Farmers evaluating traits of wheat varieties in Ethiopia.
Credit: J.van de Gevel/Bioversity International

The sixth mass extinction of global wildlife already under way is seriously threatening the world’s food supplies, according to experts. (emphasis added) “Huge proportions of the plant and animal species that form the foundation of our food supply are just as endangered [as wildlife] and are getting almost no attention,” said Ann Tutwiler, director general of Bioversity International, a research group that published a new report on Tuesday. “If there is one thing we cannot allow to become extinct, it is the species that provide the food that sustains each and every one of the seven billion people on our planet,” she said in an article for the Guardian. “This ‘agrobiodiversity’ is a precious resource that we are losing, and yet it can also help solve or mitigate many challenges the world is facing. It has a critical yet overlooked role in helping us improve global nutrition, reduce our impact on the environment and adapt to climate change.”

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Credit: Shutterstock

Modern-day inventors – even those in the league of Steve Jobs – will have a tough time measuring up to the productivity of the Thomas Edisons of the past.

That’s because big ideas are getting harder and harder to find, and innovations have become increasingly massive and costly endeavors, according to new research from economists at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research. (emphasis added)

As a result, tremendous continual increases in research and development will be needed to sustain even today’s low rate of economic growth.

Nicholas Bloom, a SIEPR senior fellow and co-author of a paperreleased this week by the National Bureau of Economic Research, contends that so many game-changing inventions have appeared since World War II that it’s become increasingly difficult to come up with the next big idea.

“The thought now of somebody inventing something as revolutionary as the locomotive on […]

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Alabama Republican senatorial candidate Roy Moore
Credit: The Huffington Post

Alabama firebrand Roy Moore has dealt a huge blow to the Republican leadership by winning the party’s nomination for the Senate.

The controversial lawyer has made headlines for a series of incendiary remarks over the years, but beat his Washington-backed opponent with ease.

Here’s a round-up of some of his more extreme beliefs, with some analysis from the BBC’s Anthony Zurcher on why it all matters.

1. Homosexuality should be illegal

He has likened it to bestiality, and called it “abhorrent, immoral, detestable, a crime against nature, and a violation of the laws of nature and of nature’s God upon which this nation and our laws are predicated”. His refusal to issue marriage certificates to gay couples cost him his place on the bench for a second time.

2. God’s wrath is felt on Earth

Moore has suggested that the 11 September 2001 attacks against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were a sign of God’s divine anger. “Sounds a little bit like the Pentagon” […]

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