The Inquiry

Most research places Mexico at the top of the chart when it comes to the consumption of sugary drinks – by some estimates, they get through half a litre per person every day. Mexico also has some of the highest rates of obesity and diabetes in the world, exacerbated by their love of sugar sweetened beverages. To understand why, we look at how Coca-Cola became the country’s most popular fizzy drink...

They are at once the most predictable and unpredictable killers. We know continent-sized slabs of earth are moving beneath our feet. We know they move at a speed that is often harmless - the same rate as our fingernails grow. But sometimes, without warning, they can slip tens of metres in a second - and bring down whole cities. About a million people have died in earthquakes in the last two decade...

Pay packets in developed economies have hardly grown in decades. Economic output and the number of people in jobs have both improved since the global downturn. But with income levels failing to rise, ordinary workers aren't feeling the benefit. And for many, the good times were over long before the 2008 financial crash. In this edition of The Inquiry we hear from experts in the three largest econo...

The clash between Apple and the FBI is the latest battle in a century-long conflict over the power to keep secrets. The FBI wants Apple to build a “backdoor to the iPhone” so that it can read encrypted data on a locked phone used by one of the San Bernadino attackers. Apple says such a backdoor would be the equivalent of “a master key, capable of opening hundreds of millions of locks”. Creating su...

Bashar al-Assad and his Syrian National Army appear to have the upper hand. The president has the momentum in a civil war that has raged for five years. It is a very different picture from that of 2011, when a wave of popular protests spread through the country and the international community demanded Mr Assad’s resignation as his army brutally crushed demonstrations. At home, he remains in the pr...

Mosquitoes are the most dangerous animals on the planet. They spread diseases - malaria, dengue and zika – that kill huge numbers of people and cause suffering to many more. So why not eradicate them? It wouldn’t be easy. Scientists in Mali have found the mosquito is a surprisingly formidable foe, able to hide for months and evade capture. Other scientists are working on genetically-modifying mosq...

At 4pm on 6 October 2008, as the global financial crisis ravaged Iceland’s economy, its prime minister addressed the nation. "There is a danger, fellow citizens," he said, "that Iceland could be sucked into the whirlpool and the result could be national bankruptcy. It was decided this morning to suspend trading with the banks. God Bless Iceland.” The message was clear. Iceland was about to do what...

The World Health Organisation says the number of cancer cases will rise by 70% over the next 20 years. A huge amount of effort and money is spent fighting the disease. But are we getting that fight right? One leading oncologist, Vincent DeVita, tells us the nature of modern medical research and oversight means we are not able to benefit as much as we might from the extraordinary clinical tools we...

When President Obama wept at a recent press conference to announce action on gun control, his tears might have been born of frustration as well as sadness. Despite frequent mass-shootings, events which some might think would strengthen the case for tighter gun laws, it is difficult for any politician or party to change the rules on gun ownership in the US. One organisation is often credited with,...

The air in much of China is so bad the government has repeatedly declared "war" on it. The enemy are tiny particulates which spew forth from countless cars, coal-fired power stations and steel plants to create a dense, putty-coloured smog. Known as PM2.5s, after their length in micrometres, the particulates contain toxic droplets so small they embed deep in the lungs and sometimes even the bloodst...

Gender identity is considered more fluid than ever because of the success of the trans movement. But most trans people, just like everyone else, still identify as either a man or a women. For those who feel they are neither – or both – the male-female distinction does not fit. And, for the one in 2000 who are born with indeterminate sex, finding a place in this binary world can be damaging. So, ar...

The richest 10% of Americans earn half of all of income. In Britain, the top 10% hold 40% of all the income. Inequality is not just an issue for rich countries. A billion people have been lifted out of poverty since 1990, and inequality has been rising in many other countries too. So, how much inequality is too much? Many may recoil from such a question - inequality is a dirty word. But this progr...

The world has a problem. The climate is changing. At least, most people think so. That’s why global leaders have been meeting in Paris to work out a way to deal with the problem. They blame carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, much of it released by the human need for energy, obtained from fossil fuels like oil and coal. But believe it or not the world also has a solution at hand: sunlight. Harvest i...

The UN forecasts that the number of people living in Africa will double in the next 35 years. Nigeria, the fastest-growing nation, is expected to become the third-largest country in the world by 2050. By the end of the century, almost 40% of the world’s population will live on this one continent. It raises questions about how countries – some of which are already facing big challenges – will cope...

Many claim that ‘Islamic State’ is the ideological offspring of Saudi Arabia; that the strict form of Islam originating in the Kingdom - and the Saudi state's aggressive promotion of it around the world – has fostered terrorism. Saudi Arabia is also accused of funding IS, either directly or by failing to prevent private citizens from sending money to the group. But what is the evidence for these c...

Imagine waking up one morning to the sound of a helicopter overhead. You look out and see that packages are being dropped in front of the homes of everyone on your street. You race downstairs, and tear open your package. Inside? Exactly $10,000 in new bills. A gift of freshly-printed money from your government – no strings attached. What would you do? Economists hope you would go out and spend – a...

In November the US Drug Enforcement Administration issued its Drug Threat Assessment. Mexican ‘transnational criminal organisations’, it said, are the primary suppliers of heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine, and marijuana to the United States. Drugs – the DEA says – are killing 46,000 Americans a year. But between Mexico’s criminal enterprises, and their clients, is a vast expanse of difficult geogr...

We first asked this question over a year ago. So far, the answer has been no. The attacks in Paris killed 129 people. The day before that 43 people died when suicide bombers hit Beirut. Nearly two weeks before that a Russian passenger jet exploded over Egypt, killing all 224 people on board. The group calling itself Islamic State has claimed responsibility for all these attacks. If true, in two we...

New research suggests plants might be capable of more than many of us might expect. Some – controversially – even describe plants as “intelligent”, or even “sentient”. So, this week, we’re asking: have we underestimated plants? Our expert witnesses include an academic studying how networks of trees communicate through what she describes as a “wood wide web”, and the pioneer who is using plants to...

Syria’s cultural heritage is being attacked from all sides - the Assad regime, opportunistic looters, opposition forces, Islamic State fighters and even Russian air strikes. Ancient sites like Palmyra have been destroyed, and it is feared that hundreds of precious valuables have been smuggled out of the country to be sold on the international art market. Is it too late to save Syria’s antiquities?...

Mohammed Akhlaq’s murder shocked India. A mob broke into his house last month and beat him to death. They believed a rumour that Mr Akhlaq, a Muslim, had broken a Hindu taboo by slaughtering a cow. We find out how the cow became such a political animal and look at whether Hindu nationalists are feeling bolder in today’s India. (Photo: An Indian woman sprinkles yoghurt paste onto a cow's forehead....

Rhinos are in trouble. The ancient Sumatran rhino has just been declared extinct in Malaysia, following the fate of black rhinos in West Africa in 2011. Central Africa's northern white rhino has been reduced to four - yes, four - animals, and conservationists say the more plentiful southern white rhinos are under unprecedented attack from poachers eager to sell the horns to Asian and Arab buyers....

Oil accounts for around 75% of Nigeria’s economy, but no-one knows how much the country produces or refines. It means corruption is rife. Hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil are stolen every day, at each level of the supply chain. It is a problem that has cost the Nigerian economy billions of dollars, and weakened its public services and infrastructure. Schools and hospitals are paid for, but...

Russia’s intervention in Syria caught the world by surprise. Moscow gave Washington just one hour’s notice before it began its aerial bombardment. Russia claims its jets are attacking the so-called Islamic State. But reports suggest the Russian pilots are in fact targeting groups linked to the Free Syrian Army - the main opposition to Syria’s President Assad, who is a Russian ally. It is the first...

The CIA has just released 2,500 top secret presidential briefings from the 1960s. The President’s Daily Brief – or PDB – is the US intelligence agencies’ best assessment of global threats, delivered directly to the president every morning. The CIA’s director, John Brennan, has described the PDB as “among the most sensitive and classified documents in all of our government”. The decision to release...