A national poll of America's 18-to-29 year olds released today by the Institute of Politics at Harvard Kennedy School shows that despite the state of our politics, hope for America among young people is rising dramatically, especially among people of color. As more young Americans are likely to be politically engaged than they were a decade ago, they overwhelmingly approve of the job President Biden is doing, favor progressive policies, and have faith in their fellow Americans.

Generation Z, who are currently between the ages of 8 and 23, played a significant role in both of these records. NBC exit polls suggest that 65% of those between the ages of 18 and 24 voted for Biden - 11% more than any other age group. "53% to 55% of registered 18 to 29-year-olds appear to have voted. That may be the highest ever recorded in the modern era of politics."

In 2020, for the first time, Millennials and Gen Z (which comprise young adults born in 1981 or later) will equal Baby Boomers and prior generations (older adults born in 1964 or earlier) as a share of all Americans eligible to vote. But in 2024, the two younger generations are expected to equal the older ones as a share of actual voters on Election Day. And by 2028, Millennials and Gen Z will dwarf the older generations as a share of both eligible and actual voters.

The share of Americans who say they're independent has climbed considerably, according to Gallup's quarterly party affiliation data. In the late 1980s, roughly one-third of Americans identified as Democratic, Republican or independent. Now, 40 percent or more identify as independent, while the share who identify as Democrats or Republicans has fallen to around 30 percent or lower. he problem is that few independents are actually independent. Roughly 3 in 4 independents still lean toward one of the two major political parties, and studies show that these voters aren't all that different from the voters in the party they lean toward. Independents who lean toward a party also tend to back that party at almost the same rate as openly partisan voters.

We just moved years closer to viable quantum computers. A company has revealed the results of benchmarking experiments that demonstrate how an advanced error-suppression method increased the probability of success for quantum computing algorithms to succeed on real hardware. And the new method increased the likelihood of success by an unprecedented 2,500% The new results were obtained via several IBM quantum computers, and they also showed that the new quantum logic gates were more than 400 times more efficient in stopping computational errors than any methods seen before. "This is the most powerful error-suppression technology ever demonstrated, and delivers an enormous competitive advantage to users," said CEO and Founder of Q-CTRL Michael J. Biercuk, who's also a professor, in the release. "These simple-to-use techniques will likely enable organizations to achieve useful quantum computing years ahead of current projections."

Summary of a larger report, which is hyperinked in the article. Six summary paragraphs present these scenarios. In April 2020, an ambitious initiative called Positive AI Economic Futures was launched by Stuart Russell and Charles-Edouard Bouée, both members of the World Economic Forum's Global AI Council (GAIC). In a series of workshops and interviews, over 150 experts from a wide variety of backgrounds gathered virtually to discuss these challenges, as well as possible positive Artificial Intelligence visions and their implications for policymakers. The workshop attendees and interview participants, from science-fiction writers to economists and AI experts, attempted to articulate positive visions of a future where Artificial Intelligence can do most of what we currently call work.

Yea this isn't a scan hit I need to post but an amazing find. Short article but includes a video demo and link to the website. Called the Pilot, one company has created a tiny wireless earbud that fits in your ear and translates the language you hear into the language you understand. The earphones work in conjunction with an app, but it works offline as well. People have been bound by language for centuries, and it looks like those barriers will soon be broken down by this tiny little device.

A brief opinion piece by an educator discussing the challenges of the virtual learning period that was abruptly brought on by COVID. He also has suggestions of changes to be made to fast-track students back into the in-person learning experience, full knowing that not all students progressed as they should have during this period.

Eighty-one percent of U.S. adults say the future of U.S. democracy is under threat, a sentiment shared by most Republicans, Democrats and independents. But when they were asked which party poses the bigger risk, it was a statistical tie between people who said the Democratic Party (42 percent) and the Republican Party (41 percent). An additional 8 percent of Americans blame both parties for playing a role. "We have one point of bipartisan agreement that the ship is sinking," said Edward Foley, who directs the election law program at Ohio State University. "But the problem is that each side blames the other for the ship sinking."

CSIS's Risk and Foresight Group created four plausible, differentiated scenarios to explore the changing geopolitical landscape of 2025-2030, including the potential lasting first- and second-order effects of Covid-19. The scenarios center on the relative power and influence of the United States and China and the interaction between them, along with detailed consideration of other major U.S. allies and adversaries within each of four worlds. Each scenario narrative was informed by deep trends analysis and subject-matter-expert interviews. CSIS's Dracopoulos iDeas Lab brought to life the scenarios in four engaging videos designed to test policymakers' preconceived notions about the defense and security challenges facing the United States and its allies in the second half of this decade. This research was sponsored by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency's Strategic Trends Division

This paper uses a scenario-based approach to understand how Congress might function in 2050. At present, Congress appears to be underperforming due to high levels of polarization, hyperpartisanship, and gridlock. Notwithstanding these challenges, Congress will need to address several big and complex issues over the next three decades, including the demographic transformation of the United States into a majority-minority nation, the looming fiscal challenges facing the federal government, widespread automation in the economy, climate change, more diffuse and dangerous patterns of global conflict, and the rapidly evolving media and communications technology environment.

In recent years, there has emerged a broadly shared sense that political moderation is dying. Joe Biden's victory in the Democratic primary has been widely interpreted as the last gasp of an exhausted tradition, after which he will hand over the reins to the party's left. Meanwhile, moderates have been an endangered species in the Republican Party for going on two decades now. The decline of political moderates lies at the root of many of our fundamental governing problems. As American political parties have become increasingly captured by their ideological extremes in recent decades, the space for cross-party coalition-building has shrunk. Where moderates were once critical to establishing coalitions across party lines, both parties' leaders today have established a hammerlock over the agenda in Congress, allowing only single-party alliances to form except under very unusual conditions.

CIPPEC is an Argentina-based independent nonprofit organization that works on better building public policies. The report presents four domestic politics scenarios: Many hands for little cake - Disperse power in exclusive societies. Cohesive and powerful - Integrated societies that have a voice in politics. Members only - An exclusive world with concentrated power. One for all - Concentration of power in inclusive societies and four Global Governance scenarios: Big foot in a local world Big Friendly Giant - big firms in a global scenario Small is beautiful The small under global rule

One-in-ten eligible voters in the 2020 electorate was part of a new generation of Americans - Generation Z. Members of Gen Z are more racially and ethnically diverse than any previous generation, and they are on track to be the most well-educated generation yet. But when it comes to their views on key social and policy issues, they look very much like Millennials.

When the National Election Study began asking about trust in government in 1958, about three-quarters of Americans trusted the federal government to do the right thing almost always or most of the time. Public trust reached a three-decade high shortly after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, but declined quickly thereafter. Since 2007, the share saying they can trust the government always or most of the time has not surpassed 30%. Currently, 36% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents say they can trust government, compared with 9% of Republicans and Republican-leaners. Throughout Trump's tenure, more Republicans than Democrats reported trusting the government, though that has flipped since Biden's election.

A majority of Americans continue to say they see the effects of climate change in their own communities and believe that the federal government falls short in its efforts to reduce the impacts of climate change. At a time when partisanship colors most views of policy, broad majorities of the public - including more than half of Republicans and overwhelming shares of Democrats - say they would favor a range of initiatives to reduce the impacts of climate change

Trust in the federal government's handling of international problems has fallen nine percentage points since last year to a record-low 39%, and now matches the level of trust for its handling of domestic problems -- one of only a few times that has occurred. Confidence in the three branches of the federal government is low on a relative basis. Although a 54% majority of U.S. adults trust the judicial branch, this is down 13 points compared with 2020. Americans' trust in their state and local governments' ability to handle problems under their purview continues to be higher than trust in the federal government and its three individual branches. As has been the case in recent years, confidence in local government (66%) remains higher than it is for state government (57%).

Using the chemical signatures found in marine microorganisms, the researchers found that the Arctic Ocean began warming rapidly at the beginning of the last century as warmer and saltier waters flowed in from the Atlantic - a phenomenon called Atlantification - and that this change likely preceded the warming documented by modern instrumental measurements. Since 1900, the ocean temperature has risen by approximately 2 degrees Celsius, while sea ice has retreated and salinity has increased. A number of factors, perhaps some that we still do not understand, make up our complex ecosystem. While climate scientists have made some predictions about what we must do to protect the ecosystem, it is highly likely that we do not understand all of the factors involved, resulting in the recommendations being either too aggressive or too understated.

Quantum engineers from UNSW Sydney have solved a problem that has baffled scientists for decades: How to reliably control millions of qubits in a silicon quantum computer chip without wasting valuable space with extra wiring. This issue had been a significant roadblock to the development of a full-scale quantum computer, but it has now been overcome thanks to the engineers who developed a new technique capable of controlling millions of spin qubits simultaneously. Quantum computing will open the door to solving a whole new set of challenges requiring intense computational power.

John Deere has bought Bear Flag Robotics for $250 million in a move that sees it bolster its already strong fleet of autonomous farming robots, a press release reveals. The Silicon Valley-based Bear Flag Robotics was founded in 2017 with the goal of developing autonomous driving technology for tractors and other farm machinery. The deal "will accelerate the delivery of solutions to farmers that address the immense challenge of feeding a growing world," said Jahmy Hindman, Chief Technology Officer at John Deere. A significant amount of work in autonomy is focused on farming, the implementation of these technologies could increase yields as well as the ability to produce crops in areas that have been in the past inhospitable to growing.