The Rise In C-Sections Could Be Changing Human Evolution

CJKPHOTO VIA GETTY IMAGES

C-sections have been on the rise for decades, now making up more than 30 percent of all deliveries in the United States.

An intriguing new study out of Austria suggests that as C-sections have become more common, they might also be altering the course of human evolution. More babies are being born with heads that are too big for their mothers’ pelvises ... which leads, the theory goes, to more C-sections.

Why?

Gundlach says brace for turmoil if 10-year yields top 3%

An earlier version of this article incorrectly said DoubleLine Capital’s Jeff Gundlach forecast that yields on the 10-year Treasury note will reach 3%. Gundlach said the market would be hurt if yields reach or exceed 3%.

Jeffrey Gundlach, founder and chief executive officer of DoubleLine Capital.

Wall Street investors have largely ignored the recent carnage in the bond market, but they could face a rude awakening next year when Donald Trump takes over the U.S. presidency, warns bond guru Jeffrey Gundlach.

In a webcast presentation on Tuesday, the DoubleLine Capital chief executive said if yields on the 10-year U.S.Treasury note TMUBMUSD10Y, +0.00% jump to 3% or higher , as inflation rates and government debt start to rise under a Trump administration, equity and fixed-income markets could be hurt.

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“We’re getting to the point where further rises in Treasurys, certainly above 3%, would start to have a real impact on market liquidity in corporate bonds and junk bonds,” he said in the presentation, according to Bloomberg.

The Gold Bull is Dead

The Gold Bull is Dead; that depends from angle you are looking at it

But what we call our despair is often only the painful eagerness of unfed hope.

- George Eliot

Gold and precious metals in general had a spectacular run from 2003-2011, and it was around that time we published our first article on Gold-eagle. At that period, we were pounding the table on Gold, Silver and the entire precious metal’s sector. Is this the end? Is this monstrous bull dead?  We have stated repeatedly, that every major bull market has to experience one back-breaking correction… Usually the correction ends with a 50% pullback from the highs, which would translate to a low of roughly $960.00. Apparently, Jim Rogers holds a similar view.

Gold is in a correction, and the correction has gone on for four years,” Rogers said. “Although I am not buying gold, I am expecting an opportunity to buy gold sometime in the next year or two. For instance, if gold goes under $1,000, I hope I’m smart enough to buy a lot more gold.

The Top Books of 2016

Tony Cenicola/The New York Times

The Italian writer Italo Calvino defined a classic as “a book that’s never finished saying what it has to say.” This year, The Times’s daily critics reviewed nearly 250 titles. What follows are their lists of the fiction and nonfiction books that most moved, excited and enlightened them in 2016 — books that, in their own ways, are perhaps not finished saying what they have to say.

The New York Times has three daily book critics: Michiko Kakutani, Dwight Garner and Jennifer Senior. Because they review different titles, it is impossible for them to compile a single unanimous Top 10 list. They have favorites, however, and are happy to have a chance to list them here. There is also a list from Janet Maslin, who has stepped down from full-time reviewing but remains a frequent contributor of reviews to The Times.

The critics have presented their lists in rough order of preference.

E-Cigarette Use Falls Among Teens

Vaping and marijuana use more popular among teens than regular cigarettes, according to NIH

A Betamorph E-Cigs employee exhaling vapor from an electric cigarette at the company's store in Albuquerque, N.M. PHOTO: BLOOMBERG NEWS

E-cigarette use among teens dropped in 2016, reversing an upward trend that had prompted the U.S. Surgeon General to recommend increased regulation and taxation.

Among high-school seniors, 12% this year said they had used e-cigarettes in the past month compared with 16% in 2015, according to the National Institutes of Health’s annual Monitoring the Future survey.

E-cigarettes and marijuana are both more popular among teens than regular cigarettes, whose use among teens has been declining for more than two decades, according to the survey. E-cigarettes are battery-powered devices that heat nicotine-laced liquid into a vapor.

Among high-school seniors, 23% said they had used marijuana in the past month, and 11% said they had smoked conventional cigarettes. Some 13% of high-school seniors said they had used tobacco with a hookah in the past year, down from 23% in 2014, the peak since the survey began measuring hookah use in 2010.