I retired from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation last December, but it didn’t last long. I’m now working as chief advocate for National Seniors Australia. It’s a nonprofit organization with 200,000 members representing those over age 50. I’ve quickly discovered people who turn 50 don’t want to be seen, or referred to, as a senior. When...
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From atoms to “bits”
Half of the Top 10 Trends For 2017 defined in the winter Trends Journal are a result of one major underlying force. Make It New: The creation of new social awareness. RIP: The Fourth Estate: The dramatic transformation of media. Rust Belt 2.0: The astonishing effect of machines increasingly thinking for us. VR-Ed: The transformation...
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Trendpost
The new “smart” will be in the flow of the shift from atoms to bits Kelly describes: Dematerialization: Access is far more important than ownership of things. Remixing: Re-combining content in new and innovative ways. Collaboration: Less emphasis on competition and more development of high-level social/emotional intelligence that computers do not have. The scale...
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Alzheimer’s: Dashed hopes, new directions
Alzheimer’s disease is part of your future — if it’s not already part of your present. Either you or someone in your family will contract it, or you’ll know someone who will. And even if you don’t, the disease will cost you financially as it ravages our health care and social support systems. Alzheimer’s is,...
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Trendpost
Living to 100 or longer is now, scientifically speaking, a reasonable expectation for those born in the next generation. That’s startling since just a century ago, the average life span fell short of 50. Today, it’s fast approaching 80. But too many live out those extra days tethered to oxygen tanks and dialysis machines, or...
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TREND FORECAST
For farmers, consumers, entrepreneurs and investors, hemp is an idea whose time has come again. Here’s a look at areas where it will emerge strong: Plastics: Most plastics are made of polyesters distilled from petroleum and natural gas. Scientists have found that furfural, derived from plant waste such as hemp stalks, works just as well....
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Hemp is ready to emerge as a major industry
In the 1930s, Henry Ford was looking for a way to help farmers survive the Great Depression. He began experimenting with car parts made partly from a plastic derived from hemp, a common crop at the time. In a famous demonstration, Ford hit a plastic car fender with an ax. The ax head bounced off...
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Cannabis nation?
The path to legal recreational and medical marijuana, as the Trends Research Institute forecast last year, continues to build momentum despite a newly anointed attorney general who erroneously thinks pot is almost as deadly as heroin. If he could, he’d enforce federal laws to criminalize it. Speaking to law enforcement officers in March, Jeff Sessions...
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TRENDPOST
Here’s where the greatest growth potential exists: Natural healing: Cannabis products soon will find a home on the shelves of health-food and well-being outlets in states where they’re legal. The natural-healing and naturopathic community already is aware of, and open to, the healing qualities of cannabis. But new methods of digesting or using these products...
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At last, an anti-plastic trend
In the 1967 film “The Graduate,” Mr. McGuire offers sage business advice to young Ben: “I just want to say one word to you. Just one word: Plastics.” That one word, uttered during the turbulence of the late 1960s, symbolized the emerging trend of a society looking for better, cheaper and more versatile. Plastics became...