Inflation explained with eggs

The prices of everything seem to be rising a lot lately. Why? For Vox, Emily Stewart uses eggs as a case study to explain:

“There are different ways of thinking about the inflation issue, and economists by default tend to think about macroeconomic issues such as inflation in macroeconomic terms,” said Isabella Weber, an economist at UMass Amherst. “In this current situation that we are facing, we basically have very strong micro dynamics, that is dynamics on the level of specific sectors that translate into a more general kind of price pressure.”

Eggs don’t paint the full inflation picture in the US, but they do a part of it — it’s more expensive to feed chickens and move eggs around, so it’s more expensive to produce and move eggs, so it’s more expensive for consumers to buy eggs.

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Charting bird egg shapes, and why so many varieties

Bird eggs come in all shapes and sizes, and people didn’t really know why. After analyzing a number of variables, researchers think they found their answer.

After crunching the numbers, the scientists found the links they’d been looking for: the length of an egg correlates with bird body size. The shape of an egg—how asymmetrical or elliptical it is—relates to flying habits. And the stronger a bird’s flight, the more asymmetrical or elliptical its eggs will be.

Lots of charts and probably more information about bird eggs than you ever thought you wanted to know.

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