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Order by Monday 15 December for delivery before Christmas in the US and UK
5 hrs ago
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Works in Progress
17
1
The survival of Swiss watches
Quartz helped Japan’s watchmakers nearly drive Switzerland’s watch industry out of business. But the Swiss fought back.
Dec 5
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Works in Progress
and
Aled Maclean-Jones
92
13
17
The holy grail of capitalism
A new measure may be the holy grail of economic regulation.
Dec 4
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Brian Albrecht
and
Works in Progress
147
9
24
Nature's drug database
Millions of years of evolution have given us genomes that are like giant datasets for drug development. Finally, we are learning how to use them.
Dec 3
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Works in Progress
53
1
7
November 2025
The history of vaccines
The early smallpox vaccines that kept dying out, why Émile Roux drilled into rabbits' skulls, and the lucky career changes that saved millions of lives.
Nov 26
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Saloni Dattani
and
Jacob Trefethen
20
1
3
2:06:22
Why the West was downzoned
In the space of a few decades, nearly every city in the Western world banned densification. What happened?
Nov 26
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Works in Progress
and
Samuel Hughes
170
37
35
Issue 21: The Great Downzoning
Plus: Why cities in poor countries need wider streets, how to measure competition, and the South Korean baby bust.
Nov 25
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Works in Progress
28
1
3
Should we ban ugly buildings?
Episode ten of the Works in Progress podcast is surprisingly NIMBY.
Nov 24
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Works in Progress
,
Sam Bowman
,
Ben Southwood
, and
Samuel Hughes
23
12
1
1:19:28
Living in artificial gravity
If we ever want to live in space, we need to work out a way of creating artificial gravity.
Nov 21
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Works in Progress
63
2
8
The three-thousand-year journey of colchicine
For centuries it was a poison. Then colchicine rewrote treatment for gout, heart disease, and later, the debate over drug exclusivity.
Nov 20
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Alex Kesin
and
Works in Progress
63
8
9
Inventing the dishwasher
The amount of housework a married American woman did fell by 48 percent in 45 years. The dishwasher alone didn't cause this, but it certainly helped.
Nov 14
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Erin Braid
and
Works in Progress
117
5
17
Why the developing world needs wider streets
Roads are the arteries of cities, making the whole more than the sum of its parts. Cities of the developing world need more of them.
Nov 12
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Works in Progress
and
Saarthak Gupta
87
32
11
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