Human Behavior

Yale Will Strengthen Teaching on Race and Ethnicity

• Responding to student demonstrations and demands related to the racial climate at Yale University, its president, Peter Salovey, introduced a host of initiatives and promises in a letter to alumni on Tuesday.

• “It is clear that we need to make significant changes so that all members of our community truly feel welcome and can participate equally in the activities of the university, and to reaffirm and reinforce our commitment to a campus where hatred and discrimination have no place,” he wrote.

• In early November, students accused administrators of being insensitive to concerns about Halloween costumes considered to be culturally offensive. After the university’s Intercultural Affairs Council advised student to avoid costumes featuring elements like feathered headdresses, turbans or blackface.

• http://www.nytimes.com

The War on Campus Sexual Assault Goes Digital• As the problem of sexual assault on college campuses has

become a hot-button issue for school administrators and federal education regulators, one question keeps coming up: Why don’t more students report attacks?

• According to a recent study of 27 schools, about one-quarter of female undergraduates and students who identified as queer or transgender said they had experienced nonconsensual sex or touching since entering college, but most of the students said they did not report it to school officials or support services.

• Some felt the incidents weren’t serious enough. Others said they did not think anyone would believe them or they feared negative social consequences. Some felt it would be too emotionally difficult.

• Now, in an effort to give students additional options — and to provide schools with more concrete data — a nonprofit software start-up in San Francisco called Sexual Health Innovations has developed an online reporting system for campus sexual violence

• Callisto’s hypothesis is that some college students — who already socialize, study and shop online — will be more likely initially to document a sexual assault on a third-party site than to report it to school officials on the phone or in person.

• “If you have to walk into a building to report, you can only go at certain times of day and you’re not certain who you have to talk to, how many people you have to talk to, what they will ask,” Jessica Ladd, the nonprofit’s founder and chief executive, said in a recent interview in New York. “Whereas online, you can fill out a form at any time of day or night from anywhere and push a button.”

• http://www.nytimes.com

Breast-Feeding Is Good for Mothers, Not Just Babies

• Breast milk may provide the ideal nourishment for an infant, but two recent studies are putting a different spin on the bottle-versus-breast debate, suggesting it is mothers, and not just babies, who may have much to gain from breast-feeding.

• One study found that breast-feeding may help protect women from a particularly vicious type of breast cancer. The other suggests that breast-feeding may act as a sort of “reset” button for metabolism after pregnancy, helping women who had gestational diabetes avoid becoming lifelong diabetics.

• The findings complement earlier research showing that women who breast-feed have a lower risk for breast and ovarian cancers, Type 2 diabetes, and rheumatoid arthritis. Breast-feeding may also promote cardiovascular health, including a healthy blood pressure.

• “This is a win-win — it’s good for the baby, too,” said Dr. Eleanor Bimla Schwarz, a professor of medicine at the University of California, Davis. She called for paid maternity leave, citing earlier research showing that near-universal breast-feeding in the United States could spare an estimated 5,000 women a breast cancer diagnosis every year and cut nearly 14,000 heart attacks. “For all the women who want to do something to reduce breast cancer, this is doable. We need to make sure that’s part of the debate,” she said.

• But the physiological changes of lactation extend beyond the breast. Some scientists have started referring to breast-feeding as the “fourth trimester” of pregnancy that completes the reproductive cycle, restoring a woman’s body to long-term metabolic and cardiac health.

• http://www.scientificamerican.com/

Bountiful bikes: Can a share program get more people cycling around cities?

• Bicycling brings many benefits over driving a car: a workout, less pollution and lower carbon dioxide emissions. So, why is it that, according to the U.S. Census Bureau's 2007American Community Survey, only 0.5 percent of Americans rely on two wheels to get to work?

• The answer is likely a combination of obstacles: convenience, culture and collisions.

A new system in Montreal now expanding to other big cities may address at least the first two issues. Scattered among 300 cyclist stations throughout Montreal are 3,000 bikes, each ready and waiting for its next rider. Now, plans are under way for a similar bounty of bikes in Boston, according to The New York Times. And additional biking infrastructure—including new bike lanes—could also help cities overcome the third obstacle.

• The bikes themselves—fully equipped with everything from LED headlights and tail lights to three-speed hub gear and bell—are "designed to minimize damage from vandals, to thwart parts thieves and to keep rolling with the minimum of maintenance rather than for lightness or speed," the Times reported. Riders can simply scan their credit card and pedal away.

But convenience isn't the only barrier to biking in Boston. The city suffers from a confusing array of old narrow streets and notoriously aggressive drivers, which combine to generate high rates of bike accidents—from cyclists colliding with moving cars to car doors opening into bike lanes. (The author has personal experience with being "doored" in the city.)

In contrast, the model city for accommodating biking is Portland, Ore., where 300 miles of protected bike lanes inspire riding rates about eight times that of the national average, according to The Boston Globe.

• http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/