Paul Tullis

Is the next pandemic brewing on the Netherlands' poultry farms?

Roy Slaterus has been birdwatching since he was 7 or 8, and now, at 44, he says he can recognize nearly all of the 200-plus species of birds that are endemic to his native Netherlands by their calls. On a cool May morning just north of Amsterdam,…

The Trouble With Comparing Next-Gen Car Batteries

“The storage battery is … a mechanism for swindling,” the esteemed scientist said. “Its efficiency after a certain number of charges … begins to diminish, and its capacity and efficiency both diminish after a certain time.” The year was 1883. The…

How a Diabetes Drug Became the New Weight Loss Trend for the Rich

Truck Archive Jennifer Straughan struggled with her weight for decades. By her mid-forties she had tried everything: diets, journaling her food intake, exercising constantly. “It controlled my life,” she says. “I would obsessively work out. I’d get…

From the archive: How the world got hooked on palm oil – podcast

This week, from 2019: It’s the miracle ingredient in everything from biscuits to shampoo. But our dependence on palm oil has devastating environmental consequences. Is it too late to break the habit?

Can Carbon Capture Be Part of the Climate Solution?

This is the final installment in the Visionaries series, which looks at figures who are trying to transform the way we live. Every year, humans pump around 50 billion tons of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. According to…

How the Shipping Industry Sails through Legal Loopholes

On December 16, 2018, the container ship Cecilie left Mauritius for Dubai. Sailing from the tiny island nation in the Indian Ocean to the United Arab Emirates was a shift from the typical route it had traveled for 20 years while shuttling goods. The…

Has Paris Become the Healthiest City in the World?

Among Paris’s many attributes—the art, the boutiques, chocolate for breakfast—ease of getting around is not one of them. Cars move at an average speed of 18 miles per hour. The Métro is so overcrowded that even the deputy mayor in charge of transport…

The Long, Long Road to Cleaning Up Coal’s Carbon Footprint

Just outside the northern French town of Avion, there’s a 20-foot-wide concrete disk with a small plaque reading “Shaft 7B 1920-1986.” The site marks the entrance to a coal mine that once employed 3,000 people, whose modest red-brick homes still…

How to Keep Crops Alive In a Warmer, Dryer World

(Bloomberg) -- Every week, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the U.S. Department of Agriculture update America’s Drought Monitor, a map illustrating the parts of the country that are currently…

The Fight to Slow the Global Fish Crash Has a Big Problem

As Gabon’s minister of fisheries, agriculture and food security, he helps oversee the African country’s marine protected areas, some of the most extensive in Africa. Covering 27% of Gabon’s Exclusive Economic Zone, these waters are supervised using…

The Fight to Slow the Global Fish Crash Has a Big Problem

As fish populations plummet, a huge swath of the seafood industry goes unmonitored, hampering conservation. One company is trying to fix that. Biendi Maganga-Moussavou had a problem. As Gabon’s minister of fisheries, agriculture and food security, he…

Stress in Utero: Covid Chaos and Babies’ Future Health

rin Bascom’s job in HIV prevention training shifted to work-from-home in mid-March 2020, around the same time that she and her husband decided to keep their daughter, then 2, home from daycare out of concern over Covid-19. Initially, the plan was for…

The Best B-School Isn’t Necessarily the Best B-School for You

It pays to dig into the rankings to understand a program’s strengths and weaknesses. Most prospective MBAs will choose the best school they can get into. But a higher-ranking program isn’t always the right place for a particular candidate. Some top…

The End of Golden State Exceptionalism?

Editor’s note: This is the second in our series examining the future of the West as both aspiration and a destination. See Chris Barton’s “Beyond the Heat Dome.” When I was about 12, I would often go after school with my friend Eliot to rent movies…

Car-Crazy Milan Erupted Over a New Pedestrian Zone

On Milan’s long list of pandemic-era public initiatives, remodeling Piazza Sicilia is a strange one to get worked up about. The city built the tiny park in just a few weeks last autumn, at an estimated cost of €20,000 ($23,600). The strip of land had…

After a Year Without Rowdy Tourists, European Cities Want to Keep It That Way

(Bloomberg) -- On a warm Friday night in July, the sun seemed to linger behind Amsterdam’s low, 16th century skyline. In the red light district, the crush of tourists that was common before the pandemic had long since vanished, making it easy for a…

After a Year Without Rowdy Tourists, European Cities Want to Keep It That Way

On a warm Friday night in July, the sun seemed to linger behind Amsterdam’s low, 16th century skyline. In the red light district, the crush of tourists that was common before the pandemic had long since vanished, making it easy for a delivery…

Ivory Trade Loopholes Close as Nations Race to Crush Poachers

(Bloomberg) -- Since the 2000’s, an elephant poaching epidemic has raged across Africa, with populations in some areas decimated and multiple species increasingly at risk of being wiped out by humanity’s lust for ivory. Currently going for about…

Ivory Trade Loopholes Close as Nations Race to Crush Poachers

Since the 2000’s, an elephant poaching epidemic has raged across Africa, with populations in some areas decimated and multiple species increasingly at risk of being wiped out by humanity’s lust for ivory. Currently going for about $3,300 per pound,…

Fake Steak, Well Done

On the third floor of a modern marble and glass building half an hour from Tel Aviv and around the corner from the Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel’s leading research institute, Neta Lavon snaps on a pair of blue latex gloves and opens an…