Next Gen

Gemini season:    for learning 

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public participation in scientific research

Unlocking People Power Through Citizen Science
Find out how engaging non-academics in research can uncover and disperse new knowledge and ways of thinking that help shape solutions to seemingly intractable problems

Source: Times Higher Education 

Also, in case you missed the Nobel Prize announcements 2023: 

https://t.co/tjIRcFSAaq

— REALbubbler (@realbubbler) October 12, 2023

Here is the Summary of #Nobel prizes announced for 2023 in #Physics, #Chemistry and #Medicines.

All the discoveries are made in the smallest dimensions and took decades to reach their intermittent end.

Kudos to global efforts for creating a better world. pic.twitter.com/pINVzn6Ukp

— Self_Explorer (@bhosale_nilesh4) October 5, 2023

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FarmBots!

We’re one step closer to self-farming farms https://t.co/1Z2YTRwrqK

— Recode (@Recode) January 8, 2022

“...the Facebook of farming.”

John Deere’s self-driving tractor lets farmers leave the cab — and the field https://t.co/PmRuOl3IxG pic.twitter.com/iM5KioJ62u

— The Verge (@verge) January 9, 2022

I want to touch one, grasp one, hold one, feel one, but wait...it's remotely-controlled.  😵

😄  In other news, 😄

twitter is officially back on in the land...so happy.  

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A post shared by The Guardian (@guardiannigeria)

One Hour Later: oh wow, you can touch and feel this 

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Happy #WorldFoodDay

👨‍👩‍👧
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👵🏿
👩🏻‍🌾
👳🏾‍♂️
👨🏽‍🍳
👩🏾‍🔬
👨🏻‍⚖️
🧕🏽
👨🏿‍🏫
🤰🏾
👦🏾
👩🏼‍🚀

Today is #WorldFoodDay! No matter who you are, what you do or where you live, we all should have access to a healthy and affordable diet.

Our actions are our future. pic.twitter.com/4pWcKXnij6

— FAO (@FAO) October 16, 2019

Blessed are those who get to enjoy three meals everyday. Let's feed the unblessed one and make the use of unwanted food by serving them.
" Don't make Waste, let them Taste. "#WorldFoodDay 🥗 pic.twitter.com/WzDPAgMzyd

— She's Indian🇮🇳 (@she_is_Indian) October 16, 2019

"One cannot think well, love well, sleep well if one has not dined well." - Virginia Woolf

Happy #WorldFoodDay pic.twitter.com/aUCWvefXkK

— itel Mobile Uganda (@itelMobileUG) October 16, 2019

Think about what you ate today 🌱💦🌾🍚

Where did your food come from? This #WorldFoodDay, we challenge you to think about the #FoodJourney that brings food to your plate day after day & do your part to #StopTheWaste pic.twitter.com/kFqSQLn3An

— World Food Programme (@WFP) October 16, 2019

Let's settle this.. which one satisfies more?

RT for Amala
Like for Ewa Agoyin#WorldFoodDay pic.twitter.com/5hUXDbfeT0

— Wisdom Peter (@wysemarn) October 16, 2019

Too many people are hungry not because there is dearth of food. It is simply because there is dearth of love and care in human hearts. #SadhguruQuotes #WorldFoodDay #ZeroHunger pic.twitter.com/GhjWe6lnSh

— Sadhguru (@SadhguruJV) October 16, 2019

There’s no act of deed that’s greater than feeding the hungry, and the needy #WorldFoodDay pic.twitter.com/18nwuYNki1

— 𝕌𝕊𝔸🇳🇬 (@meothmans) October 16, 2019

How do you celebrate #worldfoodday with out acknowledging people who make it happen 🙆🏾‍♂️ 🇿🇼🇱🇸🇿🇦 pic.twitter.com/71ZEYxVaSy

— Mpho Sekati (@MphoSekati3) October 16, 2019

Today is #WorldFoodDay!

Just want to encourage you to start a food garden. Start small, with what you have. #Food4Afrika#WorldFoodDay #ZeroHunger #WednesdayThoughts #WednesdayMotivation pic.twitter.com/eXGWpnTUYB

— Daniel Ngotho (@kiragungotho1) October 16, 2019

I heard it’s #WorldFoodDay and I’m excited because I’m a foodie.. Let me share some pictures from my collection.. I Dey cook sha.. pic.twitter.com/Eq0Pvl2Tqu

— The Hair plug (@Msmenalicious) October 16, 2019

Food is so much more than what is on our plates, it impacts our whole life! 🍲🥦🌽🍎🥕

Our daily food choices matter! Here are 5⃣ tips for a healthier lifestyle👇#WorldFoodDay #HealthyDiets pic.twitter.com/D3Lpc1SaVO

— FAO (@FAO) October 16, 2019

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Economics is (of course very) useful and (of course very) flawed. Enjoy this essay and possibly the book.

Test your powers of concentration with this good long read. How economics became a religion https://t.co/t1rfeT3sHr

— Guardian Weekly (@guardianweekly) July 11, 2017

The long read - How economics became a religion by @jarapley https://t.co/LIdeNbVsuQ pic.twitter.com/EuZGXUIBnI

— Guardian Comms (@GuardianComms) July 11, 2017

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Optimism // Beautiful world

How Bill and Melinda Gates have tried to make Warren Buffett's vision of optimism a reality - and how you can too https://t.co/EvLnEX1i07 pic.twitter.com/zbSbV642Ci

— CNN International (@cnni) February 14, 2017

Only 1% know poverty has halved since 1990. Optimism in pessimistic times. Read Gates Annual Letter – https://t.co/dKc994XAzq via @billgates

— Carlos A. Reck (@yuyay) February 14, 2017

Announcing the 2017 World's 50 Most Innovative Companies—from @Snap to @Glossier #FCMostInnovative https://t.co/FCIXTrYzaI pic.twitter.com/HVQS89WwGs

— Fast Company (@FastCompany) February 13, 2017

Announcing the 2017 World's 50 Most Innovative Companies—from @Amazon to @Chobani #FCMostInnovative https://t.co/Betg3uxDck pic.twitter.com/dvvHhBkFrU

— Fast Company (@FastCompany) February 13, 2017

She's the first woman to travel to every country in the world https://t.co/OfwVnh3Hf3 pic.twitter.com/79uj49TunQ

— CNN (@CNN) February 10, 2017

All these countries have had a woman leader before the U.S.: https://t.co/7bfYfLjDcW pic.twitter.com/KaY1YPmFIN

— CNN International (@cnni) June 10, 2016

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Show Business, Big Business?

Source // Song

I previously wrote: Tunneling through on the back of the creative economy //  This is how we will MAKE it till we make it - from individual artistry to indu$trial production  // School should be FUN

*blueprint*

If Disney could do it...

We will be bigger.

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Mineral development 2016

Nigeria is once again on the path to providing a transparent and workable regulatory and policy environment for private-sector-led mining. - J. Kayode Fayemi, Nigeria's Minister for Solid Minerals Development.

The succinct December 2015 document, State of the Solid Minerals Sector and Way Forward details Strategic Priorities and Plans for Solid Mineral Development in Nigeria. Feel free to read, share, and even critique it.

If we deliver on this vision, then we can build a mining sector that Nigeria can be proud of 30 years or more from now. - Solid Minerals Minister, also online @kfayemi

According to Jidenna + VisitDubai:

it is possible.
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Really simple inventions

Let's talk about zippers and fasteners, glues and dyes:  

This Japanese company is 80 years old and makes half the zippers on earth.

  Velcro was invented by an engineer fascinated at how plant parts got stuck to his clothes and his dog's fur.  One side is smooth VELvet, the other has CROtchet hooks - get it?

Dyes: the colour in the world's products

The idea for Post-It's came to a scientist in church - on the one hand his page-markers kept falling out of his hymn book, on the other hand there was an adhesive that was too weak to use as a reliable glue, he put them together and made a great success! 

Some questions:
How does one learn to pay attention i.e. to be creative?
Where are the opportunities for invention in our environment now - in the kitchen, at the office, through the window, on a website, in answer to a personal request? 
Where/when is the money - this year, next year, never, forever - and the desire to follow-through on good ideas? 

Book an appointment/seminar today :)

Do you really want to live forever?

Five Tales from Crazy California

1

"I have no intention of dying"
- Sumner Redstone.
Billionaire Redstone, now 91, has made no secret of his longevity regime. It begins with a breakfast of goji berries, "Green Machine" smoothies and tomato juice — followed by a fish dinner and a shot of vodka for its "wonderful" antioxidant properties. The mogul also says he exercises 90 minutes a day.

 2

"It's not even a hypothesis; it's just obvious: The human body is a machine.  Like any other machine, it can be subjected to preventative maintenance that will keep it going indefinitely by removing and replacing parts, just the way we do for a car." 

- Aubrey de Grey, head of the Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence Research Foundation, and author of Ending Aging: The Rejuvenation Breakthroughs That Could Reverse Human Aging in Our Lifetime.

 3

"Our goal is to move to a preventative medicine paradigm versus treating diseases after they occur.  This is the start of the future of human medicine."
- J. Craig Venter, geneticist and owner of Human Longevity Inc., which will sequence 100,000 genomes annually for paying customers.

 4

"There are a lot of people out there saying, 'We can sell you good health if you pay attention to what we do,' which is genome sequencing, but I have yet to see them actually make an impact."   

- Dr. Dennis Slamon, chief of UCLA's hematology-oncology division.

 5

The urban legend that Walt Disney had his body frozen after death is not true, but it is an option today. 
Most recently, the body of famed computer coder Hal Finney was flown to the Alcor Life Extension Foundation in Scottsdale, Ariz., shortly after he died Aug. 28 of ALS. 
That night, his fluids were replaced with a proprietary chemical solution called M-22. 
His body then was chilled to -320ºF and placed in an aluminum pod suspended within a 450-liter tank filled with liquid nitrogen.
There, Finney will remain in suspended animation, or biostasis, until he can be revived.
(Full-body cryopreservation costs $200,000, but one can preserve one's brain for a mere $80,000.)  
Exactly how or when that might be achieved is unclear, but according to the Alcor website, the key lies in nanotechnology, by which molecule-sized devices could "recover any preserved person in which the basic brain structures encoding memory and personality remain intact."

Source: How to Live Forever: The (Mad?) Science Hollywood Is Using to "Cure" Death
by Seth Abramovitch for The Hollywood Reporter, 10th September 2014

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Tunnelling through on the back of the creative economy

Creative production is happening in Nigeria.  It is not highly organized and it is not well funded, both of which constraints are practically positive drivers of raw creativity.  But this movement is capturing the hearts of the youth who would otherwise be unemployed and frustrated.   I am proud of what I'm calling La Renaissance, you have to say that with a French accent folks :) 

Here's a thought: if we can do the arts so well, we can do science and invention and thought and all that too.  Think about it: Information is almost free, access to markets is practically equal worldwide, while on the other hand, the high levels of capital and investment and organization available in today's hubs (like top 100 universities or Silicon Valley companies) are NOT a requirement for thinking.

You can do mathematics without a fabulous supportive structure.  Grigori Perelman did.  Sure, no one will understand what you're doing with yourself or how you're ever going to make enough money to make a complex crowd-pleasing life.
I never said it was for everybody.
You can study online and work remotely on high-tech projects.  
At any rate, you can do literature without a fabulous structure - and there is some precedent for that.  If there is so much angst, then it means there is so much to write about, doesn't it?  

In fashion design, Nigeria rocks.   In pop music, I think nobody is producing better.  Not Korea, not America...  

We have a nominally large film industry but maybe not the message/mission and not the revenue to make it world-class. 

But...
We haven't scratched the surface in product design.  Environmental design.  Beautification and street art.  Performance art.  Architecture - and I don't mean just throwing cement and marble at the problem.  History.  Storytelling.  Cuisine.

We still have half the population stuck in the market and kitchen doing the same repetitive tasks half the day.  Why?

We are stuck in traffic when we should be working or playing, making or praying.  Why?

We don't make a lot of the products we claim to like - not cell phones, not luxury homes, not cars, not our expensive fake hair. 

We haven't cut out the hours and dollars spent on generators and fueling in this town.  At least for a start get an inverter?  Change the laws so that investment can proceed?  We are not inventing low-power devices.  We don't even really care to make things really, we think it is for the lowly among us.  We actually look down on our geniuses until they have the shiny car to show for it.  Wow. 

 We think Islam and Christianity are so different.  We don't know the North, if we live in the South of the country.  We don't know the Mainland, if we live on the Island in Lagos.  We still don't have a Metro public transportation link or a city plaza.  We don't want to be seen on public transportation. 

We give all our money to the politicians of the current day then throw them out and give all our (potential capital) to the next batch.  We have a Freedom of Information law but few who know how to use it.  We claim it's the president and cronies oppressing the people, but what I see choking us is self-repression, the need to please, class-mania, local-thinking, slavery of the mind.  I got my own issues too, it's not just you :) 

We want to care for our own children but screw over the next person's children?  We teach our children to not waste time dreaming, "success" is more important.  We still wear winter clothes as uniforms to work, lawyers still wear blonde wigs, and philosophy still starts with Aristotle.  We haven't created material based on our heritage.  We study entrepreneurship in a classroom, by cramming facts for a test.  We have schools that are only exciting to a few students while others dream everyday of escaping.  We have schools that can not afford to employ the best, since the best can get higher salaries and more social status elsewhere.  We have schools that make people want to go abroad.

We've got our fingers permanently stuck in pointing at God or the president who is to blame and who should fix this or fix that. We're so stuck on survival, and after survival is guaranteed we move on to excessive consumption because in our minds we're just poor.  While we're running this rat race, we don't care to leave an astounding legacy, we'll settle for a plate of rice thank you very much.  Uncle Barack once termed this a poverty of ambition. 

We have starved our minds for so long, that we actually fear the public servants of today's democracy as much as we feared the gun-toting generals of the eighties and nineties, and oops, even before that.  We don't say thank you when a governor does the right thing - we expect "him" to thank himself by helping himself to public funds.  We don't vote women into office, we say men should "rule" and women should assist.  I'm tired of female deputy governors, assistant council presidents, what's so wrong with women being authority figures?    We don't say thank you when a citizen does the right thing, we don't have time for that, but we have time for the one who can dash us money.  We have no time to contemplate the stars or to smell the flowers. 

But we have pop music.   By God, we do.  And maybe that can lead us into the future, at least by telling us our dreams.
Maybe Baby, it is just a thought:  

PLAY