This is surprising, of course, because in the order of six to eight times fewer people live in Africa than outside Africa.

As happened during the Cold War, a bureaucratic crisis suddenly exposed the mechanisms by which this elite has wielded power.

And so it's no surprise that overall, industry funded trials are four times more likely to give a positive result than independently sponsored trials.

Surprisingly, origami and the structures that we've developed in origami turn out to have applications in medicine, in science, in space, in the body, consumer electronics and more.

It is now too late to turn back the clock and suddenly force banks to get rid of their excessive holdings of public debt.

In fact, the push for better education is an experiment that has already been carried out globally. And, as my Harvard colleague Lant Pritchett has pointed out, the long term payoff has been surprisingly disappointing.

He has supported factionalization in the government, and, when necessary, has weakened factions that he previously supported. Most importantly, he has ensured that Iran s presidents remain weak, regardless of their agenda or popularity.

Torn between its two objectives, China placed a higher priority on preserving the Kim family dynasty. That choice gave rise to a seeming paradox North Korea gained surprisingly powerful influence over China.

Boko Haram, whose primary objective is to compel Nigeria to adopt Sharia law, has proved surprisingly resilient since declaring war on the government in 2009, in response to the military s execution of its leader, Mohammed Yusuf.

So that when there was a sudden accidental discovery by one member of the group, say the use of fire, or a particular type of tool, instead of dying out, this spread rapidly, horizontally across the population, or was transmitted vertically, down the generations.

But many Indians are firm believers, as the increasingly eccentric spellings of film titles and movie stars names confirm. One of India s finest actors, Irfan Khan, suddenly re baptized himself Irrfan, a change that many swear prefigured the transformation of his career.

This activism was interpreted as a sign of an emerging rule of law culture in China. But Chen s career as a legal activist met an abrupt end with a conviction for disturbing public order, and most experts inside and outside of China considered his ensuing confinement to be unlawful.

It is now too late to turn back the clock and suddenly force banks to get rid of their excessive holdings of public debt. Unfortunately, regulators do not even appear to be learning from the current crisis in order to prevent the next one.