A crocodile that coexisted with dinosaurs is discovered by scientists
University of São Paulo researchers have discovered a new crocodile species that lived alongside dinosaurs. These giant crocodiles lived between 72 and 66 million years ago in modern-day Brazil.
Called "Titanochampsa iorii," the crocodile was between 10-20 feet long (3-6 meters), and it had a very sturdy bite, according to the statement of researchers. Their study was published in Historical Biology.
Continued here  S14Scientists Propose New, Faster Method of Interstellar Space Travel
Scientists have proposed a dazzling new mission to travel to the stars that is inspired by the elegant flights of seabirds, such as albatrosses, reports a new study. The interstellar concept mission would harness shifting winds generated by the Sun in order to accelerate a spacecraft to as much as 2 percent the speed of light within two years, allowing it to soar into the vast expanse beyond our solar system.
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S17How the Cheesecake Factory became the chain restaurant of millennial dreams
The Cheesecake Factory menu is over 20 pages long and contains 250 items. The menu was seemingly written by someone who was hungry for everything they could think of but couldn’t name what they actually wanted at that moment. The dishes, mostly sandwiches and pastas and of course cheesecakes, all have names and descriptions. Occasionally, a female first name precedes the actual dish, indicating a personal endorsement for a fresh turkey sandwich or chicken and avocado salad from a “Sheila” or a “Renee” you’ve never met. The burgers are not hamburgers but Glamburgers. Getting shrimp scampi along with the steak Diane is known as a “Factory Combination.”
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S4Wireless electronics can power trillions of IoT sensors. Here's how
How great it would have been if your smartphone, laptop, car, and home appliances could interact and share information with one another all the time —- to make your life more comfortable and easy-going.
This exciting possibility can be turned into reality via the Internet of Things (IoT), a technology that employs sensors, software, and the internet to establish a network between all your physical devices and gadgets. Although IoT is still a budding technology, you’d be surprised to know that it’s already in play.
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S11Sam Bankman-Fried borrowed $546 million from Alameda to buy Robinhood shares
Sam Bankman-Fried has revealed he and former executive Gary Wang borrowed more than U.S. $546 million from their his trading and investment firm Alameda Research to purchase a nearly 8 percent stake in Robinhood Markets, according to court documents released on Tuesday.
The transactions, that were made earlier this year, were documented in a series of promissory notes in an affidavit provided to a Caribbean court before Bankman-Fried’s arrest.
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S662022 Seen Through the Lens of Emilio Morenatti
Emilio Morenatti, the Associated Press’s chief photographer for Spain and Portugal, has spent the past year documenting important news stories across Europe. Morenatti, who is based in Barcelona, covered drought conditions in Spain, made several trips to Ukraine before and during the Russian invasion, documented the aftermath of wildfires in Catalonia, photographed mourners paying tribute to Queen Elizabeth II, and much more. Below, in roughly chronological order, is a look at some of the stories brought to us through Morenatti’s lens in 2022.
Stanislav, 40, says goodbye to his son David, 2, and his wife Anna, 35, on a train to Lviv at the Kyiv station, Ukraine, on March 3. 2022. Stanislav is staying to fight the Russian invasion while his family is leaving the country to seek refuge in a neighboring country. #
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S27S9South Korea reports first death by rare brain-eating amoeba
South Korea has reported its first case of brain-eating Naegleria fowleri infection, according to a report by The Korean Times published on Monday. Last month, the disease was making its way across the U.S., and now, it seems to have spread to other nations.
In South Korea, the infection caused the death of a man in his 50s who passed away ten days after first displaying symptoms. He is suspected of being exposed to the amoeba in Thailand.
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S61S23Leading Effectively When You Inherit a Mess
More than 50% of executives who inherit a mess fail within their first 18 months on the job. To effectively lead a turnaround, resist the temptation to emotionally distance yourself and blame your predecessor. Moreover, minimize references to your past successes; while you should draw on what’s worked for you in the past, no one in a struggling organization likes to hear “This is how we did it at my old company.” You are part of this team now; embrace it. Doing so will help you manage the emotions of people who are probably worrying about keeping their jobs. To help keep their anxiety down, be transparent about how you’ll make changes to the organization and on what kind of timeline. But don’t be afraid to push back when they bring you data that seems skewed, or offer ideas that seem designed to showcase how valuable they are. You want to clean up the mess, not create another one.
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S37Delivery apps are offering loans to workers. Experts allege they're debt traps
Jorge had been a delivery worker for several years when he started getting unprompted WhatsApp messages from DiDi — one of the apps he works for, and one of the most popular ride-hailing and delivery platforms in Mexico. DiDi offered him an immediate loan of up to 26,800 pesos (about $1,360), claiming in the WhatsApp message that the money would help “lighten [his] expenses.” DiDi promised he wouldn’t have to pay any interest for 10 days. Jorge, who did not share his full name with Rest of World because he feared getting in trouble with DiDi, did not apply; he had heard enough from other delivery workers to know better. “A friend of mine got a loan approved for 1,300 pesos [$66], missed a payment, and ended up with a debt of 2,600 [$130],” he told Rest of World.
Since launching in October 2021, DiDi has been one of the several delivery and ride-hailing platforms to offer an in-app loan service. Uber Eats has been doing so for at least two years, offering loans ranging from 2,000 pesos (around $100) to 15,000 pesos ($750) through push notifications, in-app ads, and WhatsApp messages. Lacking a steady income, and thus a good credit score, many of the estimated 350,000 to 500,000 app gig workers in Mexico may find it difficult to get loans from traditional financial institutions. Companies that depend on gig workers have spotted an opportunity to offer credit to their drivers, potentially opening up a new stream of income for them.
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S24Don't Just Focus on Your Technical Skills. Focus On Your People Skills.
Early in their careers, young professionals tend to focus on the technical skills that will help us get our the next promotion. These skills are certainly useful, but they won’t help you get the promotions down the line. The author identifies three strategic interpersonal skills that young professionals should focus on to shape their future career development:
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S15S12Creating in The Era of Creative Confidence
It’s remarkable to watch a five-year-old draw, void of any anxiety about what the world will think. We all start our lives creatively confident, happy to create and share our work with pride. And then, as we age, our comfort with creative expression declines. We’re discouraged by the learning curve of creative skills and tools, by our tendency to compare ourselves to others, and by the harsh opinions of critics. As Picasso famously quipped, “All children are born artists, the problem is to remain an artist as we grow up.” It is a sad irony: As we age, our creative capabilities (and opportunities!) grow as we collect life experiences that inspire us — but our creative confidence shrinks. We are more creatively confident in kindergarten than we are as adults. Correcting this is among the greatest opportunities for the next generation of humankind.
Well, we’re entering an era that changes everything. A few critical technology breakthroughs and fundamentally more accessible platforms are changing everything. From free web-based tools with templates that help conquer the fear of the blank screen to powerful generative artificial intelligence that conjures up anything from a text prompt, expressing yourself creatively no longer requires climbing creativity’s notoriously steep learning curve.
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S3Exoplanets in TRAPPIST-1 are warming up due to solar flares, and that's a good thing
Researchers at the University of Cologne In Germany have found that solar flares emitted by the star in the TRAPPIST-1 system could help make the planets become more habitable, Universe Today reported. This is different from the destructive view we have of solar flares thus far.
The TRAPPIST-1 stellar system is located approximately 39 light years from Earth. Astronomers are interested in the system since it is home to at least seven rocky exoplanets that orbit around a star that has a mass 12 times lesser than that of our Sun. Since the star in the system is much smaller, the orbits of the exoplanets are also smaller than those in our solar system and could potentially be habitable.
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S7Outpost to build a revolutionary 'ferry' that will transport cargo from the ISS to Earth
NASA has chosen Outpost to create a revolutionary ferry capable of transporting goods from the International Space Station back to Earth. This unique new method promises more efficient and cost-effective cargo delivery, allowing astronauts increased access to supplies as they explore our universe.
Outpost is the first-ever company to develop a platform to return satellites from the ISS to Earth. It is known to be a sustainable space company that is advancing space development that's reusable rather than disposable. It has made an innovative approach using paragliders to return science and satellites to Earth. It will surely help in putting an end to earth debris. Outpost also pledged that their ferry will probably be ready before the retirement of ISS, which is scheduled in 2030.
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S60Is that shrunken head really human? Combining imaging methods yields clues
In Tim Burton's 1993 animated feature The Nightmare Before Christmas, there's scene where a little boy receives a shrunken head as a Christmas gift from Jack Skellington. It does not go over well, with either the boy or his parents. But there was a time in the early 20th century when these macabre objects were in such great demand by Western collectors that it triggered a lucrative market for counterfeits. Many museums around the world count shrunken heads (known as tsantsas by the Shuar people) among their collections, but how can curators determine if those items are authentic? Certain sophisticated imaging methods can help, according to an August paper published in the journal PLoS One.
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S16S59S44The EU's Privacy Protections Must Extend Beyond Its Borders
Technology plays a significant role in community building—especially for historically marginalized groups. Women use apps to track all sorts of things, including their periods (nearly a third of all women in the US); the LGBTQ+ community uses apps to meet like-minded people; and activists campaigning via democratic means use social media and messaging apps to attract attention for petitions.
However, those rights are now under threat in the US. For instance, police surveillance during Black Lives Matters protests across the United States forced activists to switch to encrypted messaging apps to avoid targeting while they exercised their right to speech and assembly. In 2020, popular dating apps were accused of sharing sensitive data such as GPS location and sexual orientation with at least 135 third-party entities, with potential dangerous implications for the LGBTQIA+ community who may face persecution because of their sexual orientation. And most recently, moments after the US Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, calls to delete period-tracking apps went viral with people concerned that the data they collect may end up incriminating them.Â
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S50Brain-computer interfaces could let soldiers control weapons with their thoughts
Imagine that a soldier has a tiny computer device injected into their bloodstream that can be guided with a magnet to specific regions of their brain. With training, the soldier could then control weapon systems thousands of miles away using their thoughts alone. Embedding a similar type of computer in a soldier’s brain could suppress their fear and anxiety, allowing them to carry out combat missions more efficiently. Going one step further, a device equipped with an artificial intelligence system could directly control a soldier’s behavior by predicting what options they would choose in their current situation.
While these examples may sound like science fiction, the science to develop neurotechnologies like these is already in development. Brain-computer interfaces, or BCI, are technologies that decode and transmit brain signals to an external device to carry out a desired action. Basically, a user would only need to think about what they want to do, and a computer would do it for them.
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S53The Japanese call this practice tsundoku, and it may provide lasting benefits
This article was first published on Big Think in October 2018. It was updated in December 2022.
I love books. If I go to the bookstore to check a price, I walk out with three books I probably didn’t know existed beforehand. I buy second-hand books by the bagful at the Friends of the Library sale, while explaining to my wife that it’s for a good cause. Even the smell of books grips me, that faint aroma of earthy vanilla that wafts up at you when you flip a page.
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S45How Indie Studios Are Pioneering Accessible Game Design
In recent years, it hasn’t been uncommon to find an array of accessible features and design practices inside the newest game releases. In 2022 alone, the industry celebrated God of War Ragnarök’s approximate 70 accessibility options, The Last of Us Part I’s revolutionary audio descriptive cutscenes, and Forza Horizon 5’s American and British sign language interpreters. Accessibility is becoming the norm, but not just for AAA studios. Game developers in the indie space are also striving to create entertaining and accessible experiences for disabled players.
While some developers complain about the cost and time that accessibility features require, smaller teams are already proving that even without AAA-studio resources, accessibility can and should be an integral aspect for every title.
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S6US startup wants to inject sulfur into the atmosphere to cool down the Earth
Make Sunsets, a California-based startup, released weather balloons that carried sulfur particles into the stratosphere which possibly burst there, releasing the chemical, MIT Technology Review reported. We do not know if this happened since the balloons did not carry any monitoring equipment with them.
Founded by Luke Iseman, previous director of hardware at Y Combinator, the attempts by the startup fall into the controversial area of solar geoengineering where particles are released into the atmosphere with an aim to reflect sunlight back into space to ease global warming. The field has largely been a thought experiment with no real consensus if the technology can help us fight climate change.
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S5Scientists detect a rare circular polarization in active repeating fast radio bursts
The latest research by scientists at the National Astronomical Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (NAOC) has identified circular polarization in active repeating fast radio bursts (FRBs). The results were based on precise observations of the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST).
FRBs hold the distinction of emitting the most luminous radio flashes in the universe, with the energy released in one such incident rivaling the Sun's output "over a whole day or even a month to a year," according to phy.org.
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S35HBR's Most-Watched Videos of 2022
Each yeah, HBR produces dozens of videos that cover a wide array of business and work topics, ranging from research-based business theory, to wisdom from top performers in their fields, to nitty-gritty tactics for surviving another day in an imperfect world of work. We took a look at our 10 most popular videos made in 2022, and noticed a few themes emerging. Number one was that viewers were looking for clarity around strategy: What is it? What isn’t it? And how do I get better at it? Other popular videos covered how to be a better listener, a better leader, and insights from leaders at the top of their game.
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S10S39ChatGPT Explains Why AIs like ChatGPT Should Be Regulated
The text-generating program ChatGPT, developed by artificial intelligence research company OpenAI, can write about many subjects in a variety of prose and even poetry styles. It can also opine about itself. When we asked ChatGPT to generate a Scientific American editorial, it produced a thoughtful-sounding essay.
ChatGPT functions much like any chatbot. Users go to the OpenAI website, type in a query, or “prompt,” such as “Suggest some prompts to test out a chatbot,” and quickly receive an AI-generated response. The program produces its answers based on text prediction: its AI was trained on a vast corpus of human writing available online, which allows it to predict which word should follow the previous one in order to appear like a reasoning entity. Despite sounding more sophisticated and realistic than perhaps any language model before it, ChatGPT cannot actually think for itself—and it can produce falsehoods and illogical statements that merely look reasonable.
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S28S62Startup claims to offer stratospheric geoengineering as a service
Humanity has managed to stabilize its carbon emissions, but they have yet to start trending downwards. It looks increasingly probable that we're going to emit enough to commit to at least 1.5° C of warming—and we need to act quickly to avert going past 2° C. This failure to get our emissions in order may force us to consider alternatives such as pulling carbon dioxide out of the air or geoengineering to reduce the amount of incoming sunlight.
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S46Sure, Kids Can Develop iPhone Apps. But It's Not Easy
Last summer, after watching an inspiring showcase featuring apps created by young coders using Apple's Swift Playgrounds programming language, I resolved to enlist my kids to develop an iPhone app. Aged 10 and 13, over the years they've both played with countless STEM toys designed to introduce the basic concepts of coding, some of which even involved simple programming, so I figured it'd be fun to make the leap to a real app of our own.
We began by kicking around concepts before settling on an app about cats (naturally) and designing a layout on paper. I optimistically thought we could knock together version 1.0 over the summer, but we hit an impasse trying to agree on who would draw each element (they are keen artists). The snags came thick and fast thereafter. This was going to be tougher than I thought, so I decided to chat with a few young coders who had done the deed themselves.
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S54S48Yes, It's Time to Ditch LastPass
You've heard it again and again: You need to use a password manager to generate strong, unique passwords and keep track of them for you. And if you finally took the plunge with a free and mainstream option, particularly during the 2010s, it was probably LastPass. For the security service's 25.6 million users, though, the company made a worrying announcement on December 22: A security incident the firm had previously reported (on November 30) was actually a massive and concerning data breach that exposed encrypted password vaults—the crown jewels of any password manager—along with other user data.Â
The details LastPass provided about the situation a week ago were worrying enough that security professionals quickly started calling for users to switch to other services. Now, nearly a week since the disclosure, the company has not provided additional information to confused and worried customers. LastPass has not returned WIRED's multiple requests for comment about how many password vaults were compromised in the breach and how many users were affected.Â
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S56Here are the 10 most popular auto stories of the year
As 2022 draws to a conclusion and we anxiously await to see how much weirder things get in 2023, it's natural to reflect on the year past. In addition to compiling a list of the 10 best cars, trucks, and SUVs we drove in 2022, I decided to also put together a roundup of our most-read automotive articles, plus a few of my particular favorites you might have missed.
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S55Top US launch companies of 2022--The Ars Technica power ranking
A decade ago, only a handful of launch companies existed in the US; United Launch Alliance was the big dog, with SpaceX starting to nip at its heels. Since then, however, a multiplicity of new launch startups have arrived in the United States, many of which developed their own rocket engines. As a result, we are now in the golden age of rocketry, with many different startups and approaches to pushing payloads into space.
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S34S64How a Perfectly Normal New York Suburb Elected a Con Man
Democratic complacency, Republican extremism, and media decline helped George Santos take over my old congressional district.
How did George Santos, a Republican newly elected to New York’s Third Congressional District, on Long Island, get away with running for office with an almost completely fictitious résumé? The answer is a combination of Democratic complacency, Republican extremism, and media decline in a House district that I know intimately.
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S65Will Children’s Books Become Catalogs of the Extinct?
As an environmental journalist and a parent, I worry that the animals in my son’s bedtime stories will disappear before he learns they’re real.
The other night, as I began the expansive and continually growing routine of putting my 11-month-old son to bed, we sat together on the rocking chair in his room and read The Tiger Who Came to Tea, by Judith Kerr, and met a tiger who just would not stop eating. My son wasn’t yet ready for sleep and made that clear, so we read Chicken Soup With Rice, by Maurice Sendak. We encountered an elephant and a whale, and traveled through all the months of the year, braving the sliding ice of January and the gusty gales of November. Then we turned, as we always do, to Goodnight Moon, and met more bears, rabbits, a little mouse, a cow, some fresh air, and the stars.
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S8Neuroscientists developed a blood-based biomarker for Alzheimer's diagnosis
Neuroscientists from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine developed a new test to identify a sign of Alzheimer's disease neurodegeneration in a blood sample, according to a press release.
Called "brain-derived tau" (BD-tau), the biomarker is specific to neurodegenerations related to Alzheimer's disease, and it reportedly outperforms currently used blood diagnostic tests.
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S47The Best Camera Gear for Your Smartphone
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 WIRED
We're living in a golden age of mobile photography. The gear in this guide will up your game for making content at home or out and about, using just your smartphone. Our favorite Android phones and iPhones have outstanding cameras, but tripods, mics, and video lights can elevate the quality of your work. Here's everything you need to turn your phone into a pro-grade powerhouse.
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S63The Most Memorable Advice of 2022
In a year during which people tried to adopt a new normal, Atlantic writers and other experts explored the challenges and rewards of trying new things, the meaning of true optimism, and how to find joy even in difficult times.
The stories in our pages—print and digital—explored what it means to be human and provided advice for navigating parenthood and relationships, friendships and the workforce, and more.
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S13How To Get Lost
Sometimes you need an excuse to get lost. Half a dozen years ago, before magazines began to perish in droves, a publication called Afar started an innovative feature called "Spin the Globe." The concept was simple. A writer was told to hold a week open and then a day before travel the editors would quite literally…
New York Times bestselling author of Four Fish as well as The Climate Diet and Goodbye Phone, Hello World paulgreenberg.org
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S58S41A Key to Better Leadership: Confident Humility
In this Nano Tool for Leaders, Wharton's Adam Grant explains why the best leaders embody both confidence and humility.
Nano Tools for Leaders® — a collaboration between Wharton Executive Education and Wharton’s Center for Leadership and Change Management — are fast, effective tools that you can learn and start using in less than 15 minutes, with the potential to significantly impact your success.
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S43How Offering Choices Helps Boost Charitable Donations
Nonprofits and charitable organizations can increase contributions simply by offering multiple-choice options that signal to potential donors what is appropriate to give. Wharton’s Alice Moon shares the results of her latest study.
Wharton’s Alice Moon speaks with Wharton Business Daily on Sirius XM about her research on how organizations can boost charitable donations.
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S57S49The surprising quantum reason why the Sun shines
Earth, as we know it, is only teeming with life because of the influence of our Sun. Its light and heat provides every square meter of Earth — when it’s in direct sunlight — with a constant ~1500 W of power, enough to keep our planet at a comfortable temperature for liquid water to continuously exist on its surface. Just like the hundreds of billions of stars in our galaxy amidst the trillions of galaxies in the Universe, our Sun shines continuously, varying only slightly over time.
But without quantum physics, the Sun wouldn’t shine at all. Even in the extreme conditions found in the core of a massive star like our Sun, the nuclear reactions that power it could not occur without the bizarre properties that our quantum Universe demands. Thankfully, our Universe is quantum in nature, enabling the Sun and all the other stars to shine as they do. Here’s the science of how it works.
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S36How the world's deepest shipwreck was found
On 23 October 1944, the first engagements of a gigantic naval battle began in Leyte Gulf, part of the Philippine Sea. It was the biggest in modern human history.
Over the following three days, more than 300 US warships faced off against some 70 Japanese vessels. The Americans had with them no fewer than 34 aircraft carriers – only slightly fewer than all the carriers in service around the world today – and some 1,500 aircraft. Their air fleet outnumbered the Japanese five to one.
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S51The surprising reason secrets destroy us
Holding secrets can negatively impact your well-being. But how, exactly? For decades, psychological research suggested that people experience significant stress while hiding secrets from others during social interactions.
But this explanation often doesn’t feel right to people, notes Michael Slepian, an associate professor at Columbia Business School who has spent years studying the nature of secrets. Surveys suggest that it’s actually pretty rare for people to find themselves in social situations where they have to actively conceal a secret they’ve never told anyone about.
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S52What causes burnout, and how to prevent it
Excerpted from THE BURNOUT CHALLENGE: MANAGING PEOPLE’S RELATIONSHIP WITH THEIR JOBS, by Christina Maslach and Michael P. Leiter, published by The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Copyright © 2022 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
In recent Gallup polls, majorities of American workers rate their jobs as mediocre or bad. Globally, the situation is even worse, with only 20 percent of employees reporting that they are engaged with their jobs. A recent study of British citizens found that, when they were working at their job, their happiness dropped around 8 percent relative to their average happiness in other life activities. The only thing they associated with more unhappiness than working was being sick in bed.
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