It is part metaphor, part myth and part history. Thomas Hobbes thought life there was nasty, brutish and short. John Locke disagreed, proclaiming that it was where people first learnt how to own things. Jean-Jacques Rousseau described it as the place where people were born free, before they became ensnared in chains. Robert Nozick thought that people were so desperate to escape it, there was an inevitable result: the creation of a state. Ideas about the “state of nature”—how people lived before politics organised itself into governments—have held the attention of philosophers for centuries. Discovering whether it played out as…

The genes that boost fertility mean you're more likely to die younger, according to a new study. One of the puzzles of evolution is why we peter out into old age once we can no longer reproduce. Now, scientists believe that aging may actually be a consequence of how we evolved to reproduce, and it's all a result of natural selection over millions of years. A study analyzing the genes of 276,406 UK Biobank participants found that people carrying gene variances promoting reproduction are less likely to survive to old age. "We confirm a hypothesis called the antagonistic pleiotropy hypothesis,…

When Sodiq Ajibade emerged from a Lagos pharmacy holding asthma medication, one drug on his prescription was missing because he did not have the money to buy it. The price of some medicines has risen almost tenfold in Nigeria in the past few months, forcing patients like Ajibade to cut his dose or turn to traditional alternatives. Pharmaceutical industry officials said the plunge in the value of the naira after the removal of currency controls in June has sent prices of new stocks rocketing. British drug maker is moving from GSK-controlled local operating companies in Nigeria to a third-party direct…

The state of democracy is diminishing around the globe as dozens of nations experienced recent declines in democratic values, including tainted elections and restrictions on individual freedoms, according to a new study published Thursday by a Swedish political advocacy group. The analysis by the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance said democratic norms and standards were faltering in nearly half of the 173 countries it surveyed due to weakening government checks and balances, corruption, rigged elections, and a general lack of accountability from elected leaders who flout the law. A collective focus on major crises, including inflation, climate change,…