I wonder if anyone is doing this with IRB’s? Vanna Belton from Baltimore has been blind for more than five years, but after undergoing surgery where stem cells extracted from her bone marrow were injected into her right eye’s retina and left eye’s optic nerve, she has regained some of her sight. […] The doctor who performed the stem cell treatment, ophthalmologist Jeffrey...
How much do we lose to student aid fraud rings?
Using our E-Fraud Data Analytical System, we determined that the population of recipients considered as potentially participating in this fraud activity had increased 82 percent from award year 2009 (18,719 students) to award year 2012 (34,007 students). We identified more than 85,000 recipients who may have participated in this type of student aid fraud ring activity and who received over $874...
The price we pay for keeping disruptive students in the classroom
I wonder how many teachers would find these results surprising: The Long-Run Effects of Disruptive Peers A large and growing literature has documented the importance of peer effects in education. However, there is relatively little evidence on the long-run educational and labor market consequences of childhood peers. We examine this question by linking administrative data on elementary school...
The mismatch hypothesis lives: affirmative action hurts minorities in STEM
From the latest issue of the American Economic Review: University Differences in the Graduation of Minorities in STEM Fields: Evidence from California We examine differences in minority science graduation rates among University of California campuses when racial preferences were in place. Less prepared minorities at higher ranked campuses had lower persistence rates in science and took longer to...
Giant snow penis devastates University of Michigan campus
20% of all surveys are based on fraudulent data?
So claims some researchers: How often do people conducting surveys simply fabricate some or all of the data? Several high-profile cases of fraud over the past few years have shone a spotlight on that question, but the full scope of the problem has remained unknown. Yesterday, at a meeting in Washington, D.C., a pair of well-known researchers, Michael Robbins and Noble Kuriakose, presented a...
Why grit is overrated (and genes are underrated)
These findings, the researchers noted in the British version of the study, “turn some of the fundamental assumptions about education upside down.” While intelligence may be genetic, achievement has always been thought to be due to the environmental influences of home and school. The non-cognitive components of school success include traits such as self-efficacy and motivation, curiosity...
If you ever studied political philosophy, this cartoon is pretty funny
Otherwise, not.
Triumph the Insult Comic Dog interviews college students
Why you might go bankrupt if your next-door neighbor wins the lottery
Research released this month by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia found a significant jump in bankruptcies among households living near someone who won a big lottery jackpot. The economists theorized that people may have seen the good fortune next door and felt pressure to accumulate more assets of their own, especially flashy purchases like cars, that they simply could not afford.