Curious Kids: What happens to your brain if you don't get enough sleep?

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Curious Kids: What happens to your brain if you don't get enough sleep? Curious Kids is a series for children of all ages. Have a question you’d like an expert to answer? Send it to CuriousKidsCanada@theconversation.com. What happens to your brain if you don’t get enough sleep? — Avery, age 7, Napanee, Ont. Continued here

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Bola Ahmed Tinubu promised to "renew hope" for Nigeria - 5 ways he can achieve this Al Chukwuma Okoli has consulted for UN-Women, Centre for Democracy and Development, as well as Open University of Nigeria. He is a tripe Laureate of CODESRIA and a member of CORN-Wet Africa. The 2023 presidential election in Nigeria has been formally won – and lost. By mid-week Bola Ahmed Tinubu, of the ruling All Progressives Congress, had been declared the winner of the keenly contested presidential election with 36% of the 24,965,218 votes cast. Continued here

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A more hawkish China policy? 5 takeaways from House committee's inaugural hearing on confronting Beijing In a rare show of bipartisanship, Republican and Democratic House members put on a united front as they probed how to respond to the perceived growing threat of China. The inaugural hearing of the Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party comes at a delicate time – amid concerns in the U.S. over Chinese espionage and tensions over Taiwan and China’s position on the Ukraine war. Continued here

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Ambition, corruption and guerilla gardening: Eleanor Catton's Birnam Wood is a horror story for our time I attended Burnside High School in Christchurch at the same time as Eleanor Catton's older siblings. Her father was a colleague of my parents at the University of Canterbury, and one of my lecturers at the same institution. Almost every review to date mentions the brutal argument that closes the first section of Eleanor Catton’s Birnam Wood. In a novel filled with incident – disasters, chases, one very bad acid trip, general maleficence – it is telling that this scene lingers. Continued here

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Exercise is even more effective than counselling or medication for depression. But how much do you need? The world is currently grappling with a mental health crisis, with millions of people reporting depression, anxiety, and other mental health conditions. According to recent estimates, nearly half of all Australians will experience a mental health disorder at some point in their lifetime. Mental health disorders come at great cost to both the individual and society, with depression and anxiety being among the leading causes of health-related disease burden. The COVID pandemic is exacerbating the situation, with a significant rise in rates of psychological distress affecting one third of people. Continued here

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Nick Cave on the Art of Growing Older “The perilous time for the most highly gifted is not youth,” the visionary Elizabeth Peabody, who coined the term transcendentalism, wrote in her timeless admonition against the trap of complacency. “The perilous season is middle age, when a false wisdom tempts them to doubt the divine origin of the dreams of their youth.” A century and a half after her, contemplating how to keep life from becoming a parody of itself, Simone de Beauvoir observed: “In old age we should wish still to have passions strong enough to prevent us turning in on ourselves.” Moving through the stages of life and meeting each on its own terms is the supreme art of living — the ultimate test of self-respect and self-love. Often, what most blunts our vitality is the tendency for the momentum of a past stage to steer the present one, even though our priorities and passions have changed beyond recognition. Continued here � S2 Thoreau on Living Through Loss There is cosmic consolation in knowing what actually happens when we die — that supreme affirmation of having lived at all. And yet, however much we might understand that every single person is a transient chance-constellation of atoms, to lose a beloved constellation is the most devastating experience in life. It feels incomprehensible, cosmically unjust. It feels unsurvivable. In the final years of his short and loss-riddled life, Henry David Thoreau (July 12, 1817–May 6, 1862) wrote in his diary: I perceive that we partially die ourselves through sympathy at the death of each of our friends or near relatives. Each such experience is an assault on our vital force. It becomes a source of wonder that they who have lost many friends still live. After long watching around the sickbed of a friend, we, too, partially give up the ghost with him, and are the less to be identified with this state of things. Continued here S48 The Antarctic ice sheet is melting. And this is bad news for humanity PhD candidate in Earth and atmospheric sciences, Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM) Marta Moreno Ibáñez has received an excellence scholarship from the Trottier Family Foundation. Continued here � S30 How signals from your body could be making you anxious Geoff Bird has provided consultancy for Biobeats Ltd for the development of tools for measuring interoception. Where do emotions come from? This is a question that has interested scientists for centuries. Most of us would agree that when we experience an emotion, there is often a change in our body. We might be aware of our heart beating very fast when watching a scary film, or notice breathing heavily after a big argument. Continued here S5 Clues hidden in The Last of Us credits Carrie Bradshaw in a tank top and tutu getting splashed by a passing bus. Tony Soprano cruising through New Jersey in his Chevy, cigar hanging from his mouth. Mad Men's faceless businessman falling from the sky, past skyscrapers and advertising billboards. A sprawling, mechanical map of Westoros. Great television shows stick in your memory, but so do their opening credits – and, right now, we're in a golden age for them. See the recent series of The White Lotus, featuring a 90-second-sequence of Italian frescoes packed with metaphors and clues for the series that became as much of a talking point as the show itself – and a theme song that has become an unlikely club anthem. Or Succession's montage of grainy Roy family home-video footage, accompanied by Nicholas Brittell's Emmy-winning score. Or the trippy CGI animation of dystopian workplace drama Severance, a standalone work of art of its own. Continued here � S44 Oil and gas companies are seen as climate villains. Truth is, we'll need their expertise to make green hydrogen a reality But these companies are not just going to disappear. Even after we stop burning oil in engines, we will need oil and gas as raw materials for plastics, glues, solvents, industrial chemicals and fertilisers. Eventually, we’ll find greener alternatives. But that will take decades. Are they the enemy? They’ve certainly done a lot to slow down the shift to clean energy. But this will – and is – changing. Inside some of these companies, people know change will have to come. The companies which embrace their role as broader energy and chemical companies will make the transition first. Continued here S18 Student debt cancellation program in jeopardy as Supreme Court justices hear arguments The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments on Feb. 28, 2023, regarding a multistate lawsuit to block the Biden administration’s student loan debt cancellation program. The Conversation asked John Patrick Hunt, a law professor at the University of California, Davis, and Celeste K. Carruthers, an economics professor at the University of Tennessee, what’s at stake and what clues the court has given as to how it may rule on the matter. Hunt: The conflict is about whether the Biden administration can cancel some student loans owed to the federal government. The administration in 2022 announced plans to cancel up to US$10,000 in student loan balances for borrowers who earn under $125,000 per year ($250,000 if married), as well as an additional $10,000 for borrowers who were lower-income Pell Grant recipients when they took out their loans. Continued here � S9 American man developed an Irish accent after getting prostate cancer - foreign accent syndrome explained An American man developed an Irish accent following treatment for metastatic prostate cancer. The man was in his 50s and had never been to Ireland. The accent was described as “uncontrolled”, meaning the man couldn’t stop talking with an Irish brogue, even if he tried. He continued speaking this way until his death. Continued here S16 When does clinical depression become an emergency? 4 questions answered The news that Sen. John Fetterman, a Pennsylvania Democrat, checked himself into Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on Feb. 15, 2023, to be treated for clinical depression sparked a national discussion around the need for openness about mental health struggles. This comes after Fetterman suffered a near-fatal stroke in May 2022, prompting questions about possible links between post-stroke recovery and mental health. The Conversation asked John B. Williamson, an associate professor of psychiatry and neuroscience at the University of Florida, to explain when depression becomes a crisis and what inpatient treatment entails. Continued here � S15 Should we bring back the dodo? De-extinction is a feel-good story, but these high-tech replacements aren't really 'resurrecting' species It’s no secret that human activities have put many of this planet’s inhabitants in danger. Extinctions are happening at a dramatically faster rate than they have over the past tens of millions of years. An estimated quarter of all species on Earth are at risk of being lost, many within decades. What can scientists possibly do to stop that trend? For some, the answer is to “de-extinct.” Continued here S13 Bile acids and gut microbes could potentially treat multiple sclerosis, according to new research in mice Multiple sclerosis is characterized by an immune system gone haywire. A patient’s immune system starts treating the protective coating of the nerves – called myelin – as dangerous. The subsequent nerve damage can cause a variety of symptoms, including muscle weakness, pain and vision loss. MS currently has no cure, and doctors still don’t completely understand what causes it. While there is a genetic component to MS, environmental factors also play a big role in determining whether someone will develop the disease. Recent evidence suggests that what’s in your digestive tract may also be a meaningful contributor to disease risk. Continued here S70 'The Mandalorian' Season 3 Premiere Raises a Bizarre Baby Yoda Question It’s been a long time since Din Djarin strolled through Nevarro, and the neighborhood has changed. But Grogu hasn’t, and thus a question about The Mandalorian remains unanswered. Earlier this week, The Mandalorian producers Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni revealed that years have passed in the Disney+ series, despite what you may have previously suspected. Favreau confirms Grogu spends “many years” with Mando, including a two-year gap between The Mandalorian Season 2 and The Book of Boba Fett. Continued here S12 Dance Me to the End of Time: South African film on death is a powerful celebration of life In her 2021 documentary Dance Me to the End of Time, South African film-maker and educator Melanie Chait has produced a truly great film. Not only for the breadth of themes it broaches – from cancer to green activism, from lesbian love to arts therapy – but also for the intensity with which she deals with these themes. One of the hallmarks of a great film is its ability to transport audiences; to hold their undivided attention and evoke deep emotions in them. The documentary does this, as it pieces together four years of home movie footage filmed by Chait. Continued here S27 Hilma af Klint, a painter at the forefront of abstraction Profesora de Historia del Arte, Universidad del País Vasco / Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea Can an exhibition of work by a little-known Swedish artist change our understanding of avant-garde art? The history of early 20th-century art seems to be sufficiently set that the spectral appearance of an artist on the periphery of Europe wouldn’t change it in any way. However, the phenomenon of Hilma af Klint has opened up completely new avenues of study in our approach to abstraction. Continued here S33 Ukraine war is blurring the lines between Nato and the EU on defence policy Teaching Associate in Global Governance, Security and Defence Cooperation, University of Sheffield The EU and the Nato have proved crucial in bringing together their member states around a coordinated response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Recognising the continued Russian aggression, the two organisations recently signed a joint declaration committing to play mutually reinforcing, complementary and coherent roles while also reaffirming Nato as the foundation of Euro-Atlantic security. Continued here S31 Joy is good for your body and your mind - three ways to feel it more often Joy is an emotion experienced by many but understood by few. It’s usually mistaken for happiness, yet is unique in its impact on both our mind and body. Joy is not just a mere fleeting emotion – it triggers a host of significant physiological and psychological changes that can improve our physical and mental health. And, luckily for us, there are many easy things we can do each day in order to boost the amount we feel. Continued here S22 How Lithuania is spearheading EU and NATO efforts facing Russia In 2008, as part of a “nation branding” exercise – an attempt to give a country an easily recognisable identity – the Lithuanian communication specialists came up with the slogan “Lithuania – a brave country”. At the time, the country’s political elite were sceptical, but today, they identify with the label almost instinctively. Indeed, the small Baltic country has a population of less than 3 million and is in the borderlands of the EU, yet since 2020, it has stood up to three autocratic regimes: Belarus, China, and especially Russia. It all began in August 2020, when, after Belarus’s fraudulent presidential election, which sparked mass protests and violent repression, Lithuania welcomed the leader of the Belarussian opposition Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya and thousands of her supporters, fleeing the dictatorship of Alexandre Loukachenko. Tikhanovskaïa chose Vilnius as the home of her government-in-exile. Continued here S6 Street Fighter II: The 1991 video game that packs a punch Stepping into a video game arcade in the early 1990s, one particular title pulsed through the neon haze: Street Fighter II (SFII). This competitive fighting game from Osaka-based company Capcom debuted in 1991, and drew throngs to its vibrant visuals, distinctive moves and jet-setting playable characters: brooding warrior Ryu (Japan); his tousled buddy/rival Ken (USA); volatile sumo wrestler E Honda (Japan); electrifying Amazonian man-beast Blanka (Brazil); peppy martial artist and Interpol officer Chun-Li (China); fire-breathing yogi Dhalsim (India); combats-clad pilot Guile (USA); and hulking wrestler Zangief (Russia). Its pulse-quickening soundtrack (composed by Yoko Shimomura) cut through any surrounding clamour, and remains instantly evocative decades later. More like this: - Indofuturism in video games - The music most embedded in our psyches? - How gaming became a form of meditation Continued here S32 It's not just weddings - how celebrating small wins and unconventional milestones can bring joy In an episode of the popular TV show Sex and the City, protagonist Carrie Bradshaw sets up a fake wedding registry to get a friend to buy her a pair of shoes. Carrie claims to be getting married to herself in a bid to replace expensive shoes that went missing when she was asked to take them off at a party to celebrate the friend’s new baby. Though now 20 years old, this episode continues to resonate for bringing attention to those milestones that are collectively celebrated in society, and those that are not. Continued here S45 First Nations are using 'creative disruption' to foster economic growth in their communities First Nations have been resisting the historic and ongoing impacts of Canada’s extractive economy on their communities by exercising their right to self-governance and taking control of their economic futures. Creative disruption stands in contrast to creative destruction, a term coined by Austrian political economist Joseph Schumpeter. Schumpeter argued that capitalism causes old ideas and technology to quickly become obsolete through the process of innovation. In the pursuit of profit, capitalism ruthlessly and relentlessly eliminates old ideas and installs new ones. Continued here S36 Empires of ice: how Edmund Hillary's Antarctic adventure 65 years ago helped loosen NZ's colonial ties to Britain When the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition ended on March 2, 1958, it marked what many called the last great adventure possible on Earth: an overland crossing of the Antarctic continent. Sixty-five years later, it’s remembered in New Zealand chiefly for Sir Edmund Hillary’s unplanned and controversial “dash” to the South Pole in a convoy of modified Massey Ferguson tractors. Continued here S3 How E-Commerce Companies Can Reduce Returns Retail executives love the lack of friction in online shopping that makes it fast and easy for customers to complete a purchase, and promising free returns is part of that. But the costs of those returns add up: Of the approximately $1.29 trillion in U.S. online retail sales in 2022, it’s estimated that $212 billion worth of goods — 16.4% of sales — were sent back. While that represents a reprieve for retailers from 2021, when the rate shot up to 20%, returns are up still significantly, from just 10.6% in 2020. It’s putting e-commerce executives under pressure to lower these unsustainable numbers. The managers we work with on fulfillment strategies keep coming back to two less-obvious, intertwined questions regarding product returns: Does the current common strategy of putting the lion’s share of resources toward speedy delivery affect the return rate? And could a fulfillment approach that deprioritizes speed and instead aims to consolidate multiple-item orders into single, large deliveries improve return rates? The issue matters not only to those invested in lowering reverse-logistics costs but also to colleagues in sales and marketing, since sales figures can oscillate dramatically as return rates and refunds are factored in. Continued here S21 Sex work in South Africa: why both buying and selling should be legal Marlise Richter works for the Health Justice Initiative and is an associate with the African Centre for Migration & Society, university of the Witwatersrand. She served on the Sisonke Sex Worker Movement Board from 2017-2022. University of the Witwatersrand provides support as a hosting partner of The Conversation AFRICA. Continued here S7 Great Mysteries of Physics: a mind-blowing podcast from The Conversation “There is nothing new to discover in physics,” declared the British physicist Lord Kelvin in 1900. This is no longer true. Today it is becoming increasingly clear that there are problems that physics – at least as we currently know it – isn’t able to solve. Perhaps we just need more data, perhaps we need a new fundamental theory of reality. Hosted by Miriam Frankel, science editor at The Conversation, and supported by FQxI, the Foundational Questions Institute, come with us on a mind-blowing journey as we explore hidden dimensions, consciousness and even colliding universes. In this six-part series we will discover the greatest mysteries facing physicists today – and discuss the radical proposals for solving them. Continued here S67 People Are Jedi Mind-Tricking ChatGPT Into Telling Them How To Cook Meth How often do you get to jailbreak a sophisticated chatbot into telling you how to hotwire a car? ChatGPT might be the most powerful chatbot out there, but it’s no match for a little Jedi ingenuity. Continued here S10 How amateur scientists are still helping make important discoveries You may well be visualising a laboratory, equations scrawled on a blackboard. Figures are surrounded by glassware filled with coloured liquids. Maybe someone, with a slightly furrowed brow, is hunched over a microscope. But what this scene fails to convey is that science isn’t about labs, equipment or highly trained professionals. It’s not even the body of knowledge locked away in great minds or archived within text books and journals. Continued here S66 'The Mandalorian' Season 3 Review: The Worst, and Then the Best, of Star Wars TV Season premieres are hard. Season premieres of a hit Disney+ Star Wars series with an incredibly complicated and wide-ranging plot are even harder. The Mandalorian painted itself into a corner with the plot points it scattered like birdseed across Season 2 and The Book of Boba Fett, but instead of picking at these loose ends and tying them up over the course of the season, Episode 1 dedicates itself to that necessary evil, leaving Episode 2 to (thankfully) deliver more considered, progressing, and episodic plot like we’re used to. After watching the first two episodes of the season, we can promise it’s worth it in the end. Episode 1 of The Mandalorian Season 3 starts off promising, with a Children of the Watch helmet forging and initiation ceremony — a ritual that looks awful like a baptism — that’s suddenly interrupted by a giant alligator-like creature emerging from the lake. The various Mandalorians present fight off the creature, but it’s ultimately destroyed by Mando in his new starfighter. Continued here S69 'The Mandalorian' Season 3 Just Doubled Down on Its Worst Instincts The Mandalorian has always been a show of sidequests. Mando needs something, so he finds someone who has it, but he has to do some arbitrary task to pay for it. It could be as monumental as slaying a mythical dragon in a ghost town or as mundane as driving around a Frog Lady. It doesn’t matter: Mando will do it. It’s a formula that’s worked for two seasons, even if it’s become a bit predictable. But in Season 3’s premiere episode, this formula goes off the rails to produce an episode that feels both overcrowded and sparse. The simple formula relies on one key element: our heroes have to see their quest through to the end and receive a reward. But in Episode 1 of Season 3, there’s no firm resolution to any of the adventures Mando goes on. Continued here S23 Look to cities, but past their mayors, for new climate solutions Assistant professor in organisational and economic sociology, EM Lyon Business School A little over three months after the COP27 climate summit in Sharm-el-Sheikh drew to a close, the global community is no closer to finding a solution to the problem of climate change. The most-attended climate change conference to date has left observers frustrated and disillusioned. What started with the promise of a much-needed focus on environmental justice ended with unambitious commitments muffled by fossil fuel producers and insufficient funds on the table. Continued here S24 Debate: The multiple paradoxes of Meta and Mark Zuckerberg From Facebook’s psychological experiments on unwitting users in 2014 to the Cambridge Analytica scandal in 2018 or the Facebook files in 2021, controversies involving the company have been numerous. Despite an increased demand for transparency, Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta (formerly known as Facebook), has never been too inclined to commit to any specific actions. This can be explained by the fact that social media operate in the attention economy. Their algorithms – the ranking and recommendation systems they use to filter and propose content – also aim at maximizing the time that users spend on their platform. The goal is to expose them to ads for longer periods of time, and also collect more personal data that can subsequently be monetized. To do so, social media companies design their algorithms to trigger behavioral modifications – they raise up our desires and encourage us to immediately satisfy them, and so deprive us of the ability to truly choose. Continued here S26 The Home Office is sabotaging its own plan to tackle the asylum backlog To cope with a record high backlog of asylum applications, the Home Office has announced it will instruct thousands of applicants to complete a questionnaire in English, instead of a face-to-face interview. If they do not do this within 20 days, their asylum application may be treated as withdrawn. This “streamlined” procedure is expected to apply to about 12,000 people who claimed asylum before June 28 2022 from five countries: Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen and Libya, where there are armed conflicts, and Eritrea, where all adults are conscripted into prolonged military service in conditions that breach human rights. Anyone who leaves Eritrea without an exit visa (which in reality is unavailable) is liable to prison in conditions that, similarly, amount to serious harm. Continued here S14 How Frances Willard shaped feminism by leading the 19th-century temperance movement As younger adults opt for “wellness” products, many are practicing alcohol abstinence. Sometimes referred to as “sober curious,” this trend of often forgoing alcohol has forged public conversations on the health benefits of abstinence. Few, however, reflect on its connections to the temperance movement, one of the major social movements of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Continued here S11 No ordinary diamond: how the Koh-i-Noor became an imperial possession Ahead of King Charles’s coronation on May 6 2023, Buckingham Palace has announced that Camilla, the Queen consort, will be wearing a modified version of the crown made for Queen Mary, the consort of George V. This is the first time since the 1700s that a queen consort crown is being reused. Even more notably, the Koh-i-Noor diamond will not be used in the crown. This most precious item among the crown jewels of the United Kingdom is also the most controversial. A piece of colonial legacy, it has long been the subject of reparation demands by the Indian government. Continued here S35 Interviews with journalists can seem daunting - but new research shows 80% of subjects report a positive experience Every journalist who is not too stupid or too full of himself to notice what is going on knows that what he does is morally indefensible. He is a kind of confidence man, preying on people’s vanity, ignorance, or loneliness, gaining their trust, and betraying them without remorse. So begins Janet Malcolm’s renowned book, The Journalist and the Murderer. It was written more than 30 years ago, yet this negative notion has endured. Continued here S49 Israel is facing twin existential crises - what is Benjamin Netanyahu doing to solve them? Israel is facing one of the most serious crises in its history. And it could be the biggest test yet for Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu, just months after he resurrected his political career by returning to the prime minister’s office. Netanyahu, the country’s longest-serving prime minister, had been ousted from power in 2021, but launched a political comeback last year and scraped together enough support to form a coalition government following November elections. The coalition is made up of Netanyahu’s center-right Likud party, along with a group of far-right and ultra-orthodox religious parties. Continued here S17 Sibling aggression and abuse go beyond rivalry - bullying within a family can have lifelong repercussions Nearly 80% of U.S. children grow up with a sibling. For many, brothers and sisters are life companions, close confidants and sharers of memories. But siblings also are natural competitors for parents’ attention. When brothers and sisters view parents’ love and attention as limited – or lopsided in favor of their sibling – rivalry may ensue. Rivalry can motivate children to develop unique talents, abilities – such as in academics, sports or music – and other characteristics to gain their parents’ attention. Sometimes, however, rivalry can lead to jealousy and bickering – and too much of it can lead to aggression, bullying and even abuse and violence. Continued here S20 A history of Zambia's green policies shows why environment and development must go hand in hand Climate change and environmental policy measures have become a central part of planning for sustainable development and avoiding crises such as food and water insecurity. Because “going green” is such an urgent issue now, some people may think it’s a newcomer to policy agendas. This may seem especially likely in developing countries, where other challenges have long called for attention. Continued here S19 I've spent 5 years researching the heroic life of Black musician Graham Jackson, but teaching his story could be illegal under laws in Florida and North Dakota The story of Graham Jackson is a timeless tale of American ingenuity, hard work and the cream rising to the top. It’s also a tale of economic inequality, overt racism and America’s Jim Crow caste system. Continued here S38 How to avoid annoying your kids and getting 'stressed by proxy' during exam season I knew assessment season was upon us when my son frantically asked me one morning before school if I had any spare pens in my bag. Despite the fact most tests have moved online, it appears the fear of ink in a pen running out remains a timeless stress factor. This will likely be a familiar scenario. With NAPLAN moving to March and Year 11 and 12 students already in the throes of multiple assessments, exams are looming for many households with school-aged children. Continued here S41 We thought the first hunter-gatherers in Europe went missing during the last ice age. Now, ancient DNA analysis says otherwise Hunter-gatherers took shelter from the ice age in Southwestern Europe, but were replaced on the Italian Peninsula according to two new studies, published in Nature and Nature Ecology & Evolution today. Our new results show the hunter-gatherers of Central and Southern Europe did disappear during the last ice age. However, their cousins in what is now France and Spain survived, leaving genetic traces still visible in the DNA of Western European peoples nearly 30,000 years later. Continued here S29 Will ChatGPT be the disrupter academia needs? Less than a week after Open AI released ChatGPT, CEO Sam Altman announced that the chatbot had already surpassed one million users. By January 13, 2023, the global Google search for the word “ChatGPT” had hit a popularity score of 92 and Microsoft has since invested $10 billion in OpenAI. Now, the chatbot is at capacity and no longer available for use thanks to server saturation, but OpenAI has recently announced a $20 per month subscription service that it will be piloting with people off its waitlist. Continued here S37 From deadly jaws and enormous strength to mushroom farming, Ant-Man is only tapping into a portion of the real superpowers of ants Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania is the latest film in the ever-expanding Marvel Cinematic Universe. The ant-filled film follows the adventures of Scott Lang (AKA Ant-Man), Hope Van Dyne (AKA The Wasp) and Cassie Lang (AKA The Stinger), who all use science-derived technology to give them ant-like powers. In the Ant-Man films, Ant-Man also has the ability to direct the actions of several ant species, each with its own unique set of characteristics. Continued here S51 Race and erasure: why the world's other humanitarian crises don't see the same response as Ukraine With the war in Ukraine now in its second year, nearly a third of the country’s population has been displaced, including 8 million people who have sought refuge beyond its borders. International support for the plight of these refugees has been heartening. Nearly 4.5 million Ukrainians having been granted temporary protection status across the European Union (EU). Continued here S4 The little-known history of Champagne On the outskirts of the north-eastern French city of Reims, winding roads converge near a gated chateau. Cars line a roundabout enclosed by sprawling fields. The air is still, and it's calm. The real action is happening almost 20m underground. Carving through this underworld are more than 200km of cellars, with millions of Champagne bottles lining chalky rock walls, unlabelled and marked with the words "I was here" by tourists in the dust covering them. Some are upside-down, in chains, glowing in the dim light of the cellars against the backdrop of tunnels that seemingly lead to nowhere. Others are stacked in small caves guarded by wrought iron gates. This is ground zero of the world's Champagne market. Continued here S50 Curious Kids: why don't grown-ups play like kids? What led you to ask this? Did you notice this at a playground, where kids seem to do all the playing – the climbing, swinging and sliding, while grown-ups just hang around, pushing swings or texting on their phones? In fact most grown-ups don’t play in playgrounds, which is weird because playgrounds are so much fun. Continued here S63 Star Wars Canon Just Revealed the Truth About Palpatine's Cloning Scheme Palpatine’s cloning conspiracies aren’t only about Baby Yoda and Order 66. Star Wars canon — via The Bad Batch Season 2 — has just revealed that the story of the Empire’s cloning programs is much bigger than whatever’s happening on The Mandalorian. At some point before A New Hope, human stormtroopers completely replaced the Jango Fett clones created on Kamino. But the Empire didn’t abandon cloning and genetic manipulation. The Mandalorian offered proof that an Imperial cloning program still exists, and in The Rise of Skywalker, we saw Palpatine return thanks to some extreme cloning experiments. Continued here S42 New results from NASA's DART planetary defence mission confirm we could deflect deadly asteroids What would we do if we spotted a hazardous asteroid on a collision course with Earth? Could we deflect it safely to prevent the impact? Last year, NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission tried to find out whether a “kinetic impactor” could do the job: smashing a 600kg spacecraft the size of a fridge into an asteroid the size of an Aussie Rules football field. Continued here S25 The Dark Side of the Moon at 50: an album artwork expert on Pink Floyd's music marketing revolution This month marks 50 years since the release of The Dark Side of the Moon. Pink Floyd’s eighth studio album beamed the band into super stardom with platinum-selling singles such as Money and The Great Gig in the Sky. Typifying Pink Floyd’s mix of philosophical lyricism and spaced-out rock sound, the record sits comfortably in the top 50 best-selling albums of all time. It is also frequently called one of the greatest albums of all time by popular music magazines such as Rolling Stone and NME. Continued here S39 We can't keep putting apartment residents' waste in the too hard basket The harsh realities of managing the waste we produce are in the news: councils shunning new glass bins, more plastic being produced per person in the world and Sydney bins overflowing. And the growth in apartment living in Australia threatens to add to these problems. Apartments worldwide have lower recycling rates than standalone houses. However, there are examples in cities in Australia and overseas of schemes that have improved apartment waste recycling so it matches, if not exceeds, that of standalone houses. Continued here S40 Amid a worsening refugee crisis, public support is high in both Australia and NZ to accept more Rohingya Nearly one million stateless Rohingya people who fled brutal ethnic cleansing in Myanmar have been languishing in extremely congested refugee camps in Bangladesh for the past five and a half years. While the United States recently announced a resettlement program for Rohingya refugees and the UK resettled around 300 Rohingya from the camps prior to 2020 under a now-defunct scheme, this hasn’t caused even a dent in the number of people living in the world’s largest refugee camp. Continued here S28 Magic Mike's Last Dance proves men are not up to the task of presenting the female gaze The third and final instalment of the Magic Mike series is still drawing enthusiastic audiences in UK cinemas. Inspired by Channing Tatum’s real-life Magic Mike Live stage show, the conclusion to Steven Soderbergh’s trilogy operates as a backstage musical. As a result of the economic uncertainty caused by the global pandemic, Mike Lane (Tatum) is forced to return to the world of male stripping – this time as the director of a live show financed by wealthy socialite (and love interest) Max Mendonza (Salma Hayek), in London. Continued here S55 Five discoveries that changed our understanding of how the ancient Egyptians created mummies Centuries after the first golden coffins were taken to Europe, ancient Egyptian mummies still vividly capture people’s imaginations. Perhaps we’re awed by the grandeur of their rituals and tradition. But new discoveries keep challenging scientists’ perception of these ancient rites. As a biomedical Egyptologist, I study mummies to learn about life in ancient populations. Over the last 10 years, I have seen a big change in our understanding of how, why and when mummies were created. This has mostly been driven by new scientific discoveries. Here are five of the most important ones that have changed what we know about this ancient process. Continued here S68 Sony's 2023 4K TVs Focus on the Only Thing That Matters: Out-of-the Box Picture Even with all kinds of AI and content encoding, TVs often still get picture quality wrong. Shadows are too bright; contrast is too low or high; motion smoothing continues to ruin everything. The list goes on and on. That’s why the picture on every TV looks different out of the box: each TV maker has its own interpretation of the “correct” way to calibrate a TV image. Sony wants to fix all of this. At the very least, its new batch of 2023 Bravia XR smart 4K TVs comes with a slew of different hardware and software features that it claims will produce a better out-the-box picture than TVs from competitors like Samsung and LG. Continued here S52 Why prey animals often see threats where there are none - and how it costs them For a nervous horror fan, an evening watching HBO’s hit post-apocalyptic television show The Last of Us might be followed by a restless night under the duvet. The silhouette of a coat slung over the back of a chair or even the screeching of a cat in the garden will cause a spike of adrenaline. Animals are primed to be wary through natural selection rather than scary television shows, but like humans, they often make mistakes when watching out for threats. Continued here S65 'Peter Pan & Wendy' May Break Disney's Streak of Bad Live-Action Remakes Green Knight director David Lowery may help Disney find Neverland once again with an imaginative take on Peter Pan. Second star to the right and straight on 'til morning... The straight-to-Disney+ debut of Disney’s Peter Pan remake is almost upon us. Continued here S62 An Upcoming NASA Mission to Saturn's Largest Moon Could Find Chemicals Key to Alien Life The Dragonfly quadcopter's future landing site on Titan may once have been a warm oasis of liquid water amid the moon's icy hydrocarbon landscape. On Titan’s icy surface, liquid water could have filled the bottom of Selk Crater for tens of thousands of years after the ancient impact that formed it. Continued here S64 You Need to Watch the Trippiest Sci-Fi Movie on Amazon Prime ASAP Modern society has had a bit of an unhealthy obsession with celebrities. In the current social media age, where talent and charisma are no longer requirements for fame, our relationship with celebrity culture has only gotten worse. For their part, artists have, in their own ways, spent decades trying to explore and depict the most toxic aspects of celebrity culture. No movie has done so in quite as eccentric or confidently weird a fashion as Being John Malkovich. The 1999 sci-fi fantasy film, which marked the feature debuts of both director Spike Jonze (Her) and screenwriter Charlie Kaufman (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), is just as enigmatic and surreal as its title suggests. It’s a film that takes people’s tendency to idolize their favorite celebrities and dares to ask: What if you actually could live the life of one of the world’s biggest actors? Continued here S58 My Half-Marathon Training Log Follow @newyorkercartoons on Instagram and sign up for the Daily Humor newsletter for more funny stuff. © 2023 Condé Nast. All rights reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. The New Yorker may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast. Ad Choices Continued here S61 Items in Your N.Y.C. Apartment That You Can Sled on in Central Park Follow @newyorkercartoons on Instagram and sign up for the Daily Humor newsletter for more funny stuff. © 2023 Condé Nast. All rights reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. The New Yorker may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast. Ad Choices Continued here S56 What Can A.I. Art Teach Us About the Real Thing? “An Avedon portrait of a Havanese,” I type into my laptop. An actual, if elderly and ailing, Havanese is looking up at me as I work, and an Avedon portrait book is open on my desk. What could be more beguiling than combining the two? Then my laptop stutters and pauses, and there it is, eerily similar to what Richard Avedon would have done if confronted with a Havanese. The stark expression, the white background, the implicit anxiety, the intellectual air, the implacable confrontational exchange with the viewer—one could quibble over details, but it is close enough to count. Continued here S57 Jessie Diggins Wins the Gold in the Toughest Winter Sport The streaming channels have hit it big with sports-reality shows lately. “Drive to Survive” captures the speed and the glamour of Formula 1 racing, and “Break Point” the glamour and the psychological grind of big-time tennis. (There’s even “Welcome to Wrexham,” with its focus on the glamour of owning a soccer team.) If you were going to make a series about Nordic (cross-country) ski racing, though, there’s only one possible theme: not glamour but the pure suffering involved in what’s often regarded as the world’s most taxing sport. You’d have to call it “The Pain Cave,” and it would have to star Jessie Diggins, because the Minnesota native has shown like few before her the ability to survive in that black hole that comes when your body starts to run short of fuel. Diggins wrote the latest chapter of her saga on Tuesday morning in Planica, Slovenia, where she did something that no American has ever done before: won a gold medal in an individual cross-country skiing race at a world or Olympic championship event. The United States focusses on the quadrennial Olympics, but the rest of the skiing world is just as interested in the F.I.S. Nordic World Ski Championships, which are held in the odd-numbered winters preceding and following the five-ring Games. This year’s championships are in Slovenia, and Tuesday’s race was Diggins’s specialty, the ten-kilometre skate. She didn’t come into this contest as the favorite—the event, after all, is called Nordic skiing, and Swedes and Norwegians are almost always the best in the world. But after a long career of firsts—she won America’s first Olympic gold in the team sprint relay in the Pyeongchang Games, in 2018, with Kikkan Randall, who was calling yesterday’s race over an Internet feed, which is the only way for Americans to watch these races—everyone knew that Diggins was legitimately in the hunt for her first solo title. Continued here S54 AI could make more work for us, instead of simplifying our lives There’s a common perception that artificial intelligence (AI) will help streamline our work. There are even fears that it could wipe out the need for some jobs altogether. But in a study of science laboratories I carried out with three colleagues at the University of Manchester, the introduction of automated processes that aim to simplify work — and free people’s time — can also make that work more complex, generating new tasks that many workers might perceive as mundane. Continued here S53 Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, Theresa May (and soon Nicola Sturgeon): the strange backbench lives of former national leaders Former prime ministers are currently making a habit of intervening in government policy. Boris Johnson deployed sources to urge current prime minister Rishi Sunak not to abandon his Brexit policies and to send fighter jets to Ukraine. Liz Truss also used her first speech on the backbenches since leaving Downing Street last October, to press Sunak’s government on Ukraine. In Scotland, departing first minister Nicola Sturgeon took mere days to break her promise not to interfere in the race to replace her as SNP leader by criticising one of the contenders for her position on same-sex marriage. Continued here S59 A Rare Exploration of the Deprogramming Process, in “Stolen Youth: Inside the Cult at Sarah Lawrence” In the second hour of the three-part Hulu docuseries "Stolen Youth: Inside the Cult at Sarah Lawrence," several students who had their lives and their potential wrung out by Larry Ray, a manipulative ex-convict, recall the moment that they decided to walk away. One victim, Dan Levin, who had been beaten and threatened with castration by Ray multiple times, left after a rare night alone led him to the roof of his building to contemplate suicide. Yalitza Rosario, who'd fallen into Ray's orbit along with her two siblings Felicia and Santos, was eventually worn down by the intense guilt and shame she felt after Ray had browbeaten her into falsely believing that she had poisoned him. Another co-ed, Claudia Drury, did not participate in the docuseries, but, according to a friend, she finally snapped awake when she read the 2019 New York magazine story laying out Ray's misdeeds. By that point, Drury had helped fund his life style by earning—and forking over—millions of dollars through sex work. Given the hyper-topicality of the current TV-documentary landscape, Ray's "cult"—a clickbaiting term that feels more illustrative of the group's abuse dynamics than its organizational structure—was destined for the docuseries treatment. For about a decade, Ray tyrannized a half-dozen undergraduates whom he had recruited from his daughter Talia's dorm. (He also lived in the dorm, for a brief period, after his release from prison, in 2010, for a custody violation.) Though he was eager to impart life advice to his daughter's friends, he appeared to harbor little interest in establishing an official organization. Perhaps his thrall was all the more powerful for its intimate informality. After Talia's sophomore year, Ray moved into a one-bedroom apartment in a Manhattan high-rise with five students from Sarah Lawrence, including Talia and her then boyfriend, Santos, and a sixth, who would later join from Columbia University. In those close quarters, he deployed an arsenal of extreme control tactics: isolation, financial extortion, food and sleep deprivation, sexual humiliation, physical and emotional abuse, and reality distortion. Continued here S60 How ChatGPT Will Strain a Political System in Peril In November, OpenAI introduced ChatGPT, a large language model that can generate text that gives the impression of human intelligence, spontaneity, and surprise. Users of ChatGPT have described it as a revolutionary technology that will change every aspect of how we interact with text and with one another. Joshua Rothman, the ideas editor of newyorker.com, joins Tyler Foggatt to talk about the many ways that ChatGPT may be deployed in the realm of politics—from campaigning and lobbying to governance. American political life has already been profoundly altered by the Internet, and the effects of ChatGPT, Rothman says, could be even more profound. In the weeks before John Wayne Gacy’s scheduled execution, he was far from reconciled to his fate. 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