People leave molecular wakes that may give away their secrets
Feb 13th 2020GENES CAN tell tales about you, from who your ancestors were to how likely you are to develop a range of diseases. And it seems probable that in the future they will tell more: your personality type, perhaps, or your intelligence. For these reasons, many countries have laws limiting what use employers and…
The search for extraterrestrial intelligence moves up a gear
IN 1990, A year into the journey to Jupiter of an American spacecraft called Galileo, Carl Sagan, a well-known astronomer, turned the probe’s instruments back towards Earth. He wanted to find out whether it was possible to detect evidence of life on the planet from a distance.Galileo took spectrographic measurements of sunlight streaming through Earth’s…
A new spacecraft will examine the sun close up
Feb 13th 2020THE SUN is one of the most-studied objects in the sky, but plenty of mysteries remain. On February 10th a rocket blasted off from Florida carrying Solar Orbiter, a European space probe designed to solve some of them. This craft will spend the next two years performing fly-bys of Venus and Earth, using…
Fish, like people, must pay for their accommodation
Feb 13th 2020TENANTS WHO don’t pay the rent are a bane of landlords everywhere. And landlords who use heavy tactics to enforce payment are similarly a bane of tenants. Nor are these problems confined to human beings. Property-owning cichlid fish seem as ruthless about receiving what they are owed as any 19th-century tenement holder in…
Indonesia’s government wants to get on with China in private
Feb 13th 2020WHEN CHINA’S president, Xi Jinping, launched the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in 2013, Indonesia was seen as essential to its success. So much so that he went to Jakarta, its capital, to launch the maritime dimension of his world-girdling programme of infrastructure investments. But then a funny thing happened: very little. Nearby…
An ethnically motivated attack alarms multi-ethnic Kazakhstan
IN A BUCOLIC setting, fringed by the snow-cloaked mountains of south-eastern Kazakhstan, lie two adjoining villages separated by a field of bleating fat-tailed sheep. This week the ethnic Kazakhs of Qarakemer were going about their business as usual, a man trotting down the main street on a horse, children lugging milk home in pails. Their…
The Philippines tears up a defence pact with America
SINCE HE BECAME president in 2016, Rodrigo Duterte has talked loudly and often about his disdain for America, which is a former colonial power in the Philippines. But never before have his grievances translated into action. On February 11th he cancelled the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA), a military pact between the two countries that enabled…
Why the Philippines is the only country where divorce is illegal
“YOU HAVE to lose before you can win,” explains Jesus Falcis. He is referring to the Supreme Court’s decision to dismiss, on procedural grounds, a petition he filed in 2015 challenging a law which proclaims that marriage can occur only between a man and a woman. Mr Falcis finds a silver lining in the fact…
South Sudan inches towards a unity government
After 12 deals failed to bring peace, will the 13th prove lucky?ONCE FETED as liberation heroes, South Sudan’s ageing leaders are now better known for fighting each other and failing to make up. The country won independence from Sudan in 2011, after a referendum, and plunged into civil war two years later. Since then, President…
Secular Israelis on buses strike a blow for religious freedom
AT THE Clock-Tower Square in Jaffa, dozens of Israelis wait in the winter sun for a bus home after a Saturday afternoon in nearby restaurants and bars. Any other day of the week this would be normal, but for today’s passengers there is a subversive thrill.For over 70 years buses and trains have not run…