by Omega | Jul 2, 2025 | Economy
The pandemic bonds — a financial device made up by one of the world’s most powerful institutions, the World Bank — can seem like a great idea for raising money to fight pandemics. Money is pooled ahead of time, rather than waiting for governments to pony up monies to...
by Omega | Jul 1, 2025 | Worldviews
I couldn’t imagine such blasé faith in public safety back when I last lived in China, in 2013, but on this visit it was true: Cameras gawked from poles, flashed as we drove through intersections, lingered on faces as we passed through stations or shops. And that was...
by Omega | Jun 16, 2025 | Environment
The research, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, looks at data on climate change and growing conditions for wheat and other major crops around the world over the past 50 years. It comes as heat and drought have this year been...
by Omega | Jun 12, 2025 | Worldviews
Jason Pruet is working with teams across the Laboratory to help prepare for a future in which artificial intelligence will reshape the landscape of science and security. Five years ago, he viewed AI as just another valuable tool, but because of recent advances in the...
by Omega | Jun 11, 2025 | Politics
Beck’s foresight, rendered in the late 20th century, finds chilling resonance in the contemporary political landscape, nowhere more starkly than in the rise of MAGA-style populism. This phenomenon, often simplistically dismissed as a reaction to economic inequality or...
by Omega | Jun 10, 2025 | Culture
Following the January wildfires in Los Angeles and the inauguration of President Donald Trump, many people once again turned to the writing of Octavia Butler for comfort, guidance and reflection. Butler, who grew up in Pasadena and has been called “the...
by Omega | Jun 10, 2025 | Worldviews
For over two years, we’ve been working with diverse partners to understand how groups of organisations can collaborate more effectively to tackle challenges bigger than any single entity could manage alone. This journey has generated a wealth of detailed and complex...
by Omega | Jun 10, 2025 | Polycrisis
The world is in the midst of a polycrisis, where multiple, interconnected crises are unfolding simultaneously, ampli-fying one another in unpredictable ways. This is not merely a confluence of independent crises, but rather an intricate web of interconnected...
by Omega | Jun 10, 2025 | Economy
Large digital platforms – Meta (Facebook), Amazon, Microsoft, Alphabet (Google) and Apple, the so-called Big Tech companies, which are compared to Chinese counterparts like Alibaba, JD or Tencent – dominate the world economy. Their market capitalisation has exceeded...
by Omega | Jun 10, 2025 | Environment
There were dozens of us on the call, including a geophysicist, an actor, a retired financial adviser and a civil engineer. We all looked worried, and rightly so. The issue formerly known as climate change was now a polycrisis called climate...
