With its insults, lies, rancor and racism, this has been the most depressing election cycle of my lifetime. So it’s worth reminding ourselves that there’s plenty of good news for the U.S. of 2016, and that the good news probably far outweighs the bad. When historians look back on our era, the Hillary Clinton-Donald Trump campaign probably will be …

  A crumpled instant-noodle bowl ground into the mud is an unlikely symbol of economic vitality. But during China’s boom years those bowls were as ubiquitous around Chinese construction sites as the high-rise cranes above them. That was no accident. For millions of Chinese workers, instant noodles were the convenient meal of choice, available for a few cents in every …

  SpaceX CEO Elon Musk made a splash at the International Astronautical Conference in Mexico with his plans for an Interplanetary Transport System, along with a disturbingly inspirational ultimatum: “There are really two fundamental paths. One path is we stay on Earth forever and there will be some eventual extinction event… The alternative is to become a space-faring civilization and …