Mortality Trends

We read mostly bad news in the newspapers today. Here is a really gratifying chart from The Economist about mortality trends and their decline over the past 40 years.

The decline in mortality is greatest in low income countries, and the gap in mortality between low income and high income countries has shrunk. Yet there's still an obvious gap to be closed there.

It's been shown that high mortality rates, particular among children, lead to high birth rates, so this decline in mortality would seem set to contribute to a plateauing of human population growth.

Mobile Phones, Solar Power and Dental Hygiene

Quote from an Economist article discussing the spread of small-scale solar systems, driven by the desire to keep mobile phones charged:

There are more mobile phones than toothbrushes in the developing world

This from Ryan Levinson, the chief executive of Sunfunder, a start-up based in San Francisco that helps solar companies that raise financing.

Flattery

I just read an article in The Economist about how to become a CEO.  The first point on the list of things to do was to learn how to 'manage upwards' effectively - with hefty doses of flattery.  It referred to research by Jennifer Chatman, of the University of California, Berkeley, who conducted experiments in which she tried to find a point at which flattery became ineffective. It turned out there wasn’t one.

I guess I knew that.  But it was still sobering to see it had been confirmed by scientific research. It also brings a suitable sense of scepticism to the compliments I received from time to time when I was a CEO.  I always took that praise with a grain of salt.  Or did I?

Global Water Shortages

For those interested in my previous post about this year's TED talks on water, this Economist article is great reading: http://www.economist.com/research/articlesBySubject/displayStory.cfm?story_id=13447271&subjectID=348924&fsrc=nwl