Emergency contraception: here's what you probably don't know but should

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Emergency contraception: here's what you probably don't know but should     Things don’t always go to plan when it comes to sex. Sometimes condoms break (or are even forgotten altogether) and daily contraceptive pills can be missed. Whatever the reason, if you need to prevent an unplanned pregnancy you might decide to use emergency contraception.There are three main options for emergency contraception: levonorgestrel tablets (known as Levonelle in the UK and Plan B in the US), ulipristal tablets (EllaOne in the UK and Ella in the US) and having a copper intra-uterine device (IUD – sometimes called the coil) fitted. Continued here

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Chess.com, Hans Niemann have made their peace over 2022 cheating scandal     Last September, the Internet was abuzz for weeks about a chess cheating controversy that erupted during the third round of the Sinquefield Cup. The reigning chess world champion, Magnus Carlsen, lost to a 19-year-old upstart named Hans Niemann in what was widely considered a shocking upset. Carlsen withdrew from the tournament the next day—an incident considered "virtually unprecedented' at such a high level of chess—and his cryptic comments on Twitter fueled rampant speculation that Niemann had cheated. Continued here

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Nvidia quietly cuts price of poorly reviewed 16GB 4060 Ti ahead of AMD launch     Last week, AMD announced what are probably the last major GPU launches of this generation of graphics cards: the $449 Radeon RX 7700 XT and $499 Radeon RX 7800 XT. AMD's pricing and performance numbers pit the cards against Nvidia's GeForce RTX 4060 Ti (specifically the $499 16GB version) and the $599 RTX 4070. Continued here

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Hacker gains admin control of Sourcegraph and gives free access to the masses     An unknown hacker gained administrative control of Sourcegraph, an AI-driven service used by developers at Uber, Reddit, Dropbox, and other companies, and used it to provide free access to resources that normally would have required payment. Continued here

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The Best Electric Kick Scooters     If you buy something using links in our stories, we may earn a commission. This helps support our journalism. Learn more. Please also consider subscribing to WIREDRiding an electric kick scooter isn't the coolest way of getting around. There you are, standing stock-still and upright, gliding around like a meerkat on wheels. But reducing our reliance on gas-guzzling cars is cool and important. If bikes or electric bikes aren't your thing, escooters are another eco-friendly way to travel relatively short distances without burning fossil fuel. They're easy to fold up, lighter than ebikes (usually), and you don't need to wait on public transportation. Continued here

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Rest in peace, neglected iTunes Movie Trailer app and website     The iTunes Movie Trailers website (and later iPhone app) has been a staple for film buffs or anyone just wanting to know what's coming up for decades, but those days have ended; Apple has shuttered iTunes Movie Trailers and directed users who want to see future trailers to its TV app. Continued here

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New analysis suggests human ancestors nearly died out     Multiple lines of evidence indicate that modern humans evolved within the last 200,000 years and spread out of Africa starting about 60,000 years ago. Before that, however, the details get a bit complicated. We're still arguing about which ancestral population might have given rise to our lineage. Somewhere about 600,000 years ago, that lineage split off Neanderthals and Denisovans, and both of those lineages later interbred with modern humans after some of them left Africa. Continued here

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Few of us desire true equality. It's time to own up to it     The plea by Augustine of Hippo — later, St. Augustine — was probably an ironic quip; translational accuracy has his seeking to be made chaste and celibate. His words come to mind when I hear declarations of allegiance to democratic values of justice, liberty, and equality of opportunity. Whether the plea be to God or gods — to Humanity, the State, or Law — “not just yet,” as we shall see, applies to those allegiances; to think otherwise is a self-deception. We should own up. The “not just yet” is sometimes a “not at all.” It is not at all possible to become celibate after years of marriage; and it is not at all possible to secure some of the values just mentioned. That is not because the securing would be “too late,” as it is in the case of celibacy, but because it is nonsense to think we have any clear idea of what constitutes those values in application.   Continued here

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Karen Willcox: How "digital twins" could help us predict the future     From health-tracking wearables to smartphones and beyond, data collection and computer modeling have become a ubiquitous part of everyday life. Advancements in these areas have given birth to "digital twins," or virtual models that evolve alongside real-world data. Aerospace engineer Karen Willcox explores the incredible possibilities these systems offer across engineering, climate studies and medicine, sharing how they could lead to personalized medicine, better decision-making and more. Continued here

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What Does It Take to Start a Union?     But what if you could have a say in your own working conditions? What if the company you worked for couldn’t make decisions without your input? In 2021, the workers at Pavement Coffeehouse in Boston found themselves asking these questions. Soon after, they became the first unionized coffee shop in Massachusetts. Continued here

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Lenovo's new 27-inch, 4K monitor offers glasses-free 3D     Lenovo's next 27-inch 4K monitor is unlike any display it has released before. Featuring a lenticular lens and real-time eye-tracking, it's a 3D monitor that doesn't require any glasses. Other companies are already pushing stereoscopic products, but Lenovo's ThinkVision 27 3D Monitor, announced at the IFA conference today, takes the glasses-free experience to a bigger screen. Continued here

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A meeting of the greatest minds in science, philosophy, and literature     Dr. William Egginton is the Decker Professor in the Humanities and Director of the Alexander Grass Humanities Institute of the Johns Hopkins University. I spoke with him recently about his new book, The Rigor of Angels: Borges, Heisenberg, Kant, and the Ultimate Nature of Reality.Marcelo Gleiser: Your book brings together three of the greatest Western minds from physics, literature, and philosophy, subjects that aren’t often presented together. There is a plan here, one that I am sure speaks to the very soul of this project. Can you elaborate on why these three, and how their fictional encounter illuminates your goals in writing this book? Continued here

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America Needs Hunting More Than It Knows     For many Americans, this coming weekend brings the start of hunting season. Although states allow the hunting of some game species in late summer, the calendar really opens with dove season. Nearly a million Americans will hunt doves this fall, and many, if not most, of them will do so this weekend.Hunting is a mostly solitary activity, but dove shoots are social events. Men, women, and children across America will space themselves out around sunflower fields, sitting on upturned five-gallon buckets, waiting for gray migratory birds to arrive looking for water and food in the early mornings and late evenings. I am headed to South Texas in a few weeks to open the dove season there with friends I hunt with each year. Continued here

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Harvard's Arthur C. Brooks on the Secrets to Happiness at Work     Arthur C. Brooks is a bestselling author, Harvard University professor, and a widely read columnist for The Atlantic, whose writing draws from both science and philosophy and is aimed at providing insight and strategies on how we can live our best lives. He’s the co-author (with Oprah Winfrey) of the forthcoming book, Build the Life You Want: The Art and Science of Getting Happier, and he joined HBR editor Adi Ignatius for this episode of New World of Work to share insights in how to be happier at work, and in life. Happiness, it turns out, is contagious. But so is misery. Continued here

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50, 100 & 150 Years Ago: September 2023     “The long-standing controversy over the existence of a superdense, polymeric form of water is apparently over. The argument began when Boris V. Derjaguin and colleagues at the Soviet Academy of Sciences observed that certain samples condensed in fine capillary tubes represented a new, stable form of water with a density almost one and a half times that of ordinary water and a molecular structure that could only be described as polymeric. Subsequent investigations in the U.S.S.R., Britain, Germany and the U.S. argued that the anomalous properties could be explained by impurities. Derjaguin has now reported that recent measurements by his group have revealed that their samples invariably contain trace impurities.”“Alcohol is manufactured in the human intestine by microorganisms. The amount of pure ethyl alcohol (the potable kind) produced daily is about one ounce. Ethyl alcohol ingested by a human, or produced in the intestine, is carried to the liver. In the liver 80 percent is broken down by alcohol dehydrogenase; the remaining 20 percent is possibly metabolized by another enzyme, catalase. It is the efficiency of the process that so long masked the production of alcohol in the intestine. The microorganisms that produce it remain unknown.” Continued here

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Two book readers recap a very non-book-ish Wheel of Time season 2 premiere     Andrew Cunningham and Lee Hutchinson have spent decades of their lives with Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson's Wheel of Time books, and they previously brought that knowledge to bear as they recapped each first season episode of Amazon's new WoT TV series. Now they're doing it again for season two—along with insights, jokes, and the occasional wild theory. These recaps won't cover every element of every episode, but they will contain major spoilers for the show and the book series. We're going to do our best to not spoil major future events from the books, but there's always the danger that something might slip out. If you want to stay completely unspoiled and haven't read the books, these recaps aren't for you. Continued here

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The unexpected maths problem at work during the Women's World Cup     There was something strange about the recent Women's World Cup in Australia. If you were paying close attention, you might have spotted it. Many of the international teams had players who were born on the same day of the year – they shared birthdays.There is a counterintuitive phenomenon known as "the birthday problem" or "the birthday paradox", which mathematicians like to use to confound our expectations. The problem is usually phrased along these lines: "How many people do you need to have at a gathering before the probability of at least two people sharing a birthday rises above 50%?" Continued here

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Fungi could be the answer to breaking down plastic junk     Plastic is becoming a plague on Earth. Not only are landfills bursting with it, but it has also polluted our oceans to the point that a tiny creature that had apparently made microplastics part of its diet was named Eurythenes plasticus. Can we possibly hold back the spread of a material that piles up faster than it could ever decay? Continued here

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Google Maps' new color scheme test looks a lot like Apple Maps     The familiar Google Maps interface might start looking a bit different soon. 9to5Google reports that Google is testing a major redesign of the default map layer with a new color scheme. Continued here

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Finding a Job When You Have No Experience     Most entry level roles require two to three years of previous job experience. If you’re new to the workforce, how can you qualify? The good news is that “years of experience” can usually be taken with a grain of salt, but your resume should prove that you have the skills to do the job well. Here are four ways to gain that experience and demonstrate you’re the right person for the role. Continued here

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Burying Power Lines Prevents Wildfires. But There's a Cost     Not long after the deadliest wildfire in modern American history swept through Lahaina, Maui, on August 8, speculation began swirling about a notorious igniter of out-of-control blazes: electrical equipment. Although investigators have yet to officially determine the cause of the wildfire, witnesses reported power poles snapping in the 60-mile-an-hour winds that were pouring down the nearby mountains, showering dried vegetation in sparks. And last week, the County of Maui hit Hawaiian Electric with a lawsuit, accusing the utility of neglecting its duty to power down its infrastructure, given the known risk of such high winds sparking wildfires.  Continued here

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Stop Asking, "What's the Worst That Could Happen?"     Fear is a universal emotion, and it arises when we think we may experience physical or psychological harm. It shows up at work, too. Think about the time when you’ve debated if you should ask for that raise. Or when you’ve accepted working on tough project but eventually asked for an out. Thinking about the worst that could happen has often held us back. Continued here

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What the West Gets Wrong About China     Many people have wrongly assumed that political freedom would follow new economic freedoms in China and that its economic growth would have to be built on the same foundations as in the West. The authors suggest that those assumptions are rooted in three essentially false beliefs about modern China: (1) Economics and democracy are two sides of the same coin; (2) authoritarian political systems can’t be legitimate; and (3) the Chinese live, work, and invest like Westerners. But at every point since 1949 the Chinese Communist Party—central to the institutions, society, and daily experiences that shape all Chinese people—has stressed the importance of Chinese history and of Marxist-Leninist doctrine. Until Western companies and politicians understand this and revise their views, they will continue to get China wrong. Continued here

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5 Tips for Writing Professional Emails     Research shows that workers in the U.S. spend an average of two to three hours a day checking their work emails, and an additional two hours on personal emails. In other countries, like India and Australia, the trend is similar. With the increasing rise of remote and hybrid workplaces, this frequency — along with email fatigue, burnout, and job dissatisfaction — are growing. What can you do to get some of those hours back? Continued here

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Sing your way to learning a new language     Beelinguapp is a language-learning mobile app meant to make learning “as simple and fun as reading your favorite book.” Launched in 2017 by a founder from the northern Mexican city of Tampico, the app has over 5 million downloads, and offers a different approach to apps like Duolingo that rely more on word repetition. Beelinguapp’s focus is on engagement through storytelling. Its founder, David Montiel, went on Shark Tank México to secure $10 million and purchase the rights to content beyond the public domain.The app uses a bilingual method, in which it simultaneously presents two texts taken from songs or stories — one in the user’s native language, and the other in the foreign language they want to learn. As the audio plays, users can move between the two texts to understand what’s being read aloud or sung. The app claims to be based on the neuroscience of language acquisition and Montiel’s experience learning German: He found that looking up every word he didn’t understand in the dictionary slowed him down.  Continued here

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The Creator of 'Andor' Is Fired Up About the Streaming Data Wars     Frank D. Gilroy, the father of Andor creator Tony Gilroy, went on strike in 1960. The elder Gilroy, a Bronx-born screenwriter who would later win a Pulitzer Prize for his play The Subject Was Roses, was part of the union effort that secured residual payments for screenwriters for television reruns. That strike was also the last time, prior to this year, that Hollywood writers and actors walked off the job at the same time. Ronald Reagan was president of the Screen Actors Guild. Tony Gilroy was 4 years old.Last weekend, the younger Gilroy grabbed a microphone on a New York City sidewalk to tell the story of how the “Writers Guild and SAG linked arms … and that sacrifice was to win all this shit we take for granted.” He also spoke of how previous Hollywood strikes—those after 1960—tried to wrest residuals for the sales of VHS, on-demand, and cable. At each turn, the Michael Clayton writer argued, the studios would counter that some new technology—DVDs, streaming—had disrupted the industry and that writers should wait while the studios adjusted. Continued here

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Everything Starts with Trust     Trust is the basis for almost everything we do. It’s the foundation on which our laws and contracts are built. It’s the reason we’re willing to exchange our hard-earned paychecks for goods and services, to pledge our lives to another person in marriage, and to cast a ballot for someone who will represent our interests. It’s also the input that makes it possible for leaders to create the conditions for employees to fully realize their own capacity and power. Continued here

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Lenovo's Legion Go is an iPad mini-sized portable PC with detachable controllers     Few people would pick up the Steam Deck or Asus ROG Ally and think that what they lack is size. But Lenovo's entry into the field of portable gaming PCs is coming in with an 8.8-inch screen, and a lot of other big ideas attached, too. Continued here

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Photos of the Week:     Scenes from the the World Athletics Championship in Budapest, a sunflower maze in England, a performance at the Rock en Seine festival in Paris, wildfires in Greece and Italy, damage from Hurricane Idalia in Florida, a mid-river football match in England, a marching-band competition in Texas, and much more Jonay Ravelo and his horse Nivaria observe the rising full moon from a mountain in Mogán, in Gran Canaria, Spain, on August 31, 2023. # Continued here

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What is shared consciousness?     Clinical psychologist Lisa Miller rejects a materialist view of the brain as a factory producing thoughts. She believes that the brain might function more like an antenna — capable of sending and receiving consciousness, which holds information, love, and intelligence. In other words, consciousness can exist independently of matter.Miller highlights scientific research that has explored this idea of shared consciousness, particularly in bonded relationships and among twins. She emphasizes the interconnectedness of humanity, where our actions and treatment of others leave lasting imprints on a collective consciousness field.  Continued here