Levitt’s skepticism notwithstanding, it seems there may be a good reason for some people to get tattoos. David B. Wiseman, a psychologist, showed 128 undergraduate students photographs of tattooed and non-tattooed female models, described as “college instructors.” He found that college students prefer tattoos.
Imagine a world where Hollywood producers could predict, with scientific precision, the box office revenue a movie will generate just by reading the screenplay. A new forecasting model devised by a trio of marketing professors from Wharton and NYU promises to deliver something like that.
The Book of Odds takes a look at a question that flashes through the minds of many people the moment they board an airplane: what are your odds of surviving a plane crash? They found that “[t]he general survival rate for a casualty-inducing airline incident is about 38% or, in our parlance: your odds of survival are about 1 in 2.63.”
A few months ago, Dubner snapped some iPhone pictures of the Arctic from an airplane. If you’re hankering for some professional photos, check out FP’s photoessay “The Ice Kingdom.”
When given strong data to work with, computers can do a good job of beating humans in predicting what the masses will embrace. BusinessWeek has an interesting recap of successful machine-made future-gazing.
A new study from sociologists Constance Gager and Scott Yabiku shows that household labor and sexual frequency are not inversely related — a welcome contradiction to the common “more work = less sex” equation. Using data from the National Survey of Families and Households, the authors show that certain types of couples have superior time-organization skills across all their major time commitments: the workplace, at home and in bed.
Planet Money interviews Nassim Taleb for its Deep Read series. Taleb compares the developed world’s dependence on debt to drug addiction.
Two Hong Kong architects believe that as we pollute the air, our skyscrapers can help clean up the mess. Frederick Givens and Benny Chow’s “Indigo Tower” features a “nano-coating of titanium dioxide,” designed to neutralize pollution when it hits the building.
How’s this for working overtime? Forbes estimates that hip-hop artist Lil’ Wayne will make more money behind bars this year than he did last year.
What’s the most embarrassing thing about human decision-making? It’s not that we make cognitive mistakes, says Yale cognitive psychologist Laurie Santos, in this recent TED talk. It’s that we seem doomed by our biology to make the same predictable mistakes over and over.
A new paper by Feng Chi and Nathan Yang asks a seemingly simple question: “Is there actually a link between (subjective) social status and wealth?”
New research shows that, in addition to being man’s best friend, dogs improve productivity in the office.
How much does school choice matter? Probably less than you think, as Levitt has previously argued. Now, in an analysis of seven years of test-score data from 6,000 Los Angeles teachers, the L.A. Times and the Rand Corp. have found teacher effectiveness to be three times more influential than school attendance on student performance.
Here’s one way to fight obesity: mandatory exercise, as Beijing has commanded again, after a three-year break.
Google Earth isn’t just for kicks anymore: FP reports that governments around the world are using the service to catch everyone from tax evaders to marijuana growers.
The game of golf has in many ways retained its down-to-earth origins. So what happens when a gaggle of statisticians and mathematical theorists bearing GPS and laser surveyors descend on the links?
Brett Arends at the Wall Street Journal calculates the cost of a backyard pool and advises prospective pool-owners to tread carefully.
Are e-mail attachments bad for the environment? Data-storage expert Matthew Yeager thinks so.
Besieged on campus by amorous female students, University of Alabama economics professor Gary A. Hoover relocated to a home 45 miles away.
Car theft is a man’s world, according to a new paper by Christopher W. Mullins and Michael G. Cherbonneau. Car thieves face two big tasks: stealing the car and selling it. Both male and female thieves are “mentored” by more experienced thieves in much the same way; however, men have an advantage when it’s time to sell the stolen goods.
What kid doesn’t hate it when Mom makes them put on a sweater? Apparently, Anglo-American children hate it so much that they perform worse on any task they believe was chosen for them by their mothers.
An East Baltimore citizen suggests a freaky explanation for recent violence in the city.
Obesity continues to plague the U.S., with nine states now reporting that more than 30% of their population is obese.
Anxious investors can take heart: Congress’s August recess begins at the end of this week, which has historically been a good thing for the markets. Michael Ferguson and Hugh Douglas Witte found that “about 90% of the capital gains over the life of the Dow Jones Industrial Average have come on days when Congress is out of session.”
Marketplace reports that an effort in Chicago to turn human waste into fertilizer has run into local opposition due to higher-than-expected costs.
Sabernomics offers a different take on the Gould and Kaplan study of the Canseco Effect.
Gilbert Wondracek, who (with coauthors) has investigated the economics of online porn, talks about his research in a podcast for the Mercatus Center at George Mason University.
Wired profiles Hunch, a company trying to master the art of online recommendations. Hunch participants respond to “Teach Hunch About You” questions, and their answers are fed into a master algorithm, which has already revealed some interesting correlations.
The economists Eric Gould and Todd Kaplan have used data to evaluate Jose Canseco’s claim that he taught many teammates to use steroids and growth hormones.
The recent deaths at the annual Love Parade music festival in Duisburg, Germany, can be counted among the most perplexing form of tragedy: one that unfolds entirely as a result of the normal psychology of healthy human beings. When crowds reach a critical density, they automatically become vulnerable to a contagion of blind fear that overwhelms any attempt at rational behavior. The paradox of terror is that the subconscious fear response, which evolved over millions of years to keep us safe, can itself pose a terrible danger in the 21st century.
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