To change the world, you first have to go up against it.

Even today, nothing has changed.

Marie Curie discovered radioactivity along with her husband.

Her remains are still radioactive almost a century later, after her death in 1934.

So is the lab where she worked.

She may be feted by academia and industry on the unique path she blazed.

But there were no crowds to cheer her on and encourage her to keep working.

Athletes and sportspersons are probably the only ones who make history in public.

But the years of practice that lead to the moment are lonely, grueling years where they have to believe that things will finally change.

Have you heard of Katlin Kariko?

Not many had until 2020

She believed in the power of mRNA to fight disease. It was unproven and the entire scientific establishment dismissed her theories.

She found it hard to get grants, funding and even acceptance from her colleagues.

And this went on right from the 1990s

Until a couple of companies understood that this was a revolutionary way to create vaccines to beat Covid.

Katlin's work helped to create Moderna's vaccine.

And that's when a lonely road became a historical one.

When the ad break becomes the show

The memes around ad breaks focus on one thing.

People taking bathroom breaks from watching TV

Streaming platforms have cut them out of the picture.

YouTube has intrusive ads cutting right into the content.

So brands are now experimenting with crossing over.

Becoming the content instead of the break.

L'Oréal has created its first season of shows and premiered it on YouTube.

It's aimed at hair professionals and the format is three experts discussing hair treatments, looks and styles.

It all looks very slick, and the post-production gloss would never come through in the home videos that popular YouTubers have.

But the conversations are stilted and filled with artificial bonhomie.

There's also a lot less of the actual treatment and the styling in progress.

The looks are all still photographs instead of video.

That tends to make it look more like a digital magazine than a show for audiences.

Wattpad, a crowdsourced content site makes a great point - that brands have to learn to create content all over again as opposed to the 1- and 2-minute commercials.

The rules are different.

And agencies have to reinvent their game as well.

The wall between ads and content are crumbling.

The bees join the rat race

Apart from the proverb, "As busy as a bee", we've relegated them to the background buzz of our life.

Turns out that bees are far more essential to nature than humans are.

In Germany, they found wild bee populations disappearing at an alarming rate.

Our obsession with 'useful' is doublespeak for 'commercial'

If something has no commercial value, it will be safely ignored, and no one wants to talk or do anything about it.

That's precisely why this government initiative is so heartening.

Urban wilderness patches have been created in orderly Berlin.

Initially, there was massive resistance from people because they believed 'nature' meant manicured lawns!

However, the planting continued and in 3 years, the benefits are obvious.

There's a riot of colourful flowers and shrubs adjoining streamlined highways.

And the bees are back.

Buzzing around happily in their own favourite wild patches, helping to reverse a decline of 75% in wild bee populations.

Over 100 wildflower meadows have now been planted in Berlin - they don't follow the rules of gardens as defined by humans. It's the untidy and unbelievable diversity that springs to life.

Citizens have seen the light, asking for more of them to be grown.

Urban rat races may just get the boost they need from bees.

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