Working mothers tend to be happier and healthier than mothers who stay at home caring for young children, according to recent research. But many of those who work are often haunted by the question: “Am I screwing up my kids?” A new study provides a reassuring answer. Writing in the journal Social Science Research, sociologists Jeremiah Wills and Jonathan Brauer conclude — with one important caveat — that “maternal employment largely is inconsequential to child well-being.” They reached this conclusion after examining data on 6,283 American mothers and their children. The ... Read More
Coworking Offices Abuzz With Independent Workers
March 7, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment
Working solo has its rewards. Still, we crave connections with other people. Which explains the rise of the coworking space, where “laptopreneurs” can drop in for a desk, a wireless connection, a productive atmosphere — perhaps even some collaboration. The idea took root around 2004, and a recent count tallied around 800 such spaces worldwide, 350 in the U.S. A seemingly urban phenomenon, coworking is now in small towns like Beacon, New York, population 15,500, 60 miles north of Manhattan. In 2009, Scott Tillitt, a Brooklyn transplant, opened Beahive there. About 20 people at any ... Read More
OMG UR Phone Knows UR Texting + Driving!
March 6, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment
Texting while driving is about as self-evidently stupid as watching TV while running a chainsaw. Everyone knows that, but millions of motorists type all the time while behind the wheel, regardless. In a survey released in December by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 18 percent of all drivers — and nearly half of those ages 18 to 24 — admitted to sending texts or emails while behind the wheel. The agency estimates that texting while driving has increased by 50 percent in the past year. That’s despite the fact that 35 states have outlawed the practice and that texting ... Read More
Great Dessert? Depends on the Plate
March 2, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment
Desserts are a temptation few can resist, but never underestimate the power of the plate. In the journal Food Quality and Performance, Spanish researchers describe an experiment in which 53 volunteers rated two samples of strawberry mousse for sweetness, flavor intensity, and overall quality. For half the participants, the first serving was on a black plate, the second on a white one; for the others, the order was reversed. They consistently rated the mousse on the white plate — of course identical to the mousse on the black plate — as sweeter and having a more intense flavor. “The ... Read More
How Norman Borlaug Went With the Grain
March 1, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment
By the end of October 2011, the Earth’s human population had reached 7 billion. It was half that in 1968 when Stanford professor Paul Ehrlich published The Population Bomb. In the book’s opening pages he proclaimed that too many people in the planet’s underdeveloped countries made mass starvation inevitable, that a minimum of 10 million people — “most of them children” — would starve to death every year in the 1970s, and that it was too late to do anything about it. Plenty of experts agreed with Ehrlich; the press ran with the story, it was apocalypse now. Except he was wrong: ... Read More
Insuring Livestock in Kenya, Via Satellite
February 27, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment
Brenda Wandera’s iPhone buzzes in her lap. A text message has made its way through the blurry heat of Kenya’s Chalbi Desert, and it changes her next move. “As soon as we get to Kalacha, we have to go to Network,” she says. Go to Network, I wonder. That must be a Kenyan turn of phrase for “finding a cell tower.” I’ve been warned that Kalacha is off the grid, which would make it one of the more remote corners of Africa, where mobile-phone and Internet service in even far-flung villages can be stronger and more regular than in parts of the American Southwest or Appalachia. ... Read More
Why LeBron Can’t Take the Heat
February 24, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment
For social scientists, the National Basketball Association isn’t simply a source of pulse-pounding excitement, it’s a laboratory that yields insights into human behavior. As the strike-shortened season settles into its groove, we examine some NBA-related studies that have dribbled out in recent months, exploring such game-changing factors as performance-sapping stress, unconscious racism, and the power of positive momentum. Chokehold: LeBron Explained Do world-class athletes choke under pressure? Evidence from the NBA suggests the answer is yes — but only during the final minute of ... Read More
