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Commuting Hurts Productivity and Your Best Talent Suffers Most - HBS Working Knowledge

When measuring the number and quality of patented inventions by high-tech inventors, Wu and his colleagues found that for every 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) of added travel distance, the firm employing those inventors registered 5 percent fewer patents. The quality of the patents took an even bigger dive, dropping 7 percent with every 6.2 miles added to the inventors’ commute. The most talented inventors suffered the most; the greatest productivity losses were found among the highest-performing inventors, those among the top 10 percent.

Why Remote Work Is So Hard—and How It Can Be Fixed | The New Yorker

In person, for instance, the social cost of asking someone to take on a task is amplified; this friction gives colleagues reason to be thoughtful about the number of tasks they pass off to others. In a remote workplace, in which co-workers are reduced to abstract e-mail addresses or Slack handles, it’s easier for them to overload each other in an effort to declare victory over their own rapidly filling in-boxes. (This may be one of the reasons that, in our current moment of coronavirus-induced telework, so many people—even those without kids underfoot—feel busier than before, despite the absence of time-consuming commutes.)

Prehistoric Britons rack up food miles for feasts near Stonehenge: Landmark study reveals the monumental distances traveled for national mass gatherings -- ScienceDaily

Using isotope analysis, which identifies chemical signals from the food and water that animals have consumed, the researchers were able to determine geographical areas where the pigs were raised. The study offers the most detailed picture yet of the degree of mobility across Britain at the time of Stonehenge. Dr Madgwick said: "Arguably the most startling finding is the efforts that participants invested in contributing pigs that they themselves had raised. Procuring them in the vicinity of the feasting sites would have been relatively easy. "Pigs are not nearly as well-suited to movement over distance as cattle and transporting them, either slaughtered or on the hoof, over hundreds or even tens of kilometres, would have required a monumental effort. "This suggests that prescribed contributions were required and that rules dictated that offered pigs must be raised by the feasting participants, accompanying them on their journey, rather than being acquired locally."

Cycling to work 'halves risk of heart disease and cancer' | Daily Mail Online

The researchers, whose findings are published in the BMJ, studied the commuting habits of 263,450 middle aged men and women. They assessed their health for five years and recorded whether they developed cancer, heart disease or died of any cause. Adults who walked to work – typically six miles a week – were 27 per cent less likely to develop heart disease than those who drove or took public transport. But walking did not protect them against cancer or other chronic health problems – possibly because they were not exercising for long enough. Adults who cycled to work for any distance were more than 40 per cent less likely to get cancer, heart disease or die within the next five years.

The secrets of the world's happiest cities | Society | The Guardian

Researchers for Hewlett-Packard convinced volunteers in England to wear electrode caps during their commutes and found that whether they were driving or taking the train, peak-hour travellers suffered worse stress than fighter pilots or riot police facing mobs of angry protesters. But one group of commuters report enjoying themselves. These are people who travel under their own steam, like Robert Judge. They walk. They run. They ride bicycles.