Prime Numbers

The failing industry: the future of airlines.

Who's cashing in on the Olympic gold?

The rise of the credit card.

FP takes a look at the booming Meth industry.

FP delves into the true cost of the Iraq war.

FP examines tourism and work-force economics.

Obesity grows ever larger worldwide.

Gambling's global rise.

The economic race between China and India is changing the way the world does business. By 2050, it is estimated that these two Asian heavyweights will account for nearly half the world's gross domestic product, up from just 6 percent today. But whose model is better, China's low-cost factories or India's low-cost financiers? For all the benefits of China's swift rise, India's brain power will finally give it the tools to catch up.

The book's obituary has been written time and again, its imminent demise blamed on television, falling publishing profits, and now, the Internet. But don't write books off just yet. More are being published than ever before, and sales continue to trump those of other media. Despite the dire predictions, the world still loves a good page-turner.

The disaster drugs: heroin and cocaine.

Five years ago, 19 men sparked a global war. They were far from the first to commit acts of terrorism. But the devastation they wrought led U.S. President George W. Bush to declare a war "unlike any other we have ever seen," not simply against al Qaeda, but against every organization capable of terror. Today, the world faces increased terrorism on nearly every front. Attacks and fatalities are on the rise not just in the Middle East, but around the world -- everywhere, it seems, but where the war was first declared. The United States may be footing many of the costs for the war on terror, but the rest of the world is paying with their lives.