Special Reports

Saturday, 29 July 2023 04:01

Night owls tend to die sooner. But it's not late bedtimes killing them

A large study covering 37 years from start to finish has revealed something about those who tend to stay up late: These night owls are more likely to die at a younger age, but due to smoking and drinking-related causes rather than how late they go to bed. Data on 22,976 Finnish adult twins were analyzed for the study, with 42.9 percent identifying as "somewhat evening types" or "evening types". Technically, this is our chronotype – our tendency to want to sleep or be active at certain times. Previous studies have suggested night owls have a higher mortality risk and…

Sunday, 09 July 2023 04:39

Can lucid dreaming be dangerous or safe? This is what new research shows

Lucid dreaming is associated with better subjective sleep quality, a higher sense of mental well-being, and lower feelings of loneliness, according to new research published in Psychology of Consciousness: Theory, Research, and Practice. The findings suggest that while a small percentage of lucid dreams can be negative or have unpleasant aspects, lucid dreaming is generally a positive experience. Lucid dreaming refers to the experience of being aware that you are dreaming while you are still in the dream state. In a lucid dream, the dreamer has the ability to exert some control over the dream narrative and may deliberately influence…

Sunday, 02 July 2023 04:24

New report warns terrorists could cause human extinction with ‘spoiler atacks’

A new paper published in the European Journal of Risk Regulationconsiders the danger from existential terrorism, defined as acts that threaten the existence of humanity. The authors highlight what they term ‘spoiler attacks’ involving AI or other new technology, which might enable a group with limited resources to cause unprecedented destruction. “I don't expect existential terrorism to be at the top of global agendas, nor do I believe it should be,” Zachary Kallenborn, one of the report’s, authors told me. “But global discourse is clearly changing around existential risk.” Kallenborn is a Policy Fellow at the Schar School of Policy…

Friday, 30 June 2023 02:58

Dollar drought haunts Nigeria, Pakistan, other frontier economies

As Pakistan spiralled into crisis this year, Wilson Muthaura pressed its government to put the tea Kenya's KTDA co-operative produces 3,400 miles away on a list of essentials that would grant importers access to precious U.S. dollars. His urgent lobbying reflects anxiety about a scarcity of dollars - the lifeblood of global trade - across emerging market and developing economies (EMDEs) that is impeding commerce and piling pressure on local currencies and sovereign debtors. The World Bank estimates that one in four EMDEs have effectively lost access to international bond markets, a key source of hard currency needed to pay…

Tuesday, 27 June 2023 01:26

Effects of petrol subsidy removal in Nigeria reverberate in Cameroon, Benin and Togo. This is what’s happening in the neighboring countries

Things have been topsy turvy lately on the roadsides of West African nations where cheap contraband petrol from Nigeria has abruptly doubled in price, upending an informal sector that is central to the region's economic activity. Since Nigeria scrapped a state fuel subsidy on May 31, black market fuel vendors and commercial drivers in Cameroon, Benin and Togo who were heavily reliant on petrol smuggled from Nigeria have seen their businesses collapse. With supplies dwindling, queues have been forming at official petrol stations, where fuel is now competitively priced. In Garoua, a town in northwest Cameroon about 60 km (37…

Tuesday, 20 June 2023 04:39

Study reveals extent of wealth made via slavery from three past rulers

Inside the stables of Paleis Noordeinde in The Hague is a golden coachembellished with images of colonial offerings to Dutch rulers that many, including the current Dutch king, regard as a symbol of exploitation that, according to a new study, netted three Dutch rulers the equivalent of more than €545m (£465m). Historians calculated the staggering value of colonial profit for Willem III (also king of England, Ireland and Scotland), Willem IV and Willem V for a report published at the request of the Dutch parliament last week before a widely expected apology over slavery from the Dutch king. The study,…

Saturday, 17 June 2023 04:35

A colossal ecosystem teeming with life is below earth's surface

Beneath your feet in the depths of our planet, there’s an unbelievably vast ecosystem teeming with life. In recent years, a massive international team of scientists revealed how billions upon billions of microorganisms live miles beneath Earth’s subsurface. Presenting their work at the American Geophysical Union's annual meeting in 2018, the researchers calculated the size of this mysterious treasure trove of life for the first time – and it was way bigger than they expected. They reported that approximately 70 percent of the total number of microbes on the planet live underground. In total, these microbes represent around 15 to…

Tuesday, 13 June 2023 04:10

Why the world still needs trade - Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala

The international economic architecture built after 1945 was based on a powerful idea: economic interdependence is crucial, if insufficient, for global peace and prosperity. The International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the predecessor to the World Trade Organization were founded in response to the three preceding decades of ceaseless instability, when the world had been devastated by two world wars, the Great Depression, and political extremism. It had also been a period of deglobalization, in which countries retreated into increasingly isolated trading blocs. In the rubble of World War II, governments sought to construct a new system that, by…

Monday, 12 June 2023 02:03

How to avoid a civil war, by the man who predicted Trump

Across the west, popular misery and ‘elite overproduction’ are fuelling crisis, argues data-driven historian Peter Turchin. So what can we do to turn things around? In February 2010, Peter Turchin, a relatively obscure researcher at the University of Connecticut, wrote a letter to the distinguished journal Nature. He was responding to their “2020 visions” issue – an upbeat dawn-of-the-decade exercise that collected predictions of progress from across science and politics. Turchin assumed the role of Cassandra. “The next decade is likely to be a period of growing instability in the United States and western Europe,” he wrote, “which could undermine…

Thursday, 08 June 2023 04:26

The future of fish farming is on land - The Economist

The rugged, chilly coast of northern Norway, beyond the Arctic Circle, is not usually thought of as prime agricultural land. But far down a dead-end road on the shores of Skjerstad Fjord sits Salten Smolt, one of the most advanced farms in the world. Rather than crops or cows, though, the firm produces fish. Inside its 7,000 square metre main building are tanks capable of producing 8m smolt—juvenile Atlantic salmon—every year. Fish farming is the fastest-growing form of food production in the world. Seafood accounts for around 17% of the world’s protein intake (in some parts of Asia and Africa,…

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Saturday, 03 June 2023 04:13

A catatonic woman awakened after 20 years. Her story may change psychiatry

The young woman was catatonic, stuck at the nurses' station - unmoving, unblinking and unknowing of where or who she was. Her name was April Burrell. Before she became a patient, April had been an outgoing, straight-A student majoring in accounting at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore. But after a traumatic event when she was 21, April suddenly developed psychosis and became lost in a constant state of visual and auditory hallucinations. The former high school valedictorian could no longer communicate, bathe or take care of herself. April was diagnosed with a severe form of schizophrenia, an often devastating…

Tuesday, 30 May 2023 03:32

AI, democracy, and the global order - Manuel Muñiz & Samir Saran

Future historians may well mark the second half of March 2023 as the moment when the era of artificial intelligence truly began. In the space of just two weeks, the world witnessed the launch of GPT-4, Bard, Claude, Midjourney V5, Security Copilot, and many other AI tools that have surpassed almost everyone’s expectations. These new AI models’ apparent sophistication has beaten most experts’ predictions by a decade. For centuries, breakthrough innovations – from the invention of the printing press and the steam engine to the rise of air travel and the internet – have propelled economic development, expanded access to…

Sunday, 28 May 2023 04:15

Important technologies and their impact

In today’s rapidly advancing world, technology plays a crucial role in shaping our lives and society. As emerging technologies continue to evolve, their impact on various aspects of our lives becomes increasingly significant. From transforming industries to revolutionizing communication, emerging tech has the potential to bring about both positive and negative changes. In this report, we will explore some of the most important technologies of our time and delve into their impacts on society, the economy, and individuals. Artificial Intelligence (AI) Artificial Intelligence, or AI, has emerged as a game-changer in various fields, including healthcare, finance, transportation, and even NHL…

Wednesday, 24 May 2023 03:35

Three emerging telecoms fraud threats facing Africa

Africa has witnessed increased mobile internet coverage. The GSMA reports that “by the end of 2021, 22% of the total population in Sub-Saharan Africa was using mobile internet (and 40% of adults over 18 years of age).” The association also states that during the past five years, the proportion of the population covered by a mobile broadband network has more than doubled. Today 3G, 4G and 5G mobile handsets make up over half of all connections in the region, according to the GSMA. This means greater connectivity across Africa and with the rest of the globe. But this easier access…

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