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 S69Sustainability on a Shoestring   We currently live in an unsustainable world. While the biggest gains in the fight to curb climate change will come from the decisions made by governments and industries, we can all play our part. This series aims to explore how each of us can individually live more sustainable lives, without breaking the bank.
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S1Notes on Complexity: A Buddhist Scientist on the Murmuration of Being  Each month, I spend hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars keeping The Marginalian going. For seventeen years, it has remained free and ad-free and alive thanks to patronage from readers. I have no staff, no interns, not even an assistant — a thoroughly one-woman labor of love that is also my life and my livelihood. If this labor has made your own life more livable in the past year (or the past decade), please consider aiding its sustenance with a one-time or loyal donation. Your support makes all the difference.“This life of yours which you are living is not merely a piece of the entire existence, but is in a certain sense the whole,” quantum pioneer Erwin Schrödinger wrote as he bridged his young science with ancient Eastern philosophy to reckon with the ongoing mystery of what we are.A century later — a century in the course of which we unraveled the double helix, detected the Higgs boson, decoded the human genome, heard a gravitational wave and saw a black hole for the first time, and discovered thousands of other possible worlds beyond our Solar System — the mystery has only deepened for us “atoms with consciousness,” capable of music and of murder. Each day, we eat food that becomes us, its molecules metabolized into our own as we move through the world with the illusion of a self. Each day, we live with the puzzlement of what makes us and our childhood self the “same” person, even though most of our cells and our dreams have been replaced. Each day, we find ourselves restless miniatures of a vast universe we are only just beginning to fathom.
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S2 Why the Power of Technology Rarely Goes to the People  Our summer special report helps leaders gain a comprehensive view of risks, learn how to overcome market disrupters, and manage the analytical tools that provide predictive insight for decision-making.Our summer special report helps leaders gain a comprehensive view of risks, learn how to overcome market disrupters, and manage the analytical tools that provide predictive insight for decision-making.In a new book, economists Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson provide a sweeping historical overview of just how unevenly the spoils and costs of technological change have been distributed. Power and Progress: Our 1,000-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity reminds us that technology is not itself a force but rather a tool that is developed to support the agendas of the people and institutions who hold power in society. Claiming a fair share of technology’s benefits for the rest of society — that is, for most of humanity — requires that that power be challenged. Acemoglu and Johnson chatted with features editor Kaushik Viswanath about what lessons the past holds for how we should develop and implement technology today and in the future. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
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S3'Girl' trends are sticky and fun. But they can also be problematic.  In July, the "lazy girl job" took over social media. In a TikTok video, 26-year-old creator Gabrielle Judge, who coined the term, described this kind of role as "basically something you can just quiet quit" while making a comfortable salary and having excellent work-life balance.If it sounds like an ideal job that anyone can do, it is – yet Judge wrapped it as a "girl" phenomenon. It was one of the reasons the term went viral.
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S4From Top Boy to Sex Education: 11 of the best TV shows to watch in September  The trailer for the final season of the acclaimed drama about drug dealers, loyalties, betrayals and murder promises "No Loose Ends", just what you'd expect from this uncompromising series that ended last season by killing off a major character. The Guardian praised last season as "a wild and terrible concrete western". The main antagonists competing to rule the drug world return, with Ashley Walters as Dushane and Kane Robinson as Sully. They are joined this time by Barry Keoghan, fresh from his Oscar-nominated role in The Banshees of Inisherin, and Brian Gleeson (Bad Sisters), whose characters are yet to be revealed. In addition to the question of who comes out on top, like any final season of any crime show this one may ruthlessly eliminate anyone at any time, a powerful way to go out.The great LaKeith Stanfield (Atlanta, Judas and the Black Messiah) is once more at his best in this eerie drama based on the 2017 bestselling novel by Victor LaValle, known for mixing realism and the supernatural, in eloquent prose. The same mix of real and otherworldly applies to the series, with Stanfield as a bookseller devoted to his wife, Emma (Clark Backo) and their infant son. If only Emma hadn't encountered that strange woman in Brazil who apparently put a spell on her and her future child. LaValle does the voiceover narration here, saying, "Would you even know if you've moved into a fairy tale? There are portals to this world we may never know we've travelled through", a clue to the metaphorical way the series touches on everyday parental fears about the worst that can happen to your child.
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S5TB research shows a good diet can cut infections by nearly 50%  Madhukar Pai reports that he has no financial or industry conflicts. He serves as an advisor to the following non-profit global health agencies; World Health Organization, Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics, Geneva, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Stop TB Partnership.For centuries, we have known that tuberculosis is a social disease. It thrives on poverty and social factors such as malnutrition, poor housing, overcrowding, unsafe work environments and stigma.
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S6Wildfire smoke is an increasing threat to Canadians' health  Air quality in Canada has improved over the past several decades, and Canada’s air is among the cleanest in the world. But that progress is threatened by smoke from wildfires, which are becoming more frequent and more intense with climate change. Canada’s 2023 wildfire season is the worst on record, with more than 5,800 reported fires and over 15 million hectares burned to date.
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S7Business schools must step up on sustainable investing education  Sustainable investing takes into account environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors alongside traditional financial components. While this form of investing has existed for a long time, ESG has become a hot-button issue due to recent politicization and widespread public misconceptions around what it really entails. ESG investing examines quantitative and qualitative non-financial data on companies. This includes environmental issues like carbon emissions, pollution and resource use; social issues like employee treatment and relationships with communities; and governance issues like diversity of corporate boards, business ethics and transparency.
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S8S9Bike and EV charging infrastructure are urgently needed for a green transition  The green transition is happening too slowly. We are in a climate emergency and it is clear that we need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by transitioning to more sustainable transportation.However, without sufficient infrastructure to enable electric vehicles (EVs) or cycling for commuting, these options will remain too inconvenient or unsafe for most. Canada’s climate obligations will not be met without these infrastructure changes.
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S10S11Indigenous rangers are burning the desert the right way -  Co-Chairperson of the Indigenous Desert Alliance and a Regional Land Management Coordinator at the Central Land Council, Indigenous Knowledge Even though it’s still winter, the fire season has already started in Australia’s arid centre. About half of the Tjoritja West MacDonnell National Park west of Alice Springs has burnt this year.
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S12S13S14S15Strong political leaders are electoral gold - but the trick is in them knowing when to stand down  March this year marked the 60th anniversary of a famous “gotcha” moment in 1963, when Labor leader Arthur Calwell and his deputy, Gough Whitlam, were photographed outside the Hotel Kingston in Canberra.Inside, delegates – six from each state – deliberated. The photographs and their hostile treatment in The Daily Telegraph the next day by journalist Alan Reid were damaging. Reid decried Calwell’s “night watch” as “a sad commentary on the decline in status of Labor’s parliamentary leadership”.
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S16Does private health insurance cut public hospital waiting lists? We found it barely makes a dent  The more people take up private health insurance, the less pressure on the public hospital system, including shorter waiting lists for surgery. That’s one of the key messages we’ve been hearing from government and the private health insurance industry in recent years.Governments encourage us to buy private hospital cover. They tempt us with carrots – for instance, with subsidised premiums. With higher-income earners, the government uses sticks – buy private cover or pay the Medicare Levy Surcharge. These are just some of the billion-dollar strategies aimed to shift more of us who can afford it into the private system.
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S17Financial education has its limits - if we want New Zealanders to be better with money, we need to start at home  Even as an economics student at university, I remember heading into town on a Friday night knowing what I needed to pay the bills before I could spend on socialising. But despite having the financial literacy to know better, Monday could still sometimes begin with a trip to the bank to ask for an overdraft extension. So it was encouraging to hear that financial education has become a political talking point ahead of this year’s election. Both Labour and National are promising to deliver compulsory financial literacy classes as part of the school curriculum.
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S18S19Think curbing overseas migration will end the housing crisis? It won't -  With the nation feeling the pressures of a housing crisis, some believe the Australian government needs to ease housing demand by limiting international migration. To others, this sentiment comes across as xenophobic. They dismiss it outright, based on moral grounds. How can a nation of settlers, built on unceded Indigenous land, contemplate the notion of closing its borders to new migrants?
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S20S21S22S23Reality and fantasy combine in Immaculate, Anna McGahan's award-winning debut novel  I read Andrew McGahan’s Praise (1992) in my first year of university. I was blown away. It was unlike anything else I had ever read: raw, gritty, real. One of the most prominent writers of Australia’s short-lived literary “grunge” movement, McGahan – along with his peers Christos Tsiolkas, Justine Ettler, Luke Davies, John Birmingham and Linda Jaivin, among others – represented a cohort of young writers interested in a literature that was both political and personal: confessional in terms of their own lives, but also as an expression of a generational experience.
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S24S25Is Scarr's the Best Pizza in New York?  Every conversation about pizza is a trap. Is thin crust better than tossed crust? Is pineapple an acceptable topping? Should tomato sauce be applied cooked or raw? Is it a margherita if the mozzarella doesn't come from a buffalo? Is it O.K. to pass on eating the crusts? Is a starter-risen dough better than one made with commercial yeast? Is a coal oven better than a wood-burning one? Does California have its own style? Does Chicago-style deep dish even count as pizza? Many people claim to have answers, because everyone believes they're a pizza expertâincluding actual pizza experts, who are nightmares. But there are no answers, only conflict, and the digging in of heels. The infinite variety of pizza beliefs is so universal that it slips into something almost Jungian, a window into the self and the shadow. The pizza of your childhood, the pizza of the place you consider home, the pizza that awakened you to the fact that pizza could actually be gastronomically magnificentâeach is the best pizza in the history of the world, because it's the history of your world. Tell me what you think is a perfect pizza and I'll tell you who you are.At eight-thirty on a recent Saturday night, the line for slices outside of Scarr's Pizzaâin a new location, which opened in July, across the street from the now closed original Lower East Side spotâran up Orchard Street to the end of the block, where it turned west down Hester Street and ended in a churning knot of people joining and leaving, unsure whether the wait, and the pizza at its terminus, would actually be worth it. "Worth it" is one of those slippery concepts which plague our commodified, optimized lives. The poor soul at the end of the hundred-odd-person queue will pay $3.75 for his slice just like everyone else, with the added cost of an hour or so in line. But then there will be the slice itself: a large, tapering wedge, maybe dressed with rounds of pepperoni, or studded with sultry mushrooms, maybe just a pure and simple triangle of sauce and cheese. And it'll be a Scarr's sliceâa legendary slice, an if-you-know-you-know slice, a slice that earns heart-eyes emojis when you post it on Instagram. Because Scarr's is where you go if you want a slice that's goodâlike, really good, like, "best slice in New York" good. Whatever "best" means. Whomever it means it to.
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S26Talking to Conservatives About Climate Change: The Congressional Climate Caucus  The Korey Stringer Institute, at the University of Connecticut, was named after an N.F.L. player who died of exertional heatstroke. The lab’s main research subjects have been athletes, members of the military, and laborers. But, with climate change, even mild exertion under extreme heat will affect more and more of us; in many parts of the United States, a heat wave and power outage could cause a substantial number of fatalities. Dhruv Khullar, a New Yorker contributor and practicing physician, visited the Stringer Institute to undergo a heat test—walking uphill for ninety minutes in a hundred-and-four-degree temperature—to better understand what’s happening. “I just feel puffy everywhere,” Khullar sighed. “You’d have to cut my finger off just to get my wedding ring off.” By the end of the test, Khullar spoke of cramps, dizziness, and a headache. He discussed the dangers of heatstroke with Douglas Casa, the lab’s head (who himself nearly died of it as a young athlete). “Climate change has taken this into the everyday world for the everyday American citizen. You don’t have to be a laborer working for twelve hours, you don’t have to be a soldier in training,” Casa tells him. “This is making it affect so many people even just during daily living.”Although the treatment for heat-related illness is straightforward, Casa says that implementation of simple measures remains challenging—and there is much we need to do to better prepare for the global rise in temperature.
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S2712 Years Ago, a Disappointing Sci-Fi Premiere Proved the Limits of a Trendy TV Trick  Up until the first half of the Doctor Who revival’s sixth season, showrunner Steven Moffat had done an admirable job of pretending he knew what he was doing. He’d recently ramped up the serialized storytelling with the revival’s first ever two-part premiere, then in the revival’s first-ever mid-season finale he gave us the game-changing reveal that River Song was Amy and Rory’s long-lost child.Was this the greatest twist in the world? Maybe not, but it was undeniably something that had been planned out since at least the season 6 premiere, and probably as early as “The Eleventh Hour.” The episode ended with not just an emotional, exciting promise from the Doctor that he’d be going on a quest to find Amy and Rory’s child, but with a title card reading, “The Doctor will be back, in LET’S KILL HITLER.” It’s a bold title, one that brings to mind a dramatic WWII spy story, something similar to the ambitious season premiere that set itself around government conspiracies in 1960s America. It’s also a title that immediately drew backlash when the episode aired and Hitler turned out to be a total non-entity. There’s nothing wrong with “taking the mickey out of” Hitler, as Moffat described it on a press tour, but after three months of build-up you can’t just shove him into a cupboard and call it a day.
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S28Climate Flooding Could be Mitigated by an Animal-Inspired Low-Cost, Low-Tech Solution  Low-cost, human-made river barriers, similar to those built by beavers, can protect communities at risk of flooding.Our new research has found that such natural barriers intentionally increase water levels upstream to slow down river flow. These flood barriers are made of materials like logs, branches, mud, and leaves. They reduce downstream water levels by deliberately blocking the river and storing the water. They then slow down the river flow during a storm.
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S29'Ahsoka' Is a Star Wars Show For Everyone -- And No One  Who is Ahsoka actually for? It’s a question that’s plagued the newest Lucasfilm series from its inception. While it’s technically a spinoff of The Mandalorian, it’s also a clever way of bringing showrunner Dave Filoni’s most beloved animated characters into live-action. In addition to Ahsoka Tano (who was first introduced in Star Wars: The Clone Wars), Ahsoka will also bring characters from Star Wars: Rebels into the fold. As exciting and unprecedented as that is, it’s always felt like a misstep — not just for hardcore Rebels lovers, but for the fans who’ve never seen a single episode of the animated series.Ahsoka finds itself in a precarious balancing act as a result. It’s clear what the new series wants to be: an homage to one of Star Wars’ most underrated eras, but also an entry point for casual audiences. And for the most part, Filoni and co. do manage to navigate this tricky tightrope. It helps that, in the premiere, much time has passed since we last saw Ahsoka Tano, Sabine Wren, and Hera Syndulla. That’s what gives Ahsoka the liberty to rewrite these characters anew. The problem is, they each feel like slightly different characters. Their new personalities are too distant for Rebels fans to fully recognize, but their well-established dynamics make it hard for any newcomers to really get invested.
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S3029 Years Later, Hideo Kojima's Most Underappreciated Game Deserves More Love  The Metal Gear series built Hideo Kojima’s reputation in the West, establishing him as an idiosyncratic director with a penchant for blending sci-fi and philosophy. But while Metal Gear is Kojima’s most successful and well-known work, his unique style shines through in two important adventure games that haven’t been so widely played outside of Japan.Snatcher, released in 1988, and Policenauts, released in 1994, blend elements of the point-and-click adventure and the visual novel for a cinematic experience quite unlike other games available at the time. Of the two games, only Snatcher ever saw an official English release, leaving Policenauts a mystery to most English-language players — but one that’s still rewarding to explore with a little work.
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S31You Need to See the Only Blue Moon of 2023 This Week  The Moon’s phases are intrinsic to the human experience. It has a 29.53-day cycle, which creates or coincides with other patterns like the tides, human menstrual cycle, and the calendar months. Naming, counting, and watching Full Moons is an ancient practice that carries into today.When a Full Moon appears at the beginning of a month, as it did on August 1, it leaves wiggle room for another Full Moon to fit into the end of the same month. This is what’s known as a Blue Moon.
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S32You Need to Play Nintendo's Most Underrated Franchise on Switch Online ASAP  In Gunpei Yokoi’s life, one can read both the history of video games and that of post-WWII Japan. Yokoi was born in Osaka in 1941, just a few months before the Empire attacked Pearl Harbor. In the 1960s, after earning an electronics degree from a prestigious university, Yokoi got a job as a maintenance engineer on the assembly line for a toy and card company called Nintendo.Nintendo had been around since the 19th century, focused on hanafuda cards primarily used for gambling. But the company’s higher-ups had become convinced that playing cards had limited potential and had expanded into toys. It was a challenge, considering that it meant competing with companies like Bandai. But then, one of the higher-ups visited the assembly line and noticed that a certain engineer had been working on more than fixing conveyor belts.
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S33Weird Blips in Exoplanet Observations Could Be Key to Finding Alien Life  "The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' but 'That's funny.'"In the past two and a half years, two next-generation telescopes have been sent to space: NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and the ESA’s Euclid Observatory. Before the decade is over, they will be joined by NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope (RST), Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization, and Ices Explorer (SPHEREx), and the ESA’s PLAnetary Transits and Oscillations of stars (PLATO) and ARIEL telescopes. These observatories will rely on advanced optics and instruments to aid in the search and characterization of exoplanets with the ultimate goal of finding habitable planets.
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S3440 Common Mistakes You Don't Realize Make Your Home Look Bad  Your home is where you likely spend the most amount of your time, which is why it can be easy to overlook the little things that are making it look not-so-great. For example, while you may be used to the yellow grout in your bathroom, a guest using the shower may find it incredibly off-putting. (And don’t get me started on those curled rugs sitting out in your entryway.)Luckily for both of us, I’ve put together this list of 40 common mistakes that you don’t realize are making your home look bad. From dusty electronics to couches covered in pet hair, you’ll likely find that more than a few of these apply to your home — and while I’m thinking about it, the grout in my bathroom could definitely use a refresh. But if you want to find out which small mistakes might be making your home look crummy, keep scrolling.
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S35Microplastics Have Been Discovered in Whale and Dolphin Body Tissue  Marine mammals — animals including whales, dolphins, seals, sea lions, sea otters, dugongs, and manatees — are threatened by an array of human activities. Species such as the North Atlantic right whale, Rice’s whale, and Vaquita porpoise have been pushed to the brink of extinction.Plastic debris poses a particularly significant problem. Marine mammals mistakenly eat items such as plastic bags, food wrappers, ropes, and abandoned fishing gear, or they become entangled in plastic items, including fishing nets. Both scenarios can lead to injury and, in many cases, death.
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S3650 Weird New Things on Amazon That Are So Damn Clever  We live in the weirdest of times. We are well past the invention of the automobile, airplane, spaceship, and bread slicer. Today, everyone with the kind of brain that creates devices to solve problems is either focused on big-picture issues like artificial intelligence or time travel — or they have tuned into small problems like making produce last longer and improving indoor plumbing. These are bright minds and those are real problems, so the results are often brilliant. Take a look at these 50 weird new things on Amazon that are so damn clever and you’ll see.Empower your pup with the ability to clearly communicate when it’s time to go potty by sticking this smart bell near the door. Once they understand that tapping the bell is an easy way to communicate their needs, you can stand down until you hear the potty bell. And your dog won’t have to bark, scratch the door, or whine.
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S37Can You Perform Better On Less Sleep? A Psychologist Reveals the Only Real Hack  Everyone feels better after a good night of sleep, and lack of shuteye can have profoundly negative effects on our minds. There is no denying the importance of sleep. Everyone feels better after a good night of sleep, and lack of sleep can have profoundly negative effects on both the body and the brain. So what can be done to substitute for a lack of sleep? Put another way, how can you get less sleep and still perform at your peak?
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S38Disney and Marvel's Biggest Movies Flopped Hard This Summer -- But There's a Silver Lining  The summer movie season is slowly but surely coming to an end. It seems safe to say that the past few months have taken Hollywood on a fairly unpredictable ride, too. On top of the ongoing WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes, which have shut down the industry’s productions on a mass scale, many of the films and franchises that have long been considered “too big to fail” ended up doing exactly that.From Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny to The Flash and Haunted Mansion, several of this summer’s would-be blockbusters turned out to be box office bombs. Massive creative swings like Barbie, Oppenheimer, and even Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse were, conversely, all rewarded at the box office for their artistic boldness.
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S39This Natural Food Product Mimics Ozempic And Other Weight-Loss Drugs  Consider putting the carbs back in their fiber wrappers. It’s hard to improve upon nature’s design.Fiber might just be the key to healthy weight management — and nature packages it in perfectly balanced ratios with carbs when you eat them as whole foods. Think unprocessed fruits, vegetables, whole grains, beans, nuts, and seeds. Research suggests that carbohydrates are meant to come packaged in nature-balanced ratios of total carbohydrates to fiber. In fact, certain types of fiber affect how completely your body absorbs carbohydrates and tells your cells how to process them once they are absorbed.
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S40S41The mystery of why some people develop ALS  This month, the world received the news that Bryan Randall had died. He was a professional photographer and the partner of the actor Sandra Bullock, who met him on the job while he was taking portraits at a family party. Sadly, three years ago, at the age of 54, he was diagnosed with amyotrophic-lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehring disease after the American baseball player who developed the condition in 1939. Despite claiming numerous high-profile victims over the years – including young, otherwise healthy people – the mystery of what causes ALS remains. However, recent research has uncovered some clues. Could we finally be on track to decoding this devastating condition?
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S42This Tool Lets Hackers Dox Almost Anyone in the US  On Wednesday, August 23, Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Russian mercenary outfit Wagner Group, was killed after his plane exploded and fell from the sky. While the details of exactly what happened are still scarce, open source information has helped to fill in the gaps.To investigate technology, you need to be able to inspect it. Researchers and journalists have found clever ways to scrutinize Big Tech in the past, but these kinds of digital investigations are becoming increasingly more difficult. Surya Mattu, a data journalist who leads Princeton University’s Digital Witness Lab, makes the case for an inspectability API.
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S43The Low-Stakes Race to Crack an Encrypted German U-Boat Message  On a balmy Saturday in July, at approximately 15:30 hours, the first signals come in over the radio receiver. Its faint dip dip dip is barely detectable as a small team of engineers and scientists scramble to their stations and listen, trying to decipher the message, delivered through Morse code. They have 72 hours and time is ticking. What was once an auxiliary room above a garage in suburban Maryland is now command central.In what sounds like a scene ripped from the movie Oppenheimer, which coincidentally had its premiere the day before, is instead part of the Maritime Radio Historical Society’s Crypto Event. From their own radio station, KPH in Inverness, California, MRHS crypto coordinator Kevin McGrath is transmitting a message based on one sent 81 years ago, by Kapitänleutnant Hartwig Looks, commander of the German submarine U-264. That message was intercepted by the British destroyer HMS Hurricane in the North Atlantic in 1942.
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S44Share Your Memories With Our Favorite Digital Photo Frames  If you buy something using links in our stories, we may earn a commission. This helps support our journalism. Learn more. Please also consider subscribing to WIREDMost of us have hundreds, if not thousands, of photos just sitting on our phones and computers that we rarely get to revisit in a polished way. There are too many to print and frame, and more keep piling up. That's why I love digital photo frames.
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S45The Best Car Phone Mounts and Chargers  If you buy something using links in our stories, we may earn a commission. This helps support our journalism. Learn more. Please also consider subscribing to WIREDGetting ready for a drive? Whether you use your phone for navigation, music, or podcasts—or are just bringing it along for the ride—the right accessories can make it the perfect passenger. A good car mount will keep it within easy reach and in view, so you don't need to dangerously fumble for your handset and take your eyes off the road. You’ll also want to keep your device charged. Add a dashcam to document your trip. We have tested a range of mounts, chargers, dashcams, and other accessories that might be useful for your daily commute.
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S46The Cheap Radio Hack That Disrupted Poland's Railway System  Since war first broke out between Ukraine and Russia in 2014, Russian hackers have at times used some of the most sophisticated hacking techniques ever seen in the wild to destroy Ukrainian networks, disrupt the country's satellite communications, and even trigger blackouts for hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian citizens. But the mysterious saboteurs who have, over the last two days, disrupted Poland's railway system—a major piece of transit infrastructure for NATO's support of Ukraine—appear to have used a far less impressive form of technical mischief: Spoof a simple radio command to the trains that triggers their emergency stop function.On Friday and Saturday, more than 20 of Poland's trains carrying both freight and passengers were brought to a halt across the country through what Polish media and the BBC have described as a “cyberattack.” Polish intelligence services are investigating the sabotage incidents, which appear to have been carried out in support of Russia. The saboteurs reportedly interspersed the commands they used to stop the trains with the Russian national anthem and parts of a speech by Russian president Vladimir Putin.
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S47"Biocentrism": A scientific answer to the meaning of life  A Universe without life is a dead Universe. A Universe without minds has no memory. A Universe without memory has no history. The dawn of humanity marked the dawn of a mindful Universe, a Universe that after 13.8 billion years of quiet expansion found a voice to tell its story. Before life existed, the Universe was confined to physics and chemistry, stars forging chemical elements within their entrails and spreading them across space. There was no purpose to any of this, no grand plan of Creation. Through the unfolding of time, matter interacted with itself, as gravity sculpted galaxies and their stars. The emergence of life on Earth changed everything. Living matter doesn’t simply undergo passive transformations. Life is “animated” matter, matter with purpose, the purpose of surviving. Ecotheologian Thomas Berry wrote, “The term animal will forever indicate an ensouled being.” Life is a blending of elements that manifests as purpose. This sense of purpose, this autonomous drive to survive, is what defines life at its most general.And in our world, the mountains, rivers, oceans, and air sustain every living being. Life elsewhere may be very different from life here. But if it exists, it must share the same urge to survive, to perpetuate itself in deep communion with its environment. The alternative, of course, is extinction. When life exists, it will struggle to remain existing. Life is matter with intentionality.
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S48New Moon map reveals structures hidden beneath the lunar surface  Scientists have used recordings from a first-of-its-kind rover to create a new moon map that reveals structures hidden deep beneath the lunar surface. The background: In 2019, China made history as the first nation to soft land a spacecraft on the far side of the Moon, giving the world its first up-close look at the moon’s more rugged hemisphere.
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S49Where Donald Trump Meets Bernie Sanders  A hit country artist offended progressives who couldn’t recognize his song as a primal cry of pain.The future of progressive politics in America just might revolve around whether someone like Chris Murphy, a U.S. senator from a prosperous New England state, can find common ground culturally and politically with a man like Oliver Anthony. Earlier this month, Anthony, a young country singer, dropped his song “Rich Men North of Richmond” into the nation’s political-cultural stew pot. A red-bearded high-school dropout, former factory hand, and virtual unknown, he strummed a guitar in the Virginia woods and sang with an urgent twang about the despair of working-class life:
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S50The 'Transcendent Tastelessness' of MySpace  A new oral history explores how the platform pushed a generation of teens to find their loudest selves.During the years when the social-media platform MySpace ruled the internet—roughly 2005 to 2008—it fueled a cultural phenomenon known as the “Scene.” The term encompassed young people who liked to flat iron and dye their hair until their bangs resembled sheafs of carbon fiber. They wore skinny jeans and vampiric eyeshadow; they listened to energetic rock possessed with strident vulnerability (signature bands: Fall Out Boy, Dashboard Confessional, Panic! at the Disco). This movement of disaffected youths was as recognizable, visually and sonically, as the flannel-clad grunge crews of 1990s Seattle, or the two-toned punks of 1970s Britain. But its social construction was unprecedented, a true 21st-century invention.
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S51America Is Finally Spilling Its Shipwreck Secrets  Historic shipwrecks are under threat from scallop nets. The first step is telling fishermen where they are.The Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary is a busy place. Roughly 21 miles offshore from Boston’s harbor, the waters are a rich fishing ground, a whale migration route, a shipping channel, and a diving locale. Overseeing the sanctuary, which sits at the mouth of Massachusetts Bay, falls to Deputy Superintendent Ben Haskell, along with Superintendent Pete DeCola, 14 support staff, and two boats. Access to MarineTraffic.com also helps. One day in late April 2017, Haskell was checking the website and noticed 70 boats crammed into the northwestern corner of the sanctuary, moving back and forth in a tight configuration. What the hell is going on? he wondered.
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S52The Source of TV as We Now Know It  This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.Good morning, and welcome to The Daily’s new Sunday culture edition. Every weekend, one Atlantic writer will reveal what’s keeping them entertained.
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S53Bertrande de Rols  It’s not that he scared me, exactly, just that he didn’t see me, back then. There were ghosts in the marriage and I learned to keep my distance. When he went, I left the windows open for weeks. I left the windows open and I was alone, keeping my own counsel, and company, the child, yes, but all grew toward a kind of freedom, there were the gardens, yes, and the animals, there was enough, and time, I grew rich with days, and, you see, I didn’t miss him at first, or then.
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S54The Jacksonville Killer Wanted Everyone to Know His Message of Hate  Much is already known about the gunman who killed three Black customers at a Dollar General shop in Jacksonville, Florida, yesterday. He was in possession of an AR-15-style weapon and a handgun; he left manifestos about his hatred toward African Americans; he was wearing a tactical-style uniform as if going to war. There are still questions about how he acquired the guns, his mental state, and whether he had accomplices. But the basic storyline is written. He made it easy. He wanted us to know.His actions yesterday were not just a hate crime. They were a performance for all the world to see. This is the age of mass shooting as production. And we misunderstand what is happening if we see this as a play with only one act at a time.
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S55The Key to Inclusive Leadership  Inclusive leadership is emerging as a unique and critical capability helping organisations adapt to diverse customers, markets, ideas and talent. For those working around a leader, such as a manager, direct report or peer, the single most important trait generating a sense of inclusiveness is a leader’s visible awareness of bias. But to fully capitalize on their cognizance of bias, leaders also must express both humility and empathy. This article describes organizational practices that can help leaders become more inclusive and enhance the performance of their teams.What makes people feel included in organizations? Feel that they are treated fairly and respectfully, are valued and belong? Many things of course, including an organization’s mission, policies, and practices, as well as co-worker behaviors.
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S56S57S58We Are Pivoting to Radical Empathy  Good morning, staff. Thank you for attending this all-hands meeting, or, as I prefer to think of it, all-hearts meeting. As you know, I am returning to the office after taking some legally mandated time away to listen to your recent complaints about me and learn from them.After summering contritely in Europe, I spent the past week at the Burning Man festival, consuming a daunting volume of psilocybin mushrooms in an attempt to expand my consciousness. I return to you a changed man. I have achieved an inner tranquility I had never even dreamed of before. For example, I’ve seen the deep inequities in our patriarchal system of marriage and have decided to live a life of ethical non-monogamy, a decision that I will share with my wife, Lisa, at home later tonight. Most important, I now understand the flaws of our capitalist society, and I’m ready to start making changes.
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S59An Old Technology Could Reveal New Insights About Venus' Core  Seismology has been ubiquitous on Earth for decades, and missions such as InSight have recently provided the same data for the inside of Mars. Understanding a planet’s inner workings is key to understanding its geology and climate. However, the inner workings of Venus, arguably our closest sister planet, have remained a mystery. The sulfuric acid cloud and scorching surface temperatures probably don’t help. But Siddharth Krishnamoorthy from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Daniel Bowman of Sandia National Laboratory think they have a solution — use seismometers hanging from balloons.As we reported previously, the idea has been around for a while. However, it might seem counter-intuitive — don’t seismometers usually have to sit on the ground to detect something? Typical seismometers do, yes. However, another type of seismometer is only now becoming more accepted. An infrasound seismometer monitors infrasound pressure waves created by seismic activity transmitted through a medium other than the ground – like an atmosphere.
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S60You Need to Watch the Most Surprising Cannibal Thriller on Amazon Prime ASAP  Bones and All is the kind of all-consuming love story that only comes around once a decade.So speaks Michael Stuhlbarg’s unsettling cannibal nomad Jake in Luca Guadagnino’s Bones and All, as he describes the sensation one can get from devouring a whole person down to their bones. Doing so would be a point of no return for young cannibals Maren and Lee, who are still trying to taper their flesh-eating urges after fleeing their old lives. But it also describes the sensation of watching Bones and All, a yearning, sensuous, bitterly beautiful road drama that finds the lovely, gory medium between Guadagnino’s swooning romances and grotesque horror flicks.
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S61'Ahsoka' Proves Star Wars Is Learning the Wrong Lesson from the MCU  It’s easy to forget now, but when The Mandalorian premiered in 2019, it wasn’t clear what the future of Lucasfilm’s Disney+ originals was. At the time, The Mandalorian seemed like nothing more than a fun but unimportant space Western about a bounty hunter. But once its Season 1 finale aired and viewers saw Moff Gideon emerge from his crashed ship holding the Darksaber, it became clear The Mandalorian would incorporate important Star Wars lore into its story.Four years later, The Mandalorian has launched two spin-offs, The Book of Boba Fett and Ahsoka, and become one of several Star Wars shows dedicated to fleshing out the franchise’s New Republic era. It was also revealed earlier this year that the stories of The Mandalorian, Boba Fett, and Ahsoka will culminate in a Dave Filoni-directed crossover film. If reading that makes you think of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, you’re not alone.
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S62S63Can I Train My Cat To Use The Scratching Post? A Veterinarian Reveals An Ideal Solution  It’s a situation many a cat owner is familiar with: You buy your feline an elaborate, expensive scratching post only for them to completely ignore it and sink their claws into your couch instead.While a cat’s fussy diva quirks are often tolerated, even adored by the humans who love them, scratching is not one of them. According to a 2019 analysis by the American Veterinary Medical Association, destructive scratching accounts for 15 to 24 percent of behavioral complaints owners have against their cats. A 2020 report that studied a Texas-based animal shelter discovered that around 11 percent of adopted cats were surrendered because of "destructive tendencies."
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S64You Need to Play 2022's Buzziest Indie Before It Leaves Xbox Game Pass  The “are games art” debate has long been settled (they are), but it doesn’t change the fact that we often miss the forest for the pixels. Hardware is sold on the strength of visual fidelity, so it's no surprise graphics are such a dominant part of the conversation. But what if a game skipped being a game and went right into being a movie? What if it looked as good as anything you’d see in real life? How would you know what the game was?Immortality, from Sam Barlow of Her Story fame, was one of the hottest indie titles in 2022, and for good reason. It tasks players with reviewing archival film footage of actress Marissa Marcel to piece together the mystery surrounding her sudden disappearance (and reappearance). A horror/thriller/mystery with point-and-click roots and one of the most innovative takes on what a game could and should be, Immortality deserves your attention.
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S6550 Cool Things for Your Home That Are So Freaking Cheap on Amazon  If you’re looking for ways to upgrade the look and function of your home but don’t want to spend a ton of money, Amazon has a bunch of unique items that range from super useful and practical to fun and a bit quirky. They’re all budget-friendly and are small touches that pack a huge punch. Plus, they’re all quick and easy to use, and reviewers are impressed by how much they’ve improved their day-to-day living.Create the illusion of floating books along your wall with these clever shelves that feature a bottom panel designed to hide inside your book cover — making it look like there’s nothing underneath. The durable metal shelves can hold up to 15 pounds each, come in either gray or white, and would look great in practically any room.
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S66S67Amazon Keeps Selling Out of These 40 Clever Things That Make Your Home So Much Better  These days, a true testament as to whether something is worth buying (or not) is if it’s constantly selling out online. This likely means that the item is not only popular, but also extremely clever — potentially even offering solutions to problems you never thought could be solved. These ridiculously brilliant items, including everything from a lamp that doubles as charging station to Wi-Fi extenders, will make your home much better, so it’s no wonder that Amazon keeps selling out of them. To get your hands on 40 of most clever items, keep reading and strike while the iron is hot before they sell out... again.Rather than waste tons of aluminum foil or parchment paper each time you use your oven, try these reusable baking mats you can use over 3,000 times each instead. They’re made from nonstick silicone that can withstand temperatures of up to 400 degrees and that’s super easy to wipe down (or pop in the dishwasher) when it’s time to clean up.
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S6812 Years Later, Ahsoka Could Bring Back the Weirdest Star Wars Story Ever Told  Two episodes in, Ahsoka is already changing huge elements of Star Wars canon. After spending almost half a decade exploring a galaxy far, far away, Episode 2 revealed there’s another galaxy even farther away, and it could take a mystical journey to reach.It’s not the first time Star Wars TV has explored the galaxy’s metaphysical aspects; theories surrounding Ahsoka bringing Rebels’ World Between Worlds into live-action have run rampant for years. However, what Ahsoka may really be referencing is the weirdest arc of The Clone Wars.
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S70The rival to the Panama Canal that was never built  It is a traffic jam on a colossal scale. More than 200 ships, according to some estimates, float there, just waiting. Some are loaded with containers stuffed full of items including furniture, consumer goods or building materials. Some carry oil or gas. Others are transporting grain. They are all due to travel through one of the world's most famous bottlenecks – a vital gateway for global shipping – the Panama Canal.A highly unusual drought, right in the middle of Panama's supposed wet season, has lowered water levels in two reservoirs that supply the canal. As a result, operators have had to restrict the size and number of ships that pass through its system of locks each day.
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