SCI199Y: February 13, 1996

Required for next meeting: February 27, 1996

• Chapters 1 and 2 of Tainted Truth by Cynthia Crossen. Come prepared to discuss these and ask questions about the parts you didn't understand.

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Figure: Plot of taste vs. price

Least Squares Estimates:

In the Globe and Mail this week

• ``Lead linked to deliquency'', Feb.8 A12. (by Jane E. Brody, New York Times Service)

  Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center investigated the relationship between levels of lead in bones and agression, in a group of 800 boys attending public schools in Pittsburgh. Previous studies of lead toxicity have usually measured blood lead levels, which may not be good indicators of accumulated dose.

  ``A new study published in this week's Journal of the American Medical Association found that even after taking into account other predictors of deliquency, such as socioeconomic status, those with higher lead levels were more likely to engage in antisocial acts.''

  The full text of the article is available on-line at

  http://www.ama-assn.org/sci-pubs/journals/. In fact, in it you'll find that only 301 students were studied, out of an initial group of 850 first graders.

• ``Gap in jobless rates a puzzle'', Feb. 12, B1&2 (by Bruce Little).

  Unemployment in the 1990s has been about 4 percentage points higher in Canada than in the United States. Until 1990, the gap was typically about 2 percentage points. This article reports on a meeting to discuss the causes of this increased gap. While no definite answers emerged, apparently about 0.8 percentage points is accounted for by differences in measuring unemployment. Statistics Canada counts socalled ``passive job hunters'' as unemployed, whereas the US does not. The article doesn't say which US agency measures unemployment, but I think it is the Bureau of Labour Statistics. This article has quite an effective accompanying graphic. Interestingly, the US rate is displayed as a bar graph, and the Canadian rate as a time series plot. the earnings of the poor have collapsed'', Feb. 12, A6 (by Bruce Little). An Ottawa economist named Andrew Sharpe set up the Centre for the Study of Living Standards last year to examine whether or not income spread in Canada has been growing in a similar manner to the US. This article is mainly about the fact that for the poorest one-fifth of the population, there was almost no loss of total income, but a dramatic loss of income that excludes government assistance, down from $2,230 in 1990 to $975 in 1993.

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