Key trends in the travel, tourism, logistics and supply chain sectors.

How government transport policies are being overtaken by events.  

OECD Transport Forum comment after keynote on future transport issues.  

Stem cells are primitive cells which have the capacity to grow into many different types of organs. We now know that whenever an organ in your body is injured, these special cells are released by the bone marrow into the blood, which automatically search out areas of damage. 

The cells migrate to where they are most needed, and help in repairs.  In most cases we think the way they do this is by producing special chemicals such as cytokines, and other proteins or fats, which stimulate local regeneration.

The good news is that doctors have decades of experience of using stem cells in health care, treating people with advanced leukaemia which is cancer of the bone marrow. And we can find stem cells in many different parts of the body.

Future of Health - extract from The Future of Almost Everything book, by Futurist keynote speaker and physician, Dr Patrick Dixon, advisor to over 400 of the world's largest corporations, including many multinational pharma and health care companies.

We have seen how the future of every nation is linked to demographics, migrations and cities. But these things are also linked to the future health: not only how many people are born, but how fit they are and how long they live. And in health care, most of humankind will see an astonishing revolution over the next 30-50 years. The fact is that 65% of all health care spending in developed nations is on those over the age of 65, most of whom have several chronic health conditions, almost all related to the ageing process. Therefore it could be said that every pharma company and every hospital exists primarily to serve the health care needs of older people, in those parts of the world.

The greatest health challenges in the next two decades are almost all related to ageing, as many emerging nations also become older...

We may debate the economics of the world over the last decade, which have been largely driven by growth in emerging markets (where 85% of humanity live), but the fact is that many corporations now have huge cash mountains and no idea what to do with it. Trillions of dollars of cash is sitting in bank accounts of large companies doing nothing at all - more than $2.3 trillion in large Japanese companies alone. $12 trillion was made available a few years ago by Central Banks to the largest banks in their own nations. $3.7 trillion was by the US Federal Reserve alone. In addition $10 trillion of government bonds were issued with negative rates of interest (see below). Yet despite all this, many banks have refused to take cash offered by governments to help stimulate their economies, even when they are effectively fined by Central Banks for doing so...