People who are able to change course midstream are exceptionally resilient, both emotionally and professionally. Throughout her life, Bettijo Hirschi has quietly and regularly accomplished both, a life characterized more by reinvention than by notoriety. As a project analyst for the Department of Defense, she began her career in the policy-heavy hallways of Washington, D.C. But she yearned for color even in that regimented setting. Using her creative instincts, she completely changed her career path, going into event production, branding, design, and photography. Such a transition executed with such a consistent sense of purpose is uncommon. However, Bettijo’s website, bettijo.com,…
Author: errica
Just after the Zamboni completes its last pass, a certain silence descends on a rink, leaving behind a surface so spotless that it gleams in the overhead lights. It seems much like a blank page awaiting a decision. The same rink that required speed, toughness, and loyalty also subtly taught Jesse Kortuem what not to say aloud, so that moment, which at first represented pure focus and routine, gradually became tinged with uneasiness. Growing up in Minnesota, hockey served more as a family language than a pastime. It was spoken fluently in early mornings, accompanied by bruised shins and the…
Researchers on board the JOIDES Resolution gathered the core samples, which emerged from approximately 2,600 feet below the seafloor. The silt initially appeared to be dense, gray, and ancient, just like any other. However, the inhabitants had not moved in more than 100 million years. Those bacteria were carefully brought back to life by Yuki Morono and his colleagues at JAMSTEC in the summer of 2020. They were neither dead cells nor preserved fossils. Despite being inactive, they were living things. After being given nutrition in the lab, they woke up and started growing. Nor at a leisurely pace. They…
“What if I could get my money back?” was a fringe idea at first, something you might hear at a school café between sips of expensive coffee. Now, the idea of tuition reimbursements for students who are unhappy with their degrees has subtly started to transition from a cafeteria complaint to a proposed policy. Universities have historically protected themselves with policy manuals and fine print. A reimbursement? That applied to facility closures, administrative mistakes, or early withdrawals. However, the argument is increasingly about unfulfilled expectations rather than missed lectures or broken promises. Students want to know if they will have…
They initially thought the microscope had malfunctioned. A platinum strip as thin as a human hair was being tugged rhythmically 200 times per second in a vacuum chamber at Sandia National Labs. As predicted, small cracks appeared along the stress lines over time. Surprisingly, though, the fissures did not deepen. They were gone. As the fractured metal bonded itself back together, scientists stared in amazement. No obstruction, no glue, and no heat. Atoms simply realign, form a link across the opening, and seal a tear, just like a muscle fiber does after being strained. Despite being long-theorized, the phenomena had…
Using the accuracy of a laser beam to manipulate sound has a subtly revolutionary effect. It is shaped where it lands, steered, and bent rather than muffled or contained. A lens that achieves precisely that has been developed by scientists exploring with acoustic metasurfaces, paving the way for a future in which noise is directed like a spotlight rather than merely controlled. Ultrasound and designed surfaces work in concert to create the system. Two beams of high frequency, which are inaudible to the human ear, intersect in midair. Sound emerges at the intersection of them. Unlike a traditional speaker, this…
A blinded guy named Fabrizio extends his prosthetic hand over a number of bottles arranged on a table in a quiet facility nestled away in Lausanne. Each has a varied temperature; some are room temperature, others are chilly, and some are hot. He touches them one by one, pauses a while, and then identifies which is which. Visual cues are absent. He is guided only by his senses. What’s amazing? His prosthetic hand is sensing as well as moving. With MiniTouch, a palm-sized add-on, the user can sense a sensation in the phantom limb by translating temperature from a robotic…
There has been a noticeable shift in the tone of tech conferences throughout Europe, with the focus now being on rewriting the terms of engagement rather than chasing Silicon Valley. The days of attempting to replicate Palo Alto’s startup culture in Helsinki or Berlin are long gone. It is being replaced by something more subdued, stable, and grounded in many respects. This change wasn’t abrupt. Years of trial and error led to its gradual emergence as researchers, policymakers, and founders realized that replicating Silicon Valley’s strategy—fast exits, breakneck expansion, and venture-first economics—wasn’t simply useless in this context. It was not…
The language surrounding university partnerships sounded especially precise, even calculated, on an autumn morning in Albany, as if legislators had determined that ambiguous promises were no longer adequate. Instead of a single statement, what caught our attention was a pattern emerging across agencies, sectors, and campuses, with each piece supporting the others with remarkably comparable goals. New York has viewed higher education as an asset that should actively create economic value rather than merely preserve information over the previous ten years. The state has started to resemble a meticulously planned system, moving like a swarm of bees where individual efforts…
Sweden provides a masterclass if you’ve ever seen a nation subtly improve itself while others argue over how. It invests in more than simply equipment and innovation centers. It makes investments in connections between academics and technicians, students and entrepreneurs, and manufacturing lines and policymakers. And the bond-building is working incredibly well. One notable example is the Engineer 4.0 program, which aims to retrain engineers who are currently employed by small and medium-sized businesses. It provides adaptable online courses on sensor-driven control systems, cloud computing, and smart manufacturing. Professionals are updated—directly, affordably, and according to their schedule—instead of being uprooted.…