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The global events of the last two years demonstrated in vivid and startling detail the rapid rate of change and need for new knowledge facing the modern world. The frontiers of modern health, education, business, government and the environment.

History is truly at a turning point. In the years ahead, the world has to overcome a myriad of challenges. Already, we faced the damage done to our economies and our societies by COVID-19 and climate change.

When did we start ‘Creation’? Creation is a gifted human nature which evolved throughout history, countries and economic systems.

The application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to government, industry and society at large is one of the most transformational developments of our time.

Wounds leave scars and the Great Recession is no exception. It was the longest and deepest global economic crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s. It is now just over a decade since the Great Recession began in the US, officially lasting fro

On an individual level, the ageing process can be a cause of pain and despair that forces many people to radically alter how they live. ​ The same is also true for countries. Increasingly, they are having to cope with populations in which the old

An erupting volcano is one of the most awe-inspiring and fear-inducing forces on our planet. Our continuing fascination with the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79AD that destroyed the ancient Italian city of Pompeii, shows the grip that volcanoes have

Artificial intelligence will be both an aid and a threat to humanity, according to tech and space entrepreneur Elon Musk, who says that in the near future having a discussion with an artificial intelligent machine would be like “being visited by supe

What advice would billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk give to young people who want to be successful? Simple: study physics. ​ The SpaceX and Tesla co-founder was speaking at the World Government Summit in Dubai.

There is no shortage of hype and speculation surrounding the value of bitcoin. The virtual currency is either the next big thing or simply the latest in a long line of tech bubbles soon to burst, depending on your point of view.

How will people earn a living when machines do everything? Human work that has long been threatened – and in some cases already taken over – includes assembly line and low-skilled manual labour. But middle-class careers such as journalism, marketing,

Bitcoin has enjoyed a startling rise in value since it first appeared in 2009. Then it was valued at $0.5cents. It hit a high of just above $18,000 per coin in December 2017, but it is highly volatile and fell by more than $4,000 in one week.

Children born after the introduction of family planning programs in the US from 1964 through 1973 had household incomes 2.8 percent higher than those born before, researchers report.

The rights of children have come under the spotlight in South Africa recently. Corporal punishment, which has been banned in the country’s schools since 1996, is now also illegal in the home.

Developers have submitted a proposal for the largest solar farm in the U.K., and they plan to build it without the help of government subsidies. The 900-acre site would provide enough power for about 110,000 homes and could be online as soon as 2020.

Americans born in 1960 will be able to start collecting their full Social Security retirement check at the age of 67—two years later than their parents—because of a change in the federal retirement age enacted in 1983.

Young Finnish professionals are attracted to major European capitals. They move to Stockholm, Berlin and Amsterdam, as well as farther away. The sun shines in Dubai; the world’s top organisations and institutes are in New York and Washington. The occ

Preliminary analysis of a European-wide survey has found young people are more in favour of introducing a universal income than their older peers. Support for such a scheme also varies considerably across Europe, with Russians the most supportive and

Almost all parties agree that the health care system in the U.S., which is responsible for about 17 percent of our GDP, is badly broken. Soaring costs, low quality, insurance reimbursements and co-payments confusing even to experts, and an ever-growi

After more than 50 years of conflict, the recent peace agreement in Colombia marks a historic ceasefire between the government and rebel groups. It also poses great challenges, as the various parts of Colombian society learn to adjust.

All over the world, countries are minimizing their reliance on fossil fuels. In Scotland, authorities have confirmed that by 2020, all electricity will come from renewable sources.

Over the past two years, urban issues – from sustainability in the built environment, to inequality in cities – have become an international priority. Cities, in turn, are taking on a more important role in global politics; the growth of city diploma

The share of people living in extreme poverty around the world has fallen continuously over the last two centuries.

Having to own multiple cars comes at a cost to the finances and health of residents in the sprawling outer suburbs

The patterns of structural transformation in developing countries are different to those of advanced, post-industrial economies. Specifically, emerging economies have been deindustrializing more quickly.

Hearing loss is a major contributor to the global burden of disease, affecting over 360 million people, but the greatest burden of hearing loss is in developing world regions such as sub-Saharan Africa, South-east Asia, and the Asia Pacific – home to

Our visual attention homes in on the parts of a scene that have meaning, not those that “stick out” most, new research suggests.

When regulations are out of date, or can be circumvented by new technologies or new ways of doing things, new entrants can disrupt incumbents by innovating outside of the reach of regulators.

Researchers are using computer modeling to test the effects of solar geoengineering on rates of coral bleaching. The practice could reduce or eliminate the rate of climate change but the side effects are still unknown.

"For common sense to be effective it needs to be amenable to answer a variety of hypotheticals — a faculty that we call imagination."

Singapore will stop issuing new vehicle permits starting February of 2018. The government points to limited space available in the city-state as the reason for the halt in vehicle growth.

Social action and engagement may help marginalized teens in their careers later in life, particularly if teachers help them discuss and engage with social issues, new research suggests.

Governing Greater Mexico City – the largest and most populated city in North America – is a great challenge. Its 22m inhabitants are spread out unevenly over an area roughly ten times larger than New York City. It is governed by one federal, two stat

Newborn babies have a remarkable amount of power. Though there are few things they can do for themselves, they can manipulate the world around them by summoning help with a simple wail. Caregivers, especially parents, are particularly sensitive to in

Researchers from NASA's Goddard Institute have proposed a new way of looking at the habitability of exoplanets. Instead of relying on the usual one-dimensional approach, they considered observing a candidate planet using three dimensions.

Daydreaming may indicate intelligence and creativity, according to new research.

At the Oak Ridge National Labs, experts are building what's expected to be the most powerful supercomputer in the world — or at least, in the U.S. Built together with IBM and powered by NVIDIA, the Summit supercomputer will be operational in 2018.

Certain visual learning takes hold in the brain during sleep, new research suggests.

China has begun to severely crack down on factories that have been flouting their emissions regulations. The country has shut down 40 percent of its factories to battle the immense pollution levels in the nation.

The dominant position that China holds in global manufacturing means that for many years China has also been the largest global importer of many types of recyclable materials. Last year, Chinese manufacturers imported 7.3m metric tonnes of waste plas

New research has shown that an exotic kind of magnetic behavior discovered just a few years ago holds great promise as a way of storing data — one that could overcome fundamental limits that might otherwise be signaling the end of “Moore’s Law,” whic

After you sit down, the doors close silently and the pod slides into a large, round metal tube. Suddenly, you become aware of a sensation of movement, as if you’re in an elevator travelling forward or an aircraft that’s just taking off. It’s not unpl

When Siddhartha Gautama spoke these words around 1500 years ago, it’s fair to assume he wasn’t really thinking ahead. But the man who most of us know better as Buddha was talking about a technique which has since become wildly popular around the worl

Thousands of computer terminals throughout the National Health Service went blank for a moment before displaying a simple note, “Your files have been encrypted”.

When the last mine in the small town of Cinovic in the Czech Republic closed in 1993, not only did the workers lose their jobs, the region lost an major economic lifeline.

Wind power swept into the headlines recently when Germany’s wind turbines created so much electricity that customers were effectively paid to use it

It used to be said that a French education minister could open the national curriculum - the programme d'enseignement obligatoire - and know exactly what every pupil in the country was learning that day.

Autonomous delivery robots could soon be a common sight in the US. Walnut Creek and Redwood City are both allowing companies to pilot the robots on their sidewalks. The states of Florida, Virginia, Idaho and Wisconsin have all passed a state laws th

We are living in an age where scientific advances seem almost miraculous. Living organisms can be modified for our own purpose. Biotechnology can edit DNA, opening the door to possibilities as enormous as changing the course of human disease or endin

Xiaofa stands in Beijing No 1 Intermediate People’s Court, offering legal advice and helping the public get to grips with legal terminology. She knows the answer to more than 40,000 litigation questions and can deal with 30,000 legal issues. Xiaofa i

As its value has skyrocketed, cryptocurrency Bitcoin has emerged from tech nerd obscurity to become a topic of mainstream conversation.

Young people are struggling with the pressures of life and between 10%-20% of them are likely to experience mental health problems as a result. Half of all mental illnesses begin by the age of 14, and three-quarters by mid-20s, according to a World H

The biggest problem with our addiction to smart devices is that we cannot avoid using them. One consequence of that is that our ability to pay attention, connect with others and remember things is decreasing as the amount of time we spend online incr

Climate change is very much a product of wealthy industrialised nations - but the worst impact of more frequent and more extreme weather events will be felt far from their shores and borders.

Raising $30 million in just three months is a fundraising effort any charity would be proud of. ​ Brown University, one of the leading Ivy League universities in the US, did just that after announcing that it wanted to end student loans and offer sch

A report by the Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF) says an average of 21.7 million people have been forced from their homes by extreme weather-related events every year since 2008. That equates to 41 people every minute.

The forces driving the Fourth Industrial Revolution – mobile devices, artificial intelligence, data analysis and young people’s love of tech – can also help deliver the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals by 2030.

Small ideas might be more effective than grand policy plans when it comes to creating new jobs and delivering the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. This was the view of experts discussing ways to implement the SDGs at the 2018 World Gover

Comfort eating – the notion that certain foods will cheer us up when we are unhappy or make us better when we are ill – is familiar the world over. Popular favorites that stock our fridges and cupboards range from chicken soup to boiled eggs, and fro

The oceans of the world are awash with thousands – and perhaps millions – of tonnes of plastics. This pollution poisons marine life, disrupts breeding and is harmful to the ocean’s natural rhythms, on which the earth is hugely dependent.

As the fourth industrial revolution gathers pace, we find ourselves living in an age where the latest innovations are consigned to the history books more quickly than ever. Take the iPod for example. It’s just 17 years since it revolutionised the way

For years government involvement in citizen’s happiness has been largely limited to the extent it correlates with wealth: increasing GDP is often seen as the main factor determining contentment. ​

Artificial intelligence still often seems like a far-distant, science-fiction like dream that will be delivered at some uncertain point in the future. ​ Yet organizations and governments are already using AI in ways many of us do not fully apprecia

While businesses have been principal agents in increasing greenhouse gas emissions, they are also seen by many as crucial to tackling climate change. However, research shows how corporations’ ambitious pro-climate proposals are systematically degrad

The higher the level of particulates in the air, a new study shows, the greater the indications of psychological distress.

A new gold rush is set to take place beyond earth’s atmosphere as commercial adventurers seek to strip asteroids of their rare minerals and precious metals.

The workplace transformation being shaped by developing technologies such as artificial intelligence will apply to governments as much to the private sector.

The largest government report on climate science clearly indicates that human activity has contributed to climate change and higher global temperatures. The national climate assessment has been prepared by experts from 13 institutions.

Are we witnessing a fundamental shift in power between the world’s tech giants and governments? It may well be that when we look back at the evolution of companies such as Facebook, Google and Twitter, 2018 stands out as a turning point. The tech s

A few years ago, the idea that government was responsible for the “happiness” of its citizens would elicit raised eyebrows. Happiness, after all, was too delicate a topic to arise from the dispassionate halls of government bureaucracies.

Long predicted by science fiction visionaries including Philip K Dick and Isaac Asimov, autonomous vehicles are finally becoming a reality. Their arrival is only possible thanks to computers, which can crunch massive amounts of data quickly, and the

High-tech mechanisation will make it necessary for states to provide citizens with a basic income to ease social inequality, according to serial tech entrepreneur Elon Musk. During a live session at the World Government Summit in Dubai in February 20

Malaria – a life-threatening disease that blights the lives of million in mostly developing economies – affected 216 million people in 91 countries in 2016, killing 445,000. The illness, caused by parasites spread by infected female Anopheles mosqui

As tech innovation continues to race ahead, we hear more and more about the growth of artificial intelligence and automation, and the different world they will create – with everything from driverless cars to deliveries by drone. But behind the headl

While headlines around the world might suggest that the risk of terrorism is forever on the rise, the reality is that fewer people are dying in terror-related incidents.

Anyone in any doubt about the disruptive power of the referendum need only look to Europe’s recent experience. Just over a year after the UK voted to leave the European Union at the end of a hard fought and controversial referendum, Spain was deali

The extent to which a person’s job is impacted by new technology may depend on the size of the town or city they live in. While past studies considered how tech innovations such as deep machine learning and automation will affect different job types

Smell sensitivity varies over the course of a day, new research suggests. The pattern, according to the data collected by studying 37 teens, tracks with the body’s internal day-night cycle, or circadian rhythm.

Advances in medical research are growing side-by-side the development of artificial intelligence. Cancer diagnostic tests are now employing AI to be more effective in spotting the growth of tumors, and a new study shows how effective these could be.

The global financial crisis showed us how rapidly financial contagion can spread - one person’s debt is another person’s asset, so when the debt is written off so is the asset. However, there has been little improvement in financial literacy in the w

Tokyo, Japan may have just become the first city to officially grant residence to an artificial intelligence (AI). The intelligence’s name is Shibuya Mirai and exists only as a chatbot on the popular Line messaging app. Mirai, which translates to ‘fu

In 1974, the World Food Conference declared that: “Every man, woman and child has the inalienable right to be free from hunger and malnutrition in order to develop their physical and mental faculties.” The conference set as its goal the eradication o

Cities have woken up to the fact that a vibrant cultural offering makes people want to live there, and the numbers back this up. New York is home to nearly 14,000 arts-related businesses employing nearly 300,000 people and generating revenues of $230

What makes a good life? Three answers stand out – happiness and pleasure (feeling good), meaning and purpose (doing good) and wisdom and virtue (being good). Positive Psychology, the science of well-being, has so far focussed mostly on happiness. A n

Every day, millions of people use data generated by their bodies – their voices, faces, irises and fingerprints – to gain access to offices, secure government sites and financial services. But biometric data has the power to produce even more sweepin