EDITOR'S PICK SCIENCE Is Insomnia Actually Bad? Key Takeaway: Insomnia, a major health issue, affects around a third of people, with women and older individuals more affected. Sleep deprivation can lead to increased risk of diabetes, high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, and mental illness. The COVID-19 pandemic has increased the risk of insomnia, which has led to a rise in mental health […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
EDITOR'S PICK SOCIOLOGY The Maths Of Societal Collapse Key Takeaway: The author, a historian and complexity scientist, has been studying history for over a decade, noticing patterns in the past. They have been working on cliodynamics, a new field that uses statistical methods and computational simulations to understand how complex systems change over time. The Seshat: Global History Databank, a collection of over […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
EDITOR'S PICK PSYCHOLOGY The Secret Science Behind Dating Apps Key Takeaway: Research shows that viewing dating profiles can influence our judgments, particularly in terms of facial attractiveness. Sequential effects, or “serial dependence,” are a type of bias in psychology that affects how we judge the current item. High similarity between faces leads to more assimilation, while low similarity produces less or even contrast. These […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
EDITOR'S PICK PHILOSOPHY The Philosophy Of Parenthood Key Takeaway: Anti-natalism is a philosophical view that it is ethically wrong to bring anyone else into being, focusing on worries about suffering and choice. It is not an exclusively modern attitude, but it is based on ancient Greek playwright Sophocles’ belief that life contains far more suffering than good. Contemporary arguments focus on the […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
CULTURE EDITOR'S PICK These Are The 7 Scariest Books From Literature A truly scary story never really leaves you. It lurks in long evening shadows, calls out through mysterious bumps in the night and blows down your neck whenever you feel a sudden shiver. With Halloween approaching, we asked six of our academic experts to tell us about the scariest book theyโve ever read. From haunted […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
EDITOR'S PICK PHILOSOPHY The Surprisingly Modern Philosophy Of Jean-Jacques Rousseau Key Takeaways: Jean-Jacques Rousseau, a renowned Western philosopher, is often overlooked in modern thought. His work includes treatises, fiction, autobiographical works, and musical compositions. Rousseau’s ideas reflect many of our deepest commitments and patterns of thought, making his ideas often seem common sense. His epistolary novel, Julie, or the New Hรฉloรฏse (1761), suggests authenticity should […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
EDITOR'S PICK POLITICS SOCIOLOGY Do Nobel Peace Prize Winners Actually Create Peace? Key Takeaway: The Norwegian Nobel Committee is set to announce the winner of the annual Nobel Peace Prize on October 6, 2023, from a pool of 351 nominees. Environmental activist Greta Thunberg and Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Zelenskyy are among the nominees. The winner will receive a medal, US$994,000, and global recognition. The prize has […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
CULTURE EDITOR'S PICK PSYCHOLOGY The Recipe For Perfect Romance Key Takeaways: Romantic comedy has been a controversial genre, often dismissed as a “chick flick” and panned by critics. However, critics are not the only ones watching romcoms, as they are often seen as repetitive and rely on certain tropes. The “neo-traditional romcom” is the dominant form of the genre, with characters running through airports […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
CULTURE EDITOR'S PICK SOCIOLOGY Understanding Cancel Culture Key Takeaway: The rise of user-created content on platforms like YouTube, Twitch, and TikTok has challenged traditional notions of authorship. YouTube cancellation videos, a unique sub-genre of YouTube apology videos, show how creators take responsibility for accusations, question the validity of others, and address the dynamics of social media cancellation more broadly in relation to […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
ART & DESIGN BUSINESS & ECONOMICS EDITOR'S PICK Can The Work From Home Trend Be Reversed? Key Takeaway The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a significant shift in workplaces, with nearly 38% of Canadian adults working remotely in the early months of 2023. The likelihood of working from home varies by occupation, with office workers and executives or managers being the most common. However, skilled trade workers are less common, and the […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
The Future Of Spacesuits Key Takeaway: The Polaris Dawn mission, which includes the first spacewalk organized by a private company, has been delayed due to complications with the design and development of a suitable spacesuit. Moon suits are a key element of Nasa’s Artemis lunar programme that have yet to be delivered. Spacesuits are no longer expected to be […] Written by Yang Gao March 11, 2024March 11, 2024 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
Why We Will Never Master The Financial Markets Key Takeaways: Stock market enthusiasts often claim to predict financial market trends with great accuracy, but this is not possible due to the uncertainty and unpredictable nature of the environments in which we make daily decisions. Human cognition tends to favor a reductionist approach to information processing, sometimes called “tunneling,” which can lead to biased […] Written by Benoรฎt Bรฉchard March 8, 2024March 8, 2024 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
Panda Diplomacy: What We Can Learn About Chinese Economics Key Takeaway: San Diego Zoo and China’s Wildlife Conservation Association signed a deal in February 2024 to return Chinese giant pandas to the US by the end of the summer. This move signifies a warming of relations between the US and China, as well as a bid by China to help repair its struggling economy. […] Written by Chee Meng Tan March 4, 2024March 4, 2024 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
Is Insomnia Actually Bad? Key Takeaway: Insomnia, a major health issue, affects around a third of people, with women and older individuals more affected. Sleep deprivation can lead to increased risk of diabetes, high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, and mental illness. The COVID-19 pandemic has increased the risk of insomnia, which has led to a rise in mental health […] Written by Scott Cairney March 1, 2024March 1, 2024 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
The Art Of Getting Lost Key Takeaway: In 1967, French philosopher Guy Debord argued that we should not be passively consumed by images, but rather engage with them. The Situationist International movement, formed in 1957, aimed to create new ways to reflect on and experience cities as acts of resistance against profit-motivated capitalist structures. The group’s philosophy suggests that we […] Written by Stephen Dobson February 29, 2024February 29, 2024 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
The Rise Of Robo-Retail Key Takeaway: Canada’s first robotic cafe, RC Coffee, opened in Toronto in October 2020, reviving the concept of a restaurant where food and drinks are served by technology. The trend of digitally enabled retail automation has grown in popularity in Canada over the past decade, driven by safety concerns and labor shortages. As of the […] Written by Mathew Iantorno February 28, 2024February 28, 2024 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
The Science Behind The Loch Ness Monster Key Takeaway: The Loch Ness legend, a mysterious freshwater lake in Scotland, has been passed down through generations as mythological creatures. The lake, which is 23 miles long, wide, and deep, has been a subject of fascination for millions of people. However, no physical evidence of an unusual or prehistoric creature has ever been found. […] Written by Michael A. Little February 27, 2024February 27, 2024 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 โ a transcendent sign of intelligence, as we saw in Ravenโs Matrices โ 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 Instituteโs new report, โReskilling China: Transforming The Worldโs Largest Workforce Into Lifelong Learnersโ, which focuses on the countryโs 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 Youโre 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 Iโm about to ask you to take a mental leap. For the next 8 minutes, suspend your notions of what a business is, and Iโll propose a new lens for you to look through. There are a lot of questions asked around what โcommunityโ means for business. โWhere should community fit in my organization?โ and […] Written by Empirics Asia September 5, 2018September 5, 2018 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked