How to dispel disappointment with democracy. Cultural shifts that are impacting birth rates – everywhere. The impact of the top 10 technologies of 2024. Top Israeli names decry the US Senate invitation to Netanyahu. Shedding new light on the importance of the brain’s nocturnal ‘waste clearance system’.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
ARTICLE OF THE WEEK
Daron Acemoglu, If Democracy Isn’t Pro-Worker, It Will Die
(Project Syndicate, 20 June 2024)
The famous MIT economist warns that “democracy is in crisis throughout the industrialized world because its performance has fallen short of what was promised”. He points out that far right and extremist parties are benefiting from the fact that the center-left and center-right are now associated with wage stagnation and rising inequality. In his opinion, democracy will only regain the public’s support and trust if it becomes more pro-worker and egalitarian. Hard to disagree (metered paywall that may require prior registration, reads in 6-8 min).
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Derek Thompson, The Radical Cultural Shift Behind America’s Declining Birth Rate
(The Ringer, 21 June 2024)
How we think about dating, marriage, children, and family is changing radically and very fast. This article (based on a conversation with the co-authors of “What Are Children For?”) goes deep on the psychology of having children or not, and the cultural revolution behind the decline in birthrates in much of the world. It seems to be a cultural story, with a new “parenthood ambivalence” sweeping the world. When asked “Why did you not have children?” the second-most common reason given after “I didn’t want any” is: “I failed to find a willing and suitable partner” (true of men and women at almost the same rates) (meterd paywall, reads in 5-6 min).
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Sebastian Buckup and Stephan Kuster, How the Top 10 Emerging Technologies of 2024 will impact the world
(WEF, 25 June 2024)
Every year, 300 world-leading academics and experts from the WEF communities identify the top 10 emerging technologies. The report for 2024 (which can be found HERE) shows how AI is dramatically accelerating scientific research with a strong focus on applications in health, communication, infrastructure and sustainability. AI-powered scientific discovery, carbon-capturing microbes, and elastocalorics are among this year’s 10 listed technologies (free access, reads in 4-6 min).
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David Harel, Tamir Pardo, Talia Sasson, Ehud Barak, Aaron Ciechanover and David Grossman, We Are Israelis Calling on Congress to Disinvite Netanyahu
(The New York Times, 26 June 2024)
When many argue that the Israeli government strategy is making Hamas stronger, five very prominent individuals coming from a variety of areas of Israeli society (science, technology, politics, defense, law and culture, including a former PM and a former head of Mossad) just took the most unusual decision to publicly condemn PM Netanyahu who, they state, is “driving Israel downhill at an alarming speed, to the extent that we may eventually lose the country we love.” They are calling on US Congress to disinvite him (gifted article, reads in 5-7 min).
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Jon Hamilton, The brain makes a lot of waste. Now scientists think they know where it goes
(NPR, 26 June 2024)
Brainwashing, literally! New research that offers a detailed description of the brain’s waste-removal system could help researchers better understand, treat and possibly prevent a range of brain disorders. When we sleep, electrical waves push a fluid around the 170 billion cells we have in the brain to its surface. There, a complex interface absorbs the waste products in that fluid into the bloodstream, taking them to the liver and kidneys to be removed from the body. This brain’s waste-clearance system can be impaired by age, injuries and diseases that clog blood vessels in the brain. It then becomes a risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease, possibly Parkinson’s disease, headache and even depression (free access, reads in 5-6 min).
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