Data from the portal have proved what many had suspected: that the decades-old practice of releasing music to radio weeks before putting it on sale feeds piracy and saps sales.

ECONOMIST: Music and technology: Digitally remastered | The

It was financed by assessments on adjoining property owners for the "improvements" of paved streets and utilities, a practice that met with violent resistance but proved profitable in the end.

WSJ: The Greatest Grid | Museum of the City of New York | Crosshatching a Miracle | By Ada Louise Huxtable

But it wasn't until 1747, when an English physicist named Benjamin Robins proved that "rifled" barrels performed better, that the practice really took off.

FORBES: Magazine Article

Many ceremonies that mark national celebrations and religious rituals incorporate the practice and calligraphy has itself proved influential on modern art, architecture and design.

UNESCO: Culture

However, the cat (or, rather, subatomic particles that behave like the cat) has proved hard to hunt down in practice because such superpositions of states are fragile and easily disrupted phenomena.

ECONOMIST: The 2012 Nobel prizes