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It has been nearly a year since the OceanGate Titan submersible submarine imploded, killing its five passengers which included Stockton Rush, CEO of OceanGate. The details that emerged in the aftermath of the disaster painted a tale of overconfidence, ill-advised cost-cutting and plenty of ignored warning signs and safety messages. This week WIRED magazine published a … Read more
A tiny branch of the US Department of Energy focused on high-risk projects just awarded $5 million dollars to three startup ventures that are each independently “investigating whether seaweed can serve as a practical source of critical materials, such as platinum and rhodium, as well as rare earth elements, including neodymium, lanthanum, yttrium, and dysprosium.” … Read more
What if you could design furniture that captures more carbon than it emits? That’s the vision behind the Minus Chair, a design award winning new product from Norwegian brand Minus that is rethinking furniture design and selling. Trees only absorb carbon as they grow to maturity. After that, as they deteriorate, they release that carbon back into … Read more
Back in 2022 three different wood samples were sent to the International Space Station (ISS) as part of the Japanese Experimental Kibo Module. After ten months of exposure to space, the researchers reported that “wood’s ability to withstand simulated low earth orbit – or LEO – conditions astounded us.” Based on this early success, the … Read more
Imagine a toilet that never needs to be flushed. Arid desert land converted into abundant living spaces. Plastic yellow gallon oil containers upcycled into chairs and houses. These are just a few of the dozens of ideas from across the world that are on display right now at the Venice Architecture Biennale 2023 Show which will be open … Read more
“We are not trying to replace trees. We are trying to replace benches.” That’s the clever pitch of a project imagined and created by Serbian scientist Dr. Ivan Spasojevic who invented an urban photo-bioreactor called a “Liquid Tree” which uses a combination of water and microalgae to produce pure oxygen through the process of photosynthesis. As Dr. … Read more
Bryan Johnson is technically 46 years old, but his biological age is eighteen. The life he leads to maintain this statistic has all the joy of an incarcerated monkey. For the past three years, he has built a life-extension system he calls Blueprint and combines extreme data collection with a mindset that considers eating a … Read more
What if a music concert was created with sustainability as a priority? Coldplay is showcasing just how significant a difference this could make in their new Sustainability Update from their Music of the Spheres World Tour. Their ambitious goal was to “cut the tour’s direct emissions by more than 50%” and in reviewing the June 2023 Sustainability Update … Read more
Based on this combination of quantitative and qualitative data, here is a partial list of some of the most popular stories of the year, based on what my readers shared.
Humanity may be close to having the power to bring back extinct species. They are calling it “de-extinction” and the company behind the effort, Colossal Biosciences, is known for speaking ambitiously about solving the “colossal” problem of extinction by bringing back animals such as the Wooly Mammoth within 5 years. Of course, the natural Jurassic Parkian question … Read more
Non-Obvious Thinking is my latest book about the 4 secrets of becoming a non-obvious thinker - relesaed 10/01/2024.
Rohit Bhargava is a trend curator, founder of the Non-Obvious Company and the 3-time Wall Street Journal bestselling author of ten books.
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In addition to Non-Obvious Thinking, Rohit is the author of 10 books on trends, the future of business, building a more human brand with storytelling and how to create a more diverse and inclusive world.
