Mind: Is IQ in the Genes? Twins Give Us Two Answers

For the rich and well-fed, genes cause most of the variance [in intelligence]. But for the poor, environment is key.

Today, a third of a century after the study began and with other studies of reunited twins having reached the same conclusion, the numbers are striking. Monozygotic twins raised apart are more similar in IQ (74%) than dizygotic (fraternal) twins raised together (60%) and much more than parent-children pairs (42%); half-siblings (31%); adoptive siblings (29%-34%); virtual twins, or similarly aged but unrelated children raised together (28%); adoptive parent-child pairs (19%) and cousins (15%). Nothing but genes can explain this hierarchy.

But as Drs. Bouchard and Segal have been at pains to point out from the start, this high heritability of intelligence mainly applies to nonpoor families. Raise a child hungry or diseased and environment does indeed affect IQ. Eric Turkheimer and others at the University of Virginia have shown that in the most disadvantaged families, heritability of IQ falls and the influence attributed to the shared family environment rises to 60%.

In other words, hygienic, well-fed life enables people to maximize their genetic potential so that the only variation left is innate. Intelligence becomes significantly more heritable when environmental hurdles to a child's development have been dismantled.

For more, see Is IQ in the Genes? Twins Give Us Two Answers, June 22, 2012 at WSJ.com.

Economics: The Great Abdication

Suddenly normally calm economists are talking about 1931, the year everything fell apart.

It started with a banking crisis in a small European country (Austria). Austria tried to step in with a bank rescue —- but the spiraling cost of the rescue put the government's own solvency in doubt. Austria's troubles shouldn't have been big enough to have large effects on the world economy, but in practice they created a panic that spread around the world. Sound familiar?

The really crucial lesson of 1931, however, was about the dangers of policy abdication. Stronger European governments could have helped Austria manage its problems. Central banks, notably the Bank of France and the Federal Reserve, could have done much more to limit the damage. But nobody with the power to contain the crisis stepped up to the plate; everyone who could and should have acted declared that it was someone else's responsibility.

And it's happening again, both in Europe and in America.

For more, see The Great Abdication by Paul Krugman, June 24, 2012 at NYTimes.com.

Technology: Kindle Fire or iPad

... about 54% of Kindle Fire owners said they're satisfied with their purchase, according to a recent survey by ChangeWave Research, compared to 74% of iPad owners.

From 10 Things Amazon Won't Tell You by Quentin Fottrell, June 24, 2012 at SmartMoney.com.

Govenment: Members of Congress Trade in Companies While Making Laws That Affect Those Same Firms

One-hundred-thirty members of Congress or their families have traded stocks collectively worth hundreds of millions of dollars in companies lobbying on bills that came before their committees, a practice that is permitted under current ethics rules, a Washington Post analysis has found.

Almost one in every eight trades —- 5,531 —- intersected with legislation. The 130 lawmakers traded stocks or bonds in companies as bills passed through their committees or while Congress was still considering the legislation. The party affiliation of the lawmakers was almost evenly split between Democrats and Republicans, 68 to 62.

Congress forbids top administration officials, for instance, from trading stocks in industries they oversee and can influence. The lawmakers, by contrast, can still invest in firms even as they create laws that can affect the bottom line of the companies.

For more, see Members of Congress Trade in Companies While Making Laws That Affect Those Same Firms by Dan Keating, David S. Fallis, Kimberly Kindy and Scott Higham, June 23, 2012 at The Washington Post.

Media: Chris Hayes Has Arrived with 'Up'

For an entertaining, informing discussion of the current issues with a liberal slant ...

Word of "Up w/Chris Hayes" has spread beyond a few hundred punk fans. In less than a year on television (and with a chirpy voice, a weakness for gesticulation and a tendency to drop honors-thesis words like "signifier" into casual conversation), Mr. Hayes has established himself as Generation Y's wonk prince of the morning political talk-show circuit.

"Up" comes off as a rebuke to traditional cable shout-fests like CNN's late "Crossfire." Thanks to its early weekend time slot, the program has the freedom to unwind over two hours each Saturday and Sunday. Guests are encouraged to go deep into the issues of the week, and not try to score cheap-shot points to win the debate.

It is a point that Mr. Hayes hammered home at 7:15 a.m. on a recent Saturday, when he strode into the green room off Studio 3A at 30 Rockefeller Center to fill in two guests, both college professors, on the ground rules.

"The first and foremost important rule of the show: we're not on television —- no talking points, no sound bites," he said, his hair still a bed-head tangle and his suit collar askew. "We have a lot of time for actual conversation. So actually listen, actually respond."

An hour later, as the cameras rolled, Mr. Hayes and his guests waded thigh-deep into an analysis of private equity and whether it is bad for the economy. At a table of wonks, Mr. Hayes, who studied the philosophy of mathematics at Brown, came off as the wonkiest as he deconstructed the budgetary implications of tax arbitrage. Opinions were varied and passionate, but there was no sniping, no partisan grandstanding.

For more, see Chris Hayes Has Arrived with 'Up' by Alex Williams, June 22, 2012 at NYTimes.com.

Europe: In Former East Germany, Anxious Residents Resent Paying for Europe's Problems

Germany may be Europe's most powerful economy. But its prosperity is so uneven that Poles just across the border see it differently: as a place where housing is a bargain.

With unemployment higher in Loecknitz than anywhere else in Germany, a big house on a generous parcel of land runs just $90,000, real estate agents say. That is the cost of a one-bedroom apartment in nearby Szczecin, a burgeoning Polish city of 400,000 a half-hour away.

In the past, "it was always a one-way road," with Germans moving to Poland because of the difference in prices, said Krzysztof Wojciechowski, a professor at the European University Viadrina in Frankfurt an der Oder, a city that abuts Poland. Now, he said, the situation is reversed.

Anxiety in Germany's poorer areas is part of the reason the country has been reluctant to contribute more toward European rescue programs. Many Germans in this region say the notion that they should give over more money to pay away Europe's problems misjudges their own situation. And although the more urgent problems facing countries such as Greece and Spain have prompted other European leaders to call for greater German assistance, opinion polls show that most Germans approve of Merkel's unwillingness to dip deeper into her country's treasury.

Even now, many Germans see reunification as no more than a mixed success —- a tremendously expensive undertaking that brought prosperity to a few cities but left the countryside and smaller towns such as Loecknitz depopulated and economically depressed.

For more, see In Former East Germany, Anxious Residents Resent Paying for Europe's Problems by Michael Birnbaum, June 21, 2012 at The Washington Post.

Poll: Putting China's Economic Power in Perspective

... as you can see, it's primarily the developed world that views China as the greater juggernaut. Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Greece and the Czech Republic are among the countries whose populations are more likely to say China's economic power has eclipsed America's.

Now look at the developing world. In most of these countries —- Turkey, Tunisia, Pakistan, India, Brazil and Mexico —- respondents were significantly more likely to rate the United States as more economically powerful than China.

The gross domestic product per capita in China was $8,400 in 2011; in the United States, it was nearly six times that, at $48,100.

For more, see Putting China's Economic Power in Perspective by Catherine Rampell, June 15, 2012 at Economix.

Healthcare: Distaste for Health Care Law Reflects Spending on Ads

National polls have consistently found the health care law has far more enemies than friends, ....

In all, about $235 million has been spent on ads attacking the law since its passage in March 2010, according to a recent survey by Kantar Media's Campaign Media Analysis Group. Only $69 million has been spent on advertising supporting it.

For more, see Distaste for Health Care Law Reflects Spending on Ads by Abby Goodnough, June 20, 2012 at NYTimes.com.

Well-Being: Stress During Recession Hits One Group Particularly Hard

Using surveys from 1983, 2006 and 2009, the research from Carnegie Mellon University's Sheldon Cohen and Denise Janicki-Deverts found a 10 to 30% increase in stress levels among all demographic categories over the past quarter-century.

For more, see Stress During Recession Hits One Group Particularly Hard by Chad Brooks, June 14, 2012 at LiveScience.

Society: The New Face of American Entrepreneurs

Nearly one in five (18%) small business owner in the U.S. was born in another country, a new study released today (June 14) shows. By contrast, immigrants make up 13% of the population and 16% of the labor force.

For more, see The New Face of American Entrepreneurs by Ned Smith, June 14, 2012 at LiveScience.

Technology: Gadget Popularity Over Time

For more, see What Happened to the Microsoft Monopoly? by Casey B. Mulligan, June 20, 2012 at Economix.

Health: Want to Live Longer? Move to NYC

While life expectancy in many parts of the United States is dropping, it has increased by 10 years in Manhattan since 1987. Researchers largely attribute that rise —- the fastest in the nation —- to a crackdown by the New York City health department on unhealthy behaviors.

The health department has, for example, banned trans fats, prohibited smoking in public spaces and hiked taxes on cigarettes. It has also rolled out hundreds of miles of new bicycle lanes, mandated the use of calorie labels on menus in chain restaurants and plastered posters up in subways with information about the risks of obesity and the benefits of preventive health services.

At the moment the city is considering a partial ban on large servings of sugar-sweetened drinks, which would go into effect next year.

For more, see Want to Live Longer? Move to NYC by Natalie Wolchover, June 14, 2012 at LiveScience.

Polls: Partisan Polarization Surges in Bush, Obama Years

Republicans and Democrats disagree more and more ...

But other groupings of people have not ...

Where Republicans have changed the most (the top line is Democrats, the bottom Republicans, and the middle independents) ...

Where Democrats have changed the most ...

Where both have changed the most ...

Is it just that the political propagandists have gotten very good at their jobs? Or an effect of the Great Recession? Or what?

For much more, see Partisan Polarization Surges in Bush, Obama Years, June 4, 2012 at Pew Research Center for the People & the Press.

Health: Ewww ... 100 Trillion Bacteria

"The gut is not jam-packed with food; it is jam-packed with microbes," Dr. Proctor said. "Half of your stool is not leftover food. It is microbial biomass." But bacteria multiply so quickly that they replenish their numbers as fast as they are excreted.

For more, see In Good Health? Thank Your 100 Trillion Bacteria by Gina Kolata, June 13, 2012 at NYTimes.com.

Security: African Militant Groups

From The African Network by Craig Whitlock and Laris Karklis, June 13, 2012 at The Washington Post.

Investing: More Fraud at Companies of Ostentatiously Wealthy CEOs

CEOs with a taste for luxury goods—- expensive cars, boats, and houses—-aren't more likely to commit fraud, researchers found. But fraud is more likely to happen in the companies that they run, ....

Big-spender CEOs also tend to run companies that take bigger risks, but have poorer performance and are more likely to go bankrupt.

For more, see Study: Companies Run by Ostentatiously Wealthy CEOs More Likely to Perpetrate Fraud by Suzy Khimm, June 10, 2012 at Wonkblog.

Taxes: The Five Largest Individual Tax Expenditures, 2014

For more, see Baucus's Not-So-Simple Plan to Simplify the Tax Code by Suzy Khimm, June 11, 2012 at Wonkblog.

Healthcare: Can Shopping for Insurance Be Easy?

Every year, branding firm Seigel + Gale ranks industries by "brand simplicity," a measure of how easily consumers understand the product being sold. Every year, health insurance comes in at the very bottom.

For more, see A 14-Month Effort to Answer One Question: Can Shopping for Insurance Be Easy? by Sarah Kliff, June 12, 2012 at Wonkblog.

Poll: The Supreme Court and the Health Care Law

For more, see New Poll: The Supreme Court and the Health Care Law by Adam Liptak and Allison Kopicki, June 7, 2012 at New York Times.

Crime: Method to Track Firearm Use Is Stalled by Foes

Identifying the firearm used in a crime is one of the biggest challenges for criminal investigators. But what if a shell casing picked up at a murder scene could immediately be tracked to the gun that fired it?

A technique that uses laser technology and stamps a numeric code on shell casings can do just that. But the technology, called microstamping, has been swept up in the larger national debate over gun laws and Second Amendment rights, and efforts to require gun makers to use it have stalled across the nation.

For more, see Method to Track Firearm Use Is Stalled by Foes by Erica Goode, June 12, 2012 at NYTimes.com.

Mind: "Thinking Young" Can Beat Dementia

We're amazingly suggestive ...

People who are encouraged to feel old are five times more likely to be diagnosed with dementia than those in the same age group with a positive outlook on their longevity, British scientists said Tuesday.

University of Exeter researchers came to the conclusion after studying two groups of participants aged between 60 and 70 who had been primed to feel either older or younger before their cognitive ability was tested.

One set of volunteers was told they were being placed in an age bracket for 40- to 70-year-olds, while those in the "younger" group were told they were among participants aged between 60 and 90 years.

The participants were then given reading materials that focused on the negative effects of aging on memory loss or cognitive ability, and were quizzed on what they had read.

Results showed that 70% of participants in the "older" age group met the criterion for dementia, while just 14% of those who had been encouraged to see themselves as "younger" were given the diagnosis.

For more, see "Thinking Young" Can Beat Dementia, Study Suggests, June 12, 2012 at Fox News.

Politics: Political Spending: Bad for the Bottom Line?

Researchers looked at the relationship between corporate political giving and financial returns for 943 companies between 1998 and 2008, and discovered that companies' political investments "are negatively associated with market performance."

What's more, the revolving door between government and business doesn't seem to help their performance either. "Firms placing former public officials on their boards experienced inferior market performance and similar accounting performance than firms without such board members," a press statement on the study explains.

Why doesn't political giving pay? Researchers have a couple of explanations: executives who support political giving might generally make overly risky business decisions, and personal ideological beliefs can trump business pragmatism when it comes to giving as well.

That said, there is one exception to their findings: for companies in highly regulated industries, there is a link between political giving and company performance.

For more, see Political Spending: Bad for the Bottom Line? by Suzy Khimm, June 12, 2012 at Wonkblog.

Economics: Who Killed American Unions?

And ...

For more, see Who Killed American Unions? by Derek Thompson, June 7, 2012 at The Atlantic.

Healthcare: That CT Scan Costs How Much?

If gas stations worked like health care, you wouldn't find out until the pump switched off whether you paid $3 or $30 a gallon. If clothes shopping worked like health care, you might pay $80 for a pair of jeans at your local boutique and $400 for the identical pair at the nearest department store—-and the clothes wouldn't have price tags on them.

"Why can't you or I as a consumer ask what it's going to cost and be met with something other than a blank stare?" asks Will Fox, a principal with Milliman, a national health actuarial consulting firm. The answer, he says, is that neither providers nor health insurers really want consumers to have that information.

Here's why: The contracted prices that health plans negotiate with providers in their networks have little or nothing to do with the actual quality of services provided and everything to do with the relative bargaining power of the providers.

For more, see That CT Scan Costs How Much?, July, 2012 at Consumer Reports.

Well-Being: Life Satisfaction And Income

For more, see The 10 Things Economics Can Tell Us About Happiness by Derek Thompson, May 31, 2012 at The Atlantic.

Europe: Why Does the Laziest Country in Europe Work the Most?

... the OECD's richest, most productive, most hardworking countries have some of the shortest working hours. The bottom five, according to the OECD, are Denmark, France, Norway, Germany, and the Netherlands. All are richer per capita than Greece. All are technically "lazier" if you go by hours worked.

By hours worked ...

For more, see Why Does the Laziest Country in Europe Work the Most? by Derek Thompson, May 29, 2012 at The Atlantic.

Diversion: This Tiny Sphere Is All the World's Water

If you gathered all the world's water--from oceans, lakes, groundwater, water vapor, everything--into a sphere, it would have a diameter of 860 miles.

For more, see This Tiny Sphere Is All the World's Water by Veronique Greenwood, May 14, 2012 at 80beats.

Diversion: Calvin and Sleeping Hobbes

From Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson, April 14, 2012 at GoComics.

Economics: China Is a Huge Chunk of Global Growth — But for How Long?

Growth of GDP in billions by region ...

For more, see China Is a Huge Chunk of Global Growth — But for How Long? by Brad Plumer, May 31, 2012 at Wonkblog.

Healthcare: The Fork in the Road for Health Care

For more, see The Fork in the Road for Health Care by UWE E. Reinhardt, May 25, 2012 at Economix.

Diversion: The Wreck of the Titan Predicted the Wreck of the Titanic

A comparison of Futility, 1898 novella, and the actual sinking of the Titanic 14 years later ....

Although the novel was written before the Olympic-class Titanic had even been designed, there are some remarkable similarities between the fictional and real-life counterparts. Like the Titanic, the fictional ship sank in April in the North Atlantic, and there were not enough lifeboats for the passengers. There are also similarities between the size (800 ft long for Titan versus 882 ft 9 in long for the Titanic), speed (25 knots for Titan, 22.5 knots for Titanic) and life-saving equipment.

Beyond the name, the similarities between the Titanic and the fictional Titan include:

• Both were triple screw (propeller)
• Described as "unsinkable"
  • The Titanic was the world's largest luxury liner (882 feet, displacing 63,000 long tons), and was once described as being practically "unsinkable".
  • The Titan was the largest craft afloat and the greatest of the works of men (800 feet, displacing 75,000 tons, up from 45,000 in the 1898 edition), and was considered "unsinkable".
• Shortage of lifeboats
  • The Titanic carried only 16 lifeboats, plus 4 Engelhardt folding lifeboats, less than half the number required for her passenger and crew capacity of 3000.
  • The Titan carried "as few as the law allowed", 24 lifeboats, less than half needed for her 3000 capacity.
• Struck an iceberg
  • Moving at 22½ knots, the Titanic struck an iceberg on the starboard side on the night of April 14, 1912 in the North Atlantic 400 miles away from Newfoundland.
  • Also on an April night, in the North Atlantic 400 miles from Newfoundland (Terranova), the Titan hit an iceberg while traveling at 25 knots, also on the starboard side.
• Sinking
  • The unsinkable Titanic sank, and more than half of her 2200 passengers and crew died.
  • The indestructible Titan also sank, more than half of her 2500 passengers drowning.
  • Went down bow first, the Titan actually capsizing before it sank.

For more, see Futility, or the Wreck of the Titan, on May 26, 2012 at Wikipedia.