Typical measures of economic output do a bad job of capturing the value of the Internet, according to an April 30 article in The New York Times. Gross domestic product, the most prominent indicator of the nation’s economic health, only puts a value on goods and services that people pay for; because many online interactions are free, they don’t show up in GDP. So reading publications online or doing searches on Google aren’t valued as economic activities, even though they may be saving time or increasing productivity. One reason for omitting online pursuits, The Times said, is the difficulty of assigning value to Internet transactions. That may be changing. An experiment at the University of Michigan conducted by ISR researcher Yan Chen and two other U-M researchers showed that participants with access to a search engine could answer a question 15 minutes faster than those without. Building on this study, Hal Varian, Google’s chief economist, estimated that search engines might be worth $65 billion a year across the working population, the article said.

Running into co-workers by the coffee machine or water cooler is a time honored way for employees to mix and share ideas. Now employers are becoming more mindful and strategic about how they bring workers together, The Wall Street Journal reports in an April 30 article. Organizations as varied as National Public Radio, online retailer Zappos, and Google have tried to increase serendipitous collaborations through strategies such as holding brainstorming sessions among employees from different departments, cutting the amount of space per person, and designing a building to put all employees within easy walking distance of each other. These efforts have been bolstered by the work of ISR researcher Jason Owen-Smith, who found that research scientists are more likely to collaborate if they work in the same buildings and run into each other while walking between lab space, office space, bathrooms, and elevators. Such impromptu conversations can be remarkably fruitful, Owen-Smith says. “If that person knows stuff you don’t, that process can lead to information transfer,” he said.

Global cultural attitudes increasingly oppose domestic violence, and women exposed to those attitudes are more likely to think domestic violence is not acceptable, according to a recent study. ISR researcher Rachael Pierotti examined USAID data about women in 26 low- and middle-income countries and found that in 23 of those countries attitudes have changed significantly since the early 2000s. An April 29 Washington Post article featuring the results of the study noted that the trend against domestic violence is occurring in all parts of the world, indicating that cultural factors such as religion and geographic location aren’t the primary determinants in how people feel about violence against women. Pierotti also pointed out that neither urbanization nor growing incomes alone account for the shift. Rather, the move in global attitudes—along with an increase in urban living, education, and access to media—appears to be responsible for the change. The largest change occurred in Nigeria, where 52 percent of women rejected domestic violence in 2008, compared with 33 percent in 2003.

Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia now cost the United States more than either cancer or heart disease, according to a new RAND Corp. study. The study, described in an April 3 Associated Press story, looked at the cost of drugs and medical interventions to treat dementia and at the care that Alzheimer’s patients require. The result: the direct costs of dementia are $109 billion annually in 2010 dollars, and indirect costs—such as family care at home—push the price to families and society to $157 billion to $215 billion a year. Unlike prior studies, the RAND research managed to separate the costs of dementia care from other health care expenses, “an important difference,” according to ISR researcher Kenneth Langa, an author of the study. Alzheimer’s, the most common form of dementia and the sixth leading cause of death in the United States, now affects about 4.1 million Americans, according to the study. The prevalence and cost of dementia will only increase in the future as the country’s population ages, study authors said, making it ever more critical to prevent Alzheimer’s or to lessen its impact.

The old adage in media circles is that bad news sells. That operative rule has long shaped what TV and radio shows and newspapers choose to feature. But a March 18 column in The New York Times said that recent research is overturning that notion. An analysis of the “most e-mailed” stories on The Times website showed that positive stories, funny stories, and stories that ignite strong feelings like anger or anxiety were more likely to be shared than those that are simply sad. The article also cited work by ISR researcher Emily Falk showing that people don’t just think about their own interests when deciding what to share. Falk conducted experiments demonstrating that individuals are more likely to communicate a new idea to others if—when hearing the idea—a part of the brain lights up that is associated with thoughts about other people. “You’d expect people to be most enthusiastic and opinionated and successful in spreading ideas that they themselves are excited about,” Falk told The Times. “But our research suggests that’s not the whole story. Thinking about what appeals to others may be even more important.”

Blacks and whites have different attitudes towards gun control shaped by the two races’ different experiences with gun deaths, according to a March 22 article in The Washington Post. Whites are five times more likely to commit suicide with a gun than to be shot with a gun, the article said. By contrast, Blacks are five times as likely to be killed by other people with guns as to use a gun to commit suicide. Partly due to this perceived threat of homicide, Blacks on average are more likely to support gun control. But suicides don’t spur the same response from whites, despite the fact that suicides nationally account for almost two times as many gun deaths as homicides, the article said. “We have less empathy with those who take their own lives,” ISR researcher Sean Joe told The Post. “So we don’t have the same national outcry. The key argument for me is that increased access to firearms increases suicide and homicide.” Experts cite the need for both increasing mental health services and limiting firearms. But, Joe said, “If I had to choose one thing, I would try to reduce access and availability of firearms. The means matter more.”

Getting married may or may not bring happiness, but it’s likely to bring a strong financial advantage. A February 13 post on Life Inc., an NBC Today blog, cited research showing that a married couple that stays together typically has four times the wealth of a single person. And the advantages are not just financial. ISR researcher Pamela Smock told Life Inc. that the sharing of responsibilities can be a boon for people who are married. For example, one member of the couple might work long hours to get ahead while the other handles things at home. Married couples also are wealthier on average because wealthier and better educated people are more likely to marry. By contrast, Smock said, not having money deters many couples who might otherwise marry because they want to achieve greater financial security before tying the knot. “Those people [who marry] are more likely to be the privileged people,” she said. “And the others, the less well off, are doing family in a different way.”

“The Wire” was known during its five seasons on HBO for deftly interweaving complex urban issues, like drug trade, education, and city government. So perhaps it’s not that surprising that ISR researcher David Harding used the acclaimed TV show as the foundation for a graduate-level course on urban public policy he’s teaching this semester. Harding’s course was featured in the February 24 Detroit Free Press. According to the article, Harding created the seminar, Urban Public Policy Through the Lens of HBO’s “The Wire,” after students asked him to develop a class putting the show’s story lines in the context of real life. “At first it sounded a little gimmicky, but once the students articulated their motivations for the course and demonstrated their enthusiasm and commitment to making it happen, I saw the value in it,” Harding said. “The main thing that makes this course different from other courses is our emphasis on understanding the connections between areas of policy that are not usually studied together.”

Mattel, maker of Hot Wheels toy cars, may have developed a flat. The toy-maker recently hosted a brunch in Manhattan to tutor mothers in the art of playing with toy cars with their kids, particularly their sons. After the event, a Mattel executive made remarks that appeared to blame the drop in Hot Wheels sales in the U.S. on mothers who never played with cars themselves and who don’t understand how to make the most of the diminutive vehicles, according to a March 12 article in Today.com. The entire episode has led a number of women, including toy car-playing mothers, to step on the brakes. Among them is ISR researcher Pamela Davis-Kean. “Children’s desire for toys are what usually drives what parents and families buy, and if a boy or girl likes playing with cars—then a parent will purchase it,” Davis-Kean told Today.com. “I have no doubt that most mothers are quite comfortable playing with toy cars with their sons and fathers are comfortable playing with dolls with their daughters.”

Barack Obama won re-election as president in 2012 with 39 percent of the white vote, 4 percent less than what he received in 2008. According to a Feb. 6 article in The New York Times, the dip in white support is one sign of how the election of the nation’s first Black president has affected racial attitudes. Still, Obama’s white support falls within the norm of that received by other Democratic candidates for president in the years between 1952 and 2012, the article said. But it also cited a 2010 paper, based in part on data from the American National Election Studies, that argued that party attachments became more polarized by racial attitudes and race after Obama became the Democratic nominee in 2008. In particular, between 2006 and 2008, voters who were high on a racial-resentment scale—showing “subtle hostility towards African-Americans”—increased their partisanship within the Republican Party. The shift shows the intensifying conservatism within the right wing of the Party, the article said.