How to send underwater messages without batteries
Oct 17th 2020RADIO WAVES do not travel well underwater. That is why ships employ sonar rather than radar to plumb the briny depths. Messages broadcast through the ocean need to be sonic, too. For that purpose people often use acoustic modems, which can turn electronic signals into sound, and vice versa, like an old-fashioned acoustic…
Wall Street says it is braced for losses. Now what?
MOST BANKERS have been working frantically for the past six months. Traders handled record-high volumes in choppy markets. Their colleagues issued mountains of equity and debt as companies sought to withstand the economic downturn by amassing capital. Commercial bankers offered forbearance to struggling borrowers, and were forced to write down the value of loans as…
Can China’s reported growth be trusted?
NO SOPHISTICATED ANALYSIS is needed to show that China is in better economic shape than most other countries these days. Just look at its bustling shopping malls, its jammed roads in rush hour and its mobbed tourist sites during holidays. But if the crowd scenes suffice to affirm that China is doing well, a little…
A crackdown in Bangladesh reveals corruption on a daunting scale
Oct 17th 2020IN FARIDPUR, A small provincial town in Bangladesh, it is hard to keep a secret. Everyone knows not just that Sajjad Hossain and Imtiaz Hasan, two brothers who until recently headed the local branch of the ruling Awami League, are very rich, but also how they came to be so. Over the past…
The weapons embargo on Iran is coming to an end
Oct 13th 2020THE F-14 TOMCAT was a cutting-edge fighter jet when it first flew 50 years ago. It acquired iconic status when it starred in “Top Gun”, a Hollywood blockbuster, during the Reagan era. Newer planes have long since taken its place in America’s air force. But Tomcats are still a feature of Iran’s decrepit…
Penelope Ann Miller Set to Play Nancy Reagan in Biopic
Penelope Ann Miller will play Nancy Reagan in a biopic about former President Ronald Reagan that stars Dennis Quaid in the leading role. The film is presently, and unobtrusively, in production in Oklahoma, with Robert Davi and Jon Voight in the cast as well. Sean McNamara is directing the drama that hails from producer Mark…
Arid areas have more trees than previously thought
Oct 17th 2020TREES LOOM large in both environmental science and the wider social and political movement of environmentalism. Not for nothing are greens sometimes called “tree-huggers”. Generally, the arboreal news is gloomy, as large areas of forest are cleared and either burned or taken on a one-way trip to the saw mill. But a paper…
How to arm Caesarean babies with the gut bacteria they need
Oct 17th 2020CHILDBIRTH IS MESSY. When a baby comes out, a lot else comes out with it. Some of this material is inevitable, such as the amniotic fluid that presages birth and the placenta which follows it. But a fair bit of faeces is discharged, too.From an evolutionary perspective, that seems surprising. Exposing newborns to…
Low interest rates leave savers with few good options
Oct 17th 2020IN THE 1980S comedy, “Trading Places”, Jamie Lee Curtis plays a prostitute who has been saving for her future; she has $42,000 “in T-bills, earning interest”. If she followed the same strategy today, she would be disappointed with the return. The one-year Treasury bill yields 0.13%, so her annual interest income would be…
Why securing debt forgiveness for poor countries is so hard
Oct 17th 2020WASHINGTON, DCGOVERNMENTS IN MANY poor countries have faced a sickening choice this year, between spending to support their populations through the covid-19 crisis and paying creditors. On October 14th finance ministers of the G20 group of countries offered a temporary salve for 73 of the world’s neediest countries, by saying they would extend…