As the ripple of COVID-19 careens around the globe, it’s forcing humankind to innovate and change the way we work and live. The upside of where we find ourselves right now is that individuals and corporations will be more resilient in a post-COVID-19 world. Here are nine predictions of what our world may look like once we have left the pandemic behind.
Continue reading… “9 future predictions for a post-corona world”
Google’s top-rated futurist, founder and executive director of the DaVinci Institute – Thomas Frey © RT
Google’s top-rated futurist Thomas Frey on SophieCo. Visionaries,
During times when it’s hard to say what next week will bring, one thing is certain – the world has changed. What will it be like after the Covid-19 pandemic? We talked about this with Google’s top-rated futurist, founder and executive director of the DaVinci Institute – Thomas Frey.
Job seekers wait in line at the JobLink Career [+]
The U.S. Department of Labor reported unemployment insurance claims for the week ending Saturday, April 11, came in at 5.245 million, a decline of over 1.4 million from the prior week, but still the third highest weekly total ever recorded. The coronavirus has driven the four-week total over 22 million, and the past seven weeks of claims have been:
Unfortunately the job losses and unemployment claims probably won’t fall to zero or even close to it next week and above average claims will probably persist for the next few weeks and maybe even a month or two.
Continue reading… “One Chart Shows Coronavirus’ Stunning Job Losses”
A college in Japan has found a high-tech way to ensure its students can still walk across the stage at graduation — sort of.
The students at the Business BreakThrough University (BBT), like many graduates around the world, risked having their ceremony canceled due to the current global health crisis.
However, BBT found a solution. The college, which held its graduation on March 28, arranged to have several students receive their diplomas as digital “avatars” of themselves — complete with screens for faces and caps and gowns on robot “bodies.”
Basically, the students were able to navigate the ceremony from the comfort and safety of their homes while their avatars wheeled up to the school’s president, who handed them certificates.
The Jaunt Journey Is a Combination Helicopter and Airplane Jaunt Air Mobility
Jaunt Air Mobility says the Journey will have 175-mph cruise speed and be 65 percent quieter than a traditional helicopter, all with a silky-smooth ride.
With Uber Elevate’s announcement that it plans to start its first urban air mobility network in 2023, the electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) race is on. Uber’s partnership with Joby is big news, as is Joby’s electric four-person aircraft, but Jaunt Air Mobility could be an equally important partner.
Jaunt has introduced the Journey, a radically different type of “compound aircraft” that combines what it sees as the best features of helicopters and fixed-wing airplanes. Technically, it’s called a gyrocopter, an aircraft type that has been around since the mid-‘30s.
In a new study of CAR T-cell therapy for cancer, 93% of patients responded to the treatment.
Two physicians had major roles in a cutting-edge clinical trial using the body’s own immune cells to fight late-stage cancer, one as a researcher and one as a patient.
Senior author Patrick Reagan, an assistant professor of hematology/oncology at University of Rochester Medicine’s Wilmot Cancer Institute, helped run the national clinical investigation of CAR T-cell therapy.
Continue reading… “93% of cancer patients respond to souped-up-immune cells”
(CNN)Shenzhen, in southeastern China, has become the first city in the country to ban the consumption of cats and dogs, the government announced Thursday.
Under new rules which will come into effect May 1, the government said it will be illegal to eat animals raised as pets.
In February, following the coronavirus outbreak, China passed a law to ban the consumption of wild animals.
China has made eating wild animals illegal after the coronavirus outbreak. But ending the trade won’t be easy
Now Shenzhen will prohibit the consumption of state-protected wild animals and other terrestrial wild animals taken from the wild, as well as captive-bred and farmed terrestrial wild species.
In addition, the consumption of animals raised as pets, such as cats and dogs will also be banned.
Continue reading… “Shenzhen becomes first Chinese city to ban consumption of cats and dogs”
A man from Indiana ended up receiving what appeared to be a lottery win rather than a stimulus check.
Charles Calvin, a volunteer firefighter was expecting a payment for $1,700.
Upon checking his bank account he found there was a payment for $8 million.
Each time he checked the ATM machine he was given the same balance.
By the time he called the bank on Monday, the money had been removed.
Dan Barber, the vanguard chef behind Blue Hill at Stone Barns, earned two Michelin stars as he championed the farm-to-table movement in New York State. But rave reviews have spared no one in the ailing food world, as restaurants have gone into perilous hibernation, leaving workers unemployed and thoroughfares eerily quiet around the country.
Barber shut the doors of Blue Hill at Stone Barns, in Westchester County, and a second location in New York City in mid-March. With hopes of keeping some income flowing to struggling employees and suppliers, his team started offering to-go boxes of produce, meat, fish and other items that loyal patrons could make and consume at home. But even at prices ranging up to $170, Barber says, it’s hardly a drop in the bucket. “It’s like whack-a-mole,” he says. “There’s problems everywhere with everyone.”
In this extract from Fat: The Secret Organ, obesity researchers Mariette Boon and Liesbeth van Rossum explain the purpose of fat in the body and how long it can keep us going without food.
When we talk about the fuel ‘fat’, which is suspended in our blood and which can be absorbed and burned by organs, what we’re referring to are fatty acids. These are long ‘tails’, or chains, that are usually made up of 16 to eighteen carbon atoms.
Just like glucose, fatty acids are cleverly packaged so that large numbers of them can be stored without taking up too much space. You can compare it to a zip file on your computer. This is why fatty acids are stored in bunches of three in the form of what are known as ‘triglycerides’.
Thousands of tightly packed triglycerides are stored in a single fat cell. This is a huge amount of fuel, a real goldmine. As soon as you haven’t eaten for a few hours, or if you’ve been physically active for an extended period of time (for example, exercising or doing housework), this fuel will be tapped into.
A new study from the University of New Hampshire has troubling news for United States population growth. According to the study, deaths are at a record high, while the number of births are at their lowest since 1986. In almost half of all counties, there were more deaths than there were births, an almost 20% increase from just 10 years ago. Overall, U.S. population growth is at its lowest growth rate in over 100 years. Yet as Ronald Bailey at Reason pointed out, the only reason population growth was so low then, in 1919, was because of the Spanish Flu pandemic, which resulted in a massive population decrease.
The study reports that since the Great Recession, fertility is declining the most among younger women, without knowing if childbearing is being delayed or if they are skipping having children altogether. “This has significant implications for the future incidence of natural decrease,” Kenneth Johnson, the study’s author, said. Despite this, though, people are still encouraging the idea of population control, and arguing that America is too heavily populated. Polling has likewise found that a large number of Americans believe population is growing too fast, even as the population continues to plummet.
Overpopulation is a common excuse for many to push population control, especially in developing countries. People like Prince William, Melinda Gates, Joe Biden, Danish politician Ulla Tornaes, and more have all advocated for increased birth control and abortions, particularly in places like Africa, arguing that the birth rate needs to be decreased.
GENOA (UrduPoint News / Sputnik – 02nd April, 2020) The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic will last for a relatively brief period, but will however change the course of history and the nature of leadership, global trend researchers and forecasters have told Sputnik.
On Wednesday, World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that he expected the global number of COVID-19 cases to reach 1 million in the next few days, and the death toll to rise to 50,000.
“Visionary thinking has always been a characteristic of great leaders. Now we will have to add a new dimension of incalculable probabilities. Thinking about the future and anticipating eventualities will be more in demand than ever. COVID-19 has demonstrated that we cannot ignore what is unknown,” John Naisbitt, an author and trends analyst said, adding that change is now “exploding exponentially in ways that we have never seen before in our lifetimes.”
According to Naisbitt’s spouse and internationally recognized speaker Doris Naisbitt, an old saying “he who hesitates is lost” is becoming increasingly relevant in the world of today and tomorrow.
Continue reading… “Post-Coronavirus era to require leaders Capable of anticipating unknown risks”
By delving into the futuring techniques of Futurist Thomas Frey, you’ll embark on an enlightening journey.
Learn More about this exciting program.