If robots and AI take over, we’ll only really have our own tendency to shun humanity’s “infinite ingenuity” to blame,Simon Schama writes in the Financial Times. Perhaps our ultimate vulnerability is our ability to be completely paradoxical, writes the author of “Foreign Bodies: Pandemics, Vaccines and the Health of Nations.” The precedent Schama uses to prove his point is the vast disregard for scientific findings as exemplified by mns of people’s rejection of the covid-19 vaccine following the outbreak of the pandemic.

Science versus suspicion: Although time and time again, science has opened up new doors and scored enough accomplishments that should enable people to trust it, reason is often trumped by irrational fears, Schama notes. And some of those worries make sense: From its inception, the very concept of inoculation was cause for concern. After all, why would a perfectly healthy individual “[seek] security from [smallpox] by rushing into the embraces of it,” James Kirkpatrick, the author of the Analysis of Inoculation, is quoted as saying in 1754.

And the phobias persist: While mistrust towards inoculation may be acceptable when it happened almost 270 years ago, the indefatigability of these ideas is particularly alarming today, Schama writes. And when these theories are shared among a country’s political leadership, the harm they may cause is singularly serious. An example of that is Robert Kennedy Jr.’s belief that vaccines cause autism among children. Coming from a candidate for presidency, and not your typical conspiracy theorist, the stakes are incredibly high, and dangerous, Schama points out. This tendency to “stumble over our own inventiveness” is alarming and could spell trouble for the future of humanity as a whole when — not if — the next pandemic hits.

Ready, set, race: Racemate — an app that offers personalized and real-time pacing strategies, audio guidance, and live tracking features for participants in running events — last month expanded to Dubai, according to a company press release (pdf). The app was launched in 2021 by local sports event management company TriFactory and software developer Optomatica. It has been used in more than a dozen races across the country and plans to continue expanding here and across the MENA region.

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