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<ul><li>A study revealed unknown facts about the death of the <keyword id="400029" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="American-tourist">american tourist</keyword> who visited one of the India's most isolated tribe. </li><li>The tribe, which has a small population of under 50, lives on the North Sentinel Island of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.</li><li> The journal highly recommends preserving the diary of Chau, as it contains his experiences and sketches of the hut. </li></ul> The <keyword id="5220722" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="Anthropological-Survey">Anthropological Survey</keyword> of India published a research journal, highlighting many unknown facts about the alleged killing of an American tourist by a remote tribe of North Sentinel Island in India, <a href="https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/study-sheds-more-light-on-killing-of-american-by-sentinels/article29369181.ece">reported the Hindu</a>. “The tragic death of <keyword id="7051478" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="john-allen-chau">John Allen Chau</keyword> is a matter of grief, but what is equally distressing is the report that the Andaman police have registered a criminal case for murder against the unknown tribesmen,” said M Sasikumar, Deputy director, Anthrolopogy Survey of India. An American tourist who came to preach was murdered with bows and arrows Nine months ago, an American tourist, John Allen Chau<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/nov/21/american-killed-isolated-indian-tribe-north-sentinel-island">, was allegedly killed by the Sentinelese tribe on November, 2018. </a> Local police charged India's remote indigenous tribe for the murder of the American tourist The tribe, which has a small population of under 50, lives on the North Sentinel Island of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The tribe is one of India’s protected tribes and is said to resist contact with outsiders. As a protected island, even the Indian Navy isn’t allowed to interact with its inhabitants. Andaman and Nicobar islands are home to several protected tribes. The study recommends preserving Chau's journal Chau’s extreme obsession led him to visit the island even when he was aware of the consequences, the study said. Most of the previous visits to the island included observation from a distance. Chau was the only one who spent the whole day with the tribal people with close proximity, Dr. Srivastava, Director, ANsI pointed. The journal highly recommends preserving the diary of Chau, as it contains his experiences and sketches of the hut. “Well I have been shot by the Sentinelese... By a kid probably 10 or so years old, may be a teenager, short compared to those who looked like adults… The little kid shot me with an arrow directly into my Bible which I was holding at my chest... His high pitched voice still lingers in my head,” Chau’s diary said. “I don't want to die. Would it be wiser to leave and let someone else to continue? No I don’t think so,” Chau said in his journal. There are several incidents of murder reported The journal reports many similar incidents in the Island. In March 1896, three convicts tried escaping to the remote area using a raft of bamboos. While the two drowned, tribals killed the third one. Similarly, the tribe also allegedly killed two fishermen in 2006 when they were found stealing a mud crab in the area. All the efforts by the local authorities to contact them were in vain. The tribe also killed and buried the pigs, and a doll offered to them, the journal said. However, Triloknath Pandit was the first and among the very few anthropologists to enter the protected area in 1967. See also: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/american-tourist-allegedly-killed-by-a-remote-indigenous-tribe-on-indias-andaman-and-nicobar-islands-that-had-little-contact-with-the-outside-world/articleshow/66733605.cms">American tourist allegedly killed by a remote indigenous tribe on India’s Andaman and Nicobar Islands that had little contact with the outside world</a>

Study details American tourist's journey while visiting India's Sentinelese tribe, one of the world's last uncontacted people

Lisa Doucet-Albert didn't have the typical '80s teen experience. While her peers were bumming around the malls and basement rec rooms of their Rhode Island suburb, she was tasked with her family's cooking, grocery shopping, and whatever else needed doing while her mother worked. As the older sister, she was also her kid brother's caretaker. She felt it was her job to worry about everyone else.Now the managing director for a public-relations firm in Providence, Doucet-Albert believes that the amount of responsibility she carried growing up is inextricable from who she is today. "I never ask for help but always provide it. I am definitely a people pleaser and go out of my way to help others, almost like it's my obligation. I also have a hard time setting boundaries and saying no," she said. "It's something that I'm constantly working on."Doucet-Albert counts herself among the scores of women who have recognized themselves in a flurry of memes and think pieces concerning an affliction of sorts: "<a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/eldest-daughter-syndrome-signs-domestic-labor-people-pleasing-therapist-2024-3">eldest-daughter syndrome</a>." Equal parts birth-order stereotyping and pop psychology, the term describes a heady cocktail of <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/eldest-daughter-syndrome-signs-domestic-labor-people-pleasing-therapist-2024-3">perfectionism, self-sacrifice, guilt</a>, and sibling resentment thanks to the double whammy of being both the oldest child and a girl. In a post that has garnered 4.5 million views on TikTok, a poem titled "Oldest Daughter Guilt" sums up the strife, lamenting, "Why can't I be happy? / I need to put myself first. / But who even am I when / I'm not fixing someone's hurt?"The premise of <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/eldest-daughter-syndrome-fathers-caretaker-sibling-birth-order-estrangement-2024-7">eldest-daughter syndrome</a> relies on two core assumptions: that firstborn or only daughters are expected to be models of achievement and good behavior for their younger siblings and that <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/helped-raise-siblings-dont-want-kids-child-free-2024-6">daughters are asked to take on more of the family's housework</a> than their brothers. Research is inconclusive (at best) as to whether birth order meaningfully predicts personality. But there may be more of a science to eldest daughters than meets the eye. While the cultural conversation has focused on the downsides — <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/eldest-daughter-syndrome-online-communities-empowering-first-born-women-2023-12">the burdens — of being the eldest girl</a>, studies across disciplines point to very real benefits for firstborn daughters' parents and siblings, particularly in times of hardship. Whether those benefits carry over to the daughters in question, on the other hand, depends on how much they're expected to give up.Everyone, in other words, should have an older sister. But not everyone may want to be one.Though social scientists don't love the public's tendency to assign character traits according to arbitrary demographic groupings, such as <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/gen-z-millennial-boomer-gen-x-why-generations-feud-2023-7">generational labels</a> and sibling order, there's quite a bit of research that supports the eldest-daughter trope. Girls have been found to <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/wife-housework-until-husband-split-chores-2024-8">spend more time on household chores</a> than boys; older children, in general, are often asked to <a target="_blank" href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1741-3737.2012.01011.x">set an example</a> for their younger siblings.Older children also play an important role as babysitters — especially when parents and guardians have limited access to alternate caregiving help. In a <a target="_blank" href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4108245">survey</a> of nearly 2,000 US parents, roughly half reported that they'd relied on their older children for some or all of their caregiving help between February and December 2020, through the height of COVID-19 lockdowns.Although the survey didn't specify the gender of older-child caregivers, preexisting research supports an educated guess that girls did more of the lifting. "It's a well-established pattern across the anthropological literature in diverse human societies that older sisters participate in direct childcare more than older brothers," said Molly Fox, an associate professor of anthropology at the University of California, Los Angeles. Fox led a team of researchers that recently <a target="_blank" href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306453023006492?via%3Dihub">uncovered</a> a stunning evolutionary clue as to why it's so common for women to take on caregiving roles. The team's 15-year longitudinal study, published earlier this year, found a link between mothers who reported psychological distress during pregnancy and accelerated adrenal puberty in firstborn daughters. Adrenal puberty is when the body starts producing more of a hormone that gets converted into a host of other powerful chemicals, such as the sex hormones estrogen and testosterone. Crucially, adrenal puberty also kicks off a phase of cognitive development that's associated with emotional and behavioral maturity and typically occurs about two years before regular puberty. A child who has undergone adrenal puberty is better equipped to take on more adultlike responsibilities such as babysitting, cooking, and running household errands. Most striking of all, maternal distress was not found to speed up adrenal puberty in sons or younger daughters. So when a mother needed help, biology caused her eldest daughter to step up and mature faster to provide that help — but the same wasn't true for her other children.Does this mean that eldest-daughter syndrome not only is real but also begins in the womb? As Fox sees it, the answer sure looks like a yes — at least some of the time. For moms in difficult circumstances, having a precocious firstborn daughter who can help out with subsequent siblings is a helpful adaptation. "This idea seems consistent with the 'eldest daughter' phenomenon," she said.In low- and middle-income countries, having an older sister may even give younger siblings a leg up in their future success and well-being. A 2020 study examining patterns of early childhood development in rural Kenya found that young children with an older sister, as opposed to an older brother, scored significantly higher in vocabulary and development of fine motor skills — differences that were attributed to extra attention and interaction. "For comparison, this 'effect' of having a big sister is about as large as the difference in child development between young children whose mother completed secondary school and those whose mother only completed primary school," the researchers wrote in a <a target="_blank" href="https://www.cgdev.org/blog/doing-well-life-thank-your-big-sister">blog post</a> for the Center for Global Development.Pamela Jakiela, an associate professor of economics at Williams College and a coauthor of the study, said it's hard to know whether older sisters in the US have a comparably significant impact on their younger siblings' early development. Mothers in rural Kenya tend to have more children than women in the US, which means there are more young children to care for at once. Less access to center-based childcare — such as preschool and day care — means that caring for infants and toddlers falls to household members. Gender roles and responsibilities remain more rigid than in the US, with housework and caregiving more explicitly placed on girls and women.But the findings still hold clues for American households, where parents rely tremendously on their older children for help at home. And while familial roles and responsibilities aren't as preordained by gender as they once were, American <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-much-time-men-women-spend-on-housework-caregiving-pew-2023-4">women still do far more of the domestic labor</a>.Scrutiny over the "plight of the eldest daughter" fits into a broader debate over what kinds of expectations are appropriate to place on kids, particularly in light of rising concern over the potential harms of "<a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/signs-parentification-child-grew-up-fast-responsibilities-2024-1">parentification</a>." Asking children to take on too much too soon can spell trouble for their relationships and mental health down the line, a legion of TikTokers and therapists say.Despite the potential for sacrifices, being an eldest daughter isn't without its perks. Firstborn girls tend to be the most ambitious and <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/why-oldest-siblings-make-more-money-younger-siblings-healthcare-denmark-2024-3">successful children</a> in their families, a 2014 study by University of Essex researchers found. A 2018 study published in Child Development found that, irrespective of gender, an older sibling caring for a younger sibling helped both of them <a target="_blank" href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/02/180220083924.htm">develop a sense of empathy</a>.<a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/sibling-relationships-can-be-complicated-and-change-through-the-years-2023-7">Sibling relationships</a> stand to benefit from these dynamics, too. Jonathan Westover, who grew up as the sixth of eight children in 1980s Utah, told me that his eldest sister acted like a third parent throughout much of his childhood. At the time, it felt special to be able to spend so much time with her, especially given their decade-plus age difference. "I have a closer relationship with her, to this day, than I do with many of my other older siblings," he said. Westover's story lines up with my own experience as the firstborn, and only daughter, in a family of three kids. I'm not sure I would have spent much quality time with my younger brothers, given our respective four- and six-year age gaps, if I hadn't been tasked with taking care of them after school and during our parents' occasional nights out. Though I wasn't exactly Mary Poppins — as my brothers would be happy to attest to — my latchkey-parent position helped lay a foundation for the warm and affectionate bond I share with both of them as an adult.I didn't develop the same negative view of my role as many others have, and the critical difference came from the fact my parents never expected me to put their childcare needs ahead of my own childhood experiences. If I needed to stay after school for play rehearsal or tennis practice, they found someone else to look after my brothers until one of us came home. (It's worth noting that, with <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/having-grandparents-care-for-grandchildren-can-cause-wealth-divide-2024-8">two sets of grandparents living nearby</a>, this was a fairly easy task.)In contrast, Westover said his parents relied on his eldest sister to be their default childcare provider, at the expense of her social life and extracurriculars. "She got defensive about it with my parents and started acting out because they leaned on her so much — more than they should have, probably, and certainly more than she thought was fair," Westover said. "Even into her adult life, she held that against my parents." His wife grew up as part of a similarly large brood — and her eldest sister had a similar experience. In both families, older brothers were asked to shoulder a comparably minuscule share of the load.Westover, who is now an associate professor of organizational leadership at Utah Valley University and a father of six, told me that he and his wife had been careful not to repeat their parents' mistakes. "We try not to put a burden on our kids to take care of things that are our responsibility," he said. "If we do have the kids helping, we make sure that they're helping equally. We're not making the girls do all of one thing and the boys do all of another thing." Their firstborn — a daughter — is now 20.As long as they're equipped to handle the tasks at hand, there is nothing inherently wrong with asking children to step up to positions of responsibility. According to Lenette Azzi-Lessing, an associate professor of social work at Boston University and a senior fellow at the Child Welfare League of America, feeling competent in an adult role can even serve as a valuable source of self-confidence for older children. It's when family responsibilities get in the way of an older sibling's ability to participate in their own important developmental experiences — such as schoolwork, hobbies, extracurriculars, and social activities — that the downsides can quickly outstrip any benefits. "If girls are prevented from achieving their academic potential because they are required to provide childcare support that boys are not, that is a big problem," Jakiela, the economics professor, said.Those detriments may be especially pronounced in today's <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/kids-organized-sports-benefits-rest-resilience-2024-7">ultracompetitive scholastic environment</a>. "While kids tend to do less in terms of chores now than they did when I was a child, expectations in terms of academic, athletic, and extracurricular achievement have also changed," Jakiela said. "I'm not sure that today's kids have the bandwidth to pick up the caregiving slack for their parents."As with most things, the key is balance. Eldest or only daughters have a valuable role to play in the lives of their parents and younger siblings, but avoiding the drawbacks of that extra responsibility requires <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/millennial-gen-z-parents-struggle-lonely-childcare-costs-money-friends-2023-11">additional support for overwhelmed parents</a>. The cure for eldest-daughter syndrome, in other words, isn't a culture shift; it's rebuilding the village.<a target="_blank" rel="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/author/kelli-maria-korducki">Kelli María Korducki</a> is a journalist whose work focuses on work, tech, and culture. She's based in New York City.

The science is in: Big sisters are good for everyone 

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Murphy Pizza, burdened by $250,000 in student loans, left academia due to low and inconsistent pay.</li><li>Pizza is an <a target="_blank" rel="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/middle-class-americans-earning-above-poverty-live-paycheck-to-paycheck-2024-4">ALICE</a> — asset-limited, income-constrained, and employed.</li></ul>Murphy Pizza has accepted that she may never pay off her <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/student-loan-forgiveness-blocked-save-plan-lawsuit-gop-attorneys-general-2024-3">student loans</a>. But she's anxious about her other expenses, like credit card bills and rent.The 51-year-old has about $250,000 in student loan debt. She completed her <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-got-doctorate-studied-while-raising-young-kids-parenting-2024-4">doctorate degree</a> in 2009 and worked for over a decade as an adjunct professor at various colleges in the Twin Cities, where she lives. The <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/average-cost-colleges-universities-tuition-living-fees-books-in-state-2024-2">cost of her education </a>is something she has "learned to live with," she said."That's the least of my worries, the student loan debt," she said. "It's the other stuff from day to day that I have to negotiate: credit card debt, medical expenses, or just rent bills."She is what economists call an <a target="_blank" rel="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/middle-class-americans-earning-above-poverty-live-paycheck-to-paycheck-2024-4">ALICE</a> — asset-limited, income-constrained, and employed. Like 29% of US households, Pizza lives paycheck to paycheck, but her <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/meet-the-typical-alice-middle-class-poverty-housing-food-benefits-2024-4">income is too high</a> for most government assistance, per Census Bureau data and cost-of-living estimates analyzed by the nonprofit United Way. This compares to 13% of Americans who live at or below the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/upper-middle-lower-class-income-wealth-poverty-new-york-census-2024-5">federal poverty line</a>, which is $15,060 for an individual.Teachers and adjunct professors are especially vulnerable to being ALICEs. Sixty percent of adjunct professors make less than $50,000 a year, despite most of them holding at least a master's degree, according to a <a target="_blank" href="https://www.aft.org/sites/default/files/media/2022/qualitylifereport_feb2022.pdf">2022 report</a> by The American Federation of Teachers that surveyed 1,900 adjunct professors across the US."There are many teaching college who are hungry and can't go to the doctor," Pizza said in an email to Business Insider. Pizza could make about $45,000 a year when she taught classes, but she had <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/meet-the-typical-alice-middle-class-poverty-housing-food-benefits-2024-4#:~:text=Some%20Americans%20increasingly%20find%20themselves,and%20their%20ranks%20are%20growing.">no steady income</a> over the summer or winter breaks. She also didn't have health insurance and "never went to the doctor," she said.If there weren't enough students enrolled in her courses — which focused on history, anthropology, and religion — Pizza was often dropped from her fall or spring position with minimal notice. She had to <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-make-money-gig-worker-uber-lyft-doordash-delivery-driver-2023-12">work side hustles</a> to support herself: teaching at three schools simultaneously, scoring exams online, and more. At one point, she was working five jobs to afford <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/universal-basic-income-emergency-cash-rent-homes-government-housing-aid-2024-1">housing</a>, food, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/gen-z-millennials-giving-up-medical-care-cant-afford-costs-2024-2">healthcare</a>, and her student loan payments. She once had to declare bankruptcy because she couldn't take on a sixth job.Adjunct professors often feel like "over-educated gig workers," she said.And, after thirteen years, she quit teaching because it was unsustainable for her finances.<h2 id="1003f5d0-0f1d-44bb-af8a-ed33d1f06fc1">Pizza left her adjunct role for less pay, but it's worth the stability</h2>When Pizza left academia, she took a customer service job at a tech nonprofit making $30,467 a year, according to documents reviewed by BI. She still lives on a tight budget, but she is grateful for the security of a 9-to-5.Early in her academic career, she thought she could get her degrees, earn a full-time professor salary, and maybe join the steady tenure track. She's been trying to get a better-paying job for 15 years, but she said the positions aren't available — even with a Ph.D.Her nonprofit job has offered some relief."I'm making less money, but I know when I show up at work now, five days a week, there will be a paycheck," she said. "That's done a lot for my own sense of self."Shortly after starting the job, she needed surgery. She was relieved to have consistent health insurance for the first time in her adult life, but couldn't afford out-of-pocket medical expenses. Her best friend set up a <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/tiktok-new-gofundme-views-replacing-donations-debt-tiktokers-2024-5">GoFundMe</a> to help with the costs not covered by insurance.Pizza also lives alone in her St. Paul apartment and gets discounted rent because she's been in the building for about 20 years. She said <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/snap-alice-food-stamps-hunger-government-assitance-free-meals-2024-5">her income is currently too high for SNAP</a>, and her friends will help cover her groceries to make sure she eats.She's still paying off her student loans, but has been able to <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/student-loan-debt-borrowers-apply-income-driven-repayment-save-plan-2023-7">enroll in SAVE</a>, President Joe Biden's income-based repayment plan. Pizza pays around $40 a month right now. Still, because of interest, she said her debt total isn't getting any smaller.Although Pizza is used to transitions, she's not sure what will happen next. Lately, she's been working on some grant-funded anthropological research and archiving, which allows her to continue dissertation work and earn some extra income.The dream, she said, would be to make all the money she needs from just one job. She also wishes she could build savings.Pizza said many people <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/alice-living-paycheck-to-paycheck-without-government-assistance-snap-medicaid-2024-5">living paycheck to paycheck</a> feel lonely and isolated. She is especially grateful for her friends, who have always made sure she has food in her fridge and is able to visit the doctor when she's sick.Community is "gold," she said."If somebody's out there in the same situation that doesn't have friends or community, just figure out a way to reach out," Pizza said. "Because there will be people that will care about you."Do you live paycheck to paycheck? Are you open to sharing how you afford food, housing, and other expenses? If so, reach out to this reporter at <a target="_blank" href="mailto:allisonkelly@businessinsider.com">allisonkelly@businessinsider.com</a>.

An ALICE has $250,000 in student loan debt and left teaching for a stable job: 'There are many teaching college who are hungry and can't go to the doctor'

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Satellite images taken during the Cold War have revealed almost 400 previously unknown Roman forts.</li><li>The findings were published in Antiquity, an academic journal focusing on archaeology.</li></ul>Satellite images taken during the Cold War have revealed almost 400 previously undiscovered Roman forts across Iraq and Syria, archaeologists said.The research, published in <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antiquity/article/wall-or-a-road-a-remote-sensingbased-investigation-of-fortifications-on-romes-eastern-frontier/8FE59FB0D5476EA329614EEC6DC414FD">Antiquity</a>, an academic journal that focuses on archaeology, has forced historians and archaeologists to re-evaluate their understanding of Rome's eastern front, 1,900 years ago.The area was previously surveyed by Antoine Poidebard, a French Jesuit priest who pioneered aerial archaeology in the 1920s. He mapped 116 Roman forts along a 1,000 km, or roughly 620-mile, border, suggesting that these represented a defensive line against Arab and Persian invaders due to their spacing. <div type="image" title="Some of Poidebard's aerial photographs." height="1187" width="1582" msid="104801177" hostid="261" sizebytes="487168"></div>The new research found a further 396 previously undiscovered forts, suggesting that the region was more likely a hub of global trade.The findings suggested that the forts were used to "support movement of people, goods, and military assets between east and west," Jesse Casana, the lead author of the study and a professor of anthropology at Dartmouth College, shared with Insider.Casana's team now has a simple question: was it "a wall or a road?"Previous theories had imagined the forts as defining a north-south defensive border, but the newly discovered forts a showed an "east-west trending line connecting the Tigris River with the Mediterranean," Casana said.<h2>Cold War imagery </h2>The photographs used in the study came from declassified spy images from the CORONA and HEXAGON satellite programs.CORONA, which started in the late 1950s, was designed to search images of the Earth's surface "for answers to the nation's pressing intelligence questions." It became the "single most important source of intelligence on Soviet strategic forces," according to the <a href="https://www.cia.gov/legacy/museum/exhibit/corona-americas-first-imaging-satellite-program/">CIA</a>.<div type="image" title="The HEXAGON satellite" height="2827" width="3769" msid="104801178" hostid="261" sizebytes="532088"></div>HEXAGON saw the "largest and last" US intelligence satellites bring photographic film back to earth, capturing "877 million square miles of the Earth's surface between 1971-1986," per the <a href="https://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/Visit/Museum-Exhibits/Fact-Sheets/Display/Article/195921/hexagon-kh-9-reconnaissance-satellite/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">National Museum of the United States Air Force</a>. Analysts used the images to identify potential threats.Casana said the "next steps should be to expand this kind of research both to other regions of the world, as well as using additional types of imagery."

Cold War US spy satellite images reveal nearly 400 undiscovered Roman forts

<ul class="summary-list"><li>In 2021, researchers dated <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/fossil-footprints-humans-occupied-north-america-ice-age-2021-9">ancient human footprints</a> in New Mexico to at least 20,000 years ago.</li><li>Some scientists took issue with the researchers' methods.</li></ul>In White Sands National Park, New Mexico, mingled among tracks of mammoths, ground sloths, and other ancient animals, researchers found human footprints. They dated the prints in 2021 to between 20,000 and 23,000 years ago.For decades, experts thought humans first arrived in the Americas around 14,000 years ago. The footprints — and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/eighteen-thousand-year-old-stone-tools-among-oldest-found-us-2023-9">other recent evidence</a> — push back the date of <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/people-in-north-america-15000-years-earlier-than-archaeologists-thought-2020-7">human arrival</a> by thousands of years. "It was kind of a big deal and earth-shattering and rocked the world of the archaeologists," Kathleen Springer, a scientist with the US Geological Survey, told <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2023/10/05/oldest-human-footprint-americas-white-sands/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Washington Post</a>.Some scientists, however, were skeptical, both about the age of the prints and the method used to date them. Now some of the original researchers say they've done more tests to verify the age. <h2>The controversy of the White Sands footprints </h2>In the <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abg7586" target="_blank" rel="noopener">2021 paper</a>, scientists from the National Parks Service, US Geological Survey, and other institutions dated seeds from an aquatic ditchgrass, found between sediment layers containing the footprints.They used a classic technique called radiocarbon dating which involves measuring the amount of carbon remaining after a dead organism based on the rate at which carbon isotopes decay. <div type="image" title="white sands footprints" height="920" width="1226" msid="104294333" hostid="261"></div>Some scientists who were skeptical of the footprints' age <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/quaternary-research/article/abs/critical-assessment-of-claims-that-human-footprints-in-the-lake-otero-basin-new-mexico-date-to-the-last-glacial-maximum/7EC770BAF784D0FF813711CD63C126F6" target="_blank" rel="noopener">pointed out</a> that the seeds may contain more ancient carbon sources than the contemporary atmosphere.Aquatic plants may absorb carbon from groundwater that didn't come in contact with the atmosphere for long periods of time, and thus radiocarbon dating makes them appear older than they really were.Or, the seeds may have made their way into the footprints from another site where they were preserved thousands of years earlier. <h2>More evidence for the footprints' age</h2>For the most recent paper, published this month in the journal <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adh5007" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Science</a>, Springer, Jeff Pigati, and other co-authors set out to settle the debate. They radiocarbon dated pollen grains from conifer plants in the area.In addition, they used another technique, optically stimulated luminescence (OSL), to date the sediment. With OSL, the researchers looked at grains, such as quartz, to see when they were last exposed to light. Both the recent radiocarbon dating and the OSL were consistent with the footprints being between 21,000 and 23,000 years old. Taken together, the data from the latest study "strongly indicate human presence in the Americas" around 20,000 years ago, archaeologist Bente Philippsen who wasn't involved with the latest study, <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adk3075" target="_blank" rel="noopener">wrote</a> in an article in Science accompanying the paper. But Loren Davis, a professor of anthropology at Oregon State University, would like to see more evidence before accepting the footprints' age. "I unfortunately don't share their conclusions that they have resolved the issue of timing of when people were making these footprints," he told <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/10/07/1204031535/fossil-footprints-in-new-mexico-suggest-humans-have-been-here-longer-than-we-tho" target="_blank" rel="noopener">NPR</a>.

20,000-year-old footprints show humans have been in the Americas longer than previously thought, scientists say

<ul class="summary-list"><li>More than 8.5 million abandoned homes in rural Japan are creating a "ghost town" problem. </li><li>A push into the city and population decline are two reasons these homes sit empty.</li></ul>Japan has millions of abandoned rural houses for sale.The glut delights foreigners who've been able to <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-buy-abandoned-home-akiya-japan-tips-as-foreigners-2023-9">buy one for as little as $23,000</a>. But underlying the surplus are meaningful shifts in Japan's culture. Demographic and economic patterns — including a shrinking population and migration from the countryside to cities — are combining to create a "ghost town" problem in Japan.There are <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/japanese-government-selling-rural-homes-cheap-akiya-banks-2021-5">more than 8.5 million akiya</a>, or abandoned homes, in rural Japan, according to the country's 2018 Housing and Land Survey, its most recent on record. By some counts, there are many more. The Nomura Research Institute, or NRI, pegs <a target="_blank" href="https://www.nri.com/en/journal/2017/0420">the number closer to 11 million</a>. The institute predicts akiya could exceed 30% of homes in Japan by 2033.For foreigners looking for a change of scenery, akiya are an opportunity to be a homeowner abroad on the cheap. Some foreigners have even turned to akiya to enrich themselves by launching <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/moving-to-japan-abandoned-home-flipped-airbnb-2023-9">short-term-rental businesses</a>.Why people are buying them is an easy answer — they're cheap. But why so many have sat empty for so long is more complicated.<h2>Why are there so many abandoned houses in Japan?</h2>Business Insider's Singapore bureau reported on <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/japan-ghost-towns-population-vacancy-rates-akiya-banks-2021-6">Japan's "ghost town" problem</a> in 2021. At the core of the issue, they found, is that Japan's population has been steadily migrating into cities for several decades, leaving an increasingly empty countryside behind them.As Richard Koo, the chief economist at NRI, told them at the time, the Japanese countryside has been hollowing out since the mid-'90s.There's also the matter of a shrinking population. <a target="_blank" href="https://www.mhlw.go.jp/toukei/youran/aramashi/syussyou.pdf">Japan's fertility rate declined</a> for a seventh consecutive year in 2022, falling to 1.26 births per woman from 1.30 births per woman in the previous year.According to Chris McMorran, an associate professor in the department of Japanese studies at the National University of Singapore, the vacancy issue will only get worse "because the core of the problem is there aren't enough people to go around in Japan."<h2>Why aren't more Japanese people buying abandoned countryside homes?</h2>The Japanese prefer new builds to pre-owned homes, Koo said. Part of this is due to the lack of a strong DIY renovation culture in the country, Douglas Southerland, the senior economist responsible for OECD monitoring of the Japanese economy, told BI at the time.Structural safety is also a major concern: Many akiya were built before a 1981 Building Standard Law amendment that required better earthquake resistance.Finally, most young people simply don't want to live in the countryside, McMorran said. Apart from limited opportunities, the akiya themselves are a huge deterrence."The fact that there are so many empty houses is a blight on the landscape, and a further deterrent, because people don't want to live in a terminal village surrounded by 'ghost houses,'" McMorran said.Natasha Durie, a PhD student from the School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography at Oxford University, is conducting fieldwork in Gifu, Japan. While she knows of young Japanese people who have bought and renovated akiya, she says most locals still aren't quite ready to try it out for themselves."There is this drive in Japan to have new things, and a lot of these houses aren't seen as inhabitable or desirable. I think that a lot of people see it as something that other people do and not something that they do, since renovating a house is a lot of effort," Durie told BI.<h2>Why can't the Japanese government demolish these homes?</h2>Japan's property rights laws make it hard for the government to interfere. Before 2015, the government had no right to get akiya owners to manage their homes properly, McMorran said.It's also tricky to locate the owners of houses that have been left vacant for a long time."It's an enormous effort to trace down who the house belongs to, so most of the time, the government just gives up," Koo said. "So the akiya sits there for years with the government unable even to take it down."<h2>Some foreigners say renovating an akiya is more affordable than buying a home in their own country</h2>For some buyers, like Eric McAskill, who grew up in Vancouver, Canada, the money saved on renovating an akiya instead of buying property in their home country is too good to pass up.According to the Canadian Real Estate Association, the benchmark price for residential properties in the metro area of Vancouver, Canada was $1,168,700 CAD, or $866,620, in December 2023. McAskill told BI in September 2023 that he <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/abandoned-home-restoration-diy-foreigner-akiya-japan-family-slow-life-2023-9">purchased a five-bedroom akiya</a> for $23,600 in Nagano Prefecture and has spent $7,400 on renovations with another estimated $7,400 left to spend.<div type="image" title="A man in a protective suit painting the walls of an abandoned home in the Japanese countryside." height="956" width="1690" msid="107109145" hostid="261" sizebytes="42258"></div>"I'd say that's on the high end," he told BI of his renovation. "I could get away with doing it for cheaper because I can do some of the work myself, or I have friends who work in the trades here as well."Married couple Jaya Thursfield and his wife, Chihiro, moved from England to Japan and bought <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/abandoned-house-renovation-japan-diy-before-after-photos-2021-8">a $30,000 akiya in Ibaraki Prefecture in 2019</a>. The two put more money into their renovation than McAskill — about $150,000 — but still view it as a more affordable option than buying a home in London.Take Kurosawa and Joey Stockermans, who can't afford homes in their native North America, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/people-moving-buying-abandoned-homes-japan-let-foreigners-own-home-2024-1">bought an akiya in a city on Kyushu for $42,000</a> in June 2023. The friends plan to use it as a vacation residence and a short-term rental.<div type="image" title="Two men sitting down in the middle of a home renovation in Japan." height="1536" width="2048" msid="107109146" hostid="261" sizebytes="369766"></div>They also saw a business opportunity and founded <a target="_blank" href="https://www.akiya-mart.com/">Akiyamart, an online listing site</a> to make it easier for foreigners to find one for themselves.However, the influx of foreign demand has done little to change local perceptions toward akiya, Durie said."A lot of the people I speak to are from this area and have grown up here. And I'd say a lot of them don't even really know about the foreign interest in akiya," Durie said. "They find that quite surprising."

Why Japan has more than 8 million cheap abandoned houses that people are renovating into dream homes

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Insider asked career coaches and counselors the worst majors for landing a stable, high-paying gig.</li><li>They said degrees in acting, English, psychology, and marketing were tough sells in most fields.</li></ul>Considering the cost of higher education, it's no surprise that many students hope to pursue a major that will snag them a well-paying gig once they graduate.In a <a href="https://affiliate.insider.com?postID=63bed666d0139651bf2892b8&amp;site=bi&amp;u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ziprecruiter.com%2Fblog%2Fregret-free-college-majors%2F">recent survey</a> of job seekers by the job-search platform ZipRecruiter, 44% of respondents with college degrees said they regretted choosing their major — with English, communications, sociology, and marketing management falling under the most regretted majors. Within each field, the survey found, the highest-paid respondents were more likely to be happy about their college-major choice. While many college advisors will tell you that no major is truly useless — even ZipRecruiter found that of those who regretted their choice of major, 72% said they would choose it again — job experts caution against certain majors that limit your career options and salary potential.Here are 12 majors that are unlikely to get you a good return on your investment.<h2>1. Acting or theater arts</h2>Brianna Doe, a marketing manager at Inventables who's also a certified career coach and mentor for Arizona State University students and recent graduates, told Insider acting and theater degrees weren't likely to provide transferable skills.She said the new graduates she'd mentored who studied these fields had struggled to find roles outside theater, especially in the current economic climate, and an internship at a local theater isn't likely to boost your résumé for a corporate role.<h2>2. Film</h2>Film is similar to acting in that you don't need a degree to succeed in the field, <a href="https://kellydonovan.com/">Kelly Donovan</a>, who's been a career coach since 2008 and is the principal of Kelly Donovan &amp; Associates, a firm that works with job seekers nationwide, told Insider. "Racking up massive student-loan debt for a film degree is risky," she said.Instead, she said to think about the degree after getting some in-the-field experience.Doe said she was able to pivot her film degree into a marketing career, but she had to work to communicate how her skills translated. When communicating her story to prospective employers, Doe focused on what film study taught her about how media influenced society, how society affected media, and how that related to marketing and building an audience.<h2>3. Anthropology </h2>If you want to get a job as an anthropologist, you'll likely need to go to graduate school. Otherwise, Donovan said, your bachelor's won't be useful."Most private-sector employers don't have a demand for candidates with specialized anthropology knowledge," she said. <h2>4. Civilization studies</h2>Unless you're going into the field of archaeology, Doe said there's not much you could do with a major in civilization studies when trying to land a job because it's such a specific area of study — the degree focuses on how the world and civilization have evolved and is designed for those who want to work in archaeology. <h2>5. Philosophy </h2>Philosophy is another niche degree that isn't much use outside the field if you don't pair it with a graduate degree. According to Doe, it's not worth spending the money if you don't plan on working in that field. While some skills the degree teaches, such as critical thinking and analysis, are useful, it might be hard to market yourself outside academia.<h2>6. Psychology </h2>Many roles in the field of psychology require graduate degrees, so if that's not in your plan, Donovan said, it's not the right move because the earning potential is much lower without a graduate degree."You could still use your knowledge of human behavior to build a strong career in a field like sales, but you could also just earn a business degree and take a few psychology classes as electives," she said.<h2>7. Communications</h2>Building a career with a communications degree alone can be challenging, Ronnie Green, a retired career counselor for <a href="https://jcsbalt.org/">Jewish Community Services</a>, told Insider. She said communications was one of the most common degrees among people who sought career counseling from her."I've run into hiring managers, colleagues, and friends who really struggle to communicate the value of that degree," Doe added.<h2>8. English</h2>Majoring in English can be a smart move if you plan to be a teacher or a writer, but it's hard to carve out a lifelong career from this major without going to graduate school, Green said.An English degree can serve you well in careers related to writing and content creation, such as journalism, web-content writing, copywriting, technical writing, or grant writing. But students who aren't sure what they want to do after graduation should go with a business major because that comes with more-transferable skills, Doe said.<h2>9. History</h2>Like an English degree, history is useful only if you want to get a job related to history. You might also need a graduate degree for some of those roles, such as professor, librarian, or lawyer.Doe recommended having a specific idea of what you want to do with a history degree before pursuing one. For example, consider whether you want to work in a museum, work as a historian, or use the degree as a starting point for a degree in law or teaching.<h2>10. Interior design</h2>Interior design is another specific degree that's useful pretty much only if you go into the field."You're not going to get your return on investment," Doe said, adding that you're better off going with a graphic-design degree.<h2>11. Marketing</h2>There are plenty of career options in marketing, but Doe said the field was rapidly changing."You can't even really read a book about marketing and expect it to be completely irrelevant by the time you're done," she said.<h2>12. Photography</h2>Photography can be a great career path, but Donovan said you didn't need a four-year degree to get work in the field."You could take a few photography classes on an ad-hoc basis rather than going into debt pursuing a degree for four years," she said.

The 12 most useless college majors, according to career experts

Ronen Tivony/NurPhoto via Getty ImagesUber and Lyft drivers protest the ride sharing companies' low wages in Los Angeles, California on September 5, 2017.<ul class="summary-list"><li>Over the course of the last decade, the tech industry has spurred the rise of the gig economy. </li><li>"Gig economy" has since become something of a catch-all phrase to describe many sorts of non-standard work: independent contracting, temping, or working for a third-party contract firm. </li><li>Most companies in the tech world rely on non-standard workers: Uber or Instacart for tasks like driving and delivery services; Google and Facebook for tasks like content moderation and data analysis. Those workers aren't offered the perks of direct employees. </li><li>But it isn't about technology at all, experts argue - the reliance on this type of work is a consequence of the insecurity of workers in the US. </li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/">Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.</a></li></ul>This article is part of an <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/the-invisible-machine">ongoing series</a> exploring the millions of people seemingly invisibly making tech work, often without the benefits of the trillion-dollar companies they work for.Edan Alva has been in the tech industry for about 15 years - but he's never been a standard employee. Alva, who is based in the Bay Area, spent a decade working for PayPal, and has spent the last five years driving for Lyft. But his PayPal employment was through a third-party contract firm, and the Lyft work is independent contracting. "During that 10 years, I had four different employers, but I did the same work at PayPal," Alva told Business Insider. Alva began driving for Lyft while he was still working at PayPal. He'd pick up a passenger or two during his commute from Alameda to San Jose, which paid for the cost of the drive. When he lost his job, he tried to make Lyft his full-time job, but said relying on it as his primary source of income was "impossible."Alva said he's picked up driving work for other companies, like HopSkipDrive and Zum, both of which specialize in driving kids to and from school. While those rides pay more, he said, they're more limited because of school hours. These days, he's essentially working from about 7 a.m. to about 9 p.m., with only a few hours off in between to take a break or volunteer for Gig Workers Rising, a campaign to support and educate drivers and other platform workers. "Every day is a balance of, what are my options for income? What is the best combination for me to make the most for that day? And how do I juggle that with my personal obligations with my son and stuff that I need to do because it needs to be done?" Alva said. He described driving each day as "Russian roulette." "You are constantly on the verge of losing everything," he said. "One accident, something that happens wrong, and suddenly you don't have the money to pay for your rent and you're homeless."It's a scary way to live, Alva said. "And if people are depending on you, it's even scarier." <h2>Kelly Sullivan/Getty Images</h2><h2>The rise of the 'gig economy'</h2>Sometime around 2009, a new phrase was introduced into the American vernacular: gig economy. Soon, the phrase became a catch-all for the rise of tech platforms like Uber or Instacart, multi-million-dollar (eventually, multi-billion-dollar) companies that built a platform for non-standard work. A decade later and the tech world has been built on the backs of these non-standard workers, from independent contractors who are fighting for the right to receive the benefits of full-time employees to staffers at third-party contract firms who perform some of tech's most menial tasks. Somewhere along the way, the promise of the shiny new gig economy - the promise that it was the future of work - has transformed into a multi-billion-dollar industry that relies on a faceless workforce to pick out groceries or train an AI or sift through the <a href="https://www.wired.com/2014/10/content-moderation/">worst of humanity's online behavior</a>."We think of the gig economy as being driven by technology when it's really being driven by business decisions," Louis Hyman, an economic historian who teaches for Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations, told Business Insider. "Which is hard for people because they like to think that it's all about the app. It's really about a fallout of how the service economy has failed American workers so miserably." Hyman argues that non-standard work in the tech industry has been mislabeled - or, in Silicon Valley parlance, rebranded - as "progress."Maya Pinto, a senior researcher and policy analyst at the National Employment Law Project, agrees."I think the term 'gig economy' lends itself to exceptionalism," Pinto said in an email to Business Insider. "It serves the companies that are using different types of non-standard work really well to refer to themselves as a separate and new economy that is creating a lot of really desirable jobs. But these companies are transforming and degrading jobs inside an existing economy."The gig economy has come under particular scrutiny in the wake of the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/china-virus-everything-we-know-deadly-2019-ncov-wuhan-spread-2020-1">coronavirus pandemic</a>. As the virus has spread across the globe over the last few months, it's had an outsize effect on non-standard workers who aren't necessarily able to work off a laptop at home. Facebook, for example, hasn't been able to figure out how its army of 15,000 content moderators can do its work at home, and those workers have been <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/24/technology/virus-facebook-usage-traffic.html">put on paid leave</a>. At Google, where <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/28/technology/google-temp-workers.html">temp workers outnumber full-time employees</a>, contractors in Pittsburgh were told to <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/google-workers-raise-internal-concerns-tvc-policies-for-covid-19-2020-3">continue commuting into the office</a> as recently as last week.Even more gig workers - like Uber drivers or DoorDash delivery drivers - don't have access to paid sick leave or health insurance. While many companies have introduced measures to help protect their employees (like suspending carpool services or introducing contactless delivery), these populations remain particularly vulnerable. <h2>'A failure of language'</h2>It's almost impossible to pinpoint how much of the workforce, and therefore how much of the tech industry, is made up of non-standard workers. According to Pinto, the tech industry relies on a few main types of non-standard workers: individual workers, who may or may not be mislabeled as independent contractors; specialized contract firms; and staffing agencies. Combined, these types of workers would fall in a separate bucket from traditional tech workers who are employed by the tech company itself and receive benefits from that company. But measuring exactly how much the tech world relies on workers from the other bucket, the non-standard workers, becomes complicated very quickly. For instance, <a href="https://www.gigeconomydata.org/research/data-sources/general-social-survey">a 2014 study</a> found that 20.4% of US workers relied an independent arrangement for work, which could include independent contracting, freelancing, working for a temp agency, or working for a contract company. A year later, <a href="https://www.nber.org/papers/w22667">a different study</a> on alternative work arrangements pegged it at 15.8%. <a href="https://www.upwork.com/press/2017/10/17/freelancing-in-america-2017/">A 2017 study from Upwork</a> found that 36% of Americans are freelancing, while a <a href="https://www.bls.gov/news.release/conemp.nr0.htm">Bureau of Labor Statistics survey</a> from the same year found that about 10% of the American workforce relied on "alternative employment arrangements" for their main job. And many times, these studies are unable to account for people who pick up contract work on the side. Confused? You're probably not alone. Hyman called the inconsistencies "a failure of language." While the surveys are sound, he said, the categories offered don't line up to workers' realities. He described a recent Cornell study where Uber drivers in New York State were asked whether they were full-time, part-time, temporary, or unemployed - the survey respondents answered all of the above.Denver Post Photo by Cyrus McCrimmon<h2>Hidden risk</h2>This all becomes extra complicated when the companies themselves fail to classify their employees correctly. But <a href="https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2019-09-27/ab5-independent-contractors-how-businesses-are-responding">the AB-5 law in California</a>, which went into effect at the beginning of the year, implements a new test for classifying workers, and specifically concerns independent contractors.While that group can include dentists or plumbers, in the tech industry, it includes the types of workers that drive for Lyft, clean for Handy, or deliver for DoorDash. So far, Uber and Postmates <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/01/04/793142903/as-california-tries-to-make-contract-workers-employees-industries-push-back">have refused to comply</a> with the new law, but last month, a judge in Los Angeles <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/judge-californias-gig-work-law-to-be-enforced-through-uber-lawsuit-2020-2">rejected their bid</a> to block the law from going into effect.Classifying an employee as an independent contractor can reduce costs to the company - like payroll taxes and premiums for workers' compensation - by as much as 30%, <a href="https://www.nelp.org/publication/rights-at-risk-gig-companies-campaign-to-upend-employment-as-we-know-it/">according to the NELP</a>. And while a company may not misclassify on purpose, the cost savings may be a factor in how these employment relationships come about, according to Sarah Thomason, a research and policy associate at the UC Berkeley Labor Center. "There's definitely employers that are realizing, 'Look, I'm going to save a lot of money if I hire these workers as independent contractors instead of as employees,'" Thomason told Business Insider. "And they may not have the intention to break the law, but they're thinking that their interpretation of it is that this is fine. Or there are some that realize that they should not be doing that, but they're doing it anyways."But independent workers have a major disadvantage, according to Thomason: They lack access to the rights that are tied exclusively to having a traditional W2 employment relationship, like minimum wage, overtime pay, sick leave, recrimination protection, and worker's compensation. The biggest risk of taking on this non-standard work, Thomason said, is one that might not even occur to anyone with a standard work arrangement: What happens if you get hurt? "If they get injured on the job or something happens, that's all on them to try to cover the costs," Thomason said. "It's very risky, especially if you are already earning very low wages. It can push somebody immediately below the poverty line." The flip side of the argument for classifying employees as independent contractors is flexibility - the option to work for multiple employers and choose your own hours. But Alva, the Lyft driver from the Bay Area, said flexibility in this industry is a myth. "There is an illusion of flexibility," Alva said. "If you earn less than minimum wage and you're trying to rely on that job for existence, you need to work a lot in order to get very little money. And if you want to earn money, you have to work at the times when's there is a high demand - it's in the morning and in the evening at the end of work. There is no real flexibility here."But it's more than just the amount of hours: More rides means more wear and tear on the vehicle, which means more costs to the driver. More hours means less time to take care of yourself, which means a higher likelihood the driver could get sick. Being an independent contractor means drivers don't get sick days, though, so taking any time off means less money coming in. "It's sort of this never-ending nightmare to get into," Alva said.REUTERS/Brian SnyderA protester outside Uber's office in Saugus, Massachusetts, last May.<h2>Unionization for some</h2>For tech workers who work for third-party contract firms, it's a slightly different story. Those employees are non-standard workers because their firm is contracted by a tech behemoth like Amazon, but they have a W2 employment relationship with the contact firm, meaning they have access to rights like overtime pay or sick leave. But that subset of tech workers has its own issues. <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/25/18229714/cognizant-facebook-content-moderator-interviews-trauma-working-conditions-arizona">A report from The Verge</a> last year revealed the harrowing experience of working for Cognizant, a contract firm that handles content moderation for Facebook. Workers there described panic attacks on the job and doing drugs to ease their anxiety after being subjected to videos and photos that depicted violence, pornography, or hate speech. A content moderator from another contract firm <a href="https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/zm5mw5/facebook-content-moderation-lawsuit-ptsd">sued Facebook in 2018</a>, saying that she experienced PTSD after sifting through "highly toxic" content as part of her job. Not all of these types of workers sift through graphic or violent posts - some of these workers fill our surveys, provide transcription services, or verify receipts.At Google's offices in Pittsburgh, for example, contract workers have more technical roles like data analysis. But they still aren't considered Google employees - <a href="https://slate.com/technology/2019/09/google-contractors-vote-to-unionize-in-pittsburgh.html">as Slate reported</a>, they don't receive the generous perks Google is famous for, they're paid less than workers who are employed by Google itself, and they have <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/apr/02/google-workers-sign-letter-temp-contractors-protest">essentially zero job security</a>. And temps, vendors, and contractors, or TVCs as they're called, make up more than half of the company's workforce - there are 115,000 direct Google employees and 135,000 TVCs, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/sep/23/google-pittsburgh-union-roots-transform-tech-industry">according to The Guardian</a>. Because of that, a group of those workers <a href="https://slate.com/technology/2019/09/google-contractors-vote-to-unionize-in-pittsburgh.html">recently voted to unionize</a>. Ints Kalnins/Reuters<h2>Who counts in this economy?</h2>But even with the passage of new laws or nascent unionization efforts, the tech industry is still grappling with various forms of inequality, Hyman, the Cornell professor, argues. "One of the questions we have for ourselves is who counts in this economy going forward, not just in the US but abroad," he said. "People think it's machines, but it's actually people. It's just people they'd rather not care about."Gig workers, for example, are <a href="https://www.nelp.org/publication/rights-at-risk-gig-companies-campaign-to-upend-employment-as-we-know-it/">primarily black and Latino</a>. In cases like content moderation, many companies <a href="https://www.wired.com/2014/10/content-moderation/">outsource the work</a> to countries like the Philippines. And as Mary L. Gray - who wrote the book "Ghost Work" along with fellow Microsoft researcher Siddharth Suri - <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/13/18563284/mary-gray-ghost-work-microwork-labor-silicon-valley-automation-employment-interview">told The Verge</a> in a recent interview, while many of these workers are college-educated, they face inequality in other ways."These are the folks who, for reasons of social capital, don't have access to a network that was going to boost them into the full-time job," Gray told The Verge. "That's the pattern I see sociologically or anthropologically. They're first-generation college-going more often than not. This is a group of people who don't have strong social ties to elites."For many people, the choice to pursue a non-standard employment situation may have something to do with income volatility - essentially, that many Americans don't know how much money will be in their next paycheck. According <a href="https://www.jpmorganchase.com/corporate/institute/document/jpmc-institute-volatility-2-report.pdf">a 2016 JPMorgan study</a>, 55% of American households said their income varies 30% month to month. In order to "smooth out" that monthly discrepancy, Hyman noted, people may turn to borrowing, or they may look to the "online platform economy": picking up gig jobs from companies like Uber or Handy.And now, these are jobs that may disappear or become unsustainable as the coronavirus continues to spread: workers <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/24/business/gig-economy-coronavirus-lockdown/index.html">may have to start choosing</a> between providing additional income their families need and putting their families - and themselves and their larger communities - at risk by continuing to work during a pandemic. "This is why people are so angry. This is why people are so afraid. This is why people are both driving for Uber and then pissed off at Uber," Hyman said. "But [Uber is] providing an opportunity for work for workers that would have no alternative if this didn't exist. It's a consequence of the insecurity that the American working class faces, it's not a cause of it."Axel Springer, Insider Inc.'s parent company, is an investor in Uber.<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/intelligence/30-big-tech-predictions-for-2020?IR=T&amp;itm_source=businessinsider&amp;itm_medium=ctgr_bii&amp;itm_term=ctgr_leadgen&amp;itm_content=uber&amp;itm_campaign=30-big-tech-predictions-for-2020"></a> <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-covid-19-social-distancing-looks-from-maxar-satellite-2020-3">How social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic looks from a satellite</a></h3>

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<div class="KonaFilter image-container float_right"><div class="image">ReD AssociatesA Red Associates staffer consults with a client</div></div>At a time when we're <a href="Why%20Florida%20Gov.%20Rick%20Scott%20Was%20Right%20To%20Slam%20Studying%20Anthropology%20%20Read%20more:%20http://www.businessinsider.com/rick-scott-thinks-liberal-arts-degrees-are-not-needed-unless-you-want-to-work-for-him-2011-10#ixzz2x64BUv9T">debating the value of majoring in the humanities</a>, major companies are increasingly hiring anthropologists. 
Google, for example, hired an ethnographer to ferret out <a href="http://www.maschioconsulting.com/projects_pubs.dir/index.php" target="_blank">the meaning of mobile</a>. Intel has an <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/16/technology/intels-sharp-eyed-social-scientist.html?_r=0">in-house cultural anthropologist</a>, and Microsoft is <a href="Microsoft%20is%20said%20to%20be%20the%20second-largest%20employer%20of%20anthropologists%20in%20the%20world,%20behind%20only%20the%20U.S.%20government.">reportedly</a> the second-largest employer of anthropologists in the world.
So the question becomes: Why are giant corporations now seeking cultural expertise? 
While most execs are masters of analyzing spreadsheets, creating processes, and pitching products, anthropologists - and other practitioners of applied social science - can arrive at customer insights that big data tends to gloss over, especially around the role that products play in people's lives. 
That information is more valuable than you might think. What customers want from a product and what companies think they want can be totally different, but it can take an anthropological lens to learn why. 
Take Adidas, for example. The brand has always been associated with elite performance: Jesse Owens, Muhammad Ali, and Zinedine Zidane all wore the brand. Founded by cobbler and athlete Adi Dassler in 1948, the assumption within the company had been that people bought athletic gear to gain a competitive edge. But in the early 2000s VP James Carnes noticed something strange: He kept running into people who were jogging around the city, headed to the gym, or on their way to yoga. 
While they led the active lives of potential customers, these people weren't training for a competition. "Is yoga a sport?" Carnes asked in an offsite meeting in 2003.
Trying to figure out the disconnect, he brought in a consultancy called <a href="http://www.redassociates.com/" target="_blank">Red Associates</a>, which has a client list that includes Intel, Samsung, and Carlsberg, the European beer giant. Unlike elite consulting firms such as McKinsey, Red isn't in the business of big data and management science. Instead, it focuses on arriving at insights that can only be found through the applied liberal arts, or what it calls "the human sciences," a strategy that is detailed in its new book "<a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Moment-Clarity-Sciences-Toughest/dp/1422191907" target="_blank">Moment of Clarity: Using the Human Sciences To Solve Your Toughest Business Problems</a>." That's why most of the Red's 70-some employees aren't MBAs; they come from disciplines like philosophy, sociology, and anthropology.
When Red collaborated with Adidas, it trained members of Adidas's design team in conducting anthropological research. Design staffers spent 24 hours straight with customers, eating breakfast with them, joining them on runs, and asking them why they worked out. As detailed in the <a href="https://www.economist.com/user/register?destination=node%2F21584002&amp;rp=paywall" target="_blank">Economist</a>, a Red staffer sent disposable cameras to customers, asking them to take a picture of the reason they exercised. Thirty women responded, and 25 of them sent a picture of a little black dress. 
A little black dress is quite different than a marathon finish line or gold trophy. 
To use a favorite word of Red partner Christian Madsbjerg, the little black dress shows an "asymmetry." The traditional thinking at Adidas was that people bought their gear to help them win. But after observing their behavior through the lens of anthropology, it became clear that customers wanted products to help them lead healthy lifestyles, not win competitions. 
<div class="KonaFilter image-container float_right"><div class="image">CompanyChristian Madsbjerg, a Red Associates partner </div></div>How had Adidas misunderstood its customers for so long? Because Adidas executives thought they understood their customers' motivations and lives, but they had never observed them closely enough. 
Running, mountain biking, hitting the gym, going to yoga - people did these things to live healthier lives. But these "urban sports" weren't like the traditional competitions that the company was originally organized around. 
That was Carnes's realization: His consumer's definition of "sport" had changed, and his company had to change along with it. As described in "Moment of Clarity":
<blockquote class="blockquote">
If urban sports are on par with basketball or soccer, Adidas must then deliver on products with functionality, aesthetics, and quality. Adidas must lead, not copy in this whole new category of lifestyle sport ... 
The company went from being a sports brand exclusively for athletes ... to becoming an inclusive brand inviting all of us to join a movemet of living a healthier and better life. It went from creating corporate credos aimed at high-performance sports aficionados, such as "Impossible is nothing," to sending democratic, yet aspirational message like "All In." 
</blockquote>
With the help of Red, Adidas was able to understand the world of its customers. Interestingly, it's the human sciences - literature, arts, anthropology - that allow for understanding the unique worlds that people live in. By observing people's daily lives and the ways in which they interact with products, consultancies like Red are able to discern what products mean to customers in a way that big data can't determine. 
Why literature helps you understand customers
"If you look at launches of a new product, most of them fail," Madsbjerg says. "That's because people don't understand the world in which we operate." 
The problem with standard corporate research, Madsbjerg says, is that it's incredibly difficult to get around your own preconceptions. Even if your analytics are fresh, you'll read old assumptions into them. By applying the humanities, however, you can get around them.
Say, for instance, you read an epic novel by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. In doing so, you're not just processing words on a page, you're beginning to understand a character's world in Russia in a specific place, specific time, and from a specific perspective. To hear Red tell it, making an empathetic understanding of a character in a novel is very much like trying to understand a customer - Ford, after all, would be immensely interested in the world of someone buying a car. 
It's anthropological research, like Red helped the Adidas design team with, that allows for understanding the customer's world. 
This is different from the approach of most corporations, which rely on measures like surveys and focus groups. The problem with those is that people have a terrible time reporting their own preferences, Madsbjerg says. In one Swedish study, for instance, <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0001691881900056?via=ihub" target="_blank">everyone reported that they were an exceptional driver</a>, which is obviously impossible. By the same token, asking customers to tell you why they like a particular vodka doesn't necessarily reveal their motivations.
That's why Red emphasizes ethnographic interviewing, where you interview a subject again and again and observe them in a range of environments, looking for patterns of behavior. The long-form, in-depth research helps to reveal the worlds that people live in and their real motivations. Major insights follow - that little black dress told Adidas way more about their customers' world than a survey ever could. 
<h3>Finding an industry's need</h3>
In another case, Red consulted for a leading pharmaceutical company specializing in diabetes. Back in the day, it was common practice for sales reps to use a "frequency and reach" strategy, talking to as many doctors as possible and pushing a brand message. The sales reps would get the time with doctors by giving them free flights and concert tickets. But then the law changed, and giving swag to doctors was made illegal. All of a sudden what was once a long courtship turned into a 90-second phone call.
In order to sell drugs in this new situation, they needed to recalibrate the conversation. 
During the course of interviewing physicians, Red discovered a major concern that most doctors shared: "How do I get my patients to understand their conditions? How do I change their lifestyles?" Medication, it turned out, was the third most important aspect of treating diabetes - diet and exercise were much more vital. 
As a result, Red's associates worked with doctors to find different ways to help people change their diets, and they worked with sales reps to present that info to doctors. Since so many of the diabetes patients didn't know how to cook, basic meal preparation became part of the sales material. Correspondingly, the pharmaceutical company became way more resonant: By understanding the world of the doctor, the brand saw a 15% increase in key indicators, like doctors' trust. 
The secret was to understand the world of the physicians and to give them what they needed, even if they didn't consciously realize it yet.

Here's Why Companies Are&#160;Desperate&#160;To Hire&#160;Anthropologists 

<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div></div></div>Sea-level rise is one of the most concerning consequences associated with global climate change, thanks to melting polar ice and thermal expansion caused by warming ocean waters - and we're already starting to see its effects on coastal communities around the world. 
The <a href="http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/fs2-00/">US Geological Survey estimates</a> that if all the world's glaciers melted, sea level would rise by about 80 meters, or more than 260 feet. This scenario could be thousands of years in the future, but it would render many of the world's best-loved coastal cities unrecognizable.
Jeffrey Linn, a Seattle man with a background in geography and urban planning, has created a series of maps of major US cities based on this doomsday scenario. He used actual geographic data from the areas to make the maps as realistic as possible. 
Linn says his interest in the subject was sparked by the book "Always Coming Home," by Ursula Le Guin. 
"The novel is sort of a future anthropology of California's Napa Valley, and in it she looks into the future and sees the California Central Valley flooded by sea-level rise," Linn says. "Since then, I would often think about what would the world around us would look like once all the ice caps melted."
While this extreme amount of sea-level rise isn't expected to happen for millennia, Linn's cheeky names for the potential new landforms and bodies of water that emerge in his maps give often humorous insight into life in the cities of the future.
Linn has mapped eight US cities so far, and is currently working on mapping several locations in the UK. His maps, along with more information, can be viewed <a href="http://spatialities.com/">on his website.</a> We've put together a slideshow of some of his work here.

Stunning maps show what major cities would look like under hundreds of feet of water

<div class="KonaFilter image-container float_right"><div class="image on-image"></div></div>An explosive <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/features/a-rape-on-campus-20141119">article in Rolling Stone</a> last week detailing multiple allegations of gang rape at a prominent University of Virginia fraternity, Phi Kappa Psi, sheds light on a horrifying aspect of fraternity culture. 
As <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/11/24/university-of-virginias-rape-scandal-and-the-fraternity-gang-rape-culture">Washington Post reporter Terrance McCoy writes in an article today on rape culture at fraternities</a>, the reports of gang rape at Phi Psi may not be completely out of the norm for fraternity houses.
McCoy writes the UVA students' stories in the Rolling Stone article bear "a striking similarity to other stories of fraternity gang rape, a survey of academic literature shows ... The studies convey a culture of impunity, where group-think and hyper-masculinity treat sexual assault as something ordinary, even desired."
As McCoy notes, much of this behavior was studied the 1990 book "Fraternity Gang Rape: Sex, Brotherhood, and Privilege on Campus," by University of Pennsylvania anthropology professor Peggy Reeves Sanday. Notably, Sanday argues that some male groups participate in gang rape in order to bond.
In a party setting, groups of males - such as a college fraternity brotherhood - are often looking to "score" with as many women as possible, as a means to improve their standing within the group.
"The success of the night, who 'scored' and who didn't, is discussed either at the end of the evening or the next day - or is written up ... The more new girls a brother can boast about, the higher his status," Sanday writes.
Sanday notes that date-rape drugs are sometimes used to help someone "score" with more women.
"Fraternity Gang Rape" analyzes a <a href="http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1983/3/23/student-accuses-u-of-penn-frat/">particular gang rape case at UPenn in the 1980s</a> in which an undergrad was reportedly raped by a group of five to eight frat brothers for an hour. These problems, though, remain issues at campuses across the country - a <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/02/johns-hopkins-rape-investigation-clery_n_5917828.html">Johns Hopkins University fraternity was investigated for an alleged gang rape</a> just last year.
Here's how Sanday describes the perverse appeal of a gang rape:
If, as sometimes happens, the behavior mushrooms into group sex, there is always the question of whether the girl consented. The boys may not even consider the possibility that she may have been too drunk to consent. They assume that by drinking she signaled her desire for sex. The woman involved is a tool, an object, the centerfold around which boys both test and demonstrate their power and heterosexual desire by performing for one another. They prove their manhood on a wounded girl who is unable to protest. Her body stands in for the object of desire in porno-staged acts of sexual intercourse that boys often watch together. She is the duck or the quail raised and put in place for the hunter.
Who she is doesn't matter and she is quickly forgotten after it's all over - sloughed off like a used condom. They event operates to glue the male group as a unified entity; it establishes fraternal bonding and helps boys to make the transition to their vision of a powerful manhood - in unity against women, one against the world. The patriarchal bonding functions a little like bonding in organized-crime circles, generating a sense of family and establishing mutual aid connections that will last a lifetime.
Sanday's findings seem to line up with the accounts of an alleged gang rape in Rolling Stone. One UVA student told Rolling Stone that she was gang raped by a group of brothers during a Phi Psi date event:
She remembers every moment of the next three hours of agony, during which, she says, seven men took turns raping her, while two more - her date, Drew, and another man - gave instruction and encouragement. She remembers how the spectators swigged beers, and how they called each other nicknames like Armpit and Blanket. She remembers the men's heft and their sour reek of alcohol mixed with the pungency of marijuana. Most of all, Jackie remembers the pain and the pounding that went on and on.

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