Pho, partner since 2009, (Shibuya Crossing – Tokyo, Japan)
This week in charts
Car manufacturing
Energy
The Building Boom Is Prolonging Market Pain
Construction spending and employment have risen to new records this year, boosted by government outlays for infrastructure, a domestic manufacturing renaissance and a wave of apartment building that got off to a slow start during the pandemic when prices for building materials, such as lumber, were sky high.
Construction companies with jobs ranging from airport overhauls to bathroom renovations say they have enough work booked to maintain payrolls—for years in some cases. Even home builders, who slowed down last year when rates began to rise, are ramping up into spring.
The persistent strength in a sector that is usually among the first to suffer job loss when borrowing costs rise is undermining investor hopes that the Fed’s aggressive interest-rate increases would quickly slow inflation and rejuvenate the stock market.
It also threatens to upend bets in the market that recession and lower rates are on the horizon. Investors are trading government bonds as if rate cuts will come within the next year and buying technology stocks, bitcoin and other speculative assets that surged when borrowing costs were near zero.
The issue for investors is that the longer it takes for construction activity and employment to decline, the longer it will be before the central bank can cut rates.
There are signs of slowdown, to be sure. Apartment construction is expected to decline once the latest batch of buildings is finished. Problems at regional banks are drying up financing for some projects.
This week’s fun finds
As a translational researcher at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, studying how the arts help us to heal, learn and flourish, I’ve read thousands of studies that offer foundational findings about how music and sound impact many parts of our brains and bodies. This day, I was comforted once again by the power of music to support my mental wellbeing. The simple act of listening to a favorite song can alter your mood, triggering long-ago memories. And when we remember to use this knowledge for prevention, wellness practices and interventions, it can significantly enhance your daily life.
At its core, we feel music—and now we are closer than ever to understanding why. One reason music has such an immediate impact on us is due to the way it is processed rapidly in the limbic system, the part of the brain which helps us experience emotions.
Over the last 20 years advances in technology including functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), and positron emission tomography (PET) have enabled us to see what is inside our heads and study the extraordinary ways the arts and aesthetics impact us, offering mind expanding gateways to whole health. Music is the most studied art forms, and researchers are now beginning to understand some of the ways they alters a complex physiological network of interconnected systems in the brain including the prefrontal frontal, visual cortex, the amygdala, hippocampus, auditory and sensory cortex, to name a few.
Turns out that not only listening to music, but making it, also has significant benefits. For example, mothers sing to their babies to help relieve symptoms of postpartum depression and enhance bonding by reducing cortisol, a major stress hormone. And people with dementia are singing too, accessing autobiographical musical memories encoded in multiple brain regions that have not been damaged by the disease. The result is a radical presence with family and friends, if only for a short time.
French bulldogs are taking over America
Frenchies are odd little creatures. Colette, a Parisian author born in the 19th century, compared hers to a frog that had been sat upon. Over time they have been bred to have increasingly stocky frames, bat ears and squishy noses—which, though chic, is also cruel and life-threatening (a recent British study of 18 breeds kept as pets found French bulldogs to have the shortest life expectancy; in New Zealand vets reckon the dogs are “too compromised to continue breeding” them).
Yet they remain attractive to owners, partly because of their small size. In countries with a high concentration of urban dwellers, tiny dogs that can trot around bijou apartments are appealing. Behaviour also plays a part. Frenchies have a reputation for being friendly towards humans and dogs. But that does not make them unique. A recent study found that many popular types of dog are equally or more friendly, on average.
Bilingualism May Stave Off Dementia, Study Suggests
Studying hundreds of older patients, researchers in Germany found that those who reported using two languages daily from a young age scored higher on tests of learning, memory, language and self-control than patients who spoke only one language.
In recent years, scientists have gained a greater understanding of bilingualism and the aging brain, though not all their findings have aligned. Some have found that if people who have fluency in two languages develop dementia, they’ll develop it at a later age than people who speak one language. But other research has shown no clear benefit from bilingualism.
Neuroscientists hypothesize that because bilingual people switch fluidly between two languages, they may be able to deploy similar strategies in other skills — such as multitasking, managing emotions and self-control — that help delay dementia later on.
Volunteers who reported using a second language daily between age 13 and 30 or between age 30 and 65 had higher scores on language, memory, focus, attention, and decision-making abilities compared with those who were not bilingual at those ages.
Investigating bilingualism at different life stages is a unique approach, said Boon Lead Tee, a neurologist at the University of California, San Francisco, who was not involved in the research. With the impressively large sample size, she said, the authors of the study can probably generate other novel results, such as whether the age at which a person acquired each language affected their cognition in later life.
