In this issue: BAR WITH A CAGE ROBOT SKIN BIRD-BRAINED And much, much more... ------------------------------------------------------------ ____ ____ ___ _____ ____ ______ ______ * / __ )/ __ \/ | / _/ | / / |/ / | / _/ / / __ / /_/ / /| | / // |/ / /|_/ / /| | / // / / /_/ / _ _/ ___ |_/ // /| / / / / ___ |_/ // /___ /_____/_/ |_/_/ |_/___/_/ |_/_/ /_/_/ |_/___/_____/ *Feeding hungry minds since 2004 ------------------------------------------------------------ Brainmail email issue 104 ------------------------------------------------------------ Brainmail is a free monthly (usually) newsletter dedicated to intellectual miscellany and ephemera. A file of hand- picked curiosities, cerebral snacks and fortuitous facts. To subscribe or unsubscribe (or to search the whole 13- year brainmail archive) visit: http://brainmail.nowandnext.com/ Like it? - then surely share it on social media. ------------------------------------------------------------ : INSIGHTS & IDEAS > The future of factories Adidas is building a factory in its home country of Germany instead of outsourcing production to low-cost Asian countries where labour shortages are looming. The so-called Speed factory will use computer models, computerised knitting, 3D printing and factory-made components to shorten its supply chain. This should cut as much as 18 months off the time it takes to get new shoes into shops. With existing designs, same-day delivery may be possible direct from the factory. Adidas is planning to set up a similar factory in the US. These factories are partly a response to rising labour costs in Asia and partly a reaction to the need for speed in what is a trend-driven market. Ref: The Economist (UK) > Bar with a cage A bar in Brighton, UK (Hove actually) called the Gin Tub has installed a home-made Faraday cage made of silver foil and copper in its walls and ceiling to stop people making phone calls on the premises. The premise is that people should be socialising in person, not looking at screens. The only criticism has come from a woman who complained that her phone did still work. Jamming devices are illegal in the UK, whereas Faraday cages are not. Ref: BBC (UK) > Robot skin Researchers at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology have developed a flexible heat-sensitive film that could cover robots, allowing them to sense any humans in their vicinity. The skin works in much the same way as that used by snakes to sniff out warm-bodied prey. Be afraid. Be very afraid. Ref: New Scientist (UK) > Bird-brained A Czech study says that birds are not bird-brained. Gram for gram, many birdbrains contain far more neurons than many mammal brains, which accounts for the smart behaviour of some species such as macaws. Ref: The Week (UK) > Drinking trends Researchers at the University of New South Wales (Australia) that analysed data from 68 countries say that a gender gap in drinking habits has closed over the past 100 years. Men born at the beginning of the 20th century were twice as likely to drink alcohol as women, but this gap started to close in the 1980s and reached parity with those born since the early 1990s. This is worrying because women tend to have a lower tolerance to alcohol, partly caused by having smaller livers. Women aged 15-19 are 30 per cent more likely to be admitted to hospital with alcohol poisoning than men. Ref: The Week (UK) > Exercising self-control A certain Dr Denson at the University of New South Wales, Australia has suggested that using the wrong hand for short periods might be a way for people to keep calm. The idea is that self-control is something that's learnt, so using the wrong hand from time to time allows people to better control their impulses. Ref: Current Directions in Psychological Science (US) > Future problem How should society regulate treatments developed using a patient's own cells? If cells are grown in culture then the FDA in the US views any resulting treatment as a drug that needs to be tested and approved through the existing regulatory system. Treatments that involve transplants rather than cultured cells are exempt. Some people say that the FDA has no right to regulate what people do with their own body parts. This issue is likely to become more of a problem in the future as body hacking and augmentation become mainstream. Ref: New Scientist (UK) > Out of sight, out of mind With the rising cost of care and the falling value of pensions, some Germans are sending their parents abroad...forever. Popular destinations include former Eastern Bloc countries such as the Czech Republic and Poland, but also places like Thailand. Critics argue that this amounts to forced deportation. Others say that if aged parents are suffering from dementia they might not notice. Estimates suggest that 1 in 15 Germans will need help with care costs by 2050. Ref: Welt am Sonntag (Germany) > Could the world run out of soil? According to John Crawford, formerly at Sydney University, the world only has about 60 years' worth of topsoil left. 40 per cent of the world's soil is now classified as degraded or seriously degraded and soil is being lost between ten and forty times faster than it is being naturally replenished. Linked to this is the issue of land grabbing by wealthy nations. Countries such as China, India, Saudi Arabia and South Korea are increasingly trying to buy or lease land in regions such as Africa to secure food staples for their local populations. Ref: Time (US) & The Futurist (US) > How we live now A Scottish primary school has asked pupils to sign behaviour contracts before being allowed to play football at break times. Chanting, banter, ball hogging and being a sore loser all result in a three-day football suspension. Meanwhile, teachers at a school in England have been told not to blow whistles because they are too aggressive. Instead staff are told to raise a hand in the air when playtime is over. Yeah, good luck with that. Ref: The Week (UK) ------------------------------------------------------------ : THE NUMBERS Fifty per cent of Americans did not visit a movie theatre in 2015. Ref: Financial Times (UK) One third of people aged 80 plus in the UK have never used an ATM. 4 million households in the UK have no internet access and 12 million households have poor internet access. According to the ONS, only 53 per cent of single pensioners had internet access in 2016. Ref: Financial Times (UK) A Bank of England study says that 15 million of the UK's 30 million jobs could be at risk from automation. Ref: The Times (UK) The average Brit drinks 11.6 litres of alcohol per year - 65 per cent more than back in the 1960s. Ref: Daily Mail (UK) People in Britain typically estimate that Muslims make up around 15 per cent of the population. In reality it is 5 per cent. Ref: The Guardian (UK) Around 85 per cent of Indian jobs are with informal enterprises. Another 11 per cent are casual jobs. Only 16 per cent of Indians receive a regular wage. Ref: The Economist (UK) 37 per cent of people in the UK say that they don't get enough sleep (the highest number of 13 countries surveyed). Only 9 per cent of Indians say the same thing. Ref: The Times (UK) Half of the apples sold in UK supermarkets are a year old. In Australia it's not much better, with apples being on average 10 months old. BTW, this story isn't exactly fresh either. It is more than a year old. Ref: Daily Mail (UK), Sun-Herald (Aus) Only 4 per cent of the world's oceans are undamaged by human activity. Ref: Harpers (US) The World Bank says the cost of China's water crisis is 2.3 per cent of GDP. Ref: The Economist (UK) ------------------------------------------------------------ : QUOTE OF THE MONTH "If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales." - Albert Einstein ------------------------------------------------------------ : WORD DETECTIVE Dopamine dressing: Not a wound treatment, but the wearing of clothes that boost your mood. Ref: Wordspy (US) ------------------------------------------------------------ : BOOK OF THE MONTH To Be a Machine: Adventures among Cyborgs, Utopians, Hackers and the Futurists Solving the Modest Problem of Death by Mark O'Connell ------------------------------------------------------------ : WEB SIGHT OF THE MONTH Glued is a free iOS and Android app that challenges family members to compete among themselves to see who can reduce screen time the most. Apparently the term is "device dependency": http://www.glued.to/ ------------------------------------------------------------ : CHARITY OF THE MONTH Fishing for Schools (F4S) is a charity run by the Countryside Alliance in the UK that uses angling to explore core curricular subjects. It is aimed at students in secondary schools, especially those with learning difficulties or physical disabilities. Ref: www.countryside-alliance.org ------------------------------------------------------------ : PREDICTION OF THE MONTH "There is no doubt that chat-bots and their real-world counterparts, robots, will kill the customer service industry." - Madhumita Murgia, Daily Telegraph, 15 April 2016. ------------------------------------------------------------ : 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 looking for an interesting speaker for your next conference, workshop, or event ask your speaker agency about Richard Watson or contact him direct via nowandnext.com. Richard, who is based in London, is the creator of brainmail (along with Matt Doyle and Phil Beresford, both of whom had the good sense to stay in Australia). ------------------------------------------------------------ : 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. That's all folks. Back soon...