Recipients of the 10th annual Communication Awards were announced today by the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, and Institute of Medicine.

Sustainability in the production of goods and services could be encouraged by replacing value-added tax (VAT) with ‘DaVAT,’ a damage and value-added tax, a new study suggests. This tariff is partly based on a life-cycle assessment (LCA) of goods and services and varies from high (products deemed to seriously harm the environment and human health) to low (those with a lesser impact). The researchers propose a novel way to convert VAT into DaVAT and provide a new policy tool, based on LCA, that can be applied by any country wishing to reform its consumption tax system and move towards a more sustainable future.

A circular economy (CE) is one in which materials retain their value and are reused, minimising waste. Cities and councils could act as CE trailblazers by embedding this approach whenever possible into their public purchase of products, services and works. This study explored different approaches to circular public procurement (CPP), and identified possible opportunities to promote CE via appropriate procurement policy and criteria.

The Art of Connecting is Rethinking the Risk. Be clear on where you stand with BT Security

Belgrad, Daniel, author

Grey turns to pen and paper, Myke switches to Todoist, and they both share what they wanted to be when they grew up.

'What Were You Thinking?' is a podcast series that showcases real-life stories of adolescents who made life-altering choices.

Study finds that only 17 percent of children create deep imaginary worlds but they also exhibit higher levels of creativity.

Video shows a motorcyclist in Belgium stopping to rescue a kitten from the road.

Thanksgiving feasts and Christmas treats will be here soon, but being proactive can help you win the battle of the bulge.

A new feature added to Project Sunroof, a free solar mapping tool from Google, makes keeping up with Joneses even easier.

Schools are phasing out dodgeball and other sports in favor of exercises that get kids moving for a lifetime.

Animals at Australia's Mogo Zoo were saved from wildfires by savvy staff.

A recent Harvard study finds that neural activity is a new player when it comes to human aging.

When Darcy was in distress, JetBlue attendants rushed to her aid with ice and oxygen.

Sharon Bishop, CEO at Close Brothers Premium Finance, discusses the lessons that leaders can learn from their staff.

Not many people realize it, but it's legal (and cheap!) to handle a funeral yourself.

Here's What You Need to Know Before Getting A Tummy Tuck

By size, English-speaking Australia is the 6th largest country in the world and it extends on to include a group of islands - one of which you might be familiar: Tasmania!

How changing your beliefs can change your life. Success starts with a state of mind.

Learn to shift your thinking and attract anything you want in life.

Mr. Zinavage channels decades of experience into his work with BRATCON Co.as well as being a writer

New trucking regulations reevaluate who is responsible after a truck accident.

When it comes to combating the appearance of aging skin there is nothing more successful than peptides. In the world of anti-aging, trifluoroacetyl tripeptide 2, Progeline is one of the most potent defenders against the visible signs of aging skin.

The publication challenges you to start rethinking your strategies during today's economic phase, and highlights the importance of staying true to your vision in both good and bad economic times.

The organization CEOs For Cities released a widely-cited report last month titled Measuring Urban Transportation Performance: A Critique Of Mobility Measures And Synthesis (71p. PDF). Their research finds that the secret to reducing the amount of time Americans spend in peak hour traffic has more to do with how we build our cities than how we build our roads.

The report explains how the cities studied have managed to achieve shorter travel times and actually reduce the peak hour travel times. Some metropolitan areas have land use patterns and transportation systems that enable their residents to take shorter trips and minimize the burden of peak hour travel.

This runs counter to the conclusions of the Texas Transportation Institute's Urban Mobility Report year after year. The CEO For Cities document explains that the UMR approach has completely overlooked the role that variations in travel distances play in driving urban transportation problems.

In the best performing cities -- those that have achieved the shortest peak hour travel distances -- such as Chicago, Portland and Sacramento, the typical traveler spends 40 fewer hours per year in peak hour travel than the average American. Because of smart land use planning and investment in alternative transportation, Portland has seen its average trip lengths decline by 20%.

In contrast, in the most sprawling metropolitan areas, such as Nashville, Indianapolis and Raleigh, the average resident spends as much as 240 hours per year in peak period travel because travel distances are so much greater. The report's 20-page Executive Summary is titled Driven Apart: How Sprawl Is Lengthening Our Commutes And Why Misleading Mobility Measures Are Making Things Worse.

In The New Sharing Economy, a study by Latitude in collaboration with Shareable Magazine, the authors look at new opportunities for sharing.

An interesting graph (click to enlarge) plots various endeavors on a market saturation and latent demand scale. The resulting plot points fall into four quandrants, labeled:

Low Interest and Low Prior Success (e.g. bike, outdoor sporting goods)

Done Well Already (e.g. work space, storage space, food co-op)

Opportunities Still Remain (e.g. physical media, digital media)

Best New Opportunities (automobile, time/responsibilities, money lending/borrowing)

This last category, Best New Opportunities, provides the launch point for discussion of car sharing. The report notes that there's still a large amount of unfulfilled demand for car-sharing. More than half of all participants surveyed either shared vehicles casually or weren't sharing currently but expressed interest in doing so. For people who share in an organized fashion, cars and bikes were popular for sharing amongst family and close friends but weren't commonly shared outside this immediate network, relative to other categories of goods.

This intriguing and visually appealing report goes on to point out the new sharing takeaways for non-sharing businesses, including "we-based brands," the value in social and alternative currencies, and the "contagiousness" of sharing.

Finally, Transportation For America recently released a White Paper titled Smart Mobility For A 21st Century America: Strategies For Maximizing Technology To Minimize Congestion, Reduce Emissions And Increase Efficiency (39p. PDF).

It proposes that improving transportation efficiency through operational innovation is critical as our population grows and ages, budgets tighten and consumer preferences shift.

As Congress prepares to review and reauthorize the nation’s transportation program, an array of innovations that were either overlooked or did not exist at the time of previous authorizations can be incentivized.

Just as the Internet, smart phones and social media changed they way we acquire news, listen to music or connect with friends and family, these same innovations have implications for how we move around. While high-tech gadgets can be a problem when they distract motorists from driving, they open up a whole new world for people using other modes.

But what if we could manage traffic to help drivers avoid congestion before they get stuck in it? What if you always knew when the next bus was going to arrive, the closest parking space or which train car had a seat available for you? The innovative technologies and strategies outlined in the White Paper include:

Making transportation systems more efficient (e.g. ramp meters, highway advisory radio)
Providing more travel options (e.g. online databases to match up vanpool riders, car-sharing services)
Providing travelers with better, more accurate, and more connected information (e.g. computerized vehicle tracking)
Making pricing and payments more convenient and efficient (e.g. EZ passes, electronic benefits)
Reducing trips and traffic (flex-time, consolidating services online)

This online course is available – for free – to anyone interested in building practical skills in using data to solve problems better.

Kevin Coyne, founder of Kevin Coyne Partners and coauthor of the HBR article "Breakthrough Thinking from Inside the Box."

Henry Mintzberg, professor of management at McGill University.

Roger Martin, dean of the Rotman School of Management and author of "The Design of Business."

How PepsiCo is harnessing the power of design.

Helen Lee Bouygues, founder of the Reboot Foundation, believes that a lack of critical thinking is responsible for many business failures. She says organizational leaders often rely too heavily on expertise and then jump to conclusions. Instead, leaders should deliberately approach each problem and devote time thinking through possible solutions. The good news, she says, is that critical thinking skills can developed and practiced over time. Bouygues is the author of the HBR.org article "3 Simple Habits to Improve Your Critical Thinking."

Esther Duflo, an MIT economist, won the 2019 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for her experimental approach to alleviating global poverty. Duflo’s early life working at a non-governmental organization in Madagascar and volunteering in soup kitchens in her native France inspired her to study economics and research the root causes of poverty. With her fellow Nobel winners Abhijit Banerjee of MIT and Michael Kremer of Harvard, Duflo showed that effective policies often go against conventional wisdom and popular economic models. The only way to find out what works, she argues, is to rigorously test solutions on the ground, and she encourages businesses to do the same. With Banerjee, Duflo also wrote the new book "Good Economics for Hard Times."

From hiring to remuneration and skilling to mentoring, every HR process can be improved by applying design thinking to it.

Though India does not have similar jobs data reporting structure during this pandemic, it is easy to see that the job market this year will be the most challenging that we have seen in our lifetimes.

Designers or Design Thinkers often like to think that they require a certain level of “freedom” to allow their creativity...

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As this issue goes to press, our city, our state, our country and our world are coping with the spread of a virus that's deadly to some, and not even noticed by others who have no symptoms but may spread it.…

PARIS (AP) — Driving around Formula One tracks without fans cheering at Silverstone and Monza would literally feel “very empty” for world champion Lewis Hamilton. The first 10 races this season have been postponed or canceled amid the coronavirus pandemic, with the iconic Monaco Grand Prix scrapped for the first time in 66 years. F1 […]

PARIS (AP) — Driving around Formula One tracks without fans cheering at Silverstone and Monza would literally feel “very empty” for world champion Lewis Hamilton. The first 10 races this season have been postponed or canceled amid the coronavirus pandemic, with the iconic Monaco Grand Prix scrapped for the first time in 66 years. F1 […]

This possible plan floated by MLB is rife with holes, writes columnist Larry Stone. Is it really wise to be putting so aggressive a timeline on baseball’s return at a time when the full scope of coronavirus’ devastation is still being felt?

PARIS (AP) — Driving around Formula One tracks without fans cheering at Silverstone and Monza would literally feel “very empty” for world champion Lewis Hamilton. The first 10 races this season have been postponed or canceled amid the coronavirus pandemic, with the iconic Monaco Grand Prix scrapped for the first time in 66 years. F1 […]

The presidents of the 11 members of the Big East Conference are leaning toward not allowing sports to be played at schools this season unless their campuses are open. Commissioner Val Ackerman disclosed the thinking of the presidents on Friday in a wide-ranging virtual interview with members of the media about the fallout on the […]

The presidents of the 11 members of the Big East Conference are leaning toward not allowing sports to be played at schools this season unless their campuses are open. Commissioner Val Ackerman disclosed the thinking of the presidents on Friday in a wide-ranging virtual interview with members of the media about the fallout on the […]

There are few darkrooms, and drawing by hand is increasingly rare. So do we still practice "craft" in this digital era?

High levels of dust in a central Queensland town have been attributed to lower-than-average rainfall, but residents say more needs to be done to ensure it isn't coming from nearby mining operations.

We're told that COVID-19 is an unprecedented event, one that's upended all our old certainties — so it's perhaps strange that we're thinking about it in very familiar ways. Considering the history, the politics and the ethics of COVID-19 can reveal fascinating and uncomfortable insights about ourselves and our society.

A former military pilot from WA is being praised after switching his light plane's engine off when it flipped during a landing on a remote SA airstrip. He and his wife are in a stable condition in hospital in Adelaide.

Thinking of using TurboTax to file your tax returns? Think again. The Minnesota Department of Revenue advises against using Intuit software to file tax returns! It found unacceptable errors in Intuit tax software, including TurboTax, ProSeries, Lacerte, and Intuit online. Continue reading →