It appears science may have found the Covid-19 pandemic’s off-ramp.

Two vaccines developed with stunning speed — and showing remarkable initial efficacy — are poised to be approved for emergency use in the United States in December. A number of other vaccines are expected to follow.

Vaccines that prevent symptomatic Covid infection in roughly 95% of people vaccinated — as the data from clinical trials of the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines suggest — should, over time, help the country and the world return to a life where we can travel without quarantining; where sporting events can be played before live audiences, not cardboard cutouts; and where snowstorms are the only reasons school gets canceled.

BEIJING, Dec. 2 (Xinhua) -- Asia, particularly East Asia, is becoming one of the world's most vibrant innovation hubs, with China standing out as a major global innovation promoter, according to a report released on Wednesday by the Boao Forum for Asia (BFA).

Technology and innovation capabilities have spilled from developed countries into developing ones, notably China and Southeast Asian countries, whose remarkable progress on this front is matched only by their investment, the Boao Forum for Asia Innovation Report 2020 has revealed.

In recent months, many companies have rushed to build digital businesses to overcome pandemic-induced disruptions and address shifts in customer behavior. In this episode of the Inside the Strategy Room podcast, we explore how to develop a digital offering quickly and effectively despite ongoing economic uncertainty. Two McKinsey experts—Ari Libarikian, global leader of our business building practice, and Akash Kumar, who focuses on digital, analytics, and business building—are joined by Wendy Barnes, the president of Express Scripts’ home-delivery business, to talk about launching digital initiatives with McKinsey’s Sean Brown. This is an edited transcript of the discussion. For more conversations on the strategy issues that matter, subscribe to the series on Apple Podcasts or Google Podcasts.

For entrepreneurs, time and energy are among the most precious assets. 

There’s a finite amount of both. How an entrepreneur decides to leverage those assets will impact not only his or her personal growth, but also the impact he or she has on the world.

Entrepreneurs know this! Thus, many are quite intentional about how they expend time and energy. This is no less true for entrepreneurs with greater flexibility than their 9-5 counterparts.

The Incubator, started by veteran Atlanta investor and former Atlanta Technology Angels (ATA) president Joe Beverly, looks to support underrepresented founders by providing a structured curriculum, mentoring opportunities, and exposure to those in the investing and entrepreneurial spaces. Participants, known as ‘Brainiacs,’ have spent the last few months learning not only the ins and outs of business development and funding but also the importance of self-face and finding motivation as an entrepreneur.

Narrator: Ninety-nine percent of all freshwater ice on Earth is sitting on top of Greenland and Antarctica, and each year, a little more of it melts into the ocean. Normally, it would take hundreds to thousands of years for it all to melt away. But what if something happened that caused a massive global melt overnight?

As we slept, sea levels would rise by a whopping 66 meters. Coastal cities like New York, Shanghai, and London would drown in the apocalyptic mass flood, forcing up to 40% of the world's population out of their homes. While all this chaos ensues aboveground, something equally sinister is happening below. All that rising saltwater will infiltrate groundwater reserves farther inland, forcing its way into nearby freshwater aquifers. You know, the ones that supply our drinking water, irrigation systems, and power-plant cooling systems? All those aquifers would be destroyed. Not good.

Jennifer Doudna PhD, the UC Berkeley biochemist who shared the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Emmanuelle Charpentier PhD, was the recent guest of honor for the final episode in the “Women in Science” web series, co-organized by GEN and the Rosalind Franklin Society. 

In 2012, the Doudna and Charpentier labs teamed up to publish a landmark paper in which they adapted the CRISPR microbial anti-viral defense system to create a programmable method for genome targeting. The work laid the foundation for CRISPR genome editing, which has become not only a ubiquitous research tool but also applied in clinical gene therapy, diagnostics, agriculture, and many other applications.

Image: https://www.genengnews.com

For decades, we’ve commonly believed the further two people were apart physically and organizationally, the lower their estimation of one another was likely to be. Our latest research at VitalSmarts suggests otherwise. The problems with work from home (WFH) don’t emerge because employees are no longer working in the same space. Its weaknesses arise when leaders fail to create new ways for employees to connect.

In August 2020, we surveyed 2,300 executives and employees who were abruptly thrust from the workplace by COVID-19. While a predictable majority (54% of executives and 43% of nonexecutives) reported cultural strain and deterioration since dispersing, we were repeatedly fascinated by reports of teams that felt closer and more productive than before. Surprisingly, a large minority of employees report they are working together better since their forced separation.

When you’re on vacation near the coast, or if you’re lucky enough to live close to the sea, there’s nothing better than finding a nice spot to relax at a local cove. However, there are stretches of sand that you should probably avoid for your own safety. So on that note, we’ve compiled a list detailing 20 of the most hazardous beaches on the planet. What you learn here could prompt a change in holiday plans.

Narrator: Odds are, somewhere among the estimated 100 billion planets in our galaxy, intelligent alien life has taken hold. So the question is, why haven't we found even a hint of it? While scientists could stick with the classic reasoning that alien life simply doesn't exist, or maybe it just doesn't exist near us, mounting evidence to the contrary has inspired an increasing number of experts to explore new avenues of possibility.

Image: https://www.businessinsider.com

While the world is waiting for vaccines and enduring renewed lockdowns, the NBA has shown that there’s a simple, relatively inexpensive way for whole nations to get control of this pandemic and mute the next one: Send every family two little health-tech gadgets.

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How companies can transform information into insight by Anil Khurana, Roger Wery, and Amy Peirce

Responsible AI is even more essential during a crisis by Ilana Golbin The NBA played its basketball season in a highly controlled bubble in Orlando, Fla. The bubble turned out to be a useful laboratory, albeit one that relied on enormous men instead of small rodents. One of the league’s goals was to spot any possible COVID-19 case early and keep the affected player from infecting others. So, upon waking each morning, each player was required to pop a smart thermometer in his mouth and stick his finger in a smart pulse oximeter, then complete an online health questionnaire. The whole routine took a couple of minutes.

We all live on a nice but increasingly perturbed planet called earth. If you have anything to do with technology, you need to consider a sustainability strategy – personally and professionally for your enterprise. The technology industry is in the sustainability spotlight for many good reasons – not the least of which is that ICT equipment alone is responsible for about 1.4 percent of total global carbon emissions. Whether you are a producer of technology or a consumer of it, if you have sent an email, bought a cell phone, or ordered a nice little gift online, you should care. 

Image: https://www.forbes.com - From Video

Each week, good news about vaccines or antibody treatments surfaces, offering hope that an end to the pandemic is at hand.

And yet this holiday season presents a grim reckoning. The United States has reached an appalling milestone: more than one million new coronavirus cases every week. Hospitals in some states are full to bursting. The number of deaths is rising and seems on track to easily surpass the 2,200-a-day average in the spring, when the pandemic was concentrated in the New York metropolitan area.

To see how deeply interconnected the planet truly is, look no further than the massive ice sheets on the Northern Hemisphere and South Pole.

Thousands of miles apart, they are hardly next-door neighbors, but according to new research from a team of international scientists — led by Natalya Gomez, Ph.D. ’14, and including Harvard Professor Jerry X. Mitrovica — what happens in one region has a surprisingly direct and outsized effect on the other, in terms of ice expanding or melting.

Due to the pandemic, governments are under increased pressure to act quickly and at scale. By reimagining how they work, they can create resilient societies and public services for the next normal. DOWNLOADS Open interactive popup Discussion Paper (27 pages) 

The COVID-19 crisis has ramped up the demands on governments to deliver for citizens, at a speed and scale not seen in peacetime. In this article, we shine the spotlight on ten fundamental opportunities to shape more resilient societies, build more resilient governments, and revitalize the core capabilities of the public sector, highlighting cutting-edge “best practices” and suggesting several transformational “next practices” that leaders can embrace to reimagine government for the long term (exhibit).

From new laws to make the 5G network safer, to conspiracy theories suggesting 5G towers spread COVId-19, 5G is no stranger to making the tech headlines. The fifth generation of wireless technology follows previous generations of mobile tech. 3D paved the way for the launch of smartphones, while 4G allowed for faster browsing.

5G is proving faster than ever, but just how much faster? And how will it impact small businesses?

To show exactly how fast the fifth generation of mobile tech is, Reviews.org, providers of brand reviews on products on connected home products and services, compiled an infographic.

It’s easy for an entrepreneur or a CEO to feel like a leader when things are going well, but the challenge is to keep that confidence and drive in the face of economic downturns, business turnarounds, and stressful personnel situations. Working twenty hours a day, losing your cool, and falling back to a no-risk strategy are not conducive to long-term success.

I saw some practical tips for business leaders under pressure a while back in the book “The Outside the Box Executive,” by Richard Lindenmuth, a seasoned interim CEO, who has stepped in and revitalized more than his share of struggling companies. I’m convinced that his advice is equally relevant to early startups, where the challenges are legion and the path is far from clear.

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock over the past year or perhaps docked at the International Space Station, it’s been impossible to miss the Special Purpose Acquisition Company (SPAC) craze that has overtaken Wall Street.

This year alone, as of October 30, 169 SPAC IPOs have raised a total of $59.5 billion, compared to $13.5 billion raised by 59 SPAC IPOs in all of 2019. For perspective, the 169 SPACs raised in the first 10 months of the year nearly match the 172 raised from 2015 to 2019.

Image: Pixabay

Moderna said today it will seek FDA emergency use authorization (EUA) and a European conditional approval of its COVID-19 vaccine candidate, after confirming the efficacy of mRNA-1273 with additional positive Phase III data released this morning.

The company cited a primary efficacy analysis by the study’s independent, NIH-appointed Data Safety Monitoring Board (DSMB) of data from the 30,000+ patient Phase III COVE trial (NCT04470427), an analysis based on 196 cases of COVID-19. Of those cases, 185 were seen in patients randomized to placebo, and the other 11 in patients randomized to mRNA-1273.

More than 840,000 green card holders became citizens last year, the most in a decade. Over 10 percent of the American electorate was born elsewhere, the highest share in a half-century. All of Donald Trump’s huffing and puffing could not stop this demographic evolution; nor could an endless stream of stories about what an unequal, unfair, and no good place America has supposedly become.