Saturday, December 22, 2007

Assorted

Teenage Risks, and How to Avoid Them;
For example, a study by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, found that teenagers were more likely than adults to overestimate risks for every outcome studied, from low-probability events like contracting H.I.V. to higher-probability ones like acquiring more common sexually transmitted diseases or becoming pregnant from a single act of unprotected sex.

“We found that teenagers quite rationally weigh benefits and risks,” Dr. Reyna said in a recent interview. “But when they do that, the equation delivers the message to go ahead and do that, because to the teen the benefits outweigh the risks.”

For example, she said: “The risk of pregnancy from a single act of unprotected sex is quite small, perhaps one chance in 12, and the risk of contracting H.I.V., about one in 500, is very much smaller than that. We’re not thinking logically; they are.”

For that reason, Dr. Reyna and Frank Farley, a professor at Temple University and past president of the American Psychological Association, noted last June in an article in Scientific American Reports that traditional programs that appeal to teenagers’ rationality “are inherently flawed, not because teens fail to weigh risks against benefits,” but because “teens tend to weight benefits more heavily than risks when making decisions.”


How to Avoid Recession? Let the Fed Work- Mankiw
The truth is that the current Fed governors, together with their crack staff of Ph.D. economists and market analysts, are as close to an economic dream team as we are ever likely to see. They will make their share of mistakes, but it is too easy to find flaws when judging with the benefit of hindsight. The best Congress can do now is to let the Bernanke bunch do its job.


Where Boys Were Kings, a Shift Toward Baby Girls
“China and India are closely studying South Korea as a trendsetter in Asia,” said Chung Woo-jin, a professor at Yonsei University in Seoul. “They are curious whether the same social and economic changes can occur in their countries as fast as they did in South Korea’s relatively small and densely populated society.”


Leave It With the (Virtual) Doorman

How private equity revamped a London high street

Climate change: the (Groucho) Marxist approach

How to safeguard savers in a banking crisis

Mao and the art of management

Hunter-gatherers Noble or savage?

Counting people-Census sensitivity

The Bible v the Koran

Poker is getting younger, cleverer, duller and much, much richer

18th-century climate change

Evan Williams, the founder of Blogger and Twitter, epitomises Silicon Valley's right brain

The new (improved) Gilded Age

In Trade Ruling, Antigua Wins a Right to Piracy

In an unusual ruling on Friday at the World Trade Organization, the Caribbean nation of Antigua won the right to violate copyright protections on goods like films and music from the United States — an award worth up to $21 million — as part of a dispute between the countries over online gambling.


Chemical Rules for Selected Products

Data About Zetia Risks Was Not Fully Revealed

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