Once upon a time, Melbourne topped the vote for most livable city. Eat your heart out, Melburnians. According to the latest World Social Index New Zealand is now the top place to be, while Japan leads on health.

Some Americans occasionally show a tendency to believe that the United States is Number One in pretty well everything, but this notion is firmly disarmed by the celebrated New York Times op-ed columnist Nicholas Kristof. We’re Not Number One, the headline says, twice.

Meanwhile the latest cost-of-living survey by the Economist Intelligence Unit puts Melbourne (and Sydney) as more expensive cities than New York or Tokyo – indeed some of the most expensive in the world.

Wherever you are, it seems a university education is not what it’s cracked up to be. Obviously some universities and some degrees are high-value, but The Economist tells us that there are many college degrees that are not worth the cost.

This can’t be true in planetary science, though. A team of scientists from California have published a report confirming that the moon of the planet Saturn has a sea the size of Lake Superior, an indication perhaps of human life there.

Back on this planet, the Financial Times columnist Philip Stephens has come up with some helpful suggestions on how to avoid war in the East China Sea. The FT has a paywall, but you can register and read a limited number of articles for free and this is worth reading, as is George Friedman’s article in AIIA’s Australian Outlook on settling the Ukraine issue.

Finally, the World Economic Forum suggests that women could be Latin America’s secret weapon as the continent strives to be competitive with the rest of the world.

Colin Chapman lives in Sydney, and confirms it is more expensive than Melbourne