The civil war in Yemen seems to have become a stalemate. Is there any sense, other than the strategic interests of Saudi Arabia, in which this is better than if the Houthis had won in March?

Most genes don't "determine" any visible phenotypic characteristic; they only affect the odds of various characteristics and outcomes. And most visible characteristics are affected by many genes.

Don't be misled by the few exceptions.

Germany has arrested an al-Jazeera journalist at the request of Egypt's military government. The journalist faces charges that seem absurd.

A UK court struck down the law permitting people to copy CDs, citing the unjust idea of the purpose of copyright in the EU Copyright Directive.

To use the concept of "compensation" for operating on a copyrighted work is already to swallow the erroneous purpose. Coupling that with "rightsholders" makes it worse. The right question, which we must raise instead of that, is how to support the artists.

I suggest that those who want to pull the UK out of the EU pledge to legalize sharing of copies of published works.

Vertebrate species are going extinct at 10 to 100 times the usual rate, amounting to the start of a sixth mass extinction.

Invertebrates and plants also seem to be suffering extinction, but it is harder to compare the rate since there are many species we don't know about yet. Nonetheless, a study about land snails found a comparable result.

This extinction is mainly caused by humans' destruction of the species' habitats. We need to curb the human population and the tendency for frivolous waste.