Why We Lose Our Friends as We Age

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Why We Lose Our Friends as We Age This is an edition of The Wonder Reader, a newsletter in which our editors recommend a set of stories to spark your curiosity and fill you with delight. Sign up here to get it every Saturday morning. When I was in college, an acquaintance who had graduated a few years prior came back to visit for the weekend. As we walked around campus on Saturday night, he flung his hands into the cold Connecticut air and exclaimed, “You guys are so lucky; you live a minute away from all your friends. You’ll never have this again.” Continued here

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5 Ways to Talk About Salary During a Job Interview The most nerve-wracking question of all might just be: What are your salary expectations? To gain more insight into how to answer this question in a smart way, I reached out to a few of my colleagues — across job titles, departments, industries, and levels of experience — for advice. Here’s what they had to say: Continued here

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7 Tricky Work Situations, and How to Respond to Them You know the moment: a mood-veering, thought-steering, pressure-packed interaction with a colleague, boss, or client when the right thing to say is stuck in a verbal traffic jam between your brain and your mouth. This analysis paralysis occurs when your brain suddenly becomes overtaxed by worry or pressure. Consequently, you find yourself unable to respond to a mental, psychological, or emotional challenge, and you fail to execute in the critical moment. Many people experience this at work. But there are seven key phrases you can use, tailored to specific situations. You can keep them in your back pocket for when these kinds of moments happen, route your response with them, and redirect the situation to regain control. Continued here

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What Leadership Style Do You Major In? Successful leadership requires your to have an understanding of three things: people, process, and performance. Most leaders major in one style and minor in another. The major is what they naturally lead with and deem most valuable, while the minor is often a skill they’ve honed over time. You need to be aware of your majors and minors to build and communicate with your team in the most effective way. Continued here

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21st Century Gardening From working with contaminated city soil to reconsidering weeds, pests and even lawns, gardening is changing as we adapt it to the realities of modern life. This series takes a look at its future in the 21st Century – and explores how it can be updated to fit with modern sensibilities and challenges, such as environmental awareness and pollution. Continued here

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What it takes to build a balloon for 100,000ft In May 2002, a balloon launched from the Sanriku Balloon Centre (SBC) in the north of Japan, quietly broke every absolute height record humanity had ever set. It quickly floated past the height achieved by the first successful balloon ascent in 1783 – It crept past the 1901 balloon flight which reached 10.8km (35,433ft) and led to the discovery of the stratosphere. It glided past every height record ever set by any kind of aircraft, be it helicopter, propellor-driven plane or jet. Continued here

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'Impossible' New Ring System Discovered at the Edge of the Solar System Astronomers are puzzled by a ring around the icy dwarf planet Quaoar that is much farther from its parent body than thought possible Astronomers have discovered an entirely new ring system within the solar system, and it's located at such a great distance from its dwarf planet parent that it should be impossible.  Continued here

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What Web3 Can Learn From Archive of Our Own Kenzie Carpenter first decided to choose a Fannish Next-of-Kin when an online friend, whom she knew as XT, died suddenly. “I had met her in a small, tight-knit Discord server for our shared fandom,” she says. “Her death was a shock to all of us.”  FNOK arrangements allow users of the popular fan-fiction website Archive of Our Own to designate another fan to take control of their works—things like fan fiction, fan art, essays, and videos—after they die. Carpenter had heard of the policy before, but it was XT’s death—and the suggestion from a fellow server member that they all consider naming a FNOK—that spurred her into action. Continued here

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How to Survive If You Were Part of the Tech Layoffs Google, Amazon, Facebook, Salesforce, countless crypto startups, Microsoft: These are the tech companies, great and small, that have been laying people off in droves so far in 2023. And it’s not only marketing and middle management roles being terminated, but analyst and engineer roles too. No job is 100 percent safe, as many of us have come to understand through experience. Being laid off is stressful, and can leave you feeling destabilized and unsure. Whether this is your first layoff (which probably hits much harder) or you've been down this road before, searching for jobs and figuring out how to meet your needs without that steady income can be scary. There are many creative solutions to help while you look for your next big break. Continued here

S9

North Korean Hackers Are Attacking US Hospitals With a major United States intelligence authority set to expire at the end of the year, and a congressional showdown brewing over whether or not to renew it, new details of an internal audit show that US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) personnel have repeatedly conducted unlawful searches of data collected under the imperiled surveillance authority. Agents requested information on journalists, a US congressman, and a political party as a result of what the US Department of Justice called “misunderstandings.” This week, WIRED spoke to the creator of Sinbad.io, a cryptocurrency privacy service popular among North Korean hackers and other cybercriminals that has facilitated money laundering for tens of millions of dollars. And officials from the United Kingdom and United States announced sanctions against seven alleged members of the Conti and Trickbot ransomware groups, publishing their real-world names, dates of birth, email addresses, and photos. The two governments also took the unusual step of stating plainly that they see evidence of links between Russia-based cybercrime groups and the Kremlin’s intelligence services.   Continued here

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How to Watch Something Other Than the Super Bowl On the hunt for a way to stream the Super Bowl online? Mosey on over to this piece for quality advice about watching the “big game.” OK, now that it’s just us, go ahead and give yourself a pat on the back. You feel like you’re better than the unwashed masses, and why wouldn’t you? Sports are low-key boring, and there’s a litany of reasons not to love the National Football League, from the NFL’s record on disability payments to team mascots that disrespect Native Americans. Continued here

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World's fastest "shoes" increase walking speed by 250% Pittsburgh-based startup Shift Robotics has invented “shoes” that let you walk 250% faster without expending any extra energy — and you can own a pair of the speed-boosting kicks for $1,400. Slow walk: Traveling via a bike, skateboard, or scooter is typically better for the environment than taking a car, and if you live in a place where traffic congestion can turn a 5-minute drive into a 20-minute trek, it can even be faster. Continued here

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Starts With A Bang Podcast #90 - How Galaxies Grow Up One of the great advances of 20th and 21st century science has been, for the first time to show us two things: how the Universe began and what the Universe looks like today. The modern frontier is all about the in-between stages: how did the Universe grow up? How did it go from particles to atoms to the first stars and galaxies to the modern Milky Way, Local Group, and Universe-at-large? It’s a question that, the more deeply we answer it, the greater the number of details that emerge, requiring us to make a special effort to pin each one down. For this episode, I’m so pleased to welcome Dr. Ivanna Escala to the podcast: an expert in how stars and stellar properties within the Local Group can reveal not only its stellar history, but its history of galactic assembly. While the Milky Way has had a few major mergers, its most recent was a whopping ~10 billion years ago. Andromeda, our Local Group’s other large galaxy, has a remarkably different story: with a major merger that occurred only 2-4 billion years ago! Continued here

S13

Commuting has psychological benefits that we miss with remote work For most American workers who commute, the trip to and from the office takes nearly one full hour a day – 26 minutes each way on average, with 7.7% of workers spending two hours or more on the road. Many people think of commuting as a chore and a waste of time. However, during the remote work surge resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, several journalists curiously noted that people were – could it be? – missing their commutes. One woman told The Washington Post that even though she was working from home, she regularly sat in her car in the drivewayat the end of the workday in an attempt to carve out some personal time and mark the transition from work to nonwork roles.  Continued here

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Steven Pinker: Linguistics as a window to understanding the brain Steven Pinker, the Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology at Harvard University, has been studying language for more than four decades, yet he’s not particularly interested in language per se. Instead, he views it “as a window to the human mind.” “It’s the trait that most conspicuously distinguishes humans from other species,” he told Big Think in a popular lecture from 2012. Continued here

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What medieval attitudes tell us about our evolving views of sex In the illuminating and entertaining blog Going Medieval, Eleanor Janega, a medievalist at the London School of Economics, upends prevalent misconceptions about medieval Europe. These misunderstandings include that people didn’t bathe (they did) and that these were the Dark Ages*. Her new book, The Once and Future Sex, is subtitled “Going Medieval on Women’s Roles in Society,” and that's exactly what she does—if by “going medieval” you intend the pop culture meaning of "dismembering in a barbaric manner" which, despite her protestations, you probably do. Continued here

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Light pollution cut humanity's connection with the stars--but we can restore Humans are naturally afraid of the dark. We sometimes imagine monsters under the bed and walk faster down unlit streets at night. To conquer our fears, we may leave a night light on to scare away the monsters and a light over the porch to deter break-ins. Continued here

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The weekend's best deals: OnePlus 11 gift card, Amazon tablets, and much more. It's time for another end-of-the-week Dealmaster. In this week's roundup of the web's best tech deals, we have a $100 gift card offer for preordering the just-announced OnePlus 11 smartphone, record lows on Google Pixels, and a handful of Amazon tablets and e-readers matching their own record low prices. Continued here

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Another Russian spacecraft docked to the space station is leaking Russia's state-owned space corporation, Roscosmos, reported Saturday that a Progress supply ship attached to the International Space Station has lost pressure in its external cooling system. Continued here

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Society Tells Me to Celebrate My Disability. What If I Don’t Want To? My memory of the moment, almost a decade ago, is indelible: the sight of a swimmer’s back, both sides equal—each as good and righteous as the other. An ordinary thing, and something I had never had, and still don’t have. To think of that moment is to feel torn—once again—about how I should respond to my condition: whether to own it, which would be the brave response, as well as the proper one, in many people’s eyes; or to regret it, even try to conceal it, which is my natural response. I have a form of cerebral palsy called hemiplegia, which affects one side of the body. The word has two parts: hemi, meaning “half,” and plegia, connoting stroke or paralysis. I have had a “half stroke,” but I prefer the romance of my high-school Greek teacher’s translation: I was, as he put it, struck on one side. Plus, it’s a more accurate description of what happened to me. At birth, the forceps used to pull me out of the womb pierced my baby-soft skull and damaged my cerebral motor cortex. On my left temple is a tiny scar left by the forceps and shaped, rather unfortunately, I’ve always thought, like an upside-down cross—the anti-Christ symbol. Continued here

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The Case for a Four-Day Workweek in Maryland “Given the obvious success of reducing work hours that we’re seeing in businesses across the country and across the world, it only stands to reason that Maryland should try this out.” The Maryland State Capitol building is older than America. It is the only state capitol to have also served as the nation’s capital; in the country’s earliest days, Congress met in its chambers. To work in Annapolis is to operate in the shadow of history. So maybe that explains why, 246 years into the American project, one state lawmaker sees his four-day-workweek bill as carrying on in the tradition of the ideals of the Declaration of Independence. That, or it’s just a good hook. Continued here

S21

The Quiet Desperation of Tom Brady A few years ago, I asked Tom Brady if he ever worried that too much of his life was consumed by the game of football. This was, in retrospect, kind of a duh question to put to someone who played, you know, the game of football for a living. Rather successfully, too, and for a long time. Brady confirmed the question’s premise that, yes, football meant pretty much everything to him and he could not imagine doing anything else with himself. “I’m not a musician, not an artist,” he told me, among other noninterests and non-hobbies. “What am I gonna do, go scuba diving?” Continued here

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Attachment Style Isn’t Destiny Our past experiences do shape our relationships. But we’re not doomed to repeat unhealthy patterns forever. The panic set in at the same point every semester: Whenever Ximena Arriaga, a psychology professor at Purdue University, got to attachment theory in her course on close relationships, the classroom grew tense. When she described how people who are anxiously attached can sometimes be demanding and vigilant—and that can drive their partners away—certain students looked disturbed. “I could just see in their face: I’m so screwed,” Arriaga told me. When she explained how avoidantly attached people might feel overwhelmed by emotional intimacy, other students seemed so uncomfortable that they physically shrank back. Some would approach her after class and ask: “Is there any hope for me?” Continued here

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America Has Gone Too Far in Legalizing Vice Our hearts and minds are shaped not only by reason but also by our habits, which are just as often inexplicably self-destructive as they are reasonable. “The cause of a gambling problem is the individual’s inability to control the gambling.” So says the National Council on Problem Gambling, an organization funded by the gambling industry to help people who have become addicted to its products. This attitude—that anyone who falls into gambling addiction has only themselves to blame—has allowed state lawmakers to ignore arguments that more access to gambling might make it easier for people to lose control. Since the Supreme Court struck down previous restrictions on sports betting in 2018, 36 states have legalized it (26 of which allow mobile betting), and new ballot initiatives are proposed every year. If you’ve watched a sporting event lately, you’ve been bombarded with ads for online sports gambling—and this weekend’s Super Bowl will be no exception. Continued here

S25

Why Money Manages Us We spend a great deal of time thinking about money. We talk about it, worry over it, wonder if we have enough to meet our immediate needs. If we’re lucky and have a lot of money, we think about using it to buy a new car, a new house, or a dream vacation. Since the days of our earliest ancestors, money has been one of our most important tools. But different from most other tools, money — even just thinking about it — influences our behavior in negative ways. We become more likely to prioritize our feelings, desires, and goals over getting along with and helping others. Money creates a tension between individualistic and interpersonal motives. To understand why money has such a hold on us, it’s helpful to look back at its predecessor: trade. Early humans and Neanderthals overlapped for roughly 5,000 years, and, biologically speaking, Neanderthals should have had the advantage. They were on earth first and they had larger bodies and brains. So how did our human ancestors come out ahead? They traded more than Neanderthals and across longer distances, giving them access to more and varied resources, and improving their chances of survival. Anthropologists sometimes call these early humans “homo economicus” to signify the attribute that set them apart. Continued here

S26

Delta Air Lines Quietly Made a Surprising Change that Will Make Its Best Customers Very Happy The airline revamped the dashboard for its frequent travelers. Continued here

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For Gen Z, the Career Grind is Dead. They See Things Differently in 1 Important Way The young'uns have less need for cognitive closure compared to their older counterparts. Continued here

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Why Are Your Employees Actually Quitting? You Can Narrow It Down to 1 Reason A basic understanding of human motivation, and what employees say they actually need will keep them from quitting. Continued here

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3 Powerful Ways to Reset a Bad Day and Turn It Into a Good Day, According to a Social Psychologist If you're having a bad day, don't just grit your teeth and power through. Continued here

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People With High Emotional Intelligence Use This Simple Language Trick to Become More Persuasive Give it a try. I do think you're going to find it's probably worth the simple effort. Continued here

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The parents who sever ties with their children Helen hasn’t spoken with her son in more than a year. The last she heard, he was in prison. Now aged 31, he’s been addicted to opioids for more than a decade. “He’s tried to call me, probably to ask for money, and I have not been picking up,” explains Helen, who lives in England. “Right now, that’s the right decision for my safety and sanity.” As the primary caregiver for her son’s young daughter, Helen’s focus is providing a loving and secure environment for her to grow up in. Continued here

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The silent struggles of workers with ADHD When Christian got laid off in late 2022, he wasn’t surprised. The 31-year-old, based in New York City, knew he’d fallen behind on his projects as a management consultant, and underperformed with essential job duties. “I had a tough time grappling with the sorts of executive functioning that our world operates by, like being able to set up meetings, follow through with things, focus and be detail oriented,” he says. His manager had pointed out these failings for months, which is why his termination was hardly shocking. Continued here

S33

The chefs reclaiming Lithuania's cuisine Imagine long strands of dill swimming in a cold, beetroot soup; soul-restoring potato dumplings with your choice of cottage cheese or meat on a freezing winter's day; fried black bread with garlic you vigorously rub onto the bread yourself. These are some of the staples of Lithuanian cuisine; hearty meat-and-potatoes fare to fill you up for the labour of the day. They're all delicious, comforting and satisfying, but that's only scratching the surface of Lithuanian cooking. Tourists are forgiven for their ignorance since the tiny Baltic nation has yet, for better or worse, to tickle the imagination of travel and food media at large. Continued here

S34

Toya Boudy's Yakamein: A New Orleans' noodle soup While it's typically foods like gumbo, charbroiled oysters, po'boys and jambalaya that lure people to New Orleans, lesser known yakamein has been a hot bowl of local comfort for decades. In Baltimore, it's called yat gaw mein, known colloquially as "dirty yak", a brown gravy-based udon noodle dish often mixed with shrimp and found at Chinese takeouts. Throughout the Tidewater region of Virginia, restaurants make a ketchup-based version called yock. But in New Orleans, the dish's birthplace, yakamein is a street-food staple worthy of more attention. It's a delicious bowl, carry-out box or Styrofoam cup stuffed with spicy spaghetti steeped in beef or chicken broth, Worcestershire and soy sauce, ketchup, and sometimes, hot sauce. The soupy dish also has meat (usually beef, chicken, pork or seafood), is generously spiced with creole seasoning (a blend of paprika, salt, black pepper, onion powder, cayenne pepper, oregano and thyme) served over spaghetti and garnished with green onions and a hard-boiled egg. Depending on preference, yakamein can be topped with a bit of extra hot sauce or ketchup for a finishing touch. Continued here

S35

Yiddishe Ribbenes (grilled Jewish ribs) A Michael Twitty recipe is always more than the ingredients and instructions written on the page. There's heart, soul and a sprinkling of dos pintele yid – a quintessential essence of Jewishness. That's why his recipe for Yiddishe Ribbenes goes well beyond its literal translation, "Jewish ribs".  "Yiddishe Ribbenes is first and foremost a product of my fever dream fusion," he said. "It sits at the intersection of possible and fantastical." Continued here

S36

Berbere-cured salmon with mustard seed and buckthorn "For me, it starts with the name," said chef Marcus Samuelsson, whose restaurant Hav & Mar recently debuted in New York City. Samuelsson, the James Beard Foundation award-winning chef and TV personality (featuring on Food Network's Chopped and Netflix's Iron Chef) behind Harlem's acclaimed Red Rooster and other restaurants worldwide, pays homage to his Swedish and Ethiopian heritage in this new endeavour.  Samuelsson was born in Ethiopia and raised on Smögen Island off the west coast of Sweden, eventually settling in New York City. "We all have different dualities. Mine is Swedish meets Ethiopian in New York," Samuelsson said. His cultural influences shaped his culinary path and inspired the name of his newest restaurant: Hav translates as "ocean" in Swedish and mar means "honey" in Amharic. "Mar means 'water' in so many Latin languages, too," he added. Continued here

S37

Grilled rack of California lamb with collard-almond pesto Tanya Holland opens her new cookbook, California Soul, with a clear definition of who she is, both as a person and as a chef: "I am Black and I am African American. I use these terms interchangeably. Both are accurate descriptors. My skin is dark brown and my ancestors are from the African diaspora. I live in California and am a Californian. I claim it all…" She continues, "As an African American woman, the contribution that my ancestors made to what Americans eat and how we eat is significant. No matter where we migrated from or end up, our food comes from within us and tells our story. I am contributing and this is my story. I have a California Soul." Continued here

S38

Total Eclipse of the Heart: The most epic song ever written One day in the summer of 1982, Canadian vocalist Rory Dodd was summoned to the Power Station recording studio in New York City to lend his vocals to a song, written and produced by his colleague and friend Jim Steinman for Welsh singer Bonnie Tyler. "Jesus! Where's the kitchen sink?" Dodd cried, when he heard the final, jaw-dropping mix of the track. The song was Total Eclipse of the Heart. Released 40 years ago in February 1983, this gothic aria became an unprecedented international success that pushed the boundaries of melodrama in pop music. It topped the UK charts, unseating Michael Jackson's Billie Jean, was an even bigger hit in the US, and soared to number one in several countries. Tyler was an unlikely candidate for this level of chart dominance, her career having flatlined since her 1977 hit It's a Heartache. Impressed by his work composing and producing the Meat Loaf opus Bat Out of Hell (1977), Tyler asked CBS Records for Steinman to collaborate with her on her next album. "The record company at the time thought I was mad," she tells BBC Culture. "They never in a million years thought that this would come off." But Steinman agreed to work with Tyler, hearing untapped potential in her voice, which he compared in its rasping power to Janis Joplin. He has described Total Eclipse of the Heart as a "fever song" about the darker, obsessive side of love and as "an exorcism you can dance to." Continued here

S39

Why have so many earthquakes hit Turkey and Syria? Earthquakes in Syria and Turkey are common, but the magnitude 7.8 that shook the region on 6 February at 4:17am local time is clearly impressive. To find earthquakes this strong on this particular fault, we would have to go back to the year 1114. Ten minutes after the strongest earthquake, an aftershock of magnitude 6.7 struck near the epicentre. “Aftershocks” are earthquakes that occur after every major earthquake, and their statistical behaviour is well known. At the time of writing, others continue to affect an area stretching over 350 kilometres from eastern Turkey to the Syrian border. Continued here

S40

Parks versus people? Challenges facing the South African capital's greening efforts Gardens, parks, reserves and trees have been linked to cultural, spiritual and alternative medical solutions. Natural or semi-natural land areas can also deliver ecosystem services like food, storm water management and climate control. Cities can plan and manage these for maximum benefit. We discovered that Tshwane needs guidelines based on green infrastructure principles. An increase in green infrastructure awareness among city officials and residents will increase the many benefits that green spaces can deliver. Continued here