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CEO Picks - The best that international journalism has to offer!

S22
Six ways inequality holds back climate action    

Are improvements to green technologies, like better batteries and more efficient solar panels, enough on their own to tackle climate change? Unfortunately not. Our behaviour and lifestyles must change too.Rolling out the solutions to climate change (electric vehicles, solar power, heat pumps) will require confronting the enormous gulf in wealth and resources separating the richest and poorest people – both within countries and between them.

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S1
Favorite Books of 2023    

To look back on a year of reading is to be handed a clear mirror of your priorities and passions, of the questions that live in you and the reckonings that keep you up at night. While the literatur…

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S2
Predictions for the Workplace of 2025, Revisited - MIT Sloan Management Review    

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.The beginning of a new year marks an auspicious moment to look forward. Our collective hope is that making predictions will help us anticipate what’s to come, potentially change tack, and even reveal blind spots.

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S3
'It hasn't delivered': The spectacular failure of self-checkout technology    

It's a common sight at many retail stores: a queue of people, waiting to use a self-checkout kiosk, doing their best to remain patient as a lone store worker attends to multiple malfunctioning machines. The frustration mounts while a dozen darkened, roped-off and cashier-less tills sit in the background.For shoppers, self-checkout was supposed to provide convenience and speed. Retailers hoped it would usher in a new age of cost savings. Their thinking: why pay six employees when you could pay one to oversee customers at self-service registers, as they do their own labour of scanning and bagging for free?

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S4
The cookie that can't be perfected    

If you're going to call a recipe "The Ultimate Chocolate Cookie", you better be prepared to back up the claim.Nancy Silverton is. The only chef to have won James Beard awards both for outstanding pastry chef (1991) and outstanding chef (2014), Silverton has always aimed high, and her new cookbook published this November, The Cookie That Changed My Life, is no exception.

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S5
20 years ago South Africa had 40 qualified astronomers - all white. How it's opened space science and developed skills since then    

Former director of SAAO and honorary professor at UCT, South African Astronomical Observatory South African astronomy started an important journey two decades ago, when an initiative to attract and train future scientists in the field welcomed its first group of students under the National Astrophysics and Space Science Programme.

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S6
What if every germ hit you at the exact same time? An immunologist explains    

Curious Kids is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to [email protected] would happen if all the diseases in the world hit us at the exact same time? – Gabriella, age 12, Irving, Texas

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S7
Kush: what is this dangerous new west African drug that supposedly contains human bones?    

A new drug called kush is wreaking havoc in west Africa, particularly in Sierra Leone where it is estimated to kill around a dozen people each week and hospitalise thousands. The drug, taken mostly by men aged 18 to 25, causes people to fall asleep while walking, to fall over, to bang their heads against hard surfaces and to walk into moving traffic.

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S8
How to fix Ofsted? Make it a school improver not a government enforcer    

Since a coroner’s ruling that an Ofsted inspection was a contributing factor in the tragic death of headteacher Ruth Perry by suicide, attention on England’s school inspection system has intensified. Ofsted needs to change – and quickly. Inspectors are now required to undertake training sessions in headteacher wellbeing. But trust from school leaders in Ofsted is at an all-time low.

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S9
How looking after your willpower can help you reduce stress and stay productive, wherever you are working    

The COVID pandemic led to big increases in psychological distress for many people, including symptoms of stress, anxiety and depression. The negative impact on mental health has been substantial and is likely to be long-lasting, with many people experiencing psychological distress even now.One of the ways in which this kind of stress might affect you is at work, particularly the 40% of the UK workforce that still works from home to some extent.

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S10
Embracing 'virtual dark tourism' could help heritage sites at risk of degradation - expert explains    

Dark tourism allows people to understand tragic events, and potentially experience a catharsis of emotions related to the deaths at a site or even help people respond to collective trauma. For example, memorials dedicated to COVID deaths have become a place for people to reflect.The COVID lockdowns brought travel to a standstill. During this period, many museums around the world took the opportunity to create virtual tours, and many would-be tourists explored 360-degree street views that served as silent “virtual tours”.

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S11
Ghana is behind the curve on climate change laws: expert suggests a way to get corporations on board    

Ghana has introduced some climate change policies and general environmental regulations but has yet to pass a Climate Change Act. This leaves the country without effective legal and regulatory instruments for addressing climate change. Climate change law expert Kikelomo Kila sets out her findings in a recent paper on why Ghana must not follow the “command and control” regulatory approach.Why hasn’t Ghana introduced specific climate change legislation, and why is such legislation important?

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S12
Healthy food is hard to come by in Cape Town's poorer areas: how community gardens can fix that    

University of Western Cape provides support as a hosting partner of The Conversation AFRICA.In 1950, as part of the Group Areas Act, South Africa’s apartheid government banished people of colour to outlying areas, away from central business districts. The Cape Flats are one such area, sprawling to the east of central Cape Town.

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S13
Music can ease the January blues - but the types of songs that work depend on your age and mindset    

Music can significantly boost your mental health – delivering benefits similar to those provided by exercise or weight loss. It can also reduce feelings of anxiety and physiological measures of stress and, as neuropsychologist Daniel Levitin argues, even create the same “neurochemical cocktail” as other pleasurable activities, like orgasms or eating chocolate.This links with philosopher Aristote’s theory of catharsis, which suggests that we experience the emotion of sadness through music in order to purge the emotion from ourselves in real life.

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S14
First polar bear to die of bird flu - what are the implications?    

Climate change is a threat to polar bear’s survival. Now they have a new deadly challenge facing them: bird flu. It was recently confirmed that a polar bear from northern Alaska has died from the disease. The current strain of H5N1 influenza has affected a far wider range of species than any previously recorded strain. This has included several mammal species, such as foxes, otters, mink, sea lions and seals (including, for the first time, seals in Antarctica). Cases have been detected in humans, too.

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S15
Red Sea crisis: Suez Canal is not the only 'choke point' that threatens to disrupt global supply chains    

The air strikes against targets in Yemen by the US and UK military have not been without criticism. They aim to keep the Houthis from attacking merchant vessels in the Bab el-Mandeb strait. Less than 30 ships have been attacked by Houthis since they seized the Israeli-linked Galaxy Leader vessel in November. It’s a relatively small number, compared to the thousands of ships that have passed through the area since. Unlike the 2021 Suez Canal blockage, traffic is still moving along the shortcut between Asia and Europe. While it adds one to two weeks of travel time and around US$1 million (£786,000) in cost, ships can also go around Africa.

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S16
Annie Nightingale: DJ, author, presenter, mother. Raver extraordinaire.    

Annie Nightingale, who died on January 11, was a champion of what she called “underground music”. At the age of 83, she was BBC Radio 1’s longest serving DJ. She outlasted all the male counterparts from the 1970s and – unlike most of them – she never lost her touch or went out of fashion. She was also renowned for being the last person to leave any party. The only other DJ comparable to Nightingale was her beloved co-pilot John Peel, whose untimely death in 2004 deeply affected her. Nightingale sought out new music and was committed to the idea that a change of tempo heralded in a new music generation. Her knowledge of pop and underground music was immense, from The Beatles to Bowie, punk to rave through to techno, dubstep and grime. She loved witty, clever lyrics, beats and bass lines.

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S17
Iran's increased belligerence and nuclear ambitions show why the west needs a more robust policy of deterrence    

Numerous attempts by Houthi rebels to attack and disrupt cargo shipping in the Red Sea have been met by airstrikes by the UK and US on Houthi-controlled areas in Yemen – including the capital Sana'a. The intervention represents a significant level of escalation in the Middle East and is indicative of just how volatile the region has become.While the Houthis claim their attacks are in retaliation for Israel’s war against Hamas, it’s actually more complicated. Iran’s backing of the Houthis looks like part of a plan by Tehran to draw the west into a protracted Middle Eastern conflict in order to sow regional discord and further its plans for hegemony.

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S18
War in the Middle East has put Lebanon on the brink of economic disaster    

Scholar at Centre for the Study of Ethnic Conflict at Queen's University Belfast, Queen's University Belfast The recent return of violence to Lebanon derails hope that the worst of the crises that have plagued the country over the past four years have been left behind.

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S19
Why you may feel depressed and anxious when you're ill - and how to cope with it    

Winter illnesses are all around us at the moment – from the common cold, COVID-19 and flu to strep throat and stomach bugs. All have one thing in common: they can make you feel miserable. These illnesses often come with fatigue, lack of appetite and concentration difficulties. Sufferers often just want to be left alone many people even experience sadness and anxiety.Researchers have uncovered why that is. When your body is under attack by a pathogen, some of your immune cells recognise the pathogen and take action to eliminate the threat. To be successful, they need to rally other immune cells as well as several organs of your body.

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S20
Ultra-processed foods: here's what the evidence actually says about them    

The perils of ultra-processed foods received widespread coverage in recent months – thanks in no small part to the publication and promotion of TV presenter and doctor of virology Chris Van Tulleken’s book Ultra-Processed People. Ultra-processed foods, in short, are commercially manufactured food products that include ingredients you wouldn’t cook with at home. Some of this processing makes foods more palatable, some increases shelf life and makes them more affordable – such as wholemeal supermarket bread, for example.

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S21
Can technology clean up our air? An atmospheric scientist got a glimpse of the future    

Every few years I visit CES (formerly the Consumer Electronics Show) in Las Vegas, a goliath event that is equal parts shameless spin and publicity, trade show and business conference. I’m an atmospheric scientist, and I want to get some insight into the technologies that might reduce our personal emissions in future.In 2018, there was an explosion in interest in air-quality sensors alongside products aimed at cleaning air in the home. I wondered back then whether air filtration would gain traction in Europe and whether this was environmentally sustainable or socially equitable.

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S23
Post Office Horizon scandal: four reasons why the government's model for outsourcing is broken    

For over a decade, the Post Office and its supplier, Fujitsu, insisted that the Horizon system used in its branches was completely “robust”. When discrepancies appeared in hundreds of branch accounts across the country, the Post Office refused to believe the system was at fault and didn’t challenge the information it got from Fujitsu. Instead, it blamed the shortfalls on sub-postmasters, made them pay the losses, and prosecuted over 700 of them.The multimillion-pound contract between the Post Office and Fujitsu is at the heart of the scandal. The way the contract worked meant that Fujitsu was incentivised to fix bugs quickly rather than well. The Post Office didn’t have the expertise it needed to understand what was going wrong. The Post Office’s dependence on Fujitsu also meant that it protected its relationship with them at the expense of sub-postmasters and the public.

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S24
Is America enduring a 'slow civil war'? Jeff Sharlet visits Trump rallies, a celebrity megachurch and the manosphere to find out    

In these days of the 24-hour news cycle, one can never know in advance, but Donald J. Trump seems likely to be the Republican Party candidate for president of the United States in 2024. With Trump facing four indictments in American courts, the outcome is uncertain. Would the American people vote for an indicted person, or even for a felon? They might, and to understand the persistence of Trump’s loyal following, we need to get behind the headlines and assess the roots of Trump’s power.

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S25
The shame and pleasure of masturbation: Poor Things gets girls' early sexual feelings right    

Poor Things can be described in one word: polarising. Yorgos Lanthimos’ film follows Bella Baxter (Emma Stone), a scientist’s experiment created from a woman’s body and a child’s mind. Yet others walked out of the Venice screening during its many sex scenes, one which depicts a father teaching his two sons the birds and the bees by letting them watch him and Bella in the act. (This scene has been re-edited for the United Kingdom release to comply with local classification requirements.)

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S26
Thinking of using an activity tracker to achieve your exercise goals? Here's where it can help - and where it probably won't    

It’s that time of year when many people are getting started on their resolutions for the year ahead. Doing more physical activity is a popular and worthwhile goal. If you’re hoping to be more active in 2024, perhaps you’ve invested in an activity tracker, or you’re considering buying one.

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S27
What's it worth to work from home? For some, it's as much as one-third of their wage    

A significant proportion of Australian workers – about one-fifth – would be prepared to sacrifice between 16% and 33% of their salaries for the right to work from home, which works out at A$12,000 to $24,000 of those workers’ salaries.But a much larger proportion, more than one half, would be prepared to sacrifice nothing, being either not strongly convinced about the benefits of working from home or actively preferring to go into the workplace.

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S28
South Africa has made its genocide case against Israel in court. Here's what both sides said and what happens next    

Following the October 7 attack by Hamas, Israeli forces have carried out sustained attacks on the Palestinian controlled territory, dividing the international community.Last week, the South African government presented a case to the International Court of Justice. They argued the Israeli government’s attack on Gaza, and especially the actions of its forces within Gaza since early October, could amount to genocide.

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S29
Working from home since COVID-19? Cabin fever could be the next challenge    

As Canada opened back up after the COVID-19 lockdowns, many businesses encouraged their workers to head back to the office. Yet, despite restrictions being lifted in Canada and around the world, teleworking as a regular working arrangement has remained popular across different industries. Different polls over the last three years show an increased interest in teleworking among Canadian workers. The polls indicated that many Canadians prefer teleworking and some would consider changing careers to maintain their teleworking status.

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S30
Is economic growth good for our health?    

Is economic growth good for us? Put another way, we know that growing the economy is good for business and for creating jobs. But does it help everyone in society? One way to answer this question is to explore what it does for population health. Our health is one of the most important aspects of our lives, considering how it affects our everyday comfort and ability to survive. Given how wealth contributes to health on the personal, individual level, the case for economic growth might seem intuitive.

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S31
RSV, flu and COVID: demystifying the triple epidemic of respiratory viruses    

Professeure en biochimie des interactions hôte-virus, Université de Montréal Since 2022, a triple epidemic of respiratory viruses — RSV, influenza and SARS-CoV-2 — has been disrupting our daily lives. In addition, the media constantly reminds us of how this is straining emergency departments.

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S32
The scene in the West Bank's Masafer Yatta: Palestinians face escalating Israeli efforts to displace them    

Our ride pulls over on the side of the highway to let us out and we begin our 20-minute hike into the village of Wadi Tiran in the occupied West Bank. Before Oct. 7, 2023, there was a road that went all the way to the village, but Jewish settlers have since blocked it. Considering that in November, settlers threatened to kill anyone who didn’t leave the Palestinian village within 24 hours, the hike seems like a small price to pay for Palestinians to remain on their land. But this is not the only community that has been threatened with death if villagers don’t leave the land they have lived on for thousands of years.

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S33
Netflix's You Are What You Eat uses a twin study. Here's why studying twins is so important for science    

A new Netflix documentary, You Are What You Eat, showcases sets of identical twins as they adopt different diets. For eight weeks one twin follows a vegan diet while the other one follows an omnivorous diet. The experiment is compelling because, being genetically identical, the health of each twin is very similar before the trial. I won’t spoil the ending for those who haven’t seen it, but if you prefer the drab writings of academics over the glitz and glamour of Netflix, you can read the published paper in the journal JAMA Network Open.

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S34
Climate change and nature loss are our biggest environmental problems - so why isn't the market tackling them together?    

Climate change and biodiversity loss are arguably the greatest environmental challenges the world faces. The way we use land is crucial in finding solutions to these problems. In theory, actions such as revegetation and avoiding land clearing can tackle both problems at once – for example, by simultaneously storing carbon in plants and providing habitat for animals.We examined a financial incentive scheme in South Australia’s Mount Lofty Ranges. We found action by farmers to restore native woodlands on their properties also stored carbon in the vegetation. This carbon abatement, if converted into carbon credits, could have paid the farmers for their restoration activities. It suggests existing carbon markets can pay for biodiversity conservation.

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S35
Our 'food environments' affect what we eat. Here's how you can change yours to support healthier eating    

NHMRC Emerging Leadership Fellow, School of Exercise and Nutrition Sciences, Deakin University In January, many people are setting new year’s resolutions around healthy eating. Achieving these is often challenging – it can be difficult to change our eating habits. But healthy diets can enhance physical and mental health, so improving what we eat is a worthwhile goal.

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S36
Donald Trump's stroll to victory in Iowa was a foregone conclusion. This doesn't make it any less shocking    

Adjunct Senior Fellow, School of Global, Urban and Social Studies, RMIT University Honorary Fellow, School of Historical and Philosophical Studies, The University of Melbourne

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S37
A Drug-Decriminalization Fight Erupts in Oregon    

In the early months of the pandemic, joggers on the Bear Creek Greenway, in southern Oregon, began to notice tents cropping up by the path. The Greenway, which connects towns and parks along a tributary of the Rogue River, was beloved for its wetlands and for stands of oaks that attracted migrating birds. Now, as jobs disappeared and services for the poor shut down, it was increasingly a last-ditch place to live. Tents accumulated in messy clusters, where people sometimes smoked fentanyl, and “the Greenway” became a byword for homelessness and drug use. On a popular local Facebook page, one typical comment read, “Though I feel sorry for some of the people in that situation, most of them are just pigs.” In Medford, the largest city along the trail, police demolished encampments and ticketed people for sleeping rough.One September evening in Medford, a white cargo van belonging to a nonprofit called Stabbin Wagon parked near the Greenway, between an auto-repair shop and a Wendy’s. For unhoused people across Oregon, cargo vans have become a symbol of help. Some contain primary-care clinics and food pantries. Others, like Stabbin Wagon’s, distribute a more controversial kind of aid: safe supplies for drug users.

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S38
Donald Trump Coasts to Victory in the Iowa Republican Caucuses    

Donald Trump spent 2023 working to insure that the Republican primaries would be organized around him—that within the closed circuit of the G.O.P., at least, he could run as if he were actually the incumbent, with the prerogatives still intact. He ducked the debates, draining them of drama; persuaded some Republican officials in states around the country to adjust primary and caucus rules to make them more favorable to him; and used the many legal cases against him as a way of amplifying his victimhood. The nominating contest’s long preamble concluded on Monday evening, with Trump winning the Iowa caucuses with around fifty per cent of the vote. Trump had spent last year largely ignoring the Party’s more moderate candidates and fixating on Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, the only challenger who seemed to threaten to pry the Party’s most conservative voters away from him. The results on Monday, in a state dominated by social traditionalists, proved Trump had succeeded. DeSantis came in a distant second, mustering only about twenty per cent of the vote. In conservative country, Trump’s campaign is moving with the brutal efficiency of clockwork.The candidates in the current Republican Presidential primaries have generally been so dyspeptic, and the voters so broadly indifferent, that the early campaign has been drained of its usual political romance and contingency. The deep icy chill that covered Iowa over the final weekend, with wind chills reaching forty below, brought a flicker of the old weirdness. “After passing nearly 50 jackknifed semis on the final 100-mile stretch of 1-80, we’re awaiting the arrival of Nikki Haley in eastern Iowa,” the Huffington Post’s Liz Skalka posted on X. The situation made Trump himself sardonic. “Even if you vote and then pass away, it’s worth it, remember,” he told a pre-caucus rally in Indianola.

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S39
15 Years Ago, EA Learned the Wrong Lesson From Its Boldest Flop    

In 2018, USA Today named Electronic Arts the fifth-most hated company in America, which was actually an improvement from when The Consumerist awarded them the gold medal two years in a row. The case wrote itself: EA shutters once-profitable studios, aggressively pushes obnoxious loot boxes, and has long forced crunch on developers, among other sins.Perhaps the most common complaint is that EA fails to innovate. Fans and critics have called out their overpriced Sims 4 content packs, the laziness of their yearly sports titles, and their undercooked sequels to legacy franchises. But it wasn’t always this way. In 2008, EA took a genuine creative risk on two new franchises… and was punished for it.

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S40
'True Detective' Season 4 Easter Eggs Tease the Answer to a Decade-Long Mystery    

It may end up being the coldest show of the year, but there’s something immediately warm and welcoming about True Detective: Night Country. HBO’s new season of True Detective couldn’t, in many ways, be any more different from the three that have come before it. For starters, none of the show’s original creative team members, including series creator Nic Pizzolatto, are involved in it. The season is instead produced by Moonlight director Barry Jenkins and created and directed by Tigers Are Not Afraid filmmaker Issa López.And yet, despite the behind-the-scenes changes that informed its creation and production, Night Country immediately feels like it fits right in with the first three seasons of True Detective. It announces itself as a new era for the beloved, long-troubled HBO crime procedural, and it does so without ever hitting you directly over the head. That’s one of the most impressive things about True Detective: Night Country’s premiere: How it connects itself tonally and narratively with its show’s past while also carving out an entirely new space for itself.

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S41
These Key Hunter-Gatherer Traits Could Drastically Improve Your Longevity    

Many of us want to live long, happy, and healthy lives. Yet it’s often confusing to know the best way to achieve this, and many aspects of modern, westernized living conspire to keep us from achieving this goal.The solution may be to step back in time. For the bulk of our existence, we evolved following a hunter-gatherer lifestyle of foraging for food and hunting animals. Today, only a few hunter-gatherer communities still exist, such as the Hadza of Tanzania.

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S42
The 18 Best Tech Innovations From CES 2024 That Could Reshape Our Future    

From AI pocket companions to transparent TVs to flying cars, CES 2024 offered a look into the near future.It’s a wrap for CES 2024! We told you AI would be the loudest buzzword at the show, finding its way into all kinds of consumer tech, and we were right. AI was everywhere, but the future isn’t only AI.

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S43
20 Years Ago, a Completely Unhinged Crime Thriller Was Ahead of Its Time -- By About 7 Years    

In 2004, Fast & Furious was barely even a franchise. While the first movie, about a cop who infiltrates a street racing gang, was a hit at the box office, nobody could have predicted where the saga would eventually lead. And although 2 Fast 2 Furious helped establish a unique approach to sequel titles (and added Ludacris to the family), it was a critical flop that didn’t even feature Vin Diesel.In other words, in the early 2000s, the road to franchise domination for a movie series about cool dudes and their super-fast vehicles was wide open. Enter: Torque.

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S44
On the shared histories of reconstruction in the Americas | Aeon Essays    

Orizaba (desde el puente de Paso del Toro) (1877) by Casimiro Castro. From Album of the Mexican Railway. Courtesy of the Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, TexasOrizaba (desde el puente de Paso del Toro) (1877) by Casimiro Castro. From Album of the Mexican Railway. Courtesy of the Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, Texas

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S45
3 Questions Sales Teams Should Ask After Losing (or Winning) a Deal    

When salespeople lose a deal, most prefer to move on rather than linger over the specifics of the loss. Similarly, when they win a deal, most are quick to celebrate. But very few take the time to assess why they won the business. In the authors’ experience leading and coaching sales teams, they see evidence that a brief, well-pointed sales retrospective, where you unpack the reasons behind a win or a loss, can significantly improve a team’s future win rate. Beyond the obvious benefits for the sales team — for whom the process can help identify the best messaging and behaviors to use going forward — unpacking wins and losses also provides valuable insights for product, marketing, and finance teams. Teams should ask three questions: 1) How would the customer articulate the value of their choice? 2) Who was the most influential voice in and out of the room? 3) Beyond price, what were the key deciding factors in the client’s decision?

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S46
A Sports Analogy for Understanding Different Ways to Use AI    

The potential impact of generative AI on the economy, society, and work is polarizing, swinging from the positive benefits of a technological revolution to doomsday scenarios. The authors have come to think about this issue as points on a spectrum and have created a sports analogy to help think about it: AI tools can range from steroids, to sneakers, to a coach, each representing a different relationship between human users and the technology. Steroids elevate short-term performance, but leave you worse off in the long term. AI-powered tools can instead be used to augment people’s skills and make them more productive — much like a good running sneaker. On the most desirable end of the spectrum, AI-powered tools can be used like a coach that improves people’s own capabilities. This framework can be used to help conceptualize how we might craft AI-based tools that enhance rather than diminish human capabilities.

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S47
Steal This Apple Executive's Monday Ramp Up Ritual for Your Best Mondays Ever    

What beats 'bare minimum Mondays'? This enjoyable on-ramp to a focused and impactful week from a veteran tech leader.

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S48
Unpacking 2024: Five Lessons Marketing Lessons You Need to Know    

Last year brought some valuable insights for 2024, and they'll revolutionize how you connect with audiences.

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S49
What's Driving Entrepreneurs This Presidential Election    

Here are the four main issues on the minds of small-business owners as election day appraoches.

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S50
Dire Warnings and Rays of Hope from Davos    

The latest World Economic Forum risk review holds warnings and optimism for the future

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S51
How Emotionally Intelligent Bosses Use Meaningful Conversations to Help Employees Feel Happier and More Purposeful, Backed by Leadership Science    

Science says the deeper the conversation, and the more frequent those conversations occur, the better.

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S52
Adidas' New CEO Did Something 'Crazy' When He Joined the Company. It's a Brilliant Lesson in Emotional Intelligence    

With a simple yet unusual move, Adidas CEO Bjrn Gulden shows how to earn respect and build trust with your people.

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S53
An Employee Keeps Complaining To Me About a Manager I Supervise    

I don't agree with her complaints ... how do I handle this?

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S54
Budgeting Is a Critical but Rare Business Competency. Here's How to Do It Right    

Planning projects and developing budgets are critical functions in all businesses. Don't wing it. Use this guide to help get the best outcome for you and your team.

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S55
When an Active Pause Is the Best Strategic Choice    

In the face of competitive threats, managers are tempted to do something, because being active feels better than being passive. In fact, an active pause can make the most sense. This is especially true in industries facing a big technological change, when going “all in” on a nascent technology may have larger long-term costs than benefits.

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S56
Survey: GenAI Is Making Companies More Data Oriented    

Although cultural change generally requires human intervention, it appears that new technology — especially a new technology like generative AI that captures human imaginations — can play a role in catalyzing a data-oriented culture. In an annual survey assessing attitudes about data, analytics, and AI, data and technology leaders in large companies reported significant improvement in their organizations’ data culture. Given that the 2023 survey was fielded just before ChatGPT was announced, generative AI seems the likely cause of the leap in positive responses around culture. To take advantage of this, companies need to invest in experimentation, production deployment, and education.

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S57
Why the hovercraft's time might have finally arrived    

The 12.30pm midweek hovercraft departure from Portsmouth is already respectably half-full when we step on board. Marketed as the world's only year-round scheduled passenger hovercraft service, the Union Jack-emblazoned machine flies for a thrilling 10 minutes, hovering just inches above the water’s surface. It is the fastest way to reach Ryde on the Isle of Wight, a Detroit-sized island off the south coast of England. A rival vehicle, the FastCat ferry, takes more than twice as long, around 22 minutes.The hovercraft's engines roar (no louder than an airliner on take-off) as its beefy cushion inflates, lifting the vehicle gently five feet (1.6m) into the air. Then, it turns and slides seamlessly into the sea on its dash to Ryde. The 78-seater craft's unique ability to fly over sand and mud without damaging the fragile ecosystems underneath means that passengers may board even at low tide.

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S58
How Spotify helped turn Afrobeats into a global phenomenon    

Aoi Narita was a marketing consultant for Japanese startups in Kenya in 2021 when she first heard the song “Love Nwantiti” by Nigerian Afrobeats artist CKay, and fell in love with the music genre almost immediately. “I had no idea what he was saying but just the melody was always in my head,” she told Rest of World over text. “Since then, I started listening to different Afrobeats artists, and I still listen to them all the time.”In November 2022, Narita moved to Nigeria as an investment manager at early-stage venture capital firm Kepple Africa Ventures. “One of the reasons I wanted to live in Nigeria instead of Kenya was because of the music,” she said. Five of the top songs and artists she streamed on Spotify in 2023 were related to Afrobeats. “I think 98% [of the music] I’m listening to [is] Afrobeats. [The] other 2% is K-pop or Japanese songs … But because I only listen to Afrobeats/Amapiano, Spotify doesn’t recommend other types of music,” Narita wrote over text.

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S59
Space and Submarine Explorers Are Right to Take Risks    

What lessons does the loss of the Titan submersible have for preventing spaceflight disasters?As we await the final investigation results from the loss of the Titan submersible, which killed five people last summer at a depth of over 12,000 feet in the Atlantic, the tragedy has drawn questions far above the ocean depths, asking whether similar hazards face the burgeoning private exploration of space.

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S60
Preventing Child Abuse Should Not Be Controversial. My Own Hate Mail Reveals That It Is    

A deep dive into one scholar’s correspondence shows society prefers blame and punishment over protecting children from sexual violenceIn my senior year of college, I began my first job as a social worker, counseling victims of sexual assault. I began every morning determined to help my clients, who had experienced major trauma. But in sessions, I felt powerless, like there was never enough I could do for them. And by the time I left each evening, all I could feel was rage for my clients who had been sexually abused—especially when they were children. I wondered why their abuse hadn’t been prevented; why we weren’t stopping it before it began.

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S61
A Scandal Is Tearing the World of Record-Breaking Dogs Apart    

When Bobi, the world’s oldest dog, died in October 2023, the outpouring of grief online was immediate. But it wasn’t long before that sadness turned to suspicion, as experts raised doubts about whether the Portuguese dog really did make it to 31 years and 163 days. In December, a (totally serious) WIRED investigation revealed that a government agency that was supposed to have verified Bobi’s age didn’t actually have evidence he was born in 1992.Now the doubts surrounding Bobi’s longevity are spiraling into an even bigger scandal that is rocking the world of record-breaking dogs. Guinness World Records, which verifies the longest-lived dogs in the world, says that it has temporarily paused the records for the oldest living dog and oldest dog ever while it reviews the evidence behind Bobi’s record. For now, the throne of the world’s oldest dog remains empty.

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How to Launch a Custom Chatbot on OpenAI's GPT Store    

Get ready to share your custom chatbot with the whole world. Well, at least with other ChatGPT Plus subscribers.OpenAI recently launched its GPT Store, after it delayed the project following the chaos of CEO Sam Altman's firing and reinstatement late in 2023.

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S63
7 ways the Earth has changed from ancient to modern times    

2.) Plate tectonics. Early Earth was lava-rich, possessing poorly-differentiated internal layers.With severe energy gradients, a mobile lithosphere, and liquid water, plate tectonics are undeniable today.

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S64
Comedian Jay Pharoah on fear, forgiveness, and not fitting in    

When Jay Pharoah started doing impressions at age 6, he viewed the hobby as a way to escape a difficult childhood. As he honed his skills, his talent turned into a tool to impress his peers – and ultimately, a springboard for a successful career in comedy. “I would say it was a comfort blanket when I was 16,” he tells us when we sit down for a chat with Big Think. “Because I wasn’t popular in school. And then all of a sudden, somebody told somebody that I did impressions. And then people would come and ask me to do it. So it was a way for me to make people like me because obviously the person that I was… I was just quiet. They didn’t like that, you know?”

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S65
Want to build trust in your    

One day Steve Jobs was asked to describe what he found most important in the development of a product. His response is worth reading in full: “You know, one of the things that really hurt Apple was that after I left, John Scully got a very serious disease. And that disease, I’ve seen other people get it too: it’s the disease of thinking that a really great idea is 90% of the work.

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S66
Fertility problems linked to increased risk of autism    

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized primarily by problems with communication and social interactions. According to recent figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the disorder affects an estimated one in 36 children. The incidence of autism was believed to have increased dramatically since the 1990s, but this apparent increase is more likely due to greater awareness of the condition and changes in how it is diagnosed. Despite any increased awareness, the exact causes of autism remain unclear. However, growing evidence suggests that specific environmental and genetic factors play a role. A large population-based study recently published in the open-access journal JAMA Network Open shows that children born to parents with fertility problems have a slightly higher risk of autism.

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S67
Are electric vehicles actually cheaper to own? Maybe not.    

Electric vehicles (EVs) have undeniably entered the mainstream in the United States. According to estimates from Kelley Blue Book, more EVs were sold last year than were sold between 2011 and 2018. The roughly 1.2 million new EVs put into service in 2023 represented 7.6% of the total U.S. car market. Cox Automotive’s Economics and Industry Insights team boldly predicted that this share will climb to 10% in 2024.EVs’ impressive growth has played out even though they remain significantly more expensive to purchase than gasoline-powered cars, with only a handful of options priced below $40,000. EV proponents counter this drawback by claiming that EVs are actually cheaper to own over the long term, with lower fuel and maintenance costs making up for the higher sticker price. Studies examining cars’ total cost of ownership back their assertions.

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S68
Einstein's 7 rules for a better life    

When it comes to living your best life, Albert Einstein — notorious as the greatest physicist and genius of his time, and possibly of all-time — probably isn’t the first name you think of in terms of life advice. You most likely know of Einstein as a pioneer in revolutionizing how we perceive the Universe, having given us advances such as:But Einstein was more than just a famous physicist: he was a pacifist, a political activist, an active anti-racist, and one of the most iconic and celebrated figures in all of history.

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S69
Report: Black market keeps Nvidia chips flowing to China military, government    

A Reuters review of publicly available tender documents showed that last year dozens of entities—including "Chinese military bodies, state-run artificial intelligence research institutes, and universities"—managed to buy "small batches" of restricted Nvidia chips.

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S70
Meta verification proved useless--and my family is still locked out of Instagram    

The trouble began three days before Christmas. When my sister-in-law Amy tried to log in to her Instagram account shortly before midnight, she was notified that an unauthorized user had tried to access her account. Instagram suggested that she change her password. Wanting to protect the security on her account—an important tool for her successful photography business—Amy did so.

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