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Category: business

Food is big business.

In the U.S., the weight-loss industry is worth $78 billion.

Meat is worth $218 billion.

Sugar processing is worth $11 billion.

Soybeans are worth $65 billion.

As a point of comparison, the U.S. cigarette industry is worth about $50 billion.

We are kidding ourselves if we think that corporate interests have no effect on nutrition research. For example, Coca-Cola spent “$132.8 million on scientific research and partnerships over a five-year period” from 2010 to 2015 as a part of a campaign to absolve sweetened beverages of contributing to America’s obesity epidemic. (And it worked.)

In 2003, when I was roughly 14, my parents sat my brother and me down at the kitchen table. “We’re going to make a lifestyle change as a family,” they said.

I already knew that “lifestyle change” was code for “diet.” My parents—like many well-educated, upper-middle-class Americans—were frequently reevaluating their food choices throughout my childhood. I can remember phases of forgoing beef, milk, and fish, all for fears of lifestyle diseases. This time, our newest lifestyle change was coming for fruit.

In pace with every other time we’d changed our diet, my father presented a book: Dr. Atkins’ New Diet Revolution. My brother wasn’t old enough to read it, but I was.

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Moore’s Law is dead, right? Think again.

Although the historical annual improvement of about 40% in central processing unit performance is slowing, the combination of CPUs packaged with alternative processors is improving at a rate of more than 100% per annum. These unprecedented and massive improvements in processing power combined with data and artificial intelligence will completely change the way we think about designing hardware, writing software and applying technology to businesses.

Every industry will be disrupted. You hear that all the time. Well, it’s absolutely true and we’re going to explain why and what it all means.

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In recent years, Western brands including Nestlé (NSRGY), Impossible and Beyond Meat (BYND) have tapped into a growing appetite for such food and drinks in the West. Now, they’re headed east, raising fresh funding to target growth in the region, rolling out products specifically created for Asian consumers and setting up new factories on the ground.

Milo chocolate milk has been hugely popular in Southeast Asia for decades. Now the breakfast and teatime favorite is about to get shaken up — the cocoa powder will be offered as a dairy-free, ready-made beverage.

The product is one of Nestlé’s newest plant-based inventions, and it will be launched in the region this week, the company told CNN Business. Starting Thursday, the drink will hit supermarkets in Malaysia, and the Swiss multinational plans to sell it in other countries soon. (The company already offers plant-based Milo in Australia and New Zealand, but in the traditional powder form.)

“We are all about giving choices,” Juan Aranols, Nestlé’s Malaysia and Singapore chief, said in an interview. “We felt that with this growing interest for plant-based products, why not give the Milo taste everybody loves in a solution that is plant-based?”

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Seawater is raising salt levels in coastal woodlands along the entire Atlantic Coastal Plain, from Maine to Florida. Huge swaths of contiguous forest are dying. They’re now known in the scientific community as “ghost forests.”

Trekking out to my research sites near North Carolina’s Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge, I slog through knee-deep water on a section of trail that is completely submerged. Permanent flooding has become commonplace on this low-lying peninsula, nestled behind North Carolina’s Outer Banks. The trees growing in the water are small and stunted. Many are dead.

Throughout coastal North Carolina, evidence of forest die-off is everywhere. Nearly every roadside ditch I pass while driving around the region is lined with dead or dying trees.

As an ecologist studying wetland response to sea level rise, I know this flooding is evidence that climate change is altering landscapes along the Atlantic coast. It’s emblematic of environmental changes that also threaten wildlife, ecosystems, and local farms and forestry businesses.

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HELSINKI — Guangzhou is developing a major space cluster in the city by hosting new projects including the new headquarters for the space business of Geely Technology Group.

Geely, a major automaker which owns Volvo Cars and part of Daimler AG, is to establish a space headquarters in Nansha district to oversee development of its satellite and communications technologies, local government said March 30.

Geely is developing a low Earth orbit constellation for navigation, connectivity and communications needed for self-driving cars. The group recently gained approval to begin manufacturing satellites.

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Machine learning (ML) models are only as good as the data you feed them. That’s true during training, but also once a model is put in production. In the real world, the data itself can change as new events occur and even small changes to how databases and APIs report and store data could have implications on how the models react. Since ML models will simply give you wrong predictions and not throw an error, it’s imperative that businesses monitor their data pipelines for these systems.

That’s where tools like Aporia come in. The Tel Aviv-based company today announced that it has raised a $5 million seed round for its monitoring platform for ML models. The investors are Vertex Ventures and TLV Partners.

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A $2 million federal grant will enable Houston-based PolyVascular to launch human trials of what it hails as the first polymer-based heart valve for children.

In conjunction with the grant, Dr. Will Clifton has joined the medical device company as chief operating officer. He will oversee the grant as principal investigator, and will manage the company’s operations and R&D. Clifton is president and co-founder of Houston-based Enventure, a medical innovation incubator and education hub. He previously was senior director of medical affairs at Houston-based Procyrion, a clinical-stage medical device company.

PolyVascular’s Phase II grant came from the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program, which promotes technological projects.

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But whenever companies experiment with a new technology that has the potential to transform entire business models, like electricity, it can take decades before changes yield real-world results, Mr. Brynjolfsson said, speaking on Wednesday at The Wall Street Journal Pro AI Executive Forum. The Digital Economy Lab is part of Stanford University’s Institute for Human-Centered AI.

Companies leading the charge in adopting AI tools and platforms are taking time to target spending in the right digital capabilities and talent, he said.

“We’re having a few superstars doing really well,” Mr. Brynjolfsson said. “But the whole reason it takes so long in the first place is that it’s not easy.” He expects to see a “productivity J-curve” as companies figure out how best to deploy AI in their daily operations.

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The companies attempting to avoid transparency.

Jerry Lehnert.

· 1tSpohntsnorted ·

In just over a month, the state’s largest business lobby has filed another lawsuit against the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources over so-called “forever chemicals” known as PFAS — this time for conducting PFAS sampling in wastewater.

Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce (WMC) filed a complaint on Monday in Jefferson County Circuit Court against the DNR, claiming the agency is unlawfully seeking to sample wastewater for PFAS that’s released from industrial and municipal facilities. The business group argues the DNR lacks explicit authority to conduct such sampling among facilities that operate under wastewater discharge permits.

WMC wants to prevent the DNR from collecting samples and releasing the data to the public. Jefferson County Judge William F. Hue granted a temporary restraining order on Monday to bar the agency from sampling for PFAS.

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A handful of passports are already in the works, including two in Las Vegas. It is not yet clear if any Las Vegas businesses will limit access solely to vaccinated guests.

Las Vegas is no stranger to exclusive VIP lists, but there’s a new way of limiting guest access coming to town: vaccine passports.

These digital credential systems can show whether someone has been vaccinated against COVID-19 and can help businesses limit access to those who have been inoculated. The systems were designed to increase health and safety at various venues, but experts warn of pushback over concerns on privacy and personal choice.

“What we’re seeing throughout the pandemic is people guarding their personal rights, and I think a lot of people will find that intrusive in their day to day,” said Jonathan Day, an associate professor of hospitality and tourism management at Purdue University.

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