14 of the most striking images of 2022
A man sits on a lawn chair holding a pretty pastel parasol against the blazing sun, seemingly oblivious of the apocalyptic plumes of smoke billowing up from the burning tyres, a few feet away, that are scattered across the highway on which he is surreally perched. Impeding access to Iquique, a city in north Chile near the border with Bolivia, where groups agitating against illegal immigration have organised protests, he is an implausible paragon of imperturbable calm. The incongruity of his relaxed posture (which rhymes with the idyllic beach, sparkling sea, and poetic palm tree pattern repeated on his parasol) and the chaos raging around him is reminiscent of several Surrealist paintings from the 20th Century – such as Salvador Dalí's Sewing machine with Umbrella (1941) – that portray the ostensibly innocuous object as absurdly foretokening doom. When Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian woman, died in a Tehran hospital under suspicious circumstances on 16 September, women around the world began cutting their hair in protest against her treatment by the government of Iran. Amini had been arrested three days earlier by the Islamic Republic's Guidance Patrol – a vice squad enforcing Islamic dress code – for allegedly wearing the hijab incorrectly. While in the custody of the morality police, according to eyewitnesses, Amini suffered terrible physical abuse and fell into a coma. Photos of Nasibe Samsaei, an Iranian woman living in Turkey, cutting off her own ponytail as a display of solidarity and defiance outside the Iranian consulate in Istanbul, went viral. As a statement of intent to control one's own physical presence in this world, the act of cutting one's own hair short has proved perennially powerful. In her 1940 painting Self-Portrait with Cropped Hair, created a month after her divorce from the Mexican muralist Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo allows us to observe her almost mid-snip, with scissors still in her hand, as strands of the self she once felt she had to be lie scattered all around her. Continued here |
Virtual workspaces are the next big thing in virtual work
With the hurdle of online meetings crossed many times over, startups are now looking at solving the next piece of the problem regarding virtual working, the lack of team spirit. The answer is likely to be virtual office spaces that team members log into while working, Bloomberg reported. When the COVID-19 pandemic struck and work was forced to go remote, services like Zoom and Microsoft Teams rose to the occasion to keep people connected and work ongoing. For many, work turned into a series of online meetings to be attended day after day. Continued here |
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The US' 2,000-year-old mystery mounds
Autumn leaves crackled under our shoes as dozens of eager tourists and I followed a guide along a grassy mound. We stopped when we reached the opening of a turf-topped circle, which was formed by another wall of mounded earth. We were at The Octagon, part of the Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks, a large network of hand-constructed hills spread throughout central and southern Ohio that were built as many as 2,000 years ago. Indigenous people would come to The Octagon from hundreds of miles away, gathering regularly for shared rituals and worship. "There was a sweat lodge or some kind of purification place there," said our guide Brad Lepper, the senior archaeologist for the Ohio History Connection's World Heritage Program (OHC), as he pointed to the circle. I looked inside to see a perfectly manicured lawn – a putting green. A tall flag marked a hole at its centre. Continued here |
Black Snow, a new pacy murder mystery, addresses the complicated legacy of slavery in Australia
Hilary Emmett is a member of the UK Labour Party. She has collaborated previously with artist Jasmine Togo-Brisby, mentioned in this article. In 1994, the Australian federal government finally extended recognition to Australian South Sea Islander people as a distinct cultural group. This recognition was important: racism put Australian South Sea Islanders at a disadvantage, yet there was little public recognition of the unique circumstances they and their ancestors had experienced and survived. Continued here |
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Sam Bankman-Fried directed to executives to hide $8 billion in liabilities
Prosecutors of the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) that filed a lawsuit against former billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) have alleged that the crypto exchange's executives hid $8 billion in liabilities in fake customer accounts, Business Insider reported. SBF's directed FTX was the world's second-largest crypto exchange before a liquidity crunch pushed the company into bankruptcy. SBF, who had previously alleged that the company was in safe hands and was facing trouble due to conditions created by competitors, was later arrested in the Bahamas as irregularities in FTX's accounts began coming to the fore. Continued here |
Make your own fun with this 3D Printer
While there is no shortage of great uses and updates for the traditional printer, for some time now, 3D printers have seemingly become all the rage. Unfortunately for many, purchasing a 3D printer can seem prohibitively expensive. If you are interested in a 3D printer but aren’t willing to spend a fortune, then you are in luck. Right now you can get the ToyBox 3D Printer Deluxe Bundle for 36 percent off its MSRP as a Christmas Day Deal. It also ships fast, so you are guaranteed to have it by Christmas. Continued here |
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Homes that survived the Boulder County fire hid another disaster inside - we turned them into labs to study this urban wildfire health risk
This article is part of a collaboration with Boulder Reporting Lab, The Center for Environmental Journalism at the University of Colorado Boulder, KUNC public radio and The Conversation U.S. to explore the impacts of the devastating Marshall Fire one year after the blaze. The series can be found at the Boulder Reporting Lab. On Dec. 30, 2021, one of the most destructive wildfires on record in Colorado swept through neighborhoods just a few miles from our offices at the University of Colorado Boulder. The flames destroyed over 1,000 buildings, yet when we drove through the affected neighborhoods, some houses were still completely intact right next to homes where nothing was left to burn. Continued here |
The best things we bought in 2022
So you’re flush with gift cards and $5 checks from grandparents but aren’t sure what in the wild world of e-commerce is noice and what’s noise. Luckily, the PopSci staff is always searching for tech toys that live up to the hype. One of the perks of the job is we get to go hands-on with a ton of stuff every year, so when something stands out it’s either really dope or truly helps us cope. Eager to share our personal discoveries with equally passionate gadget geeks, we’ve put together this short list of our No. 1 purchases in 2022 so you can shop for the best things with confidence. Fellow’s maximized minimalism designer accessories aesthetic has become iconic in barista circles (and corners), and for good reason. This electric kettle, available in multiple finishes, sits on a minimalist base equipped with a 1200-watt quick-heating element and coin-shaped sleek LCD screen so you can quickly dial in to-the-degree temperature/set a brew stopwatch for the coffee-brewing method/tea type you’re using. And the gooseneck spout allows for precise saturation. The standard edition is a proven workhorse, but I recommend you go all-in and splurge on this newer Pro edition. For an extra $30, it adds a high-resolution color LCD, plus more scheduling options/guide modes/temperature hold time adjustments (Wi-Fi upgradeable if/when new features get released). I’ve found it invaluable as my mood swings like a jittery overcaffeinated pendulum between pour-overs and French press coffee, oolong and Earl Grey teas. — Tony Ware, associate managing editor, gear and reviews Continued here |
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Why some salt marshes are more endangered than we thought
On January 26, 1700, deep below the northeast Pacific, two pieces of Earth’s crust abruptly gave way, ending a centuries-long deadlock. The massive earthquake sent a wall of water rushing inland. By the time the shaking stopped and the water settled, the coastline had been transformed. In some places, the land had plummeted by more than a meter, while the flood of sediment turned coastal marshes into mudflats. For the past five years, Peck has been investigating how one of these buried salt marshes, in Netarts Bay, Oregon, recovered from the tsunami. Her work came to an unexpected conclusion: the salt marsh took way longer to rebuild atop the mudflat than expected. First, rootstalks left by the lost marsh had to resprout, then the growing plants had to gradually trap sediment, raising their successors above the reach of the tides until the land-like highest parts of the marsh again flooded only occasionally. Continued here |
A Jazz Album Made to Last
I first heard the jazz singer Paula West’s début album, “Temptation,” not long after it came out, in 1997, and it gave me the conviction that adulthood might be an interesting place to live. I was barely thirteen, but the confidence with which West sang buoyed my own. Her style, precise and wistful, let in breezes from a mature world. “Temptation” turns twenty-five this year, and what strikes me at the milestone isn’t just my conviction that the album remains as dazzling as ever but the realization that, in twenty-five years, I have never once stopped listening to it, never taken it from frequent rotation. The world has changed; the album hasn’t. It can be hard to remember in these TikTok times that the power of recording is to let work live not just in its moment but across the years: to help preserve what’s good enough to last. West was in her mid-thirties when she recorded “Temptation,” and took her title from the notoriously ponderous machista torch song made famous by Bing Crosby, Billy Eckstine, and the University of Michigan marching band. She turned the ballad winning and coy, placing it alongside wisecracking female standards like “You Came a Long Way from St. Louis” and “Peel Me a Grape,” and that reconsideration set the album’s tone. West recast Sidney Clare and Jay Gorney’s clammy thirties song “You’re My Thrill” (“how my pulse increases / I just go to pieces”) as a bossa-nova seduction number. She brought in newer ballads, such as “You’ll See,” by the Bay Area songwriter Carroll Coates, in a classic form. Her vocal signature of long-held notes, straight and full, no vibrato, seemed as much a mission statement as a mark of style. The mid-nineties had brought a high-sheen renaissance in vocal jazz—it was the age of Diana Krall’s ascent, Shirley Horn’s orchestral resurgence, and Tony Bennett’s turn to MTV—but West veered away from the era’s overwrought fashion, to follow her songs’ clean, direct lines. Continued here |
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Betting on female jockeys can bring greater rewards - but it's not all good news
The bookmaker (nearly) always wins, as the adage goes. But if you want to tip the balance in your favour, look to female riders. But while these findings may be a revelation to punters, there is a darker side to our work. Continued here |
As Poet Laureate, Tracy K. Smith Hit the Road
Tracy K. Smith was named Poet Laureate in 2017, at the beginning of the fierce partisan divide of the Trump era. She quickly turned to her craft to address the deep political divisions the election laid bare, putting together a collection called “American Journal: Fifty Poems for Our Time.” Then she hit the road, visiting community centers, senior centers, prisons, and colleges, and reading poems of her own and by others for groups small and large. “It was exhausting, and exhilarating, and it was probably the best thing I could have done as an American,” she told The New Yorker’s poetry editor, Kevin Young. © 2022 Condé Nast. All rights reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. The New Yorker may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast. Ad Choices Continued here |
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From Climate Exhortation to Climate Execution
There are about a hundred and forty million homes in the United States. Two-thirds, or about eighty-five million, of them are detached single-family houses; the rest are apartment units or trailer homes. That’s what American prosperity looks like: since the end of the Second World War, our extraordinary wealth has been devoted, above all, to the project of building bigger houses farther apart from one another. The great majority of them are heated with natural gas or oil, and parked in their garages and driveways or on nearby streets are some two hundred and ninety million vehicles, an estimated ninety-nine per cent of which, as of August, run on gasoline. It took centuries to build all those homes from wood and brick and steel and concrete, but, if we’re to seriously address the climate crisis, we have only a few years to remake them. So far, the climate debate has gone on mostly in people’s heads and hearts. It took thirty years to get elected leaders to take it seriously: first, to just get them to say that the planet was warming, and then to allow that humans were causing it. But this year Congress finally passed serious legislation—the Inflation Reduction Act—that allocates hundreds of billions of dollars to the task of transforming the nation so that it burns far less fossil fuel. So now the battle moves from hearts and heads to houses. “Emissions come from physical things,” Tom Steyer, the businessman and investment-firm manager, who, after a Presidential run in 2020, is focussing on investing in climate solutions, told me. “Emissions come from buildings, from power plants, from cars, from stuff you can touch. It’s not like information technology, which is infinitely replicable. This is one object at a time.” Continued here |
5 elections to watch in 2023 - what's at stake as millions head to the ballot box around the globe
Predicting the outcome of national elections can be a mug’s game. Polls are often wrong, and second-guessing how people will vote months down the line can leave even the most savvy election specialist with egg on their face. In short, there are too many unknowns – the state of the economy, late political shocks and even the weather on election day. What is known is that 2023 has its fair share on consequential races. Democracy is on the ballot in a number of nations, while common themes – such as the handling of inflation and corruption – may determine how incumbent governments and presidents fare as the ballot box. The Conversation asked five experts to provide the lowdown on what is at stake in key national votes in 2023. Continued here |
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Divided loyalties and messy compromises for Ukrainian refugees in Russia's Belgorod
Sky News' Diana Magnay discovers what compromises Ukrainian refugees in the Russian city of Belgorod, most of whom have pro-Russian sympathies, have to make and the effect this has on generational lines. The backrooms at the local communist party headquarters near Belgorod airport are stacked high with supplies. Continued here |
A completely preserved man statue and Greek gods' heads found in Turkey
Greek gods Heracles, Eros, and Dionysus' heads have been found in the ancient city of Aizanoi in Turkey's Kütahya province. Additionally, an unknown man statue has also been unearthed. Excavations in the Aizanoi are being carried out by Kütahya Dumlupınar University (DPU) Faculty of Arts and Sciences Archeology Department with 80 people and 20 technical personnel in Penkalas River, agora and theater sections, Hürriyet Daily News reported. Continued here |
Elon Musk says Twitter no longer 'in the fast lane to bankruptcy'
Elon Musk, the new owner and current CEO of Twitter, has said that the social media site is no longer 'in the fast lane to bankruptcy', Business Insider reported. This update comes a little over a month after Musk told the then-employees at his newly acquired company that it was possible that the business would go under. This is possibly the first bit of positive news from the social media company after Musk's takeover, which ran like a saga since April and nearly ended in a courtroom drama. Musk blew the bankruptcy bugle within days of taking over the company and firing its top brass. His revelation led to an exodus of more top executives at the company. Continued here |
The Ordinary Heroes of the Taj
When terrorists attacked the Indian city of Mumbai in 2008, employees of the Taj Mumbai hotel displayed uncommon valor. They placed the safety of guests over their own well-being, thereby risking—and, in some cases, sacrificing—their lives. Deshpandé, of Harvard Business School, and Raina, of the HBS India Research Center in Mumbai, demonstrate that this behavior was not merely a crisis response. It was instead a manifestation of the Taj Group’s deeply rooted customer-centric culture that, the authors argue, other companies can emulate, both in extreme circumstances and during periods of normalcy. Continued here |
Trojena: Saudi Arabia to build a ski resort as part of its NEOM project
Saudi Arabia's ambitious project to build The Line, a city of the future, is not a stand-alone project. The Line is one of the many components of a larger project called the NEOM, which also features the unique destination of Trojena, where the first outdoor ski resort in the Gulf will be located. NEOM, a combination of the Greek word Neo, meaning new, and the first letter M from the Arabic word for the future, mustaqbal, is the brainchild of The Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman. Continued here |
Scientists plan to hit an asteroid with more than 9.6 million radio waves from HAARP
A 500-foot-wide asteroid called 2010 XC15 will pass by Earth on December 27. While it has no intention of hitting us, it’s us who will hit the asteroid with a radio pulse. Scientists at the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) and NASA want to examine the 2010 XC15 space rock to test their preparation against Apophis. This dangerous asteroid might hit our planet in 2029. It is believed that on April 13, 2029, Apophis will be 10 times closer to Earth than the moon. Continued here |
4 creepy crawlies you'll see more of this wet summer - and one iconic beetle you'll probably miss
For Australians, memories of childhood Christmas often include gifts, prawns and shooing uninvited buzzing guests away from the pavlova. But have you ever wondered why the air is full of bugs some years and almost empty in others? Insect populations boom and bust frequently. Continued here |
Alice in Borderland Season 3? How the Season 2 ending sets up a new chapter
Alice in Borderland, the hit Japanese manga adaptation now streaming on Netflix, has always leaned hard into its loose Alice in Wonderland inspiration. The biggest motif it borrows is the concept of a classic deck of cards identifying not only the deadly games the characters play, but also the conniving game masters who Arisu, Usagi, and co. come face to face with in Season 2. The final showdown between Arisu and Mira, the Queen of Hearts, seemed like the natural end of the story — and was actually the end of the manga source material. But one final shot teased a whole new chapter of the story, and it looks to be the most dangerous one yet. Here’s everything you need to know. Continued here |
World's smallest Christmas record measures only 40 microns in diameter
One of the essential things that reflect the Christmas spirit is songs and carols. How about listening to these on a 40-micrometer record? Technical University of Denmark (DTU) researchers have created the world's smallest record involving the first 25 seconds of the Christmas classic "Rocking Around the Christmas Tree." The single was cut via a new nano-sculpting machine, the Nanofrazor, recently acquired from Heidelberg Instruments. Continued here |
Scientists revealed a laser pen which writes by burning the air
Chinese scientists have developed a powerful laser that can practically burn the air to produce patterns. This bizarre yet fascinating laser can write in the air has been created by researchers at the Hongtuo Joint Laboratory in Wuhan, China. This pen might possibly be a gateway to a cutting-edge hologram technology. Continued here |
Data Scientist: The Sexiest Job of the 21st Century
Back in the 1990s, computer engineer and Wall Street “quant” were the hot occupations in business. Today data scientists are the hires firms are competing to make. As companies wrestle with unprecedented volumes and types of information, demand for these experts has raced well ahead of supply. Indeed, Greylock Partners, the VC firm that backed Facebook and LinkedIn, is so worried about the shortage of data scientists that it has a recruiting team dedicated to channeling them to the businesses in its portfolio. Continued here |
7 stellar post-Christmas Walmart clearance deals
Looking for some post-Christmas Walmart clearance deals? Look no further! Walmart is always offering amazing deals on everything from electronics to groceries, so you can always find the perfect item at the perfect price. Whether you're shopping for the latest technology, home décor items, or just general household goods, Walmart's clearance section is filled with unbeatable deals. You can even find deals on apparel, footwear, and accessories. With Walmart's clearance deals, you can save big and get the items you need in no time. So don't wait; check out Walmart's clearance deals now! Continued here
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