Catherine Rampell explored the latest data that mapped out the glass ceiling for women. Highlights include:

• Men and women start off with a fairly sizeable wage difference. College educated men make about $40,800 after they graduate while similar women only make $31,900.
• But for several years after that wages rise at the same rate. In fact women have a slight advantage here.
• But around the age of 30 females’ salary increases begin to slow and by 40 they’ve run into the glass ceiling, and their pay stops rising.
• 30 is also around when women begin to have children.
• Women’s pay maxes out at around $60,000. In contrast for men it’s $95,000.

To read many more details including the strengths and weaknesses of the data set, the glass ceiling for men, and a graph of the actual data, click here.

Source: The New York Times

Katy Waldman has some fascinating descriptions of what the coming revolution in food packaging will mean for consumers:

• We will soon see the rise of smart packaging – packaging that can sense and respond to the information around it.
• This is in contrast to active packaging which is already fairly common. The silica gel packets that absorb excess moisture are an example of active packaging – packaging that serves some greater function other than protecting food.
• Examples of the coming future of smart packaging include:
  • A sensor that can detect a chemical that fruits release when they ripen – letting you know it’s safe to eat.
  • A drink label that will turn blue when it’s cold enough to drink.
  • A vegetable bag that will soak up excess oxygen in warm conditions ensuring that it lasts longer.

To read more about the coming future, what popcorn shows us about packaging, other potential applications of the technology, how it could help the lactose intolerant, changing the taste of grapefruit juice, the cultural shift in food preferences, some of the current military applications, a line of Aroma Waters that make use of it, and what the FDA has to say about it, click here.

Source: Slate

Elisabeth Rosenthal, a medical doctor, writes that most experts believe that Americans do not need to get all of the medical checks and treatments that they do. The annual physical, for example is considered by some to be potentially dangerous. So why do Americans continue to get these tests then?

• In the insurance system the patients aren’t responsible for all of their medical bills. There is therefore a ‘more is better’ mentality on the patient’s side.
• Doctors, of course, make more money the more work they do, and so they too have an incentive to order more tests than are necessary.
• Drug makers are allowed to market their products directly to consumers, increasing demand for them.
• There are fears of malpractice lawsuits that cause doctors to over-proscribe tests.
• A lot of tests are developed – and then conducted – by specialists. However those tests often don’t hold up under the scrutiny of other medical professionals.
• Doctors may also proscribe tests because patients expect them or ask for them, and they don’t want to say no.
• However such tests can be dangerous. Certain aliments can be diagnosed causing the initiation of complicated procedures when it may have healed better by itself.

To read much more including what tests you probably take that professionals recommend you shouldn’t – or at least not as often – as well as why it’s dangerous to undergo too many tests, the financial motives involved, the organization that is trying to solve the problem, statistics related to health care spending in the United States, what health care professionals should actually do, and the path forwards, click here.

Source: The New York Times

Via: Kapil Gupta

Timothy B. Lee reflected on how a future where self-driving cars are the norm will affect our urban environment. He assumes that few people will ‘own’ a car and that instead everybody would order self-driving cabs when and where they need them:

• No more parking spots. During peak hours all the cars will be on the road and during off-peak hours they can just pull over on the side of a street. Cars could double and triple park if they wanted to during times when nobody is using the roads.
• Higher road density. People will use the car that fits their size requirements so smaller cars will be a lot more prevalent. Since software gives better driving capabilities you could conceivably see two small self-driving cars journey side by side in the same lane.
• Scaled options. You might order a private self-driving car for $3, or agree to share one with somebody else for $2. A van with lots of other people might only cost $1.

To read more about the implications this would have, including why being in a car will be a more pleasant experience, what it will mean for light rail, why there will be greater density around subway stations, what will happen to metro areas, and many more implications for a future that doesn’t seem too far off, click here.

Source: Forbes

Via: Marginal Revolution

William J. Dobson explored the relationship between China and Harvard. Highlights include:

• 10 years ago China’s ruling communist party decided to send promising officials abroad to hone their governance skills. Harvard was selected as their destination.
• The program was successful and now sends promising Chinese officials to other institutions including Stanford, Oxford, Cambridge and the University of Tokyo among others.
• The party’s Central Organization Department decides which of the Party’s officials get to go. It’s a secretive body whose number in the caller ID comes up as a string of 0s.
• Harvard runs a variety of courses tailored specifically for these students. They include a course on the Shanghai municipal government.
• Prominent Harvard alumni in China’s governance structure include the chairman of China’s first investment bank, the governor of Shaanxi province, the minister of commerce, and the head of the Central Organization Department – the body that decides who goes to Harvard.
• This makes China different from other authoritarian countries. Libya’s Qaddafi or Zimbabwe’s Mugabe never sent their rising stars abroad to learn.

To read about the implications of this, what it’s like for these students, the ethical conundrum this creates, the notable faculty members who teach the courses, what this says about China, how this relates to Bo Xilai, and what China and Harvard have in common, click here.

Source: Slate

The plan to mine asteroids for minerals might face a slight hitch: under current international law it’s illegal. Paul Marks explains:

• The United Nations’ 1967 Outer Space treaty prohibits entities from making territorial claims in space. It is not legal to ‘own’ an asteroid.
• Therefore if gold was ever brought back from an asteroid to earth, it’s not clear who would legally own it.
• Yet this might be a legal distinction that doesn’t have any operational realities. Meteorites are fallen asteroids and there’s a vibrant market for those.
• Future laws related to space mining may be based upon the laws of the sea. Nobody ‘owns’ the fish in the sea but anybody has the right to fish for them. Similarly nobody would own the asteroids but people could mine them.
• Another question to deal with is who would bear the liability is an asteroid that was being mined were to, for example, crash to earth killing people. The law states that it would be the government of the country that is responsible, yet space exploration is no longer exclusively the domain of countries and now involves the private sector.

To read more about another initiative to mine platinum from the moon, why asteroids might not even be covered under the UN treaty, how it’s fairly easy to pull out of the treaty, why the Moon Agreement doesn’t apply, how one man with an asteroid named after him would feel if it was mined, and why hitting the earth is actually fairly difficult, click here.

Source: Slate

Women in the United States have made impressive strides in various fields writes Dana Goldstein, but one place where there is still a lot of ground to cover is females in computer science. She highlights:

• Female computer scientists have actually declined as a percentage over the past 25 years.
• This is a problem because the majority of jobs in the United States are being created in STEM fields – science, technology, engineering and math.
• Those in STEM fields are far less likely to be unemployed meaning that women are missing out on a secure job.
• The wage gap between the genders in STEM fields is small compared to other fields. (Although depressingly, it still exists.)
• Brazil, India and Malaysia have done a better job of getting women into computer science.
• The problem starts at a young age – girls are less likely to have toys that build spatial reasoning skills such as Lego and game consoles. These are some of the things that motivated Mark Zuckerberg to become a programmer.
• The lack of women in the field also leads to embarrassing mishaps such as Apple’s refusal to let Siri treat women equally.

To read more about what one college has tried to do to attract female computer scientists, what Facebook’s (female) COO has to say about it, the importance of video games, how Asus’ recent actions demonstrate the problem, why companies like Microsoft and HP are desperate to find female programmers, and some creative solutions to the problem click here.

Source: Slate