Sunday, April 29, 2012

Science & Tech Stuffs

Two interesting articles in the Economist's Science & Technology section from last week's issue.
The (social) science of civil war.  The article examines different programs which model the possibility of a civil war-related messiness.  Predicting terrorist attacks in a guerrilla warfare setting, understanding the evolution of protests, looking at "what-if" scenarios during growing conflict.
Telephoning habits of the different sexes as they age.  Once people hit the grandparent-ish age, the people they call changes quite a bit.  Women start calling other women, presumably their daughters, to assist in relationship-building (of the child producing kind) and child-rearing.  The reasoning: if you can't produce babies anymore yourself, better make sure your offspring are producing and raising babies successfully.  Guys, no such (biological) necessity; men do call women at a lower rate as the get older, though (not as much need to call the wife).

No comments:

Post a Comment