December 9, 2022 - North Korean hackers once again exploit Internet Explorer"s leftover bits

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North Korean hackers once again exploit Internet Explorer’s leftover bits Microsoft's Edge browser has replaced Internet Explorer in almost every regard, but some exceptions remain. One of those, deep inside Microsoft Word, was exploited by a North-Korean-backed group this fall, Google security researchers claim. Continued here

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Why 21 cm is the magic length for the Universe In our Universe, quantum transitions are the governing rule behind every nuclear, atomic, and molecular phenomenon. Unlike the planets in our Solar System, which could stably orbit the Sun at any distance if they possessed the right speed, the protons, neutrons, and electrons that make up all the conventional matter we know of can only bind together in a specific set of configurations. These possibilities, although numerous, are finite in number, as the quantum rules that govern electromagnetism and the nuclear forces restrict how atomic nuclei and the electrons that orbit them can arrange themselves. In all the Universe, the most common atom of all is hydrogen, with just one proton and one electron. Wherever new stars form, hydrogen atoms become ionized, becoming neutral again if those free electrons can find their way back to a free proton. Although the electrons will typically cascade down the allowed energy levels into the ground state, that normally produces only a specific set of infrared, visible, and ultraviolet light. But more importantly, a special transition occurs in hydrogen that produces light of about the size of your hand: 21 centimeters (about 8¼”) in wavelength. That’s a magic length, and it just might someday unlock the darkest secrets hiding out in the recesses of the Universe. Continued here

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What would a green World Cup look like? Humanity is deep in the throes of the World Cup. Billions of people are expected to tune in to at least one match of the 2022 Qatar tournament – a significant proportion of the global population. With reach like this comes scrutiny, including on the climate impact of such a massive event. Qatar has built seven new stadiums and refurbished an eighth for the World Cup finals. It has also built a new airport, a metro system, new roads and around 100 new hotels. Some 1.2 million visitors are expected, the vast majority arriving by air, with many staying in nearby cities like Abu Dhabi and Dubai, then taking shuttle flights to matches. Continued here

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How Growth-Stage Companies Are Thriving In A Down Economy Recent conferences show signs of promising growth and a future where entrepreneurs address real-world problems, putting others before their bottom line. Continued here

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Are Your Team Gatherings Inclusive for People with Food-Related Allergies? Not all disabilities or impairments are visible. Food intolerances are like any other impairment or disability in terms of their constraining effects, but can be even more insidious when hidden. While the prevalence of food allergies is rising, many workplaces need to do more to accommodate employees. 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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Mozilla's Mark Surman: Let's make AI as trustworthy as seatbelts In a tech landscape that foments continual change, Mozilla’s approach has been unwaveringly constant: magnify the public benefits of the internet through fair and open access. That credo, outlined in the company’s Manifesto back in 2007, remains in place today. Long before he ever joined Mozilla, Mark Surman espoused those same beliefs. As president and executive director of the Mozilla Foundation, Surman is a leading advocate for trustworthy AI, digital privacy, and the open internet, and he has built the foundation into a major philanthropic and advocacy voice. Continued here

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Google’s cost-cutters come for Waze, will lose status as independent company Is Waze in trouble at Google? The Wall Street Journal broke the news last night that Google is merging the 500-person Waze team into Google's "Geo" division, aka Google Maps. Waze's current CEO, Neha Parikh—who has only been at the helm since 2021 after the long-term CEO, Noam Bardin, quit Google—will step down after a transition period. Under Maps, Waze won't have a CEO. Continued here

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Choose Courage Over Confidence Self-doubt is a pervasive and often paralyzing concern, and research has repeatedly shown that it impacts women more than men. So what makes high-achieving women power through their self-doubt? According to the author’s research, they focus on building up their courage, not their confidence. She offers three strategies to help women take bold actions in the face of self-doubt and fear: 1) Don’t underestimate the impact of small, yet significant, acts of courage; 2) Practice courageous acts in all areas of your life; and 3) Try again tomorrow. Continued here

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How Leaders Can Combat Burnout on Their Teams This Winter As seasonal depression creeps in, here's how employers can help their workers unwind and stay productive. Continued here

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We gave ChatGPT a college-level microbiology quiz. It blew the quiz away. You wouldn’t know it from interacting with Siri or those technical-support, call-center robots, but artificial intelligence has made some incredible advances in a short amount of time. Earlier this year, the tech world was abuzz with various generative AI programs that could, on command, create entirely new, never-before-existing images or works of art. Today, the tech world is abuzz again over ChatGPT, a chat bot that is said to be the most advanced ever made. Just how advanced is ChatGPT? It can create poems, songs, and even computer code. On Twitter, Thomas Ptacek showed that it could convincingly construct a passage of text on how to remove a peanut butter sandwich from a VCR, in the voice of the King James Bible. Continued here

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Playing offense with green tech to achieve net-zero emissions Technology holds the key to unlocking decarbonization by identifying emission hot spots and pinpointing the areas of biggest impact. The pressure is mounting for companies to deliver on their ambitious carbon reduction goals, and technology has a critical role to play in helping them get there. Continued here

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A quick look at AMD’s Radeon RX 7900 XTX, which is smaller than an RTX 4080 AMD's next-generation Radeon RX 7900 XTX and 7900 XT graphics cards launch next week on December 13. Powered by the chiplet-based RDNA3 architecture, these $999 and $899 GPUs will compete with Nvidia's $1,200-and-up RTX 4000-series and will attempt to address some of the shortcomings of the outgoing RX 6000-series (lackluster real-time raytracing performance, for one). Continued here

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Management Time: Who's Got the Monkey? Editor’s note: This article was originally published in the November–December 1974 issue of HBR and has been one of the publication’s two best-selling reprints ever. For its reissue as a Classic, HBR asked Stephen R. Covey to provide a commentary (see the sidebar “Making Time for Gorillas”). Continued here

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Information is the frontier for the study of life Life is really weird. From the vantage point of a physicist, it is even stranger. Life is unlike any other phenomenon in physics. Stars, electrons, and black holes are all amazing in their own ways. But only life invents, and the first thing life invents is itself. Life is creative in a way that no other physical system can be, and its unique use of information may be the key to understanding what makes it different from other physical systems. Now, thanks to a new grant my colleagues and I have received from the Templeton Foundation, we are going to be exploring exactly how information allows life to work its magic. I’m very excited about the project, and this essay is my first report from the frontier as we plunge into terra incognita. Continued here

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Uruguay is plotting to poach Argentina’s tech sector Across the world, the arrival of digital nomads is a sign of issues to come — with “gentrification” being the watchword for a myriad of tensions between locals and new arrivals. But, Uruguay is trying to do tech migration differently: not by opening its doors to temporary remote workers but, rather, by rolling out the red carpet for tech workers to settle down permanently. It helps that the vast majority come from neighboring Argentina, which is just a small geographic and cultural leap away. “[Argentines] are culturally very easy to integrate, at least work-wise,” Juan Ignacio Batto Dupré, a software engineer at Oort, an international digital security startup, told Rest of World. “I’ve never felt a cultural difference between Uruguayans and Argentines. … We have a shared language, traditions, and customs.” But it’s what makes Uruguay and Argentina different in terms of economic and social stability, which is driving tech employers and employees to move their operations across the River Plate. Continued here

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Mark Zuckerberg's Message to Laid Off Meta Employees Is a Masterclass in Good Leadership Contrary to Elon Musk's handling of Twitter's mass exodus, this is a breath of fresh air. Continued here

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4 Reasons to Apply for Inc.'s Best Workplaces 2023 Awards The most entrepreneurial companies are those putting employees' needs first. Now's your chance to tell your story and prove that your company is a great place to work. Continued here

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Are You Too Emotionally Invested in Your Job? Being emotionally invested in your work is like a double-edged sword. Your drive and passion propel you to perform. But being too emotionally tied to your work can become a huge drain and weight to carry. So how can you tell if you’re too emotionally invested in your work? The author outlines four signs to watch out for — 1) You take criticism personally; 2) Work follows you home; 3) You’re a people-pleaser; 4) Your identity is your job title — and offers strategies to regain your confidence and perspective.  Continued here

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This Sad Story is Pretty Embarrassing, But I Want to Tell It Anyway I don't think she's embarrassed anymore. Continued here

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Don't Pause Your Job Search Just Because It's the Holidays Christmas, Diwali, Hanukkah, Lunar New Year, and New Year’s Eve are holidays where people tend to gather. This means that it’s a great time to reconnect with people and catch up — say your alumni network, past recruiters, or ex-colleagues. Use the holidays as an “in” to update people on how you’re doing, ask about their lives, and share your goals, including career changes you want to make. Continued here

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Storytelling That Moves People Persuasion is the centerpiece of business activity. Customers must be convinced to buy your company’s products or services, employees and colleagues to go along with a new strategic plan or reorganization, investors to buy (or not to sell) your stock, and partners to sign the next deal. But despite the critical importance of persuasion, most executives struggle to communicate, let alone inspire. Too often, they get lost in the accoutrements of companyspeak: PowerPoint slides, dry memos, and hyperbolic missives from the corporate communications department. Even the most carefully researched and considered efforts are routinely greeted with cynicism, lassitude, or outright dismissal. Continued here

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What Companies Still Get Wrong About Layoffs Research has long shown that layoffs have a detrimental effect on individuals and on corporate performance. The short-term cost savings provided by a layoff are often overshadowed by bad publicity, loss of knowledge, weakened engagement, higher voluntary turnover, and lower innovation — all of which hurt profits in the long run.  To make intelligent and humane staffing decisions in the current economic turmoil, leaders must understand what’s different about today’s larger social landscape. The authors also share strategies for a smarter approach to workforce change. Continued here

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The Tax Implications CFOs Should Consider When Divesting a Business Unit - SPONSOR CONTENT FROM DELOITTE When a business splits from its parent company, the move can be exhilarating, with fast timelines, massive challenges, and big opportunities. But the complexities and the risks of planning and executing such a “corporate carve-out”—a corporate reorganization method in which a parent company divests a business unit—can be tremendous, and nobody wants to destroy value in the process. 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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Myth, busted: Apatosaurus didn’t produce sonic booms when whipping its tail Back in 1997, Microsoft's then-chief technical officer, Nathan Myhrvold, made headlines when his computer simulations suggested that the enormous tails of sauropods—specifically Apatosaurus—could crack like a bullwhip and break the sound barrier, producing a sonic boom. Paleontologists deemed it an intriguing possibility, although several were skeptical. Now a fresh team of scientists has tackled the issue and built its own simulated model of an Apatosaurus tail. They found no evidence of a sonic boom, according to a new paper published in the journal Scientific Reports. In fact, the maximum speed possible in the new simulations was 10 times slower than the speed of sound in standard air. Continued here

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How to Ask for a Promotion First, reflect on what you want. Is there a job you covet or do you wish to create a new role? Do you want to move up — or might a lateral move interest you? Answering these questions helps you position your request. Second, build a case. Prepare a memo that outlines your strengths, recent successes, and impact. Next, talk to your boss and make your intentions clear. Beware that asking for a promotion is rarely a “one and done” discussion; rather, it’s a series of ongoing conversations. Your objective is to plant the seed and then nurture that seed over time. Finally, don’t get discouraged if you don’t get what you want right away. Continue to do good work and look for ways to elevate the level at which you operate. Continued here

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PPP Fraud: Some Lenders Were Bank Robbers, Congressional Investigators Say The SBA will cease working with fintechs Womply and Blueacorn, as it also investigates a handful of other firms implicated in widespread PPP fraud. Continued here

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What Does It Really Take to Build a New Habit? Our habits govern our lives, literally. Research shows that around half of our daily actions are driven by repetition. This is probably why behavioral scientists and psychologists have spent so much time writing about how to establish and keep positive habits. Regular sleep and exercise, a healthy diet, an organized schedule, and mindfulness are just a few examples of practices that — if done regularly — can improve our work, relationships, and mental health. Continued here

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Just a few short bursts of physical activity each day might yield huge health benefits You might not think that a two-minute bout of speed-walking to make your flight on time or climbing four flights of stairs in the parking garage actually boosts your health, but according to a new study, brief bursts of physical activity like these are linked to large reductions in the risk of dying. The international team of scientists behind the new research, which is published in Nature Medicine, termed these active bouts “vigorous intermittent lifestyle physical activity” (VILPA). Using data on 25,241 people from the UK Biobank who reported not exercising or playing sports in their leisure time, the researchers sought to see if VILPA was associated with changes in all-cause mortality or mortality due to cardiovascular disease and cancer in these non-exercisers. Continued here

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What Great Listeners Actually Do What makes a good listener? Most people think is comes down to three components: not interrupting the speaker, following along with facial expressions, and being able to repeat back almost verbatim what the speaker has just said. According to research from Zenger and Folkman, however, we’re doing it all wrong. Instead of thinking of a good listener as a sponge —absorbing everything but providing little feedback — a skilled listener should be thought of as a trampoline who amplifies and supports a speaker’s thoughts by providing constructive feedback. Engaging in a two-way conversation is essential, according to data, and Zenger and Folkman define six levels of listening, all meant to help listeners develop this skill. Continued here S65 How To Run a Meeting Why is it that any single meeting may be a waste of time, an irritant, or 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, making preparations, the chairman’s role, and ways to conduct a meeting that will achieve its objectives. Continued here S5 Stop Criticizing Women and Start Questioning Men Instead Anyone who’s genuinely interested not just in helping women succeed, but also in helping society prosper and evolve — driving social and economic progress for everyone — should stop applying sexist criticisms to women, and start applying useful criticisms to change the behavior of arrogant and overconfident men, since it is men who have long led the system and the status quo. Here are seven questions the authors believe more men in the workforce should consider, inspired by seven sexist criticism that are often targeted at women. Continued here S55 DeepMind’s latest AI project solves programming challenges like a newb Google's DeepMind AI division has tackled everything from StarCraft to protein folding. So it's probably no surprise that its creators have eventually turned to what is undoubtedly a personal interest: computer programming. In Thursday's edition of Science, the company describes a system it developed that produces code in response to programming typical of those used in human programming contests. Continued here S22 What to Do When a Direct Report Is Bullying You Bullying in the workplace can take many forms and come from many directions, including “upward” — that is, bullying of managers by people who report to them. Upward bullying often starts with covert behaviors such as withholding information and subtle gaslighting. After eroding some of the bullied supervisor’s legitimate authority and psychological resources, bullies escalate to spreading rumors, circumventing, and insubordination, further undermining the target’s position and well-being. Typically, bullying by subordinates is enabled by support from the management one or more levels above the targeted supervisor. The authors present several strategies for targeted managers to protect their mental health, their unit’s productivity, and their career, plus strategies for bullying targets’ managers. Continued here S7 Is Consulting the Right Career for You? Young professionals often ask me about consulting as a career option: Is it for them and how can they decide? To answer this question fairly (and without the bias of having been in consulting myself), I reached out to someone who oversees the talent development of more than 100,000 employees working in consulting to get a well-rounded perspective. Wouter Van Linden is KPMG’s head of people for the EMEA (Europe, the Middle East and Africa) region. He studied law and his first job was in legal consulting. My conversation with him revolved around understanding what young professionals should know if they’re looking at a career in consulting. Continued here S14 How This Determined Female Founder Is Taking on Big Plastic Daphna Nissenbaum started her company with one goal: to make a truly compostable bioplastic. Continued here S10 Nearly 10 Months Into the Invasion, This Entrepreneur Continues His Efforts In His Native Ukraine Andrey Liscovich, an entrepreneur,traveled to Ukraine at the start of the war. Since then,his team hasrenovated bomb shelters, procured equipmentfor the militaryand is now focusing on last mile R&D. Continued here S51 FTC files suit to stop Microsoft’s $69 billion Activision purchase The Federal Trade Commission has filed a lawsuit seeking to block the proposed $69 billion merger between Microsoft and Activision Blizzard. By a 3–1 vote, the regulatory commissioners approved the filing of an "administrative complaint" showing they have "reason to believe" antitrust law is being violated and will argue as much in front of an administrative law judge. Continued here S46 Movie theater economics: If you love cinemas, buy the damn popcorn In order to make money, movie theaters must do more than show entertaining movies. They also have to differentiate themselves from their competitors who are generally showing the same movies. As such, it’s no surprise that cinemas have evolved at a rapid clip, developing from nickelodeons (cheap but highly social venues that showed films in exchange for a nickel) into picture palaces (lavishly decorated, air-conditioned opera houses that showed movies instead of operas) and into the high-tech theaters we frequent today.  All of these iterations have one thing in common: the underlying conviction that a cinema is not just a place where you can watch movies, but also an integral component of the movie-watching experience itself. You hear this sentiment a lot these days, now that movie theaters are in financial trouble. Famous actors and directors often argue that their work is meant to be watched on a huge screen, not a small one; in a dark room filled with strangers, not at your house; and all while eating popcorn and drinking Coke, bought at the concession stand, not the supermarket. Continued here S16 4 Reasons Entrepreneurs Fail at Building a Personal Brand Establishing your personal brand is a marathon, not a sprint -- yet most entrepreneurs make mistakes on top of giving up too soon. Continued here S54 Twirling parasitic worms throw dance party in man’s scrotum When parasitic worms make it into a scrotum, they have a ball—and dance like nobody's watching. Continued here S53 Twitter sued for targeting women and staff on family leave in layoffs In photos taken before and after Twitter’s mass layoffs, it appeared to many that Musk’s widespread staff cuts severely reduced the number of women on Twitter staff. Now, women laid off by Twitter have filed a class-action lawsuit, alleging that Musk violated employment laws by discharging significantly more women than men. Continued here S34 An Archeological Dig in Michigan Turns Up Some Surprising Artifacts Archeologists have found a small mountain of artifacts buried in a farm field that show the presence of some of the first peoples to inhabit the Americas. Brendan Nash: So this is the sub-plow sediment from unit 133, and anything in here will have will be undisturbed for about 13,000 years. Really looking for the smallest flakes. And then you've got to get your face in there real good because these things are tiny. We have here represents a biface refurbishment flake. Generally what's happening is people are bringing their hunting weapons out here after they've been used and they're refurbishing them for another round of hunting. Continued here S45 Why the weather forecast will always be a bit wrong The science of weather forecasting falls to public scrutiny every single day. When the forecast is correct, we rarely comment, but we are often quick to complain when the forecast is wrong. Are we ever likely to achieve a perfect forecast that is accurate to the hour? There are many steps involved in preparing a weather forecast. It begins its life as a global “snapshot” of the atmosphere at a given time, mapped onto a three-dimensional grid of points that span the entire globe and stretch from the surface to the stratosphere (and sometimes higher).  Continued here S31 Pixels of Progress: A granular look at human development around the world In this new report, we share the findings from a new dataset that breaks the world down into more than 40,000 microregions, a view 230 times more granular than a country perspective. This pixelated version of the world, compiled with cutting-edge statistical techniques like the use of night-time satellite imagery, provides a much more nuanced view of development than previous research, enhancing our understanding of global progress in ways that can help business and governments make better, more targeted decisions. Below are links to the six chapters of the report, which provide a detailed look at the rich findings and insights on the development of human health and economic prosperity over the last 20 years. Continued here S59 Dogs Are Impacted by an Intense Flu Season, Too A surge in canine influenza cases has likely resulted from changes in human behavior due to relaxed Covid-19 guidelines As Americans navigate the worst flu season in more than a decade, dogs across the country are facing flu outbreaks and symptoms like cough, fever and runny nose as well. Continued here S64 How to Approach an Office Romance (and How Not To) Should you date a coworker? Before you act on your feelings, it’s important to think through the risks — and there are quite a few. If you still want to move forward, research shows that your intentions matter. Your coworkers’ reactions will reflect what they believe your motives to be. It’s also important to know your companies policies. Many companies prohibit employees from dating coworkers, vendors, customers, or suppliers, or require specific disclosures, so be sure to investigate before you start a relationship. And if you do start dating someone, don’t try to hide the relationship from your manager or colleagues — it will only erode trust. Continued here S56 Pentagon picked four tech companies to form $9B cloud computing network In a press conference that Ars attended today, Department of Defense officials discussed the benefits of partnering with Google, Oracle, Microsoft, and Amazon to build the Pentagon’s new cloud computing network. The multi-cloud strategy was described as a necessary move to keep military personnel current as technology has progressed and officials’ familiarity with cloud technology has matured. Continued here S67 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 S41 Step Away From Screens With the 25 Best Family Board Games 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 It’s good to take a break from screens every now and then. The great outdoors has plenty to offer, but there are times when you’re stuck inside for one reason or another. Board games are a fun way to gather everyone around the table to engage in some group escapism. Continued here S29 Designing out of difficult times Design matters—and not just in good times. CEOs who embrace design can enhance strategy and better navigate this age of volatility. Imagine facing a wildfire during an earthquake with a cyclone on the way. Even if CEOs were facing only the specter of a looming recession and stubbornly high inflation, it would present a daunting challenge. These new shocks, however, are in addition to existing disturbances from the pandemic and supply chain disruptions, which came on top of—and often accelerated—enduring trends such as digitalization, sustainability, and the rising influence of the consumer.1Michael Birshan, Ishaan Seth, and Bob Sternfels, “Strategic courage in an age of volatility,” McKinsey Quarterly, August 29, 2022. Moreover, as past crises have demonstrated, companies that focus too much on short-term defensive measures risk sidelining initiatives vital to keeping pace with the market, achieving longer-term goals, and even notching unexpected quick wins.2Cindy Levy, Mihir Mysore, Kevin Sneader, and Bob Sternfels, “The emerging resilients: Achieving ‘escape velocity,’” McKinsey, October 6, 2020. Continued here S35 Deep Dive Ties Together Dog Genetics, Brain Physiology and Behavior to Explain Why Collies Are Different from Terriers A way to map the ancestry of dog breeds reveals the genetic basis of stereotypical dog behaviors From the energetic border collie to the friendly golden retriever, more than 350 dog breeds exist today, each with specific physical and behavioral traits. Although previous research on dog genomes has revealed the genetic basis of variations in body size and shape among breeds, the genetic underpinning of complex behaviors—hunting, herding, guarding, pointing, drafting, and more—has been a tough challenge to crack. Continued here S57 How to be a happy nihilist | Psyche Guides Exhausted by the modern pressure to squeeze meaning out of every moment? Here’s a radical way to reset your priorities is a Melbourne-based writer. She is the author of The Sunny Nihilist: How a Meaningless Life Can Make You Truly Happy (2021) and How to Think Like an Activist (2021). Her work has appeared in The Atlantic, British Vogue and The Guardian, among others. Continued here S60 Here’s How Burmese Pythons Eat Such Big Prey Stretchy connective tissue between the snakes’ cranium and lower jaw allows them to open their mouth four times wider than their skull In early November, scientists in the Florida Everglades cut open the bulging stomach of an 18-foot Burmese python and dragged out a 5-foot alligator. The gator was eerily intact, with only parts of its skin degraded. Continued here S40 The Latest Kindle Finally Lets You Take Notes—for a Price 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 Amazon's many different Kindles are pretty identical in how they perform, with minor differences separating the base Kindle from the Paperwhite and the Oasis. That's mostly by design, and I don't mind. I don't need my ebook reader to do 20 different things—I just want to read with zero distractions. But the new Kindle Scribe changes things up and is the first Kindle in a long time to add a new twist: the ability to write or draw on the slate. Continued here S32 What Is a Dog Anyway? Defining what a dog is is really tough, but the domestication of wolves might be the feat that set modern humans on the path to dominance The geographer Jared Diamond has called domestication the worst mistake humans ever made. He blames domestication for the rise of monoculture, which he says leads to a larger, more sedentary human population in which disease can spread rapidly. On top of that, settled populations dependent upon crops become more vulnerable to climate change, plant diseases and natural disasters. Domestication, Diamond says, also caused a precipitous decline in biodiversity, and a rise in social inequality and warfare among humans. Continued here S63 How to Write a Winning Business Plan You’ve got a great idea for a new product or service—how can you persuade investors to support it? Flashy PowerPoint slides aren’t enough; you need a winning business plan. A compelling plan accurately reflects the viewpoints of your three key constituencies: the market, potential investors, and the producer (the entrepreneur or inventor of the new offering). Continued here S58 Nazi-Looted Beethoven Manuscript Returned to Original Owners The Czech Republic’s Moravian Museum gave the document to the heirs of the Petschek family Ludwig van Beethoven’s handwritten manuscript for the fourth movement of his String Quartet in B-flat Major was once in the possession of the richest family in pre-World War II Czechoslovakia. During the Holocaust, Nazis seized it along with the family’s other belongings. Continued here S30 The board's role in building resilience Resilience means both protecting against the downside of potential shocks and preparing to capture the upside. In this episode of the Inside the Strategy Room podcast, three experts discuss the board’s role in building that resilience to weather the current volatility. Asutosh Padhi, McKinsey’s managing partner for North America, is joined by Celia Huber, who leads our board services work in the region, and Ida Kristensen, coleader of McKinsey’s risk and resilience practice in North America and leader of the global cybersecurity practice. This is an edited transcript of the discussion. For more conversations on the strategy issues that matter, follow the series on your preferred podcast platform. Ida Kristensen: We’re facing an amazing set of disruptions. First, the highest inflation since the 1970s, and while energy receives a lot of attention, core inflation is also high, and it is unclear what governments and other institutions will do. GDP slowdowns seem to be continuing, but how deep will it be and for how long? There is a lot of volatility in the capital markets as well, and while they are quite robust, access to capital and credit is tightening, which is particularly important for growth-oriented companies. Continued here S17 This is How You Can Grow Your Tech Organization by Collaborating With Other Tech-Forward Companies Open collaboration is essential for innovation. Continued here S33 Transforming Robots Help to Transfer Skills Robots of all shapes and sizes increasingly populate workplaces, from factories to operating rooms. Many of the bots rely on attaining new skills by trial and error through machine learning. A new method helps such skills transfer between differently shaped robots, avoiding the need to learn tasks from scratch each time. “Practically, it’s important,” says Xingyu Liu, a computer scientist at Carnegie Mellon University and lead author of the research, presented this past summer at the International Conference on Machine Learning. “And research-wise, I think it’s a cool fundamental problem to study.” Let’s say you have a robot arm with a humanlike hand. You’ve trained its five fingers to pick up a hammer and whack a peg into a board. Now you want a two-fingered gripper to do the same job. The scientists created a kind of bridge of simulated robots between the two that slowly shifts in shape from the original form to the new one. Each intermediate robot practices the designated task, tweaking an artificial neural network until it reaches a threshold success rate, before the controller code is passed on to the next robot in the chain. Continued here S36 DNA from Extinct Human Relative May Have Shaped Modern Papuans' Immune System DNA from Denisovans, an extinct human species, that was found in the genomes of Indigenous Papuans may mold their immune system The immune systems of people who are indigenous to the island of New Guinea may be partly shaped by DNA from an extinct human species, a newly published study says. Continued here S39 Fender's 1961 American Vintage II Strat Screams Like Hendrix 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 Vintage guitars are expensive because most people who play guitar grew up hearing them, seeing them on TV, and dreaming of owning a real one someday. This fact has bolstered many brands into the 21st century, but few as much as California’s Fender, whose iconic Stratocaster is likely the image you have in your head when you think “electric guitar.” Continued here S61 Necklace Unearthed in Medieval Woman’s Grave Is a 'Once-in-a-Lifetime Discovery' Earlier this year, the Vistry Group, a housing developer, commissioned an archaeological evaluation of the land it planned to build on in Northamptonshire, England. Nobody had high expectations for this plot of land, which wasn't near any ruins, churches or old landmarks. But just before the dig wrapped up, archaeologists discovered the remains of human teeth. Then, something began to sparkle. Continued here S62 What Causes Alzheimer’s? Scientists Are Rethinking the Answer. | Quanta Magazine Scientists have long held onto the idea that sticky blobs of proteins sitting between brain cells are the cause of Alzheimer's disease. Now, however, many are turning their attention to deeper dysfunctions happening within cells. It's often subtle at first. A lost phone. A forgotten word. A missed appointment. By the time a person walks into a doctor's office, worried about signs of forgetfulness or failing cognition, the changes to their brain have been long underway — changes that we don't yet know how to stop or reverse. Alzheimer's disease, the most common form of dementia, has no cure. Continued here S37 Renewables Are on Pace to Beat Coal as the Largest Power Source by 2025 Higher fossil energy prices and concerns about energy supply disruptions are driving the acceleration of wind, solar and other renewables, the International Energy Agency says The global energy crisis sparked by Russia’s war in Ukraine has “sparked unprecedented momentum” for renewable energy, according to a report Tuesday from the International Energy Agency. Continued here S38 The World Cup, Netflix, and the Sanitized Future of Sports From the fake fans flown in from Lebanon to support host nation Qatar to the computer-generated pseudo-replays flashing up on stadium screens, it feels like there’s never been a bigger gulf between what’s actually happening on the field and the safe, sanitized product being beamed across the world. Sure, there is an occasional flurry of authenticity at the edges: pitch invaders and rainbow bucket hats puncturing the carefully controlled bubble that FIFA and Qatar have crafted in their bizarre, clinical land—a place with more stadium seats than citizens. But even sporting calls go through the pasteurization process: decisions mediated by the lottery of video assistant referees (VARs), semi-automated offside technology literally turning the players into featureless mannequins. 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