New birth

The birth of new Clusters∗

Externalities across related industries have been mentioned as a potential key for economic development. Nonetheless, the literature provides little identified evidence of a causal link between the location of one large firm and the subsequent entry of new related industries to the region. To address that gap, in this paper we use two decades of US county-level data from 1977 to 1997 and combin...

Birth control and a new birth of freedom.

New reasons and new ways to study birth physiology.

The age of cesarean sections on request, epidurals and drips of oxytocin is a turning point in the history of childbirth. Until recently women could not give birth without releasing a complex cocktail of 'love hormones'. Today, in many countries, most women have babies without releasing these specific hormones. The questions must be raised in terms of civilization. This turning point occurs at ...

Birth of a new breed of supertaster.

People differ in the intensity of their reported experience of taste but the origins of these differences, whether they generalize to some or all chemosensory stimuli, and the most accurate way to measure them are controversial. In this issue of Chemical Senses, Lim et al. address the question of the general nature of perceived intensity and report that a subject’s response to the bitter chemic...

Socioeconomic status and preterm birth: New Zealand

Background: While a number of countries have reported rising preterm birth rates over the past two decades, none has examined the effects of socioeconomic status on preterm birth at a national level. Aim: To document the changing incidence of preterm birth in New Zealand over the past 20 years and to determine whether particular socioeconomic or ethnic subsections of the population have contrib...