I think one should separate any possible mechanism from the reason why this difference in male/female offspring ratio occurs.
In a species that is not (strictly) monogamous (such as humans) and where the status of the offspring is at least partly inherited, it is beneficial for high ranking females to have more male offspring and for low ranking females to have more female offspring. Rich powerful chiefs, kings etc had many children whilst a lot of men had none. However, most females had children, whatever their social status.
Thus, since engineers (at least in some countries, my condolences to those living in the UK) have higher social status than nurses, they have more male offspring.
This has been observed in many other species and there is a debate whether it is true for humans. After a lot of googling I managed to find the article below. Essentially, one can explain the difference in genetic spread between the Y chromosome and other genetic material by assuming that in each generation, half of all men fathered all children whilst the other half was childless. (All women had children).
If I remember correctly, the Danish research group recommended a very simple test: 1 Real drug, 2 Placebo, 3 Nothing at all. They came to the conclusion that there is no difference between 2 and 3. This seems correct to me. Eventually, in most cases, your body will fight off the desease. According to them, hardly any study ever includes the "Nothing at all" case.
Talking on a mobile phone while driving is more dangerous than being over the legal alcohol limit, according to research.
Tests by scientists at the Transport Research Laboratory said drivers on mobiles had slower reaction times and stopping times than those under the influence of alcohol.
And it said hands-free kits were almost as dangerous as hand-held phones.
Using a hand-held mobile while driving is illegal in more than 30 countries, but in the UK drivers are usually prosecuted for dangerous or careless driving.
Roger Vincent of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents called for a specific offence of using a mobile while driving for the UK - even with a hands-free kit.
"The problem is you actually get sucked into the telephone conversation, and the conversation starts to take precedence over the driving task," he told BBC News.
"The person on the end of the phone doesn't know the driving conditions around you. If someone's in the car talking to you they can stop talking if a dangerous situation arises.
"People just don't seem to understand how distracting these telephone conversations are."
The research said reaction times were, on average, 30% slower when talking on a mobile than when just over the legal limit, and nearly 50% slower than when driving normally.
Drivers were also less able to maintain a constant speed and found it more difficult to keep a safe distance from the car in front.
In the tests at 70 miles per hour, the braking distance was 102ft (31m), which increased to 115ft (35m) with alcohol; 128ft (39m) with a hands-free phone and 148ft (45m) with a hand-held mobile.
The study, which was sponsored by insurer Direct Line, involved a panel of 20 volunteers using a driving simulator.
Janet Anderson, MP for Rosendale and Darwen, is currently trying to push a bill through which would ban the use of hand-held mobile phones while driving.
The second reading is expected to take place on 12 April.
Welcoming the report's findings, Ms Anderson said: "We must all recognise that driving and using mobile phones can kill. It takes less than a split second for a lapse in concentration to result in an accident.
"It must therefore be made crystal clear to drivers who insist on behaving in this way that they endanger the safety of the public generally, and their own safety too. "
Does it have replication through some mechanism that is free or close to. (Please don't answer with obscure link to work in progress). Does it need vacuum still? Can I run it 24/24 with load 365/365 without ever having to block access to a single table?
I have used and paid for Mac freeware and shareware for over 10 years and I believe the buss that these guys get out of writing programs is the same as for open source software. The only real difference is the closed source bit. Just go to www.versiontracker.com and look at the stuff. One major difference is quality. The Mac shareware stuff works. When I choose "Help" for a KDE application, I expect a help page open for that particular application. Unfortunately, I seem to have missed an IQ test somewhere. The other week I tried to install LabPlot, Kplot and a few other plotting programs on RedHat 7.3 and SuSE 9. All of these failed.
When I think of it, this is maybe one of the major differences. The Mac shareware authors get a buss out of positive user feedback. If the public judges that a shareware is a failure, it disappears. Open source stuff on the other hand seems to stay around no matter how bad it is.
The reason was (probably) that the Mac versioning went from 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5.1d. They then released the same version 6 for Mac as for windows. Incidentally, the mac version was slow as molasses. It took 1.5 minutes to start on the fastest powermac at the time. It was essentially a Mac emulation of the PC version. To Mac users it also felt as it they had put a number of boxes on the ground, thrown up all of the options in the air and decided under which menu to put them based on where they fell. MS eventually gave away 5.1d for free to word 6 users. To many the 5.1d is still the word processing gold standard.
As the article says, the number is probably undershooting now. By the time this 50% or so reduction in graduates hits the market in 2-4 years time, happy days should be back for those who have the skills.
I would love to be able to use all the features of Postgresql but I need 24/7 availability (no vacuum) and replication. Until some slashdotter can explain how to do this with Postgresql I will stick with MySQL. It would actually be nice to see ONE SINGLE COMMENT on these issues in the usual 400 post thrashing of MySQL that these discussions cause.
To paraphrase Monte Python: One laptop! You were lucky! Here in the UK the number was even smaller. If you want pure, unadulterated frustration, put in linux and laptop in the search field on www.ibm.com/uk.
I've been looking at both MySQL and PostgreSQL for use in an application. I know that MySQL has a working replication solution that just got better. What about Postgres? I found a one single year-old web page that gave me little on the subject. A search for replication in the Postgres documentation brings up no hits at all.
Working replication and 24/7 use are the two key criteria for my choice. Can anyone of the postgres fans point me in the right direction?
Slashdot Mirror
I think one should separate any possible mechanism from the reason why this difference in male/female offspring ratio occurs.
In a species that is not (strictly) monogamous (such as humans) and where the status of the offspring is at least partly inherited, it is beneficial for high ranking females to have more male offspring and for low ranking females to have more female offspring. Rich powerful chiefs, kings etc had many children whilst a lot of men had none. However, most females had children, whatever their social status.
Thus, since engineers (at least in some countries, my condolences to those living in the UK) have higher social status than nurses, they have more male offspring.
This has been observed in many other species and there is a debate whether it is true for humans. After a lot of googling I managed to find the article below. Essentially, one can explain the difference in genetic spread between the Y chromosome and other genetic material by assuming that in each generation, half of all men fathered all children whilst the other half was childless. (All women had children).
http://www.news-medical.net/?id=4895
If I remember correctly, the Danish research group recommended a very simple test: 1 Real drug, 2 Placebo, 3 Nothing at all.
They came to the conclusion that there is no difference between 2 and 3. This seems correct to me. Eventually, in most cases, your body will fight off the desease.
According to them, hardly any study ever includes the "Nothing at all" case.
It seems that these guys have repeated the research of a british study from March 22 2002
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1885775.stm/
Talking on a mobile phone while driving is more dangerous than being over the legal alcohol limit, according to research.
Tests by scientists at the Transport Research Laboratory said drivers on mobiles had slower reaction times and stopping times than those under the influence of alcohol.
And it said hands-free kits were almost as dangerous as hand-held phones.
Using a hand-held mobile while driving is illegal in more than 30 countries, but in the UK drivers are usually prosecuted for dangerous or careless driving.
Roger Vincent of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents called for a specific offence of using a mobile while driving for the UK - even with a hands-free kit.
"The problem is you actually get sucked into the telephone conversation, and the conversation starts to take precedence over the driving task," he told BBC News.
"The person on the end of the phone doesn't know the driving conditions around you. If someone's in the car talking to you they can stop talking if a dangerous situation arises.
"People just don't seem to understand how distracting these telephone conversations are."
The research said reaction times were, on average, 30% slower when talking on a mobile than when just over the legal limit, and nearly 50% slower than when driving normally.
Drivers were also less able to maintain a constant speed and found it more difficult to keep a safe distance from the car in front.
In the tests at 70 miles per hour, the braking distance was 102ft (31m), which increased to 115ft (35m) with alcohol; 128ft (39m) with a hands-free phone and 148ft (45m) with a hand-held mobile.
The study, which was sponsored by insurer Direct Line, involved a panel of 20 volunteers using a driving simulator.
Janet Anderson, MP for Rosendale and Darwen, is currently trying to push a bill through which would ban the use of hand-held mobile phones while driving.
The second reading is expected to take place on 12 April.
Welcoming the report's findings, Ms Anderson said: "We must all recognise that driving and using mobile phones can kill. It takes less than a split second for a lapse in concentration to result in an accident.
"It must therefore be made crystal clear to drivers who insist on behaving in this way that they endanger the safety of the public generally, and their own safety too. "
Does it have replication through some mechanism that is free or close to. (Please don't answer with obscure link to work in progress).
Does it need vacuum still? Can I run it 24/24 with load 365/365 without ever having to block access to a single table?
I have used and paid for Mac freeware and shareware for over 10 years and I believe the buss that these guys get out of writing programs is the same as for open source software. The only real difference is the closed source bit.
Just go to www.versiontracker.com and look at the stuff.
One major difference is quality. The Mac shareware stuff works.
When I choose "Help" for a KDE application, I expect a help page open for that particular application. Unfortunately, I seem to have missed an IQ test somewhere.
The other week I tried to install LabPlot, Kplot and a few other plotting programs on RedHat 7.3 and SuSE 9. All of these failed.
When I think of it, this is maybe one of the major differences. The Mac shareware authors get a buss out of positive user feedback. If the public judges that a shareware is a failure, it disappears. Open source stuff on the other hand seems to stay around no matter how bad it is.
The reason was (probably) that the Mac versioning went from 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5.1d. They then released the same version 6 for Mac as for windows.
Incidentally, the mac version was slow as molasses. It took 1.5 minutes to start on the fastest powermac at the time. It was essentially a Mac emulation of the PC version. To Mac users it also felt as it they had put a number of boxes on the ground, thrown up all of the options in the air and decided under which menu to put them based on where they fell. MS eventually gave away 5.1d for free to word 6 users.
To many the 5.1d is still the word processing gold standard.
As the article says, the number is probably undershooting now. By the time this 50% or so reduction in graduates hits the market in 2-4 years time, happy days should be back for those who have the skills.
I would love to be able to use all the features of
Postgresql but I need 24/7 availability (no vacuum) and replication. Until some slashdotter can explain how to do this with Postgresql I will stick with MySQL.
It would actually be nice to see ONE SINGLE COMMENT on these issues in the usual 400 post thrashing of MySQL that these discussions cause.
Erik
To paraphrase Monte Python: One laptop! You were lucky! Here in the UK the number was even smaller.
If you want pure, unadulterated frustration, put in linux and laptop in the search field on www.ibm.com/uk.
Erik
I've been looking at both MySQL and PostgreSQL for use in an application. I know that MySQL has a working replication solution that just got better. What about Postgres? I found a one single year-old web page that gave me little on the subject. A search for replication in the Postgres documentation brings up no hits at all. Working replication and 24/7 use are the two key criteria for my choice. Can anyone of the postgres fans point me in the right direction?