Word: inertias
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...best friend of the forest may be social inertia. After more than three decades, Brazil?s vaunted Trans-Amazon Highway has yet to be completely paved, and other roads in the Amazon have been all but abandoned. The road that once linked Porto Velho and Manaus becomes impassable a mere two hours outside Porto Velho. Ecologist Nepstad argues that a more limited network of paved roads could give Santar?m all-weather access to the rest of Brazil, while forestalling incursions of unauthorized settlers from the south. The soybean exporters have already paved access to Amazon waterways through Porto Velho...
...Such inertia often breaks down during what is known in the industry as "life transitions"--weddings, births and deaths. Dana Brosnahan, 28, of West Bend, Wis., sought an outlet after her mother's death. "I wanted to have something for my kids so they would know my mother," she says. Scrapbooks appeal to the historian in each of us. In Milwaukee, Jan Schwabe, 41, took the politic route of making a "heritage book" of her husband's family. "He now appreciates my being into scrapbooking," she says. "And for the first time, he isn't asking me how much...
...difficult, if not impossible, for new genetic variants to become established. If any meaningful innovations are to become fixed in a population or if a population is to become established as a new species, it is essential that the population be small. Large populations simply have too much genetic inertia...
...Invention Index survey reveals that more than half of teens, 55%, believe parental encouragement to do well in science is an excellent idea. Some 39% want parents to provide access to books and materials. And 36% want parents to help with homework or school projects. The parental law of inertia is, apparently, no excuse...
...solid body of evidence from my TFs in a wide range of disciplines that this is, in fact, the case. I have never quite understood what, if any, useful intellectual purpose there is to exams. Most professors seem to give them out of pure laziness and pedagogical inertia rather than actually to test students' knowledge of the course material in any meaningful way. In the process, they force us to master a particular mode of communication--the exam answer--that is an ugly affront to written language...