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Flowers compete for pollinators with adjustable ‘paint by numbers’ petal design

The study, by researchers at the University of Cambridge’s Sainsbury Laboratory, also found that bees prefer larger bullseyes over small ones, and fly 25% faster between artificial flower discs with larger bullseyes – potentially boosting efficiency for both bees and blossoms.Using the hibiscus plant as a model, the researchers selected plants with three differently sized bullseye patterns – H. richardsonii (small bullseye covering 4% of flower disc), H. trionum (medium bullseye…

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Flowers use adjustable ‘paint by numbers’ petal designs to attract pollinators

The study, by researchers at the University of Cambridge’s Sainsbury Laboratory also found that bees prefer larger bullseyes over smaller ones and fly 25% faster between artificial flower discs with larger bullseyes – potentially boosting efficiency for both bees and blossoms. Patterns on the flowers of plants guide insects, like bees, to the centre of the flower, where nectar and pollen await, enhancing the plant's chances of successful pollination. Despite their…

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Technology alone is never enough for true productivity

As generative AI (gen AI) grips the attention of business, corporate leadership can support their companies’ growth most by prioritizing the needs of their workers while simultaneously standardizing the use of cutting-edge tech. In this episode of the At the Edge podcast, economist and Stanford professor Erik Brynjolfsson speaks with McKinsey’s Lareina Yee about how gen AI differs from previous technological innovations, why it will likely augment more jobs than it…

  • Post category:McKinsey & Company
  • Reading time:26 mins read
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Cancer researchers and astronomers join forces in fight against disease

The technology from Cancer Grand Challenges team IMAXT uses advanced spatial biology techniques to analyse tumours, some of which are based on technology originally developed to map the Milky Way and discover new planets. Now, other scientists will be able to access these technologies to create detailed tumour maps that could one day transform how we diagnose and treat cancer.Led by Professor Greg Hannon and Dr Dario Bressan at the…

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Scientists and astronomers join forces in fight against cancer

The technology from Cancer Grand Challenges team IMAXT uses advanced spatial biology techniques to analyse tumours, some of which are based on technology originally developed to map the Milky Way and discover new planets. Now, other scientists will be able to access these technologies to create detailed tumour maps that could one day transform how we diagnose and treat cancer.Led by Professor Greg Hannon and Dr Dario Bressan at the…

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Oxford launches Human-Centered AI Lab

  The University of Oxford has announced the establishment of the Human-Centered AI Lab (HAI Lab), a pioneering research initiative supported by the Cosmos Institute. This ground-breaking lab will create a space for technologists and philosophers to collaborate on translating philosophical concepts into open-source software and AI systems, fostering a vibrant community for big-picture thinking about a future of AI that enhances human flourishing. The HAI Lab will be led…

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A Better Way to Unlock Innovation and Drive Change

Anuj Shrestha Leading organizational change according to the conventional management playbook is difficult and often frustrating, and such efforts rarely stay on track. Executives set out with the sound ambition to transform traditionally hierarchical and siloed organizations into more agile, collaborative, and innovative ones: They formulate a compelling vision, communicate it, and try to inspire employees to do what’s required to achieve it. But they often find that people resist…

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Political Speech in the Workplace: Strategic Considerations for Employers

Quick Hits The First Amendment generally applies to governmental actors, but private employers still must comply with the NLRA, which protects employees’ right to engage in concerted activity related to their working conditions. Several states, including California, Connecticut, Colorado, and New York, provide additional protections for speech, off-duty conduct, and political affiliations and beliefs for private-sector employees. Employer strategies for maintaining positive, productive workplaces include developing and updating workplace speech…

  • Post category:Ogletree Deakins
  • Reading time:6 mins read
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3 effective tips to help you avoid the “singles tax” and plan for the future

When asked about her single status in a 2014 interview, pop icon Taylor Swift commented: “Life can be romantic without a romance.” It appears many people share this opinion as the Office for National Statistics (ONS) reports there were 8.4 million people living alone in the UK in 2023. Whether this is through circumstance or choice, many people are perfectly happy with single life and the independence it brings. However,…

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HR Ninja-ing: 9 ways to impact culture with $0 budget

Workplace culture is an uphill battle when the budget is tight or, worse, nonexistent. You’re expected to create a thriving, engaged workforce, but the reality is harsh: Gallup reports that only 32% of U.S. employees are engaged at work. Meanwhile, disengaged employees are costing companies a staggering $450 to $550 billion each year in lost productivity, absenteeism, and turnover. The pressure is intense. The stakes are high. But here’s the…

  • Post category:Civility Partners
  • Reading time:7 mins read
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How Ventas used machine learning and AI to create a net-zero plan

Ventas, Inc. is a real estate investment trust (REIT) and S&P 500 company that occupies an essential role in the longevity economy. With roughly 1,400 properties in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom, the company’s portfolio serves a large and growing aging population. Among its assets are senior housing communities, outpatient medical buildings, research centers, and healthcare facilities. In 2022, Ventas took a bold step toward its sustainability…

  • Post category:McKinsey & Company
  • Reading time:10 mins read
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We and Atomic Bombs

The presence of colossal stockpiles of nuclear weapons in two or three great military powers reduces the likelihood of a general war in its traditional sense. However, the state of “a world that will not be at peace” promised by George Orwell also looks like it is balancing on the edge of something that would render any theoretical constructions meaningless, writes Valdai Club Programme Director Timofei Bordachev. In the year…

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100 Years of IFA and Samsung’s AI

Internationale Funkausstellung Berline (IFA) — Europe’s largest consumer electronics trade show held annually in Berlin, Germany — is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year. Launched in 1924 as a radio exhibition, IFA has transformed over a century into a stunning display of cutting-edge technology that shares a special bond with Samsung Electronics. Home appliances and electronics have followed this evolution. What were once large, bulky machines have since become highly…

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A data leader’s operating guide to scaling gen AI

After almost two years of infatuation with generative AI (gen AI), companies are moving past the honeymoon phase to embrace the work that matters most: creating value from this tantalizing technology. Expectations are high. A recent McKinsey Global Survey found that 65 percent of companies across sizes, geographies, and industries now use gen AI regularly, twice as many as last year. Investment in gen AI continues to rise amid the belief…

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  • Reading time:17 mins read
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Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Clarifies Franchisee vs. Employee Classification

Quick Hits In answering a question certified from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court held that under Massachusetts law, certain business-to-business relationships in which franchisees have chosen to operate their independent businesses using a business format franchise, the franchisees are not employees of the franchisor. In so holding, the court determined that the plaintiff franchisees at issue were not employees because they…

  • Post category:Ogletree Deakins
  • Reading time:7 mins read
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Introducing o1: OpenAI’s new reasoning model series for developers and enterprises on Azure

We are excited to add OpenAI’s newest models o1-preview and o1-mini to Azure OpenAI Service, Azure AI Studio and GitHub Models. We are excited to add OpenAI’s newest models o1-preview and o1-mini to Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service, Azure AI Studio, and GitHub Models. The o1 series enables complex coding, math reasoning, brainstorming, and comparative analysis capabilities, setting a new benchmark for AI-powered solutions.  The o1-preview and o1-mini models are now…

  • Post category:Microsoft
  • Reading time:9 mins read
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Five fundamental truths: How B2B winners keep growing

Amid today’s economic uncertainty, the B2B landscape is undergoing significant transformation. Fueled by rapid integration of digital technologies, sellers continue to invest, innovate, and experiment with how they present their offerings. Their B2B customers are shifting toward consumer-like purchasing behavior. They’re also demanding a much more sophisticated buying experience and are willing to walk away if they don’t get it. In this ever-evolving environment, B2B decision makers are asking how…

  • Post category:McKinsey & Company
  • Reading time:19 mins read
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Margaret McGovern: Building an Integrated Health System

Harlan Krumholz: Howie, we’re back. Welcome to Health & Veritas. I’m Harlan Krumholz. Howard Forman: And I’m Howie Forman. We’re physicians and professors at Yale University, and we’re trying to get closer to the truth about health and healthcare. Our guest today is Dr. Margaret, or Peg, McGovern, but first we like to check in on current or hot topics in health and healthcare. And for our listeners, it’s worth…

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Build the Right C-Suite Team for Your Strategy

Anuj Shrestha The Research Thomas Keil and Marianna Zangrillo conducted a 10-year research program that examined how new CEOs and executives succeed, including how they build strong leadership teams. They studied the appointment of over 100 CEOs and executives in Europe and the United States through interviews with these leaders, board members, subordinates, and executive recruiters who supported their hiring. Benedetto Vigna drew on insights from his experience as a…

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The Science of Successful Start-Ups

In the competitive world of business, entrepreneurs have long sought novel formulas such as the Business Model Canvas and the Lean Start-Up Method in their quest for success. The most potent tool, however, might be one that's centuries old: the scientific approach.From a series of experiments involving 759 start-ups across industries in Milan, Turin and London, my colleagues* and I found that companies that embraced the practice of rigorously formulating…

  • Post category:INSEAD Knowledge
  • Reading time:7 mins read
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Personal carbon footprint of the rich is vastly underestimated by rich and poor alike, study finds

An international group of researchers, led by the Copenhagen Business School, the University of Basel and the University of Cambridge, surveyed 4,000 people from Denmark, India, Nigeria and the United States about inequality in personal carbon footprints – the total amount of greenhouse gases produced by a person’s activities – within their own country.Although it is well-known that there is a large gap between the carbon footprint of the richest…

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A new dawn for the technology officer

A new era of technological change is ushering the technology officer to the center stage, and expectations are high. Companies want their chief information officers (CIOs), chief technology officers (CTOs), and chief digital and information officers (CDIOs) to deliver on the often-elusive goal of turning the promise of tech into real value. To meet this goal, tech officers are adjusting to ensure that their organizations benefit from the trends that…

  • Post category:McKinsey & Company
  • Reading time:23 mins read
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New study aims to catch cancer earlier than ever before

Currently cancer is usually diagnosed when tumours are already developed requiring, often significant, treatment to remove them and prevent further growth. However, a research team at the University of Cambridge will receive over £1.5m from Cancer Research UK over the next six years to investigate how the immune system evolves, targets and kills cancer cells as tumours are developing.  They hope by detecting the trigger point when our own body starts to…

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Indonesia – Russia: From the Past to the Future, History and Prospects

Russian-Indonesian seminar of the Valdai Discussion Club, the National Archives of Indonesia and the Federal Archival Agency of the Russian Federation  On September 24, the Valdai Discussion Club, together with the National Archives of Indonesia and the Federal Archival Agency of the Russian Federation, will hold a Russian-Indonesian seminar titled “Indonesia – Russia: From the Past to the Future, History and Prospects”. The event will be held in Jakarta (Indonesia). …

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Five steps to take before the new tax year

The current tax year ends on 5 April 2024 with the 2024/25 tax year kicking off a day later. With the end of the tax year approaching, it’s a good idea to begin to plan what you need to do to ensure your taxes are in good shape. Peter Webb, our Head of Tax Advisory, shares his top tips. Before considering what you might need to do before 6 April…

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  • Reading time:5 mins read
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The beauty boom and beyond: Can the industry maintain its growth?

In 2023, global beauty market retail sales grew to $446 billion, up 10 percent from 2022. In the year since the release of our inaugural state of beauty report, published in collaboration with The Business of Fashion in May 2023, the industry—comprising fragrance, makeup, skin care, and hair care—beat expectations and outperformed other consumer sectors, such as apparel. But these headline growth figures only tell part of the story. While…

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  • Reading time:14 mins read
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What Makes Companies Do the Right Thing?

Anuj Shrestha The Research The authors first studied openly accessible documents concerning the COVAX initiative to understand the organization’s functions, vaccine procurement process, and allocation framework. They then conducted semi-structured interviews online with representatives of COVAX stakeholders, including pharma companies, public health organizations, NGOs, and grant-making organizations. Informants were selected to mirror the diversity of stakeholder perspectives. Their media analysis used the Factiva database to better understand the timing of…

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Honor Hispanic Heritage Month with Minecraft Education and Microsoft Copilot

Engage students with interactive Hispanic Heritage Month lessons that highlight the rich heritage and impactful leadership of Hispanic figures. As we celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month in the US from September 15 to October 15 each year, Microsoft is committed to honoring and amplifying the voices and contributions of the Hispanic and Latinx community. Through innovative tools like Minecraft Education and the power of AI with Microsoft Copilot, you have a…

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  • Reading time:8 mins read
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Is the Era of Shareholder Primacy Over?

For decades, the Business Roundtable, a professional association and lobbying organization formed by CEOs from many of the largest companies in the United States, asserted that companies exist to create value for shareholders. So, it was noteworthy when, in 2019, the leaders of 181 companies signed onto the organization’s revised “Statement on the Purpose of a Corporation” that committed to creating value for all stakeholders. Recently, leaders of the Yale…

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Innovation hubs: How GCCs are shaping the future of business

Enterprises are looking to Global capability centers (GCCs) as critical innovation hubs to stay ahead in the competitive landscape, but the difficulty lies in aligning strategic priorities with the capabilities of GCCs to maximize their impact. In this episode of McKinsey Talks Operations, host Daphne Luchtenberg is joined by McKinsey partners Abhilash Sridharan and Malcolm Gomes, Debasis Panda of TransUnion, and Pravin Goel of BlackRock to discuss how GCCs are evolving…

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  • Reading time:19 mins read
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NVIDIA = Three Ways to Ride the Flywheel of Cybersecurity AI

The business transformations that generative AI brings come with risks that AI itself can help secure in a kind of flywheel of progress. Companies who were quick to embrace the open internet more than 20 years ago were among the first to reap its benefits and become proficient in modern network security. Enterprise AI is following a similar pattern today. Organizations pursuing its advances — especially with powerful generative AI…

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  • Reading time:4 mins read
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Patents can help us understand wildlife trade trends, new study shows

The tools we now have to identify trends and shifts in such data are allowing us to develop crucial insights into the effects that human activity is having, and will have, on the natural world. Professor Joss Wright, Oxford Internet Institute and Oxford Martin Programme on Wildlife Trade If companies continue to file patents for products made from animals banned from commercial trade, such as rhinos, this can suggest a…

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Toxic Lenders are Responding to SEC Investigations and Enforcement Actions

As many of you already know, and for those CEOs of small public companies that do not know, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has been investigating the convertible toxic note industry for a few years and has recently filed several high profile enforcement actions against several of these “lenders” for violations of certain federal securities laws, particularly failure to register as a “dealer”, as is required by…

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Our Guide to the Fall 2024 Issue

The Four Guardrails That Enable Agility Nick van der Meulen Key Insight: Defining constraints can help large companies foster employee autonomy and agility while maintaining organizational and strategic alignment. Top Takeaways: Organizational agility requires that employees be empowered to make fast decisions, take risks, and consider new ideas, but companies also need a certain level of coordination to reach their strategic goals. Creating an environment in which employees are empowered…

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Legal Aspects of Dilution – What a Founder Needs to Know

Understanding dilution is crucial for founders, particularly as they seek investment and scale their businesses. When high-growth companies attract investor capital, some level of dilution is expected. So here are five essential points every founder should know about dilution. 1. Definition and Impact What is Dilution: Dilution occurs when a company issues new shares, thereby reducing the ownership percentage of existing shareholders. Impact on Ownership: As more shares are issued,…

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  • Reading time:3 mins read
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UK organisations release statistics for use of animals in research in 2023

The statistics for the University of Cambridge are available on the website as part of our ongoing commitment to transparency and openness around the use of animals in research.This coincides with the publication of the Home Office’s report on the statistics of scientific procedures on living animals in Great Britain in 2023. The ten organisations carried out 1,435,009 procedures, 54% (over half) of the 2,681,686 procedures carried out on animals for scientific research in Great Britain…

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Business, Politics, and Cultivating Resilience

Topics Column Our expert columnists offer opinion and analysis on important issues facing modern businesses and managers. More in this series subscribe-icon Subscribe Share Business doesn’t operate in a vacuum. Sometimes external conditions exert a much larger force than usual. That is certainly the case today, with political and environmental change, economic uncertainty, regional conflicts, and population displacement happening around the world. As I write this, it’s just a few…

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New York Joins States Permitting Dealers To Claim Warranty Reimbursement Using Third Party Labor Time Guides

On September 4, 2024, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul signed into law an amendment to New York’s warranty reimbursement statute, N.Y. Veh. & Traf. Law § 465, requiring manufacturers to compensate dealers for labor using the “reasonable” time allowances contained in third-party labor time guides “reasonably utilized” by dealers for customer-pay repairs. In so doing, New York is the second state to adopt such a statutory provision this year and joins…

  • Post category:Seyfarth Shaw LLP
  • Reading time:5 mins read
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NLRB Will No Longer Approve Consent Orders

Quick Hits A recent decision from the NLRB found that consent orders undermine the NLRB general counsel’s prosecutorial authority and fail to facilitate a mutual resolution of labor disputes. For now, the NLRB will no longer accept consent orders, which are settlement terms unilaterally proposed by a respondent (typically an employer) without the consent of the general counsel or the charging party. Moving forward, only bilateral settlement agreements may be…

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  • Reading time:3 mins read
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Data and AI integration enhance Oracle Database@Azure

Together with Oracle, we’re announcing upgrades to Oracle Database@Azure, giving customers the ability to run or build new cloud applications that combine Oracle Database services with native Microsoft Azure services and benefit from extremely low latency and high performance. This blog is co-authored by Kambiz Aghili, Vice President, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Multicloud, Oracle. One year ago, Microsoft and Oracle built upon our multi-year partnership by announcing a first of its kind…

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  • Reading time:9 mins read
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