Herbal remedies can help to treat neglected tropical diseases
Jan 9th 2021“WHAT DO YOU call traditional medicine that works?” “Medicine.” This old joke contains more than a milligram of truth. When, for example, Tu Youyou, a Chinese chemist, began testing the sweet wormwood used in local herbal remedies as a cure for malaria, her isolation of artemisinin saved millions of lives and earned her…
How to map the seabed from the sky
Jan 9th 2021AN ALIEN SEEKING a name for the third planet from the sun might reasonably plump for “Sea” or “Ocean”, rather than “Earth”. Two-thirds of its surface is covered by salt water, and its predominant colour, viewed from far away in space, is blue. What underlies all this brine, though, remains surprisingly mysterious to…
Is the financial establishment coming round to bitcoin?
Jan 9th 2021TWELVE YEARS ago, on January 3rd 2009, a headline on the front page of the Times read: “Chancellor on brink of second bail-out for banks”—a reference to the British government’s efforts to save the country’s financial system from collapse. When Satoshi Nakamoto, the mysterious inventor of bitcoin, created the first 50 coins, now…
What is the economic cost of covid-19?
THE ECONOMIC toll of the covid-19 pandemic is incalculable. But let’s try anyway. A useful starting point is the semi-annual Global Economic Prospects report released this week by the World Bank. It calculates that the world economy probably shrank by 4.3% in 2020, a setback matched only by the Depression and the two world wars.…
Is North Korea’s dictator losing his touch?
Jan 9th 2021WHEN KIM JONG UN, North Korea’s third-generation despot, penned a short, bland greeting to his people to run as a splash in the year’s first edition of the state mouthpiece, Rodong Sinmun, it triggered an avalanche of speculation among Pyongyangologists—over what Mr Kim did not do. Since the founding of the communist state,…
All the parties in Kazakhstan’s election support the government
WHEN KAZAKHSTAN’S president came to power two years ago, he made pronouncements that counted as radical in a country that had only just emerged from three decades under a single strongman. Painting himself as a cautious reformer, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev promised “political competition” in the oil-rich Central Asian state. That marked a change from his predecessor,…
What mummified baboons say about globalisation
Jan 9th 2021THOTH HAD a broad bailiwick. He was the god of wisdom, writing and many strands of alchemy. Ancient Egyptians worshipped him alongside Ra, the sun god. So it is no wonder they had such great respect for the baboon, understood to be Thoth’s earthly manifestation in the pantheon of blessed beings.New evidence uncovered…
Can basketball heal South Sudan?
THE PEOPLE of South Sudan are among the tallest in the world. That helps explain why several of them have had stellar careers playing basketball abroad. One is Luol Deng, a former all-star in America’s National Basketball Association (NBA). Mr Deng, who retired in 2019 after 15 seasons on the hardwood for the Chicago Bulls…
Parents Are Infuriated by a Kids’ Show About a Very Long Phallus
A children’s TV series in Scandinavia about a guy with the world’s longest phallus is inciting furor online in the subregion of six million. John Dillermand the animated series premiered this past weekend on a publicly funded kid’s channel (analogous to PBS Kids in the U.S.). The series follows Dillermand as his unreasonably long phallus…
Americans and their Funny Twitter Reactions to Stimulus Checks
Published on Jan 6, 2021 by Anne Twitter reactions to stimulus checks are hilarious! Everything that could go wrong already went wrong. From an original promised $600 to a proposed $2000, and back to $600. This is followed by delayed payments across the country, where some people are getting their stimulus checks (popularly referred to…