In the tech-hardware business, competition over price is really a function of scale: firms with higher volume can make things more cheaply.

ECONOMIST: Why Japan lost the mobile-phone wars

However, the Tories argue that this change should be part of a full-scale review of the role, function and composition of the House of Lords.

ECONOMIST: Peers versus people, round two

One of the ways scientists study the CMB is by subjecting the warm and cold spots in the radiation to a detailed statistical analysis, examining the deviations in temperature as a function of their size on the sky - their angular scale.

BBC: The first fractions of a second after the Big Bang