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Introducing the gushing index, a statistical tool for measuring how actors speak

WHEN Daniel Day-Lewis became the first person to win the Oscar for best actor three times, for his performance in "Lincoln", he gave an atypically witty, humble speech. Looking back at previous acceptance speeches for best leading actor and actress, The Economist has devised a “gushing index”—which expresses the share of words such as beautiful, dream and love in Oscar acceptance speeches as a share of the whole text. Two French actors have delivered the most gushing speeches on this metric; Jean Dujardin in 2011 for "The Artist" and Marion Cotillard in 2007 for "La Vie en Rose".

A timeline of cyber-attacks from China

A new report released by Mandiant, an American cyber-security consultancy, reveals an astonishing history of hacking and online theft by a group based in Shanghai, China. Mandiant believes the hackers are part of the Chinese army. The firm saw at first hand how the group, dubbed the "Comment Crew", broke into the computer networks of over a hundred Western corporations and government institutions. Over the course of many years, the cyber thieves targeted nearly two dozen industries, with special attention paid to those in technology and sectors considered "strategic" by the central government.

China may have overtaken America as the largest importer and exporter of goods