Business Sense
Closing in on cancer
The numbers are stark. Cancer claimed the lives of 8.8 million people in 2015, with only heart disease causing more deaths. Around 40% of Americans will be told that they have cancer during their lifetimes. It is now a bigger killer of Africans than malaria.
Seed Capital: The Business of Sperm Banks
Browsing websites that list sperm donors is weirdly similar to online dating. “Sanford is the total package,” one online ad begins, and goes on to describe his strong jawline and piercing blue eyes. With a degree in finance and a “charming demeanor,” he is more than a pretty face. You can listen to a voice recording from Sanford himself. If all that wins you over, you can have his baby without ever having to go on a date. For $635 Seattle Sperm Bank will ship you a vial of his frozen swimmers.
Phone Tag: Apple vs. Samsung Gets Fiercer
Never shy about hype, on September 12 Apple CEO Tim Cook presented the company’s latest iPhones to a packed auditorium in its glitzy new headquarters in Cupertino. He made a grand prediction: Its new, premium phone, the iPhone X (pronounced “ten”), will “set the path of technology for the next decade.”
Hurricane Price Gouging Is Despicable, Right? Not to Some Economists
When a devastating hurricane like Irma or Harvey arrives, stories about price gouging inevitably spread quickly. Recently, a one-way coach flight from Miami to Phoenix jumped in price from $547.50 to $3,258.50, prompting immediate outrage. In Houston, a picture of a case of water being sold for $42.96 at Best Buy did the same. (Best Buy apologized and said it was a “big mistake” by a few employees.)
An infrastructure for charging vehicles takes shape
A new phrase entered the Oxford English Dictionary in 2013: “range anxiety,” or the fear an electric vehicle will run out of power before it reaches a charging station.
What Machines Can Tell From Your Face
The human face is a remarkable piece of work. The astonishing variety of facial features helps people recognize each other and is crucial to the formation of complex societies. So is the face’s ability to send emotional signals, whether through an involuntary blush or the artifice of a false smile.
Lilium, a Flying Car Startup, Raises $90 Million
As interest in flying cars continues to swell, one of the most prominent startups working on the technology has gained a big new backer.
Exchange Rate Shifts Lift the Global Economy
Sticklers for value have plenty of reasons to frown at financial markets. Much feels out of order, from squashed bond yields to pricy stock markets. But currency markets, at least, seem to have shifted in line with fundamentals this year.
How Government Policy Worsens Hurricanes’ Impact
THE extent of the devastation will become clear only when the floodwater recedes, leaving ruined cars, filthy mud-choked houses and the bloated corpses of the drowned. But as we went to press, with the rain pounding South Texas for the sixth day, Hurricane Harvey had already set records as America’s most severe deluge. In Houston it drenched Harris County in nearly 12 trillion gallons of water in just 100 hours—enough rainfall to cover an 8-year-old child.
The Struggle to Make Accurate Long-Term Market Forecasts
WHAT is the right way to invest for the long term? Too many people rely on past performance, picking fund managers with a “hot” reputation or backing those asset classes that have recently done well. Just as fund managers cannot be relied on to be consistent, returns from asset classes are highly variable. The higher the initial valuation of the asset, the lower the future returns are likely to be.
Day Trading in Wall Street’s Complex ‘Fear Gauge’ Proliferates
EACH morning, at the market’s open, Seth M. Golden, a former logistics manager at a Target store, fires up the computer in his home office in northern Florida and does what he has done for years: Put on bets that Wall Street’s index of volatility, the VIX, will keep falling.
Co-living Is On the Rise in London and New York
MONDAY is “Game of Thrones” night at The Collective’s Old Oak building. Millennials congregate in TV rooms around the 11-story, 550-person building. Some gather at the movie theater, lounging on bean bags decorated with old graphics from Life magazine. Nothing gets residents out of their rooms like the hit TV show. This is not a student dorm, however. It is home.
Despite SEC Warning, Wave of Initial Coin Offerings Grows
The cautionary words of US regulators have done little to chill a red-hot market for new virtual currencies sold by startups. The Securities and Exchange Commission issued its first warning late last month for the many entrepreneurs who have been raising money by creating and selling their own virtual currencies in what are called initial coin offerings. At that point, hundreds of projects had raised more than $1 billion.
Nautical Nukes
After the events of March 11, 2011, when an earthquake and tsunami led to a meltdown of three nuclear reactors at the Fukushima Dai-ichi power plant in Japan, you might be forgiven for concluding that atomic power and seawater don’t mix.
Soccer Stars, Priced to Move
For professional soccer teams August often is the costliest month, the month when they make vast bids for each other’s players. This year has been particularly lavish. Early this month, Paris Saint-Germain, a French team, signed Neymar da Silva Santos Jr., a Brazilian forward, from Barcelona for $264 million, more than double the previous record price for a soccer star.
A war against North Korea: It could happen
It is odd that North Korea causes so much trouble. It is not exactly a superpower. Its economy is only 1/50 as big as that of its democratic capitalist cousin, South Korea. Americans spend twice its total GDP on their pets.
How Teachers & Technology Can Revamp Schools
In 1953 B.F. Skinner visited his daughter’s math class. The Harvard psychologist found every pupil learning the same topic in the same way at the same speed. A few days later he built his first “teaching machine,” which let children tackle questions at their own pace. By the mid-1960s similar gizmos were being flogged by door-to-door salesmen. Within a few years, though, enthusiasm for them had fizzled out.
Breaking Uber’s Vicious Cycle
It is said that Travis Kalanick, who resigned as Uber’s boss last month, has been reading Shakespeare’s Henry V. Prince Hal’s transformation, from wastrel prince to sober monarch, is doubtless one he would like to emulate.
Pushing Back Against Populists
With the defeat of Marine Le Pen in her bid for the French presidency, establishment politicians in rich countries breathed a sigh of relief. The fortunes of extremist candidates have faltered since the populist surge that put President Donald Trump into the White House.
Is 100% Renewable Energy a Fantasy?
A widely read cover story on the impact of global warming in a recent edition of New York magazine starts ominously: “It is, I promise, worse than you think.”
The White House Is No Place for the Kids to Play
The hereditary principle is not only un-American but harmful to the children of great men, Benjamin Franklin declared soon after the Revolutionary War, as rumors flew of plots to establish a new aristocracy with George Washington at its head. To honor parents is reasonable, Franklin admitted, but to reward descendants for an accident of birth is “not only groundless and absurd but often hurtful to that posterity.”