How to Grow Re-enchanted with the World: A Salve for the Sense of Existential Meaninglessness and Burnout

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How to Grow Re-enchanted with the World: A Salve for the Sense of Existential Meaninglessness and Burnout There are seasons of being when a cloak of meaninglessness seems to slip over you, over everything, muffling the song of life. It is not depression exactly, though the two conditions make eager bedfellows. Rather, it is a great hollowing that empties you of that vital force necessary for moving through the world wonder-smitten by reality, that glint of gladness at the mundane miracle of existence. A disenchantment we may call by many names — burnout, apathy, alienation — but one that visits upon every life in one form or another, at one time or another, pulsating with the unmet longing for something elemental and ancient, with the yearning to see the world as beautiful again and feel its magic, to find sanctuary in it, to contact that “submerged sunrise of wonder.” Katherine May explores what it takes to shed the cloak of meaninglessness and recover the sparkle of vitality in Enchantment: Awakening Wonder in an Anxious Age (public library) — a shimmering chronicle of her own quest for “a better way to walk through this life,” a way that grants us “the ability to sense magic in the everyday, to channel it through our minds and bodies, to be sustained by it.” May — who has written enchantingly about wintering, resilience, and the wisdom of sadness — reaches for the other side of that coma of the soul: Continued here

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Tabloid newspapers are seen as sensationalist - but South Africa's Daily Sun flipped that script during COVID-19 Tabloid journalism usually refers to short, easily readable and mostly human-interest news, presented in a highly visual and sensationalist style. “Tabloidisation” has become shorthand for the deterioration of journalistic standards. Newspapers like this are often criticised for diverting readers from serious news and analysis towards entertainment. They are viewed as low-quality because of their focus on sports, scandal and entertainment over politics or other serious social issues. Continued here

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Rocky Has Always Been Anime. 'Creed III' Proves It. Michael B. Jordan brings his love of anime to the Rocky films, but the story of Rocky Balboa has always been anime at heart. The Rocky franchise, which began with the Oscar-winning Rocky in 1976, is now a nine-film saga with the release of Creed III from Michael B. Jordan (who stars in and directs the latest picture). A millennial who came of age in the time of Toonami, MBJ has made it clear to anyone who will listen that he loves anime. It isn’t just a branding thing, it’s legitimately his lifestyle. Continued here

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Cosmic rays passing through Great Pyramid help reveal hidden corridor Of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, only one is left standing: the Great Pyramid, located on the Giza plateau in Egypt. Built by the pharaoh Khufu about 4,500 years ago, it was the tallest human-made building on the planet until it was eclipsed in 1889 by the Eiffel Tower. It remains an enduring testament to the ingenuity and determination of humanity. It’s also an edifice shrouded in mystery. Was it ever used as a burial chamber? Are there undiscovered cavities inside it? If a mummy is hidden somewhere inside, does the mummy also have a curse? Was it built using UFO technology? (Okay, some mysteries are more realistic than others, but many unanswered questions still remain.)  Continued here

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A flight attendant's secrets to surviving long-haul flights | CNN Any air travel can be stressful, but facing down a long-haul flight can be especially intimidating. Should you prioritize sleeping or eating, or both? Should you attempt to exercise in the aisle? Is it ever acceptable to take off your shoes? Continued here

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Beware the Pitfalls of Agility Given the panoply of recent disruptions — including COVID-19, inflation, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — it’s no surprise that many leaders are striving to quickly dial up the agility level of their companies. Indeed, the ability to rapidly adapt to changing conditions can be a shield against disruption and a healing prescription for crisis. But organizational agility is not a panacea. There are pitfalls in the pursuit of agility that can and do produce unintended consequences. Agility is a multidimensional concept that comprises three sequential and interrelated processes: alertness to the need for change, the decision to make the change, and the mobilization of the organizational resources required to execute the change. Our agility research and observations regarding the behavior of companies, especially during the pandemic, revealed that each process contains a pitfall that can subvert its outcomes: Alertness harbors the pitfall of hubris, decision-making harbors the pitfall of impulsiveness, and mobilization harbors the pitfall of resource fatigue. Agility depends on the ability of an organization to sense and interpret signals — some obvious and unambiguous, others subtle and opaque — that emanate from and reverberate within the business environment. This alertness enables companies to respond to disruptions, challenges, and opportunities in a timely manner. The mindset of leaders is the pitfall in this process, especially when it is subject to the kinds of cognitive biases that lead to hubris. Continued here

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Dinosaurs of the Sky: Consummate 19th-Century Scottish Natural History Illustrations of Birds Birds populate our metaphors, our poems, and our children’s books, entrance our imagination with their song and their chromatically ecstatic plumage, transport us on their tender wings back to the time of the dinosaurs they evolved from. But birds are a time machine in another way, too — not only evolutionarily but culturally: While the birth of photography revolutionized many sciences, birds remained as elusive as ever, difficult to capture with lens and shutter, so that natural history illustration has remained the most expressive medium for their study and celebration. To my eye, the most consummate drawings of birds in the history of natural history date back to the 1830s, but they are not Audubon’s Birds of America — rather, they appeared on the other side of the Atlantic, in the first volume of The Edinburgh Journal of Natural History and of the Physical Sciences, with the Animal Kingdom of the Baron Cuvier, published in the wake of the pioneering paleontologist Georges Cuvier’s death. Hundreds of different species of birds — some of them now endangered, some on the brink of extinction — populate the lavishly illustrated pages, clustered in kinship groups as living visual lists of dazzling biodiversity. Continued here

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Clever Ways To Make Your Home Way Better for Under $35 Keeping up with home maintenance and improvement can feel like hard, costly work. After all, major overhauls like renovations and remodels can come with major price tags. Still, the desire to upgrade your space is only natural. Thankfully, there are ways to see big improvements by investing just a little cash. In fact, sometimes the best way to elevate the feel of your home is with practical solutions to everyday problems, like nabbing some furniture that doubles as storage or making your morning routine easier with a mirror that won’t fog up. Sometimes a bit of thoughtful decor can do the trick, like brightly patterned serving bowls or chic-looking appliances that make your kitchen pop. Whatever you’re searching for, this list offers up plenty of ways to make your home look better for $35 or less. Continued here

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The Best Marvel Movie of 2022 Reveals an Incredible Quirk of Human Evolution Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’s plot raises deeper questions about humans’ evolutionary relationship to the sea. Some 365 million years ago, our fishy ancestors evolved limbs that enabled them to climb out of water and onto land — forming the evolutionary bridge to all terrestrial land mammals that would one day inhabit planet Earth, including humans. Continued here

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The Republicans Begin to Eye 2024 On August 6, 2015, Donald Trump appeared at the first Republican Party primary debate of the 2016 Presidential cycle, hosted by Fox News. Bret Baier asked all the candidates onstage if they would endorse the eventual Republican nominee, whomever that might be, and rule out running as an Independent. Trump alone declined, stating, “I cannot say.” Come next August, another season of Republican Presidential-primary debates is set to begin, and candidate Trump is again a seismic force of instability in the G.O.P. Last week, the Republican National Committee chair said that, during the 2024 cycle, all participants in its televised primary debates should first sign a “loyalty pledge” promising to support whichever candidate is finally selected to take on the Democratic nominee—presumably Joe Biden. Trump has not indicated that he will sign such a pledge; last month, he told the radio host Hugh Hewitt that his support for the Republican standard-bearer in 2024 “would have to depend on who the nominee was.” Some of Trump’s most ardent Republican opponents feel similarly; Asa Hutchinson, a former governor of Arkansas, who is considering joining the race, told the Washington Post that he has doubts about promising to back Trump if he becomes the nominee. Continued here

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Finally, Evidence That Diversity Improves Financial Performance Researchers have struggled to establish a causal relationship between diversity and financial performance—especially at large companies, where decision rights and incentives can be murky, and the effects of any given choice can be tough to pin down. So the authors chose a “lab rat” with fewer barriers to understanding: the venture capital industry. Continued here

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A Smarter Strategy for Using Robots This article introduces positive-­sum automation, which enables productivity and flexibility. To achieve it, companies must design technology that makes it easier for line employees to train and debug robots; use a bottom-up approach to identifying what tasks should be automated; and choose the right metrics for measuring success. Continued here

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Lung Cancer Rates Are Soaring Among Unlikely Groups -- an Oncologist Explains Why When many people think of an average lung cancer patient, they often imagine an older man smoking. But the face of lung cancer has changed. Over the past 15 years, more women, never smokers, and younger people have been diagnosed with lung cancer. In fact, lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death among women, and more women die from lung cancer than breast, ovarian, and colorectal cancer each year. The American Lung Association reports that while lung cancer rates have risen by 79 percent for women over the last 44 years, they decreased by 43 percent for men. And for the first time in history, more young women than men are diagnosed with lung cancer. Continued here

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11 Years Ago, the Yakuza Team Made a Wildly Underrated Sci-Fi Shooter Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio is utterly synonymous with the Yakuza series, especially seeing as the studio itself is named after the franchise. Despite that laser focus, however, the developer has a vibrant history of varied games, and ironically the first game released under the “RGG Studio” moniker in 2012 wasn’t even a Yakuza game. Instead, it was a wildly absurd sci-fi shooter called Binary Domain, which to this day remains the studio’s most criminally overlooked title. While Binary Domain’s box art and initial marketing might have painted it as a bog standard sci-fi shooter, that’s actually incredibly far from the truth. It has its own flaws, but the further you dig the more you find a shooter with some fascinatingly experimental mechanics and a story that really goes to some thematically interesting places. Continued here

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'Last of Us' Episode 8 Trailer Reveals an Iconic Actor's Surprise Role The countdown to the buzzy season finale is officially here. But first, Episode 8 of The Last of Us promises yet another test of survival for the series’ heroes — and this time Ellie is in charge. With Joel not doing so hot following a bad wound, Ellie has been forced into the role of provider and protector. In her struggles to take care of both Joel and herself, she encounters a religious community of survivors led by a man named David. Ellie must quickly decide who she can trust because if she has learned anything from her journey so far, it’s that people can be just as monstrous as the Infected. Continued here

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The northern lights appeared in southern England twice in one week - here's why this could happen again soon People across the UK, from the Shetland Islands to Somerset and from Norfolk to Northern Ireland, have been treated to a stunning display of the aurora borealis or northern lights recently. But what causes this beautiful phenomena and why has it appeared so far south? For thousands of years, people associated the ghostly northern lights with the world of restless spirits. But over the last century, science has revealed that aurorae originate in the area surrounding our planet. The near-Earth region of space is known as the magnetosphere. It is a cocktail of atoms and molecules from the Earth’s upper atmosphere, shattered and heated by solar radiation (electromagnetic radiation emitted by the Sun). Continued here

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You Need to Watch the Most Intriguing Sci-Fi Movie on HBO Max ASAP Brace yourself for a searing question that penetrates straight to the heart of modern culture: What if social media is sometimes bad for us? You may be somewhat familiar with this query if you’ve watched Black Mirror, or Mr. Robot, or Silicon Valley, or Ingrid Goes West, or Not Okay, or if you’ve read a single newspaper article this century, or if you’ve been exposed to Twitter radiation for more than 10 seconds, or if you’ve ever suffered the misfortune of meeting an Instagram influencer. We’re as obsessed with questioning the healthiness of social media as we are with continuing to use it anyway. Continued here

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Lab Leaks and COVID-19 Politics Last weekend, the Wall Street Journal reported that the U.S. Department of Energy—one of several government agencies that have looked into how SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, first emerged—has come to believe that the pathogen probably escaped from a laboratory in Wuhan, China. The department, which was previously undecided on the matter, reportedly changed its position in light of fresh intelligence, but it issued its determination with “low confidence.” In doing so, it joins the Federal Bureau of Investigation in favoring to some degree the lab-leak theory over the view that the virus has a zoonotic origin, leaping from animals to humans, perhaps in a Wuhan wet market. According to the Journal, the new information, which is in a classified report, but was reviewed by other members of the intelligence community, did not lead others to update their conclusions: four intelligence agencies, as well as the National Intelligence Council, still believe, also with “low confidence,” that natural transmission was responsible, and two remain undecided. (None think that China intentionally created the virus as a bioweapon.) Reviewing the totality of available evidence on the origins of a virus that by some estimates has killed twenty million people worldwide, the American intelligence community has reached a judgment that falls somewhere between not sure and who knows. That uncertainty hasn’t stopped conservative politicians and commentators from declaring victory. “Lab leak theory appears vindicated,” Fox News reported. “So the government caught up to what Real America knew all along,” the Republican congressman Jim Jordan tweeted. “The same people who shamed us, canceled us, & wanted to put us in jail . . . are starting to say what we said all along,” Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene posted, shortly after. Reading these takes, you might be forgiven for overlooking the fact that much of the intelligence community still favors the natural-origin story, and that essentially no agency is confident in its assessment. “The bottom line remains the same,” an official told the Washington Post. “Basically no one really knows.” Leaders of the intelligence community are set to brief Congress next week. (The Energy Department declined to discuss details of the report with the Journal, and the F.B.I. did not comment.) Continued here

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Breakthrough study discovers that psychedelics breach our neurons The clinical evidence for using psychedelics to treat major depressive disorder, PTSD, addiction, and other mental health conditions is building. But despite the growing pile of data, we do not know just how psychedelics might be helping. (This isn’t unusual, by the way — we still don’t really know why most antidepressants work, just that they do.) Continued here

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Eli Lilly is cutting insulin prices and capping copays at $35 - 5 questions answered Executive Director of the Value of Life Sciences Innovation program; Fellow at the USC Schaeffer Center, University of Southern California Karen Van Nuys is an employee of the Schaeffer Center at the University of Southern California. The Schaeffer Center is supported by gifts and grants from public and private sources; more detail is available in the Schaeffer Center annual report here: https://healthpolicy.usc.edu/report/2021-schaeffer-center-annual-report/ Continued here

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The sketchy plan to build a Russian Android phone Since the invasion of Ukraine one year ago, Russia has faced an exodus of tech companies and services. This includes the exit of Samsung and Apple, two of the world’s most popular smartphone brands. In response, the country has doubled down on its efforts to attain technological self-sufficiency, including creating a new Android smartphone. Continued here

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The Fate of Alexey Navalny, and the Future of Russia In Vladimir Putin’s march toward dictatorship, one of the darker moments was the poisoning of the opposition leader Alexey Navalny, almost certainly by the Russian F.S.B. security services. After surviving the assassination attempt, Navalny returned to Russia, only to be arrested and sent to a penal colony. “I think Putin wants him to suffer a lot and then die in prison,” Navalny’s colleague Maria Pevchikh tells David Remnick. Pevchikh served as an executive producer of the documentary “Navalny,” which is nominated for an Academy Award. Plus, Chloe Bailey—one half of the pop duo Chloe x Halle—talks with the contributor Lauren Michele Jackson about striking out on her own for the first time. “Right now, I’m just creating to be creating, and I have never felt more free,” she says. And we look at why a cache of images by one of the masters of photography, Henri Cartier-Bresson, was suppressed and forgotten, until now. Navalny, the opposition leader, survived poisoning and now languishes in prison. His colleague Maria Pevchikh talks about the Oscar-nominated documentary “Navalny.” Continued here

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Oakeshott and Hancock: betraying a confidential source damages journalism and is a threat to public health It is an iron rule of journalism – probably the first lesson that a rookie reporter learns on joining a professional newsroom: never betray a confidential source. A core principle of the National Union of Journalists code of conduct states that a journalist “protects the identity of sources who supply information in confidence and material gathered in the course of her/his work”. This principle is also enshrined in UK law: the 1981 Contempt of Court Act exempts journalists from contempt charges for “refusing to disclose the source of information” (with some caveats around national security and crime prevention). Under the 1984 Police and Criminal Evidence Act, police cannot seize journalistic material without first making an application to a judge. Continued here

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Trust, Betrayal, and the Nexus of Mathematics and Morality: The Prisoner's Dilemma Animated “Real generosity toward the future lies in giving all to the present,” Albert Camus wrote as he considered what it really means to be in solidarity with justice — an elegantly phrased reminder that the decisions we make today are the only fulcrum by which we move the outcomes of tomorrow. And yet the greatest pitfall of human consciousness might be our habitual forgetting of this fundamental fact. In 1950, two mathematicians working on game theory devised a cruelly brilliant thought experiment demonstrating just how poorly we manage to calibrate future outcomes for our own best interests, exposing a secret underground of consciousness where mathematics and morality converge. Known as The Prisoner’s Dilemma, it illuminates the complex dynamics that govern loyalty, betrayal, collaboration, and trust — dynamics that play out in myriad subtle ways across our everyday lives. The classic thought experiment comes alive with unexpected delight in this animated short film from TED-Ed by economist Lucas Husted and animators Ivana Bošnjak and Thomas Johnson Volda: Continued here

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Is science about to end? In his 1996 book The End of Science, John Horgan argued that scientists were close to answering nearly all the big questions about our Universe. Was he right? The theoretical physicist Sabine Hossenfelder doesn’t think so. As she points out, the Standard Model of physics, which describes the behavior of particles and their interactions, is still incomplete as it does not include gravity. What’s more, the measurement problem in quantum mechanics remains unsolved, and understanding this could lead to significant breakthroughs. Continued here

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Coral and Other Marine Animals Have a Surprising Tie to the Moon It’s an evening at the northern tip of the Red Sea, in the Gulf of Aqaba, and Tom Shlesinger readies to take a dive. During the day, the seafloor is full of life and color; at night, it looks much more alien. Shlesinger is waiting for a phenomenon that occurs once a year for a plethora of coral species, often several nights after the Full Moon. Guided by a flashlight, he spots it: coral releasing a colorful bundle of eggs and sperm tightly packed together. “You’re looking at it, and it starts to flow to the surface,” Shlesinger says. “Then you raise your head, and you turn around, and you realize: All the colonies from the same species are doing it just now.” Continued here

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Research: Why Leaders Should Be Open About Their Flaws Leaders often struggle to come across as authentic. New research finds that one reason is they frequently choose to present their strengths and intentionally avoid disclosing their weaknesses. A team of researchers asked leaders in various organizations to write how they would introduce themselves to prospective workers. Most leaders only revealed their strengths. This is a mistake. Revealing personal foibles — as long as they are not serious personal shortcomings — makes leaders come across as authentic and generates good will and trust. Continued here

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New Brexit deal will be better for Northern Ireland's economy than the protocol, research suggests UK prime minister Rishi Sunak has said Northern Ireland will be “the world’s most exciting economic zone” due to its access to the EU single market under the latest post-Brexit trading deal between the EU and UK. The details of the Windsor framework are still being pored over by politicians and business leaders across the UK, and particularly those in Northern Ireland. Continued here

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Low-Wage Jobs Are Becoming Middle-Class Jobs Millions of low-income families are experiencing less financial stress and even a modicum of comfort. Last month, Target announced that it would pay new employees as much as $24 an hour and extend health benefits to anyone working at least 25 hours a week. The company is hardly the only one coughing up cash to lure in new workers or retain those on staff. Starbucks recently set a national minimum wage of $15. McDonald’s, Dairy Queen, and Subway franchises have been offering signing incentives. Lowe’s is giving bonuses to hourly workers this month. Continued here

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Custom, 3D-printed heart replicas look and pump just like the real thing No two hearts beat alike. The size and shape of the the heart can vary from one person to the next. These differences can be particularly pronounced for people living with heart disease, as their hearts and major vessels work harder to overcome any compromised function. MIT engineers are hoping to help doctors tailor treatments to patients’ specific heart form and function, with a custom robotic heart. The team has developed a procedure to 3D print a soft and flexible replica of a patient’s heart. They can then control the replica’s action to mimic that patient’s blood-pumping ability. Continued here

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Extreme wildfires are turning the world's largest forest ecosystem from carbon sink into net-emitter The vast boreal forests of the Northern Hemisphere stretch from Scandinavia through Siberia, Alaska and Canada. They cover a tenth of the world’s land but hold one-third of the land’s carbon, stored mainly in organic-rich soils and in trees. Now, a new study in the journal Science provides further evidence that emissions from wildfires in high northern latitudes are already increasing at an alarming rate. In these forests, the cold climate and often waterlogged ground means fallen tree bark, needles and other dead organic matter takes a long time to decompose. This has allowed the soils to accumulate carbon over thousands of years after the ice sheets retreated at the end of the last ice age. Since then, these ecosystems have mainly been shaped by wildfires ignited by lightning. Continued here

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Astronomers Were Not Expecting This Humans have long found meaning in the stars, but only recently have we begun to understand whole clusters of them—galaxies, way out in the depths of space. A few nearby galaxies, such as Andromeda, have always been visible to the naked eye as a dusky smear in the night sky. Other shimmery structures became known to us after the invention of the telescope in the 17th century, along with a debate about their nature: Were they clouds of cosmic dust within our Milky Way, or “island universes” of their own? Not until the 1920s did humanity identify these glowing clouds as galaxies, when the astronomer Edwin Hubble (relying on the work of a lesser known astronomer, Henrietta Leavitt) found that some stars were too far away to belong to the Milky Way. And only in the mid-1990s, when a space telescope named for Hubble peeked farther into the universe than ever before, did we find the thousands of galaxies shimmering across the universe—island after island in a vast cosmic sea. Continued here

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Global Business Speaks English Like it or not, English is the global language of business. Today 1.75 billion people speak English at a useful level—that’s one in four of us. Multinational companies such as Airbus, Daimler-Chrysler, SAP, Nokia, Alcatel-Lucent, and Microsoft in Beijing have mandated English as the corporate language. And any company with a global presence or global aspirations would be wise to do the same, says HBS professor Tsedal Neeley, to ensure good communication and collaboration with customers, suppliers, business partners, and other stakeholders. Continued here

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This Simple, Everyday Hack Can Help Fight Antibiotic Resistance Can washing your hands help stop the evolution of antibiotic resistance? Mathematically, it’s possible. Antibiotics save lives by killing bacteria that cause infections. But antibiotics don’t just kill infection-causing bacteria or stay in the area of the body where the infection is occurring. Instead, antibiotics spread across the body and inhibit or kill any sensitive bacteria they encounter. Continued here

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Play This Thought-Provoking Indie Epic Before It Leaves Game Pass America is a myth. Sure, the United States is real. A real country full of gadgets and fast food, but the concept of “America” is really about the nation’s soul. What exists at the heart of America? Who are we? Where are we going? It’s a poetic notion explored by countless novels, films, and songs. But there’s really only one video game that gets at the esoteric roots of our existential musings, and it’s only on Xbox Game Pass until March 15. Continued here

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80 Years Ago, A Highly Anticipated Monster Movie Invented an Unstoppable Trend The Marvel Cinematic Universe. The DC Extended Universe. The Immortal Universe. The MonsterVerse. The Miyagiverse. Seemingly every modern property is part of a shared universe combining characters and stories from different series. While Marvel’s massive success is clearly the impetus for the current gold rush, the origins of the cinematic universe can be traced back to one goofy Universal monster movie released 80 years ago. The first of the so-called “monster rallies,” Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man isn’t a top-tier movie from the golden age of Universal monsters, which includes classics like Tod Browning’s Dracula, James Whale’s Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein, and Karl Freund’s The Mummy. The screenplay, by The Wolf Man screenwriter Curt Siodmak, is ungainly and lopsided, heavily favoring one of the title characters. The direction by Roy William Neill lacks the sophistication of masters like Browning and Whale. The performances are stiff and awkward, and the promised battle between two iconic creatures doesn’t occur until a few minutes before the movie ends. Continued here

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Do masks work? It's a question of physics, biology, and behavior On March 28, 2020, as COVID-19 cases began to shut down public life in much of the United States, then-Surgeon General Jerome Adams issued an advisory on Twitter: The general public should not wear masks. “There is scant or conflicting evidence they benefit individual wearers in a meaningful way,” he wrote. Continued here

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Venus May Have a Bizarro Version of a Vital Earth Phenomenon While Earth and Venus are approximately the same size, and both lose heat at about the same rate, the internal mechanisms that drive Earth’s geologic processes differ from its neighbor. It is these Venusian geologic processes that a team of researchers led by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and the California Institute of Technology hopes to learn more about as they discuss both the cooling mechanisms of Venus and the potential processes behind it. The geologic processes that occur on Earth are primarily due to our planet having tectonic plates that are in constant motion from the heat escaping the core of the planet, which then rises through the mantle to the lithosphere, or the rigid outer rocky layer, that surrounds it. Once this heat is lost to space, the uppermost region of the mantle cools, while the ongoing mantle convection moves and shifts the currently known 15 to 20 tectonic plates that make up the lithosphere. These tectonic processes are a big reason why the Earth’s surface is constantly being reshaped. Venus, on the other hand, does not possess tectonic plates, so scientists have been puzzled as to how the planet loses heat and reshapes its surface. Continued here

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Volkswagen's Electric Minibus is Getting a Throwback Porsche Redesign As cool as they look, they’re unfortunately not going on sale and will only have eight models made. Porsche is taking us for a trip down memory lane by re-envisioning its livery vans that date back to the ‘50s and were used as support vehicles for its race cars. Continued here

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What is driving current labour market shortages and how older workers could help Many countries are struggling with worker shortages right now as companies in the US, UK and the EU all struggle to fill job vacancies. This is often attributed to pandemic-related phenomena such as the “great resignation” or “great reshuffle”, when many people left or changed jobs to improve their work-life balance. Long-term sickness also plays a role in countries like the UK. Continued here

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The Worm Moon Is Coming This Week The bright glow of March’s full Moon heralds the end of winter and the beginning of spring for cultures throughout the Northern Hemisphere. From the night of Sunday, March 5 through the morning of Wednesday, March 8, the Moon will be full and glowing brightly in the night sky. Called the Worm Moon, it makes for excellent viewing of our nearest celestial neighbor just before seasons change Continued here S21 A Better Way to Map Brand Strategy Companies have long used perceptual mapping to understand how consumers feel about their brands relative to competitors’, to find gaps in the marketplace, and to develop brand positions. But the business value of these maps is limited because they fail to link a brand’s market position to business performance metrics such as pricing and sales. Other marketing tools measure brands on yardsticks such as market share, growth rate, and profitability but fail to take consumer perceptions into consideration. Continued here S68 Fox News Protects Itself Follow @newyorkercartoons on Instagram and sign up for the Daily Humor newsletter for more funny stuff. © 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 S47 South Africa is exporting more food. But it needs to find new growth frontiers Wandile Sihlobo is the Chief Economist of the Agricultural Business Chamber of South Africa (Agbiz) and a member of the Presidential Economic Advisory Council (PEAC). South African agricultural exports were up for the third consecutive year in 2022, reflecting favourable production conditions and higher commodity prices. The export numbers for the full year have not yet been published. I have calculated the annual data for 2022 using quarterly trade export statistics published by Trade Map, a trade statistics portal developed by the International Trade Centre, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development and the World Trade Organisation. Continued here S23 11 Great Deals on Sex Toys, Indestructible Tights, and Apparel The shamrock shake isn't the only thing coming back this March—some of our favorite sex toys are on sale again. We've gone ahead and whisked off the cream of that particular crop and presented them below, along with a couple of non-sex-toy deals that came our way.  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 S20 Everything You (Don't) Want to Know About Raising Capital Most entrepreneurs understand that if the fundamentals of a business idea—the management team, the market opportunities, the operating systems and controls—are sound, chances are there’s money out there. The challenge of landing that capital to grow a company can be exhilarating. But as exciting as the money search may be, it is equally threatening. Built into the process are certain harsh realities that can seriously damage a business. Entrepreneurs cannot escape them but, by knowing what they are, can at least prepare for them. Continued here S26 How to Get Your Unruly Toddler to Sleep Getting to watch two kids morph from larval infants into walking, talking people has been one of the great gifts of my life. I love their wobbling steps and their hilariously expressed opinions—except when it comes to bedtime. Their brains are dribbling out their ears, I’m exhausted, and the sink is still full of dirty dishes. These kids need to go to sleep. Every parent has experienced this particular flavor of desperation, whether they’re trapped in a bed in the dark with a 3-year-old with separation anxiety, or when a toddler pops up at a particularly gory moment in The Last of Us asking for just one more drink of water. I talked to certified sleep consultants for some advice on how to get your kids snoozing. Continued here S25 Apple Reins in ChatGPT-Powered Apps The artificial intelligence incursion has made its way to the App Store. BlueMail, an app that uses AI to write emails and manage people’s calendars, was set to release an update to its service that would utilize OpenAI’s popular ChatGPT engine. Apple, citing ChatGPT’s ability to spew out nearly any kind of text imaginable, blocked BlueMail’s updates out of concern that it could generate text that would be offensive or unfit for minors. Apple didn’t ban BlueMail from the App Store entirely. It just stopped the app maker from publishing the update without content restriction filters. Still, BlueMail’s developer has protested the move, saying Apple was stifling its innovation efforts.  Continued here S24 Climate Change Is Making Alaska's Legendary Iditarod Harder to Run This story originally appeared on High Country News and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Mike Williams Jr. doesn't remember when he started mushing, but once he was strong enough to handle the sled dogs, it became his passion. At first, he mushed after school, taking his father's dogs on 3- and 4-mile trails near his home in Akiak, Alaska. He ran the Iditarod for the first time in 2010 and has competed seven times since. Continued here S69 Beyond Daddy: Other Social Roles I'd Like Pedro Pascal to Fill Follow @newyorkercartoons on Instagram and sign up for the Daily Humor newsletter for more funny stuff. © 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 S35 The Pulse of Pop Music Is Changing One of the most popular songs in the world right now presents a musical riddle: Are you supposed to dance or nap? PinkPantheress’s “Boy’s a Liar Pt. 2,” featuring the rapper Ice Spice, sounds both fast and sluggish, new and old. It’s undeniably catchy and yet feels as fleeting as a mild dream. Another vexing fact: Liar is pronounced, in the chorus, “lee-yah.” Really, the No. 3 song on the Billboard Hot 100 is the culmination of a few trends, technologically driven and taste-bound. In many enclaves, music is getting faster and more fidgety. But that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s getting more energetic or extroverted. Welcome to the age of lo-fi beats to take stimulants to. Continued here S65 Mexico protests: fears for democracy prompt mass demonstrations Most protesters were dressed in pink and white, the colours of the National Electoral Institute (INE). They are attacking the reforms as unconstitutional and designed to make electoral scrutiny less effective while also making it harder to register to vote in more remote areas. The new law passed the senate on February 22 by 72 votes to 50. López Obrador is justifying the reforms on cost grounds. Mexico’s elections are among the most expensive in the world. The president has long criticised the INE for the size of its permanent bureaucracy and its high salaries for officials, which its supporters believe is necessary to ensure qualified and loyal staff. Continued here S48 Estonian elections: conquered by Russia for centuries, why this Baltic country is worried about the Ukraine war Russia’s war in Ukraine has quickly refocused the politics of its Baltic neighbours. Renewed threats to national security have swiftly risen to the top of each nation’s priorities. In autumn 2022, Estonia like other Baltic countries, restricted travel over its land borders from Russia. Flights were already banned from Russia as part of an EU-wide decision. St Petersburg is only 229 miles away from Estonia’s capital Tallinn, and Estonians are all too aware of their recent history with Russia including being conquered by the Russian empire from 1710 and forced to become part of the Soviet Union in the 20th century. It shares memories of Russification and suppression of its language with Ukraine. Continued here S34 'We Belong Here' Wesaam Al-Badry was born in Iraq, where he and his family might have stayed if not for the Gulf War, which began when he was 7. In 1991, the family landed at a refugee camp in Saudi Arabia. There, Al-Badry got his first camera, a Pentax K1000. “I didn’t understand the numbers on top, shutter speed, and aperture, but I understood, over time, composition,” Al-Badry told me. Even without regular access to film or any reliable way to develop what he shot, he saw in his hands a tool for telling his story as it unfolded. Eventually, Al-Badry’s family was relocated to Lincoln, Nebraska. “When you come in as a refugee, you think everything is beautiful. You think you made it to the promised land; everybody’s equal,” he said. “But then you realize there’s little hints.” As he grew up, Al-Badry became more aware of racism. Teenagers mocked his mother’s hijab; many Americans, he realized, had been conditioned to see Arabs and Muslims as intrinsically strange, angry, or violent. Continued here S38 Trump Begins His 'Final Battle' Former President Donald Trump gripped the CPAC lectern as he workshopped a new sales pitch: “I stand here today, and I’m the only candidate who can make this promise: I will prevent—and very easily—World War III.” (Wild applause.) “And you’re gonna have World War III, by the way.” (Confused applause.) It was just one in a string of ominous sentences that the 45th president offered tonight during his nearly two-hour headlining speech at the annual conservative conference, which for years prided itself on its ties to Ronald Reagan, but is now wholly intertwined with Trumpism, if little else. Yet even amid cultish devotion, Trump seemed bored, listless, and unanimated as he spoke to a sprawling hotel ballroom that was only three-quarters full. Continued here S22 How the Moon is making days longer on Earth Throughout human history the Moon has been an inextricable, ghostly presence above the Earth. Its gentle gravitational tug sets the rhythm of the tides, while its pale light illuminates the nocturnal nuptials of many species. Entire civilisations have set their calendars by it as it has waxed and waned, and some animals – such as dung beetles – use sunlight reflecting off the Moon's surface to help them navigate. More crucially, the Moon may have helped to create the conditions that make life on our planet possible, according to some theories, and may even have helped to kickstart life on Earth in the first place. Its eccentric orbit around our planet is thought to also play a role in some of the important weather systems that dominate our lives today. Continued here S52 5 things to know about Moldova and Transnistria - and why Russia's war in Ukraine is threatening their security, too Tensions continue to mount between Russia and Moldova – a small country bordering on southwestern Ukraine that is seeking European Union membership. Moldova is also home to a breakaway region called Transnistria that has strong Russian ties, landing both places in the crosshairs of the war in Ukraine. Moldova’s government voted on March 2, 2023, to formally condemn Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine. Continued here S60 National Theatre's Phaedra review: suicide tragedy leaves a bad taste Suicide is an act so shocking and violent that it undoes not only sensation, memory and feeling, but meaning. Poet and novelist Ocean Vuong describes how it unpicks even the connective tissue of language. The death of my best friend by suicide last summer completely undid me. The experience has changed the way I experience the world, my relationship to myself, friends, loved ones, but it has also changed my relationship to my work. It has forced me to think differently about suicide’s frequent appearances in what we know of ancient Greek and Roman tragedies. Continued here S51 Inquiries differ on why the 2017 Manchester bombing wasn't prevented - here's why How can you hold the intelligence and security services accountable, when what they do is secret? The third and final report from the public inquiry into the 2017 Manchester arena bombing is a useful guide. Sir John Saunders, the retired judge in charge of the inquiry, has given a damning verdict on how government agencies handled the case of Salman Abedi, the man who set off a bomb at an Ariana Grande concert. His conclusions differed significantly from earlier reviews and the reasons why are important. Continued here S61 School rugby should not be compulsory and tackling needs to be outlawed - here's the evidence Head Of Department in Department of Sport & Event Management, Bournemouth University Rugby has a higher rate of injury than most other sports frequently played in schools in the UK. It is a collision sport where players purposefully tackle each other, which can result in serious injury, such as to the head and neck. Continued here S36 A Do-Nothing Day Makes Life Better 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. “A few years ago, my wife, Angie, and I made a pact,” Jason Heller writes in The Atlantic. “Every Sunday, we swore to each other, we will abstain from work. And we kept our promise: On the second day of each weekend, we start our morning and end our night by bingeing TV in bed. In the middle of the day, we binge TV on the couch, taking breaks exclusively to nap or read.” The anxiety of looming to-do lists sometimes creeps in, but “we fight to stay still,” he writes. Continued here S58 Republicans are trying to build a multiracial right - will it work? Former Republican South Carolina Governor and United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley launched her bid for president recently in a video that began by describing the racial division that marked her small hometown of Bamberg, South Carolina. Meanwhile, another presumptive GOP candidate, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, has continued his crusade against “woke ideology,” most recently on a tour of Pennsylvania, New York and Illinois, presenting himself as a defender of law and order. Continued here S50 The 'milf': a brief cultural history, from Mrs Robinson to Stifler's mom The release of reality television series Milf Manor in January 2023 has added to the pantheon of milfs (“Mothers I’d Like to Fuck”) on screen. But from Stacy’s mum to Stifler’s mum: why is our cultural fascination with and fetishisation of the milf so enduring? The milf is an older mother who is considered sexually attractive. Not to be confused with the “cougar”, a middle-aged woman who seeks relationships with significantly younger men. Continued here S53 Politicians' health problems are important information for voters -- but reporters and candidates often conceal them Pennsylvania Democratic Sen. John Fetterman’s hospitalization for depression has raised anew the question of how much health information a candidate or politician should reveal to the public. Most people expect that their health is a private matter. And for a politician or office seeker, such disclosures can be used as political weapons by their opponents. But when someone voluntarily enters the sphere of public service and elective office, do they have an obligation to inform their constituents about how well they can actually execute the job they’re asking to be elected to? Continued here S54 3 ways to prevent school shootings, based on research In the months leading up to his 2012 attack that killed 26 people in Newtown, Connecticut, a 20-year-old man exhibited a cascade of concerning behaviors. He experienced worsening anorexia, depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder. His relationships deteriorated, and he became fixated on mass murders. In 2013, an 18-year-old had enraged outbursts at school and threatened to kill his debate coach. Concerned, the school’s threat assessment team interviewed him, rating him as a low-level risk for violence. But three months after the assessment, he shot and killed a classmate and himself on school grounds in Centennial, Colorado. Continued here S49 David Bowie: five must-have items for the V&A's new centre The Victoria and Albert Museum in London has announced the opening of a new David Bowie Centre for the Performing Arts in 2025 at V&A East Storehouse in east London. This follows the news that the museum has acquired – through donation – the artist’s fabled archive. This collection of over 80,000 objects formed the basis of the museum’s 2013 exhibition David Bowie Is. It includes personal correspondence, lyric sheets, photographs, costumes, set designs, music awards, films, album artwork, instruments and plans for unrealised projects. Continued here S56 The retention problem: Women are going into tech but are also being driven out By 2029, there will be 3.6 million computing jobs in the U.S., but there will only be enough college graduates with computing degrees to fill 24% of these jobs. For decades, the U.S. has poured resources into improving gender representation in the tech industry. However, the numbers are not improving proportionately. Instead, they have remained stagnant, and initiatives are failing. Women make up 57% of the overall workforce. Comparatively, women make up only 27% of the workforce in the technology industry. Of the 27% that join the technology industry, more than 50% are likely to quit before the age of 35, and 56% are likely to quit by midcareer. Continued here S57 A little bit of narcissism is normal and healthy - here's how to tell when it becomes pathological During former President Donald Trump’s campaign and presidency, the word narcissism became something of a buzzword. And in recent years the word has been popularized on social media and in the press. As a result, social media and other online platforms are now rife with insights, tips, stories and theories from life coaches, therapists, psychologists and self-proclaimed narcissists about navigating relationships with narcissists or managing one’s own symptoms. Continued here S55 Radio interference from satellites is threatening astronomy - a proposed zone for testing new technologies could head off the problem Visible light is just one part of the electromagnetic spectrum that astronomers use to study the universe. The James Webb Space Telescope was built to see infrared light, other space telescopes capture X-ray images, and observatories like the Green Bank Telescope, the Very Large Array, the Atacama Large Millimeter Array and dozens of other observatories around the world work at radio wavelengths. Radio telescopes are facing a problem. All satellites, whatever their function, use radio waves to transmit information to the surface of the Earth. Just as light pollution can hide a starry night sky, radio transmissions can swamp out the radio waves astronomers use to learn about black holes, newly forming stars and the evolution of galaxies. Continued here S62 Antipsychotics are increasingly being prescribed to children - here's why we should be concerned An increasing number of young people in the UK are being referred to child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS). Alongside this is the rising number of children prescribed medicines that treat mental illness. The evidence for the effectiveness and safety of these drugs comes almost entirely from studies in adults. Studies in children are rare. Continued here Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom) Tweets Tweets follow me on Twitter Microsoft Silverlight - Change the World Connect with Me Random Hacks! - My Blog @ MSDN Loading... Where Dreamers Dare! Loading... About Me Sayan Will copy and paste later from my official biography! 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