Next Step

Johnnie Walker brings you content to inspire and enable your Next Step. Keep walking.

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ALL TOGETHER NOW

GPS can help you find your way home, but genetically that might not be where you live. The Geographic Population Structure can now track your unique DNA fingerprint to the place where your ancestors lived a millennium ago - with 98 per cent accuracy. Previous attempts were often off by 700km, a whole different country in some parts of the world. Understanding that all populations are mixed gene pools is the next step in a global cultural evolution. And a challenge to self-perception. Despite your differences you have more in common with the rest of the world than you realise.

Source: Motherboard

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FLOUR POWER

There’s a revolution brewing with your next cup of coffee. The popularity of the world’s favourite hot drink hides a slew of pollution from coffee cherries dumped to rot in rivers and landfill in production. Step forward coffee flour, an ingenious transformation of this leftover fruit waste into a cooking ingredient that has already been successfully used in pasta and cakes. Said to have more fibre than wheat flour, more protein than kale and more iron than spinach - it's also gluten free. But here's the real perk: it's slightly caffeinated. Just think of the possibilities.

Source: Huffington Post

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PACK IT IN

While you’re waiting for the invention of teleportation, surely the next best thing to happen to your holiday would be a lack of luggage? One day all it will take is the click of an email to send a file to print everything you need when you arrive. And the revolution starts with this 3D-printed travel bag by Finnish designer Janne Kyttanen. Imagine never having to struggle through an airport with a heavy suitcase again? Digital packing is just one way our relationship to objects is changing. The future’s a journey - travel lightly.

Source: Fast Co Design

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REMOTE ACCESS

It’s a long way to go for a glass of whiskey. But at least you won’t have to fight to get to the bar at The Old Forge on Scotland's Knoydart Peninsula. The UK’s most remote pub is only accessible by a couple of days’ hike or boat, so it’s a pretty perfect place to savour your Johnnie Walker and a bit of peace. Sometimes the road is long, but the journey is always worth it. So make it with spirit and #keepwalking. Source: Weekend Notes

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HEAVY METAL

Just when you thought the world was all set for elements it goes and surprises you with the creation of a new one. German scientists have unveiled atoms of ‘Element 117’, also known as Ununseptium, not only a brand-new addition to physical reality, but the world’s heaviest metal as well. With approval from the international scientific community 117 will soon be added to the standard periodic table. Stretching the boundaries of the unknown that bit further and welcoming it into the fabric of our world. Source: Newser

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REAL BEAUTY

What do you see when you look at this image? A beautiful piece of photoshop? Then it’s time to cast off your cynicism. This set of surreal images are 100 % authentic, from the phytoplankton in the Sea of Stars on the JMaldives’ Vaadhoo Island to the Fauvist pigmentation of China’s Yuanyang County. You can’t always trust what you see in a mediated modern world, but if you’re open to it then reality will always surprise you. Look again – and be uplifted.

Source: smrt News

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MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE

The people of Texel, a remote island off the Dutch coast, have been beachcombers for 400 years. Their island is remote, but strong ocean currents around regularly wash items from as far away lands onto their shores. The beachcombers collect both the treasures and the trash, displaying old shoes, faded buoys and messages in bottles in their museum of found items. For them, every item has a human story hidden within it and they cherish the sense of connection it brings. Everything has a place in the world. Place a value on something and you might find it surprises you in return.

Source: Aeon

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LIGHTBULB MOMENT

It’s not enough to look good, you’ve got to be able to contribute something to make a difference to your surroundings. And that even goes for light fittings these days. The hundred bulbs in this high-tech chandelier at Palo Alto’s Epiphany Hotel dim and move independently, according to the type of information flowing through it. That could be visualising social media data streams, the lights springing to life when the hotel is mentioned or mirroring the local weather from internet reports.Or just a lightbulb moment that we are all a product of the information that flows through us. Make sure you're expressing something interesting. Source: Engadget

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FOOD FOR THOUGHT

Planting seeds in your garden is a natural joy so you might want to sow a future that keeps humanity’s common property just that. Inspired by the open source tech movement, the recently launched Open Source Seed Initiative allows gardeners and farmers to save the seeds of 29 heritage vegetable, fruit and grain crops after harvest and pass the plants on to others to use freely. No legal constraints and no big agribusiness patents. Just a new spin on an old idea of sharing and a harvest of determination from one community that peppers, lettuce, kale, barley and carrots remain as free as nature intended them.

Source: Open Source Seed Initiative

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THE BIG ASK

If you want to get a good answer, then make sure you’re asking the right questions. Or at least some interesting ones. Author Warren Berger collected the provocative things that top designers, tech innovators and entrepreneurs ask themselves to spark their creativity. And the results are strikingly left field. What is something you believe that almost nobody agrees with you on? What are your superpowers? What is the sentence that sums you up? The conversation with yourself is the most important one you have. Try asking yourself something new today and see where your answer takes you.

Source: Fast Co Design

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LOOK AWAY

Playing to the audience can be a good thing. After all, being accountable to others can give you a push to achieve your goals and not give up when the going gets tough. But in the end you’ve got to do it for yourself to make it stick. New York show the Dream of the Red Chamber deliberately explores what happens when you don’t need the audiences’ attention - encouraging people to fall asleep in the middle of it. A waste of a good theatre ticket or a powerful statement on purism? Sometimes you have to see what happens when no one is watching to find the truth of the matter.

Source: Fast Co Design

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SPEAK TO ME

What’s that you say? If you’re a dolphin you’re probably asking where the ‘seaweed’ is – the first word to apparently have been translated from dolphin whistles by researchers. The marine equivalent of Google Translate is Cetacean Hearing and Telemetry (CHAT) technology, a device worn by divers that teaches dolphins object names using whistles – then turn their calls back into English. Or French. Or Chinese. Human speech is easily translated. But breaking the language barrier between the animal kingdom and us might be the #nextstep to a whole new world dialogue. Source: Lost At E Minor

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FATHER'S DAY

“As a kid, I'd watch my father working long hours, dealing with uncertainty. I never understood why he had chosen that path. Now, I'm grateful that I was learning from him the entire time. The lessons had little to do with business. It was the outlook on life he instilled in me that taught me the skills I needed. He showed me that entrepreneurship isn’t a profession, it’s a mindset that shapes the way you interact with the world. Entrepreneurs rarely accept no for an answer, and are always looking for a way to work around obstacles. My father would push me to ask for things – especially when I was embarrassed and afraid to. As a kid, I hated it. But as an adult, I’m thankful he showed me the value of getting out of my comfort zone. It is difficult, because it should be; you grow much less from doing things that come naturally.” – Tarun Wadhwa, son of entrepreneur Vivek Wadhwa

Source: Forbes

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BEE MORE

It’s never worth compromising on flavour. Which is why these Nepalese honey hunters go to extraordinary lengths – and heights – climbing rope ladders in the Himalayas each year to find it. Reaching for the sweetest prize from the world’s largest honeybee is a matter of pride, taste and tradition for the Gurung Tribe. You might not want to follow their precarious journey, but an ambition to reach beyond what’s convenient will always take you further toward excellence.

Source: Lost At E Minor

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DRIVE FORWARD

Perfection isn’t the key to something beautiful. It’s being able to see something unique in a person, a scene or a situation that others could ignore. You might overlook the wasteland aesthetic of dumped cars, but Algerian photographer Ramzy Zahoual’s eye is drawn to their desolation – in turn, highlighting the uncanny harmony that can come from uncommon subjects. By reframing the ugly or uncomfortable as worth looking at he turns every element into something interesting and puts a new perspective on the sum of the whole.

Source: Behance

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AIR APPARENT

Turning ideas into reality is a whole lot easier now you can actually draw them in 3D. This nifty printing pen allows you to doodle in an extra dimension, creating freestanding illustrations and objects at the stroke of a nib. Need a cup? Just draw one. Lost a button on your shirt? Sketch one up. How long will it be before we can create the physical world around us as we go, with only our imagination as the limit? Source: Design Taxi

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WORK TOGETHER

“I would not be here today if I hadn’t had strong role models. The first was my grandmother who never went to college but believed that women’s voices mattered. I learned from her that you can do anything as long as you put your mind to it and work very hard. The second was my mother who taught me you have to be exactly yourself and live your life the best you can. I want to toast every person who is making a difference and hopefully being a role model, a sponsor or a mentor. And also all the people who are not with us. Because not one of us gets here alone.” -- Senator Kirsten Gillibrand Source: Time