Can money buy happiness? Depends on how you spend it.

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Can money buy happiness? Depends on how you spend it. Happiness is a loving family, a good meal, and an annual salary of $75,000. At least, that’s been the popular wisdom since Daniel Kahneman and Angus Deaton published their 2010 study looking at money’s relationship to well-being. The two psychologists reportedly found that people’s happiness increases until their annual income reaches $75,000, at which point it plateaus.  Like the Milgram experiments, the Stanford prison experiments, and the marshmallow test before it, Kahneman and Deaton’s study is one of few to explode into the mainstream. It has been cited in books, on TV shows, and across social media. CEOs set employee wages to match the findings. And smirking aunts everywhere dragged out the figure to prove that “See, money doesn’t buy you happiness.” The appeal is easy to see. The study provided a simple solution to a knotty life problem and, to people making less than $75,000, offered an off-the-rack goal to strive for. And if we’re being honest, there was more than a little classist schadenfreude at having confirmation that Bill Gates and Elon Musk were, if not as miserable, then at least no happier than the rest of us. Continued here

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What to Do After Being Laid Off If you’re laid off, the last thing you want to do is send your resume to dozens of companies and pray a recruiter will call you. That’s not a strategy for success. What will make you successful is taking a minimum of 24 hours to process this shocking change to your employment status. Then, do these five things before you update your resume or start looking for a job: 1) Reconfigure your mindset; 2) Write down your accomplishments; 3) Know what you want; 4) Create a job-hunting schedule; 5) Find jobs that look interesting — but don’t apply yet. Continued here

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3 Steps to Prepare Your Supply Chain for the Next Crisis Most risks to supply chains are predictable. That means that companies can and should be prepared to handle them. It entails taking three steps: creating a world-class sensing and risk-monitoring operation; simplifying your product portfolio; and de-risking your supply chain in terms of sourcing raw materials and components; manufacturing the products; and delivering parts to the factories and the products to the customers. Continued here

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From Droughts to Floods, Water Risk Is an Urgent Business Issue As climate change advances, floods and droughts are now sudden, unforeseen events that increasingly hit areas in quick succession, and this growing variability has caught major corporations unprepared. New regulation is forcing companies to confront this growing risk. Companies need to understand their vulnerabilities and plan how to address them. They should start by assessing their water quantity impacts and setting water use reduction targets that are informed by local conditions. Second, they should assess their water quality impacts and use this assessment to set targets and develop action plans to improve that impact, such as reducing the use of harmful chemicals, investing in recycling technology, and reducing pollutant discharges. Third, companies should engage deeply in water stewardship activities in the basins in which they operate by advocating for watershed protection, or by supporting new water conservation and groundwater sustainability policies. Finally, companies should ensure that water-related risks and opportunities are fully embedded within corporate governance and decision making. Continued here

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The biggest myths of the teenage brain Terri Apter, a psychologist, still remembers the time she explained to an 18-year-old how the teenage brain works: "So that's why I feel like my head's exploding!" the teen replied, with pleasure. Parents and teachers of teens may recognise that sensation of dealing with a highly combustible mind. The teenage years can feel like a shocking transformation – a turning inside out of the mind and soul that renders the person unrecognisable from the child they once were. There's the hard-to-control mood swings, identity crises and the hunger for social approval, a newfound taste for risk and adventure, and a seemingly complete inability to think about the future repercussions of their actions. In the midst of this confusion, adolescents are consistently assessed for their academic potential – with ramifications that can last a lifetime. No one's fate is sealed at 18 – but an impeccable school record will certainly make it far easier to find a place at a prestigious university, which will in turn widen your options for employment. Yet the emotional rollercoaster of those years can make it extremely difficult for teens to reach their intellectual potential. Continued here

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What's the right age to get a smartphone? It is a very modern dilemma. Should you hand your child a smartphone, or keep them away from the devices as long as possible? As a parent, you'd be forgiven for thinking of a smartphone as a sort of Pandora's box with the ability to unleash all the world's evils on your child's wholesome life. The bewildering array of headlines relating to the possible impact of children's phone and social media use are enough to make anyone want to opt out. Apparently, even celebrities are not immune to this modern parenting problem: Madonna has said that she regretted giving her older children phones at age 13, and wouldn't do it again. On the other hand, you probably have a phone yourself that you consider an essential tool for daily life – from emails and online shopping, to video calls and family photo albums. And if your child's classmates and friends are all getting phones, won't they miss out without one? Continued here

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Why short-sightedness is on the rise In the late 1980s and 1990s, parents in Singapore began noticing a worrying change in their children. On the whole, people's lives in the small, tropical nation were improving hugely at the time. Access to education, in particular, was transforming a generation and opening the gates to prosperity. But there was a less positive trend, too: more and more children were becoming short-sighted. Nobody was able to stop this national eyesight crisis. Rates of short-sightedness – also known as near-sightedness or myopia – continued to rise and rise. Today, Singapore has a myopia rate of around 80% in young adults, and has been called "the myopia capital of the world". "We've been dealing with [this] issue for 20 years, so we're almost numb to it," says Audrey Chia, an associate professor and senior consultant at the Singapore National Eye Center (SNEC). "Almost everybody in Singapore is myopic now." Continued here

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How mud boosts your immune system "Don't get dirty!" was once a constant family refrain, as parents despairingly watched their children spoil their best clothes. Whether they were running through farmers' fields, climbing trees or catching tadpoles, it was inevitable that children's whites would turn brown before the day was over. Today, many parents may secretly wish their children had the chance to pick up a bit of grime. With the rise of urbanism, and the allure of video games and social media, contact with nature is much rarer than in the past. For many, there is simply no opportunity to get muddy. What is gained in laundry bills may be lost in the child's wellbeing. According to recent research, the dirt outside is teaming with friendly microorganisms that can train the immune system and build resilience to a range of illnesses, including allergies, asthma and even depression and anxiety. Continued here

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The weird way language affects our sense of time and space If you were asked to walk diagonally across a field, would you know what to do? Or what if you were offered £20 ($23) today or double that amount in a month, would you be willing to wait? And how would you line up 10 photos of your parents if you were instructed to sort them in chronological order? Would you place them horizontally or vertically? In which direction would the timeline move? These might seem like simple questions, but remarkably, your answers to these questions are likely to be influenced by the language, or languages, you speak. In our new book, we explore the many internal and external factors that influence and manipulate the way we think – from genetics to digital technology and advertising. And it appears that language can have a fascinating effect on the way we think about time and space. Continued here

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Energy crisis: How living in a cold home affects your health On the coldest mornings, Mica Fifield doesn't need an alarm clock. The pain in her joints wakes her up. Her legs and knees hurt the most. Lying there, she knows that there are things to do around the house. But it's hard to get out of bed. The heating in her terraced home in Lancashire, England, is off. The dormant radiators, pinned to their walls, sit there, chilly to the touch. There's condensation around the windows. And the pain digs in so much more now the weather is turning. "We don't touch the heating whatsoever," says Fifield, explaining how the price of her gas and electricity have gone up recently. She and her husband aren't sure exactly what it will cost them to put the heating on and they don't have the luxury of finding out. She just says: "We're too scared." It's still early in the autumn when we speak. And although temperatures will only drop further in the coming months, the couple currently plan to keep their heating off for the entire winter, if they can. Continued here

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The surprising benefits of blue spaces Amidst the gentle rock of the sea, the breeze tickling their skin and the distant caw of seagulls, six people in lifejackets close their eyes for a "mindful check-in". They are aboard the deck of Irene, a 100ft-tall (30m) ship with timber frames and majestic sails which is cruising off the coast of Cornwall in the UK. These kind of mindfulness exercises have become increasingly mainstream in the last decade, but they tend to be practised from the comfort of the home or a therapist's office – not the deck of a ship. However, UK charity Sea Sanctuary, which operates Irene, believes its combination of marine activities and therapy provides a uniquely beneficial form of mental health support. A practitioner of "blue health" – the concept that being in or near blue spaces such as rivers, lakes and the sea boosts our emotional wellbeing – the charity has been organising trips around the Cornwall coastline since 2006. Continued here

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Alan Jamieson: Meet the mysterious "monsters" of the deep sea The "aliens" of Earth live in the deepest parts of the ocean, and marine biologist Alan Jamieson has the photographs to prove it. Explore the depths with Jamieson as he challenges what you may believe (or have been told) really lies waiting in the world's darkest, most remote waters. A fascinating, bizarre and surprisingly peaceful dive into the watery world like you've never seen before. Continued here

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The future of machines that move like animals Imagine a boat that propels by moving its "tail" from side to side, just like a fish. That's the kind of machine that TED Fellow Robert Katzschmann's lab builds: soft-bodied robots that imitate natural movements with artificial, silent muscles. He lays out his vision for machines that take on mesmerizing new forms, made of softer and more lifelike materials -- and capable of discovering unknown parts of the world. Continued here

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Jen Gunter: The truth about yeast in your body Sugar intake gets blamed for a lot of health issues -- but when it comes to yeast infections, it's almost definitely not the culprit. Debunking myths (and strongly suggesting we skip heavily-marketed detox cleanses), Dr. Jen Gunter explains why having some yeast in the body is normal, how to know when it's a problem -- and what to (safely) do about it. For more on how your body works, tune into her podcast, Body Stuff with Dr. Jen Gunter, from the TED Audio Collective. Continued here

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Matthew Garcia: How global virtual communities can help kids achieve their dreams How do we make historically exclusive fields like classical music, fine arts or academic research more accessible to everyone? Education equalizer and violist Matthew Garcia thinks one way to remove barriers is to create free, virtual education programs that connect talented young minds to the resources they need to thrive in their future careers. Learn more about the power of virtual nonprofits to overcome geographic borders and deliver opportunity -- and how you can help every kid reach their dreams. Continued here

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Why micromobility is here to stay If you could ride a bicycle, moped, or e-kickscooter to work, would you do so? Respondents in the Mobility Ownership Consumer Survey, conducted by the McKinsey Center for Future Mobility in July 2021, were enthusiastic about these options, with almost 70 percent stating that they were willing to use micromobility vehicles for their commute (exhibit). 1 1. The survey included 6,000 respondents from China, France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the United States. (Bicycles and mopeds could be traditional or electric.) These findings suggest that a growing number of workers may gravitate toward smaller, more environmentally friendly forms of transport as pandemic restrictions lift and offices reopen. They are in line with our previous research in 2020, which suggested that micromobility was poised to make a strong comeback when the COVID-19 pandemic abated and people began traveling more. Our survey also revealed that micromobility uptake will be far from uniform because of location-specific factors. The willingness to use small vehicles was highest in countries with a long tradition of micromobility, such as Italy (81 percent) and China (86 percent). At the other end of the spectrum, only 60 percent of US respondents said they would consider micromobility, perhaps because they have traditionally relied on private cars or public transportation for their commutes, and the sight of someone weaving through traffic on a moped or scooter is relatively rare. Continued here

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Net-zero heat: Long-duration energy storage to accelerate energy system decarbonization As efforts to decarbonize the global energy system gain momentum, attention is turning increasingly to the role played by one of the most vital of goods: heat. Heating and cooling—mainly for industry and buildings—accounts for no less than 50 percent of global final energy consumption and about 45 percent of all energy emissions today (excluding power), 1 1. The baseline includes emissions from heating, industrial processes, transport, and other energy sector emissions. It excludes power generation emissions, which are discussed in the 2021 LDES Net-Zero Power report. so decarbonizing heat is central to the effort to achieve net-zero emissions (Exhibit 1). Less well understood is often the role that managing and storing heat can play in addressing a crucial challenge facing the power sector: how to increase the share of inherently variable renewable sources, such as wind and solar in the energy mix while ensuring supply matches demand. Continued here

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How to make investments in start-ups pay off Traditionally, established corporations have tended to view start-ups as undisciplined and naive, while start-ups might dismiss incumbents as stodgy and behind the times. It’s (mostly) not like that anymore, as both sides increasingly recognize each other’s strengths and the value of collaborating. In fact, large companies are now involved in about a third of all venture deals—an all-time high. More than three-quarters of the Fortune 100 are active in the venture capital (VC) space and half have a VC arm set up as a subsidiary, not including companies with internal VC business units. But incumbents’ broad embrace of corporate venture capital (CVC) investments belies a sobering reality: these marriages are difficult, and the majority fail. When we analyzed private and public data from more than 2,000 companies that participated in McKinsey surveys, then combined that with public and private data and dozens of executive interviews, we discovered that only 14 percent of incumbents that invest in young companies have adopted the practices necessary to sustainably generate value from such relationships (more on those practices below). Success is so elusive that a quarter of those that invested in 2015 were gone from the venture scene just three years later. We also found that more than 70 percent of CVC activity is sporadic or opportunistic, an approach that correlates with poor ROI. Continued here

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Scaling up: How founder CEOs and teams can go beyond aspiration to ascent The mystique surrounding public companies like Alphabet and Amazon and their evolution from innovative start-ups to brand icons has many executives believing that there is only one “right” path to growth. But behind these and other companies’ scale-up success stories is a distinctive set of organizational capabilities that other founder CEOs may be able to develop as they move their start-ups from aspiration to ascent to peak performance. Through our extensive research and years of experience working with founder CEOs, we’ve learned a lot about what the hyperscaling journey entails and how it differs from gradual growth. Here’s what we know about hyperscalers: they outperform industry peers, remain resilient during downturns, and maintain strong cash positions. They set the bar high for corporate performance, and they aren’t afraid to make bold moves. Continued here

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Prioritizing brain health: Scaling what works to add years to life and life to years Regardless of age, income, or geography, brain health materially affects every person’s life. Brain health conditions 1 1. McKinsey Health Institute defines brain health conditions as mental (including self-harm), substance-use, and neurological disorders. However, this interactive will focus on mental (including self-harm) and substance-use disorders, and we will use the term “brain health” to encompass these disorders going forward. account for roughly 10 percent of global disease burden, comparable to all cancers combined. 2 2. ‘Neoplasms’ comprise 9.9% of total DALYs, Global Burden of Disease study, Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, 2019. While previous McKinsey Health Institute (MHI) work has shed light on the reduction of total global disease burden, 3 3. McKinsey Global Institute found that nearly 40 percent of total global disease burden could be addressable, preventing 226 million premature deaths and adding, on average, 21 healthy days back to each person’s life each year; Prioritizing health: A prescription for prosperity, McKinsey Global Institute, July 8, 2020. determining the potential impact of evidence-based prevention or interventions for mental and substance-use disorders to measurably reduce disease burden has been an ongoing issue. Mental and substance-use disorders are prevalent worldwide, with nearly one billion (or one in eight) people having a mental disorder before the COVID-19 pandemic. Mental disorders are also currently the leading cause of years lived with disability (YLDs), accounting for one in every six years lived with disability. 1 1. World mental health report: Transforming mental health for all, World Health Organization, June 16, 2022. COVID-19 only accelerated the issue: the pandemic is believed to have increased the prevalence of anxiety and depression by anywhere between 25 and 30 percent worldwide. 2 2. “Global prevalence and burden of depressive and anxiety disorders in 204 countries and territories in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic,” Lancet, November 6, 2021, Volume 398, Number 10312. Continued here

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The Quiet Invasion of 'Big Information' When people worry about their data privacy, they usually focus on the Big Five tech companies: Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, and Microsoft. Legislators have brought Facebook’s CEO to the capitol to testify about the ways the company uses personal data. The FTC has sued Google for violating laws meant to protect children’s privacy. Each of the tech companies is followed by a bevy of reporters eager to investigate how it uses technology to surveil us. But when Congress got close to passing data privacy legislation, it wasn’t the Big Five that led the most urgent effort to prevent the law from passing, it was a company called RELX. You might not be familiar with RELX, but it knows all about you. Reed Elsevier LexisNexis (RELX) is a Frankensteinian amalgam of publishers and data brokers, stitched together into a single information giant. There is one other company that compares to RELX—Thomson Reuters, which is also an amalgamation of hundreds of smaller publishers and data services. Together, the two companies have amassed thousands of academic publications and business profiles, millions of data dossiers containing our personal information, and the entire corpus of US law. These companies are a culmination of the kind of information market consolidation that’s happening across media industries, from music and newspapers to book publishing. However, RELX and Thomson Reuters are uniquely creepy as media companies that don’t just publish content but also sell our personal data. Continued here

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At COP27, Countries Hit Hardest by Climate Change May Finally Get Their Due In 2013, just a few days after one of the most powerful storms ever recorded struck his country, a Filipino climate negotiator named Yeb Saño spoke before world leaders at a United Nations COP summit in Poland. The Philippines is used to big storms. It has an early warning system for typhoons and an extensive network of shelters. Everyone has a plan. But in Saño’s hometown, plans were upended by Typhoon Haiyan. Shelters collapsed, water rose in places it never had before; his town was flattened. At that moment, Saño told his fellow delegates at the annual climate conference, he did not know whether his family had survived. This was an unnatural storm, he said, one fueled by people who live far from the Philippines choosing to burn fossil fuels. And it was “madness” for those same people to continue adding more carbon to the air, making the world all the more unlivable—if not deadly—for others. Saño pledged to fast during the conference until delegates produced results. He remained seated through a standing ovation, wiping away tears with a red handkerchief. At the time, to a COP attendee named Saleemul Huq, Saño’s speech looked like a breakthrough. It was long overdue recognition, Huq recalls thinking that “it’s time for the polluter to pay up.” Yet it’s only now, nine years later, at COP27 in Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt, that paying for those impacts, an issue known as “loss and damage,” has become an animating concern of the meeting. Just months after devastating floods in Pakistan killed thousands and caused billions of dollars of damage, many officials from developing nations arrived angry at years of inaction and ready to say so. By the time those leaders departed on Tuesday, they had achieved something that had never happened before at COP: There was a plan to figure out how to put money on the table. A plan to talk about doing something may not sound like big progress, but in the history of loss and damage, it is. At COP meetings, negotiations between rich and poor nations typically center on how to pay for decarbonization and ways to live in a changing climate. But beginning with early climate talks in the 1990s, Pacific Island nations recognized they could not “adapt” their way out of the path of rising seas. Nor would adaptation help those facing unending droughts that turn fertile farmland to dust and that fuel unstoppable wildfires. Yet for 20 years, very little changed. Continued here

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What the Hell Happened to FTX? The world’s largest crypto exchange, Binance, has walked away from a deal to acquire its troubled archrival, FTX, leaving the smaller company on the brink of collapse after a surge of withdrawals. Led by Sam Bankman-Fried, one of the crypto industry’s most well-regarded figures, FTX was until recently thought to be in fine shape. In January, the company raised $400 million from Softbank and others to reach a $32 billion valuation, and only last month it was talking about ambitious acquisition plans of its own. But yesterday FTX suddenly suspended customer withdrawals (a precursor to many a crypto collapse), and the CEO of Binance, Changpeng Zhao, who goes by CZ, announced on Twitter that FTX had “asked for our help” and a rescue deal had been reached. Continued here

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How many types of precipitation can a planet have? Here on Earth, the water cycle – including its solid, liquid, and gaseous phases – is the top factor in determining what the climate and weather of any particular location is going to be like. Whether frozen at the poles or at high elevations, in the liquid phase in the oceans or any of Earth’s freshwater stores, or in the gaseous phase as a dissolved component of our atmosphere, where the water both is and isn’t over time determines what forms of life are going to survive and thrive in any region involving our planet’s surface. But we only have a “water cycle” here on Earth because our temperatures and pressures allow water to exist in all three phases. On hotter worlds, water is always a gas, while on significantly colder worlds, water is always in a solid phase unless it’s crushed down to tremendous pressures. Still, those other worlds have their own forms of rains, snows, and other modes of precipitation. From hot Jupiter worlds where it rains rocks, metal, or even gems to cold, frozen worlds where it snows methane, nitrogen, or even hydrogen, planets revel in a great diversity of types of precipitation. Here in our own Solar System, we have some clues about the weird properties that planets around other stars might experience. Sure, there’s plenty of water here on Earth and even more on some of the moons of Saturn and Jupiter, but at those large distances from the Sun, it’s only beneath a thick layer of high-pressure ice that liquid water can exist at all. But out on those cold, distant, rocky worlds, all sorts of other frozen chemical compounds, when exposed to direct sunlight, can see them melt, sublimate or boil, becoming liquid or gas, and then precipitating down from the skies later on. Continued here

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Voluntary eunuchs: Why do some men choose castration? Throughout much of China’s multiple-millennia dynastic period, some men chose castration — having their penis and testicles removed — in order to serve as high-ranking imperial civil servants. Unable to father children, these officials would not be tempted to seize power and start their own dynasties, or so the thinking went. Castrations were also conducted in Europe, albeit for a different reason. Most prominently in Italy, select boys were rigorously trained as singers, then castrated before puberty in order to prevent changes to the larynx (“voice box”), thus preserving a feminized, higher-range, soprano voice. While some “castratis,” as they were called, had a say in their radical alterations, unfortunately, many others did not. Though rare, some men living in developed countries today freely choose to have their genitals removed. Between 2016 and 2017, an international team of researchers interviewed 208 of them via the Eunuch Archive online community. The scientists described what they learned in a study recently published to the Archives of Sexual Behavior. Continued here

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Spinal cord stimulation helps paralyzed patients walk again Until recently, a severe spinal cord injury usually meant permanent paralysis. But a newly developed technique offers hope.  Although still experimental, epidural electrical stimulation (EES) has already been used to restore walking in patients with “motor complete spinal cord injury” (that is, an injury that allows some sensation but entirely prevents voluntary movement and sphincter function below the level of injury). Now researchers in Switzerland have used the technique to restore walking in nine individuals with chronic spinal cord injuries. Reporting in the journal Nature, they also identify the nerve cells responsible for the recovery, and the unexpected mechanism by which it occurs. As a general rule, voluntary muscle movement occurs when neurons from the brain carry commands downward into the spine, where they synapse with other neurons that control the muscles. Walking is orchestrated by motor neurons in the lumbar (lower) spinal cord. Spinal cord injury can damage the descending pathways that carry these commands, while leaving the lumbar neurons intact. Electrical stimulation bypasses the injury to reactivate these cells, but exactly how was not clear.  Continued here

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If an advanced alien civilization exists, what can they teach us about survival? Let’s face it. Humanity is in trouble. After the explosive success of fast-paced industrialization and growth over the past 150 years, we find ourselves edging toward the precipice of global chaos. I know, this kind of rhetoric is tiresome and annoying. But how else are we to characterize the level of polarization, hatred, and distancing we find in today’s society? And that is to say nothing of climate change. How can we find a way out of our troubles, and quickly?  As we ponder that question, a group of scientists and humanists at the University of Saint Andrews in Scotland got together to create the SETI Post-Detection Hub, a project that combines exoplanet science with global law and governance. Their goal is to chart humanity’s response to the unlikely but deeply transformative discovery of alien intelligence in our galaxy. How would we respond to the discovery of another intelligent species? Any alien civilization we come across will probably be far more advanced than we are, both technologically and morally. To carry on a sustainable project of civilization is no easy task, as we have obviously found out. But if they made it, there is hope for us too. In fact, maybe they could teach us how to do it. That is indeed the hope of many who idealize aliens in the same way people idealized angels and heavenly emissaries in the Middle Ages — as all-knowing, god-like creatures.  Continued here

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Lasers and radio waves could be our first sign of extraterrestrial life If an alien were to look at Earth, many human technologies – from cell towers to fluorescent light bulbs – could be a beacon signifying the presence of life. We are two astronomers who work on the search for extraterrestrial intelligence – or SETI. In our research, we try to characterize and detect signs of technology originating from beyond Earth. These are called technosignatures. While scanning the sky for a TV broadcast of some extraterrestrial Olympics may sound straightforward, searching for signs of distant, advanced civilizations is a much more nuanced and difficult task than it might seem. The modern scientific search for extraterrestrial intelligence began in 1959 when astronomers Giuseppe Cocconi and Philip Morrison showed that radio transmissions from Earth could be detected by radio telescopes at interstellar distances. The same year, Frank Drake, launched the first SETI search, Project Ozma, by pointing a large radio telescope at two nearby Sun-like stars to see if he could detect any radio signals coming from them. Following the invention of the laser in 1960, astronomers showed that visible light could also be detected from distant planets. Continued here

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In a region united by language, the word "fintech" can have very different meanings Having been Latin America’s biggest tech sector in terms of investment for the past decade, fintech paints a canvas large enough to depict the region’s differences more clearly. During the early days of the industry, Brazil and Mexico were attracting most of the investor money because their large populations — almost half of them unbanked or still dependent on cash — meant a Wild West of opportunities for all. As deals flowed for companies like Brazilian challenger bank Nubank, which debuted on Nasdaq in 2021, and Mexico City–based Clip, now a payments unicorn backed by SoftBank, fintech in Latin America was commonly reduced to what these huge countries needed and created. But fintech’s breadth can be seen in smaller countries. Chile is a good starting point, as it has some of the broadest differences. The legacy of its past 50 years — 18 under a free-market dictatorship, 32 under democratic rule — can be seen in the development of the country’s financial technology. Private banks that coexist with state-backed ones jointly support an advanced digital financial system. Contactless payment terminals are available nationwide, and anyone with a national ID number can sign up for a simple savings account online, provided by the state-owned bank. Almost 75% of all Chilean adults have a bank account — the highest rate in Latin America, where the average is about 50%. Continued here

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Brazil's New President Vows to Save Amazon Forests Brazil contains more than half of Amazonia, a region whose fate is crucial to slowing climate change. During Bolsonaro’s tenure, loggers, cattle ranchers and soy farmers cut down or burned more than two billion trees in the Brazilian Amazon, many of them illegally, according to the Brazilian environmental research groups Imazon and MapBiomas. Scientists worry that the rain forest may be approaching a tipping point beyond which much of the region would change to dry savanna. Fewer trees have also meant less rain and higher temperatures for the Amazon region, enhancing drought. Bolsonaro rolled back legal protections for the forest and its Indigenous inhabitants, and he opened the region to dam building and agribusiness expansion. By contrast, President-Elect Lula, who served two terms as president from 2003 through 2010, said during his campaign that preserving the rain forest will be one of his top priorities. “Brazil is ready to retake its leadership in the fight against the climate crisis,” he told supporters in a victory speech in São Paulo. “Brazil and the planet need a living Amazon.” Continued here

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Supreme Court to Hear Nursing Home Case That Could Affect Millions Talevski sued the Health and Hospital Corp. of Marion County, the public health agency in Indiana that owns the nursing facility. The agency, known as HHC, declined to comment on the case but has denied any wrongdoing. In court documents, it argued that Gorgi Talevski was violent and sexually aggressive, which affected his care. It tried to dismiss the case, saying Talevski didn’t have the right to sue. But federal courts said the lawsuit could move forward. So, the public health agency made an unexpected move. It took the case to the nation’s highest court and posed a sweeping question: Should people who depend on initiatives funded in part by the federal government — such as Medicaid and programs that provide services for nutrition, housing, and disabilities — be allowed to sue states when they believe their rights have been violated? Continued here

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These Election Results Offer Clues about What's Next for Climate Politics Even so, the lackluster GOP results could limit their options. House Republicans are on track to win a majority of fewer than 20 members, and possibly much less. That’s far from the shellacking President Barack Obama experienced in 2010, when his party lost 63 seats, or President Donald Trump’s 2018 midterm loss of 40 seats. And retaining the Senate would mean Democrats could continue to confirm judges and administration officials. Continued here

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How Rare Are November Hurricanes? November weather in most of North America is synonymous with chilly breezes rustling through red, yellow and orange leaves as fall edges closer to winter. It’s generally not a time people associate with destructive tropical cyclones churning toward the U.S.—but that’s exactly what is happening as Tropical Storm Nicole bears down on Florida, where it is expected to make landfall as a hurricane. Hurricane season, which begins on June 1, brackets the time of year when atmospheric and ocean conditions are most suitable for storm formation. The season peaks sharply from the end of August through early October, when ocean warmth at end of summer coincides with wind conditions that are generally more favorable to storm formation. Storm activity “starts to decline pretty quickly once November 1 hits,” says Jill Trepanier, a hurricane researcher at Louisiana State University. That drop means November is also “the quietest month from the perspective of U.S. landfall activity,” says Ryan Truchelut, a meteorologist and co-founder of WeatherTiger, a private weather-forecasting group. Only 10 tropical storms and three hurricanes have struck the U.S. during November going back to 1851, he says, so on average such a landfall would happen about every 10 to 15 years. Continued here

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Abortion Rights Won Big at the Ballot Box Five states had abortion measures on their ballots in Tuesday’s midterm elections. Michigan, California and Vermont all voted to pass ballot measures that protect abortion rights in their constitutions, ensuring that the procedure remains legal in those states. Montana voters rejected a ballot measure that would have weakened such rights, and even in Kentucky—where abortion is currently illegal—citizens voted down a measure that would have further solidified the ban. “I think in general, folks who care about abortion rights had a very good night,” says Tracy Weitz, a professor of sociology at American University who studies reproductive rights. “I think we can say that the general public—which we have known for almost 50 years—is supportive of the right to abortion. They do not want to see states criminalize women’s health care decisions.” Continued here

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Scientists Perform First Transfusions of Lab-Grown Blood A clinical trial is testing how lab-grown cells might help patients with blood disorders and rare blood types Researchers have performed the first transfusions of red blood cells grown in a lab as part of a U.K.-based clinical trial to test how long these cells can live. The team grew blood from stem cells that they had separated out from donated blood. When placed in a nutrient solution, the stem cells, which can mature into any kind of cell in the body, multiplied, and the researchers coaxed them to turn into red blood cells, per the BBC’s James Gallagher. Continued here

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Scientists Reconstruct Face of 19th-Century Man Accused of Being a Vampire He was a victim of tuberculosis—and a target of the vampire panic that swept through New England In 1990, children playing in Griswold, Connecticut, stumbled upon an unmarked cemetery. When archaeologists started investigating, one grave stood out. Inside, a 19th-century man's femur bones had been removed and crossed over his chest. As Smithsonian magazine's Abigail Tucker reported in 2012, this arrangement indicates that locals may have believed he was a vampire; several years after his death, they exhumed him in order to keep him from harming the living. The man was not a vampire—but in 2019, researchers were finally able to identify him: He was a 55-year-old farmer named John Barber, and he died of tuberculosis. Continued here

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Archaeologists Discover 4,300-Foot-Long Tunnel Under Ancient Egyptian Temple Researchers have been digging near the Taposiris Magna Temple in hopes of finding Cleopatra's long-lost tomb Archaeologists in Egypt have discovered an underground tunnel at Taposiris Magna, a temple dedicated to Osiris, the god of death. Kathleen Martinez, an archaeologist with the University of San Domingo, located the 6.5-foot-tall, 4,300-foot-long tunnel roughly 43 feet underground at the temple, which is situated west of the ancient city of Alexandria. She also found two Ptolemaic-era alabaster statues and several ceramic vessels and pots, reports Artnet's Sarah Cascone. Continued here

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Bob Dylan Analyzes 66 Songs in New Essay Collection “The Philosophy of Modern Song” offers a peek into the artist’s approach to songwriting Though known and celebrated for his songwriting, Bob Dylan has also ventured into prose during his decades-long career. In addition to collections of his lyrics, the prolific, Minnesota-born singer-songwriter has published Tarantula, a 1971 prose and poetry collection, and Chronicles: Volume One, a 2004 experimental memoir. Now, Dylan is adding another title to his roster: The Philosophy of Modern Song, which was released on Tuesday. Continued here

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Astronomers Discover Closest Known Black Hole to Earth Astronomers have discovered a black hole closer to Earth than any other previously found. It’s about ten times as massive as our sun and is located just 1,600 light-years away—rather nearby on a cosmic scale. While scientists have only spotted about 20 black holes in the Milky Way to date, they estimate that some 100 million more are lurking in our galaxy, each between 5 and 100 times more massive than our sun. With so many more undetected, the newly discovered black hole shouldn’t hold the title of “closest to Earth” forever, suggests their paper published last week in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Continued here