The Trillion-Dollar Storm: Will Hurricanes Drive Us Off The Coasts? As storms become more powerful and more damaging, will living on the coasts become simply impossible? Insurance companies might try to price you out before we find out.
Updated Tue Oct 4, 2011
Let Them Eat Ethanol And Cash How biofuels and speculation are driving food prices to scary new heights.
Updated Fri Sep 23, 2011
Let Them Eat ... What? High Food Commodity Prices Could Cause A Global Revolution New evidence suggests the Arab Spring wasn't caused by the slow boiling of political grievances, but by a sudden rise in food prices. Next year, prices will soar even higher.
Updated Tue Aug 30, 2011
How The Arab Spring Paved The Way For A Double-Dip Recession, And Why It Might Prevent The Next One Oil prices--which spiked during the start of revolts around the Middle East--have now come down due to low demand and a sluggish economy. Will the extra oil produced once the area calms down be enough to save the economy?
Updated Thu Aug 25, 2011
Size Matters: How An Expanded Panama Canal Will Keep China In Business New renovations will let even "Post-Panamax" ships cross the isthmus, altering the economics of global shipping to the advantage of countries that produce cheap goods for the developed world.
Updated Tue Aug 23, 2011
If No One Wants Them, Where Do We Resettle The World's Refugees? The droughts in Somalia are creating the latest refugee crisis. At the same time, Western countries are clamping down on asylum claims. But a new type of city could house refugees and give them a chance to form their own economies.
Updated Thu Aug 18, 2011
Only 3% Of What You Buy Is Made In China, But It's The Most Important 3% When we outsourced manufacturing to China and Japan and Taiwan, we may have lost something far more important than low-wage jobs. We may have lost the ability to innovate and grow.
Updated Tue Aug 16, 2011
The Bin Laden Raid Could Transform Asia's 21st Century Arms Race How a split-second stall in a top-secret chopper could lead to a new-and-improved Chinese stealth fighter and greatly alter the international arms race--in four easy steps.
Updated Mon Aug 15, 2011
The First Bank of Blizzard: Are Virtual Currencies The Next Safe Havens? Now that a major online role-playing company has effectively created a functioning market for in-game currencies, gold farming is going to become a viable part of the global economy.
Updated Thu Aug 11, 2011
Bluefinger: The Race To Freeze Or Breed Bluefin Tuna Before Extinction Bluefin--the most prized of all tunas--are quickly going extinct. The tsunami may have set back plans to keep toro refrigerated for future sushi lovers, but fish farmers are close to a breakthrough.
Updated Tue Aug 9, 2011
IBM Partners With Portland To Play SimCity For Real The Oregon city is the first to use IBM's app to help cities figure out how policy can affect the lives of their citizens. But can any algorithm quantify the whole experience of city living?
Updated Mon Aug 8, 2011
Move To The City, Save The Rainforest That the world's population is cramming into cities at a rapid pace has countless environmental benefits. A big one is that as people urbanize, we chop down fewer trees.
Updated Fri Aug 5, 2011
The DIY Terminator: Private Robot Armies And The Algorithm-Run Future Of War In the latest installment of the Butterfly Effect: Predator drones are just the start of unmanned, autonomous warfare technology. But as the tech becomes more democratized and more deadly, what happens when anyone can assemble an army of killing machines?
Updated Mon Aug 1, 2011
With Americans Coming Around To Soccer, Is U.S. Domination Around The Corner? In the latest installment of the Butterfly Effect, we look at what might happen if interest in soccer continues to grow: TV deals, a World Cup victory, and the American Dirk Nowitzki.
Updated Wed Jul 27, 2011
The Bacon Uprising: How China's Top-Secret Strategic Pork Reserve Is Burning Down The Amazon In the latest installment of the Butterfly Effect: The Chinese middle class is eating more and more meat, and Beijing wants to keep prices low. That means finding a way to feed all those pigs with grain imported from land cut from the Brazilian rainforest, leading to conflict within the BRICs.
Updated Mon Jul 18, 2011
China's Cell Phone Pirates Are Bringing Down Middle Eastern Governments In the latest installment of Butterfly Effect, we examine China's cheap knockoff cell phones. After being forced out of China and India, Chinese counterfeiters brought their product to the Middle East, where the sudden availability of information had unintended consequences for the region--and for China itself.
Updated Tue Jul 5, 2011
The Rush To Electric Cars Will Replace Oil Barons With Lithium Dictators In the latest installment of the Butterfly Effect we look at how mining the key ingredient in electric cars could end up enriching potential enemies of America, and force another round of innovation to build an even newer kind of battery.
Updated Thu Jun 30, 2011
Arab Air: How The Middle East Is Rewiring Our Friendly Skies One new hub of global air travel is in the Middle East.
Updated Wed Jun 29, 2011
Melting Arctic Ice And The Fight On Top Of The World In this installment of the Butterfly Effect, climate change is creating incredible economic opportunity in the Arctic, leading to saber rattling from Canada and Russia. Whichever region benefits the most will have enormous geopolitical consequences.
Updated Thu Jun 23, 2011
How Google's Robot Cars Will Revive Sprawl In the latest installment of Butterfly Effect, we examine Google's autonomous vehicles, seemingly a vision of the future--they'll potentially make commuting a dream and maybe even help kill the Big Three. But for those same reasons, it has the potential to set us back by revitalizing suburbs and damaging the economy. Here's how.
Updated Thu Jun 9, 2011
