What if someday, instead of the usual “Flu Shots Today,” the cardboard sign in front of your local pharmacy read: “Cancer Shots Today?” Even if you were deathly afraid of needles, you would probably rush in to get an injection. The idea that a simple inoculation could eradicate cancer might sound ...read more

The Russian and the Frenchman First, let’s return to Mendeleev and his missing elements. Why were there gaps in his table? Did the Russian scientist make errors in arranging the elements? Or, based on the gaps, were these apparently “missing elements” key to another aspect of chemistry? Mendeleev was perplexed, but he ...read more

When you listen to military communications, a lot of words are slang, and actually have quite distinct meanings. For example, there was this time, long ago during my Navy days, when my squadron was working up out at NAS Fallon, Nevada. (“Working up” is Navy shorthand for getting everyone qualified ...read more

There’s a short phrase buried deep within the U.S. Constitution, at Article I, Section 8, Clause 13. It’s short. In fact, it’s only six words. But it practically guarantees us the chance to profit as investors. The Constitution doesn’t spell out many things in black and white. Heck, people litigate constitutional ...read more

For decades, digital computing has been on an exponential trend first described in Moore’s law. We’ve been able to pack more electronic components in a given space than ever before, and the trend will continue for many years. New technologies are emerging, however, that could eventually supersede the current computing paradigm ...read more

Well, it’s been something of a sad week for proponents of Bitcoin... Would-be buyers of the fringy cyber experiment have had to watch as the price of their beloved currency shot to within (as of this writing) just over $40 per coin. No buyer wants to see that kind of action...unless ...read more

There are no guarantees in the stock market. No matter how good certain data look, you can’t bank on the past to predict how prices will react with perfect certainty. But what if I told you there was a 100% chance the market would finish out 2013 in positive territory? I hope ...read more

Did you hear the U.S. Mint recently ran out of silver? In mid-January, the Mint suspended sale of the 2013 run of its popular U.S. "Eagles." The new silver Eagles sold out fast. They went on sale, and buyers bought everything they could lay hands on. Within days, the shelves at ...read more

I’m a big fat loser -- and I hope you’re one too… There’s nothing more important to investing success than being a good loser. Nothing. It’s natural to be focused on winning investments, but it’s the sign of a novice. The fact is that winning is easy -- it’s losing, and losing ...read more

“I give them two years before they’re turning out the lights on a very painful and expensive mistake...” That’s a quote from a pessimistic analyst in a Bloomberg Op-Ed dated May 20, 2001 — just one day after Apple opened its first retail locations. The arguments against brick-and-mortar retail are sound, for ...read more