‘Despite Everything, I Remain An Optimist’

Portrait of an optimist

I come from a family of lawyers. When I was growing up, the only scientist in the family was my uncle, who was a physicist. But I was interested in science, and as a boy collected rocks and kept my “chemistry cabinet” in a spare room at my father’s law firm in Rome where I smelled up the place from time to time with failed experiments. When I finished high school at the Liceo Classico Torquato ...

Murphy Was an Optimist

I-35: Europe: Declining Fertility Despite IVF

Although fertility rates are falling in many countries, Europe is the continent with the lowest. As men and women choose to have fewer children, total fertility rates in Europe have fallen below replacement levels: for a total fertility rate of 1.5, the rate is around 1.7 children per woman for the cohorts born in 1965. This is due to individual decisions arising from the instability of modern ...

Agencies remain in Guinea despite killings of health workers.

International aid agencies have vowed to carry on working in Guinea after health workers were attacked and killed last week. Government reports said that health workers were attacked with stones and machetes in the village of Wome in the south of the country. Some members of the team, which was raising awareness about Ebola virus disease, managed to escape, but eight people, including health wo...

Why Green Products Remain Unfavorable Despite Being Labelled Environmentally-Friendly?

Although green products have been widely recognized as being environmentally-friendly, actual consumer adoption, purchases and consumption of green products have been disappointing. Instead, consumption of products which is causing harmful impacts on the environment is gaining further momentum. Such a phenomenon is detrimental to environmental sustainability and therefore requires immediate att...