Stop Complaining About Your Colleagues Behind Their Backs

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Stop Complaining About Your Colleagues Behind Their Backs Many of us believe that we’re above workplace gossip, and that we never engage in it.  But, if you’ve ever participated in a “confirmation expedition” — whereby you 1) ask a colleague to confirm their own negative or challenging experience with a third colleague who is not present, or 2) welcome a similar line of confirmation inquiry from another colleague about a third colleague who is not present, you are in fact engaging in gossip. By talking to anyone, everyone, or even one person about another colleague who isn’t there to hear the feedback, provide his or her perspective, and engage in joint problem solving, you are undermining the benefits of an open, honest relationship and a feedback-rich culture. To stop this kind of behavior, we have to first call gossip “gossip” to stop it in its tracks. Most people will step back at hearing a colleague say, “This sounds like gossip. Is that what you intended?” Then, pivot the conversation by asking, “How can I help you get a better outcome?” Only engage in coaching, brainstorming, and problem-solving conversations — not in problem-confirming expeditions. Continued here

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Labor's unexpected Aston win is body blow for Dutton The party has defied history - in the worst possible way. This is the first time in more than a century that a government has taken a seat off an opposition at a byelection. Both government and opposition expected a Liberal win, although they predicted a tight result. In the event Labor had a comfortable victory. Continued here

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T. Rex Had Lips That Concealed Its Teeth, Study Says Contrary to popular depictions of the king of dinosaurs—with razor-sharp fangs protruding from its jaw—a new study suggests the Tyrannosaurus rex’s fearsome teeth were hidden behind lizard-like lips.While some critics are pushing back against this idea, the paper, published Thursday in the journal Science, proposes a change in how the world sees T. rex. It might be time to shift the toothy imagining of the dinosaur that filmmakers have picked up on, leading to blockbuster movies like Jurassic Park. Continued here

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Labor wins Aston byelection; NSW election and Trump polling updates Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne With 44% of enrolled voters counted in today’s Aston federal byelection, the ABC has Labor expected to win by 53.4-46.6 over the Liberals, a 6.3% swing to Labor from the 2022 general election. This includes ordinary election day votes only, no pre-polls or postals. Continued here

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Migrant deaths in Mexico put spotlight on US policy that shifted immigration enforcement south The fire-related deaths of at least 39 migrants in a detention facility in Ciudad Juarez, just across the U.S. border with Mexico, will likely be found to have had several contributing factors.There was the immediate cause of the blaze, the mattresses apparently set alight by desperate men in the center to protest their imminent deportation. And then there is the apparent role of guards, seen on video walking away from the blaze. Continued here

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Science Debunks a Decades-Old Myth About Drinking Milk Americans born in the nineties likely remember the got milk? campaign. The rhetorical question came in slim, white sans serif text, all lower case, on a black background. Sometimes it completed a portrait of a smiling child or adult with a white mustache coating their upper lip like an Einstein-Groucho Marx hybrid.Since then, milk has proliferated. At first there was just whole and skim milk, but now there are whole spectra of milk containing various amounts of fat, as well as plant- and nut-based milk in varying flavors. Continued here

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A Biden Ally on the Post-Indictment Stakes of Another Trump Presidency When Jon Meacham appears on “Morning Joe” from his elegant, bookish basement, in Nashville, he knows that he will be asked to link the latest outrage of the news cycle to a historical event of consequence. This is his role, and he never fails to deliver. Meacham invariably comes through with a choice quotation from Lincoln or Jesus of Nazareth, with an apt reference to, say, Yalta or the Long Telegram, and he always does it with a wry, slightly weary “It’s too damn early in the A.M., isn’t it?” smile.When he was young, Meacham seemed older; now that he is in his fifties, he seems like a young man playing an older one, as if the hair were powdered, the half-glasses non-prescription. After stints at the Chattanooga Times and Washington Monthly, Meacham went up the ladder at Newsweek, when newsweeklies were still very much a thing. But, at a certain point, he ditched journalism to become a full-time historian. The lack of a doctoral degree has not hindered him. His books are deeply researched and eloquent; they include “Franklin and Winston: An Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendship,” “Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power,” and “American Lion,” a biography of Andrew Jackson, which won a Pulitzer Prize, in 2009. His most recent book is “And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle.” He has also written about Christianity, patriotism, country music, and impeachment. Continued here

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The 13 Best D&D Episodes of TV, From 'Gravity Falls' to 'Stranger Things' Since its release in 1974, Dungeons & Dragons has fostered generations of writers to hone their craft one D20 roll at a time. Many Hollywood screenwriters claim to owe a debt to D&D, but sometimes they pay their love back through unforgettable TV moments that truly celebrate the game. With Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves now in theaters, you and your fellow party members may be itching to binge some classic D&D-themed episodes from shows like The IT Crowd and Community. Don’t worry: We’ve got you covered like a gelatinous cube. Continued here

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To Overcome Your Fear of Public Speaking, Stop Thinking About Yourself Even the most confident speakers find ways to distance themselves from their audience. It’s how our brains are programmed, so how can we overcome it? Human generosity. The key to calming the amygdala and disarming our panic button is to turn the focus away from ourselves — away from whether we will mess up or whether the audience will like us — and toward helping the audience. Showing kindness and generosity to others has been shown to activate the vagus nerve, which has the power to calm the fight-or-flight response. When we are kind to others, we tend to feel calmer and less stressed. The same principle applies in speaking. When we approach speaking with a spirit of generosity, we counteract the sensation of being under attack and we feel less nervous. Continued here

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How to Stop Saying "Um," "Ah," and "You Know" When you get rattled while speaking — whether you’re nervous, distracted, or at a loss for what comes next — it’s easy to lean on filler words, such as “um,” “ah,” or “you know.” These words can become crutches that diminish our credibility and distract from our message. To eliminate such words from your speech, replace them with pauses. To train yourself to do this, take these three steps. First, identify your crutch words and pair them with an action. Every time you catch yourself saying “like,” for example, tap your leg. Once you’ve become aware of your filler words as they try to escape your lips, begin forcing yourself to be silent. Finally, practice more than you think you should. The optimal ratio of preparation to performance is one hour of practice for every minute of presentation. Continued here

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How to See a Rare Hybrid Eclipse in the Night Sky This Month April’s night sky will be full of celestial wonders. A stunning Full Moon, a notable meteor shower, and a meetup of four bright targets are just the tip of the iceberg.The Full Moon won’t literally be pink this month, but it is sometimes called the Pink Moon after a plant native to eastern North America. Phlox subulata, also known as creeping phlox and moss phlox, starts to sprout its colorful flowers in April. Continued here

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Cope or Quit? Facing a Mid-Career Crisis Research shows that many people—even those with seemingly enviable careers—grow dissatisfied in their jobs in their mid-40s. They may regret past choices or feel stuck in a rut. But Kieran Setiya thinks the tools of his trade—philosophy—can help. He says sadness about the road not taken can be mitigated by attending to the people and pursuits that we cherish and wouldn’t have without our careers. He notes that we spend much of our work time solving problems and meeting needs, so we should engage in some feel-good activities (inside or outside the office). And he suggests focusing less on projects and more on process, to replace a “What’s next?” mindset with an appreciation for the present. Continued here

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You Need to Play the Most Controversial Lord of the Rings Game ASAP Sandbagged by an unfortunate lootbox system at launch, Middle-earth: Shadow of War is worth a revisit.You can’t manufacture a rivalry. Some of the biggest rivalries, be it video game companies or supervillains, seem to have always existed. There’s an organic nature to rivalries even in our own lives. We don’t pick our rivals. We find them. They happen to us. An obnoxious coworker, a nasty cashier, a printer that hates you. The paradox of rivalry is that even though they represent a conflict, we love them. A good rivalry is thrilling. And one video game understands that better than anything else. Continued here

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Your "Recycled" Grocery Bag May Hide a Dirty Secret To jumpstart a paltry market for recycled plastic, governments across the globe are pushing companies to include recycled materials in their products. Last year, the United Kingdom introduced a tax on manufacturers that produce or import plastic packaging containing less than 30 percent recycled plastic. In 2024, New Jersey will begin enforcing similar rules, albeit with lower targets. California now requires that beverage containers be made of 15 percent recycled materials, and Washington will enact a similar requirement later this year. The European Commission, Canada, and Mexico are all considering comparable moves.Currently, most plastic products are derived from freshly extracted fossil fuels, including crude oil and natural gas. Incorporating some recycled plastic could reduce emissions and shrink pollution in waterways and landfills, experts say. But collecting, sorting, pulverizing, and melting post-consumer plastics for reuse is expensive. The new laws will potentially help recyclers find buyers for what would otherwise become waste. Continued here

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Europe's forgotten transalpine cuisine To make sügeli, a fresh shell-shaped pasta, chef Patrick Teisseire first takes a tiny round of dough, rolls it in flour, and with his thumb, presses it flat and slides it along a large circular wooden board. After pressing along the ridged board, a soft, contoured shell with seven fine pleats emerges. It's a finely-honed technique that Teisseire described as the "skill of sügeli". He repeats the process until his dough has disappeared, replaced by neat rows of pasta shells ready to be fed into a deep saucepan of boiling water.Composed of flour, water, salt and olive oil, sügeli is one of the main dishes of cucina bianca (white cuisine), the food of the pastoral transalpine communities in the high valleys of Piedmont, Liguria and the Alpes-Maritimes in what is today south-eastern France and north-western Italy. Named for the "colourless" nature of staple ingredients, such as flour, potatoes, leeks, turnips, dairy products and legumes, it's a cuisine that shares little resemblance to the bright reds, greens and yellows of the tomato, pepper and courgette-infused dishes of the coastal Mediterranean cuisine typically associated with the region. "An absence of colour doesn't mean an absence of taste, however," Teisseire was keen to emphasise as he expertly manipulated more sügeli shells from a new batch of dough in front of me. Continued here

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The Weirdest Sci-Fi Movie on HBO Max Reveals an Even Stranger True Story The Men Who Stare at Goats fictionalizes real-life attempts by the Pentagon into psychic powers. Running through walls, becoming invisible, and viewing faraway places with the power of your mind might sound like purely fantastical — and fictional — abilities. But they’re completely real for many of the characters in The Men Who Stare at Goats. Continued here

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55 Years Ago, Stanley Kubrick Made the Most Influential Sci-Fi Movie Ever -- Despite What Some Critics Think In the short-lived animated comedy Mission Hill, teenage sci-fi dork Kevin shows his two sci-fi dork friends what his cinephile neighbor calls “the greatest science fiction movie ever made.” Kevin is enraptured, but his Armageddon-addled pals are bored and full of angry questions like “What is that stupid black thing?” and “When are we going to fight some aliens?”Their struggle to wrap their heads around 2001: A Space Odyssey is understandable because the so-called greatest sci-fi ever has long been rendered a punchline by an interminable parade of parodies. Spaceballs, Zoolander, and Everything Everywhere All at Once reference famous scenes, the trailers for The Barbie Movie and The Peanuts Movie satirize its impact, and you could assemble a short recreation from all the times Futurama and The Simpsons mocked it, to name just a few examples. It’s so common to poke fun at its famous soundtrack selection, the opening of Richard Strauss’ “Also sprach Zarathustra,” that when the actual movie plays those booming notes it’s hard to take it seriously. Continued here

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'Succession' Season 4 Episode 2 Trailer Teases a Surprising Alliance It’s the most wonderful time of the year: Succession time! The new and final season of HBO’s dark anti-elite comedy premiered last week, and now, it’s almost time for Succession Season 4 Episode 2. But what can we expect from the next episode? And, more importantly, what time will it be released on HBO and HBO Max? Here’s everything you need to know about Succession Season 4 Episode 2.Yes, sort of. After the premiere, HBO released a promotional video for the rest of Succession Season 4, teasing the battle to come between Logan Roy and his children: Kendall, Shiv, and Roman. (There’s also Connor, but he’s got his own issues to deal with.) Notably, the trailer reveals that Logan and Roman have been texting ever since Logan’s birthday in Season 4 Episode 1. Are father and son hatching a plan of their own? Continued here

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Scientists Find Water in Glass Beads From the Moon This means the lunar surface could hold up to 300 billion tons of water, a new study estimatesWhen asteroids or meteors crash into the moon, the collisions send fragments of the lunar surface flying into the air, heated to molten temperatures by the impact. Under these extreme conditions, silicate particles come together to form tiny glass beads, writes Live Science’s Ben Turner. Now, scientists say they've found water stored in these glass beads in samples returned from the moon. Continued here

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9 Years Ago, Astronomers Found Two Rogue Planets -- But They Didn't Realize It Until Now Scientists have found what appear to be rogue planets hidden in old survey data. Their results are starting to define the poorly-understood rogue planet population. In the near future, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will conduct a search for more free-floating planets, and the team of researchers will develop some methods that will aid that search.Planets are typically part of a planetary system and are gravitationally bound to their star, or stars in the case of a binary star. Planets can migrate toward and away from their star when conditions are right, but they stay bound to the star, even if separated by a vast distance. But sometimes, a planet is kicked out of its system due to a supernova explosion, a stellar interloper, or some other event. And in some cases, a planet can form on its own outside of any solar system. These are rogue planets or free-floating planets (FFPs.) Continued here

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The Decade-Long Perfect Storm Behind Florida's Viral "Seaweed Blob" It was all anyone could talk about for a week straight: the smelly seaweed blob straight out of a bad ‘80s sci-fi horror movie.Earlier this month, headlines from outlets ranging from CNN to The New York Times to The Guardian bemoaned an encroaching “5000-mile” seaweed blob hitting Florida coastlines and ruining your beach vacation with its profound stench of rotting eggs. Continued here

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As glaciers retreat, new streams for salmon Pushing off from the dock on a boat called the Capelin, Sandy Milner’s small team of scientists heads north, navigating through patchy fog past a behemoth cruise ship. As the Capelin slows to motor through humpback whale feeding grounds, distant plumes of their exhalations rise from the surface on this calm July morning. Dozens of sea otters dot the water. Lolling on backs, some with babes in arms, they turn their heads curiously as the boat speeds by. Seabirds and seals speckle floating icebergs in this calm stretch of Alaska’s Glacier Bay. Continued here

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2 over-the-counter drugs may reduce "brain fog" in COVID long-haulers COVID long-haulers experience symptoms for weeks or even years after their infection. One of the common complaints among these patients is brain fog — a colloquial term for lack of mental clarity, poor focus and concentration, memory problems, and difficulty with multitasking. Unfortunately, no treatment options are currently approved for the condition. Luckily, Yale researchers have discovered a drug combination that can mitigate or even eliminate brain fog. The best part is these drugs are already available to patients.Executive functioning, working memory, and attention regulation are carried out by a recently evolved area in the brain called the prefrontal cortex. The neurons in this region form highly interconnected, circular neural circuits, which help keep information “in focus” without requiring external stimulation. Unfortunately, these circuits are also vulnerable to inflammation and stress. Continued here

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LEGO-Inspired Robots Could Solve the Biggest Hurdles in Moon Exploration A student-led team from MIT developed a Walking Oligometric Robotic Mobility Systems (WORMS) robot.Building with LEGOs is a favored pastime for many small children and adults. But, as The LEGO Movie points out, they constitute “a highly sophisticated interlocking brick system.” So why not take the idea underpinning LEGOs — that you can make anything you want out of a set of generic pieces and apply it to a much more serious scientific topic … like robots. Continued here

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Amazon's selling a ton of these cheap things that make your home so much cooler Decorating your home can be tricky. On one hand, you want to make sure it looks nice — but you also want to make sure you don’t blow through too much money when sprucing it up. Luckily, there are tons of cheap things on Amazon that can make any home look so much cooler. From sleek wine decanters to silky pillowcases, I’ve made sure to include a variety of affordable items that’ll look good in your home regardless of how you like to decorate. But if you want to see more? You’ll just have to keep scrolling. Continued here

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Reviewers Are Obsessed With This Clever Stuff On Amazon That Seems Expensive But Is Cheap As Hell It’s normal to want the best for yourself and your home, but with so many products out there it can be hard to tell what’s actually worth your money. One surefire way to help you decide, however, is by going with highly rated items with tens of thousands of positive reviews. Thankfully, this list below is chock-full of exactly that.Scroll on for clever stuff you didn’t know you desperately need, from haircare to electronics and more. And better yet, even though these items may look expensive, they’re actually super affordable. Continued here

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ChatGPT Sucks at Playing Wordle -- Here's Why The AI chatbot known as ChatGPT, developed by the company OpenAI, has caught the public’s attention and imagination. Some applications of the technology are truly impressive, such as its ability to summarise complex topics or to engage in long conversations.It’s no surprise that other AI companies have been rushing to release their own large language models (LLMs) — the name for the technology underlying chatbots like ChatGPT. Some of these LLMs will be incorporated into other products, such as search engines. Continued here

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How One Fast-Food Chain Keeps Its Turnover Rates Absurdly Low Many of us who are hungry for the latest dispatches from the war for talent look to to Silicon Valley. We want to know Google’s secret to hiring the best people or Mark Zuckerberg’s one tip for hiring employees. But in a world where most companies don’t operate on the frontiers of digital transformation, and most employees aren’t tech geeks or app developers, our appetite for unconventional talent strategies should probably extend to more conventional parts of the economy. Like, say, an amazing fast-food chain called Pal’s Sudden Service. Continued here

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Acing Your Self-Appraisal (Even If It's Your First) Writing your first self appraisal (or the fifth!) can be daunting. If you’re overly positive, you might appear disconnected from reality. But if you point out your shortcomings, you risk sowing seeds of doubt in otherwise solid ground. It’s worth getting the self-appraisal right because, done well, it’s a chance to boost your credibility and increase your impact. Continued here

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When (and How) to Speak Up as an Ally Our friend Naomi is a white ally who works for a charitable organization. Her white male boss recently decided to establish a committee to address issues of diversity, inclusion, and racial equity. Naomi feared that if the mostly white leaders didn’t structure committee meetings carefully, they would exclude the voices of people of color. She read some antiracism resources on how to elicit diverse perspectives and shared some recommendations with her boss. He agreed with her suggestions and urged her to announce her ideas at the next all-company meeting. Continued here

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Writing a Rejection Letter (with Samples) I have a friend who appraises antiques — assigning a dollar value to the old Chinese vase your grandmother used for storing pencils, telling you how much those silver knickknacks from Aunt Fern are worth. He says the hardest part of his job, the part he dreads the most, is telling people that their treasure is worthless. Continued here

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Archaeologists Discover 2,000 Mummified Ram Skulls in Temple of Ramses II For anyone who studies ancient Egypt—and even many who don’t—the name Ramses II looms large. Also known as Ramses the Great and Ozymandias, this New Kingdom pharaoh embodies many modern perceptions of ancient Egypt: militarism, diplomacy, advanced infrastructure, vast wealth.Ramses II died in 1213 B.C.E., and his celebrity status has endured ever since. And now, a new discovery is shedding light on perceptions of the ancient pharaoh during the Ptolemaic period, about 1,000 years after his death. Continued here

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How to Run a Meeting Why is it that any single meeting may be a waste of time, an irritant, or a barrier to the achievement of an organization’s objectives? The answer lies in the fact, as the author says, that “all sorts of human crosscurrents can sweep the discussion off course, and errors of psychology and technique on the chairman’s part can defeat its purposes.” This article offers guidelines on how to right things that go wrong in meetings. The discussion covers the functions of a meeting, the distinctions in size and type of meetings, ways to define the objectives, the preparations, the chairman’s role, and ways to conduct a meeting that will achieve its objectives. Continued here

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A Question of Language in Ukraine © 2023 Condé Nast. All rights reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. The New Yorker may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast. Ad Choices Continued here

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Yachts Won't Slow Down to Save a Nearly Extinct Whale Speed limits could make whale collisions far less deadly. So why are fishing boats against them?Along the eastern coast of North America, North Atlantic right whales and boats navigate the same waters, which can get dicey for both. Fully grown, the whales can top out at more than 50 feet and weigh 140,000 pounds. A midsize, 58-foot-long pleasure yacht weighs about 80,000 pounds and can cost more than $1 million. “No mariner wants to collide with a whale,” says the retired Coast Guard officer Greg Reilly. “For obvious reasons.” Continued here

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The Best Barefoot Shoes for Walking or Running 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 WIREDYou were born barefoot, and a growing body of evidence suggests you should have stayed that way. The technology and padding of the modern shoe protect your feet, but protection isn't always what you want. Feet were made to stretch, flex, roll, and bend, and letting them do what they evolved to do can reduce impact injuries and provide a host of other benefits. Continued here

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Managing Human Resources In the Dallas airport the other day I saw many tall, well-dressed, and impressive-looking men wearing large, immaculate Stetson cowboy hats. As I walked by one such hat-wearer, I noticed two middle-aged, sunburned men in faded blue jeans standing nearby. They eyed the same fellow, looked him up and down, and then one said quietly to the other, “Big hat, no cattle.” Continued here

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The Twitter I Love Doesn't Exist Anymore At its best, the platform was a reminder that there are quick-witted and even wise people in the world with ideas to share.This is a sentimental story about Twitter, a little Twitterbilly elegy. I spilled tears, heavy Patsy Cline tears, for the platform for the first time a few weeks ago, during a walk with Amanda Guinzburg, a writer and photographer I’d long followed on Twitter for her excellent tweets about American politics and photos of libidinous flowers. Continued here

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Ancient DNA Confirms the Origin Story of the Swahili People Medieval individuals in the coastal East African civilization had almost equal parts African and Asian ancestry, a new study findsA new analysis of medieval DNA has revealed that around the turn of the first millennium, Swahili ancestors from Africa and Asia began intermingling and having children, giving rise to a Swahili civilization with a multiracial identity, at least among its elites. The discovery matches local stories passed down through generations that were previously dismissed as myth by outside researchers.  Continued here

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Your "Autism Awareness Day" Might Be Excluding Autistic People Forward-looking organizations can do much better than having an outdated, performative Autism Awareness Day. People outside of the autism community often receive contradictory information about which “awareness” efforts are welcomed, with the mainstream media, parents of autistic children, and adult autistic self-advocates presenting very different perspectives. The confusion over the language and symbolism reflects the philosophical divide between the medical perspective on autism that has primarily dominated the awareness conversation in the mainstream and the neurodiversity perspective. Leaders need to understand the origins of these mixed and changing messages, then take steps to celebrate and include the autistic community meaningfully. Continued here

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What Is the Optimal Pattern of a Customer Journey? Even though customer experience (CX) leaders are becoming increasingly focused on optimizing their firms’ customer journeys, they face a clear challenge: Which touchpoints along the journey should they invest in? That is, which moments when the customer interacts with their brand are most impactful to the customer’s overall experience? One way to think of customer journeys is as continuous patterns of mental experiences traced over time. Thinking of customer journeys as patterns raises a new set of productive questions, such as: Which patterns are most successful? And what features of those patterns lead to success? Some have argued that the best patterns are smooth and frictionless, while others have made the case for patterns that fluctuate, given that they are likely to be more eventful and stimulating. This article covers research and data on which patterns are most effective, and where CX managers should be investing their limited resources for the best possible customer experience outcomes. Continued here

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When President Ulysses S. Grant Was Arrested for Speeding in a Horse-Drawn Carriage The sitting commander in chief insisted the Black police officer who cited him not face punishment for doing his dutyWhen police officer William Henry West pulled over Ulysses S. Grant for speeding in a horse-drawn carriage on the streets of Washington, D.C. in 1872, he issued the president a warning. The very next day, however, West caught Grant in the midst of another race with his friends. Continued here

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People With High Emotional Intelligence Never Use These 9 Phrases. Here's What They Say Instead "Sorry, I wasn't listening." Continued here

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Nvidia's GameStream is dead. Sunshine and Moonlight are great replacements. Nvidia's GameStream had one job, the one in its name: stream games from the Nvidia graphics card inside your PC to the Nvidia Shield hooked up to your TV (or, back in the day, a Shield tablet). It did this job fairly well, making setup simple and optimizing games with some custom stream-smoothing. Now Nvidia is removing GameStream from Shield devices—but an even better DIY game-streaming solution is already available. Let's take a look at it and talk to the developers about why and how they made it. Continued here

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Creating a Trans-Inclusive Workplace Trans people often experience stigma and discrimination, hostility from others, and pressure to “manage” their identities in social settings, including the workplace. These experiences can set in motion a host of psychological responses that have devastating consequences for trans individuals’ job satisfaction, turnover intentions, and emotional well-being. Continued here

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Brain scans can reveal what song you're listening to Neural decoding is a subfield of neuroscience that uses machine learning algorithms to infer or reconstruct mental states or sensory information from brain activity recorded by various neuroimaging methods. Most decoding studies employ functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), which records changes in cerebral blood flow as a proxy for brain activity. In the past decade, researchers have decoded fMRI data to detect individual memories and to reconstruct what a person is hearing from the brain’s responses to speech or what they are seeing while watching movies. Perhaps the most spectacular example is found in a 2013 study which used fMRI to decode the visual imagery that occurs in dreams. Continued here

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Video Quick Take: Prudential's Lee Boon Huat on Fostering Financial Inclusion Using Data and Analytics - SPONSOR CONTENT FROM GOOGLE CLOUD Todd Pruzan, Senior Editor for Research and Special Projects at Harvard Business Review, recently sat down with Lee Boon Huat, Group Chief Digital Officer at Prudential plc, to talk about how Prudential uses artificial intelligence and data analytics to enhance the levels of insurance coverage as well as financial inclusion for communities in Asia and Africa. What follows is a transcription of the highlights of their conversation. Continued here

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The Power of Low-Stakes Humor The internet might have destroyed April Fools’ Day, but we can still have fun the rest of the year.This is an edition of The Wonder Reader, a newsletter in which our editors recommend a set of stories to spark your curiosity and fill you with delight. Sign up here to get it every Saturday morning. Continued here

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Disney's Last-Minute Sometimes, strategy isn't just about playing harder or tougher or more aggressively. Continued here

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The friendship recession Richard Reeves, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, discusses the importance of friendships and the potential “friendship recession.” He notes that loneliness can be as harmful as smoking 15 cigarettes per day, but measuring and quantifying friendships is difficult. According to Reeves, an ideal number of close friends is around three or four.But alarmingly, 15% of young men today report having no close friends, compared to 3% in the 1990s. The COVID pandemic has further tested friendship networks, with women being the most affected due to their friendships’ reliance on physical contact. Other factors likely have contributed to the decline in friendships in the 21st-century U.S., including geographical mobility, parenting demands, workism, and relationship breakdowns. Continued here

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Jeremy Strong and Hollywood's most extreme actors No acting technique raises more eyebrows than method acting – commonly misunderstood these days to mean the style of performance where people go to extreme lengths to identify with their characters, or "get in their head".More like this:It's been in the headlines once again ahead of next week's premiere of the fourth and final season of Jesse Armstrong's eviscerating dramedy, Succession, thanks to renewed discussion around the divisive acting of one of its stars, Jeremy Strong. Ever since Strong discussed his tortured process for playing would-be media mogul Kendall Roy in an infamous 2021 New Yorker profile, he has been saddled with the "method actor" label. "I think you have to go through whatever the ordeal is that the character has to go through," he told the magazine. He also admitted to isolating himself from his castmates, and sometimes refusing to rehearse because he wanted "every scene to feel like I'm encountering a bear in the woods". Continued here

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This Change to Your Day Can Make You Happy and More Productive, According to a Performance Psychologist Poor energy management is the real cause of burnout, says psychologist and coach Sarah Sarkis. Continued here

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Trump's Republican Rivals Are Missing an Obvious Opportunity Now is an ideal moment for Republicans to free themselves from the former president. They’re not exactly taking advantage of it.After his historic indictment was announced Thursday night, former President Donald Trump reacted with his characteristic cool and precision: “These Thugs and Radical Left Monsters have just INDICATED the 45th President of the United States of America.” Presumably this was a typo, and he meant INDICTED. But the immediate joining of arms around the martyr was indeed a perfect indication of precisely who the Republicans are right now. Continued here

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The Throwback Hero That Video Games Needed The “next-gen remake” is the latest and safest cash cow in video gaming. Take a hit title that came out a decade or more ago on a prior console, spiff it up with updated graphics, controls, and maybe even some new content, and sell it at full price to a nostalgic audience. Since its 2005 debut on the Nintendo GameCube, Capcom’s Resident Evil 4 has been lightly reconfigured for a dozen different devices. But the most recent edition is a soup-to-nuts revamp, meant to bring in a new generation while still satisfying longtime players like me who are just looking to relive the glory days.I was introduced to Resident Evil 4 in college, and I’ve replayed it countless times over the years as it’s been “ported” to new consoles. When it was first released, the game marked a departure from the rest of the Resident Evil series, in which the player navigates the fictional Raccoon City during a viral zombie outbreak. The first Resident Evil pioneered the “survival horror” genre, asking players to conserve ammunition, solve puzzles, and withstand jump scares as enemies swarmed from every dark corner. The best-selling horror franchise spawned rival series such as Silent Hill and Left 4 Dead, but by 2005, the Resident Evil formula had grown creaky, having gained sequels and prequels for almost a decade to diminishing returns. Continued here

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10 Years Ago, a Marvel Star Launched an Overlooked Sci-Fi Gamechanger In She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, Tatiana Maslany plays two versions of the same character — the brilliant Jennifer Walters and the bodacious She-Hulk — as both get into brushes with Marvel D-listers. But portraying two characters on one show was probably a cakewalk for Maslany after her five-year stint on Orphan Black. Maslany was lauded for her work on the thrilling and creative Canadian biopunk drama, where she played 11 different clones of Sarah Manning across five seasons. Each had different wardrobes, mannerisms, accents, and personalities, and Maslany showed impressive range in making each of them feel distinct. There have been fake twins and triplets galore on TV, but no other show had taken on such an enormous endeavor upon its March 30, 2013 debut. Continued here

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How to Build Wealth When You Don't Come from Money The first step to attaining wealth — at least for people who are not born into it — is much more personal than building millionaire habits or investing wisely. Such approaches often fail to address the systemic and mental barriers faced by many of the marginalized groups who grew up without access to wealth. The author argues that changing your mindset, or building a mindset conducive to wealth, is the real first step. Continued here

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The German clinics for burnt-out parents Sebastian Schwerk lay awake at night, his mind racing. His father had recently died of leukaemia. Schwerk had been caring for him for months, together with his siblings, as well as looking after his own family. Now his mother needed care, too. His two older children were going through puberty. And he worried that with so much going on, his youngest son wasn't getting enough attention."All of those issues were causing me huge stress," recalls Schwerk, who is the creative director of a communications agency in Dresden, Germany. "And then my partner said to me: 'You do realise you have a right to a health retreat, don't you?'" Continued here

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How a Victorian Prince's Lawsuit Shaped Today's TikTok Debate Before the House Energy and Commerce Committee had even concluded its hearing with TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew last week, users took to the app to mock members of Congress for their questions. Lawmakers were lambasted for being out of touch with the realities of social media. One younger TikTokker called the hearings “the most boomer thing I have ever seen.”But the TikTok controversy can’t simply be chalked up to generational differences, as the very notion of data privacy doesn’t stem from the invention of social media, the internet, or even computers. Instead, it’s traceable to a watershed legal decision in 1849, when Prince Albert of England sued a printer for trying to publish a catalog about drawings he and Queen Victoria had made depicting their personal family life. All of the elements at play in data privacy debates today—personal information, technological innovation, and national security—were also integral to that case.  Continued here

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A "Goldilocks" star reveals previously hidden step in how water gets to planets like Earth Without water, life on Earth could not exist as it does today. Understanding the history of water in the universe is critical to understanding how planets like Earth come to be.Astronomers typically refer to the journey water takes from its formation as individual molecules in space to its resting place on the surfaces of planets as “the water trail.” The trail starts in the interstellar medium with hydrogen and oxygen gas and ends with oceans and ice caps on planets, with icy moons orbiting gas giants and icy comets and asteroids that orbit stars. The beginnings and ends of this trail are easy to see, but the middle has remained a mystery. Continued here

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The mystery origins of Candida auris On a vast palm-fringed beach, bordered by a sapphire-blue sea, a search team was looking for a killer. It was 2021 and the operation was taking place at Corbyn Cove – an impressive swathe of pale golden sand and terracotta beach huts in the Andaman Islands, a remote archipelago in the north-eastern Indian Ocean.So far, the suspect had appeared in at least 33 countries on three continents, leading to hundreds of  deaths. But this was no ordinary manhunt. Firstly, there were no search warrants – only swabs. And secondly, the assailant was a fungus. Continued here

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18 Great Deals on Electric Bikes, Outdoor Gear, and Camera Bags Winter is finally behind us here in the US, so you might be itching to spend more time outdoors—whether it's going for a run or a bike ride, spending time in the backyard, or planning a trip. Regardless of how you plan to shake off cabin fever, we've found a variety of gear on sale to make it even more enjoyable. Below, you'll find great deals on electric bikes, smartwatches, luggage, portable chargers, and more. Looking for more deals? Earlier this week we rounded up some nice discounts on phones, headphones, and video games.Special offer for Gear readers: Get a 1-year subscription to WIRED for $5 ($25 off). This includes unlimited access to WIRED.com and our print magazine (if you'd like). Subscriptions help fund the work we do every day. Continued here

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Screen Time: A ridiculous April 1 rhyme It's April Fools' Day—but who needs more "fake news" in their lives right now? So here's a real poem instead, a six-part rhymed couplet romp in the playful spirit of Dr. Seuss or of Roald Dahl's Revolting Rhymes. It contains everything that literary critics say a good poem should: yak bile, yurts, Descartes, broken bones, lawyers, and an imagined Krogan romance. It brought me great joy to write such ridiculous rhymes, and I hope you experience at least a tiny fraction of that feeling as you read. Continued here

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50, 100 & 150: April 2023 “Among the most troublesome air pollutants produced by automobiles are the chemically active nitrogen oxides. Workers at Bell Laboratories have found catalysts that react nitrogen oxides with a reducing gas (hydrogen or carbon monoxide), converting them to nitrogen and such harmless by-products as water and carbon dioxide. They can be coated on a ceramic support to make a filter-like device that could be installed in an automobile. So far such devices have been tested only in the laboratory; further tests are necessary to see if they will stand up under the severe conditions in an exhaust system of an automobile running for extended periods. The automobile industry faces increasingly strict Federal standards for reducing carbon monoxide, unburned hydrocarbons and oxides of nitrogen in exhaust emissions.”“At the recent meeting of the National Academy of Sciences, Dr. Henry Fairfield Osborn announced the discovery of a tooth giving evidence of a pre-historic and unknown species of anthropoid intermediate between the ape and the earliest man. This discovery was made by Harold J. Cook in the middle Pliocene formations of Nebraska. This tooth matches no known tooth of ape or man, modern or extinct. Dr. Osborn classifies it as a new species and genus and names it Hesperopithecus haroldcookii, which means ‘the anthropoid from the west discovered by Harold Cook.’ The fossil was found in the upper phase of the Snake River beds, associated with remains of the rhinoceros, camel, Asiatic antelope and an early form of the horse. Hitherto, no specimen of anthropoid primates had been discovered in America.” Continued here

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This Story Has Been Removed Editor’s note 4/1/2023 6:30 pm ET: This article was taken down after WIRED learned that the company in the story paid the author for their travel, a violation of WIRED’s editorial policy.© 2023 Condé Nast. All rights reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. WIRED may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast. Ad Choices Continued here

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Trump's Legal Problems Are Putting the GOP in a Vise The investigations highlight all the aspects of his political identity that have alienated so many swing voters.The dilemma for the Republican Party is that Donald Trump’s mounting legal troubles may be simultaneously strengthening him as a candidate for the GOP presidential nomination and weakening him as a potential general-election nominee. Continued here

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The Island Where New York City Buries Its Unclaimed Dead Is Becoming a Park More than one million people have been buried on Hart Island, which will open to visitors later this yearSince 1869, more than one million New Yorkers have been buried on the 131-acre strip of land called Hart Island, the nation’s largest public cemetery. They have arrived in plain wooden caskets, which inmates (and, more recently, contracted laborers) usually stack three deep in trenches. Small white posts mark the plots with reference numbers. Due to restrictions, few visitors are allowed.  Continued here

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When innovation goes south: The tech that never quite worked out Vaclav Smil reminds us that despite the onslaught of popular techno-pundits claiming otherwise, immense and rapid progress in one realm does not mean immense and rapid progress in all realms. Continued here

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SpaceX moves Starship to launch site, and liftoff could be just days away SpaceX moved the most flight-ready of its Starship rockets, Ship 24, to a launch site in South Texas on Saturday. While a launch is not imminent this week, it could take place as early as April 10, sources said. Continued here