The Best of Works in Progress

Though we tend to see history as just one political event after another, it’s technology and ideas, not politics, that change our lives the most. History should reflect that.

Behavioral economics has identified dozens of cognitive biases that stop us from acting 'rationally'. But instead of building up a messier and messier picture of human behavior, we need a new model.

The height of skyscrapers is limited by physical, economic and regulatory barriers, but we should want to overcome them and build taller. Here's how we can do it.

Fire has almost disappeared as a cause of death in the developed world. A similar approach could do the same for infectious diseases.

Western housing shortages do not just prevent many from ever affording their own home. They also drive inequality, climate change, low productivity growth, obesity, and even falling fertility rates.

«housing inequality, not income inequality, primarily determines how much wealth inequality there is in most Western countries.»

The world’s first round-the-world solo yacht race was a thrilling and, for some, deadly contest. How its participants maintained their vessels can help us understand just how fundamental maintenance…

Pregnancy can be arduous, painful and for some women impossible. New technology may allow more women to have children, and save the lives of more prematurely born infants. How do we get there?

The story behind humanity's greatest environmental success is too rarely told and too often taken for granted. This is how humanity fixed the ozone layer and why it matters.

«Can we extrapolate any of the lessons from the task of fixing the ozone layer to other challenges, such as climate change?»

A monstrous plan to build major motorways through some of London’s greatest neighborhoods fell apart. But the price was the birth of the NIMBY movement, and a permanent ceiling on Britain’s…