This one comes from a paper, delivered at a NBER conference last month, on the supply dynamics of the housing boom and bust. (A hat tip goes to Benjamin Keys.) The authors crunched census data to compile the compounded annual growth rates of the population, smoothed out over five years.

FORBES: Connect

As Mr Sharif comes from a business family, the paper argues this should help him "winning back the confidence and trust of the foreign investors".

BBC: Press highlight Pakistan challenges

This particular transaction comes several months after another significant merger within the paper industry when Rock-Tenn (RKT), which was added to the Forbes Growth Investor last month, acquired Smurfit-Stone back in May.

FORBES: When 2+2=5 is Good Math for Investors

This week's unusual twist comes in the shape of a paper in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), which suggests a very different relationship between two of the major amphibian threats: loss of habitat, and the fungal disease chytridiomycosis.

BBC: Double whammy for the disappearing frogs

Unlike with other pen-enabled tablets, where you might see air pockets in between the screen layers, this actually comes close to matching what it feels like to write on paper.

ENGADGET: Microsoft Surface Pro hands-on Hands-on