Reuters reports on the latest polling techniques:

At a world population conference in Beijing... an academic from Ghana presented research on family planning based on interviews with the dead.

Using soothsayers, Philip Adongo asked village ancestors for advice on the ideal size of a family in a tribal area of the west African nation. "If I only heard from the living, I wouldn't get a very good balance," he explained. "This study has been the first to be conducted of respondents who are deceased."

The study concluded that small families worked better in a modern society.

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