Wrapped snugly in a custom container, seven carefully chosen materials left Earth on Aug. 24, 2025, traveling at 17,500 mph. Nestled at the top of a Falcon 9 rocket, house dust, freeze-dried human liver, and cholesterol joined four other scientific specimens to travel to the International Space Station (ISS).

Called reference materials, these thoroughly studied samples serve…

The traditional promise of work was simple: Support your life, care for your family, and build toward meaningful milestones like purchasing a home or saving for your children’s education. But for many modern professionals, that relationship with work is shifting. Instead of working to live, more employees feel they are living to work, caught in a cycle of rising demands and insufficient rest…

In 1960, organizational psychologist Douglas McGregor introduced a conceptual framework of two contrasting theories about human motivation that grounded my Toyota Production System (TPS) learning.

His Theory X was based on the assumption that workers are fundamentally lazy and can’t be trusted to do good work in the absence of close supervision. As a student at Wayne State…