ScienceChanges

International Panel on Social Progress

"Smart technologies are not just disruptive; they can also preserve the status quo. Revolutionary in theory, they are often reactionary in practice. "

Masters of Public Health students from the University of Michigan will be posting weekly articles as they learn how to translate complex science into something a broad audience can understand and appreciate.

"The consensus on how destructive this system is to our planet's carrying-capacity is now clear. Yet the fact that consumerism answers our deep human needs for novelty and status - however inadequately - is rarely acknowledged. Can any appeal to transform our lifestyle priorities in a sustainable direction really ignore how radical we are as animals? How does it properly reckon with the irrepressible faculties of cognition and imagination that humans deploy to make our world anew?"

"In 2004, statistician Joseph Chang, computer scientist Douglas Rohde, and writer Steve Olson used a computer model of human genetics to show that anyone who was alive 2,000-3,000 years ago is either the ancestor of everyone who's now alive, or no one at all. Think about that: If a person alive in 1,000 BCE has any descendants alive today, they have all of us-even people from different continents and isolated populations. "

"Time for Everyone" is a unique opportunity to learn about the origins, evolution, and future of public time from some of the foremost authorities in many branches of time measurement.