Alejandro Zaffaroni, life scientist and entrepreneur, 1923-2014

March 14, 2014 6:02 pm

Alejandro Zaffaroni, life scientist and entrepreneur, 1923-2014

By Andrew Ward

As the second world war drew to a close in 1945, Alejandro Zaffaroni hitched a ride on a US military cargo ship from his native Uruguay to New York. It was the start of a journey that led to his becoming one of America’s most prolific biotechnology entrepreneurs, playing an important role in development of the birth control pill, the nicotine patch and DNA chips used in genetic research. Read more of this post

The lost art of finance: ‘Back in the days when “money” meant sacks of gold coins, artists had something tangible to paint’; the power of art is that it can make us see the world afresh – there can be beauty in the unseen details of daily life

March 14, 2014 1:22 pm

The lost art of finance

By Gillian Tett

‘Back in the days when “money” meant sacks of gold coins, artists had something tangible to paint’

Last month I received a striking request from the Museum of Modern Art in New York. It was not an invitation to a trendy exhibition opening or an appeal for funds. Instead, MoMA curators were seeking blog posts from writers on pieces of art in its collection linked to exploitation and violence. Read more of this post

All roads lead back to Cézanne: From unmissable watercolours to the turbulence of Van Gogh, the Pearlman Collection – now in Europe for the first time – offers a fresh vision of modern painting

March 14, 2014 6:32 pm

All roads lead back to Cézanne

By Jackie Wullschlager

One wintry wartime day in 1945, businessman Henry Pearlman was walking down New York’s Park Avenue when a painting by Chaim Soutine hanging in the window at Parke-Bernet auction house caught his eye. He bid $825 and took home “View of Céret”. Read more of this post

A New Way to Learn Chinese: Entrepreneur ShaoLan Hsueh aims to bridge the gap between East and West by teaching Westerners how to read Chinese

A New Way to Learn Chinese

Entrepreneur ShaoLan Hsueh aims to bridge the gap between East and West by teaching Westerners how to read Chinese

ALEXANDRA WOLFE

March 14, 2014 8:37 p.m. ET

Entrepreneur and author ShaoLan Hsueh aims to teach English speakers how to start reading Chinese in under 10 minutes. See an excerpt for the video that was produced for her Kickstarter campaign. Read more of this post

The Future of Brain Implants: How soon can we expect to see brain implants for perfect memory, enhanced vision, hypernormal focus or an expert golf swing?

The Future of Brain Implants

How soon can we expect to see brain implants for perfect memory, enhanced vision, hypernormal focus or an expert golf swing?

GARY MARCUS and CHRISTOF KOCH

March 14, 2014 7:30 p.m. ET

Brain implants today are where laser eye surgery was several decades ago, fraught with risk, applicable only to a narrowly defined set of patients – but a sign of things to come. NYU Professor of Psychology Gary Marcus discusses on Lunch Break. Photo: Getty. Read more of this post

Big money in kuay teow

Updated: Saturday March 15, 2014 MYT 8:31:40 AM

Big money in kuay teow

The kuay teow production lines at Ipoh Kueh Teow and Noodles.

IN January 2014, the selling price of 100g of kuay teow in a leading hypermarket in Kelana Jaya was recorded at RM1.45. Read more of this post

Why Nothing Is Truly Alive: Life is a concept, not a reality, says Ferris Jabr, who suggests distinguishing between mental models and pure concepts

Why Nothing Is Truly Alive

Life is a concept, not a reality, says Ferris Jabr, who explains why nothing is truly alive and suggests distinguishing between mental models and pure concepts

By FERRIS JABR

MARCH 12, 2014

On a windy day in Ypenburg, the Netherlands, you can sometimes see sculptures the size of buses scuttling across a sandy hill. Made mostly from intricately conjoined plastic tubes, wood and sails, the many-legged skeletons move so fluidly and autonomously that it’s tempting to think of them as alive. Their maker, the Dutch artist Theo Jansen, certainly does. “Since 1990, I have been occupied creating new forms of life,” he says on his website. He calls them Strandbeest. “Eventually I want to put these animals out in herds on the beaches, so they will live their own lives.” Read more of this post

10 Great Books on American Economic History

10 Great Books on American Economic History

By John Reeves | More Articles
March 8, 2014 | Comments (7)

The attempt to create a colony in Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607 got off to a catastrophic start. After just the first year, only 38 of the original 108 colonists remained alive. And death rates over the first two decades continued to be staggeringly high. Read more of this post

Motley Fool CEO Tom Gardner shows how he discovered Middleby, which has delivered 30 times his original investment

The Untold Story Behind Our CEO’s Single Greatest Investment

By Tom Gardner | More Articles
March 13, 2014 | Comments (6)

Dear Fools, I’d like to make two important corrections to this article after reading the comments below. The first is that, as a matter of policy back in the Hidden Gems days, I never bought my investment recommendations. This has changed in the Everlasting Portfolio in Motley Fool One. The systems now exist for me to purchase all of my investment recommendations. And, of course, all of my purchases come after The Motley Fool buys which, of course, come after all of our members are given a chance to buy first. Read more of this post

Whitney Tilson On Berkshire Hathaway Annual Letter And Omaha Events

Whitney Tilson On Berkshire Hathaway Annual Letter And Omaha Events

by VW StaffMarch 14, 2014, 11:50 am

Whitney Tilson extends an invitation to Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE:BRK.A) (NYSE:BRK.B) events in Omaha as the Warren Buffett-led company releases its annual letter. Read more of this post

Happy Pi Day! It’s also Albert Einstein’s birthday

Happy Pi Day! It’s also Albert Einstein’s birthday.

By Andrea Peterson, Updated: March 14 at 10:15 am

Today is March 14th, or 3/14. And that makes it Pi Day — the day where math nerds across the country gather to eat pie and discuss the importance of numbers. But did you know it’s also Albert Einstein’s birthday? The theoretical physicist whose name has become synonymous with genius was born on March 14, 1879, in what was then the Kingdom of Württemberg in the German Empire. Read more of this post

TED has revolutionised the ideas industry, in part by putting old wine in new bottles

TED has revolutionised the ideas industry, in part by putting old wine in new bottles

Mar 15th 2014 | From the print edition

THE first TED conference in 1984 was such a damp squib that the organisers did not hold a second one for six years. Today TED (which for the uninitiated stands for Technology, Education, Design) is the Goliath of the ideas industry. The heart of the enterprise is TED’s twice-yearly conference at which big ideas are presented in short, punchy talks. On March 17th-21st around 1,200 TEDsters will gather in Vancouver to listen to the likes of Bill Gates and Nicholas Negroponte celebrating TED’s 30th birthday and thinking great thoughts. The conference has also spawned an array of businesses, albeit not-for-profit ones. Read more of this post

Why Good Managers Are So Rare

Why Good Managers Are So Rare

by Randall Beck and James Harter  |   8:00 AM March 13, 2014

Gallup has found that one of the most important decisions companies make is simply whom they name manager. Yet our analysis suggests that they usually get it wrong. In fact, Gallup finds that companies fail to choose the candidate with the right talent for the job 82% of the time. Read more of this post

Should You Automate Your Life So that You Can Work Harder?

Should You Automate Your Life So that You Can Work Harder?

by Sarah Green  |   10:56 AM March 13, 2014

Would you pay someone in the Philippines to answer your email for you — even your personal messages? Or hire strangers on the internet to plan your spouse’s big birthday party? Or throw meat, vegetables, and butter into a blender and call it dinner? Read more of this post

How to Deal with Unfamiliar Situations

How to Deal with Unfamiliar Situations

by Srini Pillay  |   10:00 AM March 13, 2014

Have you recently switched jobs or positions and wondered “What’s going on here?” Have you been given a new task or a new technology that’s completely unfamiliar? Are you working with people who come from different backgrounds and not really sure if you’re all on the same page? Dealing with unfamiliar situations and people is challenging, of course, because we don’t yet have everything figured out. Over time, we adjust. But how can we get better at dealing with the new and unfamiliar—from the start? Read more of this post