News and Prophecy Staff

So says famed economist and advisor to presidents, Nouriel Roubini (Newsweek, October 13, 2022). Nicknamed “Dr. Doom” by Wall Street, Dr. Roubini released a new book in October titled MegaThreats: Ten Dangerous Trends That Imperil Our Future, And How to Survive Them. Leading up to the book’s release, Dr.

According to a recent study in Nature’s journal Scientific Reports, a “growing body of empirical evidence is revealing the benefits of nature for mental health, including higher mental wellbeing and lower risk of mental illness.” The study of over 1,200 people asked them to record their mental and emotional wellbeing in real time during and following exposure to birds, such as watching or hearing them.

Japan has had a pacifist stance since World War II. Yet with China’s massive military buildup and territorial expansion in the South China Sea and North Korea’s overt missile testing, Japan is being moved to expand its military. In an unprecedented move, the island nation will double its military budget by 2027, from 1 to 2 percent of its GDP, in line with the higher level expected of NATO members. Japan will focus in part on “counter-strike” capabilities and buy hundreds of U.S.-made missiles to help reach this goal.

Scavenging animals are often looked down upon as dirty creatures. Yet, they play a vital role in balancing and protecting the ecosystem, and “the more scientists find out more about these consumers of the dead, the clearer it becomes that we should be valuing and protecting scavengers far more than we do today.… By devouring carcasses, they prevent pathogens from spreading to humans and wildlife and contaminants from leaching into the environment” (BBC, December 8, 2022).

As technology continues to advance, one cutting-edge area focuses on brain-computer interfaces, or BCI (The Conversation, December 2, 2022). This new technology has many applications from the biomedical field to defense arenas. However, ethicists fear the technology is rushing forward while crucial ethical questions remain unanswered.