December 22, 2022 - How Higher Ed Can Contend with Learning Platforms

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How Higher Ed Can Contend with Learning Platforms Universities are presented with new opportunities but also mounting threats from learning platforms — online marketplaces that connect learners with courses and programs from multiple providers. This article explores the emerging landscape and offers strategies that learning institutions can employ. Continued here

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How Water Cycles Can Help Prevent Disastrous Floods and Drought To prevent devastating droughts and floods, humanity can tune in to natural solutions to repair water cycles that human development has disrupted In just a few months this year, abnormally low water levels in rivers led China to shut down factories, and floods inundated one-third of Pakistan, killing around 1,500 people and grinding the country to a halt. A dried-up Rhine River threatened to tip Germany’s economy into recession, because cargo ships could not carry standard loads. And the Las Vegas strip turned into a river and flooded casinos, chasing customers away. It seems that such water disasters pepper the news daily now. Continued here

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Research: Consumers Value Fate in Marketing Narratives Research shows that consumers prefer products where an element of them was found unintentionally, for example necklace made from gold from a previous unknown mine. Why? Learning about the unintentional discovery of a resource makes consumers think more about how the resource might never have been discovered, heightening their appreciation for the resource by increasing perceptions that the discovery was fated. Continued here

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NASA's Pluto Spacecraft Begins New Mission at the Solar System's Edge New Horizons is about to wake up and study the Kuiper Belt, the universe and even Uranus and Neptune. But a new target to visit could trump them all Only two spacecraft have ever left our solar system and lived to tell the tale. In 2012 and 2019, NASA’s Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft respectively broke through the heliopause, the boundary at which our sun’s sphere of influence gives way to the interstellar medium. They have sent back remarkable riches from this distant location, humanity’s first foray into the limitless bounds beyond our solar system’s edge. In hot pursuit, however, is a far more advanced vehicle, sporting improved instruments, updated optics, and even a means to sample the interstellar medium itself. New Horizons was launched from Earth in 2006 on a mission to visit Pluto, arriving in 2015 and revealing incredible details during its all-too-brief flyby. The spacecraft has continued its cruise toward interstellar frontiers ever since. It has now begun its second extended mission, and is soon set to wake up from a deep hibernation, opening a wealth of new science opportunities in the outer solar system. “It takes a long time to get to where our spacecraft is,” says Alice Bowman, mission operations manager for New Horizons at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (JHUAPL) in Maryland. “When you have a spacecraft that is out in that part of the solar system, it is a huge asset to the scientific community. There are so many unique things that a spacecraft that is out that far can do. We definitely want to take advantage of that.” Continued here

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How to do philosophy with kids | Psyche Guides Embrace their questions, no matter how daft or daunting – kids are natural philosophers and you can learn from each other is the Thomas G and Mabel Long Professor of Law and professor of philosophy at the University of Michigan. He is the author of Nasty, Brutish, and Short: Adventures in Philosophy with My Kids (2022). Continued here

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How to Help People with Memory Loss Enjoy the Holidays As we gather for holidays, asking people with memory loss about past holiday events and traditions affects well-being and feelings of closeness The following essay is reprinted with permission from The Conversation, an online publication covering the latest research. Continued here

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11 Rapid At-Home Covid-19 Tests—and Where to Find Them The pandemic isn't over. Regardless of how small your circle is, it's still very possible to contract and spread Covid-19. To help prevent this, it's important to get tested regularly (along with getting vaccinated and wearing an N95 face mask). There are free testing sites across the country, but those pressed for time can trade in the long lines for rapid at-home Covid tests, which can provide results in 15 minutes or so.  With hundreds of options, it's tough to know which one to buy (if they're even in stock). Below, we've rounded up options—based on FDA authorization and availability—to help make the search easier. You can also now order the third round of free at-home tests from the US government (if you haven't already). Members of our team have used some, but not all, of these tests.  Continued here

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Scientists Created Male and Female Cells from a Single Person Cells with XX or XY chromosomes provide researchers with a new tool to study how differences in sex chromosomes can influence health and development Most people have two sex chromosomes, either two X’s or an X and a Y, which give rise to female or male biological attributes on a spectrum. Studies suggest these chromosomes also have much broader effects, contributing to processes that include immune system function, neuronal development, disease susceptibility and reactions to drugs. But scrutinizing the specific role of X and Y chromosomes is challenging. With current tools, it is difficult to disentangle the effects of genes versus hormones, for example. Continued here

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Don't Wait Until the New Year to be Present The best gift this holiday season is peace of mind Continued here

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A Loyalty-Driven Singles' Day in China Lends Lessons to Sales-Centric Shopping Holidays - SPONSOR CONTENT FROM ALIBABA For consumer brands doing business in China, no date on the retail calendar carries more weight than November 11, also known as Singles’ Day. Singles’ Day has grown exponentially since Alibaba Group introduced it in 2009. Supported by the online retail giant’s sophisticated consumer experiences, Singles’ Day has become the world’s biggest annual shopping event, with sales outperforming Black Friday and Cyber Monday combined. Today, the event is the pinnacle of the global retail calendar, with over 290,000 brands offering 17 million products to over 1 billion annual active consumers across Alibaba’s ecosystem this year. Continued here

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Rusty Batteries Could Greatly Improve Grid Energy Storage Iron-air batteries have a “reversible rust” cycle that could store and discharge energy for far longer and at less cost than lithium-ion technology A U.S. company is designing a large battery that it says could help decarbonize the nation’s power sector more cheaply than lithium-ion storage systems—and with domestic materials. Continued here

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The Opioid Epidemic Is Surging among Black People because of Unequal Access to Treatment Clinics and the most effective types of therapy are harder to find in communities where people of color live In one way or another, Thomas Gooch has spent more than 30 years struggling with illegal drugs. The 52-year-old Nashville, Tenn., native grew up in extreme poverty. He was first incarcerated in 1988 and spent the next 15 years in and out of jail for using and selling narcotics. “Until 2003,” Gooch says. “That was the first time I went to treatment and the last time I used.” Since then, for most of 19 years, Gooch has been trying to get others into recovery or just keep them alive. He handed out clean needles and injection-drug equipment—which reduce injuries, infections and overdose deaths—in Nashville’s hardest-hit communities. In 2014 he founded My Father’s House, a transitional recovery facility for fathers struggling with substance use disorder. Continued here

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6 Fascinating Things We Learned about Pet Dogs and Cats in 2022 This year we learned why dogs come in so many sizes, that puppy dog eyes are a real thing and that cats don’t deserve their aloof rap Just like many of our readers, Scientific American editors love our dogs, cats and other pets (just try to stop us from sharing cute photographs). We also enjoy learning about why they do the funny things they do or how they settled into their domestic selves from their wild ancestors. Here’s a look at what science dug up about our furry companions this year. Continued here

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The "heroic dose" of psychedelics, according to Johns Hopkins Psychedelic research is enjoying a renaissance. Recent studies have shown that psychedelic drugs like LSD and psilocybin seem to be a safe and effective method for treating conditions like depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder. And unlike common antidepressants, some people report long-lasting improvements in their mental health conditions after taking just one dose of psychedelics. Continued here

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Be Intentional About How You Spend Your Time Off Whether it’s the weekend or an upcoming holiday break, a number of studies have shown that people who set personal goals to achieve during their time off — such as seeing friends, pursuing a hobby, or even organizing a closet — report being happier than those who don’t. The authors suspect the reason this works is because it makes us more intentional about how we will spend our time away from work and not because it allows us to cross things off from yet another to-do list. So even though we might look forward to lying around in our pajamas and doing nothing for a while, setting goals can actually help us recharge and ensure we get the most out of our leisure time. Continued here

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It's Never Too Late to Switch Careers Millions of people have left their jobs this past year. According to Bonnie Dowling, a co-author of McKinsey’s recent Great Attrition report, this isn’t just a passing trend, or a pandemic-related change to the labor market. There’s been a fundamental shift in workers’ mentality, and their willingness to prioritize other things in their life beyond whatever job they hold. Continued here

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What naked mole-rats can teach us about treating cancer It's no secret that naked mole-rats, wrinkled, nearly hairless rodents with long buck teeth protruding from their mouths, are not the most attractive animals on Earth. But what these creatures lack in beauty, they make up for in a miscellany of extraordinary characteristics that are intriguing zoologists and medical researchers around the world. Despite their small size – they measure between three and 13in (7.6 and 33cm) – naked mole-rats live to an average of 30 years, are resistant to chronic diseases, including diabetes, and have an intriguing reproductive system. The animals also provide environmental benefits by acting as "ecosystem engineers" and improving biodiversity in the soil when burrowing to make nests. Continued here

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Learn The Buzzword of 2023 Now Before It's Too Late Move aside "omnichannel," "unprecedented times," and "metaverse"--there's a new buzzword in town. Continued here

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Zelensky Recalled Us to Ourselves Of all the many moving words in President Volodymyr Zelensky’s speech to a joint meeting of the U.S. Congress, those eight may have been the most urgent and important. Zelensky came to Washington to speak for his nation. He came to Washington to ask for assistance. But above all, he came to Washington to recall Americans to themselves. He came to say, My embattled people believe in you. Embedded in his words of trust was a challenge: If we believe in you, perhaps you can again believe in yourselves? Continued here

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Congress Expected To Extend Telehealth Coverage...For Now Healthcare coverage could get more costly if the Biden administration fails to extend the public health emergency. The $1.7 trillion omnibus bill preserves telehealth benefits, but it's still only a temporary move. Continued here

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What's Holding Back Your Career Development? Career challenges like reorganizations, layoffs, and a lack of personal fulfillment can feel like big bumps in the road, but instead of seeing them as obstacles, start to look for the opportunities. Personal career development is critical for resilience in the face of uncertainty and change. The authors, who train over 100,000 people a year in career development, have identified four common challenges that get in the way of people’s growth. They categorize them as when, who, what, and where challenges. Here’s how you can think and act creatively to overcome these challenges and continually invest in your career development. Continued here

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What You Don't Know Can Hurt You Business credit is not as transparent as personal credit. Knowledge can help. Continued here

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Does Elon Musk Have a Strategy? Does Elon Musk have a strategy? Or is he just out there winging it? Looking at Musk’s many companies, common themes stand out across three areas: what fits into his vision for problems to solve, how he designs an organization as a solution to those problems, and why he can so effectively mobilize resources towards those solutions. Musk seeks problems that require navigating scale and overcoming complexity. Organizationally, he favors vertical integration and closed systems. To finance his projects, he’s able to marshal tremendous resources because he has large personal stakes in his companies and is able to stir public and investor emotions, even if the logic of how a given business will succeed may not be clear. Continued here

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Critical thinking training: 5 key lessons for employees Employers participating in the AAC&U’s periodic surveys consistently rank critical thinking as one of the most vital skills for success in the workplace. The 2020 survey ranked it second in importance only to the ability to work effectively in teams.  The survey also found that while 60% of employers rated critical thinking skills as very important, only 39% agreed that recent college graduates have been well prepared by the training on critical thinking they received in school.  Continued here

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These Are the Best Dyson Vacuums You Can Buy 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 Shopping for a Dyson vacuum can feel like you've been sucked into one. There's a dizzying array of models on sale at any given time, and every new model of vacuum tries to outdo the last one by packing more and more features. Now that the newest machines feature things like lasers and LCD screens, it's easy to get overwhelmed by deciding whether you need them. Continued here

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Eufy publicly acknowledges some parts of its "No clouds" controversy Eufy, the Anker brand that positioned its security cameras as prioritizing "local storage" and "No clouds," has issued a statement in response to recent findings by security researchers and tech news sites. Eufy admits it could do better but also leaves some issues unaddressed. Continued here

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Money Will Kill ChatGPT’s Magic Arthur C. Clarke once remarked, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” That ambient sense of magic has been missing from the past decade of internet history. The advances have slowed. Each new tablet and smartphone is only a modest improvement over its predecessor. The expected revolutions—the metaverse, blockchain, self-driving cars—have plodded along, always with promises that the real transformation is just a few years away. The one exception this year has been in the field of generative AI. After years of seemingly false promises, AI got startlingly good in 2022. It began with the AI image generators DALL-E 2, Midjourney, and Stable Diffusion. Overnight, people started sharing AI artwork they had generated for free by simply typing a prompt into a text box. Some of it was weird, some was trite, and some was shockingly good. All of it was unmistakably new terrain. Continued here

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COVID Vaccines Can Temporarily Affect Menstruation, and Studying That Matters The COVID vaccines can affect menstrual cycles, but the changes are small and short-lived, research shows For as long as there have been vaccines, there has been vaccine misinformation—and surprisingly often it has focused on fertility. The COVID vaccines have been no exception. False claims that vaccination provokes the immune system to attack the placenta circulated even before the vaccines were available. No sooner had data been presented to disprove these claims than others sprang up. Despite extensive evidence that COVID vaccination does not harm fertility, these unfounded rumors were a major source of vaccine hesitancy among young women. Continued here

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What Zelensky Needs From Washington Ten months ago, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was widely viewed as a lightweight who stood little chance against Russian President Vladimir Putin’s strategic brilliance and unstoppable war machine. But Zelensky famously turned down a “ride”—America’s offer to help him flee from the imminent Russian capture of Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital—insisting that he needed ammunition instead. Since then, he has far outdone Putin as a war leader by marshaling international supporters, including the United States and other NATO nations, and motivating his people and his army not only to resist Russian invaders but to start driving them back to the Russian border. But Zelensky still needs more ammunition, along with other forms of support. As he meets with President Joe Biden today and prepares to address Congress, he needs more of the weapons systems that Ukraine has already received, additional systems to improve its capabilities, and further economic support to help the Ukrainian public endure. Continued here

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The Dilemma of Babies on Airplanes Hamstrung by the need to ensure that their kids don’t inconvenience anyone else, parents can’t do much parenting at all. Boarding a crowded plane with a small child feels like entering a game show where each contestant has been given a different set of rules: Everyone walks away feeling cheated. Nonparents feel robbed of the peaceful trip they paid for. Parents feel that they were set up for failure. The ultimate prize—a relaxing trip with no screaming and no strangers shooting you judgy looks—is rarely winnable. In the most heated conflicts, one of the aggrieved parties takes to social media, where the public acts as referee. The matter is almost never resolved. Continued here

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Millions of workers are managed by algorithms It’s hard to recall when “the algorithm” wasn’t part of everyday life. Much of that is thanks to digital platforms like Uber, which have made it common to coordinate an entire workplace around lines of code. The International Labour Organization estimates that worldwide, there are now about 800 digital platform companies. From a few core brands in ride-hailing, they’ve multiplied to cover anything from sprawling super apps to lightning-fast delivery and microtasking. “Algorithmic management” is key to how these platforms work: Workers aren’t managed by human bosses, but are optimally matched by a platform with customers and tasks in the name of efficiency. As platform work has swelled, the downsides of this for workers have become clear. Some pressures are familiar — on earnings, for example. Others are less obvious, like workers being summarily suspended from an app or randomly assigned jobs in dangerous areas. Continued here

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How (and When) to Say No to the Boss Saying no is a difficult thing, especially if you’re in the early stages of your career or if you’re passionate about your job and find meaning in what you do. But research shows that purpose-driven work can negatively affect your mental and physical health if you don’t maintain work-life balance. Continued here

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The Atlantic Announces Hire of Yair Rosenberg as Staff Writer Yair Rosenberg, who has been a contributing writer with The Atlantic and the author of the Deep Shtetl newsletter, is joining The Atlantic as a staff writer. Yair is best known for his coverage about the intersection of politics, culture, and religion, having covered national and international politics; online discourse in an age of disinformation and conspiracy; and the omnipresence of antisemitism in our culture. He will also continue to write the Deep Shtetl newsletter. In a note to staff, deputy editor Yoni Appelbaum and senior editor Rebecca Rosen wrote: “Yair’s interests are at the intersection of so many of the ideas and values that drive The Atlantic: the need for clarity and humanity in a multi-ethnic, multi-faith society; the challenges of discerning truth from falsehood online; and the relationship between these two spheres—that disinformation leads to distrust among society's factions, and that distrust can lead to dangerous ends.” Continued here

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How 23andMe Helped Change the Conversation About Race and Identity A defining moment for the genetic-testing company came when its team saw how it was changing people's ideas about ethnic differences and ancestry. Continued here

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The sextortion scammers of rural India In December 2021, Rahul, a 30-year-old resident of the Indian city of Rohtak, received a message on Facebook Messenger from a woman who gave her name as Payal.  Rahul, who asked to use a pseudonym to protect his privacy, got the impression from the way Payal interacted with him and how she presented herself in her profile picture that she was a person who would easily agree to sex — a taboo in India. So, he started chatting with her and they exchanged some initial pleasantries. Payal asked questions about Rahul’s personal life: where he lived, his profession, his marital status.  Continued here

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The 60-Second Podcast Takes a Short Break—but Wait, There's More Scientific American's short-form podcast has been going for 16 years, 3 months, and 7 days, counting today, but it's time for us to evolve. Jeffery DelViscio: Hello 60-Second Science fans, this is Jeff DelViscio, the executive producer of the podcast. First, I really just want to thank you all for being loyal listeners–for however long you've been listening.  Continued here

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11 Times This Year When Politics Was Funny 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. Some very serious and unfunny things happened this year in American politics. Today, though, we are not going to talk about those things. Instead, we will examine a few of the times our elected leaders made us laugh—with them or at them. Continued here

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The 15 Best TV Shows of 2022 Television has always been a tether—to other people and to ourselves. In 2022, a year of turmoil and uncertainty, TV has provided something even more essential: a lifeline. Some shows reflected the moment’s surreality back to us. Some made us see other people in slightly new ways. Some offered escapism through larger-than-life story lines. At their best, the TV shows of 2022 revealed human truths through fiction. They made us laugh. They made us think. They offered some refuge from the storm. The list below highlights the series—melodramas, drama-dramas, comedies—that helped us. These shows satirized the cramped-togetherness of the workplace and transported us to beautifully realized alternate worlds. They took us to sterile offices and gaudy resorts, to kitchens and cattle ranches and pirate ships. They provoked; they entranced; they explained. Above all, they helped bring a bit of order to a year of chaos, one enthralling episode at a time. Continued here

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To Grandmother’s TikTok We Go Older influencers who share laundry hacks and old family recipes are helping Gen Z get through the holidays. Nothing about Barbara Costello’s favorite Christmas recipe is all that fancy. The overnight breakfast casserole she makes every year doesn’t call for much more than eggs, milk, sausage, cheese, and bread thrown into a baking dish—a recipe she clipped from a local newspaper nearly 50 years ago. But in the years since Costello first cooked it, that humble casserole has become a hallmark of her growing family’s Christmas celebrations: When her four children were young, Costello waited until they’d fallen asleep on Christmas Eve to assemble the dish and place it in the fridge. She’d wake up Christmas morning and immediately preheat the oven to 350 degrees. By the time her children were ready to open their presents, the house would be filled with the scent of their hearty breakfast. Continued here

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Leadership Lessons From Acting in a Christmas Play My first foray into acting taught me a lot more about leadership than about acting. Continued here

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Iran's Internet Blackouts Are Sabotaging Its Own Economy As internet shutdowns, platform blocking, and content filtering become increasingly common levers for authoritarian control around the world, Iran has presented an especially dramatic case study on the economic impact and humanitarian toll of connectivity blackouts.  In response to mass government opposition and protests, the Iranian regime launched an extensive shutdown in September that drastically limited all digital communication in the country. And Tehran has ongoing campaigns to slow connectivity and access to popular services, including Meta's Instagram. Dragging out the disruptions, though, is beginning to reveal the true economic toll of the brutal technique, according to new assessments by the US Department of State. Continued here

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How Happy Are You Really? Finding Fulfillment in Your Work How to take joy in leading your company. Continued here

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Elon Musk blames Twitter cost cuts on "$3 billion negative cash flow" Elon Musk has defended his financial stewardship of Twitter, arguing that the social media platform would have faced a “negative cash flow situation of $3 billion a year” were it not for his controversial cost-cutting efforts. Continued here

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Clive Loseby: The internet's accessibility problem -- and how to fix it The internet provides access to knowledge for billions across the world, but how accessible is it really? Website accessibility advocate Clive Loseby sheds light on why many parts of the web are closed off to those with disabilities -- and lays out some steps to make being online better for everyone. Continued here

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Photos: Argentina’s World Cup Victory Celebration After Argentina’s national football team beat France’s 4–2 on penalties in Qatar, winning their third World Cup title, they returned to Buenos Aires to attend a victory celebration, planning to tour the streets of the city in an open bus. Millions of fans gathered in the streets and squares to cheer for their treasured team led by captain Lionel Messi. But the huge number of people exceeded expectations, and security concerns led organizers to cancel the parade early and evacuate the team by helicopter, disappointing supporters across the city. The Argentine national soccer team—winners of the World Cup—rides in an open bus during their homecoming parade in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on December 20, 2022. # Continued here

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14 of My Favorite Home Offices Around the World When I look around my home office (if you can call the awkwardly placed desk in my tiny apartment a home office), I see a lot of things that make me happy. I see the houseplants that I’ve miraculously kept alive. I see my favorite vinyl records that I like to listen to while I work. I see the comfy chair I sit in when I need to zone out and scroll through my phone for a while. Continued here

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What Trump and Musk Don’t Get About Russia’s Nuclear Threats The use of nuclear weapons was just around the corner, or so a number of influential people were claiming not long ago. As the Ukrainian military ran up a series of impressive victories this fall in pushing back Russian invaders, its battlefield success inspired predictions that Russian President Vladimir Putin would turn to nuclear weapons to secure his strategic objectives (whatever those might be). The logical upshot of these claims was that the United States and its European allies should try to prevent a dangerous escalation essentially by selling Ukraine out—that is, by curtailing military support and ultimately forcing it to accommodate Russia’s aggression. As Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s impending appearance in Washington underscores, the U.S. has not been swayed by such warnings, and with good reason. Recent weeks have shown us that Putin’s threats are likely hollow. We have more reasons for skepticism about politicians and commentators who would acquiesce to his attempts at gaining concessions from Ukraine and the West. Continued here

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The Secrets to a Clean Handoff The specifics of your project or task will change, but the formula for a clean handoff remains the same regardless of the goal. Continued here

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7 Tips For Licensing Intellectual Property From Brand Owners Every entrepreneur needs to understand the power of licensing. Continued here

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A Chatbot’s Predictions for the Future of AI This is an edition of Up for Debate, a newsletter by Conor Friedersdorf. On Wednesdays, he rounds up timely conversations and solicits reader responses to one thought-provoking question. Later, he publishes some thoughtful replies. Sign up for the newsletter here. To complete this week’s question I had a conversation with OpenAI’s chatbot, GPT-3 (which anyone can try). “Every week I ask readers of my newsletter a different question,” I wrote. “Would you compose this week’s question on the subject of AI, choosing one that is likely to elicit the highest number of interesting responses?” GPT-3 responded, in part, with this suggestion: Continued here

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A National Tantrum at a National Park The first time I saw Yellowstone National Park, that otherworldly American place, I was in the mood to celebrate. My husband and I had just had our 1-and-a-half-year-old twins baptized on the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation in Montana, where he’s from, and decided to drive the five hours to Yellowstone. It was a happy end to a trying first year as new parents to premature and sometimes sickly twins. We bathed the kids in the cabin sink, ate cheap meals of cereal and sandwiches, and pushed the double stroller along the easiest trails. The land flashed with sublime light, even if the human history of the park’s formation—the expulsion of Indigenous peoples and poor white trappers to make way for environmental conservation and commercial tourism—cast flickering shadows. Those days stand out in technicolor in my memory: our toddling daughters in their watermelon-pink and tangerine-orange short sets, the blue pools and hot rainbow-hued mists, the green-winged hummingbirds so small that we at first mistook them for insects, the bison in their rugged coats. We’ve been going back to Yellowstone ever since, eventually adding a third child to the cacophonous, long-distance car rides. Now we always stay at the Old Faithful Inn, the historic lodge near the Old Faithful geyser. We missed a year during the first phase of the coronavirus pandemic, and when we returned last summer with three teenagers, we were met by a surprising sight. In the lobby were posted large signs begging guests to be nice. Good nature. We’re all about it. And so are our loyal employees. In bold letters: Please be kind to them. Continued here

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Turn Your Boring Job into a Job You'll Love But these days, that mindset doesn’t work so well. Between rapid technological changes and shifting customer expectations, many roles can’t adapt quickly enough to stay relevant. If you do exactly what you were hired to do, odds are, you (and your job) will — eventually — become outdated. Plus, you will feel bored and uninspired. Continued here

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Looking for a new EV? Don't get suckered by the top-of-the-line model As I look back on Ars' automotive year and the new cars, crossovers, SUVs, and trucks that we drove in 2022, I have started coming to a conclusion of sorts. And it's this: Forget the top-of-the-line, fully loaded, superduper electric vehicle; what you want is the least powerful, least expensive variant. And that's true whether you want an EV because you want to drive something that's very efficient or if you're a driving enthusiast who's going electric. Continued here

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What Employees Are Looking for in the Workplace, Part 3 Employees want to work in a supportive environment. How do employers create one? Continued here

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Enigmatic canal-filled ruins may have been above water when built Even by the standards of enigmatic ancient ruins, Nan Madol is strange. Constructed primarily of "logs" made of volcanic rock, the site consists of dozens of small artificial islands separated by canals that are flushed by the tides. It's built on the shores of the Micronesian island of Pohnpei, which has an enigmatic history, seemingly remaining unpopulated as islands to the north and south were settled during the Polynesian expansion. Continued here

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Microsoft sued by Call of Duty gamers opposing Activision merger About two weeks after the Federal Trade Commission filed a lawsuit to block Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard, 10 gamers from California, New Jersey, and New Mexico have banded together to file a lawsuit against Microsoft. Continued here

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With Apple bowing out, YouTube is close to scoring NFL Sunday Ticket Multiple reports out there from The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and several others all claim Google is the new frontrunner in NFL Sunday Ticket negotiations, and a deal could be reached sometime this week. Continued here

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It's Time to Focus on Reproductive Longevity Research Women's ovaries age prematurely, at more than twice the rate of other organs. Why that is remains a mystery to scientists, making it one of the most important unanswered questions in the field of reproductive health.  What we do know is that reproductive aging dramatically impacts women's health. For instance, as more women1 delay childbearing, it can lead to infertility, miscarriages, and birth defects. Ovaries also produce hormones such as estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone, all of which are essential for overall health. Hormonal levels fluctuate erratically during perimenopause. During menopause, they collapse to approximately zero. These hormonal shifts cause a spike in the risk of developing diseases like dementia, metabolic disorders, and depression. Half of postmenopausal women develop osteoporosis, more than double the rate of men; menopause quadruples the risk for a cardiovascular event. Put bluntly, menopause makes a woman's body age faster: indirectly by interfering with sleep cycles, and directly by speeding up cellular aging directly by at least 6 percent.  Continued here

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Killer robots and the banality of evil In Ian Fleming’s world of James Bond, Agent 007 has a “license to kill.” What this means is that Bond has the right to make a decision whether to use lethal force to accomplish a greater good. But humans are emotional and fallible. We’re error prone and biased. That begs the question: If a “license to kill” is a necessity for law enforcement, should it be given to a robot instead? This is no longer a theoretical concern. We now live in a world where warfare is conducted more and more by technology, from long-distance missiles to unmanned drones. On our sister site, Freethink, we examined the issues surrounding modern-day “robot wars” — that is, using killer robots in a conflict zone. If we let soldiers and spies kill for the “greater good,” then why not extend that privilege to robots? Continued here

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Moving the Needle on Sustainability Many sustainability initiatives focus on improving the sustainability of products and operations in legacy or adjacent markets or on achieving sustainability gains by exploring new markets with a more diverse set of products. This is a variation on the classic “where to play/how to win” strategy familiar to most executives. Fewer leaders, however, are exploring an important new frontier in sustainability, in which brands actively partner with customers to achieve ongoing impact. Continued here S67 Nasal Vaccines Are Here Since the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, a niche subset of experimental vaccines has offered the world a tantalizing promise: a sustained slowdown in the spread of disease. Formulated to spritz protection into the body via the nose or the mouth—the same portals of entry most accessible to the virus itself—mucosal vaccines could head SARS-CoV-2 off at the pass, stamping out infection to a degree that their injectable counterparts might never hope to achieve. Now, nearly three years into the pandemic, mucosal vaccines are popping up all over the map. In September, India authorized one delivered as drops into the nostrils; around the same time, mainland China green-lit an inhalable immunization, and later on, a nasal-spray vaccine, now both being rolled out amid a massive case wave. Two more mucosal recipes have been quietly bopping around in Russia and Iran for many months. Some of the world’s largest and most populous countries now have access to the technology—and yet it isn’t clear how well that’s working out. “Nothing has been published; no data has been made available,” says Mike Diamond, a virologist and an immunologist at Washington University in St. Louis, whose own approach to mucosal vaccines has been licensed for use in India via a company called Bharat. If mucosal vaccines are delivering on their promise, we don’t know it yet; we don’t know if they will ever deliver. Continued here S30 E-Waste Could Become a 'Gold Mine' for Rare-Earth Elements Mining electronic waste for rare-earth elements while isolating the remaining toxic chemicals could help solve the global e-waste crisis Your smartphone begins life neatly packed into a well-designed box. Chances are it will end its days in a more ignominious manner. Continued here S60 ‘Best Friends’ Are a Surprisingly Recent Phenomenon We weren’t always so taken with dynamic duos. But in recent decades, we’ve come to expect that people should have one closest companion. The concept of best-friendship is responsible for the worst birthday party of my life. I was 11 and hosting a sleepover. We were all having fun, eating pizza and comparing our Beanie Babies—until someone referred to someone else as her best friend. Suddenly, we were at war. Another girl had thought she held that title. Other supposed best-friendships were revealed to be asymmetrical. The phrase second best friend entered the mix. We attempted, miserably, to define all of the hierarchies in our relationships; who meant what to whom? Someone ran out of the bedroom, wailing. Continued here S41 Standard Model survives its biggest challenge yet In all of science, perhaps the greatest quest of all is to go beyond our current understanding of how the Universe works to find a more fundamental, truer description of reality than what we have at present. In terms of what the Universe is made of, this has happened many times, as we discovered: The full description of particles and interactions known to exist comes to us in the form of the modern Standard Model, which has three generations of quarks and leptons, plus the bosons that describe the fundamental forces as well as the Higgs boson, responsible for the non-zero rest masses of all the Standard Model particles. Continued here S45 What was the Star of Bethlehem? The skies have always been a bridge between the known and the unknown. In ancient times, the skies were the realm of the gods, who dictated the fates of men down below. Across different faiths, religious rituals and practices are a way to establish a sort of dialogue with powers way beyond our control. It is how we can grab their attention. And if the skies are the realm of the gods, then celestial phenomena must be some kind of message, the way the gods talk to us down here. Across millennia, this has been the belief of countless religions across the globe. Even now, when this sort of supernatural connection with the skies is fading due to scientific knowledge, countless people believe in astrology, another way of extracting meaning from celestial phenomena that supposedly impact our lives.  To many, a comet or an eclipse may be a bad omen, while a rainbow might signal the arrival of good weather and prosperity. After the 17th century, these phenomena became part of science, even if this science was historically charged with religious undertones. Kepler and Newton, for example, were both devout believers in God’s actions in the world. It is easy to see the appeal of a science that is both prophetic and apocalyptic to these and many other scientists, and to the public in general. After all, we want to predict what will happen by observing and interpreting nature. And the question of “the end” figures prominently in research fields such as cosmology and astrophysics, just as it does in many religious texts.  Continued here S18 2022: A Tumultuous Year in ESG and Sustainability The past year has been a challenging one for companies on the ESG front. Overlapping environmental, social, and political crises — from flooding and wildfires to the first war in Europe in 80 years — have made the jobs of leaders that much harder. This article takes a look at 10 key stories that dominated the year, including how a handful of elections changed the trajectory of sustainability, why ESG investing became a hot-button issue, and the rising importance of increased transparency. It also suggests some emerging issues leaders should be on the lookout for in 2023. Continued here S51 Review: ThinkPad X1 Extreme Gen 5 is impressively fast, with the right settings Our take on the fifth-generation version of Lenovo’s ThinkPad X1 Extreme is—spoiler—pretty much the same as what we said about the fourth-generation version. It runs hot and it's expensive, but it’s powerful and arguably a better choice than Dell’s XPS 15 for people whose laptop is their primary computer rather than a sidecar for a desktop workstation or gaming PC, thanks to an expanded port selection and more powerful GPU options. Continued here S59 Why Is It So Easy to Jump Off a Bridge? If you are having thoughts of suicide, please know that you are not alone. If you are in danger of acting on suicidal thoughts, call 911. For support and resources, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988 or text 741-741 for the Crisis Text Line. New York City’s High Line was not always high. For nearly a century, freight trains ran directly alongside traffic, carrying food to Lower Manhattan—and killing pedestrians, more than 540 from 1846 to 1910. Eleventh Avenue in those days was known as  “Death Avenue.” The cargo train that cut through the neighborhood was nicknamed “The Butcher,” and many of its victims were children who crossed the tracks to bring dinner to their fathers at work in the factories and meatpacking plants. Only when the trains were moved onto elevated tracks in 1934 did the rail line begin to lose its association with death. Continued here S54 John Cleese's classic "silly walk" burns more calories than a normal gait Walking like John Cleese's character, Mr. Teabag, in Monty Python's famous "Ministry of Silly Walks" skit requires considerably more energy expenditure than a normal walking gait because the movement is so inefficient, according to a new paper published in the annual Christmas issue of the British Medical Journal. In fact, just 11 minutes a day of walking like Mr. Teabag was equivalent to 75 minutes of vigorously intense physical activity per week, presenting a novel means of boosting cardiovascular fitness. Continued here S53 Okta says source code for Workforce Identity Cloud service was copied Single sign-on provider Okta said on Wednesday that software code for its Okta Workforce Identity Cloud service was copied after intruders gained access to the company’s private repository on GitHub. Continued here Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom) Followers Blog Archive ►  2024 (50) ►  October (2) ►  August (2) ►  July (4) ►  June (3) ►  May (5) ►  April (4) ►  March (2) ►  February (10) ►  January (18) ►  2023 (834) ►  December (20) ►  November (54) ►  October (44) ►  September (108) ►  August (91) ►  July (29) ►  June (68) ►  May (104) ►  April (33) ►  March (30) ►  February (99) ►  January (154) ▼  2022 (208) ▼  December (117) January 1, 2023 - This Scientist Fled a Deadly Wil... 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