“Public Health Risk Seen as Parents Reject Vaccines” by Jennifer Steinhauer in NYTimes [March 21, 2008] deals with the strategy of vaccination. Specifically, in some cases parents are allowed by the state the choice to either vaccinate or not vaccinate their kids for certain diseases. This problem wonderfully showcases information cascades and network effects.
The article […]

Over the years, diet fads have continued to fill our lives with false hope of losing weight the easy way. Diets including Atkins, the Zone, South Beach, the Low-fat, the Baby Food, the Japanese Food, and the Tabasco Diet have all come and gone, each of them having their time in the limelight as […]

Even my Asian mother tells me to have chicken noodle soup when I’ve come down with a cold (the alternative of course being a tar-colored concoction of medicinal herbs that would make our house stink to high heaven). So how did chicken noodle soup of all things become the cross-cultural cold cure of choice for […]

Old but Not Frail: A Matter of Heart and Head   NY Times
 
As one grows older, their physical appearance begins to change, regardless if they are fit or not.  Most people distaste this inevitable change in life.  Research done shows that there are many that’s hearts are pumping better than the youth of this country.  According to […]

Information cascades occur very often in nature.  One typical example is the case of army ants.  Throughout their history forager ants developed an evolutionary trait whereby, when separated from the group of other forager ants, one ant chooses a random direction and the other “lost” ants simply follow the ant in front of them.   Eventually, […]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/09/science/09tier.html
http://tierneylab.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/10/09/how-the-low-fat-low-fact-cascade-just-keeps-rolling-along/
The article that I’ve chosen for this post (first link) is about how the medical world was duped into the cascading idea that a low-fat diet would lower the risk of heart disease. John Tierney, a science columnist for The New York Times, cites Gary Taubes’ book, Good Calories, Bad Calories to explain the steps […]

Diet and Fat: A Severe Case of Mistaken Consensus
By John Tierny
New York Times Article: October 9, 2007
In class we have been discussing this notion of information cascades and how easily we can be influence by the choice of others. One interesting figure that was mentioned in the article points to research done by a […]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/09/science/09tier.html?_r=2&em&ex=1192248000&en=9f36687fe8aef756&ei=5087%0A&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
In yesterday’s lecture, we began discussing information cascades. The above referenced New York Times article highlights a very interesting cascade whose effect can still be seen prevalent today. In his article, John Tierney discusses the book “Good Calories, Bad Calories” by Gary Taubes. In the book, Taubes describes an inaccurate cascade about heart disease […]

Before the break, our classroom discussions focused on information networks and search. The Internet allows access to tons of information, however the underlying structure of that information can play a critical role in improving – or making worse – its own usefulness. Search engines such as Google and Yahoo have enjoyed meteoric rises because of […]

Let’s face it, after hearing about Spitzer’s adventures at The Emperor’s Club a couple of days ago, the first website most of you visited was not CNN.com, but MySpace - I know I did. After spending a couple (ok, give me more credit than that - 15) minutes looking at “Kristen’s” bikini picture, a thought […]