Sounding a lot like Bill Clinton, the beleaguered governor of Alabama, Robert Bentley, called a news conference on Wednesday to say in no uncertain terms that he did not have sex with that woman.Accused of having an illicit relationship with an aide, Rebekah Caldwell Mason, he stopped short of wagging his finger. But, in another Clinton parallel, there is readily available evidence that contradicts his denials: Text messages and audio recordings made public by the Alabama Media Group and the gov

Viewpoints March 27, 2016

One of the biggest stories in science right now is the fight over the Crispr patents. Crispr is a gene editing technique that promises to allow previously unthinkable feats of bioengineering. It was discovered in stages, like most scientific breakthroughs, by multiple teams working at various universities and research institutes around the world. The final, key advancements were made more-or-less simultaneously by two teams of researchers -- one based in California and led by Jennifer Doudna and

Viewpoints March 27, 2016

While Internet accessibility in Asia continues to expand across tech devices and platforms, so too are the ways Internet scams infiltrate consumers’ personal information. 　Work from home fraud, Internet auction scams and fake bank email scams are the top three scams in Asia, according to Telenor Group’s recent Internet scams study.　The multimarket survey assessed the impact of scams on 400 Internet users aged 18 up to over 65 in Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia and India, and was conducted to provi

Viewpoints March 20, 2016

The worlds of Go and artificial intelligence were both unsettled by the victory this week of an advanced AI computer over one of the world’s leading masters of the intricate Japanese board game, 4 games to 1. It’s an achievement that experts in both fields didn’t expect to happen for as long as 10 years.　The triumph of AlphaGo, the product of a Google lab named DeepMind, over the fourth-ranked Go champion Lee Se-dol of South Korea, is widely viewed as a landmark in artificial intelligence much g

Viewpoints March 20, 2016

China's leaders have been struggling with the same essential dilemma for some time: They want steady growth and short-term stability, but they also want far-reaching economic reform. Those aims can’t easily be reconciled.　Up to now, the government has put growth and stability first and moved cautiously on reform. During the National People’s Congress, which ends this week, Chinese policy makers seemed reluctant to recalibrate. But that’s what they need to do. They should accelerate the pace of r

Viewpoints March 20, 2016

The global economy needed this weekend’s Group of 20 meeting in China to produce a “Sputnik moment.” Instead, and despite growing awareness of the risks to growth and financial stability, the gathering concluded essentially with a reheated version of previous policy statements. This is a far cry from the individual and collective actions that G20 members must take if the global economy is to avoid even more disappointing growth and greater financial instability.　Meeting in Shanghai, the minister

Viewpoints Feb. 29, 2016

Donald Trump’s success in the Republican primaries, punctuated by his victory Tuesday in Nevada, has been spurred in part by his deviation from traditional Republican policies on free trade and immigration, and in part by his argument that some of those policies, including lower income taxes and less regulation, would make America great again. But the latter argument runs into an immediate objection. The economy has consistently grown less under Republican presidents than Democratic ones. It is

Viewpoints Feb. 25, 2016

Le Cordon Bleu and Taiwan’s National Kaohsiung University of Hospitality and Tourism have been trying to set up a branch of the famous French cooking school in Taiwan since 2011. 　However, due to protectionism sentiment and bureaucracy on the island, the French chefs cannot show Taiwanese students how to cook and instead can only teach the French language in their classes.　Regardless of the investment in buildings, cooking equipment and time and energy the schools have spent over the years, what

Viewpoints Feb. 25, 2016

It is the fourth most lucrative illegal trade in the world and Malaysia is among its thriving hubs.　The global black market for wildlife and wildlife products is estimated to be about $20 billion, ranking below drug smuggling, human trafficking and the illegal arms trade.　Over the past four decades, more than 50 percent of the world’s wildlife has been wiped out.　In the past, extinctions were largely due to loss of habitat by deforestation and destruction of natural environments, but today, it i

Viewpoints Feb. 25, 2016