In this issue: WINDOWS ARE GOOD FOR WORKING LESS TESTOSTERONE EQUALS MORE ART SICK-LIT And much, much more... --------------------------------- BRAINMAIL BRAINMAIL BRAINMAIL BRAINMAIL BRAINMAIL BRAINMAIL BRAINMAIL BRAINMAIL BRAINMAIL BRAINMAIL BRAINMAIL BRAINMAIL BRAINMAIL BRAINMAIL BRAINMAIL BRAINMAIL BRAINMAIL BRAINMAIL *Feeding hungry minds since 2004 --------------------------------- Issue 91 --------------------------------- Brainmail is a free monthly (usually) newsletter dedicated to current and future trends, statistics and other nuggets of information. To subscribe, or unsubscribe, to the world's best cerebral snackfood visit http://brainmail.nowandnext.com/ Tell the whole world about brainmail - forward this to zillions of friends. --------------------------------- : INSIGHTS & IDEAS > Don't paddle your own canoe A study by Robin Dunbar and colleagues at Oxford University found that individuals that rowed a boat as a synchronous pair released more endorphins (a group of opiate chemicals) than individuals that rowed alone. Ref: New Scientist (UK) > Children's fitness & parental paranoia It is widely acknowledged that today's children are less fit than previous generations. Part of the reason for this is time spent indoors. Most children now spend less than 24 minutes per day engaged in physical activity. One consequence of all this is one-to-one fitness workouts for primary school kids. One physical trainer even has a number of 3-5 year old clients. Ref: The Times (UK) > Windows are good for working Working in a windowless office can result in disturbed sleep patterns, a study claims. Workers who sit close to a window - or other source of natural light - have better moods and focus. Prolonged lack of natural light can result in poor sleep, which is itself linked to obesity, diabetes and heart problems. Interestingly, positive effects are only achieved with exposure to daylight, which contains what's known as blue light, and not with exposure to general office or household lighting, which does not. Ref: Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine (US) > Threat map A team at Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, and North South University (also in Bangladesh) together with a team at Cornell (US) has created an app that maps sexual harassment. The app works in three ways. First a button on the screen of the phone can be used as a rape alarm. Second, when activated the alarm automatically sends a text message and location to the user's emergency contacts. Third, data from the use of the alarm is used to create a heat map, showing where the trouble areas are, so that women can avoid such areas if possible. Ref: New Scientist (UK) > Less testosterone equals more art A study published in Current Anthropology says that the birth of cultural exchange, art and technological innovation occurred at roughly the same time that mankind developed a more cooperative temperament. In particular, the study suggests that lower levels of testosterone may be linked with higher levels of tolerance and artistic endeavour. Ref: Daily Telegraph (UK) > Indie phone Fed up with companies such as Facebook and Google plundering your personal data? Then perhaps support Aral Balkan, an entrepreneur who is attempting, with crowd-funded financial backing, to design a mobile phone that gives users extensive control over the data that can be harvested from the phone. Is this perhaps a weak signal of a big market for digital privacy products? Ref: Economist Technology Quarterly (UK) > Sick-lit More than half the books on Amazon's bestseller list (July 2014) can be linked to young adult fiction associated with themes of illness, especially cancer, bullying and self-harm. Ref: Williams Inference (Aus) > Baby you can drive my car Toyota has opened a nine-acre "simulated urban environment" at the foot of Mount Fuji in Japan to develop and test self-driving cars. Ref: New Yorker (US) > More robots A winery outhouse in Flasch, Switzerland, has been built using a brick-laying robot. Future digital constructions include a 3,500-metre brick facade. Ref: Treehugger.com > The matrix A company called Addepar aims to provide reliable information about complex assets inside pensions, investment funds and family fortunes. Using a similar technique to that employed by spy agencies, the company filters and weighs the relationships between billions of dollars worth of holdings to work out whether a particular portfolio is about to crash. Ref: New York Times (US) --------------------------------- : THE NUMBERS In 1980, when anxiety disorder became a formally recognised diagnosis, US incidence was between 2 and 4 per cent. By 2014, this had risen to almost 20 per cent. Ref: New Scientist (UK) When Facebook bought Instagram for $1 billion in 2012, the photo-sharing site had 30 million users but only employed 13 people. Ref: Economist (UK) The total value of data that we give away each year (largely via mobile devices and often without our knowledge or consent) is estimated to be worth around GBP 5,000. Ref: The Spectator (UK) Research conducted by the University of California, Los Angeles, found that the social network of a typical US college student increased from 147 in 2006 to 440 in 2009. Meanwhile, a Pew survey found that a typical US teen has 300 Facebook friends and 79 Twitter followers. Ref: New Scientist (UK) According to a study conducted at Oxford University, 47% of UK jobs may be lost to automation over the next 20 years. Ref: Economist (UK) Fifteen-year-old boys in Britain are more likely to own a smartphone than live with their father (57% if you're interested). Ref: Sunday Times (UK) The sleep industry is the US is estimated to be worth $30 billion annually. Ref: Financial Times (UK) An estimated 18% of off-the-plan home sales in Sydney and Melbourne go to Chinese buyers. Ref: ABC TV (Aus) Since 2002, the self-storage industry in Britain has grown from 5 million square feet of available space to 30 million square feet. Ref: The Economist (UK) In 2012, 42% of the UK's self-storage floor space was taken up by SME's, largely due to the flexibility of avoiding long leases and business rates. Ref: The Economist (UK) In China, sales of air conditioning units grew by 300% between 1997 and 2007. Air conditioning now represents 20% of China's electricity use. Ref: New Scientist (UK) Zoopla's property search app is downloaded more frequently than Tesco's. Ref: Prospect (UK) 85% of prime London new builds are owned by people from overseas. Ref: Prospect (UK) The most popular drug in the US is paracetamol, with 27 billion doses sold each year. Ref: New Scientist (UK) In 1988 there were 345,000 cases of polio worldwide. By 2014 this number had fallen to 89. Ref: New Scientist (UK) 35% of Londoners were born outside the UK. Ref: Prospect (UK) 4% of the world's anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions come from the diary industry. Ref: New Scientists (UK) 7% of UK adults are on antidepressants. Ref: New Statesman (UK) According to an American Press Institute study, almost 60 per cent of Americans admit that they only read news headlines. (Maybe that's why so many people read brainmail.) Ref: New York Times (US) --------------------------------- : QUOTE OF THE MONTH "Businesses grow not by structure but by story." - Nathan Heller (taken from Naked Launch, The New Yorker, 25 November 2013) --------------------------------- : PREDICTION OF THE MONTH "(Electricity) blackouts will occur with greater frequency and greater severity due to trends in both electricity supply and demand." - Hugh Byrd (University of Lincoln, UK) and Steve Matthewman (University of Auckland, NZ) --------------------------------- : BOOK OF THE MONTH Anxiety: A Short History by Allan V. Horwitz --------------------------------- : WORD DETECTIVE Possibility bias: An exaggerated fear of highly unlikely negative events or an exaggerated expectation of low-probability positive events. Possibility bias, which afflicts the majority of people, leads to poor financial decisions, such as over-insuring against unlikely losses and over-investing in unlikely investments. Ref: Harvard Business Review (Daily Stat) --------------------------------- : WEB SIGHT OF THE MONTH Britain's smallest music venue: http://folkinabox.net/ --------------------------------- : STILL HUNGRY? Not a lot of people know this, but brainmail is put together using some of the leftover bits from the What's Next trends report. So if this snack-sized newsletter is leaving you a bit hungry, go to nowandnext.com for something more substantial (and that's free too). --------------------------------- : BRAINMAIL LIVE If you are considering a future focused speaker for your next conference, workshop, or other event ask your speaker agency about Richard Watson or contact him direct via nowandnext.com. Richard is the creator of brainmail (along with Matt and Phil). --------------------------------- : SMALL PRINT The material appearing in brainmail is sourced from a variety of usually reliable publications worldwide. However, we cannot guarantee the truthfulness of stories and a degree of commonsense should be applied before quoting or using any material in a commercial context. If something appears to be too good to be true it probably is.