It’s commonly believed that there are more living people in the world right now than the total number of all the dead throughout history. The BBC reports that this is unlikely to be true:

• Analysts suggest that during the Middle Ages life expectancy might have been as little as 10, meaning that the majority of people didn’t make it past childhood.
• This is why humans might have needed a reproduction ate of 80 births per 1,000 people. Today it is only 23.
• This means that people were born and died at an astonishing rate just a few centuries ago.
• One analysis suggests that over 107 billion people have lived and died. Today the population of the earth is around 7 billion. This means that there are 15 dead people for every living one.

To find out when exactly the number of dead crossed seven billion as well as more information about the estimates click here.

Source: BBC

The New York Times recently took a look at foreign students in the United States and found that:

• Foreign students in the US contribute $21 billion a year to the national economy.
• The number of undergraduates form China went from 10,000 to 57,000 in just five years.
• This has raised questions about the accommodation of different languages and accents at university.

To read more about the surprising industry that has sprung up abroad to send students in the United States, as well as what this means for the future of tertiary education, click here.

Source: New York Times

Via: Marginal Revolution

The Atlantic recently took a look at an impending problem for America’s road network. They report:

• Since Eisenhower the federal government has had a Highway Trust Fund that is responsible for maintaining America’s road network. It raises fund through fuel taxes.
• However the fuel tax hasn’t risen since 1993 and so inflation has eaten away at its real value.
• Moreover Americans are driving less due to the economic recession further denting revenues for the fund.
• Finally the push towards more fuel efficient cars will also hurt Highway Trust Fund revenues since people will be consuming less fuel.
• Proposals for restoring the Highway Trust Fund to solvency include charging drivers based on the number of miles they drive to more accurately reflect the wear and tear they put on roads.

To read about other potential solutions as well as some real numbers about the fund and projections for when the fund will exhaust itself, click here.

Source: The Atlantic

How does a financial downturn affect divorces among couples? Slate reports:

• One would think that the increased financial strain would lead to more marital discord and thus higher rates of divorce. However the opposite is seen with states that have a higher unemployment rate having lower rates of divorce.
• This might be because getting a divorce is expensive.
• This might also explain why the divorce rate has increased as GDP per capita has increased – people increasingly have the resources to escape from dysfunctional marriages.
• Does this mean that there’ll be a surge in divorces once the economy recovers? Perhaps, but there should also be a surge in marriages as couples who were unable to get married finally have the opportunity to wed each other.

To read more about the economics of divorce as well as what this means for America’s political system click here.

Source: Slate

In recent years there has been a proliferation of restaurants such as The Meatball Factory, Rice to Riches and Luke’s Lobster that focus all of their attention on preparing and serving one type of dish. The New York Magazine coins the term SSR – Single Serving Restaurants for this spreading phenomena. They note that opening such a restaurant confers several advantages in an industry full of risks and dangers. They include:

• Restaurants make money by adding value to raw ingredients. It’s easier to do this if you constrain yourself to a few key dishes.
• People automatically assume that the restaurant is extremely good at preparing the one dish it promises to serve and so are more likely to visit it.
• Buying the same few ingredients in bulk lowers prices. It also means that less food has to be thrown away because it has passed its expiry date since you’re more likely to use all your ingredients if you only use a few to make each dish in the first place.
• It’s easier to expand your chain if your menu is simple.
• It seems the key to success is to sell traditional comfort foods.

To read more about the superiority of SSRs when compared to traditional restaurants as well as the experience of other SSR chains click here.

Source: New York Magazine

Via: Newmark’s Door

In its latest issue New York Magazine took a look at how much it would cost to drink from modern medicine’s fountain of youth. Working with plastic surgeons they estimated how much it would cost every year for an actress to look like she was 19 again. Their findings include:

• When you’re 25 it’d cost just $49,000 for procedures such as a lip filler and ultrasound cellulite therapy.
• At the age of 35 it still only costs $51,000 to turn the years back to the late teens.
• By the age of 45 it’s time to re-do the breast implants and you can expect to pay $55,000 for that and other procedures.
• When you hit 55 you’ll have to fork out $66,500 to regain vitality that still only runs skin deep.
• Over the years the costs total up to $856,000.

To read more about the procedures necessary and a precise cost breakdown click here.

Source: New York Magazine

Via: Newmark’s Door

A 30 second ad-slot in this weekend’s Super Bowl can cost as much as $4 million. What explains the fact that since 1980 Super Bowl viewership has only increased by 50% but advertising prices have seen a shocking tenfold increase? Slate reports:

• The NFL is the only type of television event that is able to draw a wide audience.
• Research suggests that companies that buy Super Bowl ads see their share prices outperform the S&P 500 in the subsequent week. This relationship holds despite controlling for several factors.
• It is unclear if this is a short-term irrational burst in investor exuberance, or if the ads actually create lasting value.
• Other studies suggest that movies that are advertised during the Super Bowl can see up to a 40% boost at the box office.

To read more about the history of ad prices in the Super Bowl as well as reasons why people might over-pay for Super Bowl ads click here.

Source: Slate

With Bill Gates’ decision to focus on humanitarian work and Steve Jobs’ untimely passing the world has lost a rivalry that helped the computing industry to soar to new heights. ZDNet reports that a new rivalry might be about to begin:

• For years people thought that Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos would be the next leader of technology. However unlike the Gates-Jobs rivalry, the Amazon chief doesn’t have a foil – a clear competitor who he can be measured against.
• Facebook’s impending IPO will give Facebook the resources necessary to compete with Google.
• Zuckerberg and Page have already gone toe-to-toe on several initiatives including mobile computing and social networks.
• However Facebook appears to be approaching the fight with an integrated approach that co-ordinates Microsoft. In particular Facebook appears to be comfortable working with Microsoft’s Bing to compete with Google’s search services.

To read about other areas where Zuckerberg and Page have competed in the past, as well as which tech luminary each will be channeling click here.

Source: ZDNet

Wired writes that: “The next generation of gearheads won’t obsess over horsepower and torque; they’ll focus on things like radar range, communication latency, and pixel resolution” in an article that examines the current state of cars that drive themselves. Some of the things they found include:

• Premium cars today run 100 million lines of computer code. This is more than Boeing’s new 787 Dreamliner Aircraft
• Google compares teaching cars to drive themselves to mining the web so that people can find the pages they’re looking for when they search. For example just as Google’s algorithms must go through large amounts of data on the web, they must also analyze road data to decide what certain objects are and how they can be navigated around.
• Mercedes has also been working to develop the technology. They note that cars can already do a lot of automatic work. Their cars:
  • Monitor 70 points of information about baseline data such as steering wheel movements and indicator use. When performance is significantly different from the baseline the car assumes that the driver is fatigued and suggests getting a cup of coffee.
  • Automatic wiper activation in rain.
  • Automatic headlight illumination.
  • Notifications in the sideview mirrors if another car is in the driver’s blind spot.
  • Lane drift detection
  • Automatic breaking systems.
• Challenges still remain. Cars must learn to drive on roads without lane markings, and must adapt to local driving cultures.

To read more about how the cars of the future will be like the horses of old, why these changes won’t make us feel uncomfortable, and some of the moral and ethical challenges that the new technology poses click here.

Source: Wired

Via: Marginal Revolution

In 1982 Atlantic Magazine took a look at the Diamond market and wrote that “It is conservatively estimated that the public holds more than 500 million carats of gem diamonds, which is more than fifty times the number of gem diamonds produced by the diamond cartel in any given year… The moment a significant portion of the public begins selling diamonds from this inventory, the price of diamonds cannot be sustained.” How did diamonds occupy such a prominent space in our culture? Here are some highlights from an article that looked at the earliest history of the diamond market and subsequent developments over the decades:

• Diamonds have no intrinsic value beyond their scarcity and so the discovery of new diamond mines in 1870 caused existing diamond producers to band together and form a cartel called De Beers.
• The huge influx of supply meant that De Beers had to find a way to ensure that diamonds were never resold. Some measures that they took to (successfully) accomplish this include:
  • De Beers relentlessly exploited the latest advancements in mass media such as motion pictures and televisions by having stars and idols market the diamonds for them.
  • The British Royal Family was used to foster the romantic allure of diamonds.
  • De Beers associated their diamonds with unique works of art made by artists such as Picasso and Dali to emphasize that their products were unique and invaluable.
  • Lecturers visited high schools and gave talks about diamonds and engagement rings, guiding the romantic expectations of millions of young girls around the United States.
  • Newspapers were provided with descriptions of the latest diamonds worn by movie stars in an effort to enhance the desirability of the diamonds.
• After successfully penetrating the American market De Beers looked to expand its reach to other countries. Its initiatives in Japan were the most successful. The cartel managed to overturn 1,500 years of Japanese wedding tradition by associating diamond engagement rings with a modern, western life.

To read more about how DeBeers worked with the Soviet Union to sell African diamonds to American women, why thieves are likely to avoid stealing them, what the Great Diamond Crash might look like, and the subtle psychology reminiscent of Victorian-era novels that is involved in the gift of a diamond from a man to a woman, read the entire 7 page report here.

Source: The Atlantic