Scientists define critical period for learning language—children remain adept learners until the age of 17 or 18. A great deal of evidence suggests that it is more difficult to learn a new language as an adult than as a child, which has led scientists to propose that there is a "critical period" for language learning.
However, the length of this period and its underlying causes remain unknown. A new study performed at MIT suggests that children remain very skilled at learning the grammar of a new language much longer than expected—up to the age of 17 or 18. Conspicuous Consumption of Time: When Busyness and Lack of Leisure Time Become a Status Symbol. ‘Ugh, I’m So Busy’: A Status Symbol for Our Time - The Atlantic. The Big Reason Whites Are Richer Than Blacks in America - Bloomberg. Inheritance matters a lot more than previously thought.
Guess who’s getting the lion’s share. The gap between blacks and whites in income is big, but nowhere near as big as the gap in wealth. According to the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finances, as of 2013 the median white household had $13 in net wealth for every $1 in net wealth of the median black household. For whites vs. Multiculturalism is unpopular with the majority – even though it makes for happier societies. How do people feel about multicultural policies?
Ethnic majorities tend to resent them, and feel less safe in societies with a number of affirmative and rights-based policies, write Pamela Irving Jackson and Peter Doerschler. As a result, governments have come under pressure to ensure policies that tackle inequality benefit everyone. Yet both ethnic majorities and minorities declare themselves happier with their lives and governments when they live in states with multicultural policies. Elected political leaders in Europe no longer promote multiculturalism as a way of reducing the disparities between ethnic majorities and minorities from immigrant backgrounds.
Interview with Eric Kaufmann: cultural values and the rise of right-wing populism in the West. As Donald Trump forms one outrageous policy after another, and as the UK government remains unclear as to what future it is pursuing for the country post-Brexit, Eric Kaufmann discusses the factors that led people to back populist rhetorics with editors Chris Gilson and Artemis Photiadou.
Recent developments in Western politics – the most recent being the US travel ban – seem to come from an opposite universe, in that we used to see the West as being liberal and secular. Having researched cultural values, are these developments as shocking to you or did you see this coming? India to roll out cashless food subsidies system. Fruit and Vegetable vendors using AadhaarPay in Krishna District of Andhra Pradesh (Image courtesy @babuahamed) A new cashless benefits distribution system is set to be rolled out across India, after a scheme introduced by a civil servant in a single district caught the eye of national policymakers.
Ahmed Babu, an Indian Administrative Service officer serving as the District Magistrate of Krishna district in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh, designed a new system for distributing food subsidies to benefits recipients. Using Aadhar, a vast identity database being introduced by the national government, and electronic-Point of Sale (e-PoS) systems installed in all the ‘Fair Price Shops’ (FPS) supplying subsidised food, Babu linked the shops to claimants’ bank accounts – allowing the government to make ‘Public Distribution System’ (PDS) benefits payments directly to the retailers.
For up to date government news and international best practice follow us on Twitter @globegov. Robots May Steal Our Jobs, but Not as Quickly as We Thought. Fear of job loss to automation is growing, with each announcement of exciting technological progress generating a backlash from those who could end up unemployed because of it.
Amazon Go is eliminating the need for cashiers. Self-driving vehicles won’t need truckers and cabbies at their wheels. Artificial intelligence is beginning to diagnose disease, perform surgery, and even write films and articles. No job is safe forever, and we’re constantly being reminded of it, with little to no reassurance about what we’ll all do when computers and robots are running the world. A report released last week by the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) offers some reprieve, bringing three pieces of welcome news: Digital humans.
How Digital Nomads Are Leading the Seismic Shift in Where We Work. Have laptop, will travel.
That’s become the slogan of an increasing number of the global white-collar workforce. People are unleashing themselves from corporations and companies to plug wirelessly into the wider world. The tribe of this digital diaspora is described and named in various ways—among them, location independent—but I prefer digital nomad. Full disclosure: I number myself among this constituency, breaking the tether to corporate ties last year. The world at work: Jobs, pay, and skills for 3.5 billion people. Strains on the global labor force are becoming painfully evident.
Market forces will fail to resolve demand and supply imbalances for tens of millions of skilled and unskilled workers. Over the past three decades, as developing economies industrialized and began to compete in world markets, a global labor market started taking shape. Welcome To The Gig Economy - Consequences Of Artificial Intelligence. The workforce landscape is due to change in the next decade.
Robotics and artificial intelligence will perform any dull, dirty or dangerous jobs. Driving, one of the most popular jobs in the US, won’t even exist as a job as autonomous vehicles creep in. Roads will be safer, transportation more efficient – and millions of currently employed people will be out of the job. Robots are changing everything. Including Houston. Virtual Reality and Social Networks Will Be a Powerful Combination. The Good and the Bad of Escaping to Virtual Reality. In Silicon Valley, in 1985, a ragtag band of programmers began exploring the concept of virtual reality from a tiny cottage in Palo Alto.
VR News, Events, and Talent. Chris Hardwick: VR Addiction Is 'Going To Be A Problem' Rokoko's New Motion Capture Suit Available For Pre-Order. How Virtual Reality Is Being Used To Rehabilitate Convicted Criminals. Break Out of Your Echo Chamber: Technology Arranges Lunch With Someone New. Generation Lonely: Britain's young people have never been less connected. Months later, I realised that wasn’t the case.
Connect. Does Cyber-Monday mean delivery gridlock Tuesday? Yesterday was, famously, cyber-Monday, the day in which the nation’s consumers took to their web-browsers and started clicking for holiday shopping in earnest. Tech Crunch reports that estimated e-commerce sales will yesterday were predicted at $3.36 billion, coming on top of almost $5 billion in on-line sales on Thanksgiving and Black Friday. The steady growth of e-commerce has many people worrying that urban streets will be overwhelmed by UPS and Fedex delivery trucks ferrying cardboard boxes from warehouses to homes. The latest of these is an article published at Quartz: “Our Amazon addiction is clogging up our cities—and bikes might be the best solution.”
A policy that works: Raising the minimum wage. Higher minimum wages result in greater earnings for low wage workers, and no loss of jobs We’re always casting about for effective policies to address poverty. And there’s new evidence that higher minimum wages accomplish just that. In a new review of the literature and data by the President’s Council of Economic Advisers shows that states that raised their local minimum wage generated greater earnings for low wage workers, with apparently no effect on employment levels. The key argument against raising the minimum wage is that it would somehow cause employers to reduce the hours of work of employees subject to the minimum, and thereby lower the total number of job opportunities. Are U.S. Suburbs Really Growing Faster Than Cities? Last Friday’s Wall Street Journal came out with another eye-catching headline story in the city versus suburbs battle of the bands: “Suburbs outstrip cities in population growth, study finds.
Vancouver's Active Transit Success Explained. The city hit a 50 percent “active transit” target, 5 years ahead of schedule. A short film shows how they did it. When it comes to nudging drivers out of cars, Vancouver ranks as North America’s biggest success story. How DIY Arts Spaces Can Survive in Cities. U.S. 'Megaregions' Revealed Via Commuting Data. The Straddling Bus Is Gathering Dust in China. The Persistent Inequality of Neighborhoods. The New Census Portrait of Rural America in 2016. New Census data show that the real differences between the city and the country may not match up with popular perception. Why Cuomo’s Hopes for Trump Infrastructure Cash Could Crumble. What If a Social Score Determined Your Success? China’s About to Find Out. These maps show changes in global meat consumption by 2024. Here’s why that matters.
November 13, 2015 — How much meat does the average American eat annually? 50 pounds (20 kilograms)? 100 pounds (40 kilograms)? These entrepreneurs are using technology to turn a profit on food waste. April 20, 2016 — Food waste is bad for our wallets. How technology is making it easier to track fish from hook to fork. Women's work: men who do non-traditional jobs. Generation Jobless: Are STEM Students Next? Empathy on the Decline. Humans Are Far Less Empathetic Than They Used To Be. Is Declining Empathy Technology's Fault? A decline in empathy in our smartphone world.
Shocker: Empathy Dropped 40% in College Students Since 2000. What, Me Care? Young Are Less Empathetic. Food insecurity takes 'significant toll' on health care system: study. What the Recession Did to American Fathers. Finland’s Latest Educational Move Will Produce a Generation of Entrepreneurs. AI Teaching Assistant Helped Students Online—and No One Knew the Difference. AI Teaching Assistant Helped Students Online—and No One Knew the Difference. Donald Trump proves racial nationalism is alive and well.
In Deeply Divided Chicago, Most Agree: City Is Off Course. Killer App. Uber v. Taxi. Neighbourhood Watch. Belabored Podcast #100: How Uprisings Happen, with Mark Engler. Belabored Podcast #94: Disrupting Uber. America’s Suicide Epidemic Is a National Security Crisis. The End of Politics As We Know It. Why more small manufacturers are choosing to stay in Canada. Companies get around talent shortage with ‘work from anywhere’ policies. Coming face to face for justice. Restorative justice can drastically reduce need to restrain young offenders. Restorative justice helps victims, cuts crime. An Alternative To Suspension And Expulsion: 'Circle Up!' : NPR Ed.
Conflict-management skills now in high demand in the workplace. Toronto's food banks see rising demand in inner suburbs. Suburbs Struggle to Aid the Sprawling Poor. Maps Show How Poverty Has Moved To The Suburbs, Become More Racially Diverse. Demography: Broke in the ’burbs. Salaries paid in bitcoin a growing trend in Canada. The Untouchables. Unconventional self-directed learning a hit at Hamilton high school. Idea to retire: Patients as passive recipients of health care. Facebook wants to crack down against hate speech on migrants - BBC Newsbeat.
'We Can't Sit on The Sidelines': The Trans Woman Running for State Legislature. 'A quarter of a million' UK students now using sugar daddies, according to app - BBC Newsbeat - Sugar daddy dating: Toronto men bid on first dates online. The baffling reason many millennials don’t eat cereal. How architects are rethinking (and rebuilding) the family home to make it last for generations. The Politics of Religion in the Philippines. Economic Growth Brings Optimism and Rising Expectations in Cambodia. Drivers and Trends in a Changing Asia. Asia’s Strategic Landscape: Continuity and Change. How Asian values are being changed by globalisation. Asian values. 'Why I chose Changing Values as this year's Literature Festival theme' Changing values in Indian cities. Jjps05. Asia’s new family values. Changing Values in Asia: Their Impact on Governance and Development. INTRODUCTION TO BASIC ASIAN VALUES. East Asia Remains Different: A Comment on the Index of 'Self-Expression Values' by Inglehart and Welzel by Eduard J. Bomhoff, Man-Li Gu.
Bank of Japan surprises markets by adopting negative interest rates. Indonesia bag levy aims to cut pollution. Indonesia launches ‘big bang’ liberalisation. LGBT emojis come unstuck in Indonesia. Asian society: Changes from within. Kesha case points to new relationship between labels and artists. Edge.org. China's demographic shift: More seniors, babies present opportunity for Japanese companies- Nikkei Asian Review.