THE TIMES OF INDIA, BENGALURU

TUESDAY, MAY 9, 2017 TIMES TRENDS 13

Why more older couples are shacking up

As Grey Divorces Rise, Number Of Over-50s Living In Together Up 75% In A Decade: US Study NYT
Paula Span ried partner jumped 75% from 2007 pretty much invented widespread cles and sexual intimacy, at ages
to 2016, the Pew Research Centre re- premarital cohabitation while in when people might otherwise face

I
n many ways, the life that Karen
Kanter and Stan Tobin share in
Philadelphia, US, sounds entirely
typical. Both 75, they happily watch
movies together, visit kids and
grandkids and try new restaurants.
Tobin is an accountant who
maintains a small tax practice. A re-
tired middle-school teacher, Kanter
hustles between book and art appre-
ciation groups. We love each other
and want to be together, and weve
made the commitment to stay to-
gether until death, Kanter said.
Though they have been a couple
since 2002, they are not married. And
among older adults, they have a lot of
company. The number of people
over 50 who cohabit with an unmar-
SHORT CUTS
ported last month the highest in-
crease in any age group.
We often think of cohabiters as
young, said Renee Stepler, a Pew re-
search analyst. Most are. But the
number of cohabiters over age 50 rose
to 4 million from 2.3 million over the
decade, she found, and the number
over age 65 doubled to about 900,000.
So-called grey divorce has
roughly doubled among the 50-plus
since the 1990s. People whove di-
vorced have a more expansive view
of relationships, said Deborah
Carr, a Rutgers University sociolo-
gist who served as chairwoman of
the Population Association panel.
The whole idea of marriage as the
ideal starts to fade, and personal
Android apps may be
AFP
their youth. It used to be called
shacking up, and it was not ap-
proved of, said Kelly Raley, a sociol-
ogist at the University of Texas, US.
But people are far more accepting
now, she said.
Kanter, for instance, had di-
vorced twice after long marriages
38 years, in total when she met To-
bin on a matchmaking website. To-
bin, also divorced after a long mar-
NEVER TOO LATE
riage, wouldnt mind marrying his
partner but he is also fine with co-
habiting. We dont make demands
happiness becomes more impor-
tant, she added. Of course, the gen-
eration of baby boomers (people
on each others time. She has her
life, I have my life, and we have our
life together, he said.
born during the post-World War II In later life, cohabitation brings
baby boom, approximately 1946-64) companionship, wider social cir-
THE WORLD OF AVATAR COMES ALIVE
isolation. Financially, pooling re-
sources improves elders economic
stability, especially for women. Cou-
ples also monitor one anothers
health, so cohabiters fare better,
physically and mentally, than those
who live alone, Carr said.
It also offers certain economic
protections.You become respon-
sible for your legal spouses debt,
but not for your cohabiting part-
ners debt, she said. Consider Jane
Carney, 69, and Norm Stoner, who
were both widowed. For years, they
Algorithm can predict
debated whether to make their
union legal. Each was receiving so-
cial security survivors benefits and
if you will win a case Bloomberg
Medicaid, which would have stop- Washington: Scientists
ped had they remarried. NYT have developed a new artifi-
cial intelligence system that
can predict court decisions
better than legal scholars,
even with less information.
Researchers, including a

AP
eavesdropping on you few from the Stanford Centre
for Legal Informatics, used

ALIEN DANCE: A woman dressed as an alien
dances to electronic music during the 18th annual
How Weird Street Faire in San Francisco, on Sunday
Films can replace anaesthesia
for kids under radiotherapy
Watching movies may be a calmer and cheaper
alternative to general anaesthesia for kids
undergoing radiotherapy for cancer, a study
suggests. Children could be spared dozens of
doses of general anaesthesia by projecting a
video directly on to the inside of a radiotherapy
machine during treatment, Belgian researchers
have said. Since we started using videos,
children are a lot less anxious, said Catia Aguas
A
The algorithm could be used by
n increasing number of Android ap- the US Supreme Court data- investors to bet on companies
plications are attempting to track us- base, which contains infor- that might benefit from a ruling
ers without their knowledge, accord- mation on cases dating back
ing to a new report. to 1791, to build an algorithm curate at predicting cases, re-
Over recent years, companies have start- for predicting any justices searchers said.
ed hiding beacons, ultrasonic audio signals vote at any time. The algorithm could be
inaudible to humans, in their adverts, in or- The algorithm correctly used by investors to bet on
der to track devices and learn more about predicted 70.2% of the courts companies that might benefit
their owners. 28,000 decisions and 71.9% of from a ruling. Appellants
Electronic devices equipped with micro- the justices 2,40,000 votes, ac- could also decide whether to
phones can register these sounds, allowing cording to the study. take a case to the Supreme
advertisers to uncover users location and Even knowledgeable legal Court based on their chances
work out what kind of ads they watch on TV experts are only about 66% ac- of winning. PTI
and which other devices they own. The tech-
nique can even be used to de-anonymise users A theme park in the US, to be opened later this month, has
brought alive the world of Pandora and its Navi humanoids from
of Tor, which enables people to use the inter-
net anonymously. While six apps were
known to be using ultrasound cross-device
the 2009 blockbuster Avatar. Photos from a preview at Disneys
Animal Kingdom in Florida show the Navi Shaman of Songs
(above) celebrate with music during the river journey ride; a
Soon, science can stop
tracking technology in 2015, the number has
now increased to 234. THE INDEPENDENT Navi in a science lab (top right) guests will see while in queue
for the Avatar flight of passage ride; and a water creature you from going bald
These designer tattoos can save lives
Washington: Scientists have hair follicles to correct these
identified the cells responsib- cosmetic problems, said Le.
le for hair growth as well as the The researchers found
mechanism that causes them that a protein called KROX20,
Getty Images/Photo for representation

Olivia Blair am enough. On social media, peo- harming behaviours, she said. to turn grey, a finding that co- more commonly associated
of Cliniques Universitaires Saint Luc in Belgium. ple who have bought the tattoos Timbers was spurred to start the uld lead to new treatments for with nerve development, is ac-

Now, wooden filter to purify water: Scien-
tists have used wood to remove toxic dyes from
water. Engineers at the University of Maryland
in the US soaked a block of linden wood in
palladium, a metal used in cars to remove
pollutants. The palladium bonds to dye parti-
cles, and the woods natural channels then
allow the clean water to flow out.
ALS treatment gets nod: The US FDA has
cleared a drug for fatal neurological disorder
ALS, marking the first such US regulatory ap-
proval in more than two decades.
A
n artist has designed tempo-
rary tattoos to help people
struggling with their mental
health and to stop them self-harm-
ing. Francesca Timbers, a British-
Italian psychology graduate who
lives in London, first started de-
signing and producing Motiva-
tional Tattoos in 2015 from her par-
ents living room.
The majority of the tattoos are
in the design of plasters and em-
A 2011 study found that temporary blazoned with motivational mess-
tattoos can be a method of discussing ages such as It will pass,
and altering self-harm behaviours Breathe, Love Yourself and I flicts, rather than resorting to self-
have taken pictures of themselves
with them on their wrists, legs and
other parts of their bodies.
A 2011 study found that tempo-
rary tattoos can be a method of dis-
cussing and altering self-harm be-
haviours and countering negative
body image. Timbers says she has
used studies like this to influence
her work and designs. The idea
with the tattoos is that having
something visually on your skin
offers an alternative way of ex-
pressing your feelings and con-
around five days. THE INDEPENDENT
project after a diagnosis with optic
neuritis left her suicidal in 2011.
This is a symbol, a way to con-
nect people, and a means of encou-
raging self-care. Our goal is to in-
spire a movement and create a net-
work of support and recognition
around this project. Whenever
your friends and family see you
wearing these, they will know that
you need extra care and support
that day, she said. The temporary
tattoos, which Timbers has been
selling on Etsy since 2015 last for
deliver the necessary gene to
balding and greying hair.
Although this project was
started in an effort to under-
stand how certain kinds of tu-
mours form, we ended up lear-
ning why hair turns grey and
discovering the identity of the
cell that directly gives rise to
hair, said Lu Le, associate
professor at the University of
Texas Southwestern in the US.
With this knowledge, we
hope, in the future, to create a
topical compound or to safely
tern baldness, Le said. PTI
tive in skin cells that become
the hair shaft. These cells
then produce a protein called
HAIRY TALES
stem cell factor (SCF) that the
researchers showed is essen-
tial for hair pigmentation.
Researchers will now try to
find out if the KROX20 in cells
and SCF stop working proper-
ly as people age, leading to,
among other things, male pat-