Hearing Loss

It's not just old folks who suffer hearing loss. Just by listening to music at what you probably think is a normal level, or hanging out in loud bars, nightclubs and music and sporting events, you can permanently damage your hearing. The cold hard fact is that you cannot get it back once you lose your hearing. Most people do not realize the damage they are doing to their ears until it is too late and there is a serious problem. There should definitely be more education about this issue because so many people listen to music using their devices and mobile applications. You should also get noise canceling earbud or better yet some headphones so that you do not have to turn up the sound to hear against the ambient noise. It is also important to take listening breaks and not listen continuously for hours. When was the last time you got your hearing checked out?

Next Gen Storage: Your DNA

Your whole life is on that USB stick, from your data to your pictures to that awesome web development project. The sad truth is that these devices will not last. The solution being that data could be stored in something that we all already have: our DNA. So compact and complex are its strands that just 1 gram of DNA is theoretically capable of containing all the data of internet giants such as Google and Facebook, with room to spare. DNA can be fossilized and preserved for thousands of years. So far, scientists have extracted and sequenced the genome of a 110,000-year-old polar bear and more recently a 700,000-year-old horse. The cost of encoding just 83Kb of data cost about $2,000, making it a relatively expensive process, but that price will come down over time. Advances in technology for medical analysis are likely to help with this. Just look at genome sequencing and how much the price has dropped. There is so much data being generated that it is not a question of how long it is stored but is there is enough room for it. This will be very interesting to see how it develops.

Being vs Doing

We live in a world where we are constantly not happy with where we are and have a need for change. We need better jobs, possessions, latest tech. This puts us in a perpetual state of anxiety and stress where we see a constant lack in ourselves. Being is a sense of feeling present to exactly who you are in this moment, rather than doing something to try and make improvements because you perceive yourself or your life as imperfect. There are no mobile applications required for this either. The very first thing to do is to figure out what is most important to you. Then you need to take steps to honors those values and stop doing whatever it is that is in conflict with who you are. Next, you need to choose to be happy because it comes from within and not from an external source like a job. You might be thinking that it is easier said than done, right? Nope. Focus and honor your strengths. Stop telling yourself that you need to be good at everything and focus instead on what lights you up. Taking these steps will get you well on your way to coming into self-actualization. So just be.