Explore the vast range of titles available.

As wealth inequality increases, the importance of parental financial transfers for socioeconomic attainment may also rise. Using data from the 2013 Panel Study of Income Dynamics Rosters and Transfers Module, this study investigates two questions: how parental financial transfers for education have changed over time, and what the relationship is between these transfers and adult socioeconomic outcomes. Results suggest that transfers for education have increased, have become more commonplace, and have become more dependent on parental wealth over time. Holding constant several individual and parental measures, the relationship between parental transfers for school and adult socioeconomic attainment is positive. This relationship holds when using three-stage least squares models to account for potential endogeneity of financial transfers for school. Overall, results support arguments that parental financial transfers for education facilitate the intergenerational transmission of socioeconomic standing.

The U.S. Department of Education made recent technical changes reducing eligibility for the Rural and Low-Income School Program. Given smaller budgets and lower economies of scale, rural districts may be less able to absorb short-term funding cuts and experience stronger negative achievement effects. Kansas implemented a state-level finance change (block grant funding) after 2015, which froze district revenue regardless of enrollment and reduced funding in districts where enrollment increased. Difference-in-differences models compare achievement before and after block grant implementation to estimate effects of funding cuts separately in rural and nonrural districts. Between-state and within-state comparisons offer complementary identification strategies in which the strengths of one approach help address limitations of the other. Revenue/spending reductions are similar by geography but represent a larger fraction of rural district budgets. Results indicate that revenue reductions have larger implications for achievement in rural areas, where they represent a larger proportion of the total budget.

Measurements of the atmospheric carbon (C) and oxygen (O) relative to hydrogen (H) in hot Jupiters (relative to their host stars) provide insight into their formation location and subsequent orbital migration 1 , 2 . Hot Jupiters that form beyond the major volatile (H 2 O/CO/CO 2 ) ice lines and subsequently migrate post disk-dissipation are predicted have atmospheric carbon-to-oxygen ratios (C/O) near 1 and subsolar metallicities 2 , whereas planets that migrate through the disk before dissipation are predicted to be heavily polluted by infalling O-rich icy planetesimals, resulting in C/O < 0.5 and super-solar metallicities 1 , 2 . Previous observations of hot Jupiters have been able to provide bounded constraints on either H 2 O (refs. 3 – 5 ) or CO (refs. 6 , 7 ), but not both for the same planet, leaving uncertain 4 the true elemental C and O inventory and subsequent C/O and metallicity determinations. Here we report spectroscopic observations of a typical transiting hot Jupiter, WASP-77Ab. From these, we determine the atmospheric gas volume mixing ratio constraints on both H 2 O and CO (9.5 × 10 −5 –1.5 × 10 −4 and 1.2 × 10 −4 –2.6 × 10 −4 , respectively). From these bounded constraints, we are able to derive the atmospheric C/H ( 0.35 − 0.10 + 0.17  × solar) and O/H ( 0.32 − 0.08 + 0.12  × solar) abundances and the corresponding atmospheric carbon-to-oxygen ratio (C/O = 0.59 ± 0.08; the solar value is 0.55). The sub-solar (C+O)/H ( 0.33 − 0.09 + 0.13  × solar) is suggestive of a metal-depleted atmosphere relative to what is expected for Jovian-like planets 1 while the near solar value of C/O rules out the disk-free migration/C-rich 2 atmosphere scenario. The C/O ratio of the transiting hot Jupiter WASP-77Ab is measured here and found to be approximately solar, though the (C+O)/H ratio is subsolar.

There are no planets intermediate in size between Earth and Neptune in our Solar System, yet these objects are found around a substantial fraction of other stars 1 . Population statistics show that close-in planets in this size range bifurcate into two classes on the basis of their radii 2 , 3 . It is proposed that the group with larger radii (referred to as ‘sub-Neptunes’) is distinguished by having hydrogen-dominated atmospheres that are a few percent of the total mass of the planets 4 . GJ 1214b is an archetype sub-Neptune that has been observed extensively using transmission spectroscopy to test this hypothesis 5 – 14 . However, the measured spectra are featureless, and thus inconclusive, due to the presence of high-altitude aerosols in the planet’s atmosphere. Here we report a spectroscopic thermal phase curve of GJ 1214b obtained with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) in the mid-infrared. The dayside and nightside spectra (average brightness temperatures of 553 ± 9 and 437 ± 19 K, respectively) each show more than 3 σ evidence of absorption features, with H 2 O as the most likely cause in both. The measured global thermal emission implies that GJ 1214b’s Bond albedo is 0.51 ± 0.06. Comparison between the spectroscopic phase curve data and three-dimensional models of GJ 1214b reveal a planet with a high metallicity atmosphere blanketed by a thick and highly reflective layer of clouds or haze. A spectroscopic thermal phase curve of GJ 1214b obtained with the JWST in the mid-infrared is reported and a planet with a high metallicity atmosphere blanketed by thick and reflective clouds or haze is found.

Along with the late 1980s Medicaid expansion for pregnant women and children, states implemented multiple reforms to reduce administrative burdens and facilitate access to Medicaid and prenatal care. We use National Vital Statistics birth data from 1985 to 1994 and a difference-in-discontinuities approach to compare the effectiveness of these reforms for improving infant health and access to prenatal care. Results indicate that combinations of reforms to reduce administrative burdens increased Medicaid enrollment and improved infant health nearly as much as Medicaid expansion. In most cases, these reforms yield larger benefits for racially and socioeconomically marginalized mothers, but targeted reforms could better address unequal barriers and further improve equality. Benefits of the reforms are larger in states with more physicians per capita, particularly for marginalized mothers. Overall, results suggest that combined policy responses to reduce multiple burdens at the same time are needed to address unequal barriers.

Women who test positive for a BRCA genetic mutation are at an increased risk for developing hereditary breast and ovarian cancer and have a 50% chance of passing on their genetic mutation to their children. The purpose of this study was to investigate how women who test positive for a BRCA mutation but have not been diagnosed with cancer make decisions regarding family planning. Analysis of interviews with 20 women revealed they engage in logical and emotional decision-making styles. Although women want to be logical to reduce their hereditary cancer risk, emotions often complicate their decision-making. Women experience fear and worry about a future cancer diagnosis, yet also desire to create a family, particularly having children through natural conception. That is, women negotiate having preventative surgeries in a logical doctor-recommended timeframe but also organize those decisions around emotional desires of motherhood. Overall, this study demonstrates the complex decisions women who test positive for a BRCA mutation must make in regards to genetic testing timing, family planning, and overall quality of life.

Using National Vital Statistics Birth and Fetal Death Data from 1995 to 2020 linked to county-level information on wildfires, we use variation in wildfire timing to examine how effects of wildfire exposure on infant health vary by maternal education. Results indicate that wildfire exposure increases the likelihood of low birth weight and fetal death, but effects vary by both trimester and maternal education. Mediation analyses suggest the variation by maternal education reflects selective survival and unequal sensitivity, rather than differential parental response to wildfires. In addition, mediation analyses suggest that maternal behaviors explain a greater share of the relationship between wildfire exposure and infant health than air quality. Wildfires may therefore reduce infant health through stress.

Family communication environments can be a facilitator or barrier to family cooperation and communication in collecting family health history (FHH) information, which can facilitate disease prevention. This study examined the direct and indirect effects of family communicative environments on whether individuals actively collected FHH information, as well as how age and sex differences complicate this relationship. Participants (N = 203) completed online surveys, answering close-ended questions about their family’s communication patterns, how open their family is to communicating about FHH, and whether they have actively collected FHH information. Results show there was a direct effect between open family communicative environments and active collection, and found FHH communication openness was a positive partial mediator. Conversely, family environments stressing hierarchy and homogeneity of beliefs inhibit open communication about and collection of a FHH. Analysis of age and sex as moderators in the models showed a significant conditional indirect effects, which grew stronger as participants’ age increased. Furthermore, results showed open family communicative environments lead to active collection of FHH for women, but not for men. Results confirm the importance of family communicative environments in facilitating or inhibiting FHH collection. Findings from the current study provide intervention points for practitioners to advise patients on the importance of collecting a FHH and guide behaviors to collect FHH information based on the family communicative environment.

Abstract Educational assortative mating patterns in the United States have changed since the 1960s, but we know little about the effects of these patterns on children, particularly on infant health. Rising educational homogamy may alter prenatal contexts through parental stress and resources, with implications for inequality. Using 1969–1994 NVSS birth data and aggregate cohort-state census measures of spousal similarity of education and labor force participation as instrumental variables (IV), this study estimates the effects of parental educational similarity on infant health. Controlling for both maternal and paternal education, results support family systems theory and suggest that parental educational homogamy is beneficial for infant health while hypergamy is detrimental. These effects are stronger in later cohorts and are generally limited to mothers with more education. Hypogamy estimates are stable by cohort, suggesting that rising female hypogamy may have limited effect on infant health. In contrast, rising educational homogamy could have increasing implications for infant health. Effects of parental homogamy on infant health could help explain racial inequality of infant health and may offer a potential mechanism through which inequality is transmitted between generations.

A 'hot Neptune' low on gas New observations in the infrared provide the first indications of the atmospheric composition of a 'hot Neptune' extrasolar planet, Gliese 436b (GJ 436b). A companion to an M-dwarf star, GJ 436b exhibits a high abundance of carbon monoxide. Water and trace amounts of carbon dioxide are also present but the concentration of methane, expected to be the dominant carbon-bearing species in a hydrogen-dominated atmosphere, is 100,000 times less than predicted for a planet in thermochemical equilibrium. Possible disruptive influences include vertical mixing and methane polymerization. The measurements were accomplished at six wavelengths using the Spitzer Space Telescope while the planet passed behind its parent star on a short, 2.64-day orbit. Here, the atmosphere of the extrasolar planet GJ 436b is studied during its 'secondary eclipse'. The findings reveal the presence of some H 2 O and traces of CO 2 . The best-fit compositional models contain a high CO abundance and a substantial methane deficiency relative to thermochemical equilibrium models for the predicted hydrogen-dominated atmosphere. Disequilibrium processes such as vertical mixing and polymerization of methane may be required to explain this small methane-to-CO ratio. The nearby extrasolar planet GJ 436b—which has been labelled as a ‘hot Neptune’—reveals itself by the dimming of light as it crosses in front of and behind its parent star as seen from Earth. Respectively known as the primary transit and secondary eclipse, the former constrains the planet’s radius and mass 1 , 2 , and the latter constrains the planet’s temperature 3 , 4 and, with measurements at multiple wavelengths, its atmospheric composition. Previous work 5 using transmission spectroscopy failed to detect the 1.4-μm water vapour band, leaving the planet’s atmospheric composition poorly constrained. Here we report the detection of planetary thermal emission from the dayside of GJ 436b at multiple infrared wavelengths during the secondary eclipse. The best-fit compositional models contain a high CO abundance and a substantial methane (CH 4 ) deficiency relative to thermochemical equilibrium models 6 for the predicted hydrogen-dominated atmosphere 7 , 8 . Moreover, we report the presence of some H 2 O and traces of CO 2 . Because CH 4 is expected to be the dominant carbon-bearing species, disequilibrium processes such as vertical mixing 9 and polymerization of methane 10 into substances such as ethylene may be required to explain the hot Neptune’s small CH 4 -to-CO ratio, which is at least 10 5 times smaller than predicted 6 .