People who compare their earnings with others are damaging their health, becoming less happy, more depressed, and less satisfied with life overall, according to new research by Professors Andrew Clark and Claudia Senik from the Paris School of Economics, to be presented at the annual conference of the Royal Economic Society. (BBC report here.) This …
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Category:7 Holonics and Life
GM rice to poison the world?
In a few days the EU will decide whether or not to allow GM rice to be imported to the the EU. Most countries have shied away from allowing risky experimentation with the world’s most important staple crop and at present, no GE rice is grown commercially anywhere in the world. But Bayer, the German …
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Dog Biscuits
Just a cute story … Dog Biscuits by David Rippe (excerpted from Listen–The Sounds and Silences of Our Secret Lives) Listen up. Lean in. I have a story to tell. One you will want to hear. It’s a short trip between cool and fool–two letters actually, alphabetically speaking. You’ll have to decide which one am …
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Stress promotes female births
Research reported in the Royal Society biology letters indicates that when a conceiving mother is under stress there is more chance that the foetus resulting will be female. The research focussed on statistics in tropical climates but the conclusion focusses on environmental stress conditions. Female foetuses are more resilient than male foetuses. This appears to …
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A single global currency.
China has suggested the adoption of a single global reserve currency citing the dangers of relying upon one national currency (US$). The currency would be underwritten by the IMF. It would certainly be helpful to move towards a more balanced global currency regime. The euro is a step in this direction because it is weighted …
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A monumental failure of management.
Another piece by a respected analyst describing the cause of the economic crisis – moral hazard. Of course, it is not just America’s failure, but one that has been made globally. America’s monumental failure of management. by Henry Mintzberg in The Globe and Mail “If you always do as you always did, you will always …
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Entrepreneurship
A Special Report by The Economist. While it is the big companies and their CEO’s that get the headlines and the red carpet treatment, it is the small and medium sized businesses that make up the bulk of the world’s economy. They are the employers of most people, produce the most goods. They also are …
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CO2 acidification of oceans threatens mass extinction of sea life
Carbon dioxide emissions from human activities are acidifying the oceans and threaten a mass extinction of sea life, warns Dr Carol Turley from Plymouth Marine Laboratory. Though it is impossible to know how marine life will cope, she fears many species will not survive. Since the Industrial Revolution, CO2 emissions have already turned the sea …
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Legalisation is the least bad solution: stop the drug wars and save money.
How to stop the drug wars – An unusual leader for The Economist, and perhaps a bit surprising in this economic crisis. But the arguments are sound. In a nutshell, prohibition doesn’t work, it rewards criminals, penalises poor farmers, and costs governments much money. Legalisation, though imperfect would save billions and allow governments to focus …
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Better than Google? Well open, cheaper and might be bigger …
The Internet Archive and Open Library are related projects to put books on-line. The inspiration and motivation behind them is seasoned entrepreneur Brewster Kahle. The project itself will prove to be a wonderful resource and it is being approached in the spirit of liberty of which the web was born. Unlike Google’s project, which will …
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