btw’s Year in Review: Science, Technology and Business
This was a year filled with exciting new discoveries, future-facing innovations, and a continually changing climate. Big corporations faced big consequences for big mistakes. Living life and conducting business in an online environment has become commonplace. But the innovations in Science and Technology continues to evolve.
- Science We have always been fascinated with the early lives of our ancestors. This year, archeologists found skeletons of what they believe to be a species of human to pre-date homo sapiens. Other archeologists found evidence to suggest that early settlers of Jamestown may have resorted to cannibalism to survive their first harsh year in the New World. The National Zoo saw the birth of a new panda, and Brits in the United Kingdom celebrated their love of fungus. In health news, researchers in France discovered a “functional cure” for HIV, and an American teenager developed a test to detect pancreatic cancer. Fast food giants offer healthier options, On the space-front, a company successfully crowd-funded a telescope. And, after exhaustive research by the Mars Rover, evidence suggests life on Mars is highly unlikely.
- Technology To prove how far we’ve come, a vintage Apple 1 computer, hand-assembled by co-creator Steve Wozniak, fetched more than a half-million dollars at auction. Our increasingly tech-dependent life dominated btw news this year: bitcoins, self-driving cars, flying cars, “healthy” homes, a way to electronically track change to our rainforests, and advice on managing your digital footprint. This inevitably leads to education, as educators consider the future of how we learn.
Who’s Ready for an All-Digital Classroom?
- Business Facebook continued to make the news, after becoming a publicly-funded company that sells stocks in 2012. While the multi-billion dollar company managed to smooth out the disappointments of its first stock sale, a Pew Research study shows that teens are beginning to leave the popular social network in favor of other social media options. Today’s workforce is made up of Boomers, Gen-Xers and Millenials; the most successful companies harness the strengths of all three to work together. Fast food workers across the country united to call for higher wages. Investment bank JP Morgan faced record fines for securities violations. And BP, the large oil company responsible for spilling 4.9 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico in 2010 also faced large penalties.
Sorry, there are no polls available at the moment.