iNsAnItY iNtEnSiFiEd: One Third of the Amazon Has Been Degraded by Human Activities

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One Third of the Amazon Has Been Degraded by Human Activities

A pair of studies raise concerns that the Amazon rainforest may be approaching a point of no return

Study after study has sounded the alarm on the deteriorating Amazon rainforest. Plagued by deforestation, drought, fires and other human disturbances, the iconic ecosystem is teetering on a dangerous precipice, scientists warn.

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The childhood diseases making a post-lockdown comeback

As child after child gasping for air was admitted to the hospital, Rabia Agha gritted her teeth. In her role as director of the paediatric infectious diseases division at Maimonides Children's Hospital in New York, she had seen this before. An outbreak of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) – a winter virus that can feel like a common cold in adults, but which can be dangerous for some young children.

There was a wave last autumn – and an unexpected one in spring this year. Now, in the early autumn months of 2022, it was back again.

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'God of War Ragnarok' ending theory explains Atreus' most important decision

From the start of God of War Ragnarok, fans were already waiting to see how the prophecy revealed at the end of the 2018 game would impact the fate of Kratos and his son Atreus. In a game obsessed with fate, Atreus's final confrontation with Odin breaks from the expected conclusion. An illuminating fan theory points to a specific moment as the turning point for Atreus’s future, and it all has to do with the game’s most mysterious MacGuffin — the Mask of Creation.

The inevitable — Like any classic story that deals with fate and prophecy, in God of War Ragnarok you watch the main cast rush towards a conclusion that could have been avoided — if they weren’t so obsessed with rewriting fate.

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Warren Buffett SaysÂ 3 Major Decisions in Life Will Be the Difference Between Success and Failure

Avoiding failure requires making some new decisions.

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Corporate Alternatives to the Compliment Sandwich

A recent survey of our employees indicated that people are sick of the “compliment sandwich”—negative feedback sandwiched between compliments. The executive team is pleased to offer some alternatives that we hope will be effective for managers serving up constructive criticism in the workplace.

This cheesy open-faced option has no meat. Perfect for employees who enjoy being regaled with hours of stories from your past, like how you “worked your way through college” (when it was $2,350 a year) and the time you met Lee Iacocca. This crusty sandwich is one-sided, with hints of nuttiness. Pairs well with a cup of day-old coffee from the break room.

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The secrets inside your saliva

At first glance, saliva seems like pretty boring stuff, merely a convenient way to moisten our food. But the reality is quite different, as scientists are beginning to understand. The fluid interacts with everything that enters the mouth, and even though it is 99% water, it has a profound influence on the flavours – and our enjoyment – of what we eat and drink.

"It is a liquid, but it's not just a liquid," says oral biologist Guy Carpenter of King's College London.

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Pope Francis Speaks Out on HomosexualityÃ¢Â€Â”and Further Angers Traditionalists

On Tuesday, Pope Francis took part in an interview with Nicole Winfield, the Vatican correspondent for the Associated Press. After the interview was published, commentators in the United States focussed on the Pope's answer to a question about criminal laws against homosexuality, which exist in some sixty-seven countriesâ€”among them, Sudan, where he will travel next week, which forbids sodomy and applies a sentence of life imprisonment for a third offense. In his response, Francis extemporized. "Being homosexual is not a crime. It's not a crime. Yes, but it is a sin," he said. "First let's make a distinction between sin and crime. But it's also a sin to lack charity toward another. So what about that?"

Those remarks were one more instance of Francis's incremental approach toward acceptance of gay people, which has involved expressing compassion for them and support for them in civic matters, while leaving aside the Church's stern teaching that homosexual activity is "intrinsically disordered." The interview as a whole, which was conducted in Spanish with an American reporter, for a U.S.-based news organization, represented a riposte to his critics. The weeks since the death of Pope Benedict XVI have been open season for Catholic traditionalists opposed to Francis, and the roiling intrigue, rancor, and partisan jousting in Rome have offered a preview of what life in the Church might be like in the coming years.

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Do This for 6 to 9 Minutes Every Day to Improve Your Memory and Brain Function, New Study Shows

Even if you're super-busy, you can manage this.

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11 of the best films to watch this February

Why would anyone kill their own baby? Alice Diop asked herself that question in 2016, when she was watching the trial of a French-Senegalese woman who had left her child on a beach to drown. Having made a name for herself as a documentary filmmaker, Diop has turned her memories of the trial into a gripping drama, Saint Omer. Kayije Kagame plays Rama, a pregnant, Diop-like novelist who plans to use the case in her book on the Greek myth of the child-killing Medea. Guslagie Malanda plays Laurence Coly, the complex woman on trial. "Diop consciously uses the many tropes of true crime documentaries," says Sheila O'Malley at RogerEbert.com, "while at the same time up-ending them. In doing so, Saint Omer becomes a much larger reflection on contemporary French life, the experience of immigrants, and the shadows we drag along with us as we move into a different space."

Women Talking is another high-profile new film exploring male sexual violence from the perspective of victims (Credit: Alamy)

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What Makes a Great Resume?

Begin by writing an unedited list detailing your complete work history. And we mean, everything. Include your job waiting tables or walking your neighbor’s dog to get some extra pocket money in college, and even the summer you spent delivering newspapers or mowing lawns as a teenager. Include the job you quit after six months and the job where you got fired.

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IBM Just Released Its New 'People Mantra'. It's Just 3 Words and CEOs Everywhere Should Listen Up

A refreshing take on recession-proofing the business. It starts with people.

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Scientists use CRISPR to insert an alligator gene into a catfish

By inserting an alligator gene into catfish, Alabama scientists radically increased their disease resistance — but more work is needed before the genetically modified fish could find their way into farms or onto your plate.

The challenge: Catfish are the most popular species raised by farmers in the U.S., but growing them isn’t easy — globally, 40% of the catfish hatched in farms die from disease before they can be harvested.

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'The Last of Us' Season 2 renewal: Everything we know so far

On January 27, just weeks after its freshman season premiere, The Last of Us has been officially renewed for a second season. It’s unsurprising given the show’s strong showing as a critical darling and draw to both HBO and the HBO Max streaming platform.

“I’m humbled, honored, and frankly overwhelmed that so many people have tuned in and connected with our retelling of Joel and Ellie’s journey,” said executive producer Neil Druckmann in a statement. “The collaboration with Craig Mazin, our incredible cast and crew, and HBO exceeded my already high expectations. Now we have the absolute pleasure of being able to do it again with season two!”

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How Plants' Plumbing Let Them Conquer the World

To protect from deadly drought and make it on land, plants developed complicated inner plumbing

Towering redwoods and lanky jungle vines hoist water from the soil to their lofty leaves through a tubelike tissue called the xylem. In early plants, which reached just a few centimeters and lived only in wet environments, the xylem worked like a simple cylindrical bundle of drinking straws running up the stem; our modern biosphere exists because that infrastructure somehow got much more sophisticated.

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A Link to This Site Can (Technically) Land You in Russian Prison

When you run a major app, all it takes is one mistake to put countless people at risk. Such is the case with Diksha, a public education app run by India’s Ministry of Education that exposed the personal information of around 1 million teachers and millions of students across the country. The data, which included things like full names, email addresses, and phone numbers, was publicly accessible for at least a year and likely longer, potentially exposing those impacted to phishing attacks and other scams.

Speaking of cybercrime, the LockBit ransomware gang has long operated under the radar, thanks to its professional operation and choice of targets. But over the past year, a series of missteps and drama have thrust it into the spotlight, potentially threatening its ability to continue operating with impunity.

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How to unlock the 'Dead Space' remake's terrifying secret ending

While the new Dead Space remake is mostly a faithful adaptation of the 2008 original, developer Motive Studio did implement some fresh additions as well. Notably, the remake includes a secret ending that — in many ways — is better than the original while tying directly into Dead Space 2. But you’ll have to put in a lot of extra work to unlock it. Here’s how to unlock the secret ending in the Dead Space remake.

First, you’ll need to play through the game normally to reach New Game Plus. You can complete the game on any difficulty to unlock New Game Plus, which allows you to carry over all of your weapons, upgrades, suits, and credits, as well as some rewards to entice you to jump back in.

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Did Plants Domesticate Humans? Watch The First Entanglement

Archaeologists studying one of the birthplaces of agriculture find a complex interplay between human actions and the workings of nature and genetics.

While this provocative question might not be the way we learned about the history of agriculture in high school, it animates the current study of archaeology. What’s at stake is a matter of perspective—how we, as a species, see our place in nature and nature’s place in our own evolution.

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The Right Words Are Crucial to Solving Climate Change

Climate change is already disrupting the lives of billions of people. What was once considered a problem for the future is raging all around us right now. This reality has helped convince a majority of the public that we must act to limit the suffering. In an August 2022 survey by the Pew Research Center, 71 percent of Americans said they had experienced at least one heat wave, flood, drought or wildfire in the past year. Among those people, more than 80 percent said climate change had contributed. In another 2022 poll, 77 percent of Americans who said they had been affected by extreme weather in the past five years saw climate change as a crisis or major problem.

Yet the response is not meeting the urgency of the crisis. A transition to clean energy is underway, but it is happening too slowly to avoid the worst effects of climate change. The U.S. government finally took long-delayed action by passing the Inflation Reduction Act in August 2022, but much more progress is needed, and it is hampered by entrenched politics. The partisan divide largely stems from conservatives’ perception that climate change solutions will involve big government controlling people’s choices and imposing sacrifices. Research shows that Republicans’ skepticism about climate change is largely attributable to a conflict between ideological values and often discussed solutions, particularly government regulations. A 2019 study in Climatic Change found that political and ideological polarization on climate change is particularly acute in the U.S. and other English-speaking countries.

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Why Americans Love Coffee So Much

This is an edition of The Wonder Reader, a newsletter in which our editors recommend a set of stories to spark your curiosity and fill you with delight. Sign up here to get it every Saturday morning.

Coffee is one of the great loves of my life, and I’m not alone. The majority of my fellow Americans love coffee too, so much so that they refuse most alternatives—including yerba mate, an energizing option that happens to be South America’s most consumed beverage. “True, yerba mate is bitter and tastes like freshly cut grass,” Lauren Silverman wrote this week. “But coffee tastes like burnt rubber the first time you try it, and Americans can’t get enough.”

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Get ready to rumble: Everything you need to know about 'WWE 2K23'

In many ways, WWE 2K22 was a welcome addition, especially after the popular series took a year off in 2021. WWE 2K22 performed well — critically and commercially — and was regarded as a return to form, while also introducing fresh features and mechanics. So, what about a follow-up? While 2K hasn’t yet officially announced WWE 2K23, we do know it’s coming. What else do we know about the upcoming WWE 2K installment? Details are still a little sparse, sure, but we’ve gathered everything we know about WWE 2K23.

WWE 2K23 is due out on March 17, 2023. You can actually play it three days early if you purchase the Deluxe or Icon Editions.

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This Overlooked Scientist Helped Save Washington, D.C.'s Cherry Trees

Mycologist Flora Patterson helped make the USDA fungus collection into the world’s largest. She also made a mean mushroom “catsup”

In 1909 the mayor of Tokyo sent a gift of 2,000 prized cherry trees to Washington, D.C. But the iconic blossoms that are now enjoyed each spring along the city’s Tidal Basin are not from those trees. That’s because Flora Patterson, who was the mycologist in charge of mycological and pathological collections at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, recognized the original saplings were infected, and the shipment was burned on the National Mall.

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How Antidepressants Help Bacteria Resist Antibiotics

A laboratory study unravels ways antidepressants and other nonantibiotic drugs can contribute to drug resistance

The emergence of disease-causing bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics is often attributed to the overuse of antibiotics in people and livestock. But researchers have homed in on another potential driver of resistance: antidepressants. By studying bacteria grown in the laboratory, a team has now tracked how antidepressants can trigger drug resistance.

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What happens when regular porn watchers abstain for a week?

A team of psychologists based out of Nottingham Trent University in the United Kingdom and HELP University in Malaysia explored whether regular pornography users experience withdrawal symptoms when asked to abstain for one week. Their paper detailing this effort was recently published in the journal Archives of Sexual Behavior.

The researchers recruited 176 psychology undergraduates in Malaysia, about two-thirds female, to take part in the research. They received class credit and $7.00 for fully participating. All were regular porn consumers, viewing sexual content at least three times per week. One-half of subjects were randomized to an abstinence group — that is, they were asked to refrain from viewing pornography for seven days. The other half was assigned to a control group and told to continue their habits as usual.

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Why Chief of Staff Is Ã¢Â€Âœthe Hardest Job in WashingtonÃ¢Â€Â

The White House chief of staff is the second most powerful but hardest gig in Washington, D.C. Dick Cheney blamed the job for giving him his first heart attack, during the Ford Administration. A hapless chief of staff can break a Presidency; effective ones get nicknamed the Velvet Hammer. On Friday, the Biden Administration announced that Ron Klain will depart as chief of staff, after two long years in the job. The staff writers Susan B. Glasser, Jane Mayer, and Evan Osnos gather for their weekly conversation to look at what Klain accomplished and what to expect from his replacement, Jeffrey Zients.

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'Like a Dragon: Ishin' blends Yakuza's weirdo humor with stylish samurai flair

The seedy neighborhood of Kamurocho, which is inspired by the real-world Tokyo vice district known as Kabukicho, is a staple of the Yakuza series. (Yes, I know we’re calling it Like a Dragon now. Let me ease into it.)

You visit this area in all eight mainline games, and as time chugs forward over the course of each installment, you’ll see how the city evolves. A spot to rent lurid DVDs morphs into a cat cafe. The bowling alley where Kiryu won a live chicken in his twenties becomes a swanky gym by the time he’s in his forties. The poky vacant lot surrounded by shabby shanties in the prequel Yakuza 0 becomes the Millennium Tower throughout the rest of the series. And so on.

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4 best weapons to upgrade first in the 'Dead Space' remake

The Dead Space remake is here, serving as an enhanced version of the 2008 original. Much like the first installment, the remake is tough, but thankfully, you’re able to upgrade your gear, giving you a fighting chance. But with so many weapons, and so few upgrade resources, it’s easy to get overwhelmed. These are essential upgrade tips along with a list of weapons you should prioritize leveling first in Dead Space.

Upgrading your gear is an essential part of Dead Space. But even if you’re familiar with the original, you’ll lack the credits and nodes on your first run to upgrade every single item the game has to offer. With this in mind, it’s best to fully upgrade a handful of weapons first, rather than spending credits and nodes on many firearms. You’ll get much more out of two or three powerful weapons than you will with five or six mediocre ones.

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Death, Sex and Aliens: A Surprising History of Slime

Sublime slime, sprawling light pollution, harnessing the bioelectricity in our body, and more books out this month

Slime: A Natural Historyby Susanne WedlichTranslated by Ayça TürkoğluMelville House, 2023 ($27.99)

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17 years later, the most underrated Final Fantasy spin-off is more relevant than ever

In the years after Final Fantasy VII’s massive global success, Square Enix decided to give this entry in their already successful franchise its own sub-franchise which would be dubbed The Compilation of Final Fantasy VII. This project birthed the recently remastered cult hit Crisis Core, starring best boy Zack Fair and also the ongoing Remake series that includes the upcoming Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth. The forgotten black sheep in this project, however, stars the edgiest boy of all: Vincent Valentine. 17 years later, Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII is still a perplexing genre shakeup that revels in the progressively complex narrative of the world.

A hero even edgier than Cloud Strife — While Final Fantasy VII is beloved for its complex characters and emotional story that still stands out as one of the best narratives in gaming (just ask current Batman, Robert Pattinson). It’s also a game with a hefty dose of campy humor and characters that feel like they come out of left field. One such character is the optional party member Vincent Valentine.

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How the U.S. Lost Years of Life

Many countries saw drops in life expectancy during the pandemic, but some populations have suffered more than others

Over the past century people have been living longer lives around the globe. Then COVID hit. Now, nearly three years into the pandemic, with highly effective vaccines widely available, life expectancy in many middle- and high-income countries has started to bounce back. But in the U.S., it is still dropping. A study last year found that life expectancy in most Western European countries recovered in 2021—most likely the result of high vaccination rates that reduced mortality, particularly among the elderly. But the U.S. has continued to see declines, in part because of lower vaccination rates as well as a devastating opioid epidemic.

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You need to watch the most underrated cult movie on HBO Max ASAP

Paul Thomas Anderson’s study of the perfect victim is also a reminder that anyone can fall pray.

Cult stories are like catnip for viewers, whether it’s the haunting portrayal of the Manson family in Once Upon a Time... In Hollywood or the horrific cults portrayed in Ari Aster’s movies Hereditary and Midsommar. But the genre usually focuses on the slow derangement of ensnared victims instead of what falling into a cult often feels like: a euphoric state of belonging. A 2012 movie streaming on HBO Max completely flipped that script.

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Exxon scientists accurately forecast climate change back in the 1970s - what if we had listened to them and acted then?

Writers of speculative- and science-fiction often identify a key point in time and explore how a seemingly insignificant event might change the path of humanity.

Instead, the company chose to maintain its role as an oil company and fund people to question the science and delay a coherent response. Staggeringly, in 1996 the company’s chief executive, Lee Raymond, referred to “the unproven theory that [fossil fuels] affect the earth’s climate”. The company, now known as ExxonMobil, denies the allegations, saying “those who talk about how ‘Exxon Knew’ are wrong in their conclusions”.

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How you breathe affects your brain

If you’re lucky enough to live to 80, you’ll take up to a billion breaths in the course of your life, inhaling and exhaling enough air to fill about 50 Goodyear blimps or more. We take about 20,000 breaths a day, sucking in oxygen to fuel our cells and tissues, and ridding the body of carbon dioxide that builds up as a result of cellular metabolism. Breathing is so essential to life that people generally die within minutes if it stops.

It’s a behavior so automatic that we tend to take it for granted. But breathing is a physiological marvel — both extremely reliable and incredibly flexible. Our breathing rate can change almost instantaneously in response to stress or arousal and even before an increase in physical activity. And breathing is so seamlessly coordinated with other behaviors like eating, talking, laughing and sighing that you may have never even noticed how your breathing changes to accommodate them. Breathing can also influence your state of mind, as evidenced by the controlled breathing practices of yoga and other ancient meditative traditions.

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Deep Fake Neighbour Wars: ITV's comedy shows how AI can transform popular culture

ITVX’s Deep Fake Neighbour Wars is the breakthrough in television’s use of artificial intelligence that experts in the cultural use of deepfakes like myself have been waiting for.

In this six-part series, celebrities have apparently invaded our everyday lives. Presented as a reality TV show, we meet suburban neighbours in Catford, south London. Idris Elba (handyman/delivery driver) takes pride in the garden behind his ground-floor flat, until new upstairs tenant Kim Kardashian (bus driver) starts to exercise her right to use the shared space. They recount the story of a dispute that ultimately turns to violence.

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Allergy to originality | Psyche Films

It can be dispiriting to discover that a work of art you were drawn to as a young person – perhaps something you loved so much that you absorbed it into your very identity – was essentially a retread of something that came before. Maybe it was learning that Led Zeppelin were cribbing from US blues artists, that all the best Simpsons episodes were homages to classic films, or that Romeo and Juliet were just another remix in a long line of star-crossed lovers. But, getting older, it might just be inevitable to conclude that, as Shakespeare himself wrote, ‘there be nothing new, but that which is hath been before’ – borrowing from the Old Testament, of course.

This sense of rerun aggrievement ignites the US filmmaker Drew Christie’s Allergy to Originality (2012). The animated short begins with a man approaching a movie theatre ticket window to complain about the startling lack of originality on display in the marquee – from The Avengers to Men in Black 3 to a reimagining of Snow White. His small diatribe launches the ticket booth attendant into an exploration of ‘originality’ via words directly lifted from Wikipedia and Mark Twain. Delivering his thesis in a blasé, know-it-all nerd monotone, the attendant works through his thesis that originality in art is ultimately an ill-defined, even meaningless concept. As he makes his case, a series of images underscoring his point – including renderings of ancient cave drawings, a Marcel Duchamp work depicting the Mona Lisa with a mustache, and an Andy Warhol silk-screen portrait of Marilyn Monroe – whizz by.

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Why Memphis Is Different

Because of the sheer prevalence of police brutality in America, public officials have gotten better at managing the shock.

As multiple video recordings of the fatal police beating of Tyre Nichols in Memphis were released to the public on Friday night, the nation prepared for the reaction. Peaceful protests can easily turn into violent ones, especially in a country that is rightly outraged about the ongoing police brutality against Black men. It has become a familiar call and response: Police misconduct leads to more harm in or for the communities that were targeted by the misconduct in the first place.

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The 9 Best TVs We've Tested (and Helpful Buying Tips)

If you buy something using links in our stories, we may earn a commission. This helps support our journalism. Learn more. Please also consider subscribing to WIRED

Saving up for a new screen? To help you navigate the dozens of seemingly identical TV models from Samsung, LG, Vizio, TCL, Sony, and other manufacturers, we've watched hundreds of hours of content on them and picked a few of our favorites. We've listed everything from the very best TV to the best budget set you can buy—and a few excellent choices in between.

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100 million Nigerians are at risk of neglected tropical diseases: what the country is doing about it

Neglected tropical diseases are a group of communicable diseases found in tropical and subtropical regions of the world. They are classified as “neglected” because they have received little or no attention in terms of prevention and control for several decades. The World Health Organization guides the way they are identified and managed.

These 20 conditions mostly affect impoverished communities, women and children. Most people affected by them live in rural areas where houses are overcrowded, and basic infrastructure such as water and toilet facilities are lacking. More than one billion people are estimated to be affected globally.

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The American West's Salt Lakes Are Turning to Dust

This story originally appeared on High Country News and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

Last summer, scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration observed dust blowing 85 miles from its source, Lake Abert and Summer Lake, two dried-up saline lakes in southern Oregon. This has happened before: Saline lakebeds are some of the West's most significant sources of dust. California's Owens Lake is the nation's largest source of PM10, the tiny pollutants found in dust and smoke, while plumes blowing off the 800 square miles of the Great Salt Lake's exposed bed have caused toxin-filled dust storms in Salt Lake City.

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The Last of Us: HBO's adaptation elevates the video game's themes of love and family

From the widely panned Super Mario Bros. movie (1993) to Netflix’s Resident Evil (2022) releasing to decidedly mixed reviews, game adaptations have historically been cursed on both big and small screens.

HBO’s series based on the hugely successful PlayStation game The Last of Us, is the latest entry into this genre. Early indications from critics and viewers suggest it has broken the dreaded video game curse.

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The mind-bending physics of time

In this Big Think interview, theoretical physicist Sean Carroll discusses the concept of time and the mysteries surrounding its properties. He notes that while we use the word “time” frequently in everyday language, the real puzzles arise when we consider the properties of time, such as the past, present, and future, and the fact that we can affect the future but not the past.

Carroll also discusses the concept of entropy, which is a measure of how disorganized or random a system is, and the second law of thermodynamics, which states that there is a natural tendency for things in the Universe to go from a state of low entropy to high entropy — in other words, from less disorganized to more disorganized. He explains that the arrow of time, or the perceived difference between the past and the future, arises due to the influence of the Big Bang and the fact that the Universe began in a state of low entropy.

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A ChatGPT Bot Interviews a ChatGPT Bot and Demonstrate the Real Problem with AI Solutions

There's nothing new under the sun, and there's no follow through.

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Somaliland's oil find could reset the regional balance: here's how

The presence of oil in Somaliland has been confirmed by a recent exploration. The discovery has raised the stakes in Somaliland’s claim for independence from Somalia as it holds the potential for a new stream of revenue for the semi-autonomous state. But the oil exploration is deepening the rift with Somalia, which claims sovereignty over the region. Michael Walls answers five key questions.

In 2020, Norwegian seismic survey company, TGS, estimated that the Somali basin as a whole likely holds offshore reserves of about 30 billion barrels, with additional onshore reserves, although land estimates are considerably less consistent. Assessments generally include Somaliland and would place Somalia reserves at about the same level as Kazakhstan, which would give the area the 18th or 19th largest reserve globally, as assessed in 2016.

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Power struggles in nature can be more subtle, nuanced and strategic than just dog-eat-dog

Scientists used to think power in animals played out in a tidy and simple way. Nature is a dog-eat-dog place. Rams butt heads in a thunderous spectacle, and the winning male gets to mate with a female. Bigger, stronger, meaner animals beat up smaller, weaker, more timid ones, and then walk, fly or swim away with the prize.

All that’s certainly going on in the wild. But the natural world, it turns out, is so much more interesting than simply squaring off in brutish battles. As in tales of palace intrigue, the quest for power among animals is subtle, nuanced, strategic and, dare I say, beautiful.

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14 Great Deals on TVs, Wireless Earbuds, and Soundbars

If you live in the Northern Hemisphere, it's a pretty dark and cool time of year, which makes it a good time to consider your indoor tech essentials. From TVs to wireless earbuds, this weekend's list of deals is sure to keep you occupied inside. Be sure to check out our deals roundup from earlier in the week, where you’ll still find discounts on work-from-home gear and more headphones.

Special offer for Gear readers: Get a 1-year subscription to WIRED for $5 ($25 off). This includes unlimited access to WIRED.com and our print magazine (if you'd like). Subscriptions help fund the work we do every day.

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Older women are smashing it this awards season - but ageism is far from over

Older and middle-aged women are having their moment in the sun, it seems. The recent Golden Globes coverage was filled with images of “older” women on the red carpet. There were some notable wins too.

Angela Bassett, Michelle Yeoh and Jennifer Coolidge, all in their 60s, won their respective categories and in their speeches addressed the significance of receiving these awards later in their careers. The recently announced Oscar nominations also featured many older women, with four of the five nominations in the best actress category taken by women over 40 – including Yeoh and Cate Blanchett (53). Other categories also featured women over 60, like Jamie Lee Curtis (64) and Bassett for actress in a supporting role.

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LA's long, troubled history with urban oil drilling is nearing an end after years of health concerns

Los Angeles had oil wells pumping in its neighborhoods when Hollywood was in its infancy, and thousands of active wells still dot the city.

These wells can emit toxic chemicals such as benzene and other irritants into the air, often just feet from homes, schools and parks. But now, after nearly a decade of community organizing and studies demonstrating the adverse health impacts on people living nearby, Los Angeles’ long history with urban drilling is nearing an end.

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Technology Makes Us More Human

When techno-optimists use ChatGPT, they see Star Trek: a future in which opportunities for personal fulfillment are as large as the universe itself.

ChatGPT, a new AI system that sounds so human in conversations that it could host its own podcast, is a test of temperament. Reading between its instantly generated, flawlessly grammatical lines, people see wildly different visions of the future.

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Most criminal cryptocurrency is funneled through just 5 exchanges

For years, the cryptocurrency economy has been rife with black market sales, theft, ransomware, and money laundering—despite the strange fact that in that economy, practically every transaction is written into a blockchain’s permanent, unchangeable ledger. But new evidence suggests that years of advancements in blockchain tracing and crackdowns on that illicit underworld may be having an effect—if not reducing the overall volume of crime, then at least cutting down on the number of laundering outlets, leaving the crypto black market with fewer options to cash out its proceeds than it’s had in a decade.

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To revitalize Indigenous communities, the Residential School settlement must prioritize language education

After a decade, the federal government has reached an agreement to settle a class action lawsuit that included 325 First Nations across Canada. The class action was initiated by the Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc and shíshálh Nation in 2012. It was concerned with, among other issues, the loss of language and culture through Residential Schools. The settlement, worth $2.8 billion, includes support for cultural revitalization with focus on heritage, wellness and languages.

Efforts toward cultural revitalization will be funded by the $50 million Day Scholars Revitalization Fund. An important aspect of the fund will be the central role Indigenous Peoples will have in managing and guiding the process of supporting the cultural revitalization.

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Modern mafia: Italy's organised crime machine has changed beyond recognition in 30 years

The arrest of Matteo Messina Denaro, one of Sicily’s most infamous mafia bosses, has reminded many Italians of the extreme violence he was associated with when operating as a leading figure of Cosa Nostra.

Denaro appears to belong to another time – when the mafia brutally killed at will. And it is indeed true that the period of extreme violence with which he is associated has been confined to the past. But that does not in any way mean Italy’s organised crime groups have disappeared in the 30 years Denaro has been in hiding – they’ve just had a rethink about how they operate.

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Gandhi's image is under scrutiny 75 years after his assassination - but his protest principles are being revived

Mohandas Karamchand “Mahatma” Gandhi remains, even 75 years after his assassination, a useful symbol for many in India. For secularists, the leader of the country’s independence movement represents an imagined India of the past. For the current government, he is a means by which it can soften its international image.

In his 2002 essay, academic Ashis Nandy, mentioned four versions of Gandhi, who led India’s move from British colony to independent nation.

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'Onyx the Fortuitous and the Talisman of Souls' review: A cringe comedy as overlong as its title

Andrew Bowser’s Onyx the Fortuitous and the Talisman of Souls is the rare movie that, from the very first scene, lets audiences know that they’re either going to love it or hate it.

Viewers familiar with Onyx, Bowser’s weirdo Satanist YouTube character, will likely fall into the former category; everyone else, flip a coin. Onyx’s misadventures are documented through skits and bits on Bowser’s 10-year-old channel, BowserVids, and you may benefit from browsing the library before tuning in for 100 minutes of the schtick. Then again, you may be feeling bold.

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The 'levelling up' bidding process wastes time and money - here's how to improve it

Renaud Foucart works for Lancaster University, a partner of Eden Project North in Morecambe.

The UK government recently announced the results of the second round of successful bids for for its £4.8 billion Levelling Up Fund. This money is provided to local governments with the ambitious (but pretty unspecific) aim of “creating opportunities for everyone” by addressing economic and social imbalances across the UK.

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What effect will lunar new year have on COVID spread in China? Our modelling shows most people have already been infected

China stuck rigidly to a zero-COVID policy until December 2022. This included travel restrictions, mass testing and mandatory quarantines. The rapid lifting of this strategy led to a surge of COVID infections across the country.

There have been concerns that the Chinese lunar new year travel in January may cause this wave of COVID to spread much further and faster, with significant numbers of hospital admissions and deaths.

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FDA advisory committee votes unanimously in favor of a one-shot COVID-19 vaccine approach - 5 questions answered

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s key science advisory panel, the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee, met on Jan. 26, 2023, to chart a path forward for COVID-19 vaccine policy. During the all-day meeting, the 21-member committee discussed an array of weighty issues including the efficacy of existing vaccines, the composition of future vaccine strains and the need to match them to the circulating variants of SARS-CoV-2, the possibility of moving to an annual-shot model, the potential seasonality of the virus and much more.

But the key question at hand, and the only formal question that was voted on, following a proposal from the FDA earlier in the week, had to do with how to simplify the path to getting people vaccinated.

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Biden and Trump are both accused of mishandling classified documents - but there are key differences

When the US Department of Justice revealed on January 21 that its investigators had found classified materials in Joe Biden’s Delaware home, there was outrage – or, to be more accurate in most cases faux outrage – in Republican party circles. They wasted no time in demanding further investigation into what appeared to be a mishandling of classified documents.

Republicans see a double opportunity in the US president’s sloppy handling of what is reported to be a small number of papers from his days as vice-president. It was a God-given opportunity to embarrass a sitting president gearing up to launch his re-election bid. But many in the GOP hoped it would also take the heat off an outwardly similar investigation into former president Donald Trump.

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Independent voters can be decisive in elections - but they're pretty unpredictable, not 'shadow partisans'

Pollsters and pundits were counting on independent voters in the 2022 midterm elections to swing to the Republicans as they did in 2014 when Barack Obama was president. That’s when independent turnout in the midterms added up to 29% of all voters, and the GOP won an additional 13 seats in Congress.

Expectations for the 2022 midterm elections also were based on a similar pattern in the 2018 midterms, when Donald Trump was president. Independents then represented 30% of the voters, and they broke for Democrats 54% to 42%.

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'Acts that defy humanity:' 3 essential reads on police brutality, race and the power of video evidence

Clinical Instructor of Criminal Justice and Criminology, Georgia State University

In the case of the five Black, former Memphis police officers accused of murder in the beating death of Tyre Nichols, justice has moved quickly.

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The Good-Better-Best Approach to Pricing

Companies often crimp profits by using discounts to attract price-sensitive customers and by failing to give high-end customers reasons to spend more. A multitiered offering can use a stripped-down product (the “Good” option) to attract new customers, the existing product (“Better”) to keep current customers happy, and a feature-laden premium version (“Best”) to increase spending by customers who want more.

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Rural Americans aren't included in inflation figures - and for them, the cost of living may be rising faster

When the Federal Reserve convenes at the end of January 2023 to set interest rates, it will be guided by one key bit of data: the U.S. inflation rate. The problem is, that stat ignores a sizable chunk of the country – rural America.

Currently sitting at 6.5%, the rate of inflation is still high, even though it has fallen back slightly from the end of 2022.

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Bitcoin has shot up 50% since the new year, but here's why new lows are probably still ahead

To the delight of investors across the cryptosphere, the price of bitcoin (BTC) has rallied over 53% since its low of US$15,476 (£12,519) in November. Now trading around US$23,000, there’s much talk that the bottom has finally been reached for the leading cryptocurrency after a year of painful decline – in November 2021, the price peaked at almost US$70,000.

If so, it’s not only good news for bitcoin but the whole market in cryptocurrencies, since the others broadly move in line with the leader. So is crypto back in business?

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What Is Ã¢Â€ÂœWokeÃ¢Â€Â?

Lately, conservatives have blamed "wokeness" for everything from deadly mass shootings to lower military recruitment. Still, few have a ready definition for what the word means. "I think 'woke' is a very interesting term right now, because I think it's an unusable wordâ€”although it is used all the timeâ€”because it doesn't actually mean anything," the linguist and lexicologist Tony Thorne tells David Remnick. Thorne traces the term's evolution and explains how it's become such a compelling tool of the right. Plus, the contributing writer Eren Orbey discusses the false promise of rape exceptions in abortion laws. "The reality is, these exceptions are far less effective than we assume they are," Orbey says. "They create the false impression that we're taking care of all rape survivors when we're not." Once women give birth, they are often tied to their assailantsâ€”through the legal system and the family-court systemâ€”for the next eighteen years. And the staff writer Hilton Als talks with the writer Robin Coste Lewis about how suffering a traumatic brain injury led her to a career in poetry.

For many on the right, the problems America faces mostly stem from wokeness, a word that meansÂ .Â .Â . what? David Remnick talks with a linguist of slang to unpack the power of a word.

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The Strikes and Protests in France Look to the Future and the Past

The past, according to a famous American dictum, is never dead. It’s not even past. First said in a spirit not entirely agreeable to today’s present—William Faulkner, who wrote it, was, in part, indulging the white South’s preoccupation with the Lost Cause and its grievances—it is, nonetheless, true. And it is particularly true in France, where the past is more present than perhaps anywhere else. That is partly because, in France, so much of the distant past remains upright or, when it falls, gets quickly hoisted back up—as the approaching reopening of Notre-Dame, complete with remade spire, reminds us—and partly because of the wounds that remain from France’s own bad luck and troubled conscience.

It is a startling truth, for instance, that, this past week, despite the apparent urgency of mass protests and a national strike, turning on the issue of pension reform, the Paris media were preoccupied with a strange enterprise: a rerecording of Charles de Gaulle’s famous appeal to the French people, which he delivered from London, on June 18, 1940, just days after Paris had fallen to the Nazis, as it would have been heard at the time. De Gaulle had recently been made a brigadier general, but he was unknown to the public. In his address, however, which was broadcast just before midnight over the BBC, he called on the French to continue to resist the German occupation—and to rally around him. The address, which became the first of many, had to be rerecorded because no original exists, and de Gaulle’s own rerecordings of it, made in later years, were of dubious authenticity, thought to use quite different language from the original. But, recently, a transcript—ironically, in German—of the original broadcast was found in a Swiss federal archive and re-translated into French. With the help of A.I. technology at IRCAM—a center for audio experimentation at the Pompidou Center—the voice of a French actor reading the transcript was transformed into a replica of de Gaulle’s voice, as it sounded in 1940. Now one can experience the legendary appeal as it was first heard—or, again ironically, mostly not heard, given the obscurity of the speaker, the lateness of the hour, and the difficulty of listening to the BBC in France.

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How Native Americans Will Shape the Future of Water in the West

As a child, Stephen Lewis heard stories about a river that, for the most part, no longer flowed. “How I grew up was that it was a theft, that it was stolen from us,” he told me late last year. “There was what we used to call the Mighty Gila River, and now it was just pretty much dry. There was no water.”

Lewis is the governor of the Gila River Indian Community (GRIC), a group that has occupied land south of Phoenix for centuries. When I met him, in the dining room of the Whirlwind Golf Club, which the tribe owns, Lewis had recently returned from Santa Fe. There, he’d attended a celebration marking the centennial of the Colorado River Compact, an agreement that continues to shape water politics in the Southwest. In Santa Fe, Lewis took note of a black-and-white photograph of the compact’s signers—white men in dark jackets, gathered around a wooden desk.

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Two Key Things to Know About This Confusing Economy

Among the noneconomists I’ve recently interacted with, there is a lot of confusion and uncertainty about how the economy’s doing and where it is heading. Among economists, it’s pretty much the same. Some of them are predicting a recession starting later this year. Others are predicting a soft landing or a “slowcession,” when economic growth “comes to a near standstill but never slips into reverse,” as Scott Hoyt, a senior director at Moody’s Analytics, describes it.

The world economy is still emerging from an unprecedented pandemic, Europe is experiencing its biggest war since 1945, and many countries have been recording inflation rates not seen in thirty years, so it’s hardly surprising that the economic picture is blurred. Since the coronavirus started to spread, in 2020, some long-standing economic relationships have broken down. Other, new trends have emerged, and they could turn out to be temporary. But, in looking through this haze of conflicting data, two things stand out.

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Processing a Tragedy in Monterey Park

The news that a mass shooting had taken place at a ballroom-dance studio in the Los Angeles County city of Monterey Park, leaving eleven dead and nine wounded, broke late at night on January 21st. Headlines described it as “the deadliest mass shooting since Uvalde,” which happened less than a year before. Many L.A. residents, even those who live nearby, only heard about the event the following morning, when they woke up and looked at their phones.

Monterey Park is in the San Gabriel Valley, in eastern Los Angeles County, and is known as a center of Chinese, Taiwanese, and Vietnamese American culture. After a wave of Taiwanese immigrants moved here in the nineteen-seventies, academics and the media began referring to Monterey Park as “the first suburban Chinatown.” Others have called it an “ethnoburb,” a term that the geographer Wei Li coined, after studying the development of the San Gabriel Valley Chinese community, to describe “suburban ethnic clusters of residential areas and business districts in large metropolitan areas.” In normal times, people from other parts of L.A. come here to eat Sichuan dan-dan noodles or to have Taiwanese breakfast or to shop at the Asian supermarket chain 99 Ranch. Monterey Park is also the center of lunar-New Year festivities in the county, with an annual street festival that is widely attended.

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