What we take for granted is a dream for many others — Historically, water has been one of humanity’s biggest challenges. The World Health Organization estimates that about half of the world’s population will be in water-stressed regions by 2025. Today, nearly 800 million people lack access to clean water. And the problem is likely to intensify as the climate crisis accelerates. …

AlphaFold is one of the greatest inventions of our time — For decades, scientists have struggled with one of biology’s greatest challenges: determining the 3D structure of a protein from an amino acid sequence. Commonly labeled “the building blocks of life,” proteins are long chains of amino acids that fold by forming arcs, twists, and folds until they assume a final…

Welcome to the Pandemicene — In 2015, Bill Gates took the TED Talk stage for a presentation that today may sound prophetic. “If anything kills over 10 million people in the next few decades, it’s most likely to be a highly infectious virus,” he said. Only one year earlier, the world had averted a worrisome…

Confessions of a renowned expert on energy transitions — On climate change, we are all wrong. Or at least, many of us are. We ignore or fail to understand the fundamentals of the global economy. And this is an obstacle to serious climate discussion. If there is a concept to grasp first, that concept is scale. The energy transition…

World of Warcraft, Vitalik Buterin and a new type of token — The game World of Warcraft ignited in Vitalik Buterin the spark to create Ethereum. When the game developer changed the damage component of his “beloved” character, Buterin realized the “horrors centralized services can bring.” He soon decided to quit, and the search for a new purpose in life led him…

“It’s basically the plotline in War Games.” — Lee Sedol is visibly under pressure. The fingers of his right hand transpire the stress in a kind of nervous tic. The thumb repeatedly touches the middle finger, then moves to the ring and index fingers. For a moment, Sedol looks away from the board, then rises from his chair. …

Nations are still failing short of meeting their climate goals — The planet faces five different futures of 2100. Five scenarios of how society might develop depending on how high or low emissions will be from here on out. The higher the emissions, the worse the climate consequences will be. Yet, in all scenarios, no matter what we do, temperatures will…

The discontent about taxes may be just one element behind a mega-political transition — The wealthiest 400 Americans paid only 8.2% of their income in federal taxes for much of the past decade. A lower rate than most average taxpayers. Democrats have long proposed a wealth tax to further target billionaires, suggesting taxing their assets in addition to their income. Elon Musk, for his…

How history’s greatest minds tackle complex problems — Elon Musk did not realize how advanced lithium-ion batteries had become until a friend took him to visit a company called AC Propulsion in 2003. AC Propulsion had created a prototype of a long-range, superfast electric car –the tzero. And what Musk glimpsed into was an electric vehicle company of…