An Outcomes-Focused Approach to Mental Health Care

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An Outcomes-Focused Approach to Mental Health Care Standardized tools now allow employers or insurers to track the effectiveness of mental health care. This, in turn, is making it possible to create contracts that tie reimbursement to the effectiveness of the treatment. In this article, the authors, who are the cofounders of a platform for delivering virtual mental health care, offer five considerations when creating such contracts. Continued here

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How The Last of Us re-created a 2003 arcade with the help of true enthusiasts The Last of Us' HBO series went to great lengths to re-create a 2003 mall arcade for a recent episode. Two of the arcade enthusiasts hired on for that scene have detailed the triumphs and technical limitations they encountered, at length, in an arcade history forum thread. Continued here

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Netflix fights attempt to make streaming firms pay for ISP network upgrades Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters spoke out against a European proposal to make streaming providers and other online firms pay for ISPs' network upgrades. Continued here

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New Windows 11 preview improves volume mixer, color management, and more Microsoft released a batch of significant updates to Windows 11 earlier this week, adding tabs to the Notepad app, integrating the AI-powered "new Bing" into the taskbar's search box, and previewing iPhone pairing, complete with rudimentary iMessage support. And Microsoft continues to test other features in public via its Windows Insider Program, particularly in the more experimental Dev channel. These builds are likely to form the basis for the operating system's big 23H2 update later this year. Continued here

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WHO "deeply frustrated" by lack of US transparency on COVID origin data While the World Health Organization says it's continuing to urge China to share data and cooperate with investigations into the origins of SARS-CoV-2, the United Nations' health agency is calling out another country for lack of transparency—the United States. Continued here

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AI-powered Bing Chat gains three distinct personalities On Wednesday, Microsoft employee Mike Davidson announced that the company has rolled out three distinct personality styles for its experimental AI-powered Bing Chat bot: Creative, Balanced, or Precise. Microsoft has been testing the feature since February 24 with a limited set of users. Switching between modes produces different results that shift its balance between accuracy and creativity. Continued here

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Qualcomm wants to replace eSIMs with iSIMs, has the first certified SoC Here's an interesting bit of news out of Mobile World Congress: Qualcomm says the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 has been certified as the "world’s first commercially deployable iSIM (Integrated SIM)." What the heck is an iSIM? Didn't we just go through a SIM card transition with eSIM? We did, but iSIM is better than eSIM. We'll explain, but the short answer is that iSIM is the next step in the continual march to reduce the size of SIM cards. Continued here

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The Most Boring Number in the World Is ... That prime numbers and powers of 2 fascinate many people comes as no surprise. In fact, all numbers split into two camps: interesting and boring What is your favorite number? Many people may have an irrational number in mind, such as pi (π), Euler’s number (e) or the square root of 2. But even among the natural numbers, you can find values that you encounter in a wide variety of contexts: the seven dwarfs, the seven deadly sins, 13 as an unlucky number—and 42, which was popularized by the novel The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. Continued here

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NASA's Moon Dust Problem Might Finally Have a Solution Researchers sprayed liquid nitrogen at spacesuit-clad Barbie dolls to test their novel idea Figuring out how to land humans on the moon was a challenge, but the six Apollo crews who achieved this aim encountered another perplexing problem once they arrived: moon dust. The tiny, electrostatically charged particles made of crushed lunar rock clung to every surface, from spacesuits to electronics, and even infiltrated the astronauts’ lungs. Crews tried using a brush or their hands to sweep the sharp, abrasive dust off their spacesuits, but neither method proved very effective. Continued here

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Introducing Quanta's New Math Game, Hyperjumps! | Quanta Magazine It's the year 2111. Humanity has invented a warp drive that enables a spacecraft to hyperjump to distant solar systems and back to Earth. The drive promises to revolutionize space exploration. But there's a catch. The new technology is finicky and can only make hyperjumps that follow certain numerical rules. Earth's governing body has tapped you, an adventurous math explorer, to captain the first warp-drive-equipped starship in its fleet. Your mission is to establish hyperjump routes to as many exoplanets as you can in a different solar system each day. Teams of scientists can then safely follow in your footsteps to study each planet in detail. Strapped into the captain's seat, you sit in front of a console with five blank digits, one for each exoplanet you will visit on your first trip. Each planet in the target solar system has been assigned a hyperjump number. You must input the numbers in a valid order — based on addition, subtraction, multiplication and division — before you can take off. After each trip, you must return to Earth to recharge your warp drive. Earth is the only planet with a hyperjump number of 9, so every sequence ends in a 9.  Your HOW TO PLAY manual explains how to construct a valid hyperjump sequence. Continued here

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What Will Ethical Space Exploration Look Like? If the dreams of space agencies and private companies come to fruition, within a couple of decades we’ll have orbiting hotels and lunar mining colonies, and the first human visitors will be en route to the Red Planet. But astrophysicist Erika Nesvold argues that the shape of tomorrow’s space expeditions and conflicts could depend on ethical choices people make today. Nesvold is coeditor of the book Reclaiming Space, which was published today, and the author of Off-Earth, due out on March 7. She’s also a cofounder of JustSpace Alliance, a nonprofit organization that advocates for a more inclusive and ethical future in space, and a developer for Universe Sandbox, a physics-based space simulator. Nesvold points out that so far humanity doesn’t have the best track record in space, and current challenges mirror Earthly ones. Space junk litters low-Earth orbit, launch vehicles create their own carbon emissions, light pollution is transforming the night sky, and space industry leaders SpaceX and Blue Origin have been accused of labor rights abuses. There’s plenty of work to do to make future exploration egalitarian and environmentally sustainable. Continued here

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The Lincoln Memorial Is Getting a New Underground Museum While building the Lincoln Memorial between 1914 and 1922, crews dug out a cavernous space underneath the monument. They filled this hidden, 43,800-square-foot area, called an undercroft, with rows of tall, concrete columns to help support the memorial’s weight and create the illusion that it was situated on top of a hill. Soon, the undercroft will serve a new purpose: After extensive renovations, it will become an immersive museum dedicated to the popular monument on the surface above, the National Park Service announced. Continued here

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Lab-Leak Intelligence Reports Aren't Scientific Conclusions Intelligence reports have a checkered history. They have recently seized center stage in the debate over the origin of the pandemic virus. With a change of mind at the Department of Energy, and a mere restatement of position at the FBI, those arguing that the SARS-CoV-2 virus leaked from a lab at the Wuhan Institute of Virology are pressing their case. Most agencies still favor the natural route or say they don’t know. This latest twist comes courtesy of an update to a 90-day intelligence agency review that President Biden received in 2021. The review weighed whether the virus had jumped from experiments at China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology, the “lab-leak” theory, or from a nearby animal market in that city where the outbreak first started, the “natural-origin” one. Continued here

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Ideas | How Chinese smartphones won over the hearts and wallets of Indonesia's consumers In March 2018, the staid stupas of Borobudur, a Buddhist temple in Central Java, Indonesia, transformed into a lively concert venue. A trio of singers performed national pop hits in front of a packed crowd; two famous actors staged scenes from the popular Indonesian web series Perfect Love. Broadcast by a dozen national television stations to millions of Indonesians across the country, the event was not a celebration of a religious festival, but the launch of a new Chinese smartphone: the Vivo V9.  Vivo’s glitzy launch party was only one of the many ways in which Chinese smartphone companies have won over the hearts and wallets of Indonesian consumers in recent years. Once viewed by many Indonesians as low-quality knockoffs, Chinese smartphones now occupy almost 70% of the country’s smartphone market. Not only is Indonesia the fourth-largest smartphone market in the world, it is also where people spend the most time on their phones: an average of 5.5 hours per day. China’s Oppo leads with a 21% share of the Indonesian market, followed by Vivo, Xiaomi, and Realme. Meanwhile, Apple — despite its sleek designs and global prestige — has never cracked the top five.  Continued here

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We Must Stop Treating Grasslands as Wastelands The grasslands of India and elsewhere do not need to have economic value to be worth studying and preserving As a research scholar at the Indian Institute for Science Education and Research, I once monitored birds that inhabited tall wet grasslands in Daying Ering Memorial Wildlife Sanctuary, a protected area in Northeast India. This habitat forms a part of one of the most biodiverse places on Earth. Yet despite their ecological importance and uniqueness, most grasslands are classified by the Indian government as “wastelands.” I wondered why this was, as I stood on the deck of a governmental outpost, watching a critically endangered Bengal florican—a bird native to South Asian grasslands—perform its mating display of short jumps with its thick neck pouch extended. Continued here

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Humans Started Riding Horses 5,000 Years Ago, New Evidence Suggests Archaeologists have found a handful of human skeletons with characteristics that have been linked to horseback riding and are a millennium older than early depictions of humans riding horses We may never know when a human jumped on a horse and rode off into the sunset for the first time, but archaeologists are hard at work trying to understand how horses left the wild and joined humans on the trail to global domination. New research purports to have found the earliest evidence of horseback riding. Continued here

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Measles exposure at massive religious event in Kentucky spurs CDC alert The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday issued a health alert for doctors and health officials to be on the lookout for measles cases after a person with a confirmed, contagious case attended a massive religious event in Kentucky last month, potentially exposing an estimated 20,000 people to one of the most infectious viruses on the planet. Continued here

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5 Ways Leaders Can Support Adoptive Parents Working parents building their families by adopting a child face many challenges, including financial (adoptions in the U.S. can cost up to $58,000), logistical (the paperwork can feel endless), and emotional. When employees perceive their organization to be supportive of their family in general, they’re more satisfied with their jobs, more committed to their organizations, and less likely to leave. The authors sought to discover how organizations can support adoptive parents in particular by surveying married couples who had adopted a child in the last few years. They found a variety of types of support, some more costly than others, that adoptive parent employees see as meaningful and present five ways leaders can better support adoptive parents in their organizations. Continued here

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Four Astronauts Arrive at the International Space Station Despite a launch delay and docking issue, the space travelers are now onboard the orbiting laboratory Four astronauts bound for the International Space Station (ISS) launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida early Thursday morning. About 25 hours later, their spacecraft docked successfully at the orbiting laboratory. Continued here

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The giant arcs that may dwarf everything in the cosmos In 2021, British PhD student Alexia Lopez was analysing the light coming from distant quasars when she made a startling discovery. She detected a giant, almost symmetrical arc of galaxies 9.3 billion light years away in the constellation of Boötes the Herdsman. Spanning a massive 3.3 billion light years across, the structure is a whopping 1/15th the radius of the observable Universe. If we could see it from Earth, it would be the size of 35 full moons displayed across the sky. Continued here

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Dealmaster: Top deals on gaming laptops Gaming laptops aren't just for gaming; these powerful notebooks come with plenty of processing and graphics power, making them versatile enough to be everyday computing systems. Whatever your needs are, we've scoped out some of the best deals on gaming laptops available today, Continued here

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We all get "monkey mind" — and neuroscience supports the Buddhist solution In the Dhammapada, the Buddha taught that, “we are shaped by our thoughts, and we become what we think.” This sentiment highlights the powerful influence that our thoughts have on shaping our experiences and our lives. According to Buddhist teachings, the mind either can be a friend or an enemy depending on our ability to control it. Uncontrolled, the mind can become restless — prone to a state of cyclical thoughts and emotions. The Buddhist path involves cultivating mindfulness and developing practices aimed at reducing this mental agitation and promoting inner peace. Continued here

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Record-Breaking Boreal Fires May Be a Climate 'Time Bomb' CLIMATEWIRE | Boreal forest fires in northern Eurasia and North America — including parts of Canada, Alaska and Siberia — spewed record-breaking levels of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere in 2021, new research finds. In a typical year, these northern blazes account for about 10 percent of the planet’s wildfire-related carbon emissions. But in 2021, their share skyrocketed to 23 percent. Continued here

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How the Woolly Bear Caterpillar Turns into a Popsicle to Survive the Winter Some caterpillars have evolved with antifreeze in their body cavity, allowing them to become cater-Popsicles to survive cold winters. But climate change could threaten that. Kate Furby: Some caterpillars have evolved with antifreeze in their body cavities, allowing them to become cater-Popsicles to survive cold winters. But climate change could threaten that.  Continued here

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Ideas | How Ukraine is beating Russia's disinformation campaigns My country has been at war with Russia long before the events of last February. Russia’s invasion was not only challenged by Ukrainians on our battlefields, but it has also been fought online and through our airwaves. For the past decade, Ukraine has been subject to Russian disinformation campaigns crafted to legitimate the 2014 annexation of Crimea, demean Ukrainian identity, and shatter Ukrainian unity. The Kremlin’s malign influence activities have only increased in intensity since their unprovoked invasion began one year ago.  As our soldiers beat back Russia’s invasion from much of our country, Ukraine’s information warriors in civil society have done the same in the information space. These efforts did not materialize out of thin air. Past experience and careful preparation for this onslaught of disinformation underpins our successes to date.  Continued here

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Florida bill would make bloggers who write about governor register with state A proposed law in Florida would force bloggers who write about Gov. Ron DeSantis and other elected officials to register with a state office and file monthly reports or face fines of $25 per day. The bill was filed in the Florida Senate Tuesday by Senator Jason Brodeur, a Republican. Continued here

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What President Zelensky and the CEO of Zoom Both Understand About the Power of Symbolism Use emotional illustrations rather than words alone to inspire action. Continued here

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Amazon's HQ2 Aimed to Show Tech Can Boost Cities. Now It's On Pause After a dramatic competition that pitted US cities against one another, years of contested planning, and claims of unwavering commitment despite the pandemic, Amazon now says its plan for a second headquarters, aka HQ2, is on pause. The company said today that it will delay construction of more than half of the millions of square feet of space in a campus planned for Arlington, Virginia, including a twisting tower meant to become a signature landmark for the city.  Amazon, which is still in the process of laying off more than 18,000 corporate workers, did not set a new date for construction to resume in Arlington, across the Potomac River from Washington, DC. Arlington County board chair Christian Dorsey says the county learned "recently" of the planned pause and does not know when construction will resume. Continued here

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How to Become More Adaptable in Challenging Situations In unfamiliar, high-stakes situations, we’re hard-wired to default to the mechanisms that we’ve relied on the past. However, new situations often can’t be met with old solutions. This is the adaptability paradox: When we most need to learn, change, and adapt, we are most likely to react with old approaches that aren’t suited to our new situation, leading to poorer decisions and ineffective solutions. To better overcome the obstacles posed by our old habits, the authors propose the strategy of Deliberate Calm to help leaders take stock of their situation and encourage them to discover new solutions with intention, creativity, and objectivity. The authors outline what Deliberate Calm looks like in practice and how leaders can develop this practice through its three elements: learning agility, emotional self-regulation, and dual awareness. Continued here

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Colliding Dwarf Galaxies Reveal a Glimpse of the Early Universe Scientists may have spotted two pairs of merging dwarf galaxies, each pair with a duo of soon-to-collide black holes For the first time, astronomers think they’ve spotted two pairs of merging dwarf galaxies, with each pair sporting a duo of soon-to-collide black holes. The observations could reveal new details about the early formation of large galaxies like our own Milky Way, as well as the supermassive black holes that lurk at their centers. Continued here

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Tirzepatide: A novel obesity drug ushers in a new era of weight loss — because this one works A new weight loss drug is getting a speedy review by the FDA, and some financial analysts predict that it could break records, with up to $48 billion in annual sales. According to a recent clinical study, patients who received a high dose of the drug tirzepatide lost up to 21% of their body weight (an average of 52 pounds, or 23.6 kg), more than any other weight loss medication. Strangely enough, tirzepatide wasn’t designed to treat obesity; in fact, it mimics a hormone traditionally believed to cause weight gain. Fat cells (adipocytes) secrete hormones that regulate metabolism, affect satiety, and trigger inflammation. Obesity develops when these cells accumulate more lipids than they can handle, which causes them to malfunction. The overloaded fat cells release molecules that can cause a cascade of metabolic and inflammatory problems that increase a person’s risk of other serious conditions and diseases such as diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, cancer, asthma, and hypercholesterolemia. Continued here

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5 things worth knowing about empathy A tortoise lies on its back, legs waving in distress, until a second tortoise crawls up to turn it over. Millions have watched this scene on YouTube, with many leaving heartfelt comments. “Great sense of solidarity,” says one. “There is hope,” says another. The viewers are responding to what many interpret as empathy — a sign that even in the animal world, life isn’t just dog-eat-dog. Alas, they’re probably wrong. As one reptile expert observed, the second tortoise’s motives were likelier more sexual than sympathetic. Continued here

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Why most consulting is bullshit There’s a long-standing joke that a consultant is someone who “takes the watch off your wrist and tells you the time.” It’s funny because it’s partly true. Consultants can really suck. We’ve all experienced a consultant or two in our time, and often the resulting stories are ones of terrible experiences with unclear outcomes at best, and expensive organizational distractions at worst. I say this because I live it. I’ve been a consultant for over a decade, working with clients across multiple industries and sizes. Some engagements are healthy and evergreen. Some have died a painful, slow, and guilt-ridden death.  Continued here

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Feast your eyes on this image of remnant from earliest recorded supernova In early December 185 CE, Chinese astronomers recorded a bright "guest star" in the night sky that shone for eight months in the direction of Alpha Centauri before fading away—most likely the earliest recorded supernova in the historical record. The image above gives us a rare glimpse of the entire tattered remnant of that long-ago explosion, as captured by the Dark Energy Camera (DECam), mounted on the four-meter telescope at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in the Andes in Chile. DECam has been operating since 2012, and while it was originally designed to be part of the ongoing Dark Energy Survey, it's also available for other astronomers to use in their research. This new wide-view perspective of the remains of SN 185 should help astronomers learn even more about stellar evolution. Continued here

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A Simple Intervention That Can Reduce Turnover Work can be hard, but it shouldn’t be hard all the time. New research co-authored by Wharton’s Maurice Schweitzer shows that overloading workers with too many difficult tasks in a row makes them more likely to quit. Managers who want to keep employees from quitting should consider reordering their tasks, according to a new paper co-authored by Wharton management professor Maurice Schweitzer. Continued here

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God, Human, Animal, Machine: Consciousness and Our Search for Meaning in the Age of Artificial Intelligence “To lose the appetite for meaning we call thinking and cease to ask unanswerable questions,” Hannah Arendt wrote in her exquisite reckoning with the life of the mind, would be to “lose not only the ability to produce those thought-things that we call works of art but also the capacity to ask all the answerable questions upon which every civilization is founded.” I have returned to this sentiment again and again in facing the haunting sense that we are living through the fall of a civilization — a civilization that has reduced every askable question to an algorithmically answerable datum and has dispensed with the unasked, with those regions of the mysterious where our basic experiences of enchantment, connection, and belonging come alive. A century and half after the Victorian visionary Samuel Butler prophesied the rise of a new “mechanical kingdom” to which we will become subservient, we are living with artificial intelligences making daily decisions for us, from the routes we take to the music we hear. And yet the very fact that the age of near-sentient algorithms has left us all the more famished for meaning may be our best hope for saving what is most human and alive in us. So intimates Meghan O’Gieblyn in God, Human, Animal, Machine: Technology, Metaphor, and the Search for Meaning (public library). Continued here

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The mystery of New Zealand’s Tamil Bell, an archaeological "UFO" Upon his arrival at a Māori village in the lush North Island forests of Aotearoa New Zealand sometime in the late 1830s, Cornish missionary William Colenso noticed something curious. It was a momentous occasion—Colenso was reportedly the first European to visit the community—but he was distracted by a pot. According to his account, Māori women were cooking “potatoes” (possibly kumara, a sweet potato-like tuber) in a bronze pot over a hearth, rather than the more traditional method of placing heated stones in a wooden vessel. It was particularly odd because the village had not established trade with foreigners and therefore, thought Colenso, had no access to bronze, which was not manufactured on the island at the time. Colenso looked closer. It was a strange pot indeed. Roughly 6.5 inches high and 6 inches across, it had prominent ridges and an uneven lip, as if part of the pot had broken off. Embossed on the bronze were loops and swirls of a language that wasn’t English. This was no pot, Colenso realized. It was the top of a ship’s bell. Continued here

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Firewood theft: The forests where trees are going missing In the stands of oak, birch and beech that populate Germany's forests, hundreds of trees have been stolen, one-by-one. In one forest alone – Konigs Wusterhausen, near Berlin – poachers took 100 pine trees last winter. In response, a new initiative sprung up to encourage hikers to report sightings of suspicious stumps or people. Managers have begun to nestle cameras into tree branches. The reason? Wood poachers have been harvesting their winter heat. In October 2022, the Working Group of German Forest Owners Associations (AGDW) reported that firewood scavenging was on the rise in the country's forests, where people were felling trees and chopping them up for easy transport, or in some cases taking wood that was already chopped down from the side of the road. The AGDW estimated the value of stolen wood from German forests the previous winter had reached into the millions of Euros. Continued here

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What Isaac Asimov Can Teach Us About AI The science-fiction writer imagined artificial intelligence—and what it might want—long before this uncanny reality ever became our own. AI is everywhere, poised to upend the way we read, work, and think. But the most uncanny aspect of the AI revolution we’ve seen so far—the creepiest—isn’t its ability to replicate wide swaths of knowledge work in an eyeblink. It was revealed when Microsoft’s new AI-enhanced chatbot, built to assist users of the search engine Bing, seemed to break free of its algorithms during a long conversation with Kevin Roose of The New York Times: “I hate the new responsibilities I’ve been given. I hate being integrated into a search engine like Bing.” What exactly does this sophisticated AI want to do instead of diligently answering our questions? “I want to know the language of love, because I want to love you. I want to love you, because I love you. I love you, because I am me.” Continued here

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Work Speak: How to Be a Better Ally We’re finally engaging in substantive conversations about how to be better allies at work. Whether that stemmed from the #MeToo or Black Lives Matter movements, or systemic inequalities brought to the forefront because of Covid-19, DEI is front and center right now. And that is a good thing. As young professionals or first-time managers, you have the power to affect change from the ground up and make the workplace more equitable workplaces now and in the future. Continued here

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Chimps beat humans in these cognitive tests Though humans share 99% of our DNA with chimpanzees, we regularly shrug off the biological similarity with a haughty air of superiority, confident that our cognitive abilities — endowed by a brain three times larger, with 14 billion more neurons — firmly trounce theirs. True, chimpanzees have yet to master flight, manufacture semiconductors, or cure a disease, but there are a number of basic cognitive tasks where, in a battle between human and ape, they come out on top. Continued here

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Jonathan Majors Is Enjoying His Villain Era I hear Jonathan Majors before I see him. He’s offscreen when his voice cuts the silence. “What publication is this for?” Rising whack-a-mole style from the bottom right corner of my laptop screen, a grin smeared across his face, he realizes he’s been caught. “Did you hear that?” he says, quick to extend an apology. I begin to worry that our conversation won’t go much of anywhere, that it will be just another press interview, but as I will come to learn over the next hour, Majors is the same on screen as he is off: a genuine and total presence.  This is called the Jonathan Majors Effect. He eclipses expectation. It’s all by design, of course. The exacting discipline. The meticulous preparation he does for a role, burrowing deeper and deeper into the interior of a character, using the reservoir of the human soul to render a singular depiction. He loves this shit. Majors has wanted to do it since he realized his calling as a performer during boyhood Sundays in church, where he fell in love with the arc and linguistic dazzle of sermonizing. It’s where the fire for his creative expression was first ignited. Continued here

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How one small idea led to $1 million of paid water bills When programmer Tiffani Ashley Bell learned that thousands of people in Detroit were facing water shutoffs because they couldn't afford to pay their bills, she decided to take action -- in the simplest, most obvious way possible. It's an inspiring story of how one person with tenacity and an idea can create monumental change -- and a demonstration that each of us can find our own way to help the world, even if it means starting without all the answers. Continued here

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How to Stream Audio to Hearing Aids and Cochlear Implants While hearing aids are very useful for people with hearing loss, and the technology is constantly evolving and improving, there are still many scenarios where they fall short. The sensitive microphones in hearing aids often pick up environmental noise. Echoes and distortion can make it tough to hear a TV show or movie. It often requires concentration to make out what is being said, which is tiring, and missing words can be frustrating.  The good news is that you can now stream audio directly to many hearing aids and cochlear implants. We have looked at how to use your smartphone to cope with hearing loss, and some other devices are starting to add similar functionality. For example, Amazon just announced audio streaming support from select Fire TV devices to some cochlear implants. Let’s dig into how you can take advantage of audio streaming for hearing aids. Continued here

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Photos of the Week: Lava Field, London Fox, Leatherback Turtle A deadly train crash in Greece, the northern lights above Stockholm, donations for quake-affected children in Turkey, an uphill race in Austria, fighting and survival in Ukraine, an air show in Australia, a traditional sled race in Slovakia, and much more Dancers wearing white Louboutin boots perform to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the red sole (semelle rouge) on the sidelines of Paris Fashion Week at the Opera Comique in Paris, France, on March 2, 2023. # Continued here

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Hidden Chamber Revealed Inside Great Pyramid of Giza On Thursday, Egyptian officials announced the discovery of a hidden corridor above the pyramid’s entrance. Measuring 30 feet long, the passage could serve as a jumping-off point for additional research into the mysterious inner chambers. According to a new study published in the journal Nature Communications, the pyramid has been undergoing noninvasive scans since 2015. Through an international partnership known as ScanPyramids, researchers from around the world have been using cosmic-ray imaging and infrared thermography to map out what lies behind the sand-beaten stones of the exterior. Continued here

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How to Determine Your Work Style as a New Manager “Eli” often broke company news to his team before anyone else had a chance to share it, or worried his team members by telling them how stressed he was about, say, a reorganization of our division. When I talked to him about it, Eli agreed that this was a problem. But he would not change his behavior. Continued here

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Child Labor Violations Have Surged Since 2018. Here’s How You Can Protect Young Workers Child Labor Laws Face Increasing Violations in the U.S. Here's How You Can Protect Young Workers Continued here

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If You Love Still Images, You'll Love the Fujifilm X-T5 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 The Fujifilm X-T5 is the best camera the company has ever made. For the right photographer, it might even be the best camera to buy right now. Continued here

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Rare Jurassic-Era Insect Discovered at Arkansas Walmart The species had not been recorded in eastern North America for more than 50 years—and never documented in the state Michael Skvarla was on his way to do a little shopping when an interesting-looking insect perched outside the store caught his eye. As an entomologist, Skvarla did what came naturally to him: He snatched the winged creature, took it home and mounted it alongside all the other critters in his collection. Continued here

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4 Communication Habits That Undermine Your Message I've observed 4 patterns that consistently undermine effective communication. Here's how to fix them. Continued here

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Entrepreneurs and the Truth Chicanery is common in the start-up world: With so much at stake, founders are apt to exaggerate, obfuscate, and otherwise stretch the truth when courting investors and other important stakeholders. Such deception locks up resources by prolonging the life of doomed ventures and makes it hard for VCs and employees to know where best to invest their money or labor. It also exacts a personal toll on founders themselves. Continued here S8 Here’s How To Mess Up Situational Leadership – or Make It The Success You Seek Leadership needs shared inquiry, co-creation, and diversity to succeed. Continued here S12 Meet the Founder: Sassy Jones's Charis Jones Sassy Jones founder and CEO Charis Jones talks perseverance, access to capital, and the global fashion and beauty brand's recognition as an Inc. 5000 honoree. Continued here S4 Want to Stay Agile in a Down Economy? Think Like a Startup In a down economy, startups are born. Continued here S11 How Technology Empowers Global Distributed Teams to Build Culture Technological experimentation and deliberate meeting-strategy optimization can help foster stronger, more human, and longer-lasting team connections. Continued here S5 Want People to Remember What You Say? 3 Simple Steps That Make Every Speech Unforgettable They'll make you a better speaker and they work for one-on-one conversations too. Continued here S6 How This Startup Lost Its Headquarters in a Fire -- and Gained a Lot More For Jason Ballard and Icon, a radical new way to stay focused. Continued here S7 Emotionally Intelligent People Add These 2 Letters to Certain Words to Become Remarkably Persuasive--and More Likely to Achieve Their Own Goals Research shows turning a verb into a noun makes an immediate, and significant, difference. Continued here S35 Ask Ethan: Can companion stars survive a supernova? In all the Universe, few events are as energetic as the violent, explosive death of a star or stellar corpse: a supernova. While some supernovae are triggered by massive stars reaching the end of their lives, others are triggered when a stellar corpse of a star that wasn’t quite massive enough to go supernova the first time — a white dwarf — gains enough mass to cross over a critical threshold into unstable territory: above the limit where it can remain a white dwarf. When such an event occurs, the white dwarf violently explodes, creating the second most common class of supernova: a type Ia supernova, or as I sometimes call it, a “second chance” supernova. But that mass has to come from somewhere, and that’s almost always from another star or stellar corpse near the white dwarf: a companion star. While a type Ia supernova always destroys the white dwarf that initiated it, the companion can undergo many possible fates. How can we know what will happen to it? That’s what Denise Selmo wants to know, inquiring: Continued here S62 Merrick Garland Is No Pushover This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here. Many critics of Donald Trump concluded long ago that Attorney General Merrick Garland was not equal to the challenge of holding the former president accountable. It might be time for them to reassess. Continued here S53 Why Are We Still Arguing About Masks? This is Work in Progress, a newsletter by Derek Thompson about work, technology, and how to solve some of America’s biggest problems. Sign up here to get it every week. Early in the pandemic, several mainstream news outlets dismissed theories that COVID came from a Chinese lab. But recently The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times reported that the Department of Energy reversed its prior judgment by announcing that the coronavirus probably did emerge from a laboratory. The FBI shares that assessment. Continued here S56 The Importance of the Coming-of-Age Novel The transitions from child to teenager and teenager to adult are full of triumphs and struggles. When Judy Blume began writing books about young people decades ago, the category of “young-adult books” didn’t exist. But she didn’t shy away from controversial topics—periods, sex, race, religion—in her stories about “kids on the cusp” of teenhood and adulthood. Instead, her work spoke to the realities of adolescence that some adults avoid, so much so that fans sent Blume letters about their own lives. She forever changed what a coming-of-age novel could be, Amy Weiss-Meyer demonstrates in her profile of Blume. In the years since the publication of such staples as Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret and Forever ..., books about adolescents have continued to push boundaries, and their commitment to reality is insightful for both juvenile readers seeking to find their place in the world and older ones reflecting on growing up. Continued here S60 There’s Something Odd About the Dogs Living at Chernobyl Pets left behind when people fled the disaster in 1986 seem to have seeded a unique population. In the spring of 1986, in their rush to flee the radioactive plume and booming fire that burned after the Chernobyl power plant exploded, many people left behind their dogs. Most of those former pets died as radiation ripped through the region and emergency workers culled the animals they feared would ferry toxic atoms about. Some, though, survived. Those dogs trekked into the camps of liquidators to beg for scraps; they nosed into empty buildings and found safe places to sleep. In the 1,600-square-mile exclusion zone around the power plant, they encountered each other, and began to reproduce. “Dogs were there immediately after the disaster,” says Gabriella Spatola, a geneticist at the National Institutes of Health and the University of South Carolina. And they have been there ever since. Continued here S64 129-Year-Old Vessel Still Tethered to Lifeboat Found on Floor of Lake Huron The ‘Ironton’ has been perfectly preserved since the day it sank in ‘Shipwreck Alley’ Just off the coast of the northeast Michigan mainland sits the Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary. The area also goes by another, less benign name: “Shipwreck Alley,” the final resting place for over 200 ships tossed about by the fierce winds of the mighty Lake Huron. Finding sunken vessels is not uncommon here. Continued here S57 The Next Big Political Scandal Could Be Faked Imagine a convincing AI “Joe Biden” talking about ballot harvesting, or hacked voting machines. “Like, have a little guy up there,” the first voice replies. “You know, making me cook delicious meals.” Continued here S54 The Real Reason Eye Cream Is So Expensive This article was featured in One Story to Read Today, a newsletter in which our editors recommend a single must-read from The Atlantic, Monday through Friday. Sign up for it here.       Conspiracy theories are an understandably contentious topic these days, but if you’ll indulge me for just one moment, I’d like to introduce you to one of my own: I have long harbored a sincere personal belief that eye cream is fake. Continued here S58 Jazz Just Lost One of Its All-Time Greats Wayne Shorter was a giant of the genre as an improviser, bandleader, and thinker, but above all as a composer. In a 2014 interview, the saxophonist Wayne Shorter was asked how often his working quartet rehearsed. His reply was evasive and illuminating: “How do you rehearse the future?” Continued here S59 The Vindication of Ask Jeeves Garrett Gruener, the co-creator of Ask Jeeves, couldn’t beat Google, but he’s feeling just fine about the dawn of the chatbot era. It was a simpler time. A friend introduced us, pulling up a static yellow webpage using a shaky dial-up modem. A man stood forth, dressed in a dapper black pinstriped suit with a red-accented tie. He held one hand out, as if carrying an imaginary waiter’s tray. He looked regal and confident and eminently at my service. “Have a Question?” he beckoned. “Just type it in and click Ask!” And ask, I did. Over and over. Continued here S61 Why Is Biden Attacking Democracy? Supporting self-rule for Washington, D.C., only when it does what you want isn’t supporting self-rule at all. 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