The story of stuff and how it's currently being played out between the political economies of China and the US (G2 'Chimerica') in an illuminating Fallows vs. Ferguson cage match. [more inside]
posted by kliuless on Jul 19, 2009 - 5 comments

The New Kaldor Facts: Ideas, Institutions, Population, and Human Capital [pdf] - "For now, we think that progress is likely to be most rapid if we follow the example of the neoclassical model and treat institutions the way the neoclassical model treated technology... Further out on the horizon, one may hope for a successful conclusion to the ongoing hunt for a simple model [1] of institutional evolution. Combining that with the unified approach to growth outlined here would surely constitute the economics equivalent of a grand unified theory..." [2, viz. previously] This might, as it were, be a subset of collective cognition (or, possibly, autism [3]).
posted by kliuless on Jul 14, 2009 - 9 comments

"Angiogenesis is critical for tumors to grow beyond a few millimeters, and for cancer to metastasize to other parts of the body. Cancer cells use the blood vessels as conduits to other areas of the body, where a single cell can set up camp and begin forming a new tumor. Stop angiogenesis, and you stop cancer." (via) [more inside]
posted by monospace on Apr 17, 2009 - 35 comments

John Pfaff. Five Myths about Prison Growth.
posted by wittgenstein on Feb 21, 2009 - 36 comments

In 1972 the Club of Rome published the famous book Limits to Growth that predicted exponential growth would eventually lead to economic and environmental collapse. It was criticized by economists and largely ignored by politicians. Now Graham Turner at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) in Australia has compared the book's predictions with data from the intervening years. According to Turner (PDF report) changes in industrial production, food production and pollution are all in line with the book's predictions of collapse in the 21st century. According to the book, the path we have taken will cause decreasing resource availability and an escalating cost of extraction that triggers a slowdown of industry, which eventually results in economic collapse some time after 2020.(via; previously; previously)
posted by stbalbach on Nov 23, 2008 - 80 comments

On Growth and Form (1917) was D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson's pioneering effort to explore the mathematical principles that underlie biological form. He studied the similarity between the shapes of a jellyfish and a drop of ink, a splash and a hydroid, between dragonfly wings and bubble froth, the growth of radiolaria and snowflakes, the spirals of nautilus and mollusk shells and sheep horns. More recently, Adrian Bejan's Constructal Theory aims to explain all biological shape from one thermodynamic principle. This month there is an interview with Bejan for the layman. [more inside]
posted by twoleftfeet on Nov 13, 2008 - 16 comments

"If I make enough money now, I can quit and do what I really love later." "If I just think hard enough, I'll finally figure out what I want to do with my life." "I know people in this career path lose their souls, but I'll be different." "What if I try a new career, and it turns out I don't like it?" Po Bronson tackles some of the thoughts that keep people from pursuing a career they would really love. The article (one-page version) is based on his New York Times bestseller, What Should I Do With My Life? The writing is several years old, but the question seems to spring eternal.
posted by vytae on Jun 26, 2008 - 195 comments

Spread of Prosperity Brings Supply Woes: Slaking China's Thirst Malthusian catastrophe does appear to be at hand, as foreseen by the Club of Rome in 1972 publication of "The Limits of Growth"
posted by sjjh on Mar 25, 2008 - 30 comments

Did Vladimir Putin really turn around Russia's economy? Washington Post's Fred Hyatt attempts to refute the conventional wisdom that Putin was responsible for Russia's turnaround from the economic instability of the "disastrous" 90s by offering a thorough counter argument to prove that Putin's effect on the economy was just the reverse. [more inside]
posted by gregb1007 on Jan 18, 2008 - 26 comments

“The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function.” (RealVideo) Al Bartlett, retired University of Colorado Professor of Physics, gives a stunning hour-long old-school lecture (overhead projector!) on exponential growth and its inevitable results. [more inside]
posted by Bora Horza Gobuchul on Nov 20, 2007 - 83 comments

"The model of economic development that we are currently pursuing is unsustainable. Our energy consumption per unit of GDP is seven times that of Japan, six times that of America, and even 2.8 times that of India. China’s labour productivity is less than 10 per cent of the world total, and yet our emissions are over 10 times higher than the global average." ~ Pan Yue - deputy director of China's State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA). Part of a new generation of outspoken Chinese senior officials, Pan has given rise to a tide of environmental debate, attracting enormous attention and controversy. Read his articles here : - China: economic powerhouse, environmentally unsustainable - part one and part two
posted by infini on Jul 29, 2007 - 34 comments

How much is too much? Here in Manhattan I can choose from exactly 197 Starbucks locations. Currently Starbucks continues to open 5 new stores a day. Its nice to have choices, but is anything sacred anymore? Hell, even National Slow Down Week (courtesy of Adbusters.org) has coffee in the picture.
posted by allkindsoftime on Jan 19, 2007 - 163 comments

Tomorrow morning at 7:46am, the US Population Clock will hit 300 million. As the world population continues to grow at a similar rate to ours, perhaps its time to start asking some questions. After all, if you can read this post, chances are you don't live in Africa, where "more than 2,500 children are dying each day," simply for lack of access to fresh drinking water. Its so easy not to worry about when you're not the 1 in 5 who can't get a clean drink. But there's lots of ways you can help.
posted by allkindsoftime on Oct 16, 2006 - 39 comments

State of the World 2006 , an annual research report prepared by the Worldwatch Institute, has just been released, with a special focus on China and India. Although Limits to Growth type predictions have had their critics, many of the stats and projections presented have a certain brutal inevitability about them.
posted by wilful on Feb 12, 2006 - 14 comments

Womans flesh grows over her wedding ring via waxylinks
posted by bob sarabia on Aug 30, 2004 - 38 comments

Boom! A master planned community. Boom! A big-box mall! Our Sprawling, Supersize Utopia. This article, by New York Times columnist David Brooks, takes a look at exploding suburbs and exurban migration. This migration is nothing new, author Joel Garreau wrote extensively about it in his 1991 book Edge Cities. The phenomonon really took off after World War II, during the period of post war prosperity, and is best represented by this famous postwar American suburb. A veritable army of "suburban sprawl critics" has emerged over the years including Jane Jacobs and James Howard Knunstler plus many others including some who are predicting the immenent demise of suburbs because of oil depletion. For Brooks the critics of suburbs "just regurgitate the same critiques decade after decade, regardless of the suburban reality flowering around them" but you can't dismiss what the architect Paolo Soleri says about American society that "we have a society that is moving very rapidly to the super-, super-, super-consumptive."
posted by thedailygrowl on Apr 30, 2004 - 28 comments

U.S. job growth strongest in 4 years in March. Non-farm payrolls climbed 308,000 in March, the Labor Department said, the biggest gain since April 2000. However, the unemployment rate actually ticked upward from 5.6%, the two-year low seen in January and February, to 5.7% in March. Note in passing that this took place during the Bush administration!
posted by msacheson on Apr 2, 2004 - 67 comments

Employing a rather breath-taking counter, Netsizer claims to track the growth of the internet (users and hosts) in real time based on a methodology briefly and unsatisfyingly explained here. According to Netsizer the number of internet users already tops 800 million, but the Cyber Atlas is projecting 700-950 million users in 2004. Does anybody really know what's going on?
posted by taz on Sep 1, 2002 - 7 comments

Make way for the Mormons :) Reports of religions' demise have been greatly exaggerated. The Economist reports, "[w]ithin four decades, one in 20 Americans may be a Mormon and there may be 50m or more worldwide. How will outsiders react to the next world religion?" Minivans, trampolines and canned food, hooray!
posted by kliuless on Feb 13, 2002 - 29 comments

Washington DC Metro Popularity is Possible Problem as physical limitations may hinder expansion and usability in future years.
posted by vanderwal on Mar 26, 2001 - 7 comments