EDITOR'S PICK SCIENCE Can Music Be Bad For Us? Key Takeaway: Music can be a powerful tool for boosting focus and productivity, but its effectiveness depends on factors such as the person, task, and music type. Instrumental music is less distracting, while familiar tunes can help with memorization or problem-solving. However, high volumes can lead to hearing damage, as the hair-like cells inside the […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
EDITOR'S PICK SCIENCE How People Can Influence Our Memories Key Takeaway: A study has found that our memory helps us learn from experiences and develop new knowledge by integrating and updating information. Memory can forge inferred connections beyond direct experiences, which can sometimes lead to false inferences. The study found that people may prioritize information from liked sources more than those from disliked ones, […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
EDITOR'S PICK SCIENCE The Science Of Beauty Key Takeaway: Beauty is more important to us than we often realize, as it can have a compelling effect on our experience and behavior. Beauty emerges from properties of the object itself, such as proportion, symmetry, and curvature, as well as the relationship between the object and the viewer, including the degree of familiarity. Aesthetics […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
EDITOR'S PICK SOCIOLOGY TECHNOLOGY How Will A.I. Transform Journalism Key Takeaway: The journalism industry has been under immense economic pressure for the past two decades, leading to the experimentation with generative AI tools. A survey by the Associated Press found that nearly 70% of journalists used these tools to generate text, including article drafts, headlines, and social media posts. However, the adoption of AI […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
ART & DESIGN CULTURE EDITOR'S PICK How Great Was Beethoven Really? Key Takeaway: On its 200th anniversary, the Ninth Symphony, premiered in Vienna in 1824, was praised as the greatest master of Western classical music. However, the lionization of Beethoven never sat well with some, leading to a backlash. The author reframed Beethoven’s greatness within the context of historic ideals of whiteness and patriarchy, arguing that […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
BUSINESS & ECONOMICS EDITOR'S PICK SCIENCE The Science Of Gaming’s Future Key Takeaway: Game developers are increasingly focusing on creating experiences that stay with players, despite the shrinking market and layoffs during the pandemic. Research on inner experience, which includes thoughts, memories, inner dialogue, visual imagery, feelings, and emotions, is becoming an important field of cognitive science. Gaming has the potential to transform gaming by creating […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
EDITOR'S PICK PSYCHOLOGY Smartphones & The Source Of Our Anxiety Key Takeaway: Jonathan Haidt’s book, The Anxious Generation, calls for action to limit teenagers’ smartphone access and address the mental health crisis caused by the widespread use of smartphones. Haidt cites the “great rewiring” period from 2010 to 2015 as a time when adolescents’ neural systems were primed for anxiety and depression by daily smartphone […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
EDITOR'S PICK PHILOSOPHY SCIENCE Did Ancient Scientists & Philosophers Believe In Aliens? Key Takeaway: In 17th-century Europe, there was a debate about the existence of life on other planets due to the transition from a Ptolemaic view to a Copernican view. This led to the idea that if we were more like other planets and moons close to us that revolved around the Sun, they were more […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
EDITOR'S PICK PSYCHOLOGY The Proven 5 Steps To Psychological Wellness Key Takeaway: Wellness culture, which claims to provide happiness and meaning, has been criticized for its superficial focus on superficial aspects like candles and juice cleanses. Psychological research suggests that long-term wellbeing comes from a committed pursuit of both pleasure and meaning. Martin Seligman’s Perma model, which breaks wellbeing into five pillars: positive emotions, engagement, […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
EDITOR'S PICK PSYCHOLOGY Understanding The Power Of Human Intuition Key Takeaway: The 2024 Academy Awards recognized Cillian Murphy’s Best Actor performance, which was driven by acting intuition. Behaving intuitively is a common skill that allows us to be the best versions of ourselves in any situation. Research suggests that intuition can be trained and best understood as an “embodied state of mind” supported by […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
How DeepSeek Is Changing The Game Key Takeaway: DeepSeek, a Chinese AI lab, disrupted the artificial intelligence industry by developing a model rivaling OpenAI’s ChatGPT-4 at a fraction of the cost. Founded by a former hedge fund manager, DeepSeek focused on efficiency and optimized algorithms for less powerful hardware. The company’s open-source approach has forced Chinese competitors to lower their own […] Written by Empirics Asia February 5, 2025February 5, 2025 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
How Will Quantum Computers Be Used? Key Takeaway: Quantum computing, a groundbreaking idea over 40 years ago, aims to process information using quantum mechanics. Qubits, which can embody 0, 1, or a blend of both, enable quantum systems to explore vast arrays of solutions simultaneously. Quantum entanglement, a phenomenon where qubits become intertwined, allows quantum computers to perform intricate calculations that […] Written by Empirics Asia February 4, 2025February 4, 2025 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
How Ultra-Fast Science Will Transform Our Future Key Takeaway: Attosecond science, a field that earned the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2023, uses ultra-short laser pulses to observe and manipulate matter on timescales previously thought impossible. This breakthrough has implications across various sectors, including computing, renewable energy, medicine, and beyond. Attosecond science harnesses the energy of laser light to emit rapidly moving […] Written by Empirics Asia January 22, 2025January 22, 2025 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
The Hidden Science Behind The Sky’s Colour Key Takeaway: The blue sky is a result of Rayleigh scattering, a process where shorter wavelengths of light scatter more than longer wavelengths. The atmosphere is composed of nitrogen and oxygen molecules, which interact with sunlight to create a spectrum of colors. This scattering process, which is governed by physics and chemistry, is the primary […] Written by Empirics Asia January 21, 2025January 21, 2025 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
How Korea’s Cultural Revolution Is Shaping The World Key Takeaway: South Korea’s cultural exports have surged to unprecedented heights, with the latest season of “Squid Game” solidifying its position as a global entertainment powerhouse. The “Korean Wave” or Hallyu, which includes TV series, movies, animation, and music, has generated approximately US$3.7 billion annually for South Korea through exports, consumer spending, and tourism. The […] Written by Empirics Asia January 20, 2025January 20, 2025 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
The Existence Of Extraterrestrial Life Key Takeaway: A study published in Nature Astronomy found a strong consensus among scientists that extraterrestrial life exists in the universe. The survey, which involved 521 astrobiologists and 534 non-astrobiologists, found that 86.6% agreed or strongly agreed that some form of extraterrestrial life exists. The study also found that 67.4% of astrobiologists and 58.2% of […] Written by Empirics Asia January 16, 2025January 16, 2025 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
The Rise Of Virtual Microbes? Key Takeaway: Researchers are using genome-scale metabolic models (GEMs) to study the complexities of microbial life, offering innovative solutions to climate change and space challenges. GEMs simulate the vast network of metabolic pathways within living organisms, allowing scientists to test and predict microbial behavior across diverse environments. They provide a detailed framework for understanding organisms’ […] Written by Empirics Asia January 15, 2025January 15, 2025 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
Rethinking Education Key Takeaways: The Industrial model of education that fueled the modern era and its dizzying reach did its job incredibly well. In his writing, Flynn illustrates study after study, spanning nations and decades, in which modern educational gift of abstraction — a transcendent sign of intelligence, as we saw in Raven’s Matrices — has been […] Written by Anthony Fieldman March 2, 2022October 19, 2022 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
How China Is Transforming Its Economy Through Learning I highly recommend reading the McKinsey Global Institute’s new report, “Reskilling China: Transforming The World’s Largest Workforce Into Lifelong Learners”, which focuses on the country’s biggest employment challenge, re-training its workforce and the adoption of practices such as lifelong learning to address the growing digital transformation of its productive fabric. How to transform the country […] Written by Enrique Dans February 1, 2021February 1, 2021 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
Why You’re Not Seeing Success With Influencer Marketing With the new year around the corner, now is a good time to re-evaluate your past marketing strategies and gear up for the year ahead. For some businesses, influencer marketing has simply not seemed to live up to its lofty promises of genuine engagement, credibility, and transparency. Some have claimed that it has been failing […] Written by Michael Tan January 14, 2021January 15, 2021 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
A New Philosophy of Business I’m about to ask you to take a mental leap. For the next 8 minutes, suspend your notions of what a business is, and I’ll propose a new lens for you to look through. There are a lot of questions asked around what “community” means for business. “Where should community fit in my organization?” and […] Written by Empirics Asia September 5, 2018September 5, 2018 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked