Human Behavior – Page 8

Employment, Human Behavior, Science & Technology News

This is why you probably have a work wife or work husband

July 23, 2019

Nothing forms a bond like working closely with someone. But why are certain work friendships especially significant?

The modern workday takes up a lot of your time. A typical workday runs from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., and the average commute hovers at about an hour a day total. That means that the majority of your time awake each day is spent at work—or getting there.

So it’s no surprise that you often form close relationships with colleagues, even to the point where you consider someone your “office spouse” or “work spouse.” According to a survey by Simply Hired, more than 50% of female employees and 44% of male employees said that they had a work spouse at some point in their careers. The topics they discussed with these coworkers ranged from other colleagues and work projects to problems at home, or sometimes even their sex lives.

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Human Behavior, new technology, Robots, Science & Technology News

The second coming of the robot pet

July 16, 2019

MITA YUN DIDN’T get into robotics to save the world. The lunar rovers she built as a student at Carnegie Mellon, and the software she developed as an engineer for Google—that stuff was just practice. The things Yun really wanted to make were friends.

Yun had hungered for companionship since she was a little girl in China. She’d begged her parents for a pet, but no dice. These were the days of China’s one-child policy, so no sibling either. Instead, Yun’s parents filled her room with a menagerie of stuffed animals, which she liked to imagine springing to life, their little paws dancing on her bedspread, their little bodies stuffed with possibilities.

In 2017, Yun quit her job at Google to start building the friend she’d always wanted. She started a company, called Zoetic, and recruited a few other roboticists to take her imaginary sidekick and turn it into a commercial product. Two years later, she’s ready to introduce her creation: a small, interactive robot called Kiki, which goes on pre-sale later this month.

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Analysis, Children, Human Behavior, Report, Science & Technology News

World’s population is projected to nearly stop growing by the end of the century

July 8, 2019

For the first time in modern history, the world’s population is expected to virtually stop growing by the end of this century, due in large part to falling global fertility rates, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of new data from the United Nations.

By 2100, the world’s population is projected to reach approximately 10.9 billion, with annual growth of less than 0.1% – a steep decline from the current rate. Between 1950 and today, the world’s population grew between 1% and 2% each year, with the number of people rising from 2.5 billion to more than 7.7 billion.

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Driverless vehicles, Human Behavior, Science & Technology News, Transportation

Human drivers bullying self-driving cars: Unlawful or fair game?

July 7, 2019

The official California DMV Driver Handbook provides prescribed driving practices that everyone is supposed to comply with while driving on our state roadways, including topics such as safe driving methods when the roads are wet from rain (admittedly, we don’t get much rain, but when we do, California drivers are known to freak-out and drive crazily), and driving when there is a tough curve or when on a steep hill, plus what to do when driving nearby animal-drawn vehicles or coming up to railroad tracks.

There are over 130 pages of crucial material in our DMV Driver Handbook, which licensed California drivers get tested on and presumably need to understand and are expected to obey (alright, I acknowledge that many don’t, but without those explicitly “you are on notice” regs, I think we’d agree that there might be chaos or at least even worse driving exploits than we already experience).

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Analysis, Human Behavior, Science & Technology News

Researchers ‘Lost’ 17,000 Wallets in Hundreds of Cities to See What People Would Actually Do with Them

July 4, 2019

Researchers ‘Lost’ 17,000 Wallets in Hundreds of Cities to See What People Would Actually Return

Plenty of people around the world, it turns out, are willing to return a stranger’s lost wallet—especially if it’s filled with cash, according to a counterintuitive study.

The study, published in the journal Science on Thursday, was a meticulous social experiment that took three years and over half a million dollars to complete.

A group of 13 research assistants (11 men and 2 women) were recruited for a trip around the world. They traveled to 355 major cities across 40 countries. In each city, they visited banks, theaters, hotels, police stations, and other public spaces and turned in a “lost wallet,” which they claimed to have found on the street, to a nearby employee.

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Analysis, Housing, Human Behavior, Parenting, Science & Technology News

Most Americans agree that this is the age that living at home becomes embarrassing

June 25, 2019

A survey conducted on more than 3,000 Americans, by TD Ameritrade, examines how every generation views boomeranging back to the nest after college.

According to a new survey conducted by Zillow, 14.4 million Millennials (people between the ages of 23 and 38) currently live at home with their parents. This is a staggering 21% of all American Millennials.

Although this figure has continued to rise over the years, the stigma that accompanies it has actually experienced a decline. A survey conducted on more than 3,000 Americans, by TD Ameritrade, examines how every generation views boomeranging back to the nest after college. And according to the study, you shouldn’t feel too bad until your nearing your thirties.

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DNA, Human Behavior, Law Enforcement, Legal Issues, Science & Technology News

His DNA solved a century-old jailhouse rape. The victim: His Grandmother

June 19, 2019

Commercial DNA tests showed that Hiram and Bruce were related. But their link proved to be much deeper — and darker — than either could have imagined.

As a black teenager in Compton, California, in the 1970s, Hiram Johnson began to wonder about his father’s fine curly hair, and the light-brown skin that strangers sometimes thought was white.

Hiram knew only a few things about his father’s childhood. Fred Johnson was raised in Jackson, Mississippi, by his mother, Bernice. Fred said that Bernice was a “beautiful black woman,” but he never said a word about his father. All Hiram knew was that his grandfather probably wasn’t black.

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Electric Automobile, Human Behavior, Science & Technology News, Transportation

EU will force electric cars to emit a noise below 20 km/h on July 1

June 19, 2019

Starting July 1, all electric vehicles with four or more wheels in the EU will be required to emit noise of at least 56 decibels if the car is going 20 km/h or slower, the New Atlas reports.

This makes a ton of sense as electric cars don’t make any of the engine noises we’ve grown accustomed to from standard Earth-killing gasoline cars. Making sure pedestrians can hear cars coming could increase the safety of visually impaired individuals, as well those of us who have the bad habit of walking into traffic while looking at their phones.

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Analysis, Human Behavior, Internet, Science & Technology News

Average US time spent with mobile in 2019 has increased

June 16, 2019

US Adults Spend More Time on Mobile than They Do Watching TV

For the first time ever, US consumers will spend more time using their mobile devices than watching TV, with smartphone use dominating that time spent.

Consumers’ use of smartphones will continue to make up the majority of their media consumption, but we predict that use will plateau by 2020, as consumers become increasingly uneasy about overuse of mobile devices.

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Employment, Human Behavior, Intelligence, Life Skills, Science & Technology News

Why the generalist has a bright future in an increasingly automated world

June 13, 2019

The age of the specialist is giving way to the age of the Renaissance person.

It was only a matter of time before a precocious set of tweens came along and broke the damn spelling bee. And lo, after a 14-hour contest, the 2019 Scripps National Spelling Bee was forced to crown eight co-winners after running out of hard words.

“We’ll soon run out of words that will challenge you,” Jacques Bailly told the contestants, according to the New York Times account. “We’re throwing the dictionary at you. And so far, you are showing this dictionary who is boss.”

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Analysis, brains, Employment, Human Behavior, Science & Technology News

Why the 8-hour workday doesn’t work

June 12, 2019

The eight-hour workday is an outdated and ineffective approach to work. If you want to be as productive as possible, you need to let go of this relic and find a new approach.

The eight-hour workday was created during the industrial revolution as an effort to cut down on the number of hours of manual labor that workers were forced to endure on the factory floor. This breakthrough was a more humane approach to work 200 years ago, yet it possesses little relevance for us today.

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Analysis, Human Behavior, Latest Trend, Science & Technology News

Gen Z, Millennials and Gen X outvoted older generations in 2018 midterms

June 10, 2019

Gen Z, Millennials and Gen X outvoted older generations in 2018 midterms

Voters in Missouri take part in November’s elections. Turnout reached a record high for the 2018 midterms. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)

Midterm voter turnout reached a modern high in 2018, and Generation Z, Millennials and Generation X accounted for a narrow majority of those voters, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of newly available Census Bureau data.

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