Rocket-powered unicorns and other, slightly less interesting, things

These are the articles from the last two weeks. Oops. Oh well.

Remember Goodnight, Moon? Blueberries for Sal? Little Bear and Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? Apparently today's toddlers are being lulled to sleep (or not, actually) by bedtime stories that, as the New Yorker puts it, are initiating them into a Gossip Girl reality. "The Defiant Ones" reveals a number of these stories to those of us momentarily without a little bundle of snot in our lives, analyzing the psychological effects their themes have on the children and the parents reading them along the way. Very, very interesting stuff.

An interesting turn of events in the business world lately has been the defection of a number of high-profile corporations from the US Chamber of Commerce, the largest business lobby in the country. "Exit Through Lobby" awkwardly tries to contrast this new trend with the historical reluctance of American individuals to resign their posts, even when asked to do something they feel goes against their morals. It's a good piece about how Big and Small Business are fighting over the cap-and-trade system, though, and, if anything, that tie-in is just another example that corporations don't behave like real people (their resignations from the Chamber are likely more financially motivated than morally) and don't deserve "personhood."

According to "Meet future woman" and the longitudinal study of a Massachusetts town it's covering, human women will genetically "evolve" to be shorter, plumper, and more fertile over the next 40 generations. Really, it's just because women who have more children tend to be shorter and hold onto their baby weight, and - look at the Duggars - pass on the proclivity to breed more and start having babies earlier. There doesn't actually seem to be a genetic advantage to being shorter or heavier, except that perhaps it is easier to carry children comfortably.

Down in the comments section to this article there's a good debate going on about the reliability of the study's findings. Some people find fault with the selection of a smallish, ruralish American town to generalize about the entire human race. (The study's defenders rush to point out that it was important to find a relatively closed population, as it is a genetics study, so that they could look at multiple generations of women from the same family easily.) Others have a problem with, as I mentioned, the idea that being short and heavy causes you to reproduce, rather than - a radical proposition here, I know - babies changing the way your body is shaped. Another point that really stuck out to me is that Americans and others in developed nations have actually grown taller and wider in the last few decades because of better nutrition (or overconsumption). Height is an interesting variable, but it's really no mystery that women with lots of children tend to be homebodies more than their unchilded counterparts, and homebodies eat more and exercise less. Maybe there should be a study done on the heritability of homebodiness.

"Blanche Lincoln's balance" and "Ready, set, go" are from the Economist of two weeks ago. Blanche Lincoln is a Democratic senator from Arkansas - one of those 'Blue Dogs' who are very, very centrist liberals from states that you normally wouldn't envision would even consider electing electing a Democrat to a national office.She voted for the health care bill; let's move on.

"Ready, Set, Go," provides a contrasting image of the plan for Chicago's - and all of America's - schools. Arne Duncan, as everyone knows, is the Education Secretary and the former superintendent of the Chicago school system. He has been giving a sizable chunk of stimulus money to invest in our generally painfully underfunded schools; what he has done to try to ensure that the money is most effectively spent, however, is to allow states to essentially rid themselves of the No Child Left Behind rules and test their schools against international benchmarks AND try and reduce the influence of teachers' union contracts. By stopping the freefall of testing standards and making teacher pay and promotions based on their ability to actually educate their students, Duncan hopes to prove that just $4.4b can change the way we view education in America. The best part? States that refuse to use students' test results to even partially evaluate the teachers won't see a dollar of the new money. Obviously, it's not the only reason there are huge gaps between rich and poor and minority and white kids, but it's a step. PS We aren't funding abstinence-only sex ed anymore, either.

An Awesome Book! is awesome and completely redeems the modern children's book from the bile depicted in that first New Yorker article. Click the link and scroll sideways, not down, to read the whole. entire. thing. Then click on the store; I'm thinking of buying the poster of rocket-powered unicorns. Thoughts?

And finally, our science lessons for the week. Both "Underwater town breaks antiquity record" and "Stone age hunting traps found deep in Great Lakes" discuss the living habits of prehistoric humans. "Underwater town" is particularly intriguing because, like Pompeii, Pavlopetri is an extremely well-preserved ancient city, complete with streets and home foundations - except that new artifacts show that it may have been settled during the early Bronze Age, making it three thousand(!) years older than Pompeii. There are also a few cool pictures attached to the article, with the little foundation stones in neat lines. It reminds me of Roxaboxen, one of my favorite books from elementary school.