Do emoji have a place in serious 🔬 ✍️?

They're fun, so why not? Well, maybe because they're often inscrutable.

(Big Think)
  • A new paper looks at the 👍️ and 👎️ of using emojis in biomedical documentation.
  • It's the return of pictographs, millennia later.
  • Do your thumbs even know how to avoid them?
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Sound could replace lasers in surgery

Moving from HOT to HAT, a dazzling new acoustic technology.

(Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences)
  • Scientists announce the ability to simultaneously manipulate individual levitated objects.
  • Using high-frequency sound waves may provide a safer alternative to laser microsurgery.
  • Video of the research looks like a cartoon, but it's all real.
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Why social design is a north star for entrepreneurs

Why this $600 million business isn't about money.

content.jwplatform.com
  • Problem solving doesn't have to involve numbers. Sometimes it just involves connecting dots between markets, and simple experiments based on data.
  • These tweaks can make huge differences in people's lives. And anyone can do it, as social design can life entire communities.
  • People who participate in social design learn how to apply it in the future, making social design a learnable and transferable skill.
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This amazing map of Lake Michigan was made entirely by typewriter

As this typewritten map shows, constraints can be freeing.

Major Rivers Draining into Lake Michigan, by Daniel P. Huffman
  • An old Royal Safari II typewriter was used to make this effective and attractive map.
  • Although they're relatively easy to make, typewriter maps are rare.
  • The mapmaker has received numerous commissions; will typewritten maps be the cartographic hype of 2019?
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Flops, brought to you by A.I.

"To err" is to be robotic — apparently.


KAZUHIRO NOGI / Getty Images
  • About 3.1 million individuals could lose their job to self-driving cars.
  • A.I. is not a monolith. It makes a lot of mistakes.
  • To better understand how to navigate our economic future, we should pay attention to these mistakes.
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