What we learned this week

• A town in Australia is the first place in the world to ban bottled water.

• The potato may be responsible for the global population boom.

• And here’s a great quote from the Roman philosopher Seneca, as quoted by Micah White at Adbusters:

“appoint certain days on which to give up everything and make yourself at home with next to nothing. Start cultivating a relationship with poverty. For no one is worthy of god unless he has paid no heed to riches. I am not, mind you, against your possessing them, but I want to ensure that you possess them without tremors; and this you will only achieve in one way, by convincing yourself that you can live a happy life even without them, and by always regarding them as being on the point of vanishing”