Is 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.”

Continued here

The Power of a Thin Skin

“To be thin-skinned is to feel keenly, to perceive things that might go unseen, unnoticed, that others might prefer not to notice.”

Continued here

How 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.

Continued here

6 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.

Continued here

Webinar: 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.

Continued here

Hugh 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.

Continued here

The '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.

Continued here

A 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.

Continued here

Relais 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.

Continued here

The 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.

Continued here

Society 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.

Continued here

What 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.

Continued here

Stranger 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.

Continued here

CRISPR 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.

Continued here

Lighting a fire using friction requires an understanding of some physics principles - but there are ways to make the process easier

Humans have been making fire using friction for thousands of years, with evidence of its use found in archaeological records across different cultures worldwide. Fire by friction is a testament to human ingenuity, contributing to the development of early technology and a later understanding of physics, chemistry and heat transfer.

Continued here

4 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.

Continued here

In 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.”

Continued here

Artificial 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.

Continued here

Why 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.

Continued here

Winter 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.

Continued here

When 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.

Continued here

How 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.

Continued here

Blackpool: 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.

Continued here

Who 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.

Continued here