   
CEO Picks - The best that international journalism has to offer!
 S69On A Cosmic Scale, The Universe Is Quite Small --   The most distant light we can see is the cosmic microwave background (CMB), which has taken more than 13 billion years to reach us. This marks the edge of the observable Universe, and while you might think that means the Universe is 26 billion light-years across, thanks to cosmic expansion, it is now closer to 46 billion light-years across. By any measure, this is pretty darn big. But most cosmologists think the Universe is much larger than our observable corner of it. What we can see is a small part of an unimaginably vast, if not infinite, creation. However, a new paper argues that the observable Universe is mostly all there is.There are several reasons why cosmologists think the Universe is large. One is the distribution of galaxy clusters. If the Universe didn’t extend beyond what we see, the most distant galaxies would feel a gravitational pull toward our region of the cosmos but not away from us, leading to asymmetrical clustering since galaxies cluster at around the same scale throughout the visible Universe. In other words, the observable Universe is homogenous and isotropic.
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S1Spell Against Indifference  I was a latecomer to poetry — an art form I did not understand and, as we tend to do with what we do not understand, discounted. But under its slow seduction, I came to see how it shines a si…
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S3Managers Are Burned Out. Here's How to Help Them Recharge.  As a leader of leaders, you “create the weather” for your team. It’s your job to not only support your burned-out leaders, but also to keep burnout at bay going forward. In this article, the author offers six strategies to help recharge the burned-out managers on your team: 1) Recognize and acknowledge their burnout; 2) Create opportunities for personal connection both in person and virtually; 3) Re-assess, re-prioritize, and re-distribute their work; 4) Revise team agreements about how you all work together; 5) Touch base one-on-one with your leaders on a regular basis; and 6) Set the expectation with team members that they use all of their vacation time — it can be easy to put off or skip vacation when there’s so much to do.
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S4 Make Culture Unconditional  Our special report on innovation systems will help leaders guide teams that rely on virtual collaboration, explores the potential of new developments, and provides insights on how to manage customer-led innovation.Our special report on innovation systems will help leaders guide teams that rely on virtual collaboration, explores the potential of new developments, and provides insights on how to manage customer-led innovation.Defining, creating, and strengthening a company culture can enhance alignment, connection, and even employee retention. To achieve those bold ambitions, organizations often create complex models, programs, and communication campaigns to share a newly defined culture with employees. This work is often referred to as a “journey” and can last years — but by the time the campaign has been rolled out, the culture has probably changed not just once but many times. The problem with this traditional approach to culture work, although well intentioned, is that the net cast is usually broad, the content is over-generalized, and execution on a team level is optional.
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S5The untold story of London's original fast food  In the 1740s, pleasure boaters would jauntily sail from central London down the River Thames to an islet once known as Twickenham Ait in Richmond, mooring at an inn that had built a reputation across the city for selling just one thing: eel pies.Eel Pie House was the grand tavern's name, and punting parties would drift along the shore and then congregate for merry picnics on the riverside. Inside, the inn's chefs would skin, debone and trim batches of Thames eels into three-inch chunks, before stewing them ready for pastry and the pie oven.
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S6When Britain was gripped by 'fairy mania'  Imagine a fairy. Is the picture that appears in your mind's eye a tiny, pretty, magical figure – a childish wisp with insect-like wings and a dress made of petals? If so, it's likely you've been influenced by Cicely Mary Barker, the British illustrator who created the Flower Fairies. 2023 marks 100 years since the publication of her first book of poems and pictures, Flower Fairies of the Spring – an anniversary currently being celebrated in an exhibition at the Lady Lever Gallery in Merseyside, UK.
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S7Worried about heat and fire this summer? Here's how to prepare  Roger Jones has provided technical advice on fire climate regimes to the Victorian Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action (Formerly the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning).The Northern Hemisphere summer brought catastrophic fires and floods to many countries. Down south, the winter was the hottest ever recorded in Australia, fuelled by record ocean temperatures.
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S8S9What ancient Greek stories of humans transformed into plants can teach us about fragility and resilience  For me, gardening is the most joyful summer activity, when I can see my hard work rewarded with colorful blooms and lush greenery. Science explains this feeling by recognizing the deep bond between humans and plants. Being in a nurturing relationship with nature supports our physical and mental health. At the same time, as a scholar of Greek mythology, I also see the close relationship between humans and plants reflected in ancient stories. In fact, Greek literature and poetry often represent human life as plant life.
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S10S11S12Dopamine is a brain chemical famously linked to mood and pleasure - but researchers have found multiple types of dopamine neurons with different functions  Dopamine is one of the brain’s neurotransmitters – tiny molecules that act as messengers between neurons. It is known for its role in tracking your reaction to rewards such as food, sex, money or answering a question correctly. There are many kinds of dopamine neurons located in the uppermost region of the brainstem that manufacture and release dopamine throughout the brain. Whether neuron type affects the function of the dopamine it produces has been an open question.Dopamine is famous for the role it plays in reward processing, an idea that dates back at least 50 years. Dopamine neurons monitor the difference between the rewards you thought you would get from a behavior and what you actually got. Neuroscientists call this difference a reward prediction error.
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S13'Big Bang of Numbers' - The Conversation's book club explores how math alone could create the universe with author Manil Suri  The Conversation U.S. launched its new book club with a bang – talking to mathematician Manil Suri about his nonfiction work “The Big Bang of Numbers: How to Build the Universe Using Only Math.” Suri, a previous author in The Conversation, has also written an award-winning fiction trilogy, in addition to being a professor of mathematics and statistics at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.Below is an edited excerpt from the book club discussion. You’re welcome to keep the conversation flowing by adding your own questions for Suri to the comments.
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S14Desert dust storms carry human-made toxic pollutants, and the health risk extends indoors  Humans have contended with dust storms for thousands of years, ever since early civilizations appeared in the Middle East and North Africa. But modern desert dust storms are different from their preindustrial counterparts.Around the world, deserts now increasingly border built structures, including urban dwellings, manufacturing, transportation hubs, sewage treatment and landfills. As a result, desert dust lifts a growing load of airborne pollutants and transports these substances over long distances.
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S15Keeping your cool in a warming world: 8 steps to help manage eco-anxiety  In a world facing environmental challenges unprecedented in human history, it’s no surprise that eco-anxiety – a pervasive worry about the current and future state of our planet – has become an increasingly prevalent mental health issue.As people witness the devastating impacts of climate change, deforestation and loss of biodiversity, it’s only natural to feel overwhelmed and disheartened. I happen to live in Phoenix, Arizona, a “heat apocalypse” city with dwindling water supplies, so I have some skin in the game.
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S16What are the liberal arts? A literature scholar explains  The term “liberal arts” is one of the most misunderstood terms in the public discourse on higher education today. A higher education expert once said that putting the words “liberal” and “arts” together was a “branding disaster” – one so toxic that it was undermining public support for higher education. To break down the meaning and origin of the term, The Conversation reached out to Blaine Greteman, a professor of English, who looks at how the term emerged in ancient times.Contrary to how it might sound, “liberal” in the phrase “liberal arts” has nothing to do with political liberalism. And the “arts” part is not really about the arts as most people understand them, such as painting, dancing and the like.
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S17S18S19S20Wild animals leave DNA on plants, making them easier to track - here's what scientists found in a Ugandan rainforest  The world is losing animals at an alarming rate due to habitat degradation, climate change and illegal human activities in the wildlife protected areas. In fact, it is estimated that, by 2100, more than half of Africa’s bird and mammal species could be lost. Efforts to conserve biodiversity depend on information about which animals are where. Tracking wildlife is instrumental. Existing tracking methods include camera trapping and line transects, which are specific areas and designed trails respectively, that can be revisited from time to time to monitor habitat conditions and species changes. These methods can be expensive, labour intensive, time consuming and difficult to use, and might not detect all the species that are present in an area. Dense rainforests present a particular problem for tracking, since the vegetation is often very thick and doesn’t let much light in.
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S21Nigeria's slick Netflix epic, Jagun Jagun, explores a rich past that also reflects the world today  Netflix’s recently released film Jagun Jagun (The Warrior) is set in pre-colonial Nigeria and follows the story of a feared warlord named Ogunjimi. While playing out in the past, it is steeped in contemporary universal cultural, political and socio-economic realities. The first 15 minutes of the movie establishes that the story is centred on a young man called Gbotija who decides to train as a fighter under the leadership of a powerful and revered warrior, Ogundiji, son of Ogunrogba. Ogundiji is a ruler unto himself. The first couple of scenes accentuate the ingredients required for a would-be warrior, such as courage, determination and focus to succeed.
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S22Kenya's new urban school meal plan is ambitious - it could offer lessons for scaling up  More than 250,000 children in public primary schools in Nairobi will receive regular subsidised school meals provided by the county government. The Dishi Na County programme is Kenya’s first in an urban setting. The national school meal programme set up in 2009 serves more than 1.5 million children in rural drought-affected counties. We asked Elisheba Kiru, who studies education and empowerment, and Aulo Gelli, whose focus is food policy and nutrition, to analyse the new meal programme. Households are wrestling with steep increases in living costs brought about by factors like inflation, climate change and the effects of the COVID pandemic. These pressures are felt most by vulnerable populations, particularly those living in dry regions and in informal urban settlements.
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S23Corruption in South Africa: would paying whistleblowers help?  University of Western Cape provides support as a hosting partner of The Conversation AFRICA.Whistleblowing is an important tool in fighting corruption. In South Africa, the commission of inquiry into state capture recommended that the government should provide financial rewards for whistleblowers who report corruption.
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S24France used 10% less electricity last winter - three valuable lessons in fighting climate change  Measures which help people use less energy at home, while travelling or at work could significantly cut greenhouse gas emissions according to the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. When there is less demand for energy, that means less low-carbon electricity needs to be generated to replace fossil fuels and reach net zero.Making do with less energy was important last winter when Russia’s war in Ukraine caused energy prices to soar and restricted gas supplies. To avoid shortages, France implemented a “sobriety plan” with the aim of lowering total energy consumption by 10% within two years.
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S25Medical gaslighting: when conditions turn out not to be 'all in the mind'  Gaslight, a psychological thriller starring Ingrid Bergman, was a box-office hit when it was released in 1944, but its time in the limelight could have ended there. However, the ruse employed by its villain gave the work remarkable staying power.Set in 1880s London, the story plays out in the upper-middle-class, gas-lit home of Gregory and Paula Anton. Gregory is intent on making Paula think she is going insane so that he can have her committed to a mental institution and claim her inheritance. He attempts to convince her that the gas lighting in their house, which the audience can see is flickering, is not really flickering. What her senses tell her is a lie – a sign of her steady descent into madness.
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S26Shops and restaurants can help blur class lines but interactions may not be meaningful enough to boost social mobility  Titanic, James Cameron’s 1997 multi-Oscar-winning movie, focused on the tragic love story of itinerant artist Jack and upper-class socialite Rose. Among their other on-board adventures, they dined in the first-class section of the ship before joining revellers dancing in the third-class quarters. Their exploration of the ill-fated vessel represents a transgression – not just of public boundaries, but of class ones too. More recently, mobile phone location data is being used to track such interactions across class boundaries. Understanding class segregation matters because, as economists like Raj Chetty point out, interaction or “economic connectedness” between low and high-income groups is a key predictor of how likely people are to be able to move up the social ladder.
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S27S28S29Tears, compromise, divorce - what it's like to leave the UK because of Brexit  Nicole and Hemmo have two children. Our team visited them at home just a few days before they moved to the Netherlands. Piles of boxes filled every room of the house, ready to be shipped over the coming days. Althought they had lived in the UK for several years, Brexit forced them to reassess where their family’s future lay.Leaving feels like a funeral, because you don’t realise what’s going to happen until too late, because you’re so busy with doing things beforehand, preparing for it and then once it has happened, you only realise weeks and weeks later what you lost, what you’re missing.
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S30S31A Haunting in Venice - the Poirot film franchise finds its footing in this spooky murder mystery  Hercule Poirot, the world’s greatest and most particular detective, returns in Kenneth Branagh’s third outing as director and star. A Haunting in Venice is set in 1947, ten years after Poirot solved the case in Death on the Nile (2022). It is, apparently, inspired by Agatha Christie’s 1969 novel Hallowe’en Party. Here, however, the English countryside is replaced with the labyrinthine waterways of Venice and the story, while maintaining some similarities, is wildly different.
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S32How reading 'dark academia' novels can help new students feel more at home at university  Amy Gentry, author of Bad Habits, is my cousin, but this work has developed outside of that relationship.Over the next few weeks, over a million new university students will be heading to campus. Many of them may be nervous about what lies ahead, which is understandable given that most of them will be in a new place, living away from home for the first time, and faced with the prospect of building an entirely new friendship group.
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S33Ukraine war: reports suggest that Russia has been deliberately targeting journalists - which is a war  At least 15 media workers have been killed in Ukraine since Russia began its full-scale war in February 2022. Along with targeting civilians, hospitals, schools, orphanages, residential buildings, communications centres and places of worship, the Russian state has been accused by the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine of deliberately targeting journalists.In a conflict such as the war in Ukraine, many journalists risk their lives to report the truth and reveal war crimes committed by both sides. But when journalists themselves are targeted, these war crimes almost always go unpunished.
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S34S35S36Bill C-22 will provide income security to Canadians with disabilities, but it needs to be done right  Canada’s first national disability benefit, Bill C-22, received royal assent on June 22, 2023. The bill was reintroduced in 2022 after initially being tabled two years prior.Bill C-22 remains short on details, but has two notable features. The first is that it will focus on poverty reduction and financial security for working-age persons with disabilities. The second is that it will be delivered through the tax system via changes to the Income Tax Act.
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S37In China, Albanese might find an economy as uncertain as Japan's 30 years ago  When Prime Minister Anthony Albanese visits China later this year he will encounter a nation whose future is about as uncertain as it was 50 years ago when Gough Whitlam became the first Australian prime minister to visit in late 1973.Then China was poor, in the process of reengaging the rest of the world after decades of isolation under Communist Party Chairman Mao Zedong. Today it is, on one measure, the second-biggest economy in the world, one of the top five along with the United States, Japan, Germany and the United Kingdom.
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S38Global corporate power is 'out of control', but reports of democracy's death are greatly exaggerated  The past 40 years have seen massive expansion of the dominance of large corporations in the global economy. A wave of neoliberal reforms spread internationally from the 1980s with the promise that deregulated markets would unleash the animal spirits of private enterprise, bringing a new era of growth and prosperity. Corporations were touted as the heroes of the neoliberal dream, casting off the shackles of staid state bureaucracy as they leapt forward into a future where there was no alternative to unfettered global capitalism.
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S39S40S41What helps students cope with academic setbacks? Our research shows a sense of belonging at school is key  Research has found resilient students tend to have more positive academic outcomes. These include making greater effort with their work, having better study skills and enjoying school more than students who are less resilient. Research has also shown resilience is underpinned by personal attributes such as confidence. But we need more understanding about what school-related factors are involved in students’ resilience and what schools can do to build their students’ resilience.
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S42S43S44International students are not to blame for Canada's housing crisis  At the start of the new academic school year, around 30 students at Canadore College in North Bay, Ont. held a protest to decry the lack of accommodation provided to international students. The protesters were demanding help from the college either to provide affordable accommodations, relocation to other campuses, online classes or a refund of the tuition they’d paid.
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S45S46S47'Don't say anything about it': why so many LGBTQIA+ Buddhists feel pressure to hide their identities  More than half of Australia’s LGBTQIA+ Buddhists feel reluctant to “come out” to their Buddhist communities and nearly one in six have been told directly that being LGBTQIA+ isn’t in keeping with the Buddha’s teachings.Buddhism does have five precepts, or rules for behaving in a moral or ethical way, that monastics and some lay practitioners are meant to follow to have a morally good life. The precept of “sexual misconduct” has been interpreted as referring to homosexuality.
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S48Is humming healthy? Mmm, here's what the evidence says  There are plenty of health claims about humming. They include reducing stress, helping you breathe more easily, relieving sinus congestion, lowering your blood pressure and lifting your mood.That’s a lot of potential benefits for something that comes pretty naturally to most of us.
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S49What are 'planetary boundaries' and why should we care?  As far as we know, there is exactly one planet in our Solar System – and the galaxy – which hosts life. And you’re on it. For the first 800 million years, Earth was dead. Then life began making itself at home. For over three billion years, lifeforms have helped shape their own environment. Earth’s energy balance (commonly known as the climate) and its interactions with trillions of species is the main determinant of environmental conditions.
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S50Support for both the Voice and Labor drop in latest Essential poll  Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne A majority of Australians have indicated they will vote “no” in the upcoming referendum on the Indigenous Voice to Parliament, according to a national Essential poll conducted Sept. 13–17 from a sample of 1,135 people.
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S51S52Starfield is the latest game to be boycotted by conservatives. This time because of pronouns  One of the most highly anticipated game releases this year is Bethesda Studio’s action role-playing game Starfield. An open world game set in the year 2330 with over 1,000 explorable planets, it’s been described by producer Todd Howard as “Like Skyrim in space” and by director Ashley Cheng as “the Han Solo simulator. Get in a ship, explore the galaxy, do fun stuff.”New game releases are rarely without their controversies. Earlier this month, a clip of YouTuber HeelvsBabyface complaining about the inclusion of pronouns in Starfield went viral.
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S53Polycystic ovary syndrome and gut health: what you need to know  Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) affects around 8% to 13% of women during their reproductive years. Symptoms include irregular menstrual cycles, acne, excessive facial hair growth, voice changes, ovarian cysts and challenges in conception. It can also increase your risk of developing Type 2 diabetes and heart disease.Despite its prevalence, a significant number – up to 70% – of PCOS cases worldwide go undiagnosed. This is in part because there isn’t one specific test for diagnosis.
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S54Chronic pelvic pain affects up to 26% of women - our latest research brings us closer to better treating it  Chronic pelvic pain affects between 5% and 26% of women worldwide. It can be associated with conditions such as endometriosis (where tissue resembling the lining of the womb is found outside the womb) and interstitial cystitis (bladder pain syndrome). Some women also have chronic pelvic pain without a specific cause. Despite how many women are affected by chronic pelvic pain, we still don’t fully understand the mechanisms underlying it. This has meant that women suffering from chronic pelvic pain have limited treatment options.
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S55What Is Mom Rage, Actually?  On September 13, 2019, Minna Dubin, a mother in Berkeley, California, published a brief, confessional essay in the Times' parenting section titled "The Rage Mothers Don't Talk About." Under the subtitleâ"Mothers are supposed to be patient martyrs, so our rage festers beneath our shame"âthere was a photograph, taken from behind, of a woman and a boy of two or three. They sat side by side on a shaded stoop, their arms linked, and seemed to be examining something in a shrub beside them. The boy was shirtless and had a small brown mark in the middle of his back. The top of his head was level with the woman's shoulder. Like many boys of his age, the bottom of his hair had grown longer and thicker than the rest of it, curling into a soft, wide triangle that sloped down his neck. At the moment the photograph was taken, he seemed to be readying himself to pull awayâalthough it was impossible to know for sure.The photograph, which Dubin supplied, was not in itself remarkable, but it gained a strange pathos from the essay that followed, which began: "The rage lives in my hands, rolls down my fingers clenching to fists. I want to hurt someone. I am tears and fury and violence." These sentences were lurid, shocking in their directness and their extremity. What explained her rage? Her son would not get into the car, or eat the foods that she wanted him to eat, or let her brush his teeth. He bit other children. He ignored her. She yelled at him, threatened him, squeezed his arms, threw him in his crib, and wanted badly to hit him. She ate too many sweets and wandered the house, ashamed and lonely, whispering to stop herself from laying her hands on him: "Don't touch him, don't touch him, don't touch him." But she was reluctant to speak to anyone, even her husband. "Mother rage is not 'appropriate,'Â " she wrote. "As if mother rage equals a lack of love. As if rage has never shared a border with love." She sensed that her reactions were excessive, but she made no real effort to understand. Understanding was not the point of her essay. The point was to unleash the primal scream of a mother who had regressedâspectacularly, obscenelyâinto a tantrumming child, not unlike the three-year-old who had spurred her rage in the first place.
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S56S57Best Healthy Search-Engine-Optimized Steamed-Carrots Recipe for Healthy Steamed Carrots  Hi, there! My name is Kelly, and I’m a part-time food blogger, part-time Instagram influencer, part-time spin instructor, and one-quarter-time mom to my two ungrateful stepsons, Richard and Robert. But do you know what I am full-time? A lover of healthy steamed carrots and gorgeous search-engine-optimized food content.Before I give you my absolute favorite recipe for the best healthy steamed carrots that the whole biological family will love, here’s a mini-memoir to whet your appetite and improve my Google rankings:
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S58The Pope's Coming Vatican Showdown with American Conservatives  Pope Francis's "apostolic journey" to Mongolia earlier this month had the unexpected consequence of bringing Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a singular and controversial French Jesuit scientist who died nearly seventy years ago, into the news cycle. As it turns out, Teilhard's theology of cosmic spiritual progress is a useful way to understand the challenges that Francis is currently facing, as he and the Church prepare for a global synod next month in Rome. There, three hundred and sixty-three clerical and lay leaders representing two rival conceptions of the Church will encounter one another for several weeks of behind-closed-doors dialogueâa process that is meant to be amicable but may lead to open conflict prior to a second session next October.The main question surrounding the Pope's journey was "Why Mongolia?" The country, with a population of around 3.3 million, has only fifteen hundred Catholics, fewer than in a large parish in Chicagoâand far fewer than in other Asian nations, such as Vietnam, which has seven million Catholics and a complex history with the Church, and may have benefitted from a papal visit. (By comparison, in early August, Francis celebrated Mass in Lisbon for a million and a half congregants, many of them young people there for World Youth Day.)
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S59The Fight Against Climate Change Returns to the Streets  Keeping movements alive is hard work—they run on volunteer energy, and they can be derailed by too much success, too much failure, too much internal strife, too many competing interests. Or they can be hindered by a pandemic, which largely brought the climate movement to a halt just months after its biggest single day, in September of 2019, when millions of people around the world, most of them young, took to the streets; in New York City, according to organizers, a quarter million of them joined the then sixteen-year-old Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg down at the Battery.Sunday’s March to End Fossil Fuels was not as big—Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, in a rousing wrap-up speech at the end of the day, estimated the crowd at between fifty and seventy thousand people, the organizers said seventy-five thousand, and the Times went with “tens of thousands.” But that didn’t matter—the march was considerably larger than organizers had expected, and represented a real return to the streets for climate campaigners. I wandered back and forth along the line of march, which went from Broadway in the fifties crosstown to First Avenue, near the United Nations; the sun was bright, spirits were high, and the signs were clever. (“Leonardo DiCaprio’s Girlfriends Deserve a Future.”)
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S60Freedom for Five Americans Doesn't End Flash Points with Iran  On Monday, after eight years inside Iran's Evin Prison, notorious for its brutal conditions, Siamak Namazi stepped through the door of a Qatar Airways plane that had just flown him to freedom and paused. From the top of the steps, he looked around, cracked a smile, then wavedâat no one in particular. Minutes later, he issued a statement from Doha, before his transfer for the final leg of his journey to Washington to reunite with his family. His "ineffable joy," he said, was laced with "a painful and deep feeling of guilt" because so many still languished behind Evin's hostile walls. "All the political prisoners of Iran," he said, "deserve their liberty."According to Belgian government officials, Iran currently holds at least twenty-two Europeans, including a European Union diplomat. The release of Namazi and four other Americans, as part of a prisoner swap that culminated two years of plodding diplomacy, will almost certainly not bring an end to an Iranian tactic that has spanned more than four decades and imprisoned almost a hundred U.S. citizens. "Hostage-taking keeps the zealots in power, even at the cost of Iran's remaining an international pariah/polecat whose passport is worthless, whose currency is worthless," John Limbert, one of the fifty-two Americans held for four hundred and forty-four days after Iranian students seized the U.S. Embassy in the aftermath of the 1979 revolution, told me. Detaining foreigners is also an essential ploy in the gamesmanship among rival factions inside Iran. Limbert added, "As long as the ultra-MIGA (Make Iran Great Again) faction there needs to show that it's in charge, it will continue to take actionsâlike hostage-takingâto discredit its political rivals, no matter the associated costs." One of Limbert's captors told him in 1979, "This isn't about you; this isn't about the Shah; this isn't about the U.S. It's about us. We have our internal fish to fry."
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S6160 Years Ago, a Legendary Director Made a Landmark Sci-Fi Thriller That's Still One of His Best  As Les Baxter’s electronic score swells, a large, bloodshot eyeball fills the black frame for nearly 30 seconds. Next, a detached eyeball boils in a beaker filled with pink fluid. Finally, there’s a close-up of a pair of sad, blue eyes. The opening sequence perfectly sets the tone for one of prolific director Roger Corman’s weirdest and most stylish films. The sad blue eyes in 1963’s X: The Man with the X-ray Eyes belong to Academy Award-winning actor Ray Milland, in a role that straddles the line between trash and high art. He plays Dr. James Xavier, a scientist working on a serum that will allow humans to see ultraviolet and X-ray wavelengths. Like fellow Corman horror great Vincent Price, Milland brings an honest intensity and pathos to what could have been a stereotypical mad scientist.
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S62'Starfield's Early Hours Are an Uninspiring First Step Into the Cosmos  Anyone who’s toured Black Mesa via trolley in Half-Life or watched their own character die in Mass Effect 2 is going to remember the experience. A game’s intro is a message about what you should expect to spend your time doing and how it’s going to feel. Judging from Starfield’s intro, what I’m going to feel is bored.You start off on a mine cart. You’re a miner, apparently, here on the moon of Vectera to collect space minerals with your gruff but jocular fellow miners. They share some tough, easygoing banter that you’ve heard better versions of in essentially any sci-fi movie you’ve ever seen, then hand you a laser and send you off to gather some rocks.
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S63The USB-C AirPods Pro 2 Are a No-Brainer Purchase for Apple Users  The refreshed wireless earbuds also come with IP-rated dust protection and Lossless Audio support with the upcoming Apple Vision Pro.Apple is releasing new "AirPods Pro (2nd generation) with MagSafe Charging Case (USB‑C)" this Friday, September 22. They are identical to the previous "AirPods Pro (2nd generation)" that came out last year — except for three upgrades.
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S64'Ahsoka' Is About to Introduce the Biggest Star Wars Villain Since Palpatine  It’s been exactly a week since Ahsoka brought back the most important character in Star Wars history, Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen). His reunion with Ahsoka Tano (Rosario Dawson) was one of the series’ most thrilling moments, and a necessary one given Ahsoka’s relationship to past Star Wars stories. But Ahsoka also has one eye on the future, as it’s one of a handful of new shows laying the groundwork for showrunner Dave Filoni’s big Avengers-esque feature film. With only three episodes left, you’d be forgiven for wondering just how Ahsoka is going to bring its big villain, Grand Admiral Thrawn (Lars Mikkelsen), into the picture. Fortunately, Episode 5 laid the groundwork for his long-awaited return, which means Episode 6 should be the biggest installment yet.
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S65'Loki' Season 2 Premiere Is Copying One of the Best Things About 'Ahsoka'  With less than a month before release, the much-anticipated sequel is now arriving even sooner than we first thought. Disney+ changed everything we thought we knew about streaming with Ahsoka. Mere days before release, the series release time was moved up six hours from midnight PST to 6 p.m. PST, bucking the precedent set by streaming releases since the dawn of streaming original content. It seemed like a wild experiment to try premiering franchise content during prime time, but it’s apparently a strategy that’s paid off.
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S66'Titanfall 2's Unexpected Update Hints at an 'Apex Legends' Collab  It’s been almost seven years since Respawn Entertainment released what may be the best FPS in the past decade, Titanfall 2. It seemed as though the developer had put the franchise behind them, moving on to Apex Legends — and a galaxy far, far away.But fans of the mech FPS game hold fast to the hope that the franchise will return one day. Thanks to a string of unexpected events in the past week, like the return of Titanfall 2 multiplayer, fans are starting to believe that one day may come sooner rather than later.
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S67How To Download iOS 17 and Get Standby Mode and Improved Autocorrect  Just a few days before Apple starts shipping its latest iPhone 15 series, iOS 17 is bringing a few key upgrades to make its new phones feel really new. There’s a lot to unpack — from Standby Mode which lets you turn your iPhone into a smart display to Adaptive Audio compatibility for your AirPods Pro — but first, let’s start by walking through how to download the first official version of iOS 17 if you don’t an iPhone 15 incoming.
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S686 Years Ago, John Wick Copied an Iconic Action Scene -- And Redefined the Franchise  At the end of 1973’s Enter the Dragon, Bruce Lee finds himself inside an optical illusion. After infiltrating a martial arts tournament to avenge the death of his sister, Lee hunts Han, a nefarious drug ringleader, into a room full of mirrors. There, the pair engage in a deceptive cat-and-mouse fight for their lives, peeking around corners that refract multiple faces and limbs. At certain points, it’s hard to tell whether their hand-to-hand combat is happening in front of director Robert Clouse’s anamorphic lens or if he’s merely capturing their creeping and kicking reflections. In this final showdown, a slow-paced fight turns into an unpredictable carnival attraction. Nothing is as it seems.Almost 45 years later, director Chad Stahelski couldn’t resist making a mirror-heavy homage. Like many kids who idolized Lee in the 1970s, the longtime stunt-performer-turned-director had been inspired by Enter the Dragon and its epic final set piece, which inspired a wave of Hollywood kung fu movies — one that John Wick would end up reviving after it became a sleeper hit in 2014. After the success of the first John Wick, Stahelski knew that one of his favorite scenes had to be reimagined for the sequel. As Stahelski told The Verge, “I just went, ‘Yeah we’re going to re-do Enter the Dragon. We’re going to do Bruce Lee and Mr. Han in the mirror room.’”
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S70Logitech's Dual-Sided Light Looks Like the Perfect Combo for Twitch Streamers  Like a mullet, Logitech’s latest light built for streamers has two sides: business up front and party in the back. The Litra Beam LX is an upgraded version of Logitech G’s steamer light that has the standard key light for your streaming needs and a light in the back to personalize your streaming space. Lights are a crucial part of streaming setup, but it sometimes requires multiple lights to really get the vibe you’re going for. With the Litra Beam LX, you can simplify your streaming setup with a light that accomplishes two things at once.
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