What if the speed of light were that of a cyclist?
Jul 18th 2020ALBERT EINSTEIN was well known for his Gedankenexperimente, or “thought experiments”, conducted in imaginary versions of the real world. He used them to test ideas that observation could not confirm. But it is also possible to do imaginary experiments in worlds which are themselves imaginary, and thus to illuminate reality in a novel…
Analysing waste water may assist census takers
Jul 18th 2020YOU ARE what you eat, the saying goes. It therefore follows that what you excrete gives away a lot about you. Writ large, that information might yield useful demographic clues about particular neighbourhoods. This, at least, is the thinking behind a study by Saer Samanipour of the University of Amsterdam, in the Netherlands.…
Why globalists and frontier-market investors love Vietnam
Jul 18th 2020AT THE START of February, as the spread of a deadly virus in China became more threatening, Vietnam closed the border. Truckers could no longer ferry components and raw materials from China to local factories. This was a problem for Samsung, a South Korean hardware giant, which manufactures most of its handsets in…
The threat of irrelevance spurs insurers to consider new ideas
Jul 18th 2020IN 2018 MARSH, an insurance broker, teamed up with Munich Re, a reinsurer, and Metabiota, a modelling firm, to launch a policy protecting businesses against losses linked to epidemics. The timing seemed right: the Ebola and Zika viruses had recently crossed entire continents. But many potential clients found the policy too niche and…
Why so many Singaporeans voted for the opposition
IN THE wee hours after Singapore’s general election on July 10th hundreds of supporters of the Workers’ Party (WP), the main opposition outfit, streamed onto the streets to celebrate their party’s showing, in defiance of the city-state’s strict social-distancing rules. One would have been forgiven for thinking that the WP had won the election. In…
Reasons Your Social Selling Strategy Isn’t Working
Since the start of companies using social media platforms to reach their target audiences, businesses have come to understand how instrumental personal connections are in increasing sales. When brands can connect and interact with their target audiences in an authentic way, it automatically generates leads and increases sales. Essentially, social selling was born. What is…
Siberia’s heatwave would not have happened without climate change
Few extreme weather events can be wholly pinned on greenhouse-gas emissions. This one canJul 15th 2020THIS HAS been a sweltering year in the Siberian Arctic. Between January and June, temperatures across the region were more than 5°C warmer than the recent average (calculated between 1981 and 2010). In some spots they were more than 10°C…
Seagulls ‘Tripping On Acid’ May Pose A Danger To Humans
Folks have been warned to remain alert due to an uncommonly high number of seagulls “tripping on acid” after consuming flying ants. Specialists say the hot weather this week has caused a widespread egress of the ants, which seagulls love to eat in spite of it affecting their cognitive behavior. The Society of Biology’s own…
The Girl that Captured Brooklyn Beckham’s Heart: Who is Nicola Peltz?
In this dire and drearily dull year, nothing else can bring happiness than young romance. This week, the entertainment world was wonderfully surprised that the eldest son of the It couple David and Victoria Beckham announced his engagement to actress Nicola Peltz. The 21-year-old has taken to Instagram, posting a super sweet photo of the…