Time isn’t Money
Economists usually treat time like money – as another scarce resource that people spend to achieve certain ends. Money is used to pay for things like furniture and plane tickets; time is spent assembling the do-it-yourself bookshelf or searching for cheap flights on the Internet. But despite the old adage that time is money, the two are far from psychologically equivalent, reveals a study from the April issue of the Journal of Consumer Research – particularly when it comes to consumer spending decisions.
In a series of experiments, Ritesh Saini (George Mason University) and Ashwani Monga (University of Texas, San Antonio) demonstrate that a qualitatively different form of decision making gains prominence when consumers work with time instead of money. Specifically, consumers thinking about expenditure of time are more likely to rely on heuristics: intuitive, quick judgments based more on prior experience than on analysis of the information presented.
Popularity: 8% [?]
March 17, 2008 | Filed Under Humans | Leave a CommentMars Express Reveals the Red Planet’s Volcanic Past
A new analysis of impact cratering data from Mars reveals that the planet has undergone a series of global volcanic upheavals. These violent episodes spewed lava and water onto the surface, sculpting the landscape that ESA’s Mars Express looks down on today.
Using images from the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on Mars Express, Gerhard Neukum, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany, and colleagues are discovering the history of the Red Planet’s geological activity. “We can now determine the ages of large regions and resurfacing events on the planet,” says Neukum. Resurfacing occurs when volcanic eruptions spread lava across the planet’s surface.
This work has suggested that the sculpting of the Martian surface has not proceeded in a steady fashion, as it does on Earth. Rather, the team have discovered that Mars has been wracked by violent volcanic activity five times in the past, after the early supposedly warmer and wetter phase, more than 3.8 thousand million years ago. In between these episodes, the planet has been relatively calm.
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March 16, 2008 | Filed Under Astronomy | Leave a CommentMathematicians Find New Solutions to an Ancient Puzzle
Many people find complex math puzzling, including some mathematicians.
Recently, mathematician Daniel J. Madden and retired physicist, Lee W. Jacobi, found solutions to a puzzle that has been around for centuries.
Jacobi and Madden have found a way to generate an infinite number of solutions for a puzzle known as ‘Euler’s Equation of degree four.’
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March 16, 2008 | Filed Under Mathematics | Leave a CommentA Mathematical Model Predicts Demise of a Business?
Many gamblers claim to have a “system”, whether they’re shooting craps, backing horses, or punting on the stock market. Now, researchers in Taiwan have devised an approach to spotting when a company is likely to fail based on the principles of natural selection. They report details of their system in a forthcoming issue of the International Journal of Electronic Finance.
Ping-Chen Lin of the National Kaohsiung University of Applied Sciences in Kaohsiung and Jiah-Shing Chen of the National Central University, Jhongli, in Taiwan, explain how the financial status of any company can be of interest not only to its owners and employees but to a range of creditors, stockholders, banks, and individual investors. However, there are so many changing and interconnected factors that can lead to success or failure that it is usually considered an impossible task to predict whether a company will fail.
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March 14, 2008 | Filed Under Mathematics | Leave a CommentNew Mathematical Object Revealed
A new mathematical object was revealed yesterday during a lecture at the American Institute of Mathematics (AIM). Two researchers from the University of Bristol exhibited the first example of a third degree transcendental L-function. These L-functions encode deep underlying connections between many different areas of mathematics.
The news caused excitement at the AIM workshop attended by 25 of the world’s leading analytic number theorists. The work is a joint project between Ce Bian and his adviser, Andrew Booker. Booker commented that, “This work was made possible by a combination of theoretical advances and the power of modern computers.” During his lecture, Bian reported that it took approximately 10,000 hours of computer time to produce his initial results.
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March 14, 2008 | Filed Under Mathematics | Leave a CommentUltra-Fast, Ultra-Intense Laser
Many people equate lasers with a sci-fi battle in a galaxy far, far away or, closer to home, with grocery store scanners and compact disc players. However, an ultra-fast, ultra-intense laser, or UUL, with laser pulse durations of one quadrillionth of a second, otherwise known as one femtosecond, could change cancer treatments, dentistry procedures, precision metal cutting, and joint implant surgeries.
“The femtosecond laser has now entered the era of applications. It used to be a novelty, a fantasy,” said University of Missouri researcher Robert Tzou, the James C. Dowell professor and chairman of the department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. “We are currently targeting the areas of life-science and bio-medicine.”
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March 14, 2008 | Filed Under Technology | Leave a CommentCertain Individuals are Genetically Programmed to Cheat
A new study examining social behaviour suggests certain individuals are genetically programmed to cheat and often will do… providing they can get away with it.
The researchers looked at slime moulds – microscopic single-cell organisms or amoebae that are forced to cooperate with one another when food is in short supply. Studying slime moulds at the cellular level provides the scientists with a unique insight into the genes that may also influence human behaviour.
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March 13, 2008 | Filed Under Humans | Leave a CommentStephen Hawking Should be Pleased
Stephen Hawking should be pleased. The first signs of an effect the British physicist predicted more than 30 years ago – known as Hawking radiation – have finally materialised from the simulated edge of a black hole.
Quantum mechanics tells us that entangled pairs made up of a particle and its antiparticle can spontaneously pop out of otherwise empty space, exist for a fleeting moment, and then annihilate each other and disappear. In the 1970s, Hawking predicted that if such a pair were created near a black hole’s event horizon, one of its members might fall into the black hole before it could be annihilated. The partner left stranded outside the event horizon would appear to an observer to have been radiated from the black hole.
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March 13, 2008 | Filed Under Physics | Leave a CommentPopular Energy Drinks Highly Dangerous to Teeth
For more than 10 years, energy drinks in the United States have been on the rise, promising consumers more “oomph” in their day. In fact, it is estimated that the energy drink market will hit $10 billion by 2010. While that may be great news for energy drink companies, it could mean a different story for the oral health of consumers who sometimes daily rely on these drinks for that extra boost.
Previous scientific research findings have helped to warn consumers that the pH (potential of hydrogen) levels in beverages such as soda could lead to tooth erosion, the breakdown of tooth structure caused by the effect of acid on the teeth that leads to decay. The studies revealed that, whether diet or regular, ice tea or root beer, the acidity level in popular beverages that consumers drink every day contributes to the erosion of enamel.
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March 13, 2008 | Filed Under Health | Leave a CommentAstronomers Find Grains of Sand Around Distant Stars
In a find that sheds light on how Earth-like planets may form, astronomers this week reported finding the first evidence of small, sandy particles orbiting a newborn solar system at about the same distance as the Earth orbits the sun. The report will be published online this week by the journal Nature.
“Precisely how and when planets form is an open question,” said study co-author Christopher Johns-Krull, assistant professor of physics and astronomy at Rice University. “We believe the disk-shaped clouds of dust around newly formed stars condense, forming microscopic grains of sand that eventually go on to become pebbles, boulders and whole planets.”
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March 12, 2008 | Filed Under Astronomy | Leave a Comment
