Numbers don't lie: 71 stories to help us understand the modern world

People : the inhabitants of our world

What happens when we have fewer children?

The best indicator of quality of life? Try infant mortality

The best return on investment : vaccination

Why it's difficult to predict how bad a pandemic will be while it is happening

Growing taller

Is life expectancy finally topping out?

How sweating improved hunting

How many people did it take to build the Great Pyramid?

Why unemployment figures do not tell the whole story

What makes people happy?

The rise of megacities

Countries : nations in the age of globalization

The First World War's extended tragedies

Is the US really exceptional?

Why Europe should be more pleased with itself

Brexit : realities that matter most will not change

Concerns about Japan's future

How far can China go?

India vs. China

Why manufacturing remains important

Russia and the USA : how things never change

Receding empires : nothing new under the sun

Machines, designs, devices : inventions that made our modern world

How the 1880s created our modern world

How electric motors power modern civilization

Transformers - the unsung silent, passive devices

Why you shouldn't write diesel off just yet

Capturing motion - from horses to electrons

From the phonograph to streaming

Inventing integrated circuits

Moore's Curse : why technical progress takes longer than you think

The rise of data : too much too fast

Being realistic about innovation

Fuels and electricity : energizing our societies

Why gas turbines are the best choice

Nuclear electricity - an unfulfilled promise

Why you need fossil fuels to get electricity from wind

How big can a wind turbine be?

The slow rise of photovoltaics

Why sunlight is still best

Why we need bigger batteries

Why electric container ships are a hard sail

The real cost of electricity

The inevitably slow pace of energy transitions

Transport : how we get around

Shrinking the journey across the Atlantic

Engines are older than bicycles!

The surprising story of inflatable tires

When did the age of the car begin?

Modern cars have a terrible weight-to-payload ratio

Why electric cars aren't as great as we think (yet)

When did the jet age begin?

Why kerosene is king

How safe is flying?

Which is more energy efficient - planes, trains, or automobiles?

Food : energizing ourselves

The world without synthetic ammonia

Multiplying wheat yields

The inexcusable magnitude of global food waste

The slow addio to the Mediterranean diet

Bluefin tuna : on the way to etinction

Why chicken rules

(Not) drinking wine

Rational meat-eating

The Japanese diet

Dairy products - the counter-trends

Environment : damaging and protecting our world

Animals vs. artifacts - which are more diverse?

Planet of the cows

The deaths of elephants

Why calls for the Anthropocene era may be premature

Concrete facts

What's worse for the environment - your car or your phone?

Who has better insulation?

Triple-glazed windows : a see-through energy solution

Improving the efficiency of household heating

Running into carbon..