thoughts of food

Indoor farming is hard. 

The promise of indoor farming is an attractive one: super-efficient land and water usage + hyper-local food. Sadly, most companies that have tried it have failed, including Chicago’s FarmedHere. Fast Company profiles Plenty, which is taking a run at a […]

big ideas

Human DNA to be synthesized within 5 years? 

The Human Genome Project was a huge win for science. It’s outcome: we are now able to read our DNA. Next up on the docket is writing our DNA. Dr. Jef Boeke is the director of the Institute for Systems Genetics […]

under the microscope

Placebos can work as medicine. 

Everyone knows that there’s a placebo effect in blind studies, where pills without active drugs still cause patients to feel better. Studies now find that this is true even if the patient knows the pill is a placebo. | learn more

tech, startups, internet

The unbundling of Excel. 

Some years back, someone made a graphic showing how each Craigslist category spawned today’s successful vertical marketplaces. In that sense, Excel might be the next Craigslist. “Need to calculate? Excel. How about a task list? Excel. How about a lightweight […]

tech, startups, internet

The next evolution of SEO. 

First came search engines. Then, came the profession of optimizing content for ranking in search engines. Then came the endless cat and mouse game of search engines updating algorithms, and optimizers updating content. This post on Hubspot Research discusses what […]