Features

Contemporary nuclear science is much safer than in decades past. It’s responsible for major advancements in cancer treatment, carbon-free energy, space travel, and even our understanding of the origins of the universe. Used wisely, nuclear science could help humanity solve some of the 21st century’s greatest challenges.

In a society that runs on data and rewards that data’s accuracy, timeliness, and security, blockchain technology has a lot of promise. But its applicability isn’t universal, and the tech still faces significant hurdles to widespread adoption.

As the scale and scope of technology and automation increase, and as systems get more complex and interdependent, the study and application of human factors and ergonomics will become increasingly important.

To bring awareness, the US Department of Labor Office of Disability Employment Policy (ODEP) sponsors National Disability Employment Awareness Month (NDEAM). Held in October each year, NDEAM is a month-long celebration and commemoration of the contributions disabled citizens have made to the American workplace and economy.

Pollution prevention is a strategy of reducing or even eliminating pollution at the source, as opposed to removing it after it’s introduced to the existing environment. This strategy can be realized through the elimination of toxic substances from production processes, through the substitution of less harmful substances for harmful ones, or through the more effective utilization of raw materials.

Unlike fungible items, which are interchangeable and can be exchanged like-for-like, non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are verifiably unique. Broadly speaking, NFTs take what amounts to a cryptographic signature, ascribe it to a particular digital asset, and then log it on a blockchain’s distributed ledger.

Diversity and inclusivity aren’t purely idealistic goals. A growing body of research shows that greater diversity, particularly within executive teams, is closely correlated with greater profitability. Today’s businesses are highly incentivized to identify a diverse pool of top talent, but they’ve still struggled to achieve it. Recent advances in AI could help.

First proposed by computer scientist Nick Szabo in the 1990s and later pioneered by the Ethereum blockchain in 2010, smart contracts are programs that execute themselves when certain predetermined conditions are met.

Ideally, much of the world’s plastic would end up recycled into new products. In practice, that’s not the case. According to one estimate, the planet’s 9.2 billion tons of plastic has resulted in 6.9 billion tons of waste, of which 6.3 billion was never recycled.

Plastics Free July (PFJ) is an initiative of the Plastic Free Foundation, led by Rebecca Prince-Ruiz and a small team in local government in Western Australia. Celebrating its ten-year anniversary, PFJ aims to reduce the use of single-use plastics and as a result, to inspire habits that will ideally last beyond the 30 days of the challenge. Participants are encouraged to start with reducing the use of the top four: plastic bottles, bags, beverage containers, and straws.