From Chaucer to chocolates: how Valentine's Day gifts have changed over the centuries
For Valentine’s Day, some couples only roll their eyes at each other in mutual cynicism. The capitalisation of love in the modern world can certainly seem banal. But Valentine’s Day gifts are hardly a contemporary invention. People have been celebrating the day and gifting love tokens for hundreds of years. Continued here |
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Meditation in Sunlight: May Sarton's Stunning Poem About the Relationship Between Presence, Solitude, and Love
May Sarton (May 3, 1912–July 16, 1995) was thirty-three when she left Cambridge for Santa Fe. She had just lived through a World War and a long period of personal turmoil that had syphoned her creative vitality — a kind of deadening she had not experienced before. Under the immense blue skies that had so enchanted the young Georgia O’Keeffe a generation earlier, she started coming back to life. Her white-washed room at the boarding house had mountain views, a rush of sunlight, and a police dog and “a very nice English teacher” for neighbors. As the sun rose over the mountains, she woke up each morning “simply on fire” with poetry — new poems she read to the English teacher, not yet knowing she was falling in love with her. Judy would become her great love, then her lifelong friend and the closest she ever had to family. Among the constellation of Santa Fe poems composed during this creative renaissance is an especially beguiling reflection on the relationship between presence, solitude, and love, soon published in Sarton’s 1948 poetry collection The Lion and the Rose (public library) — her first in a decade — and read here for us by my longtime poetry co-invocator Amanda Palmer in her lovely oceanic voice: Near all is brown and poorHouses are made of earthSun opens every doorThe city is a hearth Continued here |
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The Secret Weapon To Hiring The Right Person Every Single Time Everyone on your team doesn't need to be charismatic. Continued here |
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A Purpose-Based Case for a Long-Term Outlook in Business Lessons from a conversation with Dilhan Pillay, CEO and Executive Director of Temasek Holdings. Continued here |
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A Harvard Professor's 3-Step Plan to Stop Being Such a Workaholic Want to rebalance your life but struggling to cut back on work? Psychology can help. Continued here |
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It Took Bill Gates 2 Sentences to Teach the Best Leadership Lesson Every Manager Should Hear What Bill Gates predicted decades ago has now come to fruition in the post-pandemic age. Continued here |
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The stigma of the stay-at-home-dad
Ask Steven Lange what he does, and he'll tell you he's involved in start-ups. Or that he works from home. Or that he's semi-retired, though he might go back to work full-time once his youngest child graduates high school next year. "I'm a stay-at-home dad," says the Ohio, US-based 52-year-old, who worked in branding and product development for 30 years before he began staying home with his children in 2020. "But I don't think I would ever tell anybody that, or introduce myself that way," he adds. "I find myself feeling like I need to explain to you that I'm not just folding laundry and cooking dinner and going grocery shopping. I've got other stuff I'm doing." Continued here |
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Why being messy is good for you
"My home is messy": four innocuous little words, but when spoken by the oracle of tidying up, Marie Kondo, they were enough to apparently break the internet. After almost a decade since Kondo first introduced the world to the concepts of "sparking joy" and folding your pants into little envelopes – also sparking her own Netflix show along the way – it seems having three kids has radically changed her lifestyle. As reported in the Washington Post, a super tidy house was no longer her top priority: "I have kind of given up on that in a good way for me. Now I realise what is important to me is enjoying spending time with my children at home." The comments section under the article exploded with posts, some angry about being "Konned" from stressed mums annoyed at what they perceived to be the hypocrisy of Kondo changing her mind about those impossible neat-freak standards. Most responses, however, have actually been pretty positive. The characteristic reaction in the latest slew of think pieces? Relief. That even someone who's built a hugely profitable career out of tidying admits that priorities change when life changes. Continued here |
South Sudan's oil and water give it bargaining power - but will it benefit the people?
DPhil Candidate, Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Oxford South Sudan has long been one of east Africa’s most unstable states. But surging external interest in its resources and the diplomatic agility of its rulers are again underlining how pivotal the country remains to regional energy and water politics. Continued here |
Chinese immigrants look to digital Chinatowns to find love online
Where do people go for good Chinese food? One obvious answer is Chinatown. Many large cities have established Chinatowns and other neighbourhoods that serve as a cultural base for different communities. But increasingly, more than existing in physical space, these ethnic communities are forming in cyberspace. As the internet and smartphones have become ubiquitous in our day-to-day life, millions of singles are going online to look for romantic partners. And online dating platforms have burgeoned. Continued here |
Why populism has an enduring and ominous appeal
Max Weber, the founder of modern sociology, once argued that charismatic politicians are seen by their followers as saviours and heroes. Whether you blame social media or inequality, contemporary citizens seem to want political horse races and big personalities — at least that’s the conventional wisdom. Engage your disgruntled followers with big ideas on TikTok! Continued here |
Curious Kids: How does DNA affect our fingerprints and eye colour?
Curious Kids is a series for children of all ages. Have a question you’d like an expert to answer? Send it to CuriousKidsCanada@theconversation.com. I would like to know how our DNA affects our fingerprints. And I would also like to know how our DNA affects the iris, please. — Arianne, 15, Montréal, Que. Continued here |
Boat arrivals on temporary protection visas have access to permanent residency
Thousands of boat arrivals whose futures have been in limbo for a decade or more will be able to apply from Monday to be permanent Australian residents. The Minister for Home Affairs, Clare O'Neil and the Immigration Minister, Andrew Giles, have announced about 19,000 people on Temporary Protection Visas and Safe Haven Enterprise Visas will be eligible to apply. Continued here |
Albanese government announces $424 million to narrow a gap that is not closing fast enough
The Albanese government has unveiled a new implementation plan for Closing the Gap with $424 million over several years in additional money for “practical action”. “The gap is not closing fast enough and on some measures it is going backwards,” the government said in a statement from several ministers and also including the lead convenor of the Coalition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peak Organisations, Pat Turner. Continued here |
The climate crisis demands we green higher education: here's how the French are going about it
However, although these issues are increasingly being addressed in specific courses or sessions on ethics or sustainable development, awareness-raising activities such as the Climate Fresk or assessment tests such as the Sulitest, pressure is mounting on higher education institutions, particularly in engineering and management. The Student Manifesto for an ecological awakening launched in 2018, or the recent calls among engineers and business students to branch out or rebel show that, despite certain efforts, young people feel that the curricula continue to perpetuate the dominant model that has led to the current and future complex crises. Continued here |
Why restoring long-distance passenger rail makes sense in New Zealand -- for people and the climate
Senior Associate Institute of Governance and Policy Studies, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington A recent parliamentary inquiry into passenger rail drew 1700 submissions, suggesting growing support for the return of long-distance trains in Aotearoa. Continued here |
Orientalism: Edward Said's groundbreaking book explained
Whether you’re conscious of it or not, you likely have a vivid mental image of what the Middle East looks and sounds like. You might envision a sparse landscape, the air warped by heat and yellowed with flurries of sand. You might hear the plucking of an oud, or a haunting voice singing in a double harmonic scale. This viral TikTok video captures just how salient these tropes are in our collective awareness and in popular media. Here, TikTokers collaboratively satirise features commonly found in Hollywood films about the Middle East, such as Beirut (2018), American Sniper (2014), and Argo (2012). Continued here |
Open-plan classrooms are trendy but there is little evidence to show they help students learn
If you step into a newly built school these days, chances are you will see classrooms that look very different to the classrooms most of us spent our school years in as children. On a recent visit to a new primary school in Melbourne, Grattan Institute’s education team entered a large room that contained two classes, separated not by a wall but a wide pillar that left room for teachers and students to move between the two “classroom” spaces. Continued here |
A mega port in India threatens the survival of the largest turtles on Earth
In a remote archipelago at the southernmost tip of India lies the Great Nicobar Island. This pristine ecosystem is a globally important nesting site of the largest turtles on Earth – leatherback turtles. But now, the site is threatened by a massive infrastructure plan. The Indian government recently granted key approvals for an international container port on the island, which may prevent leatherback turtles from reaching their nesting sites. Continued here |
Fair health outcomes start with prevention. The new Centre for Disease Control can make it happen
For the land of the fair go, Australia has work to do on our health. Although the average Australian’s life expectancy is very high, that’s not true for everyone. Indigenous Australians, and Australians with little formal education, can expect to die about eight years younger than their fellow citizens. People who live in rural areas will die about two to three years earlier, on average, than people who live in cities. Continued here |
The draw of the 'manosphere': understanding Andrew Tate's appeal to lost men
Mega-influencer Andrew Tate is once again back in the news as he battles charges of organised crime and human trafficking in Romania. Tate gained infamy last year after being banned on most major social media platforms for promoting a variety of aggressively misogynistic positions designed to stir controversy and draw attention to his brand. Continued here |
AKA: slain South African rapper was a once-in-a-generation pop culture sensation
AKA, South Africa’s most recognisable name in hip-hop, was gunned down – with his friend, celebrity chef Tebello ‘Tibz’ Motsoane – outside a restaurant along Durban’s popular night spot Florida Road on 10 February. It’s reported that AKA was killed in a cold-blooded shooting, a recurring theme of gangsta rap culture. The ghastly manner of his death, apparently an orchestrated hit as captured by CCTV footage, is a first in the South African music industry and has had international reverberations. Continued here |
Flood warning: NZ's critical infrastructure is too important to fail - greater resilience is urgently needed
Flooded roads, our largest international airport underwater, overwhelmed storm water systems and significant sewage discharge into the sea and streams. The recent floods and then cyclone in Auckland are a stark reminder that our basic infrastructure lacks the resilience needed to survive major weather events. When we talk about infrastructure resilience, we’re talking about an infrastructure system that continues to meet community needs – even after earthquakes, floods or cyclones. Continued here |
ChatGPT is confronting, but humans have always adapted to new technology - ask the Mesopotamians, who invented writing
Adapting to technological advances is a defining part of 21st-century life. But it’s not unique to us: it’s been part of the human story since our earliest written records – even featuring in the plotlines of ancient myths and legends. While ChatGPT threatens to change writing (and writing-related work) as we know it, the Mesopotamians, who lived 4,000 years ago (in a geographical area centred in modern-day Iraq), went through this kind of seismic change before us. Their civilisation is credited with the invention of writing. Continued here |
What the sci-fi blockbuster Wandering Earth II can teach us about China's global and local aspirations
Ph.D student at School of Humanities & Language, Faculty of Arts, Design & Architecture, UNSW Sydney A prequel to the 2019 film Wandering Earth, the Chinese blockbuster hit Wandering Earth II opens on a futuristic dystopia where the dying Sun is about to explode and engulf Earth. Continued here |
Mark Scott appointed Chair of The Conversation Media Group
Professor Mark Scott AO has been appointed chair of The Conversation Media Group board. Professor Scott is Vice-Chancellor of the University of Sydney and was previously Managing Director of the ABC and Secretary of the NSW Department of Education. As Managing Director of the ABC (2006-2016), Scott led its transformation into a public broadcaster in the digital era. Over that time, the ABC created new services such as iView, News 24, ABC3 and digital radio; and expanded online and mobile services, such as podcasting and ABC News online. Continued here |
News Corp's job cuts cast a shadow over the future of its newspapers
News Corporation is cutting its staff by 5% globally, including in Australia, after its news media division recorded a second-quarter earnings decline of 47%. The decision inevitably reopens questions about the future of the company’s newspapers, particularly once Rupert Murdoch is gone. The company’s chief executive officer, Robert Thomson, said a surge in interest rates and inflation caused the earnings decline, and that these effects were “more ephemeral than eternal”. Continued here |
Nobody can predict earthquakes, but we can forecast them. Here's how
Matt Gerstenberger is a member of the New Zealand Society for Earthquake Engineering and an Associate Editor for the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America. After devastating earthquakes, it’s common to see discussion of earthquake prediction. An earthquake prediction requires, in advance, the specific time, location and magnitude of a future quake. Continued here |
There are 60,000 Chinese-made surveillance systems in Australia - how concerned should we be?
Australian government offices have begun removing more than 900 Chinese-made surveillance cameras, intercoms, electronic entry systems and video recorders. Last week, a government audit found the technology had been installed in more than 250 departments and agencies. Concerns over the cameras prompted dire warnings from the shadow cyber-security minister, James Paterson, who has previously called Chinese espionage and foreign interference the greatest threat to Australia’s way of life. Continued here |
Electric utes can now power the weekend - and the work week
Four years ago, then-Prime Minister Scott Morrison famously claimed electric vehicles (EVs) would end the weekend. “It’s not going to tow your trailer. It’s not going to tow your boat. It’s not going to get you out to your favourite camping spot,” he said. His comments drew on the popular misconception EVs are underpowered relative to petrol, gas or diesel cars. Experts refuted the claims, while video of a Tesla towing a 130-tonne Boeing 787 circulated. Continued here |
What do the NAPLAN test changes mean for schools and students?
Australia’s education ministers have just announced changes to NAPLAN that will start right away. These include bringing the testing date forward and changing the way results are reported. According to the ministers: These new standards will give teachers and parents better information about what a student can do. Continued here |
Australia is lagging when it comes to employing people with disability - quotas for disability services could be a start
Australia is lagging behind other countries when it comes to employing people with disability. A gulf exists between the employment rates of working-aged Australians with and without disability. The gap here is 32%, much higher than countries such as Sweden (9.5%), Finland (12.4%), France (9.9%) and Italy (13.3%). Continued here |
The fight between Tate Modern and its wealthy neighbours reveals the gentrification of the skies
In the UK, legal cases resolving alleged neighbour nuisances are ten-a-penny. Some – about overhanging trees or leylandii hedges that block out the sun – reach the local press. Few, however, have ever taken up the column inches devoted to Fearn v Tate. After a six-year legal battle, the UK supreme court has now ruled in favour of the five neighbouring residents who sued London’s Tate Modern, for infringing on their privacy with its viewing gallery that looks directly into their homes. Continued here |
Livestock grazing is preventing the return of rainforests to the UK and Ireland
A few years back, the president of the National Farmers’ Union of England and Wales wrote a defence of the meat industry after a BBC documentary criticised its environmental impact. “British farmers do not clear rainforest to make way for beef and lamb production,” she wrote. “British meat does not come from the ashes of the Amazon.” Many believe this but unfortunately it isn’t quite true. For one thing, livestock production in the UK and Ireland is still linked to rainforests abroad since chickens, pigs and cows are often fed imported soybeans. Brazil is the world’s largest soybean exporter, and much of its crop is grown on deforested land. Continued here |
Psychopaths: why they've thrived through evolutionary history - and how that may change
When you start to notice them, psychopaths seem to be everywhere. This is especially true of people in powerful places. By one estimate, as many as 20% of business leaders have “clinically relevant levels” of psychopathic tendencies – despite the fact as little as 1% of the general population are considered psychopaths. Psychopaths are characterised by shallow emotions, a lack of empathy, immorality, anti-social behaviour and, importantly, deceptiveness. From an evolutionary point of view, psychopathy is puzzling. Given that psychopathic traits are so negative, why do they remain in successive generations? Psychopathy seems to be, in the words of biologists, “maladaptive”, or disadvantageous. Assuming there’s a genetic component to this family of disorders, we’d expect it to decrease over time. Continued here |
Changes to temporary protection visas are a welcome development - and they won't encourage people smugglers
Refugees in Australia on temporary protection visas (TPVs) and Safe Haven Enterprise Visas (SHEVs) now have a pathway to permanent protection, the federal government has confirmed today. The long-awaited changes will bring much-needed certainty to around 20,000 people who arrived in Australia before January 1 2014, and who were found to be refugees or at risk of serious human rights violations. Continued here |
How the Middle Ages' female doctors were consigned to oblivion
Professeur Associé d’Histoire du christianisme, Fondation Maison des Sciences de l'Homme (FMSH) The figure of the witch has long cast a spell on artists and scientists, who have alternately associated her with women displaying an uncanny knowledge of nature or a voracious sexuality. In fact, many of “witches” persecuted in Europe from the 15th century onward were midwives and healers, in line with a long tradition of lay medical practice that was more pragmatic than theoretical. Continued here |
Does the President Have Control Over Inflation?
On Tuesday night, President Biden used his State of the Union address, in Congress, to touch on a range of pressing issues, including infrastructure, insulin prices, Roe v. Wade, Chinese surveillance, and the war in Ukraine. But he chose, early on, to address one topic that Americans feel especially strongly about. “Here at home, inflation is coming down,” Biden said, to waves of applause. “Gas prices are coming down. Food prices are coming down.” He added, “Inflation has fallen every month for the last six months.” Inflation is consistently found by polling to be one of the most despised forces in American society—and this is true almost regardless of whether inflation is actually a problem at a given time. In 2013, during a period of relatively low inflation (less than two per cent), a Pew survey found that eighty-two per cent of Americans felt that inflation was a “moderately big” or “very big” problem. Last year, when inflation was dramatically rising (in December, it was 6.5 per cent), ninety-three per cent of people surveyed said that the problem was, likewise, “moderately big” or “very big.” “People always hate inflation,” Betsey Stevenson, a professor of public policy and economics at the University of Michigan, told me. She noted that it was important to keep the numbers in perspective. “Even when inflation was at historic lows, survey data showed that eighty-three per cent of Americans thought inflation was a problem.” These unending negative associations have made inflation an irresistible political weapon. Recently, blaming Biden for causing inflation has been a favorite strategy of the political right. “Biden’s Inflation Quickly Making Americans Poorer,” a headline on the Heritage Foundation’s Web site last fall read. In January, the newly appointed Republican House Ways and Means Committee chair Jason Smith, of Missouri, released a statement titled, “Congress Must Confront Joe Biden’s Inflation Mess.” In reality, though, inflation and its causes are more nuanced than their use in politics would suggest, and whether inflation is increasing or on the decline, it’s unclear how much influence a particular Administration has over it. Biden likely doesn’t deserve the blame for inflation’s rise; he also can’t credibly claim to be responsible when it goes back down. Continued here |
The Undeniable Royalty of Angela Bassett
“What do black women want? And what does Hollywood want black women to be?” Hilton Als wrote in The New Yorker, in 1996, contemplating the singular career of Angela Bassett. By then, Bassett had exploded into movie stardom with roles in John Singleton’s “Boyz n the Hood” and Spike Lee’s “Malcolm X,” and then had really blown up playing Tina Turner, in “What’s Love Got to Do with It,” for which she was nominated for Best Actress at the 1994 Academy Awards. Bassett lost, to Holly Hunter (“The Piano”), but she went on to star in “Waiting to Exhale” and “How Stella Got Her Groove Back,” both groundbreaking films that chronicled the love lives and friendships of middle-aged Black women. It was a mini-genre that seemed to revolve around Bassett, whose innate strength, diamond-sharp beauty, and depth of feeling made her a totem of empowered Black womanhood in the nineties. Still, that Oscar loss seemed like a debt waiting to be paid. In 2002, months after Halle Berry became the first Black woman to win Best Actress, for “Monster’s Ball,” Bassett told Newsweek that she had turned down the role because it exemplified a “stereotype about black women and sexuality.” She didn’t “begrudge Halle her success,” but added, “I would love to have an Oscar. But it has to be for something I can sleep with it at night.” More than two decades later, Bassett, at sixty-four, is back in the Oscar race, nominated for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Queen Ramonda, in Marvel’s “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.” The performance taps into Bassett’s thunderous regality, but also the real-life grief surrounding the death of Chadwick Boseman, who left the franchise without its hero but rife with heroines. Bassett is the first actor to be nominated for a Marvel film, and she may well win—after all, shouldn’t Angela Bassett have an Oscar already? Continued here |
Birds Use One Surprising Survival Tactic -- And It Could Benefit Us All
Carolina chickadees are small, boisterous year-round residents of the southeastern United States. They are regularly found with much larger tufted titmice, white-breasted nuthatches, and various woodpecker species. In these mixed flocks, chickadees are almost always the subordinate individuals, outcompeted by their larger flockmates. Why, then, do chickadees regularly join these flocks? Might they have a symbiotic relationship with other species in these flocks? Continued here |
You Need to Watch the Most Underrated Keanu Reeves Thriller on HBO Max ASAP
"What if I told you that God and the devil made a wager, a kind of standing bet for the souls of all mankind?" Instead of wrestling with inner demons, as he does in John Wick, or with artificially intelligent demons, as in The Matrix, Reeves will return to DC Studios to fight actual demons as the occult detective John Constantine. Continued here |
Can a Universal Flu Vaccine Actually Work? mRNA Technology Is a Budding Solution
To everything, there is a season, and for the flu, it’s wintertime. Flu cases peak between December and February, and the flu vaccine is your best defense. Getting the vaccine means you will be less sick even if you get a breakthrough infection. However, your immune system is in a constant race against the flu virus. Like the virus that causes Covid-19, influenza rapidly changes and mutates into new variants, so manufacturers have to update the flu shot to try to keep pace. After identifying a new flu variant, it takes manufacturers about six months to update the vaccine – and in the meantime, the virus can mutate again. This phenomenon is called antigenic drift and can reduce the effectiveness of the flu vaccine for that season. Continued here |
You Won't Believe What Movie 'The Last of Us' Creator Wrote 20 Years Ago
Before The Last of Us and Chernobyl, screenwriter Craig Mazin enjoyed unlikely success writing a different kind of disaster: the Scary Movie franchise. After two installments that spoofed distinct horror subgenres — teen slashers and vintage haunted house pictures — Scary Movie 3, released in 2003, marked a lazier approach to the formula. These films were no longer zeroed in on specific conventions, but catch-alls for the broader zeitgeist. When anything and everything is on the table, you get a whole lot of nothing. The paycheck was surely a nice one, but it’s curious to wonder what road Mazin went down post-Scary Movie to become the guy behind The Last of Us. Continued here |
Dark Energy Bubbles Could Explain Why The Universe Is Expanding So Fast
We’re still not sure exactly what dark energy is, but it may have played a key role in the early universe. Physicists can’t see or measure dark energy (hence the name). The only clue that it exists is how it affects the rest of the universe; dark energy is the force that’s driving the universe to keep expanding faster. Physicists Florian Niedermann of Stockholm University and Martin Sloth of the University of Southern Denmark propose that if dark energy formed bubbles in the dark plasma of the early universe, it could solve one of the biggest mysteries in modern physics. Continued here |
You Need to Play the Riskiest Sci-Fi Adventure on PS Plus ASAP
How many heroes in science fiction and fantasy embrace the Darkness to fight for the side of good? Bungie’s Destiny franchise may use overly simple terms like “Light” and “Darkness” to describe abstract cosmic powers, but it’s hardly the binary parallel to good versus evil that it sounds like. 2020’s Destiny 2: Beyond Light expansion explores the grey areas between the two in drastic ways by having the player Guardian wield the icy magic of Stasis that’s powered by the Darkness. Though The Witch Queen is often lauded as the series' best story arc, Beyond Light takes bigger — and more interesting — risks that make you rethink the fundamental dynamics of the many cosmic forces at play. Continued here |
'The Last of Us' Episode 5 Reveals a Lesson That Was Missing From Episode 3
The Last of Us is incredibly close to the video game, so it’s no surprise that the biggest discussion points have been the few parts that have changed. In Episode 3, the brief appearance of gruff Bill was expanded into a heartfelt gay love story, which some fans disliked because of how Bill’s original demeanor and heartlessness affected Joel’s story. In Episode 5, it becomes very clear the role of a heartless bastard wasn’t removed altogether, it was just transferred to a different, entirely new character: Kathleen. Continued here |
How Much Sustainable Fuel Do We Need for Net-Zero Flights?
Several major airlines have pledged to reach net-zero carbon emissions by the midcentury to fight climate change. It’s an ambitious goal that will require an enormous ramp-up in sustainable aviation fuels, but that alone won’t be enough our latest research shows. The idea of jetliners running solely on fuel made from used cooking oil from restaurants or corn stalks might seem futuristic, but it’s not that far away. Continued here |
Unexpectedly single this Valentine's Day? Here's what to do.
In their introduction to the book Supergods, comic book writer Grant Morrison says, “We live in the stories we tell ourselves.” We use superheroes as avatars for our fears, longings, and aspirations. But the sentiment is also a pretty good description of how we process breakups. “A very important part of adapting to a breakup is to make some meaning from the experience,” explains David Sbarra, a professor at the University of Arizona who researches social relationships and health. Continued here |
You Need to Play the Most Experimental Mario Game on Nintendo Switch ASAP
By design, handheld gaming devices offer smaller, more intimate experiences than console games. That’s not to say smaller is bad: through megahits like Pokémon Red and Blue, Nintendo was reaching levels of market dominance with their Game Boy unheard of in consoles. First released in 1989 and given a refresh with the Game Boy Color in 1998, the Game Boy was so popular that radically upgrading it didn’t make much sense for years. This delay bought Nintendo something incredibly precious in the world of video games: time. The Game Boy Advance, finally released in 2001, was the first of Nintendo’s Game Boys to move from portrait mode to landscape, giving a wider, almost cinematic screen. It was Nintendo’s first move to bridge the world of handheld games and consoles, a philosophy that eventually found its biggest success in the Switch. Continued here |
Earthquakes Could Help Scientists Understand This Mysterious Space Glitch
A team of astronomers has used a model of earthquakes to understand glitches in the timing of pulsars. Their results suggest that pulsars may have interiors that are far stranger than can be imagined. Pulsars are perhaps the most accurate timekeepers in the entire Universe. The pulsars themselves are really rapidly spinning neutron stars. Neutron stars are ultra-dense balls of atomic matter, usually no bigger than a few miles across, with a mass a few times that of the Sun. Continued here |
50 Of The Most Genius Things For Your Home Most Added To Amazon Wish Lists
I don’t know about you, but it takes a lot for something to go on my Amazon wish list. Something about it feels like it’s solely reserved for genius things that I seriously need around the house. A bunch of people must feel the same because I found that these genius things for your home are some of the most-added things to wish lists. These things make everyday tasks easier, your home more aesthetic, and keep your space organized. So trust me when I say these things will end up on your wish list (and cart and home), too. Continued here |
Every New TV and Movie Trailer revealed at the 2023 Super Bowl
The Super Bowl also happens to be the Super Bowl of new movie and TV trailers. From long-standing franchises like Marvel and DC to possible new power players like Dungeons and Dragons and one-off adventures like Cocaine Bear, the Big Game is the perfect place to reveal new looks at the most anticipated releases of the year. We’ll likely see many trailers that have already been released online. But knowing how huge the viewership (and the price tag) of Super Bowl ads are, we’ll likely see some surprises as well. Below, you’ll find every single TV and movie trailer we care about from the 2023 matchup. And keep refreshing this page because we’ll be updating it in real-time all night long. Continued here |
'The Flash' Trailer Uses the Speed Force to Reset the DC Universe
During the Super Bowl LVII, Warner Bros. Discovery unleashed the trailer for The Flash, a movie that has gone without a hitch and no controversies whatsoever. Just kidding. The Flash is one of Warner and DC’s biggest releases of the year, not the least of which is due to notoriety over star Ezra Miller. Continued here |
What was it like to grow up in the last Ice Age? | Aeon Essays
With the help of new archaeological approaches, our picture of young lives in the Palaeolithic is now marvellously vivid is a Palaeolithic archaeologist and professor of anthropology at the University of Victoria in Canada. She is known for her publications on cognitive archaeology, Palaeolithic art, the archaeology of children and the relationship between science, pop culture and the media. She is the author of Growing Up in the Ice Age (2021). Continued here |
From log to Go board - the world's oldest game, made the old-fashioned way | Aeon Videos
For captions describing each step of the process in this video, click the CC button at the bottom right of the video player. This satisfying process video offers viewers a peak behind the scenes at Kumasu in Miyazaki, Japan, where craftsmen fashion boards that can be used for the centuries-old games Go and Shogi. Starting with a thick log of kaya wood, the workers cut, carve and polish with precision, combining traditional methods with modern time-saving machinery. In an age where a game of Go can be started online within seconds, the methodical making of the board feels as if it mirrors the careful, deliberate nature of the game itself. Continued here |
Three Differences Between Managers and Leaders
You’re probably counting value, not adding it, if you’re managing people. Only managers count value; some even reduce value by disabling those who add value. If a diamond cutter is asked to report every 15 minutes how many stones he has cut, by distracting him, his boss is subtracting value. Continued here |
Understanding "New Power"
Power clearly isn’t what it used to be. We see Goliaths being toppled by Davids all around us, from the networked drivers of Uber to the crowdfunded creatives of Kickstarter. But it’s difficult to understand what power actually is in this changed world, and how to gain more of it. Two fresh voices to HBR—Jeremy Heimans, cofounder of Purpose and Avaaz, and Henry Timms, director of the 92nd Street Y in New York—offer a framework for organizations seeking to effectively use the two distinct forces of “old power” and “new power.” Old power, the authors argue, works like a currency. It is held by few and is zero-sum. Once gained, it is jealously guarded, and the powerful have a substantial store of it to spend. It is closed, inaccessible, and leader-driven. Continued here |
8 Ways to Read (a Lot) More Books This Year
And then last year I surprised myself by reading 50 books. This year I’m on pace for 100. I’ve never felt more creatively alive in all areas of my life. I feel more interesting, I feel like a better father, and my writing output has dramatically increased. Amplifying my reading rate has been the domino that’s tipped over a slew of others. Continued here |
How one virus can block another
Three years into the pandemic, Covid-19 is still going strong, causing wave after wave as case numbers soar, subside, then ascend again. But this past autumn saw something new – or rather, something old: the return of the flu. Plus, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) – a virus that makes few headlines in normal years – ignited in its own surge, creating a "tripledemic". The surges in these old foes were particularly striking because flu and RSV all but disappeared during the first two winters of the pandemic. Even more surprising, one particular version of the flu may have gone extinct during the early Covid-19 pandemic. The World Health Organization's surveillance programme has not definitively detected the B/Yamagata flu strain since March 2020. (Read more from BBC Future about how viruses go extinct.) Continued here |
iRobot's Combo j7+ Has a Robot Arm and No Sense of Direction
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 Last summer, iRobot—Roomba’s parent company—announced that they had finally agreed to be acquired by Amazon for $1.7 billion. That news spawned a flurry of alarmed articles (including our own) that the megacorp now had access to data on the layout and possessions inside millions of peoples’ homes. Last December, iRobot reported to investors that it had 75 percent of the United States market in robot vacuums. Continued here |
How to Make Sure You're Not Accidentally Sharing Your Location
Your devices and apps really, really want to know where you are—whether it's to tell you the weather, recommend some restaurants you might like, or better target advertising at you. Managing what you're sharing and what you're not sharing, and when, can quickly get confusing. It's also possible that you have inconsistencies in the various location histories logged by your devices: Times when you thought you'd switched off and blocked location sharing but you're still being tracked, or vice versa. Continued here |
How Supergenes Beat the Odds--and Fuel Evolution
Thousands of miles from home in the steamy Amazon rain forest in the mid-1800s, the British naturalist Henry Walter Bates had a problem. More than one, really; there were thumb-size biting insects, the ever-present threat of malaria, venomous snakes, and mold and mildew that threatened to overtake his precious specimens before they could be shipped back to England. But the nagging scientific problem that bothered him involved butterflies. Original story reprinted with permission from Quanta Magazine, an editorially independent publication of the Simons Foundation whose mission is to enhance public understanding of science by covering research developÂments and trends in matheÂmatics and the physical and life sciences. Continued here |
The Best Running Gear for Your Long and Chilly Winter
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 I have given up on persuading people to take up running outside in winter. Gyms are fine! And if pulling on multiple layers of clothing and lights to run outside in the grim, freezing dark isn't something that calls to you, a few well-meaning words probably won't do the trick. Continued here |
The Wild Logistics of Rihanna's Super Bowl Halftime Show
When you’re the person (at least partially) responsible for Left Shark, you have to think about every possible way Super Bowl audiences watch halftime shows. That’s one of the many things Bruce Rodgers has learned over the 16 years he’s spent as production designer for the mid-game performance during American football’s biggest night. “Never again,” Rodgers laughs when asked if he considered including blue fish dancers for Rihanna’s Super Bowl LVII performance. Instead, the superstar made her comeback performance (it’s Rihanna’s first since the 2018 Grammys) atop seven platforms suspended anywhere from 15 to 60 feet above the field. And while the LED-lit platforms, which were arranged in different positions as the singer moved through hits ranging from “Bitch Better Have My Money” to “Rude Boy,” looked cool as hell, they also served a very practical purpose: They kept her off the grass. Continued here |
Is there life on our Solar System's icy moons? Extreme places on Earth may hold clues
In their attempt to understand how life might thrive on other planets, astrobiologists often travel to the most extreme and inhospitable places on Earth. And when it comes to simulating environmental conditions on icy moons like Jupiter’s Europa and Saturn’s Enceladus, Antarctica is about the closest analog we can get. A new paper led by Alessandro Napoli from the University of Rome, Italy, highlights the rich microbial diversity near Concordia Station, a French-Italian research facility on the Antarctic Plateau, more than 3,000 meters above sea level. Here the average yearly temperature is only -50oC (-58oF), and winter temperatures can drop down to -80oC. Continued here |
What makes for a "great" sex life?
The unhappiest time in a sex therapist’s office is around Valentine’s Day, says Dr. Peggy Kleinplatz, a professor in the faculty of medicine at the University of Ottawa. “It’s the day where I see the most miserable couples, the most distressed couples,” she says. High pressure and expectations can prove an explosive combination for people already struggling with their sex lives. Sex, it turns out, isn’t as easy or simple as popular culture might lead us to believe. Continued here |
"Brain-eating" amoeba beaten by old European drug
A decades-old drug used to treat urinary tract infections (UTIs) appears to have saved the life of a man infected by the “brain-eating” amoeba — and his case highlights the tremendous potential of a new type of genetic sequencing technology. The patient: In 2021, a 54-year-old man was admitted to a Northern California hospital following a seizure. After an MRI revealed a mass in his brain, he was transferred to the UCSF Medical Center, where the mass was biopsied. Continued here |
Peloton Bike+ review: The encapsulation of Peloton's mission and dilemma
A few years ago, Peloton's stationary exercise bikes experienced a meteoric ascension into the public conversation, with demand rising well beyond the company’s ability to deliver. But this success was directly followed by nosediving sales, stymied interest, and hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue loss as the world began recovering from the global pandemic and people headed back to gyms. Continued here |
The FBI's most controversial surveillance tool is under threat
An existential fight over the US government’s ability to spy on its own citizens is brewing in Congress. And as this fight unfolds, the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s biggest foes on Capitol Hill are no longer reformers merely interested in reining in its authority. Many lawmakers, elevated to new heights of power by the recent election, are working to dramatically curtail the methods by which the FBI investigates crime. Continued here |
Can Giorgia Meloni Govern Italy?
A founding European Union member adjusts to its new leader, whose rise breaks a postwar taboo. Italy’s first far-right leader since World War II—and the first woman ever to lead the country—is small, blond, fierce, street-smart, working-class, and Gen X. Raised by a single mother in Rome after her father took off for a new life in the Canary Islands when she was a toddler, Giorgia Meloni came of age in far-right youth movements. Now 46, she has been a professional politician since she was a teenager. Continued here |
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