   
CEO Picks - The best that international journalism has to offer!
 S17Is Hamas the same as ISIS, the Islamic State group? No - and yes   In the aftermath of Hamas’ bloody raid into Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, many Israelis and people around the world equated the newly ultraviolent and audacious Palestinian militant organization with the world’s deadliest terrorist group, ISIS – the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, for example, linked the two groups directly on Oct. 25, 2023, stating: “Hamas is ISIS and ISIS is Hamas.” President Joe Biden and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin made similar comparisons. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Hamas killing families “brings to mind the worst of ISIS.”
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S2How Generative AI Will Change Sales  Sales teams have typically not been early adopters of technology, but generative AI may be an exception to that. Sales work typically requires administrative work, routine interactions with clients, and management attention to tasks such as forecasting. AI can help do these tasks more quickly, which is why Microsoft and Salesforce have already rolled out sales-focused versions of this powerful tool.
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S36 Strategies for Leading Through Uncertainty  It seems that any given week provides ample reminders that leaders cannot control the degree of change, uncertainty, and complexity we face. The authors offer six strategies to improve a leader’s ability to learn, grow, and more effectively navigate the increasing complexity of our world. The first step is to embrace the discomfort as an expected and normal part of the learning process. As described by Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, leaders must shift from a “know it all” to “learn it all” mindset. This shift in mindset can, itself, help ease the discomfort by taking the pressure off of you to have all the answers.
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S4Webinar: A Skills-First Talent Strategy  The winter 2024 issue features a special report on sustainability, and provides insights on developing leadership skills, recognizing and addressing caste discrimination, and engaging in strategic planning and execution.The winter 2024 issue features a special report on sustainability, and provides insights on developing leadership skills, recognizing and addressing caste discrimination, and engaging in strategic planning and execution.Skills dominate current conversations about how to spot, foster, and grow talent. A skills-first talent strategy sets your workforce up for long-term resilience in a world where jobs keep changing, and artificial intelligence increasingly impacts work. Successful companies have aligned their skills-first practices to the entire employee journey.
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S5Hugh Bonneville on the power of the arts: 'Never stop going to movie theatres'  Hugh Bonneville has dedicated his life to the arts. The British actor, known widely for his role in the BAFTA-winning historical drama series Downton Abbey, discovered his passion from an early age at cultural hubs and on Shakespearean stages. Now, he wants everyone to experience the same joy he has felt throughout his career.Bonneville, 60, is the fifth guest on Influential, the unscripted interview show from BBC correspondent and author Katty Kay, which has also featured guests including Wendell Pierce, Ina Garten, Anthony Fauci and Ken Follett. At the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse in London, Bonneville shares the path that has enabled him to discover both his humanity and that of others.
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S6The 'vibecession' driving holiday mass layoffs  On 13 December, US marketplace-platform Etsy announced it would be laying off 11% of its staff, cutting more than 200 jobs.Two days earlier, US financial firm State Street announced they'd lay off 1,500 workers; the same day, toy-maker Hasbro reported cuts of more than 1,000 jobs. This news came just days after Swedish streaming service Spotify laid off 1,500 employees, and global publisher Condé Nast cut 5% of its workforce. In the UK, pharmaceutical companies, banks, automakers and consulting firms also announced sweeping layoffs, shuffling off workers in the last few months of the year.
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S7A tour of San Francisco's best cocktail bars from mixologist Josh Harris  San Francisco's Barbary Coast, a red-light district which lasted from the 1849 California Gold Rush until roughly the Roaring 1920s, was one of the most colourful and notorious neighbourhoods in American history. For much of the 19th and early 20th Centuries, it was populated by miners, sailors, criminals and a variety of other unsavoury characters who flocked to the city's bustling waterfront. The Barbary Coast became renowned for its saloons, dance halls, brothels and nightlife, and it set the stage for a cocktail revolution that swept across the country. Here, drinks weren't just viewed as libations, but instead acted as a form of entertainment, with bartenders held in high regard due to their skill and showmanship.Today, the Barbary Coast's legacy can still be felt (and tasted) in many of San Francisco's best bars. This spirit of "Old" San Francisco remains especially alive in parts of the modern North Beach, Chinatown and Financial District neighbourhoods that once comprised it. Connected to this iconic period of history is a unique array of cocktails that earn awards and praise from imbibers around the world.
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S8Relais Routiers: Is this the best dining bargain in France?  With the surge of inflation over the last two years, it has become prohibitively expensive for many people to eat in restaurants in France – especially traditional ones. But the nation's network of 700 Relais Routiers or lorry (truck) drivers' inns, which are also open to the general public, have made a real effort to keep prices low. They know the lure of the fast-food franchises will win if they don't. The exceptional value of these friendly, no-nonsense, old-fashioned French eateries is assuring the survival of an almost century-old French tradition.La Marmite, a Routier 65km west of Paris near the A13 motorway, doesn't look like much. But there are several dozen lorries in its carpark, and if you're looking for value-for-money French cooking, that is worth more than stars. I take my place at the bar, order a pression (on-tap lager beer) for 2.70€ and notice that the server addresses me with the familiar "tu" (you) usually reserved for children, family members and people you know well.
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S9The 10,000-year-old origins of the sauna - and why it's still going strong  With the rise in popularity of cold-water swimming, there's now a renewed enthusiasm – even evangelical fanaticism – for the perfect counterpart to an icy outdoor dip, the hot, sweaty sauna. Across the Nordic region and beyond, new public and private saunas are opening, and existing saunas are overrun with visitors. And they're even making it on to the big screen. Anna Hints's Sundance Award-winning feature documentary Smoke Sauna Sisterhood follows a group of women in a traditional Estonian wood-fired smoke sauna.These spaces come in all shapes and sizes, from the positively rustic to the deluxe and even high-tech.
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S10Society of the Snow: The horrifying story of the 1972 Andes plane crash is also one of survival and generosity  The synopsis is more sensational than most fictional disaster movie scripts. A plane crashes in a remote part of the Andes in October 1972, and a group of young men, all friends, survive for 72 days in the snow with no means of finding food. They're finally discovered after two of them trek for days with no specialist equipment or clothes to get help, sparking an international media frenzy back home in Uruguay.The true story has one other horrifying detail – the starving passengers of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 were only able to stay alive by eating the bodies of those who did not survive.
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S11What the purple dress in Oprah Winfrey's new portrait really means  Official portraits have a way of stifling the spirit of their subjects under a heavy varnish of stiff formality. They smother them with self-importance. Only a rare few painted portraits manage to coax to the surface of the canvas some semblance of the sitter's inner life – the dynamism, dignity, and drive that put the individuals before the easel in the first place. And then there's Oprah's.Unveiled this week at the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery, this merrily luminous full-length oil-on-linen likeness of the acclaimed US talk show host, author, producer, and philanthropist, created by the Chicago-born realist Shawn Michael Warren (whom Winfrey tapped to take on the commission in spring 2021), vibrates with unbounded ebullience. This is Oprah. And then some.
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S12Stranger Things - The First Shadow review: The theatrical spin-off from the Netflix mega-hit is funny and thrilling  Netflix's 1980s-set sci-fi series Stranger Things is less a show than a phenomenon. Over its four seasons to date it has become one of the streaming service's biggest global hits. It has made stars of some of its young cast members such as 19-year-old Millie Bobby Brown, who plays Eleven, and 21-year-old Sadie Sink who plays "Max" Mayfield. Older actors such as Winona Ryder, as Joyce Byers, and David Harbour, as Jim Hopper, have seen their careers boosted too. It has spawned clothing lines and merchandise and has even been credited with an upsurge of interest in the fantasy role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons. Now, with the fifth and final series delayed because of the actors' and writers' strikes, Stranger Things is extending its influence into London's West End with an original play. Directed by three-times Oscar-nominated Stephen Daldry and with a script by Kate Trefry, a writer on the TV show, Stranger Things: The First Shadow is based on a story cooked up by Trefry, Jack Thorne (who co-wrote Harry Potter and the Cursed Child) and showrunners the Duffer Brothers. It has been reported that it's already being lined up for a Broadway transfer, while two further stage instalments are being considered.The First Shadow is a prequel to the series. It begins with what is effectively a pre-credits sequence which depicts, with a twist, the mythical Philadelphia Experiment, a military test conspiracy theorists claimed the US Navy carried out in 1943. The experiment supposedly succeeded in making a ship, the USS Eldridge, invisible, temporarily teleporting it to a location many miles away. It makes for a spectacular prologue: visually ambitious, loud and scary and entirely in keeping with the series which has drawn inspiration from genuine secret US government projects such as MKUltra.
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S13CRISPR and other new technologies open doors for drug development, but which diseases get prioritized? It comes down to money and science  It can take many years to vet potential treatments and develop the finished drug product ready for testing in people. Once scientists identify a potential biological target for a drug, they use high-throughput screening to rapidly assess hundreds of chemical compounds that may have a desired effect on the target. They then modify the most promising compounds to enhance their effects or reduce their toxicity. The technology finally progressed to the point where scientists were able to successfully target the problematic gene in patients with sickle cell and edit it to produce normally functioning red blood cells. In December 2023, Casgevy became the first CRISPR-based drug approved by the FDA.
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S14S154 business lessons from the Boston Tea Party  December 2023 marks the 250th anniversary of the Boston Tea Party, one of the most famous events leading up to the Revolutionary War. On the night of Dec. 16, 1773, Colonists marched aboard three ships and threw more than 90,000 pounds of tea into Boston Harbor. No one died, and the only things injured were the tea leaves, but this event helped precipitate a major war.I am a business school professor who often drives by the Tea Party site while taking his wife to work. Each time, I ponder the lessons this “party” has for people in business. Many aren’t obvious. Here are four that come to mind.
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S16In the worst of America's Jim Crow era, Black intellectual W.E.B. Du Bois found inspiration and hope in national parks  In his collection of essays and poems published in 1920 titled “Darkwater,” W.E.B. Du Bois wrote about his poignant encounter with the beauty of the Grand Canyon, the stupendous chasm in Arizona. As he stood at the canyon’s rim, the towering intellectual and civil rights activist described the sight that spread before his eyes. The Grand Canyon’s “grandeur is too serene – its beauty too divine!” Du Bois wrote. “Behold this mauve and purple mocking of time and space! See yonder peak! No human foot has trod it. Into that blue shadow, only the eye of God has looked.”
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S18Artificial light lures migrating birds into cities, where they face a gauntlet of threats  Light pollution has steadily intensified and expanded from urban areas, and with the advent of LED lighting, it is growing in North America by up to 10% per year, as measured by the visibility of stars in the night sky. In our recent study, we found that the glow from cities and urban outskirts can powerfully attract migratory birds, drawing them into developed areas where food is scarcer and they face threats such as colliding with glass buildings.Each spring and fall, migratory birds journey to or from their breeding grounds, sometimes traveling thousands of miles. En route, most birds need to make stopovers to rest and feed. Some species burn off half of their body mass during migration.
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S19Why federal efforts to protect schools from cybersecurity threats fall short  In August 2023, the White House announced a plan to bolster cybersecurity in K-12 schools – and with good reason. Between 2018 and mid-September 2023, there were 386 recorded cyberattacks in the U.S. education sector and cost those schools $35.1 billion. K-12 schools were the primary target.The new White House initiative includes a collaboration with federal agencies that have cybersecurity expertise, such as the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the Federal Communications Commission and the FBI. Technology firms like Amazon, Google, Cloudflare, PowerSchool and D2L have pledged to support the initiative with training and resources.
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S20Winter brings more than just ugly sweaters - here's how the season can affect your mind and behavior  What comes to mind when you think about winter? Snowflakes? Mittens? Reindeer? In much of the Northern Hemisphere, winter means colder temperatures, shorter days and year-end holidays.While it’s one thing to identify seasonal tendencies in the population, it’s much trickier to try to untangle why they exist. Some of winter’s effects have been tied to cultural norms and practices, while others likely reflect our bodies’ innate biological responses to changing meteorological and ecological conditions. The natural and cultural changes that come with winter often occur simultaneously, making it challenging to tease apart the causes underlying these seasonal swings.
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S21When authoritative sources hold onto bad data: A legal scholar explains the need for government databases to retract information  In 2004, Hwang Woo-suk was celebrated for his breakthrough discovery creating cloned human embryos, and his work was published in the prestigious journal Science. But the discovery was too good to be true; Dr. Hwang had fabricated the data. Science publicly retracted the article and assembled a team to investigate what went wrong.Retractions are frequently in the news. The high-profile discovery of a room-temperature superconductor was retracted on Nov. 7, 2023. A series of retractions toppled the president of Stanford University on July 19, 2023. Major early studies on COVID-19 were found to have serious data problems and retracted on June 4, 2020.
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S22How to deal with homesickness your first Christmas away from home  Christmas is synonymous with home, family and tradition. But not everyone can be home for Christmas. For many young people, work, school and relationships may mean you’re living far from family – and these circumstances can make it difficult to go home for the holidays. You may be finding the thought of spending Christmas away for the first time is making you feel down.Homesickness is a normal phenomenon that will affect almost everyone at some point in their life. Important holidays can cause or intensify feelings of homesickness – especially when it feels like everyone else is going home to be with their loved ones.
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S23Blackpool: why seaside towns in England are struggling - and what they're doing about it  Life expectancy in Blackpool, in the north-west of England, is the lowest in the country: 5.3 years lower than the national average for men and 4.2 years lower than the national average for women. Commenting on these stark health inequalities, former children’s commissioner for England Anne Longfield recently noted that healthy life expectancy for children in Blackpool was the same as for those living in Angola.
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S24Who counts as a refugee? Four questions to understand current migration debates  The number of refugees worldwide has been increasing since 2012. At the end of 2022, there were 35.3 million refugees globally.While some politicians have suggested that the UK is being overwhelmed by refugees, 76% of the world’s refugees are hosted in low- and middle-income countries. In Europe, Germany, France and Spain receive more asylum applications each year than the UK.
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S25We think we have found a cause of pregnancy sickness, and it may lead to a treatment  Sickness in pregnancy, or hyperemesis gravidarum, is common and is thought to affect seven out of ten women at some time in their pregnancy. But, until recently, very little has been known about why it happens. This condition can affect pregnant women’s quality of life, even in so-called mild cases. Between 1% and 3% of women suffer from a severe form of pregnancy sickness when nausea and vomiting are so severe that they lose weight or become dehydrated, or both. In one study, this condition was the most common reason that women were admitted to hospital in the first three months of pregnancy.
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S26Vitamin D supplements can keep bones strong - but they may also have other benefits to your health  Most of us don’t worry about getting vitamin D when the weather’s warm and the sun is shining. But as winter approaches, accompanied by overcast days and long nights, you may be wondering if it could be useful to take a vitamin D supplement – and what benefit it might have.During the summer, the best way to get vitamin D is by getting a bit of sunshine. Ultraviolet rays (specifically UVB, which have a shorter wavelength) interact with a form of cholesterol called 7-dehydrocholesterol in the skin, which is then converted into vitamin D.
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S27Making fossil fuel companies accountable for their products' emissions would support the clean energy transition  So, news from the COP28 global climate change conference this year that countries have agreed to “transition away from fossil fuels” is welcome, although it’s far from the level of ambition needed. One of the actions that could help properly address fossil fuel production is a much stronger stance from regulators on the fossil fuel sector’s scope 3 emissions, which arise from other parts of a company’s supply chain, and so are indirectly linked to a company’s activities. In particular, we need more transparency around a scope 3 category called “use of product” emissions – those that come from people using a company’s product after it’s sold.
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S28S29Gaza war: deadlock in the security council shows that the UN is no longer fit for purpose  As Israel launched its ground offensive in Gaza on October 27 – having conducted airstrikes in the weeks following the horrific attack by Hamas on October 7 – the UN general assembly convened an emergency session. With reports of upwards of 7,000 civilian deaths in Gaza, the general assembly passed a resolution calling for “an immediate, durable and sustained humanitarian truce leading to a cessation of hostilities”.Meanwhile, the UN security council, which has primary responsibility for international peace and security, remained silent.
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S30S31Black Ghosts: Noo Saro-Wiwa's new book is a powerful reflection on Africans in China  Noo Saro-Wiwa is a celebrated Nigerian-born travel writer. Her latest book is Black Ghosts. It explores, with candour and compassion, the lives of several African economic migrants living in China, a group of people who are key to trade between the continents. As a scholar of African travel writing and mobility, among other fields, I read the book with keen interest and then asked Saro-Wiwa more about it.Janet Remmington: Let’s start with the title: Black Ghosts. And the subtitle which outlines your focus: “a journey into the lives of Africans in China”. In your opening chapter, you introduce the reader to the concept of the “black ghost”, which carries connotations of a negated, disdained or uneasy presence. This term even gets translated as “black devil” by users on WeChat, China’s version of the social media platform WhatsApp. It makes for a disturbing introduction to Africans in China. But, as we read on, the reality is far more complex than the implied disavowal and racism. What have you been motivated to investigate through this travel book?
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S32Nigeria's flamboyant aso ebi dressing style is popular - but it's become a financial burden  Susan Olubukola Badeji is affiliated with a non-profit organisation.Women Forward Innovative Development Initiative WFID. We are based in Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria. Our aim is Women empowerment in order to alleviate poverty.Aso ebi – “family uniform” – is the Yoruba custom of people dressing alike for social events. The custom is rooted in kinship (ebi), an important aspect of Yoruba social life since precolonial times in what’s now south-west Nigeria.
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S33Hope brings happiness, builds grit and gives life meaning. Here's how to cultivate it  There are three necessary elements to hope: having a desire or a wish for something that is valuable, and the belief that it is possible to attain this wish, even when it seems uncertain. Then we have to trust that we have the resources, both internally and externally, to attain this important desire, even when we experience setbacks along the way.For example, I may hope that I will retire in a peaceful coastal town to pursue my hobby of painting (desire) and I believe that it is possible, although I will have to plan carefully (trust in internal resources). I also trust that I will settle in the community and make friends who share my interest in painting (trust in external resources), even though it may be difficult at first.
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S34S35Phishing scams: 7 safety tips from a cybersecurity expert  University of the Witwatersrand provides support as a hosting partner of The Conversation AFRICA.Recently, one of my acquaintances, Frank, received an email late on a Monday afternoon with the subject line, “Are you still in the office?” It appeared to come from his manager, who claimed to be stuck in a long meeting without the means to urgently purchase online gift vouchers for clients. He asked for help and shared a link to an online platform, from which Frank bought R6,000 (about US$325) worth of gift vouchers. Once he’d sent the codes he received a second email from the “boss” requesting one more voucher.
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S36How much could the NHS save if people had healthier lifestyles? Hundreds of millions according to research  The NHS spends a lot of time and money looking after people who smoke, or drink too much or don’t do enough exercise. Hospital admissions and treatments are an expensive business. One of my studies indicates that if half of England’s 5 million smokers switched to e-cigarettes or heated tobacco, the NHS would save more than £500 million a year. The shift away from cigarettes would lead to a decrease in cases of lung cancer, mouth cancer and heart disease. While the risks of vaping are still not entirely clear, the damage caused by smoking has been firmly established.
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S37Five major outcomes from the latest UN climate summit  The latest UN climate summit, COP28, was always going to be controversial. It was held in a state whose economy is heavily dependent on oil and gas – the United Arab Emirates. The summit president, Sultan Al Jaber, remains head of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company and recently declared the UAE would double oil and gas output this decade. This was hardly the strong leadership to move away from fossil fuels that many had hoped for. More than 100,000 delegates were registered (twice as many as any previous COP) of which more than 2,000 were official representatives of fossil fuel companies.
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S38COP28 agreement on adapting to climate change kicks the real challenge down the road  COP28 concluded late on Wednesday morning to a mixed reaction. The Dubai agreement extracted a promise from nearly 200 countries to transition away from fossil fuels, but it leaves many questions unanswered when it comes to keeping global average temperatures from warming by more than 1.5°C. The world is rapidly running out of time to limit temperatures to this level – a crucial threshold for many communities living in low-lying islands and delicate ecosystems such as coral reefs.The last year was the hottest on record, with catastrophic floods in Libya, extreme heat in south Asia, Europe, China and the US, and droughts across east Africa which were all made more likely as a result of climate change.
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S39Gaza update: deadlock in the UN security council means no relief for suffering Palestinian civilians  Day by day, as Israel continues its assault on Gaza, the death toll mounts. According to the Gaza health ministry more than 18,500 people have now been killed in the Israeli army’s air and ground assault – and the Israel Defence Forces have lost 115 personnel, including ten killed on December 12. Meanwhile, the UN seems incapable of any effective response. The UN secretary general, António Guterres, invoked Article 99 of the UN charter last week for only the sixth time in the body’s history, to force the security council to discuss the conflict as a matter that “may aggravate existing threats to the maintenance of international peace and security”. But still, despite overwhelming support for a ceasefire in resolutions voted on by the general assembly, the US has once again wielded its veto in the security council.
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S40S41'American Fiction' asks who gets to decide Blackness  The much-anticipated American Fiction comes to theatres this month. As a long-time scholar of Percival Everett, the author whose 2001 novel, Erasure, was adapted for this critically praised film I am curious how the main themes of the book will be explored.Directed by Cord Jefferson and starring Jeffrey Wright, the film presents an opportunity to talk about race, power and white supremacy within intellectual and cultural spaces, including higher education. Specifically, what version of Blackness is acceptable or saleable within American culture?
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S42S43O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree ... what are my rights this season, legally?  If you were, just for example, a slightly portly, older gent in a red and white suit who soon plans to travel around the globe delivering presents, assisted only by reindeer and a touch of magic, what legal issues might you encounter?While Santa may not need to lawyer up ahead of his big night, his journey does raise several interesting legal issues that have implications beyond the Christmas season – and there’s some lessons for the rest of us, too.
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S44Eggs from men, sperm from women: how stem cell science may change how we reproduce  It may soon be possible to coax human skin cells into becoming functional eggs and sperm using a technique known as “in vitro gametogenesis”. This involves the creation (genesis) of eggs and sperm (gametes) outside the human body (in vitro). In theory, a skin cell from a man could be turned into an egg and a skin cell from a woman can become a sperm. Then there’s the possibility of a child having multiple genetically-related parents, or only one.
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S45Friday essay: do readers dream of running a bookshop? Books about booksellers are having a moment - the reality can be less romantic  My mother and I wanted to open a bookshop. We signed up for a CAE course, which was cancelled when the bookseller who ran it went out of business. I learnt this later because I went on to work in a bookshop and the book business is a small world.My first job was in hospitality. It was hard work; physical labour. I cased city bookshops, handing out my CV, dreaming of a different life. My new boss saw me coming: I spent my first day unpacking box after box. Stacking, shelving – book after book. He tried to teach me they might as well be bricks, albeit in pretty packaging. Not-so-fast-moving, never-moving-as-fast-as-booksellers-might-like consumer goods.
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S46'Practically perfect': why the media's focus on 'top' Year 12 students needs to change  You may be familiar with the popular TikTok trend, #ATARreaction. You see the face of a Year 12 student logging on to their computer, then they wait a few moments before they collapse in tears, relief and celebration. It is Year 12 results season around Australia. Earlier this week, Victorian and New South Wales students got their marks. Results in Queensland are out today, with Western Australia and South Australia due on Monday.
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S47Why universities warrant public investment: Preparing students for living together well  Funding quickly raises the question of value: what is it that universities offer that warrants public investment? The question of the purposes of universities is both long-standing and one that has elicited many perspectives. Recent global attention to both systemic forms of injustice and increasingly urgent climate crises underscore the complexity of considering universities’ obligations to public life.
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S484 strategies to keep you from overspending this holiday season  The urge to spend money is present all year round, but during the gift-giving season, the temptation to splurge on loved ones can be particularly strong. For many, the desire to be generous during the holidays clashes with the need to conserve funds for essential expenses.This year, money is tighter than ever, with high prices for groceries, housing and entertainment leaving shoppers with reduced funds as the holiday season descends upon us.
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S49Climate change is further reducing fish stocks with worrisome implications for global food supplies  The health benefits of eating seafood are appreciated in many cultures which rely upon it to provide critical nutrients vital to our physical and mental development and health. Eating fish and shellfish provides significant benefits to neurological development and functioning and provides protection against the risks of coronary heart disease and Type 2 diabetes. Over three billion people get at least 20 per cent of their daily animal protein from fish. In countries from Bangladesh to Cambodia, Gambia, Ghana, Indonesia, Sierra Leone and Sri Lanka, fish consumption accounts for 50 per cent or more of daily intake.
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S50S51S52Thinking about cosmetic surgery? New standards will force providers to tell you the risks and consider if you're actually suitable  People considering cosmetic surgery – such as a breast augmentation, liposuction or face lift – should have extra protection following the release this week of new safety and quality standards for providers, from small day-clinics through to larger medical organisations.The new standards cover issues including how these surgeries are advertised, psychological assessments before surgery, the need for people to be informed of risks associated with the procedure, and the type of care people can expect during and afterwards. The idea is for uniform standards across Australia.
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S53The Sahara Desert used to be a green savannah - new research explains why  Algeria’s Tassili N’Ajjer plateau is Africa’s largest national park. Among its vast sandstone formations is perhaps the world’s largest art museum. Over 15,000 etchings and paintings are exhibited there, some as much as 11,000 years old according to scientific dating techniques, representing a unique ethnological and climatological record of the region. Curiously, however, these images do not depict the arid, barren landscape that is present in the Tassili N'Ajjer today. Instead, they portray a vibrant savannah inhabited by elephants, giraffes, rhinos and hippos. This rock art is an important record of the past environmental conditions that prevailed in the Sahara, the world’s largest hot desert.
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S54S55Diverse gut microbiomes give better protection against harmful bugs - now we know why  In the last decade, it has become increasingly clear that a gut full of friendly microbes (the microbiome) is vital for our good health. It has also become clear that a healthy microbiome is one with a diverse population of microbes (bacteria, viruses, fungi). What we haven’t known is why a diverse array of friendly bugs is important for keeping the harmful microbes (pathogens) at bay. But now we think we have found the answer.Our latest study, published in Science, shows that the main reason a diverse microbiome is helpful for resisting pathogens is that the friendly microbes collectively consume the nutrients needed for a pathogen to grow in the gut.
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S56George Santos and the Art of the Scam  In the weeks since George Santos was expelled from Congress, his story has been funnelled straight into the entertainment pipeline, from a memorable sketch on “Saturday Night Live” and reports of a film in the works at HBO to his own exploits on Cameo, where he’s charging five hundred dollars apiece for personalized video messages. On this episode of Critics at Large, the staff writers Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz assess why Santos’s story resonates with audiences, and the enduring appeal of the scammer narrative, from Herman Melville’s “The Confidence-Man” to Meredith Wilson’s “The Music Man.” Scammers embody—and exploit—a central tenet of the American Dream: the promise of a brighter future awaiting those audacious enough to reach for it. But their stories can also expose the weaknesses at the heart of our institutions. Why, then, do we keep coming back for more? “The level of enjoyment that we gain from these depictions of scams doesn’t mean that the critique isn’t there,” Fry says. “It’s almost like we as audiences are also begging, ‘Please make this fun for us.’ ”“Every Day’s a Holiday” (1937)“Inventing Anna” (2022)“Telemarketers” (2023)“The Confidence-Man,” by Herman Melville“The Dropout” (2022)“The Fabulist,” by Mark Chiusano“The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley” (2019)“The Music Man” (1957)“The Postman Always Rings Twice” (1946)The “Simpsons” episode “Marge vs. the Monorail” (1993)“The Wolf of Wall Street” (2013)“Trafficked with Mariana van Zeller” (2020 – present)
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S57"The Zone of Interest" Is an Extreme Form of Holokitsch  With movies that are based on books, there's no inherent merit in either fidelity or infidelity. What matters is the sense of freedom, of using a book to one's own purposes. That's the best thing about "The Zone of Interest," the writer and director Jonathan Glazer's adaptation of Martin Amis's 2014 novel of the same title. Glazer transforms it drastically and makes it feel almost entirely like his own creation. The novel is narrated by way of the characters' monologues, and they're mostly schtick-laden, performative voicesâAmis's novel plays largely like a variation on "Portnoy's Complaint" with its prime complainants being fictionalized Nazis who run Auschwitz. I'm not a fan of the book, which strikes me as a near-parody of the Holocaust, with torrentially erotic eruptions of lust, jealousy, and absurdity applied to the sordid private lives of fictitious Nazi officials and mass murderers. (It also prominently features one Jewish character, Szmul, the leader of the SonderkommandoâJewish inmates under orders to do much of the physical labor involved in mass murder, such as shaving hair, guiding captives to gas chambers, and shovelling out the ashes. Szmul's voice, though written briefly and thinly, is lent a moving earnestness, but his destiny is the stuff of pulp fiction.)Glazer's film distills and transforms the novel's premise into an altogether different story and tone. It's a sort of narrowly bordered bio-pic, centered on the real-life Höss family: Rudolf Höss (Christian Friedel), a longtime Nazi and S.S. member who was one of the commandants of Auschwitz; his wife, Hedwig (Sandra Hüller), nicknamed Hedy; and their three daughters and two sons, ranging from an adolescent to an infant. They live in a gracefully appointed house just outside the walls of the death camp; the property abuts the walls, which, with their curved barbed-wire stanchions, are instantly recognizable. They live a largely ordinary family life: they picnic by the river, Hedy tends her garden, the children go to school; there are birthday celebrations and social gatherings. But some details stand out. Hedy does her "shopping" for clothing, cosmetics, and jewelry from among items confiscated from deportees. (One friend found a diamond in a confiscated tube of toothpaste, declaring, "They are very clever.") On a river swim, Rudolf finds something in the water that makes him rush his children home and scrub them and himself thoroughly. The ambient soundtrack of daily life is the barking of dogs, the shouts of officers, the screams of captive victims, gunshots, and the roar and smoke of crematoria. (As Rudolf and one of his sons ride on horseback through nearby fields, amid yelling as prisoners are driven through the area, the son calls attention to the sound: "Do you hear that? . . . A bittern. A heron. A Eurasian gray heron.")
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S58"The Crown" Ends with a Whimper  The first four seasons of "The Crown," the Netflix period drama about Queen Elizabeth II's long reign, covered roughly forty years of British history. For many American viewers, the appeal of the series lay not only in the fair-minded characterizations of the Royal Family and the visual extravagances of one of the most expensive shows ever made but also in the deft incorporation of events that shaped U.K. politics, culture, and national identity. Season 1 revisited the Great Smog of 1952, which killed thousands of Londoners; Season 2 the Profumo scandal, which brought down a Prime Minister; and Season 3 the Aberfan disaster, a Welsh mining collapse that buried dozens of schoolchildren, whose deaths Elizabeth would later wish she had commemorated more swiftly.By contrast, nearly half of the sixth and final season traverses less than three months in 1997: the weeks leading up to Princess Diana's death and its immediate aftermath. That time frame underscores the narrowing of the show's focus. Its creator, Peter Morgan, seems to have lost all interest in Elizabeth's subjects, except when they turn on her for her conspicuous silence in the days following that fateful car crash in Paris. Prime Minister Tony Blair (Bertie Carvel), too, is most notable for his approval ratings; his popularity, which earns him the nickname King Tony, gives the Queen literal nightmares. Morgan treats the Windsors primarily as media figuresâthe people watch the Queen on the telly while the Queen watches them back. (Reports suggest that she watched "The Crown," too.) But the post-Diana episodes are a study of celebrity without the requisite star power.
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S59A Congressional Christmas Gift to Putin  A year ago, when Volodymyr Zelensky received a hero’s welcome in Washington, Joe Biden stood beside him and promised to be with Ukraine “as long as it takes” to beat back Russia’s invasion. Biden promised this again in February, when he made a dramatic visit to wartime Kyiv to mark the first anniversary of the invasion. Over the summer, as Zelensky ordered an ambitious counter-offensive against Vladimir Putin’s forces, boosted by billions of dollars in military assistance from the U.S. and other Western allies, Biden repeated his pledge. He said it again—in June, in July, and in August. In September, when both the counter-offensive and continued U.S. aid to fund it began to look wobbly, Zelensky flew to Washington to try to convince wavering Republicans—and Biden once again reiterated America’s commitment to standing with Ukraine for the duration of its war against Russian aggression.Which made what Biden had to say this week—when Zelensky returned to the U.S. capital to try to break loose more than sixty billion dollars in emergency assistance for Ukraine, currently being held hostage in Congress by Republicans demanding sweeping changes to border and immigration policy—all the more striking. This time, Biden stood alongside a visibly weary Zelensky but did not muster the formulaic words of reassurance. Instead, he said, “We’ll continue to supply Ukraine with critical weapons and equipment as long as we can.” As long as we can. What a comedown. Both the U.S. President and his Ukrainian counterpart warned of the dangers of congressional inaction, while essentially acknowledging that there was little they could do to prevent it. If lawmakers left for congressional recess without approving additional money for Ukraine, Biden said, they would be giving Putin “the greatest Christmas gift.”
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S60How a Student Group Is Politicizing a Generation on Palestine  Hunter College’s campus, in New York, features buildings that are tall and nondescript, blending in with the apartment and office towers around them. Nearby sidewalks are labyrinths of construction fencing, pushing students and commuters shoulder to shoulder as they make their way to the 6 train, on the East Side of Manhattan. This landscape forms a natural stage, referred to as “the pit,” outside Hunter’s West Building, which is where students from the Palestine Solidarity Alliance gathered in mid-November for yet another protest against Israel’s bombardment and blockade of Gaza.The crowd started small—maybe seventy-five people. Several young women in combat boots and hijabs, who had organized the rally, came out carrying homemade posters and a bullhorn. “Free, free Palestine!” a woman shouted into the bullhorn. “Free-free-free Palestine!” The crowd of students cheered and joined in, echoing her rhythm and words. Many of the protesters appeared to be Muslim. Some of the chants, in Arabic, were explicitly religious. “Takbir!” a woman shouted into the bullhorn, calling for the glorification of God. “Allahu akbar” (“God is greater”), the crowd replied. “There is no god but God,” they shouted, in Arabic. “The martyrs”—all those who have died in Gaza and Palestine—“are beloved of God.”
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S615 Years Ago, One Post-Apocalyptic Sci-Fi Movie Was Almost Stupid Enough to Work  The November release of The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes felt like such a quaint throwback to ye olde young adult dystopia craze that it prompted a wave of retrospectives on the genre. While the trend was never issued an official death certificate, it seems safe to carve 2018 — the year The Guardian, THR, CBR, and Rotten Tomatoes, among others, declared it moribund — on the tombstone.2018 is the year The Maze Runner trilogy wrapped up, The Darkest Minds was a mega-flop, and the Divergent franchise was officially taken to a nice theater upstate. Meant to be Katniss Everdeen’s successor, its derivative ideas and shoddy storytelling turned audiences away in droves. Rapidly diminishing financial returns killed its fourth and final film, and when an attempt to salvage the saga on television also failed it felt like the genre died with it. But then, with just a few days left in the year, Mortal Engines puttered into theaters as a strange and forgotten coda.
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S62Nintendo Switch Just Quietly Added the Most Rewarding Crafting Game  The humble alchemist is the backbone of any fantasy town’s economy, curing townsfolk of curses and keeping adventurers alive while they’re out hunting monsters. A few recent games have finally given these working class heroes the attention they deserve, and none focuses as much on the essential art of potion-making as Potion Craft: Alchemy Simulator. You only have until December 15 to play it on Xbox Game Pass, but if you miss that window, you can luckily still pick it up on Nintendo Switch and PlayStation consoles, where it just launched this week.As its name implies, Potion Craft is a simulation game about the art of alchemy. Other recent brew-‘em-ups like Potionomics embellish their potion-making with social aspects and complex haggle systems, but Potion Craft keeps it simple. Or at least, it keeps things focused. Potion-making is, after all, a lot of work.
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S63'Blade' Game Announcement Drove a Stake Through My 'Dishonored 3' Dreams  The Marvel universe continues to extend its tendrils into every medium possible, especially games. Insomniac’s Spider-Man 2 was met with widespread praise in 2023 as the high-water mark of Marvel’s foray into games so far, but while there are not nearly as many modern Marvel games as there are films in the MCU, the threat of burnout from these heroes is already looming large. Enter the latest project, Marvel’s Blade, developed by Arkane Studios’ French subsidiary in Lyon. And while some may be excited for the vampire hunter to headline a AAA game, the Marvel name doesn’t mean an automatic hit. What’s worse is, there is already a more promising project that Arkane Lyon could have made instead. Yes, you may sense where this is going.
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S64'Alan Wake 2' Director Sam Lake on the Game Awards, Baldur's Gate 3, and DLC  It was the zaniest moment at the Game Awards. In between the 2023 award show’s endless stream of video game commercials and the occasional actual award, TGA host Geoff Keighley ceded the stage to a gang of leather-clad musicians. Cosplaying as The Old Gods of Asgard, a fictional rock band that exists within the Remedy video game universe, real-life Finnish metal group Poets of the Fall performed a ballad from Alan Wake 2 two while the game’s starring cast sang and strutted alongside a troupe of backup dancers.Alan Wake 2 director Sam Lake suddenly joined the backup dancers, performing choreographed moves as he shimmied across the stage. While Lake didn’t actually win the coveted Game of the Year award, the bizarre musical number solidified Alan Wake 2 as one of the most adventurous titles of 2023.
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S65Does Your Cat Play Fetch? Scientists Are Finally Understanding Why  A new study from the University of Sussex looks at a surprisingly unexpected animal behavior — cats who love to play fetch.A round of fetch brings to mind long summer days in the park with a tennis ball-obsessed dog, but this fun game isn’t canine-exclusive. While cats are better known for their stalking abilities, some felines also enjoy some fetching playtime with their pet parents. But because this back-and-forth behavior is so closely associated with dogs, animal psychology researchers haven’t closely studied this behavior in Felis catus — until now.
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S66Are You An Early Riser? You Might Carry Genes From These Ancient Humans  If you’re the type to hit the sack early and wake up at the crack of dawn, you have some archaic ancestors to thank.According to a study published Thursday in the journal Genome Biology and Evolution, whether you’re a morning lark or a night owl depends on genes you inherited from long-ago Neanderthals and Denisovans. The researchers compared genes associated with our circadian rhythm — the body’s internal 24-hour clock regulating sleep-wake cycles and other physiological processes — in modern humans against those found in DNA samples from three Neanderthals and one Denisovan. They found that certain genetic variants originating from these archaic hominins appear to influence sleep preference, particularly inclining one to good old Benjamin Franklin’s maxim of “early to bed and early to rise.”
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S67Disney's Epic New Fantasy Show is This Generation's Harry Potter  From the moment the owl pushed the letter through the mail flap at 4 Privet Drive, every production company worth their salt has been looking for the next Harry Potter. Twilight, The Hunger Games, Divergent, even Ender’s Game attempted to unseat it and become the new franchise to capture the hearts of a generation. Even now, the quest hasn’t stopped. Netflix found some purchase with Stranger Things, but even in the streaming age the title “next Harry Potter” has remained elusive, to the point where Warner Bros. announced it would force a comparison by adapting the books into a TV series instead of movies.
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S68S69'Captain America 4' Reshoots Prove the MCU Is Finally Getting Back on Track  Marvel may still be building its Brave New World, but the construction shows promising signs.Sam Wilson’s ascent to the Captain America title has been a long time coming. We saw him don the star-spangled supersuit in the Falcon and the Winter Soldier in early 2021, but now, almost three years later, there’s still no sign of him in his new role. While there is a firm date for his return on the schedule in Captain America: Brave New World, multiple delays and reshoots have thrown the former Falcon’s future into question. However, the latest rewrite may be a good sign, not a bad one.
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S70Hideo Kojima Finally Finds a Studio to Adapt His Unfilmable Sci-Fi Masterpiece  There are some great movies about walking. The Lord of the Rings, Walk Don’t Run, The Road, Wild — a lot of people going on some great walks. The latest entry into the esteemed genre of films will be none other than a Death Stranding movie coming from Hideo Kojima and A24. While it makes sense for one of gaming’s most overtly film-obsessed auteurs to join the movie business, Death Stranding itself is a game that feels impossible to translate to film without losing the core of what makes the 2019 title so special in the first place.
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