5 Powerful Strategies to Help You Deal With Toxic People

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5 Powerful Strategies to Help You Deal With Toxic People It can be hard to stand up for yourself. These tips might make it easier. Continued here

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4 Bad Habits That Keep Toxic Bosses From Becoming Good Leaders For starters, toxic bosses demand that things go their way all the time. Continued here

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These Inexpensive Home Upgrades Are So Clever You'll Wish They Were Invented Sooner Upgrading your home can be incredibly expensive, especially if you’re looking to hire a professional to do the work for you. But if you’re trying to stick to a budget or simply don’t have the funds for a new backsplash, not a problem: There are tons of inexpensive home upgrades out there that won’t break the bank, and I’ve even compiled the best ones into a list for you to check out below. From stylish floating shelves to modern outlet covers, these upgrades are so clever you’ll wish they were invented sooner. And since many of them are incredibly easy to install, you shouldn’t have any trouble giving your home a gorgeous makeover within the span of an afternoon. So what are you waiting for? The peel-and-stick backsplash I’ve included isn’t going to be around forever — especially considering how reasonable the price is. Keep scrolling for more. Continued here

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5 Years Ago, SpaceX Launched Its Silliest Payload Yet And It's Still in Orbit The space-faring Tesla roadster set a speed record unlikely to ever fall to another car, even another Tesla. For the first test flight of the SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket on February 6, 2018, SpaceX — and Tesla — CEO Elon Musk decided to launch the “silliest” test payload imaginable: his own car. The midnight cherry-hued Tesla roadster reached around 26,000 miles per hour, sufficient speed to escape Earth’s gravity and outpace any ground speed record imaginable. Continued here

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101 Very Simple Habits That Will Improve Your Life Today (Part 2) No. 48: "Share a really cool and helpful list on social media." Continued here

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Hayley Williams, Without a Guidebook This month, Paramore—a buoyant and nimble pop-rock band fronted by the thirty-four-year-old singer and songwriter Hayley Williams—released “This Is Why,” its sixth album, and the first since 2017’s “After Laughter.” Though Paramore is still considered a pillar of the early-two-thousands pop-punk scene—a now mostly bygone era of neon-streaked hair, exuberant riffs, white belts, urgent and plaintive lyrics, and Vans in varying stages of purposeful disintegration—the band has spent much of the past decade making dynamic, tender rock music that’s rooted in rhythm and blues and feels at odds with the wounded grousing of its former colleagues. Paramore officially formed in 2004, in Franklin, Tennessee, but the major labels started scouting Williams—hungrily—when she was just fourteen. (It was Williams who insisted that she wanted to be in a band, rather than embarking on a solo career.) Since then, Paramore has undergone several lineup changes, some tumultuous, and went on an indefinite hiatus in 2017. Williams released two aching but ferocious solo records during this time: “Petals for Armor,” in 2020, and “Flowers for Vases/Descansos,” in 2021. The band has since re-formed and is enjoying a curious surge in popularity, due in part to a revival of interest in the bands that people now in their early thirties worshipped when they were young. Its current lineup includes Williams, the drummer Zac Farro, and the guitarist Taylor York. Continued here

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Emotionally Intelligent People Use a Brilliant Six-Word Phrase to Stop Passive Aggressive Behavior and Strengthen Their Relationships To stop passive aggression--in yourself or others--remember these six words. Continued here

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NASA Might Finally Solve the Million-Degree Mystery of the Sun's Corona The Sun is full of mysteries. A close look at a new collage of light from NASA might help answer at least one pesky question about our local star. In a new colored image of the Sun, which NASA released on Thursday, are three shades of colors. The two most obvious are green and red. They portray wavelengths of light the Sun emits across its entire face. But in a few corners are splotches of blue. These represent small events that could be elevating the temperature of the Sun’s outer atmosphere to more than a million degrees. Continued here

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Keep Forgetting Things? Neuroscience Says These Very Simple Habits Boost Memory and Learning We take it for granted, until we can't Continued here

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Are Hot Tubs Dangerous? A Microbiologist Reveals the Filthy Truth For many centuries we have bathed in communal waters. Sometimes for cleanliness but more often for pleasure. Indeed, in ancient Greece, baths were taken in freshwater, or sometimes the sea — which was thought of as a sacred place dedicated to local gods and so was considered an act of worship. But it was the Romans who created state-sponsored aqueducts to allow for large-scale public baths. These were mainly used for relaxation but also for more private pleasures, too. Yes, the public baths were often where Romans did the dirty deed — sometimes with their bath attendant slaves. Continued here

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How to Become a Better Listener Listening is a skill that’s vitally important, sadly undertaught, and physically and mentally taxing. In the aftermath of Covid-19, particularly with the shift to remote work and the red-hot job market, it’s never been more important — or more difficult — for leaders to be good listeners. This article offers nine tips to help leaders become more active listeners, and a breakdown of the subskills involved in listening and how you can improve in them. Continued here

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African researchers are ready to share more work openly - now policy must make it possible Librarians are the curators of creativity. They collect success stories and share it with the world. Traditionally, the success was from published authors, which libraries shared with the local community. More recently, the model has been flipped: libraries have started to collect from the local community to share with everyone. Adoption is steadily under way, evidenced by the number of open access policies, the growth of open science standards and policies or the number of times it has been searched in Google over the past few years, but Africa has been slower to take up the change. A change on such a large scale requires that certain things are in place: policies, willingness to implement them, and the infrastructure to make implementation possible. Continued here

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To Sound Like a Leader, Think About What You Say, and How and When You Say It Whether you are an associate manager or a senior executive, what you say, how you say it, when you say it, to whom you say it, and whether you say it within the proper context are critical components of your strategic leadership potential. This “executive voice” is less about your performance and more about your strategic instincts and your awareness of the signals you send in daily interactions and communications. Developing an executive voice can mean the difference between success and failure in your communication and leadership style. You can show up more strategically in meetings by doing your homework and by taking the lead in analyzing difficult situations. Bring solutions, not just problems. And stay calm in the pressure cooker. People with an effective executive voice aren’t easily rattled. They provide levelheaded leadership even when — in fact, particularly when — everyone around them is losing their composure. By making the necessary adjustments to your approach to participation, you can start showing up more strategically in every setting you encounter at work. Continued here

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You Need to Play the Trippiest '90s Fever Dream on Nintendo Switch ASAP Hours dominate our lives. They’re how we measure our days, our labor and our speed. It’s our most popular unit of time (sorry baktun) because of how easy it is for us to conceptualize. Despite our nostalgic pining we must always live in the present, and because of this the natural human body clock senses hours with ease. It’s how we measure our video games, too. Playtimes are always described in hours, but this doesn’t always have to be the case. What if a game measured playtimes in seconds? What would happen? WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgames would happen. A trippy, absurdist foray into an inadvertently existential examination of “what is video game?” the vaunted GameBoy Advance title just dropped on Nintendo Switch Expansion Pass. It is unlike anything you’ve ever played, an arcade-style experience years ahead of its time. Continued here

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Goffin's cockatoo named third species that carries toolsets around in preparation for future tasks From pocket knives to smart phones, humans keep inventing ever-more-sophisticated tools. However, the notion that tool use is an exclusively human trait was shattered in the 1960s when Jane Goodall observed our closest living relatives, chimpanzees, retrieving termites from holes with stripped twigs. Tool use among non-human animals is hotly debated. It’s often thought a big brain is needed to understand the properties of objects, how to finely manipulate them, and how to teach this to other members of a species. Continued here

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The Dawn of Nuclear Energy Abundance STUDENTS ENJOY 75% OFF SUBSCRIPTIONS Learn more → Nuclear energy is in the ascendant. Nations across the globe, lured by the prospect of clean, secure, and reliable power, are announcing that they are extending the lives of their nuclear plants or planning to build new ones. These nations include: the United States, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Canada, the United Kingdom, the Czech Republic, Poland, Switzerland, Hungary, Sweden, Ukraine, South Korea, Japan, China, India, Pakistan, Egypt, Nigeria, and Ghana. Continued here

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Chinese Spy Balloon: Why the 18th-Century Tech Still Flies The old-fashioned surveillance technique isn’t common these days, but it has certain advantages. The U.S. military shot down what U.S. officials called a Chinese surveillance balloon off the coast of South Carolina on February 4, 2023. Officials said that the U.S. Navy planned to recover the debris, which is in shallow water. Continued here

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30 Years Ago, a Classic Time-loop Comedy Rewrote the Rules of Sci-Fi Few movies achieve the level of instant recognition offered by Groundhog Day. Since its premiere 30 years ago, it’s been regarded as the gold standard of the time loop movie. If we were to explore the movies, TV shows, and parodies it inspired, we’d be here all day. If you somehow need a refresher, Bill Murray is cynical, disgruntled weatherman Phil Connors, who’s once again grudgingly heading out on his annual Groundhog Day assignment to report live at the ceremony in Punxsutawney. Phil openly despises what he sees as a cutesy tradition in an equally saccharine town, which puts him at odds with his charming producer, Rita (Andie McDowell). Phil, of course, soon finds himself trapped in a mysterious time loop, forcing him to relive his most hated holiday over and over again. Continued here

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Give Yourself a Happiness Boost With These 6 Science-backed Tips It’s one thing to know what makes people happy, but quite another to live a happy life oneself. I didn’t get a true taste of happiness until I quit my decade-long career as a happiness academic, packed all I’d need for many months onto a bicycle, and began meandering my way around the world to Bhutan. For those unfamiliar with Bhutan, it’s a small Himalayan kingdom famed for basing all its national policy decisions on happiness. Continued here

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Commuting has psychological benefits that we miss with remote work For most American workers who commute, the trip to and from the office takes nearly one full hour a day – 26 minutes each way on average, with 7.7% of workers spending two hours or more on the road. Many people think of commuting as a chore and a waste of time. However, during the remote work surge resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, several journalists curiously noted that people were – could it be? – missing their commutes. One woman told The Washington Post that even though she was working from home, she regularly sat in her car in the drivewayat the end of the workday in an attempt to carve out some personal time and mark the transition from work to nonwork roles.  Continued here

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How to Get Your To-Do List Done When You're Always in Meetings You keep waiting for the “perfect time” to sit down and knock out your work presentation in one go, but at the end of the day you realize you spent your time in meetings. You may never get your perfect time or ideal day, so start working within the reality that meetings happen — and that you can get important stuff done in between them. Try to break down the big task into bite-sized ones you can fit in between your meetings. You can also try scheduling in your project work time by blocking off a couple hours at a time and trying to stick to that schedule. Once you have that time, you can prioritize which projects you want to work on and in what order. Don’t let meetings keep you from getting those projects done. There’s plenty of time, if you can strategize and prepare for it. Continued here

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10 Steps to Creating a Data-Driven Culture For many companies, a strong, data-driven culture remains elusive, and data are rarely the universal basis for decision making. Why is it so hard? Our work in a range of industries indicates that the biggest obstacles to creating data-based businesses aren’t technical; they’re cultural. We’ve distilled 10 data commandments to help create and sustain a culture with data at its core: Data-driven culture starts at the (very) top; choose metrics with care – and cunning; don’t pigeonhole your data scientists within silos; fix basic data access issues quickly; quantify uncertainty; make proofs of concept simple and robust; offer specialized training where needed; use analytics to help employees  as well as customers; be willing to trade flexibility in programming languages for consistency in the short-term; and get in the habit of explaining analytical choices. Continued here

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'The Last of Us' Episode 5 Rewrites One Heartbreaking Video Game Scene With the exception of its standout third episode, HBO’s The Last of Us has stuck remarkably close to its source material. Even its fourth and fifth episodes, which feature an original villain named Kathleen (Melanie Lynskey), stay true to the heartbreaking final beats of the game’s infamous summer chapter. Unfortunately, that means the TV show sends both Henry (Lamar Johnson) and his younger brother, Sam (Keivonn Montreal Woodard), out in heartbreaking fashion. Continued here

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Yiddishe Ribbenes (grilled Jewish ribs) A Michael Twitty recipe is always more than the ingredients and instructions written on the page. There's heart, soul and a sprinkling of dos pintele yid – a quintessential essence of Jewishness. That's why his recipe for Yiddishe Ribbenes goes well beyond its literal translation, "Jewish ribs".  "Yiddishe Ribbenes is first and foremost a product of my fever dream fusion," he said. "It sits at the intersection of possible and fantastical." Continued here

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What Leadership Style Do You Major In? Successful leadership requires your to have an understanding of three things: people, process, and performance. Most leaders major in one style and minor in another. The major is what they naturally lead with and deem most valuable, while the minor is often a skill they’ve honed over time. You need to be aware of your majors and minors to build and communicate with your team in the most effective way. Continued here

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This positive psychology theory will help you learn from your mistakes: 'Punishment doesn't work' If you're a perfectionist, that might mean you can be pretty hard on yourself. A mistake at work, for example, could result is some pretty negative self-talk or actions, like depriving yourself of a snack later that day. But self-punishment doesn't encourage growth, says Katherine Morgan Schafler, a psychotherapist and author of "The Perfectionist's Guide to Losing Control."  Continued here

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21st Century Gardening From working with contaminated city soil to reconsidering weeds, pests and even lawns, gardening is changing as we adapt it to the realities of modern life. This series takes a look at its future in the 21st Century – and explores how it can be updated to fit with modern sensibilities and challenges, such as environmental awareness and pollution. Continued here

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What Web3 Can Learn From Archive of Our Own Kenzie Carpenter first decided to choose a Fannish Next-of-Kin when an online friend, whom she knew as XT, died suddenly. “I had met her in a small, tight-knit Discord server for our shared fandom,” she says. “Her death was a shock to all of us.”  FNOK arrangements allow users of the popular fan-fiction website Archive of Our Own to designate another fan to take control of their works—things like fan fiction, fan art, essays, and videos—after they die. Carpenter had heard of the policy before, but it was XT’s death—and the suggestion from a fellow server member that they all consider naming a FNOK—that spurred her into action. Continued here

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The weekend's best deals: OnePlus 11 gift card, Amazon tablets, and much more. It's time for another end-of-the-week Dealmaster. In this week's roundup of the web's best tech deals, we have a $100 gift card offer for preordering the just-announced OnePlus 11 smartphone, record lows on Google Pixels, and a handful of Amazon tablets and e-readers matching their own record low prices. Continued here

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Grilled rack of California lamb with collard-almond pesto Tanya Holland opens her new cookbook, California Soul, with a clear definition of who she is, both as a person and as a chef: "I am Black and I am African American. I use these terms interchangeably. Both are accurate descriptors. My skin is dark brown and my ancestors are from the African diaspora. I live in California and am a Californian. I claim it all…" She continues, "As an African American woman, the contribution that my ancestors made to what Americans eat and how we eat is significant. No matter where we migrated from or end up, our food comes from within us and tells our story. I am contributing and this is my story. I have a California Soul." Continued here

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Steven Pinker: Linguistics as a window to understanding the brain Steven Pinker, the Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology at Harvard University, has been studying language for more than four decades, yet he’s not particularly interested in language per se. Instead, he views it “as a window to the human mind.” “It’s the trait that most conspicuously distinguishes humans from other species,” he told Big Think in a popular lecture from 2012. Continued here

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North Korean Hackers Are Attacking US Hospitals With a major United States intelligence authority set to expire at the end of the year, and a congressional showdown brewing over whether or not to renew it, new details of an internal audit show that US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) personnel have repeatedly conducted unlawful searches of data collected under the imperiled surveillance authority. Agents requested information on journalists, a US congressman, and a political party as a result of what the US Department of Justice called “misunderstandings.” This week, WIRED spoke to the creator of Sinbad.io, a cryptocurrency privacy service popular among North Korean hackers and other cybercriminals that has facilitated money laundering for tens of millions of dollars. And officials from the United Kingdom and United States announced sanctions against seven alleged members of the Conti and Trickbot ransomware groups, publishing their real-world names, dates of birth, email addresses, and photos. The two governments also took the unusual step of stating plainly that they see evidence of links between Russia-based cybercrime groups and the Kremlin’s intelligence services.   Continued here

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Berbere-cured salmon with mustard seed and buckthorn "For me, it starts with the name," said chef Marcus Samuelsson, whose restaurant Hav & Mar recently debuted in New York City. Samuelsson, the James Beard Foundation award-winning chef and TV personality (featuring on Food Network's Chopped and Netflix's Iron Chef) behind Harlem's acclaimed Red Rooster and other restaurants worldwide, pays homage to his Swedish and Ethiopian heritage in this new endeavour.  Samuelsson was born in Ethiopia and raised on Smögen Island off the west coast of Sweden, eventually settling in New York City. "We all have different dualities. Mine is Swedish meets Ethiopian in New York," Samuelsson said. His cultural influences shaped his culinary path and inspired the name of his newest restaurant: Hav translates as "ocean" in Swedish and mar means "honey" in Amharic. "Mar means 'water' in so many Latin languages, too," he added. Continued here

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World's fastest "shoes" increase walking speed by 250% Pittsburgh-based startup Shift Robotics has invented “shoes” that let you walk 250% faster without expending any extra energy — and you can own a pair of the speed-boosting kicks for $1,400. Slow walk: Traveling via a bike, skateboard, or scooter is typically better for the environment than taking a car, and if you live in a place where traffic congestion can turn a 5-minute drive into a 20-minute trek, it can even be faster. Continued here

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How to Watch Something Other Than the Super Bowl On the hunt for a way to stream the Super Bowl online? Mosey on over to this piece for quality advice about watching the “big game.” OK, now that it’s just us, go ahead and give yourself a pat on the back. You feel like you’re better than the unwashed masses, and why wouldn’t you? Sports are low-key boring, and there’s a litany of reasons not to love the National Football League, from the NFL’s record on disability payments to team mascots that disrespect Native Americans. Continued here

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Church of England to explore gender-neutral terms for God - women clergy's suggestions for replacing 'Our Father' The Church of England has announced it will explore alternative words to describe God, after some clergy asked to use more inclusive language in services. The dominance of masculine language for God certainly matters. As feminist theologian Mary Daly wrote: “If God is male, the male is god”. In other words, talking about the Christian God in exclusively masculine terms privileges men in society and underpins male dominance. Continued here

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The Creative Accident: Visionary Ceramicist Edith Heath on Serendipity, the Antidote to Obsolescence, and the Five Pillars of Timelessness “No one is fated or doomed to love anyone,” the philosopher-poet Adrienne Rich wrote, “the accidents happen.” What is true of interpersonal love is also true of our labors of love — creative accidents are a mighty instrument of art, often steering entire trajectories of expression and endeavor in directions we could not have willed. That is what the visionary ceramicist Edith Heath (May 24, 1911–December 27, 2005) explores in a previously unpublished lecture titled “The Creative Accident.” Continued here

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Another Russian spacecraft docked to the space station is leaking Russia's state-owned space corporation, Roscosmos, reported Saturday that a Progress supply ship attached to the International Space Station has lost pressure in its external cooling system. Continued here

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3 Powerful Ways to Reset a Bad Day and Turn It Into a Good Day, According to a Social Psychologist If you're having a bad day, don't just grit your teeth and power through. Continued here

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Burt Bacharach created music for all the ways men fall in love American composer Burt Bacharach, who has died at the age of 94, is arguably one the greatest songwriters of all time. With hits going back to the 1950s, Bacharach continued working until the age of 92. Together with lyricist Hal David, Bacharach created some of the most affecting, subtle and poignant songs of the second half of the 20th century. Within the best of them, you can hear an array of intricate characterisations, moving between the intimate and provocative, between easy listening and the more unsettling. Continued here

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She Helped Unlock the Science of the Covid Vaccine Kizzmekia Corbett helped lead a team of scientists contributing to one of the most stunning achievements in the history of immunizations: a highly effective, easily manufactured vaccine against Covid-19. Kizzmekia Corbett was at the vanguard of the race for a vaccine against Covid-19. Above, she is in her office at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston. Credit...Kayana Szymczak for The New York Times Continued here S38 Starts With A Bang Podcast #90 - How Galaxies Grow Up One of the great advances of 20th and 21st century science has been, for the first time to show us two things: how the Universe began and what the Universe looks like today. The modern frontier is all about the in-between stages: how did the Universe grow up? How did it go from particles to atoms to the first stars and galaxies to the modern Milky Way, Local Group, and Universe-at-large? It’s a question that, the more deeply we answer it, the greater the number of details that emerge, requiring us to make a special effort to pin each one down. For this episode, I’m so pleased to welcome Dr. Ivanna Escala to the podcast: an expert in how stars and stellar properties within the Local Group can reveal not only its stellar history, but its history of galactic assembly. While the Milky Way has had a few major mergers, its most recent was a whopping ~10 billion years ago. Andromeda, our Local Group’s other large galaxy, has a remarkably different story: with a major merger that occurred only 2-4 billion years ago! Continued here S32 'Impossible' New Ring System Discovered at the Edge of the Solar System Astronomers are puzzled by a ring around the icy dwarf planet Quaoar that is much farther from its parent body than thought possible Astronomers have discovered an entirely new ring system within the solar system, and it's located at such a great distance from its dwarf planet parent that it should be impossible.  Continued here S65 Why have so many earthquakes hit Turkey and Syria? Earthquakes in Syria and Turkey are common, but the magnitude 7.8 that shook the region on 6 February at 4:17am local time is clearly impressive. To find earthquakes this strong on this particular fault, we would have to go back to the year 1114. Ten minutes after the strongest earthquake, an aftershock of magnitude 6.7 struck near the epicentre. “Aftershocks” are earthquakes that occur after every major earthquake, and their statistical behaviour is well known. At the time of writing, others continue to affect an area stretching over 350 kilometres from eastern Turkey to the Syrian border. Continued here S41 What medieval attitudes tell us about our evolving views of sex In the illuminating and entertaining blog Going Medieval, Eleanor Janega, a medievalist at the London School of Economics, upends prevalent misconceptions about medieval Europe. These misunderstandings include that people didn’t bathe (they did) and that these were the Dark Ages*. Her new book, The Once and Future Sex, is subtitled “Going Medieval on Women’s Roles in Society,” and that's exactly what she does—if by “going medieval” you intend the pop culture meaning of "dismembering in a barbaric manner" which, despite her protestations, you probably do. Continued here S66 Parks versus people? Challenges facing the South African capital's greening efforts Gardens, parks, reserves and trees have been linked to cultural, spiritual and alternative medical solutions. Natural or semi-natural land areas can also deliver ecosystem services like food, storm water management and climate control. Cities can plan and manage these for maximum benefit. We discovered that Tshwane needs guidelines based on green infrastructure principles. An increase in green infrastructure awareness among city officials and residents will increase the many benefits that green spaces can deliver. Continued here S68 'Love languages' might help you understand your partner - but it's not exactly science If you’ve ever flipped through the pages of a women’s lifestyle magazine, there’s a good chance you’ve stumbled onto a quiz promising to answer the question “what is your love language?”. Or if social media is more your speed, there’s no shortage of tweets, memes, GIFs and TikToks bringing the concept of “love languages” into the mainstream. Continued here S64 Total Eclipse of the Heart: The most epic song ever written One day in the summer of 1982, Canadian vocalist Rory Dodd was summoned to the Power Station recording studio in New York City to lend his vocals to a song, written and produced by his colleague and friend Jim Steinman for Welsh singer Bonnie Tyler. "Jesus! Where's the kitchen sink?" Dodd cried, when he heard the final, jaw-dropping mix of the track. The song was Total Eclipse of the Heart. Released 40 years ago in February 1983, this gothic aria became an unprecedented international success that pushed the boundaries of melodrama in pop music. It topped the UK charts, unseating Michael Jackson's Billie Jean, was an even bigger hit in the US, and soared to number one in several countries. Tyler was an unlikely candidate for this level of chart dominance, her career having flatlined since her 1977 hit It's a Heartache. Impressed by his work composing and producing the Meat Loaf opus Bat Out of Hell (1977), Tyler asked CBS Records for Steinman to collaborate with her on her next album. "The record company at the time thought I was mad," she tells BBC Culture. "They never in a million years thought that this would come off." But Steinman agreed to work with Tyler, hearing untapped potential in her voice, which he compared in its rasping power to Janis Joplin. He has described Total Eclipse of the Heart as a "fever song" about the darker, obsessive side of love and as "an exorcism you can dance to." Continued here S54 Why Are Your Employees Actually Quitting? You Can Narrow It Down to 1 Reason A basic understanding of human motivation, and what employees say they actually need will keep them from quitting. Continued here S27 5 Ways to Talk About Salary During a Job Interview The most nerve-wracking question of all might just be: What are your salary expectations? To gain more insight into how to answer this question in a smart way, I reached out to a few of my colleagues — across job titles, departments, industries, and levels of experience — for advice. Here’s what they had to say: Continued here S49 Why We Lose Our Friends as We Age 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. When I was in college, an acquaintance who had graduated a few years prior came back to visit for the weekend. As we walked around campus on Saturday night, he flung his hands into the cold Connecticut air and exclaimed, “You guys are so lucky; you live a minute away from all your friends. You’ll never have this again.” Continued here S31 What it takes to build a balloon for 100,000ft In May 2002, a balloon launched from the Sanriku Balloon Centre (SBC) in the north of Japan, quietly broke every absolute height record humanity had ever set. It quickly floated past the height achieved by the first successful balloon ascent in 1783 – It crept past the 1901 balloon flight which reached 10.8km (35,433ft) and led to the discovery of the stratosphere. It glided past every height record ever set by any kind of aircraft, be it helicopter, propellor-driven plane or jet. Continued here S28 7 Tricky Work Situations, and How to Respond to Them You know the moment: a mood-veering, thought-steering, pressure-packed interaction with a colleague, boss, or client when the right thing to say is stuck in a verbal traffic jam between your brain and your mouth. This analysis paralysis occurs when your brain suddenly becomes overtaxed by worry or pressure. Consequently, you find yourself unable to respond to a mental, psychological, or emotional challenge, and you fail to execute in the critical moment. Many people experience this at work. But there are seven key phrases you can use, tailored to specific situations. You can keep them in your back pocket for when these kinds of moments happen, route your response with them, and redirect the situation to regain control. Continued here S59 The chefs reclaiming Lithuania's cuisine Imagine long strands of dill swimming in a cold, beetroot soup; soul-restoring potato dumplings with your choice of cottage cheese or meat on a freezing winter's day; fried black bread with garlic you vigorously rub onto the bread yourself. These are some of the staples of Lithuanian cuisine; hearty meat-and-potatoes fare to fill you up for the labour of the day. They're all delicious, comforting and satisfying, but that's only scratching the surface of Lithuanian cooking. Tourists are forgiven for their ignorance since the tiny Baltic nation has yet, for better or worse, to tickle the imagination of travel and food media at large. Continued here S42 Light pollution cut humanity's connection with the stars--but we can restore Humans are naturally afraid of the dark. We sometimes imagine monsters under the bed and walk faster down unlit streets at night. To conquer our fears, we may leave a night light on to scare away the monsters and a light over the porch to deter break-ins. Continued here S34 How to Survive If You Were Part of the Tech Layoffs Google, Amazon, Facebook, Salesforce, countless crypto startups, Microsoft: These are the tech companies, great and small, that have been laying people off in droves so far in 2023. And it’s not only marketing and middle management roles being terminated, but analyst and engineer roles too. No job is 100 percent safe, as many of us have come to understand through experience. Being laid off is stressful, and can leave you feeling destabilized and unsure. Whether this is your first layoff (which probably hits much harder) or you've been down this road before, searching for jobs and figuring out how to meet your needs without that steady income can be scary. There are many creative solutions to help while you look for your next big break. Continued here S46 The Case for a Four-Day Workweek in Maryland “Given the obvious success of reducing work hours that we’re seeing in businesses across the country and across the world, it only stands to reason that Maryland should try this out.” The Maryland State Capitol building is older than America. It is the only state capitol to have also served as the nation’s capital; in the country’s earliest days, Congress met in its chambers. To work in Annapolis is to operate in the shadow of history. So maybe that explains why, 246 years into the American project, one state lawmaker sees his four-day-workweek bill as carrying on in the tradition of the ideals of the Declaration of Independence. That, or it’s just a good hook. Continued here S52 Delta Air Lines Quietly Made a Surprising Change that Will Make Its Best Customers Very Happy The airline revamped the dashboard for its frequent travelers. Continued here S57 The parents who sever ties with their children Helen hasn’t spoken with her son in more than a year. The last she heard, he was in prison. Now aged 31, he’s been addicted to opioids for more than a decade. “He’s tried to call me, probably to ask for money, and I have not been picking up,” explains Helen, who lives in England. “Right now, that’s the right decision for my safety and sanity.” As the primary caregiver for her son’s young daughter, Helen’s focus is providing a loving and secure environment for her to grow up in. Continued here S53 For Gen Z, the Career Grind is Dead. They See Things Differently in 1 Important Way The young'uns have less need for cognitive closure compared to their older counterparts. Continued here S56 People With High Emotional Intelligence Use This Simple Language Trick to Become More Persuasive Give it a try. I do think you're going to find it's probably worth the simple effort. Continued here S69 Sylvia Plath's famous collection Ariel is far darker than she envisaged “Love” is the first word in Ariel, the collection of poems published by Faber and Faber in 1965 that made Sylvia Plath one of the most famous poets of the post-war generation. In many ways, Ariel, as Plath conceived it, is all about love. In the “restored” Ariel – the original manuscript that Sylvia Plath left on the desk of her London flat before her death – the word “love” recurs over 25 times. Continued here S45 Society Tells Me to Celebrate My Disability. What If I Don't Want To? My memory of the moment, almost a decade ago, is indelible: the sight of a swimmer’s back, both sides equal—each as good and righteous as the other. An ordinary thing, and something I had never had, and still don’t have. To think of that moment is to feel torn—once again—about how I should respond to my condition: whether to own it, which would be the brave response, as well as the proper one, in many people’s eyes; or to regret it, even try to conceal it, which is my natural response. I have a form of cerebral palsy called hemiplegia, which affects one side of the body. The word has two parts: hemi, meaning “half,” and plegia, connoting stroke or paralysis. I have had a “half stroke,” but I prefer the romance of my high-school Greek teacher’s translation: I was, as he put it, struck on one side. Plus, it’s a more accurate description of what happened to me. At birth, the forceps used to pull me out of the womb pierced my baby-soft skull and damaged my cerebral motor cortex. On my left temple is a tiny scar left by the forceps and shaped, rather unfortunately, I’ve always thought, like an upside-down cross—the anti-Christ symbol. Continued here S50 America Has Gone Too Far in Legalizing Vice Our hearts and minds are shaped not only by reason but also by our habits, which are just as often inexplicably self-destructive as they are reasonable. “The cause of a gambling problem is the individual’s inability to control the gambling.” So says the National Council on Problem Gambling, an organization funded by the gambling industry to help people who have become addicted to its products. This attitude—that anyone who falls into gambling addiction has only themselves to blame—has allowed state lawmakers to ignore arguments that more access to gambling might make it easier for people to lose control. Since the Supreme Court struck down previous restrictions on sports betting in 2018, 36 states have legalized it (26 of which allow mobile betting), and new ballot initiatives are proposed every year. If you’ve watched a sporting event lately, you’ve been bombarded with ads for online sports gambling—and this weekend’s Super Bowl will be no exception. Continued here S60 Toya Boudy's Yakamein: A New Orleans' noodle soup While it's typically foods like gumbo, charbroiled oysters, po'boys and jambalaya that lure people to New Orleans, lesser known yakamein has been a hot bowl of local comfort for decades. In Baltimore, it's called yat gaw mein, known colloquially as "dirty yak", a brown gravy-based udon noodle dish often mixed with shrimp and found at Chinese takeouts. Throughout the Tidewater region of Virginia, restaurants make a ketchup-based version called yock. But in New Orleans, the dish's birthplace, yakamein is a street-food staple worthy of more attention. It's a delicious bowl, carry-out box or Styrofoam cup stuffed with spicy spaghetti steeped in beef or chicken broth, Worcestershire and soy sauce, ketchup, and sometimes, hot sauce. The soupy dish also has meat (usually beef, chicken, pork or seafood), is generously spiced with creole seasoning (a blend of paprika, salt, black pepper, onion powder, cayenne pepper, oregano and thyme) served over spaghetti and garnished with green onions and a hard-boiled egg. Depending on preference, yakamein can be topped with a bit of extra hot sauce or ketchup for a finishing touch. Continued here S51 Why Money Manages Us We spend a great deal of time thinking about money. We talk about it, worry over it, wonder if we have enough to meet our immediate needs. If we’re lucky and have a lot of money, we think about using it to buy a new car, a new house, or a dream vacation. Since the days of our earliest ancestors, money has been one of our most important tools. But different from most other tools, money — even just thinking about it — influences our behavior in negative ways. We become more likely to prioritize our feelings, desires, and goals over getting along with and helping others. Money creates a tension between individualistic and interpersonal motives. To understand why money has such a hold on us, it’s helpful to look back at its predecessor: trade. Early humans and Neanderthals overlapped for roughly 5,000 years, and, biologically speaking, Neanderthals should have had the advantage. They were on earth first and they had larger bodies and brains. So how did our human ancestors come out ahead? They traded more than Neanderthals and across longer distances, giving them access to more and varied resources, and improving their chances of survival. Anthropologists sometimes call these early humans “homo economicus” to signify the attribute that set them apart. Continued here S47 The Quiet Desperation of Tom Brady A few years ago, I asked Tom Brady if he ever worried that too much of his life was consumed by the game of football. This was, in retrospect, kind of a duh question to put to someone who played, you know, the game of football for a living. Rather successfully, too, and for a long time. Brady confirmed the question’s premise that, yes, football meant pretty much everything to him and he could not imagine doing anything else with himself. “I’m not a musician, not an artist,” he told me, among other noninterests and non-hobbies. “What am I gonna do, go scuba diving?” Continued here S48 Attachment Style Isn't Destiny Our past experiences do shape our relationships. But we’re not doomed to repeat unhealthy patterns forever. The panic set in at the same point every semester: Whenever Ximena Arriaga, a psychology professor at Purdue University, got to attachment theory in her course on close relationships, the classroom grew tense. When she described how people who are anxiously attached can sometimes be demanding and vigilant—and that can drive their partners away—certain students looked disturbed. “I could just see in their face: I’m so screwed,” Arriaga told me. When she explained how avoidantly attached people might feel overwhelmed by emotional intimacy, other students seemed so uncomfortable that they physically shrank back. Some would approach her after class and ask: “Is there any hope for me?” Continued here S58 The silent struggles of workers with ADHD When Christian got laid off in late 2022, he wasn’t surprised. The 31-year-old, based in New York City, knew he’d fallen behind on his projects as a management consultant, and underperformed with essential job duties. “I had a tough time grappling with the sorts of executive functioning that our world operates by, like being able to set up meetings, follow through with things, focus and be detail oriented,” he says. 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