But the challenge has always lain with the first half of Lincoln's phrase--that is, how to stoke that genius through a system that both rewards the inventor with a temporary business monopoly and protects the competition that lies at the heart of the free-market system.

FORBES: The smother of invention

As a child I had spent my evenings at home doing schoolwork, or trying to get a picture on the black and white TV, as a teenager I'd lain in my room fiddling with my yellow transistor radio, waiting for my favourite tunes.

NPR: 'Ancestor Stones:' Life and War in Sierra Leone

China's thirst for industry and irrigation has combined with climate change to drain the aquifers, some of which hold fossil water that has lain undisturbed for millennia.

ECONOMIST: Bursting cities, bust infrastructure