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Visuals: Threat of extinction

Over 900 animal species have gone extinct since the year 1500, and many more are threatened with extinction.

Extinction means that an entire animal species dies. For instance, the Dodo bird, a flightless bird that used to live on the island of Mauritius, went extinct in the 18th century because of overhunting by humans.

Please have a look at the graph below and discuss what you see with your teacher.

Where art and science meet

When you hear the word "artist", you might not think at first of the person who drew the pictures in your science textbook, or created images of the coronavirus during the pandemic. But medical and scientific illustrators are definitely artists. The job requires equal amounts of scientific research and artistic skill. Just look at works by Cynthia Turner, or Bryan Christie. They're gorgeous enough to frame and hang on your wall.

Is biohacking a major concern?

Gene-editing technology known as CRISPR is becoming more and more widely available. CRISPR is the name of a family of DNA sequences, parts of which can be used like a pair of molecular scissors capable of cutting strands of DNA. However, many in the scientific community have sounded the alarm because doing this activity outside of professional laboratories could be quite dangerous.

In the near future, biohackers may be able to upgrade or optimize their physical and cognitive performance with gene editing. Some other biohacking techniques include implanting a small computer chip into your hand to use as ID, or taking "smart drugs" called nootropics.

But in California, where in Silicon Valley biohacking really took off, a new law is making it illegal to sell a do-it-yourself genetic engineering kit unless it comes with a warning that it’s not for self-administration.

How to reduce bias in hiring

In the U.S. and the European Union, it is illegal for an employer to discriminate against a job applicant because of race, color, religion, age or sex (including gender identity, sexual orientation and pregnancy). Employers can't require photos or ask questions about personal information on an application.

But bias is still possible. Studies in the U.S. have shown that "ethnic-sounding" names can reduce by half the likelihood of being called for an interview, compared to applicants with "white" names.

Making learning a lifelong habit

According to The Harvard Business Review (HBR), lifetime learners consider learning as a source of personal and professional fulfillment. The Economist recently argued that with all the disruptions in the modern economy, particularly technology, ongoing skill development is key to maintaining professional relevance.

Learning must become a habit, and so demands careful cultivation. First, developing a learning habit requires you to articulate the outcomes you'd like to achieve. Would you like to reinvigorate your conversations and intellectual activity by reading a variety of new topics? Are you looking to master a specific subject?

Based on those choices, set realistic goals, such as reading a book per week or studying English for thirty minutes a day. With goals in hand, develop a learning community, such as book clubs and writing groups.

Visuals: Researchers in the world

For years researchers argued about the "Nature vs Nurture" question. Is a person talented because they were born that way, or did people and circumstances in their environment cause them to develop certain skills?

While this question stays open, there is little doubt that living conditions do matter. Could Steve Jobs have created Apple if he was born in a village in Africa? How much new technology or how many groundbreaking discoveries are we losing because talented children in poor areas don't have access to adequate education?

Please have a look at the graph below and discuss what you see with your teacher.

Women artists: Yayoi Kusama

Yayoi Kusama (1929– ) is considered by some to be the greatest Japanese artist of our times. Although her initial training was in the traditional nihonga art style, she became frustrated with it and wanted a change. She wrote to Georgia O'Keeffe, who encouraged her to move to New York. The Avant-Garde scene was thriving at the time, and Kusama fell right in with it. Her art became provocative, pushing the edges of what was considered "acceptable". She staged public sex, painting nude people with her signature polka-dots. Her art was, and is, psychedelic.

Kusama's images of dots and lines stem from hallucinations caused by mental illness. Her illness eventually compelled her to return to Japan. She has been very open about her mental health struggles. She says art is what keeps her alive.

The Himalayas—taller every year

The Himalayan mountain range is nearly 25 million years old, yet it is one of the youngest mountain ranges in the world. It was formed as a result of the collision of two tectonic plates over millions of years. The Indo-Australian plate is presently colliding against the Eurasian plate at a speed of 67 millimetres per year, which means that the Himalayan mountains, the tallest in the world, are getting even taller.

The Himalayas were named by joining two Sanskrit words that mean “Abode of Snow.” People in Nepal call Mount Everest Sagarmatha, which means “Goddess of the Universe.” Mount Everest derived its English name in honour of Sir George Everest, a 19th-century Surveyor General of India.

Video: Portals link the world

A public art installation makes it possible for people far apart to interact with each other. The ongoing project, "Portal—a Bridge to the United Planet", aims to create a sense of unity among people in different countries. 

Watch the short video below and listen for the answers to these questions:

  1. When did the project start?

  2. When the news of the portal "instantly went viral", how many people did it reach?

  3. How big is the portal?

  4. How does it work?

  5. Which two countries were connected first?

  6. How many countries do they hope to connect in the future?

Dealing with slow periods at work

According to The Harvard Business Review, most people are able to focus on getting work done during the peak, but how we handle slow periods also has a dramatic impact on our overall productivity and happiness. 

When the pressure is off, we might over-invest in email, or focus on unimportant items or errands, thinking we have plenty of time. To counteract this tendency, aim to start each day with a clear plan. You have to be more deliberate about planning than you would during a busy period.

Slower times at work present an opportunity to enhance your entire life, if you take advantage of them. Consider professional development activities that you would not normally have time for and add them into your daily plans. These might include attending an industry conference, brushing up your CV or taking an English class online. You are making an investment of time that will either help you in your current job or open up future doors.

Video: Cultural gaps crash planes

Watch this short video where Malcolm Gladwell answers the question, "What is the one thing people need to know about how cultural differences cause planes to crash?"  Then discuss it with your teacher, or write about it using the discussion questions below.

 

Benjamin Hubert: Designing for all

Benjamin Hubert, founder of the design company LAYER, believes that design should be for the people, not for galleries. LAYER’s vision is to solve everyday problems in the best way possible. For example, a client approached them about a new wheelchair. This was a company with no relationship to design—they just needed a better wheelchair. According to Hubert, “clients approach us because they want a functional and affordable product that’s also beautiful.” 

Hubert founded the LAYER start-up in 2010 after working for a large agency for a few years. He recommends to all founders of start-up companies that they work for someone else first. That way you learn about all the aspects of a business.

The benefits of bilingualism

According to CNN, learning a new language can rewire your brain and help stave off Alzheimer’s disease later in life. Ellen Bialystok, from York University in Toronto, Canada, found that bilinguals are diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease four to five years later than their monolingual counterparts.

When it comes to the beneficial effects bilingualism has on the brain, education levels do not matter. In fact, the most profound effects were found in people who were illiterate and had no education. Bilingualism was their only real source of mental stimulation, and as they got older, it provided protection for their aging brains.

More experience with bilingualism leads to greater cognitive changes. The earlier you start being bilingual, and the more intense your bilingual experience is on a daily basis, the more changes happen in your brain.

Our changing perception of time

According to Vox, there's very little scientific evidence to suggest our perception of time changes as we age. However, people consistently report that the past felt longer.

There are a few different ways to study how we perceive time. Scientists can look at time estimation, for instance: people’s ability to estimate how long an activity took to complete. They can also look at time awareness: the feeling that time "flies" when we are having fun, but then slows to a crawl when we do something boring. Finally, there's time perspective: the sense of a past, present, and future as constructed by our memories.

Moral sacrifice is subjective

Perhaps you've heard of the so-called trolley problem, also known as the train problem. The old philosophical question goes like this:

There is a trolley barreling down the tracks. Ahead, on the tracks, there are five people tied up and unable to move. The trolley is headed straight for them. You are standing next to a lever. If you pull this lever, the trolley will switch to a different set of tracks, therefore saving the five people. However, you notice that there is one person on the side track. You have two options:

  1. Do nothing and allow the trolley to kill the five people on the main track.
  2. Pull the lever, diverting the trolley onto the side track where it will kill one person.

What is the right thing to do?

Success can be an addiction

The Atlantic reports that though success isn’t a conventional medical addiction, it has addictive properties for many people. Praise stimulates the neurotransmitter dopamine, which is connected to addictive behaviors. Success addiction is known to have a negative effect on human relationships. People choose to travel for business on anniversaries, and they miss their children’s important milestones while working long hours. Some even decide to focus on their careers and forgo marriage.

Many scholars, such as the psychologist Barbara Killinger, have found that people are willing to overwork to keep getting "hits" of success at the expense of their well-being. They shelve a much-needed rest from work and time with family and friends until after a project, or a promotion, but that day never arrives.

The best age to found a startup

Well-known entrepreneurs like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Mark Zuckerberg were in their early twenties when they launched their highly successful companies. The Harvard Business Review (HBR) explores whether these famous cases reflect a general pattern.

The HBR team analyzed the age of all business founders in the United States in recent years and found that the average age of entrepreneurs at the time they founded their companies is 42. In software startups, the average age is 40, and younger founders are common. However, young people are less common in other industries such as oil and gas or biotechnology, where the average age is closer to 47.

HBR discovered that among the top 0.1% of startups based on growth in their first five years, the founders started their companies when they were, on average, 45 years old. Evidence points to entrepreneurial performance rising sharply with age before starting to drop in the late fifties.

A woman in the whisky business

Bessie Williamson (1910-1982) was a woman in a man's industry. She ran a whisky distillery in Scotland at a time when women weren't managers in any business, let alone the whisky business. But Williamson worked her way up from a typist to the owner and CEO of the Laphroaig [lah-FROYG] distillery, becoming a well-respected boss and highly successful manager. She brought Laphroaig distillery through difficult times during WWII and began a far-reaching modernization process before retiring.

Williamson was known in the business as the "Islay Labour Exchange" because she found a job for almost everyone who needed one. And if workers didn't have a pension plan, she kept them on well past the usual age of retirement. Her employees were always first in her mind, even in the hard times.