Yes, it's obvious that the unemployed are less likely to own an iPhone. So there's lots of unemployed people this won't help. So what? There's also enough unemployed people it will help - recent graduates, those recently made redundant. If it helps enough of them (and 50,000 downloading the app in ten weeks suggests there are thousands who at least thought it would help) then it may well be cost effective. It doesn't take a lot of people in work to generate 35k in income tax. So it is not stupid, and it is probably not ineffective.

I assume you're thinking just of optical microscopes, where a standard one can see down to around 200nm. If you include electron microscopes, however, there are plenty that can see down to the size of individual atoms - so definitely enough resolution to see viruses. There are also a load more visualisation techniques around which can also give info on virus structures.

Suddenly? Earth observation has been there from the beginning. NASA built the first TIROS weather satellite in 1960, the first LANDSAT in 1972.

I think Google could only be accused of the homage bit because of the previous "android" name. To be frank, Nexus is a more appropriate name for their mobile phones than android anyway - nexus being latin for a form of connection, a connected group or the centre of something, so a phone qualifies by one definition as a "nexus". "Android" means designed to act and look human, so not so close.

Plus latin is so dead that even the most extreme proposed copyright rules wouldn't mean you owe Rome anything...

I'd imagine the express train trying to use the same rail-only tunnel could cause some discomfort.

(yes, I know a lot of the trains are car-carrying ones, but you're not driving if you're parked on a train)

Better because they got the British Medical Journal to write it - link

The first edition of Robert Harris' Enigma came out in 1995.

Does Enigma, by Robert Harris also count as a cryptographic thriller? First edition was 1995.