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 S69Ask 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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S1AI Can Help You Ask Better Questions -- and Solve Bigger Problems  Most companies still view AI rather narrowly, as a tool that alleviates the costs and inefficiencies of repetitive human labor and increasing organizations’ capacity to produce, process, and analyze piles and piles of data. But when paired with “soft” inquiry-related skills it can help people ask better questions and be more innovative.
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S2How to Make Great Decisions, Quickly  As a new leader, learning to make good decisions without hesitation and procrastination is a capability that can set you apart from your peers. While others vacillate on tricky choices, your team could be hitting deadlines and producing the type of results that deliver true value. That’s something that will get you — and them — noticed. Here are a few of a great decision:
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S3Why more fashion retailers are charging return fees  Some of the biggest business winners of the Covid-19 pandemic were e-commerce retailers. In the US, Census Bureau data shows $571.2bn (£473bn) of goods were sold online in 2019. The next year, that figure hit $815.4bn: a 43% climb. In 2022, annual US e-commerce spending hit the $1tn mark for the very first time.But the sheer volume of goods sold and shipped from the warehouses e-commerce giants, such as Amazon and H&M, came with a price for retailers. Roughly 17% of online purchases were returned in 2022, according to data from the National Retail Federation, down from 21% the previous year. When retailers rode the pandemic wave of online shopping growth, the volume of goods coming back swelled exponentially.
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S4Italy's classic pasta e patate (pasta and potatoes) dish  Literally meaning "poor kitchen", cucina povera is a traditional style of Italian cooking that embraces a frugal, no-waste philosophy. Created out of necessity, cucina povera is considered poor in terms of cost, but never poor in flavour; uncomplicated, but by no means unremarkable. With a long, rich history deeply ingrained in Italian culture and the daily life of many families, the dishes of cucina povera have provided nourishment for centuries. Its exact origins aren't particularly clear, but food historians suggest that cucina povera is rooted in the countryside traditions of "peasant cooking", dating back long before Italy was unified in 1870, first concocted for manual labourers in need of affordable sustenance. As such, cucina povera dishes make great use of humble, inexpensive ingredients or leftovers. Think small animals such as rabbit and poultry – all simple to hunt – or less popular offal cuts from pigs and cattle, plus beans, legumes and plenty of carbohydrates like pasta, potatoes and bread.
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S5Bebinca: a multi-layered cake from India  "An excess of egg yolks led to the creation of bebinca," said Gracian de Souza, a chef and restaurant consultant from India's western state of Goa. "And in today's parlance, we can call it a perfect example of zero-waste cooking."Bebinca is a multi-layered cake that has been dubbed the "queen of Goan desserts" and is considered such an inherent part of Goa's culinary identity that the state administration is pushing for a Geographical Indication (GI) tag for the caramelised confection.
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S6The Exorcist and why demonic possession taps into our darkest fears  Over the last few years, possession narratives, in which characters are taken over by malevolent spirits, demons or gods, have been booming among horror filmmakers, with The Pope's Exorcism (2023), The Medium (2021), Evil Dead Rise (2022), Umma (2022), Talk to Me (2023), It Lives Inside (2023) and, of course, The Conjuring Universe all deploying them.Spirit possession as a subject for art is nothing new, and it indeed has even been used as an apparent method for making art, such as by the artists aligned with the spiritualism movement, which hit its peak popularity in the 19th Century. British artist Georgiana Houghton, for example, claimed that she let herself be invaded by spirits, and painted their otherworldly missives. Meanwhile celebrated abstract artists in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries like Wassily Kandinsky, Piet Mondrian and Kazimir Malevich were also interested and influenced by the growing spiritualist movement.
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S7Nagorno-Karabakh: Azerbaijan's energy wealth gives it de facto impunity for ethnic cleansing  A United Nations mission finally arrived in Nagorno-Karabakh on October 1 to find its towns and villages almost completely deserted. Two weeks after Azerbaijan launched an all-out military assault on the disputed territory in the south Caucasus, the Armenian government has said there are now almost no ethnic Armenians left in an area they have lived in for more than two millennia. The only people left are reportedly either too old, too poor, too remote or too infirm to flee to safety along the Lachin corridor to Armenia.
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S8S9Often in error but still seductive: Why we can't quit election polls  Their record is uneven. They misfired in one way or another in the past three presidential elections. And yet the prevalence of election polls is undiminished. Thirteen months before the 2024 election, polls are many – and inescapable.The reasons go beyond facile analogies that election polls are akin to weather forecasts in offering a fluid, if sometimes contradictory, sense of what lies ahead.
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S10S11The pope's new letter isn't just an 'exhortation' on the environment - for Francis, everything is connected, which is a source of wonder  Eight years have elapsed since Pope Francis released “Laudato Si,” his encyclical urging “care for our common home.” Though hailed as an eloquent plea to protect the environment, climate change was just one part of the pope’s message, from encouraging solidarity with the poor to criticizing “blind confidence” in technology. On Oct. 4, 2023, Francis released an addendum to “Laudato Si,” addressed to “all people of good will on the climate crisis.” October 4 marks the feast day of the pope’s namesake, St. Francis of Assisi, who famously loved all of creation. The new installment, “Laudate Deum” – “Praise God” – is no less sweeping in the way it links environmental problems with economic, social and technological issues.
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S12Why the UAW union's tough bargaining strategy is working  The United Auto Workers union isn’t backing down as it bargains for more compensation and better benefits in its new contracts with General Motors, Ford and Stellantis. Under the deft leadership of its president, Shawn Fain, and other officials elected in March 2023, the union has thrown the three companies off balance with a strike that began on Sept. 15 – the minute its prior contracts expired.As of Oct. 6, the number of UAW members on strike from their Big Three jobs stood at 25,000 after a gradual climb – meaning that 1 in 6 of the union’s nearly 150,000 autoworkers were on the picket lines instead of going to work.
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S13S14UK bonds have hit a 25-year high - here's what that means for the economy  It’s been more than a year since the UK economy was thrown into crisis after then-prime minister Liz Truss suggested making a wealth of unfunded tax cuts in her September 2022 mini-budget. But a recent bond market sell-off has now sent borrowing costs rocketing again, pushing the bond market even higher than after Truss’s announcement. Yields on UK treasury bonds – the rate the UK government must pay to borrow money – have risen to approximately 4.6% for ten-year bonds. Yields on 30-year bonds hit 5.1%, the highest since 1998.
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S15Could Donald Trump stand for US speaker? An expert explains  The roiling civil war on Capitol Hill that’s led to the ousting of Kevin McCarthy as speaker of the US House of Representatives has left Republicans scrambling for a replacement. With no clear successor, the risk of further acute embarrassment to the party, and a slew of legislative priorities on the docket, desperation may already be setting in.That’s led some to float the possibility of a left-field pick for the speakership — someone who’s not even serving in Congress. That man: Donald Trump.
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S16Nobel peace prize: Narges Mohammadi wins on behalf of thousands of Iranian women struggling for human rights  Prominent Iranian women’s rights advocate Narges Mohammadi has won the 2023 Nobel peace prize for her long fight against the oppression of women in Iran. Mohammadi is serving multiple prison sentences in Evin prison in Tehran on charges which include spreading propaganda against the state. She was named by the committee for “her fight against the oppression of women in Iran and her fight to promote human rights and freedom for all”. The award comes as women across Iran and around the world continue to protest the treatment of women in Iran after the death of Mahsa Amini in the custody of morality police, for allegedly violating the Islamic Republic’s dress code for women.
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S17Meat tax: no UK politician is calling for one - but maybe they should  Livestock farming contributes to numerous environmental problems, from deforestation and biodiversity loss to pollution and climate change. But when a meat tax is suggested to stem these problems, by reducing meat demand and financing more sustainable alternatives, such a policy tends to be interpreted as an assault on consumer freedoms or hard working taxpayers.
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S18S19Dengue: why is this sometimes fatal disease increasing around the world?  Something unusual seems to be happening with dengue, a potentially fatal mosquito-borne viral disease found across swathes of tropical Africa, Asia and the Americas. As with most infectious diseases, the number of cases tends to rise and fall over the years as epidemics come and go, but recently changes seem to be afoot in how dengue is behaving. Not only is the number of new infections steadily rising around the world, but outbreaks are becoming larger and less predictable. For example, 2019 saw the greatest number of dengue fever cases ever recorded – almost twice as high as the previous year. And in July 2023, there were a record number of deaths from the disease in Bangladesh.
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S20Jon Fosse: Nobel prize in literature winner is a playwright who puts outsiders centre stage  When Jon Fosse receives this year’s Nobel prize in literature in December, it will be collected by a playwright and novelist whose work examines the lives of ordinary people on the outer reaches of society, trying to cope with the challenges and hardships of daily life. But his work is suffused with hope and affection as well as a darker sense of foreboding. There is a warm affinity between Fosse and the characters that populate his plays, highlighting their humanity.
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S21S22What the decision to curtail HS2 and embrace cars means for the UK's cities  If you consider the decision by the UK prime minister, Rishi Sunak, to cancel phase two of the high-speed rail project, HS2 in the context of the government’s growing pro-car stance, the potential ramifications for the country are profound.Steve Tuckwell’s single-issue campaign against the Ultra Low Emission Zone (Ulez) in London won him the Uxbridge and South Ruislip vote in the three byelections held in July 2023. This saw the Conservatives narrowly avoid what would have otherwise been a crippling 3-0 defeat.
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S23The history of the Yellow Book - the 19th century journal that celebrated women writers  In the middle of the final decade of the 19th century, Britain was the most powerful and richest nation on earth, with the largest empire ever known. The nation might be thought to have had nothing of which to be frightened, yet frightened it was.Many Britons of the time were steeped in an education in Latin and Greek in the classical tradition, so they knew what happened to great empires: they decline and fall. This was the atmosphere addressed by the Yellow Book, the most innovative journal of art and literature of the period, published between 1894 and 1897. It’s a topic I explore in my new book, Decadent Women: Yellow Book Lives.
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S24S25Al Gore Doesn't Say I Told You So  There was always the possibility that Al Gore, after making the hideously painful decision to concede the contested 2000 Presidential election to George W. Bush, would have to live out the remainder of his life as both a tragic loser and a tragic heroâsomeone who stood down in the name of the orderly transition of power. Gore resisted self-pity by projecting mordant good humor. "Hi, I'm Al Gore," he would tell audiences. "I used to be the next President of the United States." Or, in slightly darker moods, he'd say, "You know the old saying: you win some, you lose someâand then there's that little-known third category."In the years to come, Gore made targeted criticisms of the Bush Administrationâparticularly of the war in Iraqâand became a kind of evangelist on the issue of climate change. His interest in ecological issues was evident as early as 1976, when he was elected to Congress as a young Democrat from Tennessee; in 1992, he published "Earth in the Balance," which called for a "Global Marshall Plan" to protect the environment.
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S26With Trump Absent, His New York Civil Trial Gets Down to Business  After Donald Trump left New York and flew to Florida on Wednesday afternoon, the New York County Courthouse—where Trump, two of his sons, and two of his former executives stand accused in a civil fraud case—was much calmer. When I arrived at 60 Centre Street, on Thursday morning, for the fourth day of the trial, there was only one television camera standing outside; previously, there had been more than a dozen. The improvised press pen outside Courtroom 300, where Trump had repeatedly railed against the judge and the prosecutor, calling the case a “scam” and a “sham,” was empty. The courtroom itself was far from full.Trump wasn’t the only notable absentee. Chris Kise, his lead attorney, wasn’t present that morning, either. But the New York attorney general, Letitia James, whose office is bringing the case, was sitting in the front row of the spectators’ section. Also present, on the witness stand for a fourth successive day, was Donald Bender, recently retired from the accounting firm Mazars, which for many years was in charge of compiling the Trump Organization’s notorious annual “Statements of Financial Condition,” which purported to show that Trump was a genuine gazillionaire. After Judge Arthur F. Engoron finally let Bender step down, he was replaced by Jeffrey McConney, the former comptroller of the Trump Organization, who helped put together the documents that Mazars used to compile the “S.O.F.C.s,” as they are referred to in court.
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S27What to See in the New York Film Festival's Second Week  When a filmmaker is as prolific as Hong Sangsoo, paying his work the attention it deserves can seem almost unfair to everyone else. Not for the first time, the New York Film Festival has two new films of his on its main slate, and rightly so: "In Water," which screened this past week, and "In Our Day," which will screen from October 11th to 13th. The parallels and contrasts between the two reveal a lot, not only about Hong's art but also about some baseline cinematic ideas. "In Water," which I wrote about last week, tells the story of an actor-director and his two associates, a cameraman and an actress, as the three of them try to make an improvised short film during one week in a seaside town. Compared with this compact tale, "In Our Day," is virtually sprawling. It runs considerably longer (eighty-three minutes versus sixty-one) and is centered on two trios of characters rather than just one, and it only gradually becomes apparent how the two trios are connected. The shorter film is more vigorous: a tale of youth on the brink, it has an inherently romantic flair. "In Our Day" is a drama of exhaustion and withdrawal; it's a sedentary film, set mainly in and around two apartments, taking place within the confines of a single day. It has young characters, too, but, in each of its parallel stories, the focus is on an older artist figureâan actress and a poet, respectivelyâfrom whom the younger seek inspiration.The actress, named Sangwon (Kim Min-hee), is maybe forty or so but has had a long career. Recently, though, she has quit acting and is now studying something called "architectural aesthetics." She has returned to Seoul from unspecified wanderings and is staying with her friend Jungsoo (Song Seon-mi). The two women's friendship, marked less by what they say than by all that they keep to themselves, gets a shakeup with the arrival of Sangwon's young cousin Jisoo (Park Mi-so), an aspiring actress who wants to ask the veteran for advice. As for the poet, Uiju (Ki Joo-bong), he seems to be pushing sixty and he doesn't seem to be writing much poetry. Instead, he is living in the light, or, rather, the shadow of his fame. (He's introduced in a title card stating that he "has belatedly become popular with young people, but all he wants is to live a peaceful life free of pain.") Divorced and living alone, Uiju suffers from heart trouble and is deprived of his basic pleasures of smoking and drinking. Poorly feigning modesty, he basks in the attention of a young woman (Kim Seung-yun) who's filming a documentary about him, and he makes excessively sure that she catches the details of his domestic routine. Here too, a third person arrives: a young aspiring actor (Ha Seong-guk) who peppers Uiju with questions about art and life, while the documentarian films their long discussions.
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S28The Border Doesn't Need Elon Musk's "Citizen Journalism"  After designing a hyperloop to vault travellers from Los Angeles to San Francisco in thirty-five minutes, establishing SpaceX so that humans can colonize other planets, and building a satellite-powered Internet system, Starlink, that has played a role in the war between Russia and Ukraine, Elon Musk has turned his attention to the U.S.-Mexico border. Last week, he visited Eagle Pass, Texas, for a firsthand look at the unfolding migration crisis, and streamed it live on his social-media platform, X (formerly known as Twitter), so that his hundred and fifty million followers could "see what's really going on." In an e-mail, Musk's most recent biographer Walter Isaacson told me that the visit was another example of the billionaire's "epic-hero complex": Musk's confidence that his attention will be an important part of the solution to our national, global, and interplanetary challenges. But though Musk claimed objectivity, he platformed just one side of an exceedingly complex story.In the weeks before his visit, Musk primed his followers by posting commentary and news stories about immigration challenges in the United States and beyond. He also spoke with the Republican congressman Tony Gonzales, whose district runs along Mexico's border with Texas and includes Eagle Pass. Three days after his phone call with Gonzales, Musk touched down wearing an outfit that made him look like a stock border sheriff with a twist: a black Stetson, black boots, and mirrored aviator sunglasses, with black jeans and a black Dead Space T-shirt. Gonzales met him at the airport, and Musk's phone camera started to roll. He posted three separate videos, blaming a weak signal near the border for forcing him to stop and re-start the stream. The longest, taken under a bridge near the border, lasts fifteen minutes and shows him talking with Gonzales; the Medina County sheriff, Randy Brown (a Republican); the LaSalle County sheriff, Anthony Zertuche (a Democrat); and the Eagle Pass mayor, Rolando Salinas, Jr., a Democrat who has been critical of President Biden's handling of immigration and the border.
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S29Terry Bisson's History of the Future  Sometime in 1989, Terry Bisson was driving his daughter to college in upstate New York when an idea for a short story came to him. Glancing toward the highway median, he had a vision: animals sitting together, in their own world, talking to one other. The vision became a title: "Bears Discover Fire."The story that resulted is strange and funny, yet oddly realistic. It takes place in Kentucky, where Bisson grew up, but is set in "unclaimed land" that could stand in for any exurban wilderness, and follows an uncle and nephew during an odd season in which bears stop hibernating and discover fire. "They make a fire and keep it going all winter," a character explains. No one knows what to make of this development. The uncle and his nephew, Wallace Jr., follow the story on TV, but grow frustrated that the news mainly shows "guys talking about bears" rather than the bears themselves. They decide to go looking for the genuine article.
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S30Amazon Just Quietly Released the Best Time-Travel Thriller of the Year  For all the scary monsters and skeevy killers synonymous with horror, nostalgia may be the real specter haunting the genre. The past few years have seen the endless resurgence of warmed-over franchises like Halloween and Scream — even Pet Sematary is getting its own reappraisal. While there are definitely some hidden gems, not every horror property seems destined for second chances. Sometimes it’s best to leave things in the era they’re from — or, at the very least, try to meet them where they’re at.Amazon and Blumhouse’s Totally Killer takes that advice literally. It’s the latest in a modest pool of time-traveling slasher films, after 2015’s The Final Girls and sleeper hit Happy Death Day. Rather than transporting its heroine into a fictional horror movie world, though, or making her relive her own death, Totally Killer turns the clock back to the 1987. In the small town on Vernon, three 16-year-old girls were murdered by the same killer, each stabbed a wincing 16 times. While the “Sweet 16 Killer” disappeared shortly after the murders, their killing spree lives on through a tactless true-crime podcast, and in the memories of those who survived.
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S31"I Wanted Him to Be a Suspect." How 'Totally Killer' Uses Pop Culture to Hide Its Mystery  Totally Killer is a pop culture-laden film that isn’t afraid to get meta for the sake of a good reference. The movie follows Jamie (Kiernan Shipka), a young teen transported back to 1987 to protect her mother from a serial killer and possibly change her future. But notably, Lochlyn Munro, best known for playing Hal Cooper, Betty’s serial killer father in Riverdale, plays the adult version of Jamie’s father, casting immediate suspicion on him. According to writer/director Nahnatchka Khan, that’s entirely purposeful.“That's exactly why I was so excited to cast him because I wanted him to be a suspect,” Khan tells Inverse. “I want you to immediately be like, ‘It's him. It's him.’”
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S32'Loki' Season 2 is Pulling Off a Trick that Star Wars Totally Flubbed  Star Wars and Marvel are two sides of the same coin: both of them are vast, sprawling science fiction franchises bound together by Disney ownerships. But just like any science fiction story, these two franchises often dip into familiar tropes. There’s no better example than Ahsoka and Loki, two Disney+ original series released this week with only a 48-hour gap. While they may be very different shows, they both dip into familiar territory. But it’s clear that Loki has a firmer grasp of how its world works — something Star Wars should learn from going forward.
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S33'Ahsoka' Theory Teases Thrawn's Vile Plan -- and a Big Canon Rewrite  With Ahsoka heralding the return of Grand Admiral Thrawn (Lars Mikkelsen), the Star Wars galaxy is about to encounter its biggest threat since Palpatine. Given that the Disney+ series is sandwiched between the original Star Wars trilogy and its sequels, it’s safe to say Thrawn will be defeated within the next few years. But that doesn’t mean he can’t inflict some damage in the interim. Thrawn’s well-known as a masterful tactician, but his skills aren’t limited to traditional warfare. He’s also great at getting in his opponent’s head, as we saw in his cat-and-mouse game with Ahsoka Tano (Rosario Dawson). Because Thrawn knew Ahsoka’s Jedi Master, he could deduce her strategy and defeat her. His experiences with Anakin Skywalker will come in handy as he works to reconquer the galaxy in the Empire’s name, and according to a new fan theory, he could also pose an immediate threat to two of the New Republic’s biggest heroes.
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S34S35What Exactly Happened in that Mind-Blowing 'Assassin's Creed Mirage' Ending?  With Assassin’s Creed Mirage, returning character Basim gets an upgrade to franchise protagonist. Acting as an origin story for Basim before the events of Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, Mirage charts his journey from thief to master assassin. While new and old fans may expect Mirage’s ending to lead cleanly into Valhalla, the reality is much more complicated — and confusing. If you find yourself scratching your head as you watch the credits roll, then fear not. Here is exactly what happened at the end of Assassin’s Creed Mirage, and what it means for the franchise’s future.Basim’s mission in Baghdad comes to a head as he discovers the identity of the Snake, the head of the Order of the Ancients in the city. It is revealed the Snake is Qabiha, the wife of the Caliph, whom Basim murders in Mirage’s opening while attempting to steal an Isu artifact. Basim hesitates to assassinate her as she cryptically talks about the truth of his identity and suggests he should seek out a hidden Isu temple underneath the Hidden One’s home base of Alamut.
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S36This Bizarre Phenomenon Occurs When People Are Listening To The Same Music  Imagine you’re at Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour jamming away to “Anti-Hero” to your heart’s content. Looking over the sea of fellow Swifties, you feel a camaraderie — not just over ex-lovers and grappling with personal insecurities — but of harmony and synchrony. As it turns out, this synchronous, almost hivemind response to T-Swizzle’s music, or any other artists or musical genres, may be a real phenomenon called induction synchrony.
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S37You Need to Play This Brilliant Co-Op Puzzle Game For Free -- While You Still Can  Multiplayer games have largely moved from local co-op to the internet, but few take advantage of that physical disconnect the way that couch co-op games like Overcooked benefit from letting you yell at your friends in person. We Were Here Expeditions: The Friendship makes the distance between you and your online partner count, and it’s just as easy to get into as any party game. And if you download it before October 13, it’s free on Xbox and PC.Since 2017, the We Were Here series has delivered a unique vision of online co-op. In each of the five games in the series, you and a partner are separated in space, connected only by your walkie-talkies. Progressing through each game is an exercise in communication, as you can only solve their puzzles by sharing what you can see and guiding your partner through their part. And just like with real walkie-talkies, only one of you can talk at a time.
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S38Toyota's New EV Concept Makes Moon Exploration Look Stylish  It’s a moonshot, but maybe Toyota’s Baby Lunar Cruiser can help the lagging automaker catch up in the race for making more EVs. Toyota unveiled its ultra-futuristic EV concept that’s meant to handle Earth’s rugged roads as well as the uncharted terrain of the Moon.The concept is the latest wacky brainchild of Calty Design Research, the American division of Toyota’s design network that has been putting out wild conceptual designs for 50 years. Calty has made some serious contributions that influenced Toyota’s production models like the Celica and Tacoma. In between those production models, Calty has put out some experimental designs like the Scion NYC where the driver almost stands upright when behind the wheel.
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S39The Best 20 Video Games of 2023 So Far, Ranked  2023 has proved to be one of the best years for gaming in recent memory, and that doesn’t seem likely to end as we approach its last few months. Here at Inverse, we have already given out seven 10/10s — more than all other years combined! Whether you like indie games, Nintendo exclusives, or big-budget AAA tentpoles, 2023 seems to keep providing something incredible for everyone. Here are the 20 best games of the year so far, but don’t get too lost in them, because we still have three months to go!
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S40Not Into Zelda? These Are the 17 Best Indie Games of 2023  2023 is shaping up to be one of the best years for video games in recent memory. The trend of horror remakes like Dead Space and Resident Evil 4 have solidified these games as masterpieces, while new titles both expected (Tears of the Kingdom) and surprising (Hi-Fi Rush) have managed to give gamers no shortage of great titles to sink their teeth into. But like every year some of the most unique and rewarding gaming experiences are in the indie scene. Ten months into the year, 2023 has delivered a plethora of hidden gems. Here’s our pick of the indie crop.
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S41'Loki' Season 2 Just Shattered Marvel's Time Travel Canon  The first thing a time travel story has to establish are the rules. Maybe the space-time continuum acts like Back to the Future, where one wrong move in the past could completely rewrite the present to the point where people fade from existence. Maybe it’s more like Harry Potter, where the relevant time travel has to happen to make events flow smoothly, meaning nothing from the past can really be changed. Or maybe it’s like Doctor Who, which has it both ways depending on what the story calls for. But the MCU’s rules have always been murky. Avengers: Endgame gave us the Time Heist, where the Avengers meddled in the past without consequences for the future, while Loki established the Time Variance Authority and the Sacred Timeline, which worked to prevent precisely that kind of meddling. Now, in Loki Season 2, we’re seeing a new kind of time travel, and it doesn’t gel with anything we’ve seen before.
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S4245 Weird Things on Amazon That Are So Smart, You'll Use Them 3x a Day  With endless ways to spend your money online, how can you be sure which are the purchases you’ll actually use, and which will just end up in a drawer? Well, with the help of this list, for starters. It’s packed with weird, intelligently designed things that are so useful, you just might find yourself reaching for them three times a day. Whether you’re in the market for clever charging solutions, genius kitchen tools that streamline meal prep, or desk accessories that make work just a bit more bearable, there’s something here for you. So get scrolling, smartypants. Whether you’re looking to create a DIY charging dock above an outlet or just need a place to stash your glasses before bed, this stick-on floating shelf is here to solve your conundrum. It adheres to most surfaces via 3M tape and even has two slots through which you can thread power cables for charging your gadgets. It can support weights of up to 5 pounds.
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S4325 Years Later, One of the Most Influential RPGs Ever Made Is Getting a Huge Update  Across Star Ocean’s more than 25-year history, Star Ocean: The Second Story stands out as the overwhelming fan favorite. Even the Square Enix franchise’s most recent entry, The Divine Force, draws heavy inspiration from Second Story in its use of two playable protagonists with different paths. But the game’s influence extends beyond its own series. Released in 1998 for the original PlayStation, Star Ocean: The Second Story is one of the most influential RPGs ever made, particularly due to its deep and complex character system. Choices you make can change the makeup of your party (encouraging multiple playthroughs), while the game’s “Private Action” system provides a wealth of intimate character moments amid the dramatic main story. Between its story structure and action combat, Second Story essentially created the blueprint Star Ocean would use for the next two decades.
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S44S45Xbox Game Pass Just Added the Best Souls-Like Game of 2023  Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. It helps, too, that we love a good imitation, whether we call it a spiritual successor or a [insert title here]-like. There is a fine line between cheap imitation and divine inspiration, however; for every Stardew Valley, there’s a Flappy Plane. Paradoxically, we want something new and familiar at the same time. It sounds easy in theory, draw inspiration and ideas from a popular thing and your thing should be popular. In practice, it's much harder. Which is why the hottest new title on Game Pass should be celebrated for getting it exactly right.Lies of P concerns itself with a more traditional form of imitation: puppetry. A bold retelling of Pinocchio, the game centers on the Victorian-style city of Krat, which has been overrun by automatons built by genius inventor Mr. Geppetto. No marionette strings here, though, these brutish clockwork robots slaughtered the humans, and now it's up to P to make things right. As a Souls-like game, Lies of P wears its Bloodborne influence on its sleeve. But up that sleeve are plenty of new tricks to challenge and delight FromSoft fans and newcomers alike.
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S46'Ahsoka's Biggest Failure Exposes a Frustrating Dave Filoni Blind Spot  From a plot perspective, the Disney+ series centered around the long-awaited returns of Grand Admiral Thrawn (Lars Mikkelsen) and Ezra Bridger (Eman Esfandi). But beyond how it furthers the larger plot of the Mandoverse, what was Ahsoka actually about? Unfortunately, the answer still isn’t clear. Ahsoka Season 1 never offered the kind of thematic clarity that, say, Andor Season 1 does.The closest Ahsoka gets to a unifying theme is the idea that master-apprentice relationships require trust and sacrifice from both sides. Theoretically, that’s a compelling idea for a show, especially one about a character whose former master fell to the dark side. However, in order for the series to truly explore that idea, it needed to invest far more time into developing its turbulent relationship between Ahsoka Tano (Rosario Dawson) and Sabine Wren (Natasha Liu Bordizzo).
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S47How to Avoid the Unexpected Consequences of Your DEI Policy  Will the DEI policy you’re about to implement actually hurt some of the people you’re trying to help? New research on this question shows that, yes, this can happen if you fail to take a systems-level view — but the good news is there are three key ways to avoid unintended consequences. First, consider subgroups. Think about variation within the group of people the policy is aimed at helping; for example, whether the experiences of most women employees might differ from women managers. Second, think big. Recognize that the interactions between people at your organization are diverse and complex. When policies reverberate, they can harm groups or subgroups in unanticipated ways. Third, track closely. Monitor the policy as it is being rolled out for any negative effects on employees.
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S48Why Diversity Programs Fail  After Wall Street firms repeatedly had to shell out millions to settle discrimination lawsuits, businesses started to get serious about their efforts to increase diversity. But unfortunately, they don’t seem to be getting results: Women and minorities have not gained much ground in management over the past 20 years.Businesses started caring a lot more about diversity after a series of high-profile lawsuits rocked the financial industry. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Morgan Stanley shelled out $54 million—and Smith Barney and Merrill Lynch more than $100 million each—to settle sex discrimination claims. In 2007, Morgan was back at the table, facing a new class action, which cost the company $46 million. In 2013, Bank of America Merrill Lynch settled a race discrimination suit for $160 million. Cases like these brought Merrill’s total 15-year payout to nearly half a billion dollars.
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S49Eclipses 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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S50Traditional 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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S51TikTok 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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S52The 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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S53Millions 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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S54Know 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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S55Journey 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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S56'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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S57Climate 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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S58Managing 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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S59How 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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S60Which 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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S61Our 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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S62Meet 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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S63The 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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S64'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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S65S66The 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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S67U2'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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S6823andMe 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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S70Norwegian 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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