What's on Your Mind?

When a gunman began firing inside an academic building on the Brown University campus, students didn’t wait for official alerts warning of trouble. They got information almost instantly, in bits and bursts — through phones vibrating in pockets, messages from strangers, rumors that felt urgent because they might keep someone alive. On Dec. 13 as the attack at the Ivy League institution played out during finals week, students took to Sidechat, an anonymous, campus-specific message board used widely at U.S. colleges, for fast-flowing information in real time. An Associated Press analysis of nearly 8,000 posts from the 36 hours after the shooting shows how social medi…

Jan. 26 marks the official start date of the 2026 tax filing season, when the IRS will begin accepting and processing 2025 tax returns. April 15 is the filing deadline. Tax experts, including the IRS’ independent watchdog, have warned that this year’s filing season could be hampered by the loss of tens of thousands of tax collection workers who left the agency through planned layoffs and buyouts spurred by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency. The IRS will also be responsible for implementing major provisions of Republicans’ tax and spending package signed into law last summer. Several provisions in the law retroactively affect the 2025 tax year, likely…

Starting today, Google is weaving its massive investment in AI into one product nearly everyone already uses—and for many people, the change won’t feel optional. Google announced Thursday that a suite of new features powered by Gemini 3 will begin appearing in Gmail, introducing automation designed to reduce inbox overload. The most consequential update is a new Gmail view called AI Inbox, which reshapes email around summaries, topics, and to-dos, rather than individual messages. What changes the moment this turns on For users, the shift isn’t about learning new tools—it’s about no longer having to manage email the same way. Instead of opening Gmail to a chrono…

Whether scrambling for a last-minute gift, looking for something belated to send after the holidays, or just thinking ahead to the next birthday on your calendar, the checkout line’s gift card rack has probably crossed your mind. Coffee shops, streaming services, big box retailers. You’ve done this dance before. Grab one, stick it in a card, call it a day. It’s easy. It’s simple. It’s also, for a growing number of Americans, starting to feel stale. Nearly one in five U.S. adults now say they’d rather receive crypto than a gift card this holiday season. That’s according to a new survey from the National Cryptocurrency Association and PayPal, and it’s not a number many …

Technological advancements in various fields of science are shattering what some scientists once deemed impossible. In recent years, researchers have mitigated the existential threat of asteroids, unlocked the power of immunotherapy to treat cancer tumors, and achieved unprecedented control over the human vestibular system. These scientific innovations have been fostered by new types of cross-disciplinary collaboration and the use of artificial intelligence tools. And though they’re approaching it from vastly different perspectives, planetary science, pathology, and neuroscience researchers shared at the World Changing Ideas Summit in November how they’re re…

When my mom was dying, hospice came daily and stayed for about ninety minutes. They answered questions, checked what needed to be checked, and did what good professionals do: They made a brutal situation feel slightly less impossible. And then they left. Ninety minutes go fast when you are watching your mother decline. The rest of the day stretches out in a way that does not feel like time so much as exposure. Every sound becomes a data point. Every small change feels like a decision you did not train for. Her breathing sounds strange. What do we do? How often should we turn her to avoid bedsores? What is the diaper situation, exactly? That was the gap, the lo…

By now, the headlines almost write themselves: humanoid robots everywhere, AI in everything. Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2026 didn’t disrupt that narrative—it confirmed it. What changed was the subtext. This was the year AI stopped feeling experimental and started feeling infrastructural. Intelligence has shifted from novelty to baseline, forcing harder questions about consequence, control, and agency—not just what technology can do, but how it reshapes systems once opting out is no longer realistic. For years, progress at CES has been measured in speed, scale, and spectacle. In 2026, a different metric quietly surfaced: judgment. The most advanced products we…

In the summer of 2024, Squarespace’s chief marketing officer, Kinjil Mathur, attracted criticism when she told Gen Z job seekers that they, like her, should be “willing to do anything” to land their first job. “I was willing to work for free, I was willing to work any hours they needed—even on evenings and weekends,” Kinjil told Fortune. “You really have to just be willing to do anything, any hours, any pay, any type of job.” The online backlash to Kinjil’s statement was immediate and brutal, forcing her to walk those comments back. “I shared my own college internship experiences, and my words were misrepresented as career advice for a whole generation,” Kinjil later …

Back in November, Fast Company and Johns Hopkins partnered for the first-ever World Changing Ideas Summit in Washington, DC, an event that convened leaders across business and academia to engage with the ideas and innovations reshaping the future. Knowing we were heading into a new year that undoubtedly is bringing new challenges to every industry, we asked some of our speakers working in space, healthcare, AI, and the intersections therein, what would be top of mind for them in 2026: “We’re in a race against resistance.” Akhila Kosaraju, founder and CEO of Pharebio, is using predictive and generative AI to power drug discovery. The startup plans to develop 15…

A new mandatory safety feature requires Roblox users in the U.S. to submit to facial age estimation via the app to access its chat feature. The online gaming platform announced it was implementing the system to prevent children younger than 16 from communicating with adults. About 42% of Roblox users are younger than 13. But a cursory scroll on eBay found that various listings of age-verified Roblox accounts are available for purchase, some for as little as $2.99. This allows the purchaser to sign in to the account without having to use any ID or facial scan, voiding the new safety feature Roblox has implemented. The description of one listing (since removed) rea…

Chipotle is going for gold again with the return of its gold-foil burritos for the 2026 Winter Olympics. Starting January 15, Chipotle will offer a few Olympian-inspired menu items on the Chipotle app and online. Then in February, Chipotle will wrap every burrito in gold. For Chipotle, the Olympics are an opportunity to shake off a slump. Chipotle shares plummeted 19% in October 2025, and its operating margin was down 1% in Q3. The company hasn’t announced its full 2025 financial results yet, but sales are expected to decline (a reversal from February 2025 projections). Key segments of the company’s customer base—younger people and low- to middle-income households…

Burnout has quietly become the norm in today’s workplace, rising at alarming levels. Yet most organizations still assume burnout as an individual issue that could be solved with resilience workshops, wellness apps, or additional resources such as PTO/vacation time. In my experience as an HR leader and culture change strategist in workplace mental health, adding additional resources can be part of the broader strategy to support employee burnout; however, they do not proactively prevent it from happening in the first place. The truth is that burnout is an operations workflow flaw, not an individual issue. Collectively, we should look to fix the bottlenecks where burnou…

In two years, there could be a space station orbiting the moon. NASA’s Gateway Lunar Space Station, set to launch as early as 2027, will support the Artemis IV and V moon missions and, eventually, be a jumping-off point for missions to Mars. And maybe, one day, a colony. But before any of that can happen, the Gateway will need a power source—a powerful one, at that. The challenge is getting that energy supply into orbit the way anything reaches space: in the nose cone of a rocket. Gateway’s power will come from a pair of blankets of photovoltaic cells, known as Roll-Out Solar Arrays (ROSAs). Each is roughly the size of a football end zone, and together they’ll pro…

For a long time, I told myself I was choosing stability. I was working at a prestigious university, doing work that mattered, surrounded by smart people. The role had legitimacy and the paycheck came on the same day, in the same amount, every month. The path forward was clear and the structure well-defined. At that point in my life—raising very young kids—that predictability felt not just comforting, but necessary. My work mattered, and it held up easily when I described it to others. I could justify why staying made sense. And yet, I was unhappy. Not in a dramatic, crisis-driven way. There was no single bad boss or catastrophic moment that forced my hand. I…

The northern lights could light up the skies above several northern states this weekend. The aurora borealis will be visible Friday and Saturday nights over North America, and most prevalent for those states on the northern border of the mainland, according to a forecast from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Space Weather Prediction Center. Friday offers the highest odds of visibility for most Americans, with the northern lights potentially visible in those states stretching from Washington to Maine, and as far south as Iowa. And Friday’s aurora could be brighter, with a score of 5 out of 9 on an index measuring the three-day geomagnetic…

A self-described “rat pack” of five “food-loving journalists” just bought the trademark to the defunct food magazine Gourmet, updated it for the modern reader, and brought it back as an online newsletter—all without consulting the magazine’s former publisher, Condé Nast. And if you didn’t know that already, you might’ve been able to guess it from the publication’s new wordmark. The logo looks nothing like what you’d expect from the magazine that shuttered in 2009. Instead of a crisp, delicate script, this wordmark is unapologetically blocky, chunky, and weird. It’s more reminiscent of forgotten sheet pan drippings: certainly not pretty too look at, but more delicious …

Balancing gut feelings with hard data isn’t a soft skill. It’s a strategic advantage. In an era where AI, automation, and ubiquitous dashboards flood us with metrics, it’s tempting to believe that better spreadsheets alone will yield better decisions. But our most consequential choices rarely emerge from a cell in column D. They arise from an ongoing negotiation between intuition and rational analysis. The paradox is this: as technology becomes more sophisticated at processing information, the human capacity to notice what matters—the intangible signals of opportunity or risk—becomes more valuable. Yet most organizations force a false choice. We either roman…

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has alerted the public to a threat posed by select canned tuna products. The canned tuna is at risk of harboring the bacterium that causes botulism, a potentially fatal form of food poisoning. Here’s what you need to know about the canned tuna recall. What’s happened? The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has posted a recall notice on its website announcing that select cans of Genova Yellowfin Tuna have the potential to be contaminated with Clostridium botulinum, a bacterium that can cause botulism in humans and animals who consume it. The canned tuna is produced by the El Segundo, California Tri-Union Seafoods compan…

I’m a classic satisficer: I’m usually quick about making decisions and often fall back on the tried-and-true. Some people are optimizers, carefully analyzing almost every choice, whether it’s a new sofa or a cup of coffee. If you want to make decent, “good enough” choices about your financial plan and portfolio and get onto other things, what strategies should you employ? And what should you stop doing? Here are some strategies to embrace. Eliminate ‘onesies’ and embrace simple building blocks Step away from those individual stocks. Forget I bonds and laddered portfolios of individual Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities. If you’re a satisficer, they’re not for…

Most sales pitches fail for one simple reason: they try to say too much. It’s natural to be passionate about your product or service. Of course you want to showcase the features and benefits. But if you want your audience leaning in and listening, less is always more. We live in what I call an AHA world. AI-focused, hyper-connected, and always-on. Distractions abound. If you can’t capture your prospect and customers’ imagination immediately, you’ll lose them to their emails, Slack messages, and TikTok feeds. The good news is there’s a 90-second fix that will help you craft a pitch or presentation that keeps your audience on the edge of their seats. The structure…

For much of the modern corporate era, brand has been treated as surface area. A story told outward. A set of signals designed to persuade, attract, and differentiate. When companies spoke about brand, they were usually talking about perception: how they looked in the market, how they sounded, how they were received. That framing made sense in a world where markets moved a little more slowly, organizations were stable, and leadership could afford to separate strategy from culture, product from meaning, execution from belief. That world no longer exists. Today’s organizations operate in a state of near-constant volatility. Strategy shifts quarterly. Teams scale …

Below, Jay Belsky shares five key insights from his new book, The Nature of Nurture: Rethinking Why and How Childhood Adversity Shapes Development. Belsky is emeritus professor of human development at the University of California, Davis. What’s the big idea? Seen through an evolutionary lens, early adversity can shape development in adaptive ways. And because children differ in their sensitivity to their environments, early experiences may matter a lot for some and much less for others. Listen to the audio version of this Book Bite—read by Belsky himself—in the Next Big Idea app. 1. A radically transformed understanding of development It is beyon…

As Americans increasingly report feeling overwhelmed by daily life, many are using self-care to cope. Conversations and social media feeds are saturated with the language of “me time,” burnout, boundaries, and nervous system regulation. To meet this demand, the wellness industry has grown into a multitrillion-dollar global market. Myriad providers offer products, services, and lifestyle prescriptions that promise calm, balance, and restoration. Paradoxically, though, even as interest in self-care continues to grow, Americans’ mental health is getting worse. I am a professor of public health who studies health behaviors and the gap between intentions and outcom…