- , “How Britain Became a Property-Owning Democracy”
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Over the 20th century, Britain deliberately shifted from renting to homeownership, using policies like mortgage reforms, tax breaks, and Thatcher’s Right to Buy programme.
- Housing became not just shelter but the central store of middle-class wealth, tying prosperity to property values.
- This legacy has fuelled NIMBYism, as homeowners now have incentives to restrict supply and preserve rising prices.
- For younger generations, the model has backfired: soaring costs and mortgage barriers have locked them out of ownership, entrenching inequality.
- How Britain Became a Property-Owning Democracy – Springbett
- , “The Science Policy Behind Brazil’s Agricultural Triumph”
- Brazil’s Embrapa, founded in the 1970s, turned the country from a food aid recipient into the world’s agricultural superpower.
- Its boldest bet: spending 20% of its early budget to send staff abroad for PhDs, building a pipeline of world-class researchers.
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- Politically savvy, Embrapa cultivated allies, invested in public visibility (even running TV ads), and stayed clear of partisan entanglements that sank peer agencies.
- Organised around crops and biomes, not disciplines, Embrapa targeted Brazil’s binding constraint- land- by making the Cerrado arable through soil treatments and crop innovation.
- The lesson: applied, politically conscious, and market-responsive science can transform economies, suggesting parallels for today’s industrial policy ambitions.
- The Science Policy Behind Brazil’s Agricultural Triumph – Beyond Imitation
- LLM Red Flags
- These words were used in biomedical papers at a far greater frequency in 2024 than in the two year period preceding. They’re essentially indications that LLMs were used.
- Delving into LLM-assisted writing… –Science Advances