Fertility rate describes how many children women bear on average in a given area, and it’s been declining globally over the last 50 years. Women used to have on average five children 70 years ago, but today they’re only having 2.5. This seems to be because women are becoming more educated. Take Iran; in the 1950s, women spent an average of three years in school and raised seven children. In 2010, Iranian women had an average of nine years of schooling but raised only 1.8 children. Read full article here
Research
Researcher uses AI to make texts that are thousands of years old readable
The Gilgamesh Epic, the oldest work of world literature, has been brought back to life by LMU researchers in the Electronic Babylonian Literature project. Using their new Fragmentarium tool, they have discovered hundreds of manuscripts, including the most recent tablet of the Gilgamesh Epic which dates from 130 BC – thousands of years after the earliest known version. This shows how highly valued the Epic was, even at a late period. With the public release of the Fragmentarium, anyone can now explore the thousands of cuneiform fragments and explore the ancient Babylonian literature. Read full article here
Merv
March 12, 2023
