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Author and philosopher Nassim Nicholas Taleb offers a definitive solution for how to gain from disorder and chaos, while being protected from fragilities and adverse events. Taleb argues that many things in life benefit from stress, disorder, volatility, and turmoil. What he calls the antifragile is actually beyond the robust, because it benefits from shocks, uncertainty, and stressors, just as human bones get stronger when subjected to stress and tension. The antifragile needs disorder in order to survive and flourish

AGW theory is toast. So’s Dr Rajendra Pachauri. So’s the Stern Review. So’s the credibility of the IPCC. But if you think I’m cheered by this you’re very much mistaken. I’m trying to write a Climategate book but the way things are going by the time I’m finished there won’t be anything left to say: the battle will already have been won and the only people left who still believe in Man Made Global Warming will be the eco-loon equivalents of those wartime Japanese soldiers left abandoned and forgotten on remote Pacific atolls. Here’s the latest development, courtesy of Dr...

WASHINGTON (AFP) – President Barack Obama Thursday tried to bridge apparent differences with Europe on rescuing the global economy, calling for "robust" stimulus plans but not a "super-regulator" for finance markets. The president's remarks to business leaders highlighted the jostling for position underway for control of the agenda of the Group of 20 summit of developed and developing nations in London in April. Obama said it was important that "stimulus efforts of all countries are sufficiently robust to deal with the decline in demand." "We want to make sure everybody is mindful that the decline in global demand is enormous...

With the robust economy, tax revenues are pouring in. But rising costs lie ahead. Despite the ongoing costs of US military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, the outlook for the federal budget has grown substantially brighter. Tax revenues are rising much faster than spending, according to Treasury Department numbers released last week. The recent trend is strong enough that, were it to continue, the budget could move into surplus in barely a year, one economist calculates. Already, the federal deficit is shrinking toward about half the size that it has averaged since 1970 ...

Sars virus is robust enough to survive in sewage By Steve Connor, Science Editor 06 May 2003 The virus responsible for severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) can survive outside the body much longer than previously thought, which could explain why it can spread so easily within a building. Tests by the World Health Organisation (WHO) show that the virus remains stable for up to four days in the faeces of infected people with diarrhoea. The findings could explain why more than 320 people from the Amoy Gardens apartment block in Hong Kong became infected after a man with Sars stayed...