Medicaid coverage is expiring for millions of Americans - but there's a proven way to keep many of them insured

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Medicaid coverage is expiring for millions of Americans - but there's a proven way to keep many of them insured Getting everyone who is eligible for free or discounted health insurance to sign up for it requires making it as easy as possible to enroll – and that convenience especially matters for young, healthy and low-income people. Those are the key findings of a recent study I conducted with Myles Wagner, an economics Ph.D. student. We examined the subsidized health insurance program for low-income Massachusetts residents enacted in 2006 when Mitt Romney served as the state’s governor. The Massachusetts program – dubbed RomneyCare – resembled the program created by the Affordable Care Act and served as its model. For residents below the poverty line, which then stood at about US$22,000 for a family of four, coverage cost nothing. Continued here

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Big money was spent on the 2022 election - but the party with the deepest pockets didn't win Nine months after the 2022 federal election, voters finally get a look at how much the parties spent and who funded their campaigns. Data released today reveal Australia’s political parties collectively spent a whopping $418 million in the year leading up to the federal election. Continued here

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How to Tell if Someone Likes You? Science Says Look Out for These 3 Behaviors Being liked is more important than being smart. Know whether people are into you. Continued here

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Why the violence between Israel and the Palestinians may be entering a devastating new phase US Secretary of State Antony Blinken rushed to the Middle East this week to make yet another push for a negotiated settlement between Israel and the Palestinians following yet another dramatic escalation in violence between the two sides. Blinken urged peace in his meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, but the prospects could hardly be dimmer. Continued here

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Australia is finally getting a last-chance view of a green comet not seen for 50,000 years Over the past few weeks, social media has been abuzz with excited posts about the green comet that is currently “whizzing” or “flying through the sky”. Now, comets don’t so much whizz as crawl. Despite that, there is a grain of truth in the reports – along with a whole heap of hype. Continued here

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Support for Black Businesses Has Waned. These Three Tips Can Help Reignite Consumers' Interest Black founders sound off on consumer engagement in the post-Floyd era. Continued here

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You Need to Watch the Most Inventive Superhero Show on Hulu ASAP The superhero sitcom is modern television’s white whale. Many dramas have found a way to incorporate humor, like Amazon’s hit superhero series The Boys. In the Marvel Cinematic Universe, comedy is best done either as a parody like in WandaVision, or with a full metatextual bent like in She-Hulk: Attorney at Law. But the closest modern TV has come to fully embracing this niche subgenre was the 2017 NBC sitcom Powerless, which was unceremoniously canceled after only nine episodes. However, a new series on Hulu strikes the perfect balance between action and comedy, and its mix of clever worldbuilding and coming-of-age drama might make it one of the best shows of 2023. Continued here

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Today Is the Day to Declare 'Fail Fast February' Energy levels flagging as winter wears on? Try turning February into a month of experimentation and progress. Continued here

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The Killing of Tyre Nichols and the Issue of Race American law enforcement can be expected, in any given year, to produce about a thousand fatal shootings in the course of executing its duty to protect and serve the public. This number is many multiples higher than those for the police departments of other Western democracies and, given the diversity of the U.S. population, occurs across an array of ethnic permutations between officers and civilians. Most deaths involve white officers who kill white civilians, but Black civilians are disproportionately represented among the dead, particularly in circumstances that involve white police. In May, 2020, Derek Chauvin, a white officer, knelt on the neck of George Floyd, causing his death from “cardiopulmonary arrest,” and set off waves of outrage across the nation. Four years earlier, Philando Castile, a Black motorist, was shot and killed by Jeronimo Yanez, a Latino police officer, after he handed over his insurance card. In 2014, Peter Liang, an Asian American N.Y.P.D. officer, fired a bullet in the stairway of a Brooklyn housing project that ricocheted and fatally struck Akai Gurley, a twenty-eight-year-old African American—sparking weeks of tension between the two communities. These incidents highlight a broader trend. A 2020 study conducted by Harvard and Northeastern University found that, in situations in which civilians pose little to no threat to police, as was the case with Floyd, Castile, and Gurley, Black Americans are three times more likely to be killed than white Americans. Policing in this country has a general, population-wide problem with violence, but that violence is also disproportionately directed at Black people. This dynamic lies at the center of the reactions to the wrenching circumstances under which Tyre Nichols, a twenty-nine-year-old Black motorist, died from injuries he’d sustained after being pursued by five Memphis police officers, all of whom are Black. The case dispatches several assumptions associated with police reform. In the aftermath of Floyd’s death, a series of studies, dating back to 2010, which suggested that college-educated police officers were less likely to use violence on the job, began to gain renewed attention. In 2021, the California State Assembly went as far as to propose legislation that would require new officers to be at least twenty-five, rather than eighteen, or to hold a bachelor’s degree. Law enforcement opposed the measure, but the age was raised to twenty-one, with plans to institute a “modern policing degree program.” The five officers charged in Nichols’s death were aged between twenty-four and thirty-two, and at least three of them attended college, and two belong to Omega Psi Phi, a fraternity dedicated to service in the Black community. Continued here

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From Frank Lloyd Wright to Edwin Lutyens, why do unbuilt buildings continue to fascinate us? Spanish architect David Romero recently released a series of digital visualisations of unbuilt architectural projects by one of the 20th century’s most eminent American architects, Frank Lloyd Wright. His fascinating 3D renderings underscore the potential of this technology and tell us a great deal about the breadth and ambition of Wright’s vision more than six decades after his death. Given the sheer size of buildings, architects rely on scaled drawings and models to develop ideas. These can either be hand-produced on paper, or via computer software where designs are usually drawn at a 1:1 scale and viewed on a digital screen as a scaled-down version. Continued here

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How 'The Last of Us' Subverts a Harmful, Centuries-Old LGBTQ+ Trope When queer characters appear onscreen, the most cynical viewer can set their timer to when they inevitably die. From books like The Big Sleep to TV shows like The 100, there’s a harmful tendency for queer characters to die, sometimes in gruesome ways. While recent pop culture has used the death of LGBTQ+ characters to foster sympathy, it has more malicious history. “Bury your gays,” as it is called, is rooted in widespread homophobia in the late 19th century, and was furthered by the advent of Hollywood’s Puritanical Hays Code. Sadly, it can still be seen on a handful of TV shows today. Continued here

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Become a Better Problem Solver by Telling Better Stories One of the biggest obstacles to effective decision-making is failure to define the problem well. Invoking the power of narrative and a simple story structure can help ensure that teams are solving the right problem. Like many companies at the end of 2021, a small European precision toolmaker was having trouble hiring and retaining talent. The executive team had a solution: Create a more attractive social space to encourage informal collaboration. But when the head of human resources presented the plan to the board (which included one of this article’s coauthors), the directors were puzzled. They didn’t know what problem the redesign was supposed to solve. In retrospect, their confusion was understandable. The executive team had not spelled out the extent of the company’s recruitment challenges or made clear the link between the social space and attracting talent. Rather than seeking approval for the new space, they should have been discussing the best way to make the company a more attractive place to work or, more broadly, how to assemble the talent they needed given the expanding competition for talent across industries. Continued here

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Microbes in your food can help or hinder your body's defenses against cancer - how diet influences the conflict between cell 'cooperators' and 'cheaters' The microbes living in your food can affect your risk of cancer. While some help your body fight cancer, others help tumors evolve and grow. Gut microbes can influence your cancer risk by changing how your cells behave. Many cancer-protective microbes support normal, cooperative behavior of cells. Meanwhile, cancer-inducing microbes undermine cellular cooperation and increase your risk of cancer in the process. Continued here

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The women ham carvers of Spain Jamon iberico – expertly cured ham from the Iberian pig – has been part of Spain's culinary history since Roman times and is arguably the country's most iconic food product. No Spanish event is complete without a carver, a leg of pork and plates of burgundy-red ham laced with creamy, nutty-tasting fat.  Carvers are respected and celebrated for their skill. It is no mean feat to slice a huge bone-in leg in a way that does justice to the quality of an acorn-fed pig that has been cured for up to three years, by delivering a balance of flavour in every umami-packed mouthful. The huge number of carving competitions in Spain attest to how seriously this job is taken.  Continued here

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Myanmar: two years after the military seized power the country is mired in a bloody civil war - but there are grounds for optimism Two years on from the latest military coup that deposed Myanmar’s democratically elected government, what began as a wave of national protest against the army’s power grab has descended into outright civil war. Myanmar’s military have gone beyond repression or terrorising ethnic minority groups – it is making war on society as a whole. There is little prospect of the violence ending, let alone the prosecution of the perpetrators for a litany of crimes against their people. Continued here

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Levelling up: how UK freeports risk harbouring international crime A significant element of the UK government’s levelling up plan to create thousands of jobs, regenerate more deprived areas and attract overseas investors is the introduction of freeports. These special low-tax trading zones allow all kinds of businesses to trade. Under the UK model, freeports can encompass two different kinds of sites. On customs sites, authorised businesses will be able to import certain goods with simplified customs documentation and without paying tariffs. Domestic goods can also be held in a customs site and used in any manufacturing process. And on tax sites, authorised businesses will benefit from reduced stamp duty, lower business rates and lower national insurance contributions for new employees. Continued here

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Climate change is transforming Australia's cultural life - so why isn't it mentioned in the new national cultural policy? In its new national cultural policy, the Australian government grapples with issues extending well beyond the creative arts. The policy document places issues like First Nations representation, work and wages, technological upheaval, discrimination and sexual harassment front and centre. Continued here

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Femme fatale: The images that reveal male fears  The figure of the femme fatale is one of the defining literary and artistic motifs of the 19th and early 20th Centuries. Artists were drawn to historical archetypes of female seduction such as Cleopatra or Lucrezia Borgia, characters from Old Testament stories including Salome, Judith and Delilah, or mythical figures such as Circe, Helen of Troy and Medea. Others were conjured from their male author's imagination – Prosper Mérimée's Carmen, Émile Zola's Nana and Frank Wedekind's Lulu being some of the most notable. More like this: - A chronicler of US turbulence- How fear shaped ancient mythology - The women who redefined colour Continued here

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Mini creatures with mighty voices know their audience and focus on a single frequency In the cloud forests of South America, amid the constant cacophony of bird and insect noise, a deafening blare pierces through the background from time to time. Belonging to the loudest known bird, the white bellbird, Procnias albus, this sound would be painful to humans listening nearby and capable of causing immediate hearing damage from about a yard away. Made exclusively by males serenading females, these vocalizations can reach peak levels of more than 120 decibels on the sound pressure level scale (dB SPL), which is equivalent to a jet aircraft taking off from 100 yards away. The female bellbird listens some distance from the male, presumably trading off being close enough to assess his quality as a mate without damaging her ears. Continued here

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Long COVID: a range of diets are said to help manage symptoms - here's what the evidence tells us Most people who contract COVID recover within a few weeks. But for some people, symptoms can develop later, or persist for a long time after the initial infection. A recent review of the evidence on long COVID suggests the condition affects at least 65 million people around the world, occurring after at least 10% of COVID infections, and affecting all age groups. Common long COVID symptoms include fatigue, shortness of breath, and difficulties with memory and concentration (“brain fog”). Symptoms can worsen with physical or mental exertion. We’re still learning about long COVID, and treatment options are very limited. Continued here

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Guide to the classics: Confessions of an English Opium Eater by Thomas De Quincey - a dense, strange journey through addiction But the addict as a cultural figure is more recent: an archetype thrown up by modernity. The names are familiar to us: Amy Winehouse, Kurt Cobain, Brett Whiteley, Hunter S. Thompson, Jack Kerouac, Charles Baudelaire, Samuel Coleridge, Thomas De Quincey. Indeed, it was De Quincey’s autobiographical Confessions of an English Opium Eater, published in 1821, that first gave us this archetype. The addict can be a beguiling figure. On the one hand, we may admire him or her. We live in prosperous times, where so much is possible, yet many of us are shackled to our grinding lives. The addict seemingly rebels against the quotidian. And for the artist-addict, drugs are a muse. Continued here

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Tyre Nichols: U.S. police violence stems from a long history of fighting 'internal enemies' Many of the details surrounding the recent fatal police beating of Tyre Nichols in Memphis, Tenn., are still unknown or disputed. The rest may seem confusing. Yet in many ways, all you need to know is how the encounter started: With Nichols expressing confusion as to why he had been stopped, and one officer replying that he would “knock your ass the fuck out.” Continued here

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Hipkins revives Labour's fortunes - but the election will be about more than 'bread and butter issues' With a cabinet reshuffle just a day after two polls showing Labour ahead again – in which he promoted more Māori MPs to the front bench, created a new Minister for Auckland portfolio and drew a line under the previous administration by demoting several of Jacinda Ardern’s senior ministers – it’s fair to say new prime minister Chris “Chippy” Hipkins is off to a good start. Most of all, it seems this year’s general election is back in play. For now at least, the sense of entropy that surrounded Labour during the final part of Jacinda Ardern’s reign has gone. Continued here

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Sugary drinks tax may be reducing obesity in girls but not boys Eleonora Fichera works at the Department of Economics, University of Bath. This is the same institution as one of the authors (Harry Rutter), but a different department. Eleonora Fichera has never co-authored any article with Harry Rutter. The introduction of the UK’s soft drinks industry levy, commonly known as the sugary drinks tax, was associated with reduced obesity among 10- and 11-year-old girls, according to a recent study. Continued here

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Apple's M2 MacBook Pros Prove that Boring Might Be the Best Strategy of All Better doesn't always mean "thrilling." Continued here

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What the Green Comet Tells Us About the Past—and the Future The last time that the green comet was visible, there were rhinoceros-size wombats living in Australia, along with some ginormous kangaroos. Though some comets swing by Earth only once, many visit periodically. Halley's Comet comes by every seventy-five years or so. The comet that's approaching us now—it will be closest to Earth between the first and second of February—is uncatchily named C/2022 E3 (Z.T.F.), and it visits every fifty thousand years. (If it gets ejected from the solar system before its next loop, however, it won't return.) We didn't know about this comet until recently. It was discovered last March, when it was only a distant speck. Now it has passed as close to the sun as it will get and is heading back toward its place of origin, in the Oort Cloud, a part of our solar system so distant that Voyager 1, which was catapulted into space in 1977, won't reach it for a few more centuries. On a clear night, between fifty and a hundred comets can be seen through telescopes of a sufficient size. But last weekend humans were already able to go outside, look beyond the eye of the constellation of Draco, and see this comet, with its sweet little tail, for themselves. "Humans have been seeing comets for forever, which is a cool way to connect to our history as humans," Carrie Holt, a Ph.D. student who has been studying the comet since its discovery, said. Continued here

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The rise of corporate landlords: how they are swallowing city centres like Manchester one block of flats at a time The housing prospects for young people in the UK were completely changed by the global financial crisis of 2007-09. While the government largely succeeded in rescuing the banks and the housing market, it created an environment where house prices remained high and mortgages were only available to those who could afford hefty deposits. As a result, many young people who might have got a foot on the property ladder were forced to keep renting. While this has prompted much concern in recent years about the prospects for “generation rent”, the flipside is that it created an investment opportunity. To meet the demands of this demographic, property investors started putting billions of pounds into a new housing class known as build-to-rent (BTR). Continued here

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The 'blue wall' of silence allows bullying, sexual abuse and violence to infect police forces After an alleged targeted campaign of bullying and sexual harassment by fellow members of the Vancouver Police Department, Const. Nicole Chan died by suicide in January 2019. A coroner’s inquest is now underway, examining the circumstances leading to her senseless, preventable death — despite the fact that key witnesses, including the officers at the centre of the British Columbia Police Act investigation, aren’t on the witness list. Continued here

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How worker surveillance is backfiring on employers Before the pandemic, Mark had a lot of autonomy in his job in the IT department of a US industrial firm. He and his teammates were able to get their work done, he says, “without our manager doing much, you know, managing".  That changed abruptly when the company transitioned to working from home. “The monitoring started on day one,” says Mark, whose surname is being withheld for career concerns. The company began using software that enabled remote control of employees’ systems, and Mark says his team had to give their manager the password “so he could connect without us having to accept. If the password changed, he requested it by email first thing in the morning”. Continued here

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Ultra-processed foods - like cookies, chips, frozen meals and fast food - may contribute to cognitive decline Scientists have known for years that unhealthy diets – particularly those that are high in fat and sugar – may cause detrimental changes to the brain and lead to cognitive impairment. Two recent large-scale studies suggest that eating ultra-processed foods may exacerbate age-related cognitive decline and increase the risk of developing dementia. In contrast, another recent study reported that ultra-processed food consumption was not associated with worse cognition in people over 60. Continued here

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Humanising capitalism: Jim Chalmers designs a new version of an old Labor project Treasurer Jim Chalmers begins his Monthly essay “Capitalism After the Crises” with a quote from the ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus: “No man ever steps in the same river twice. For it’s not the same river, and he’s not the same man.” Chalmers’ main point is that we need new economic thinking to deal with a new combination of crises. However, he actually addresses a very old issue – namely, the relationship between the state and the private sector. Continued here

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The artist formerly known as Camille - Prince's lost album 'comes out' When Prince Rogers Nelson died at the age of 57 on April 21, 2016, it sent shockwaves around the world. Tributes from fans flooded social media, vigils sprang up across the US, and key landmarks, including the Lowry Bridge in Prince’s hometown of Minneapolis, turned purple to mark his passing. Yet the end of Prince’s earthly existence by no means marks the end of his enduring musical and artistic impact. The legacies of beloved artists have long transcended their lifetimes. Socially, politically, sexually, and ideologically speaking, Prince is no exception. A remarkably productive and always cryptic figure, he continues to incite fascination from beyond the grave. However, his most incendiary and relevant album has yet to be released. Continued here

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Hybrid future? Interbreeding can make heat-averse species more resilient to climate change As the climate heats up rapidly, many species will struggle to avoid extinction. If they had time, they could evolve to the new environmental conditions. But they don’t. That’s where hybridisation could help. When related species interbreed, the flow of new genetic diversity could help them adapt to warmer environments. Some species won’t have to face a very uncertain future wholly alone. Related species may well be able to help. Continued here

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Surveillance and the Loneliness of the Long-Distance Trucker In 2011, Karen Levy, a doctoral candidate in Princeton’s sociology department, spent the summer as a research intern at Intel’s offices near Portland, Oregon. Her official remit was fuzzy and open-ended, but the company had at one point emphasized its resolve to find use cases for its chips in vehicles. Levy hadn’t thought much about vehicles per se, but her mixed academic background—she was also trained as a lawyer—predisposed her to reflect on situations that dramatized the peculiar relationship between formal codes (the realm of the law) and practical expediency (the realm of the ethnographer). The road, it occurred to her, was the site of our most common and thoroughgoing encounter with rules; it was also the scene of our most routine and matter-of-fact disregard for them. Take, as an example, jaywalking. It remains technically criminal in many places, but the enforcement of the prohibition is typically neither expected nor desired. Levy’s work is often about the wiggle room that makes social life possible. As she put it to me recently, “What do we really mean when we say a rule is a rule? When do we not mean it?” While in Oregon, Levy happened to hear an NPR segment about new restrictions on the wiggle room afforded to long-haul truckers. Since the nineteen-thirties, truckers had been reasonably encumbered by restrictions on the number of hours they were allowed to work. These regulations relied upon self-reports manually inscribed in paper logbooks, which truckers were obligated to provide upon inspection. These logbooks, however, were easily falsified; at the end of the day, or at the end of a trip, the trucker retrofitted his journey to accommodate the law. This was an open secret: truckers called them coloring books, or even swindle sheets. Road safety, however, was a real issue. For decades, regulators had debated the introduction of electronic logs—tamper-proof devices, hardwired to trucks’ engines, that could digitally track the time truckers spent behind the wheel. Truckers were, to put it gently, resistant to the idea. Long-haul trucking is not a good job (it’s poorly paid, lonely, bad for your health, and dangerous), but at the very least it was compensated by access to mythological status: truckers, as captains of their own ships, enjoyed the freedom and romance of the open road. Trucking was a vocation for the stubborn. By 2012, a federal mandate was a fait accompli, and, even if the trappings of autonomy had always been more symbolic than material, the deployment of digital trackers was received as a status insult. Continued here

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Tax returns: scams are rising rapidly - how to spot a fake phone call and avoid falling victim Tax deadlines, such as the annual January 31 deadline for filing UK self-assessment tax returns, typically cause an uptick in tax scams. This year, for example, an ad for a costly connection service disguised as the British tax authority’s phone number is appearing at the top of search engine results for the agency’s contact details. But it’s much more common for tax fraudsters to rely on unsolicited phone calls to extract information and money from victims. Each year the UK’s HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) and the US Inland Revenue Service (IRS) post warnings and updated lists of such bogus calls and phishing schemes. At any one time there are many different types of tax scammers attempting to trick unsuspecting people into handing over money to pay fake penalties and charges. Continued here

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Black college students who turn to their faith think less about suicide Janelle R. Goodwill is an advisory board member for Soul Survivors of Chicago. She also received a grant from the National Institute of Mental Health. The views expressed in this article do not reflect those of NIMH or other related governmental agencies. Black college students who resorted to self-blame when faced with stress were also more likely to experience suicidal thoughts within the past year. This is in comparison to those who were less likely to resort to self-blame. Continued here

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The nightmarish underside of the dream factory: how Babylon captures Hollywood in the 1920s In his latest film, Babylon, director Damien Chazelle presents a very different vision of the home of America’s motion picture industry than he did in his Oscar-winning 2016 film, La La Land. Instead of a romantic, wistful homage to the dream of Hollywood stardom and success, Babylon reveals the nightmarish underside of the dream factory in the 1920s. In telling the rise-and-(mostly)-fall stories of a group of striving movie celebrities against the backdrop of social, cultural and technological change in the new, modern, 20th-century America, the movie has both relevance and resonance today. Continued here

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Australia's cotton farmers can help prevent exploitation in the global garment industry Ten years ago, the garment industry’s worst industrial accident – the Rana Plaza collapse in Dhaka, Bangladesh – killed more than 1,100 workers and highlighted the travesty of conditions for millions of garment workers globally. Read more: Years after the Rana Plaza tragedy, Bangladesh's garment workers are still bottom of the pile Continued here

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Fire Emblem Needs To Steal a Winning Strategy From the Yakuza Games After years of being a niche series, Fire Emblem has turned into one of Nintendo’s most successful franchises, with four installments released on the Switch alone. Three Houses saw the series double down on social simulation mechanics and character relationships. And, to our surprise, Fire Emblem Engage does away with almost all of that, instead opting for a more “traditional” experience. While this has proven divisive for some fans, it actually creates a compelling case for Fire Emblem to take a page out of another franchise’s book and split in two — just like Yakuza. If you’re unfamiliar with the Yakuza series, the last game in the franchise, Yakuza: Like A Dragon, switched things up from an action RPG to a turn-based RPG. Despite being done exceptionally well the change didn’t sit well with all fans, resulting in the franchise now having a mix of the two styles. The next main game, Yakuza 8, will remain turn-based, but a new spin-off titled Like A Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name will bring back the tried and true action combat. Continued here

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Sharks and stingrays have been traded for centuries -- here's why that history could help save them Sharks, along with rays, and their products have been historically consumed and traded by many communities globally over centuries. Between 2012 and 2019, the trade in shark and ray meat was valued at over US$4.1 billion. Sharks and rays each have complex and distinct chains of supply and distribution, which are harder to unravel, affecting the success of management initiatives. This is concerning for conservation efforts to be successful as sharks and rays are some of the most threatened species today, mostly due to overfishing. Continued here

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Macular diseases cause blindness and treatment costs millions. Here is how to look after yours The single most expensive drug for the Australian government today, costing more than A$400 million per year, is one called aflibercept. It stops the growth and “leakiness” of blood vessels, and is given to treat a range of different eye diseases. These diseases have one thing in common: they all affect a piece of tissue inside the eye called the macula. The macula is a structure that distinguishes us humans, as well as some other primates including apes and monkeys. It is a part of the retina that lets us recognise people’s faces, navigate a car and read the newspaper. Our eye is built to focus images onto the macula to achieve this level of vision. Continued here

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Our future could be full of undying, self-repairing robots. Here's how With generative artificial intelligence (AI) systems such as ChatGPT and StableDiffusion being the talk of the town right now, it might feel like we’ve taken a giant leap closer to a sci-fi reality where AIs are physical entities all around us. Indeed, computer-based AI appears to be advancing at an unprecedented rate. But the rate of advancement in robotics – which we could think of as the potential physical embodiment of AI – is slow. Continued here

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How ChatGPT Will Revolutionize Everything from Customer Service to Coding Why OpenAI's product blew up the Internet. Continued here

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15 Years Ago, 'Lost' Jumped the Shark by Breaking Its Most Important Rule 15 years ago, the show’s most anticipated season premiere marked the beginning of the end. At the start of 2008, Lost was in a tough spot. The primetime sci-fi show became an instant mega-hit when it launched four years earlier, but by the end of Season 3, Lost fatigue was settling in. Continued here

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Women's football: more needs to be done to ensure diversity from the grassroots The rise of women in English football was epitomised for many when England’s Lionesses lifted the UEFA trophy in front of a record crowd at Wembley stadium. And just like 1966, this historic moment will no doubt be fondly remembered for many years to come. But the road to women winning in football in England has been long and winding. And the development of the women’s game has been, and still is, burdened by a number of issues. Limited financial backing and lack of media support, along with lower numbers of women participating in sport than men, mean that many girls do not get the opportunity to play football professionally. Continued here

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Accra is congested, but relocating Ghana's capital is not the only option Capital cities play an important role in the socio-economic development of every country. People generally move to cities where there are opportunities. Accra, Ghana’s capital, demonstrates this pull effect – and the problems it can create, like congestion and development planning issues. Continued here

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I Stumped ChatGPT With a Riddle That My 5-Year-Old Was Able to Solve Is A.I. really ready to take over the world? ChatGPT gets a reality check.Continued here S27 Back-to-school blues are normal, so how can you tell if it's something more serious? Dr. Cobham is the lead author of Fear-Less Triple P. The Triple P - Positive Parenting Program - is developed and owned by The University of Queensland (UQ). Royalties are distributed to the Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences at UQ and contributory authors of published Triple P resources. Triple P International (TPI) Pty Ltd is a private company licensed by Uniquest Pty Ltd. on behalf of UQ, to publish and disseminate Triple P worldwide. Dr. Cobham has no share or ownership of TPI. Dr. Cobham is an employee at UQ and may in future receive royalties from TPI. Many children come down with a case of the back-to-school blues as summer slips away. Having spent the holidays staying up late and having fun with friends and family, it can be a struggle to get back into a routine. Continued here S20 Six parts of your car that gather data on you You can tell a lot about someone from the car they drive. The data that many vehicles now collect can reveal the patterns of our daily lives and provide insights into our behaviour, actions and even our state of mind. Vehicle forensics is a type of digital forensic science that focuses on the identification, acquisition and analysis of data which has been stored by cars, vans and lorries. Continued here S54 People with light skin are at higher risk of skin cancer. How to reduce sun exposure Most skin cancers are caused by too much exposure to the sun – specifically solar ultraviolet (UV) radiation or rays. These can damage the cells in the skin and cause them to mutate. This causes skin cancer. Melanoma is the most fatal kind of skin cancer. The risk of skin cancer depends on a few things including family history, lifestyle (such as spending a lot of time outdoors), a personal history of skin cancer and skin pigment. Other factors include skin that burns easily, having a large number of moles and older age. Continued here S48 Pope prepares for South Sudan peace mission - but many people there aren't ready to forgive Pope Francis, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland plan to visit South Sudan in February 2023 to try and move the nation towards peace. The three church leaders will meet church and civil groups. The visit follows a retreat held at the Vatican in 2019, when South Sudanese political leaders were urged to end a civil war that has cost more than 400,000 lives. Continued here S33 George Santos: A democracy can't easily penalize lies by politicians George Santos is not the first politician to have lied, but the fables he told to get elected to Congress may be in a class by themselves. Historian Sean Wilentz remarked that while embellishments happen, Santos’ lies are different – “there is no example like it” in American history, Wilentz told Vox in a late-January, 2023, story. Columnist Peggy Noonan wrote that Santos was “a stone cold liar who effectively committed election fraud.” Continued here S55 Direct support to small scale farmers reduces poverty - what Zambia is doing right Over half of Zambia’s population lived below the national poverty line in 2015. In rural areas, where 89% of households are engaged in agriculture, the poverty rate was even higher, at 77% of the population. The government runs several programmes of financial support for farmers. Some provide agricultural inputs directly to households. Continued here S65 Is the Bivalent Covid-19 Booster Still Worth It? Here's What the Latest CDC Data Shows When taken in conjunction with other studies evaluating bivalent boosters against omicron subvariants, the CDC’s data is promising. Last week, the CDC published initial data with promising implications for people who get the updated Covid-19 boosters. Continued here S39 Marketers are targeting teens with cheap and addictive vapes: 9 ways to stem rising rates of youth vaping Existing regulations have not managed to reduce the rising rates of youth vaping in Aotearoa New Zealand. Both the latest NZ Health Survey and Snapshot Y10 survey reported high levels of daily vaping among young people aged 18 to 24 (23%) and 14 to 15 (10% overall, but more than 20% among rangatahi Māori). Other studies and reports from school principals confirm we need urgent action to address youth vaping. Continued here S46 I study how radiation interacts with the environment - and the capsule lost in WA is a whole new ballgame By now, you’ve probably heard about a tiny radioactive capsule that went missing from the back of a truck somewhere in Western Australia. Inside is a small but dangerous amount of Caesium-137, a radioactive chemical element that can harm both people and nature. These chemicals can persist in water, soil, sediments, plants and animals, and even travel up food chains. But the situation of the lost capsule is unique. That makes it hard to predict the environmental damage it might cause. Continued here S34 In a world of limited resources, the future is low-tech - providing we make products more user-friendly Semiconductors for electric vehicles have been in short supply since 2020. The causes are multiple, including water shortages in producing countries and increasingly high-tech models in Europe. Could this be the opportunity to rethink our reliance on these technologies? Indeed, we are facing a paradox. In response to the ecological crisis, we tend to favour high-tech solutions, even though they increase the pressure on living environments, take a long time to implement, and are often produced in poor working conditions. In a world of limited resources, it is therefore appropriate to question our view of technology as the go-to-solution to environmental challenges. Continued here S32 Paramedics could sound early warnings of child abuse or neglect - Navindhra Naidoo is affiliated with Western Sydney University, Australasian Council of Paramedicine and Australasian Council of Paramedicine Deans. Stephen Bartlett is affiliated with Queensland University of Technology and Australasian College of Paramedicine Continued here S36 Why teachers are letting students solve math problems in lots of different ways PhD student, Mathematics Education, Faculty of Education, York University, Canada Families might be wondering why their child’s math classroom looks so different from what they remember in school. Continued here S24 New film Under the Hanging Tree examines how Namibia's genocide lives on today Under the Hanging Tree is a new film written, directed and produced by Perivi Katjavivi, a young, up-and-coming Namibian filmmaker. Despite two decades of gradual growth in the fledgling Namibian film industry, only about 20 features have been produced by the southern African country so far. Katjavivi’s efforts at writing, directing and producing are to be lauded. Under the Hangman’s Tree is his third feature and it premiered in the official selection of the prestigious International Film Festival Rotterdam. Katjavivi’s films offer political themes that reveal the dark underbelly of Namibian society. His narratives expose the devastating effects of colonialism, still felt today. Continued here S63 Are You There Margaret? It's Me, God Are you there Margaret? It's me, God. I just saw your messages. Sorry it's taken so long to get back to you—I've just been totally swamped. I'm glad to hear that everything went O.K. with your period. It sounded like you were pretty worried about it. My bad for missing all that. And it sounds like you were nervous about the move to New Jersey, too, but as I'm sure you saw there's not much I can do about that—it's technically the Devil's jurisdiction. Nonetheless, it seems like you made do. I'm glad to hear that you got a bra; I know that was something else you were stressed about. I've been pretty stressed, as well, as you can imagine, being God and all. Continued here S56 Angelique Kidjo: the diva from Benin could win a record sixth Grammy Award Angelique Kidjo, the energetic singer-songwriter and activist from the Republic of Benin, represents a rare African phenomenon. In many respects, she belongs to the illustrious musical lineage of “Mama Africas” – the likes of South Africa’s Miriam Makeba, Letta Mbulu and Yvonne Chaka Chaka, Cape Verde’s Cesaria Evora and Mali’s Oumou Sangare. Continued here S37 As eligibility for MAID expands, the ethical implications of broad access to medically assisted death need a long, hard Student responses generally align with the original 2016 MAID legislation, which required that the patient’s death be reasonably foreseeable and that they have a grievous and irremediable illness causing enduring and intolerable suffering. Since 2016, Canada’s practice of offering MAID has followed a trajectory of ever-expanding eligibility. As of March 17, 2021, to receive MAID a person no longer has to be dying anytime soon. Continued here S49 I've spent years studying happiness - here's what actually makes for a happier life Christopher Boyce is affiliated with BiGGAR Economics, an independent economics consultancy, and Health in Mind, a mental health charity. It’s one thing to know what makes people happy, but quite another to live a happy life oneself. I didn’t get a true taste of happiness until I quit my decade-long career as a happiness academic, packed all I’d need for many months onto a bicycle, and began meandering my way around the world to Bhutan. Continued here S53 George Magoha was a force for better education in Kenya. But he had his flaws Magoha was the cabinet secretary for education from 2019 to 2022. He also served as the chairman of the Kenya National Examinations Council from 2016 to 2019. He was forceful and uncompromising, both under President Uhuru Kenyatta and during the transition to William Ruto. Continued here S51 Shin splints: an expert explains how to avoid them So you’re out for a leisurely jog and everything is going great – until you start to feel pain. That distinctive, shooting pain, up your shin. Even when you stop running, every time you put weight on your foot soreness shoots up your lower leg. There’s little doubt: you’ve got shin splints. Shin splints is the term commonly used to describe what’s actually known as medial tibial stress syndrome. The injury is characterised by a diffuse pain along the inside of the shin bone (tibia) that’s aggravated by activity. Continued here S50 Sixteen-pound baby born in Brazil: here's what increases the risk of giving birth to a giant baby A mother in Brazil recently gave birth to a two-foot-tall baby weighing 16lb (7.3kg). Angerson Santos was born via caesarean section at Hospital Padre Colombo in Parintins, Amazonas State. Angerson eclipsed the heaviest baby girl on record, who was 15lb (6.8kg) when she was born in 2016, but neither come close to the heaviest baby on record, who tipped the scales at a whopping 22lb 8oz (10.2kg), in Italy in 1955. Continued here S52 Seychelles is becoming overwhelmed by marine plastic - we now know where it comes from More than 1,000km southwest of Mahé, the main inhabited island in Seychelles, lies a ring of coral islands called the Aldabra Atoll. The islands are a Unesco world heritage site and support a huge diversity of marine species including manta rays and tiger sharks. The atoll is also a breeding site for endangered green turtles. The Seychelles Islands Foundation, who are responsible for managing Aldabra, conducted a plastic clean-up operation in partnership with Oxford University in 2019. Roughly 25 tonnes of plastic waste were removed from the islands. 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) Can't Find An Email? Use This Hack. Mar 1, 2023 - VCs and founders are finding life ea... Wegovy: what you need to know about this weight lo... Does Not Being Able to Picture Something in Your M... Do You Cause Your Own Stress? How To Stop a "Toxic... Is Natural Wine Better For You? February 26, 2023 - Russian Information Warfare Us... The Great Resignation Didn't Start with the Pandemic Ukraine: Beijing's peace initiative offers glimpse... How to Ask for a Promotion People Forgot How War Actually Works Mac McClung may have 'saved' the slam dunk contest... 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