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Blogging the future

In an interview on the Italian television program, Che Tempo Che Fa, Italian neurologist and Nobel Prize winner Rita Levi-Montalcini talks about the brain and the importance of helping others. What do these two topics have to do with one another? According to Rita Levi-Montalcini, we can control our actions and emotions by using a different part of our brain.

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Italian neurologist, Rita Levi-Montalcini, in an interview with Italian journalist and television anchor Fabio Fazio, states that “progress and research must continue; you cannot lock up the brain”. What would lead this prestigious representative of the international scientific community to talk about the brain and the need for altruism?

Rita Levi-Montalcini was born in 1909 in Turin, Italy. Although her father believed that women should not pursue careers, Rita graduated summa cum laude from the University of Turin Medical School in 1936, and then completed a degree for specialization in neurology and psychiatry in 1940. She received the 1986 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for her discovery with colleague Stanley Cohen of Nerve growth factor (NGF). Since 2001, she has also served in the Italian Senate as a Senator for Life.

Her intellectual curiosity is not limited to the study of scientific theory; she has also always been interested in changes in human society. Her research is not conducted simply out of scientific interest. She also has a strong belief and message for our future: it is fundamental for people, from a scientific point of view, to have an objective that includes helping out those who do not have the privilege of belonging to the scientifically and technologically elite.

Rita discovered that man is born gregarious, because he is guided by the part of the brain that is dominated by the limbic lobe, which is characterized by emotion. But what are the implications of this observation? Our actions, which come from the emotional part of our brain, can result in harmful consequences. Therefore, behaviors derive from primitive impulses. Her conclusion is that we can use our neocortex to offset these behaviors. In other words, our future can be changed. We must strive for the control and usage of the neocortex instead of the limbic system, in order to control our actions and behaviors.

Our future can be found in our brain.

More Info:

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_QB_5MQCCk&NR=1

According to economist Alex Tabarrok, new ideas will feed the world through globalization. At a TED event, Tabarrok explains how a global market can increase the incentive to produce new ideas, which in turn will drive growth and prosperity.

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“One idea, one world, one market.”

Free trade and globalization are definitely not new discussion topics. They are, however, ways in which we can turn the world into a prosperous community. At a TED event, economist Alex Tabarrok assures the audience that the “best is yet to come” through idea-sharing and globalization. Tabarrok is the co-author of the hit economic blog, MarginalRevolution.com, as well as the Director of Research for the Independent Institute. Tabarrok’s interest in economics, law, and public policy, has helped him brainstorm ways in which we can feed the world with new ideas.

The equation is relatively straightforward: new ideas drive growth. While an apple can feed one person, an idea can feed millions. In order to produce new ideas, people need to increase the incentive to create these designs. Tabarrok asks, how do we maximize the incentives? The answer is globalization; larger markets generate larger profits.

Tabarrok believes that ideas are meant to be shared. As more countries became wealthier due to globalization, it would allow for more idea creators, such as scientists and engineers. For far too long the United States has been the leader of ideas; if more people worldwide had the ability to generate new ideas, we could increase the number of idea creators and ideas could be shared by everyone.

The world must become more globalized in order to generate and share ideas. Through free trade and a global market, the world could become healthier and more prosperous than anyone could have imagined.

More Info:

• http://www.ted.com/talks/alex_tabarrok_foresees_economic_growth.html
• http://www.marginalrevolution.com

Is it possible to create live architecture capable of regenerating itself just like live organisms do? Thanks to her studies, vision, and ambition, Rachel Armstrong has made this idea more realistic. In fact, by using architecture that grows itself, Armstrong believes that we will be able to save Venice, Italy from sinking.

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Rachel Armstrong has devised a way to bring architecture and biology together. She believes that it is possible to create chemically engineered building materials that can grow, self-repair, and respond to changes. These materials, Armstrong believes, could even be used to save Venice, Italy, one of humanity’s most beautiful cities which is slowing sinking in the ocean.

Armstrong refers to the current method of architecture as “old” and “Victorian”; inert objects such as concrete are used to construct our buildings and homes. While this may not seem problematic to most people, Armstrong does not consider this method sustainable. Instead, architecture should be connected to the natural world, and communicate with living matter. Since these materials do not naturally exist in nature, Armstrong is working to generate them from scratch. She researches “metabolic materials”, which are construction materials that possess some of the properties of living systems, and can be manipulated to “grow” architecture. These materials would be able to respond to changes in the environment and adapt accordingly.

Protocells, which are basically fatty bags containing no DNA and run by a chemical battery, are able to conduct themselves in a way that can only be described as living. They are able to move around their environments, undergo complex reactions, and follow chemical gradients. Using the protocell technology, Armstrong hopes to create sustainable, metabolic materials. Although this technology will take years to create and perfect, hopefully these materials will be used to save dying cities.

Venice, Italy is built upon wooden piles that have eroded over many years. As the beautiful city continues to sink, Armstrong hopes that the protocell technology will be able to reclaim the city by growing a limestone reef around the piles. These cells would be used for reinforcement purposes instead of just creating a reef in the canals.

Not only does this technology seem plausible, it would be a great innovation for architecture. Now more than ever we stress the idea of being as eco-friendly and “green” as possible; what better way to connect with nature than with this technology? It is our duty to try to salvage historical cities, and metabolic materials may very well be the answer to our problems. Furthermore, as our world becomes more technologically and scientifically advanced, it should seem reasonable to update some of our older practices as well.

More Info:

• http://www.rachelarmstrong.me/
• http://www.ted.com/talks/rachel_armstrong_architecture_that_repairs_itself.html

Innovation and strategy expert Gary Hamel shares his view that management itself needs to be reinvented in order to accommodate the new needs of business.

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Gary Hamel, among the biggest experts worldwide of strategy and innovation, entices us to reflect upon the necessity of a renovation of management in order to organize and mobilize human capabilities. The Wall Street Journal recently ranked Hamel as the world’s most influential business thinker, and Fortune magazine has called him “the world’s leading expert on business strategy”.

Gary Hamel, among the biggest experts worldwide of strategy and innovation, entices us to reflect upon the necessity of a renovation of management in order to organize and mobilize human capabilities. The Wall Street Journal recently ranked Hamel as the world’s most influential business thinker, and Fortune magazine has called him “the world’s leading expert on business strategy”.

According to Hamel, the past certainties that every one carries within have had damaging effects in the organizational realities of today and the managers have to have new principles in order to overcome the difficulties that the economy foresees. Moreover, the web is demonstrating an incredible force when it comes to modifying inefficient organizational systems that become consolidated with time.

The authentic innovation is not that of products, process or strategy. The competitive advantage that lasts longest is that which derives from innovation of the organizational methods and the capacity of the people that head the agency.

It is difficult to imagine how something that has remained unchanged for so long could all of a sudden transform. However, we can’t ignore the changes that technology is bringing forth to the organizational structures, changing the relationships of those in power, democratizing the decision-making process, and counting on an ever more refined system of collective intelligence.

More Info:

• http://www.hsmglobal.com
• http://www.garyhamel.com
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVX8XhiR1UY