Strange tidings from the world of law enforcement. A recent survey of 700 American police agencies found that most – 56 percent – believe that the still-grinding recession is spurring an increase in domestic violence. (You can read the whole report by the Police Executive Research Forum here.) Seems logical. "When stresses in the home increase because of unemployment and other hardships, domestic violence increases," Camden, NJ police chief Scott Thomson told USA Today in discussing the survey. But what’s odd is that violent crime has been going consistently down, right ... Read More
About Vince Beiser
Vince Beiser is a Pacific Standard senior features editor. He has hunted down stories from the Balkans to the Middle East on assignments for Harper's, Wired, The Los Angeles Times Magazine, The Village Voice, The New Republic, The Nation, and Rolling Stone. His work has been honored by Investigative Reporters and Editors; the Columbia, Medill and Missouri graduate schools of journalism; the National Mental Health Association; and many other institutions.
Wind-Powered Oil Rigs?
May 2, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment
It takes fossil fuels to find more fossil fuels: the offshore platforms that produce an ever-greater amount of the world’s oil and natural gas use loads of power, and emit loads of greenhouse gases, in the process. But those gigantic drills and subsea pumps could be run instead on eco-friendly wind power, say a group of Norwegian researchers. In a paper presented at the Offshore Technology Conference, a colossal annual gathering of some 70,000 energy industry professionals, the researchers make the case that wind power could save companies millions of dollars in operating costs and reduce ... Read More
Researchers & Discoveries: Black Hole Hunter
May 1, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment
What’s her story? In January, Andrea Ghez became the first woman to win the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences’ Crafoord Prize, one of the highest honors in astronomy. How’d she do that? Proved that a supermassive black hole sits at the center of our galaxy. Ghez helped develop optical technologies that cut through the sight-muddying effects of Earth’s atmosphere, enabling her team to see the Milky Way’s center — 26,000 light years away — far more clearly than ever before. Which let them monitor thousands of previously invisible stars. Their orbital trajectories, Ghez showed, ... Read More
The L.A. Riots: What Difference Does 20 Years Make?
April 27, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment
As the 20th anniversary of the Los Angeles riots approaches, a new survey finds that Angelenos feel that race relations in their city have improved – but pretty much everything else has gotten worse. The survey, which has been conducted by Loyola Marymount University’s Center for the Study of Los Angeles every five years since the riots broke out on April 29, 1992, gathered opinions from 1,600 Angelenos, equally distributed among whites, blacks, Latinos, and Koreans. The good news is that a resounding 69 percent agree that some or a lot of progress has been made toward improving race ... Read More
Meat: Bad for You, Good for Your Species
April 23, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment
Seems like barely a week goes by without some new study telling us yet again that eating lots of meat is bad for our health. But take heart, fellow carnivores! Turns out our appetite for animal flesh may have given the human race a major evolutionary advantage, according to findings by Swedish researchers published in the online journal PLoS One. The team found that meat-eating human mamas were able to wean their babies at around two years, whereas vegetarian chimps suckle their spoiled offspring for at least twice that long. Since females typically don’t become pregnant while suckling, ... Read More