We analyze the first representative series of individual measurements of the height of Swiss conscripts for the years 1875–1950. We find that average height followed a general upward time trend, but the economic downturn in the 1880s slowed down the increase in rural average-heights while the...

The left tibia of Charlemagne, the Medieval "Father of Europe" has been X-rayed and CT scanned to determine his still highly debated stature. We found the healthy bone to be long (430 mm) but rather not robust (total mid-shaft cross-sectional area 473 mm2, cortical area 352 mm2)....

We hypothesize that recent trends in U.S. and worldwide obesity are, in part, related to an increase in the marginal rate of time preference, where time preference refers to the rate at which people are willing to trade current benefit for future benefit. The higher the rate of time preference,...