40,000 years of changes in the ice cap in Eurasia and North America show the connection between the two extremes of the planet
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The European middle class is already falling behind compared to the middle classes of emerging markets, such as China or India, and this trend, along with others, will be accelerated by the coronavirus pandemic.
As a society we must be prepared to face all these changes that are already coming, and not conceptualize them as a series of catastrophes without a solution, but as a series of opportunities to make evolutionary breakthroughs using lateral thinking. That is the main thesis of this book. Mauro F. Guillén, 2030. Traveling towards the end of the world as we know it.
Opportunities
Forecasting the future, there is no doubt, is an enterprise doomed to failure. But we can take into account some trends to guide us. And that is what this book aspires to be: a compass.
2030: Traveling to the end of the world as we know it (No collection)
Marked by economic, sociological and technological data, this compass, then, allows us two things: face the next decade with a little less fear and surprise for what is to come. And two: do it with a more resilient and constructive spirit.
For this reason, the book has also been a source of inspiration in Xataka Ciencia in order to produce entries such as The number of patents does not stop growing, but it does so especially in China either Leapfrogging: when a society makes a technological leap by skipping stages.
There was a time when the world was clearly divided between prosperous economies and backward economies. Many children were born, there were more workers than retirees and the aspirations of people who wanted to be part of the middle class consisted of having a car and a house. It was enough for companies to operate in Europe and the United States. It was paid with cash. And we expected the rules that governed our lives to be stable and predictable. But the world, pandemic through, has changed, and those rules are no longer valid.
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The news
Books that inspire us: '2030. Traveling towards the end of the world as we know it', by Mauro F. Guillén
was originally published in
Xataka Science
by
Sergio Parra
.
Our conception of romantic love could not be more trite, nor could it be more overflowing with pleonasms and tautologies, and endless inaccuracies, hunches and intuitions that contradict six decades of scientific literature.
However, there are intuitions or simple physical manifestations that have been corroborated. Like the neurophysiological changes that take place in a brain in love.
Neuroimaging
Stephanie Cacioppo, a psychologist at the University of Chicago who has studied the neuroscience of romantic love for the last decade, explains that the process involves several complex changes, particularly in the brain's reward system.
More specifically, in a review from 2012 From the scientific literature on love, Lisa Diamond and Janna Dickenson, psychologists at the University of Utah, found that romantic love is most consistently associated with activity in two brain regions: the ventral tegmental area (VTA) and the caudate nucleus.
These areas play an essential role in our reward pathway and regulate the neurotransmitter dopamine. In other words, during the early stages of love we miss your loved one because he or she makes you feel so good.
In fact, simply thinking about your partner not only makes you feel good, but also can buffer pain, stress and other negative feelings. A study, for example, has shown that women in love do better on cognitive tasks after being subliminally told their lover's name.
These neural patterns of romantic love appear to be universal across genders, cultures, and sexual orientations. Romantic and platonic love, for example, may be associated with unique neural signatures. And studies show that the neural processes in charge of sexual attraction and desire can occur alongside and sometimes overlap with those that regulate romantic love, but they are largely different from them.
Be that as it may, it seems that finding someone special in our lives is a safe and stable source of happiness, although we are not very good at choosing a partner, on many occasions. Maybe we need help. Big Data + machine learning algorithms in order to find your perfect match. The one that suits you. And, furthermore, the offer will not be as limited as now (basically the people who live in your neighborhood or just beyond), but total (humanity). You can learn more about it in the following video:
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The news
Thinking about your partner can dull pain, stress and other negative feelings.
was originally published in
Xataka Science
by
Sergio Parra
.
Preserved in a terrifying moment in time.
But a lot could happen before that.
Christmas is about delivering something very special.
In China they have hardly used credit cards: they have gone from cash to mobile phone payment via QR codes.
Perhaps this is one of the most recent cases of leapfrogging, which describes when a society progresses technologically but not linearly, but abruptly, skipping natural stages. In Africa there is another surprising case with ebooks.
African ebooks
Although it may sound counterintuitive, rapid progress does not take place in the most developed regions, but in the least developed ones. This happens because in more developed countries and regions, citizens are tied to a certain way of thinking or doing things, so it is more difficult for them to let go of the past.
But as explained Michael Hannan in This studio Regarding structural inertia, in less developed countries and regions, people adapt better to new radical changes, which offers a better observation point on the future.
A surprising and paradigmatic case, it's the ebook. In the most modern societies, its implementation is slow because users still find incentives for physical books. But what happens in a place where there are hardly any physical books? The same as in a China without credit cards.
For this reason, Africa could become, according to Mauro F. Guillen in his book 2030, the world's first ebook reader, in the same way that it is already at the forefront of mobile payments. Snappflify, for example, is a South African company that has become the largest educational content platform on the continent and already serves almost 200,000 students.
For its part, worldreader, a San Francisco NGO, offers free access to a library of ebooks to schools in any developing country.
In rural areas, without coverage, it offers an integrated solution that includes solar panels, USB hubs, LED lights, e-book readers and access to the digital library.
Thanks to the magic of Leapfrogging, then, contentants like the African could receive aan unprecedented cultural and intellectual shock, suddenly, and in a few years; the equivalent of the shocks of thousands of years that the West received with the 38 most disruptive books for culture and science:
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The news
Leapfrogging: when a society makes a technological leap by skipping stages
was originally published in
Xataka Science
by
Sergio Parra
.
And why they have to be kept cold.