Innovation Hub

The American family is changing in many different ways. But perhaps one of the most significant is that, on average, American women are giving birth later. And birth rates have hit a 30-year low. In the early 1970s, the average age of first-time moms was 21… it’s now 26. The same trend is impacting fathers - their age has gone from 27 to 31 over the same time period. But why did this change happen? And what does it mean for our society, our economy, and our families? To find out, we talked to Caitlin Knowles Myers, an economist at Middlebury College who’s studied female fertility, and Claire Cain Miller, a correspondent for the New York Times who’s written extensively about the topic.

We constantly hear that technology is killing opportunities in the workplace. But reports by the World Economic Forum and Deloitte have shown that automation is creating — and will continue to create — millions of jobs in fields like sales, IT services, and big data. But to really know how tech is affecting our lives, experts like Daniel Theobald and Melissa Flagg say we need to focus less on the 30,000-foot view of the industry and more on what is going on at the ground level. We talk to Theobald, Vecna Robotics’ co-founder and Chief Innovation Officer as well as Flagg, the Northeast regional lead at the U.S. Army Research Laboratory, about how we should be taking a ground-up approach to America’s technological development.

In the 1990s, most of the world’s medicines were manufactured in the United States, Europe and Japan. Today, almost 80% of them come from China. In her book, “China Rx: Exposing The Risks Of America’s Dependence On China For Medicine,” Rosemary Gibson says that China is becoming the world’s pharmacy, but that development, she argues, comes with many risks.

Experiences of mental illness are common in the United States and behind each individual case is a history. In his book, Good Reasons for Bad Feelings: Insights from the Frontier of Evolutionary Psychiatry, Randolph Nesse, the director of the Center for Evolution and Medicine at Arizona State University, looks at emotional and mental disorders from an evolutionary perspective, and considers why natural selection left us with fragile minds.

Older, wiser and perhaps healthier? It may sound too good to be true, but Sue Armstrong, author of Borrowed Time: The Science of How and Why We Age, says that growing older doesn’t have to lead to infirmity. Science is finding ways to intervene in the aging process, and to improve the quality of our later years. After all, some organisms on Earth live for centuries, so there may be good models for rethinking and easing the process of getting older. Armstrong says that while there’s no magic elixir for aging, there is a more hopeful future ahead.

Should you be the best at one skill, or be pretty good at a bunch of different ones? David Epstein, the author of Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World, says that practicing one skill for 10,000 hours (as some have suggested) might not necessarily set you up to be the next Tiger Woods or the next chess grandmaster. But in a world where we’re constantly encountering new experiences, Epstein believes that the ability to take knowledge from one situation and apply it to another, to generalize, is what really pushes us ahead.

How would you describe your childhood? Did your parents have a laissez faire attitude, letting you run wild and free, or did they have more rigid rules, which dictated your life choices? Perhaps you’re now a parent yourself — which parenting approach have you chosen? Matthias Doepke, a professor of economics at Northwestern University, argues that we often assume that parenting is all about culture, and that the reason that those from different countries or backgrounds parent differently is specifically because of those backgrounds (varied religious, political, and geographical traditions). But, Doepke argues, economics is a far more significant driver of parenting. He’s the co-author of “Love, Money and Parenting - How Economics Explains the Way We Raise Our Kids,” and he tells us how income inequality largely shapes how we raise our children.

When it comes to children’s books I’m certain you’ll find There’s really one name that jumps first to mind That name as I’m sure you’ll deduce Could only belong to one Dr. Seuss And so we take a look At biographer Brian Jay Jones’ new book All about that good doctor’s work and creations, And it’s called “Becoming Dr. Seuss: Theodor Geisel And The Making of An American Imagination”.

Politics in the United States has long been dominated by two main groups – the Republicans and the Democrats – but, in recent decades, we’ve seen increasing divisiveness and conflict. Voters have become less concerned with what government does, and more interested in politicians they believe represent who they are. Lilliana Mason, assistant professor of Government and Politics at the University of Maryland, and Marc Hetherington, professor of Political Science at the University of North Carolina, discuss what happens when politics gets personal. And they consider the consequences for our democracy.

Traffic is awful. It causes pollution, it makes people stressed, it costs cities and drivers billions of dollars… and if you’ve ever sat in a car, inching along a packed highway, you understand the toll it takes. So, how do we fix it? According to UCLA’s Michael Manville, there are a lot of proposed solutions, but only one - yes, one - really works.

If you were asked to describe your personality, you might choose words such as “funny” and “outgoing,” or “shy” and “quiet.” But what if those were not quite the right words? The Myers-Briggs - which many of us have taken - promises to assess your personality, and assign you a specific “type.” In her book, The Personality Brokers: The Strange History of Myers-Briggs and the birth of Personality Testing, Merve Emre examines the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (which is its full name), and how it has transformed the way we think about ourselves and those around us.

If you have that gnawing feeling that you’re forgetting something, chances are you’re right. And it may not be your keys, but something a little bigger. César Hidalgo, director of MIT’s Collective Learning Group, explains how society experiences generational forgetting. Hidalgo says: even if you have a pristine memory, time greatly impacts the names, books, movies, and historical events that are common knowledge at any given moment. Researching how culture gets passed down (or doesn’t) from generation to generation can tell us more about why some famous people stay relevant, while others seem to fade away.

From the moment that Judith Grisel started drinking alcohol at age 13, she was hooked. For the next ten years, Grisel suffered from addiction, as she used drugs from marijuana to opiates to psychedelics. As a recovering addict and neuroscientist, Grisel learned that she was especially vulnerable because she was genetically predisposed to addiction. (She is one of many who are susceptible to the disease.) Grisel, a professor of psychology at Bucknell University and the author of “Never Enough: The Neuroscience and Experience of Addiction,” explains the effect of illicit drugs on the brain and what makes them so addictive.

Shortly after Michael Jackson died in 2009, Helen Brown, a music critic for the Daily Telegraph wrote that the Jackson 5’s 1969 single “I Want You Back,” is “certainly the fastest man-made route to pure joy.” And while Michael, Tito, Jermaine, Marlon, and Jackie may have stolen the spotlight, the group - like so many others - emerged from a hit factory created by a man named Berry Gordy Jr. Gordy founded Motown after stints as a boxer and as a worker in a Lincoln-Mercury plant. And he quickly turned the label into a force to be reckoned with, drawing on a formula of quality control he had learned at the auto factory, taking raw talent like Diana Ross and Smokey Robinson, and refining them into international stars. As a result, Motown became one of the most successful black-owned music companies in American history. We talk to music journalist Adam White, author of “Motown: The Sound of Young America,” about Gordy’s meteoric rise and his lasting legacy.

The Grinch’s is two sizes too small. Al Green wants to know how you can mend a broken one. You can destroy them, steal them, break them. They can pine or ache or wander. Suffice it to say, hearts are a big part of our culture. After all, though our kidneys are vital, there aren’t many pop songs about them. Still, as important as they are to our culture, our hearts are even more important to our health. Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United States, and chances are that you know someone who has been affected by heart issues. Dr. Sandeep Jauhar, the director of the Heart Failure Program at Long Island Jewish Medical Center and author of Heart: A History, takes a look at how we address heart health, and how we could do better.

Generally, patients have to show symptoms of a disease before they’re treated for it. But, increasingly, thanks to advances in precision medicine, some new treatments are focused on the prevention of diseases that people are most at risk for - and that risk is determined by their unique genetic data. While personalized medicine sounds great in principle, there are several challenges, including the cost. Antonio Regalado, senior editor of biomedicine for MIT Technology Review, and Carlos Bustamante, professor of biomedical data science, genetics, and biology at Stanford, talk to us about the past, present, and future of genetic data in health care.

How far would you go to make sure your food doesn’t taste bland? Would you cross the seven seas for cinnamon, like the British East India Company did? In the early 1600s, King James I of England needed cash. And he built on a charter that Queen Elizabeth I - his predecessor - had issued. What James did would, in modern times, be considered a breach of power. He allowed the East India Company to establish a virtual monopoly over trade with Asia and, in return, he asked for a share of the company’s profits. Mixing private and public interests may be frowned upon today, but the dividing line in the 17th century was a lot more ambiguous, according to Rupali Mishra, an associate professor of history at Auburn University and author of the book, “A Business of State: Commerce, Politics, and the Birth of the East India Company.”

Just about 40 years ago, a secret group of elite scientists, known as the Jasons, sounded the death knell for climate change. They had consulted a computer model that predicted the destabilizing effects of a warming earth - from droughts, to rising sea levels, to geopolitical conflicts. Their warnings reached the ears of politicians, and, ultimately, during his 1988 presidential campaign, George H. W. Bush pledged to solve the problem. But then the story shifted, and climate change was not addressed. Nathaniel Rich, a writer at large for the New York Times and author of Losing Earth: A Recent History, walks us through what happened, and explains how a non-partisan issue became deeply split along party lines.

If you’ve ever had an evil thought - or even a murder fantasy - you’re not alone. Julia Shaw, the author of “Evil: The Science Behind Humanity’s Dark Side” explains that most people have devilish notions sometimes. Shaw, a psychologist and research associate at University College London, says we all have the capacity for cruel deeds. She suggests that acknowledging our darker desires may in fact help us deconstruct and better understand the whole concept of evil. This understanding, Shaw believes, can make us think more broadly about criminality, and lead to a rethinking of our justice system.

Every day, it seems like there’s a new story about privacy: A Facebook hack that puts the private data of millions at risk. A years-long surveillance program of personal communications by the government. Endless concerns about how much of our lives we share on social media. With all this in the air, it can certainly feel like we have a lot less privacy nowadays. But is that really the case? Well, according to Vanderbilt professor Sarah Igo, author of The Known Citizen: A History of Privacy in Modern America, the answer is actually pretty complicated.

Twitter. Selfie-sticks. Reality TV. It can seem like our society is becoming more narcissistic and self-involved. (Just read a few of the boatload of articles and think-pieces on this topic) But are we really more self-centered? The answer involves Aristotle, Ayn Rand, and 80s-era California. At least, that’s according to Will Storr, author of the book, Selfie: How We Became Self-Obsessed and What It’s Doing To Us. He explains how our conception of self has changed throughout human history, and why we’re so self-involved today.

Economist John Quiggin wants to change the way we talk about millennials. That is, he thinks we should stop talking about them altogether. In a recent New York Times editorial, Quiggin argued that the notion of generations is a pop-culture myth. He thinks we should focus on how people are affected by more significant traits like class, gender, and age.

We all know of moonshots, a grand idea we can get behind. But we sat down with Safi Bahcall, a physicist and former biotech entrepreneur, to understand a counter term he came up with: loonshots. Bahcall claims many ideas and innovations, when they are first proposed, are seen as mere fantasies from the minds of slightly (or very) crazy people. From the telephone to the computer, several game-changing ideas were turned down — in fact, microwave radar, which detected German U-boats at sea and helped us gain the upper hand during WWII, also, initially, fell under the radar. Who knows how many countless, similar innovative ideas have been dismissed? In his new book, “Loonshots - How to Nurture the Crazy Ideas That Win Wars, Cure Diseases, and Transform Industries”, Bahcall wants to change the structure of how we accept and cultivate these possibly, life-changing ideas.

Technology has become more hands-free, thanks to voice-activated digital assistants like Alexa and Siri. Have a question? Ask away. But in the future it won’t be just a matter of using this technology to find out facts or to determine the best route home. James Vlahos, author of “Talk to Me - How Voice Computing Will Transform the Way We Live, Work and Think,” explains how companies are trying to make the Alexas and Siris of the world more sociable. Voice tech that can apply background knowledge and understand context will be able to have more complex conversations with users. Vlahos says that these devices will create a more human-like experience, and could be used in customer service, healthcare, counseling and industries which require a robot with a more social side.

It’s easy to see ourselves as separate from the animal kingdom, but Adam Rutherford, author of “Humanimal: How Homo sapiens Became Nature’s Most Paradoxical Creature - A New Evolutionary History,” believes that we aren’t as different as we might think. Fashion design, interacting with fire, and making multi-step plans all seem like qualities that are unique to humans. But according to Rutherford, species across the animal kingdom - from crabs to birds of prey - exhibit many of these complex behaviors too.

Buttons make the world go round. How else would you tell an elevator to whisk you up to the sixth floor, or get a candy bar out of a vending machine? Buttons are the simple interface for how we interact with more complex technology. They cover up the wires and inner workings of your TV and microwave, and make tech accessible at, you guessed it, the push of a button. Rachel Plotnick, author of “Power Button: A History of Pleasure, Panic, And the Politics of Pushing,” explains the origin of buttons, their role throughout history, and how they continue to evolve in our world today. We also have an update for our segment about WWI from a couple of weeks ago.

In 1957, Buddy Holly appeared on “The Ed Sullivan Show” on CBS, strumming his tunes on a Fender Stratocaster, which was casually slung across his body. The instrument had - and would - fundamentally change American culture and music. And, to a lot of people, it was a shock. But behind the technological innovations inherent in the solid-body electric guitar is a story of two friends and rivals, people whose legacies have been inscribed on the guitars they created. Leo Fender and Les Paul, though, had little idea of the new genre of music this invention would instigate: rock ‘n’ roll.

You might guess that the United States is the world’s biggest exporter of corn, but did you know that it is also one of the biggest exporters of blood? In fact, the U.S. exports more blood than it does corn, soybeans, or gold. More specifically, blood plasma - the yellow liquid that separates out, once your blood is in a tube or a bag - since it is a critical component in many pharmaceutical products and medicines. Rose George, author of “Nine Pints: A Journey Through the Money, Medicine, and Mysteries of Blood” walks us through the economics, science, and ethics behind the blood industry.

Talk to anyone who lived in New York City in the 1970s, and they will probably highlight the city’s widespread crime. Times Square wasn’t yet Disney-fied and Brooklyn hadn’t been taken over by hipsters. Most people agreed that New York was a dangerous place. But then something happened: murders, and violent crime in general, began to drop. And that trend wasn’t unique to New York: It happened in many places across America. So who do we have to thank for the crime decline? To find out, we talk with NYU sociology professor Patrick Sharkey about his book, “Uneasy Peace: The Great Crime Decline, the Renewal of City Life, and the Next War on Violence.”

Unless we’re relaxing on it at the beach, or kicking it out of our shoes, we probably don’t think too much about sand. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t important. Sand is a vital ingredient in concrete. And glass. And asphalt. It makes our modern, urban life possible. And our hunger for it is causing more and more trouble. Vince Beiser, author of The World in a Grain: The Story of Sand and How It Transformed Civilization, explains why sand matters, and how the quest to extract more of it is shaping the world.

Have you ever taken an IQ test? Think about the results. Did you do well? You might have gotten a high score, but, often, intelligence doesn’t have anything to do with rationality. There is a marked difference between the two, although we often conflate them. We talk with York University associate professor Maggie Toplak and Boston University professor Carey Morewedge about why even smart people do irrational things.

Obsessed with work, insensitive, socially detached, and neglectful of family and friends. Those may not be the most endearing qualities, but they are just a few of the common characteristics that longtime innovation researcher, Melissa Schilling found when studying some of the world’s most famous and prolific inventors in the fields of science and technology. Schilling, a professor of management and organizations at New York University’s Stern School of Business, explores the ingenuity of eight outstanding innovators, including Albert Einstein, Marie Curie, Steve Jobs, Elon Musk and more. She’s the author of, “Quirky: The Remarkable Story of the Traits, Foibles, and Genius of Breakthrough Innovators Who Changed the World.”

We all know the legacy that Sputnik had on U.S. science education. Washington poured more than a billion dollars into overhauling the U.S. science curriculum. But television was transformed too. According to Ingrid Ockert, a Haas Fellow at the Science History Institute and a NASA History Fellow, the television show “Continental Classroom” was launched as a direct response to the Sputnik challenge. Five days a week, “Continental Classroom” was broadcast into American homes to encourage and inspire budding scientific minds. From “Watch Mr. Wizard” to “Mythbusters,” lots of Americans have grown up watching various science television programs. Ockert walks us through how science has changed television, and how television has influenced science.

Are you a self-proclaimed germaphobe like President Trump? Well, if you think your home is sparkling clean, try walking around with a microscope. According to Rob Dunn, a professor of Applied Ecology at both North Carolina State University and the Natural History Museum of Denmark, we are surrounded by thousands of tiny species, living on every imaginable surface. And while some bacteria can be harmful, most just humbly co-exist with us... and some are more helpful than we know. In his book, “Never Home Alone: From Microbes to Milipedes, Camel Crickets, and Honeybees, the Natural History of Where We Live,” Dunn takes a safari through our homes, introducing us to these invisible creatures and explaining how, despite our fervent efforts to sanitize the world, we may be negatively affecting our own health.

In 21st century America, citizens assert their individual rights loud and clear. Media coverage shows that Americans defend, debate, and demand individual liberties, including freedom of speech and the right to bear arms. Yet just over 100 years ago, Americans valued the greater good of the country more than their personal freedoms, according to Christopher Capozzola, the author of “Uncle Sam Wants You: World War I and the Making of the Modern American Citizen.” Capozzola explains that the change from prioritizing one’s country to one’s self occurred during World War I. As the federal government gained more power during the First World War, its growing control was countered by a demand to protect individual rights, Capozzola says. The changing relationship between citizen and country would powerfully shape the society we now live in.

In a modern-day Mexican standoff, the U.S. and China are confronting each other over trade practices. The United States believes China has been luring away jobs and stealing American technology. But what if the issue isn’t that China is stealing innovations, but that it is out-innovating us? George Yip, a professor of marketing and strategy at Imperial College Business School in London thinks that the Chinese are no longer mere imitators but have become serious innovators in their own right. Ian Bremmer, president of Eurasia Group and GZERO Media, believes that the U.S. government has some valid complaints, but that China is nonetheless becoming increasingly competitive in the innovation game. Yip and Bremmer discuss China’s increasing dominance on the global stage, and consider what’s at stake for the U.S.

Spiders and grizzlies and snakes, oh my! Ask someone what they are afraid of, and the answer is likely to be something like a plane crash or shark attack. But the authors of the book “Worried?: Science Investigates Some of Life’s Common Concerns,” Eric Chudler and Lise Johnson explain why they believe we often waste our energy worrying about the wrong things. Chudler, a neuroscientist at the University of Washington and Johnson, an assistant professor of physician assistant studies at Rocky Vista University, say that we feel stressed out about things that are highly unlikely to happen. Instead, we should be more focused on seemingly mundane threats, they explain. Chudler and Johnson talk to us about the risk behind everything from aluminum to red wine, and share ways to take control of the things we fear.

If you’re reading this on your smartphone, it might be time to reevaluate how much time you spend in front of a screen. Author Cal Newport offers a road map toward digital minimalism. Then, how did American capitalism become so unequal? And where is it headed? Washington Post columnist Steven Pearlstein thinks it’s time for a change.

Think you might need a digital detox? You’re not alone. It’s becoming more and more of a trend to take time away from our online lives. Cal Newport author of “Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused life in a Noisy World” shares his approach to avoiding digital distraction and reclaiming time. He discusses how to be more intentional about how you use technology, and more aware about how technology uses you. We’ll discuss everything from the neuroscience of the human brain to how to do your own 30-day digital detox.

Capitalism is a recurring theme among the ever-growing list of Democratic presidential candidates. But many Americans of all political stripes have concerns about our free market economy and whether it is working for them, according to Steven Pearlstein, a Pulitzer-Prize winning columnist for The Washington Post and author of "Can American Capitalism Survive: Why Greed Is Not Good, Opportunity Is Not Equal, and Fairness Won't Make Us Poor." We talk with Pearlstein about the importance of fairness in economic growth, and consider some ways to reinvent capitalism.

First, we revisit a classic debate: nature vs. nurture. One way to settle it? Through the lens of twin studies, which have opened up some curious revelations about how our genes affect us. Next, we turn to the 19th-century Midwest, and look at how Laura Ingalls Wilder reframed American history in the ‘Little House’ house series. Then, you sent us a whole lot of feedback about a recent segment on whether we spend too much money on education in the U.S. - and whether college educations are overvalued. Here’s some of it.

Seeing double? It’s not your imagination - birth rates of twins have been rising sharply, and twin studies are now, more than ever, influencing various disciplines. Everyone from economists, to religious scholars, to scientists see the value in studying twins. Nancy Segal, author of “Born Together-Reared Apart: The Landmark Minnesota Twin Study,” talks to us about the far-reaching effects of twins. And if you’re not a twin yourself, don’t feel left out, because what we learn from twins can lead to breakthroughs that impact us all. Segal, a professor of psychology at California State University, Fullerton, explains how twins can teach us about nature vs. nurture, parenting styles, and preventative medicine.

For nearly 100 years, the “Little House” books (and the subsequent television series) have been cherished by kids and adults around the world. Millions of children have aspired to be like Laura Ingalls, a pioneer girl who courageously helped her family start new farms across the Midwest - planting, harvesting, hunting, and fighting blizzards. The story of Ingalls’ family was based on the real-life adventures of Laura Ingalls Wilder, but Wilder’s real childhood was much harsher. As a child, Wilder endured “an almost brutal lifestyle,” according to Caroline Fraser, a Pulitzer-Prize winning writer, and author of the book “Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder.” On this week’s show, Fraser talks to us about how Wilder reinvented American history, recast her own life, and what the books - and controversy over them - has to teach us.

Are college kids becoming more fragile? Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt says yes. And he connects the change to parenting, polarization, and campus politics. How a Coney Island sideshow helped save infants’ lives. Termites! They may be super gross… but we can also learn a lot from them.

First, what does a well-rounded education mean to you? Does it make you smarter? Or are you simply jumping through hoops to try and impress future employers? George Mason University economist Bryan Caplan argues that the way the system is set up, it’s mostly become a hoop-jumping exercise. Then, it’s not that hard to imagine a place where ordinary people - not editors - determine the news. But when the website Reddit first launched in the mid-2000s, the idea was groundbreaking and few could imagine the enormous influence the company would have.

We hear all the time about the gap between those with college degrees and those without. In 2015, the gap hit a record high: people who finished college earned 56 percent more than those who didn’t (other sources have the percentage even higher, including scholar Bryan Caplan). Over the past few years, then-President Barack Obama and Senator Bernie Sanders proposed bills to either increase college attainment or make public colleges tuition-free for all. But Caplan is a contrarian on this topic. He says that “the world might be better off without college for everyone,” and believes it’s time to rethink our current approach to higher education. Caplan is a professor of economics at George Mason University, and author of “The Case Against Education: Why The Education System Is A Waste of Time and Money” On this week’s show, he talks to us about why so many college graduates struggle to find a job, why employers increasingly require college degrees (or higher) from job applicants, and why he thinks that cutting government funding for education is the best solution.

Reddit is the fifth most popular website in the U.S. and has become a focal point when discussing the intersection of technology and free speech. Communities on Reddit host lighter topics, ranging from financial advice to gardening. But it also has a dark side. Reddit has been known as a breeding ground for racist, sexist, and obscene dialogue. On a site where members have free reign to vote on what content is most interesting, Reddit can be viewed as a canary in the coal mine for issues that have roiled the tech world. Christine Lagorio-Chafkin, author of new book “We Are The Nerds: The Birth and Tumultuous Life of Reddit, the Internet’s Culture Laboratory” describes the origin of Reddit and what its successes and shortcomings can teach us.

Brexit is just one of many issues threatening to tear the European Union apart. But where did the idea of European integration come from and was the concept doomed from the start? We talk to Gillian Tett from the Financial Times and Brown University’s Mark Blyth about the past, present and future of the EU. Then, ever text your crush and stare anxiously at your phone until he or she responded? As society and technology evolves, our expectations for wait times are changing too. And the result is a whole lot of impatience.

The vision of a united Europe was born out of the ashes of the Second World War. Early supporters included former British prime minister Winston Churchill, who was one of the first to champion the idea of a “United States of Europe.” The European Union is now a vast political and economic union of 28 member countries and, with more than 500 million people, its combined population is the third largest in the world after China and India. But the European Union did not begin as a large political project - rather as a series of small steps in an American effort to promote postwar security, according to Mark Blyth, professor of international economics at Brown University. As politicians in Britain struggle with the details of their country’s divorce from the European Union, two and a half years after the Brexit referendum, Gillian Tett, U.S. managing editor of the Financial Times, and Blyth discuss the forces uniting Europe and the many issues threatening to tear it apart.

If you’ve ever been in line at the DMV, had your flight delayed, desperately needed an email reply to come NOW, or had a YouTube video buffer for more than a couple seconds, you know that waiting is awful. But what can we learn from it? According to Jason Farman, author of “Delayed Response: The Art of Waiting from the Ancient to the Instant World,” the answer is quite a lot. And it touches on everything from aboriginal message sticks, to pneumatic tubes, to loading icons.