What's Emerging August 2021
A newsletter on interesting stuff that is emerging around the world so you can think about strategy
Introduction
Welcome to our end of August newsletter for 2021 as Victoria continues in COVID lockdown and NSW gets more and more out of control.
In the next few weeks, Paul will continue working with a council on their community vision, and work with a new leadership team in the food sector. He will also be working on a value adding strategy for agriculture in Queensland and working with the AFL Players Association on their next strategic plan (with futurist Reanna Browne who is the lead consultant). Paul will also continue working in his role as advisor for foresight and strategy to Save the Children Australia and will be presenting to a Council leadership team on how to think about the future.
Paul is also acting as lead partner for a Social Venture Partners Melbourne pro bono project with Little Dreamers, a fantastic organisation helping young people who are caring for a family member. He is also facilitating the creation of a new strategic plan for Social Venture Partners Melbourne and has temporarily stepped in as joint Executive Director of SVPM to implement the structure and strategy that flows from that plan.
To all our subscribers in NSW our thoughts are with you. Here in Melbourne we know how tough it is to be in lockdown for COVID for an extended period but until we get much higher vaccination rates there is no alternative but to grind it out. Please stay safe.
The Emergent Futures Team
In case you missed it. The most popular link from the last edition:
Paul’s article on his analysis of the Doherty report was by far the most clicked link last edition and has become the most viewed article he has had on Substack.
Paul wrote: Australian Life for the Next 12 months - Some Scenarios. Based on the Doherty Institute Modelling Report. What is likely to happen may surprise you. Any low number of COVID cases following reaching 80% vaccination rates are likely to be the calm before the next surge as the Delta variant burns it way through the unvaccinated…. Read it Here
What are we Writing About?
Paul has been interviewed twice in the last month on Gippsland FM. Once on the general topic of thinking about the future and once on hsi scenarios for the next 12 months in Australia. You can listen to the interviews by going to our Home Page and looking under our Latest Work
What’s Emerging
Rockley Photonics Will Revolutionize Healthcare By Measuring Biomarkers Such As Glucose With Lasers In The Apple Watch
Rockley’s method involves many lasers on a single microchip being bounced off a human to measure lactate, alcohol, CGM (glucose), hydration, body temperature, blood pressure, blood oxygen, and heart rate. This technology that Rockley has developed is so compelling, Apple has already paid them $70M in engineering fees. SemiAnalysis believes that Apple watches in 2022 or 2023 will begin integrating this photonic sensing platform. …. Read More
Mutant 'daddy shortlegs' created in a lab
Researchers were able to 'switch off' the genes behind the arachnid's famously long legs. What could possibly go wrong? ..…. Read more
Amazon Partners with Affirm to Deliver Pay-Over-Time Option at Checkout
Adding to the buy now/pay later supercharged trend.….. Read more
Welcome your new robot overlords.
Paul: The last bit is amazing.
Australia's fertility rate is at a record low. This expert says it's a disaster waiting to happen
Dr Allen says if Australia's fertility rate were to fall to 1.6 or 1.5 births per woman, "we're in deep strife".
"Once fertility rates decline this low, it's extremely hard to increase them. They become entrenched … Population decline then becomes a real potential."….Read more
World's first crewless, zero emissions cargo ship will set sail in Norway
If all goes to plan, the ship will make its first journey between two Norwegian towns before the end of the year, with a reduced crew on board to test the autonomous systems. Eventually, all movements will be monitored from three onshore data control centers. It's not the first autonomous ship -- an autonomous ferry launched in Finland in 2018 -- but it is the first fully electric container ship...….. Read more
Room-Temperature Superconductivity Achieved for the First Time
Yet while researchers celebrate the achievement, they stress that the newfound compound — created by a team led by Ranga Dias of the University of Rochester — will never find its way into lossless power lines, frictionless high-speed trains, or any of the revolutionary technologies that could become ubiquitous if the fragile quantum effect underlying superconductivity could be maintained in truly ambient conditions. That’s because the substance superconducts at room temperature only while being crushed between a pair of diamonds to pressures roughly 75% as extreme as those found in the Earth’s core.......…. Read more
Engineering a second genetic code in parallel with the normal one
Researchers have figured out a way to greatly expand the genetic code, allowing widespread incorporation of non biological amino acids. They accomplish this by running a second set of everything—proteins and RNAs—needed to translate the genetic code. It is as if an Android phone could all of a sudden run iOS at the same time. . ..….. Read more
Dell's Q2 carried by commercial PC sales boom
And you thought the PC was dead: Commercial PC revenue surged 32% in the quarter to $10.6 billion and consumer sales of $3.7 billion was up 17% from a year ago. ..…..Read more
Hungry tropical fish, sea urchins marching south as kelp forests disappear
These fish have not escaped from fish tanks. They have been swept south by currents and then thrived in waters warmed by climate change. And they are hungry.. ..….….Read more
Roblox is struggling to moderate re-creations of mass shootings
Part of the issue stems from Roblox’s sheer size — the result of rapid and unprecedented growth. The game currently boasts over 40 million daily users, resulting in a flood of user-generated rooms too massive to manually scan. The distributed structure of the game, which relies on users generating their own scenarios and spaces, makes it particularly challenging to monitor. …….Read more
Wing approaches 100,000 drone deliveries two years after Logan, Australia launch
Alphabet drone delivery company Wing announced on August 26th that it was set to hit 100,000 customer deliveries over the weekend. The news comes on the second anniversary of the service’s pilot launch in Logan, Australia, a city of roughly 300,000 people in the Brisbane metropolitan area…. Read more
Delta Air Lines is raising health insurance premiums for unvaccinated employees by $200 a month to cover higher Covid costs
An alternative to vaccine mandates. ..…..Read more
First Rivian electric R1T ute and R1S SUV arrive in Australia
The electric ute and SUV are due to be launched in the US in September, and recent correspondence with a potential customer indicated an Australian launch would follow an expansion to Europe in 2022...……. Read more
Business Tips
Writing Advice from Matt Stone & Trey Parker @ NYU | MTVU's "Stand In"
Good advice for everyone
Feedback from supervisors can be a good or bad experience. Here’s how to get it right
Giving good feedback is an art. It can be challenging for supervisors and managers, whether in an educational setting or any other workplace. A newly published review of the past decade’s research on this issue confirms the key elements of improving feedback are to make it meaningful, constructive, timely and regular.…… Read more
Been vaccinated? Be rewarded
Qantas is offering rewards for getting vaccinated and some large travel prizes. Paul: staying alive seems a good reason to get vaccinated but if people are going to give me free stuff I am all in (I was fully vaccinated 4 weeks ago BTW)..…. Read more
Replacing table salt with substitute reduces rates of stroke, heart attack, death, study finds
Between April 2014 and January 2015, 21,000 adults from 600 rural villages in five provinces across China were recruited for the study. Participants all had a history of stroke, or poorly controlled blood pressure.….. Read More
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