fforts in the early 20th century to improve the quality of medical education in the United States led to a steep decline in the number of medical schools and medical school graduates. In a new study, researchers examined the consequences of these medical school closures between 1900 and 1930 for the number of county-level physicians,...
In documenting and recording society’s collective data on an unprecedented scale, artificial intelligence is becoming humanity’s historian – changing the way we record information for posterity. But AI’s inadvertent role as memory-keeper raises profound concerns for today’s historians. Unlike human historians who explicitly document their methodologies, AI systems are creating the historical archives of the...
There’s a persistent myth in our culture that success and downright virtue belong to the early risers—those “5 a.m. club” members who rise before the sun and conquer their to-do lists while the rest of us are still snoozing. Social media is flooded with images of pre-dawn productivity, and best-selling books tout the virtues of...
The personal credit scores of top-level corporate executives can help explain their decision making in the corporate environment, at least when it involves evaluating risk, a new study suggests. Researchers at The Ohio State University conducted an experiment with a national sample of high-level executives and found that those with subprime credit scores tended to...
Today, all non-Africans are known to have descended from a small group of people that ventured into Eurasia after around 50 thousand years ago. However, fossil evidence shows that there were numerous failed dispersals before this time that left no detectable traces in living people. In a paper published in Nature this week, new evidence for the...
The Comfortable Trap Imagine wandering through a mall—or worse, a supermarket—and seeing row upon row of people strolling about as though they’d just rolled out of bed. So snug, so stretchy, and oh so revealing (of the decidedly unglamorous parental choice to skip pants today). Once the province of gym bunnies, leggings have, in a...
A new study published in the Strategic Management Journal finds that international firms that strategically withdraw from certain markets may be better positioned to grow and compete more effectively in others. The research highlights how focusing on core markets—rather than spreading resources too thin—can strengthen long-term performance. The study, conducted by Chunhu Jeon (Morgan State University), Jonathan...
Whether you have a rebellious personality or not, most people imagine they are better at overcoming pressure to violate their own principles than they really are, finds a new study. Researchers found that most individuals think they would be more likely than the average person to disobey an immoral or unlawful order from an authority...
Get rid of states? Legal scholar Stephen Legomsky, who taught for 34 years at the Washington University in St. Louis School of Law, has just published a book, “Reimagining the American Union,” that proposes a radical idea: Abolish state government. The Conversation’s politics and democracy editor, Naomi Schalit – a former statehouse reporter herself –...
The South American country has been in the headlines lately, but let’s not forget its captivating topography, which unfortunately, contributes to its challenges. With cocaine production at an all-time high, Colombia’s government is testing a pacific approach to its narcotics problem: paying farmers to uproot crops of coca, the drug’s main ingredient – All photographs...
