Friday, February 14, 2020

UPDATED
US astronaut returns to Earth after longest mission by woman

IF SHE WERE A MAN TRUMP WOULD HAVE CONGRATULATED HER

A WEEK LATER HE STILL HAS NOT MENTIONED HER

Record-setting astronaut feels good after near year in space

by Marcia Dunn

NASA's new record-setting astronaut said Wednesday that aside from sore muscles and trouble with balance, she's readjusting well to gravity after nearly 11 months in space.

Christina Koch met with reporters in Houston six days after returning to Earth from the International Space Station. Her 328-day mission—which ended last Thursday—was the longest ever by a woman.

Her neck hurt for about a day. "I felt like a 2-week-old who was actually working hard to hold up my own head," she said.

She considers herself lucky she didn't have the sore feet and burning skin suffered four years ago by NASA's all-time endurance champ, Scott Kelly, whose mission lasted 340 days.

Koch returned home to Galveston, Texas, to find a kitchen full of chips and salsa, something she'd craved in orbit, along with the Gulf of Mexico. She hit the beach with her husband, Bob, and their dog, a rescue pup named LBD for Little Brown Dog, just three days after her landing in Kazakhstan.

LBD was excited to see her, and vice versa.

"I'm not sure who was more excited to see the other," Koch said.

Their reunion was recorded. "It's just a symbol of coming back to the people and places that you love, to see your favorite animal," she said.

The 41-year-old Koch is an electrical engineer who also has a physics degree. She flew to the space station last March and was part of the first all-female spacewalk in October. Three astronauts remain at the orbiting lab, including the other half of the all-female spacewalk, NASA's Jessica Meir

US astronaut sets record for longest spaceflight by a woman

NASA astronaut comes home to chips and salsa after record 11 months in space

Marcia Dunn The Associated Press Wednesday, February 12, 2020

U.S. astronaut Christina Koch reacts shortly after the landing of the Russian Soyuz MS-13 space capsule about 150 km south-east of the Kazakh town of Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan, Thursday, Feb. 6, 2020. (Sergei Ilnitsky/Pool Photo via AP)

CAPE CANAVERAL, FLA. -- NASA's new record-setting astronaut said Wednesday that aside from sore muscles and trouble with balance, she's readjusting well to gravity after nearly 11 months in space.

Christina Koch met with reporters in Houston six days after returning to Earth from the International Space Station. Her 328-day mission -- which ended last Thursday -- was the longest ever by a woman.

Her neck hurt for about a day. "I felt like a 2-week-old who was actually working hard to hold up my own head," she said.

Boom and bust for ancient sea dragons

by University of Bristol

Ichthyosaurs rapidly evolved a large range of forms and sizes early in their evolution, but after a bottle neck at the end of the Triassic, show much slower rates and more restricted variety. Credit: Dr Ben Moon & Dr Tom Stubbs

A new study by scientists from the University of Bristol's School of Earth Sciences, shows a well-known group of extinct marine reptiles had an early burst in their diversity and evolution—but that a failure to adapt in the long-run may have led to their extinction.

Ichthyosaurs were fish-like reptiles that first appeared about 250 million years ago and quickly diversified into highly capable swimmers, filling a broad range of sizes and ecologies in the early Mesozoic oceans. However, this rapid pace didn't last long and an evolutionary bottleneck 200 million years ago, through which only one lineage of ichthyosaurs survived, led to much slower evolution in much of their long history.

Dr. Ben Moon, who led the research, published in the journal Communications Biology, said: "Ichthyosaurs are a fascinating group of animals to work on because they evolved so many adaptations for living in water very quickly: a fish-like body and tail fin, giving birth to live young rather than laying eggs, and lots of different feeding styles.

"Because of this we expected to see a rapid evolution early after ichthyosaurs first appeared, but we were staggered by just how big this early burst was and how relatively short it was."

There are over 100 known species of ichthyosaur from between 250–90 million years ago in the Mesozoic Era, when the infamous dinosaurs ruled the land and the seas were full of marine reptiles, the top predators that filled comparable roles to dolphins, orcas, and sharks in modern seas.

This very complete specimen of the ichthyosaur Suevoleviathan is from the Early Jurassic of Germany. Many excellently preserved ichthyosaur fossils are known from this time and have been collected from the UK and Germany. Mary Anning from Lyme Regis is intimately associated with fossil collection and found the first recognized ichthyosaur fossils in 1810. Credit: Dr Ben Moon & Dr Tom Stubbs

The study used state-of-the-art computational methods and looked at two types of data, one covering skull size and the other including many features of ichthyosaurs' skeleton. All methods show an 'early burst' of evolution in ichthyosaurs, with high rates and rapid variation soon after the appearance of the group, that quickly diminishes later on.

Co-author Dr. Tom Stubbs said: "Ichthyosaurs really dominated early in the Triassic (252–201 million years ago), rapidly evolving in an ocean with few predators soon after the largest known mass extinction in Earth's history. However, the seas quickly became more crowded and competitive, and ichthyosaurs lost their top position in the Jurassic (201–145 million years ago) to other marine reptiles like plesiosaurs and pliosaurs.

"It may well have been the ichthyosaurs' decreasing evolutionary rates which made them less able to adapt quickly, and therefore less diverse and competitive, allowing other marine reptiles to take over as the top predators."

Despite slower evolution and going through a bottleneck at the end of the Triassic period, ichthyosaurs remained a common group but had less variation between them. These are perhaps best known ichthyosaurs, found in several UK locations, including Lyme Regis in Dorset, and first collected by Mary and Joseph Anning.

The huge ichthyosaur Temnodontosaurus from the Early Jurassic of Germany. This specimen is about 7 m long, but other ichthyosaurs grew up to 21 m. Credit: Dr Ben Moon & Dr Tom Stubbs

Dr. Ben Moon added: "Even though ichthyosaurs were evolving more slowly in their last 100 million years, they are still known from many species, but with less variety between them.

"It's possible that we might find more ichthyosaurs out there that buck this trend, but it seems that this lack of variety was eventually the cause of their extinction when global conditions became less favourable around 90 million years ago. Ichthyosaurs were simply unable to adapt."Scientists put ichthyosaurs in virtual water tanks

More information: Early high rates and disparity in the evolution of ichthyosaurs. Communications Biology. DOI: 10.1038/s42003-020-0779-6

Journal information: Communications Biology

Faith-centered tattoos are analyzed in study of university students

by Terry Goodrich, Baylor University

With more than a quarter of U.S. adults now having tattoos—and nearly half of millennials sporting them—only a handful of studies have focused on religious tattoos. But a new study by researchers at Baylor University and Texas Tech University analyzes faith-centered tattoos and is the first to use visual images of them.

The study, published in the journal Visual Studies, analyzed 752 photos of tattoos taken at a Christian university in the United States and found that nearly 20% of those were overtly religious in content.

"The embrace of tattoos in the United States reflects a generational shift toward greater individualism and self-expression," said lead author Kevin D. Dougherty, Ph.D., associate professor of sociology at Baylor University. "Americans born since the 1970s have increasingly embraced tattoos as an acceptable means to communicate identity and belonging, whereas previous generations of Americans largely did not. Today, men and women in the United States are equally likely to have tattoos."

A 2016 Harris Poll showed that 29% of American adults had at least one tattoo—up from 14% in 2008.

"An interesting discovery in our research is that the religious tattoos of college students are more likely than non-religious ones to face inward, toward the owner," Dougherty said. An example is a tattoo on the inner wrist.

"We speculate that religious tattoos may serve a different purpose than do tattoos of favorite sports teams, occupations or hobbies. While any visible tattoo is a public proclamation, tattoos oriented toward the owner represent a personal reminder of identity or affiliation. In this way, religious tattoos are personal but not private. They may encourage individuals to live in accordance with their religious beliefs."

The study also found some evidence that a generally visible tattoo may be conceptually different from tattoos hidden by clothing, said co-author Jerome R. Koch, Ph.D., professor of sociology at Texas Tech University. He has studied body art on college campuses for more than a decade.

"Generally visible tattoos seem intended more toward stories of life and remembrance, which the wearer may be willing to openly discuss," Koch said. "Tattoos which are only visible, say, to someone else with whom they are intimately involved may be more closely tied to sense of self, private memories and/or emotional conflicts."

Photos used in the study were taken by sociology students as part of a semester-long research project. Researchers analyzed 752 photos by owners' gender; whether the tattoos were religious in nature; and tattoo size—small (1 inch by 1 inch or smaller), medium (3 inches by 3 inches) or large (larger than 3 inches or more than a quarter of an arm or leg). The study also examined whether the tattoo faced the owner or faced out; and whether those with religious content featured an image, text or both image and text.

The analysis found that:

Overt religious content appeared in 145 photos (19% of total sample).
More men in the photos (23%) had religious tattoos than women (17%).
Of the religious tattoos on women, most (69%) were small and in more easily concealed locations. The most frequent sites of their religious tattoos were the wrist (23%), foot (18%) and back (18%).
Men's religious tattoos were more likely to be large than non-religious ones (61% compared to 44%). Most prevalent sites for men's religious tattoos were upper arm (26%), forearm (21%) and back (19%).
Half of the religious tattoos were images—the most common being the cross. More than one quarter were text, often Bible references, with a slight majority being New Testament references. But the Old Testament book of Psalms was most popular. Images with text comprised 21% of religious tattoos.
Religious tattoos were more likely than non-religious ones to face the owner, with 26% facing inward, in contrast to 18 % of non-religious tattoos.

Researchers said they have no way of knowing if these findings apply to all students at the university or to students at other universities. They also say it is probable that they undercounted religious tattoos—in part because tattoos may have religious or spiritual connotations but not be recognized as such.

Dougherty and Koch are expanding their research to a national level with random samples.

"So far, all our work has involved college students as respondents," Koch said. "Since we know tattoos tell life stories, broadening our respondent base is the next logical step. How might life stories expressed through body art—religious and otherwise—differ by wider differences in the race, age and social class?"

"We have a study in progress on religion and tattoos in a national sample of U.S. adults," Dougherty said. "Our research question is: Do religious people in the United States today get tattoos? We also have plans for a national survey on religious tattoos. This will allow us to determine the percentage of Americans with religious tattoos and how they differ from other Americans without a tattoo or with tattoos that have no religious significance."

Future research also might examine how tattoos are viewed in other parts of the globe, Koch said.

"It would be interesting to compare and contrast the path toward legitimation of tattoos in different parts of the developed Western world," he said. "We have some information from other scholars that, for example, conservative Catholicism in Latin America may continue to stigmatize tattoo wearers. So broader religious/folk culture may be in play where there is greater antipathy or stricter cultural norms against body art. Conversely, some of our students have reported that the fact their tattoo was religious lent legitimation with their families more than a tattoo of another type might."

Are tattoos linked with individuals' health and risky behaviors?

French unions played key role in protecting workers' mental health

by Julie Greco, Cornell University

During a three-year organizational restructuring at France Telecom that began in 2007—which called for the downsizing of 22,000 employees, often based on ethically questionable methods—there was a wave of employee suicides. Published reports put the total number of deaths at 35.

Virginia Doellgast, associate professor of comparative employment relations in Cornell University's ILR School, examines the role unions played in the aftermath of those deaths. Her paper, "After the Social Crisis: The Transformation of Employment Relations at France Telecom," was published Feb. 11 in Socio-Economic Review.

The researchers highlight France Telecom labor unions' approaches to studying and publicizing the negative effects of employment restructuring on workers' psychosocial health. The unions were able to influence how the suicides were interpreted—both within the firm and in the media—then communicate their findings to workers, managers and the public.

In 2009, when the press reported high rates of suicides at the company, the unions were ready with a well-organized message, backed by their survey findings: The company and its management were to blame. As a result, unions gained a formal role in monitoring management practices to make sure they did not threaten workers' psychosocial health.

That led to December's landmark decision by a Paris court, which found the company and several former top executives guilty of "collective moral harassment."

According to Doellgast, the France Telecom case holds lessons for U.S. unions struggling with similar problems of growing job insecurity and intensifying performance pressure. She has recently worked with the Communications Workers of America on a survey measuring worker stress and burnout, sleep problems, use of medication, repetitive strain injuries, and fears of outsourcing and downsizing.

"One lesson for U.S. unions is that change starts by getting workers to understand that stress-related problems are widespread and to mobilize around the demand for good, healthy jobs," Doellgast said. "Also, real power comes from communicating these issues to the public and to policymakers. Companies are more likely to prioritize worker health when they fear losing customers, and when they fear fines and jail time for their top executives."

Doellgast said the unions' ability to bring the case to the courts and the resulting landmark decision could have far-reaching consequences.

"Does the company just have a responsibility to its shareholders, or does it have a responsibility to its other stakeholders, which include its workers?" she said. "This case shows the critical role of unions in making the case for this 'stakeholder' view of the firm: Companies are part of society, and managers should make sure they're not killing their employees to make short-term profits."French telecom company Orange convicted over suicides

More information: Socio-Economic Review, academic.oup.com/ser/advance-a … /ser/mwaa006/5733937

Having fewer children reduced the education gap in China

by Jeff Grabmeier, The Ohio State University

JUST LIKE IN KERALA INDIA WHERE WOMEN BECAME BETTER EDUCATED THEY ALSO USED CONTRACEPTION MORE AND REDUCED THEIR FAMILY SIZE

Credit: CC0 Public Domain

A new study uses China's one-child policy to show that having fewer children leads women to achieve higher levels of education.

The research found that the one-child policy alone accounted for about half of the additional education that women in China achieved after the policy was put in place.

"The findings suggest that some Chinese women anticipated having fewer children due to the one-child policy and they postponed marriage and postponed having children while they increased their education," said Xuan Jiang, a postdoctoral researcher in economics at The Ohio State University.

Jiang's study was published recently in the journal Contemporary Economic Policy.

Population data collected by the Chinese government since 2010 made it possible for Jiang to analyze how fertility decisions affect education in women. There has been no other way to study the issue in this way before, she said.

As such, she emphasized that the study is not defending the one-child policy, which critics say led to human rights abuses. Moreover, the results may have broader implications beyond China for explaining the link between motherhood and education.

"Economists have wanted to know why the education gap between men and women has closed in many countries. This study shows that reductions in fertility may play an important role," she said.

Jiang used data from the ongoing Chinese Family Panel Studies, a nationally representative annual longitudinal survey conducted by Peking University and funded by the Chinese government.

China's one-child policy was instituted in 1979 to control the country's rapidly growing population. But it didn't apply equally to all groups. This study focused on the Han, the ethnic majority in China who were most strictly controlled by the law.

Jiang compared two groups: an older generation (born 1950-1959) whose education decisions would not have been affected by the one-child policy and a younger generation (born 1960-1980) whose decisions would be impacted.

Overall, while men born in 1950 had significantly more education than women born that year, men and women born in 1980 had about equal levels—nearly nine years of schooling.

Jiang first compared Han women versus Han men from older and younger generations.

The results showed that, after taking into account other factors that could have affected educational attainment, the one-child policy was responsible for increasing Han women's years of schooling by 1.28 years compared to Han men. That explains 53 percent of the 2.38-year increase in education attainment of women born between 1950 and 1980.

"Being able to explain more than half of educational attainment with one factor—the one-child policy—is enormous," Jiang said. "That is very surprising for economists."

She noted that in a broader context, women in countries worldwide experienced increases in education in the same time frame. Could there be other worldwide social forces at work that affected women in China?

To control for that possibility, Jiang conducted a second analysis that compared Han women to non-Han women in China who were not subject to the strict one-child policy.

The results were nearly identical to the first analysis: The Han women's educational attainment increased by 1.29 years compared to non-Han women.

Jiang did another test, looking specifically at young women who had one or more parents who were members of the ruling Communist party.

"The Communist Party implemented the one-child policy and there were punishments for party members whose families did not follow the birth quota," Jiang said.

"So you would expect that the one-child policy would have an even stronger effect for young women whose parents were members."

And that is indeed what she found: The one-child policy had a more robust impact on increasing education among children of Communist Party members.

Jiang also analyzed what happened to women after their schooling was over.

Results showed that the one-child policy delayed women's first marriages, delayed how soon they had a child and increased how many entered the job market.

"Women anticipated having fewer children, which may have delayed their entry into parenthood and even delayed the decision to get married, which allowed them to get more education," Jiang said.

"And with the further education, they were more likely to get jobs."

The results show the powerful influence that the one-child policy had on Chinese society, she said.

"The one-child policy fundamentally changed the lives and family structure of the generations born in the 1960s and later."

The effects of China's one-child policy on women's education

More information: Xuan Jiang. FAMILY PLANNING AND WOMEN'S EDUCATIONAL ATTAINMENT: EVIDENCE FROM THE ONE‐CHILD POLICY, Contemporary Economic Policy (2020). DOI: 10.1111/coep.12462

What is the best way to encourage innovation? Competitive pay may be the answer

by Christine Clark, University of California - San Diego

RESEARCH BIAS REVEALED

Economists and business leaders agree that innovation is a major force behind economic growth, but many disagree on what is the best way to encourage workers to produce the "think-outside-of-the-box" ideas that create newer and better products and services. New research from the University of California San Diego indicates that competitive "winner-takes-all" pay structures are most effective in getting the creative juices flowing that help fuel economic growth.

The findings are based on a study authored by professor of economics Joshua Graff Zivin and assistant professor of management Elizabeth Lyons who partnered with Thermo Fisher Scientific, one of the globe's largest bio tech companies, in creating a contest for the Baja California office. Participants in the competition, which was open to all non-management employees of Thermo Fisher and other tech companies in the region, were asked to design digital solutions to help share medical equipment across small healthcare clinics in the region.

The competition was created to test which of two common compensation models produced more novel ideas. Those who signed up were randomly selected to compete in either the "winner-takes-all" category, in which there was one prize of $15,000 awarded to first place, or the "top 10" category, in which the same amount of prize money was spread out among the top 10 entries.

"Participants under the winner-takes-all compensation scheme submitted proposals that were significantly more novel than their counterparts in the other scheme," said the authors of National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) working paper, who both hold appointments with the UC San Diego School of Global Policy and Strategy. "While the two groups did not statistically differ from one another on their overall scores, the risk taking encouraged by the competition with a single prize resulted in innovators pursuing more creative solutions."

They added, "These findings are significant because the 21st century economy is one that prizes novelty. Firms view it as an important source of comparative advantage. It is also an essential ingredient in the development of technological breakthroughs that transform markets with major impacts to consumers and producers."

How firms can produce more creative ideas with a limited amount of resources

Most modern-day mechanisms created by chief technology officer (CTOs) and management gurus designed to spark innovation often rely on performance-based-pay and hinge on assumptions regarding the ability and ambitions of employees and their risk preferences. However, the results from the NBER paper show that with identical groups of innovators, companies can increase the innovative output of employees just by changing how they pay them.

"Those competing for one big prize had to push further in making their results creative; however what is most surprising is that this is a relatively low-cost way for companies to induce more radical innovation," Lyons noted.

Though there was more risk vs. reward in the "winner-takes-all" category, both produced the about the same number of submissions (20 in "top 10" category and 22 in the "winner-takes-all" category), indicating that having less of a chance of winning a monitory award did not have an impact on the amount of work output.

The entries were judged by a panel of six experts. Half of the judges were from industry (Thermo Fisher and Teradata) and the other half were from academia (computer sciences professors from local universities in the Baja California region).

The novelty of the submissions was evaluated on a scale from one to five, relative to what is currently and/or soon to be available on the market. The lowest possible score of one was given for proposed solutions already on the market and the highest score of five was awarded to submissions in which no one else has thought of a similar idea.

Those who entered could work as an individual or in teams. The results of teams vs. individual entries in both categories are consistent with other studies, showing that teams with diversified skill-sets and deepened professional experience produced better entries than that of individuals. However, the team entries in the "winner-takes-all" category were again more novel than the group work in the "top 10" category.

Subsequently, participants in both categories were surveyed on their risk preferences. Not surprisingly, those less averse to risk performed better in the "winner-takes-all" category.

The results also revealed that women who submitted entries in the contest performed better than average in both categories of the competition.

In conclusion, the authors noted that genius is not created by incentives, but empowered by them.

"It is important to recognize that incentives alone are insufficient to spark creativity," they wrote. "More work is required to understand the raw ingredients that shape the relationship between creativity and compensation."

Students given incentives to innovate are just as skilled as the self-motivated, research finds

More information: Joshua Graff Zivin et al, The Effects of Prize Structures on Innovative Performance, (2020). DOI: 10.3386/w26737

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment