Blog

Which statement best describes the esophagus?

On which of the following bones will the bony landmark called the cribriform plate be found?

Which of the following were responses that both Tyler Schultz and Erika Cheung decided to do once they realized that Theranos was a fraud?

MORE TALK LESS WORK IN COFFEE SHOPS               At HotBlack Coffee, a cafe in downtown Toronto, you can get walnut butter squares, lemon poppy seed muffins, biscotti and, of course, coffee. But one thing you can’t get there: Wi-Fi.             Jimson Bienenstock, the president of HotBlack, said the shop opened last year without Wi-Fi with the express intent of getting customers to — gasp! — talk to one another instead of burying their faces in laptops. “It’s about creating a social vibe,” he said. “We’re a vehicle for human interaction, otherwise it’s just a commodity.”             At many coffee outlets, workers set up makeshift offices and rely on the stores’ Wi-Fi, which has come to be considered a given — if not a right.             While HotBlack is not the first cafe to withhold Wi-Fi from the public, industry experts said such shops are in the minority and risk alienating customers. Mr. Bienenstock said he has traveled extensively, including 15 years of living in Europe, and found that the practice of setting up a temporary workplace in a cafe was largely confined to North America. He said he did not see his approach as revolutionary but as a response to society’s deep immersion into all things digital that leads people to seldom communicate face to face.             Customers initially were aghast at the decision. “What do you mean you don’t have Wi-Fi?” was a common refrain, he said, adding that the camps are divided between those who love it and those who loathe it. (Only four of 28 reviews on Yelp noted the shop’s lack of Wi-Fi.)             While the business does rely on volume, Mr. Bienenstock said the lack of Wi-Fi was not meant to get customers to linger less. He said he measured success by the din of his shop. “You’d have a hell of a time concentrating in our place because there’s so much noise,” he said. “There’s so many people talking to each other.”             To promote conviviality, other shops have adopted a no-Wi-Fi policy and gone a step further: doing away with some comfy furniture and narrowing counters to make them less accommodating for laptops. Caroline Bell, co-owner of Café Grumpy, said it offers Wi-Fi only at its Brooklyn location, which has a larger space for customers who want to work. The cafe does not offer Wi-Fi at its seven other New York City locations.             Alex M. Susskind, an associate professor of food and beverage management at the School of Hotel Administration at Cornell University, said he saw the lack of Wi-Fi as a detriment. Customers develop a “habituated expectation” and would be surprised not to have it. “That bucks the trend of what most people go to coffeehouses for,” he said.             A 2024 thesis by Rose K. Pozos about the “urban sociability” of coffee shops posited that sitting alone with a laptop in a cafe was not necessarily antisocial. “People still chose to go there instead of being alone at home or work,” wrote Ms. Pozos, who was a student at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania at the time of her thesis. “This indicates that there is a social reason for people to go to coffee shops that does not involve direct interaction with others.” She noted that other businesses are known for lacking Wi-Fi, but that does not stop people from coming with laptops. To really get people to stop, some coffee shops enforce laptop-free zones, she wrote.             Jordan Michelman, a founder of Sprudge Media Network, which writes about coffee news and culture, said that some customers simply rely on unlimited data plans for their electronic devices. Cutting off Wi-Fi has not been a trend among chain-operated coffee outlets, such as Starbucks, he wrote, adding that HotBlack was “certainly in the minority.”             “I think a lot of shops think of offering Wi-Fi as being somewhere between offering nice soap in the restroom or offering a kid’s play place,” he wrote. “It’s not quite an essential amenity or legally required to open, but it’s nice, it makes customers happy, and makes your space feel more like their space.”

HUMOR OR HUMILIATION               What should a parent do when a 2-year-old shrieks inconsolably because her string cheese wrapper tore “the wrong way”? Increasingly, the answer is “snap a photo, add a snarky caption and upload it to Instagram.”             Publicly laughing at your toddler’s distress has somehow become not only acceptable but encouraged. Websites offer “best of” compilations, or canned quips readers can use when posting tantrum photos and videos. As psychologists and parents ourselves, we understand the urge to laugh when a child howls because he’s forbidden to eat the packing peanuts from the Amazon box, and we also understand the impulse to make these moments public. The problem is the mockery.             When a child cries, parents are biologically programmed to spring into action; blood pressure increases, for example, even if it’s not your kid. Because you know there’s no real danger during a typical tantrum, you joke in an attempt to silence the false alarm your ancient brain is sounding. In addition, joking about difficulties with those who share your situation creates an in-group, a feeling of solidarity. In a classic experiment, a researcher observed that patients in a hospital ward were quick to joke with one another about their greatest discomforts: helplessness in the face of hospital routine or fear of the unknown.             The benefits of humor do come at a cost — someone must be the butt of the joke. Another hospital study noted that humor usually has an undercurrent of hostility, which is why jokesters felt compelled to respect social hierarchies. Doctors could poke fun at residents, and residents at nurses, but jokes directed up the hierarchy were not acceptable.  More formal experiments confirm the role of aggression in humor. In one, an experimenter interacted with subjects either rudely or neutrally. Later, the experimenter “accidentally” spilled hot tea on herself, and subjects to whom she was rude were much more likely to smile or laugh.             This perspective — that there’s a whiff of meanness in the tantrum-posting craze — may strike you as melodramatic. After all, he’s not crying because his dog died; he’s crying because the water in his sippy cup is too wet. It’s funny because there’s nothing wrong. But in his 2-year-old brain, those two events may be equally tragic. The prefrontal cortex has not fully developed, making it difficult to appreciate that water can only be wet or that his dog will not return, or to regulate the ensuing emotion in either case. That his agitation is illogical makes it no less real.             Another person’s distress should not be a signal to pull out your phone, craving “likes.” That’s bad enough when it’s a stranger on a plane, but how much the more so when it’s your child, who needs your respect and compassion? Yes, children should learn to laugh at themselves, and that type of learning should first occur in the safety of the family. But those early lessons should concern some harmless folly the child can understand, and a tantrum signals that it’s the wrong moment.             Parents have needs too, but you can satisfy them without mocking your child. When a tantrum jangles your nerves, instead of laughing, try this empirically proven method of interrupting the “panic cycle.” Notice your body’s response — the racing heart, the shallow breathing — and remember that your reaction is biological, not cause for alarm. Further calm yourself with a deep breath or a quick 5-4-3-2-1 grounding exercise.             Solidarity with other parents comes from sharing your experiences in raising kids, so sure, continue posting stories and pictures of your children — just don’t mock them. If you must tell someone about your kid falling apart because you are “very bad at making lassos,” tell a family member or close friend. Teasing entails trust and love; strangers on the internet don’t love your child.             Raising children is complicated, and few rules can be applied without exception. Humor offers one, though: Always laugh with your children, never at them.

Lisa and Richard wish to acquire Acacia Corp., a C corporation. As part of their discussions with Tobias, the sole shareholder of Acacia, they examined the business’ tax accounting balance sheet. The relevant information is summarized as follows:     Fair value Adjusted basis Assets:     Cash $30,000 $30,000 Equipment $70,000 $10,000 Building1 $260,000 $140,000 Land1 $410,000 $180,000 Total $770,000 $360,000       Liabilities:     Payables $20,000 $20,000 Mortgage1 $150,000 $150,000 Total $170,000 $170,000   1 Mortgage is attached to the building and the land.   Tobias’ basis in the Acacia stock is $400,000. Lisa and Richard offer to pay Tobias $900,000 for his company.   [question 2 of 4] How much gain or loss must Tobias recognize if the transaction is structured as a stock sale to Lisa and Richard?

Note: use the following fact pattern for the next four questions.   Lisa and Richard wish to acquire Acacia Corp., a C corporation. As part of their discussions with Tobias, the sole shareholder of Acacia, they examined the business’ tax accounting balance sheet. The relevant information is summarized as follows:   Fair value Adjusted basis Assets: Cash $30,000 $30,000 Equipment $70,000 $10,000 Building1 $260,000 $140,000 Land1 $410,000 $180,000 Total $770,000 $360,000 Liabilities: Payables $20,000 $20,000 Mortgage1 $150,000 $150,000 Total $170,000 $170,000   1 Mortgage is attached to the building and the land.   Tobias’ basis in the Acacia stock is $400,000. Lisa and Richard offer to pay Tobias $900,000 for his company.   [question 1 of 4] How much gain or loss must Acacia recognize if the transaction is structured as a stock sale to Lisa and Richard?

STUDENTS NEED MORE SLEEP               For the first time, the Center for Disease Control is urging education policymakers to start middle- and high-school classes later in the morning. The idea is to improve the odds of adolescents getting sufficient sleep so they can thrive physically and academically. The American Academy of Pediatrics has also urged schools to adjust start times so more kids would get the recommended 8.5 to 9.5 hours of nightly rest. Both organizations cited significant risks that come with lack of sleep, including higher rates of obesity and depression and motor-vehicle accidents among teens as well as an overall lower quality of life.             “Getting enough sleep is important for students’ health, safety, and academic performance,” Anne Wheaton, a CDC epidemiologist, said. “Early school start times, however, are preventing many adolescents from getting the sleep they need.”             In more than 40 states, at least 75 percent of public schools start earlier than 8:30 a.m., according to the CDC’s report. While later start times won’t replace other interventions—like parents making sure their children get enough rest—schools clearly play an important role in students’ daily schedules, the report concluded.             The data on the potential risks of chronically tired adolescents isn’t new information. Indeed, the research has been accumulating for years. Researchers at the University of Minnesota’s Center for Applied Research and Educational Improvement “finally put to rest the long-standing question of whether later start times correlate to increased academic performance for high-school students.” A data analysis of more than 9,000 students at eight high schools in Minnesota, Colorado, and Wyoming found that shifting the school day later in the morning resulted in a boost in attendance, test scores, and grades in math, English, science, and social studies. Schools also saw a decrease in tardiness, substance abuse, and symptoms of depression. Some even had a dramatic drop in teen car crashes.             The research shows that adolescents’ internal clocks operate differently than those of other age groups. It’s typically more difficult for adolescents to fall asleep earlier in the evening than it is for other age demographics. While teenagers are going to bed later, their school start times are often becoming earlier as they advance through middle and high school.             In a 1998 study of adolescent sleeping habits, Brown University researcher Mary Carskadon followed 10th-graders who were making the switch to a 7:20 a.m. start time, an hour earlier than their schedule as ninth-graders. Despite the new schedule, the students went to bed at about the same time as they did the year before: 10:40 p.m. on average. She found that students showed up for morning classes seriously sleep-deprived and that the 7:20 a.m. start time required them to be awake during hours that ran contrary to their internal clocks. Fewer than half of the 10th-graders averaged seven hours of sleep each night, below the recommended amount. Carskadon concluded the students bordered on “pathologically sleepy.”             If the science is so strong, what’s getting in the way of changing the policy? In some districts, start times are dictated by local transportation companies, with school boards and superintendents contending they lack the funds or authority to change things. Meanwhile, parents are reluctant to have teens start later, because they rely on having older children at home in the afternoons to take care of younger siblings or because they’re concerned that it will interfere with extracurricular opportunities.             But none of those worries override the reality that, as Carskadon put it, “everybody learns better when they’re awake.”              Terra Snider, director of the nonprofit Start School Later, says that getting school systems to change takes more than just presenting scientific evidence. “Most people don’t take adolescent sleep deprivation seriously. You talk about changing start times and people think: Teens will miss out on sports. Little kids will go to school in the dark and get run over by a car. What will happen to my child care?” Snider said. “We have to convince school systems this has to happen for the health of kids. It’s not a negotiable school budget item—it’s an absolute requirement.”      

GOING AGAINST THE CURVE                          Ask people what’s wrong in American higher education, and you’ll hear about grade inflation. Across 200 colleges and universities, over 40 percent of grades were in the A realm, a percentage that has grown over the past three decades. But the opposite problem worries me even more: grade deflation, when teachers use a forced grading curve: The top 10 percent of students receive A’s, the next 30 percent get B’s, and so on.             The forced curve arbitrarily limits the number of students who can excel. If your forced curve allows for only seven A’s, but 10 students have mastered the material, three of them will be unfairly punished. It disincentivizes studying, creating an atmosphere that pits students against one another. At best, it increases competition, and at worst, it sends students the message that the world is a zero-sum game: Your success means my failure.             Many people believe that the world is a zero-sum game, but as an organizational psychologist, I’ve found that they’re wrong. The time employees spend helping others contributes as much to their performance evaluations and promotion rates as how well they do their jobs. An analysis of 168 studies of more than 51,000 employees showed that leaders reward people who make the team and the organization more successful. My research studying the careers of “takers,” who aim to come out ahead, and “givers,” who enjoy helping others showed that in the short run, the takers were more successful. But in the long run, the givers consistently achieved better results. Takers believe in a zero-sum world, and they end up creating one where bosses, colleagues and clients don’t trust them. Givers build deeper and broader relationships — people are rooting for them instead of gunning for them.             Like most people in business schools, my students were intent on networking, but they focused their efforts outside their classes and regarded their in-class peers as competition. I decided to change that culture. I started experimenting with grading schemes that would encourage community and collaboration, while still maintaining standards and assessing students individually.             I began by writing unusually difficult exams. That was enough to motivate students to study hard. And I introduced a rule: No student will ever be hurt by another student’s grade. I promised them that I would never curve downward, only upward. If the highest mark was an 83, I would add 17 points to everyone’s score. Now one student’s excellence didn’t hurt another’s grade.             But while that removed a level of competition, it didn’t address the bigger goal, which was to make preparing for my exam a team effort. How could I get students to help one another?             I tried another approach. The most difficult section of my final exam was multiple choice. I told the students that they could pick the one question about which they were most unsure, and write down the name of a classmate who might know the answer. If the classmate got it right, they would both earn the points. Essentially, I was trying to build a collaborative culture with a reward system where one person’s success benefited someone else. It was a small offering but it made a big difference. More students started studying together in small groups, then the groups started pooling their knowledge.             The results: Their average scores were 2 percent higher than the previous year’s. We’ve long known that one of the best ways to learn something is to teach it. In fact, evidence suggests that this is one of the reasons that firstborns tend to slightly outperform younger siblings on grades and IQ tests: Firstborns benefit from educating their younger siblings.             I had been trying to teach this lesson through my research on givers and takers, but it was so much more powerful for them to live it. Creating an atmosphere in which students want to help one another also allowed them to benefit from another of the defining features of personal and professional relationships: transactive memory, which is simply knowing who knows best. In a work team you don’t have to know how to perfect PowerPoint slides if your colleague is an expert.             When students take the time to find out who has expertise, they become smarter at learning. And that’s ultimately what we’re trying to teach, isn’t it? The mark of higher education isn’t the knowledge you accumulate in your head. It’s the skills you gain about how to learn.

VOLUN-TOURISM               Some do it to get into heaven, some to get into medical school. Some do it because everyone else is doing it. Whatever the motivation, the number of health care volunteers heading from developed to developing countries has soared recently. The reasons to applaud are self-evident: The old epidemics are compounded by the new ones, and the health-related fallout of wars and natural disasters never ends. If both skilled and unskilled labor can help, then surely those who provide such labor should do good, feel good and learn much.             Not necessarily, critics say. Some concur instead with a Somali blogger who in 2013 said that the developing world has become a place for young adults from developed countries to “pay” for being lucky enough to be born in a wealthy country. Indeed, as sociologist Judith Lasker watched groups of American and Canadian volunteers in matching T-shirts surging through the Port-au-Prince airport two years after Haiti’s disastrous 2010 earthquake, she was reminded of “the weekly Saturday turnover at American vacation resorts.” Dr. Lasker, a professor at Lehigh University, asks: “Do volunteers help or hurt?” she asks. “In what ways?”             It turns out these questions cannot be answered very precisely. Still, anyone thinking about a volunteer stint is likely to be interested in Dr. Lasker’s results. Tens of thousands of religious and secular institutions send hundreds of thousands of health volunteers from the United States into the world, generating close to an estimated $1 billion worth of unpaid labor. Volunteers include experienced medical professionals and individuals who can provide only manual labor; between these extremes of competence are the students in the health professions, among whom global volunteering has become immensely popular.             Dr. Lasker presents data from a few hundred programs, gleaned from several surveys, dozens of interviews, and some brief trips of her own. (She did not look at large organizations like Doctors Without Borders, which are organized differently and generally do not use unpaid volunteers.) Most of the programs she considers sponsor volunteer assignments that last just weeks rather than months, despite almost universal agreement among hosting communities that longer stays are much more helpful.             The hosts generally have fairly simple expectations: Volunteers should do as they are asked, know enough about their destination not to violate local norms (“Women in shorts!” grumbled one African social worker), and understand that dirt, dust and discomfort are part of the experience.             However, students may take advantage of the circumstances to attempt tasks well beyond their expertise. Experienced professionals may adhere to standards of practice that are irrelevant in poor countries. Unskilled volunteers who do not speak the language may monopolize local personnel with their interpreting needs while providing little value in return.             Problems may lie with the structure of a program rather than the personnel. One set of volunteers may not be told what the previous group had been doing and not be able to leave suggestions for the next group. Medications may run out. Surgery may be performed with insufficient provisions for postoperative care.             Nor are the benefits to the volunteers themselves clear. Do they learn the true meaning of charity? Do they become more educated global citizens? A few studies on the long-term effects of short-term good works are ongoing. In the meantime, “there is little evidence that short-term volunteer trips produce the kinds of transformational changes that are often promised,” Dr. Lasker finds.             She winds up cautiously endorsing short-term volunteer work, provided the volunteer chooses carefully among programs and behaves responsibly while at work. Still, she suggests that returning volunteers be “humble” when it comes to claiming they have made a difference, either for others or for themselves.