In most countries it is illegal to buy or sell a kidney. If you need a transplant you join a waiting list until a matching organ becomes available. This drives economists nuts. Why not allow willing donors to sell spare kidneys and let patients (or the government, acting on their behalf) bid for them? The waiting list would disappear overnight. If John and Mary love each other but are married to other people, they will be tempted to leave their current partner and marry each other. But if John loves Mary, while Mary loves her husband more than John, both will stay put.
The birth and death phases of stars are associated with heavy dust clouds that give off an infra-red signal which might resemble the swarm of artificial satellites constituting a Dyson sphere.
In China a strong taboo hangs over discussing death.
Only 8 % of South Africans opt for cremation, compared with a third in America, half in China, three-quarters in Britain and 95 % in Japan. To many South Africans, cremation is taboo, not least because of ancestor-worship and a propensity to commune with the dead. Many prefer a burial in the countryside where they were born.
Patrolling a rough neighbourhood is a health hazard.
Breast cancer is rare in men. And prostate cancer is obviously absent from women.
The Puente Hills landfill, an artificial mountain near Los Angeles is the biggest dump in America, 30 years old, 150 metres high and containing 130m tonnes of rubbish within a 700-acre footprint. If it were a building, it would be among the 20 tallest in the city. Building a rubbish pile is, it turns out, surprisingly high-tech.
If only we had been born clowns, nothing bad would happen to us except a few bruises and a smear of whitewash.
Fiat came round after a near-death experience.
As anyone who has been to Japan knows, there are strict rules about bathing in onsen, or hot springs. Bodies must be scrubbed beforehand, swimming trunks are banned and tattoos are taboo.
Sun, sea and alcohol, for at least two weeks a year, is now one of the unwritten rights of the British people.
A rising tide lifts all boats, but not all spirits.
One has always choose between cholera and plague in Kinshasa.
To celebrate falling fertility is like congratulating the captain of the Titanic on heading towards the iceberg more slowly.