The Economist. World-wide population growth will soon turn into a decline. “…in the past decade, it has become increasingly clear that countries whose reproductive zeal had fallen below the 2.1 magic number were not isolated cases.” For industrialized nations,1.85 is the new magic number. The unexpected news was that developing nations are slowing their growth to the industrial “magic number” faster than earlier estimates. [John Robb's Radio Weblog]