ART & DESIGN CULTURE EDITOR'S PICK How Art Can Help Us Rethink Sleep Key Takeaway: Sleep loss is often seen as a personal responsibility, with consumer products and media reporting treating it as a personal issue. However, recognizing sleep as a cultural issue can help us rethink our relationship with sleep and recognize how it exposes competing agendas. Literature and art can help challenge dominant visions of sleep, […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
EDITOR'S PICK SOCIOLOGY Are Rich People More Intelligent? Key Takeaway: Intelligence is a crucial factor in determining one’s wealth, as it contributes to economic and professional success. It is the best predictor of both educational achievement and work performance, and academic and professional success are a fairly good forecaster of income. However, not all highly intelligent people are primarily driven by a desire […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
BUSINESS & ECONOMICS EDITOR'S PICK The Significance Of The Cybertruck Key Takeaway: Tesla, a high-volume, premium-priced leader in the global electric vehicle (EV) market, experienced a 50% growth in deliveries in 2019. The company announced the Cybertruck in 2019, marking its first move into light/pickup trucks. However, delays in deliveries and the cost of bulletproof glass have hindered its development. Tesla now faces challenges in […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
EDITOR'S PICK SCIENCE Human Evolution May Be A Total Accident Key Takeaway: Around 9 million species exist on Earth, from simple single-celled organisms to humans. Evolutionary biologists believe that life has an innate tendency to evolve into ever more complex forms, which may be driven by natural selection. However, modern biologists disagree on the process behind this increase in complexity. One possibility is that maximum […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
EDITOR'S PICK SCIENCE NASA Finally Revealed Findings On UFOs Key Takeaway: NASA’s independent study team released a report on UFOs, describing them as UAPs (unidentified anomalous phenomena) to move beyond the stigma associated with UFOs. The report found no evidence that reported UAP observations are extraterrestrial. The report also highlighted the need for transparency and reducing the stigma associated with UFOs. The study team […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
EDITOR'S PICK SCIENCE NASA’s Investigation Into UFOs Key Takeaway Nasa’s committee has examined around 800 reports of unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAPs), or unidentified flying objects, which cannot be identified as aircraft or known natural phenomena from a scientific perspective. The committee, led by astrophysicist David Spergel, is using declassified reports and images to try to explain some of the mysterious reports. The […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
ART & DESIGN EDITOR'S PICK What Makes Basquiat Special? Key Takeaway: Jean-Michel Basquiat’s work highlights racial inequalities and the lack of representation of racialized people in the media, but also the violence suffered by African Americans. Jean-Michel Basquiat denounced the violence of cartoons, which he saw as a reflection of 20th-century American society. Jean-Michel Basquiat’s painting “Toxic” is an attempt to denounce a stereotypical […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
EDITOR'S PICK TECHNOLOGY The Future Of Energy Key Takeaways: The dystopian nature of recent events should not be lost on anyone. The most important technology being developed today, therefor, is that which allows us to transition off of fossil fuels and to mitigate our impact on the planet. While some researchers do aim to make perovskite solar cells a replacement for traditional […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
ART & DESIGN EDITOR'S PICK Why Do Artworks Have Frames? There’s a workshop at the Getty Center where the paintings aren’t the stars. Instead, the frames take center stage. In this bright and airy room, empty frames hang on the walls, and tools and books line the counters. There you’d find associate conservator Gene Karakker, who retired earlier this summer, choosing from an assortment of […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
BUSINESS & ECONOMICS EDITOR'S PICK FINANCE POLITICS Sustainable Investments: A Bubble? The rise of environmental, social and corporate governance investment (ESG) as a prioritization strategy is driving change in the financial landscape, obliging many companies to get on board. Some observers see the reorientation of investment priorities toward sustainability as a $30 trillion market opportunity, while others insist that, regardless of the money involved, companies must integrate it into […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
Why Vertical Farms Are Struggling Key Takeaway: Vertical farming, a revolutionary technology that promises fresh, locally grown food in stacked indoor environments, has faced setbacks in recent years. Despite these challenges, the fundamental principles of controlled-environment agriculture remain strong. The industry is still in its infancy, but its potential is greater in regions with less favorable growing conditions. Advances in […] Written by Empirics Asia March 11, 2025March 11, 2025 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
The Paradox Of Narcissism Key Takeaway: Narcissistic individuals often project self-assurance but have a deep need for external validation, revealing a fundamental insecurity. This gap between self-perception and reality affects relationships, emotional stability, and perception of reality. Narcissistic personality disorder, affecting a small percentage of the population, has far-reaching social consequences. Highly narcissistic individuals often display a pattern of […] Written by Empirics Asia March 10, 2025March 10, 2025 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
Collision Course: The Doomsday Asteroid Flying Towards Earth Key Takeaway: A new asteroid, 2024 YR4, was detected in Chile at the end of 2024, with a small yet notable chance of colliding with Earth in 2032. Initially, estimates suggested a 3.1% probability of impact, but as of February 2024, calculations by the European Space Agency’s Near Earth Object Centre have revised this down […] Written by Empirics Asia February 25, 2025February 25, 2025 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
The Hidden Cost Of Cheap Furniture Key Takeaway: Fast furniture, which is mass-produced items designed for short-term use, is a growing environmental crisis. Millions of discarded pieces end up in landfills each year, contributing to a waste problem mirroring the fast fashion industry. To avoid fast furniture, consumers should identify it by noticing its price, materials, assembly methods, limited or unclear […] Written by Empirics Asia February 24, 2025February 24, 2025 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
Is Democracy Really The Best System? Key Takeaway: Plato’s critique of democracy, particularly in his work “The Republic,” suggests that it is fundamentally flawed. Socrates, Plato’s mentor and teacher, argues that ruling a state is a skill, similar to piloting a ship or performing surgery. However, critics argue that this is not the case. Politics involves moral judgments, compromises, and social […] Written by Empirics Asia February 21, 2025February 21, 2025 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
The Secret Memory Of Plants Key Takeaway: Plants have a unique memory that helps them survive in a constantly changing world. They have evolved defense mechanisms, such as immune priming, which allows them to remember past infections. However, plants lack this adaptive immune memory, relying on epigenetic changes to maintain a heightened state of defense. This memory can last generations, […] Written by Empirics Asia February 20, 2025February 20, 2025 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
Are We Alone In The Universe? Key Takeaway: New research challenges the hard-steps model of evolution, which suggests that human intelligence is an extremely rare event. The model suggests that intelligence takes billions of years to emerge on Earth, and that it is a result of rare and improbable evolutionary breakthroughs. Some scientists argue that the emergence of eukaryotic cells, oxygen-producing […] Written by Empirics Asia February 19, 2025February 19, 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