According to a recent study, smoking marijuana for many years leads to a severe loss of intelligence: compared with people who did not consume cannabis, the IQ’s of smokers were lower by 13-38 points (Meier et al.: “Persistent cannabis users show neuropsychological decline from childhood to midlife”, PNAS 109, 2012). Moreover, after a long time of consumption, cognitive abilities and memory do not recover when smoking marijuana is eventually given up.

On Tuesday, April 21st, Tornike Kadeishvili, Head of Scientific Board of Andrea Razmadze Mathematical Institute and Professor of Mathematics at ISET, gave a public lecture organized by ISET. The presentation was of “popular lecture” type, were Prof. Kadeishvili showed students how mathematics is used in modeling of economic events. More than 100 students and other interested individuals attended the lecture.

“Shock and awe” is a US military term describing the use of overwhelming power to demoralize the enemy, as applied by the American military in Iraq. “Shock and awe” would also aptly describe my emotional state when I entered, at the age of 23, the magnificent reading room at the Bodleian Library in Oxford. This was the moment when I – a former paratrooper and an officer with one of Israel’s security services – understood how badly I want to acquire an education. Not technical knowledge or skills, but an education.

Tobacco consumption is widely known for its negative effects on health. According to the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention, just in the USA, an estimated 443,000 people die per year prematurely due to inhaling cigarette smoke. As there are 46 million smokers in the USA, it means that in any given year, the likelihood to “die prematurely” because of one’s smoking habit is almost 1% (under the admittedly strong assumption that these numbers are constant in the long run). If one smokes for 10 years, the probability that one’s life will be cut short goes up to 9%.

On Friday, February 13, 2015, a debate on a new law on agricultural land ownership was held at Expo Georgia. The debate was organized by USAID’s G4G project and ISET. The debate’s panel comprised government officials, experts, foreign investors, and businesses, and the event was moderated by Eric Livny, Director of the International School of Economics.