Even if we never learn whether Covid-19 escaped from a lab or jumped to humans from animals, the public is entitled to a closer look at what’s going on in virology labs. Some scientists worry that laboratory scientists are getting too little oversight on projects that could potentially start pandemics. Others worry about the global proliferation of labs that work ...

On September 16, 2008, the day after Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy, the Reserve Primary Fund “broke the buck”: Its net asset value fell below $1 per share. The fund — often called the first money-market fund — held $785 million of Lehman commercial paper that was suddenly worthless. Although the paper represented only 1.2% of the fund’s total assets ...

To revitalise US science and technology with more government spending, it’s time to go big or go home. Tragically, it seems that both Congress and the Biden administration have decided to go home. Economists have been shouting their heads off about the productivity slowdown for more than a decade. Since around 2005, total factor productivity — the ultimate driver of ...