Mapping cancer as if it were the universe
Apr 22nd 2021OVER THE past two decades Alexander Szalay, an astronomer at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, has helped create the most detailed maps of the cosmos yet made. His raw material comes from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, which began in 2000. So far, this project has charted a third of the heavens and…
A curious survivor from the age of the dinosaurs
Apr 22nd 2021A LOT HAS happened in the past 165m years. Dinosaurs populated Earth and then died off. The ancestors of whales gave up the land and went back into the oceans. The ancestors of humans gave up the trees and came down to the plains.Listen to this storyYour browser does not support the element.Enjoy…
Why are American workers becoming harder to find?
Apr 29th 2021THE PANDEMIC has led to all sorts of weird economic outcomes. The latest oddity is the growing chorus of complaints in America about a shortage of labour, even though 8m fewer people are in work today than before covid-19 struck. In early April Bloomberg reported that Delta Air Lines had cancelled 100 flights…
Will Joe Biden’s proposed taxes on capital make America an outlier?
Apr 29th 2021IF PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN succeeds in raising America’s top rate of federal capital-gains and dividend tax to 39.6%, as he pledged to Congress on April 28th, it would be twice the average top rate in Europe. But it would apply only to the highest-earning 0.3% of taxpayers: those earning more than $1m. The…
A powerful faction in Japan strives to keep China sweet
THERE ARE no fewer than seven pandas at the Adventure World zoo in Wakayama, a mountainous region in central Japan. After the latest cub was born in November, Zhao Lijian, a spokesman for China’s foreign ministry known for his pugnacious tweets, went all gooey: “It will be a witness of the friendship between China and…
Australia’s colonial names are being replaced by Aboriginal ones
YOU CANNOT go far in Australia without stumbling on a spot named after an act of colonial violence. The continent is dotted with Massacre Bays, Deadman’s Creeks and Murdering Gullies. Suicide Bay, in Tasmania, commemorates an especially grisly slaughter. In 1828, a party of white shepherd-convicts cornered an indigenous clan on a clifftop and murdered…
Binyamin Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas try to hold on to power
May 1st 2021DUBAI AND JERUSALEMBINYAMIN NETANYAHU and Mahmoud Abbas (pictured, right and left) have ruled for so long that it is hard to imagine other people in their places. Yet neither is looking very secure at the moment. Mr Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel since 2009, is struggling to form a new government, as…
Old laws and red tape leave thousands stateless in Zimbabwe
Apr 24th 2021BOTSHIWE DUBE gave birth to all seven of her children at her home. This was not because she wanted to. Nor was it because there was no hospital in Tsholotsho, her home town in Zimbabwe. It was because she is stateless. Without papers proving she is Zimbabwean, she cannot gain admission to a…
Brett Favre: “I don’t believe Derek Chauvin meant to kill George Floyd”
Super Bowl champion Brett Favre said he didn’t feel former police officer Derek Chauvin meant to murder George Floyd.24 hours after Derek Chauvin was convicted on all counts in the slaying of George Floyd, the former NFL Hall of Fame quarterback said: “I find it hard to believe, and I’m not defending Derek Chauvin in…
Man charged $770 Million for extra legroom on airline
Comedian Dave O’Neil booked a seat with extra legroom on Qantas and was dumbfounded to see the cost pop up: a tad more than $770 million.O’Neil stated in a viral tweet last Sunday, “Hey Qantas, all I wanted was extra legroom on my flight to Perth, very happy to pay for it but this seems…