Category: Science

John Thacker points us to a study of California (registration required, but free).  I've only browsed it but the introduction states:

In September 2008, the California state legislature passed the first state law (Senate Bill 375) to include land use policies directed at curbing urban sprawl and reducing automobile travel as part of the state’s ambitious strategy to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The legislature recognized that cleaner fuels and more fuel-efficient vehicles would not be sufficient to achieve the state’s goal of reducing GHG emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. The bill requires the state’s 18 metropolitan planning organizations to include the GHG emissions targets established by the state Air Resources Board (ARB) in regional transportation plans, and to offer incentives for local governments and developers to create more compact developments and provide transit and other opportunities for alternatives to automobile travel to help meet these targets. ARB currently estimates that reductions in vehicle miles traveled (VMT) resulting from these actions will contribute only about 3 percent of the 2020 targets–an estimate that reflects uncertainties in the state of knowledge about the impacts of more compact development patterns on travel and the short time horizon involved.

In other words, the environmental benefits of checking pro-suburb subsidies are real, but they are smaller than many people think.  That's from the National Academy of Sciences and the authors are no haters of the environment.  If you check out p.59, you'll see that a forty percent increase in population density decreases vehicle miles traveled by less than five percent.  pp.131-132 offer a summary of the study's conclusions and quantitative estimates. 

The authors conclude that density-friendly policies are a good idea, and I agree, but still these are not overwhelming effects.  Keep in mind that current trends are strongly pointing toward population dispersion, so to reverse those trends and see greater density would take some doing.  We're not close to that margin.

There are many other interesting parts of the report, including case studies of Portland and Arlington.

This is about Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, from Frommer's Guide:

Bald eagles have become so plentiful around the lake that they are exported to the United States to restock natural habitats.

No, I don't mean you should do that.  I mean you should apply location theory.  Maybe you think that Alex's claims don't adjust for the nationality or ethnicities of the women under consideration.  Pick then a city of your choice in a country of your choice.  Ask where, in that city, can the beautiful women be found.  Will you find them in the most globalized parts of the chosen city?  Probably so.  Will the least globalized parts of the city have less attractive women or perhaps even the least attractive women?

I also believe, in accord with my previous hypothesis, that you'll find the most beautiful women in the parts of the city where different income classes mix and there is lots of inequality among passersby.  That's in a museum, or in the Village, not in a Tiffany store or even in most of the upper East Side.   

I think about location theory a lot.

In her analysis, Dr. Borgerhoff Mulder found that although Pimbwe men
were somewhat more likely than their female counterparts to marry
multiple times, women held their own and even outshone men in the upper
Zsa Zsa Gabor end of the scale, of five consecutive spouses and
counting. And when Dr. Borgerhoff Mulder looked at who extracted the
greatest reproductive payoff from serial monogamy, as measured by who
had the most children survive past the first five hazardous years of
life, she found a small but significant advantage female. Women who
worked their way through more than two husbands had, on average, higher
reproductive success, a greater number of surviving children, than
either the more sedately mating women, or than men regardless of
wifetime total.

Here is more.  I believe those last two words — "wifetime total" — should in fact be "lifetime total."  This was interesting:

Provocatively, the character sketches of the male versus female
serialists proved to be inversely related. Among the women, those with
the greatest number of spouses were themselves considered high-quality
mates, the hardest working, the most reliable, with scant taste for the
strong maize beer the Pimbwe famously brew. Among the men, by contrast,
the higher the nuptial count, the lower the customer ranking, and the
likelier the men were to be layabout drunks.

“We’re so wedded
to the model that men will benefit from multiple marriages and women
won’t, that women are victims of the game,” Dr. Borgerhoff Mulder said.
“But what my data suggest is that Pimbwe women are strategically
choosing men, abandoning men and remarrying men as their economic
situation goes up and down.”

Dare one whisper "hypergamy"?

That’s right: someday soon scientists may be working to develop a pill that can mimic the placebo effect.

That's from Tom Lee, my source was here.

Here is the abstract of a new paper in Infectious Disease Modelling Research Progress.

Zombies are a popular figure in pop culture/entertainment and they are usually portrayed as being brought about through an outbreak or epidemic. Consequently, we model a zombie attack, using biological assumptions based on popular zombie movies. We introduce a basic model for zombie infection, determine equilibria and their stability, and illustrate the outcome with numerical solutions. We then refine the model to introduce a latent period of zombification, whereby humans are infected, but not infectious, before becoming undead. We then modify the model to include the effects of possible quarantine or a cure. Finally, we examine the impact of regular, impulsive reductions in the number of zombies and derive conditions under which eradication can occur. We show that only quick, aggressive attacks can stave off the doomsday scenario: the collapse of society as zombies overtake us all.

Hat tip to Cory Doctorow at Boing Boing.

That's a question from Mark Frauenfelder at Boing Boing.  The answer says a lot about how you implicitly think about time.

According to this research, a bit sketchy it seems to me, Friday people tend to be angrier.  FYI, I'm a Monday person (it took me some time to see the question could have another answer!).

Paul Krugman once wrote a very good and very funny paper that used economics and the theory of relativity to produce a Theory of Interstellar Trade.  Charlie Stross is a great science fiction writer who uses a lot of economics in his work so this joint interview at the World Science Fiction convention is self recommending.

If you measure people's thoughts, rather than asking them about their feelings, it seems they really enjoy the time they spend with their kids.  Here is an excerpt from BPS Research Digest:

In terms of pleasure, the results confirmed earlier findings,
suggesting that we spend an awful lot of time doing things we don't
find pleasurable, including "work" and "shopping". Out of 18 key
activities, "time with children" and "sex" both came in around
mid-table, far below "outdoor activities" and "watching TV". However,
consideration of the ratings for "reward" (as opposed to pleasure) told
a rather different story, with "work" now the top scorer, and "time
with children" not far behind.

Commuting, however, cannot be saved by a similar move.

I thought this was one of the more interesting blog posts I've read in some time:

What do you think are the odds that you will die during the next
year?  Try to put a number to it – 1 in 100?  1 in 10,000?  Whatever it
is, it will be twice as large 8 years from now.

This startling fact was first noticed by the British actuary
Benjamin Gompertz in 1825 and is now called the “Gompertz Law of human
mortality.”  Your probability of dying during a given year doubles
every 8 years.  For me, a 25-year-old American, the probability of
dying during the next year is a fairly miniscule 0.03% – about 1 in
3,000.  When I’m 33 it will be about 1 in 1,500, when I’m 42 it will be
about 1 in 750, and so on.  By the time I reach age 100 (and I do
plan on it) the probability of living to 101 will only be about 50%. 
This is seriously fast growth – my mortality rate is increasing
exponentially with age.

And if my mortality rate (the probability of dying during the next
year, or during the next second, however you want to phrase it) is
rising exponentially, that means that the probability of me surviving to a particular age is falling super-exponentially.

The post has much more, including excellent visuals.  Here is Wikipedia on the law.  Here is an attempted derivation of the law. 

Three thought questions: a) what does the law imply about systematic risk and asset pricing? b) what does the law imply for regulatory structures and Arnold Kling's chess game analogy?  c) what does the law imply for the Fermi paradox?

I've had a few reader requests to blog puffins.  My interest in puffins dates from a visit to Iceland in the early 1990s, where I went on a lovely mini-quest to track down a colony.  Here is a YouTube of puffins.  Here is a longer and more scenic video of puffins in Iceland.  Here is the sound of puffins, UK puffins at least. 

"The fresh heart of a Puffin is eaten raw as a traditional Icelandic delicacy."

But that is not for me.  I am interested in puffins for a few reasons: a) they appear unlikely, b) they often seem to be anticipating something, and c) nature has produced them.

Here is a collection of poems about puffins.  None seems good.  Here is a Russian video about Puffincat.  It is recommended.  Here are postage stamps featuring puffins.

On this site if you scroll down you will see pictures of albino puffins, among other delights.

Here are twenty-six questions about puffins, along with answers; e.g.,

The greatest natural predator
of the puffin is the Great Black-backed Gull.  This gull can catch
adult puffins in mid-air. 

Currently puffins are not at serious risk of extinction.