This by ⁦Chris Giles⁩ is the clearest articulation I’ve read of what should happen with Thames Water. Very important for the model of privatised utilities in general that the owners go bust and do not receive a bailout.
on.ft.com/3JhGI5c

Snakebites kill between 80,000 and 140,000 people each year, ranking it among the deadliest of neglected tropical diseases, right next to typhus and cholera. In India alone, an estimated 46,000 die from snakebites.

The great thing about political fiction is that you can let your imagination run wild. Space colonisation, time travel, parallel universes – anything goes.
In my new paper, I'm imagining something even crazier: a future in which Britain builds houses.
🇬🇧🏡
iea.org.uk/publications/h…

The problem with monopolies is that they don’t make enough money 😔 economicforces.xyz/p/monopolies-d…

Check out these adverts for houses built in the 1930s (in the USA)

For centuries, the inner workings of plants have eluded us. Now, a wave of genome sequencing is revealing the genetic blueprints of countless species, paving the way for a new era of crop engineering.

Super fascinating story of artemisinin, one of the most life-saving antimalarial drugs.

Qinghao herbal leaves, containing artemisinin, had been described in Chinese scrolls in ~215 BCE, then rediscovered in a multidecade secret Chinese military project
asimov.press/p/antimalarial…

Amazing chart in new brilliant Tim Leunig post on creative arts degrees. They are bad value for the taxpayer AND the student.

Immigration is useful to help with the challenges of an ageing society. But some argue that we can forget about having any children at all – it doesn't matter because we can just replace the lost children with working-age foreigners. This thread explains why that won't work.

In 1762 two British naval ships captured a Spanish frigate carrying loot that would be worth £10 billion today if it was the same fraction of the economy. (They were given 30 years of wages as a reward.) terranullius.world/p/x-marks-the-…

New: How London can boost growth, cut rents and
cut emissions by making it easier to build in the right places.

London's housing shortage is brutal, but lessons from New Zealand and Texas show it's a solvable problem.

samdumitriu.com/p/how-to-get-l…

I shared some blogposts and articles that have influenced me with Matter.

“Common Knowledge, Recycling, Nuclear Power, Albion's Seed, Narrative Violations”

words.getmatter.com/p/sam-bowman

The fertility crisis puts the case for progress in a double bind

The productivity that makes technological progress valuable also makes raising children expensive

Sub-replacement fertility eventually stops economic growth, so progress is self defeating

maximum-progress.com/p/the-2nd-demo…

I realise you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover but this cover is absolutely stunning.

It really does look lovely! Now go and preorder it please geni.us/EIPBook