Several governments maintain permanent manned research stations on the continent. The number of people conducting and supporting scientific research and other work on the continent and its nearby islands varies from about 1,000 in winter to about 5,000 in the summer, giving it a population density between 70 and 350 inhabitants per million square kilometers (180 and 900 per million square miles)..
Each year, scientists from 28 different nations conduct experiments not reproducible in any other place in the world. In the summer more than 4,000 scientists operate research stations; this number decreases to just over 1,000 in the winter. McMurdo Station, which is the largest research station in Antarctica, is capable of housing more than 1,000 scientists, visitors, and tourists. Researchers ..
It has also managed to maintain the share of cash going to labor What does it take for an American industrial champion to succeed in an age of globalization and impatient investors? Some observers argue that it has become impossible. The world is just too nasty and unfair, they bleat. Perhaps they should take a look at Dow Chemical, a firm born in Michigan in 1897 that has hustled hard enough to..
Israel has become powerful and rich, but has not found peace with the Palestinians - nor with itself, says Anton La Guardia In the beginning they destroyed Egypt's air force on the ground and knocked out the planes of Jordan, Iraq and Syria. That was Monday. Then they broke Egypt's massive defences in Sinai. That was Tuesday. Next, they took the old city of Jerusalem and prayed. That was Wednesd..
Fresh scandals put the presidency in crisis, but not at risk of an impeachment The giant scandals that broke over Donald Trump's administration, between May 9th and 16th, carried such obvious parallels with the last time a Republican president was disgraced and chased from office that even stunned Republicans found themselves recalling it. The charges against Mr Trump were of a "Watergate size a..
The impulsiveness and shallowness of America's president threaten the economy as well as the rule of law Donald Trump rules over Washington as if he were a king and the White house his court. His displays of dominance, his need to be the center of attention and his impetuousness have a whiff of Henry VIII about them. Fortified by his belief that his extraordinary route to power is proof of the c..
By a landslide As remarkable is how well the country's conservatives did He was imprisoned for months for protesting, then as a student, against the dictatorship of Park Chung-hee in the 1970s. After millions demonstrated for the removal of Park Geun-hye, General Park's daughter, South Koreans voted on May 9th for that former student dissident, Moon Jae-in, to succeed her. Mr Moon has become Sou..
Mr Macron, who never previously stood for election, faces a divided country and heavy expectations After the most thrilling and tumultuous election campaign of recent times, the French have defied populism and made history. On May 7th they elected Emmanuel Macron, a 39-year-old former Socialist economy minister who has never fought an election campaign in his life, to be their next president. Ac..
Emmanuel Macron will probably win. But a catastrophic upset is possible Pundits are already looking beyond the French presidential run-off that will take place on May 7th. Emmanuel Macron, the young liberal favorite, is 20 points ahead in the polls. Talk has turned to the obstacles he might face in office. The party he founded, En Marche! ("On the Move!"), will probably not win a majority in the..
Political parroting is getting worse, thanks to research about how the brain responds to campaign messages When challenged by Jeremy Corbyn to explain stagnating wages, Theresa May demurred, instead reassuring underpaid employees that "the strong and stable leadership of the Conservatives" would revive the economy. When questioned by Andrew Marr, a television host, about raising taxes, Mrs May g..
The data economy demands a new approach to antitrust rules A new commodity spawns a lucrative, fast-growing industry, prompting antitrust regulators to step in to restrain those who control its flow. A century ago, the resource in question was oil. Now similar concerns are being raised by the giants that deal in data, the oil of the digital era. These titans - Alphabet (Google's parent company),..
A new type of biological engineering should speed up innovation The stuff of life comes wrapped in tiny bags called cells. Inside are DNA molecules that carry the instructions for how to run the cell, to make it grow, and to cause it, ultimately, to divide into two cells, if that is to be its fate. Messages made of a slightly different molecule, RNA, carry these instructions to molecular machine..
Their hostility is making the front-runner more hawkish Any excuse for a party. On April 25th North Korea celebrated the 85th anniversary of the founding of its glorious army. Ten days before its young despot, Kim Jong Un, had marked the 105th birthday of his grandfather, Kim Il Sung, the country's founder, with a vast military parade. Mr Kim loves fireworks, too. He set off a ballistic missile ..
Donald Trump grapples with his trickiest task North Korea can be as confusing as it is alarming. It is a hereditary Marxist monarchy. It has the world's youngest supreme leader and also its oldest. The reigning tyrant, Kim Jong Un, is in his 30s; and his grandfather, Kim Il Sung, is the "eternal president" despite having died in 1994. To celebrate grandpa Kim's birthday on April 15th, his grands..
Yi Sun-sin was a Korean naval commander, famed for his victories against the Japanese navy during the Imjin war in the Joseon Dynasty, and is well-respected for his exemplary conduct on and off the battlefield not only by Koreans, but by Japanese admirals as well. Military historians have placed General Yi Sun-sin on par with Admiral Horatio Nelson as arguably the greatest naval commander in his..