Mark Perry writes:

The table above displays data from The Council of Graduate Schools for the average annual growth in graduate school enrollment by gender over the ten year period from 1998-2008 for the ten main fields of graduate study.  The bottom table above displays data for graduate school enrollment by gender in 2008.

Not only do women outnumber men in graduate school overall by a ratio of 143 females enrolled for every 100 males, but women outnumber men in 7 out of 10 graduate fields of study, and the annual growth in female graduate school enrollment from 1998-2008 is greater than the growth rate for men in all ten graduate fields of study.   Even in academic disciplines like engineering where women were underrepresented in 2008 in terms of graduate school enrollment, the number of women enrolled in graduate engineering programs has grown at more than twice the annual growth rate for men in engineering from 1998 to 2008.  More evidence that men have become the “second sex” in higher education.

47% of Americans believe God created human beings in their present form within the past 10,000 years while 68% of Britons and 61% of Canadians believe humans evolved over a process spanning millions of years, a new Angus Reid Public Opinion poll has found.

In other words, two-thirds of Britons and three-fifths of Canadians side with evolution whereas only one-third of Americans believe that human beings evolved from less advanced life forms.

To compare this to the scientific community, a 2009 poll by the Pew Research Center found that “87% of scientists say that humans and other living things have evolved over time and that evolution is the result of natural processes such as natural selection.”

Last week, The Economist released its updated Big Mac Index which compares how much it costs to buy a Big Mac across the globe. It is, according to the magazine, “lighthearted attempt to gauge how far currencies are from their fair value.”

It is based on the theory of purchasing-power parity (PPP), which argues that in the long run exchange rates should move to equalise the price of an identical basket of goods between two countries. Our basket consists of a single item, a Big Mac hamburger, produced in nearly 120 countries. The fair-value benchmark is the exchange rate that leaves burgers costing the same in America as elsewhere.

The chart below shows how countries rank on the Big Mac Index. You will notice that Asia is the cheapest place to buy a Big Mac while it is more expensive to buy them in Canada, Scandinavia and Europe:

Richard Florida and Charlotta Mellander took the data one step further “Big Mac Index stacks up against key measures of economic prosperity and well-being, running a series of basic correlations and plotting some scatter-graphs of it against key measures of economic and social well-being.”

Florida and Mellander find that the Big Mac Index is associated with economic output and life satisfaction, and is a key indicator of the “transition to modern, post industrial economies.”

It is also “negatively associated with blue-collar economies, being negatively associated with the percentage of the workforce in manufacturing, construction, and other physical labor work.”

Elton John has been sticking his neck out for (in my opinion) some unlikely causes for the master musician. First, he surprisingly refused to boycott Israel for the flotilla incident. The Jerusalem Post gives his performance an outstanding review.

With the sinister pomp-and-circumstance opening of “Funeral For A Friend” filling the stadium, Elton John stepped out behind the wings like a sequined-clad queen arriving to greet his loyal subjects at Ramat Gan Stadium Thursday night.

As routine as a mega-superstar pulling into town should have been – and we’ve been blessed with quite a few, from Paul McCartney and Madonna to Metallica and Leonard Cohen – everyone was aware that something more was hanging on this performance.

Simply put, Elton hadn’t cancelled. Immediately after a revved up second song, “Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting,” he spoke for the first time – making reference to his musical brethren who have feared what they don’t understand, and wittingly or not, joined the cultural boycott of Israel.

“Shalom, we are so happy to be back here! Ain’t nothing gonna stop us from coming, baby,” spouted John with a pumped fist in the air. “Musicians spread love and peace, and bring people together. That’s what we do. We don’t cherry-pick our conscience.”

He then breaks stride again with his entertainment industry brethren by refusing to boycott Arizona venues. Fox News reports:

Never one to back out of a performance to make a statement, music icon Elton John offered some choice words for his fellow musicians who choose to boycott Arizona over the SB 1070 immigration law.

According to the Arizona Daily Star, while performing at his sold-out concert at the Tucson Arena, he said:

“We are all very pleased to be playing in Arizona. I have read that some of the artists won’t come here. They are f***wits! Let’s face it: I still play in California, and as a gay man I have no legal rights whatsoever. So what’s the (expletive) with these people?”

Surprising as the pop master’s statements are, they are not particularly controversial. Elton John never endorses any one side in the case of either Israel or Arizona. He is simply making a statement that he will not be swayed by populist mob mentality. There are many who claim tolerance, but in fact react viscerally to differing opinions. As Alexis de Tocqueville once said:

I know of no country in which there is so little independence of mind and real freedom of discussion as in America.

It’s nice to see someone showing some real independence of mind.

Genetics may determine the extent to which you are influenced by social drinking cues such as advertisements, drinks placed on a bar, and seeing others around you drinking, according to a new study published in Psychological Science.

Drinking alcohol increases levels of dopamine — a brain chemical that causes pleasure and makes us feel good. The dopamine D4 receptor gene (DRD4) has been shown to be involved in motivation of seeking out rewards. Research has suggested that carrying a specific form (or variant) of this gene — one that includes seven or more repeats of a certain section of the gene — may be associated with craving caused by alcohol-related cues. Psychological scientist Helle Larsen from Radboud University in The Netherlands and her colleagues wanted to investigate if this 7-repeat gene variant plays a role in how an individual responds to alcohol-related cues.