Converting all cars and SUVs in the Greater Toronto area into electric vehicles would cause 313 fewer deaths per year, an estimated social benefit of $2.4 billion. That’s the high-level finding of a study published today by Environmental Defence and the Ontario Public Health Association.
EV drivers cite numerous reasons for ditching a gas car and buying an EV: lower operating costs, high resale values, quick and quiet acceleration, and mitigating climate change. But what’s more compelling than saving human lives?
Bond Capital, a Silicon Valley VC firm whose portfolio companies include Slack and Uber, told its investors this morning via email that the coronavirus’ high-speed spread and impact has similarities to the devastating San Francisco earthquake of 1906.
Why it matters: Bond’s best-known partner, Mary Meeker, is a former bank analyst renowned for her annual Internet Trends Report, which many investors and entrepreneurs use as a touchstone for where tech is now and where it’s going. Today’s 28-page report to Bond’s limited partners, obtained by Axios, shares some structural similarities.
THE SMART BANDAGES SHORTENED WOUND-HEALING TIMES IN MOUSE STUDIES.
A colorful new weapon has emerged in the war on antibiotic resistance.
On Wednesday, researchers in China published a study in the journal ACS Central Science detailing their creation of a new kind of smart bandage. At first, when you apply it to a wound, the bandage is green. But if it detects a bacterial infection, the bandage turns yellow — and releases a built-in antibiotic to treat the infection.
People with inadequate access to food due to financial constraints are 10 to 37 per cent more likely to die prematurely from any cause other than cancer, according to a study published on Monday.
Researchers, including those from the University of Toronto, looked at data from more than half a million adults in Canada.
The study, published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, categorised people as food secure, or marginally, moderately, or severely food insecure.
By the end of the study period, 25,460 people had died prematurely, the researchers said.
Perhaps more than any other category of professionals, creative types are expected to thrive in brainstorms. In the public’s imagination, their offices are filled with fidget toys and Post-it notes in an array of colors, all meant to absorb some of the energy of a group of fast-thinking, well-dressed hipsters deep in ideation mode.
But a new report based on a survey of 20,000 creatives from 197 countries suggests that, in fact, a majority of these professionals—including writers, musicians, photographers, and podcasters—find that brainstorming is largely unhelpful for solving a creative challenge.
The survey, commissioned by the Dutch file-sharing company WeTransfer, attests to the perils of this form of groupthink. “In the creative world we hear an awful lot about collaboration, but it seems that while working together is essential to bring an idea to life, it’s not that good for shaping ideas in the first place,” notes Rob Alderson, WeTransfer’s recently departed editor in chief.
Singapore, which ranked as the second-best place to hold a passport from in 2020, tied for first place last year.
The Henley Passport Index, an annual ranking of the most powerful passports in the world based on how many destinations the holder can enter without a visa, was just released.
Japan secured the top spot this year, with access to 191 countries and territories, a position it previously shared with Singapore.
Asia dominated the list, with Singapore landing in the No. 2 spot and South Korea tying with Germany for No. 3.
A US passport provides access to 183 destinations in 2020, giving it an eighth-place ranking. Passports from 16 other countries provide better access than the US. The country is also slipping in rank – last year it placed sixth.
A passport from Japan opens more doors than a passport from anywhere else in the world, according to the newly released Henley Passport Index.
The index is an annual power ranking of passports determined by the number of destinations a passport holder can enter without a visa.
A Japanese passport promises uncomplicated travel to 191 other countries and territories. In 2019, the passport promised access to 189 places and tied with Singapore’s passport as the world’s most desirable travel document.
Singapore maintained access to 189 destinations and placed second this year, followed closely by South Korea and Germany with access to 187 countries and territories.
Passports from countries like Canada, the UK, and the US all slipped in the rankings from 2019 to 2020 – but they are still desirable, with access to more than 180 destinations. For comparison, passports from Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria offer access to fewer than 30 places.
Thinking about the future allows us to imagine what kind of future we want to live in and how we can get there.
In 2018 we celebrated the fifty-year anniversary of the founding of the Institute for the Future (IFTF). No other futures organization has survived for this long; we’ve actually survived our own forecasts! In these five decades we learned a lot, and we still believe—even more strongly than before—that systematic thinking about the future is absolutely essential for helping people make better choices today, whether you are an individual or a member of an educational institution or government organization. We view short-termism as the greatest threat not only to organizations but to society as a whole.
Waitrose’s While You’re Away service allows delivery drivers to enter customer’s homes to unpack their shopping
The vast majority of UK adults are uncomfortable with the idea of delivery drivers entering their homes to drop off shopping while they’re out, new research has revealed.
Waitrose first trialled its While You’re Away delivery service in October 2018, which saw its shopping delivery drivers enter customers’ houses and put away their shopping in fridges and cupboards, thanks to a temporary access code linked to a home’s Yale smart lock.
The supermarket has insisted there is something “very beautiful” about its customers forgetting they even made an order and then coming home to see their goods already in cupboards.
Lincoln Property Co. developed Lincoln Logistics 40, a state-of-the-art warehouse/distribution building that features 40-foot clear height in Goodyear, Ariz.
Logistics properties in the U.S. are getting loftier and more high-tech as an evolving supply chain drives innovation in sheds.
Prologis Inc., the largest warehouse provider in the U.S., wrapped up construction of a three-story distribution center in Seattle in October of last year. The 590,000-square-foot project, called Georgetown Crossroads, is the nation’s first logistics property to have multiple floors that are serviceable by large delivery trucks. Amazon has reportedly agreed to take up about 500,000 square feet in the warehouse, with Home Depot also planning to lease space.
Although common in the dense, costly urban centers of Asia and Europe, multistory warehouses are a novel concept in the U.S., where land is abundant and cheap and suppliers historically haven’t faced huge pressure to locate close to cities. But the future of industrial real estate is changing as e-commerce continues its rapid growth trajectory and consumers demand ever-faster delivery times.
According to the website Sleep Judge, the U.S. is one of only a few countries that doesn’t mandate a set number of vacation days.
People are overworked and burnt out, and we seem content to treat this as a fact of life. But it doesn’t have to be.
In fact, the issue that Americans are so overworked — one-third of all American workers haven’t even taken a vacation in over two years — is precisely why we should be making a commitment to take more time off in 2020.
Despite 96% of U.S. financial-services organizations considering their technology security as adequate, 62% of those responding to a Thales survey said they experienced a breach. That’s according to the recently released 2019 Thales Data Threat Report.
Commissioned by Thales, the survey of 1,200 information technology and data security professionals and the ensuing report was conducted by research firm International Data Corp. Many U.S. financial services organization have strict data-security and similar requirements to contend with, but their breach rate outpaces other industries. Retail, at 42%, was the next highest among those ever experiencing a breach.
The growing popularity of debit cards and the displacement of cash by card and electronic payment alternatives is nothing new, but a Federal Reserve banks’ report released Thursday shows debit cards for the first time have surpassed cash as the most-used payment type.
The findings come from the 2018 Diary of Consumer Payment Choice, the fifth in an annual survey overseen by the Federal Reserve banks of Atlanta, Boston, Richmond, Va., and San Francisco. The research draws on a nationally representative panel of consumers who record all their purchase and bill-pay transactions and amounts over several days. The year’s group included 2,873 participants who recorded transactions for at least four days in October.
