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Its the first week in December. If you don’t already have the Christmas tunes blasting in the office, what are you waiting for? The debate over listening to music while at work, however, often divides offices. Some love to crank up the music while toiling away, and find silence to be deafening. Others can only listen to background music or instrumental playlists like coffeeshop jazz in the background or LoFi Girl, a genre featuring low-fidelity, calming beats. Some insist on complete silence. As the countdown to the holidays begins, Google searches for Christmas playlist 2025 have spiked this past week. But could listening to Mariah Carey or Michael Bublé on loop be sabotaging office productivity? A study published in the journal Nature Neuroscience found that pleasurable music triggers dopamine release, creating a natural high that can boost energy for mundane tasks. But while listening to music can boost focus and productivity, the BPM, or beats per minute, matter: Research has shown music with a tempo of 50-80 beats per minute is optimal for focus and productivity. When background music at a workplace is out of sync with what workers need to get on with their jobs, it can affect their energy, mood and even performance. So what does this mean for your favorite festive tunes? TopResume analyzed Spotifys most popular Christmas songs and ranked them by BPM to reveal the tracks most likely to derail office concentration in the final weeks of 2025. Bad news for Ariana Grande stans. Grandes Last Christmas takes the top spot as the most distracting Christmas song, with a 206 BPM. This comes in at over triple the recommended BPM of 60-80 for maintaining focus during tasks. Employees may also find Bing Crosby and The Andrews Sisters’ “Mele Kalikimaka (Merry Christmas)” and Shakin’ Stevens’ “Merry Christmas Everyone” somewhat distracting with a 203 BPM. Andy Williams’ “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” (202 BPM), another Ariana Grande Christmas classic, “Santa Tell Me” (192 BPM) are also best left for lunch break listening. On the other hand, Brenda Lee’s “Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree” emerged as the most productivity-friendly holiday track, clocking in at just 67 BPM, the optimal tempo range for maintaining concentration. Nat King Cole’s “The Christmas Song (Merry Christmas To You)” and Whitney Houston’s “Do You Hear What I Hear?” tied at 73 BPM. The Vince Guaraldi Trio’s beloved “Christmas Time Is Here” comes in at 75 BPM. Festive favorite Ella Fitzgerald claims two spots with “Frosty The Snowman” and “Sleigh Ride,” both at 77 BPM. The end of the year is an especially demanding time for many professionals. Between wrapping up projects, juggling tighter deadlines, managing holiday commitments at home, and navigating the colder weather and shorter days, its easy for stress levels to creep up, Amanda Augustine, a certified professional career coach and the resident career expert for TopResume, says. Thats why its so important to create a festive atmosphere at work that doesnt sacrifice anyones focus. p>Thats not an excuse to be a Grinch and insist on silence (after all, its Christmas and noise cancelling headphones exist for a reason). Simply swap out Ariana Grande for Ella Fitzgerald in shared spaces and everyones happy. Maybe.
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E-Commerce
Frank Gehry, who designed some of the most imaginative buildings ever constructed and achieved a level of worldwide acclaim seldom afforded any architect, has died. He was 96. Gehry died Friday in his home in Santa Monica, California, after a brief respiratory illness, said Meaghan Lloyd, chief of staff at Gehry Partners LLP. Gehry’s fascination with modern pop art led to the creation of some of the most striking buildings ever constructed and brought him a measure of worldwide acclaim seldom afforded any architect. Among his many masterpieces are the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain; the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles; and the DZ Bank Building in Berlin, Germany. He also designed an expansion of Facebooks Northern California headquarters at the insistence of the companys CEO, Mark Zuckerberg. Gehry was awarded every major prize architecture has to offer, including the fields top honor, the Pritzker Prize, for what has been described as refreshingly original and totally American work. Other honors include the Royal Institute of British Architects gold medal, the Americans for the Arts lifetime achievement award, and his native countrys highest honor, the Companion of the Order of Canada. Years after he stopped designing ordinary-looking buildings, word surfaced in 2006 that the pedestrian Santa Monica mall project that had led to his career epiphany might be headed for the wrecking ball. Gehry admirers were aghast, but the man himself was amused. Theyre going to tear it down now and build the kind of original idea I had, he said with a laugh. Eventually, the mall was remodeled, giving it a more contemporary, airy outdoor look. Still, its no Gehry masterpiece. Gehry, meanwhile, continued to work well into his 80s, turning out heralded buildings that remade skylines around the world. The headquarters of the InterActiveCorp, known as the IAC Building, took the shape of a shimmering beehive when it was completed in New York Citys Chelsea district in 2007. The 76-story New York By Gehry building (now known as 8 Spruce), once one of the worlds tallest residential structures, was a stunning addition to the lower Manhattan skyline when it opened in 2011. That same year, Gehry joined the faculty of his alma mater, the University of Southern California, as a professor of architecture. He also taught at Yale and Columbia universities. Not everyone was a fan of Gehrys work. Some naysayers dismissed it as not much more than gigantic, lopsided reincarnations of the little scrap-wood cities he said he spent hours building when he was growing up in the mining town of Timmins, Ontario. Princeton art critic Hal Foster dismissed many of his later efforts as oppressive, arguing they were designed primarily to be tourist attractions. Some denounced the Disney Hall as looking like a collection of cardboard boxes that had been left out in the rain. Still other critics included Dwight D. Eisenhowers family, who objected to Gehrys bold proposal for a memorial to honor the nations 34th president. Although the family said it wanted a simple memorial and not the one Gehry had proposed, with its multiple statues and billowing metal tapestries depicting Eisenhowers life, the architect declined to change his design significantly. If the words of his critics annoyed Gehry, he rarely let on. Indeed, he even sometimes played along. He appeared as himself in a 2005 episode of The Simpsons cartoon show, in which he agreed to design a concert hall that was later converted into a prison. He came up with the idea for the design, which looked a lot like the Disney Hall, after crumpling Marge Simpsons letter to him and throwing it on the ground. After taking a look at it, he declared, Frank Gehry, youve done it again! Some people think I actually do that, he would later tell The Associated Press. Ephraim Owen Goldberg was born in Toronto on February 28, 1929, and moved to Los Angeles with his family in 1947, eventually becoming a U.S. citizen. As an adult, he changed his name at the suggestion of his first wife, who told him antisemitism might be holding back his career. Although he had enjoyed drawing and building model cities as a child, Gehry said it wasnt until he was 20 that he pondered the possibility of pursuing a career in architecture, after a college ceramics teacher recognized his talent. It was like the first thing in my life that Id done well in, he said. He went on to earn a degree in architecture from the University of Southern California in 1954. After serving in the Army, he studied urban planning at Harvard University. His survivors include his wife, Berta; daughter, Brina; sons Alejandro and Samuel; and the buildings he created. Another daughter, Leslie Gehry Brenner, died of cancer in 2008. By John Rogers, Associated Press
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E-Commerce
In South Korea several weeks ago, the U.S. and China came to a temporary agreement, in which theyll kick a rare-earth can down the road. The agreement took the form of a one-year pause in the dispute between the two nations over rare earth elements (REEs): China postponed imposing newly announced export controls on 17 different REEs and, in turn, the U.S. announced it would reduce certain tariffs on Chinese goods. For years, the United States and its allies have grappled with a troubling resource reality: China dominates the global supply of REEs and critical raw materials (CRMs)the essential ingredients of our digital age. From smartphones to electric vehicles, from solar panels to advanced weapons systems, our dependence on these materials has left the U.S. economically and strategically vulnerable. While this new deal provides a short-term relief from supply-chain stress, it also deepens the case that we cannot forever rely on Chinas good will or geopolitical timing. Rather than doubling down on negotiations and hoping for stable access, what if we could build a parallel, resilient, and circular system here at home? We actually can. Call it urban mining. ELECTRONIC WASTE Every year, millions of tons of electronic waste and batteries pile up in landfills or languish in drawersold laptops and broken phones, obsolete keyboards, and rusty routers. These discarded gadgets may be junk, but theyre also laden with circular ore. They contain cadmium, lithium, cobalt, and other valuable elements that can be extracted, refined, and reused. Recovery rates on materials in lithium-ion batteries, for example, can reach as high as 98% for cobalt, 95% for nickel, and 90% for copper and aluminum. According to recent studies, the amount of precious and rare metals embedded in global electronic waste is enough to supply many industries for decades. We can leverage that here. If properly recovered, the materials in our existing e-waste could sustain electric vehicle and other manufacturing needs for the next 70 years. Urban mining offers a domestic supply of REEs and CRMsone that doesnt depend on any single foreign states capricious decision to keep exporting. A NEW KIND OF SUPPLY CHAIN Urban mining is more than recycling. Its about re-engineering the supply chain, turning structurally excluded communities into decentralized resource hubs where waste becomes a renewable source of critical materials. Imagine a network of regional recovery centers across North America and Europe processing old electronics with advanced separation and extraction technologies. These urban hubs could feed the domestic market with a steady stream of critical materialsno freighters, no tariffs, no geopolitical strings attached. We know the great potential of this approach because the Circular Supply Chain Coalition (CSCC) has tested these efforts already. As the founding convener of the CSCC, my company, Pyxera Global, conducted a pilot effort in Tennessee with leading circular supply chain partners who know a thing or two about reverse logistics. Developing a robust urban-mining ecosystem could also create green jobs, boost local economies, and reduce our carbon footprint. More importantly, it would grant the countries in which the CSCC operates and its partners true mineral sovereignty. Instead of negotiating access to foreign mines, we could mine our own cities, transforming dependence into resilience. In that light, urban mining stands out as a strategic insurance policy. If we build capacity to recover and reallocate critical materials domestically, we reduce external providers bargaining power. We cant just dig our way out of this problem, nor do we have to. The minerals we need arent just buried deep in the earth. Theyre sitting in our homes, offices, and landfills, waiting to be reclaimed. Urban mining offers us a future of independence, innovation, and sustainability. The next gold rush isnt in them thar hills. Its in our landfills, garages, and junk drawers. Deirdre White is president and CEO of Pyxera Global.
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E-Commerce
When film cameras were invented, people didnt become filmmakers overnight. We pointed cameras at theater stages, digitizing what already existed. It took us a while to reimagine what film cameras could unlock. The real opportunity wasnt recording theater plays. It was stepping outside and inventing cinema. Thats where many nonprofits are with AI today. Most still layer it on top of existing processes, not because they dont care about innovation, but because they lack both the frameworks to identify the right use cases and the capacity to act on them. True innovation starts when organizations have the space, skills, and confidence to reimagine how impact itself is delivered in an AI-native way. By AI-native, I mean rethinking how we solve problems with AI from the get-go, so impact becomes ultra-personalized, timely, scalable, and radically more effective. This is while humans focus on empathy, trust, and complex judgment. AI isnt just a tool. It becomes part of the social impacts operating system. THE FUNDING GAP IS STRUCTURAL, NOT TECHNICAL Fast Forwardthe U.S.-based organization focused on growing the tech and AI-powered nonprofit ecosystemrecently published data in their 2025 AI for Humanity report confirming that AI-powered nonprofits are emerging in the social sector. Nearly half of AI-powered nonprofits surveyed say adopting AI has already raised expenses, though. To unlock their full potential, 84% say additional funding is necessary to continue developing and scaling their work. The truth is that while the for-profit sector moves full-steam ahead on AI, nonprofits are at risk of being left behind the tech curve. Many are being asked to solve 21st-century problems with 20th-century tech, Kevin Barenblat, cofounder of Fast Forward told me. The good news is that this is a problem money can solve. There is already momentum among funders who are kickstarting AI in the nonprofit sectorGoogle.org, Patrick J. McGovern Foundation, and the folks behind Humanity AIbut we want to see more philanthropists investing in AI for good. It is our best chance at a future where AI improves our global well-being. And the impact curve highlighted in the report is impressive: At the smallest budgets (under $100,000), AI-powered nonprofits serve a median of just under 2,000 lives. By the time annual budgets cross $1 million, median reach jumps dramatically to half a million people. At $5 million and above, these organizations are reaching a median of seven million lives. But funding alone wont close the gap. Nonprofits also need accessible, safe ways to start building, without six-figure budgets or advanced tech teams. Thats why Tech To The Rescue builttogether with Hugging Face, the worlds largest open-source AI communitya practical, free AI Open Source Q&A Guide. It helps nonprofits navigate more than two million open modelssafely, affordably, and without needing a data science team. Its a living, community-built resource that saves organizations time, money, and confusion by giving them clear frameworks for evaluating models, understanding licenses, and building responsibly. For many nonprofits, open models can reduce AI costs dramatically compared to commercial toolssometimes all the way to zero. The next 1224 months will determine which organizations lead the AI-for-good era. WHAT AI-NATIVE TRANSFORMATION LOOKS LIKE IN PRACTICE Organizations breaking the scalability barrier arent just using AI. Theyre redesigning how mission delivery works. Build once, deploy everywhere Brazil-based Flying Labs built an AI platform for fire-damage assessment using drone and satellite imagery, and made it open source so it can scale globally. Supported by Lenovo hardware and training, the team processed high-resolution Sentinel-2 data to help Brazils Forest Foundation monitor over 50 protected areas in So Paulo. One build, infinite deployments, and compounding returns for the planet. Capacity first, technology second In India, Reap Benefit used Lenovos support under the umbrella of Tech To The Rescues accelerator to build internal AI capability first. Today, their youth-led civic platform has engaged over 120,000 participants and logged more than one million hyperlocal data points. They automate civic-action analysis and personalize programs without growing headcount. They didnt buy tools, they built muscle. Automate education For UK-based Reboot the Future, AI reduced resource-classification time from about 2 hours to 5 minutes for a content library serving 22,000 teachers, freeing the team to scale impact. Automation didnt replace educators; it freed their time to focus on more fundamental issues. These breakthroughs werent only about the tools. They were about readinessinfrastructure, expertise, and strategic design. 5 FUNDING SHIFTS TO UNLOCK THE AI MULTIPLIER Across our work at Tech To The Rescue, five shifts emerge as the difference between pilots and transformation: 1) Fund people and process, not just pilots Support technical talentengineers, data staff, product leadsand board-level AI literacy. Fast Forward found that 41% of AI-powered nonprofits surveyed cite lack of in-house expertise as a major barrier when adopting AI. 2) Reward responsible experimentation, early Fund ethical AI testing before outcomes are perfect. For organizations that are just getting started, Fast Forward recommends developing an AI policy to guide usage. They made creating a policy easy with their free AI policy builder for nonprofits. 3) Make governance a first-mile investment AI strategy is organizational strategy. Fund leadership capacity before scale, not after. 4) Fund the prototype stage Unrestricted capital unlocks data infrastructure and experimentation. Lean innovators often build the future, if given room. 5) Pay for shared infrastructure, not parallel efforts Forty-three percent of AI-powered nonprofits surveyedby Fast Forward already use open-source tools. Fund shared layers where one build benefits many. PHILANTHROPYS MAKE-OR-BREAK MOMENT The issues we care aboutfrom global health to climate resiliencewont wait while we digitize analog models. Tools follow capacity, not the other way around. Thats the shift philanthropy must make. Closing this gap isnt optional. Its philanthropys hidden multiplier for millions of lives. Jacek Siadkowski is cofounder and CEO of Tech To The Rescue.
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E-Commerce
In April 2000, Elsevier published an article in the journal Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology, which claimed that the herbicide Roundup (glyphosate) from the Monsanto Company didnt pose a risk of cancer or other health issues for humans. Twenty-five years later, the publisher has retracted that paper, citing litigation that revealed it was based solely on unpublished studies by Monsanto itself. Furthermore, Elsevier states that the article (titled Safety Evaluation and Risk Assessment of the Herbicide Roundup and Its Active Ingredient, Glyphosate, for Humans) appears to have been co-written with Monsanto employees, despite no explicit accreditation. Monsanto might have also compensated the articles authors: Gary M. Williams, Robert Kroes, and Ian C. Munro, the article states. “Significant impact on regulatory decision-making” Its impossible to overstate the influence this article had over the more than two decades since it was published. The paper had a significant impact on regulatory decision-making regarding glyphosate and Roundup for decades,” Martin van den Berg, the journal’s co-editor-in-chief, writes in the retraction notice. Van den Berg adds that the lack of clarity regarding which parts of the article were authored by Monsanto employees creates uncertainty about the integrity of the conclusions drawn.” “Specifically, the article asserts the absence of carcinogenicity associated with glyphosate or its technical formulation, Roundup,” Van den Berg wrote. “It is unclear how much of the conclusions of the authors were influenced by external contributions of Monsanto without proper acknowledgments. According to Elseviers metrics, the article has been cited 779 times, including 66 policy citations. Revelations widely covered in 2017 While Van den Berg has just now taken action to retract the paper, the litigation he cites dates back to 2017. The revelations were widely covered at the time, yet the landmark paper remained untouched. This decision has been made after careful consideration of the COPE [Committee on Publication Ethics] guidelines and thorough investigation into the circumstances surrounding the authorship and content of this article and in light of no response having been provided to address the findings, Van den Berg states as an explanation. Van den Berg reached out to Williams, the sole living author, for an explanation but received no response. In recent years, Monsanto has paid billions of dollars across numerous lawsuits alleging that Roundup causes cancer. Bayer, the German chemical and pharmaceutical giant, acquired Monsanto in 2018 and retired the brands namewhich had become a liability. Fast Company has reached out to Williams and Bayer for comment and will update this post if we hear back. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has continued to state that glyphosate is unlikely to be a human carcinogen, based on study reviews. This week, the Trump administration pushed the U.S. Supreme Court to curb lawsuits against Bayer that allege Roundup causes cancers. Shares of Bayer AG (ETR: BAYN) jumped more than 12% in response to the Trump administrations brief.
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E-Commerce
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