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The quality and length of human life have enormously increased since roughly 1800, especially in the West. Deirdre McCloskey has called this enrichment 'the great fact' of economic history (2010, [...]

We investigate the effect of speaking Spanish at home as a child on completed schooling and aptitude test scores using data from the NLSY79 on Hispanics who grew up in the United States. We model the accumulation of traditional human capital and English fluency, leading to the joint determination of schooling and test scores. We find that speaking Spanish at home reduces test scores, but has no significant effect on completed schooling. The reduction in test scores (1) increases in magnitude in three of the tests when the parents are more educated; (2) is much more dramatic when the choice of home language is made endogenous; and (3) is not systematically greater for the verbal than for the math tests. (JEL I20, J15), I. INTRODUCTION Does growing up in the United States in a home where Spanish is spoken affect an individual's cognitive abilities as measured by aptitude tests? Does it have any [...]

ABSTRACT This treatment includes all species of pteridophytes known to occur naturally and those that have become naturalized in southeast Alabama. A total of seventeen families, twenty-nine genera, fifty-nine species, [...]

415 The Origin, Persistence, and Failings of HIV/AIDS Theory, by Henry H. Bauer - Mikel Aickin 419 The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable, by Nassim Nicholas Taleb - Arthur M. Diamond, Jr. 422 Thinking about Go¨ del and Turing: Essays on Complexity, 1970–2007, by Gregory J. Chaitin - Edward Ordman 428 Voodoo Science: The Road from Foolishness to Fraud, by Robert L. Park - Steven B. Krivit 434 Climate Confusion: How Global Warming Hysteria Leads to Bad Science, Pandering Politicians and Misguided Policies that Hurt the Poor, by Roy W. Spencer - Joel M. Kauffman 436 Origin of Inertia: Extended Mach’s Principle and Cosmological Consequences, by Amitabha Ghosh - Thomas E. Phipps, Jr. 438 Muses, Madmen, and Prophets, by Daniel B. Smith - John Smythies 441 The Head Trip: Adventures on the Wheel of Consciousness, by Jeff Warren - Imants Baruss 442 The Witch in the Waiting Room: A Physician Investigates Paranormal Phenomena in Medicine, by Robert Bobrow - Michael Schmicker 443 The Trial of God, by John Smythies - Stephen R. L. Clark

Does style matter for economic writing? Several stylistic characteristics of ninety-seven AEA presidential addresses, including word length, sentence length and percent of sentences in the passive voice, were computed and used to explain citations to these economists' work. Avoidance of the passive is an old stylistic norm given by Adam Smith. Word length and sentence length serve as modern stylistic norms. Only the percent passive matters to explain citations. Perhaps not coincidentally, while writing clarity in our data set has declined over time when measured by the new norm, it has improved when measured by the old norm., I. QUANTIFYING CLARITY: ADAM SMITH AND RUDOLF FLESCH Teachers of English rhetoric often give lists of rules to follow. What is not so often done is to give reasons for [...]

Entrepreneur Jim Clark wanted to protect his privacy by building a taller fence. The government told him he could not build a taller fence. So he built a hill around his property and put his old, legal fence on top of his new, legal hill. I discuss a few examples of entrepreneurs "building the hill." Entrepreneurs too often believe they must choose between giving up or fighting to change the rules. Sometimes a third option is best: find a nimble pivot that can achieve a goal without the drain of time and energy it takes to change the rules. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT A survey of the vascular flora of the area surrounding Dale County Lake was conducted from May 1998 through August 2000. The study site, located in the central section [...]

INVESTMENT IN SISTER'S CHILDREN AS BEHAVIOR TOWARDS RISK I. INTRODUCTION A man in some societies invests much in the children of his sister. An explanation has been suggested by biologist [...]

The article discusses labor policy's creative destruction which can affect success in the U.S. It notes government labor policies contending that flexible policies allow innovative entrepreneur and rigid policies affect macroeconomy. It points out the possibility for entrepreneurial projects or jobs in creative destruction. Among the labor policy-related issues stressed are innovative entrepreneurship, labor market rigidity macro effects and entrepreneurial capitalism redundancy.

Entrepreneurs have two advantages over credentialed experts. They "know" less of what is false, and they (informally) know more of what is true. They know less of what is false because they are either ignorant of, or willing to ignore, the currently dominant theories. They know more of what is true by having more informal knowledge (whether local, tacit, or inchoate). Funding of projects by firms or governments will rely on expert judgments based on the currently dominant theory. So breakthrough, innovations depend on innovative entrepreneurs being able to find funding independent of the insider incumbent institutions, usually self-funding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The vascular flora of Crenshaw County, Alabama, was surveyed from 1987 to 2010. A total of 1171 taxa (species and hybrids) in 565 genera from 150 families are reported. Twenty-five taxa represented by herbarium specimens from Crenshaw County were not recollected during this study. The Inventory List of Rare, Threatened and Endangered Plants, Animals and Natural Communities of Alabama as compiled by the Alabama Natural Heritage Program contains 23 of the species collected. Approximately 18 percent of the flora (213 species), are considered non-indigenous. Families with the largest number of taxa were Asteraceae (158), Poaceae (135), Fabaceae (87), Cyperaceae (61), Rosaceae (35) and Liliaceae (31). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stories are memorable and convincing. One way to efficiently tell stories is through movie and video clips. I summarize several video clips that may be useful in teaching aspects of Schumpeter's important theory of creative destruction. Among the clips discussed are: Hugh Laurie's Protest Song, electric light segment from a documentary on the 1898 Trans-Mississippi Exposition, eBay Toy Boat Ad, Miss Princess Fun Brick Ad, Moscow toilet paper queue scene, the New York coffee aisle scene from Moscow on the Hudson, and Peck and DeVito's speeches from Other People's Money. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Managing rare endemic plants often requires an understanding of" their reproductive ecology. We investigated pollination biology, seed set, seed dispersal, and seedling recruitment of Rudbeckia auriculata (Asteraceae), a species endemic to the Southeastern United States. Based on observations of pollinator abundance and pollen load on floral visitors, the most likely pollinators are primarily native bees, particularly Andrena aliciae Robertson in medium and large populations of R. auriculata, and Halictids in small populations. Seed set varied from 0.24% to 16.9% in small populations (<40 flowering stems) and from 26.5% to 31.4% in medium (40-999 flowering stems) and large (1000/ flowering stems) populations, with significantly lower seed set in the small populations. Exclusion of visitors from inflorescences showed that, like many members of the Asteraceae, R. auriculata is probably self-incompatible. Seed dispersal appears to be highly localized and dependent upon gravity. Seedling recruitment is poor, particularly when the soil is covered with litter or when the species is in competition with others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The fungus Fusarium semitectum infects the flowering heads of Rudbeckia auriculata at two sites in Alabama. This is the first report of a fungal agent infecting this globally rare species. The fungus produces orange-tinged or pinkish white spores on the flower heads and renders infected flowers sterile. Fungal spores superficially resembled pollen and are picked up by the main pollinator, the composite specialist bee Andrena aliciae, which serves as a dispersal agent for the fungal pathogen. Fungal spores were found attached in higher ratios in those areas of the bee's body that come into most direct contact with the flowering heads during feeding. The rate of spread of the fungus on potted plants indicated significant negative correlations between number of infections and the distance from the fungal source. Fusarium colonies were isolated from the entire length of flowering stems. and apparently invade vegetative portions of the plants. As R. auriculata is a perennial plant that reproduces almost exclusively by the production of short stolons, the fungus poses no serious threat to its immediate existence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]