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

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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. Continued here

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Competing on Analytics Companies questing for killer apps generally focus all their firepower on the one area that promises to create the greatest competitive advantage. But a new breed of organization has upped the stakes: Amazon, Harrah’s, Capital One, and the Boston Red Sox have all dominated their fields by deploying industrial-strength analytics across a wide variety of activities. Continued here

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25 Years Ago, Steve Jobs Explained: This Is the 'Most Important' Statistic to Identify Truly Great Leaders "And when you have great people, the most important thing to do is to not lose them." Continued here

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ChatGPT could help students cheat -- but it could also revolutionize education ChatGPT is a powerful language model developed by OpenAI that has the ability to generate human-like text, making it capable of engaging in natural language conversations. This technology has the potential to revolutionize the way we interact with computers, and it has already begun to be integrated into various industries. However, the implementation of ChatGPT in the field of higher education in the U.K. poses a number of challenges that must be carefully considered. If ChatGPT is used to grade assignments or exams, there is the possibility that it could be biased against certain groups of students. Continued here

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Auckland floods: even stormwater reform won't be enough - we need a 'sponge city' to avoid future disasters We’ve built our cities to be vulnerable to – and exacerbate – major weather events such as the one we saw in Auckland on Friday. While almost no city in the world could fully escape the effects of four months’ worth of rain in 24 hours, there are many things that could have been done to avoid some of the worst impacts. Buildings, streets and car parks are all impermeable surfaces. When it rains, the water rushes off these surfaces and into gutters. From the gutters, the water drains into a stormwater catch basin, through the stormwater network, and into streams and the sea. Continued here

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Three years ago, a fake April Fool's Day joke transformed Sega's best series The Yakuza series has a reputation for being full of hijinks in addition to its melodramatic story of gangsters. This image reached its height in what was originally thought to be an April Fool's joke announcing a turn-based RPG entry in the series. But instead of a joke, Yakuza: Lika a Dragon was a groundbreaking soft reboot for the franchise that leans hard into the humor of the series, earning it newfound appreciation in the west. Setting up the joke — In 2016, developer Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio seemingly ended the story of longtime series protagonist Kazuma Kiryu with Yakuza 6: The Song of Life (although Kiryu will be coming out of retirement soon). When it came time to work on the next entry in the franchise, the studio wanted to branch off in a new direction that changed the protagonist and mechanics of the franchise. This game would become Yakuza: Like a Dragon. Continued here

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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. Continued here

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Chairing ASEAN: what does it mean for Indonesia in 2023? Despite many obstacles and challenges, including the Russia-Ukraine war and global recession, host nation Indonesia managed to ensure that the high-level conference held in Bali on November 15-16 2022 produced a joint declaration, known as the G20 Bali Leaders’ Declaration. It shows how Indonesia, under President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, has tried to be a unifying force in the midst of global uncertainty. Now Indonesia has shifted focus and attention to its next significant challenge: chairing ASEAN (the Association of Southeast Asian Nations) in 2023. Continued here

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Emotionally Intelligent People Use 2 Simple Words to Build Confidence and Work Better (and Get Others to Work Better, Too) These two words will not only change the way you see yourself and others, they'll turn you into 'self-fulfilling prophecies'--and inspire you to do great work. Continued here

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A nuclear-powered X-ray "flashlight" could probe the Moon for water Not all flashlights are created equal. Some are stronger, consume more power, or have features such as blinking or strobes. Some aren’t even meant for humans, such as a new project that recently received funding from a NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC) Phase I award. Designed by the Ultra Safe Nuclear Corporation (USNC), this flashlight doesn’t emit visible light, but it does emit X-rays and gamma rays, and the researchers on the project think it could be useful for finding resources on the Moon. Continued here

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The Auckland floods are a sign of things to come - the city needs stormwater systems fit for climate change The extraordinary flood event Auckland experienced on the night of January 27, the eve of the city’s anniversary weekend, was caused by rainfall that was literally off the chart. Over 24 hours, 249mm of rain fell – well above the previous record of 161.8mm. A state of emergency was declared late in the evening. Continued here

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How does the placebo effect take hold? A doctor explains 2 influential factors In this book excerpt, Kathryn Hall, an expert on placebos, considers the ways that expectations and learning affect our response to them. It was time for Dr. Musavi to convey the sad news. With her health rapidly declining, his patient, Mrs. Ozra, had less than two weeks to live. Summoning the family together, he encouraged them to make arrangements. Continued here

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You need to watch the most experimental dinosaur movie on HBO Max ASAP With director Joe Johnston replacing Steven Spielberg, the beloved franchise upped the ante on monsters... and little else. Nothing can touch Jurassic Park. Even Steven Spielberg swung and missed with his 1997 sequel The Lost World, fumbling the rare blessing of Jeff Goldblum in the lead role. There was no way a third film, sans Spielberg, could dazzle audiences like the first time they saw a roaming brontosaurus. But an attempt was made, and the result is as fascinating as it is baffling. Continued here

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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. Continued here

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Nadhim Zahawi sacked: today's Tory scandals are similar to 1990s sleaze stories in more than one way The 1990s are everywhere right now. From the fashion trends making a comeback in 2023 (I’m told), to the hotly anticipated return of the flashback mystery-box thriller Yellowjackets, it’s starting to feel like the millennium never happened. And where pop culture leads, politics inevitably follows. Events swirling around prime minister Rishi Sunak are more than a little reminiscent of the sleaze that dogged John Major’s Conservative government for most of his tenure between 1992 and 1997. So much so that I was recently reminded of a passage written by political scientist Tim Bale: Continued here

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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. Continued here

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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. Continued here

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The Cryptic Crossword: Sunday, January 29, 2023 © 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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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. Continued here

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You need to play the best Bond game ever made on Switch and Game Pass ASAP Sean Bean dies a lot — not in real life, obviously, but on screen. From Game of Thrones to The Lord of the Rings and Equilibrium, the man rarely makes it. The most spectacular Beanslaughter of them all is his fatal freefall off the Arecibo Observatory in 1995’s GoldenEye. But sometimes quantity tops quality, and if you want to kill Sean Bean more than once, now’s your chance. Because that James Bond film’s iconic video game adaptation is now playable on Xbox Game Pass and Nintendo Switch Online. GoldenEye 007 was an FPS sensation for the Nintendo 64, allowing players to kill Bean’s 006 alongside the rest of the cast in its legendary multiplayer mode. There’s a true-to-movie campaign too, and both have been revamped for re-release on Nintendo Switch and Xbox. Naturally, the nostalgia will hit harder for some than others. Continued here

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Israel’s Anti-Democratic Practices Against Palestinians Are Infecting Its Political System Early Thursday morning, Israeli soldiers and police conducted a raid against what they said were Islamic Jihad militants that left nine Palestinians, including a sixty-year-old woman, dead. The operation, in the city of Jenin, also wounded dozens, according to Palestinian officials. The Israeli Army contended that most of the dead were militants who had shot at or hurled Molotov cocktails at security forces. The death toll was one of the highest single-day tallies in the West Bank in years. On Friday night, a Palestinian gunman killed seven Israelis and wounded three others in an attack near a synagogue in East Jerusalem. Among the dead were three elderly, two women and a man. Three others were injured. On Saturday, a thirteen-year-old Palestinian boy, police said, shot and wounded two people near Jerusalem's Old City. Continued here

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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. Continued here

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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. Continued here

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Sarcasm, Self-Deprecation, and Inside Jokes: A User's Guide to Humor at Work A few years ago, we conducted a research study in which we asked people to help us create an ad campaign for a travel service called VisitSwitzerland.ch (which we’d made up). We put the participants into small groups and showed them a photo—a Swiss landscape of a lake, a mountain, and the country’s distinctive flag with its white plus sign against a red background—accompanied by the question: “What made you fall in love with Switzerland?” We gave participants three minutes to come up with a memorable answer and then had them share their ideas with their groups. Continued here

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Innovating in Uncertain Times: Lessons from 2022 Too many leaders succumb to fear of missing out (FOMO) when new tech trends emerge and demand that something — anything — using the new tech be implemented immediately. This leads to wasted investment, missed opportunity and disillusionment about the new landscape. Emerging technologies are critical and demand attention and investment, but managers must exercise patience and avoid falling victim to the hype. Responsible exploration is key. Continued here

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With these mini projectors, you can stream shows & so much more -- all from your iPhone Whether you want to dive into your favorite series from a random location or host an impromptu movie night with friends, a phone projector makes quick work of sharing content on a big screen. Weighing as little as 1 pound, the best mini projectors for iPhones are easy to travel with and offer excellent image quality relative to their price tags. The best iPhone projectors effortlessly display content from your device using the screen mirroring function, but some require a Lightning-to-HDMI connector, which you’ll have to supply yourself. If you’re planning to project a work presentation or your own photo or video collection, display setup is quick and easy. However, if you want to project copyrighted material from streaming services like Netflix or Hulu, a separate media device (such as an Amazon Fire TV Stick or Roku) will be required for viewing. Continued here

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Why some people can't tell left from right Preventable medical mistakes frequently involve wrong-sided surgery: an injection to the wrong eye, for example, or a biopsy from the wrong breast. These "never events" – serious and largely preventable patient safety accidents – highlight that, while most of us learn as children how to tell left from right, not everyone gets it right. While for some people, telling left from right is as easy as telling up from down, a significant minority – around one in six people, according to a recent study – struggle with the distinction. Even for those who believe they have no issues, distractions such as ambient noise, or having to answer unrelated questions, can get in the way of making the right choice. Continued here

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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. Continued here

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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. Continued here

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'Persona 3 Portable' requests guide: How to complete every Velvet Room errand One of the most time-consuming activities players can pursue in Persona 3 Portable are the requests given to the protagonist by the Velvet Room attendant, either Elizabeth or Theodore. While players will already spend plenty of time trying to romance side characters and get the highest grade in class, these requests are essential to maxing out your relationship with the Velvet Room attendant. Still, they aren’t always clear about how you can fulfill the myriad of requests. Here is a complete guide on all of the 80 requests from Elizabeth and Theodore in Persona 3 Portable. Defeat the Reaper enemy who appears by remaining on any one floor of Tartarus for too long. Continued here

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65 dank things on Amazon that are so freaking cheap It’s always a little bit surprising when you find something that you actually love and it didn’t cost you a fortune. However, Amazon has made that a more frequent occurrence. It’s actually made it a little too easy to find cheap things that you want to keep forever and that’s why I’ve compiled these 65 ingenious products. There’s everything from skincare to tools to kitchen utensils. And instead of expecting your choice to break after a week of having it or another charge to pop up on your credit card, just add to your cart and enjoy them for all their affordable and high-quality glory. Continued here

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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. Continued here

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Physicists demo a sci-fi-inspired laser that mimics a classic UFO trick Tractor beams make intuitive sense. Matter and energy interact with each other in countless ways throughout the Universe. Magnetism and gravity are both natural forces that can draw objects together, so there’s sort of a precedent. A tractor beam is a device that can move an object from a distance. The idea comes from a 1931 sci-fi story called Spacehounds of IPC: Continued here

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The Police Folklore That Helped Kill Tyre Nichols Thirty-four years ago, near the crest of the crack-cocaine-fuelled crime surge of the early nineteen-nineties, two F.B.I agents began a novel investigation of threats to police. One agent was a former police lieutenant in Washington, D.C. The other was also a Catholic priest with a doctorate in psychology. Together, they plunged into the prison system, interviewing fifty convicted cop killers. Most criminologists today call such research pseudoscience. A sample size of fifty was almost anecdotal, and why should anyone trust a cop killer, anyway? The agents also had no benchmark—no comparable interviews with criminals who had complied. Yet the sweeping conclusions of their study, “Killed in the Line of Duty,” made the front page of the Times, and, through decades of promotion by the Department of Justice, became ingrained in the culture of American law enforcement. At the top of an inventory of “behavioral descriptors” linked to officers who ended up dead, the study listed traits that some citizens might prize: “friendly,” “well-liked by community and department,” “tends to use less force than other officers felt they would use in similar circumstances,” and “used force only as last resort.” The cop killers, the agents concluded from their prison conversations, had attacked officers with a “good-natured demeanor.” An officer’s failure to dominate—to immediately enforce full control over the suspect—proved fatal. “A miscue in assessing the need for control in particular situations can have grave consequences,” the authors warned. Continued here

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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. Continued here

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Viruses can speed up unhealthy brain aging -- vaccines may offer peace of mind There is currently no cure for dementia, but getting vaccinated for common viral illnesses may reduce your risk. One in 9 Americans ages 65 and older had Alzheimer’s disease in 2022, and countless others were indirectly affected as caregivers, health care providers, and taxpayers. There is currently no cure — available treatments primarily focus on prevention by encouraging protective factors, such as exercise and a healthy diet, and reducing aggravating factors, such as diabetes and high blood pressure. Continued here

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Inhumanity in Memphis The police officers who fatally beat Tyre Nichols must have known their actions were being recorded, but that hardly seemed to deter them. Even before the city of Memphis released video Friday evening of the fatal beating of Tyre Nichols, it seemed the footage would be horrifying. Defense attorneys compared it to the Rodney King beating in 1991, a comparison that now rings true, but the Memphis police chief and the head of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation similarly said they were appalled by what they’d seen. Cops often remind critics that their job necessarily entails violence, so when seasoned law-enforcement officers react this way, it’s telling. Continued here

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5 Sentences the Best Leaders Never Say, According to Career Experts Employees may think you're out of touch, lack empathy, are setting a bad example, or all three.Continued here S55 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. Continued here S14 The best mystery thriller on Netflix ignores a basic fact about hydrogen energy Could a solid hydrogen crystal really power our homes today? Experts weigh in on Glass Onion. The most entertaining science fiction starts with a kernel of real science and grows it into something far beyond the boundaries of our current reality. Continued here S42 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.   Continued here S47 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. Continued here S33 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. Continued here S58 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) Continued here S48 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. Continued here S35 A Neurologist Answers Questions Patients Might Have about the New Alzheimer's Drug Lecanemab What a patient and family members can expect from the recently approved drug lecanemab—and what more is needed to help stop Alzheimer’s dementia No drug with consistent statistical evidence from clinical trials had ever been found to slow the course of Alzheimer’s disease before the Food and Drug Administration gave its nod this month to lecanemab, which clears the brain of the toxic amyloid protein that has been a primary target for drug developers. Continued here S56 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. Continued here S49 The weekend's best deals: Apple computers, Kindles, 4K TVs, charging cables, and more. Another weekend, another Dealmaster. In this week's roundup of the best tech deals on the web, we have deals on a range of Apple computers―desktops and laptops alike. Co-headlining the Apple computer sale are the just-released 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pros and the 2021 iMac. Continued here S60 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. Continued here S39 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) Continued here S43 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. Continued here S57 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. Continued here S44 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.  Continued here S54 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. Continued here S66 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. Continued here S52 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.” Continued here S61 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. Continued here S70 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. Continued here S67 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. Continued here S51 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. Continued here S65 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%. Continued here S62 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. Continued here S46 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. Continued here S63 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. Continued here S53 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. Continued here S68 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. Continued here S69 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. Continued here S41 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. Continued here S38 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. Continued here S64 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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