What I'm Reading (Dec. 9)

There is a gender gap in pay, but are there reasons for the disparity not solely because of the employee’s gender? In medicine, women are frequently paid less than men even though, as I have written 3^rd party payments (from insurance or the government) are gender-neutral – women provide different services than men. Here is a look at how researchers connected the dots between the selection of college majors and subsequent occupations and pay. From Econlife, Why Your College Major Matters

“… the ingredients are now printed on the side of the cans it will start shipping to customers and read like so: “Brewed Atomo Coffee (water, extracts of date seed, chicory root, grape skin) inulin, natural flavors, caffeine.”

In a world with beef and chicken now made from peas, we can add coffee using a

“molecular concoction derived from naturally sustainable, upcycled plant waste ingredients which were previously kept secret.”

From Geekwire, ‘Future of coffee’ arrives with release of Seattle’s Atomo, a first-of-its-kind molecular cold brew

“Silicon Valley startups popularized mindfulness and meditation apps as early as 2010, although many have criticized those apps for being spiritually shallow. Hallow’s young founders – devout lay Catholic millennials – are among those who felt that mindfulness apps did not meet their religious needs and set out to create their own.”

Hallow, the name of the app, has raised over $52 million in investments. From The Conversation, Prayer apps are flooding the market, but how well do they work? Have we entered the era of “likes” for Jesus?

“In the 1920s, immigration to the United States was restricted with quotas which were designed to reduce the number of immigrants from Italy and Eastern Europe, then considered to be low-quality immigrants. One unintended consequence was that the number of immigrant scientists from these areas also declined.”

From Marginal Revolution, The Scientific Cost of Immigrant Quotas