The taxpayer pays twice
Covid vaccines are the newest occupants of a strange category: drugs and treatments that taxpayers have paid to develop, and then pay to buy again from companies.
Why did India run short of vaccines?
For years, India made and exported more vaccines than any other country. Yet its vaccination drive against Covid-19, which began in early January 2021, stumbled and faltered.
The world’s most indispensable company
ASML, a Dutch company, sits at the heart of the $439 billion microchip industry. It makes the machines that make microchips. It’s difficult to think of another company anywhere that is simultaneously this important and yet this unknown to the public at large.
Hawking Hawking
In a new book, Charles Seife raises two vital questions. What is the nature of scientific fame? And why did Stephen Hawking, in particular, succeed in achieving it?
The democratic designs of J.B.S. Haldane
A story about an air-raid shelter designed by JBS Haldane holds evergreen truths about the tense relationship between science, government and capital. Those truths have only become apparent again during the coronavirus pandemic.
