Many Adults Don’t Want Any Children

Study: A quarter of adults don’t want children — and they’re still happy

From: Michigan State University

June 16, 2021 -- Parenting is one of life’s greatest joys, right? Not for everyone. New research from Michigan State University psychologists examines characteristics and satisfaction of adults who don’t want children.

As more people acknowledge they simply don’t want to have kids, Jennifer Watling Neal and Zachary Neal, both associate professors in MSU’s department of psychology, are among the first to dive deeper into how these “child-free” individuals differ from others.

“Most studies haven’t asked the questions necessary to distinguish ‘child-free’ individuals — those who choose not to have children — from other types of nonparents,” Jennifer Watling Neal said. “Nonparents can also include the ‘not-yet-parents’ who are planning to have kids, and ‘childless’ people who couldn’t have kids due to infertility or circumstance. Previous studies simply lumped all nonparents into a single category to compare them to parents.”

The study — published June 16 in PLOS ONE — used a set of three questions to identify child-free individuals separately from parents and other types of nonparents. The researchers used data from a representative sample of 1,000 adults who completed MSU’s State of the State Survey, conducted by the university’s Institute for Public Policy and Social Research.

“After controlling for demographic characteristics, we found no differences in life satisfaction and limited differences in personality traits between child-free individuals and parents, not-yet-parents, or childless individuals,” Zachary Neal said. “We also found that child-free individuals were more liberal than parents, and that people who aren’t child-free felt substantially less warm toward child-free individuals.”

Beyond findings related to life satisfaction and personality traits, the research unveiled additional unexpected findings.

“We were most surprised by how many child-free people there are,” Jennifer Watling Neal said. “We found that more than one in four people in Michigan identified as child-free, which is much higher than the estimated prevalence rate in previous studies that relied on fertility to identify child-free individuals. These previous studies placed the rate at only 2% to 9%. We think our improved measurement may have been able to better capture individuals who identify as child-free.”

Given the large number of child-free adults in Michigan, more attention needs to be paid to this group, the researchers said. For example, the researchers explained that their study only included one time point, so didn’t examine when people decided to be child-free — however, they hope forthcoming research will help the public understand both when people start identifying as child-free as well as the factors that lead to this choice.

            Study: Childfree happiness | MSUToday | Michigan State University

Human Cells Can Write RNA sequences into DNA

In a discovery that challenges long-held dogma in biology, researchers show that mammalian cells can convert RNA sequences back into DNA, a feat more common in viruses than eukaryotic cells.

From Thomas Jefferson University

June 11, 2021 -- Cells contain machinery that duplicates DNA into a new set that goes into a newly formed cell. That same class of machines, called polymerases, also build RNA messages, which are like notes copied from the central DNA repository of recipes, so they can be read more efficiently into proteins. But polymerases were thought to only work in one direction DNA into DNA or RNA. This prevents RNA messages from being rewritten back into the master recipe book of genomic DNA. Now, Thomas Jefferson University researchers provide the first evidence that RNA segments can be written back into DNA, which potentially challenges the central dogma in biology and could have wide implications affecting many fields of biology.

"This work opens the door to many other studies that will help us understand the significance of having a mechanism for converting RNA messages into DNA in our own cells," says Richard Pomerantz, PhD, associate professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at Thomas Jefferson University. "The reality that a human polymerase can do this with high efficiency, raises many questions." For example, this finding suggests that RNA messages can be used as templates for repairing or re-writing genomic DNA.

The work was published June 11th in the journal Science Advances.

Together with first author Gurushankar Chandramouly and other collaborators, Dr. Pomerantz's team started by investigating one very unusual polymerase, called polymerase theta. Of the 14 DNA polymerases in mammalian cells, only three do the bulk of the work of duplicating the entire genome to prepare for cell division. The remaining 11 are mostly involved in detecting and making repairs when there's a break or error in the DNA strands. Polymerase theta repairs DNA, but is very error-prone and makes many errors or mutations. The researchers therefore noticed that some of polymerase theta's "bad" qualities were ones it shared with another cellular machine, albeit one more common in viruses -- the reverse transcriptase. Like Pol theta, HIV reverse transcriptase acts as a DNA polymerase, but can also bind RNA and read RNA back into a DNA strand.

In a series of elegant experiments, the researchers tested polymerase theta against the reverse transcriptase from HIV, which is one of the best studied of its kind. They showed that polymerase theta was capable of converting RNA messages into DNA, which it did as well as HIV reverse transcriptase, and that it actually did a better job than when duplicating DNA to DNA. Polymerase theta was more efficient and introduced fewer errors when using an RNA template to write new DNA messages, than when duplicating DNA into DNA, suggesting that this function could be its primary purpose in the cell.

The group collaborated with Dr. Xiaojiang S. Chen's lab at USC and used x-ray crystallography to define the structure and found that this molecule was able to change shape in order to accommodate the more bulky RNA molecule -- a feat unique among polymerases.

"Our research suggests that polymerase theta's main function is to act as a reverse transcriptase," says Dr. Pomerantz. "In healthy cells, the purpose of this molecule may be toward RNA-mediated DNA repair. In unhealthy cells, such as cancer cells, polymerase theta is highly expressed and promotes cancer cell growth and drug resistance. It will be exciting to further understand how polymerase theta's activity on RNA contributes to DNA repair and cancer-cell proliferation."

        https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/06/210611174037.htm

An Electric Power Revolution Is Coming

 

China’s “Artificial Sun” Fusion Reactor Just Set a World Record

Genuinely green, thoroughly clean power is coming.  Sooner rather than later.

https://futurism.com/chinas-artificial-sun-fusion-reactor-just-set-a-world-record

Humans Are Ready to Take Advantage of Benevolent Artificial Intelligence

Humans expect that AI is benevolent and trustworthy. A new study reveals that at the same time humans are unwilling to cooperate and compromise with machines. They even exploit them.

From:  Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München

June 10, 2021 -- Picture yourself driving on a narrow road in the near future when suddenly another car emerges from a bend ahead. It is a self-driving car with no passengers inside. Will you push forth and assert your right of way, or give way to let it pass? At present, most of us behave kindly in such situations involving other humans. Will we show that same kindness towards autonomous vehicles?

Using methods from behavioural game theory, an international team of researchers at LMU and the University of London have conducted large-scale online studies to see whether people would behave as cooperatively with artificial intelligence (AI) systems as they do with fellow humans.

Cooperation holds a society together. It often requires us to compromise with others and to accept the risk that they let us down. Traffic is a good example. We lose a bit of time when we let other people pass in front of us and are outraged when others fail to reciprocate our kindness. Will we do the same with machines?

Exploiting the machine without guilt

The study which is published in the journal iScience found that, upon first encounter, people have the same level of trust toward AI as for human: most expect to meet someone who is ready to cooperate.

The difference comes afterwards. People are much less ready to reciprocate with AI, and instead exploit its benevolence to their own benefit. Going back to the traffic example, a human driver would give way to another human but not to a self-driving car.

The study identifies this unwillingness to compromise with machines as a new challenge to the future of human-AI interactions.

"We put people in the shoes of someone who interacts with an artificial agent for the first time, as it could happen on the road," explains Dr. Jurgis Karpus, a behavioural game theorist and a philosopher at LMU Munich and the first author of the study. "We modelled different types of social encounters and found a consistent pattern. People expected artificial agents to be as cooperate as fellow humans. However, they did not return their benevolence as much and exploited the AI more than humans."

With perspectives from game theory, cognitive science, and philosophy, the researchers found that 'algorithm exploitation' is a robust phenomenon. They replicated their findings across nine experiments with nearly 2,000 human participants.

Each experiment examines different kinds of social interactions and allows the human to decide whether to compromise and cooperate or act selfishly. Expectations of the other players were also measured. In a well-known game, the Prisoner's Dilemma, people must trust that the other characters will not let them down. They embraced risk with humans and AI alike, but betrayed the trust of the AI much more often, to gain more money.

"Cooperation is sustained by a mutual bet: I trust you will be kind to me, and you trust I will be kind to you. The biggest worry in our field is that people will not trust machines. But we show that they do!" notes Prof. Bahador Bahrami, a social neuroscientist at the LMU, and one of the senior researchers in the study. "They are fine with letting the machine down, though, and that is the big difference. People even do not report much guilt when they do," he adds.

Benevolent AI can backfire

Biased and unethical AI has made many headlines -- from the 2020 exams fiasco in the United Kingdom to justice systems -- but this new research brings up a novel caution. The industry and legislators strive to ensure that artificial intelligence is benevolent. But benevolence may backfire.

If people think that AI is programmed to be benevolent towards them, they will be less tempted to co-operate. Some of the accidents involving self-driving cars may already show real-life examples: drivers recognize an autonomous vehicle on the road, and expect it to give way. The self-driving vehicle meanwhile expects for normal compromises between drivers to hold.

"Algorithm exploitation has further consequences down the line. If humans are reluctant to let a polite self-driving car join from a side road, should the self-driving car be less polite and more aggressive in order to be useful?" asks Jurgis Karpus.

"Benevolent and trustworthy AI is a buzzword that everyone is excited about. But fixing the AI is not the whole story. If we realize that the robot in front of us will be cooperative no matter what, we will use it to our selfish interest," says Professor Ophelia Deroy, a philosopher and senior author on the study, who also works with Norway's Peace Research Institute Oslo on the ethical implications of integrating autonomous robot soldiers along with human soldiers. "Compromises are the oil that make society work. For each of us, it looks only like a small act of self-interest. For society as a whole, it could have much bigger repercussions. If no one lets autonomous cars join the traffic, they will create their own traffic jams on the side, and not make transport easier."

        https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/06/210610135534.htm

Ancient Horses in North America

 This is incredible.  Horses started out in Europe and North America, died out in Europe, spread out from North America to Asia, spread out to Europe, died out in North America and then were introduced to the New World from Europe by mankind.

If horses hadn’t made it out of North America, they probably wouldn’t exist today (sciencenorway.no)

 Deeply Lower CO2 by 2050 Is Not Plausible

Because the current European efforts to bring about societal transformation need to be far more ambitious.

From:  Universität Hamburg

By Ute Kreis

June 12, 2021 – The European Union is now increasing the ambition of its climate goals, and the German Federal Constitutional Court has recently committed Germany to implementing more ambitious climate action. So, are we already on the path to a climate-neutral future? “Which climate futures are plausible is not only a physical question, it is at present especially a social one,” says [Cluster of Excellence “Climate, Climatic Change, and Society] CLICCS Speaker Prof. Detlef Stammer from Universität Hamburg. “In the Hamburg Climate Futures Outlook we investigate the transformative power of social processes and have developed a completely new method for doing so. We’ll then combine the outcomes with findings from the natural sciences, allowing us to narrow down, step by step, what’s plausible.”

The key factors being explored, also referred to as social drivers, include: United Nations’ climate policy, national climate legislation, protests and social movements, divesting from fossil fuel industries, and media coverage. Crucially, none of the ten social drivers assessed in the Outlook appear to have enough momentum to reach deep decarbonization by 2050. Yet reaching deep decarbonization by mid-century is vital if the climate targets laid out in the Paris Agreement are to be achieved.

Six of the drivers support the net-zero goal

However, six of the drivers could foster a gradual decarbonization: “The majority of the factors we evaluated certainly support the net-zero goal. For example, the factor ‘climate policy’ has been strengthened by the USA’s reentry into the Paris Agreement,” explains Prof. Anita Engels, a social scientist at Universität Hamburg and CLICCS Co-Chair. “At the same time, the extent to which climate protests can continue to put pressure on governments after COVID-19 will be an important aspect.” Another crucial driver is the divestment from fossil fuels. However, companies often operate under long investment cycles, which means the effects will only become apparent down the road.

The authors concluded that, at the moment, neither high-emissions nor low-emissions scenarios are plausible: “Studies show that very high CO₂ emissions can produce tremendous economic costs. What’s more: global coal reserves are finite, and clean energy is becoming more affordable. As such, governments and companies alike will be forced to change course,” says CLICCS Co-Chair Prof. Jochem Marotzke from the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology. However, we’re still lacking the technologies needed for the rapid and large-scale removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere – an essential prerequisite for cutting emissions to net zero. The authors further translated these findings about plausible emissions into an assessment of long-term warming, by incorporating the latest research on how CO₂ emissions affect the climate: “Our results imply that global surface warming of less than 1.7 degrees Celsius by the year 2100 is not plausible, but nor is a rise of more than 4.9 degrees.”

The Hamburg Climate Futures Outlook fills an important gap

Other studies–like the IPCC Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C and the United Nations Emissions Gap Report–also assess which pathways might achieve the goals laid out in the Paris Agreement, but they focus more on the technical and practical requirements. “The Hamburg Climate Futures Outlook analyzes which social drivers can enable and motivate the change. We’re using this new analytical framework to systematically assess the available data with regard to the necessary decarbonization,” said Prof. Engels. The study’s analytical approach is unique: “In the Hamburg Climate Futures Outlook, we’re not looking into what would be necessary, feasible or desirable. We’re analyzing which climate futures are plausible – and which ones aren’t,” says Prof. Marotzke, who was also one of the key contributors to the upcoming IPCC report. “The social challenge is far greater than many people can imagine,” concludes Prof. Stammer. “As such, our findings represent a wake-up call for the political community and society at large.”

https://www.cliccs.uni-hamburg.de/about-cliccs/news/2021-news/2021-06-10-pm-outlook.html

The Huge Central Bank Policy Bubble

A 2017 book by Graham Summers (MBA) about the Federal Reserve Bank and how it got that way

The proper title is The Everything Bubble: The Endgame for Central Bank Policy. 

The Everything Bubble chronicles the creation and evolution of the US financial system, starting with the founding of the US Federal Reserve in 1913 and leading up to the present era of serial bubbles: the Tech Bubble of the ‘90s, the Housing Bubble of the early ‘00s and the current bubble in US sovereign bonds, which are also called Treasuries. Because these bonds serve as the foundation of our current financial system, when they are in a bubble, it means that all risk assets (truly EVERYTHING), are in a bubble, hence our title, The Everything Bubble. In this sense, the Everything Bubble represents the proverbial end game for central bank policy: the final speculative frenzy induced by Federal Reserve overreach. The Everything Bubble book is the result of over a decade of research and analysis of the financial markets and economy by noted investment analyst, Graham Summers, MBA. As such, this book is intended for anyone who wants to understand how the US financial system truly operates as well as those interested in the Federal Reserve’s future policy responses when the Everything Bubble bursts. To that end, The Everything Bubble is divided into two sections: How We Got Here and What’s to Come. Combined, these sections represent a blueprint for all things finance and money-related in the United States.This knowledge is now yours.

Some Reviews on Amazon.com

Tom A Duggleby

4 Stars

Valuable information - I want (need) more!

Reviewed in the United States on November 11, 2017

Excellent book. Easy to read and understand. Valuable in terms of looking to future pathways and options for fed and government. Two great sections- How we got here - and what to expect. I only wish there had been a thir section offering some insight or suggestions for how the individual investor might be able to minimize future impact. Maybe a follow up e-book. I rate the book itself at a 5 but knock it down one notch for lacking a third section - call it “What can you do about it” - or “Options for survival” or “How to survive”. I hope that Graham has a follow up in the works.

Robert Moriarty

4 stars

 It's a Bond Bubble yes but it's not an Everything Bubble

Reviewed in the United States on January 21, 2018

This is easily the very best book written about the actions of the Federal Reserve and the US Bond Bubble and yes, it's going to blow sky high and destroy the world's financial system when it blows.

But it is certainly not a book about The Everything Bubble. The author skips Japan and their QE to infinity. He pretty much ignores the EU and their QE to infinity. He missed the incredible subprime auto bubble as well as the student loan scam. There is nary a mention of the stock market bubble or the reemergence of the real estate bubble. So it's great on the bond bubble but that was just to start of The Everything Bubble.

As others have pointed out, the book doesn't end, it just stops. It's all well and good to be a prophet but people want to vote for a savior. OK, the Bond Bubble blows up. I want to know what I do then, not just the dingbats in the government who indeed will attempt to steal every cent from the public to maintain the lifestyle they would like to become accustomed to. If the Everything Bubble is the problem, what is the solution?

Part One is very well done indeed but there must be a Part Two.

Michael Wilson

4 stars

I mean aren't they the smart guys? This book ties it all together - ...

Reviewed in the United States on January 12, 2018

Although I already knew the history of the Fed and had read many of the books referenced - although I have lived through the blowing of three bubbles, the implosion of two, and am now awaiting the implosion of the third - I never understood the ignorance of central bankers. I mean aren't they the smart guys?
This book ties it all together - why the fed did what they did and have then been forced to stay on the same path. I mean, after watching the mistakes of Japan and the BOJ, why repeat them?
I saw it happen and I did realize that the Fed was opting for Japan II over Great Depression II in 2009 - but why not a third option?
This book explains the trap central bankers are caught in. Unfortunately it also explains what is likely to happen when this, the third central bank bubble, also implodes.
Unfortunately it doesn't lay out a specific action plan as for what to do. That's why I only gave it 4 stars.

 

Dojo

5 stars

Superb explanation of how the staggering world debt explosion happened

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 21, 2019

Superb, easy to read with regular recaps throughout the book.

Politicians, economists and financial industry ‘so called’ experts should read it several times but alas based on form to date ‘they who need to read it’ will not. Students of politics, finance, economics etc should have this book as compulsory reading.

Time to change the financial management of ‘the system’ wherever it might be. Also, Greenspan and Bernanke should hang their heads in embarrassment. Asleep at the wheel or complicit in some of the keys events leading up to 2008 and post 2008.

The political insight on the reasons behind who set up the federal reserve, and the actions by Roosevelt and Nixon were a real eye opener in how to let the genie out of the bottle. A big bad genie.

https://www.amazon.com/Everything-Bubble-Endgame-Central-Policy/dp/197463406X/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2RAUQG75Z8O11&dchild=1&keywords=the+everything+bubble+by+graham+summers&qid=1623452862&s=books&sprefix=The+Everything+Bubble%2Cstripbooks%2C203&sr=1-1