Despite this massive shrinkage, the reality on the ground is unchanged.

The good news from Cushing's disease is that hippocampal shrinkage and memory impairment is at least partially reversible over several years after correction of the excess cortisol.

That is still far below the replacement rate of 2.1, but higher fertility, together with successful measures to reduce male mortality, has slowed the pace of population shrinkage.

The International Monetary Fund s latest forecast predicts that the world s advanced economies will contract 0.3 in 2009 the first such shrinkage since the end of World War II.

The root cause of all these developments is Europe s population shrinkage. The demographic time bomb that economic analysts have been discussing for a decade or more is now exploding.

VIENNA The rapid shrinkage of Arctic ice cover is one of the most dramatic changes in nature currently occurring anywhere on the planet, with profound environmental and economic implications.

So to solve this quandary of the two force peaks what I think was going on is that first impact is actually the limb hitting the load cell, and the second impact is actually the collapse of the cavitation bubble.

As the dramatic shrinkage of the Aral Sea, Lake Chad, and the Dead Sea illustrate, it now requires preserving scarce natural resources and ensuring their equitable distribution among conflicting needs.

Isn t it possible, then, that rather than causing a Great Depression, significant shrinkage of the financial sector, particularly if facilitated by an improved regulatory structure, might actually enhance efficiency and growth?

The sub prime mortgage loan problem triggered a drop in some financial institutions key lines of business, particularly their opaque but extremely profitable derivatives businesses. Some shrinkage of the industry is inevitable.

If the ice cover simultaneously shrinks and gets thinner, then the shrinkage in area is first steady but then accelerates towards the end, when the remaining ice becomes ever thinner and more vulnerable to melting. This is what I fear is happening now.

In addition to the money tied up by acquiring inventory, inventory also brings associated costs for warehouse space, for utilities, and for insurance to cover staff to handle and protect it from fire and other disasters, obsolescence, shrinkage (theft and errors), and others.