Word: heights
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Skeletons and written records show that human beings today are inches taller than humans just a century or two ago. And yet even today average heights vary among different nationalities, even among genetically homogenous populations, like the South Koreans and North Koreans. (South Koreans are taller.) John Komlos, professor of economics at the University of Munich and a pioneer in studying human well-being through history, explains what governs human height, and why some populations are taller than others...
...have been increasing in height for about 140 years. Prior to that, there were cycles in height, depending on economic circumstances and agricultural productivity and so forth. We were relatively tall in the Middle Ages, when population densities were relatively low and food supplies were still fairly adequate. The low point was in the 17th century. Frenchmen, for example, were about 162 cm on average [not quite 5 ft. 4 in.], which is extremely small. Only since about the middle of the 19th century has there been a general trend upwards...
...American population was the tallest in the world from about the American Revolution to World War II - that's a long time. (There is a genetic component to [population] height, but there is very little genetic difference between European populations or their overseas offshoots.) America had a very resource-rich environment, with game, fish and wildlife. In fact we have data on disadvantaged people in America, such as slaves. They were obviously among the most mistreated populations in the world, but given the resource abundance - and given the fact that the slave owners needed their work - they...
...befits a tradition that reached its height during the Nixon years, flag lapel pins have - fairly or not - become to many a shibboleth of America's War on Terror, and a symbol of the "either you're with us or against us" ethos that has often prevailed since September 11, 2001. And while the country hasn't yet reached anything close to a consensus on what a flag pin says about its wearer, Barack Obama seems to have discovered that symbols matter - even if one doesn't agree with the way they are used...
...main hospitals in the district, say that government money has already bought them much-needed drugs and other supplies. Hospital electricity has been restored, out of a combination of city power and generators, to 24 hours a day - up from just six hours of generator power at the height of the fighting. Doctors say the water supply is being repaired in the area, but not quickly enough to stop a summer spike in water-borne diseases, such as typhoid...