Lifestyle topics
In the 19th Century Lord Acton said that the most important responsibility of government was to protect the liberties of citizens. Fast forward to the early 21st Century and a committee of EU ministers published a joint letter in the International Herald Tribune which stated that government’s prime task was to protect the “safety of …
Chinese scientists have genetically modified human embryos for the first time, prompting calls for a worldwide ban on the practice. The researchers, at Sun Yat-sen University, modified genes responsible for the fatal blood disorder thalassemia in “non-viable” embryos that were later destroyed. Their work was only partly successful, and caused unexpected mutations in other genes. …
To The Daily Telegraph “Peter Kidson and others who knock the minimum wage present a weak argument. If I choose to run a business and use a person’s skills or labour for my benefit, then it is only right that I compensate that person sufficiently. If an employer cannot generate enough income to pay employees …
Professors Michael Porter from Harvard Business School and Scott Stern from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology say that that models of economic growth alone are incomplete and misleading. They have developed a Social Progress index, ranking 133 countries in three main categories, indepentently from GDP: Basic Human Needs (food, water, shelter and safety), Foundations of …
It’s nice to be able to record some good news. Chris Mooney, in the Washington Post, reports that natural gas replaced coal as the largest source of electricity generation in the US for two months this year. 30% of the cost of generation involves coal transportation, whereas natural gas costs a fraction of that figure. …
