Talking to babies may contribute to brain development - here's how to do it

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Talking to babies may contribute to brain development - here's how to do it   Talking to your baby or toddler shapes the structure of their brain, my colleagues and I have discovered. For the study, which is published in The Journal of Neuroscience, we enrolled 163 children at either six months of age or 30 months of age. The children wore a small audio recorder in a specially made vest for between one and three days. Continued here

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The Human Cost of Going Green | Bloomberg Investigates   Aluminum used in the new all-electric model of America’s best-selling pickup truck, the Ford F-150, can be traced from Ford Motor Co.’s historic Rouge assembly complex in Dearborn, Michigan, back to a parts manufacturer in Pennsylvania, a smelter in Canada, and ultimately the rainforests of Brazil. There, in the heart of the Amazon, rust-colored bauxite is being clawed from a mine whose owners have long faced allegations of pollution and land appropriation. And, near where the Amazon River empties into the Atlantic, a refinery that processes the ore stands accused of sickening thousands of people. In this episode of Bloomberg Investigates, we visit the communities directly affected and meet the people who are fighting back against the companies they hold responsible.Read the investigation: https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2023-ford-f150-electric-car-rainforest-damage/ Continued here

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What We Look for When We Are Looking: John Steinbeck on Wonder and the Relational Nature of the Universe   Each month, I spend hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars keeping The Marginalian going. For seventeen years, it has remained free and ad-free and alive thanks to patronage from readers. I have no staff, no interns, not even an assistant — a thoroughly one-woman labor of love that is also my life and my livelihood. If this labor has made your own life more livable in the past year (or the past decade), please consider aiding its sustenance with a one-time or loyal donation. Your support makes all the difference.“Genius is nothing more nor less than childhood recovered at will,” Baudelaire wrote — something Newton embodied in looking back on his life of revolutionary discoveries, only to see himself appearing “like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.” What we are really recovering from childhood in those moments of discovery and exaltation is a way of looking at the world — looking for a glimpse of some small truth that illuminates the interconnectedness of all things, looking and being wonder-smitten by what we see.That is what John Steinbeck (February 27, 1902–December 20, 1968) explores in some lovely passages from The Log from the Sea of Cortez (public library) — his forgotten masterpiece that turns the record of an ordinary marine biology expedition in the Gulf of California into an extraordinary lens on how to think. Continued here

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Pillars of Resilient Digital Transformation - SPONSORED CONTENT FROM Red Hat   The acceleration of digital transformation because of the pandemic recast the position of the chief information officer (CIO) to that of a big-picture strategist. From ensuring ongoing alignment of IT and business demands to leading the transition to full digital enablement, the CIO role requires expert proficiency in a broad range of both technology and management skills. Continued here

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What Makes an Effective Executive   An effective executive does not need to be a leader in the typical sense of the word. Peter Drucker, the author of more than two dozen HBR articles, says some of the best business and nonprofit CEOs he has worked with over his 65-year consulting career were not stereotypical leaders. They ranged from extroverted to nearly reclusive, from easygoing to controlling, from generous to parsimonious. Continued here

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Workforce Ecosystem Orchestration: A Strategic Framework   As organizations increasingly rely on contributors beyond their own employees, the once simple question of who (or what) is doing the work now has far-reaching implications for management practices, leadership approaches, and what it means to be a socially responsible business. Our research shows, for example, that corporate diversity, equity, and inclusion practices (and goals) are typically internally focused and do not encompass external contributors. And yet more than 90% of respondents to our global executive survey agree that their workforce includes external contributors. Many organizations rely on external contributors to perform at least 30% of the work, yet accessing and engaging with talent is often siloed, fragmented, and uncoordinated across internal and external contributors. We have seen organization after organization realize, belatedly, that their dependence on external workers was creating inefficiencies and missed strategic opportunities.Taking a workforce ecosystems perspective — which we detail below — helps leaders think more broadly and holistically about their workforce. This approach recognizes that the composition and boundaries of the workforce have changed; long- and short-term contractors, gig workers, partners, and technologies can all be part of a workforce. Workforce ecosystems embrace the idea that contributions to performance outcomes, irrespective of employment status, determine whether a person, partner, or technology is part of an organization’s overall workforce. Continued here

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Kenya's political elites switch parties with every election - how this fuels violence   University of the Witwatersrand provides support as a hosting partner of The Conversation AFRICA.The onset of the multiparty era in the early 1990s brought a new phase of complex political coalitions and alliances. They were competing against the previously dominant political party, the Kenya African National Union (KANU). Typical of Africa’s post-colonial dominant parties, KANU governed for more than two decades through authoritarian methods. Under presidents Jomo Kenyatta (1963-1978) and Daniel Moi (1978-2002), KANU co-opted opposition figures into an elaborate system of patronage and coerced critics who didn’t toe the party line. Continued here

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Why we should embrace the joy of dressing 'outside of the lines' like Gen Z   Course coordinator - BA (Hons) Fashion Business & Marketing & BA (Hons) Fashion Design, University of South Wales Have you seen that cargo pants are back? Young people are once again swishing down hallways and they might even be wearing Crocs on their feet, because these are cool now too. For many this could be seen as dressing “badly” but Y2K (2000s fashion) is all the rage at the moment. Continued here

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Why the west needs to offer Brazil, India and South Africa a new deal   Senior Economist, IMD World Competitiveness Center, International Institute for Management Development (IMD) The unwillingness of some countries to back the west’s position on Ukraine is a wake-up call. Western leaders must now determine what they can offer to powerful states including Brazil, India and South Africa to keep them onside. Continued here

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Nigeria's street food adds to the plastic problem - green leaves offer a solution   Street food is popular in Nigerian cities. Most of the local food delicacies are sold by vendors whose livelihoods depend on informal subsistence activities such as local food production and street food hawking. They are part of Nigeria’s vast informal sector, which accounts for 57.7% of the country’s economy.But most food prepared by vendors has to be consumed within a short time to avoid spoilage. Refrigeration capacity is limited because of unreliable power supplies in the country. Continued here

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COVID-19's total cost to the economy in US will reach $14 trillion by end of 2023 - new research   Putting a price tag on all the pain, suffering and upheaval Americans and people around the world have experienced because of COVID-19 is, of course, hard to do. More than 1.1 million people have died as a result of COVID-19 in the U.S., and many more have been hospitalized or lost loved ones. Based on data from the first 30 months of the pandemic, we forecast the scale of total economic losses over a four-year period, from January 2020 to December 2023.To come up with our estimates, our team used economic modeling to approximate the revenue lost due to mandatory business closures at the beginning of the pandemic. We also used modeling to assess the economic blows from the many changes in personal behavior that continued long after the lockdown orders were lifted – such as avoiding restaurants, theaters and other crowded places. Continued here

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Want more good ideas from your workers? Try giving them a reward - and a choice   Companies can increase not only the volume but also the quality of employee suggestions and ideas by offering rewards and a choice, according to a study we published in 2022. We conducted the study on 345 telemarketers at a call center in Taiwan, which already had a suggestion program set up to solicit creative ideas to improve the organization. The company rewarded those who suggested ideas deemed the most valuable by giving them a trophy. Continued here

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US has a long history of state lawmakers silencing elected Black officials and taking power from their constituents   Mississippi legislators have enacted a law that would create a new judicial system covering the state’s capital city, Jackson, in place of the current county court system.Set to take effect July 1, 2023, the move by a Republican-dominated legislature has been criticized by opponents as creating a “separate and unequal” court system that is not answerable to the majority-Black community it would seek to govern. Continued here

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International Criminal Court is using digital evidence to investigate Putin - but how can it tell if a video or photo is real or fake?   Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 was reminiscent of wars long past, where a country invades another with little provocation.But there are many parts of this conflict that are uniquely modern – including how ordinary Ukrainians are capturing and sharing videos and photos documenting the mass murder of civilians, which is considered a war crime under international law. Continued here

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The Nation of Islam: A brief history   May 2023 marks 98 years since the birth of civil rights leader Malcolm X, formerly Malcolm Little.Malcolm X was a spokesperson for the Nation of Islam, or NOI, and helped to lead the organization until he left in 1964 – the year before his assassination. Continued here