The explosion in the use of Google, Facebook, Twitter and other services has resulted in the generation of some 2.5 quintillion bytes each day.
Paul Hawtin monitors more than 340 million Twitter posts flying around the world each day from his trading desk in London. He tries to assess the collective mood of the populace.
Continue reading… “‘Big data’ redefines trend-watching online”
Futurist Thomas Frey: On May 24th, Gary Connery, a 42 year old stuntman from Oxfordshire, England jumped from a helicopter hovering over one mile in the air over southern England, and glided to the earth using a specially designed wing suit. His runway was comprised of a cobbled-up crash-pad fabricated from 18,000 cardboard boxes to soften the impact.
Continue reading… “56 Future Accomplishments: Waiting for Someone to go First”
The map from Zara Matheson of the Martin Prosperity Institute maps the brainy metro index across U.S. metros.
We are often told the smartest cities and nations do the best in the knowledge economy. Smart cities typically are measured by education level, calculating the cities or metros with the largest percentage of college grads or the largest shares of adults with advanced degrees. Others do it by charting the kinds of work people do and the occupations they hold, differentiating between knowledge or creative workers and others who do more routine manufacturing and service jobs.
Continue reading… “Brainiest cities across America”
Are plants aware?
Are plants aware? In the new book, ‘What a Plant Knows,” Daniel Chamovitz argues that a plant can see, smell and feel. It can mount a defense when under siege, and warn its neighbors of trouble on the way. A plant can even be said to have a memory. But does this mean that plants think — or that one can speak of a “neuroscience” of the flower? Chamovitz answered questions from Mind Matters editor Gareth Cook.
Continue reading… “Plants can see, smell, feel and remember but can they think?”
Inner-city Minneapolis teens who screen-print shirts.
Just ten years ago the term “inner city” meant “dead city” and people would picture a city of destruction, dereliction and despair. But, today inner cities are now a hip hotbed of convenient culture, commerce and connection. Scholars such as Richard Florida and Edward Glaeser, among others, are showing that although increasing problems accompany increasing density, urban access to the good things of life increases even faster. The centripetal force of today’s cities is pulling the ambitious and educated back in, and increasing cities’ innovative capacity, without sacrificing (at least some would argue) their inclusiveness.
Continue reading… “Entrepreneurial innovation moving to the inner cities”
Twitter and other tech start-ups are gravitating toward San Francisco.
Twitter will be moving into its new headquarters in downtown San Francisco this month. It will occupy three floors of an 11-story 1937 Art Deco building that has sat shuttered for five years. Outside, its blue bird logo will replace the former main tenant’s sign, whose analog clocks remain frozen at 9:18, 4:33 and other times past.
Continue reading… “New tech boom in San Francisco brings jobs but also worries”
Nearly all the increases occurred during the presidencies of George W. Bush and Barack Obama.
In the past 25 years Americans have become more politically polarized than at any time, according to a major survey released Monday by the Pew Research Center.
Continue reading… “Political polarization hits 25-year high in the U.S.”
“Making material harder to learn can improve long-term learning and retention.”
Three researchers, in January 2011, published the results of an experiment in which they showed that students who read material in difficult, unfamiliar fonts learned it more deeply than students who read the same material in conventional, familiar fonts.
Continue reading… “Making it harder to learn beneficial to students”
Today’s workers care intensely about how their employer operates in the community.
The notion that companies have an obligation to “give back” to the world in which they work and, especially, profit is an oft-debated topic of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Not every C-level executive is convinced of its importance. But the growing trend is for CSR to play an integral part in successful companies’ business planning.
Continue reading… “Debunking 4 myths of Corporate Social Responsibility”
The electric light bulb was a failure.
In the early 1800’s, the British chemist Humphry Davy invented the light bulb but it was a failure. The light bulb spent almost 80 years being passed from one researcher to another. Finally, in 1879, Thomas Edison figured out to to make a light bulb that people would buy. But the technology wasn’t an immediate success. Another 40 years later the electric utilities were stable and profitable businesses. The light bulb only happened because the utilities created other reasons to use electricity. They found a lot of uses for electric motors and the electric toaster and electric curling iron were invented. They also built Coney Island. And they installed electric streetcars lines in towns. All of these other gadgets gave us the light bulb.
Continue reading… “32 technological innovations that will change your tomorrow”
First-time, full-time graduate enrollment in STEM programs registering a 50% increase over the decade.
A new report from the National Science Foundation (NSF) finds that the number of Americans pursuing advanced degrees in science and engineering has risen sharply over the past decade and stands at an all-time high.
Continue reading… “Enrollment in U.S. graduate STEM programs increased 50% over last decade”
Johnson & Johnson’s Zytiga is kind of a big deal. The FDA approved its use last year for advanced prostate cancer patients who had already received chemo but whose cancer had still metastasized. Prostate cancer is typically treatable for the 200,000 American men who contract it annually, as long as it is caught before it spreads…
Continue reading… “Science may have just beaten Prostate Cancer”
By delving into the futuring techniques of Futurist Thomas Frey, you’ll embark on an enlightening journey.
Learn More about this exciting program.