What We Read Today 13 August 2014

Econintersect: Every day our editors collect the most interesting things they find from around the internet and present a summary “reading list” which will include very brief summaries (and sometimes longer ones) of why each item has gotten our attention. Suggestions from readers for “reading list” items are gratefully reviewed, although sometimes space limits the number included.

• Ukraine may block Russian humanitarian aid convoy (BBC News) Ukraine says a Russian aid convoy of 300 trucks will not be allowed to cross the border between the two countries. Ukraine says the aid must be transferred from Russian vehicles to Ukrainian trucks under the supervision of the Red Cross. Putin announced the convoy Monday and said it was “in co-operation with the International Committee of the Red Cross“. On Tuesday the Red Cross said “it still needs more security guarantees and information about the aid convoy“.

• Ex-MIT Professor, Son to Plead Guilty in Hedge Fund Scam (Christie Smith, Bloomberg) An MIT professor who was also Associate Dean of the Sloan School of Business and his MIT graduate, Harvard Business School MBA son are pleading guilty to running an investment fraud. The solicited more than half a billion dollars for investment using a trading model based on the father’s research. They instead invested the money with a variety of other managers. One of them happened to be Bernie Madoff and investigation of his Ponzi scheme uncovered the malfeasance of the professor and his son.

• How to detect the cheap filler ingredients in your pricey coffee (Michael Silverberg, Quartz)

“With our test, it is now possible to know with 95% accuracy if coffee is pure or has been tampered with,” says Suzana Lucy Nixdorf, who led the research and is presenting the findings this week at a meeting of the American Chemical Society. If the test is adopted by the industry, expect fewer potato-flour espressos-unless you’re into that sort of thing.

• Colgate Total Ingredient Linked to Hormones, Cancer Spotlights FDA Process (Tiffany Kary, Bloomberg) The chemical triclosan has been linked to cancer-cell growth and disrupted development in animals. Regulators are reviewing whether it’s safe to put in soap, cutting boards and toys. Consumer companies are phasing it out. Minnesota voted in May to ban it in many products. But Colgate-Palmolive Co.’s Total uses the compound to head off bacterial sources of gum disease. It appears than the approval process for triclosan in Total was aided by the FDA mysteriously withholding 35 pages of toxicology results from the final review process.

There are 11 articles discussed today ‘behind the wall’.

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