4,000,000,000 new customers
Forget Tokyo's schoolgirls and Milan's fashionistas. Businesses seeking new customers should look to the world's 4 billion poor people. By serving this consumer market, they can make substantial money and, oh yes, relieve world poverty.
Marco Visscher
Are vaccinations safe for young children?
Two facts. Over the past 50 years, the number of cases of chronic illness among children in the West has risen sharply. During that same period, the vaccinations of babies and young children against infectious diseases have expanded enormously. Are these two developments related? A growing number of scientists think they are. One mother decided to investigate.
Barbare Loe Fisher
Free bird
Coumba Tour
How green is your country?
Scandinavia and South America top list of world's most sustainable nations
How one new company brought hope to one of the world's poorest countries
The battle against poverty has gained a surprisingly effective ally: business. By treating the poor like clients and consumers, they are accepted into the global economy. As a result, they are ultimately given the chance to prosper.
Marco Visscher
Into the big wild
Suriname, a South American land covered by rainforest, is gambling that protecting nature will pay off better than destroying it. But this admirable plan depends on creating comfortable eco-resorts that can co-exist with rugged wilderness. American travel writer Joe Kane has his doubts and sets off in a canoe to find out if it's possible
Joe Kane / Condé Nast Traveler
In praise of idleness
The key to happiness is doing nothing in particular
Letters and Love
The power and promise of silence
Tijn Touber
Living a fearless life
Christopher Reeve put a famous face on disability, and inspired many people around the world. Before his death in October, he was working on this essay about courage.
Martian medicine
Gender differences greatly affect diagnosis and treatment
Tijn Touber
One last thing...
"video games make you wiser"
Marco Visscher
Progress, by any other name...
What Clint Eastwood taught me about the world
Jay Walljasper
State of the Union
Realism, not romance, is what can save your relationship
Jay Walljasper
Survival of the kindest
He may well be the psychotherapist with the simplest recipe: kindness. According to Piero Ferrucci, freedom starts with being kind. To others. And yourself. History provides the proof: "One of the reasons behind the success of evolution is that we've been kind to one another."
Tijn Touber
The face of Maori resistance
In his art and his actions, Tame Iti fights for the rights of New Zealand's native peoples
"Why not capitalism for developing countries?"
GrameenPhone architect Iqbal Quadir saw potential for success--from both a business and humanitarian perspective--in his idea of introducing mobile telephones to the remote villages of Bangladesh. He was born in Bangladesh and is now a fellow at Harvard's Center for Business and Government, where he mainly focuses on the impact of technology on politics and the economies of developing countries. We talked with Quadir about business as a social tool and the failure of development aid.
Marco Visscher
Would a dump smell as sweet?
A surprising new technology for cleaning up the smell and disease of garbage
Marco Visscher
