Not content with monitoring almost everything you do online, Facebook now wants to read your mind as well. The social media giant recently announced a breakthrough in its plan to create a device that reads people’s brainwaves to allow them to type just by thinking. And Elon Musk wants to go even further. One of the Tesla boss’s […] … learn more→

Students can use federal financial aid to attend any college they want, whether public or private. But the “free college” proposals floated by some 2020 presidential candidates would increase federal funding only for community colleges or state-run universities. Private nonprofit universities would be excluded. The question is: Why? From my vantage point as scholar of economics of higher […] … learn more→

You needn’t sit long in an ideological class on campus or in re-education seminar before you’re told something along the lines of “you can’t be racist against white people because they have all the power.” Obviously, that “all the power” part is rubbish for anyone paying attention to politics or the world, but it’s the […] … learn more→

It is a growing problem on campuses across America. Students entering college are reporting levels of anxiety, depression and social isolation higher than previous generations. The phrase “mental health crisis” has become commonplace within higher education circles. Today’s undergraduates belong to the group known as Generation Z, iGen or post-millenials, defined roughly as those born between 1997 and […] … learn more→

Plan S has already been credited with sparking something of a revolution in journal publishing. Major publishers are beginning – slowly and reluctantly in some cases – to replace their traditional “big deals” with what are being called “transformative deals”. Often negotiated with national consortia of libraries and research institutes, these combine access to subscription […] … learn more→

The aging of the population is an undeniable global trend with a social impact at all levels to the point that, as stated in the United Nations World Population Outlook Report (2017) , it is one of the social transformations most significant of the 21st century with consequences on services, health, education, family structure, forms of coexistence […] … learn more→

Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson is the 20th Etonian to become prime minister of the UK. Most of his cabinet is composed of privileged, privately educated people, with two-thirds of his ministers among the 7% of the population who went to fee-paying schools. With more than half of Britain’s senior judges, top civil servants and diplomats also privately educated […] … learn more→

Technology has been changing extremely fast and affecting our lives significantly. Whether we want it or not, technology forces us to accept changes it brings in our lives and the way we live our daily life. Every week some new gadgets arrive that makes doing things easier outdating their previous versions. The gadgets that are […] … learn more→

Before cities there were swamps. Wetlands and swamps globally have been sacrificed to pave the way for housing, agriculture and industry. Urban developers and dwellers have largely overlooked the vital role that swamps play in buffering storms, capturing carbon, fostering life and filtering water. One of the biggest threats to swamps today is a lack of […] … learn more→

In its new special report on climate change and land, the IPCC calls for more effective and sustainable land management, and more sustainable food consumption. But who is the onus on to go vegetarian, or look after land better? You, me, the “global elite”? The world’s poorest people, or perhaps the many millions of newly-wealthy Chinese […] … learn more→