Evan Osnos | New Yorker | 15 October 2012 How a high-speed rail disaster exposed China's corruption. "An engineer who worked on the railway’s construction told me, 'There is an expression in Chinese: when you take too great a leap, you can tear your balls'" Comments Mark Bowden | Vanity Fair | 12 October 2012 Book extract. How US found and killed Bin Laden. Cracking read. Pentagon gave job to navy SEALs, not CIA, because SEALs had done plenty of similar missons before. Vital experience if something went wrong, as it always did Comments John Kay | John Kay/FT | 17 October 2012 Concise skewering of big mergers. "These commercial decisions often reflect policy-based evidence, not evidence-based policy. Doing the deal is what matters. Justification comes afterwards." But bigger does not equal stronger Comments Ross Andersen | Aeon | 16 October 2012 Superb essay on the bristlecone pines of California, the world's oldest trees, and their interaction with humans, land and climate. Most ancient is estimated to be 4,800 years old. They're an extraordinary record of the Earth's past Comments John Heilemann | New York | 14 October 2012 They boost Obama, Obama boosts them. "[Bill] Clinton is seeing his legacy restored to what he regards as its rightful status, a restoration that will mightily benefit his wife if she hurls herself at the White House in 2016" Comments David Quammen | Popsci | 15 October 2012 Best guess: A human disease that comes from wildlife, probably from a subgroup known as RNA viruses. They're highly adaptable, jump species, disappear quickly or kill. And human behaviour is making an outbreak more likely Comments Chrystia Freeland | NYT | 13 October 2012 America would do well to learn the lesson of 14th century Venice. Economic elites that act to lock in their privileges and exclude others become extractive societies, ultimately destroying innovation and prosperity Comments Steven Levy | Wired | 17 October 2012 Visit to the "beating heart of the digital age". Server farm in North Carolina. "This is what makes Google Google: Thousands of fiber miles, thousands of servers that, in aggregate, add up to the mother of all clouds" Comments | 
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