Women face discrimination on several different fronts at work. They are 14% less likely to be promoted than their male colleagues. They still face pay gaps. And they suffer professionally for being caregivers at home, facing higher levels of burnout and a higher incidence of leaving the workforce altogether. According to a new report, working women also face unfair assumptions about their health from men. A new survey from Mira, a fertility tracking and health site, found that more than a third (37%) of men surveyed said they attributed a female colleague’s behavior to their hormones. Even more men (39%)…
Author: Staff Writer
I have said for years that governments and institutions always begin with what people will accept and then gradually expand from there. What we are now seeing in educational technology is perhaps one of the most disturbing developments, because it targets children under the guise of learning. Studies have now confirmed that roughly 90% of commonly used school apps are transmitting tracking data, even when they are not actively being used, and many contain hidden third-party trackers operating in the background. This is not simply about helping a student complete homework or communicate with a teacher; this is continuous data…
There’s a surprising amount of science in a bag of potato chips.Researchers have spent decades developing potatoes for chip makers that can grow in all kinds of climates, avoid diseases and pests, sit in storage for months and still deliver a satisfying crunch. They’ve also kept an eye on consumer trends; a shift to snack-size portions has increased the demand for smaller chipping potatoes, for example.“The potato industry is dynamic,” said David Douches, a Michigan State University professor who leads the school’s Potato Breeding and Genetics Program. “The needs change, the costs, the pressures that they have, and the markets…
I have warned that once geopolitical tensions ignite, they do not remain contained, and what we are now witnessing is the steady expansion of conflict lines as Turkey is being recast from a strategic NATO partner into a geopolitical threat by the very alliance it once helped anchor. The European Union has now openly shifted its tone, with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen effectively grouping Turkey alongside Russia and China, stating that Europe must ensure it is not influenced by “Russia, Turkey or China,” which is an extraordinary statement when directed at a NATO member and signals a…
Bob Dylan, a native of the Upper Midwest, famously crooned that “the times they are a-changin’.” Nowhere is that more prescient now than in and around the Midwest’s largest city, Chicago, which is attempting to shed its skin as a Rust Belt metropolis and be born anew in the twenty-first century as the capital of the “Silicon Prairie,” a hub for the burgeoning quantum computing industry. It’s a literal transformation, too. The decommissioned U.S. Steel South Works, a decaying U.S. Steel foundry that once employed tens of thousands of people and shut down in 1992, is being resurrected as the…
Human beings are obsessed with change. As large scale scientific studies show, most of us would like to change at least some aspects of our personality, defined as consistent patterns of behaviors or habits that make us who we are and different from others. For example, I’d love to be less impulsive, excitable, or cynical, which is why I have been working on not being myself for many years. Likewise, most individuals want to grow, to develop new adaptations that make them a better version of themselves, and organizations are equally interested in transforming, which typically depends on their people’s…
SpaceX still has deep roots in the rocket business, but the Elon Musk-owned company is doubling down on artificial intelligence as it prepares for an IPO. In a social media post Monday afternoon, SpaceX announced it had started a working relationship with AI coding startup Cursor, which includes an option to buy the company for $60 billion. (Should SpaceX decide against buying Cursor, it will pay $10 billion for its work.) “The combination of Cursor’s leading product and distribution to expert software engineers with SpaceX’s million H100 equivalent Colossus training supercomputer will allow us to build the world’s most useful…
The great jazz trumpeter Miles Davis once said, “Sometimes you have to play a long time to be able to play like yourself.” This is why the best artists are not only masterful at their craft but also distinctive in their voice; they’ve committed themselves to the process of being themselves. Subsequently, this means they committed themselves to the failure that comes along with it also. But that’s the part no one talks about—the work required to “become” who we are or, better yet, who we want to be. It’s as if we’re expected to go to the gym and…
Lululemon today named Heidi O’Neill, a 26-year Nike veteran, as its next CEO, ending a monthslong search to replace Calvin McDonald, who stepped down from the top job after six years at the company. O’Neill, most recently Nike’s president of consumer, product, and brand, will start September 8 and be based in Lululemon’s Vancouver headquarters. The choice signals where Lululemon’s board thinks the company needs to go next—and it’s worth asking whether they’ve gotten the diagnosis right. For most of the last decade, Lululemon was one of the fastest-growing apparel brands on the planet. Under McDonald, who took over as…
This week, Starbucks unveiled plans to open an office in Nashville, in a bid to establish a home base in the Southeast. The coffee giant is investing $100 million into this expansion and plans to staff the new office with thousands of workers within the next five years. But according to a new Bloomberg report, Starbucks has had little success coaxing employees to relocate from the company’s headquarters in Seattle. Starbucks eventually plans to have about 2,000 employees based in Nashville. In a letter to employees that was also posted publicly, chief partner officer Sara Kelly disclosed that the Nashville…