Reengineering elevators could transform 21st-century cities
Aug 07, 2017 15:48 pm UTC| Insights & Views Technology
In the 160 or so years since the first skyscrapers were built, technological innovations of many kinds have allowed us to build them to reach astonishing heights. Today there is a 1,000-meter (167-story) building under...
Cartel case shows not all corporate misbehaviour goes unpunished
Aug 07, 2017 15:44 pm UTC| Insights & Views Law
A first of its kind Australian conviction of a Japanese company for cartel conduct shows reforms in this area of the law are starting to work and these cases can be prosecuted successfully. Japanese shipping company,...
Refugia: a utopian solution to the crisis of mass displacement
Aug 07, 2017 15:41 pm UTC| Insights & Views
And still they come. An apparently endless flotilla of rubber dinghies filled with migrants and refugees making their way across the Mediterranean to Europe. As the numbers and visibility of this migration have gathered...
'The day the world changed' – a former trader on how the credit crunch kicked off
Aug 07, 2017 15:39 pm UTC| Insights & Views Economy
When I received a phone call from a trader colleague at Merrill Lynch on August 9 2007, I was in the middle of chopping wood in the Swedish countryside. As always, I had my mobile on me in case of an emergency. I...
Why anecdotes aren't strong evidence when it comes to quitting smoking
Aug 07, 2017 08:36 am UTC| Insights & Views Health
In the early 1990s, I was the guest of the local health service in Broken Hill, New South Wales, during a national week promoting quitting smoking. I went on the local radio and the host invited ex-smokers to call in and...
Aug 07, 2017 08:14 am UTC| Insights & Views Politics
In the late 19th century, Sigmund Freuds colleague Wilhelm Fleiss successfully diagnosed an illness in one of Freuds relatives, without even having met them. Freud was so impressed by Fleisss diagnostic acumen that he went...
Country rules: the ‘splinternet’ may be the future of the web
Aug 07, 2017 07:45 am UTC| Insights & Views Technology
Both The Economist and WIRED are worried about the splinternet. The UK research organisation NESTA thinks it could break up the world wide web as we know it. What is this awkwardly named idea? Its the concept that...