The Tragic Miracle of Consciousness: John Steinbeck on the True Meaning and Purpose of Hope

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The Tragic Miracle of Consciousness: John Steinbeck on the True Meaning and Purpose of Hope We hope, we despair, and then we hope again — that is how we stay afloat in the cosmos of uncertainty that is any given life. Just as the universe exists because, by some accident of chance we are yet to fathom, there is more matter than antimatter in it, we exist — and go on existing — because there is more hope than despair in us. “Hope,” the great Czech dissident playwright turned president Václav Havel wrote, “is not the same as joy that things are going well, or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously headed for early success, but, rather, an ability to work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed.” Hope, I have long believed, is the antidote to cynicism — that most cowardly and self-defeating of existential orientations. Hope, Rebecca Solnit reminds us, “is a gift you don’t have to surrender, a power you don’t have to throw away.” For it is a power indeed — the power to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps from even the darkest and most dispiriting of circumstances, so that we may go on reaching for the light. In this capacity, hope might be our greatest evolutionary adaptation — the mitochondria of our spiritual metabolism, the opposable thumb of our grip on life. That function of hope is what John Steinbeck (February 27, 1902–December 20, 1968) explores from an uncommonly illuminating perspective in a portion of The Log from the Sea of Cortez (public library) — his forgotten masterpiece about how to think, wrested from a marine biology expedition into the Gulf of California at the outbreak of a World War. Continued here

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One scene in 'The Last of Us' fixes the worst zombie trope Zombie stories are a long-time staple of cinema, but with the timeless genre comes a lot of tired tropes: the horde of the living dead, a Chekhov’s Gun weapon, the character who gets bitten but doesn’t say anything because they think they’re “different.” But the most insidious of all these tropes is probably the most noticeable — the exposition dump. In a single scene, HBO’s The Last of Us not only avoids the exposition dump trap, it also sets up the stakes of its unique zombie-ridden world. It’s a masterclass in storytelling, and so genius you may not have even realized it was happening. Continued here

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15 years later, Persona's best villain still hasn't been topped A great villain isn’t necessarily comically evil, or even complex. Some of the most memorable evildoers in games have absurdly simple — if devious — aspirations in life. The Persona series is all about characters, using impressionable teenage heroes to explore larger messages about life and death. Persona 4 Golden has one distinct advantage over the rest of the series — a compelling villain who feels like the perfect foil to the player themselves. Warning: spoilers ahead for Persona 4 Golden. If you haven’t played yet, come back later! Continued here

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Astronomers reveal the most detailed radio image yet of the Milky Way's galactic plane A supernova remnant is an expanding cloud of gas and dust marking the last phase in the life of a star, after it has exploded as a supernova. But the number of supernova remnants we have detected so far with radio telescopes is too low. Models predict five times as many, so where are the missing ones? We have combined observations from two of Australia’s world-leading radio telescopes, the ASKAP radio telescope and the Parkes radio telescope, Murriyang, to answer this question. Continued here

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Fireflies vs. FEDRA: Who should you trust in HBO's 'The Last of Us'? Who can you trust in a zombie apocalypse? From the very beginning, HBO’s The Last of Us presents two opposing forces: FEDRA (the military granted sweeping authoritarian powers amidst a zombie apocalypse) and the Fireflies (a rebel group attempting to overthrow them). But who is good and who is bad in a world that’s rarely that simple? And, more importantly, who should Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey) trust in their adventures across the former united states? To find out, let’s dive into the video game that inspired The Last of Us. Continued here

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Supervised consumption sites reduce drug overdoses and disease transmission -- and deserve government support Since 2016, more than 32,000 Canadians have died from drug overdoses. In response to this overdose epidemic, several provinces have established Supervised Consumption Sites (SCS), which provide people who use drugs with a safe space to administer drugs under the supervision of trained staff. The term people who use drugs is used to affirm people’s humanity instead of defining them by their drug use. Person-centred language helps reduce stigma and discrimination which in turn can encourage people who use drugs to seek out harm reduction services. Continued here

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Strep A cases are rising. We must remember our earliest hygiene lessons as vaccine trials continue Group A streptococci, also known as “strep A”, were the first organisms ever identified to be the cause of a disease. In the mid-1800s, Hungarian physician Ignaz Semmelweis first noted the link between a lack of hygienic practices – such as handwashing – among medical staff and puerperal (or childbirth) fever. Louis Pasteur subsequently demonstrated that it was caused by the microbe we now refer to as strep A. Continued here

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An ambitious plan could help repair one of California's biggest ecological catastrophes The Salton Sea spreads across a remote valley in California’s lower Colorado Desert, 40 miles (65 kilometers) from the Mexican border. For birds migrating along the Pacific coast, it’s an avian Grand Central Station. In midwinter, tens of thousands of snow geese, ducks, pelicans, gulls, and other species forage on and around the lake. Hundreds of other species nest there year-round or use it as a rest stop during spring and fall migration. At the dawn of the 20th century, this massive oasis didn’t even exist. It was created in 1905 when Colorado River floodwaters breached an irrigation canal under construction in Southern California and flowed into a basin that had flooded in the past. In earlier years, the sea covered roughly 40 square miles more than its current size of 343 square miles (890 square kilometers). Continued here

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We Finally Know How Ancient Roman Concrete Was So Durable The ancient Romans were masters of building and engineering, perhaps most famously represented by the aqueducts. And those still functional marvels rely on a unique construction material: pozzolanic concrete, a spectacularly durable concrete that gave Roman structures their incredible strength. Even today, one of their structures – the Pantheon, still intact and nearly 2,000 years old – holds the record for the world's largest dome of unreinforced concrete. Continued here

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Women's voices are missing in the media - including them could generate billions in income University of Johannesburg provides support as an endorsing partner of The Conversation AFRICA. How can the news media represent women’s voices better? The answer might be in a recent report, “From outrage to opportunity: How to include the missing perspectives of women of all colors in news leadership and coverage”. Continued here

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The Case for Running Slowly At some point last fall, as I prepared to run a marathon, the algorithm sent me to Kim Clark. She has cute outfits, and a ponytail that reaches her waist. Her hair bounces behind her as she runs. She posts many videos of herself running on her Instagram, where she goes by the handle @trackclubbabe. Clark is also fast, which she brags about: Her Boston Marathon qualifying time is right there in her bio, where she also advertises a series of training plans titled Fast Fall, Fast Marathon, and so on. And like many fitness and running influencers, Clark posts splits from her own training runs. Continued here

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Can Science Finally Create a Decent Cup of Decaf? Who cares about decaf coffee? I do. I’m a slow caffeine metabolizer, like many millions of others. We folks with a particular type of CYP1A2 gene may adore a perfectly pressed single-origin Arabica but cannot drink a fully caffeinated cup without the caffeine accumulating too quickly, making our hearts beat like bass drums and our brains feel momentarily vaporized. At parties, we leave half cups of cold coffee to be tossed into the sink. At coffee shops, we pronounce, “half-caff or decaf” like our day depends on it (because it does). Baristas wince at the thought of heavily stripped decaf grounds grazing their precious portafilter. Many of us give up and drink tea. Pregnant women know our pain. But now there’s a chance for us, the metabolically mismatched. A whole new kind of coffee may be on the horizon. At the 2022 World Barista Championships in Melbourne, Morgan Eckroth of Onyx Coffee guided a tower of coffee grinds out from under the mammoth grinder as she prepared to pull a shot of espresso. She added a collar around the grinds, fluffed them with something that looks like a mini scalp tickler, and pressed them down with a tiny plunger. The judges watched. Continued here

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After 75 Years, In-N-Out Made a Controversial Announcement. Why It's Actually a Stroke of Genius The company is finally expanding east. Continued here

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The last 5 kilos really are the hardest to lose. Here's why, and what you can do about it Anyone who has tried to lose weight will be familiar with these nine frustrating words: the last five kilos are the hardest to lose. You’re just about to hit your target weight, but suddenly the scales won’t budge – even though you’re still following the same healthy diet, lifestyle habits and exercise plan. Continued here

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One daily social practice could help stave off dementia Crossword puzzles, sudoku, ken-ken — all these games purportedly help keep the mind young and nimble. There’s just one drawback to these activities: They’re largely solitary. Study after study shows that community is as important to cognitive health as diet and exercise. In fact, isolation can even increase a person’s risk for dementia. Continued here

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Winemakers from Europe to Australia and China seek best climate change grapes Vintners around the world are planting or reviving little-known, sometimes nearly extinct, grape varieties, which may fare better as the planet heats up. Continued here

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Why is Austin Butler still speaking in his Elvis voice? It could be a case of 'role spill' If you’ve seen any of the videos or interviews with Austin Butler at the recent Golden Globes you may have noticed he still sounds a bit like Elvis. In fact, many people have noted that despite being from California, he still sounds like he’s from the Deep South. For actors, learning a new accent is incredibly demanding. Accent assimilation is a rigorous process that often requires listening deeply to archive material, documentaries, movies and interviews and observing linguistic details. Continued here

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Arguing with a sibling? Here’s how to approach the situation in a helpful way Getting into an argument with a sibling can be pretty intense - here's how to handle the situation. If you grew up in a family with one or more siblings, you probably spent your childhood honing the art of a good old-fashioned argument. Continued here

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Why Innovation Depends on Intellectual Honesty Innovation flourishes when people on a team openly debate and disagree. The question is how to get them to speak their minds, particularly when it means challenging their leaders or acknowledged experts. Some management experts argue that the best way to get people to speak up is to create psychological safety — an atmosphere described by Harvard professor Amy Edmondson as one in which “people feel accepted and comfortable sharing concerns and mistakes without fear of embarrassment or retribution.”1 But research also indicates that feeling that it’s safe to dissent isn’t the only important factor for ensuring healthy debate. In our studies of innovators and their teams, we’ve found there can be a tension that few people recognize between psychological safety and intellectual honesty: that is, a culture in which team members will proactively voice their ideas and disagreements in a rational and constructive way (like the Star Trek character Mr. Spock, but with acknowledgment of their human emotions and biases).2 Intellectual honesty significantly increases a team’s ability to innovate — particularly to create breakthrough innovations — because it unleashes the knowledge of team members. We found that many teams prioritize psychological safety without realizing that the social cohesion it promotes, though beneficial to learning, can sometimes undermine intellectual honesty rather than encourage it. However, when people are brutally honest (Steve Jobs would tell people at Apple that they were “full of s – – – ”), they can undermine others’ feelings of acceptance and respect — which are the cornerstones of feeling secure to challenge one’s colleagues. Continued here

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Martin Luther King Day: The song that changed the US On 15 January 1981, music legends Diana Ross and Gladys Knight, along with the "godfather of rap", Gil Scott-Heron, joined renowned musician Stevie Wonder on stage at the National Mall in Washington, DC. The 50,000-strong audience chanted: "Martin Luther King Day, we took a holiday," according to Scott-Heron’s 2012 memoir, The Last Holiday, as the stars began to sing Wonder's hit song, Happy Birthday, a tribute to the murdered civil rights leader. More like this:-       The US's first interracial love song-       America's first black superstars-       The love song that became an anthem Continued here

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The Tragic Miracle of Consciousness: John Steinbeck on the True Meaning and Purpose of Hope We hope, we despair, and then we hope again — that is how we stay afloat in the cosmos of uncertainty that is any given life. Just as the universe exists because, by some accident of chance we are yet to fathom, there is more matter than antimatter in it, we exist — and go on existing — because there is more hope than despair in us. “Hope,” the great Czech dissident playwright turned president Václav Havel wrote, “is not the same as joy that things are going well, or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously headed for early success, but, rather, an ability to work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed.” Hope, I have long believed, is the antidote to cynicism — that most cowardly and self-defeating of existential orientations. Hope, Rebecca Solnit reminds us, “is a gift you don’t have to surrender, a power you don’t have to throw away.” For it is a power indeed — the power to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps from even the darkest and most dispiriting of circumstances, so that we may go on reaching for the light. In this capacity, hope might be our greatest evolutionary adaptation — the mitochondria of our spiritual metabolism, the opposable thumb of our grip on life. That function of hope is what John Steinbeck (February 27, 1902–December 20, 1968) explores from an uncommonly illuminating perspective in a portion of The Log from the Sea of Cortez (public library) — his forgotten masterpiece about how to think, wrested from a marine biology expedition into the Gulf of California at the outbreak of a World War. Continued here S8 9 Ways to Squeeze in More Steps Every Day Every day for the past decade, I’ve tried to dethrone the family walking champ: my 67-year-old dad. Despite my youthful advantage—he has more than 30 years on me, as he’s quick to point out—I haven’t logged more steps than him once. I find this to be both mortifying and a point of vicarious pride; his fitness is remarkable. It’s also excellent motivation to find creative ways to finally out-walk him. My dad and I compete using our favorite pedometer app, which displays each day’s steps in a bar graph. (While we both wear Apple Watches, we like the app best for logging the entire day’s steps, and keep our phones on us all the time.) If you’ve barely moved, your results for the day show up in a disapproving red. If you land somewhere between 5,000 and 10,000 steps, it’s a milder orange. And once you reach 10,000 steps per day, the graph becomes green and showers your phone screen with confetti as you jump up and down (and maybe forward; more steps). We send each other screenshots at the end of the day, and while I hit 10,000 at least a few times a week, he exceeds 20,000 steps every single day. Continued here S23 Brazil's military is supposed to safeguard democracy - yet its threat of intervention hangs over politics The sacking of the three buildings comprising the seat of government in Brasilia on January 8 was a reminder of an unresolved tension in the heart of the Brazilian state: the role of the armed forces. As in many other democracies, Brazil’s armed forces are supposed to be apolitical servants of the executive branch and subordinate to their civilian commander-in-chief, the president. But the Brazilian officer corps sometimes behaves and speaks as the saviour of the nation. It claims to be the “moderating power”, a role some argue is granted to them by article 142 of the 1988 constitution, which describes the military as the defender of “law and order”. Continued here S16 From a 'deranged' provocateur to IBM's failed AI superproject: the controversial story of how data has transformed healthcare Just over a decade ago, artificial intelligence (AI) made one of its showier forays into the public’s consciousness when IBM’s Watson computer appeared on the American quiz show Jeopardy! The studio audience was made up of IBM employees, and Watson’s exhibition performance against two of the show’s most successful contestants was televised to a national viewership across three evenings. In the end, the machine triumphed comfortably. One of Watson’s opponents Ken Jennings, who went on to make a career on the back of his gameshow prowess, showed grace – or was it deference? – in defeat, jotting down this commentary to accompany his final answer: “I, for one, welcome our new computer overlords.” Continued here S4 Would You Sell Your Extra Kidney? When we were teenagers, my brother and I received kidney transplants six days apart. It wasn’t supposed to be that way. He, two years older, was scheduled to receive my dad’s kidney in April of 1998. Twenty-four hours before the surgery, the transplant team performed its final blood panel and discovered a tissue incompatibility that all the previous testing had somehow missed. My brother was pushed onto “the list,” where he’d wait, who knows how long, for the kidney of somebody who had died and possessed the generous foresight to be a donor after death. I was next in line for my dad’s kidney. We matched, and the date was set for August 28. Then my parents got a call early in the morning on August 22. There had been a car crash. A kidney was available. As with many things in life, my brother went first and I followed. His operation went smoothly. Six days later, it was my turn. I remember visiting the doctor shortly before the transplant, feeling the pinprick and stinging flush of local anesthetic, then a blunted tugging, the nauseating and strange sensation of a dialysis catheter withdrawn from below my collarbone. I remember, later, the tranquil fog of midazolam as I was rolled to the OR.  Continued here S51 19 years ago, Will Smith made a messy sci-fi epic that was ahead of its time Back when Smith’s career was red hot, he tried to charm his way through a challenging adaptation. In 2004, Will Smith laced on a pair of black leather Chuck Taylors for the sci-fi blockbuster I, Robot, directed by Alex Proyas (The Crow). Loosely based on Isaac Asimov’s 1950 collection of short stories — all exploring themes of ingenuity, free will, and mankind’s nasty habit of creating our own doom — the film presciently, if haphazardly, grappled with our imminent future in the then-new millennium. Continued here S6 The Daily Habits of Happiness Experts If anyone knows the secret to happiness, it’s surely the people who have dedicated their careers to studying it. The first thing they’ll tell you? Being happy all the time isn’t a feasible—or even desirable—goal. “It’s not a yellow smiley face,” says positive psychology expert Stella Grizont, founder and CEO of Woopaah, which focuses on workplace wellbeing. “It’s being true to yourself and all the emotions that come up.” Instead of trying to force that frown upside down, true happiness stems from surrounding yourself with lots of love, being of service, and having a good time, she says. Continued here S47 Yiyun Li on How We Remember the Dead This week’s story, “Wednesday’s Child,” opens in Amsterdam’s central train station, when the protagonist, Rosalie, is trying to catch a train to Brussels that keeps being cancelled. What kind of mind-set does that put Rosalie—or any traveller—in? I often imagine that our urge to travel is to strive for a stretch of time that is not entirely connected to the past or the future while we move from one place to another. It’s not the usual setting of life but a suspended time, framed by an ever-changing—and less familiar—physical space. And here Rosalie, stranded at the train station, experiences the opposite: physical movement is momentarily suspended, while the past is brought closer by her reading her notebooks on the platform, and, later, by a chance encounter in the train car. Continued here S10 How To Use Anchoring as A Negotiating Technique It is a powerful tool both buyers and sellers can use. Continued here S32 At Fitzroy Crossing and around Australia, community radio empowers local responses to climate impacts As rain poured down and rivers rose, the radio buzzed with static where you’d usually find Fitzroy Crossing’s community radio station, Wangki Yupurnanupurru Radio. The station was off air, but not offline. When they couldn’t broadcast, the Wangki team turned to Facebook to share emergency information. They even put together audio updates in Kriol and other local languages. This was a community radio station making sure everyone in their community had access to information they needed. The broadcaster’s efforts are remarkable, but not unusual in Australia’s community radio sector. Continued here S22 Stopping the cancer cells that thrive on chemotherapy - research into how pancreatic tumors adapt to stress could lead to a new treatment approach As with weeds in a garden, it is a challenge to fully get rid of cancer cells in the body once they arise. They have a relentless need to continuously expand, even when they are significantly cut back by therapy or surgery. Even a few cancer cells can give rise to new colonies that will eventually outgrow their borders and deplete their local resources. They also tend to wander into places where they are not welcome, creating metastatic colonies at distant sites that can be even more difficult to detect and eliminate. One explanation for why cancer cells can withstand such inhospitable environments and growing conditions is an old adage: What doesn’t kill them makes them stronger. Continued here S33 Russia is using drones to target Ukrainian electricity and erode morale Russian officials, as well as many outside observers, believed that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, would be a rapid affair. The war, however, has defied these expectations. As we approach the one-year anniversary of the conflict, Russia instead finds itself stuck in a protracted conflict with no easy exit. Russia, in order to achieve the off-ramp it desperately seeks, is now more than ever focusing on targeting the Ukrainian home front. Continued here S14 Enys Men: The films that frighten us in unexplainable ways Eeriness has long been a sensation that we have understood as intangible: an eerie location or situation is one where a person can feel frightened or unsettled for reasons beyond their comprehension. In that way, there is some overlap between "the eerie" and Sigmund Freud's feelings of Das Unheimliche or "the uncanny", where unspecified familiarity with an event renders it unnerving. More like this: – The strange allure of ancient stone circles – The magical master of British literature – The classic thriller that demonised rural folk Continued here S12 Don't Feel Too Bad for Laid Off Tech Workers. More Than Half End up Earning More in Their Next Job A new analysis finds laid off tech workers are finding new jobs in record time and often boosting their salaries too. Continued here S44 Extreme storms and flood events cause damage worth billions to ports -- and they are most disruptive to small island developing states Shipping ports are crucial for the global economy. They handle the majority of trade, are industrial and transportation hubs and provide employment. But ports, by their nature, are located in coastal areas or on large rivers and are exposed to natural hazards such as storms and floods as a result. Natural hazards can cause damage to ports and their surrounding infrastructure, often disrupting a port’s operation. Hurricane Katrina, a category five storm that made landfall on the southern US coast in 2005, forced the US ports of New Orleans, Mobile and South Louisiana to close for up to four months. The ports together handled almost half of the country’s agricultural exports at the time. Continued here S21 Being a volunteer won't land you a job. But it could improve your chances of getting one University of Western Cape provides support as a hosting partner of The Conversation AFRICA. The South African government has implemented numerous economic policies to boost employment since the democratic transition in 1994. But between 1995 and 2022 the growth in employment – from 9.5 million in 1995 to 15.8 million in 2022 – wasn’t enough to keep up with the more rapid increase of job seekers which more than doubled from 13.7 million to 27.7 million during the same period. Continued here S19 Nigeria's university system needs radical reform: student loans for more than 100 million people might be a good place to start Our view, based on over 30 years of working in the academy, including holding positions as university administrators in Nigeria and the UK, is that the bill won’t fix the many problems facing the country’s higher education system. Unless we rethink the whole system, it is unlikely to deliver the change that’s needed. Read more: Nigeria's universities can find funds and produce job creators: here's how Continued here S27 Japan is paying families 1 million yen to move to the countryside - but it won't make Tokyo any smaller The Japanese government has announced a fresh round of incentives for people to move out of the Tokyo region. From April 2023, families seeking a new life in greener pastures will receive JPY1 million (£6,380), per child. This represents an increase of JPY700,000 on previous such payments. Once the whole benefits package is included, the maximum amount a family will be able to receive is JPY5 million. 5 million yen might sound like a lot of money. However this translates to £31,900, which will be quickly used up in relocating to a new home, job and community, and reduced incomes. Continued here S20 Kenya's Rift Valley lakes are rising, putting thousands at risk - we now know why Senior Scientist, Institute of Hydrology and Water Management, University of Natural Resources and Life Science (BOKU) The East African Rift Valley sits between the Afar Triangle in Ethiopia and Mozambique. Within it lie a series of freshwater and alkaline lakes organised like a string of pearls. Continued here S48 New York’s Theatre Festivals Imagine a World After Mankind The January performance calendar is like a seasonal migration. In the chill after New Year's Day, Broadway and Off Broadway go quiet—with the tourists away, very few new productions open uptown. Downtown and farther out, though, there's a feeding frenzy. The Public Theatre organizes the packed Under the Radar, an international experimental theatre festival, with a side of cabaret offerings at Joe's Pub; the far-out and dance-forward Exponential Festival, hosted by the Brick, buzzes like an anthill in Brooklyn; and Prototype, dedicated to musical theatre and new opera, pops up in several venues Off Off Broadway. The activity is back, but things feel delicate, tentative. It's been several years since we had a full slate of in-person January festivals, and there's still some recuperating to do. Last year, both Under the Radar and Prototype cancelled less than two weeks before they were supposed to happen; COVID-19-related problems proved impossible to overcome. This year, in the triumphant return, the first weekend of shows exhibited the old bustle, though crowds seemed sparser than in the pre-pandemic era. And already several performances of an Under the Radar show have been cancelled because of illness in the cast. Continued here S18 Pope Francis' visit to Africa comes at a defining moment for the Catholic church During his planned visit to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and South Sudan in February 2023, Pope Francis intends to be in dialogue with African Catholics – but also to listen to political leaders and young Africans. Pope Francis has convened a worldwide consultation on the future of the Catholic church. This consultation, called a synodal process, began in 2021 and will conclude in 2024. Continued here S28 Bret Easton Ellis's ambitious new novel of sex, violence and adolescence in 80s Los Angeles is autofiction for our digital age Halfway through Bret Easton Ellis’s first novel in 13 years, The Shards, the 17-year-old narrator, Bret (a fictionalised version of the author) pitches to a producer, Terry Schaffer. This Bret, who is working on the debut novel the real Bret published in 1985 – Less Than Zero – describes the scenario he has developed. Continued here S29 Where does Australia's relationship with PNG go next? Less talk about China, more about our neighbour's own merits Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s visit to Papua New Guinea last week put the media spotlight on one of Australia’s most important international relationships. Much of the coverage focused on the plans, confirmed by Albanese and his PNG counterpart, James Marape, for a defence treaty between the two countries – and the role this might play in warding off China’s growing engagement in the region. Continued here S24 Prince Harry says his military kills were like chess pieces - the problem of seeing war as a game Amid the many salacious revelations in Prince Harry’s memoir, Spare, one of the most concerning was not about his family. Harry revealed that he killed 25 members of the Taliban while serving in Afghanistan, and that he viewed them like pieces on a chessboard. His comments sparked criticism from top military figures and prompted Afghan families to call for his prosecution. Harry’s comments suggest that military technology has advanced such that a soldier can say with certainty the number of kills they have made. But it also reveals how much “gamification” of warfare could become part of the military mindset. Continued here S26 How one small school in B.C. became a public elementary Montessori school Why do some public schools have specialized curricula or programs — what have come to be called schools or programs of choice? And what kinds of educational leadership questions come into play when schools adapt or change? Continued here S25 Five ways to reduce your mortgage repayments in 2023 - and why rates have risen so high Around 4 million UK households will face higher mortgage costs in 2023 with average monthly payments expected to increase from £750 to £1,000. Banks’ lending rates are directly influenced by the Bank of England’s base rate, which rose nine times in the year to December 2022 to 3.5% and is expected to reach around 4.5% in 2023. Mortgage rates are even higher than this base rate because banks add a premium to account for the risk of borrowers not repaying their home loans. Average mortgage rates are now around 6% versus 1.9% in early 2022. Continued here S45 Curious Kids: is there such a thing as nothing? Imagine you hear a noise outside your window. You think it might be a dog barking, or maybe a child shouting. But when you get up and have a look, there’s no dog or child. “Oh,” you say, “there’s nothing there.” We often say we’ve “got nothing”, or that there’s “nothing there”. But what we mean is that we haven’t got a particular thing. When you looked outside, lots of things were there – trees, houses, cars and bicycles maybe – but the particular thing you were looking for wasn’t there. Continued here S46 How British theatre censorship laws have inadvertently created a rich archive of Black history In an age of so-called “cancel culture” it’s important to remember that for much of British history it was the state, not the masses, who censored the work of artists. Between 1737 and 1968 British theatre censorship laws required theatre managers to submit new plays intended for the professional stage to the Lord Chamberlain’s Office for examination and licensing. This was necessary under the Stage Licensing Act of 1737 and the Theatres Act of 1843. Continued here S43 Fossil study brings us one step closer to revealing how 'flying dinosaurs' took flight If you think of flying dinosaurs, you probably picture an animal with long, leathery wings, sharp claws and a big beak. The animal you are imagining is not a dinosaur, it’s from a group of flying reptiles called the pterosaurs. These animals are remarkable in their own right: they were the first vertebrates to evolve flight, tens of millions of years before birds or bats. Perhaps people think they are dinosaurs because pterosaurs are sometimes referred to as flying dinosaurs in children’s books. Whatever the reason, pterosaurs deserve attention in their own right. Continued here S38 Physicists have used entanglement to 'stretch' the uncertainty principle, improving quantum measurements Almost a century ago, German physicist Werner Heisenberg realised the laws of quantum mechanics placed some fundamental limits on how accurately we can measure certain properties of microscopic objects. However, the laws of quantum mechanics can also offer ways to make measurements more accurate than would otherwise be possible. Continued here S41 Murray Valley encephalitis has been detected in mozzies in NSW and Victoria. Here's what you need to know Where there’s water, you’ll find mosquitoes – including some that transmit viruses that can make us seriously ill. Authorities have been on alert after an outbreak of Japanese encephalitis last summer which resulted in 45 human cases and seven deaths. Favourable conditions for mosquitoes continued. Continued here S37 FAQ on COVID-19 subvariant XBB.1.5: What is it? Where is it prevalent? How does it differ from Omicron? Does it cause serious illness? How can I protect myself? Why is it nicknamed 'Kraken'? Despite intensive public health efforts to grind the COVID-19 pandemic to a halt, the recent emergence of the highly transmissible, extensively drug-resistant and profoundly immune system-evading XBB.1.5 SARS-CoV-2 subvariant is putting the global community on edge. In the naming convention for SARS-CoV-2 lineages, the prefix “X” denotes a pedigree that arose through genetic recombination between two or more subvariants. Continued here S39 As heatwaves and floods hit cities worldwide, these places are pioneering solutions Climate change is going just as badly for cities as we have been warned it would. Extreme weather is increasingly common and severe globally. Australian cities have endured a number of recent disastrous events. It’ll get worse, too. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) factsheet outlining impacts on human settlements is a very sobering read. It also pithily sums up the situation cities face: Continued here S40 Can The Last of Us TV series finally break the bad video game adaptation curse? Even if you’re not a video game player, you might have heard about the just released and highly anticipated television series based on beloved and acclaimed video game The Last of Us. However, to say video game adaptations are often awful is an understatement. It’s a long running joke just how terrible film and television series based on video games inevitably are. And yet, more adaptations of video games keep being churned out by studios. Continued here S42 Census data shows England and Wales are more ethnically diverse -- and less segregated -- than ever before National census data is the best tool – the gold standard – for obtaining the full, detailed picture of how the UK’s population is changing at the local level. In November 2022, publication of 2021 census data on ethnic groups presented an unrivalled opportunity to gain insights into the changing ethnic mosaic of England and Wales. Many media reports on the data focused on the growth of minority ethnic populations in cities including London, Birmingham, and Leicester. Local authority districts where white people no longer formed a majority of the population – so-called “minority-majority” places – drew special attention. 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