The researchers from McGill University in Montreal noted a convergence in therateof deaths from HIV and heart disease as contributing to the narrowing ofthe life expectancy gap.
The pattern of swift, uninterrupted decline is now taken as the norm: the UN uses it to project a worldwide convergence towards the replacement rateof fertility (2.1, therate at which a population stabilises in the long term).
Dr Melnick explained that to predict an earthquake's magnitude, seismologists multiply plate convergencerate by the number of years since the last great event.
Theconvergence in yields reflects mainly the removal of exchange-rate risk since the creation ofthe single currency, but that still leaves default risk.