Centives

The New York Times points out that the way that researchers publish and share their work was made for a different century. In a fascinating article they note:

• The existing process is slow and expensive. Peer review can take a long time and subscriptions costs are too high for the average consumer. It also puts a lot of power in the hands of a very small number of people.
• “Open Science” instead leverages the qualities of the internet to create open access archives and journals. Some examples include: arXiv, PLoS, and GalaxyZoo.
• Proponents of the new model note that the old system encourages scientists to compete with each other, while their system allows them to collaboratively work with each other and to compete with Lindsay Lohan – for competition on people’s screens.
• The journals respond that they would love to be free and open. But they charge money for a reason: They hire editors, publishers, and expend significant resources fact checking, reviewing and fighting against plagiarism.

To read more about some of the most fascinating initiatives in the field of open science click here.

Source: The New York Times

Via: Freakonomics

The New York Times reported on Luxury Hospitals that cater exclusively to the super rich. Some of the fascinating points made in the article include:

• Luxuries in these hospital ‘rooms’ include a personal butler, a decadent menu (that includes things such as Gelato Ice Cream), linen designed for royalty, marble bathrooms, and, panoramic windows.
• Such hotel suites can cost anywhere between $1000 to $2400+ a day. Foreigners may be charged an additional $4,500 per day. One such luxury hospital estimates that 30% of their clients come from abroad.
• The profits can be lucrative. One hospital owner estimated that the luxury wing brings in $3.5 million a year.

To read about the Saudi King who needed even more than these ‘standard’ luxuries as well as some of the celebrities that have benefited from such facilities, click here.

Source: The New York Times

Via: Salon

Whole Foods, a chain of stores that for years was plagued with the reputation of selling food that was too expensive for the common man, has been attempting to change its image. The effort has been successful with the company that was in dire financial straits just a few years ago now seeing its stock price rise 38%. MarketWatch reports some of the reasons behind the success:

• The co-CEOs have played a significant role in driving the company forwards. Their successes made them finalists for MarketWatch’s CEO of the year award. Their views on executive pay mean that no employee can receive a base salary that is more than 19 times the average salary.
• The company has a philosophy that involves organic, healthy, chemical and pesticide free products produced in an environmentally friendly way. This philosophy resonates with the 18-30 age group that have a lot of disposable income and have driven sales forward.
• The chain has also become more price conscious and has expanded its in-house brand called 365.
• Whole Foods has also experimented with innovative promotions. They include in-store “value gurus” that help shoppers find personalized bargains, “madness sales” on certain products, and “Fridays Five After Five” that offered food and wine samples for $5.

To read more about some of the grovery chain’s most successful practices click here.

Source: MarketWatch

Via: Freakonomics

The Economist took a look at why analysts predict that the United States will import just 36% of its liquid fuel by 2035, compared with the 60% that had to be imported in 2005. Highlights of the artcle include:

• The reduction in the reliance on foreigners is due, in part, to a fall in American consumption of liquid fuel. By 2035 daily liquid fuel consumption is forecasted to be below its 2005 peak.
• American consumption of liquid fuel is falling due to the post-economic crisis pace of the economy, and the high price of oil, creating an economic force that encourages conservation and substitution.
• America’s production of oil has also expanded.

To read more about the dynamics of the market for liquid fuel in the United States and abroad click here.

Source: The Economist

Researchers decide to find out if the cultural stereotype of people becoming more conservative as they aged was accurate. Their findings were surprising:

• As people age they seem to become slightly more liberal because they become more accepting and understanding.
• However this is not uniformly seen across all beliefs. People seem to become more liberal about things such as minority groups, but more conservative about civil liberties as they age.
• The era that one came of age in appears to define one’s political views, more than just age itself.

Read about some of the limitations of the study as well as the cultural biases that led to the perception of the old as growing more conservative over here.

Source: DiscoveryNews

Via: Marginal Revolution

The New York Times recently wrote an article that examined the reasons why Apple chose not to locate production of the iPhone in the United States. They found that:

• Contrary to popular perception companies have not outsourced to countries such as China because labour is cheaper. The price of labour is a small fraction in the overall cost of a product. Apple, for example, would have to pay just $65 more if it wanted to produce the iPhone in the United States, and this wouldn’t significantly hurt the hundreds of dollars that Apple makes from each phone. However the United States is unable to offer:
  • Speed – the report notes an incident where Apple revamped the screen of its device in the last minute before launch. The Chinese factory building the devices awakened 8000 workers that lived within dormitories on company property, gave them a biscuit and a cup of tea, and within the hour had them start full day 12 hour shifts.
  • Flexibility – Chinese workers are willing to live on corporate grounds and come in on weekends or work long nights.
  • Scale – the 8,700 industrial engineers that would be necessary to produce the iPhone would take 9 months to find in the United States. In China it took just 15 days.
• Apple notes that while the iPhones aren’t manufactured in the United States, the advent of the popular mobile phone has created jobs in other areas including:
  • Cellular providers
  • App software developers
  • Marketing Campaigns for the devices
  • Shipping services such as FedEx and UPS that deliver Apple Products

Read the entire 7 page report on Apple’s decision to outsource the iPhone’s manufacturing to China and what this means for manufacturing in the United States over here.

Source: The New York Times

Via: Marginal Revolution

The Captain of the Costa Concordia has come under widespread criticism for abandoning ship before all passengers were taken to safety. The Guardian posted an article that examined where this cultural expectation, for captains to go down with their ship, originated from:

There are three “romantic demands” placed on modern captains, according to one author who was writing a month after the sinking of the Titanic. They were:

• The cry “women and children first” should be heard.
• All men aboard (except for foreigners) should be heroes.
• The Captain should be a superhero

The author traces the origin of these three requirements to the Birkenhead, one of the British Royal Navy’s earliest steamships that sank in 1852. In that doomed vessel hundreds of troops and officers lost their lives as they evacuated the women and children.

Read more about the wider historical context of the cultural expectation for the captain to be the last one leaving a sinking ship, some of the racial undertones this belief involves, and what this all means for Captain Schettino over here.

Source: The Guardian

Via: Marginal Revolution

In the Indian State of West Bengal one third of the positions for leaders of village councils are randomly reserved for women. Researchers found that this had fascinating effects on girls and women in those regions:

• In villages where there were no female leaders, parents were 45% less likely to want their daughters to graduate from school or continue their studies past a certain age in comparison to their aspirations for their sons. This gap was reduced by 25% in villages that did have female leaders.
• Adolescent girls themselves were 32% less likely to want to continue their studies past a certain age in villages without female leaders. In villages that did have female leaders this gap was completely erased.
• This difference in aspirations translates into concrete results: In villages without female leaders boys are 6% more likely to attend school and 4% more likely to be literate. There is no difference between boys and girls in villages with female leaders.
• In villages with female leaders the gap between the difference in time that girls and boys have to spend doing chores shrinks by 18 minutes.
• However, for some reason, all of these results are only seen in villages where women held positions of power for at least two governing cycles.

Source: MIT News