1) The cure for baldness is here
I have always maintained that anyone who can find the
cure for two problems will become billionaires - baldness and obesity. Looks
like one of the problems is coming to an end. And technology is intervening
here as well.
The physiology of
balding has long vexed even the most entrepreneurial of scientists. Despite a
rare confluence of commercial forces and scientific interest, generating new
hair remains outside the realm of the possible. This could be changing,
though—and not owing to new packaging of the same old medicines. Recently a
series of scientific publications have explored advances that involve both
stem-cell research and 3-D printing, with the goal of cloning a person’s actual
hair and then inserting it into his or her scalp—in tremendous, unlimited
quantities.
Using cells
from a person’s own body minimizes the risk that the immune system will reject
the hair transplants
2) The big business of sleep
The Western world is
currently undergoing an epidemic of poor sleep – fueled by everything from
auto-play streaming services to the rise in millennial anxiety. And yet, new
and alarming research is telling us more than ever about its dangers, from
higher rates of heart disease to doubling our risk of cancer. But now, coming
to the rescue is a £100 billion sleeping giant, as tech titans and start-ups
repackage rest as the ultimate wellness cure.
3) Fungi are getting ready to kill us! (And we are
helping them!!!)
Candida auris, a
fungus that can kill anyone who comes into close contact with a carrier, was
first identified in 2009 in a Japanese patient with an ear infection. It then
started showing up in hospitals in Asia, Africa and South America in patients
without a clear link — and no one could figure out why.
The majority of
fungi grow well in ambient temperatures but only a small percentage can
tolerate our body temperature. The concern is that the higher ambient
temperatures caused by global warming will eventually lead some kinds of fungus
to breach the thermal restriction zone, what Casadevall explains is a zone that
is so hot that it typically keeps most fungal species off our body. Without
those defences working, Candida auris and other fungal species that adapt to
higher temperatures can infect and possibly kill humans.
4) Ruchir Sharma on why a US Fed rate cut can be
dangerous
The US Federal
Reserve appears poised to cut interest rates for the first time since the
global financial crisis a decade ago. Adjusted for inflation, the Fed’s
benchmark rate is now just half a per cent and the cost of borrowing has rarely
been closer to free, but the clamour for more easy money keeps growing.
Everyone wants the
recovery to last and more easy money seems like the obvious way to achieve that
goal. With trade wars threatening the global economy, Federal Reserve governors
say rate cuts are needed to keep the slowdown from spilling into the United
States, and to prevent doggedly low inflation from sliding into outright
deflation.
In this environment,
cutting rates could hasten the outcome that the Fed is trying to avoid: a debt-fueled market bubble, followed by collapse and an economic downturn with
falling prices – much like Japan in the 1990s. Japan showed that central banks
can print all the money they want, but can’t dictate where it will go. Easy
credit could not force over-indebted consumers to spend, and much of it ended
up going to finance “bridges to nowhere” and the rise of debt-laden “zombie
companies” that still weigh on Japan’s economy.
5) Urjit Patel's insights into the Indian banking
system
Indian funding model
is bank-led; hence, the banking sector health has to be a priority area.
The dominance of
bank-led funding is slowly changing, but, expected to remain important, plus
there is interconnectedness between banks & non-banks.
There is a
significant divergence in the performance of private banks (PBs) and government
banks (GBs) in terms of operations & financial indicators. GBs have a high
ratio of non-operating expenses to earnings compared to PBs. High-cost
structure of GBs is borne by economy; maybe impinging transmission of policy
rate changes.
As many as 90 per
cent of frauds occurred in GBs while the share of PBs is about 10 per cent.
In Indian banks,
capital is low relative to NPAs compared to global standards.
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