What happened to the world's ozone hole?
In the late 1970s, Jonathan Shanklin, a meteorologist with the British Antarctic Survey, spent much of his time tucked away in an office in Cambridge working through a backlog of data from the southernmost continent on our planet. Shanklin was responsible for supervising the digitisation of paper records and computing values from Dobson spectrophotometers – ground-based instruments that measure changes in atmospheric ozone. Continued here |
This overlooked biometric on fitness trackers could reveal how healthy your heart is
Your heart beats around 100,000 times every day. Heart rate is a key marker of cardiovascular activity and an important vital sign. But your pulse is not as steady as a precision clock — nor would you want it to be. As a cardiovascular physiologist, I measure heart rate in nearly every experiment my students and I perform. Sometimes we use an electrocardiogram, such as you’d see in a medical clinic, which uses sticky electrodes to measure electrical signals between two points of your body. Other times we use a chest strap monitor, like ones you might see on someone at the gym, which also detects heartbeats based on electrical activity. Continued here |
�
The best boss battle of 2022 made this Nintendo shooter an instant classic
Imagine getting duped by a giant, ink-spattered grizzly bear into helping him wipe out your entire species. Nintendo has never been afraid to get weird, and Splatoon 3, with its absurd and surprisingly detailed lore, is the ultimate expression of that weirdness. The game’s final boss battle is a stunning culmination of both the story and various game mechanics in wacky ways that make you ask, “Is this really happening!?” about every 30 seconds. Continued here |
Shipwrecks, new species, and more: 9 biggest deep-sea discoveries of 2022
Peculiar lifeforms and toxic environments are just part of everyday life in some of the darkest, coldest, places on Earth. Continued here |
�
The last fisherman of Monaco
It's often just past midnight when Eric Rinaldi unties the mooring lines and carefully manoeuvres his fishing boat Diego out of Monaco's harbour, Port Hercules. Contemplating the hours of inky darkness in front of him, he'll steer past rows of superyachts as he heads out into the open sea, their polished hulls and elaborate designs a stark contrast to the simple practicality of his fibreglass workboat. Onboard Diego – named for his young son – Rinaldi's biggest luxury is an old Nespresso machine, one of the few comforts among the jumble of nets, hooks, bright orange buoys and other tools of his trade. Continued here |
What Are You Reading?
Hey, thanks for coming over to catch up. How are you? Actually, let me stop you right there, because I have a more important question. Let’s dim the lights. I’ll recline on this lush, velvet daybed, and you can rest on that one. I’m lowering my eyelids, tilting my head a little bit, and settling into my deep Kathleen Turner voice. Continued here |
�
Building Wealth: Our Favorite Reads
At the time, my uncle’s explanation didn’t make a lot of sense to me. I nodded, let it go, and didn’t think more about it until a few years later when I finished grad school with massive debt from a student loan. The first job I took barely covered my expenses. I had to rely on a credit card, even when I didn’t fully understand how credit worked. Living in a city as overpriced as New York (and later New Delhi) was a daily reminder of how expensive life could get. Continued here |
Wolf Moon: You need to see the first Full Moon of 2023 next week
The Wolf Moon will dazzle the night sky just days after the start of the new year. But the first Full Moon of 2023 will appear smaller than usual. The glow of moonlight is a reflection of sunlight. When the far side of the Moon is lit up, its near side is all dark: that’s New Moon. But when it comes time in the month for the near side to get the star’s illumination, it’s quite a sight. The Full Moon is one of the most spectacular lunar phases, and in January, it will appear about a week into the new year. Continued here |
�
The Psychology Behind Unethical Behavior
Leaders are often faced with ethical conundrums. So how can they determine when they’re inching toward dangerous territory? There are three main psychological dynamics that lead to crossing moral lines. First, there’s omnipotence: when someone feels so aggrandized and entitled that they believe the rules of decent behavior don’t apply to them. Second, consider cultural numbness: when others play along and gradually begin to accept and embody deviant norms. Finally, when people don’t speak up because they are thinking of more immediate rewards, we see justified neglect. There are several strategies leaders can use to counter these dynamics, including relying on a group of trusted peers to keep you in check, keeping a list of things you will never do for profit, and looking out for ways you explain away borderline actions. Continued here |
Does Influencer Marketing Really Pay Off?
Influencer marketing is a huge industry, with companies around the world spending billions of dollars on these partnerships. But do these investments actually pay off? To quantify the ROI of influencer marketing, the authors analyzed engagement for more than 5,800 influencer posts and identified seven key variables that drive a campaign’s effectiveness, including characteristics of both the influencer and of their individual posts. They further found that by optimizing these variables, the average brand could boost ROI by 16.6%, suggesting that many companies are designing campaigns that leave substantial value on the table. By adopting these research-backed guidelines, brands can move past anecdotal evidence to ensure that their marketing dollars go toward the partnerships and content that are most likely to offer returns. Continued here |
�
You need to watch the most subversive alien invasion thriller on HBO Max ASAP
Going back to your hometown can be a strange experience. You might be surprised and delighted to realize that very little has changed since you left, but the town will likely still feel, in some odd, unexplainable way, different than it did before. More often than not, that feeling is the natural result of how much you’ve changed and grown. But what if that nagging feeling wasn’t just the result of your own experience? What if there really was a new secret suddenly lurking beneath the surface of the town you once called home? That’s the idea at the center of The World’s End, Edgar Wright’s 2013 sci-fi comedy thriller. The final installment in Wright, Simon Pegg, and Nick Frost’s Cornetto Trilogy offers the most absurd answer to the question. Continued here |
You've Been Choosing Your Goals All Wrong
If you're getting ready to set your yearly goals for 2023, stop. Chances are, you're going about building and breaking habits all wrong, according to the experts—especially if you're extremely motivated in January, but find yourself getting distracted or overwhelmed come February. Before we get into the specifics of how to start or break a habit that you'll actually stick to, there are a few things you need to know. The most important thing is that habits are actually separate from goals. "Goals are how we make decisions—how we commit to an exercise program, or to eating healthily, or to saving money," says Wendy Wood, provost professor emerita of psychology and business at the University of Southern California and the author of Good Habits, Bad Habits: The Science of Making Positive Changes That Stick. "But habits are how you stick with a behavior." Continued here |
�
'Kaleidoscope' review: Netflix's gimmicky heist doesn't pay off
When streaming blew up, its biggest strength against primetime television was that it allowed the viewer to watch shows at their own speed. You could watch one episode a week like a regular show, or binge the entire thing. Suddenly, appointment television was a thing of the past and water cooler conversations started with, “Have you finished it yet?” But one element remained the same — everyone watched the shows in the same order. With Kaleidoscope, Netflix’s newest heist show starring Giancarlo Esposito, this model is disrupted. But while the format is intriguing, it’s not the case for another upheaval of how we watch TV. Continued here |
The Best Places to Travel in 2023
It’s our favorite time of year: the Where to Go season, when AFAR reveals our list of the ultimate places to travel in the coming year. How to choose? Our editorial team reached out to writers, reporters, and correspondents around the world and curated 12 global destinations for 2023 that feel poised for a “moment": creative cities, seaside villages, national parks, and other places where wonder prevails. Read on and prepare to start wandering... Across this secluded and beautiful island state near Melbourne, irreverence and experimentation reign. Continued here |
�
People With High Emotional Intelligence Ask 3 Key Questions to Become More Likable and Give Better Advice No matter what, keep asking questions. Continued here |
The "McGurk effect" is a mind-blowing auditory illusion—and you can listen to it here
This article was first published on Big Think in January 2022. It was updated in January 2023. Imagine you were locked in a dark room for a very long time with no sound, no light, and not the slightest hint of what might be happening outside of your room. Every so often, a man called McGurk would come into the room and tell you what’s going on in the outside world. Continued here |
Up close and personal: Dolphin POV caught on camera while hunting for tasty fish
Scientists attached GoPro cameras to six dolphins and captured the sights and sounds of the animals as they hunted and devoured various species of fish—even squealing in victory at the capture of baby sea snakes, according to an August paper published in the journal PLoS ONE. While sound and video has previously been recorded for dolphins finding and eating dead fish, per the authors, this is the first footage combining sound and video from the dolphins' point of view as they pursued live prey while freely swimming. The audio element enabled the scientists to learn more about how the dolphins communicated while hunting. Continued here |
The Global Threat of Rogue Diplomacy
Honorary consuls are not nearly as high-profile as ambassadors and other career diplomats. As private citizens, the volunteer consuls work from their home countries to represent the foreign governments that nominate them. The arrangement was meant to build country-to-country alliances without the need for embassies and staff, an inexpensive and benign diplomatic arrangement that over the years was embraced by a majority of the world’s governments. But a first-of-its-kind global investigation by ProPublica and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists found that corrupt, violent and dangerous honorary consul appointees — including those accused of aiding terrorist regimes — have turned a system meant to leverage the work of honorary citizens into a perilous form of rogue diplomacy that has threatened the rule of law around the world. Continued here |
Animal brains use complex calculations to evade getting eaten
Scientists are beginning to unravel the complex circuitry behind the split-second decision to beat a hasty retreat. Survival of the fittest often means survival of the fastest. But the fastest doesn’t necessarily mean the fastest moving. It might mean the fastest thinking. When faced with the approach of a powerful predator, for instance, a quick brain can be just as important as quick feet. Continued here |
A Drug to Treat Aging May Not Be a Pipe Dream
Life expectancy in the best-performing countries has been increasing by three months per year every year since the early 1800s. Throughout most of human history, you had a roughly 50–50 chance of making it into your twenties, mainly due to deaths from infectious diseases and accidents. Thanks to medical advances, we’ve gradually found ways to avoid and treat such causes of death; the end result is perhaps humanity’s greatest ever achievement—we’ve literally doubled what it means to be human, increasing lifespans from 40 to 80 years. On the other hand, this has allowed one scourge to rise above all the others to become the world’s largest cause of death: aging. Aging is now responsible for over two-thirds of deaths globally—more than 100,000 people every day. This is because, counterintuitive though it may sound, the chief risk factor for most of the modern world’s leading killers is the aging process itself: Cancer, heart disease, dementia, and many more health problems become radically more common as we get older. We all know that factors such as smoking, lack of exercise, and poor diet can increase the risk of chronic diseases, but these are relatively minor compared to aging. For instance, having high blood pressure doubles your risk of having a heart attack; being 80 rather than 40 years old multiplies your risk by ten. As the global population ages, the magnitude of death and suffering caused by aging will only increase. Continued here |
How to watch Netflix's 'Kaleidoscope': The "correct" episode order, explained
The non-linear series will appear in your profile randomly, but you can choose a straightforward order. Kaleidoscope is trying to change the way you watch television. The Netflix heist series, starring Giancarlo Esposito, Tati Gabrielle, and Rufus Sewell, portrays an ultra-complicated crime with a 25-year backstory. Continued here |
50 cheap ways to upgrade your home you'll wish you knew about sooner
I’ve been doing small weekend projects on my house lately and they have transformed the place. I haven’t spent much time or money, but it’s easier to cook in my kitchen, my stairs are no longer dangerous, there is less clutter, and my once-crappy shower is suddenly amazing. I don’t have the money or patience at the moment for tearing out walls or upgrading appliances, but these little improvements have had a huge impact. And along the way, I discovered 50 cheap ways to upgrade your home you'll wish you knew about sooner. Lighting is one of the first things I tackled and I’m super pleased with the results. I love it when the laundry room light turns on when I enter, since my hands are full carrying laundry baskets, and turns off again when I leave. It’s more convenient and it saves power. So I installed lights in my closets and on the stairs that do the same thing. I also found a quick and easy way to declutter my bathroom, installed an incredible shower head, and found a permanent home for my electric toothbrush. Each of these fixes took less than 10 minutes yet the results please me every day. Continued here |
The Rise of the Chief Project Officer
Thirty years ago 80% of the resources in an organization were dedicated to operations, and 20% to projects; today, that ratio has flipped. Despite this massive disruption, most organizations still don’t have one senior leader overseeing or supervising all the project activities. A chief project officer (CPO) should fill that void. The role goes far beyond the direct sponsorship of individual projects. The CPO reports directly to the CEO. They must push their organization toward adopting a project-driven structure and foster a collaborative and empowering culture that reaches across silos. They must also ensure that project-management competencies are developed throughout the organization. This article will explore the benefits a CPO can bring, how to understand whether your organization needs a CPO, and how to hire one. Continued here |
The Best Advice I Ever Got: Fred Carl, Jr., Founder and CEO, Viking Range
In 1986 I was working full-time in the construction business and renting an unfinished one-room office in an old cotton exchange building in downtown Greenwood, Mississippi, trying to start a company in my spare time. I had dozens of detailed sketches for what would be the first Viking range, and little else. Continued here |
365 Micro-Challenges and Daily Tips to Keep You Motivated and Inspired Every Day in 2023 It's a daily dose of inspiration to help you reach your biggest goals in the new year. Continued here |
Marvel’s biggest movie ever could finally make the X-Men MCU canon
The map of Marvel’s Multiverse Saga is a long and winding one, and the arc that began with WandaVision in 2021 will conclude with Avengers: Secret Wars in 2026. Since the beginning of Phase 4 and the weekly mystery of WandaVision, fans have speculated that Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) would usher mutants into the MCU in a reversal of her infamous “no more mutants” spell from the comic book storyline House of M. That proliferation of mutants hasn’t happened… yet. Sure, we’ve seen a few, including Professor X in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and the reveal that Ms. Marvel is a mutant herself. But we’re still pretty far away from a full-blown X-Men invasion of the MCU. Continued here |
The IRS Hasn't Released Nearly Half a Million Nonprofit Tax Records
According to a ProPublica review of public IRS data, which powers our Nonprofit Explorer database, the agency is behind on releasing nearly half a million tax records, known as Form 990s, for tax-exempt organizations. The delays, which began two years ago, are stymying access to key financial information that governments, the public and grantmakers use to evaluate the nation’s tax-exempt companies. “For charity regulators, the Form 990 series not only helps ensure transparency and accountability, but also provides vital information for state investigations into potential fraud and misuse of charitable resources,” the organization wrote. “It is critical that the availability of that data be timely.” Continued here |
Pope Benedict XVI: A man at odds with the modern world who leaves a legacy of intellectual brilliance and controversy
To many observers, Benedict, who died on Dec. 31, 2022 at the age of 95, was known for criticizing what he saw as the modern world’s rejection of God and Christianity’s timeless truths. But as a scholar of the diversity of global Catholicism, I think it’s best to avoid simple characterizations of Benedict’s theology, which I believe will influence the Catholic Church for generations. While the brilliance of this intellectual legacy will certainly endure, it will also have to contend with the shadows of the numerous controversies that marked Benedict’s time as pope and, later, as pope emeritus. Continued here |
How a fantasy masterpiece led to the discovery of a real psychological condition
Some 40 years after Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland was first published in 1866, accounts of hallucinations similar to those described by Lewis Carroll began to appear in the medical literature. In 1904, William Spratling, one of the first American epileptologists, published case studies of several patients for whom “everything looked bigger” just before their seizures; three years later, in 1907, the great British neurologist William Gowers also reported epilepsy patients who perceived objects to look “twice their size” during the aura preceding their seizures; and in 1913, the German neurologist Hermann Oppenheim noted that he had “seen a case of genuine hemicrania [“one-sided headache”] in which there was during an episode of violent migraine an indescribable feeling of detachment of the trunk or extremity after an hour or even a day of spontaneous dizziness.” Continued here |
Trillions of tiny, self-replicating satellites could unlock interstellar travel
Inspiration for space exploration can come from all corners. One of the most inspiring, or terrifying, sources of inspiration for some in space exploration came from computer science expert John von Neumann, who laid out a framework for self-replicating machines in a series of lectures he gave in 1948. Ever since then, scientists and engineers have been debating the advantages, and the perils, of such a system. However, while technology has indeed advanced a long way since the 1940s, it still seems like we are still a long way from having a fully functional von Neumann machine. That is unless you turn to biology. Even simple biological systems can perform absolutely mind-blowing feats of chemical synthesis. And there are few people in the world today who know that better than George Church. The geneticist from Harvard has been at the forefront of a revolution in the biological sciences over the last 30 years. Now, he’s published a new paper in Astrobiology musing about how biology could aid in creating a pico-scale system that could potentially explore other star systems at next to no cost. Continued here |
The language that doesn't use 'no'
Through the winter mist of the hills of the Terai, in lowland Nepal, 18-year-old Hima Kusunda emerges from the school's boarding house, snug in a pink hooded sweatshirt. Hima is one of the last remaining Kusunda, a tiny indigenous group now scattered across central western Nepal. Their language, also called Kusunda, is unique: it is believed by linguists to be unrelated to any other language in the world. Scholars still aren't sure how it originated. And it has a variety of unusual elements, including lacking any standard way of negating a sentence, words for "yes" or "no", or any words for direction. Continued here
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
|
No comments:
Post a Comment