Big ideas.
Once a week.
Subscribe to our weekly newsletter.
Animals are becoming nocturnal to avoid humans
A large analysis shows that many species are completely changing their habits to avoid humans.
Credit: Kalyan Varma/Wikimedia Commons
It's come to this — just like ancient mammals used to go out at night to avoid the dinosaurs, some animals are becoming nocturnal just to avoid us.
A meta-analysis that included 76 studies of 62 mammals on six continents showed that almost all of them are shifting their activities to the nighttime just to prevent human interaction. Indisputably, we are the somewhat scary masters of this planet.
Kaitlyn Gaynor of the University of California, Berkeley, whose team carried out the study, discovered the pattern of animals becoming more active at night. This insight inspired her to conduct the meta-analysis, with the result clearly showing how much of an influence on the rest of Earth we've become.
“All mammals were active entirely at night, because dinosaurs were the ubiquitous terrifying force on the planet," said Gaynor. “Now humans are the ubiquitous terrifying force on the planet, and we're forcing all of the other mammals back into the night-time."
Some examples of these animals include the sun bear - a species from south-east Asia. When it's observed in places with few people around, only 19% of sun bear activities take place at night. On the contrary, around the research camp in Sumatra (teeming with people), 90% of the activity of the bothered sun bear is moved to the nighttime.
In a similar instance, when lions are tracked in the protected areas of Tanzania, only 17% of their activity is at night, in contrast to 80% of all activity that's moved to the night in populated regions.
On average, the study showed that human disturbance increased nocturnal activity in 62 species by 1.36 times, causing a 70/30 split in disturbed areas in favor of living more at night.
“There are fewer and fewer spaces wildlife can go to avoid people," pointed out Gaynor. “So they're avoiding us in time because they can't avoid us in space. This trend is going to continue as the human population grows."
This apparent trend begs the question - how will this change in behaviors affect the evolution of these species in the long term?
Some negative consequences that have been observed include situations where animals are forced to put themselves into unnecessary danger due to having to be up more at night. Sable antelopes in Africa, for example, would normally avoid waterholes after dusk for fear of predators but being forced by human hunters more of them drink their water at night. And more of them get killed.
For some animals, the shift in habit is allowing them to survive in a world run by humans. Tigers in Chitwan in Nepal live in close proximity to people by managing to hunt at night.
“It's a way to share space on an increasingly crowded planet," explained Gaynor. “We take the day and they take the night."
Time will tell the real consequences of such shifts, but the fact that we are influencing our environment and its inhabitants is beyond doubt.
You can check out the study here.
From Your Site Articles
A brief history of human dignity
What is human dignity? Here's a primer, told through 200 years of great essays, lectures, and novels.
30 November, 2020
Credit: Benjavisa Ruangvaree / AdobeStock
Sponsored by the Institute for Humane Studies
- Human dignity means that each of our lives have an unimpeachable value simply because we are human, and therefore we are deserving of a baseline level of respect.
- That baseline requires more than the absence of violence, discrimination, and authoritarianism. It means giving individuals the freedom to pursue their own happiness and purpose.
- We look at incredible writings from the last 200 years that illustrate the push for human dignity in regards to slavery, equality, communism, free speech and education.
<p>In a <em>New York Times</em> <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/30/opinion/john-lewis-civil-rights-america.html" target="_blank">essay</a> published the day of his funeral on July 30, 2020, Congressman John Lewis wrote that his "last days and hours"—in which he watched widespread protests over George Floyd's murder and saw a square in downtown D.C. christened Black Lives Matter Plaza—filled him with hope. "Around the country and the world you set aside race, class, age, language and nationality to demand respect for human dignity."</p>
<p>Human dignity is a powerful phrase invoked to peacefully protest against violence, discrimination, and authoritarianism. But when we talk about human dignity, what do we mean?</p>
The inherent worth of all human beings
<p>Human dignity is the inherent worth of each individual human being. Recognizing human dignity means respecting human beings' special value—value that sets us apart from other animals; value that is intrinsic and cannot be lost.</p> <p>Liberalism—the broad political philosophy that organizes society around liberty, justice, and equality—is rooted in the idea of human dignity. Liberalism assumes each of our lives, plans, and preferences have some unimpeachable value, not because of any objective evaluation or contribution to a greater good, but simply because they belong to a human being. We are human, and therefore deserving of a baseline level of respect. </p> <p>Because so many of us take human dignity for granted—just a fact of our humanness—it's usually only when someone's dignity is ignored or violated that we feel compelled to talk about it. </p> <p>But human dignity means more than the absence of violence, discrimination, and authoritarianism. It means giving individuals the freedom to pursue their own happiness and purpose—a freedom that can be hampered by restrictive social institutions or the tyranny of the majority. The liberal ideal of the good society is not just peaceful but also pluralistic: It is a society in which we respect others' right to think and live differently than we do.</p>From the 19th century to today
<p>With <a href="https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?year_start=1800&year_end=2019&content=human+dignity&corpus=26&smoothing=3&direct_url=t1%3B%2Chuman%20dignity%3B%2Cc0" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Google Books Ngram Viewer</a>, we can chart mentions of human dignity from 1800-2019.</p><img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDg0ODU0My9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY1MTUwMzE4MX0.bu0D_0uQuyNLyJjfRESNhu7twkJ5nxu8pQtfa1w3hZs/img.png?width=980" id="7ef38" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="9974c7bef3812fcb36858f325889e3c6" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" /><p>We can also map human dignity against mentions of liberalism to see that discussion of human dignity increased with discussion of liberalism. </p><img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDg0ODU0NS9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYxNjM0ODMzM30.BzxT9Y1Zg5nE-PuQ2enrBn8FXs3HauET23enIw9rH34/img.png?width=980" id="9a5d2" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="0f2270501d92035c19cad5fc758b55e1" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
<p>Then we can search through individual mentions to find how human dignity was discussed and understood over the last 200 years.</p>
<p>For example, German rabbi Dr. Samuel Hirsch gave a lecture in 1853 on "<a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Advocate/s1ccAQAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22human+dignity%22&pg=PA421&printsec=frontcover" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The Religion of Humanity</a>" in which he condemned slavery. "That which we love in ourselves, our true human dignity, compels us to recognize and love the same human dignity in all others," Hirsh said. He wrote:</p>
<p style="margin-left: 20px;">If I can look upon my brother-man as a creature, as a thing void of any will of his own, instead of as a free personality, that furnishes ample proof that I have not yet recognized the true human dignity in myself. To own slaves is spiritual suicide and homicide. This sin is in no way excusable on account of the kind treatment accorded to the slaves by their owner, as he never can treat them humanely. When man becomes a piece of property he is robbed of his human dignity. </p>
<p>In 1917, Kansas State Normal School <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Teaching/JMTSWAhrxSMC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22human+dignity%22&pg=RA20-PA16&printsec=frontcover" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">published</a> a journal on teaching that called for instructors to help each pupil "make completer use of his one lifetime" because "an abundant life, a life of awareness, a life of dignity is an undertaking worthy of gods." </p>
<p>Thomas Bell's 1941 novel <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Out_Of_This_Furnace/TWLtI_V5YB4C?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22human+dignity%22&pg=PA411&printsec=frontcover" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"><em>Out of the Furnace</em></a> centered on an immigrant Slovak family in Pennsylvania. A character muses that it wasn't "where you were born or how you spelled your name or where your father had come from" that mattered; instead,</p>
<p style="margin-left: 20px;">It was the way you thought and felt about certain things. About freedom of speech and the equality of men and the importance of having one law—the same law—for rich and poor, for the people you liked and the people you didn't like. About the right of every man to live his life as he thought best, his right to defend it if anyone tried to change it and his right to change it himself if he decided he liked some other way of living better…. About human dignity, which helped a man live proudly and distinguished his death from animals; and finally, about the value to be put on a human life, one's enemy's no less than one's own. </p>
<p>In a 1953 <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Progress_and_Human_Dignity/i4BMAQAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22human+dignity%22&pg=PP8&printsec=frontcover" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">speech</a>, then Secretary of State John Foster Dulles argued that communist countries might be able to achieve short-term material gain, but "results so produced are not a glory but a shame. They are achieved by desecrating the dignity of the human individual." Dulles believed human dignity meant being entitled to a life that included physical well-being and "freedom to think, to believe, and to communicate with one's fellows," "opportunities which permit some exercise of individual choices," and "the contemplation and enjoyment of what is beautiful." </p>
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDg0ODU4OC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYzNTkzNDQwMX0.oF6SRe8h4isr9BMUowNloz-wDivX95L8Gr739uCooIo/img.jpg?width=980" id="363c2" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="f90e6b1f91456d023b5cf3f376463ede" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
American novelist, writer, playwright, poet, essayist and civil rights activist James Baldwin at his home in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, southern France, on November 6, 1979.
Credit: Ralph Gatti/AFP via Getty Images
<p>One hundred years after U.S. law stopped allowing Black Americans to be treated as property, Black writer James Baldwin was still <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/emilychamleewright/2020/06/30/living-up-to-the-liberal-promise/#784c5cc65139" target="_blank">calling</a> for Black Americans' dignity to be equally recognized. It was not enough, not nearly enough, that the 14th Amendment ensured equal protection of the laws; what mattered was how Black Americans were treated by their fellow human beings. In a 1960 Canadian television <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPaBXcEVpOE" target="_blank">interview</a>, Baldwin said, "I don't know what white people see, you know, when they look at a Negro anymore. But I do know very well—I realized when I was very young—that whatever he was looking at, it wasn't me… I was not a <em>man</em>."</p><p>In his seminal 1963 book <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Fire-Next-Time-James-Baldwin/dp/067974472X" target="_blank"><em>The Fire Next Time</em></a>, Baldwin seemed to echo Dr. Hirsh's argument from a century earlier:</p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">I am very much concerned that American Negroes achieve their freedom here in the United States. But I am also concerned for their dignity, for the health of their souls, and must oppose any attempt that Negroes may make to do to others what has been done to them. I think I know—we see it around us every day—the spiritual wasteland to which that road leads. It is so simple a fact and one that is so hard, apparently, to grasp: <em>Whoever debases others debases himself.</em></p><p>This, then, is a common thread in our historic understanding of human dignity: Anyone who treats another human being as less than human undermines <em>their own</em> human dignity in addition to undermining the dignity of their victim.</p>A 1964 <em>New York University Law Review</em> <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Philosophical_Dimensions_of_Privacy/q_FrmXyl3hUC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22human+dignity%22&pg=PA156&printsec=frontcover" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">article</a> argued that privacy was a key aspect of human dignity. "A man whose home may be entered at the will of another, whose conversation may be overheard at the will of another, whose marital and familial intimacies may be overseen at the will of another, is less of a man, has less human dignity, on that account," wrote author Edward J. Bloustein, who later became president of Rutgers University.
The future of dignity
<p>Around the world, people are still working toward the full and equal recognition of human dignity. Every year, new speeches and writings help us understand what dignity is—not only what it looks like when dignity is violated but also what it looks like when dignity is honored. In his posthumous essay, Congressman Lewis wrote, "When historians pick up their pens to write the story of the 21st century, let them say that it was your generation who laid down the heavy burdens of hate at last and that peace finally triumphed over violence, aggression and war."</p> <p>The more we talk about human dignity, the better we understand it. And the sooner we can make progress toward a shared vision of peace, freedom, and mutual respect for all. </p>
Keep reading
Show less
Popular
Mathematical model shows how the Nazis could have won WWII's Battle of Britain
With just a few strategical tweaks, the Nazis could have won one of World War II's most decisive battles.
19 January, 2020
Photo: Heinrich Hoffmann/ullstein bild via Getty Images
Politics & Current Affairs
- The Battle of Britain is widely recognized as one of the most significant battles that occurred during World War II. It marked the first major victory of the Allied forces and shifted the tide of the war.
- Historians, however, have long debated the deciding factor in the British victory and German defeat.
- A new mathematical model took into account numerous alternative tactics that the German's could have made and found that just two tweaks stood between them and victory over Britain.
<p><br></p></div>
<p>Soon after the Nazis took control of France in June 1940 they began a military campaign against Britain. For three months, the Luftwaffe bombed targets in Britain, countered by the Royal Air Force (RAF). Their targets were sporadic: First, the Luftwaffe attacked ports and shipping centers, then RAF bases, then strategic infrastructure, and finally, civilians and politically significant sites. This military campaign was known as the Battle of Britain, which included the series of high-intensity night bombings known as the Blitz.</p><p>Defeating the RAF was crucial before the German army could launch a land invasion of Britain, but ultimately, the military campaign became too costly for the German forces to sustain. The planned invasion was called off, and the campaign against Britain shifted its focus to blockading the island nation's access to the sea. This would become the German's first major defeat in the war and form a crucial turning point that would define its remainder.</p><p>In part, the British victory was won by the German's lack of preparation. Hitler never expected to need to invade Britain; after France fell, he expected Britain would recognize "<a href="https://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/research/online-exhibitions/history-of-the-battle-of-britain/operation-sealion.aspx" target="_blank">her hopeless military situation</a>" and agree to the favorable terms of surrender he had put forth. Historians have long debated what the Luftwaffe could have accomplished had the Germans developed a more comprehensive strategy.</p>
Two strategic blunders
<p>Now, historians and mathematicians from York St. John University have collaborated to produce <a href="http://www-users.york.ac.uk/~nm15/bootstrapBoB%20AAMS.docx" target="_blank">a statistical model (docx download)</a> capable of calculating what the likely outcomes of the Battle of Britain would have been had the circumstances been different. </p><p>Would the German war effort have fared better had they not bombed Britain at all? What if Hitler had begun his bombing campaign earlier, even by just a few weeks? What if they had focused their targets on RAF airfields for the entire course of the battle? Using a statistical technique called weighted bootstrapping, the researchers studied these and other alternatives.</p><p>"The weighted bootstrap technique allowed us to model alternative campaigns in which the Luftwaffe prolongs or contracts the different phases of the battle and varies its targets," said co-author Dr. Jaime Wood in a <a href="https://www.york.ac.uk/news-and-events/news/2020/research/mathematicians-battle-britain-what-if-scenarios/" target="_blank">statement</a>. Based on the different strategic decisions that the German forces could have made, the researchers' model enabled them to predict the likelihood that the events of a given day of fighting would or would not occur.</p><p>"The Luftwaffe would only have been able to make the necessary bases in France available to launch an air attack on Britain in June at the earliest, so our alternative campaign brings forward the air campaign by three weeks," continued Wood. "We tested the impact of this and the other counterfactuals by varying the probabilities with which we choose individual days."</p><p>Ultimately, two strategic tweaks shifted the odds significantly towards the Germans' favor. Had the German forces started their campaign earlier in the year and had they consistently targeted RAF airfields, an Allied victory would have been extremely unlikely.</p><p>Say the odds of a British victory in the real-world Battle of Britain stood at 50-50 (there's no real way of knowing what the actual odds are, so we'll just have to select an arbitrary figure). If this were the case, changing the start date of the campaign and focusing only on airfields would have reduced British chances at victory to just 10 percent. Even if a British victory stood at 98 percent, these changes would have cut them down to just 34 percent.</p>A tool for understanding history
<p>This technique, said co-author Niall Mackay, "demonstrates just how finely-balanced the outcomes of some of the biggest moments of history were. Even when we use the actual days' events of the battle, make a small change of timing or emphasis to the arrangement of those days and things might have turned out very differently."</p><p>The researchers also claimed that their technique could be applied to other uncertain historical events. "Weighted bootstrapping can provide a natural and intuitive tool for historians to investigate unrealized possibilities, informing historical controversies and debates," said Mackay.</p><p>Using this technique, researchers can evaluate other what-ifs and gain insight into how differently influential events could have turned out if only the slightest things had changed. For now, at least, we can all be thankful that Hitler underestimated Britain's grit.</p>
Keep reading
Show less
New data reveals Earth closer to a black hole and 16,000 mph faster
A new study shows our planet is much closer to the supermassive black hole at the galaxy's center than previously estimated.
01 December, 2020
Position and velocity map of the Milky Way Galaxy.
Credit: NAOJ
Surprising Science
<ul class="ee-ul"></ul>
<p>If you think Earthly matters haven't been going well already, it also turns out that our planet is much closer to the supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy than we imagined. New observation data allowed researchers to improve the modeling of the Milky Way Galaxy, showing Earth is moving <strong>7 km/s (~16,000 mph) faster</strong> and is <strong>2,000 light years closer</strong> to the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A*.</p><p><span style="background-color: initial;">The more precise information came from </span><span style="background-color: initial;">15 years worth of data collected by the Japanese radio astronomy project <a href="http://www.miz.nao.ac.jp/en/content/project/vera-project" target="_blank">VERA</a>, which is a collection of acronyms standing for VLBI Exploration of Radio Astrometry (with "VLBI" meaning Very Long Baseline Interferometry). The project started in 2000 and has the goal of mapping the Milky Way's three-dimensional velocity and spatial structures.</span></p>
<p>VERA employs <a href="https://www.eso.org/public/teles-instr/technology/interferometry/" target="_blank">interferometry</a> to pull together and combine data from radio telescopes all over the Japanese archipelago. This technique allows the project to get astounding resolution, as good as a telescope with a 2300 km diameter. The measurement is so accurate at this precise resolution of 10 micro-arcseconds, that it would be sufficiently sharp to pick out a U.S. penny if it was somehow left on the Moon's surface.</p><p><span></span>The VERA Astrometry Catalog and observations made recently by other researchers allowed the astronomers to put together a position and velocity map with a new center for the Galaxy. It's a point around which everything in the Galaxy revolves.<br></p>
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDg0OTQwMy9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY1NDE1MDcxNn0.LYVf609wjGLX0OHUf_fQDO95Pm0d9ggXXz0xvDhh6LM/img.jpg?width=980" id="b4cf4" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="9d6fdf9c932c94ad65d18d10d1d55df4" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Arrows on this map show position and velocity data for the 224 objects utilized to model the Milky Way Galaxy. The solid black lines point to the positions of the spiral arms of the Galaxy. Colors reflect groups of objects that are part of the same arm, while the background is a simulation image.
Credit: NAOJ
<p>The new map claims this center, along with the supermassive black hole it contains, is about <strong>25,800</strong> light-years away from Earth. Notably, this is closer than the distance of <strong>27,700</strong> light years established as the official value in 1985 by the International Astronomical Union.</p><p><span></span>The new map's velocity component also differentiated the velocity of the planet, showing that it's traveling at 227 km/s in its orbit around the Galactic Center. That's 7 km/s faster than the previously "official" speed of 220 km/s.<br></p><p>VERA next turns its attention to other objects, especially those close to the supermassive black hole at the galaxy's center. </p>
<p class=""><br></p>
Keep reading
Show less
How has technology changed — and changed us — in the past 20 years?
Apple sold its first iPod in 2001, and six years later it introduced the iPhone, which ushered in a new era of personal technology.
30 November, 2020
PEDRO UGARTE/AFP via Getty Images
Technology & Innovation
Just over 20 years ago, the dotcom bubble burst, causing the stocks of many tech firms to tumble.
<p> Some companies, like Amazon, <a href="https://www.investopedia.com/financial-edge/0711/5-successful-companies-that-survived-the-dotcom-bubble.aspx" target="_blank">quickly recovered</a> their value – but many others were left in ruins. In the two decades since this crash, technology has advanced in many ways.
</p><p>
Many more people are online today than they were at the start of the millennium. Looking at broadband access, in 2000, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/entertainment/tech-generations/" target="_blank">just half</a> of Americans had broadband access at home. Today, that number sits at <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/fact-sheet/internet-broadband/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">more than 90%</a>.
</p><p><a href="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-internet-users-by-country" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><img alt="More than half the world's population has internet access today" src="https://assets.weforum.org/editor/RFvQOMpk00odIJmWpcD0jq4mOqzV4qEEoVnrFXhDuxA.png"></a>More than half the world's population has internet access today (Image: Our World in Data)</p>
<p>This broadband expansion was certainly not just an American phenomenon. Similar growth can be seen on a global scale; while <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/internet" target="_blank">less than 7%</a> of the world was online in 2000, today <a href="https://www.axios.com/more-than-half-of-world-population-on-the-internet-mary-meeker-c4d623d6-32c1-47c0-b30e-5f934af88744.html" target="_blank">over half the global population</a> has access to the internet.</p><p>Similar trends can be seen in cellphone use. At the start of the 2000s, there were <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/262950/global-mobile-subscriptions-since-1993/" target="_blank">740 million</a> cell phone subscriptions worldwide. Two decades later, that number has surpassed 8 billion, meaning there are now <a href="https://qz.com/1608103/there-are-now-more-cellphones-than-people-in-the-world/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">more cellphones</a> in the world than people</p><p>At the same time, technology was also becoming more personal and portable. Apple sold its first iPod in 2001, and six years later it introduced the iPhone, which ushered in a new era of personal technology. These changes led to a world in which technology touches nearly everything we do.</p><p>Technology has changed major sectors over the past 20 years, including media, climate action and healthcare. The World Economic Forum's <a href="https://www.weforum.org/communities/technology-pioneers" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Technology Pioneers</a>, which just celebrated its 20th anniversary, gives us insight how emerging tech leaders have influenced and responded to these changes.</p>
<h2>Media and media consumption</h2><p>The past 20 years have greatly shaped how and where we consume media. In the early 2000s, many tech firms were still focused on expanding communication for work through advanced bandwidth for video streaming and other media consumption that is common today.</p><p>Others followed the path of expanding media options beyond traditional outlets. Early Tech Pioneers such as PlanetOut did this by providing an outlet and alternative media source for LGBTQIA communities as more people got online.</p><p>Following on from these first new media options, new communities and alternative media came the massive growth of social media. In 2004<a href="https://ourworldindata.org/rise-of-social-media" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">, fewer than 1 million</a> people were on Myspace; Facebook had not even launched. By 2018, Facebook had more 2.26 billion users with other sites also growing to hundreds of millions of users.</p><p><a href="https://ourworldindata.org/rise-of-social-media" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"><img alt="The precipitous rise of social media over the past 15 years" src="https://assets.weforum.org/editor/ryXIj-cPbpKTUKzmi9Jtd5bkN-A7E2GnZX-xEWlQnq4.png"></a>The precipitous rise of social media over the past 15 years (Image: Our World in Data)</p><p>While these new online communities and communication channels have offered great spaces for alternative voices, their increased use has also brought issues of increased disinformation and polarization.</p><p>Today, many tech start-ups are focused on preserving these online media spaces while also mitigating the <a href="https://www.eu-startups.com/2020/03/10-european-startups-fighting-fake-news-and-disinformation/" target="_blank">disinformation</a> which can come with them. Recently, some Tech Pioneers have also approached this issue, including <a href="https://truepic.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">TruePic</a> – which focuses on photo identification – and <a href="https://www.twohat.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Two Hat</a>, which is developing AI-powered content moderation for social media.</p>
<h2>Climate change and green tech</h2><p>Many scientists today are <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/climate-solutions-technologies-to-slow-climate-change/a-51660909" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">looking to technology</a> to lead us towards a carbon-neutral world. Though renewed attention is being given to climate change today, these efforts to find a solution through technology is not new. In 2001, green tech offered a new investment opportunity for tech investors after the crash, leading to a boom of investing in renewable energy start-ups <a href="https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/2001-when-green-tech-was-born" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">including Bloom Energy</a>, a Technology Pioneer in 2010.</p><p>In the past two decades, tech start-ups have only expanded their climate focus. Many today are focuses on initiatives far beyond clean energy to slow the impact of climate change.</p><p>Different start-ups, including Carbon Engineering and Climeworks from this year's Technology Pioneers, have started to roll out <a href="https://www.climatecentral.org/news/first-commercial-co2-capture-plant-live-21494" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">carbon capture</a> technology. These technologies remove CO2 from the air directly, enabling scientists to alleviate some of the damage from fossil fuels which have already been burned.</p><p>Another expanding area for young tech firms today is food systems innovation. Many firms, like Aleph Farms and Air Protein, are creating innovative meat and dairy alternatives that are much greener than their traditional counterparts.</p>
<h2>Biotech and healthcare</h2><p>The early 2000s also saw the culmination of a <a href="https://money.cnn.com/2000/02/22/companies/biotech/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">biotech boom</a> that had started in the mid-1990s. Many firms focused on advancing biotechnologies through enhanced tech research.</p><p>An early Technology Pioneer,<a href="https://www.actelion.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"> Actelion Pharmaceuticals</a> was one of these companies. Actelion's tech researched the single layer of cells separating every blood vessel from the blood stream. Like many other biotech firms at the time, their focus was on precise disease and treatment research.</p><p>While many tech firms today still focus on disease and treatment research, many others have been focusing on healthcare delivery. Telehealth has been on the rise in<a href="https://www.ama-assn.org/practice-management/digital/telehealth-53-growing-faster-any-other-place-care" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"> recent years</a>, with many young tech expanding virtual healthcare options. New technologies such as virtual visits, chatbots are being used to delivery healthcare to individuals, especially during Covid-19.</p><p>Many companies are also focusing their healthcare tech on patients, rather than doctors. For example Ada, a symptom checker app, used to be designed for doctor's use but has now shifted its language and interface to prioritize giving patients information on their symptoms. Other companies, like 7 cups, are focused are offering mental healthcare support directly to their users without through their app instead of going through existing offices.</p><p>The past two decades have seen healthcare tech get much more personal and use tech for care delivery, not just advancing medical research.</p>
<p>In the early 2000s, many companies were at the start of their recovery from the bursting dotcom bubble. Since then, we've seen a large expansion in the way tech innovators approach areas such as new media, climate change, healthcare delivery and more.</p><p>At the same time, we have also seen tech companies rise to the occasion of trying to combat issues which arose from the first group such as internet content moderation, expanding climate change solutions.</p><p>The <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/06/technology-pioneers-2020/" target="_blank">Technology Pioneers' 2020 cohort</a> marks the 20th anniversary of this community - and looking at the latest awardees can give us a snapshot of where the next two decades of tech may be heading.</p><p>Reprinted with permission of the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.weforum.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer">World Economic Forum</a>. Read the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/11/heres-how-technology-has-changed-and-changed-us-over-the-past-20-years/" rel="noopener noreferrer">original article</a>.</p>
Keep reading
Show less
Surprising Science
The magic of mushrooms: A mycological trip
A biologist-reporter investigates his fungal namesake.
Scroll down to load more…
