As someone who travels far too much, I really enjoy any hack or app that eases my trips. The convenience of being able to order and pay for a car with my phone when I land in a new place is definitely something I enjoy a lot. But recently I had a couple of not so great experiences with Uber drivers who asked me for my phone to use Waze or Google maps because their own data plan had expired.
Without a navigation system, they were unable to deliver the service I was paying for.
This is the kind of unfortunate experience that is unlikely to happen if you go to London and take a black cab. To get you to your destination, London taxi drivers rely on their brains, not on apps or GPS. One of the reasons they do not need digital help to find their way is the training they undergo and the test they have to pass to get their taxi licence. Known as "The Knowledge", it is by far the hardest test in the world for taxi drivers. The amount of information one is expected to remember is simply astonishing.
To prepare for the test, drivers need to have fully memorised 25,000 London streets and roads located within a six-mile radius of Trafalgar Square. Add on top of this 20,000 points such as monuments, hospitals, police stations, theatres, shops and schools, and then you start understanding why The Knowledge’s success rate is as low as the test to join the United States Navy SEALs.
It takes between two to four years for drivers to complete The Knowledge, following several oral appearances. Preparing for those appearances is a full-time occupation, requiring candidates to drive around London on scooters and to study maps day and night. During the last oral interviews, in addition to the locations of theatres, drivers are also expected to know what shows are playing there.
Personally, it amazes me that people can memorise all of this and pass the test. But some do. So what makes the brains of London taxi drivers so special?
Several neuroscientists have tried to answer this question over the past 20 years thanks to structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging – big brain scanners one can find in hospitals that allow us not only to measure the volume but also to track changes of activity in brain areas.
In 1997, a group of London-based researchers led by Eleanor Maguire observed increased activity in the right hippocampus of licensed London taxi drivers as they were recalling a complex route. Dr Maguire and her colleagues concluded that this region of the brain known to contribute to memory processes “is involved in the processing of spatial layouts established over long time courses”.
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In subsequent studies, researchers found that the brains of London taxi drivers were physically different compared to other people. The volume of their posterior hippocampus was not only bigger than what was measured in non-taxi drivers but correlated positively with the number of years of they drove a taxi.
Similar differences were also found when comparing the brains of taxi and bus drivers. The latter, following a fixed route every day, were not relying on their visual memory in the way taxi drivers did, and the volume of some parts of their hippocampus was not as big as their peers driving taxis.
Where it gets even more interesting is when other researchers from the UK, Switzerland, Germany and Bahrain found that when a driver follows a satellite navigation system, the demand on the hippocampus is lower than navigating without digital assistance. And the researchers suggested that relying on navigation assistance such as Waze could lead to a decrease in the volume of the hippocampus.
So is the use of GPS while we drive going to make our brains shrink, as some concluded after the discoveries of the last study? Not really.
But memory needs to be exercised on a daily basis and everything we do to keep it active is good. It is interesting to realise that we now have a tendency to rely less on our neural memory and more on the memory of our smart devices and computers. Telephone numbers are stored in our phones and we use navigation apps even during our daily commutes, sometimes to be informed about traffic, but some other time because we are just lazy.
As I discussed a few weeks ago in this column, there is a global increase in the number of car accidents due to the use of smart phones and other digital devices while driving. Distracted driving has become a major road safety risk not only because of texting and driving, but also because of the increasing number of distractions provided by the dashboard of cars, such as GPS.
To my knowledge there is no comparative data available so far that would indicate that a taxi driver relying exclusively on his or her memory is less likely to end up in a road crash, as compared to drivers not keeping their eyes on the road all the time because they are checking their GPS.
But this is something worth keeping in mind the next time you need a ride.
Professor Olivier Oullier is the president of Emotiv, a neuroscientist and a DJ. He served as global head of strategy in health and healthcare and is a member of the executive committee of the World Economic Forum
Checks continue
A High Court judge issued an interim order on Friday suspending a decision by Agriculture Minister Edwin Poots to direct a stop to Brexit agri-food checks at Northern Ireland ports.
Mr Justice Colton said he was making the temporary direction until a judicial review of the minister's unilateral action this week to order a halt to port checks that are required under the Northern Ireland Protocol.
Civil servants have yet to implement the instruction, pending legal clarity on their obligations, and checks are continuing.
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The President's Cake
Director: Hasan Hadi
Starring: Baneen Ahmad Nayyef, Waheed Thabet Khreibat, Sajad Mohamad Qasem
Rating: 4/5
How to apply for a drone permit
- Individuals must register on UAE Drone app or website using their UAE Pass
- Add all their personal details, including name, nationality, passport number, Emiratis ID, email and phone number
- Upload the training certificate from a centre accredited by the GCAA
- Submit their request
What are the regulations?
- Fly it within visual line of sight
- Never over populated areas
- Ensure maximum flying height of 400 feet (122 metres) above ground level is not crossed
- Users must avoid flying over restricted areas listed on the UAE Drone app
- Only fly the drone during the day, and never at night
- Should have a live feed of the drone flight
- Drones must weigh 5 kg or less
Who's who in Yemen conflict
Houthis: Iran-backed rebels who occupy Sanaa and run unrecognised government
Yemeni government: Exiled government in Aden led by eight-member Presidential Leadership Council
Southern Transitional Council: Faction in Yemeni government that seeks autonomy for the south
Habrish 'rebels': Tribal-backed forces feuding with STC over control of oil in government territory
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THE SPECS
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Transmission: Constant Variable (CVT)
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Torque: 250Nm
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A list of the animal rescue organisations in the UAE
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
