I have spent the better half of the last two years trying to convince companies like Google, Facebook, Microsoft, DeepMind, and OpenAI that they need to hire philosophers. My colleagues and I—a small collective of academics that make up a program called Transformations of the Human at the Los Angeles-based think tank called the Berggruen Read more about Why tech companies need to hire philosophers[…]
a recent experiment by Microsoft Japan suggests with a 4-day workweek we may be more productive if we work less. In particular, it shows that a shorter workweek can actually impact productivity positively. In August this year, Microsoft Japan ran an experiment where for one month they had a 3 day weekend, taken Friday off. Read more about Microsoft finds workers are more productive with a 4-day workweek[…]
The internet has made it easier than ever to reach a lot of readers quickly. It has birthed new venues for publication and expanded old ones. At the same time, a sense of urgency of current affairs, from politics to science, technology to the arts, has driven new interest in bringing scholarship to the public Read more about Scholars Shouldn’t Fear ‘Dumbing Down’ for the Public[…]
Elizabeth Warren has taken an attention-getting approach to attacking Facebook’s recent announcement that it won’t fact-check politicians’ posts. She’s running an ad on the social network that deliberately contains a falsehood. “Breaking news: Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook just endorsed Donald Trump for re-election,” reads the ad, which Warren also tweeted out Saturday. The ad immediately Read more about Warren runs a false Facebook ad to protest false Facebook ads – Politicians can lie on social media ads[…]
And it’s something becoming more and more common among open source developers.
The annual Misery Index ranks the most and least miserable countries, based on four economic factors—unemployment, inflation, lending rates, and GDP growth. Source: Visualizing The Most Miserable Countries in the World
Source: The rise of social media – Our World in Data An excellent resource, but the most fascinating I thought shows that technology adoption for most technologies since the 30s has been just as fast for most products.
Humans effortlessly know that a tree is a tree and a dog is a dog no matter the size, color or angle at which they’re viewed. In fact, identifying such visual elements is one of the earliest tasks children learn. But researchers have struggled to determine how the brain does this simple evaluation. As deep-learning Read more about No Bones about It: People Recognize Objects by Visualizing Their “Skeletons”[…]
A study out of Texas State University attempted to determine the number of available horticultural community service opportunities for individuals completing community service hours per their probation or parole requirements, and whether that brand of community service generates a calculable offset against the common nature of repeat offenses for an inmate population once released. […] Read more about Combating prison recidivism with plants[…]
In the mid-1950s, domesticated cats in Minamata, Japan mysteriously began to convulse and fall into the bay. The people of Minamata took on similar symptoms shortly after, losing their ability to speak, move, and think. Chisso Corp., a Japanese chemical company, had dumped more than 600 tons of mercury into the bay between 1932 and Read more about Marine plastic pollution hides a neurological toxin in our food[…]
Italians are some of the fastest speakers on the planet, chattering at up to nine syllables per second. Many Germans, on the other hand, are slow enunciators, delivering five to six syllables in the same amount of time. Yet in any given minute, Italians and Germans convey roughly the same amount of information, according to Read more about Human speech may have a universal transmission rate: 39 bits per second[…]
Researchers from Texas A&M University published new research in the INFORMS journal Marketing Science, which shows that retailers’ branded mobile apps are very effective in increasing customer engagement, increasing sales on multiple levels, not just on the retailer’s website, but also in its stores. At the same time, apps increase the rate of returns, although Read more about Do those retail apps increase customer engagement and sales in all channels? In the US: Yes.[…]
Professor Nikos Bozionelos, of the EMLyon Business School, France, and Dr. Sumona Mukhuty, Manchester Metropolitan University, asked staff in the NHS to assess their managers’ emotional intelligence—defined as their level of empathy and their awareness of their own and others’ emotions. The 309 managers were also assessed on the amount of effort they put into Read more about Managers rated as highly emotionally intelligent are more ineffective and unpopular, research shows[…]
Typically, it’s thought that we perceive harmful sensations on our skin entirely through the very sensitive endings of certain nerve cells. These nerve cells aren’t coated by a protective layer of myelin, as other types are. Nerve cells are kept alive by and connected to other cells called glia; outside of the central nervous system, Read more about Scientists Say They’ve Found a New Organ in Skin That Processes Pain[…]
When it comes to knowing where humans around the world actually live, resources come in varying degrees of accuracy and sophistication. Heavily urbanized and mature economies generally produce a wealth of up-to-date information on population density and granular demographic data. In rural Africa or fast-growing regions in the developing world, tracking methods cannot always keep Read more about How Facebook is Using Machine Learning to Map the World Population[…]
Research dating back to the late 1960s documents how the great majority of people who witness crimes or violent behavior refuse to intervene. Psychologists dubbed this non-response as the “bystander effect”—a phenomenon which has been replicated in scores of subsequent psychological studies. The “bystander effect” holds that the reason people don’t intervene is because we Read more about It turns out Bystanders do Help Strangers in Need[…]
The remarkable ability of plants to respond to their environment has led some scientists to believe it’s a sign of conscious awareness. A new opinion paper argues against this position, saying plants “neither possess nor require consciousness.” Many of us take it for granted that plants, which lack a brain or central nervous system, wouldn’t Read more about Are Plants Conscious? Researchers Argue, but agree they are intelligent.[…]
Dark patterns are user interface design choices that benefit an online service by coercing, steering, or deceivingusers into making unintended and potentially harmful decisions. We present automated techniques that enableexperts to identify dark patterns on a large set of websites. Using these techniques, we study shoppingwebsites, which often use dark patterns these to influence users Read more about Dark Patterns at Scale: Findings from a Crawl of 11K Shopping Websites (note, there’s lots of them influencing your unconsious to buy!)[…]
In a grainy black-and-white video shot at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, a patient sits in a hospital bed, his head wrapped in a bandage. He’s trying to recall 12 words for a memory test but can only conjure three: whale, pit, zoo. After a pause, he gives up, sinking his head into his hands. Read more about Upgrade your memory with a surgically implanted chip![…]
How Different Generations Approach Work View the full-size version of the infographic by clicking here The first representatives of Generation Z have started to trickle into the workplace – and like generations before them, they are bringing a different perspective to things. Did you know that there are now up to five generations now working Read more about Infographic: How Different Generations Approach Work[…]
You’re the Man Now Dog, a pioneer in the internet meme space, has shut down. The online community at YTMND.com allowed users to upload an image or a GIF and pair it with audio for hilarious results. Traffic to the website, however, dried up years ago with the rise of Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. In Read more about Internet Meme Pioneer YTMND Shuts Down[…]
The study builds on seminal work by Princeton University social psychologist Susan Fiske suggesting that scientists have earned Americans’ respect but not their trust. Trust depends on two perceived characteristics of an individual or social group: competence and warmth. Perceptions of competence involve the belief that members of a particular social group are intelligent and Read more about New study shows scientists who selfie garner more public trust[…]
There is a deep underlying assumption, however, that we can learn from them because it’s their personal characteristics–such as talent, skill, mental toughness, hard work, tenacity, optimism, growth mindset, and emotional intelligence– that got them where they are today. […] But is this assumption correct? I have spent my entire career studying the psychological characteristics Read more about The Role of Luck in Life Success Is Far Greater Than We Realized – Scientific American Blog Network[…]
Doctors have identified a new mutation in a woman who is barely able to feel pain or stress after a surgeon who was baffled by her recovery from an operation referred her for genetic testing. Jo Cameron, 71, has a mutation in a previously unknown gene which scientists believe must play a major role in Read more about Scientists find genetic mutation that makes woman feel no pain[…]
A rigorous new study has examined the large-scale brain activity of a number of human subjects while sleeping, presenting one of the most detailed investigations into sleep phases conducted to date. The study suggests that instead of the traditional four sleep stages we generally understand the brain moves through, there are in fact at least Read more about New research indicates we transition between 19 different brain phases when sleeping[…]