Collective Journalism (CJ) is Current’s citizen journalism program. If you want to get involved with telling the stories about how you and your community are affected by news and issues, this is the place. This page is curated by the staff on the CJ team, and features CJ content aired on the TV network, but this is where you can upload your work, suggest ideas, leave your webcam reactions and link to news stories.

Researchers are finding clues to the basis of brilliance in the brain

The multiregional hypothesis holds that the evolution of humanity throughout the Pleistocene has been within a single widespread human species, Homo sapiens, in response to the normal forces of evolution: selection, mutation, genetic drift, and gene flow.

Capitalism has improved the lives of billions of people — something that's easy to forget at a time of great economic uncertainty. But it has left out billions more. They have great needs, but they can't express those needs in ways that matter to markets. So they are stuck in poverty, suffer from preventable diseases and never have a chance to make the most of their lives. Governments and nonprofit groups have an irreplaceable role in helping them, but it will take too long if they try to do it alone. It is mainly corporations that have the skills to make technological innovations work for the poor. To make the most of those skills, we need a more creative capitalism: an attempt to stretch the reach of market forces so that more companies can benefit from doing work that makes more people better off. We need new ways to bring far more people into the system — capitalism — that has done so much good in the world.

Social Media meet Mass Media. LinkedIn launches a personalization offering with the New York Times that customizes Times news to LinkedIn subscribers based on their industry preferences. It's a simple business model that would seem to augur a spate of news personalization deals between social networks and news media. Here is a futuristic time chart on how the convergence of mass media and social media might evolve:Social Media BenefitMass Media BenefitBusiness modelFirst step

It’s not that some “personal branding” advice isn’t useful or beneficial; it’s that much of the “personal branding” concept is little more than common sense put into a trite “package” for the sole purpose of commercialization.

Much ink has been spilled lately decrying the decline in American popularity around the world under President Bush. Polls tell us how China is now more popular in Asia than America and how few Europeans say they identify with the United States. I am sure there is truth to these polls. We should have done better in Iraq. An America that presides over Abu Ghraib, torture and Guantánamo Bay deserves a thumbs-down.

I finished Fareed Zakaria's The Post American World the other day. Which means the Zakaria quotes of the day are history. Hopefully you all enjoyed them. If you did, you should really pickup the book and read it.

CHICAGO — The call by Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki for a timetable for the removal of American troops from Iraq presents an enormous opportunity. We should seize this moment to begin the phased redeployment of combat troops that I have long advocated, and that is needed for long-term success in Iraq and the security interests of the United States.

The World’s Biggest Problems portal has a simple, clear mission: educating people all around the world about the biggest problems facing humanity. These problems have two criteria, they must be global in scope, and have the potential to rapidly escalate into severe crises.