Assorted Saturday links

1. “Russian scientists tracking migrating eagles ran out of money after some of the birds flew to Iran and Pakistan and their SMS transmitters drew huge data roaming charges.”

2. The success rate of protests is plummeting (NYT).

3. The Gilded Age?: “New paper forthcoming in Cliometrica with Peter Lindert. In the paper we show that between 1800-1914, inequality in cost of living fell offsetting sizable share of increase in nominal income inequality”.

4. How bad is it to be “scooped” in science?  And how much do astronomers rely on lucky good weather?

5. Research in progress: “First, I document that opioid deaths and religiosity are strongly negatively correlated across counties. Then, I find that an 8% decrease in religious employment – equivalent to the decrease observed since the height of the Catholic sex abuse scandal – would increase opioid deaths by 4.8 per 100,000, approximately a third of the current opioid epidemic. The effects of religiosity are concentrated in areas with higher Catholic rates before the scandal. In contrast, I find no evidence that religiosity affects other drug deaths, suicides, or mortality due to alcoholic liver disease.”