Rotundus.com

Faculty Pay, Around the World

"A new analysis of faculty salaries at public universities worldwide -- designed to make comparisons possible by focusing on purchasing power, not pure salaries -- finds that Canada offers the best faculty pay among 28 countries analyzed."

Y Chromosome Depends on Itself to Survive

"Men and women differ by 1 to 2 percent of their genomes, Dr. Page said, which is the same as the difference between a man and a male chimpanzee or between a woman and a female chimpanzee. ... 'We all recite the mantra that we are 99 percent identical and take political comfort in it,' Dr. Page said. 'But the reality is that the genetic difference between males and females absolutely dwarfs all other differences in the human genome.'"

New Energy-Dense Battery Could Enable Long-Distance Electric Cars

Looks as though they may have doubled the energy density for batteries, and apparently may be able to produce these at half the cost of conventional electric car batteries. I was hoping that the article would say some of smaller format batteries of this sort but it seems currently focused on the car market.

Red meat may make you happier, study finds

Of course they do mention that this means only a small amount of red meat, and note that overconsumption can be as bad as underconsumption. "... other forms of protein such as chicken, pork, fish or plant-based proteins did not have the same effect."

Butter v. margarine - which is better?

An interesting note: "... growing evidence suggests saturated fat may not be as harmful as once thought. For instance, a study published in the March issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that risk of heart disease or stroke were similar between people who consumed the highest and lowest amounts of saturated fat. "

There was an interesting article in Foreign Policy today entitled Next Year in Tripoli, looking at the treatment of the Jews there.

The history of Libya's Jews stretches back to the third century B.C., through the 1492 Jewish expulsion from Spain, and up to the 20th century. ... As recently as 1931, Libya's Jewish community of about 24,500 people represented 4 percent of the country's population.

... But the wars of the 20th century decimated our community. The trouble began in 1938, when a Nazi-inspired racial law against Jews led to heightened persecution, and hundreds of Libyan Jews were killed in riots during that period. By 1949, many Jews had been forced to leave after Libyans rioted again in reaction to the establishment of Israel. By 1969, with Qaddafi in power, only about 100 Jews remained. At that time, Qaddafi confiscated the assets and possessions of all Libyan Jews, including those who had left in 1967 and earlier, and declared that Jews could not return or renew their passports.

... While not one Jew lives in Libya today, the original diaspora population of 38,000 has grown to about 200,000 people who reside largely in Israel and Italy.

Compare to Palestine... which sounds worse? Which do you hear more about?

Is Your Diet Making You Bald?

"Since 2009, three major studies—in Mexico, Taiwan, and Turkey—reached the same conclusion that a groundbreaking 2000 Finnish study did: that men with insulin resistance, a condition that leads to diabetes and obesity and is linked to heart disease, were much more likely to be bald. The most common cause of insulin resistance? A diet laden with sugar and refined carbohydrates."

In Harper decade, a big jump left

"Harper’s critics fret that the country has moved to the right. Really? Harper has convinced fewer than a million Canadians to move right in the last decade, while Jack Layton convinced a whopping 3.4 million Canadians to move left to vote NDP in same period."

Muslim community calls PQ alarmist over halal meat

"We don’t ask that methods for slaughtering the animals be changed. ... The only difference is that I conduct a prayer before the slaughter begins.... In other abattoirs ... the practice may be slightly different. An employee of Islamic faith or a practising Muslim man will perform the prayer and conduct the bleeding out of the animal in accordance with supervised practices that may include stunning." - how normative is this particular view of halal slaughter? I'd always heard that stunning pre-slaughter wasn't typically thought to be halal. I also thought that halal slaughter normally could be done by any of the "people of the book" (Christians, Jews, etc.) as Wikipedia seems to agree.

Italy fact of the day

"Italy has a total net, real corporate tax rate of 68.6 percent" - look at the report to compare other countries

In NIMBY Sentiments, a Gender Divide

"A consulting firm that conducts an annual poll on public attitudes toward development has come up with a new twist on Nimbyism: women are far more likely than men to fight proposals to build new power plants, shopping malls and big-box stores." Not quite sure how to interpret this one. I was wondering if it might have something to do with traditional gender roles, but then the greater female opposition to things like shopping malls wouldn't seem to make sense.

So apparently there may be some drawbacks to building wind turbines... who could have guessed? The following film seems to be a complaint about the noise of the things, strobe effects from the shadows of the blades, and the idea that occasionally a wind turbine might fall apart.

By and large it seems to be basically your everyday NIMBYism, but today was also a day that I stumbled across an article on the effects of noise on plant life. Basically the article argues that noise impacts the varieties of animal species visiting plants nearby noise sources, increasing reproduction of some and decreasing reproduction of others.

One solution to some of the negative consequences of turbines would seem to build them in unpopulated areas, clear even of farms, but if plants are affected, I wonder if you want to keep them in semi-populated areas like the rural ones mentioned in the film just to ensure that plant reproduction isn't affected to a great degree.