The "spa-fication" of everything

High prices and the mystery of quality adjustment

Another week in the books!

I’ve got to say, I was pretty nervous about uncorking a long post about Belgian history in the middle of a pretty newsy week, but I was happy to see plenty of supportive comments, a lot of newsletter opens, and even some new subscribers. I’m always resolving to try to keep the newsletter differentiated, and this week was a reminder that I should live up to that promise. And that’s part of the idea of these Friday columns — people come up with good suggestions for topics that wouldn’t otherwise get on the agenda. So thanks to everyone for reading!

Some good news for you this week: Poverty is falling in India, researchers found cancer-resistant worms in Chernobyl and are hoping to use them to better-understand human cancer, and I learned this week about the massive, decades-long decline in lightning lethality.

And I loved this idea from Drosophilist in the comments: