EDITOR'S PICK SCIENCE The Mystery Of The Speed Of Light The speed of light is an assumption, not a certainty. It’s an assumption in that we have never experimentally measured the one-way speed of light. The best we have been able to do, even with our most sophisticated modern technology, is measure the roundtrip speed of light and assume that the speed is the same […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
ART & DESIGN EDITOR'S PICK POLITICS The Surprising Power Of Cartoons Cartoons make us laugh. But they can also make us feel anger and powerlessness, fear and loathing. In early January, Al-Qaeda gunmen unleashed a brutal attack on the offices of the satirical French magazine Charlie Hebdo in retaliation for cartoons mocking the Prophet Muhammad. This wasn’t the first time Charlie Hebdo had been targeted, and other 21st-century cartoonists have […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
EDITOR'S PICK SCIENCE Solving The Fermi Paradox I often wonder if the majority of us choose to believe in life on other worlds because of scientific reasons, or sentimental ones. There are, of course, plenty of encouraging numbers about the many Earth-like exoplanets and the many radiating stars around which habitats might form. The odds seem to be in the favor of […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
EDITOR'S PICK SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY The Man Who Was Struck By A Particle Accelerator If you ask a physicist what would happen if you were to stick any part of your body into a particle accelerator, you will be met with the same answer time and time again: they don’t know. They may have some vague notion of how it would affect your body, but not a single clear […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
BUSINESS & ECONOMICS EDITOR'S PICK MONEY & FINANCE TECHNOLOGY The Problem With Stablecoins Cryptocurrencies have had an exceptional year, reaching a combined value of more than US$3 trillion (£2.2 trillion) for the first time in November. The market seems to have benefited from the public having time on their hands during pandemic lockdowns. Also, large investment funds and banks have stepped in, not least with the recent launch of the […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
EDITOR'S PICK TECHNOLOGY Drones Are The Perfect Example Of Technological Progress After reading about DJI’s latest drone, the Mavic 3, I was prompted to reflect on the speed technology in this area has progressed. DJI launched its Mavic series in September 2016, and it was already a highly competitive device, foldable, with a 12MPX camera capable of recording 4K videos at 24 fps, a flight time of 27 minutes […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
EDITOR'S PICK PHILOSOPHY SOCIOLOGY Standing Out I’ve never been as aware of the human predisposition toward pack mentality — the urge to be part of something bigger than us, and to find safety in numbers — as when I have stood opposed to any particular instance of groupthink. When it has happened, the act of going against the grain has more often […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
BUSINESS & ECONOMICS EDITOR'S PICK SOCIOLOGY TECHNOLOGY Why Improvisation Is The Future Of A.I. Dominated World In his autobiography, Miles Davis complained that classical musicians were like robots. He spoke from experience – he’d studied classical music at Juilliard and recorded with classical musicians even after becoming a world-renowned jazz artist. As a music professor at the University of Florida, which is transforming itself into an “AI university,” I often think […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
EDITOR'S PICK SCIENCE The Future Of Interstellar Travel In the deep space adventure world of Star Trek, high-tech ships are propelled forward with incredible efficiency by utilizing something known as an “impulse drive”. This drive allows them to travel at speeds approaching — but never quite reaching — the speed of light. Intrepid crew members travel between planets in minutes. Sometimes they even […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
EDITOR'S PICK PSYCHOLOGY & WELLNESS SOCIOLOGY How Nurture Shapes Nature Most of us knew that our genetic inheritance shapes much about who we are. Less known is the emerging field of epigenetics, and the surprising discoveries that in fact the quality of our thoughts can have a profound impact on our physiological health, as well as our emotional lives. This morning, I read an Instagram […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
5 Ways Big Data Is Changing The World The primitive era had land — rich wilderness upon which the first civilizations were built. The industrial era had giant steel machines capable of carrying humans across the globe to expand our influence. And what about this age? What will we use to change the world? The answer, of course, is data. Information made of […] Written by Ella Alderson May 12, 2022May 12, 2022 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
The Definition Of Living Who am I? It seems like such a simple question. Most of us wouldn’t hesitate. We would answer by referencing our cardinal points of orientation—things most of us will tell you “define a life”. We give them labels to point toward our lineage, contexts and shared rituals. The most powerful of these identity-givers are our […] Written by Anthony Fieldman May 10, 2022May 10, 2022 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
Uncovering One Of A.I.’s Deepest Mysteries The black box problem is a profound mystery surrounding AI. It says that we may understand the input, we may understand the output, but the AI’s decision-making process which bridges these two is a black box we can’t seem to peer inside. When given the task of helping diagnose patients, for example, why might an […] Written by Ella Alderson May 9, 2022May 9, 2022 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
Why Data Is The Future Of Healthcare A growing number of studies around the world show that healthcare is steadily evolving into a science based on the analysis of mass data, on detecting the signs that make it possible to know, evaluate and eventually treat a person’s health problems preventively. This is a transformation that will fundamentally affect the development of science […] Written by Enrique Dans May 6, 2022May 6, 2022 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
Understanding Agrivoltaic Technologies The success of a growing number of countries around the world with agrivoltaic technology, or locating solar panels on farms, a topic I have written about before, suggests this could be a win-win formula, particularly for the developing world. “Harvesting the sun twice”, a €1.6 million research project by the University of Sheffield in East Africa, has made great […] Written by Enrique Dans April 29, 2022April 29, 2022 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
Rethinking Education The Industrial model of education that fueled the modern era and its dizzying reach did its job incredibly well. Its prime accomplishment was the expansion of our ability to abstract the world. Until then, pragmatism reigned, limiting most people’s thoughts and interactions primarily because we lacked the tools to extrapolate information, to wield it for things that lay beyond obvious […] Written by Anthony Fieldman March 2, 2022March 2, 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