When it comes to the world of science, discoveries and breakthroughs are made every day. To help you keep up with them, The Battalion compiles a few of the most compelling scientific stories from the past week.
Social Science: Men whose first child is a girl are more likely to support policies that promote gender equity than men whose first child is a boy
A survey of 302 fathers was given during the Cooperative Congressional Election Study, a nationally representative sample survey taken by 60,000 Americans. To get data for this research question, over 300 fathers were given questions related to gender equity.
Questions in the survey included the father’s opinions on support of various policies including Title IX and pay equity between men and women. Additional questions covered topics related to partisanship, ideology, education and more.  Fathers of first daughters were found to be 11 percent more supportive of gender equity-related policies than fathers of first sons. The effect was exclusive to fathers, as mothers views on gender equality policies were seemingly unaffected the gender of their first born.
Technology: Almost half of US cell phone calls will be scams by next year
A new report found that nearly half of phone calls will come from scam numbers starting in 2019. In 2018, the percentage of scam calls in phone traffic increased by 3.7 percent to 29.2 and it will increase further to 44.6 percent in 2019.
Many scam calls use a method of scam calls called ‘neighborhood spoofing’ where numbers are disguised with a local area prefix so people feel safe about answering the phone. First Orion, the company who released the report, works with phone carriers like T-Mobile to help alert users of likely scams through caller ID.
Anthropology: Archaeologists find a stone in a South African Cave with what may be the world’s oldest drawing at 73,000 years old
Discovered recently in Blombos Cave in South Africa, scientists believe they have now found the oldest known drawing in human history — a red cross-hatched designed on a rock. The artifact significantly predates what were previously the world’s oldest discovered drawings, which date to around 40,000 years ago on cave walls in Europe and Indonesia.
The artifact was discovered when researchers looked through thousands of stone fragments from cave sediments. Other finds have included shells with remnants of pigment-infused paint and pigment chunks engraved with cross-hatched and line designs.