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This summary covers The Economist’s May 9th, 2026 Science & technology column Well Informed: Does acupuncture work?, published under the headline Does acupuncture work?.

The article gives acupuncture a measured verdict: it looks useful for some kinds of pain, but the evidence becomes much weaker once the claims move beyond pain relief. That distinction matters because acupuncture occupies an unusual place in modern medicine. It is an ancient Chinese practice traditionally explained through the flow of qi, or vital energy, yet it is now marketed by influencers, athletes and wellness clinics for everything from anti-ageing to fertility, asthma, anxiety and muscle recovery.

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This summary covers The Economist’s May 9th, 2026 Science & technology article on a hantavirus outbreak aboard the cruise ship MV Hondius, published under the headline Troubled waters and listed in the contents as Handling a hantavirus outbreak.

The article describes a small but unusually worrying outbreak. MV Hondius left Argentina on April 1st with around 150 passengers and crew, bound for Cape Verde. By May 6th, when The Economist went to press, three people on board had been confirmed as infected with hantavirus and another five cases were suspected. Three of those eight people had died.

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This summary covers The Economist’s May 9th, 2026 Science & technology article on peptideins, published under the headline Almost proteins and listed in the contents as Proteins' little cousins.

The article describes a newly named class of tiny molecules that could complicate the standard picture of how human cells work. Peptideins resemble proteins but are smaller and, in most cases, have no known function. That uncertainty is the point. They may turn out to be mostly biological noise, or some may become useful clues to disease and promising targets for cancer treatments. Giving them a name is an attempt to make researchers pay closer attention.

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This summary covers The Economist’s May 9th, 2026 Business column on Berkshire Hathaway and SoftBank Group, published under the headline Warren or Masa and listed in the contents as Berkshire v SoftBank.

The article presents Berkshire Hathaway and SoftBank as opposite answers to the same question: what should an investment company do when markets look unusually expensive and technology is changing unusually fast? Berkshire, built by Warren Buffett, has accumulated nearly \$400bn in cash because it cannot find enough attractive deals. SoftBank, led by Masayoshi Son, is borrowing heavily to finance a sweeping bet on artificial intelligence. One risks becoming too cautious to justify its structure. The other risks running out of money before its vision pays off.

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This summary covers The Economist’s May 9th, 2026 Business article on eBay’s revival, published under the headline Unjumbled and listed in the section notes as EBay's stunning revival.

The article argues that eBay, long treated as a faded relic of the early consumer internet, has become interesting again by narrowing its ambitions. Instead of trying to beat Amazon, Walmart or newer specialist marketplaces at their own games, the company has leaned back into the messy, second-hand, enthusiast-driven commerce that made it distinctive in the first place. That shift has helped stabilize buyers, restart sales growth and lift investors’ expectations. It has also made eBay attractive enough for GameStop to attempt an improbable takeover.

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This summary covers The Economist’s May 9th, 2026 Business article on Chinese carmaking, published under the headline Red lights and listed in the contents as Chinese carmaking.

The article argues that the global car industry has reached an uncomfortable reversal. For decades, foreign carmakers went to China to sell vehicles, lower costs and learn the local market. Now many of them are trying to learn how to become more like Chinese carmakers everywhere else. China has become the industry’s most important source of speed, software, electric-vehicle manufacturing skill and competitive pressure. The question is no longer whether Chinese carmakers can catch up with Western and Japanese incumbents. It is whether those incumbents can catch up with China without becoming dependent on the very rivals threatening them.

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This summary covers The Economist’s May 9th, 2026 Finance & economics article on artificial intelligence and China’s office-property market, published under the headline The rent is too damn AI and listed in the contents as AI rescues Chinese landlords.

The article uses a neat irony to explain a real-estate rebound. A court in Hangzhou, one of China’s leading AI hubs, ruled that firms cannot simply dismiss workers and replace them with artificial intelligence. That is good news for employees. It is also good news for commercial landlords, because office towers do not earn rent from software agents. They need people in seats, and China’s newest source of people in seats is the AI boom.

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This summary covers The Economist’s May 9th, 2026 China article listed in the contents as US-China AI negotiations and published under the headline A MAD problem.

The article argues that artificial intelligence is becoming a strategic problem of the sort usually associated with nuclear weapons: both America and China fear the danger, but neither wants to slow down if the other might race ahead. That tension is what makes AI diplomacy urgent and difficult. The technology promises economic power, military leverage and scientific advantage. It also raises the prospect of cyberattacks, biological misuse and systems that become hard for humans to control.

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This summary covers The Economist’s May 9th, 2026 Science & technology article on artificial intelligence and biosecurity, published under the headline Bio hazards and listed in the contents as How AI could enable bioterrorism.

The article’s central warning is not that artificial intelligence has already made biological terrorism easy. It is that the barrier is falling in a field where even a small mistake could be catastrophic. Modern biology has already made genetic information easier to obtain, biological tools cheaper to buy and technical knowledge more widely available. Large language models add a new layer: they can translate difficult scientific literature into usable guidance, help troubleshoot experiments and, in some tests, perform at or above human experts on specialized biosecurity questions.

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A Bright Spot In A Weak Drinks Market

The article uses whisky to explain a surprising corner of Chinese consumption. Most alcohol categories in China are struggling. Beer is weak, wine has faded since its peak, and even baijiu, the country’s dominant spirit, has suffered falling sales as younger consumers drink less and overall spending remains sluggish. Yet whisky is moving in the opposite direction.