue to provide food for the world’s population, as well as be a source of livelihood for the 1.3 billion people who rely on farming for income and sustenance. If agriculture is to play a positive role in the global fight against climate change, however, agricultural practices that mitigate or adapt to climate change will need to receive increased research, attention, and investment in the coming years.

Saturday Links

Here are the links. BTW, if you haven't already, you can "like" the Kruse Kronicle Facebook page and see daily links in your Facebook feed.

1. When I was a kid, I used to watch Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom on Saturdays. That was the beginning of my life-long appreciation for big cats. One of the organizations we support is the Turperntine Creek Wildlife Refuge for big cats in Arkansas. Check out this Nat Geo super slo-mo video of a running cheetah. Be sure to go to minute 5:00, and see him from the front. His head barely moves. Just amazing!

Cheetahs on the Edge--Director's Cut from Gregory Wilson on Vimeo.

2. Good news! Charitable giving increased slightly in 2011

3. Counting sheep not putting you to sleep? Eat These Foods For A Better Night's Sleep

4. Tiny Swarming Robots Play Beethoven.

5. Just a reminder. That Ebook you bought? You don't own it. That Barnes & Noble Ebook is Only Yours Until Your Credit Card Expires

6. Speaking of books, how about a Book-Scanning Robot Reads 250 Pages Per Minute?

7. If you are a man, getting along with the in-laws means you have 20% higher chance of not getting divorced. If you are a woman, getting along well the in-laws makes you 20% more likely to get divorced. Getting Along With The In-Laws Makes Women More Likely To Divorce

8. Could the first billion dollar athlete be less than a decade away? Why the World's First Billion-Dollar Athlete Is Just a Few Years Away

9. A business icon died this week. Motivational speaker Zig Ziglar dies at age 86.

10. This was pretty cool. An Inspiring Story Of A Grocery Store Owner Who Gave His Business To Employees

11. One of the challenges of colonizing the moon or Mars is all the supplies you would need to bring along to construct a habitat. 3D-printing may help solve that problem. 3D printer on moon or Mars could make tools from local rocks

12. Give us this day our monthly bread? "American company has developed a technique that it says can make bread stay mould-free for 60 days." Bread that lasts for 60 days could cut food waste

13. The Next Web has an interesting piece on the history of 3d-Printing. The Rise of 3D Printing

14. Supreme Court to Decide if Human Genes Are Patentable

"The Supreme Court announced Friday it would review a case testing whether human genes may be patented, in a dispute weighing patents associated with human genes known to detect early signs of breast and ovarian cancer. A 2009 lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union claimed among other things the First Amendment is at stake because the patents are so broad they bar scientists from examining and comparing the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes at the center of the dispute. In short, the patents issued more than a decade ago cover any new scientific methods of looking at these human genes that might be developed by others."

I am guessing there are some bioethics questions to consider here as well. ;-)

15. 4.5 billion years of the earth's evolution in as if it happened in 24 hours.

16. The Real Story on the Falling U.S. Birth Rate

"The Pew Research Center announced Nov. 29 that the U.S. birth rate fell to its lowest level since at least 1920, when reliable record-keeping began. That was true—but not news. The National Center for Health Statistics reported that way back on Oct. 3.

What was news was Pew’s analysis of the government data, which showed that the birth rate decline was greatest among immigrant women. “We were the first to point that out,” Gretchen Livingston, the lead author of Pew’s report, said in an interview. ..."

17. Small-business optimism is tanking. Gallup

18. Also from Gallup. As it turns out, maybe Democrats really are socialists.

19. What's Driving Evangelical Enthusiasm?

"Data shows growing Catholic-evangelical "intensity gap"—but it doesn't indicate exactly why. ...

... New research shows that Catholics now report the lowest proportion of "strongly affiliated" followers among major American religious traditions, while the data indicates that evangelicals are increasingly devout and committed to their faith.

According to Philip Schwadel, a sociologist at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, in the 1970s there was only a five-point difference between how strongly Catholics and evangelicals felt about their religion.

By 2010, he said, that "intensity gap" had grown to around 20 points, with some 56 percent of evangelicals describing themselves as "strongly affiliated" with their religion compared with 35 percent of Catholics. Even mainline Protestants reported a higher level of religious intensity than Catholics, at 39 percent. ..."

20. For Amish, fastest-growing faith group in US, life is changing.

"Indeed, for America’s Amish, much is changing. The Amish are, by one measure, the fastest-growing faith community in the US. Yet as their numbers grow, the land available to support the agrarian lifestyle that underpins their faith is shrinking, gobbled up by the encroachment of exurban mansions and their multidoor garages.

The result is, in some ways, a gradual redefinition of what it means to be Amish. Some in the younger generation are looking for new ways to make a living on smaller and smaller slices of land. Others are looking beyond the Amish heartland of Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Indiana, seeking more space in states such as Texas, Maine, and Montana."

21. Finally, one of the things I found interesting about the presidential election was Team Romney's seeming confidence they were winning. I think every candidate who is losing often tries to spin things positively until the very end but I had the sense that Team Romney wasn't faking it. They believed they were winning. I think post-election analysis is revealing that was true. From The New Repbulic The Internal Polls That Made Mitt Romney Think He'd Win

Saturday Links

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. There a few less links this week. Enjoy!

1. The last typewriter rolls off the assembly line.

2. Abraham Lincoln's spirituality has been a constant topic of debate among historians. The new Lincoln movie has resurfaced the debate. Film revives questions about Abraham Lincoln’s faith, but offers few answers.

3. What impact will computer/internet technology have on our daily lives? Glimpse of your life in 2020 thanks to the Internet of Things.

"What if all objects were interconnected and started to sense their surroundings and communicate with each other? The Internet of Things (IoT) will have that sort of ubiquitous machine-to-machine (M2M) connectivity. Since there are estimates that between 50 billion to 500 billion devices will have a mobile connection to the cloud by 2020, here’s a glimpse of our possible future.

Your alarm clock signals the lights to come on in your bedroom; the lights tell the heated tiles in your bathroom to kick on so your feet are not cold when you go to shower. The shower tells your coffee pot to start brewing. Your smartphone checks the weather and tells you to wear your gray suit since RFID tags on your clothes confirm that your favorite black suit is not in your closet but at the dry cleaners. After you pour a cup of java, the mug alerts your medication that you have a drink in-hand and your pill bottle begins to glow and beep as a reminder. Your pill bottle confirms that you took your medicine and wirelessly adds this info to your medical file at the doctor’s office; it will also text the pharmacy for a refill if you are running low.

Your smart TV automatically comes on with your favorite news channel while you eat breakfast and browse your tablet for online news. After you’ve eaten, while you are brushing your teeth, your dishwasher texts your smartphone to fire up your vehicle via the remote start. Because your “smart” car can talk to other cars and the road, it knows what streets to avoid due to early morning traffic jams. Your phone notifies you that your route to work has been changed to save you time. And you no longer need to look for a place to park, since your smartphone reserved one of the RFID parking spaces marked as "open" and available in the cloud. Don’t worry about your smart house because as you exited it, the doors locked, the lights went off, and the temperature was adjusted to save energy and money.

Does it sound too farfetched for 2020? It shouldn’t since a good part of that is in the works now. ..."

4. Speaking of computers, technology lovers will appreciate that the World’s Oldest Computer Gets a Reboot.

5. Should Students Use Wikipedia? Maybe it depends on how they use it and what the objective is.

6. Does the United States essentially have a flat tax? Economist Greg Mankiw thinks maybe do. The U.S. has a flat tax (in effect)

"The Congressional Budget Office has a new study of effective federal marginal tax rates for low and moderate income workers (those below 450 percent of the poverty line).  The study looks at the effects of income taxes, payroll taxes, and SNAP (the program formerly known as Food Stamps).  The bottom line is that the average household now faces an effective marginal tax rate of 30 percent.  In 2014, after various temporary tax provisions have expired and the newly passed health insurance subsidies go into effect, the average effective marginal tax rate will rise to 35 percent.

What struck me is how close these marginal tax rates are to the marginal tax rates at the top of the income distribution.  This means that we could repeal all these taxes and transfer programs, replace them with a flat tax along with a universal lump-sum grant, and achieve approximately the same overall degree of progressivity."

7.  What are the conservative streams and thinkers that are likely to influence the evolving future of conservatism in the United States. David Brooks has some interesting insights into The Conservative Future.

8.  Did you know that You Are Most Likely to Die at 11 a.m.?

9. This would never appeal to me. I like to know exactly what I'm buying. Would drop some coins in this thing?

The BIBLIO-MAT from Craig Small on Vimeo.

10. The High Calling has a review of R. Paul Stevens new book, Work Matters, Lessons from Scripture. I hope to read it next month.

11. Good news on the crime front in Washington, D. C.: D.C. on pace for fewer than 100 homicides in 2012

How Activism Distorts The Assessment Of Health Risks

Forbes: How Activism Distorts The Assessment Of Health Risks

The International Agency for Research on Cancer is renowned for producing assessments of carcinogens. But it appears that some of the agency’s evaluations may overstate the risks, for reasons that tell us a great deal about the science and politics of risk assessment.

It is a paradox that, in spite of dramatic increases in life expectancy and improvements in health in the developed world over recent decades, as a society we are obsessively preoccupied with the specter of hazards lurking in our environment and consumer products.

Many factors have contributed to this ever-increasing climate of fear, including the success of the environmental movement; a deep-seated distrust of industry; the public’s insatiable appetite for stories related to health, which the media duly cater to; and – not least – the striking expansion of the fields of epidemiology and environmental health sciences and their burgeoning literature. ...

... One has to ask what “possibly carcinogenic” means, if extensive evidence in humans and animals points to no threat. A major problem with the IARC process is that it makes it almost impossible to assign an agent to category 4 – probably not carcinogenic. Of the roughly one thousand agents evaluated by the agency exactly one is in this category.

A second problem with the IARC process — one that reinforces the classification problem — is that some of the working groups convened to assess a particular agent have included scientists who have carried out studies on the agent under evaluation. It is fanciful to think that scientists who have a vital stake in a particular question can evaluate the evidence, including their own studies, dispassionately.

Finally, IARC reaches its assessments by consensus. But this can mean that those who are more forceful and persuasive may influence the group decision-making process. In addition, consensus implies a philosophic stance which has nothing to do with science.

All three of these flaws came together in IARC’s assessment of cell phones: undue emphasis on a small number of positive epidemiologic studies from a single group, when the much larger body of studies indicated no elevated risk; the improper influence of an activist researcher (the lead author of the anomalous positive studies) on the deliberations of the working group; and, finally, a tilt toward the “precautionary principle.”

The precautionary principle states that, if there is uncertainty regarding the effects of exposure to an agent, the burden of proof that exposure does not cause harm falls on those who utilize the agent. While this formulation may sound reasonable, in actuality it has nothing to contribute to the assessment of risks. First, there are always uncertainties, and it is not possible to prove the absence of risk. Furthermore, in practice invocation of the precautionary principle focuses attention solely on the possibility of harm, often ignoring information about the dose to which people are exposed, avoiding consideration of benefits of the agent in question and whether safer substitutes are available, and giving greater weight to studies that appear to indicate a hazard, even when these studies may be of poorer quality.

For all its self-justifying claims, the precautionary principle seeks to deny a central fact – there is no way to avoid risk in life – all we can do is to try to use available knowledge to distinguish between large, well-established risks; those that are probable; and those that available evidence suggests are trivial or non-existent. ...

Geoffrey C. Kabat is a cancer epidemiologist at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and the author of Hyping Health Risks: Environmental Hazards in Daily Life and the Science of Epidemiology.

Reforming Health Care With Cost Transparency

Some Oklahoma doctors are trying to reform the health care industry by offering cutting waste from surgical services and making costs transparent. They founded Surgery Center of Oklahoma. Reason.tv has produced a video about it. Here is what they have to say at their YouTube page.

Three years ago, Dr. Keith Smith, co-founder and managing partner of the Surgery Center of Oklahoma, took an initiative that would only be considered radical in the health care industry: He posted online a list of prices for 112 common surgical procedures. The 51-year-old Smith, a self-described libertarian, and his business partner, Dr. Steve Lantier, founded the Surgery Center 15 years ago, after they became disillusioned with the way patients were treated at St. Anthony Hospital in Oklahoma City, where the two men worked as anesthesiologists. In 1997, Smith and Lantier bought the shell of a former surgical center with the aim of creating a for-profit facility that could deliver first-rate care at a fraction of what traditional hospitals charge.

The major cause of exploding U.S. heath care costs is the third-party payer system, a text-book concept in which A buys goods or services from B that are paid for by C. Because private insurance companies or the government generally pick up most of the tab for medical services, patients don't have the normal incentive to seek out value.

The Surgery Center's consumer-driven model could become increasingly common as Americans look for alternatives to the traditional health care market—an unintended consequence of Obamacare. Patients may have no choice but to look outside the traditional health care industry in the face of higher costs and reduced access to doctors and hospitals.

Divergent Life Expectancies in the U. S.

The Incidental Economist has a post with five graphs on life expectancy in the United States. (Zombie life expectancy arguments) Two stood out to me.

First, there is this chart that shows life expectancy for men in the United States at age 65. The population is split into income quartiles and then compared with other nations around the world. An even more interesting chart would have been split the population of other countries in to quartiles to see how they fare top to bottom.

The second map compares the change in average life expectancy for women, 1987-2007. The red counties are the places where life expectancy has declined.

I'm sure there are several factors at work. I saw this article today, Diabetes rates rocket in Oklahoma, South. Also, I saw a presentation by Allen Johnson of Christians for the Mountains that showed the link between mountain top mining and reduced health in counties in Kentucky and in West Virginia. I'm sure there are issues ranging from lifestyles to health care access involved. A picture really does say a thousand words.

Saturday Links

Here are this week's odds and ends that didn't make it on to the blog. Enjoy the leftovers!

1. MIT Technology Review says Geoengineering Could Be Essential to Reducing the Risk of Climate Change. "Using technology to cool the planet may be the only way to deal with the greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere, argues scientist David Keith." On a similar topic is this piece by Robert Kurlwich at NPR, Will We 'Fix' The Weather? Yes. Should We Fix The Weather? Hmmm. Kurlwich discusses the possibility that we may one day be able to control the earth's climate and wonders if that is a good thing.

2. Research indicates that Millennial Generation Becoming More Fiscally Conservative.

3. Are E-readers a transitional technology? Analysis: E-readers grapple with a future on the shelf.

4. Inhabitat reports on The World's First Commercial Vertical Farm Opens in Singapore. "The dense metropolis of Singapore is now home to the world’s first commercial vertical farm! Built by Sky Greens Farms, the rising steel structure will help the city grow more food locally, reducing dependence on imported produce. The new farm is able to produce 1 ton of fresh veggies every other day, which are sold in local supermarkets."

5. The New Republic has a very lengthy article The Mormon Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. It offers some interesting insights in to Mormonism's road from communalism to economic individualism, a trajectory followed by many Protestant sectarian movements. Jackson Lears writes:

"Mormons embraced economic individualism and hierarchical communalism; they distrusted government interventions in business life but not in moral life; they used their personal morality to underwrite their monetary success. They celebrated endless progress through Promethean striving. They paid little attention to introspection and much to correct behavior. And their fundamental scripture confirmed that America was God’s New Israel and the Mormons His Chosen People. It would be hard to find an outlook more suited to the political culture of the post–Reagan Republican Party."

6. Annie-Marie Slaughter maintains that the "having it all" debate about work-life balance isn't just about women. Work-Life Balance as a Men's Issue, Too.

"A number of students asked foreign policy questions, and then a young woman asked me about the responses I have received to my Atlantic cover story from this past summer, "Why Women Still Can't Have It All." I answered, and several other young women followed up. After ten minutes or so, I saw that the roughly 50 percent guys in the room had gone completely silent. When I commented on the suddenly one-sided nature of the conversation, one young man volunteered that he "had been raised in a strong feminist household" and considered himself to be fully supportive of male-female equality, but he was reluctant to say anything for fear he would be misunderstood. A number of the other guys around the table nodded in agreement."

7. French and Spanish legal documents from colonial Louisiana are being digitized, opening up a new window on colonial history in that part of the world. Colonial La. records shed new light on US history

8. People who know me personally know I tend to use sarcasm and double entendre in spoken communication. One of my biggest blogging challenges is editing most of this out of posts. Emoticons can help but some of the biggest misunderstandings I have had came from people not being able to see my wink or big grin as I write certain things. For that reason, I found this interesting: The Strange Science Of Translating Sarcasm Online

9. Ever wonder why sign language often seems so animated? Why Great Sign Language Interpreters Are So Animated

10. Africa: sociologists cite religion as a key factor in preventing and alleviating AIDS epidemic

"In their new book "Religion and AIDS in Africa" (Oxford University Press), sociologists Jenny Trinitapoli and Alexander Weinreb seek to challenge the widespread view that religious beliefs and communities have unwittingly assisted in the spread of the disease through their resistance to preventative sex education. They also show that not only have religious groups had a largely positive role in AIDS prevention, but also how the epidemic has shaped religious beliefs in unexpected ways."

Prosperity Isn't Just a Matter of Wealth

Foreign Policy: Prosperity Isn't Just a Matter of Wealth

Man does not live by GDP alone. An introduction to the Legatum Institute's latest Prosperity Index.

It doesn't take a degree from Oxford to understand that a nation's average income -- even after adjustments for purchasing power, to make international comparisons more relevant -- is an inadequate measure of comparative well-being. That reality has inspired numerous attempts to create a better measure. The latest, most comprehensive, and arguably most insightful, is the Legatum Institute's Prosperity Index for 2012, released just this week. I can't claim utter objectivity here: I've been a consultant to the Legatum Institute. I suspect, though, that you won't need much convincing to be captured by this ambitious effort.

Back to that pesky measurement problem. For decades, the United Nations has been brewing a straightforward improvement on income rankings on a regular basis, work largely inspired by the passions of Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen. The UN's Human Development Index blends per capita income, years of schooling, and life expectancy. And in the past few years, it's added an "inequality adjusted" version that discounts each component according to how equally it is distributed in the population before combining them in index form.

Obviously, though, other elements matter to well-being -- among them human rights, economic freedom, socioeconomic mobility, personal security, social insurance, and social cohesion. Other indexes try to capture one or more of these attributes. Thus the Heritage/WSJ Index of Economic Freedom ranks countries according to ten criteria ranging from property rights to entrepreneurship. The World Economic Forum measures national competitiveness, writ large. The Life Satisfaction Index simply cuts to the chase, ranking countries according to surveys of self-reported happiness.

The Legatum Institute's approach is truly catholic (with a small c). First, countries are rated according to eight sub-indexes (economy, entrepreneurship/opportunity, governance, education, health, safety/security, personal freedom, and social capital), which are derived from 89 variables. Some are objective (e.g. the unemployment rate) and some subjective (the percentage who answered "yes" to the question: "Did you worry yesterday?") The raw data, by the way, can be accessed on the website.

Scores on each of the eight sub-indexes are given equal weight in producing the aggregate rankings. ...

Some very interesting data. Check it out at www.prosperity.com.

New test to improve HIV diagnosis in poor countries

Reuters: New test to improve HIV diagnosis in poor countries

(Reuters) - Scientists have come up with a test for the virus that causes AIDS that is ten times more sensitive and a fraction of the cost of existing methods, offering the promise of better diagnosis and treatment in the developing world.

The test uses nanotechnology to give a result that can be seen with the naked eye by turning a sample red or blue, according to research from scientists at Imperial College in London published in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.

"Our approach affords for improved sensitivity, does not require sophisticated instrumentation and it is ten times cheaper," Molly Stevens, who led the research, told Reuters. ...

... The test could also be reconfigured to detect other diseases, such as sepsis, Leishmaniasis, Tuberculosis and malaria, Stevens said.

Testing is not only crucial in picking up the HIV virus early but also for monitoring the effectiveness of treatments. ...

The new sensor works by testing serum, a clear watery fluid derived from blood samples, in a disposable container for the presence of an HIV biomarker called p24.

If p24 is present, even in minute concentrations, it causes the tiny gold nanoparticles to clump together in an irregular pattern that turns the solution blue. A negative result separates them into ball shapes that generate a red color. ...

New Rice for Africa: Shades of Both a Green Revolution and Food Sovereignty

Worldwatch: New Rice for Africa: Shades of Both a Green Revolution and Food Sovereignty

The New Rice for Africa variety has become part of the debate over whether a Green Revolution is the best approach to ensure food security in Africa. ...

JAMBUR, The Gambia—The dissemination of the high-yielding New Rice for Africa (NERICA) seeds has sparked contention that is a microcosm for a central debate in global agricultural development: does Africa need its own Green Revolution, an effort that 50 years ago saw dramatic productivity increases through the use of new crop technologies in Asia and Latin America?

NERICA, developed by 2004 World Food Prize winner Dr. Monty Jones, is being promoted by the Africa Rice Center mainly in West African countries where rice is a staple food. It is a cross between an Asian variety, responsible for the high yield, and an African variety, which ensures its local adaptability.

West African governments have touted NERICA as a hallmark of a new Green Revolution and as a path to boosting rice self-sufficiency, especially after the 2008 food price spike exposed the dangers of import dependence. On the other side, advocates of “food sovereignty”—centered on farmers’ control over food systems—have voiced strong opposition. The advocacy organization GRAIN has labeled NERICA a “trap for small farmers” who will become vulnerable to expensive chemical fertilizers and seeds, a situation widely cited by critics of the 1960s Green Revolution.

What I’ve found in Jambur, which in 2002 became the first Gambian village to access the new crop, is a much more nuanced picture, one that in fact incorporates elements of each side of the debate. This suggests what a tactical misstep it would be for food sovereignty loyalists to completely remove themselves from engaging with a new variety just because it has become embedded in the discourse of a new Green Revolution. ...

 

Osorb: Absorbent Nanomaterial Cleans up Toxic Water

National Science Foundation: Osorb: Absorbent Nanomaterial Cleans up Toxic Water

"Science is full of surprises. Chemist Paul Edmiston's search for a new way to detect explosives at airports, instead, led to the creation of what's now called "Osorb," swellable, organically-modified silica, or glass, capable of absorbing oil and other contaminants from water. Osorb has become the principal product of a company in Wooster called ABSMaterials, where Edmiston is now chief scientist. With support from the National Science Foundation (NSF), Edmiston and his colleagues at ABSMaterials are developing water remediation technologies for cities and industries -- everything from storm water to agricultural runoff. Municipal water systems and companies in several U.S. states and Canadian provinces are using Osorb. ABSMaterials is creating formulas to address various contaminants, including hydrocarbons, pharmaceuticals, pesticides, herbicides, chlorinated solvents and endocrine disruptors."

Complex Body Parts Could Soon Be Lab-Grown

Discovery News: Complex Body Parts Could Soon Be Lab-Grown

Various groups of scientists have recently created thyroid cells in the lab, grown a new ear in the skin a woman's own arm, and won a Nobel Prize for figuring out how to reprogram cells so that they can turn into a variety of cell types.

In the future, there may be no limit to the kinds of organs and body parts that can be created from scratch.

One hope is to make donor organs obsolete, or at least far less necessary, eliminating long waiting lists for transplants. By using a patient's own cells, the new wave of regenerative medicine also circumvents ethical arguments and reduces the chance that recipients will reject their new parts.

"We now have the ability for the first time to create a virtually unlimited supply of all the cell types and building blocks we need to make what we want to make," said stem cell researcher Robert Lanza, chief scientific officer at Advanced Cell Technology, a biotechnology company in Marlborough, Mass. "Now we just have to put it all together." ...

Breast Cancer-Sensing Bra Detects Tumors Years Before Some Mammograms

Bjorn Lomborg on Scaring People Into Action

Project Syndicate: Bjorn Lomborg on Scaring People Into Action

PRAGUE – Campaigners on important but complex issues, annoyed by the length of time required for public deliberations, often react by exaggerating their claims, hoping to force a single solution to the forefront of public debate. But, however well intentioned, scaring the public into a predetermined solution often backfires: when people eventually realize that they have been misled, they lose confidence and interest.

Last month, there were two examples of this in a single week. On September 19, the French researcher Gilles-Eric Séralini attempted to fuel public opposition to genetically modified foods by showing the public how GM corn, with and without the pesticide Roundup, caused huge tumors and early death in 200 rats that had consumed it over two years. ...

Lomborg highlights the throughly bogus nature of the study and it funding and notes:

Moreover, Séralini’s results contradict the latest meta-study of 24 long-term studies (up to two years and five generations), which found that the data do “not suggest any health hazards” and display “no statistically significant differences” between GM and conventional food.

Why is this important?

This debacle matters because many GM crops provide tangible benefits for people and the environment. They enable farmers to produce higher yields with fewer inputs (such as pesticides), so that more food can be produced from existing farmland. That, in turn, implies less human encroachment into natural ecosystems, enabling greater biodiversity. But, of course, Séralini’s pictures of cancer-addled rats munching GM corn have instead been burned into the public imagination.

Then there was a climate change report:

The Séralini fiasco was only a week old when, on September 26, the Climate Vulnerability Forum, a group of countries led by Bangladesh, launched the second edition of its Global Vulnerability Monitor. Headlines about the launch were truly alarming: Over the next 18 years, global warming would kill 100 million people and cost the economy upwards of $6.7 trillion annually.

These public messages were highly misleading – and clearly intended to shock and disturb. The vast majority of deaths discussed in the report did not actually result from global warming. Outdoor air pollution – caused by fossil-fuel combustion, not by global warming – contributed to 30% of all deaths cited in the study. And 60% of the total deaths reflect the burning of biomass (such as animal dung and crop residues) for cooking and heating, which has no relation to either fossil fuels or global warming.

In total, the study exaggerated more than 12-fold the number of deaths that could possibly be attributed to climate change, and it more than quadrupled the potential economic costs, simply to grab attention. ...

He goes on:

Likewise, overcoming the burden of indoor air pollution will happen only when people can use kerosene, propane, and grid-based electricity. If the Global Vulnerability Monitor’s recommendation to cut back on fossil fuels were taken seriously, the result would be slower economic growth and continued reliance on dung, cardboard, and other low-grade fuels, thereby prolonging the suffering that results from indoor air pollution.

When confronted with their exaggerations, the authors claimed that “if you reduce hazardous air pollution, it is difficult to not also reduce warming emissions.” But, for both indoor and outdoor air pollution, the opposite is more likely true: lower carbon emissions would mean more air pollution deaths.

He concludes:

When scare tactics replace scientific debate, whether about GM crops or climate change, nothing good can come of it. We all deserve better.

Amen!

Global Grain Production at Record High Despite Extreme Climatic Events

World Watch: Global Grain Production at Record High Despite Extreme Climatic Events

Global grain production is expected to reach a record high of 2.4 billion tons in 2012, an increase of 1 percent from 2011 levels, according to new research conducted by the Nourishing the Planet project for our Vital Signs Online service. According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the production of grain for animal feed is growing the fastest—a 2.1 percent increase from 2011. Grain for direct human consumption grew 1.1 percent from 2011. ...

... Further highlights from the report:

•  
  • The FAO expects global maize production to increase 4.1 percent from 2011, reaching an estimated 916 million tons in 2012.
  • Global rice production achieved an all-time high of 480 million tons in 2011, a 2.6 percent increase from 2010.
  • World wheat production is projected to drop to 675.1 million tons in 2012, down 3.6 percent from 2011, with the largest declines in feed and biofuel utilization.
  • Since 1961, grain production has increased 269 percent and grain yield has increased 157 percent, while the grain harvest area has increased only 25 percent. This is due largely to the Green Revolution and the introduction of high-yielding grain varieties.

To purchase your own copy of State of the World 2011: Innovations that Nourish the Planet, please click HERE.

Life Expectancy Shrinks for Less-Educated Whites in U.S.

New York Times: Life Expectancy Shrinks for Less-Educated Whites in U.S.

... Researchers have long documented that the most educated Americans were making the biggest gains in life expectancy, but now they say mortality data show that life spans for some of the least educated Americans are actually contracting. Four studies in recent years identified modest declines, but a new one that looks separately at Americans lacking a high school diploma found disturbingly sharp drops in life expectancy for whites in this group. Experts not involved in the new research said its findings were persuasive.

The reasons for the decline remain unclear, but researchers offered possible explanations, including a spike in prescription drug overdoses among young whites, higher rates of smoking among less educated white women, rising obesity, and a steady increase in the number of the least educated Americans who lack health insurance.

The steepest declines were for white women without a high school diploma, who lost five years of life between 1990 and 2008, said S. Jay Olshansky, a public health professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago and the lead investigator on the study, published last month in Health Affairs. By 2008, life expectancy for black women without a high school diploma had surpassed that of white women of the same education level, the study found.

White men lacking a high school diploma lost three years of life. Life expectancy for both blacks and Hispanics of the same education level rose, the data showed. But blacks over all do not live as long as whites, while Hispanics live longer than both whites and blacks. ...

Here is a chart that shows the differences: Click here