Every year we manufacture an amount of plastic about equal to the weight of all the people on Earth. Plastic is designed to last for centuries, but most of it is used only once and thrown away. Only 5% of plastic is recycled in the US, by far the world’s foremost plastic-using nation. Living with …
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UC Berkeley materials science and engineering graduate student, preparing a sample film of a new biodegradable plastic. (Credit: Adam Lau/UC Berkeley). Plastic is a miraculous material, but the plastic industry has created a global crisis. Reduce, reuse and recycle has been the approach to plastic waste, but this has failed. A new future for plastic …
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Carved some 30,000 years ago, the Venus of Willendorf is one of the earliest images of the body made by humankind. The figurine was made with great skill, as were many others like it. But why should certain parts of the body be exaggerated, while others are ignored? Discovered on the banks of the Danube …
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Featured Book Creating a Learning Society A New Approach to Growth, Development, and Social Progress Joseph E. Stiglitz & Bruce C. GreenwaldHardcover edition 2014 What is a Learning Society? A gap in knowledge is what separates developed from less-developed countries, not just a gap in resources or output. The pace at which developing countries grow is …
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Featured Book Social Why Our Brains are Wired to Connect Matthew D. LiebermanPaperback edition 2014 Featured Book Our brains are wired for connection, mind reading, and harmonizing—the social and cognitive functions that ensured our survival and continue to drive our behavior. Understanding these neurocognitive mechanisms is essential for reorienting and improving ourselves and our institutions …
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Featured Book Against the Grain A Deep History of the Earliest States James C. ScottPaperback edition 2018 It used to be thought that agriculture made living in settled communities possible. In Against the Grain, James C. Scott turns this idea on its head by showing recent archeological research that indicates ancient peoples began cultivating grains …
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Hittite cavalry relief. Museum of Anatolian Civilizations (Georges Jansoone). Wikimedia Commons. The Aryans or “Noble Ones” were thought to have remained together on the Caucasian steppes from about 4500 BCE until about 2500 BCE when groups began to migrate. Their single language, known by linguists as Proto-Indo-European, evolved into many of the Asiatic and European …
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Public markets were first established less than 3,000 years ago for people to buy and sell using the new invention, money. Market in Kolkata, India. Photo by Bernard Gagnon. We all think we know about money. But do we understand the functions of money, what money actually is, and what it represents? By George KasabovContributing Writer …
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The New York Stock Exchange trading floor in 2009. It has become obvious that the primary objective of finance is not to benefit people and firms through loans to help cash-flow and capital investment, but to extract value by means of myriads of new financial instruments. By George KasabovContributing Writer Since 1950, the US financial …
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Featured Book 1493 Uncovering the New World Columbus Created Charles C. MannPaperback edition 2012 Reviewed by George KasabovContributing Writer Despite the horrors of conquest and slavery, Post-Columbian trade with the New World transformed world history and marked the beginning of modern globalization. It initiated modern agriculture, the industrial revolution, and even the world’s great cuisines. …
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Featured Book On Tyranny:Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century Timothy Snyder It is not the ordinary that drives us, but our emotions, especially fear and greed. To focus such drives, we look to leaders who often manipulate these emotions and our tribal instincts to harness us against some demonized “other”—like the Jew for the Nazis; …
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This classic tale illustrates the Arab’s view of hospitality as a sacred duty and cardinal virtue—as well as the Sufi teaching that true generosity cannot be exercised without the development of other prerequisite virtues. The King Who Decided To Be Generous There was a king of Iran who said to a dervish: “Tell me a …
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