A simple computer-based training program may be able to rewire the brains of persons who are depressed, react hotly to emotionally charged information, or “always see the glass as half-empty,” according to researchers at Israel’s Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. The team flashed images that cause negative emotions – sad people, traumatic events – on a computer screen while asking...
It’s real, only better
New ventures are ginning up technologies that insert virtual objects into a person’s view of the real world. In the old movie, “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?”, actors and cartoon characters inhabited the same world. Now – thanks to startups such as Magic Leap, Pixvana, 8i and Jaunt – you could have R2-D2, unicorns, personalities from history and other fantastical companions...
New tool to defeat brain cancer
Glioblastoma, the virulent form of brain cancer that killed Ted Kennedy in the span of a year, has a helper. A protein called NF-kB is a tonic for the malignant cells, energizing them to proliferate at high speed. After discovering this link, scientists at the Salk Institute also discovered a protein and peptide that hamper the brain’s production of NF-kB...
Wall Street/Main Street disconnect grows
Happy 2016! World equity and commodity markets welcomed in the new year with a record-breaking crash. By now, most will have forgotten how bad it was; many more never heard it when it happened. In the first week of trading, the Dow Jones made history, falling a whopping 6.2 percent. The Standard & Poor’s 500 plunged 5.9 percent, and the...
Trendpost
One big difference between the Crash of 1929 aftermath and the Panic of ’08: The Great Depression had bread lines and soup kitchens. You could see real poverty and deep despair. In the Great Recession, the long bread lines, poverty and despair have been covered over by food stamps, Section 8 housing and a number of related aid programs.
Central banks shooting blanks
Throughout last year, I predicted the Federal Reserve wouldn’t raise rates by September and that it was unlikely to do anything to seriously rock the rate boat at all. That turned out to be accurate. On December 16, the Fed did raise rates — sort of. I say that because the Fed utilized the smallest increment possible, 25 basis points,...
Trendpost
Last year, the trend was for rising volatility and the Fed and elite global central banks remaining in cheap money-supply mode with rates approaching, at, or below zero. This year, the trend is about markets falling while rates remain fairly close to zero. The Fed simply can’t act unilaterally on a hiking binge without contributing to US recession and global...
The Last World War
With each passing day, drums of war beat louder and the list of countries joining the march to war grows longer. If trend lines drawn since the War on Terror launched by US President George W. Bush following 9/11 are not reversed, World War III will not only be a Top Trend of 2016, it may be the last world war....
Trend Forecast
Despite incontrovertible evidence of spreading wars and escalating global tensions, in the worlds of entertainment, politics and media, there is a deafening silence in the call for peace. From millennials to boomers, from New York to Shanghai, across age groups and around the world, not a peep about peace. Why? Is it because war, violence and bloodshed are big-entertainment, video-game...
Human Waves
Throughout 2016 and for years to come, millions of refugees will flee war-torn nations looking for safety. Millions of migrants will leave economically depressed countries looking for work. Trends are born, they grow, mature, reach old age and die. The Great Migration trend, born some five years ago, was ignored by the media and ridiculed by politicians: The Great Migration...