Citations

No need for female Viagra
Aging women become sexually dysfunctional at only about half the rate of men, according to a 30-country study led by U of C sociologist Edward Laumann. The results of the survey, based on interviews last year with 27,500 men and women aged 40-80, were presented at the October meeting of the International Society for the Study of Women's Sexual Health. Men reported increasing instances of erectile dysfunction—up to 50 percent among 80-year-old males. Among women, 31 percent lacked interest in sex, 22 percent were unable to orgasm, 21 percent found sex unpleasurable, 20 percent had trouble lubricating, and 14 percent experienced pain with sex. "Only 'trouble lubricating' has highly significant age effects," Laumann says. The survey, funded by Viagra maker Pfizer Inc., also found that two-thirds of men aged 70 or older have a potential sex partner, while less than one-third of women do.

John Knox in 1934

A portrait of the law clerk as a young man
John Knox, PhB'30, had one of the worst yet most honorable jobs in Washington, D.C., clerking for the relentless Supreme Court Justice James C. McReynolds in 1936-37, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt tried to "pack" the court with New Deal supporters. Five years after Knox's death, Dennis Hutchinson, professor and associate dean in the College and senior lecturer in the Law School, and Emory University law professor David J. Garrow have edited Knox's memoirs, which the U of C Press published this fall. The Forgotten Memoir of John Knox describes McReynolds's bigotry, Knox's clerkship as chiefly a stenographer and typist, and the clerk's private switch, despite his boss's dissent, to supporting the New Deal.

Religious motives for terrorism
Even though President Bush carefully avoided tying the U.S. war on terrorism to Islam, the September 11, 2001, attackers' motives were profoundly and intensely religious, Divinity School professor Bruce Lincoln, AM'73, PhD'76, argues. In Holy Terrors, to be published by the U of C Press in January, Lincoln dissects the religious references in the instruction manual given to the hijackers. He also compares the subtle religious rhetoric in Bush's October 7, 2001, speech announcing military action in Afghanistan with a videotape Osama bin Laden released hours later, showing that both leaders use religion to unite their people. Ultimately, Lincoln argues, religion is widely considered the most viable and effective instrument of rebellion against economic and social injustices.

Your cheating No. 2 pencil
Using a computerized method that tracks unusual patterns, U of C economist Steven Levitt helped the Chicago Public Schools system document instances of standardized-test cheating in at least seven elementary schools last May. The statistical model identified patterns in the students' answers that suggested adults may have assisted them. Officials fired six teachers and an aide and disciplined three principals after the investigation.

Do try this at O'Hare
Airport bystanders, including six with no prior training, used defibrillators to save 11 of 18 cardiac-arrest victims. In 1999 the devices were installed in glass cabinets at Chicago's O'Hare, Midway, and Meigs airports-the first in the world to try them. In the October 17 New England Journal of Medicine, coauthor Lance Becker, professor of clinical and emergency medicine, details the 61 percent success rate as well as the fact that ten of the 11 patients were alive a year later and none suffered brain damage. Considering the number of untrained people who successfully used the devices, Becker says, the label warning that only trained rescuers should use them "probably needs to be reevaluated."

— A.B.