News of the Pentagon’s UFO investigative unit is making the rounds since breaking last week. Recently, NPR caught up with the head of the program to gather his comments on the video that accompanied the initial news story. Here it is, “If you’re asking my personal opinion from here, look, I’ve got to be honest
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Economics is very much a scientific study of simplified, rational decision making. But there’s a problem, humans aren’t always rational decision makers. Sometimes we’re downright weird and inexplicable. Richard Thaler was among the first economists to consider our weirdness, and his work won him a Nobel Prize. NPR has the story.
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What does innovation in government look like? In Victoria, Australia, it’s as simple as going for coffee. What matters is who is doing the going, and when it’s two public servants who typically live in separate silos, the results can be transformative. The exciting part for those living in Victoria is this is just one
Read & Share sourced from: The Mandarin
Have you ever wondered how and why change happens? Perhaps more importantly, have you ever wondered how what looks like intentional change happens? The change ingredients are easy to see in when looked on with hindsight, and the driving factors are the topic of a new book called The Guardian by Duncan Green. Check out
Read & Share sourced from: GovLab
How do you build a sustainable economy focused on value-added agricultural products? How do you build an economy that attracts people from all over the world? In Belgium, they accidentally focused on beer (probably because they liked drinking it), and a few hundred years later, their beer culture has been recognized worldwide. Hmm… in North
Read & Share sourced from: Quartz
North Dakota’s prairie-grass ecosystem and nomad economy were converted to an agriculturally based economy by the area’s early European settlers, but across the Pacific in the heart of Asia, the Mongolian nomads still live a lifestyle largely free of the traditional modern conveniences. This in-depth article from Wired captures the spirit of the lifestyle; it
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One of North Dakota’s largest oil producers, Continental Resources, announced it has a deal in place to sell ~33,500 barrels per day of ND produced sweet crude to China. The deal creates logistics challenges in form of ensuring Continental oil isn’t comingled with other sources before being loaded and shipped, and it’s only possible because
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This is not a Minot story. But because the movies Star Wars and Real Genius are a part of our cultural heritage, the fact that they are approaching full realization is worth momentary call out. Check out this article from Science Alert on a really big laser that’s set to go full Death Star. Sort
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Depression is a disease that becomes ingrained as the neurons in our brains fire and connect in repeated but unfortunate patterns. Successful treatments have been shown to break those patterns and one source that’s so far effective at helping ‘reset’ the brain — psilocybin — the active ingredient in illegal mushrooms.
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Automation is coming; there’s nothing to be done about it. Why? Because it will be safer and more efficient. There’s no way to stop evolution toward those values. And it won’t just be cars and trucks. The video below tells the story of technology that’s already available, this ship is in production. The question we
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The number of active drilling rigs in the U.S. has been growing in recent months and so has the oil output. Both have combined to put downward pressure on the price of oil which has recently risen above the lows produced by a 7-month downward trend.
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Our distant Scandinavian relatives have built themselves some pretty sustainable energy infrastructure, just 5% of Sweden’s energy comes from fossil fuels. But they’ve set an even higher goal — be 100% sustainable by 2045. And the problems they have to solve in order to get there and the manner in which they’re attempting to solve
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North Dakota likes to think of itself as a leader in UAS investment. And in the U.S., we are. But on a global scale, strict U.S. regulations are dampening the industries ability to advance at the pace dictated by commercial demands and technical ability. In Africa, regulatory burdens aren’t a problem there we’re seeing drones
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Researchers have noticed the color of the arctic slowly changing. Specifically, the ice was taking on a greener color. Now, there’s evidence that suggests the cause is a thinning of the ice that’s letting more light through and subsequently producing blooms of microscopic marine plants. The down side: the green color absorbs more heat, which thins the
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Whether you like it or not, car manufacturers, tech companies, and ride sharing companies are competing like crazy to win the race to deliver the fully autonomous, self-driving car. This technology is coming and there’s nothing we can do about it. But if you want to see some prognostication on when, check out this article
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They aren’t formally adopted yet, but the U.S.G.A. and the Royal & Ancient Golf Club have been collaborating on a rules simplification for the game of Golf. The new rule book will have twenty-four rules instead of the previous thirty-six and will do away with many of the arcane and little-known rules.
Read & Share sourced from: Star Tribune