What will Italy's discerning coffee drinkers make of Starbucks?
Mar 11, 2016 14:57 pm UTC| Insights & Views Life
With great humility and respect Starbucks has announced it intends to open its first outlets in Italy in 2017. For Howard Schultz, who transformed the Seattle roaster from 17 stores focused on selling coffee beans into a...
Should fracking decisions be made locally?
Mar 11, 2016 14:56 pm UTC| Insights & Views
The future role of gas in the UK is the subject of significant debate. There is controversy about how much gas we could use and for how long, and whether this will be compatible with statutory climate change targets. As...
AI has beaten us at Go. So what next for humanity?
Mar 11, 2016 11:08 am UTC| Insights & Views Technology
In the next few days, humanitys ego is likely to take another hit when the world champion of the ancient Chinese game Go is beaten by a computer. Currently Lee Sedol the Roger Federer of Go has lost two matches to...

How can we understand the origins of Islamic State?
Mar 11, 2016 05:23 am UTC| Insights & Views
Since announcing its arrival as a global force in June 2014 with the declaration of a caliphate on territory captured in Iraq and Syria, the jihadist group Islamic State has shocked the world with its brutality. Its...
Nature's hidden wealth is conservation's missed opportunity
Mar 11, 2016 05:21 am UTC| Insights & Views Nature
Australia has one of the worst extinction records in the modern world. Since European settlement, a third of the countrys native mammals have disappeared. How can we stem the losses? A recent article in Nature...
Vital Signs: confidence ranges from 'ok' to 'not great'; meanwhile, the Euro crisis simmers
Mar 10, 2016 23:58 pm UTC| Insights & Views Economy
Vital Signs is a weekly economic wrap from UNSW economics professor and Harvard PhD Richard Holden (@profholden). Vital Signs aims to contextualise weekly economic events and cut through the noise of the data impacting...

The Trumpification of the US media: why chasing news values distorts politics
Mar 10, 2016 23:19 pm UTC| Insights & Views Politics
Outside the US, the prospect of Donald Trump being elected president is typically met with a mixture of amusement and alarm. After all, how can a billionaire reality TV star become the most powerful leader in the world...