Word: networks
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...remit, but her inquiries into Chinese restaurant workers in America make up some of the strongest writing in the book. Many were lured to America when China did not provide the opportunities it does now, and large numbers of them have willingly participated in a vast people-smuggling network, paying fees that can leave them with crippling debt for years...
...bulk of Canada's new energy will get pushed through an expanded pipeline network straight to waiting U.S. upgrading plants and refineries, a majority of which are located in such Midwestern states as Minnesota, North Dakota and Ohio. Shell, Chevron, British Petroleum and Total S.A. of France, along with about 20 smaller but no less ambitious players, are also transforming Alberta's boreal oil patch into the primary supplier of feedstock for an integrated North American energy market. "Canada is extremely important to U.S. energy security," says Rob Routs, executive director of oil sands at Netherlands-based Royal Dutch Shell...
...irony is that TV networks have been out of touch with the working class for years. Blue-collar TV characters used to be routine: Ralph Kramden, Fred Sanford, Laverne and Shirley. TV was the people's medium, after all. But now network dramas and sitcoms have been gentrified. The better to woo upscale viewers, TV has evicted its mechanics and dockworkers to collect higher rents from yuppies in coffeehouses. Even cop shows have been taken away from beat cops and given to the eggheads on CSI and Numb3rs. Goodbye, Roseanne. Hello, Liz Lemon...
...become 36% less likely to be smokers too. These folks then influence their social circles, and so forth, until people several degrees removed from the index case also become nonsmokers. In the study, even people who did not mutually identify themselves as friends, but were in the same social network, were affected by each other's behavior: people who labeled themselves as friends of the index case, for example, but were not similarly identified as friends by the index case, were still 20% less likely to smoke if the index case decided to quit...
Such ripple effects among social groups may seem pretty obvious - people naturally look to their friends to figure out what behaviors are socially acceptable - but Christakis notes that the scope and size of the networks in which these effects operate is much larger than previously thought. His research, for example, shows that geographical distance between individuals in the network doesn't seem to weaken behavioral influences. That means that prevention and treatment programs for health-related behaviors such as quitting smoking, losing weight and exercising could become more efficient by taking advantage of the network effect. "The wonderful property...