Monday, December 26, 2022

December 27, 2022 - A look at the new B-21 Raider--and the stealth bomber that preceded it



S7
A look at the new B-21 Raider--and the stealth bomber that preceded it

On December 2, the Air Force revealed its first new bomber in 34 years: the B-21 Raider. The Raider most closely resembles its stealthy predecessor the B-2 Spirit, and both were built by defense giant Northrop Grumman. With only head-on views of the B-21 released and available to the press, it is hard to know all the features that distinguish it from its predecessor. Still, the head-on image is enough to identify some major changes. 

The Raider is a stealth flying wing, designed to carry an explosive arsenal deep into hostile countries while bypassing their radar systems. The B-2 could deliver deadly payloads from conventional explosives to nuclear weapons. Unlike the Spirit’s 1988 reveal, the B-21 arrived in a world with a very different geopolitical climate, one where the nuclear superpower over the horizon for the US to worry about is China, not the Soviet Union. 

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S50
No One Can Decide If Grapefruit Is Dangerous

The citrus can raise the level of dozens of drugs in the body—sometimes to a worrying degree, sometimes very much not.

Roughly a century ago, a new fad diet began to sweep the United States. Hollywood starlets such as Ethel Barrymore supposedly swore by it; the citrus industry hopped on board. All a figure-conscious girl had to do was eat a lot of grapefruit for a week, or two, or three.

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S48
I Love My Clutter, Thank You Very Much

The horizontal surfaces in my family room are covered with newspapers, magazines, books I’ve started, books I intend to read, books I want to read but never will, erasable pens, a sweatshirt or two, a soccer ball, a bucket of toy cars, and wayward Legos that gouge my stockinged feet. In addition to a computer, two telephones, and a TV remote, my desk at home is strewn with notebooks, folders, loose papers, birchbark, a modem, scraps of paper with notes to myself, photos of my wife and kids, flash drives, nail clippers, pens, coins, a stapler, a thesaurus, shopping receipts, a hand-grip strengthener, a blood-pressure cuff, two- and three-dimensional likenesses of Abraham Lincoln, four baseballs, three baseball caps, two 1909 baseball cards, two flashlights, a pair of AirPods, a miniature boxing glove my father gave me before I can remember, one Pokémon card, and two Tibetan bowls.

Blame my childhood, if you like, in a small suburban house that was tidy verging on sterile, but I find it cozy and comforting to be surrounded by stuff. Possibly I could part with a flashlight, the coins, and the smaller Tibetan bowl, and yet I can’t. It’s not too fanciful to suggest that the clutter on my desk sketches pretty accurately who I am. I do not make the claim that having a messy desk implies being a genius, à la Edison or Einstein or Steve Jobs. Still, I do know where everything is.

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S13
Inside Carlos Correa's stunning pivot from Giants to Mets : 'Correa-mas' came early

Boras was typing from San Francisco, where he had come to attend the event with his client. Cohen received the note in Hawaii, vacationing after authorizing an offseason spending spree of roughly $500 million. The cost had not slaked Cohen’s zeal for improvement. When San Francisco agreed to a 13-year, $350 million contract with Correa on Dec. 13, Cohen and Boras had engaged in discussions about the two-time All-Star shortstop. Cohen could not hide his disappointment in missing out. He felt he had arrived late to the party.

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S11
What keeping a bullet journal can teach you about using to-do list apps

On July 6th of this year, I officially ended my three-year-long experiment with trying to organize my life using a physical bullet journal. I know the exact date because I’m looking at my discontinued notebook as I write this. Apparently, five months ago, I needed to take photos of the Corsair K70 keyboard for a then-forthcoming review and follow up with a quote I’d received to insulate my roof. I took the photos. I did not end up insulating my roof. 

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S10
I usually wake up just ahead of my alarm. What's up with that?

Humans have an elegant and intricate system of internal processes that help our bodies keep time, with exposure to sunlight, caffeine and meal timing all playing a role. But that doesn't account for "precision waking." Sarah Mosquera/NPR hide caption

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S12
The Internet Archive just put 565 Palm Pilot apps in your web browser

Yes, I am playing Dope Wars on a Palm Pilot inside my iPhone. It’s thanks to The Internet Archive, which is once again launching a giant collection of software you can instantly play on any web browser, up to and including your touchscreen-equipped phone. There are currently 565 classic Palm apps in all, including games, widgets, and even free trials from both the greyscale and color eras.

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S2
Why some salt marshes are more endangered than we thought

On January 26, 1700, deep below the northeast Pacific, two pieces of Earth’s crust abruptly gave way, ending a centuries-long deadlock. The massive earthquake sent a wall of water rushing inland. By the time the shaking stopped and the water settled, the coastline had been transformed. In some places, the land had plummeted by more than a meter, while the flood of sediment turned coastal marshes into mudflats.

For the past five years, Peck has been investigating how one of these buried salt marshes, in Netarts Bay, Oregon, recovered from the tsunami. Her work came to an unexpected conclusion: the salt marsh took way longer to rebuild atop the mudflat than expected. First, rootstalks left by the lost marsh had to resprout, then the growing plants had to gradually trap sediment, raising their successors above the reach of the tides until the land-like highest parts of the marsh again flooded only occasionally.

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S6
Save 30% on premium audio gear during Master & Dynamic's Boxing Day sale

New York-based boutique audio brand Master & Dynamic produces precision-engineered, painstakingly stylized wireless headphones and earbuds. The premium builds—all polished magnesium, supple lambskin, steel, ceramic, and gleaming tempered glass—have attracted many luxe collaborations, from prestige sports teams (Paris Saint-Germain) to high-end retailers (Leica). But, as you’d expect, Master & Dynamic items don’t come cheap. They do at least come cheaper, however, if you buy during the Master & Dynamic Boxing Day sale, offering 30% off on select items through Dec. 27 (while supplies last).

One of the models available is the MG20, a gaming headphone that our review said “… looks, feels, and sounds like a finer class of device.” What’s inside these ovular ear cups are angled 40mm drivers in Beryllium—a material found in similarly plush, even more indulgently priced headphones from the $999 Mark Levinson No. 5909 to the $2,999 Focal Stellia. What this rigid but reactive diaphragm means when well-implemented—as it is here— is spry highs that achieve rarefied air, mids that are rich but refined, and bass that is resonant … reaching and rolling effortlessly.

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S18
Quiz Yourself: Do You Lead with Emotional Intelligence?

Rate yourself on five key dimensions, and see how you compare with others.

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S19
S1
Make your own fun with this 3D Printer

While there is no shortage of great uses and updates for the traditional printer, for some time now, 3D printers have seemingly become all the rage. Unfortunately for many, purchasing a 3D printer can seem prohibitively expensive.

If you are interested in a 3D printer but aren’t willing to spend a fortune, then you are in luck. Right now you can get the ToyBox 3D Printer Deluxe Bundle for 36 percent off its MSRP as a Christmas Day Deal. It also ships fast, so you are guaranteed to have it by Christmas.

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S40
"Mad honey": The rare hallucinogen from the mountains of Nepal

This article was first published on Big Think in April 2021. It was updated in December 2022.

On the mountainsides of Nepal and Turkey, bees produce a strange and dangerous concoction: mad honey.

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S5
College textbooks aren't keeping up with the severity of the global climate crisis

Textbooks are often deemed authoritative sources of information necessary for education. These learning materials include the latest scientific findings to reflect societal changes and show how knowledge has grown over time. They play a critical role in how educators tackle certain topics to educate their students in classroom settings.

According to a 2016 policy paper from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), formal schooling is the primary approach to address environmental challenges. Since curricular content has been shown to influence students’ knowledge of environmental issues, it’s essential to analyze how textbooks frame and discuss the pressing issue of climate change.

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S8
What you should know about heart rate variability-a biometric most fitness trackers measure

Your heart beats around 100,000 times every day. Heart rate is a key marker of cardiovascular activity and an important vital sign. But your pulse is not as steady as a precision clock – nor would you want it to be.

As a cardiovascular physiologist, I measure heart rate in nearly every experiment my students and I perform. Sometimes we use an electrocardiogram, such as you’d see in a medical clinic, which uses sticky electrodes to measure electrical signals between two points of your body. Other times we use a chest strap monitor, like ones you might see on someone at the gym, which also detects heartbeats based on electrical activity.

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S17
Is my child too young for social media?

Through these accounts – on sites including Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, Twitch, Twitter and YouTube, which typically allow accounts from age 13 (except for Snapchat, which allows from age 11) – children were exposed to almost two-thirds more age-restricted ads than under 17s who set up their profiles with their actual age.

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S4
Protect all your devices with this price-dropped 7-layer VPN and Cybersecurity Hardware

With flexible work environments and streaming needs, a secure connection is sought out more than ever these days. The Deeper Connect Pico Decentralized VPN & Cybersecurity Hardware + Wi-Fi Adapter is here to help. Named one of the world’s thinnest cybersecurity devices, the sleek and portable device protects your digital life at home and on the go. It brings you a powerful solution for ultimate privacy.

Integrating a 7-layer enterprise-grade firewall, Deeper Connect Pico makes it easy never to worry about your online protection on all your IoT devices. Travel-friendly and packed with a fully decentralized VPN experience, the unique cybersecurity hardware device allows you to view your favorite content securely and with ease. All your essential data will be kept safe from prying eyes, whether it be games, movie streaming, online shopping, or sports sites. Parental controls can also be turned on with just one click, protecting your children from harmful and inappropriate content. 

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S21


S20
Einstein Played the Violin, Turing Ran Marathons: What the Hobbies of Geniuses Tell Us About the Relationship Between Leisure and Great Ideas

A long list of geniuses insists their hobbies played an essential role in coming up with their greatest ideas.

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S39
The history of ice, one of the first luxuries

The first recorded icehouse dates to Year 13 of the rule of Shulgi, King of all Sumer and Akkad, builder of the Great Ziggurat of Ur, a date which would, by our reckoning, fall somewhere around 2081 b.c.e. We know the icehouse was a big deal because the Sumerians like to name each year after something significant that happened within it. Year 13 was the year of the icehouse. It is described in the surviving cuneiform tablets as being twice as long as it was deep, and insulated with branches of tamarisk.

What we cannot know is whether this was Shulgi’s innovation, or whether ice pits had been built previously, perhaps even before the founding of the Sumerian civilization. But if it was his or his engineer’s idea, it would take more than 4,000 years for the use of ice to become as unremarkable as it is today. Yet historical sources for it remain limited perhaps because, even then, it seemed ordinary.

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S46
The Economy’s Fundamental Problem Has Changed

For years, Americans couldn’t afford to buy things. Now there aren’t enough things to buy.

A few weeks ago, I was buying an iced coffee near my home in San Francisco. I went to pay with cash, and the barista asked me to pay with Apple Pay or a card—she could give me back bills, but did not have any coins.

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S25
How to Spot (and Deal With) a Covert Narcissist

Extroverted narcissists are fairly easy to spot. But what about their less obvious counterparts?

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S49
The TV Shows That Helped My Dying Son Communicate

After my son got a brain tumor, his treatment left him unable to speak. Children’s shows that used the language program Makaton became a source of joy for our family.

When you have a kid with a severe illness, whatever makes them happy during it becomes immeasurably valuable to you—no matter how small.

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S16
For Marginalized Chefs, Are Pop-Ups the Path to Success?

Most meals don’t come with a thesis statement, but at the Shifting the Lens series, a chef-in-residence program focusing on chefs of color, there’s no eating without considering exactly what the chefs in charge have to say. For chef Preeti Mistry, who helped conceptualize the series with J Vineyards, developing Shifting the Lens was a way to center chefs of color who put their values and politics at the forefront of their work, but who may not have their own restaurant at which to showcase their talents. “There was a lot of talk going on about AAPI hate last year, and violence, and wanting to ... actually be proactive in talking about change,” Mistry says. By presenting cuisine that has not traditionally been championed in a fine dining, wine-tasting setting, Mistry hopes to challenge people’s expectations about cuisine — and the people who make it.

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S3
The best things we bought in 2022

So you’re flush with gift cards and $5 checks from grandparents but aren’t sure what in the wild world of e-commerce is noice and what’s noise. Luckily, the PopSci staff is always searching for tech toys that live up to the hype. One of the perks of the job is we get to go hands-on with a ton of stuff every year, so when something stands out it’s either really dope or truly helps us cope. Eager to share our personal discoveries with equally passionate gadget geeks, we’ve put together this short list of our No. 1 purchases in 2022 so you can shop for the best things with confidence.

Fellow’s maximized minimalism designer accessories aesthetic has become iconic in barista circles (and corners), and for good reason. This electric kettle, available in multiple finishes, sits on a minimalist base equipped with a 1200-watt quick-heating element and coin-shaped sleek LCD screen so you can quickly dial in to-the-degree temperature/set a brew stopwatch for the coffee-brewing method/tea type you’re using. And the gooseneck spout allows for precise saturation. The standard edition is a proven workhorse, but I recommend you go all-in and splurge on this newer Pro edition. For an extra $30, it adds a high-resolution color LCD, plus more scheduling options/guide modes/temperature hold time adjustments (Wi-Fi upgradeable if/when new features get released). I’ve found it invaluable as my mood swings like a jittery overcaffeinated pendulum between pour-overs and French press coffee, oolong and Earl Grey teas. — Tony Ware, associate managing editor, gear and reviews

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S47
The Great Big Medicare Rip-Off

When President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the bill establishing Medicare in 1965, he explained that it was part of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s legacy of government support for those who need it most, the elderly and the poor. At the time, there were essentially no options for older, nonworking Americans to get health coverage. Johnson signed the Medicare bill in Independence, Missouri, alongside another former president, Harry Truman, who had long advocated for universal health coverage and whose 1945 national health-care plan helped prepare the way for Medicare.

If they were alive today, these presidents would be shocked to learn that nearly half of all seniors will enroll in private, not public, Medicare plans next year. And these private plans in many ways have strayed from Medicare’s core mission of caring for the elderly while using taxpayer funds responsibly.

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S22
7 Product Launch Fails that Defined 2022

Samuel West, a psychologist and expert in corporate failure, explains how businesses can learn from mistakes like these in 2023.

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S34
7 Ways to Get the Most Out of Your Elgato Stream Deck

The Elgato Stream Deck—not to be confused with Valve's Steam Deck—is an incredibly popular tool for Twitch streamers. It lets you automate basic tasks—like switching scenes and going live—but that same platform is useful even if you don't play games for an audience. I'm a huge fan of using gaming peripherals for work, so it was only a matter of time before the Stream Deck joined the productivity party.

There used to only be a few Stream Decks, which mostly varied by the number of buttons that were available. The main Stream Deck ($150) is a 15-key panel of programmable buttons that can be loaded up with actions like launching websites, entering blocks of text, and controlling features of apps like OBS Studio. Each key is also a tiny, full-color LCD display that can be customized with application icons, a library of symbols, or any other image you want.

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S43
"Please slow down"--The 7 biggest AI stories of 2022

More than once this year, AI experts have repeated a familiar refrain: "Please slow down." AI news in 2022 has been rapid-fire and relentless; the moment you knew where things currently stood in AI, a new paper or discovery would make that understanding obsolete.

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S9
Why Hot Wheels are one of the most inflation-proof toys in American history

Zahn is the editor-in-chief of The Toy Book, a trade publication that has covered the toy industry in North America since 1984. Inflation and other supply chain-related factors have boosted prices this year in a few toy categories, most notably action figures, dolls and electronic toys, Zahn said.

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S15
Explained | How did Tamil cinema fare at the box-office this year?

The year 2022 has been the best ever in the last two decades or so for Tamil cinema. Two Tamil films, Mani Ratnam’s Ponniyin Selvan:1 ( PS1) and Kamal Haasan’s Vikram find a place among the top five worldwide blockbusters from Indian cinema. PS:1 has grossed Rs 495 crore and Vikram Rs 440 crore worldwide from theatricals, which is phenomenal by any yardstick. And there have been at least 20 out of the 215 odd releases (slated till Dec 31) which have been profitable for its producers from theatrical, digital and satellite rights.

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S44
Apple's business under growing threat from China's Covid wave

Apple’s business is under threat from a widespread coronavirus outbreak in China, with supply chain experts warning of a growing risk of months-long disruption to the production of iPhones.

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S42
Video games in 2022: Massive mergers and peculiar portables

Gamers, and the game industry as a whole, can be a little too focused on what's next. Newly released blockbusters can fade from the public consciousness in a matter of days, while the "next generation" of console hardware or a highly anticipated, years-in-the-making sequel can dominate the headlines.

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S14
The 2022 World Cup Exit Survey

After a breathless World Cup final, it’s finally time to come up for air and take stock of the past month of international soccer

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S23
I Read 27 Books in 2022. These Are the 9 Most Inspiring, Entertaining, and Informative

Looking for thought-provoking books that are fun to read? These are my top recommendations for 2023.

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S26


S28
2022's best stories on global tech (that we wish we'd written)

There are more tech stories happening around the globe than Rest of World alone could possibly cover. Here are some of the articles, podcasts, and photography essays by other publications that most impressed us during 2022. Between them, they cover the high-profile scandals surrounding Twitter and crypto, the devastating war in Ukraine, as well as stories unfolding away from global attention, such as the experiences of low-income workers whose inputs are crucial for artificial intelligence and TikTok.

More than 80% of Brazil’s food delivery app market is taken up by iFood. This investigation, first published by the São Paulo nonprofit Agência Pública, exposed one tactic iFood uses to maintain its dominance. Digital marketing firms on the company’s payroll regularly undercut delivery workers organizing on social media by infiltrating the workers’ Facebook groups with fake profiles or by identifying leading organizers to “shadow ban” on the iFood platform. It is a striking document of how social media has become a key battleground for labor movements, and those who wish to suppress them, in the gig economy. – Andrew Deck, reporter

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S45
Let it snow: Scientists make metallic snowflakes out of nanoparticles

Scientists in New Zealand and Australia were conducting atomic-scale experiments with various metals dissolved in liquid solvent of gallium when they noticed something unusual: different types of metal self-assembled into different shapes of crystals—with zinc creating tiny metallic snowflakes. They described their results in a paper published earlier this month in the journal Science.

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S41
Experts debate the risks of made-to-order DNA

In November 2016, virologist David Evans traveled to Geneva for a meeting of a World Health Organization committee on smallpox research. The deadly virus had been declared eradicated 36 years earlier; the only known live samples of smallpox were in the custody of the United States and Russian governments.

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S36
What was the biggest explosion in the Universe?

They come in all sorts of varieties, from supernovae to black holes to merger events and more.

Whether in light, particles, or gravitational waves, energy output can always be quantified.

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S27
The benefits of intermittent fasting the right way

Intermittent fasting is championed by celebrities and CEOs alike for its weight loss and health benefits. While there is promising evidence that fasting can help our bodies repair and perhaps extend our lifespans, it might not be the best approach for losing weight, and dietitians urge caution before cutting out meals.

Intermittent fasting is a type of time-restricted diet in which fasters leave a long gap between their last meal of one day and first of the next, compressing their meals into a shorter period during the day. Typically, fasters try to leave a gap of 16 hours without food and eat during an eight-hour window. Intermittent fasting is not the only type of time-restricted diet. Others like the 5:2 diet (in which dieters eat a normal amount of food for five days before two days of eating only 25% of their usual calorie intake) focus more on the amount of food consumed, rather than the time between meals.

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S30
Tiny Tyrannosaurs Used the Buddy System

Paleontologists know little about what giant, bone-crushing tyrannosaurs were like as babies. Hatchling fossils are rare and provide few hints about these foot-high carnivores’ behavior. But now miniature trackways, found in rock roughly 72 million years old, offer evidence that baby tyrannosaurs traveled in pairs.

Paleontologists first found the trackways during a riverbank survey of southwestern Alberta’s St. Mary River Formation. The site is rife with tracks made by many dinosaur species—“a busy time at the beach,” as Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology researcher Donald Henderson and his colleagues describe it in the Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences. Among the fossil footprints are seven miniature dinosaur trackways suggestive of individuals moving in pairs. “The form of the small tracks, as well as the pace lengths, is a good match to what could be produced by hatchling [tyrannosaurs] Albertosaurus or Gorgosaurus,” Henderson says, noting that the tracks’ pointed claw tips suggest a predator.

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S37
Glass beads in lunar soil reveal ancient asteroid bombardments on the Moon and Earth

In 2020, China’s Chang’e 5 mission sampled more than a kilogram of Moon rock and soil and brought it back to Earth. The samples contain countless tiny beads of glass, created when asteroids hit the Moon and splashed out droplets of molten rock around the impact site.

We have analysed these glass beads and the impact craters near where they were found in great detail. Our results, published in Science Advances, reveal new details about the history of asteroids hitting the Moon over the past 2 billion years. 

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S35
The 19 Best After-Christmas Sales and Deals

Whether you received some gift cards over the holidays or you're still shopping for gifts for folks you'll see later in the year, post-Christmas sales offer lots of opportunities to stretch your dollars. We've rounded up our favorite discounts below. Many of these sales will be extended for a few days, but shopping earlier generally ensures the best availability. 

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.

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S38
Are humans wired for conflict? Charles Darwin vs. "Lord of the Flies"

The iconic novel Lord of the Flies paints a picture of human beings as naturally selfish and prone to conflict, but that is not the most accurate depiction of humanity, argues historian Rutger Bregman.

Bregman shares a true story from his research about a group of Tongan students who survived on an island together for 15 months in 1965, not through brutal alliances, but by working together and forming a functional community.

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S29
'Persuasion Fatigue' Is a Unique Form of Social Frustration

When people argue, a kind of frustration called persuasion fatigue can cloud their judgment and harm relationships

The holiday season is upon us again. With it, many of us brace for dinner-table debates. In an era of social discord, viral misinformation and pandemic-induced stress, arguing with other people is an invitation to exasperation.

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S33
The 12 Best Books of 2022

Chaos reigned this year. Russia invaded Ukraine, the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Will Smith slapped Chris Rock at the Oscars, Elon Musk remade Twitter in his erratic image, mass shooters continued to terrorize the United States, civil rights protests swept Iran, Queen Elizabeth died, Bolsanaro got the boot in Brazil, boards were buttered, crypto crumbled, and overall, every single week felt like the entire chorus to “We Didn’t Start the Fire.” 

Perhaps because of all this tumult, turmoil, and general mayhem, I gravitated toward complicated, thorny stories this year—strange, slippery, often unsettling fictions, and nuanced, searching non-fiction. This is an idiosyncratic, deeply incomplete, and totally subjective list, the result of one person’s avid but disorganized reading schedule. But these are the novels, short stories, and non-fiction books that stood out for me in 2022. Here’s hoping it helps you find your next great read. 

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S31
The Most Dangerous People on the Internet in 2022

Russian soldiers poured into Ukraine, accompanied by a wave of cyberattacks across the country. A major cryptocurrency exchange imploded and declared bankruptcy, vaporizing billions of dollars from that digital economy. The once-biggest dark-web drug market—after being demolished by law enforcement—clawed back to the top of the online underworld after doggedly resurrecting itself.

It's not 2014, though you could be forgiven for being confused. No, all these episodes of global chaos occurred in 2022, each one a rerun of previous events, but now with the threat they posed vastly multiplied in scale.

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S32
Automate Cocktail Hour With This Robotic Drink-Making Machine

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

Ever wake up so bleary-eyed and unable to function that you can barely get it together to stumble your way into the kitchen and mix a cocktail? Well, have we got a product for you. The Black & Decker Bev does for mixed drinks what Keurig did for coffee, complete with all the pros and cons that the comparison implies.

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