Blogs and Opinions
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Why are wildfires getting worse?
Wednesday 14th of November 2018
California is currently in the grips of its deadliest wildfire while two others rage, in what has been its worst wildfire year on record. The Camp wildfire in the north of the US state has burned through more than 50,000 hectares and is the most deadly in California’s history. The Camp fire has achieved the grim milestone of breaking an 85 year-old record, having already surpassed the 31 deaths recorded in the 1933 Griffith Park wildfire. California’s deadliest wildfires
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Want to engage teenagers in politics? How about blogging
Wednesday 14th of November 2018
When it comes to being politically active, young people typically have a bad reputation. In democracies such as the United States and the United Kingdom, young voters tend to have have low turnout rates – but there are early signs that this is changing.
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Greater Paris is going to ban old diesel cars from next summer
Wednesday 14th of November 2018
The Greater Paris region will become a low-emission zone from next summer, which will limit the circulation of old diesel cars, the regional authority decided on Monday.
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These 5 projects are using big data to solve some of the world’s biggest problems
Wednesday 14th of November 2018
Data science has boomed over the past decade, following advances in mathematics, computing capability, and data storage. Australia’s Industry 4.0 taskforce is busy exploring ways to improve the Australian economy with tools such as artificial intelligence, machine learning and big data analytics. But while data science offers the potential to solve complex problems and drive innovation, it has often come under fire for unethical use of data or unintended negative consequences – particularly in commercial cases where people become data points in annual company reports. We argue that the data science boom shouldn’t be limited to business insights and profit margins. When used ethically, big data can help solve some of society’s most difficult social and environmental problems. Industry 4.0 should be underwritten by values that ensure these technologies are trained towards the social good (known as Society 4.0). That means using data ethically, involving citizens in the process, and building social values into the design. Here are a five data science projects that are putting these principles into practice. 1. Finding humanitarian hot spots
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This is Stan Lee’s billion-dollar legacy
Wednesday 14th of November 2018
Stan Lee, the legendary comic book writer and former editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics, has passed away. Born in 1922, Lee was involved in the creation of some of the most iconic comic characters in the world, including Spider-Man, the X-Men, Iron Man and Hulk. Lee eventually became the figurehead of Marvel, known and beloved by comic book fans around the world. “Stan Lee was as extraordinary as the characters he created. A super hero in his own right to Marvel fans around the world, Stan had the power to inspire, to entertain, and to connect,” Bob Iger, CEO of the Walt Disney Company said in a statement on Monday. Disney had acquired Marvel Entertainment for $4.24 billion in 2009 – a price largely based on the value of characters conceived by Lee decades earlier. Despite the decade-spanning popularity of Marvel Comics, it wasn’t until the 21st century that Lee’s work really became a money-making machine. The success of the first live-action Spider-Man movie in 2002 kicked off a comic book movie craze, creating billions of dollars in box office revenue across the globe. The following chart ranks characters/franchises (co-)created by Stan Lee in terms of their success at the box office.
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What’s consciousness? Here’s a new theory
Wednesday 14th of November 2018
Why is my awareness here, while yours is over there? Why is the universe split in two for each of us, into a subject and an infinity of objects? How is each of us our own center of experience, receiving information about the rest of the world out there? Why are some things conscious and others apparently not? Is a rat conscious? A gnat? A bacterium?
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Here’s how a mind control video game could help people with mental health disorders
Wednesday 14th of November 2018
Munich-based company, brainboost, has developed a way of treating people with various disorders using neurofeedback videogames.
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This ‘personality test’ is used by big companies and armies. So what’s behind it?
Wednesday 14th of November 2018
The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator has been widely used by businesses, universities, the military and other organizations for decades to assess personality. But there is very little, if any, science behind it. Merve Emre, associate professor of English at the University of Oxford and fellow at Worcester College, delves into the story behind the test with her new book, The Personality Brokers: The Strange History of Myers-Briggs and the Birth of Personality Training. Developed by a mother-daughter team with no psychological training, the Myers-Briggs test is supposed to indicate how people perceive and process the world around them. Emre recently joined the [email protected] radio show on SiriusXM to explain why Myers-Briggs continues to captivate our collective imagination as part of the $2 billion personality testing industry.
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These are the three traits Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella looks for in a leader
Wednesday 14th of November 2018
When Satya Nadella joined Microsoft in 1992 at the age of 25, the future CEO, an engineer by training, did not yet hold a business degree. He would complete his MBA at the University of Chicago five years later, without taking time off from his full-time job. Every Friday night, Nadella would board a plane from Seattle to Chicago, and return by Monday morning.
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Europe’s poor investment in digital is threatening prosperity. Here’s what its start-ups need
Wednesday 14th of November 2018
Europe is one of the biggest economic regions in the world. The European Union’s impressive $17 trillion GDP in 2017 was second only to the US’ $19 trillion, and ahead of China’s $12 trillion. Europe is well-known for its industrial assets, knowledge and infrastructure. It has leveraged these to its advantage over the past 30 years, while globalization has been the dominant driver of growth. However, its position is increasingly under threat now that digitization is the primary driver for economic prosperity and overall growth.
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3 lessons from India in creating equal access to vaccines
Wednesday 14th of November 2018
When I completed my medical degree in South Africa in 1981, the country had one of the highest burdens of infectious disease in the world. Nine percent of children died before their fifth birthday. As a newly minted doctor, I had the knowledge and skills to treat some of these illnesses, but it was devastating that I couldn’t do more to prevent them.
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Finland has giant supermarkets that only stock second-hand goods
Tuesday 13th of November 2018
Would you shop in a second-hand supermarket?
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Chart of the day: Stopping antimicrobial resistance would cost just $2 per person a year
Tuesday 13th of November 2018
Simple measures such as handwashing and preventing the misuse of antibiotics could make a huge difference in the fight against antimicrobial resistance, saving millions of lives.
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This is the influence Stan Lee had on modern culture
Tuesday 13th of November 2018
Moviegoers know Stan Lee as the zany old guy who’s had a cameo in each of the Marvel movies. Fans are probably aware that as a comic-book writer and editor, Lee was the guiding force behind the creation of the Marvel universe.
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China will be the world’s top tourist destination by 2030
Tuesday 13th of November 2018
Forget the Loire Valley and Eiffel Tower – by 2030, the Yellow Mountains and Shanghai Tower will be topping global travel bucket lists as China leapfrogs France to become the world’s top tourist destination.
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These patients are sharing their data to improve healthcare standards
Tuesday 13th of November 2018
We’ve all heard about donating blood, but how about donating data?
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Could AI make doctors obsolete?
Tuesday 13th of November 2018
No, says Vanessa Rampton, because health and disease are strongly influenced by emotional, subjective and social factors that for machines are difficult to access.
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This 13-year-old scientist has invented a better way to treat pancreatic cancer
Tuesday 13th of November 2018
Following is a transcript of the video.
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Researchers have succeeded in creating a fifth state of matter in space
Tuesday 13th of November 2018
In 1995, researchers were able to prove that a fifth state of matter — the Bose-Einstein condensate — could be created at very low temperatures. Until recently, this state of aggregation could only be generated using high-vacuum apparatus on Earth and was the state was extremely short-lived due to gravity. However, a German research team has now succeeded in generating and studying the Bose-Einstein condensate using an unmanned space rocket.
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The next economic crisis could cause a global conflict. Here’s why
Tuesday 13th of November 2018
The response to the 2008 economic crisis has relied far too much on monetary stimulus, in the form of quantitative easing and near-zero (or even negative) interest rates, and included far too little structural reform. This means that the next crisis could come soon – and pave the way for a large-scale military conflict.
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The best place to live? Not Norway, according to this research
Tuesday 13th of November 2018
Every year, the United Nations releases the Human Development Index.
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There’s been a ‘huge and significant decline’ in FGM in African children. But that doesn’t tell the whole story
Tuesday 13th of November 2018
Female genital mutilation has dropped drastically among African children this century, research shows, but campaigners said on Wednesday that teenagers and young women remained at risk of the harmful practice.
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How our definition of freedom has changed
Tuesday 13th of November 2018
When people talk about freedom and democracy, they often trace the lineage of both back 2,000 years to the rocky shores of Greece or to the Senate of Rome. However, the freedom they had in the ancient world was a bit different than what we have today, with significant benefits for us.
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This is the new great debate on climate change
Tuesday 13th of November 2018
The debate over climate change is no longer about what causes global warming. Rather, the issue for policymakers is how to ensure that billions of at-risk people and businesses around the world can rapidly adapt and ensure that their communities are as resilient as possible.
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Why social working cultures are happier and more productive
Tuesday 13th of November 2018
Today’s workers are more engaged and stay with their companies longer if they have stronger team relationships. Work has become highly decentralized, with more employees telecommuting and collaborative tools surpassing face-to-face communication.