We explain a great change in the distribution of income by increased automation, which has directly replaced human labor in tasks that can be reduced to algorithms.
In addition to their therapeutic potential, cord blood banks raise ethical and regulatory questions, especially in emerging markets in the Arab world. In this article, the authors review cord blood banking in five countries in the region (Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates) that were selected for their different CB banking policies and initiatives.
Monica M. Matsumoto, Rana Dajani, Kirstin R.W. MatthewsFebruary 13, 2015
The international Human Microbiome Project trumpeted the coming of age of the field of metagenomics, the study of entire communities of microbes and their contributions to health and disease. In parallel, the field of metabolomics emerged as the systematic, nonbiased analysis of all low-molecular-weight small molecules, or metabolites, produced by a system in response to an environmental stimulus. These fields have enabled discoveries pertinent to a number of human conditions — namely, acute gastroenteritis, antibiotic-associated diarrhea, inflammatory bowel disease, irritable bowel syndrome, liver disease, undernutrition and obesity — and have begun to shed new light on multiple aspects of the neglected tropical diseases.
What happens when Saudi Arabia, the world’s swing producer of oil, rejects its traditional market-balancing role? The job falls to American shale oil producers, which, initial data show, appear to be assuming the Saudi role.
South America is likely facing a "second wave" of Chinese investment. How will China's rise to global economic power — and its transition to a new economic growth model — impact South America?
This report suggests the contours of a more comprehensive policy for the United States in the broader Middle East, one that pursues not only important tactical approaches to counter Islamic extremism and terrorism, but also shapes the larger strategic landscape to secure and promote U.S. interests. After defining the challenge for the United States and the international community, the report provides a brief narrative on the rise of ISIS before presenting key policy recommendations for a more strategic approach.
In 1972, a National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse, comprising establishment figures chosen mostly by President Richard Nixon himself, issued a report that declared that “neither the marihuana user nor the drug itself can be said to constitute a danger to public safety” and recommended that Congress and state legislatures decriminalize the use and casual distribution of marijuana and seek means other than prohibition to discourage use.
President Nixon ignored the report and Congress declined to consider its recommendations, but during the 40-plus years since its publication, at least 37 states have acted to refashion a crazy-quilt collection of prohibitions, nearly always in the direction favored by the commission. The specifics vary by state, but most reform legislation has followed one of three formulas: decriminalization of marijuana possession, legalization of marijuana for medical use, or legalization of marijuana for adult recreational use. In this issue brief, authors Katharine Neill and William Martin examine the facts and fears surrounding each of these options.
Katharine Neill Harris, William MartinFebruary 4, 2015
This paper investigates how new potential and proposed regulations will influence the natural gas market in the United States in the coming decades, using the Rice World Gas Trade Model (RWGTM) to examine scenarios in which domestic natural gas development is stressed in a variety of ways. It considers a range of possible policy actions from the federal to the local level.