By mid-century, 10 million people a year are projected to die from untreatable infections. Can Cassandra, an ethnobotanist at Emory University convince Steve that herbs and ancient healing are key to our medical future?
Tag: economics
Human transgenerational observations of regular smoking before puberty on fat mass in grandchildren and great-grandchildren | Scientific Reports
Previously, using data from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) we showed that sons of fathers who had started smoking regularly before puberty (— Read on www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-04504-0
Serendipity and strategy in rapid innovation | Nature Communications
Innovation is to organizations what evolution is to organisms: it is how organizations adapt to environmental change and improve. Yet despite advances in our understanding of evolution, what drives innovation remains elusive. On the one hand, organizations invest heavily in systematic strategies to accelerate innovation. On the other, historical analysis and individual experience suggest that serendipity plays a significant role. To unify these perspectives, we analysed the mathematics of innovation as a search for designs across a universe of component building blocks. We tested our insights using data from language, gastronomy and technology. By measuring the number of makeable designs as we acquire components, we observed that the relative usefulness of different components can cross over time. When these crossovers are unanticipated, they appear to be the result of serendipity. But when we can predict crossovers in advance, they offer opportunities to strategically increase the growth of the product space. Organizations can take different approaches to innovation: they can either follow a strategic process or a serendipitous perspective. Here Fink et al. develop a statistical model to analyse how components combine to obtain a product and thus explain the mechanism behind the two approaches.
— Read on www.nature.com/articles/s41467-017-02042-w
Alexa McDonough remembered for her dedication to social justice, blazing a trail for women | CBC News
Open access book data sovereignty
This book examines how Indigenous Peoples around the world are demanding greater data sovereignty and challenging the ways in which governments have historically used Indigenous data to develop policies and programs.
In the digital age, governments are increasingly dependent on data and data analytics to inform their policies and decision-making.
However, Indigenous Peoples have often been the unwilling targets of policy interventions and have had little say over the collection, use and application of data about them, their lands and cultures. At the heart of Indigenous Peoples’ demands for change are the enduring aspirations of self-determination over their institutions, resources, knowledge and information systems.
With contributors from Australia, Aotearoa New Zealand, North and South America and Europe, this book offers a rich account of the potential for Indigenous Data Sovereignty to support human flourishing and to protect against the ever-growing threats of data-related risks and harms.
U.S. Health Care Spending Highest Among Developed Countries | Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
The United States, on a per capita basis, spends much more on health care than other developed countries; the chief reason is not greater health care utilization, but higher prices, according to a study from a team led by a JHSPH researcher.
— Read on publichealth.jhu.edu/2019/us-health-care-spending-highest-among-developed-countries
Hiltzik: The downside of copyrights – Los Angeles Times
‘Winnie-the-Pooh,’ ‘The Sun Also Rises’ and many other works entered the public domain on Saturday. They show what’s wrong with the system.
— Read on www.latimes.com/business/story/2022-01-03/winnie-the-pooh-public-domain
Road Salt Is Wreaking Havoc On Our Drinking Water and the Environment
The good news? There are several interventions municipalities could use to stop the problem in its tracks.
— Read on www.popularmechanics.com/science/a38595110/road-salt-environment/
Contrary to popular belief, Twitter’s algorithm amplifies conservatives, not liberals: study | Salon.com
Conservatives have long accused social media platforms of discriminating against them, but the opposite is true
— Read on www.salon.com/2021/12/23/twitter-algorithm-amplifies-conservatives/
The Low-and-Slow Approach to Food Safety Reform Keeps Going Up in Smoke — ProPublica
The U.S. has one agency that regulates cheese pizza and another that oversees pepperoni pizza. Efforts to fix the food safety system have stalled again and again.
— Read on www.propublica.org/article/the-low-and-slow-approach-to-food-safety-reform-keeps-going-up-in-smoke