Your secrets hurt your mental health. What"s the alternative? | Aeon Essays

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Your secrets hurt your mental health. What’s the alternative? | Aeon Essays Holding back the truth can take a huge toll on your relationships and your mental health. Why? And is there a better way? is the Sanford C Bernstein & Co Associate Professor of Leadership and Ethics at Columbia Business School in New York. He is the author of The Secret Life of Secrets (2022). Continued here

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Entrepreneurship: A Working Definition What is entrepreneurship? You probably think that the answer is obvious, and that only an academic would bother to ask this question. As a professor, I suppose I am guilty of mincing words. But like the terms “strategy” and “business model,” the word “entrepreneurship” is elastic. For some, it refers to venture capital-backed startups and their kin; for others, to any small business. For some, “corporate entrepreneurship” is a rallying cry; for others, an oxymoron. Continued here

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What You Need to Know About Segmentation The marketers of Clearblue Advanced Pregnancy Test, a product that can tell you if you’re one-week, two-weeks, or three-plus weeks pregnant, asked a couple of D-list celebrities to tweet out their positive tests back in 2013. As Businessweek’s Jessica Grose reported, the maker of the test, Swiss Precision Diagnostics, has a 25% share of the at-home pregnancy-testing industry and is targeting its marketing efforts at Millennials. Grose quotes IbisWorld researcher Jocelyn Phillips as pointing to the high-tech aspects of Clearblue’s test, also noting that young women might be more willing to shell out more money for such technology — the digital version costs about $5 more than the boring old blue and pink line version. Continued here

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10 Truths About Marketing After the Pandemic The Covid-19 pandemic upended a marketer’s playbook, challenging the existing rules about customer relationships and building brands. One year in, there’s no going back to the old normal. Here are 10 new marketing truths that reveal the confluence of strategies, operations, and technologies required to drive growth in a post-Covid-19 world. Continued here

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Steve Jobs Said Your Overall Happiness in Life Really Comes Down to Asking 3 Simple Questions Before his untimely death, Steve Jobs gave us a powerful lesson on living the best possible life. Continued here

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Using This 1 Word Guarantees You More Influence, According to Harvard Research. It's a powerful way to get what you want. Continued here

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In Just 9 Words, Jerry Seinfeld Described the Surest Path to Knowledge, Expertise, and Success Granted, it's not an easy path. Which is the point. Continued here

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How Feeling Like an Outsider Fueled a CEO’s Purpose Lessons from a conversation with Sim Tshabalala, CEO of Standard Bank Group. Continued here

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How Microsoft Became Innovative Again How did Microsoft revive its culture of innovation? For years, the company has been written off for playing defense on its position in the tech world. But, as signaled by its partnership with OpenAI and its challenge to Google’s search supremacy, it has gone back on the offense. The about face was, at its core, a cultural shift, driven by CEO Satya Nadella. He drove this by inviting an existential moment when he stepped into the job, reconsidering the company’s purpose. Then, he laid out strategic changes that would enable the company to think more like a startup, and made business decisions that committed the company to this new direction. Continued here

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Reading Between the Lines of a C-Suite Job Description Executive recruiters write lengthy job descriptions when filling C-suite roles. Candidates need to recognize that these are marketing documents, aimed at getting them excited about the job, and they aren’t necessarily accurate reflections of the responsibilities and performance measures they will encounter if they accept the position. To overcome the mismatch between the written description and the actual reality of the role, candidates need to start from scratch, using interviews as an opportunity to understand the real parameters of the work, writing their own understanding of the job, and getting executive buy-in to that understanding before accepting an offer. Continued here

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The childhood diseases making a post-lockdown comeback As child after child gasping for air was admitted to the hospital, Rabia Agha gritted her teeth. In her role as director of the paediatric infectious diseases division at Maimonides Children's Hospital in New York, she had seen this before. An outbreak of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) – a winter virus that can feel like a common cold in adults, but which can be dangerous for some young children. There was a wave last autumn – and an unexpected one in spring this year. Now, in the early autumn months of 2022, it was back again. Continued here

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Should New Zealand cats be kept indoors? The Lyall's wren was, for many generations, perfectly attuned to New Zealand's remote mammal-less landscape at the bottom of the South Pacific Ocean. When New Zealand was finally settled by people – ancestors of the Māori who first arrived sometime in the 13th Century – the small, flightless bird found itself ill-prepared for predators like the Polynesian rat. Continued here

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Is air pollution causing us to lose our sense of smell? For many people, a bout of Covid-19 gave a first taste (or rather a lack of it) of what it is like to lose their sense of smell. Known as "anosmia", loss of smell can have a substantial effect on our overall wellbeing and quality of life. But while a sudden respiratory infection might lead to a temporary loss of this important sense, your sense of smell may well have been gradually eroding away for years due to something else – air pollution. Exposure to PM2.5 – the collective name for small airborne pollution particles, largely from the combustion of fuels in vehicles, power stations and our homes – has previously been linked with "olfactory dysfunction", but typically only in occupational or industrial settings. But new research is now starting to reveal the true scale – and the potential damage caused by – the pollution we breathe in every day. And their findings have relevance for us all. Continued here

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How a hobby project turned into Nepal's most-downloaded app Shankar Uprety founded Hamro Patro in 2010 as a hobby project. The app helped Nepalis abroad, like Uprety, keep track of the Nepali calendar (a Hindu lunisolar calendar that is generally 57 years ahead of the Gregorian version), including dates of cultural or religious significance. The calendar app has since grown into a super app for millions of Nepalis who rely on it for about 25 different services, including a Gregorian-to-Nepali calendar converter, astrological natal charts, news, radio, mobile top-ups, remittance, and, most recently, telehealth. The company generates revenue from advertising on its news pages, and from its e-commerce and remittance services, astrology consultations, and telehealth appointments. This week, the company is launching its own digital wallet: Hamro Pay. Continued here

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China beats Tesla to Nigeria's lithium riches Kaduna, a state in northwestern Nigeria, has selected China’s Ming Xin Mineral Separation Nig Ltd. (MXMS) to build the country’s first lithium-processing plant, with a plan to manufacture batteries for electric vehicles (EVs). On January 13, the Kaduna Investment Promotion Agency tweeted pictures of its leadership team reviewing the plant’s construction. According to Kaduna State’s mining company, the plant is being built on 9.3 hectares of land. Khalil Nur Khalil, the executive secretary of the state’s investment promotion agency, told Rest of World that the plant is a “game changer,” which he believes will lay the foundation for Nigeria’s ambitions to build “battery factories” and produce “EVs in Kaduna.” Continued here

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Pakistan's three-day Wikipedia ban sends a "dangerous" message For three days starting February 3, the internet’s go-to, volunteer-driven encyclopedia, Wikipedia, was banned in Pakistan after it failed to comply with the national telecommunications regulator’s requests to remove what it had deemed “blasphemous content.” The development was a grim reminder of an earlier ban on YouTube by the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA). It had lasted from 2012 to 2016, and left the country’s creator economy in shambles. Though the Wikipedia ban was reversed within 72 hours, Pakistani tech investors and activists told Rest of World that such a move sends a “dangerous” message to the world, and could drive away foreign investors or multinational companies. Continued here

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Love and the Brain: Do Partnerships Really Make Us Happy? Here's What the Science Says. How romance affects our well-being is a lot more complicated than “they lived happily ever after.” Shayla Love: I’m going to bring you into a sacred space. It’s a group text shared by me and two other single women, where we discuss online dating. Continued here

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Lab-Made Enzymes Could Chop Up the Virus That Causes COVID Artificial enzymes can fight the COVID-causing virus by selectively snipping apart its RNA genome, a new study suggests. Researchers say the technique may overcome key problems with previous technologies and could help create rapid antiviral treatments as threats emerge. When the COVID pandemic struck, University of Cambridge chemical biologist Alexander Taylor scrambled to repurpose a gene-cutting technology he and his colleagues had been developing: synthetic enzymes called XNAzymes (xeno nucleic acids) formed from artificial RNA. Working single-handedly during lockdown, Taylor generated five XNAzymes targeting sequences in SARS-CoV-2's genome in a matter of days. Continued here

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Why Is the Amazon So Important for Climate Change? Here’s why the Amazon rain forest is key to protecting Earth from the detrimental effects of climate change Viewed from high above, the Amazon in South America is a lush emerald quilt, home to millions of animals and the planet’s largest river by volume. It is also key to protecting our planet from the detrimental effects of climate change. Continued here

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A Tiny Sun in a Jar Is Shedding Light on Solar Flares Seth Putterman started out studying the behavior of plasma for national security reasons. Extremely fast hypersonic missiles heat and ionize the surrounding air and form a cloud of charged particles called plasma, which absorbs radio waves and makes it hard for operators on the ground to communicate with the missiles—a problem Putterman was trying to solve. Then it occurred to him: The same plasma physics apply to our sun. The UCLA scientist and his colleagues have now created what Putterman calls “our sun in a jar,” a 1.2-inch glass ball filled with plasma, which they have used to model processes like those that create solar flares. These are explosive bursts of energy sometimes accompanied by the release of a high-speed blob of plasma that could wreak havoc with satellites in orbit and electricity grids on the ground. “The steps we’re making will influence modeling so that there can be a warning and determination of precursors of space weather,” says Putterman, the senior author of a study in Physical Review Letters describing their experiments. Continued here

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Conspiracy Theorists Are Coming for the 15-Minute City Carla Francome campaigns for better cycling routes in Haringey, North London, where she moved a few years ago in search of a community—“an area where I could make friends that would go to the park with me on a Saturday,” she says. “And where there are cafés nearby, and everything is in walking distance.”  Her activism, which has included support for traffic-reduction measures, has led to the occasional dirty look in the street from fellow residents. But nothing has compared to the stream of vitriol she’s received on Twitter since, on February 12, she posted a thread about the benefits of 15-minute neighborhoods—a concept in urban planning that suggests services should be spread out around cities, and that no one should be more than quarter of an hour away from parks, shops, and schools. Continued here

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How to Protect Yourself from Twitter's 2FA Crackdown The latest bizarre move of Elon Musk's Twitter ownership weakens the security of millions of accounts. On February 17, Twitter announced plans to stop people using SMS-based two-factor authentication to secure their accounts—unless they start paying for a Twitter Blue subscription. However, there are more secure, free, and easier ways to continue protecting your Twitter account with two-factor authentication. Two-factor authentication, also known as 2FA or multi-factor authentication, is one of the most effective ways to protect your online accounts from being hacked. When logging in to a website, app, or service, 2FA requires you to sign in using your username and password, then verify that the login is authentic using another piece of information. Most commonly, this involves entering a temporary code that's generated or sent to you in real time. Continued here

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A Stroke Paralyzed Her Arm. This Implant Let Her Use It Again In December 2011, Heather Rendulic awoke to a pricking, tingling feeling on the left side of her body. She later learned that a cluster of weak, tightly packed blood vessels near the base of her skull—an abnormality called a cavernous angioma—was bleeding. At 22 years old, she was having a stroke.  The tangle of vessels was buried so deep that doctors were hesitant to operate, and with no lasting side effects from the stroke, Rendulic thought she might be able to move on. Many people with cavernous angiomas remain stable for years and are able to live normal lives. But over the next 11 months, she suffered five more hemorrhages. The last was a massive stroke that paralyzed the left side of her body. She had brain surgery to remove the lesion but was left with little movement in her arm and hand.  Continued here

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The 29 Best Presidents' Day Deals on Headphones and Home Tech Today is Presidents' Day, and as singer Lesley Gore famously said, "It's George Washington's birthday, and you can save if you want to." (We may have paraphrased.) America loves a deals holiday, and the latest has arrived. We scoured the sales and highlighted the best Presidents' Day price drops below. You can save some cash on our favorite wireless chargers, reviewer-approved headphones, and the best fitness trackers. It's exactly what George would have wanted for his birthday, probably.  Now is a great time to shop for mattresses too. Check out our Best Presidents' Day Mattress Deals post for discounted recommendations. Don't see anything you like? Maybe check out our Best Wireless Chargers or Best Portable Storage Drives roundups. Continued here

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Watch: The scale of the entire Universe versus JWST's views The mid-infrared is even worse, requiring 63.9 million MIRI images to cover the full Universe. Many adjacent and overlapping images need to be taken, spanning several different wavelengths. Continued here

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Stanford study concludes that average penis size has increased 24% in 30 years Over the past few years, men have had to contend with emasculating headlines declaring that their testosterone levels are falling, their sperm counts are decreasing (maybe), and even their signature Y chromosome is disappearing. So a new finding might bring some measure of relief to their fractured egos: The average length of the erect male penis has risen by 24% between 1992 and 2021. That invigorating statistic comes courtesy of an international team of researchers led by urologists at Stanford University. In their analysis, published in the World Journal of Men’s Health, they reviewed, tallied, and aggregated the results of 75 studies conducted across the world over the preceding decades that measured men’s erect penis size in laboratory settings. Data from 55,761 men were included. After adjusting for geographic region, subject age, and subject population, the authors found that the average adult erect penis increased in length from 12.27 cm (4.8 in) in 1992 to 15.23 cm (6 in) in 2021. Continued here

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The strong force: holding our Universe together Frank Wilczek is celebrated for his investigations into the fundamental laws of nature that have transformed our understanding of the forces that govern our Universe. In this video, the MIT physicist details his work with David Gross and the pursuit of an equation to describe the interior of an atom’s nucleus. Dr. Wilczek was the recipient of the 2022 Templeton Prize, which valued at over $1.4 million is one of the world’s largest annual individual awards.  Continued here

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The biggest buildings mankind never built Étienne-Louis Boullée was a French architect from the 18th century who is remembered most for buildings that were never built. Boullée began his career designing country homes around Paris. A member of the Académie Royale d’Architecture who earned the bulk of his living as a professor of architecture rather than as a practicing architect, he was able to work on blueprints without having to worry about things like money and resources. Limited only by his own imagination, he drew up plans for buildings of impossible scale. Continued here

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ChatGPT is great – you’re just using it wrong It doesn’t take much to get ChatGPT to make a factual mistake. My son is doing a report on U.S. presidents, so I figured I’d help him out by looking up a few biographies. I tried asking for a list of books about Abraham Lincoln and it did a pretty good job: Number 4 isn’t right. Garry Wills famously wrote “Lincoln at Gettysburg,” and Lincoln himself wrote the Emancipation Proclamation, of course, but it’s not a bad start. Then I tried something harder, asking instead about the much more obscure William Henry Harrison, and it gamely provided a list, nearly all of which was wrong. Continued here

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How the "Face on Mars" and other false positives impact the search for alien life The holy grail for astrobiology is to discover extraterrestrial life. So, it may come as no surprise that scientists — even very good, careful scientists — have announced that startling discovery more than once, only to be proven wrong later. We call such findings false positives, and it happens all too often. Some of the most easily dismissed claims are based solelyon appearances. “Alien artifacts” ranging from corals to doorways have been reported by self-appointed internet sleuths, only to be explained away easily. And that’s just on Mars. The most famous of these is the “Face on Mars” spotted in Viking images taken in the 1970s. In those early low-resolution pictures, a rock formation in Cydonia showed a strong resemblance to a human face. NASA was lobbied to take a closer look, but upon closer (and higher-resolution) inspection, it turned out to be an ordinary mountain. Continued here

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The Lucid Air Grand Touring is a startup's take on a great luxury EV It's been more than a decade since Tesla proved that it's possible to start a new American automaker—and even become profitable. Its success has sparked a wave of subsequent EV startups, each with a mission to decarbonize our transportation sector. But that was a difficult prospect even before 2020 brought its own flavor of disruption to this nascent industry. Continued here

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Twitter's two-factor authentication change "doesn't make sense" Twitter announced Friday that as of March 20, it will only allow its users to secure their accounts with SMS-based two-factor authentication if they pay for a Twitter Blue subscription. Two-factor authentication, or 2FA, requires users to log in with a username and password and then an additional “factor” such as a numeric code. Security experts have long advised that people use a generator app to get these codes. But receiving them in SMS text messages is a popular alternative, so removing that option for unpaid users has left security experts scratching their heads. Continued here

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Is your Facebook account worth $12 a month? Meta rolls out subscription program Yesterday, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced on Instagram that his company is testing out a new subscription service to help Facebook and Instagram users “get extra impersonation protection against accounts claiming to be you.” Called Meta Verified, the monthly service will cost $11.99 on the web and $14.99 on iOS and Android. It’s being rolled out in Australia and New Zealand starting this week, and there are plans to offer the service in other countries soon. Continued here

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Lance Bass was kicked off a Russian spaceflight two decades ago--now he's back At the height of his fame as a member of the internationally famous boy band NSYNC, Lance Bass came within about two weeks of going to space in 2002. Continued here

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Starlink's "Global Roaming" promises worldwide access for $200 a month SpaceX's Starlink division has invited some potential users to try a "Global Roaming" service for $200 a month, saying the new plan "allows your Starlink to connect from almost anywhere on land in the world." Continued here

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Amazon hamstrings free app that makes Fire TV remotes reprogrammable Amazon doesn't want you messing with the Fire TV remote's buttons. After all, those buttons connecting users to streaming services like Netflix and Hulu are a source of ad revenue for Amazon. The company recently issued a software update to the Fire TV Stick 4K Max that blocks the functionality of Remapper, a free app that lets users reprogram the remote's third-party app-launcher buttons. Continued here

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Android's new OEM rules in India swap "requirements" with "revenue sharing" Google is being forced to revamp how it licenses Android in yet another country: India. While these agreements with manufacturers are always a big secret, we occasionally get to know more about them via various leaks. The latest happened over the weekend from Kuba Wojciechowski, which shows how manufacturers can now sell Android in India versus the rest of the world. Continued here

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Did the UK government just accidentally leak Nintendo's Switch successor? As the Nintendo Switch approaches the sixth anniversary of its launch, Nintendo has been extremely coy about the prospects for a true successor to the console (no, the Switch OLED doesn’t count). This week, though, a stray redaction in a government document regarding the proposed Microsoft/Activision merger has some industry watchers speculating that the announcement of a Switch successor could be coming in the near future. Continued here

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This bionic finger uses touch to "see" inside human tissue, electronics The human fingertip is an exquisitely sensitive instrument for perceiving objects in our environment via the sense of touch. A team of Chinese scientists has mimicked the underlying perceptual mechanism to create a bionic finger with an integrated tactile feedback system capable of poking at complex objects to map out details below the surface layer, according to a recent paper published in the journal Cell Reports Physical Science. Continued here

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Bonkers Republican bill in Idaho would make mRNA-based vaccination a crime Two Republican lawmakers in Idaho have introduced a bill that would make it a misdemeanor for anyone in the state to administer mRNA-based vaccines—namely the lifesaving and remarkably safe COVID-19 vaccines made by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna. If passed as written, it would also preemptively ban the use of countless other mRNA vaccines that are now in development, such as shots for RSV, a variety of cancers, HIV, flu, Nipah virus, and cystic fibrosis, among others. Continued here

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A Resigned Politician’s Advice for George Santos “The No. 1 thing I say is that if what they’re alleging is true, how you go down determines whether or not you can get back up.” George Santos is, at the moment, still a sitting member of Congress. He somehow manages this despite having been caught fabricating parts of his résumé; despite telling weird, at times disturbing lies (such as 9/11 having “claimed [his] mothers life”); despite having been accused of running multiple dog-related scams; despite calls for him to step down; despite a federal investigation into his finances; and despite a scolding from Mitt Romney at the State of the Union. According to one poll late last month, 78 percent of Santos’s constituents believe he should resign. And yet, Santos insists that he will not (though he has owned up in part to “embellishing” his résumé). Continued here

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Biden’s Military-First Posture in the East Is a Problem A singular focus on countering the threat of Chinese aggression made America neglect economic ties in the Indo-Pacific. Changi Naval Base, which sits on the east coast of Singapore near the busy shipping lanes of the Singapore Strait, has in the first months of 2023 been welcoming well-armed American visitors. Less than two weeks into the new year came a visit from the USS Makin Island, an amphibious assault ship. Days later, the USS Nimitz, an aircraft carrier with a small city’s worth of crew members, made a port call—accompanied by three destroyers. Continued here

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Every Coastal Home Is Now a Stick of Dynamite The Langfords got out of Houston just in time. Only two months after Sara and her husband, Phillip, moved to Norfolk, Virginia, in June 2017, Hurricane Harvey struck, destroying their previous house and rendering Sara’s family homeless. By comparison, Norfolk felt like paradise. In Larchmont, the neighborhood the Langfords fell in love with, young children scratched chalk doodles on the sidewalks, college students and senior citizens ran side by side on nature trails, and crepe myrtle trees popped pink along silent streets. Continued here

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Biden Just Destroyed Putin’s Last Hope The long-range missiles matter. So do the super-accurate artillery shells, the surface-to-air missiles, and the winter weather gear; the training in the English countryside or the muddy Grafenwöhr maneuver grounds; and the intelligence provided from the eyes in space and the ears on airplanes that circle outside the battle zone. Other heads of government preceded him, earning deserved credit. But it is an altogether different thing when the president of the United States—who is, indeed, the leader of the Free World—shows up. His words mattered. He pledged “our unwavering and unflagging commitment to Ukraine’s democracy, sovereignty, and territorial integrity.” And even more important, that the United States will stand with Ukraine “as long as it takes.” Continued here

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A Night on a Jeopardy-themed Bar Crawl Lizzie: Do they call it a bar crawl because by the end of it you’ll be crawling? Or is it because if you attend one in February, you’ll be crawling out of your apartment wondering why the host, generally understood to be a party genius, decided to throw a bar crawl in the East Village on the coldest weekend of the year? Our friend Andrew (the brain behind last year’s Watergate party) was hosting this bar crawl. It was Jeopardy-themed, meaning that the required attire was “If you were a contestant on Jeopardy, what would you wear?” and each crawl venue would be revealed to us in the form of an answer to a trivia question. The invite provided the clue for the first bar: “This bar was named after an American gambler best known for his role in the events leading up to the gunfight at the O.K. Corral.” Continued here

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Biden Went to Kyiv Because There’s No Going Back An American AWACS began patrolling the skies west of Ukraine last night; Kyiv was locked down this morning. Motorcades crisscrossed the city and rumors began to spread. But although it was clear someone important was about to arrive, the first photographs of President Joe Biden—with President Volodymyr Zelensky, with air-raid sirens blaring, with St. Michael’s Square in the background—had exactly the impact they were intended to have: surprise, amazement, respect. He’s the American president. He made an unprecedented trip to a war zone, one where there are no U.S. troops to protect him. And, yes, he’s old. But he went anyway. Biden’s visit took place on the eve of the first anniversary of the outbreak of the war, and on the eve of a major speech to be delivered by Russian President Vladimir Putin. But the visit was not just a blaze of one-upmanship, nor should it be understood as the beginning of some kind of mano-a-mano public-relations battle between the two presidents. The White House says the planning began months ago, and the visit is actually part of a package, a group of statements designed to send a single message. The first part came in Vice President Kamala Harris’s speech at the Munich Security Conference last weekend, when she declared that “the United States has formally determined that Russia has committed crimes against humanity” and that Russia will be held accountable for war crimes in Ukraine. The next will be delivered in Warsaw, tomorrow: America will continue to stand by Poland and the rest of the NATO alliance, and no NATO territory will be left undefended. Continued here

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Stuck in a loop of worrying thoughts? Here’s how to stop it | Psyche Ideas is an assistant professor of psychology at Texas State University. Her research focuses on improving short-term risk for suicidal thoughts and behaviours, with an emphasis on rumination and other factors that may facilitate acute suicidal crises. Have you ever been stuck on a single thought, a string of thoughts, or a topic that you keep returning to in your mind over and over again? Perhaps you keep mentally replaying images of that awkward date you had with your long-term crush, thinking about how things could have gone differently. Or perhaps you are apprehensive about an upcoming project and are rehearsing all the ways it could go wrong. Mental rehearsal is a normal and universal experience. However, if you find that you tend to dwell excessively on certain experiences – especially negative ones – you may be engaging in rumination. Continued here

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People High in Emotional Intelligence May Have Their Gut to Thank for Their Good Mood The brain-gut connection is improving our mood. Continued here

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10 Top-Ranked Cities for Digital Nomads Where You Can Live for $2,000 or Less a Month A new ranking sorts cities by both digital nomad-friendliness and affordability. Continued here

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Want to Start a New Habit and Keep It Up? Ignore This Common Advice, Says a Wharton Behavioral Scientist In a 95-second video, Katy Milkman explains how to plan for when your habit goes wrong. Continued here

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The Debt Ceiling Standoff Has Federal Contractors On Edge If the U.S. defaults, government contractors may not get paid on time. They're already devising stopgap solutions. Continued here

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How to Focus and Move Past Your Destructive or Distracting Inner Narratives Which of your 70,000 daily thoughts should you believe? Continued here

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3 Scientific Reasons Your Brain Fears Public Speaking, And How to Fix It Retrain your brain to perform its best when the pressure is on. Continued here

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Are Gen Z the most stressed generation in the workplace? The instability, insecurity and relentless upheaval of the past several years has left workers anxious. And now, as layoffs proliferate, and pay fails to keep pace with rising inflation, they’re still worrying – in some cases, more than ever. The global strain of what some call a ‘permacrisis’ impacts workers of all ages, yet many researchers and experts posit that Gen Z are the most stressed cohort in the workplace overall. Jumping into their careers in the past few years – with some only just entering the workforce during the pandemic – has put them in particularly difficult situations. According to Cigna International Health’s 2023 survey of almost 12,000 workers around the world, 91% of 18-to-24-year-olds report being stressed – compared to 84% on average. Continued here

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Gumbo's long journey from West Africa Fried cheese was the last thing I thought I'd see going into a traditional West African dish, but especially into an okra stew. It was just one of several ingredients that surprised me as a Louisiana-born Cajun who cut his teeth on gumbo, a pillar of southern Louisiana cuisine that's made up of seafood or meat cooked in a roux – but never with cheese. The origins of Louisiana gumbo can be traced to West Africa, during a time when enslaved Africans brought okra (or gombo as it is known in regional tongues) with them to the Caribbean and the US South, including where I'm from, the port city of New Orleans. Continued here

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11 of the best films to watch this February Why would anyone kill their own baby? Alice Diop asked herself that question in 2016, when she was watching the trial of a French-Senegalese woman who had left her child on a beach to drown. Having made a name for herself as a documentary filmmaker, Diop has turned her memories of the trial into a gripping drama, Saint Omer. Kayije Kagame plays Rama, a pregnant, Diop-like novelist who plans to use the case in her book on the Greek myth of the child-killing Medea. Guslagie Malanda plays Laurence Coly, the complex woman on trial. "Diop consciously uses the many tropes of true crime documentaries," says Sheila O'Malley at RogerEbert.com, "while at the same time up-ending them. In doing so, Saint Omer becomes a much larger reflection on contemporary French life, the experience of immigrants, and the shadows we drag along with us as we move into a different space." Women Talking is another high-profile new film exploring male sexual violence from the perspective of victims (Credit: Alamy) Continued here

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Expert Q&A: why do people commit murder-suicides? The deaths of Epsom College Head Emma Pattison and her daughter Lettie are a possible example of the rare and tragic phenomenon of murder-suicide. Pattison’s husband is believed to have shot his wife and child before taking his own life. We asked Sandra Flynn, an expert in forensic mental health at the University of Manchester, about why people commit this horrific act and what we should understand about it. Researchers have examined the motive for past cases, which have included mental health, relationship problems, alcohol and substance use, physical health problems, criminal and legal issues, job or financial difficulties and domestic violence. More recently, a review of cases found negative childhood experiences to be risk factors, as are characteristics like gender, age and financial situation. Continued here

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Gender equality in Nigeria: Three reasons why women aren't represented in politics In March 2022, Nigerian women suffered backlash in their pursuit of gender equity. Five gender bills presented to the National Assembly were thrown out. The bills sought to advance women’s rights on a number of fronts. These included: providing special seats for women at the National Assembly; allocating 35% of political position appointments to women; creating 111 additional seats in the National Assembly and the state constituent assemblies; and a commitment to women having at least 10% of ministerial appointments. Continued here

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The rise of renewables is not without risk for investors Given the urgent need to combat climate change and put an end to the exploitation of fossil fuels, it would appear renewable energies have a bright future. Having grown steadily for several years, they accounted for 19.1% of gross final energy consumption in France in 2020. Across the Channel, 43% of the energy consumed in oot twhe UK now comes from renewable sources such as wind, solar and hydroelectric power. That said, it is essential we step up green investment even more if we are to sustain low-carbon economic growth. According to the International Energy Agency, more than $2 trillion in annual investment in clean electricity will be needed by 2030 to achieve carbon neutrality. The war in Ukraine has also highlighted the risks posed by states’ dependence on imported hydrocarbons, making the energy transition not only an economic and ecological imperative, but a political one. Continued here

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Long before the Voice vote, the Australian Aboriginal Progressive Association called for parliamentary representation Director/Chair of Aboriginal History - The Wollotuka Institute, University of Newcastle Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this article contains names and/or images of deceased people. Continued here

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I'm descended from a Baloch-Afghan cameleer and a Badimiya Yamitji woman: they battled racist government policies to save our family I am one of 400 descendants of a Baloch-Afghan cameleer man, Goolam Badoola, and an Aboriginal Badimiya Yamitji woman, Mariam Martin. As I share these stories told to me by my Elders, I pray they are used as a means for others to recognise the resilience in these historical lessons as a vessel for good action. As humans, we should be naturally inclined towards performing good acts in service of humanity. Continued here

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Should private schools share their facilities with public students? There is a new push for private schools to open their grounds and facilities to the broader community. North Sydney mayor Zoe Baker, wants to ask top private schools in her area to share their green spaces and other facilities. For so much of the year, schools sit unused and most campuses close at 4pm. We should search for opportunities where space can be shared where it is suitable. Continued here

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We pitted ChatGPT against tools for detecting AI-written text, and the results are troubling As the “chatbot wars” rage in Silicon Valley, the growing proliferation of artificial intelligence (AI) tools specifically designed to generate human-like text has left many baffled. Educators in particular are scrambling to adjust to the availability of software that can produce a moderately competent essay on any topic at a moment’s notice. Should we go back to pen-and-paper assessments? Increasing exam supervision? Ban the use of AI entirely? Continued here

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Disability and dignity - 4 things to think about if you want to 'help' The prevailing public perception is that everything people with disability do is a challenge. Sometimes, that is true. In those times, we may ask or say “yes” to a kind and respectful offer of assistance. Other times, and more often than not, we are simply navigating daily life when a person without disability interjects to offer assistance. It is rare anyone means to be discriminatory in their approach to supporting people with disability, but society’s attitude still has a way to go. Continued here

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NZ cities urgently need to become 'spongier' - but system change will be expensive Two extreme and deadly weather events within the first two months of 2023 have brought the consequences of climate change into sharp focus. Auckland’s January 27 flood is the most expensive weather event in New Zealand insurance history. Cyclone Gabrielle prompted a national state of emergency, only the third time one has been declared. Auckland and the upper North Island also face an increasing risk of extreme heatwaves. These floods, storms and heatwaves are becoming more frequent and intense in a changing climate. Our cities, including Auckland, are poorly prepared for what is coming. Continued here

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Locked down with D.H. Lawrence? Yeah, nah The emotional consequences and aesthetic ramifications of the pandemic will continue to ripple through culture, changing our way of seeing the world, even as we begin to weary of the change. Writers who seemed outmoded or alien to a pre-pandemic worldview will suddenly have new relevance, helping us to understand the emotional landscape of a world riven by disease and crisis. Review: Look! We Have Come Through!: Living with D.H. Lawrence – Lara Feigel (Bloomsbury) Continued here

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Illegal Sydney warehouse parties, lives lost to AIDS, and gay liberation: photographer William Yang captured it all We are all photographers now, since the advent of smartphones and the selfie. So it may seem strange to be writing a review of an exhibition of photographs when, in their digital form, they are both ubiquitous and at the same time largely redundant. William Yang’s photographs in Sydneyphiles offer the complete opposite of the selfie. Instead of the throwaway image, he offers carefully framed and curated portraits. Continued here

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Covering your baby's pram with a dry cloth can increase the temperature by almost 4 degrees. Here's what to do instead We like to think of babies as tiny versions of ourselves. But babies aren’t simply miniature adults, especially when it comes to coping in the heat. Babies are at greater risk of overheating and need different cooling strategies to those that work for adults. Parents have long covered prams and strollers with cloth to shade the carriage from the hot sun. However, our recent study showed this can substantially increase temperatures inside the stroller. Continued here

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What Australia learned from recent devastating floods - and how New Zealand can apply those lessons now Australia and New Zealand have both faced a series of devastating floods triggered by climate change and the return of the La Niña weather pattern. So it makes sense that Australia has now sent disaster crews to help with the aftermath of Cyclone Gabrielle. With five serious floods in the space of 19 months in 2021-2022, Australia’s experiences – and how people responded – offer New Zealand a guide for recovering and rebuilding after an extreme weather event. Continued here

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From the dingo to the Tasmanian devil - why we should be rewilding carnivores Euan G. Ritchie is a Councillor within the Biodiversity Council, and a member of the Ecological Society of Australia and the Australian Mammal Society. No matter where you live, apex predators and large carnivores inspire awe as well as instil fear. Continued here