Free online courses could be a path to higher education in African countries but awareness is low

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Free online courses could be a path to higher education in African countries but awareness is low Sub-Saharan Africa is one of the largest regions in the world and has the lowest rates of participation in higher education anywhere in the world. The World Bank reported in 2020 that only 9.4% of the region’s tertiary education age group is enrolled. The global average ratio is 38%. Education is a key catalyst of economic emancipation. Open and distance education was specifically designed for this purpose: to make higher education accessible to everyone, everywhere. Since it’s not limited to one campus or physical space, this approach empowers students to take full responsibility for their studies, to learn anywhere and at any time. Importantly, this happens with a higher education institution’s support and guidance. Continued here

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How the UK government's veto of Scotland's gender recognition bill brought tensions in the union to the surface From calls for a second Scottish independence referendum and speculation about “indy-curiousity” in Wales, to the collapse of the power-sharing agreement in Northern Ireland, the state of the UK union has been the subject of much political discussion over the past decade. Traditionally, devolution has followed a so-called devolve and forget model. The UK parliament transfers law making power to the devolved legislatures to exercise as they see fit, as long as they do so within the defined limits. Continued here

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Ukraine war: why Zelensky's corruption purge could be key to the outcome of the conflict The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, has announced a sweeping clear-out of senior national and regional government officials and the appointment of a new supervisory board for the state-owned natural gas giant, Naftogaz. This is a move to reassure both the Ukrainian public and the country’s western allies that the fight against corruption remains a priority, despite the ongoing war with Russia. The Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine’s parliament – in which Zelenskiy’s Servant of the People party has a commanding majority – quickly followed the president’s lead by presenting a draft bill aiming to boost transparency in defence procurement to avoid, for example, artificially inflated prices being paid for troops’ rations. Continued here

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Interest rate hikes: The Bank of Canada's 'resolute' fight against inflation could threaten its credibility The Bank of Canada “resolutely” declared it will fight inflation by raising interest rates. To demonstrate its unwavering commitment to reaching the bank’s two per cent inflation target, today’s eighth consecutive interest rate hike brings the policy rate to 4.5 per cent. The bank expects to hold the rate for now, but is prepared to increase it again if needed to maintain its target rate. The bank’s logic is this: when demand outpaces what the economy supplies, the result is inflation. Based on this analysis, the Bank of Canada raises interest rates to “dampen demand so supply can catch up.” Using interest rates to fight inflation has been central banks’ boilerplate approach for years. Continued here

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'Fire Emblem Engage' needs to let its characters out of the closet Sure, Fire Emblem has some of the most consistently excellent tactical combat around, but that’s not the only reason it has so many devoted fans. Games like Triangle Strategy and Shadowrun: Dragonfall also let you lead armies of compelling characters in tense, strategic battles, but only Fire Emblem lets you celebrate victory by smooching them. Despite how central its relationship mechanics are to the series’ success, Fire Emblem Engage dials down its romances — especially queer ones — and it’s a worse game for it. In some ways, Fire Emblem Engage is a step forward. Its predecessor, Three Houses, offered precious few options if you wanted to form that all-important S-rank bond with a character of the same gender as Byleth. Fire Emblem Engage removes that restriction, letting you max out your support level with any character. At the same time, it cuts marriage as an option and almost entirely strips romance from its S-rank relationships. Instead, most characters talk about your relationship in vague terms, leaving players themselves to decide what exactly it means. Continued here

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Poker Face review: A deft Columbo update for Knives Out fans Take a look at any episode of the old detective series Columbo and you'll see that the title's yellow letters and font are echoed precisely in Poker Face, created by Rian Johnson. Columbo is its main touchstone, and like its inspiration, Poker Face is sly, easy, escapist fun. But as he did in the character-driven whodunnit films Knives Out and Glass Onion, Johnson has designed this show with a shrewd sense of how to give nostalgia an update. His throwback to murder-of-the-week shows works perfectly well today, although the shambolic hero played by Peter Falk is now a croaky-voiced heroine with wild hair and a mobile phone.  More like this:– 11 of the best TV shows to watch in January – The Last of Us is a 'remarkable' show – The reinvention of the murder mystery Continued here

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The Strangely Counterintuitive Power of Negative Thinking Why every team needs a naysayer. Continued here

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The Doomsday Clock is now at 90 seconds to midnight -- the closest we have ever been to global catastrophe On Jan. 24, history was again made when the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ organization moved the seconds hand of the Doomsday Clock closer to midnight. It is now at ‘90 seconds to midnight,’ the closest it has ever been to the symbolic midnight hour of global catastrophe. The announcement, made during a news conference held in Washington D.C., was delivered in English, Ukrainian and Russian. The released statement described our current moment in history as “a time of unprecedented danger.” Continued here

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The Best Actress Race at the Oscars Is Crowded, Unpredictable, and Weird Farewell to Margot Robbie (“Babylon”). You danced. You cried. You puked. Your hair was from another dimension. Your third Oscar nomination, alas, was not to be. Farewell to Viola Davis (“The Woman King”). You slayed—literally. You made a hardened warrior both tough and vulnerable. You carried a big battle movie on your back as few women have. You already have an Oscar, a supporting win for “Fences,” and three other previous nominations. But you really should get a Best Actress award at some point. Continued here

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40 years ago, NASA launched the space telescope that proved JWST could work IRAS is a sometimes forgotten spacecraft that proved that infrared astronomy had a bright future. You can think of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) observatory as offering the greatest view of all time. From the big space telescope’s vista point about 1 million miles behind Earth, it has brought us incredible images of swirling galaxies, nebulae resplendent with newborn stars, and some of the most ancient galaxies in the universe. Continued here

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Adriaan Vlok: the case for accepting the late South African politician's apology for apartheid The recent death of Adriaan Vlok, the prominent South African apartheid-era law and order minister, brought the issue of political apologies for past wrongs back into the public arena. It remains an emotional subject in the country, given that almost none of the leaders of the apartheid government apologised for their actions in a process set up precisely for that purpose. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission, created in 1995, was designed to steer South Africa through the transition from apartheid to democracy. It allowed former apartheid crime perpetrators to obtain amnesty in exchange for full cooperation with the commission. Continued here

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Fossil teeth reveal how brains developed in utero over millions of years of human evolution - new research Fossilized bones help tell the story of what human beings and our predecessors were doing hundreds of thousands of years ago. But how can you learn about important parts of our ancestors’ life cycle – like pregnancy or gestation – that leave no obvious trace in the fossil record? The large brains, relative to overall body size, that are a defining characteristic of our species make pregnancy and gestation particularly interesting to paleoanthropologists like me. Homo sapiens’ big skulls contribute to our difficult labor and delivery. But the big brains inside are what let our species really take off. Continued here

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3 Unexpected Ways to Instantly Boost Hiring Practices By understanding what you can do to deliver the working experience your employees need, you can succeed at engaging with top talent. Continued here

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The Best Books We Read This Week Our editors and critics choose the most captivating, notable, brilliant, surprising, absorbing, weird, thought-provoking, and talked-about reads. Check back every Wednesday for new fiction and nonfiction recommendations. This much anticipated and compellingly artful autobiography depicts the Duke of Sussex’s life in a tight three-act drama, consisting of his occasionally wayward youth, his decade of military service, and his relationship with Meghan Markle, with numerous bombshells sprinkled throughout. The memoir, luridly leaked, is worth reading not just for its headline-generating details but also for its voice and its sometimes surprising wit. Harry’s ghostwriter, J. R. Moehringer, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter turned memoirist, has a novelist’s eye for detail and a felicitous familiarity with the British literary canon; elevating Shakespearean flourishes may give readers a shiver of recognition, while descriptions of the patched, starched bed linens at Balmoral hint at the constricting fabric of monarchy. Haunted by the spectres of family tragedy and dysfunction, “Spare” takes aim at the media, the monarchy, and—most of all—the prince’s own flesh and blood. Continued here

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'Polite Society' review: A joyful coming-of-age movie that absolutely kicks butt Millennials have a wide range of problems, but the most fundamental is the universal bill of goods their parents sold them about their “bright” futures. This is a generation brought up to believe they could grow up to be whatever they wanted, and to whom “practicality” and “possibility” are uncut gibberish. Nida Manzoor’s first feature film, Polite Society, gives a glimpse at the messaging the incumbent Gen Z is being raised on: Your dreams are absurd, you’re a ninny for following them, and please clean up the mess you made when you kicked your sister through her bedroom door. Continued here

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'Change the date' debates about January 26 distract from the truth telling Australia needs to do “Australia Day”, January 26, brings an annual debate of whether celebrations should continue or be moved to a different date. This clash of views means Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have to brace themselves every year for the annual influx of racism and hate on the streets, online and in the media. And we’re tired of it. Australia knows this is a Day of Mourning for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people because it is the day the attempted genocide of Indigenous peoples began. Continued here

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Two Supreme Court Cases That Could Break the Internet In February, the Supreme Court will hear two cases—Twitter v. Taamneh and Gonzalez v. Google—that could alter how the Internet is regulated, with potentially vast consequences. Both cases concern Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act, which grants legal immunity to Internet platforms for content posted by users. The plaintiffs in each case argue that platforms have violated federal antiterrorism statutes by allowing content to remain online. (There is a carve-out in Section 230 for content that breaks federal law.) Meanwhile, the Justices are deciding whether to hear two more cases—concerning laws in Texas and in Florida—about whether Internet providers can censor political content that they deem offensive or dangerous. The laws emerged from claims that providers were suppressing conservative voices. To talk about how these cases could change the Internet, I recently spoke by phone with Daphne Keller, who teaches at Stanford Law School and directs the program on platform regulation at Stanford’s Cyber Policy Center. (Until 2015, she worked as an associate general counsel at Google.) During our conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity, we discussed what Section 230 actually does, different approaches the Court may take in interpreting the law, and why every form of regulation by platforms comes with unintended consequences. Continued here

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Australia Day hasn't always been on January 26, but it has always been an issue January 26 is a date that sparks mixed emotions in Australia. For some, it’s a day to celebrate all the good things about living in Australia. For others, it’s a painful reminder of the beginning of British colonisation and the dispossession of First Nations. Increasingly, January 26 is becoming a date that divides the nation even as it attempts to unite it. Some local councils have stopped holding citizenship ceremonies on the date. In 2018, Triple J stopped hosting its Hottest 100 on Australia Day, and this year Victoria announced it will no longer hold its Australia Day parade. Continued here

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Is burnout finally 'high-profile' enough for leaders to act? Last week, Jacinda Ardern announced she would be standing down from office as New Zealand’s Prime Minister. The 42-year-old, whose more than five-year term was marked by her handling of the aftermath of the country’s worst ever mass shooting, a deadly volcanic eruption and the Covid-19 pandemic, said on 19 January that she no longer had enough “in the tank” to do her job justice. “Politicians are human. We give all that we can, for as long as we can, and then it’s time,” she said. “And for me, it’s time.” Continued here

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Tanzania: opposition rallies are finally unbanned - but this doesn't mean democratic reform is coming In Tanzania, the political rally is back. Chadema, Tanzania’s leading opposition party, held mass rallies outside the official election campaign for the first time in six and a half years on 21 January 2023. It could do so because three weeks earlier, President Samia Suluhu Hassan lifted the ban on public rallies. Assassination-attempt survivor and opposition politician Tundu Lissu returned to Tanzania on 25 January to take part in them. Continued here

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Heat stress is rising in southern Africa - climate experts show where and when it's worst University of the Witwatersrand provides support as a hosting partner of The Conversation AFRICA. Most of us have felt either too hot or too cold at some point in our lives. Depending on where we live, we may feel too cold quite often each winter, and too hot for a few days in summer. As we’re writing this in late January 2023 many southern Africans are probably feeling very hot and fatigued; a prolonged regional heatwave began around 9 January. Continued here

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Here's why the 'Invincible' movie won't be 'The Boys' redux It could be a rehash, but it should offer something new to an increasingly bloated superhero landscape. It’s been nearly two years since we last saw a super-powered father beat his super-powered son to a pulp in Invincible’s climactic and gut-wrenching Season 1 finale. While Amazon recently clued fans in on the adult animated series’ return with a cheeky teaser, fans of Robert Kirkman’s Invincible comics have had fewer insights into a supposed live-action film adaptation... until now. Continued here

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Winners and Losers from This Year's Oscar Nominations The English Major You Dated in College Who Wore Lots of Windbreakers and Chain-Smoked: because he definitely works for A24 now. Louis B. Mayer: who made up the Oscars to try to make industry professionals compete against one another instead of unionizing, but they unionized anyway. Take that, ghost of Louis B. Mayer! Continued here

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Spotify's Newest 2023 Move is a Masterclass in Marketing. Here's Why, According to Research Out with the Wrapped, in with the Playlist in a Bottle. Continued here

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The Competing Narratives of the Monterey Park Shooting Last weekend, a man shot and killed eleven people at a ballroom-dance studio in Monterey Park, California, an Asian enclave outside of Los Angeles. Then, less than forty-eight hours later, in Half Moon Bay, California, another man shot and killed seven Chinese farmworkers. Notably, both of the alleged killers were older men with Asian backgrounds. While mass shootings take place with mind-boggling regularity in America, these attacks also happened amid an alarming rise in hate crimes targeting people of Asian descent. Jay Caspian Kang, a New Yorker staff writer and the author of “The Loneliest Americans,” joins Michael Luo, the editor of newyorker.com, to discuss how these two types of American violence shape our understanding of such disturbing events. © 2023 Condé Nast. All rights reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. The New Yorker may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast. Ad Choices Continued here

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Large mammals shaped the evolution of humans: here's why it happened in Africa University of the Witwatersrand provides support as a hosting partner of The Conversation AFRICA. That humans originated in Africa is widely accepted. But it’s not generally recognised how unique features of Africa’s ecology were responsible for the crucial evolutionary transitions from forest-inhabiting fruit-eater to savanna-dwelling hunter. These were founded on earth movements and aided physically by Africa’s seasonal aridity, bedrock-derived soils and absence of barriers to movements between north and south. Continued here

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What we mean when we talk about romantic comedies “Death to romantic love”, declared a celebration of a feminist Valentine’s Day promoted by a group of students on posters visible in Zaragoza (Spain) in the days leading up to 14 February 2020. The feminist slogan reminded me of a little-known passage from Shakespeare, when at the beginning of Henry IV, Part 1, Hotspur, an exalted warrior, is about to depart for his next battle. His wife tries to convince him to stay with her. Spurring his horse, he replies: “This is no world / To play with mammets and to tilt with lips. / We must have bloody noses and cracked crowns.” Continued here

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Pence Says He Hid Behind Classified Documents to Keep Women from Lusting After Him CARMEL, INDIANA (The Borowitz Report)—Mike Pence has revealed that he often hid behind classified documents to prevent women who were not his wife from lusting after him. Speaking to reporters outside his home in Indiana, Pence said that his “greatest fear” was dining alone in a restaurant and being accosted by women “hellbent on seducing me.” Continued here

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Feeling Stressed? A Stanford Neuroscientist Says This 5-Second Breathing Technique is the Fastest Way to Reduce Anxiety and Tension Two inhales and one long exhale reduces CO2 levels, slows your heart rate... and leaves you feeling calmer, less tensed and more focused. Continued here

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Calls for Pope Benedict's sainthood make canonizing popes seem like the norm - but it's a long and politically fraught process Like many others around the world, I watched the funeral of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI live on the internet. Before the service began, an unexpected announcement came over the loudspeakers requesting that members of the assembled crowd refrain from raising any banners or flags. Nevertheless, toward the end of the liturgy, at least one large banner was displayed, reading “Santo Subito,” an Italian phrase that means “sainthood now.” Identical signs were raised at the 2005 funeral of Pope John Paul II, who was officially canonized nine years later. The connection between these events has not gone unnoticed, leading some to raise questions about expectations that every future pope will be acclaimed as a saint. Continued here

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The Royal Family Made 2 Mistakes About Prince Harry That Too Many Employers Make About Employees Have you made the same mistakes in your company? Continued here

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Adam Grant Just Urged CEOs to Try a 4-day Workweek but Research Shows There's 1 Perk Employees Want More Yes, employees like a shorter workweek, but they love this. Continued here

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Economists have misunderstood a key indicator - and it's a big problem In studies, forecasts and recommendations to governments, markets are seen as capable of processing so-called rational information. Economists claim that firms’ market prices result from rational expectation about their future monetary flows and intangible assets not accounted by bookkeeping, which, however, would enable those future monetary flows to occur. It is quite difficult to find evidence corroborating these assertions. They rely on information about the future, which is unknown and, thus, cannot be tested at the time of the analysis. Continued here

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How Can You Be Sure Someone Has Great Leadership Skills? It Comes Down to This 7-Letter Word No matter how smart or talented you are, without this character trait you'll never persuade people. Continued here

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You need to watch the most underrated Stephen King sci-fi movie on HBO Max ASAP The forgotten thriller is the perfect entry point for curious fans afraid of Cronenberg’s gruesome reputation. The 1983 adaptation of Stephen King’s The Dead Zone is something of an anomaly for both its director and leading man. Not only is the sci-fi thriller one of the few films in David Cronenberg’s catalog that doesn’t leave the squeamish needing a sick bag, it’s also a rare opportunity to see Christopher Walken act like a relatively normal human being. Continued here

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Follow This Path to Create a Brand Story That Is Memorable What impact will your brand identity have on your company's future? Continued here

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The Top 3 Managerial Missteps You Should Never Make Great leadership is in demand. Make sure you have the leadership skills for workplace success. Continued here

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Georgia's surprising LGBTQ+ scene Nata Talikishvili never wanted to be a comedian. With a career that ranges from sex worker to club bouncer, Talikishvili uses her acerbic humour to expose society's hypocrisy, telling true stories that make light of her own difficult experiences as a trans woman in the transphobic culture of Georgia. She turns up to her interview with BBC Culture an hour late, waving a fan coquettishly, and her comic talent oozes out to such an extent that the translator keeps bursting into laughter during our conversation. One of the main targets of her stories are the country's Orthodox priests, who according to Talikishvili are both key culprits in whipping up Georgian society's hatred, and at the same time, she jokes, make up a large chunk of her client base. An annual march for family values organised by the Church is one of her busiest working days she says, because so many priests visit Tblisi from the countryside. "I bless them in the morning and then send them to the demonstration," she quips. Continued here

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Claims that foetuses are surrounded by bacteria in the womb are incorrect - new review When a baby is born, its immune system is already developed to survive in a world full of germs. This developmental process is not only important for the baby but also for lifelong health. However, our understanding of the process is vastly incomplete. Specifically, scientists do not agree on when the foetus is first exposed to microbes. Some scientists suggested that these microbiomes (communities of bacteria, fungi and viruses) are part of a natural pregnancy and that they expose the foetus to live microbes that prime its immune system. But a new review published in Nature, involving myself and an international team of 45 other experts, has found no sound evidence for such a microbiome. Continued here

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One of these underrated animals should be Australia's 2032 Olympic mascot. Which would you choose? Euan G. Ritchie is a Councillor within the Biodiversity Council, and a member of the Ecological Society of Australia and the Australian Mammal Society. Am I not pretty enough? This article is part of The Conversation’s series introducing you to unloved Australian animals that need our help. Continued here

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COVID-19 deaths in the US continue to be undercounted, research shows, despite claims of 'overcounts' Since the COVID-19 pandemic was declared in March 2020, a recurring topic of debate has been whether official COVID-19 death statistics in the U.S. accurately capture the fatalities associated with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Some politicians and a few public health practitioners have argued that COVID-19 deaths are overcounted. For instance, a January 2023 opinion piece in The Washington Post claims that COVID-19 death tallies include not only those who died from COVID-19 but those who died from other causes but happened to have COVID-19. Continued here

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The Frictionless Charms of the Ferrante Cinematic Universe Since the early twenty-tens, Elena Ferrante’s work has had a sirenic effect on adult women who identify as complicated and brainy. “The Lying Life of Adults,” a new Netflix show, is the latest evidence of her lasting cultural impact. Starring Valeria Golino and Giordana Marengo, the series adapts Ferrante’s 2019 novel of the same name, about a teen-age girl, Giannì, who is caught between the elegant Naples of her parents and the grittier Naples symbolized by her estranged aunt, Vittoria. The Times reported that Ferrante herself was involved in writing the Netflix show, which joins two other cinematic translations of the pseudonymous Italian author. There is “The Lost Daughter,” from 2021, a witchy film directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal, and HBO’s “My Brilliant Friend,” which débuted in 2018 and is now in its third season. All three treatments are beautiful to look at, dotted with surreal touches, and self-consciously artificial, relying on devices like voice-over and flashback. None of them approximate the experience of reading Ferrante. What is it like to read Ferrante? On the page, she is a singular phenomenon, almost claustrophobically inward and intense. Her novels unfold in the first person and, in M.F.A. parlance, they “tell” rather than “show,” constructing a tissue of thoughts, memories, and fantasies. Here is Giannì, the narrator of “The Lying Life of Adults,” spiralling during a dinner party: Continued here

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30 years later, a major Star Trek villain is making an unexpected comeback To defeat Data and Captain Picard, Star Trek had to borrow from Sherlock Holmes. In two episodes of The Next Generation, a holographic version of Professor James Moriarty (Daniel Davis) hassled the Enterprise crew, and in Picard Season 3, Moriarty is back. But how did we get here? On January 25, 1993, the TNG episode “Ship in a Bottle” perfectly set the stage for the wrath of Moriarty. Let’s turn the clock back a bit more. In the 1988 Season 2 TNG episode, “Elementary, Dear Data,” Geordi gets bored watching Data easily solve Sherlock Holmes mysteries on the holodeck and asks the computer to create someone who could defeat Data. Crucially, they don’t say Holmes, but Data. And so, thanks to the super-efficient and very literal Enterprise computer, a sentient Moriarty AI (Daniel Davis) was born. At the end of the episode, after Moriarty nearly takes over the ship, Picard agrees to help figure out how to give him life outside of the holodeck, because to Picard all life is precious. Even Victorian supervillains. Continued here

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Starbucks fans are steamed: The psychology behind why changes to a rewards program are stirring up anger, even though many will get grande benefits Starbucks, the coffee chain giant, is modifying its rewards program, and the news is full of stories of outraged consumers. The main focus of their ire is that, starting Feb. 13, 2023, it will cost twice as many of the program’s reward points, called stars, to earn a free cup of hot coffee. Continued here

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Even bivalent updated COVID-19 boosters struggle to prevent omicron subvariant transmission - an immunologist discusses why new approaches are necessary By almost any measure, the vaccination campaign against SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, has been a global success. As of January 2023, more than 12 billion vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 have been administered in an effort that has saved countless lives – more than 14 million in the first year of vaccine availability alone. With a 95% efficacy in the prevention of severe infection and death, and better safety profiles than similar historically effective vaccines, the biomedical community hoped that a combination of vaccination and natural immunity might bring the pandemic to a relatively quick end. Continued here

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Vaccine hesitancy in South Africa: COVID experience highlights conspiracies, mistrust and the role of the media In recent weeks, China has reported a spike in new cases of COVID and related deaths. Some countries have imposed travel restrictions as a result. But most – including South Africa – have not. Instead, the South African government’s approach is to increase testing, boost surveillance, and, most importantly, breathe new life into its COVID vaccination campaign. Continued here

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These 5 spectacular impact craters on Earth highlight our planet's wild history Senior Beamline Scientist - Powder Diffraction, Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation Impact craters occur on every planetary body in our Solar System, no matter the size. By studying impact craters and the meteorites that cause them, we can learn about the processes and the geology that shape our entire Solar System. Continued here

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The SAT and ACT are less important than you might think More than 80% of U.S. colleges and universities do not require applicants to take standardized tests – like the SAT or the ACT. That proportion of institutions with test-optional policies has more than doubled since the spring of 2020. And for the fall of 2023, some 85 institutions won’t even consider standardized test scores when reviewing applications. That includes the entire University of California system. Continued here

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The Secret to Being a Great CEO? Finding the Right COO. Here's How The best company leaders would be nothing without a rock-solid operator by their side.Continued here S45 US will give military tanks to Ukraine, signaling Western powers' long-term commitment to thwarting Russia President Joe Biden announced on Jan. 25, 2023, that the U.S. would send 31 M1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine – following Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s repeated requests for more military tanks to help wage its war against Russia. “This is about helping Ukraine defend and protect Ukrainian land. It is not an offensive threat to Russia. There is no offensive threat to Russia. If Russian troops return to Russia, where they belong, this war would be over today. That is what we all want,” Biden said in his remarks at the White House. Continued here S16 Emotional 'blunting' and antidepressants - new research suggests why this is happening Reinforcement sensitivity is an important behavioural process that allows us to learn from our environment through either positive/rewarding or negative feedback. When we get together with friends or go for a run, chemicals in our brains send us signals that in turn make us feel good about what we’re doing. We know that depressed patients commonly report “emotional blunting” after longer use of antidepressants, in which they experience a dulling of both positive and negative emotions. But it can be difficult to tell if these symptoms are due to the depression itself or the drug treatment. Using healthy volunteers, our new study is the first to show that chronic use of antidepressants does decrease sensitivity to positive reward as well as negative feedback, and this finding may explain the dulling feeling experienced by some depressed patients. Continued here S21 Atlanta's BeltLine shows how urban parks can drive 'green gentrification' if cities don't think about affordable housing at the start Is Atlanta a good place to live? Recent rankings certainly say so. In September 2022, Money magazine rated Atlanta the best place to live in the U.S., based on its strong labor market and job growth. The National Association of Realtors calls it the top housing market to watch in 2023, noting that Atlanta’s housing prices are lower than those in comparable cities and that it has a rapidly growing population. But this is only part of the story. My new book, “Red Hot City: Housing, Race, and Exclusion in Twenty-First Century Atlanta,” takes a deep dive into the last three decades of housing, race and development in metropolitan Atlanta. As it shows, planning and policy decisions here have promoted a heavily racialized version of gentrification that has excluded lower-income, predominantly Black residents from sharing in the city’s growth. Continued here S49 Placebos reduce feelings of guilt - even when people know they're taking one Guilt is a double-edged sword. It can be a reminder to improve and a motivation to apologise. It can also lead to pathological perfectionism and stress and is also closely associated with depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. Unfortunately, good and bad guilt are common, and there are few proven treatments to reduce unhealthy guilt. Continued here S38 'Have I just joined another cult?': Daniella grew up in The Family, then joined the army - where she experienced toxic control, again On Daniella Mestyanek Young’s first day of military training, she stands among her fellow recruits holding a duffle bag high in one arm above her head. As she ponders the other bodies lined up in her peripheral vision, all struggling to maintain the same pose, it gradually occurs to her that this feeling — of being owned, coerced, programmed — seems unsettlingly familiar: “Have I just joined another cult?” This sense of suspicion forms a pattern in Mestyanek Young’s life, which she documents with remarkable insight in her memoir, Uncultured, exploring the systems of control in which toxicity can thrive. Continued here S40 'An activist masquerading as an artist': we should all be talking about Richard Bell A new documentary from Larissa Behrendt, You Can Go Now, highlights the life, work and activism of Richard Bell: a self-described “activist masquerading as an artist”. Bell is an internationally renowned artist who works across painting, installation, video and performance, describing himself as “bold, brash and brazen” in his approach to dealing with the art industry in Australia. Continued here S52 Pension reform in France: Macron and demonstrators resume epic tussle begun over 30 years ago More than 1 million people poured onto the streets in France on Thursday to protest the government’s plans to reform the pension regime. The bill, which was presented to the Council of Ministers on Monday, aims to raise the minimum retirement age from 62 to 64 years old starting from 2030. It would also bring an end to some of the country’s specialised retirement regimes, whereby certain workers get bigger pension pots and to retire earlier than others (rail or post workers, for example). It is due to be debated at the French assembly on 30 January. Pension reform is one of the defining issues of Emmanuel Macron’s second five-year term, as he looks to become the president who resolves a quandary that has troubled French presidents since the early 1990s. The policy was one of the central pledges of his 2022 presidential campaign, after he postponed it due to the double pressure of the streets and the Covid pandemic. Continued here S43 Have you been labelled at work by your gender, age or ethnicity? Here's how those labels can delegitimize you Have you or a colleague ever been negatively labelled at work, whether it’s based on your gender, age, race or ethnicity? Labels can often be mundane because we use them spontaneously on an everyday basis. But they can also be far from innocuous. Labels convey value judgments and serve to control the behaviour of the people they’re applied to. To understand labels, we have to look at how we interact with the world around us. We make sense of this world by using mental shortcuts that enable us to save our mental resources. Shortcuts draw on categories; one of the most salient categories is gender. Continued here S15 Death and dying: how different cultures deal with grief and mourning Grief is a universal emotion. It’s something we all feel, no matter where we come from or what we’ve been through. Grief comes for us all and as humans who form close relationships with other people, it’s hard to avoid. Studies of grieving brains – be it scans of the brain regions which process grief, or measures of the stress hormone cortisol that is released in grief – show no differences in relation to race, age or religion. People of all cultures grieve; we all feel sorrow, loss, and despair. We just do it – and show it – in different ways. Continued here S17 Andrew Tate: research has long shown how feminist progress is always followed by a misogynistic backlash Andrew Tate is a man who has made a living out of controversy. The extensive media coverage garnered since his arrest in Romania on suspicion of rape, human trafficking and organised crime has largely called him out for his misogynistic views. This matters, because he is a literal influencer. Tate has known a lightning rise to global fame and the kind of viral reach that most of his peers only dream of, despite having been banned by many platforms. Continued here S51 With the upsurge of 'contract cheating' in Indonesia, student academic integrity is at stake If you are a student and spend much of your time on the internet, the chances are you have come across an account or website that offers to do your assignments for a fee. Some of these services are fully-fledged businesses. Some are one-person operations. Whichever it is, “contract cheating” – a term coined in a 2006 study by English scholars Thomas Lancaster and Robert Clarke – is a process by which students hire a third-party to complete work on their behalf. Continued here S46 Deep sea reefs are spectacular and barely-explored - they must be conserved However, reefs and corals do not stop where the sunlight becomes scarce. Largely hidden from the masses lie great expanses of deep reefs, which collectively have a larger geographic footprint than their shallower counterparts. Luckily, recent advances have allowed us to learn more about these unique ecosystems. Specialised scuba equipment, known as technical diving, can get you down to 150 metres, and remotely-operated or autonomous vehicles, or even small manned submersibles, can go even deeper. Continued here S50 Canada's new drinking guidelines don't consider the social benefits of alcohol. But should they? This month, the Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction issued revised recommendations for lower-risk alcohol consumption. The new guidelines state that no amount of alcohol is “safe” and that individuals should drink no more than two standard drinks per week in order to minimize their risk for chronic diseases, such as cancer. The report also acknowledges the reality that 40 per cent of Canadians, aged 15 and older, drink more than six standard drinks per week – meaning that many of us exceed the new recommendations for low-risk alcohol consumption. Continued here S48 Strikes: how rising household debt could slow industrial action this year After decades of declining real wages and deteriorating working conditions, strike activity has spiked over the last year, particularly in the United Kingdom. From nurses and teachers to railway and postal workers, employees are demanding wage increases and improved working conditions – and walking out if they believe employers’ offers won’t stave off the rising cost of living. This current wave of strikes is the largest in more than a decade, but it is nowhere near the heights reached in the UK during the 1970s. September 1979 saw the all-time peak of post-war era industrial activity, with more than 11 million working days lost due to strike action. The latest figures for November 2022 show 467,000 days lost. Continued here S53 A hymn to the stars: what happens when science puts the universe into music Astronome FNRS à l'Institut d'astrophysique et de géophysique, Université de Liège A little over six months ago, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) delivered its first photographs, dazzling the world as it revealed the cosmos in glorious technicolour. The first picture transmitted in July showed a galaxy cluster located in the Southern hemisphere sky, 5.12 billion light years from Earth. In the words of US president Joe Biden, it represented “the deepest and sharpest infrared image of the distant universe” taken by humanity so far. Continued here S39 Why do cats and dogs get the zoomies? Susan Hazel is affiliated with the Dog & Cat Management Board of South Australia and RSPCA South Australia. Does your cat or dog suddenly get a burst of energy and perform athletic feats around the house that would make even a gold medallist jealous? Welcome to the world of zoomies. Continued here S54 Grattan on Friday: Response to Alice Springs crisis poses early Indigenous affairs test for Albanese Prime Minister Anthony Albanese did the right thing in dashing off to Alice Springs this week in response to the publicity about that city’s crime crisis. But in doing so, he set up a test for himself. That test will be early, and tough. The first round will come next week, when Albanese and Northern Territory Chief Minister Natasha Fyles receive a report on whether alcohol bans should be reimposed on Indigenous communities. Continued here S42 I covered murder-suicides, and learned how journalists were vulnerable to trauma It never really dawned on me how vulnerable journalists were to trauma until I took a job as an investigative reporter. I spent most of 2021 and 2022 verifying, analyzing and writing stories about murder-suicides. Every morning, I would make myself a cup of coffee in my New York City apartment, then sit down at my desk to pore over cases of murder-suicides — a total of 1,500 a year in the United States at the time. Continued here S41 Got gastro? Here's why eating bananas helps but drinking flat lemonade might not Doctors are reportedly concerned about a spike in the number of kids with gastroenteritis – when tummy infections can cause nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea, fever, abdominal pain, headache and muscle aches. Rotavirus is a common cause of gastroenteritis in children and the reported rotavirus rate in New South Wales so far this year is five times what it usually is. Continued here S47 Finding Britain's 'shadow woods' offers the fastest way to reforest the countryside When William the Conqueror surveyed his new kingdom in 1086, from lowland to upland, Britain was covered with trees. In low-lying Yorkshire, the East Anglian Fens and the Somerset Levels, wet woods of tall white willows and alders lined great rivers. On windswept highlands in the Pennines, north Yorkshire and Cumbria, goat willows shed fuzzy catkins in downy blankets and dead leaves of wintertime moor-grass formed dense carpets. Along the western coast of Britain were extensive Atlantic rainforests: ancient, twisting trees enmeshed with boulders, all richly clothed in mosses, lichens and ferns. Now largely forgotten, these enigmatic forests once clad the lower slopes of hills and clifftops. Continued here S44 Beirut port disaster: former Lebanon prime minister charged with homicide The investigation into the Beirut port explosion has taken a new turn, with the judge overseeing the probe charging a former prime minister and two other former ministers with homicide with probable intent. The explosion in August 2020, which happened in a massive silo in the port of Beirut containing a large amount of the fertiliser ammonium nitrate which had been stored there since 2014, killed 218 people and devastated parts of the city. An investigation was quickly set up, but has been plagued with delays and difficulties. Continued here Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom) Tweets Tweets follow me on Twitter Microsoft Silverlight - Change the World Connect with Me Random Hacks! - My Blog @ MSDN Loading... Where Dreamers Dare! Loading... About Me Sayan Will copy and paste later from my official biography! 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