The medical world may be on the verge of a major breakthrough on par with the discovery of penicillin. As profiled in this NYT piece, a number of Silicon Valley companies and entrepreneurs are looking to lower the price of genome sequencing to the point that it will be within reach of the average consumer (below $1,000)—a […]

The attention being given to the defection of Syria’s deputy oil minister is part of a pattern: Journalists, especially in the West, let their (justified) sympathy for the Syrian revolt get the better of their judgement.In this case, the media is describing this deputy oil minister as “a top official” and his decision to join […]

Growth is down in Latin America’s largest economy and nervous, shell shocked Brazilians are crossing their fingers that their economy isn’t still stuck in its historic trap of commodity-dependence and high inflation.Brazil, which grew 2.7 percent last year, isn’t the only emerging economy to slow down in the wake of decelerating growth across the developed […]

The Onion, the satirical paper of record, has a clever twist on the contraceptive debate in the form of a breathless report entitled “Vatican Dispatches Elite Team Of Bishops To Sabotage Contraceptive Manufacturer“: Anonymous sources within the Vatican confirmed Tuesday that Pope Benedict XVI has dispatched a crack team of six highly skilled bishops to […]

Washington State’s Senate passed a budget proposal last week, but that’s not the big news. The really surprising thing, noted by this Seattle Times editorial, is that it was pushed through by the Republican minority with the help of three Democrats who deserted their own party lines.Washington state’s budget woes will sound familiar to Via Meadia […]

For years, we’ve heard that video games are guilty of creating a generation of inattentive and violent youth wasting away their time on mindless entertainment. Yet a wave of new studies has thrown cold water on that theory and drawn some conclusions about the benefits of gaming. While the findings of the studies are mixed, […]

China’s foreign minister, Yang Jiechi, gave a lengthy interview to the international press on the sidelines of the Chinese legislature’s annual meeting. Here are the highlights as Via Meadia‘s sees it: China continues to have a low-key response to Washington’s “pivot to Asia.” There have been no threats from Beijing, and to our knowledge no important official […]

A few months ago, Via Meadia commented on a story developing out in Adelanto, California, one of the newest battlefields where the blue model finds itself under attack. The parents of students at Desert Trails Elementary are seeking to invoke a “trigger law” allowing them to take direct control of the school.Desert Trails has posted dismal […]

The consensus surrounding Syria has been that President Bashar al-Assad was on the defensive, but at least one U.S. general disagrees with that assessment. Marine General James Mattis—who is head of U.S. Central Command—said that with Assad gaining “momentum” on the battlefield, the situation will “get worse before it gets better” and that he expects […]

We’ve grown used to thinking of the developing world as a region beset by insurmountable poverty and strife, but the truth is that sometimes there’s good news too. A new report cited in the New York Times claims that the past few years have in fact been very kind to developing countries. Economists have been […]