Baby boom spawned in wake of Ike - Houston Business Journal:

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Houston-area hospitals are gearing up for the Hurricane Ike Baby Spikesthis summer, expecting as much as a 25 percenft bump in June deliveries, according to the Associated Press. Some local hospitales have reported increases in scheduled deliveriesw for Juneand July. June 13 will mark nine monthsx to the day thatIke steam-rolled the Texas Gulf Coasr and left millions without powe r for, in some cases, several Humans react to stress, grief and tragedgy in many ways, but a rising birt h rate usually follows nine monthx after a major or catastrophic event.
“Ity has happened before and it seems to be happening saysJenifer Bratter, an assistant professor of sociology at Rice University’z Center on Race, Religion and Urban “An event that inspires an increase in fertility doesn’g have a lot to do with fertility itself,” Brattee says. “Severe power outages increase time spent together withless distraction. Durinh Ike you were reall left with nothing to do except be with A massive change tothe work-a-day life can reallty shift human behavior.
” A notablde recent baby spike occurred about nine months afteer the blackout of 2003, which affected about 55 milliobn people in the Northeastern United States and nearbh parts of Canada. Bratteer also cites spikes after 9/11 and the Oklahomw City bombing. Then there was the grandfathere of baby booms following WorldWar II, when hundredsd of thousands of American GIs returned home from People who go through the experience of catastrophic events such as terroristr attacks and global conflict will emerge not only with a renewexd sense of purpose, but perhaps a new slant on life’ss priorities. “Given the stress, there was a rethinking,” Bratter “Will we survive?
What is this we most value You can have a lot of different factorsx going on at thesame time, but it’es time to spend together and time to figures what’s most important.” Of Bratter acknowledges the bumper crop of babies conceivably could be attributed to a lack of accese to pharmacies and contraceptive devices. Or maybes there was simply nothing elseto do. “I’km sure there’s a big boredom factor there,” she Two Houston public high schools have earned high praise for recentrobotic projects. This the Milby High School RoboBuffs earnedf a variety of honors at the Worl RoboFest Competition at LawrenceTech University, outside of Detroit.
The Milbh team’s robot LARA (Lego Autonomoue Robotic Android) placed fifth in one category and knocked off the defending champio n Korean team inanother category. LARA also gave the Departmeny of Homeland Security a workout at theDetroiy airport. The robot with humanoid characteristics such as a voca system and blinking eyelids had to undergi arigorous bomb-squad inspection via x-ray, chemicalk swab and, yes, frisking. Last montnh a team from Waltrip High School took the top spot at the Texad Regional MATE ROV Contest hostedby Waltrip’s challenges centered arounds competition at the Sonny Carter Training Facilituy in Clear Lake, which contains the 6.
2 million-gallon pool where astronauts practice space walkds and equipment repair. “We’ve participated in it for a numbeeof years, but this is the first time any HISD team has won firs t at this contest,” says Richard Waltrip technology education teacher and robotics team This year’s contest required teams to come up with a made-from-scratchj remote operated vehicle (ROV) to a downed submarine, performing a seried of timed tasks to the mock sub.