The result of the Brexit referendum would also have been different if the myriad versions of Brexit (modelled on Australia, Norway, Switzerland and so on) had been pitted against Remain and each other. Opposition to the EU would have been fragmented among many alternatives.

Most election pundits lavish vast attention on the political creatures in the competition and the prizes they might win. But Carroll was different. A mathematician and logician, he turned his eccentric intelligence to the rules of the race.

Restaurants have little choice but to continue to adapt. That means moving still further from the utilitarian model of the 18th century and before, and instead doubling down on what they do best: offering those who need to eat a taste of romance, glamour and love.

In recent weeks global restaurant reservations have been near their pre-pandemic levels. The best ones are booked up for months: Silicon Valley nerds have created automated bots which instantly reserve tables.

The upshot was that the people with the most money to spend on dining out increasingly needed it most, since they had the least free time.

The third factor was changing working patterns.

The second factor was the changing microeconomics of the family.

The first is immigration.

Dining out became relatively more expensive: in America in 1930 a restaurant meal was 25% costlier than an equivalent meal at home, but by 2014 the gap had risen to 280%.

Eating out became less of a communal activity focused on calorie intake and more of a cultural experience—and a place, as Baudelaire wrote, where people could show off their wealth by ordering more food than they could eat and drinking more than they needed.

Out went the set menu of the table d'hôte; in came the à la carte kind.

Until the 18th century elites largely viewed public spaces as dirty and dangerous, or as an arena of spectacle. But as capitalism took off, public spaces became sites of rational dialogue which were (putatively) open to all.

counted 158 snack bars in Pompeii, a city destroyed by a volcano in 79AD—one for every 60-100 people, a higher ratio than many global cities today

Being deprived of restaurants has made people realise how much they value them.

Americans were, for the first time, spending more than half their total food budget on eating out.

Laughter, as much as courage, will sustain astronauts on their long quest to Mars.

to understand each member of the group and defuse tensions.

the clown

needs people to fulfil various roles, including leader, storyteller and social secretary.

is the preciousness of one trait in particular: a sense of humour.

good communication and an ability to adjust are critical.

First is the need for routines, not just for work but for cooking or downtime, too.

Equipped with such information, Dr Contractor’s team is trying to come up with ways to mitigate problems, including by tweaking the “playbook” given to crew members.

such as creative thinking and problem-solving, tend to decline about halfway through a mission.

That person can critique others’ work without crossing lines—lines which each crew member may define differently.

Avoiding conflict can discourage the creative friction that can generate new or better ideas. Conflict associated with tasks is different from that associated with personalities. Conflict over ideas can be helpful. But when conflicts get personal, things can get ugly.

Dr Contractor calls HERA the “ultimate human Petri dish”.

Meteorologists turned to computers in the 1950s; social scientists began computerising “human factors” a decade ago.

But Dr Contractor likens his work to weather-forecasting. Weather is a complex, non-linear interaction of factors including air temperature, pressure and wind speed.

Its researchers are creating computer models of how different people interact when confined together, and using those models to predict conflict and optimise performance over a long mission.

As the Mars crew ventures deeper into space, gaps in their communications with mission control will grow to 20 minutes or more; crews will need to be able to co-operate without support to solve unforeseen problems.

A voyage to Mars will probably be an 18-month round trip in a spacecraft no larger than a small house, as well as perhaps a year spent on the planet.

“narcissism, arrogance and interpersonal insensitivity”.

Flexitarianism—eating less meat rather than refraining from it entirely—will probably drive demand for meat-free products more than strict veganism, especially if companies succeed in producing steaks and pork chops in labs, without any involvement from animals.

The global food system currently accounts for 21-37% of human emissions.

Between 2019 and 2020 total sales of plant-based food in America increased by 27%, to $7bn.

Almond milk—which records suggest was first used in Europe during Lent in the 13th century—and its newer competitor, oat milk, are both growing in popularity.

They are part of a machine, developed by Redefine Meat, an Israeli startup, that can print a steak made entirely of plant-based ingredients.

Faithfully recording that cacophony, and trying to extract some sense from it, is the foreign correspondent’s job, at every latitude.

Foreign affairs more closely resemble a noisy, ceaseless family argument that outsiders can never fully understand.

human beings are overwhelmingly interested by their own societies.

Regional generalisations suggest some larger truths about human nature.

“Get Back”

The highest-performing teams derive the greatest satisfaction not from each other, but from the work they do together.

When they are not playing music, they are talking about it or thinking about it.

The Beatles love what they do for a living.

the combination of a deadline and autonomy yields remarkable results.

“specific, challenging and attainable”.

in 2016 called Project Aristotle,

when and how to let it be.

the importance of “renewal”, the habit of keeping staleness at bay by taking risks, by learning from others and by innovating.

with characteristics such as sensitivity and how good teams are at giving everyone time to speak.

But musically, nothing works without him, and as a team member he softens conflict and bridges divides.

that propolis serves as more than just a building and embalming material. This evidence indicates that it also has antimicrobial properties which help bees fend off a range of dangerous diseases, including American foulbrood, a bacterial infection, and chalkbrood and nosemosis, which are caused by fungi.

But if the engineering works, and can indeed be scaled up, ship’s propellers may one day look as old-fashioned as sails.

the necessary compromise between stiffness and flexibility.

Submarines are often detected by the noise they make, much of which comes from the propeller and the shaft driving it.

Velox can travel on the surface, underwater, and also across mud or ice, with its fins then acting in the manner of a pair of robotic caterpillars.

That means they can get big enough to push a lot more water around.

Fins have thus become evolution’s go-to accoutrement for marine propulsion.

But the bigger a propeller is, the harder it is to accommodate to a hull and the more it risks adding to a ship’s draft and thus snagging the seabed.

You’re signed up

Can H1 and Meta title be exactly the same ?

China is seen as a disrupter of the rules-based order: willing to use instruments of commerce and diplomatic intercourse as weapons, even as Chinese leaders talk up multilateralism and free trade.

needs more “win-win” co-operation

Which is The Economist’s country of the year for 2021?

The pandemic is like a doorway. Once you pass through, there is no going back.

Many people like to work from home. Remote services can be cheaper and more accessible. The rapid dissemination of technology could bring unimagined advances in medicine and the mitigation of global warming.

Likewise, in a world that is grappling with global warming, countries that have everything to gain from working together continually fall short. Even under the most optimistic scenarios, the accumulation of long-lasting greenhouse gases in the atmosphere means that extreme and unprecedented weather of the kind seen during 2021 is here to stay.

For its part, China, which has recorded fewer than 6,000 deaths, no longer bothers to hide its disdain for America, with its huge death toll. In mid-December this officially passed 800,000 (estimates the full total to be almost 1m).

Amid a burst of innovation around cryptocoins, central-bank digital currencies and fintech, many outcomes are possible.

new technologies become routine in a matter of years.

Remote shopping, working from home and the Zoom boom were once the future. In the time of covid they rapidly became as much of a chore as picking up the groceries or the daily commute.

the world’s predictable unpredictability.

What deserves to be cancelled in 2022?

Best practices for writing descriptive <title> elements

Treasury officials are, however, keeping cautious eyes on Estonia, which was one of the final EU holdouts over the OECD deal amid concerns that it could complicate its tax code.

France is also determined to use its incoming six-month Council presidency for legislative talks to agree on a new tax by April.

Their size and ability to operate across the globe without setting up a physical shop have allowed them to make billions while paying very little to tax authorities.

Another part of the global tax deal would see the world’s largest companies divvy up part of their annual tax receipts by country, based on where these firms have customers.

The OECD package deal includes a levy on the world’s 100 biggest companies, which the Commission on Wednesday said could help pay back the debt the EU raised to finance its €800 billion recovery fund.

Failure to get the bill through Capitol Hill could spell disaster for the global agreement, which is designed to obliterate tax havens and ensure multinational firms pay their fair dues. The efforts are expected to become law in more than 130 countries by 2024.

consumes more energy than traditional systems,

Instead of proprietary systems built by a handful of incumbents, OpenRAN offers new suppliers, both large and small, the opportunity to get into the mobile-infrastructure market.

do not work in cities

OpenRAN provides a way to depoliticise the roll-out of 5G.

The open architecture makes it easy to respond to any problems by switching out software or hardware. Our network has no black boxes.

No single vendor controls the system. Our supply chain is transparent

OpenRAN networks are safer and more secure than proprietary technology

OpenRAN networks cost less to run because many of the proprietary infrastructure components are replaced by software,

The first is lower costs: in our experience, a reduction of 30-40% in capital expenditure and operating costs for 4G networks, and as much as 50% for 5G networks.

OpenRAN networks are completely different: they are software-driven, based on open standards and run in the cloud on commercial, off-the-shelf servers.

one reminiscent of the way personal computers replaced mainframes in the 1980s, and cloud-based apps are replacing traditional software today.

“There is a clear role for UK aid to play in supporting the ‘global south’ during the pandemic and against climate change, but instead the government is chasing colonial post-Brexit fantasies.

But NGOs, already furious at the government’s slashing of the aid budget from 0.7% to 0.5% of gross national income, have condemned not only the rhetoric but also the practical changes to the way in which British aid is spent.

while drawing them closer towards free-market democracies and building a network of liberty across the world”.

Observers said the implicit message was that the government sees BII as offering an alternative to loans from China, which is estimated to have lent about $1.5tn (£1.1tn) in direct loans and trade credits to more than 150 countries around the globe.

their organizations for deep uncertainty and complex futures.

Senegalese President Macky Sall should leverage his upcoming presidency of the African Union to promote ECD.

These conferences should emphasize incremental reforms capable of crafting solid, low-cost, and highly efficient ECD systems

Achieving successes in African ECD requires preparation, strategic reflection, and well-designed roadmaps.

The success of high-level visits will be judged by the number or value of contracts signed by a country’s companies, which would be a more revealing indicator of dynamism than the amount of bilateral loans signed.

ECD should be considered a strategic tool for developing SMEs and become a key element of their political agenda.

Their commercial influence is underpinned by a strong interweaving among the commercial sections of their embassies, trade ministries, business associations, and various other national institutions.

Some developing countries, such as Cambodia, have also embraced the practice.

They often lack a proactive and systematic approach, suffer from poor operational integration, and do not cultivate a culture of results.

They often have commercial attachés in key embassies, and they sometimes encourage their SMEs to attend trade fairs abroad in order to promote their products and services.

Some African countries are already implementing ECD by mobilizing national public institutions and their diplomatic network to create opportunities

This scenario is feasible if policies aimed at controlling the health crisis are combined with government initiatives concentrating all the resources of economic and commercial diplomacy (or ECD) to help SMEs.

a high concentration of exports around a few products, mostly raw materials.

Exports plunged 19 percent in 2020, versus a 12-, 7-, and 5-percent drop for North and Latin America, Europe, and Asia, respectively, while recovery in Africa has not been as strong as on other continents.

African small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) employ 70 to 90 percent of the workforce and are called upon to play a major role in absorbing the hundreds of millions of young Africans who will arrive on the market by 2050.

The council is an independent body, established under the federal government and the Bundestag, and provides advice on legal, ethical, social and scientific issues in Germany.

“only be justified if it is able to mitigate or prevent serious negative consequences of possible future pandemic waves.”

but US airports are forerunners in normalizing its use in public spaces and interactions with the government.

The technology is banned in some places but increasingly normalized in others. That’s likely to continue, because face recognition is unregulated in most of the US, as there’s no federal law covering the technology.

Kissinger’s success was in taking Egypt out of the conflict with Israel.

he introduced a so-called step-by-step approach, which was designed to buy Israel time—time to strengthen itself with American support, and time for the Arabs to exhaust themselves until they would come to accept Israel. And Israel would be strong enough to make the ultimate territorial concessions that could eventually lead to peace.

he introduced a so-called step-by-step approach, which was designed to buy Israel time—time to strengthen itself with American support, and time for the Arabs to exhaust themselves until they would come to accept Israel. And Israel would be strong enough to make the ultimate territorial concessions that could eventually lead to peace.

The DSL and PIPL will make it substantially harder for existing businesses to continue operating with the same degree of autonomy they had enjoyed in the past, and may create steep barriers for new players hoping to enter China’s tech market.

Neither the DSL nor PIPL constrains data collection by China’s state security apparatus – only internet and data companies.

Through Article 7 of China’s National Intelligence Law, Article 77 of the National Security Law, and Article 28 of the Cybersecurity Law, the government is able to deputize internet companies to assist with intelligence gathering.

using these data governance regulations to reassert control.

whether the new regulations will actually apply to China’s “national AI champions,”

In September the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) announced a three-year plan to regulate predictive algorithms, and Chinese companies scrambled to comply with new regulations. News of the plan came on the heels of two other stringent policies – the Data Security Law (DSL) and Personal Information Protection Law (PIPL) – which were passed earlier this year and came into full effect in November.

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a common asset to all humankind.

even more complicated because of the entrance of these new private actors

crowded outer space arena

to small companies and researchers by reducing the cost of access to space and new technologies for exploiting outer space.

Hundreds of these small and nano satellites

India’s Bellatrix

Rocket Lab and Astra, both of which are seeking to make space more accessible to smaller entities such as small private space companies and universities and researchers. R

Virgin Galactic,

Blue Origin

SpaceX,

making space tourism a reality

more than 10,000 private space tech companies

the areas of satellite launches, satellite manufacturing, propulsion technologies, and space-based services.

the rise of private space actors

the rise of private space actors.

And, a 2015 study at St. Lawrence University found that a cluttered bedroom goes hand in hand with a poor night’s sleep.

the Standard Model is not a complete description of the universe—it does not account for dark energy or dark matter, and cannot explain why there seems to be more matter than antimatter in the universe.

the Higgs was the final piece of the jigsaw known as the Standard Model of particle physics, a quantum-mechanical description of all known elementary particles.

will be to measure the properties of the Higgs boson in more detail.

the next set of physics operations—known as Run 3—will begin in March 2022.

By smashing protons together at nearly the speed of light and sorting through the mess of particles created in the collisions, physicists try to probe the building blocks of matter.

to “record the greatest timelapse of the universe ever made”.

Amazon is developing a similar project called Kuiper, though it has yet to launch any satellites.

OneWeb, a rival which emerged from bankruptcy in November 2020, plans to fly 648 satellites of its own.

Some high-frequency traders reckon Starlink might offer a faster way for buy and sell orders to cross the Atlantic than existing fibre-optic cables do.

And because they fly in much lower orbits, communication delays will be reduced too. Mr Musk says Starlink’s goal is to bring broadband to the unserved—those in poor countries, in remote parts of rich ones, in the air and at sea.

The result is that satellite internet is usually treated as a last resort when nothing else is available.

It plans to fill the skies with at least 10,000 low-flying satellites, or around four times as many as are currently active and in orbit. “Starlink”, as the service is known, was due to come out of its beta-testing phase in October.

Until now SpaceX has financed itself by providing rocket launches for NASA, on whose behalf it ferries both cargo and astronauts to the International Space Station, and by launching satellites for private companies such as broadcasters and telecoms firms.

Mr Musk would like to change that by establishing a permanent base on Mars

The perceived threat from China will also push India to use its space programme for military messaging and other “purposes of foreign policy”, predicts Ajey Lele, an expert at MP-IDSA, a think-tank in Delhi funded by the defence ministry.

the success of a big expansion of Russia’s Vostochny Cosmodrome in 2022 has become, he says, “a question of credibility”.

Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic (founded by Jeff Bezos and Sir Richard Branson respectively) both made their maiden suborbital flights in 2021

Countries planning to launch lunar craft in 2022 include India, Japan, Russia and South Korea. NASA, America’s space agency, is sponsoring an astonishing 18 missions in 2022, as it paves the way for a return to the Moon by astronauts as part of a lunar programme called Artemis. Thales Alenia Space, a Franco-Italian firm, is expected to deliver the shell of Gateway, a space station to be put in lunar orbit, to America in late 2022.

a European Space Agency (ESA) probe due to blast off, in mid-2022, for Jupiter’s icy moons.

mRNA drugs could be used for individualised cancer therapies, regenerative medicine, and for a wide variety of diseases such as allergies, autoimmune conditions and inflammatory diseases.

The pandemic has forced people to work better together. Recently initiated projects have seen a high degree of co-operation between institutions such as the World Health Organisation, international regulatory authorities and funding organisations, supported by experts who have been researching the pathogens of interest for more than 30 years. The first mRNA-vaccine candidates for these diseases are expected to enter clinical trials in 2022 and 2023.

The greatest risk to this more optimistic outlook is the emergence of a new variant capable of evading the protection provided by existing vaccines. The coronavirus remains a formidable foe.

The “last mile” problem of vaccine delivery will become painfully apparent as health workers carry vaccines into the planet’s poorest and most remote places.

one of the world’s largest charities, predicts that average incomes will return to their pre-pandemic levels in 90% of advanced economies, compared with only a third of low- and middle-income economies.

Only the Bahamas, a Caribbean nation, and a few of its southern neighbours (St Kitts and Nevis, Antigua and Barbuda, St Lucia and Grenada) have issued a “live” CBDC.

As governments attempt to use stimulus money to reshape the chip supply chain, they will be trying to grab a beast in the midst of transformation.

the blueprints underlying chip designs are published under open-source licences, available for anyone to use.

One important tactic will be the development of more advanced ways of combining and connecting already-made chips, rather than simply pushing to etch individual chips with ever smaller (and thus faster) features.

for this expansion on their soil.

Car manufacturers lost out, having cancelled their chip orders early on in the pandemic only to find themselves at the back of the queue when demand for cars rebounded. As a result, in 2022 chipmakers will still be working overtime to expand supply.

So the contest to be the best regulator in tech is as yet undecided, and highly competitive. It is good to see competition regulators practising what they preach.

Its researchers have published some of the best studies of the market for digital advertising. The CMA also boasts a Data, Technology and Analytics team, which consistently recruits data scientists in order to close the wide knowledge gap between tech titans and their regulators.

The government is working on new regulation, to be passed in 2022, that would empower the DMU, like Germany’s FCO, to give tech firms “strategic market status” and require them to follow stricter rules.

is Germany. Andreas Mundt, who heads the country’s Federal Cartel Office (FCO), has turned his agency into a pioneer of tech regulation, in particular by going after Facebook’s data-harvesting practices.

As in other policy fields, authorities in Beijing have taken more than one page from the EU’s book. Yet enforcement comes with Chinese characteristics.

The main criticism is that the DMA applies the same rules to all tech titans despite the fact that their businesses, and their competition problems, differ.

Its executive branch, the European Commission, had just introduced the Digital Markets Act (DMA), the first law aimed at regulating big tech “ex ante”—that is, constraining firms’ behaviour upfront, rather than punishing them after the fact with antitrust cases.

While lawsuits drag on (and often end with not much to show for all the effort), 2022 will be the year when the world’s parliaments and regulators start to pass substantial rules to govern the tech industry.

educating employees to be wary of suspicious emails; keeping software up to date; and backing up data. That sort of prosaic cultural change is not as sexy as cyber-retaliation or as satisfying as a ransom ban, but it is the only solution in the long term.

A more useful approach would be demanding that companies report both breaches and ransom payments, forcing the issue into the open.

some cyber-ransoms are even tax deductible.

banning digital ransoms entirely, in the same way that many countries criminalise the payment of terrorist ransoms for kidnapping

More than a third of senior executives surveyed in March 2021 by Munich Re, a reinsurer, are considering taking out a cyber-insurance policy, which pays out for ransomware-related losses.