How to hybridise batteries and supercapacitors
Nov 7th 2020For more coverage of climate change, register for The Climate Issue, our fortnightly newsletter, or visit our climate-change hubWHEN IT COMES to putting on pace, some electric vehicles rely not only on a battery to deliver the necessary wattage, but also on a second source of power called a supercapacitor. The battery serves…
Female stone-age hunters
Nov 5th 2020THIS COLLECTION of stone tools from Peru upsets the idea that, in the ancient world of hunter-gatherers, it was men who hunted and women who gathered. It comes from the 9,000-year-old grave of a woman in her late teens and includes seven spear tips, and a knife and a set of scrapers for…
Why dollar assets are still riding high after America’s election
Nov 7th 2020CAN YOU identify what or whom the following describes: is widely disliked around the world; might have been ditched by some supporters earlier had convincing alternatives existed; has had a difficult six months; and refuses to go quietly? Here’s another clue: this is not a column about politics. The answer is the dollar.…
Deconstructing the Lebanese central bank’s Ponzi scheme
GEORGE AZZI no longer allows customers inside his pharmacy. Too many shops have been robbed. Instead he takes orders through a plexiglass window. But now, he jokes, there is not much left to steal. A currency crisis has left his shelves half-empty. A nearby petrol station has rationed supplies, limiting drivers to 20 litres. The…
What’s bigger than K-pop?
AT A CINEMA in Seoul eight middle-aged women in matching sky-blue hoodies, hair bands and face masks are sharing dried figs and persimmons as they chat and snap selfies. They have travelled from all over the country for the opening weekend of “Mr Trot”, a film based on a South Korean television show that aired…
Democracy is faltering in Tanzania and Ivory Coast
“I HAVE ESCAPED arrest twice today,” said Zitto Kabwe, a Tanzanian opposition leader, on November 2nd. But, he added, “I cannot avoid the police for ever.” The next day they picked him up, like so many of his colleagues who contested Tanzania’s election on October 28th. Some have been beaten. Tundu Lissu, a leading rival…
Can Trump Really Sue Biden?
Published on Nov 5, 2020 by Anne At first, he was just threatening, but now he really did it. Trump just released a statement that he is filing a lawsuit in Nevada for what he claims are “illegal votes”. Can Trump really sue Biden? The final results of the elections are not yet in, but…
Can you generate a magnetic field remotely?
Nov 7th 2020TWO CENTURIES ago Hans Christian Oersted, a Danish physicist, demonstrated that the motion of an electric charge produces magnetism. This was the first observation of a wide-ranging phenomenon. The charged clouds of particles which float through the cosmos generate vast interstellar magnetic fields as they go. The sloshing of molten metal in Earth’s…
The T-cell immune response to covid lasts at least six months
Nov 7th 2020SINCE THE beginning of 2020 medical researchers have been in hot pursuit of covid-19. One of their most important goals is to understand the immune response to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes it. Finding out what a good response looks like, and how long it lasts, is crucial. The answers will reveal whether…
Why is the idea of import substitution being revived?
Nov 7th 2020FOR THE past quarter-century, growth came so easily to the developing world that it can be hard to remember it was ever otherwise. Fuelled by globalisation, real GDP per person in emerging economies more than doubled from 1995 to 2019, in purchasing-power-parity terms. In advanced countries, by contrast, it grew by only 44%.…