The Global Gender Gap Report 2014
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Through the Global Gender Gap Report 2014, the World Economic Forum quantifies the magnitude of gender-based disparities and tracks their progress over time. While no single measure can capture the complete situation, the Global Gender Gap Index presented in this Report seeks to measure one important aspect of gender equality: the relative gaps between women and men across four key areas: health, education, economy and politics.
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A sixth mass extinction is underway – and it’s our fault
Wednesday 23rd of August 2017
The disappearance of the dinosaurs is probably the world’s most famous example of a mass extinction, but it’s certainly not the only one.
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Ethical investment, explained simply
Wednesday 23rd of August 2017
Whether it is the environment or human rights, more and more people are taking an interest in how they spend and invest their money.
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Giant carbon-dioxide sucking fans are helping tackle climate change
Wednesday 23rd of August 2017
Scientists are sucking carbon dioxide from the air with giant fans and preparing to release chemicals from a balloon to dim the sun’s rays as part of a climate engineering push to cool the planet.
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Why ‘ghosting’ is becoming a problem in the job world
Wednesday 23rd of August 2017
Jane Ashen Turkewitz has been a recruiter in the advertising and tech industry for more than 15 years and has become increasingly appalled at how rude hiring companies can be to prospective employees after interviewing them.
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Why being too virtuous could hold you back
Wednesday 23rd of August 2017
I thought I was done with homework when I finished grad school. But I wanted to be prepared for my commencement speech. So I did what any self-respecting social scientist would do. I started reading studies of graduation speeches. And I decided I would give a graduation speech about graduation speeches.
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The world’s central bankers are meeting at Jackson Hole – here’s what should be top of their agenda
Wednesday 23rd of August 2017
This week, the heads of the world’s major central banks will join their emerging market counterparts, alongside academics and banking chief executives, at the 39th Economic Policy Symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
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Today is the 10th anniversary of the hashtag, here’s how far it’s come
Wednesday 23rd of August 2017
Chris Messina, the former Google designer who first proposed that Twitter adopt the hashtag — or “pound” symbol, as it was called at the time — has explained on Quora why he never bothered to apply for a patent on the idea.
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This state is the robot capital of the US
Wednesday 23rd of August 2017
Industrial robots—and the anxiety that they’re taking away jobs—can be found throughout the U.S. But they’re not spread out equally.
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Automation may take our jobs – but it’ll restore our humanity
Wednesday 23rd of August 2017
For humans to survive the automation revolution, we need to double down on our humanity.
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This drone footage shows just how huge Tesla’s Gigafactory really is
Wednesday 23rd of August 2017
It looks like there is a lot of action going on at Tesla’s giant Gigafactory.
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6 ways our opinions have changed since 2002
Wednesday 23rd of August 2017
Since 2002, Pew Research Center has conducted more than 500,000 interviews with people in 64 countries to learn their views about international and domestic politics, economics and other front-burner topics. Our newly updated Global Indicators Database serves as an interactive repository of these findings. You can use the database to explore public opinion around the world on issues that interest you by country, region and subject area.
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Why Africa needs this one thing to tackle complex problems
Wednesday 23rd of August 2017
Scientific research often requires sophisticated equipment like radio telescopes or laboratories. This infrastructure is essential for scientific discovery. But another form of infrastructure is now essential too: synthesis centres. These specialise in bringing together experts across academic fields and geographies.
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An AI has just composed and produced its first album
Wednesday 23rd of August 2017
In brief
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Women and ageism in tech and other top gender stories of the week
Wednesday 23rd of August 2017
Women charge past men in US job market. (Bloomberg) Cognitive skills are better in women in gender-equal countries. (The Conversation)To close pay gap all UK jobs should be flexible, says equality watchdog. (Reuters) “Too old to work at a startup.” Women, ageism, tech. (The Guardian)Does biology explain why men outnumber women in tech? (The Conversation)In Iran, women are 70% of university applicants and 50% of graduates. (Al Monitor)Are our children really trapped by gender stereotypes? (The Guardian)Poland reviving different retirement age for men and women. (Reuters)Women’s and men’s brains and the alcohol effect. (Harvard Medical School)
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Five ways mobile technology can help in humanitarian emergencies
Tuesday 22nd of August 2017
An estimated 65.6 million people were forcibly displaced from their homes in 2016, and this number continues to rise. From 2000 to 2016, over 3.5 billion people worldwide were affected by natural disasters and humanitarian crises – and the scale of response required in these situations is placing increasing pressure on the humanitarian sector to find more effective and efficient ways of meeting the needs of affected populations.
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Fancy a bug burger? A Swiss supermarket is selling food made from insects
Tuesday 22nd of August 2017
Fancy tucking into a mealworm burger? How about chomping on some insect balls?
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This counterintuitive practice helps truly successful people get ahead
Tuesday 22nd of August 2017
One question has fascinated me my entire adult life: what causes some people to become world-class leaders, performers, and changemakers, while most others plateau?
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These are the world’s top 10 most livable cities
Tuesday 22nd of August 2017
This past year has been tumultuous. With the inauguration of President Donald Trump, the rise of far-right extremists in the US, and terror attacks reverberating across the globe, 2017 has changed the world.
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The way we communicate at work is all wrong. This is what needs to change
Tuesday 22nd of August 2017
Whether it’s office email, collaborative apps or the break room noticeboard, internal workplace communications have the potential to go very wrong, very quickly.
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Australia is building the world’s largest single-tower solar thermal power plant
Tuesday 22nd of August 2017
In brief
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You can now buy a genetically modified animal for the first time
Tuesday 22nd of August 2017
In brief
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Elon Musk leads 116 experts calling for a ban on autonomous weapons
Tuesday 22nd of August 2017
One hundred and sixteen roboticists and AI researchers, including SpaceX founder Elon Musk and Google Deepmind co-founder Mustafa Suleyman, have signed a letter to the United Nations calling for strict oversight of autonomous weapons, a.k.a. “killer robots.” Though the letter itself is more circumspect, an accompanying press release says the group wants “a ban on their use internationally.”
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What causes depression?
Tuesday 22nd of August 2017
The term and even diagnosis of “depression” can have different meanings and consequences. Depression can be a normal mood state, a clinical disorder, and even a disease.
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Your computer could be 1000 times faster in the the future, thanks to graphene
Tuesday 22nd of August 2017
In brief
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Gender equality is good for your brain. Here’s why
Tuesday 22nd of August 2017
Let’s try you. Read the title above once, then cover it and write down word for word what you remember. Having difficulties? How well you do may be down to which country you live in.
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How should economists describe what they do?
Tuesday 22nd of August 2017
When you meet someone at a cocktail party who learns you are an economist, the inevitable question follows, “What’s the stock market going to do?” That’s an excellent question. If, on the day I was born, my parents had invested $100 for me in Altria, the top-performing stock since then, I would be a millionaire.
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Islamic State recruits might have more in common with gang members than zealots. This is why
Tuesday 22nd of August 2017
The recent terrorist attacks in Spain and Finland once again compel us to ask: Who joins the Islamic State, and why?
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The next high-tech weapon in the fight against crime? A fridge that spies on you
Tuesday 22nd of August 2017
From DNA databases to police drones and GPS tracking darts, technology plays a vital role in the fight against crime.
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Inequality has a major impact on a country’s wellbeing. Why?
Monday 21st of August 2017
I’ve been in South Africa and the US recently. From geography to development both countries are, of course, very different. But they do share some similarities. Take inequality, for example. This issue – which is by no means limited to their shores – has become a deeply rooted feature of their social and economic landscapes, one that proven stubbornly resistant to attempted remedies.
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This alarming chart shows the reality of global warming over 100 years
Monday 21st of August 2017
Data showing spikes in hot and cold temperatures since the start of the last century show how the planet is warming up.
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If you’re using emojis at work you need to stop. This is why
Monday 21st of August 2017
When you’re sending an email to a colleague or a client, you might like to keep the tone light to build a friendly relationship.
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The secret to office happiness isn’t working less – it’s caring less
Monday 21st of August 2017
We live in an age of “total work.” It’s a term coined by the German philosopher Josef Pieper just after World War II—describing the process by which human beings are transformed into workers, and the entirety of life is then transformed into work. Work becomes total when all of human life is centered around it; when everything else is not just subordinate to, but in the service of work. Leisure, festivity, and play come to resemble work—and then straight-up become it.
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Instagram’s new filter makes internet bullies ‘disappear’
Monday 21st of August 2017
Once upon a time, trolls were the scary creatures lurking under bridges in children’s fairytales.
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The world’s leading economic power? This is what people think
Monday 21st of August 2017
The European Union ranks as the world’s second-largest economy by gross domestic product, but few people globally see it as an economic leader ahead of China or the United States, according to a recent Pew Research Center survey.
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This vegetable launched modern economics. Here’s why
Monday 21st of August 2017
What we eat matters to us – but we’re not sure whether it ought to matter to anyone else. We generally insist that our diets are our business and resent being told to eat more fruit, consume less alcohol and generally pull our socks up when it comes to dinner.
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These mesmerizing time-lapses show just how crowded Chinese cities have become
Monday 21st of August 2017
Approximately 1.4 billion people — roughly 20% of the world’s population — live in China.
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We haven’t learned anything from the mistakes of the Great Recession, this economist argues
Monday 21st of August 2017
Ten years ago this month, the French bank BNP Paribas decided to limit investors’ access to the money they had deposited in three funds. It was the first loud signal of the financial stress that would, a year later, send the global economy into a tailspin. Yet the massive economic and financial dislocations that would come to a boil in late 2008 and continue through early 2009 – which brought the world to the brink of a devastating multi-year depression – took policymakers in advanced economies completely by surprise. They had clearly not paid enough attention to the lessons of crises in the emerging world.
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There’s a surprising way to charge this battery
Monday 21st of August 2017
We are always looking for new and innovative ways to power the myriad of devices we use each day, even more so if that power can be generated without harming the environment. Even so, few could have predicted that we would one day have paper batteries that are powered by our spit. We can now thank a team of researchers from Binghamton University for developing their paper-based, bacteria-powered batteries.
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You’re more likely to achieve the American dream if you live in Denmark
Monday 21st of August 2017
If moving forward is the goal, it’s a not a good policy to stand still. Yet we hear little from the government about solutions to Britain’s poor record on social mobility. Earlier this year both the current administration and its predecessors were roundly condemned for their failure to make any headway.
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India will soon have the world’s biggest population, but it’s not ready for the challenges that creates
Monday 21st of August 2017
By 2024, India will slip past China to become the most populous country, and must rapidly prepare for a fast-changing economy.
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Why the future of work could lie in freelancing
Monday 21st of August 2017
Today, freelancers represent 35% of the United States workforce. In the European Union, the rate is 16.1%. Both figures demonstrate the same global trend: from creative entrepreneurs to those paid by the task, freelancing is on the rise worldwide.
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What is shareholder activism and how should businesses respond?
Friday 18th of August 2017
Since February, one of the world’s largest consumer goods companies, Procter & Gamble has been facing down a public challenge from its investors – and from one new shareholder in particular. Dubbed an “activist investor”, Nelson Peltz’s investment management firm just publicly asked for a seat on the P&G board. His proposal? To reboot revenues and market shares, and ultimately the company’s share price.
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Watch the world’s greatest cities rise and fall over the past 4,000 years
Friday 18th of August 2017
The rise and fall of civilizations over the past 4,000 years is reflected by the rise and fall of the number of people living in their great cities.
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Business can help create a more collaborative and inclusive society, but first this needs to change
Friday 18th of August 2017
Cambridge – On whose behalf do business associations speak? Well, business. But who is “business”?
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11 books on the future of humanity that everyone should read
Friday 18th of August 2017
No one knows for sure what the next decade, century, or millennium will look like.
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These are the countries with nuclear weapons
Friday 18th of August 2017
North Korea may have more than triple the number of nuclear weapons that experts recently estimated, according to a story by The Washington Post.
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Bitcoin now comes from space. Welcome to the future
Friday 18th of August 2017
In brief
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Stress can age your brain. Here’s why
Friday 18th of August 2017
Stress is bad for our physical and mental health. It has been linked to several leading causes of death, including heart disease and mood disorders, such as depression.
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Economic growth in Japan has soared – and beaten all expectations
Friday 18th of August 2017
Japanese economic growth soared in the three months to June, logging the fastest increase in more than two years.
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5 amazing animals we thought were extinct
Friday 18th of August 2017
They hadn’t been seen in so long that scientists had written them off, but some species have reappeared – sometimes more than 100 years after their last sighting.
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This app is helping to fund education for refugees
Friday 18th of August 2017
While there is no shortage of bright prospective students, very few refugees make it to university. Among myriad restrictions, for many it is simply unaffordable.
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Chinese investment along the Silk Road is soaring
Friday 18th of August 2017
(Hong Kong) — Mergers and acquisitions by Chinese companies in countries that are part of the Belt and Road initiative are soaring, even as Beijing cracks down on China’s acquisitive conglomerates to restrict capital outflows.
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Disruption in consumer industries: How the traditional operating model will be turned inside out
Friday 18th of August 2017
Two powerful forces are transforming the nature of consumption. The empowered consumer and disruptive technologies have sent companies scrambling to find new strategies and business models for creating consumer value. At the same time, businesses are having to overhaul their operating models to drive innovation and increase their market agility.
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Unequal opportunities, microchip implants and other top stories of the week
Friday 18th of August 2017
Unequal opportunities — at first: 6 rules for AI and the future of work.
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Scientists can vaccinate us against fake news
Friday 18th of August 2017
We are living in the post-truth era. This is a time where the focus is not on rationality or coherence but on sensationalism, regardless of the cost. The Oxford Dictionary has declared “post-truth” to be its international word of the year, defining it as “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief”.
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Taylor Swift, 3D-printed ovaries, and other top gender stories of the week
Friday 18th of August 2017
The first black woman to lead America’s West Point cadets. (ABC News)A female sex worker’s Google-style gender equality manifesto. (The Independent)The three women running for South Africa’s presidency. (The Conversation)Women are gaining ground in virtual reality. (The Guardian)Will a shift toward remote work solve tech’s gender gap? (Tech Republic)Violence against women in politics is rising. (LSE)3D-printed ovaries may help women have babies. (Washington Post)The study that proves men aren’t born more competitive. (Quartz)High rates of mental illness in women: partly biology, the rest is social. (The Conversation)Taylor Swift hopes verdict will inspire other sexual assault victims. (Bloomberg)Why women in India are taking selfies at midnight. (BBC)Women bear the burden of China’s harassment problem. (Asia Times)
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Three quarters of people think the system is rigged against them
Thursday 17th of August 2017
The 2017 Edelman Trust Barometer found what it described as “an implosion of confidence” around the world.
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This is how you can turn setbacks into success
Thursday 17th of August 2017
Growing up in New Zealand, where there are twenty times as many sheep as people, Sarah Robb O’Hagan wanted to be a veterinarian. When poor grades in science crushed that dream, she decided to see the world. She applied to Air New Zealand’s training program, but she failed a required IQ test.
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Are we heading for nuclear war? This is what game theory tells us
Thursday 17th of August 2017
“Are we headed for a nuclear war?”
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Apple CEO Tim Cook’s message to his employees after the Charlottesville violence
Thursday 17th of August 2017
In the wake of the deadly protests in Charlottesville, Virginia, Apple CEO Tim Cook emailed employees to say “hate is a cancer” and that the company would be making $1 million donations to two civil rights groups, according to BuzzFeed News.