Eighteen Stunning Bridges

I love the concept of the bridge both literally and figuratively.
Hence, this made my day today.

My favorite would be this:


Fehmarn Belt Bridge: When completed in 2018 the Fehmarn Belt Bridge will stretch 11.8 miles and connect the German island of Fehmarn with the Danish island of Lolland at an estimated cost of $2.2 billion. Initial plans show the bridge will be constructed with 3 cable-stayed spans each approximately 2,375ft long and supported by four 918ft tall pillars giving 213ft of vertical clearance beneath.

per frikko.com

Why Can't a Man Be More Like a Woman? Sex Differences in Big Five Personality Traits Across 55 Cultures

Tyler Cowen pointed out this morning that "the division of labor both opens up the possibility of becoming who you truly are and it magnifies and extends who you can be." He produced this statement in reaction to the abstract to Why Can't a Man Be More Like a Woman? Sex Differences in Big Five Personality Traits Across 55 Cultures.

The authors of the study are contending that personality differences between men and women tend to increase in developed economies. I don't have access to the data the researchers have and most importantly I'm not in the same field, but my intuition tells me that perhaps ALL personality differences increase in developed economies? Cowen suggests a similar thing so I wasn't the only one to react to the abstract this way. Nevertheless, it is a rather interesting premise. Here is a snippet:

'Previous research suggested that sex differences in personality traits are larger in prosperous, healthy, and egalitarian cultures in which women have more opportunities equal with those of men. In this article, the authors report cross-cultural findings in which this unintuitive result was replicated across samples from 55 nations (N = 17,637). On responses to the Big Five Inventory, women reported higher levels of neuroticism, extraversion, agreeableness, and conscientiousness than did men across most nations. These findings converge with previous studies in which different Big Five measures and more limited samples of nations were used. Overall, higher levels of human development--including long and healthy life, equal access to knowledge and education, and economic wealth--were the main nation-level predictors of larger sex differences in personality. Changes in men's personality traits appeared to be the primary cause of sex difference variation across cultures. It is proposed that heightened levels of sexual dimorphism result from personality traits of men and women being less constrained and more able to naturally diverge in developed nations. In less fortunate social and economic conditions, innate personality differences between men and women may be attenuated.

You may access the abstract here.

Sister Are Doing It For Themselves: New US Census Bureau Results

The new US Census Bureau Results are in and they support the following: it literally pays to stay in school. They also say that women are performing strongly and steadily.

'About 33 percent of young women 25 to 29 had a bachelor’s degree or more education in 2007, compared with 26 percent of their male counterparts, according to tabulations released today by the U.S. Census Bureau.

The tables also showed that more education continues to pay off in a big way: Adults with advanced degrees earn four times more than those with less than a high school diploma. Workers 18 and older with a master’s, professional or doctoral degree earned an average of $82,320 in 2006, while those with less than a high school diploma earned $20,873.'
Read the full report here.