Calorie Posting in Chain Restaurants

We study the impact of mandatory calorie posting on consumers’ purchase decisions, using detailed data from Starbucks. We find that average calories per transaction falls by 6%. The effect is almost entirely related to changes in consumers’ food choices—there is almost no change in purchases of beverage calories. There is no impact on Starbucks profit on average, and for the subset of stores located close to their competitor Dunkin Donuts, the effect of calorie posting is actually to increase Starbucks revenue. Survey evidence and analysis of commuters suggest the mechanism for the effect is a combination of learning and salience.Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,

Untangling Earth System Responses Recorded in Sulfate\u27s Sulfur and Oxygen Isotopes at the Dawn of Multicellular Life and Today

Major Earth system perturbations in the deep past and today are recorded in sulfate sulfur and oxygen isotopes, as examined here in three cases. (1) Sedimentary sulfate record of the “Marinoan Oxygen-17 Depletion” (MOSD) event, implies ultra-high CO2 atmosphere at ~635 Ma after global glaciation. MOSD duration is constrained by correlating its most complete record to radiometric dates. Barium sulfate layers in South China sediments show the MOSD in lower layers but persistently absent up section. Carbon-13 correlation locates the MOSD within dated intervals from other sites, yielding a 0 - 0.99 Myr duration. Thus, sedimentary constraint on this non-steady-state Earth system response can underpin future work such as models. (2) Pristine natural baselines of riverine sulfate flux and sulfur-34 isotope composition (δ34S) cannot be directly measured, thus leaving anthropogenic impact unconstrained. Exhaustive source compilation and multi-year monitoring of the Mississippi River is used to quantify its natural and anthropogenic sulfate flux and δ34S. We show that, since before industrialization to the present, Mississippi River SO42− has increased in flux from 8 to 28 Tg SO42− yr−1, and in δ34S from −11 to −3‰, reflecting an impressive anthropogenic and bedrock footprint. (3) Long-term heavy anthropogenic secondary atmospheric sulfate (SAS) deposition promotes acidification. Decade-long delay in riverine sulfate response because of SAS soil retention complicates assessments of direct SAS contribution. Higher direct SAS, as we expect in China versus the United States, should appear as higher river sulfate oxygen-17 isotope composition (Δ17O) because SAS has Δ17O \u3e 0‰, while all other sources have Δ17O ≤ 0‰. Our two years of monitoring show that Yangtze and Mississippi mean riverine sulfate Δ17O are −0.09 ±0.05‰ and −0.15 ±0.05‰, respectively, with p \u3c 0.0006. The calculated direct SAS component in the Yangtze and Mississippi is 11 ±9% and 3%, respectively. Sulfate Δ17O is affirmed as sensitive gauge for direct SAS contribution

An investigation of the purpose and mutual relations of the Johannine Epistles

Bibliography: pages 300-314.The series of questions which is often grouped under the heading "the Johannine Problem" is perhaps the most intractable of all those which confront New Testament scholars. Many of these questions cannot be avoided, no matter which of the five traditional "Johannine" books is studied. On one side there is the complex of queries surrounding the Fourth Gospel: its authorship, historicity, milieu, nature and date. In another direction is to be found the formidable set of challenges associated with the Johannine Apocalypse. No less difficult are the questions posed by the Epistles of John. First there is the question of authorship. Did one writer pen all three works? What is the relationship of the writer/s of the Epistles to the author/s of the Fourth Gospel and the Apocalypse of John? There is also the problem of timing - even leaving aside the Gospel and Apocalypse, is it possible to come to any conclusion concerning the priority of one or other of the three Epistles? Were they written at the same time? What is the answer to the peculiar absence of contemporary names in l and 2 John? What, in fact, is the nature and intention of each book? What is one to make of the current church situation, of the elusive personalities and their movements? The hypothesis advanced here suggests that the three Johannine Epistles came from the same hand, the author of these also being the author of the Fourth Gospel