North Korean military chief stripped of all posts "Kim Jong Un's top military official has been removed from all posts because of illness, state media said in a surprise announcement that shakes the core of the authoritarian country's power structure. Ri Yong Ho had looked healthy in recent appearances, and his departure fed speculation among analysts that Kim purged him."
Why China should end its draconian one-child policy "Last Thursday, 15 prominent Chinese legal and demographic scholars issued an open letter calling for the end of restrictions on people's birth rights. The action was prompted by news reports that local government officials in northwest China forced a seven-month pregnant woman, Feng Jianmei, to undergo an abortion."
Free access to British scientific research within two years "The government is to unveil controversial plans to make publicly funded scientific research immediately available for anyone to read for free by 2014, in the most radical shakeup of academic publishing since the invention of the internet."
The ecology of disease "Diseases have always come out of the woods and wildlife and found their way into human populations - the plague and malaria are two examples. But emerging diseases have quadrupled in the last half-century, experts say, largely because of increasing human encroachment into habitat."
How Google Street View is inspiring new photography (by Geoff Dyer) "He saw quickly that the indifferent gaze of the Street View camera randomly recorded what he called Unfortunate Events: altercations and accidents, pissings and pukings, fights and fatalities." ALSO: Google Street View highlights
