Staff Picks

"Cities will soon have access to high-resolution 3D maps updated every four to six months, following the development of a new Earth observation satellite system by Marble Visions, a joint venture with NTT DATA, PASCO, and Canon Electronics. The system, expected to launch its first satellite in 2027, aims to improve urban planning, infrastructure maintenance, and disaster response by providing more frequent and detailed geospatial data. Marble Visions, a subsidiary of NTT DATA, was selected in early 2025 for funding from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s (JAXA) Space Strategy Fund. The company aims to replace traditional digital elevation models, which are typically updated every one to five years, with a satellite constellation that will provide more frequent updates for urban areas worldwide." MLH

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"Fresh off the global success of DeepSeek’s latest artificial intelligence reasoning model, China’s top economic officials have vowed to set up a state-backed fund to support technological innovation. The “state venture capital guidance fund” will focus on cutting-edge fields such as artificial intelligence, quantum technology and hydrogen energy storage, Zheng Shanjie, head of China’s state economic planner, told reporters Thursday on the sidelines of the annual gatherings of China’s rubber-stamp national legislature and advisory body. The fund is expected to attract nearly 1 trillion yuan ($138 billion) in capital over 20 years from local governments and the private sector, added Zheng, chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission. " DRB

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"The underlying theme of their work: A good idea may have multiple paths to value, but pursuing too many paths at the same time often does more harm than good.  After navigating the four domains of entrepreneurial choice — customers, technology, organization, and competition — entrepreneurs are ready to explore Scott and Stern’s Entrepreneurial Strategy Compass. This framework describes four strategic routes to commercialization categorized along two dimensions: orientation toward incumbents (collaborate versus compete) and focus of investment (execution versus control). " MLH

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"Men heavily outnumber women in several academic disciplines, including physics, engineering and computer science. And while gender gaps in those majors have shrunk at certain selective institutions, they have widened dramatically at many others, according to recent research published in Science. The ratio of men to women in physics, engineering and computer science has surged at institutions where students have relatively low math SAT scores, according to an analysis from New York University researchers. "

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"rganizations are starting to make organizational changes designed to generate future value from gen AI, and large companies are leading the way. The latest McKinsey Global Survey on AI finds that organizations are beginning to take steps that drive bottom-line impact—for example, redesigning workflows as they deploy gen AI and putting senior leaders in critical roles, such as overseeing AI governance. The findings also show that organizations are working to mitigate a growing set of gen-AI-related risks and are hiring for new AI-related roles while they retrain employees to participate in AI deployment. Companies with at least $500 million in annual revenue are changing more quickly than smaller organizations. Overall, the use of AI—that is, gen AI as well as analytical AI—continues to build momentum: More than three-quarters of respondents now say that their organizations use AI in at least one business function. The use of gen AI in particular is rapidly increasing." MLH

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"Injunction allows universities to keep receiving billions to recover costs of supporting federal research on campus"JC

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"If the country is to continue leaning on research universities as the drivers of discovery, innovation, workforce development, and economic competitiveness, a national conversation about the future of these institutions is necessary. Unfortunately, the prevailing methods for comparing universities are insufficient for informing this discussion. Rankings that list universities like sports teams are arbitrarily weighted by the ranker, focused on branding the “best” for an arbitrary consumer and increasing traffic to the ranker’s website. Rankings that list universities like sports teams are arbitrarily weighted by the ranker, focused on branding the “best” for an arbitrary consumer and increasing traffic to the ranker’s website. To catalyze a more data-driven conversation, I developed an analytical framework for understanding the similarities and differences across top US research universities. Using principal component analysis, a technique that combines possibly correlated features (variables) in large datasets into components to visualize the drivers of variance, makes it possible to map universities by the relative influence of over a dozen characteristics shaping them." MLH

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cg

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"Productivity growth has shown a notable pickup since the fourth quarter of 2019, and some commentators cite artificial intelligence and other factors as reasons why technological progress can sustain this faster pace. Motivated by this consideration, we use a model designed to detect trend shifts to examine the behavior of productivity growth in the postwar period. The model allows for shifts between high- and low-growth productivity regimes and estimates the probability of being in one regime or the other. We find that recent data provide tentative support for a higher trend growth rate, with the model estimating about a 40 percent probability that the economy is in a high-growth productivity regime." MLH

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CG

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"Tips for using generative artificial intelligence to help humans do their jobs better: Build out data infrastructure, incentivize workers, and define success." MLH

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"key vendors — xAI, Meta, IBM, Boston Dynamics, Agility Robotics, Apptronik, Figure.ai, FourierIntelligence, and Sanctuary.ai — have plans to develop AI humanoid robots that can reason and adapt. MLH 0 seconds of 29 secondsVolume 0%   Analysts expect such robots to be commercially available for manufacturers, supply chain and logistics giants, and retail industries within two years." MLH

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"discussed the critical role of state involvement in shaping federal policies to expand access to alternative education pathways. Key topics included innovative state-led programs, federal-state collaboration, and strategies to equip individuals with practical, workforce-ready skills." MLH

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"My students at Babson College, where I am an associate professor of entrepreneurship, have nicknamed me “Dr. Failure,” thanks to a course I teach called “Failure Is Good.” As counterintuitive as this sounds, I urge students to embrace failure as an important source of knowledge and skills. Here are four pieces of wisdom I’ve learned through my research and work with startup leaders about using failure to promote future success." MLH

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"Understanding household wealth trends is important for getting a pulse on the economic health and stability of a community. Wealth can be used to invest in oneself and one’s family, meet future needs, provide access to opportunities, and cushion the impact of unexpected financial shocks. Wealth provides a more complete picture of financial well-being than income alone, but until recently, household wealth estimates have been available at only a national level. Having estimates of local wealth enables communities and organizations to place resources to build financial stability where they are most needed." MLH

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"Colleges spend a substantial portion of their endowments on scholarships and groundbreaking research, according to a recent report by the National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO)."

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"U.S. states have been acting as regulators of first resort on a number of emergent technologies and core tech policy areas where Congress has been slow to legislate. Nowhere is this emerging technology federalism more widely apparent and potentially consequential than in the state-level response to AI." JC

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Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson on Tuesday signed an executive order forming a team to evaluate the impact of data centers on energy use, state tax revenue and job creation. The order follows a Seattle Times-ProPublica investigation last year into the clean-energy and economic impacts of the state's power-guzzling data center industry, the backbone of the modern internet. Data centers — warehouse-like structures filled with computer servers — receive some of Washington's largest corporate tax breaks. They require enormous amounts of electricity, a need that is only expected to grow with increasing reliance on artificial intelligence. In 2022, then-Gov. Jay Inslee blocked efforts to study data center electricity use, the news organizations reported.(gms)

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"Schools offer more career days and job shadowing than paid apprenticeships, internships: “It’s not a bad thing. It’s just not enough.”" --CAN

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"In 1984, Dr. Daniel Drucker, an endocrinologist from the University of Toronto, discovered a hormone in the human gut that helped pave the way for popular diabetes drugs such as Novo Nordisk’s Ozempic and Wegovy. It’s called glucagon-like peptide (GLP-1) and its function is to regulate blood sugar levels and suppresses appetite. “The first discoveries we made for what GLP-1 did naturally supported the development of treatments for diabetes,” Drucker told Global News. “I did basic science. I really had no idea where this would lead. And now it’s having a huge clinical impact globally, which is just great to see as a physician.”" DRB

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