Xorte logo

News Markets Groups

USA | Europe | Asia | World| Stocks | Commodities



Add a new RSS channel

 
 


Keywords

2025-01-25 12:00:00| Fast Company

Want more housing market stories from Lance Lamberts ResiClub in your inbox? Subscribe to the ResiClub newsletter. Among the 26 forecasts tracked by ResiClub in its final 2025 home price forecast roundup, the average prediction is a +2.7% increase in U.S. home prices this year. Keep in mind that the above figure is a forecast for nationally aggregated home prices. On a regional and local basis, home price swings can vary greatly from the national figure. For example, on a year-over-year basis, U.S. home prices as measured by the Zillow Home Value Index are up 2.6%, while home prices in the Rochester, New York metro area are up 8.2% and home prices in the Punta Gorda, Florida metro area are down 8.3% during that same timeframe. To better understand how regional home prices may vary in 2025, ResiClub reached out to economists at Zillowwhose forecast of U.S. home prices rising by +2.9% in calendar 2025 aligns with the average modeland economists at Moodyswhose forecast of U.S. home prices falling by -0.4% in 2025 is among the most bearishto gather their metro-level home price forecasts. Lets take a look at the metro-level forecasts. Click here to view an interactive of Zillows 2025 metro area home price forecast. !function(){"use strict";window.addEventListener("message",(function(a){if(void 0!==a.data["datawrapper-height"]){var e=document.querySelectorAll("iframe");for(var t in a.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var r=0;r


Category: E-Commerce

 

LATEST NEWS

2025-01-25 11:00:00| Fast Company

If you have spent any time traveling in the U.S. over the past 10 years, you may have noticed a curious vending machine filled with jars. Instead of crinkle-cut chips or wired earbuds for that movie you want to watch on the plane, these vending machines sell freshly made apple pecan salads, blueberry chia overnight oats, and mediterranean bowls. They are run by a company called Farmers Fridge, and they are slowly taking over airports in the U.S. Since it launched in 2013, the company has installed its vending machines at about 20 U.S. airports, including LAX, Chicago OHare, Dallas Fort-Worth, and most recently, Las Vegas. (I first stumbled on its leafy offerings at JFK airport, while on a quest for a meal that didn’t involve a side of soggy fries.) And it’s not just airports. These fridges are cropping up everywhere, from hospitals like New York Presbyterian and Boston Medical Center, to Amazon fulfillment centers, college campuses like Northwestern and Harvard, and stadiums like L.A’s Crypto.com Arena. Today, the company counts 1,600 locations around the country, and in the next 10 years, CEO and founder Luke Saunders is hoping to reach 100,000. How? With an understanding of cold chain logistics, an ever-expanding menu, and a swanky new fridge. This month, the company is debuting a new design that could help the company roll out more fridges at a faster clip. Five years in the works, the new fridge comes with a pitched roof that stands out from its flat-topped competitors. It boasts a new UX where various parts of the machine (from the payment module to the recycling bin where you can return your jar) light up to guide you through your purchase. And perhaps most importantlyat least when it comes to business growthit is made of two flat-pack modules that can be assembled in just 30 minutes, compared to four hours for the previous model. For now, the team is rolling these out at new locations onlythe first 50 fridges are already on the ground in Chicago and New York. But if these fridges prove as efficient as hoped, the company will begin swapping them out, one airport at a time. As we look to expand into new markets, our strategy is always to start with the airport, Saunders told me. Once we have the airport locked in, we build out the market with other verticals to saturate the market. [Photo: Farmer’s Fridge] The vending machine boom Lipstick, guacamole, earrings: You can buy pretty much anything out of a vending machine today (especially in Japan.) But in the early 2010s, when Farmer’s Fridge was just a seed in Saunders’s mind, vending machines in the U.S. were only beginning to diversify. Best Buy launched its first airport vending machine in 2008. Sephora launched its in 2009. Benefit followed suit in 2013 with their now-iconic kiosk designed to look like a pink bus. Saunders’s biggest influence, however, was Redbox, the now-defunct movie rental kiosk company. That, and ATMs, he says with a laugh. Prior to [ATMs], you had to go into a bank, talk to somebody, wait in line, and now you could go anytime you wanted, he says. ATMs, like vending machines, were convenient, and they were available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Why has no one done this for food? he wondered. At the time, most vending machines sold snacks with a disturbingly long shelf life. The reasons for that are obvious. When food doesn’t need to be refrigerated, the level of urgency to get it from the facility where its made and into people’s mouths is significantly lower than when it’s fresh. A granola bar, for example, can take anywhere from two weeks to six months to make it into a vending machine. A salad from Farmer’s Fridge can only spend 24 to 48 hours in transit. After that, Saunder says, the fridge won’t let you buy it. Farmer’s Food makes every meal in-house, from a 100,000 square-foot facility in Chicago. The workday begins at 4 a.m. with washing and chopping veggies, cooking pasta, and mixing dressings. The assembly line begins at 8 a.m., and by 6 p.m., the company has to decide where these meals will be shipped off to. The team makes this decision based on a cost-function algorithm that Saunders himself built in the early days to calculate the probability the company will sell an item against the profitability of that item. The algorithm takes into consideration purchasing data, historical foot traffic data, and other variables like the weather. Today, the software mostly gets it right, but that wasn’t always the case. Ten years ago, Saunders says about 50% of meals were left unsold. Now, that number has dropped to 5%. (Unsold meals get either donated or composted, depending on the location.) [Photo: Farmer’s Fridge] From salads to . . . sushi? From the beginning, Saunders suspected that the biggest hurdle to scaling wouldnt be a lack of interest, but a lack of infrastructure. To prove out his theory, he set out to find a pilot location and eventually installed his first Farmer’s Fridge in a food court in Chicago. As Saunders recalls it, the food court was desperate for a tenant, and he himself was desperate for a landlord. The food court ended up shuttering soon after that, but the machine had done its job, and interest snowballed from there. In the first year, the company made about $350,000. This year, Saunders says it is projected to make 30 to 40 times that, which could amount to as much as $140 million. To date, the company’s best-selling item is the chicken southwest salad. In 2018, the company introduced sandwiches (and won a packaging award in the process). This year, they are rolling out protein bowlsand even contemplating sushi. The idea of eating raw fish from an airport machine might put some people off, but Saunder is convinced the idea has merit. And it’s not just intuition. Every time people buy something from Farmers Fridge, they are asked to fill out to a survey with their wish list. The most requested item? You guessed it.    Sushi in a vending machine is not an entirely new concept. Japan has them in troves. But for Americans to buy in will likely depend on a variety of factors, including how much confidence the fridge can inspire. People get nervous about stuff like that, and Im the guy whos like, ten years ago, people were telling me that about salad, says Saunders. If you make good sushi, people will buy it. If its bad, they wont buy it. That the company spent five years fine-tuning the design of its fridges suddenly makes sense considering every fridge bears the burden of luring customers. Back in 2013, the first fridge looked as if a vending machine and a restaurant had a baby, says Saunders. It came with wood paneling, fresh plants on the roof and astroturf. Now, the company has pared down the aesthetic in favor of something clean and bright. The plants are gone. The wood paneling has made way for powdered-coated metal. But what the company has lost in rustic charm, it’s hoping to make up for in brand trust. This new design might not win any awards for hygge designbut it acknowledges that the fridge is just a shell, and the actual star is what’s inside it. Whether it comes with a side of soy sauce, or not.


Category: E-Commerce

 

2025-01-25 11:00:00| Fast Company

Several years ago, a little-known drug named Ozempicpreviously used only to treat diabetesemerged as a promising new drug for weight management. The Food and Drug Administrations approval of Ozempic in 2021 for weight loss treatment ushered in a new era for the class of drugs called glucagon-like peptide-1 agonists, or GLP-1. Today, GLP-1 drugs, including Wegovy, Mounjaro, and Zepbound, have become household names and key tools in the fight against obesity: 1 in 8 American adults say they have used a GLP-1 drug, and forecasts show that by 2030, 1 in 10 Americans will likely be using these medications. Now, research from my lab and others suggests that GLP-1 drugs could help treat dozens of other ailments as well, including cognitive issues and addiction problems. However, my colleagues and I also found previously unidentified risks. I am a physician-scientist and I direct a clinical epidemiology center focused on addressing public healths most urgent questions. My team works to address critical knowledge gaps about COVID-19, long COVID, influenza, vaccines, effectiveness and risks of commonly used drugs, and more. On January 20, 2025, my team published a study of more than 2.4 million people that evaluated the risks and benefits of GLP-1 drugs across 175 possible health outcomes. We found that these drugs lowered risks of 42 health outcomes, nearly a quarter of the total that we analyzed. These include neurocognitive disorders such as Alzheimers disease and dementia, substance use and addiction disorders, clotting disorders, and several other conditions. Unfortunately, we also found that GLP-1 drugs come with significant side effects and increase the risk of 19 health conditions we studied, such as gastrointestinal issues, kidney stones, and acute pancreatitis, in which the pancreas becomes inflamed and dysfunctional. Cognitive benefits One of the most important health benefits we found was that the GLP-1 drugs lowered the risk of neurodegenerative disorders, including Alzheimers disease and dementia. These findings align with other research, including evidence from preclinical studies showing that these drugs may reduce inflammation in the brain and enhance the brains ability to form and strengthen connections between its cells, improving how they communicate with one another. These effects contribute to mitigating cognitive decline. Two other key studies have shown that patients treated with a GLP-1 drug for diabetes had a lower risk of dementia. All of these studies strongly point to a potential therapeutic use of GLP-1 drugs in treatment of the cognitive decline. Ongoing randomized trialsthe gold standard for evaluating new uses of drugsare looking at the effects of GLP-1 drugs in early Alzheimers disease, with results expected later in 2025. Curbing addiction and suicidal ideation GLP-1 drugs have also demonstrated potential in reducing risks of several substance use disorders such as those involving alcohol, tobacco, cannabis, opioids, and stimulants. This may be due to the ability of these drugs to modulate reward pathways, impulse control, and inflammatory processes in the brain. The effectiveness of GLP-1 drugs in curbing addictive behavior may explain their spectacular success in treating obesity, a chronic disease state that many have suggested is indeed a food addiction disorder. Our study demonstrated a reduced risk of suicidal thoughts and self-harm among people using GLP-1 drugs. This finding is particularly significant given earlier reports of suicidal thoughts and self-injury in people using GLP-1 drugs. In response to those reports, the European Medicines Agency conducted a review of all available data and concluded that there was no evidence of increased risk of suicidality in people using GLP-1 drugs. Now at least two studies, including our own, show that GLP-1 drugs actually reduce the risk of suicidality. Other benefits In addition to the well-documented effects of GLP-1 drugs in reducing risks of adverse cardiovascular and kidney outcomes, our study shows a significant effect in reducing risk of blood clotting as well as deep vein thrombosis and pulmonary embolism. One puzzling finding in our study is the reduced risk of infectious diseases such as pneumonia and sepsis. Our data complements another recent study that came to a similar conclusion showing that GLP-1 drugs reduced risk of cardiovascular death and death due to infectious causes, primarily COVID-19. This is especially important since COVID-19 is regarded as a significant cardiovascular risk factor. Whether GLP-1 drugs completely offset the increased risk of cardiovascular disease associated with COVID-19 needs to be thoroughly evaluated. GLP-1 drugs may also be useful in treating fatty liver disease and conditions ranging from asthma to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, sleep apnea, osteoarthritis, depression, and eye disorders. Risks and challenges Despite their broad therapeutic potential, GLP-1 drugs are not without risks. Gastrointestinal issues, such as nausea, vomiting, constipation, and gastroesophageal reflux disease are among the most common adverse effects associated with GLP-1 drugs. Our study also identified other risks, including low blood pressure, sleep problems, headaches, formation of kidney stones, and gall bladder disease and diseases associated with the bile ducts. We also saw increased risks of drug-induced inflammation of the kidneys and pancreasboth serious conditions that can result in long-term health problems. These findings underscore the importance of careful monitoring in pople who are taking GLP-1 medications. A significant challenge with using GLP-1 drugs is the high rates at which patients stop using them, often driven by their exorbitant cost or the emergence of adverse effects. Discontinuation can lead to rapid weight gain. Thats a problem, because obesity is a chronic disease. GLP-1 drugs provide effective treatment but do not address the underlying causes of obesity and metabolic dysfunction. As a result, GLP-1 drugs need to be taken long term to sustain their effectiveness and prevent rebound weight gain. In addition, many questions remain about the long-term effectiveness and risks of these drugs as well as whether there are differences between GLP-1 formulations. Addressing these questions is critical to guide clinical practice. Ziyad Al-Aly is a clinical epidemiologist at Washington University in St. Louis. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.


Category: E-Commerce

 

Latest from this category

26.01Want to be a full-time influencer? Consider freelancing
26.013 things leaders should do to increase trust 
26.01Netflix knows youre looking at your phoneand its changing how shows get made because of it
26.01Spending out of control?  These 3 tricks will help you rein it in
26.01How climate change shifted from a scientific question into a partisan issue
26.01How Colorados formerly incarcerated people battled extreme weather behind bars
26.01Feeling lonely? Here are 5 strategies to build meaningful connections
25.01Why the future of talent recruitment is meritocratic
E-Commerce »

All news

27.01Monday Watch
27.01Wipro shares a slow-mover but can rally to Rs 335-360 in next 2 weeks: Anand James
27.01US Homeland Security agents visit gurdwaras in New York, New Jersey to check for illegal immigrants
27.01Jaguar Land Rover bets $80m on bespoke paint services
27.01Positive Breakout: These 4 stocks cross above their 200 DMAs
27.01Q3 results today: Coal India, Tata Steel among 78 companies to announce earnings on Monday
27.01Stocks to buy: Bajaj Housing, Tata Steel and Coal India on investors' radar
27.01Asian stocks up early as tariffs remain in focus
More »
Privacy policy . Copyright . Contact form .