Among the key trends affecting advisors this past year were the resurgence of independent investment dealers and new mutual fund dealers joining the fray. The financial services industry is facing disruption and challenges from every corner these days. From robo-advisors that offer investment advice at a fraction of the cost – and commercials criticizing financial...Read More

  Guangdong becomes focus as China races the US to build bigger particle accelerators Scientist says the competition between the two countries will ultimately be for the good of the human race. Scientists in southern China are planning to create machines that will be used to unravel the mysteries of the building blocks of the...Read More

Ten years after the publication of their first plan for powering the world with wind, water, and solar, researchers offer an updated vision of the steps that 143 countries around the world can take to attain 100% clean, renewable energy by the year 2050. The new roadmaps, publishing December 20 in the journal One Earth,...Read More

Archaeologists working in Indonesia say they have discovered the earliest artwork that depicts a story. It is a tale told in red pigment on a cave wall. The scene, in the scientists’ interpretation, shows supernatural people hunting wild animals. People living on the island of Sulawesi drew this image of pigs and horned animals as...Read More

Transforming our economies from linear to circular can help us reach our climate change goals. What does going circular mean? Using energy-efficient manufacturing processes, making products with a long life-span, designing waste out as much as possible and recycling and reworking products that have reached their end of life for new uses. Source: World Economic...Read More

Combating Global Climate Change at the Regional Scale Panelists from left to right: Alex Halliday, Ruth deFries, Joshua Fisher, Lisa Sachs, Jason Bordoff, V. Faye McNeill. Photo: Eileen M. Barroso/Office of Communications and Public Affairs With climate change affecting different parts of the world in different ways, a group of Columbia University faculty members gathered...Read More

  The VMD tiny home is an eco-conscious dwelling that is built using shipping-containers Mexican architectural studios Studioroca and Taller Escape have recently joined forces to create a prefabricated housing model that is move-in ready in just 99 days from ordering. Dubbed VMD, the 30-sq-m (323-sq-ft) tiny home is an eco-conscious dwelling that is built...Read More

“The next 10 years could be the best 10 years we’ve ever seen or the worst decade, and that depends less on the technology and more on the choices we make.” That observation, from Erik Brynjolfsson, director of the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy, feels particularly prescient as we take stock of the 2010s...Read More

Abhijit remembers walking into a meeting at the EU headquarters and immediately noticing that this was very different from the ones he was used to. No suits, no ties, no high heels; lined faces, scruffy winter jackets, and also an eagerness he associated with college freshmen in their first week. These were people, he was...Read More

Humanitarian plan aims to assist 109 million vulnerable people in 2020 A record 168 million people worldwide will need help and protection in 2020, or roughly 1 in every 45 people on the planet, the UN’s top humanitarian official said on Wednesday. Mark Lowcock was speaking in Geneva, where the UN and its humanitarian partners...Read More