Great knots (Calidris tenuirostris) above Yalu Jiang, ChinaGerrit Vyn / Nature Picture Library By Frank Swain A race is on to build the world’s largest bird feeder, to save tens of thousands of migrating birds. China’s Yalu Jiang nature reserve, near the North Korean border, covers 50 kilometres of estuarine mudflats. Every year, 250,000 birds […]
RENAULT unveiled the EZ-GO, a concept for a robotaxi, at the Geneva motor show, which opened on March 5th. Nissan, in conjunction with DeNA, a Japanese software firm, recently began trials of driverless taxis in Japan. The two companies are pursuing their own paths towards the future of mobility. Yet both are bound together in […]
MARUM –Center for Marine Environmental Sciences, University of Bremen By Colin Barras We might need to rethink what we know about the oldest fossils ever found. Some of the best evidence for early life is provided by structures called stromatolites. Many geologists assume these stromatolites were made by microbes living in shallow, sun-drenched water. This […]
Hock Tan hones the art of the deal VALENTINE’S DAY might seem like a good time to discuss a proposal. But whether it brought luck to Broadcom’s attempt to woo its rival chipmaker, Qualcomm, is still unclear. As The Economist went to press, a meeting between the boards of both firms to discuss Broadcom’s bid […]
Lance Gilman, tech-titan whisperer PAST the neon lights of Reno and the cookie-cutter homes of neighbouring Sparks, the I-80 highway winds through a thinly populated expanse of arid hills and lunar valleys in Storey County. On one side of the road flows the Truckee River; on the other bands of wild horses forage for parched […]
Clickbait for plutocrats A YOUTUBE video featuring a woman sporting a gold watch and driving a convertible, which has been viewed online nearly 5m times. A social-media “influencer” with more than 11m followers on Instagram posting photos of herself wearing the same timepiece. A limited flash sale of the watch on Net-a-Porter, a website. Purveyors […]
The sun sets in a market in Thailand, but the heat doesn’t always let upSirichai raksue/Alamy Stock Photo By John Pickrell EVEN by Australian standards, last summer was a scorcher. January 2017 was the hottest ever recorded in Sydney and Brisbane, and great swathes of the south-east endured temperatures that often exceeded 40°C for weeks on […]
Christian Petersen-Clausen/Getty By Timothy Revell China has upped the ante in its efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions and slow the progress of climate change. The Chinese government is launching a nationwide carbon market that should encourage power companies to cut their emissions. China is the world’s largest polluter, responsible for more than a quarter […]
Philippe Bourseiller/Getty Images Reportage By Rowan Hooper IT IS the world’s biggest and oldest lake, dubbed the Galapagos of Russia thanks to the thousands of species found nowhere else on the planet. And right now, it is starting to freeze. Lake Baikal is 25 million years old and sits in a rift valley bigger than […]