Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Category: economics – Page 55

Are online classes the great equalizer?đŸ€Ł

New psychology findings suggest that attractive students earn higher grades in school, but for female students, this beauty premium disappears when classes are taught remotely. The findings were published in the journal Economic Letters.

A large body of research suggests that physical appearance has an impact on a person’s success. For example, attractive people tend to earn more money and report higher life satisfaction than less attractive people. Interestingly, scholars have yet to agree on the explanation behind this beauty premium.

One account suggests that the beauty advantage can be explained by discrimination. For example, employers may inherently favor attractive over unattractive workers. Another perspective suggests that beauty is a productivity-enhancing attribute. This view suggests that attractiveness lends itself to higher productivity, for example, through increased self-confidence.

Continue reading “Attractive female students no longer earned higher grades when classes moved online during COVID-19” | >

Plastic waste is clogging up our rivers and oceans and causing long-lasting environmental damage that is only just starting to come into focus. But a new approach that combines biological and chemical processes could greatly simplify the process of recycling it.

While much of the plastic we use carries symbols indicating it can be recycled, and authorities around the world make a big show about doing so, the reality is that it’s easier said than done. Most recycling processes only work on a single type of plastic, but our waste streams are made up of a complex mixture that can be difficult and expensive to separate.

On top of that, most current chemical recycling processes produce end products of significantly worse quality that can’t be recycled themselves, which means we’re still a long way from the goal of a circular economy when it comes to plastics.

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“We face two global crises in housing and climate change.”

Southern California met its first-in-the-world 3D-printed zero net home thanks to Mighty Buildings. As part of a 40-unit community in Desert Hot Springs, these 3D-printed houses also draw attention to environmental and economic strategies.

“We are excited to be the first company in the world to complete what we believe to be the sustainable housing standard of the future,” said Mighty Buildings CEO Slava Solonitsyn, as per Dezeen.

Mighty Buildings.

Continue reading “This company built a 3D-printed net zero house to decrease carbon dioxide” | >

FOR as long as internal combustion has ruled the roads, vehicles have been fitted with just three basic types of engine: four-stroke, two-stroke, and rotary.

Each differs from the next with regard to its power density and fuel economy, but the general premise of each is very similar. Air and fuel go in, get ignited, and push the piston (or rotor) which in turn rotates the crankshaft creating motion.

It’s a simple enough process, and through well over 100 years of fettling and refining, petrol engines have become ever more potent, economical, and advanced.

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Do you want to live a better, healthier and longer life? Me too.

Lets go back to 1937, when Albert Szent-Györgyi won a Nobel Prize for his discovery of ascorbic acid—vitamin C—that enables the body to efficiently use carbohydrates, fats, and protein (I use it a lot during cold and flu season, you?). It was a massively consequential discovery, as it not only saved and extended countless lives, but it also contributed to the foundations of modern nutrition. Szent-Györgyi, himself, was blessed with a long life; he died in 1986 at the age of 93. But he might just as well be known for what he said on his 90th birthday: “I wish I could be 75 again!”

No doubt, that comment elicits more than a few eyerolls today. Especially since the CDC has recently downgraded American life expectancy to just 77 years. But could 75 someday be the new 40—an age by which, like Szent-Györgyi, we’re only hitting our stride? Well, if the burgeoning activity of the life extension industry is any indication, we may actually be on the cusp of making it so—and enjoying life to the fullest right up to the extended end. Which brings us to the morbid thought of mortality—that end state most of us seek to delay, if not dodge.

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What we now witness is what might be called Geopolitical Decentralization. Akin to the Web3 decentralization meta-trend in information and communication technologies, we are moving away from the centralized global control by one country, away from the U.S. hegemony on a global scale. With the Russia-Ukraine war, the U.S. apparently loses its status as a global superpower. This is an entirely natural geopolitical and socio-economic evolution, seemingly predetermined for a civilizational development. Mirroring each other, our technologies go in lockstep with socio-economic and geopolitical processes.

Place has always mattered when it comes to economics—and it will matter more than ever in the coming post-neoliberal world, writes Rana Foroohar.

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Over the last three decades, the digital world that we access through smartphones and computers has grown so rich and detailed that much of our physical world has a corresponding life in this digital reality. Today, the physical and digital realities are on a steady course to merging, as robots, Augmented Reality (AR) and wearable digital devices enter our physical world, and physical items get their digital twin computer representations in the digital world.

These digital twins can be uniquely identified and protected from manipulation thanks to crypto technologies like blockchains. The trust that these technologies provide is extremely powerful, helping to fight counterfeiting, increase supply chain transparency, and enable the circular economy. However, a weak point is that there is no versatile and generally applicable identifier of physical items that is as trustworthy as a blockchain. This breaks the connection between the physical and digital twins and therefore limits the potential of technical solutions.

In a new paper published in Light: Science & Applications, an interdisciplinary team of scientists led by Professors Jan Lagerwall (physics) and Holger Voos (robotics) from the University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg, and Prof. Mathew Schwartz (architecture, construction of the built environment) from the New Jersey Institute of Technology, U.S., propose an innovative solution to this problem where physical items are given unique and unclonable fingerprints realized using cholesteric spherical reflectors, or CSRs for short.

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It’s going to get even worse, says the CEO in the earnings call.

Mark Zuckerberg’s dream of building the future of the internet is costing Meta billions of dollars every quarter. In the quarterly earnings call on Wednesday, Reality Labs, Meta’s division tasked with building the metaverse, reported a loss of $3.67 billion in the period between July through September, up from $2.8 billion in the previous quarter, Engadget.

IStock/COM & O

What is making it the talk of the town is the fact that Meta is spending billions every quarter and has raked up losses close to $20 billion since the rebrand. This is especially worrying for the company’s investors, who expect the economy to take a downturn soon and are wondering when the madness at Meta will stop.

Continue reading “Mark Zuckerberg’s metaverse dream is costing billions — and Meta plans to spend more next year” | >

Protecting People, Society & Environment — Lydie Evrard, Deputy Director General; Head, Department of Nuclear Safety & Security, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)

Lydie Evrard (https://www.iaea.org/about/organizational-structure/departme
d-security) is Deputy Director General and Head of the Department of Nuclear Safety and Security at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Ms. Evrard’s department focuses on the protection of people, society and the environment from the harmful effects of ionizing radiation, whether the cause is an unsafe act or a security breach, and her team aims to provide a strong, sustainable and visible global nuclear safety and security framework. Her department was created in 1996 as a response to the Chernobyl nuclear accident.

Continue reading “Lydie Evrard — Deputy Director General, IAEA — Head of the Department of Nuclear Safety and Security” | >

Tesla is rumored to be looking to invest in Nuevo Leon, a Mexican state bordering Texas, as CEO Elon Musk meets with the governor.

Earlier this year, people crossing the border between Texas and Nuevo Leon were surprised to see not just the usual marked lanes for cars and trucks but also one marked “Tesla” – pictured above.

We ended up finding out that Tesla had struck a deal with the state of Nuevo Leon to have its own lane at the border crossing in order to reduce wait times for cargo going through the border. Or at least that was the explanation of Ivan Rivas, the economy minister of Nuevo Leon.

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