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S2Eclipses do odd things to radio waves. An army of amateur broadcasters wants to find out why   It's the huge tower in his back yard that gives Todd Baker's hobby away. Bristling with antennae, the 30m (100ft) structure is taller than many of the mature trees nearby. Baker, an industrial conveyor belt salesman from Indiana, goes not just by his name, but also his call-sign, the short sequence of letters and numbers that he uses to identify himself over the air: W1TOD. He is a member of the amateur radio, or ham radio, community."You name it, I've been in it," he says, referring to different radio systems, including citizens band, or CB radio, that he has dabbled with over the years. "Communications were just plain-o cool to me."
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S3Traditional multinationals are making their mark on Latin American tech  Latin American tech isn’t really known for innovation; what it’s good at is spotting trends that have worked overseas and bringing them to the region. It’s why Latin America has such a vibrant startup ecosystem, full of proven ideas (albeit proven elsewhere).It’s been so successful that even Latin America’s most traditional and innovation-weary companies have started to pay attention. As the startup ecosystem steadies itself after the collapse of SVB and the funding winter, bigger and more established local corporations have looked to fill the breach. These corporate innovators fall under three main categories.
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S4TikTok users are chasing easy money by reposting viral videos from China  Since June, 27-year-old Li Na has spent at least two hours a day on her new side job: TikTok. She posts up to three makeup videos on her account daily — they share tips and showcase dramatic before-and-after transformations. ButLi doesn’t create any of the videos. Instead, she finds viral clips on Chinese social media platforms like Douyin, Bilibili, and Xiaohongshu, and after a round of light edits, reposts them to TikTok. Li and many others like her post these videos in the hope that they too will go viral on TikTok, earning them an income through the app’s Creator Fund or from affiliate marketing.The practice is known as banyun in Chinese, which translates to “moving” or “smuggling.” It has attracted a lot of attention in the country over the past year, with “gurus” and influencers selling guides and training sessions on making money through banyun. Once trained, they promise, anyone can gather a massive TikTok following and make money by promoting products for a few hours of work per day.
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S5The Sky Is Full of Stars—and Exoplanets, Too  Of the thousands of stars visible to the eye, only a few hundred are known to have planets. But that number may be far higher in realityThat was the case on the first day of 1992, but scarcely a week later, everything changed. On January 9 of that year astronomers announced the discovery of the very first exoplanets—worlds orbiting stars other than our own. These new planets are so weird that it was difficult to grasp how profoundly they changed our cosmic context: they orbit a pulsar, a rapidly spinning, ultradense, city-sized stellar remnant left behind after a massive star exploded as a supernova. Although that’s extremely interesting, it’s not entirely satisfying. A pulsar is the least sunlike kind of star out there, and we, as irredeemably self-centered human beings, prefer to find places more like home—planets around stars more like our own.
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S6Millions of Mosquitoes Will Rain Down on Hawaii to Save an Iconic Bird  Hawaii’s brightly colored honeycreepers are at imminent risk of extinction, and bacteria could be the key to saving themMillions of mosquitoes dropped from helicopters could be the greatest hope for Hawaii’s iconic honeycreepers. At least four species of the brightly colored birds could go extinct within the year if no action is taken to save them. “We’re seriously in a race against time at the moment,” says Hanna Mounce, program manager of the Maui Forest Bird Recovery Project.
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S7Know Yourself Better by Writing What Pops into Your Head  For decades, physician and author Silke Heimes has been leading groups in therapeutic exercises to put thoughts and feelings down on paper. Heimes, a professor of journalism at Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences, points to abundant evidence that writing for five to 20 minutes a day can improve health, diminish stress, increase self-confidence and even kindle the imagination. A writing routine, she argues, is a form of mental hygiene that almost anyone can benefit from.So how do you start? What happens if—as every writer fears—the page remains blank? And how do you get rid of an overcritical inner censor? Heimes, director of the Institute for Creative and Therapeutic Writing in Darmstadt, explains how to overcome inhibitions and open up your inner world.
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S8Journey to the Thawing Edge of Climate Change  What is a permafrost thaw slump? Just imagine a massive hole with an area the size of more than nine football fields—and growing—where ice-cold ground once stood.Steve Kokelj: Yeah. No, I’m just looking around where everyone is. I have to do that once in a while. We had a bear almost walk into us the other day because we were, like, staring at a thaw slump. And we turn around, and we’re like, “Oh, that, that’d be a grizzly bear there.”
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S9‘Morning After' Antibiotic Could Reduce STIs  Draft CDC guidelines recommend doxycycline for the prevention of sexually transmitted infections in some populationsA commonly used antibiotic could become a standard way to prevent sexually transmitted infections (STIs) such as chlamydia, syphilis and gonorrhea.
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S10Climate Disasters Displaced 43 Million Children in Just Six Years  The Philippines, India and China have seen the greatest total number of children displaced by disasters—some 23 million—in recent yearsCLIMATEWIRE | Extreme weather events and climate disasters displaced more than 43 million children around the globe between 2016 and 2021, according to a new report from UNICEF. And the United Nations says tens of millions more children will suffer a similar fate as climate change worsens extreme weather worldwide.
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S11Managing Risks Around M&A Deals: Why Do They Fail?  Wharton management professor Emilie Feldman explains why most M&A deals fail and how companies can prepare for success.©2023 Knowledge at Wharton. All rights reserved. Knowledge at Wharton is an affiliate of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
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S12Ram  Fifteen years ago, Uruguay was experiencing an energy crisis brought on by its reliance on fossil fuels; today, the nation produces 98 percent of its electricity from renewable sources (and even exports extra energy to neighboring countries). How did they turn things around so quickly? Uruguay's former secretary of energy, Ramón Méndez Galain, explains how they pulled off this unprecedented shift -- and shares how any other country can do the same.
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S13How to fix fashion and protect the planet  From the field to your closet, your clothes go on a long journey before they enter your life. Designer Amy Powney explores the fashion industry's brutal impact on the environment and human health, modeling what ethical, planet-friendly clothing can look like — and inviting us all to think beyond the label.
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S14Which Amazon Echo or Alexa Speaker Is Best for You?  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 WIREDAmazon’s family of Alexa-enabled devices is vast. From the spherical Echo to the swiveling Echo Show 10, you can get Alexa into your home in many ways. These devices can answer your questions, help you order essentials, set timers, play all sorts of audio content, and even function as the control hub for your growing smart home. These are our favorite Echo- and Alexa-compatible speakers for every home and budget.
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S15Our 11 Favorite Electric Kettles to Get the Water Going  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 WIREDIf you don't have an electric kettle in your kitchen, you're missing out. Not only are these appliances slightly more energy-efficient than using a stovetop, but they're portable and boil water more quickly. These days, electric kettles come in various sizes with different kinds of spouts, and you'll often find models with customizable temperature settings too—allowing you to set the perfect brew temp for your pour-over coffee or loose-leaf tea.
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S16Meet the Next Generation of Doctors--and Their Surgical Robots  When medical student Alyssa Murillo stepped into surgery, she was met with something most wouldn't expect to find in an operating room: a towering surgical robot. She wasn't there to observe the kind of surgeries she was used to seeing; instead she was getting an in-depth view inside the patient's body through the robot's video console."It was incredible," says Murillo, who is now a forth-year general surgery resident at the University of California, San Francisco. "You have a full 3D view, which is different from any other minimally invasive surgery technique."
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S17The Best Early October Prime Day Deals  Amazon will launch a shopping event called Prime Big Deal Days on October 10 and 11, aka Prime Day Part II. As usual, many of these Prime Day deals will require a Prime membership, though you can take advantage of a 30-day trial. In the run-up to the October Prime Big Deal Days event, we've rounded up some early deals worth your time and money. Right now, there are already deals on Amazon hardware like Echo speakers and Eero routers, but we've also found discounts on work-from-home gear, headphones, and plenty more.Updated October 7, 2023: We've added a handful of early deals, including more Amazon devices, weighted blankets, and an electric scooter.
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S18'A Galactic Embarrassment': The Crypto World Is Already Sick of SBF's Trial  The trial of FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, now coming to the end of its first week, is far bigger than just crypto. Reporters from the largest media outlets (including WIRED) have flocked to New York to cover it, TV stations are airing feature-length documentaries on the fall of the crypto exchange, and X (formerly Twitter) is ablaze with armchair analysis. But members of the crypto industry are tired of the circus before it has really even begun."I'm not the only one that thinks this is all just one very big distraction," says crypto analyst Noelle Acheson, formerly of crypto brokerage Genesis. The sooner the industry is able to move beyond the "galactic embarrassment of FTX," she says, the better. "It's about starting again once [the trial] is done."
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S19S20The Las Vegas Sphere Makes Virtual Reality a Full-Body Experience  The best virtual reality experience I’ve had this year was not with the $500 Quest 3 or the $3,500 Apple VisionPro, and it didn’t even require a headset. Sure, it cost $2.3 billion. But it came with a live soundtrack from an iconic rock band.I am talking, of course, about last weekend’s U2 concert in the Sphere, the giant installation sitting just off the Las Vegas strip. It’s like something out of a Jordan Peele movie come to life. Or a modern Kafkaesque short story where a concert arena awakes one day and finds that it has transmogrified into a giant eyeball, which advertisers exploit to promote stuff like YouTube TV's NFL Sunday Ticket on its 580,000-square-foot skin. The brainchild of Madison Square Garden Entertainment CEO James Dolan—not a popular figure in New York City—the Sphere lustily promotes itself as the future of entertainment. It’s not a ridiculous claim.
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S21U2's The Edge on The Sphere's Opening Night: 'This Is Definitely Working'  On September 29, the iconic Irish rock band U2 played the first concert in the Sphere, Las Vegas' other-worldly $2.3 billion immersive concert hall. Years in the making, the performance ushered in a new era of rock and roll spectacle as the band's familiar music was augmentedâand some might argue, eclipsedâby the virtual-reality-like immersiveness of the 160,000-square-foot 16K-by-16K LED display. They also took advantage of the Sphere's spacial sound, which is powered by 168,000 speakers.U2's set included a full airing of their Achtung Baby album and other hits. But while the band was in fine form, managing a show without regular drummer Larry Mullen Jr. for the first time in decades, the real noise was directed at the eye. Was this "the future of live shows?" as one headline asked. Or was it "the greatest show on Earth?" One that "will change live entertainment forever?" From my seat in section 104, I found these questions worth asking.
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S2223andMe User Data Stolen in Targeted Attack on Ashkenazi Jews  The genetic testing company 23andMe confirmed on Friday that data from a subset of its users has been compromised. The company said its systems were not breached and that attackers gathered the data by guessing the login credentials of a group of users and then scraping more people’s information from a feature known as DNA Relatives. Users opt into sharing their information through DNA Relatives for others to see. Hackers posted an initial data sample on the platform BreachForums earlier this week, claiming that it contained 1 million data points exclusively about Ashkenazi Jews. There also seem to be hundreds of thousands of users of Chinese descent impacted by the leak. On Wednesday, the actor began selling what it claims are 23andMe profiles for between $1 and $10 per account, depending on the scale of the purchase. The data includes things like a display name, sex, birth year, and some details about genetic ancestry results, like that someone is, say, of “broadly European” or “broadly Arabian” descent. It may also include some more specific geographic ancestry information. The information does not appear to include actual, raw genetic data.
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S23Ask Ethan: Could Earth be the only planet with intelligent life?  The Universe, as we understand it today, is a vast expanse of space littered with stars, galaxies, and very likely planets, for as far as our instruments can probe. Beyond that, there’s likely a much greater amount of “Universe” out there that’s unobservable to us, and an inflationary multiverse in which our entire Universe is embedded. Yet, even though our scientific efforts have revealed an enormous number of details about the Universe we inhabit (and perhaps even beyond), we have yet to find another inhabited world out there with even simple, microbial life, much less life that’s complex and differentiated, or even intelligent and technologically advanced. The question of just how “alone” we are in the Universe remains unanswered.And it’s this question — perhaps the biggest existential question of all — that Ronald Rainge wants to know the answer to, asking:
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S24Norwegian dramatist Jon Fosse wins the 2023 Nobel Prize in Literature  On October 5, the Swedish Academy awarded the 2023 Nobel Prize in Literature to Norwegian author and playwright Jon Fosse. The Academy recognized the writer for his “innovative plays and prose, which give voice to the unsayable.” Over the course of his professional career, which began with the publication of his first novel, Red, Black in 1983, the 64-year-old Nobel laureate has written over 40 plays and 30 books, alongside several dozens of essays, short stories, and poetry collections.Fosse wasn’t expected to win the prestigious award. Ladbrokes, a sports betting company at the forefront of Nobel predictions, had previously identified Japan’s Haruki Murakami, Canada’s Margaret Atwood, and India’s Salman Rushdie as the most likely candidates. Also in the race were Chinese fiction writer Can Xue and Kremlin critic Lyudmila Ulitskaya. Not even fellow Scandinavians believed that Fosse stood a chance, with many proclaiming that the Swedish Academy electing a Norwegian recipient would be “too obvious.” Elsewhere, critics of the Academy’s admittedly Eurocentric track record — 15 of the past 20 prize winners (including last year’s Annie Ernaux) have been white — expected the institution to pick a person of color.
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S25Virginity vs. promiscuity: The philosophical problems with sex  Thomas Aquinas is one of the most famous theologians and philosophers in history. His mammoth work, Summa Theologica, weighed in at nearly two million words and it came to define Christian theology and ethics. Aquinas devoted an entire section of this book to the topic of virginity, arguing that it was even better than marriage and that celibacy was one of the greatest virtues. His Italian family, so desperate for little brother Thomas to have sex, devised a plan to lock the one-day saint in a tower with a prostitute. In an outraged reply, Aquinas lifted aloft a fire-lit torch and chased the woman around the room. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Aquinas died a virgin.
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S26Who was the smartest person in the world?  Who was the smartest person in the world? There are certainly many worthy contenders. Today, the very name of “Einstein” is synonymous with genius. Others may suggest Stephen Hawking. Those who appreciate literature and music may proffer William Shakespeare or Ludwig van Beethoven. Historians may recommend Benjamin Franklin.Before I submit my own suggestion, we must first discuss what we even mean by smart. Colloquially, we routinely interchange the words smart and intelligent, but they are not necessarily the same thing. There is an ongoing debate among psychologists, neuroscientists, and artificial intelligence experts on what intelligence actually is, but for our purposes here, a simple dictionary definition will suffice: “capacity for learning, reasoning, understanding, and similar forms of mental activity; aptitude in grasping truths, relationships, facts, meanings, etc.”
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S27It's time to toss the dice as The Wheel of Time's second season concludes  Andrew Cunningham and Lee Hutchinson have spent decades of their lives with Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson's Wheel of Time books, and they previously brought that knowledge to bear as they recapped each first season episode of Amazon's new WoT TV series. Now they're doing it again for season two—along with insights, jokes, and the occasional wild theory. These recaps won't cover every element of every episode, but they will contain major spoilers for the show and the book series. We're going to do our best to not spoil major future events from the books, but there's always the danger that something might slip out. If you want to stay completely unspoiled and haven't read the books, these recaps aren't for you.
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S28S29Fast times and loose steering: The Heybike Tyson e-bike reviewed  This time, I'll lead with the conclusion. The Heybike Tyson is loaded with all of the e-bike features I could ever want, is a blast to ride, and can become unsafe to operate at a moment's notice. The unit I reviewed had more than one build-quality issue that cannot be overlooked, which is a shame, because this is also one of the most fun electric bikes I've ever ridden. If you just wanted to know if the Heybike Tyson is worth buying, you've got your answer and can close this tab. If you want the details, read on.
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S30Visually stunning The Creator is a rare piece of original sci-fi filmmaking  It's rare to get an original piece of science fiction filmmaking not based on existing IP in this era of adaptations and superhero mega-franchises. So The Creator is a welcome offering in the genre, combining elements of District 9, Ex Machina, Blade Runner, and Apocalypse Now, among others, to produce a visually stunning and timely tale of a war between humans and AI. It's directed by Gareth Edwards, best known for 2014's Godzilla and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story in 2016.
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S31S32S33HP wireless all-in-one has 83 Wh rechargeable battery, handle for portability  In a tech world with powerful desktops and ultralight laptops, all-in-one PCs have become a niche category. Yet, with the right twist, they can become more interesting. HP's Envy Move all-in-one PC, released today, has a handle and an integrated, rechargeable 83 Wh battery. Combined with a handle on its backside and a built-in pocket for its wireless keyboard, this AIO is ready to go wherever you want.
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S34A live-action Cyberpunk 2077 adaptation has been announced  After three years, a new expansion, and $120 million of additional investment, the video game Cyberpunk 2077 is enjoying renewed attention and appreciation right now—and it turns out that will lead to a live-action adaptation, according to a press release on developer CD Projekt Red's website.
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S35S36S37Photos of the Week:  The end of Oktoberfest in Germany, cranberry harvesting in Ontario, drought in Indonesia and Brazil, scenes from the Asian Games in China, the end of sheep-grazing season in Poland, migrants rescued in the Mediterranean Sea, and much more A child does a wheelie on his bicycle on October 4, 2023 in Pia Wadjarri, Australia. A referendum for Australians to decide on an indigenous voice to parliament will be held on October 14, 2023, and compels all Australians to vote by law. Early voting began on October 2, with voting getting underway in rural and regional Australia as well. #
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S38Comedians Only Care About Comedy  A new book cured me of any attachment to the idea of the stand-up as truth-telling philosophe.This article was featured in One Story to Read Today, a newsletter in which our editors recommend a single must-read from The Atlantic, Monday through Friday. Sign up for it here.
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S39The Standard Advice for Concussions Is Wrong  Many people with head injuries aren’t even being told about potentially helpful treatments.The months of haze began in an instant, when the horse I was riding stumbled at the exact moment I was shifting my seat. I don’t remember falling, though I do remember the feeling of the leather reins moving through my hand. I hit my thigh on the ground. Then the flat of my back hit the wall of the indoor arena so hard it felt like I’d popped every vertebrae in my spine. After a few minutes, I got back on the horse (everyone always asks if I got back on the horse), but I haven’t ridden since.
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S40Trump Reportedly Divulges Nuclear Secrets  Few things are more confidential than details of American submarines, but that seems not to have stopped the former president from sharing them.A good rule of thumb in any scandal involving Donald Trump is that no matter how bad it seems—which is often very bad—it will get worse.
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S41What Will America Be Like in 2050?  Welcome to Up for Debate. Each week, Conor Friedersdorf rounds up timely conversations and solicits reader responses to one thought-provoking question. Later, he publishes some thoughtful replies. Sign up for the newsletter here.The coronavirus pandemic led to a dramatic increase in the number of people who work from home, followed by more recent attempts by many firms to get their employees back into the office.
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S42This Week in Books: My 10-Year-Old Adores 'The Iliad'  At my small liberal-arts college, the freshmen were taught on the first day to chant in ancient Greek the opening line of The Iliad. A few hundred awkward new students, shifting in their lecture-hall seats, slowly belted out, “Menin aeide thea …” This was the late 1990s, so there was little concern among us about our unabashed immersion in Western civilization: The required Humanities 110 course took us through Greece in the fall, Rome in the spring (I should add that Hum 110 at Reed College, where I went, has since become the subject of protest for its Eurocentrism, which at one point shut down the course entirely). Personally, I loved the class, and that first-day ritual was indicative of the spirit of it: We chanted in unison so that we could recapture, in some small way, a sense of the communal and oral origins of the epic poem. This impulse to connect somehow with the ancient world in which The Iliad was written—a violent, honor-bound society—is at the center of Graeme Wood’s brilliant assessment of Emily Wilson’s new translation of the poem in our November issue. I’ve actually been thinking a lot lately about the attractions and limits of reentering that Homeric universe, because my 10-year-old daughter has herself become obsessed with The Iliad.Wood writes about how Wilson has translated The Iliad with an eye toward returning to its immediacy and simplicity, sometimes clouded over by the poetic reaches of previous translators. Because of our remove from the ancient Greek, he writes, “the next best thing is to make the text flow, to make the story proceed, and to conserve as much as possible of the direct, savage beauty of Homer.” And that’s mostly what Wilson does. As a side effect, we get a lot more unprettified blood and guts. This is a good thing, Wood thinks, because The Iliad in his estimation has been Disney-fied, “replaced in the popular imagination by a child’s storybook version of the Trojan War.” He also issues a challenge of sorts: “If they taught the rape- and gorefest that is the actual Iliad, I daresay parents would complain.”
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S43A Robot's Nightmare Is a Burrito Full of Guac  Welcome to the future: A robot can now prepare your favorite Chipotle order. Just as long as you don’t want a burrito, taco, or quesadilla. The robot cannot handle those. Your order must be a burrito bowl or a salad, and it must be placed online. Then and only then—and once the robot makes it out of testing at the Chipotle Cultivate Center, in Irvine, California—your queso-covered barbacoa bowl might soon be assembled by the chain’s new “automated digital makeline.”Announced on Tuesday, the result of a collaboration between Chipotle and the automation company Hyphen looks like a standard stainless-steel Chipotle counter, burrito components arrayed on top. But inside, just above knee level, is a robotic assembly line that can prepare to-go bowls and salads from start to finish. A video from Chipotle shows a bowl pivoting through the machine, positioning itself below specified ingredients. White rice tumbles in, some grains scattering about. Later, a cascade of corn. At the end, a bowl ascends from the machine, complete, as an employee folds a burrito and wraps it in foil. Perfect synergy. She smiles widely.
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S44What Has Possessed the  Horror franchises tend to be defined by their immutability. Make a hit in the genre, and you’re all but guaranteed a slew of sequels that follow a tight formula: slasher films where a monstrous force stalks the youth, ghost stories set in creepy houses. But The Exorcist has always been different. The recently departed William Friedkin’s 1973 film was a box-office sensation—adjusted for inflation, it’s still one of the 10 biggest movies ever made. Yet every attempt to sequelize it has been a baffling, bizarre narrative swerve that takes the theme of demonic possession and places it in a wildly different context.That is, until David Gordon Green’s new film, The Exorcist: Believer, which follows the blandest of blueprints: Take the first film’s plot, repeat it in the present day with a few tweaks, bring in well-known actors from the past to lend instant credibility, and bam, you have yourself a “legacy sequel.” Green did the same thing with his 2018 film, Halloween, which paid direct homage to the original and relied on star Jamie Lee Curtis; that spawned two sequels, and now Green is trying the same approach here. He’s tagged in Exorcist star Ellen Burstyn (now 90 years old) to consult on a case of demonic possession for not one but—gasp!—two teenage girls.
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S45The Taming of Sam Bankman-Fried  The FTX founder has long eschewed formality. Now he confronts a corner of American life where decorum counts.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.
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S46ORA | Psyche Films  The experimental dance film ORA (2011) was inspired by the French painter Paul Gauguin’s post-impressionist masterpiece Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? (1897-98), and it’s as entrancing and enigmatic as its muse. Eschewing traditional filmmaking methods in which light is exposed to film stock or a digital camera sensor, the Canadian filmmaker Philippe Baylaucq instead captured six dancers in motion using thermal imaging technology that’s sensitive to even minor heat fluctuations. Together with the Canadian choreographer José Navas and the Canadian musician Robert M Lepage, who provides the dreamy, propulsive score, Baylaucq deploys these innovative methods to create his own impressionistic dive into self-exploration and existential questions.The work’s ethereal beauty contains a clever artistic inversion: the infrared technology used to make the piece was first invented as a tool of warfare. This novel approach, combined with innovative staging that included shooting in a warehouse covered in heat-reflective aluminium panels, required Baylaucq to push the boundaries of cinema to create an otherworldly effect. These innovative techniques are evident in the final product, which is surely unlike anything anything you’ve seen before. As the dancers’ illuminated forms move in contrast with the dark yet reflective background, their bodies appear at once surreal and yet intensely human.
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S47Maintaining a Vegetarian Diet Might Be in Your Genes /https://tf-cmsv2-smithsonianmag-media.s3.amazonaws.com/filer_public/c6/98/c698c807-d1d6-486e-a6dc-f957e6999794/pexels-sebastian-coman-photography-3510155.jpg) New research has identified three genes that are strongly linked to vegetarianism and 31 others that might also play a role in sticking to a meatless dietMany people try to stop eating meat but have a hard time sticking to a strict vegetarian diet. Some might chalk up this failure to a lack of willpower, but according to new research, their genetics may actually be to blame.
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S48S49London Exhibition Explores the Link Between Gender and Ecology /https://tf-cmsv2-smithsonianmag-media.s3.amazonaws.com/filer_public/ef/2c/ef2c34bd-083f-45a9-be8a-bcbbbb35ee99/11_pamela_singh_chipko_tree_huggers_of_the_himalayas_4_1994.jpg) “Re/Sisters,” now open at the Barbican Art Gallery, features the works of nearly 50 women and nonbinary artistsThe destruction of the planet is inextricably intertwined with the oppression of women. That’s the central message of a new exhibition on ecofeminism that opened this week at London’s Barbican Art Gallery. Titled “Re/Sisters: A Lens on Gender and Ecology,” it features nearly 50 women and gender non-conforming artists from around the world who use film, photography, performance art and more to imagine a more environmentally and socially just future.
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S50How to Watch the Draconid Meteor Shower This Weekend /https://tf-cmsv2-smithsonianmag-media.s3.amazonaws.com/filer_public/e9/1b/e91bde8d-41cf-4087-bbbf-d1b0fb37221d/gettyimages-976216668.jpg) Though it's usually a smaller display, the Draconids have historically produced breathtaking outbursts of shooting stars known as “meteor storms”Across Europe, the entire night sky was aglow. On October 9, 1933, thousands of dazzling meteors streaked through the darkness, "falling as thickly as the flakes of snow in a snow storm," as one observer in Ireland said at the time.
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S51Nobel Peace Prize Goes to Iranian Rights Activist Narges Mohammadi /https://tf-cmsv2-smithsonianmag-media.s3.amazonaws.com/filer_public/d1/80/d180acab-b2ff-4072-b925-cb53bc0f5d4f/gettyimages-1708936302.jpg) Mohammadi, who is currently in prison, is at the forefront of the fight against oppression in IranNarges Mohammadi, the imprisoned Iranian human rights activist, has won the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize. The Norwegian Nobel Committee announced the award on Friday, signaling its support for the movement against the oppression of women in Iran.
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S52The Amazon May Be Hiding More Than 10,000 Pre-Columbian Structures /https://tf-cmsv2-smithsonianmag-media.s3.amazonaws.com/filer_public/c8/2c/c82c12c5-ee6b-45d9-9fac-52b0cab25cc3/peripato_ade2541_image_1.jpg) Based on a new aerial survey and modeling study, archaeologists suggest at least 90 percent of sites known as earthworks remain undetectedMore than 10,000 undiscovered pre-Columbian structures—and as many as 23,000—are likely hidden beneath the dense foliage of the Amazon rainforest in South America, according to new research.
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S53Norwegian Family Unearths 1,200-Year-Old Viking Artifacts in Their Yard /https://tf-cmsv2-smithsonianmag-media.s3.amazonaws.com/filer_public/7e/b7/7eb7bf8b-57c7-4aaa-ab1b-8d54a875a939/382722881_890062576000866_296272982004656136_n.jpg) While searching for a lost earring in their yard, a family in Norway instead stumbled upon two pieces of jewelry that likely date to the Viking Age.Members of the Aasvik family were conducting their search using a metal detector outside their home in Jomfruland, a remote and sparsely populated island off mainland Norway’s southeast coast. When they reached an area of land underneath a large tree, the device indicated it had detected something. Intrigued, the family started digging.
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S54An Antidote to Microaggressions? Microvalidations.  People from marginalized groups often experience subtle negative actions called microaggressions that, in aggregate, can adversely affect both performance and well-being. Based on a wide body of research in positive psychology and management, the authors propose a counterstrategy: Microvalidations. These are equally subtle but powerful actions or language that demonstrate affirmation, encouragement, and belief in a person’s potential. They include: Acknowledging presence, validating identity, voicing your appreciation, holding people to high standards, and affirming leadership potential and status.You’ve likely taken part in a workplace training that describes how to recognize and avoid microaggressions. These are subtle acts of exclusion that negatively impact learning, problem-solving, and overall emotional well-being for workers who belong to a historically underrepresented or devalued group — whether because of race, gender, sexual orientation, or other identity. In our work as leadership and DEI academics, practitioners, and advisors, we’ve found that avoiding committing microaggressions is not enough; to remedy the harm they cause, we need to counteract them. To do this, we propose an additional tool: Microvalidations. These are small, positive actions that encourage or affirm.
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S55The Half-Life of Hope  After “Spell Against Indifference,” an offering of another poem — this one inspired by a lovely piece of science news that touched me with its sonorous existential echoes. THE HAL…
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S563 Strategies for Making Better, More Informed Decisions  As humans, we tend to interpret information in a way that confirms our existing beliefs and serves our own self-interest. In situations that lack clarity, we often make assumptions that serve to bolster our egos and self-esteem. We selectively interpret information to support our own position, and overlook or dismiss information that contradicts our views. This is known as the self-serving bias, and it can lead to suboptimal decision-making or even contribute to conflict, as we become more entrenched in our own positions and less willing to consider alternative perspectives. The author offers three strategies to help you combat this bias: 1) Consider the source of the information you’re relying on; 2) Think counterfactually about previous decisions you’ve made; and 3) Seek out information that challenges your assumptions.
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S57Good Leadership Is About Asking Good Questions  Especially when they find themselves in the midst of crisis and uncertainty, leaders should ask powerful and inspiring questions. Asking questions well can put you on the path to solving intractable problems and will also help you connect with others and, counterintuitively, to earn their trust. Those questions should be big in scope: What new opportunities have emerged that we don’t want to miss? How might we use new technologies to change our business model? And you should involve others in answering those questions —employees, stakeholders, and even customers. Doing so can not only help you generate better answers, it can also help you to change your organization’s culture.
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S58'Skimpflation': An even sneakier form of shrinkflation  Products on shelves are getting quantifiably smaller, yet you're paying the same price: a practice known as 'shrinkflation'. But in addition to shrinking products, businesses are also cutting back on the quality and availability of their services, while keeping prices steady. This is called 'skimpflation' – and although the changes are sometimes significant, they often fly under the radar. "Skimpflation is defined as businesses 'skimping' on the quality of a product or service,” says Scott A Wolla, economic education officer at the Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis. As raw prices go up with inflation, businesses skimp by spending less on services or materials to stay profitable – cuts that get passed down to the customer, even as prices remain stable.
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S59Ireland's Yellowmeal Griddle Bread  Yellowmeal has been a cupboard staple of Irish kitchens for nearly 200 years. Its prevalence in Ireland is little known outside the country, as is the fact that it became a staple as a direct result of its use during the Great Irish Famine of the mid 19th Century.Yellowmeal, or yellermeal, also known as maize or cornmeal, is made of dried corn kernels that have been ground into a fine, medium or coarse texture. It was used as a bulking agent whenever flour was in short supply or too expensive. But unlike the potato, its association with famine times has persisted without stigma; anyone under 40 is surprised the same yellowmeal that makes their Instagrammable taco was the same shipped to Ireland to stem the tide of famine-related disease and death.
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S60Hong Kong must-eats: Iconic Cantonese dishes and where to try them  With around 17,000 places to eat in Hong Kong, you're never far from a steaming bowl of something delicious. The city's culinary landscape features world-class Michelin-starred tasting menus and fine dining, but the majority of restaurants are humble, local spots where the prices are low and the proudly Cantonese dishes are comforting.The combination of cramped home kitchens and expensive groceries means that for many, dining out is more cost-efficient than cooking at home. Consequently, brightly lit tea houses and noodle shops, busy takeaway stands and full-service restaurants all compete for an annual dining market where diners spend the equivalent of almost £9.2bn.
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S61How to dye clothes at home - naturally  Natural dye specialist Babs Behan laughs when asked about her favourite natural dye plant. "Like people, they all have such a beautiful variety of different characteristics," she says. "But, if I had to choose one, indigo stands out. It's not like any other dye. It's not water soluble – so you have to go through this charming, alchemical, almost mystical process, to make it bond with the fibre. Then you take the fabric out of the water and you'll see it turn from green to blue as it oxidises. There's something so special about that because it's the colour of our planet. It's the colour of the sky and the sea – and we can't capture it from anywhere except from this one indigo pigment." Behan, a pioneer in UK-based large-scale natural dye productions, is one of a cohort of committed natural dye specialists seeing a resurgence in their craft: the dyeing of fabrics with colours derived from plants. Online courses and communities have blossomed, with more and more practitioners wanting to share their skills. Bella Gonshorovitz's book Grow, Cook, Dye, Wear was a surprise hit in 2022, combining instructions on natural dye with plant-based recipes, vegetable growing and zero-waste clothing design. After her first successful publication Botanical Inks in 2018, Behan has just released a second, Botanical Dyes.
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S62The Iliad: How modern readers get this epic wrong  One of two great epic poems by Homer to survive from ancient Greece, The Iliad unfolds across two months in the final year of the Trojan War. The Greeks – led by Agamemnon, and with Achilles as their greatest warrior – are still trying to capture the mighty city of Troy. The Trojans – led by Hector – have resisted for 10 years.Into this mortal combat come an additional cast of gods and goddesses who take to the battlefield to intervene in the course of the war. And as the gods squabble and men battle, the women of Troy are limited to watching from the city walls, and hoping their loved ones come home.
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S63Saltburn film review: 'Lurid' comedy skewers Britain's super-rich  Two years ago, Emerald Fennell won the best original screenplay Oscar for her debut film as a writer-director, Promising Young Woman. Now she's back with another gleefully nasty, stickily sensual black comedy, this time about a promising young man. Saltburn, which opened the London Film Festival on Wednesday, is worth watching for several reasons, the most obvious one being that it gives Barry Keoghan of The Banshees of Inisherin and The Killing of a Sacred Deer his first leading role.Keoghan plays Oliver Quick, a fresher at Oxford University in 2006. Oliver is keen to impress: he's bought a college scarf, and he's ticked off every book on the English literature reading list. But he soon learns that he'll never fit in, having missed his chance as soon as he was born. Oliver hails from a poor family in the north of England, whereas all the other bright young things in his ancient, Hogwartsy college have been swanning around the same rarefied circles their whole lives.
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S64S65Climate change is a fiscal disaster for local governments - our study shows how it's testing communities in Florida  Climate change is affecting communities nationwide, but Florida often seems like ground zero. In September 2022, Hurricane Ian devastated southwest Florida, killing at least 156 people and causing an estimated US$113 billion in damages. Then Hurricane Idalia shut down the Florida Panhandle in September 2023, augmented by a blue supermoon that also increased tidal flooding in southeast Florida. Communities can adapt to some of these effects, or at least buy time, by taking steps such as upgrading stormwater systems and raising roads and sidewalks. But climate disasters and sea-level rise also harm local governments financially by increasing costs and undercutting their property tax bases. Local reliance on property taxes also can discourage cities from steering development out of flood zones, which is essential for reducing long-term risks.
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S66How a disgruntled scientist looking to prove his food wasn't fresh discovered radioactive tracers and won a Nobel Prize 80 years ago  Each October, the Nobel Prizes celebrate a handful of groundbreaking scientific achievements. And while many of the awarded discoveries revolutionize the field of science, some originate in unconventional places. For George de Hevesy, the 1943 Nobel Laureate in chemistry who discovered radioactive tracers, that place was a boarding house cafeteria in Manchester, U.K., in 1911. De Hevesey had the sneaking suspicion that the staff of the boarding house cafeteria where he ate at every day was reusing leftovers from the dinner plates – each day’s soup seemed to contain all of the prior day’s ingredients. So he came up with a plan to test his theory.
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S67The splendid life of Jimmy Carter - 5 essential reads  In Mark 8:34-38 a question is asked: “For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?”A person who served others until the days leading to his death, Jimmy Carter did more to advance the cause of human rights than any U.S. president in American history. That tireless commitment “to advance democracy and human rights” was noted by the Nobel Committee when it honored Carter with its Peace Prize in 2002.
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S68Supreme Court is increasingly putting Christians' First Amendment rights ahead of others' dignity and rights to equal protection  When the Supreme Court ruled in 303 Creative v. Elenis in 2023 that a businessperson could not be compelled to create art that violates their religious beliefs – specifically, a wedding website for a same-sex ceremony – supporters of the decision celebrated it as a victory for freedom of religion and expression. But contrary to these claims, the Supreme Court’s decision does not protect the freedoms of all Americans. Rather, it represents the culmination of a decadelong strategy by conservative Christians – known sometimes as the Christian right – to use the courts to limit the freedoms of groups of Americans of whom they disapprove. On issues where the Christian right’s First Amendment claims directly threaten the equal citizenship of sexual minorities, for example, the court left no question about which side it was on.
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S70What live theater can learn from Branson, Missouri  In summer 2023, the publication American Theatre declared unequivocally that live theater was “in crisis” – particularly regional, nonprofit theaters. Writing for The New York Times, Isaac Butler preferred the phrase “on the verge of collapse.”The numbers are stark. Not only have dozens of theaters across the country closed their doors since the COVID-19 pandemic hit in March 2020, but those that are still open have also contracted their seasons massively, producing 40% fewer shows than in 2019.
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