Science

NEW WHOOP RESEARCH ON EXERCISE & SLEEP I am proud to share that WHOOP research has just been published in Nature Portfolio's Nature Communications. Our study analyzed 4.3 million nights of sleep across nearly 15,000 WHOOP members to answer a simple but important question: does working out at night hurt your sleep? Here’s what we found: -Strenuous evening workouts can delay sleep onset, shorten sleep duration, and reduce sleep quality. -Elevated nocturnal heart rate and decreased heart rate variability were observed post high-strain evening exercise. -Importantly, workouts concluding at least 4 hours before bedtime showed no negative impact on sleep. So what? If you're training hard but not sleeping well, *when* you work out may matter just as much as how you work out. This is one of the largest studies ever published on exercise and sleep - and it’s only possible because of continuous WHOOP data and our commitment to research that improves human performance. Congratulations to Emily Capodilupo, our SVP of Research, Algorithms, and Data, and her team, as well as our collaborators at Monash and Harvard. Full article in Nature: https://lnkd.in/e6MXE85u

"Sheep living among rows of solar panels spend more time grazing, benefit from more nutritious food, rest more and appear to experience less heat stress, compared with nearby sheep in empty fields." Agrivoltaics - combining land for solar and agriculture - brings a number of benefits, whether the land is used for grazing sheep or growing crops. For the solar: ➡️ The sheep keep vegetation and weeds down. This reduces the need for mowing, reduces cases of vegetation obscuring the solar panels (which reduces output) and reduces fire risk. ➡️ Crops underneath solar panels can reduce the temperature of the panels, stopping them getting so hot that their efficiency drops off. For the agriculture: ➡️ Water conservation. The panels reduce evaporation from the soil, reducing water needs for irrigation. This is especially important in arid or drought-prone areas. ➡️ The shade benefits some crops, reducing heat stress and preventing excessive water loss. And the sheep benefit as well. A 4-year trial in New South Wales found sheep grazing under solar panels produced better wool and more of it. Overall for the farmer it's an additional source of income by increasing the yield from the land. Yes it's not suitable for all crops or farming practices, but in general it's a big win-win. What is really interesting though, is that a significant "solar grazing" industry is emerging in the US, where farmers are becoming vegetation managers. They rent out flocks of sheep to solar farm owners and the sheep trim the vegetation 🐑 PS - Yes the sheep in this photo look ready for a rotation! Photo and quote are from the New Scientist. Link to article is below. #energy #sustainability #renewables #energytransition

We may be standing at a moment in time for Quantum Computing that mirrors the 2017 breakthrough on transformers – a spark that ignited the generative AI revolution 5 years later. With recent advancements from Google, Microsoft, IBM and Amazon in developing more powerful and stable quantum chips, the trajectory of QC is accelerating faster than many of us expected.   Google’s Sycamore and next gen Willow chips are demonstrating increasing fidelity. Microsoft’s pursuit of topological qubits using Majorana particles promises longer coherence times and IBM’s roadmap is pushing towards modular error corrected systems. These aren’t just incremental steps, they are setting the stage for scalable, fault tolerant quantum machines.   Quantum systems excel at simulating the behavior of molecules and materials at atomic scale, solving optimization problems with exponentially large solution spaces and modeling complex probabilistic systems – tasks that could take classical supercomputers millennia. For example, accurately simulating protein folding or discovering new catalysts for carbon capture are well within quantum’s potential reach.   If scalable QC is just five years away, now is the time to ask : What would you do differently today, if quantum was real tomorrow ?. That question isn’t hypothetical – it’s an invitation to start rethinking foundational problems in chemistry, logistics, finance, AI and cryptography.   Of course building quantum systems is notoriously hard. Fragile qubits, error correction and decoherence remain formidable challenges. But globally public and private institutions are pouring resources into cracking these problems. I was in LA today visiting the famous USC Information Sciences Institute where cutting edge work on QC is underway and the energy is palpable.   This feels like a pivotal moment. One where future shaping ideas are being tested in real labs. Just as with AI, the future belongs to those preparing for it now. QC Is an area of emphasis at Visa Research and I hope it is part of how other organizations are thinking about the future too.

Business Models as Drivers of the SDGs 🌎 Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals requires more than commitment—it demands viable models that integrate social and environmental value into core business operations. Across sectors, companies are already piloting and scaling solutions that contribute directly to global priorities. These include clean energy leasing for low-income areas, digital health tools for underserved populations, and inclusive platforms that connect small producers to formal markets. Access remains a common thread. Whether through vocational e-learning, low-cost water purification systems, or mobile connectivity for remote regions, business models are helping close persistent service gaps. At the infrastructure level, innovation is driving systemic improvements: smart urban planning, circular retail platforms, eco-design consultancies, and waste-to-resource processing are just a few examples of how core services can evolve. Technology is enabling scale. Traceability tools, digital marketplaces, and remote diagnostics are being applied to food systems, education, health, and employment—amplifying reach and lowering barriers. Circularity is gaining traction across product and service design. Models promoting reuse, bulk sales, and lifecycle consulting are reducing environmental impacts while tapping into changing consumer preferences. Partnership is emerging as a critical enabler. Initiatives that combine public, private, and civil society capabilities—through data sharing, co-investment, or joint governance—are unlocking new capacities. Business models aligned with the SDGs are not side projects. They represent a shift in how value is created and measured in a resource-constrained, rapidly changing world. #sustainability #sustainable #business #esg #SDGs

#Germany plans to increase #offshorewind capacity by 700%. But can we do it smarter - and save billions along the way? Check-out our new study 📃 ⚙️ 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐠𝐞: 70 GW offshore wind by 2045 (vs <10 GW today) ‼️ 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐢𝐬𝐬𝐮𝐞: Connecting this with electricity cables alone could cost €160 billion In a new study for AquaVentus we explore an alternative: offshore sector coupling - combining #electricity & #hydrogen connections in the far-offshore North Sea. 💡 𝐒𝐭𝐮𝐝𝐲 𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐮𝐥𝐭𝐬 1) 𝐎𝐟𝐟𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐬𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐨𝐫 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐩𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐬𝐚𝐯𝐞𝐬 𝐮𝐩 𝐭𝐨 €1.7 𝐛𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐩𝐞𝐫 𝐲𝐞𝐚𝐫, much more than 'electricity-only overplanting'. Why? Slightly higher cost for putting the electrolysis offshore and for building an offshore hydrogen pipeline are overcompensated by significant savings in offshore cable cost. See graph below. 2) Offshore sector coupling reduces curtailment, boosts cable utilisation, and delivers more renewables to consumers. 3) Results are robust across scenarios & assumptions. ⏭️ 𝐂𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 Turning this saving potential into reality will require new thinking on infrastructure design, regulation, and investment. See our policy recommendations. 👉 Report here: https://lnkd.in/eptwyyvP Curious to hear your thoughts!

📢 Just released: OECD Health at a Glance 2025 OECD countries have largely recovered from the pandemic. Healthcare quality and access have also been improving. However, financial pressures are growing, and despite the high risk of future health crisis and that investments in prevention are highly cost-effective at tackling risk factors, spending on prevention is back to pre-pandemic levels, showing that we have not fully learnt the lessons from COVID-19. Key insights: ➡️ Life expectancy has recovered to at least pre-pandemic levels in 25 of 38 OECD countries, reflecting resilience and the impact of health system responses. ➡️ In 2024 OECD countries spent around 9.3% of their GDP on health on average. This is an increase from 2023, but still below the 2020 high during the COVID-19 pandemic. ➡️ Spending on prevention has dropped back to the low pre-pandemic levels at around 3% of total health spending on average, leaving health systems once again vulnerable to future health crises. ➡️ Primary healthcare spending accounts for 14% of total health spending, also largely unchanged over time. ➡️ 20% of all doctors were foreign-trained across the OECD in 2023, as countries face significant labour shortages in the health sector. ➡️ On average across OECD countries, 87% of patients with chronic conditions rated the care they received positively, and 78% trusted the last healthcare professional they saw, but there is room for improvement for patients with more complex needs. ➡️ 19% of adults in the OECD are obese, and 14.8% report smoking daily, putting them at greater personal risk while increasing pressure on health systems and economies. ➡ 44% of people in the lowest income bracket report a long-term chronic condition, compared to only 28% in the highest income bracket. ➡️ Although women live longer than men, they also spend more years in poor health, spending 6.3 years with activity limitations after age 60 compared to 5 years for men. Look at this year’s edition and the latest data on life expectancy, risk factors for health, healthcare quality, and health system resources. 🔗 Read the new publication to learn more: https://lnkd.in/enuTVy4s

As grid operators and planners deal with a wave of new large loads on a resource-constrained grid, we need fresh approaches beyond just expecting reduced electricity use under stress (e.g. via recent PJM flexible load forecast or via Texas SB 6). While strategic curtailment has become a popular talking point for connecting large loads more quickly and at lower cost, this overlooks a more flexible, grid-supportive strategy for large load operators. Especially for loads that cannot tolerate any load curtailment risk (like certain #datacenters), co-locating #battery #energy storage systems (BESS) in front of the load merits serious consideration. This shifts the paradigm from “reduce load at utility’s command” to “self-manage flexibility.” It’s BYOB – Bring Your Own Battery and put it in front of the load. Studies have shown that if a large load agrees to occasional grid-triggered curtailment, this unlocks more interconnection capacity within our current grid infrastructure. But a BYOB approach can unlock value without the compromise of curtailment, essentially allowing a load to meet grid flexibility obligations while staying online. Why do this? For data centers (DC’s), it’s about speed to market and enhanced reliability. The avoidance of network upgrade delays and costs, along with the value of reliability, in many cases will justify the BESS expense. The BYOB approach decouples flexibility from curtailment risk with #energystorage. Other benefits of BYOB include: -Increasing the feasible number of interconnection locations. -Controlling coincident peak costs, demand charges, and real-time price spikes. -Turning new large loads into #grid assets by improving load shape and adding the ability to provide ancillary services. No solution is perfect. Some of the challenges with the BYOB approach include: -The load developer bears the additional capital and operational cost of the BESS. -Added complexity: Integrating a BESS with the grid on one side and a microgrid on the other is more complex than simply operating a FTM or BTM BESS. -Increased need for load coordination with grid operators to maintain grid reliability. The last point – large loads needing to coordinate with grid operators - is coming regardless. A recent NERC white paper shows how fast-growing, high intensity loads (like #AI, crypto, etc.) bring new #electricty reliability risks when there is no coordination. The changing load of a real DC shown in the figure below is a good example. With more DC loads coming online, operators would be severely challenged by multiple >400 MW loads ramping up or down with no advanced notice. BYOB’s can manage this issue while also dealing with the high frequency load variations seen in the second figure. References in comments. 

Researchers at Johns Hopkins University have created a revolutionary protein “switch” that tricks cancer cells into manufacturing their own chemotherapy drugs, causing them to self-destruct while sparing healthy cells. Instead of delivering drugs directly to cancer cells, this method uses a harmless “prodrug” that only becomes activated inside cancer cells when the switch detects specific cancer markers. The switch is made by combining two proteins: one that senses cancer markers and another from yeast that converts the inactive prodrug into a potent cancer-killing drug. When the switch detects cancer, it activates the drug inside that cell, turning the cancer cell into a drug factory that destroys itself. To work, the switch must enter cancer cells either by delivering the protein itself or by inserting the gene that makes the protein, allowing the cancer cell’s own machinery to produce the switch. Afterward, patients receive the inactive chemotherapy prodrug, which becomes activated only inside cancer cells. This new approach focuses on producing the drug inside cancer cells rather than just delivering it to them, which could kill more cancer cells while reducing harmful side effects on healthy tissue. Lab tests on human colon and breast cancer cells have shown promise, and animal testing is expected to start within a year. While still early, this technique offers a radically different way to attack cancer. #PNAS #RMScienceTechInvest

The scale of the destruction is simply unimaginable. The Annelies Ilena - which I've discussed before - is a giant factory ship that can capture 400,000 kilograms of fish in a single day. It's a giant death factory. But that's not all, supertrawlers have a much bigger impact. 1. Overfishing and Ecosystem Collapse Super trawlers and bottom trawlers contribute to the overexploitation of fish stocks, depleting populations faster than they can recover. The Bay of Bengal study found that increasing trawler activity leads to habitat destruction and threatens the entire marine food pyramid, including top predators. 2. Bycatch and Marine Biodiversity Loss Trawling is highly non-selective, capturing and killing many non-target species (e.g., sea turtles, dolphins, sharks). A review on trawling and bycatch highlighted that endangered species often fall victim to these nets, and that bycatch reduction devices are not widely used. 3. Habitat Destruction and Seafloor Damage Bottom trawling scrapes the ocean floor, causing irreversible damage to benthic ecosystems. Studies on seabed trawling found that it flattens marine habitats, reducing biodiversity by eliminating slow-growing species like corals and shellfish. Trawling in the Mediterranean (Gioia Canyon) led to the destruction of vulnerable marine ecosystems like deep-sea coral forests. 4. Changes in Seafloor Chemistry and Ocean Health Trawling disturbs the seabed’s natural biogeochemistry, affecting nutrient cycles and oxygen levels. A study in the North Sea found that repeated trawling leads to long-term disruptions in nutrient cycling, causing habitat degradation. 5. Impact on Seabirds and Marine Mammals Seabirds alter their natural foraging behaviours due to fishery discards from trawlers, increasing their dependence on human activities. A study in the Mediterranean found that seabirds’ movement patterns were significantly altered when trawlers were active, affecting their long-term survival. 6. The Scale of Trawling’s Impact Studies estimate that bottom trawlers disturb up to 15 million square kilometres of seabed annually - an area 150 times greater than global deforestation. 7. What Can We Do? - More protected marine areas, which when enforced (many of them aren't!), can help ecosystems recover. - Introduce stricter fishing quotas. - Change behaviours so people eat a LOT less fish. Image via Leon Simons SOURCES: - Trawling's a Drag for Marine Life (Malakoff, 2002). - Environmental Impact of Trawling in the Bay of Bengal (Das, 2018). - Trawling and By-catch: Implications on Marine Ecosystems (Kumar & Deepthi, 2006). - Fishery Discards and Seabird Movement Patterns (Bartumeus et al., 2010). - Impact of Trawl Fisheries on Marine Benthic Biogeochemistry (Percival, 2004). - Effects of Trawling on Coral and Sea Pens (Pierdomenico et al., 2018). - Assessing and Mitigating Bottom Trawling Impacts (Rijnsdorp et al., 2017).

Early in my legal career, I thought being a great in-house lawyer meant knowing every risk, drafting perfect contracts, and getting deep into the intricacies of law. I was wrong. Because no matter how solid my legal work was, I kept running into the same problems ·      Contract negotiations dragging on forever. ·      Business teams looping in legal way too late. ·      Last-minute fire drills because no one aligned expectations upfront. Then I was fortunate to have started working with fantastic project managers. I understood, that this wasn’t a legal problem. It was a project management problem. Here’s the difference in mindset that every in house counsel should consider: 🔹 Traditional lawyer: “We need to secure ourselves against every risk before moving forward.” 🔹 Legal project manager: “We’ll flag the risks, assess impact and probability, align with stakeholders on how to manage it and keep things moving.” 🔹 Traditional lawyer: “We’ll review the contract and get back to you.” 🔹 Legal project manager: “Here’s what we need from you, our timelines and key stakeholders to involve.” 🔹 Traditional lawyer: "This deadline isn’t realistic." 🔹 Legal project manager: "We’ll prioritize the pieces that are on the critical path, break it down, and hit the most important items first." What I learned (and what I’m still learning): 📌 Define the scope upfront. Without clear scope you will waste a lot of time doing double work. PMs always define scope first. 📌 Stakeholder alignment is everything. Assumptions kill deals. PMs confirm before they act. 📌 Overcommunicate before things go wrong. Check-ins, shared timelines, expectation-setting. It’s not a waste of time. It’s simple, but it saves so much legal chaos. The results? ✅ Contracts move faster. ✅ Fewer legal bottlenecks. ✅ Legal is a partner - not a roadblock. The best in-house lawyers don’t just think like lawyers. They lead like project managers.