September is most common month for birthdays, and if you count backwards from there, you may think, oh yeah, holiday celebrations and alcohol, long nights and cold weather, sure. That's the conventional wisdom, but September is not the most common birth month in all places. Scientists believe there are more natural reasons for peaks in human births that depend on climate and daylight more than cultural practices. In animals, evolutionary forces insure that births peak at the time of year that helps babies to survive, such as when resources are plentiful. The same forces may be at work in humans.
There is a clear pattern of births across latitude. Here in the U.S., states in the North have a birth peak in early summer (June-July), while states in the South experience a birth peak a few months later (October-November).
Globally, popular birthdays follow a similar pattern with peaks occurring earlier in the year the further north you get from the equator – for instance, Finland’s is in late April, while Jamaica’s is in November. And in the U.S., states further south, like Texas and Florida, experience birth peaks that are not only later in the year, but also more pronounced than those seen in the North.
These peaks may have to do with temperatures conducive to newborn survival, or possibly the threat of disease- while diseases evolve even faster in order to take advantage of victims. Anyhow, the seasonal effect of birth rates is lessening due to birth control and a disconnect from our natural environment. Read more about seasonal birth rates and the possible reasons behind them at Smithsonian.
(Image credit: Arteida MjESHTRI)
Comments (7)
To start, in Tanzania with one of the highest rates of lion attacks, about 50 people die from lion attacks (I can't find solid numbers; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion#Man-eating says about 37 per year in the 1990s), while 18K people die from traffic accidents.
The usual explanation is lack of education, especially for women, distrust of prophylactics, religious views (eg, the strong influence in Africa of the Catholic Church's fight against condom use), and the view that children will provide more help with the household chores. Yes, the Catholic Church is far more responsible than any fear of lions.
Cold-> cuddling-> warming up -> too much warming up
Pressure makes diamonds :)
This argument has a "I think talkies are going to ruin pictures" quality to it. The internet cannot kill print media, that can only be done by stodgy old print workers that refuse to accept their medium is going to change.
Change, not die.
In my experience (I don't work in marketing, but do work with science magazines) magazine sales aren't doing as badly as people presume. Shares in the overall market have divided, from what I've been told, but this is far from 'print is dead'.
What successful magazines are realising is that the web is a tool that augments what they do, not competes with it.
Every new medium that has come into being has been heralded as the 'death' of something. The grammophome heralded the death of local choirs; cinema the death of live theatre; television the death of cinema etc. And while they all evolved from the impact of competing tech, none of it disappeared.
Print will be around for a while yet, even if will necessarily involve a digital component.
Until then I have my popup blocker though.
I now await the developments in the e-reading tech and those other comparable technologies. I see a bright future for magazines and newspapers in that field.