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CEO Picks - The best that international journalism has to offer!  S17Jupiter's Supervolcanic Moon Io Dazzles in Photos from NASA's Close Flybys   During close flybys of Jupiter’s volcanic moon Io, NASA’s Juno spacecraft captured stunning “bonus science” about the nightmarish worldNASA’s Juno spacecraft successfully made the second of two close flybys of Io, the most volcanic moon in the solar system, on February 3, giving scientists their best look at this satellite of Jupiter in more than two decades.
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S63Manage Your Energy, Not Your Time  As the demands of the workplace keep rising, many people respond by putting in ever longer hours, which inevitably leads to burnout that costs both the organization and the employee. Meanwhile, people take for granted what fuels their capacity to work—their energy. Increasing that capacity is the best way to get more done faster and better.Time is a finite resource, but energy is different. It has four wellsprings—the body, emotions, mind, and spirit—and in each, it can be systematically expanded and renewed. In this article, Schwartz, founder of the Energy Project, describes how to establish rituals that will build energy in the four key dimensions. For instance, harnessing the body’s ultradian rhythms by taking intermittent breaks restores physical energy. Rejecting the role of a victim and instead viewing events through three hopeful lenses defuses energy-draining negative emotions. Avoiding the constant distractions that technology has introduced increases mental energy. And participating in activities that give you a sense of meaning and purpose boosts the energy of the spirit.
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S5Taupo: The super volcano under New Zealand's largest lake  Located in the centre of New Zealand's North Island, the town of Taupo sits sublimely in the shadow of the snow-capped peaks of Tongariro National Park. Fittingly, this 40,000-person lakeside town has recently become one of New Zealand's most popular tourist destinations, as hikers, trout fishers, water sports enthusiasts and adrenaline junkies have started descending upon it.The namesake of this tidy town is the Singapore-sized lake that kisses its western border. Stretching 623sq km wide and 160m deep with several magma chambers submerged at its base, Lake Taupo isn't only New Zealand's largest lake; it's also an incredibly active geothermal hotspot. Every summer, tourists flock to bathe in its bubbling hot springs and sail through its emerald-green waters. Yet, the lake is the crater of a giant super volcano, and within its depths lies the unsettling history of this picturesque marvel.
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S38What Joni Mitchell Proved at the Grammys  In performing an instant-classic awards-show set, she affirmed her timelessness—and her influence on a new generation of artists.To call a person as legendary as Joni Mitchell underrated might seem silly—but last year, the Rolling Stone co-founder Jann Wenner chose not to include her or any other women in a book about rock-and-roll history called The Masters. Defending his selection of only interviews with white male musicians, Wenner told The New York Times that Mitchell was simply not a “philosopher of rock ‘n’ roll.” This comment was baffling—he later apologized—yet also clarifying, revealing the biases long held by some of music’s most powerful gatekeepers.
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S45Hurricanes Are Too Fast for Category 5  Climate change could double the risk of hurricanes with wind speeds greater than 192 miles an hour in the Gulf of Mexico. At 149 miles an hour, the world’s fastest roller coaster, Formula Rossa in Abu Dhabi, is so quick that riders must don goggles to protect their eyes from the wind. But even the formidable Formula Rossa is no match for the 157-mile-an-hour-plus winds of a Category 5 hurricane, which can collapse a home’s walls and cave in its roof. And yet, according to a new paper, Category 5 may itself be no match for several recent hurricanes.
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S39Meet Me in the Eternal City  The international airport serving the capital of Montenegro has only two arrival gates, and last spring they were busier than usual. I was there for the same reason many others were: The tiny Balkan state had become the unlikely center of a mostly American social and political movement.Specifically, I had come to observe Zuzalu, a two-month co-living experiment that had been organized—and to some extent paid for—by Vitalik Buterin, a co-founder of the eco-friendly cryptocurrency ethereum. It was being hosted at a new resort and planned community on the Adriatic coast, not far from the village of Radovići. Part retreat and part conference, it was also a dry run for the more permanent relocation of tech-industry digital nomads to different parts of the world, where they could start their own societies and design them to their liking. Some 200 people had signed up for the full two months. Others, like me, popped in and out. The slate of talks for the days I was there was titled “New Cities and Network States.” European tourists smoked cigars on the promenade while Zuzalu attendees bounded around making plans for excursions and exercise and shuttles to a private Grimes show later on.
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S62The Trial Over Bitcoin's True Creator Is in Session  In contrast to some recent crypto lawsuits, like the fraud trial of Sam Bankman-Fried, founder of bankrupt crypto exchange FTX, which became something of a piece of public theater, the COPA v. Wright case has attracted little attention. A small band of photographers gathered outside the courthouse Monday; inside, a few reporters and crypto watchers jostled for the limited available seating. But the case has the potential to be highly consequential.The respective opening arguments offered an early indication of both COPA's strategy for dismantling Wright's claimsâin short, to discredit through forensic analysis the raft of documentary evidence Wright has put forthâand Wright's intended approach to countering the accusations of forgery.
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S6Message sticks: Australia's ancient unwritten language  The continent of Australia is home to more than 250 spoken Indigenous languages and 800 dialects. Yet, one of its linguistic cornerstones wasn't spoken, but carved.Known as message sticks, these flat, rounded and oblong pieces of wood were etched with ornate images on both sides that conveyed important messages and held the stories of the continent's Aboriginal people – considered the world's oldest continuous living culture. Message sticks are believed to be thousands of years old and were typically carried by messengers over long distances to reinforce oral histories or deliver news between Aboriginal nations or language groups.
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S7Did Australia's boomerangs pave the way for flight?  The aircraft is one of the most significant developments of modern society, enabling people, goods and ideas to fly around the world far more efficiently than ever before. The first successful piloted flight took off in 1903 in North Carolina, but a 10,000-year-old hunting tool likely developed by Aboriginal Australians may have held the key to its lift-off. As early aviators discovered, the secret to flight is balancing the flow of air. Therefore, an aircraft's wings, tail or propeller blades are often shaped in a specially designed, curved manner called an aerofoil that lifts the plane up and allows it to drag or turn to the side as it moves through the air.
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S18New NASA Earth Science Mission Could Change the Way We See Our Planet  NASA’s PACE mission aims to increase our understanding of Earth’s carbon cycle, pollution particles and ocean planktonCLIMATEWIRE | With good weather and little luck, NASA’s newest Earth-observing satellite will launch early Tuesday morning from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The flight will conclude nearly a decade of mission development — and its payload could help usher in a new era of Earth science.
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S25Want to write a book? Oliver Sacks and Susan Barry began theirs as letters  In December 2004, I sent my first letter to Oliver Sacks describing a remarkable change in my vision. He was intrigued and wrote back right away. Thus, we began a ten-year correspondence involving over 150 letters; the last were exchanged three weeks before Oliver died. “Most of my books have started out as letters to colleagues or friends […] and I think of the book as a ‘letter’ to everybody,” Oliver once wrote to me, and I found myself using my letters to Oliver in just this way. As I wrote, I worked out problems and fleshed out ideas, many of which ended up in my first book, Fixing My Gaze.
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S34S58Universities are failing to boost economic growth  Universities have boomed in recent decades. Higher-education institutions across the world now employ on the order of 15m researchers, up from 4m in 1980. These workers produce five times the number of papers each year. Governments have ramped up spending on the sector. The justification for this rapid expansion has, in part, followed sound economic principles. Universities are supposed to produce intellectual and scientific breakthroughs that can be employed by businesses, the government and regular folk. Such ideas are placed in the public domain, available to all. In theory, therefore, universities should be an excellent source of productivity growth.
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S2Why Are Companies Sitting on Cash Right Now?  Many companies sit on piles of cash, even when rates of return suggest they shouldn’t. Why? Researchers have pointed to multiple reasons, including flexibility for M&A and tax advantages. But new research suggests it’s also a form of insurance, especially for smaller firms. Their likelihood of experiencing an adverse event (measured by the chance of being delisted) is significantly higher when they hold less cash.
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S61How to Talk to Your Team About a Decision You Disagree With  When you’re part of a company’s management structure, there will be moments when you’ll have to represent a decision your bosses made that you don’t agree with to your team. Carrying the proverbial flag on behalf of the powers-that-be won’t feel good, but that’s part of the job. Barring a decision or action that is immoral, illegal, or unethical, standing behind decisions that don’t go your way is one of the most challenging things you’ll have to do as a leader. Doing so effectively requires thoughtful preparation. Here are six strategies to use when you have to convey a decision you don’t agree with.I recently got a call from “Taylor,” an executive I’d coached as part of a high-potential program at his company, asking to talk. He was irate. A project he’d spearheaded for the last two years was having its funding cut due to market headwinds. His bosses reassured him that it had nothing to do with the project’s progress or his leadership; it was simply “a hard call that had to be made.”
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S12Does Taking a Vacation Trigger Your Imposter Syndrome?  Experiencing imposter syndrome upon returning to work after a vacation is not uncommon. You know the feeling: that sense of dread that — after taking some time for rest and recovery — your skills will be rusty, your to-do list will never end, and you’ll finally be exposed as a fraud who doesn’t belong in your role. Here a few ways to overcome the negative voice in your head and get back on track:
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S21Wild, intricate sculptures -- made out of my hair  Artist Laetitia Ky has a unique medium: using the hair on her head (and some wire), she creates incredible sculptures of objects, animals, people and more, promoting messages of bodily autonomy and self-acceptance. She shares how she came to create these surprisingly intricate forms and offers a joyful message of creative perseverance.
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S23S26Why are America's oldest and youngest states 13 years apart?  Maine has the highest median age of any state in the country: 45 years. That’s two years more than retiree magnet Florida and fully 13 years more than Utah, the state with the lowest median age (32 years).Why the big gap? Economics and religion. In Maine, jobs are fewer and wages are lower, so young people tend to leave in search of opportunities elsewhere. Mormonism is Utah’s dominant religious tradition, which prizes community — and large families. That makes Utah an outlier within the U.S., but very close to the global median age of 31 years.
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S32S46The Weirdest Presidential Election in History  This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.We are heading into a rematch that promises to be weirder than any presidential election we’ve ever experienced. Let’s review where things stand.
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S49Should Egypt Renovate This Ancient Pyramid? /https://tf-cmsv2-smithsonianmag-media.s3.amazonaws.com/filer_public/38/d1/38d1c618-b786-44ef-a659-071faf019065/gettyimages-1971273332.jpg) Officials have announced plans to rebuild the granite blocks they say once covered the Pyramid of MenkaureArchaeologists in Egypt have started work on a sprawling restoration of one of Giza’s pyramids. But their plan, which involves rebuilding the granite that once encased parts of the structure, has provoked outrage, with some comparing the project to “straightening the Tower of Pisa.”
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S68Madagascar: giant tortoises have returned 600 years after they were wiped out  A six-year-old project to return giant tortoises to the wild in Madagascar could result in thousands of the 350kg megaherbivores re-populating the island for the first time in 600 years.The first group of Aldabra giant tortoises (Aldabrachelys gigantea) were brought in from the Seychelles in 2018, and have been reproducing on their own since. Ecologist Grant Joseph explains how reintroducing this tortoise to areas degraded by cattle grazing will help restore the island’s forests, grassy woodlands and shrublands of the past. It could also help prevent devastating forest fires in future.
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S53What Your Brain Is Doing When You're Not Doing Anything | Quanta Magazine  Whenever you're actively performing a task â say, lifting weights at the gym or taking a hard exam â the parts of your brain required to carry it out become "active" when neurons step up their electrical activity. But is your brain active even when you're zoning out on the couch?The answer, researchers have found, is yes. Over the past two decades they've defined what's known as the default mode network, a collection of seemingly unrelated areas of the brain that activate when you're not doing much at all. Its discovery has offered insights into how the brain functions outside of well-defined tasks and has also prompted research into the role of brain networks â not just brain regions â in managing our internal experience.
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S11How to Show You're a "Good Fit" During an Interview  During the interview process, many organizations will be analyzing whether you’re a good match for their teams and the company at large. How do you prepare to show you’re a good fit for the organization? Learn about their values: These can usually be found on a company’s website — often in their mission statement or on their careers page. If you run into a dead end on their website, try LinkedIn. It’s a great way to learn more about the initiatives your potential employer identifies with and supports. Knowing this, you can prepare to answer questions by sharing examples, explanations, and stories that demonstrate the organizational values you identified. Learn about their goals and show how you can contribute: Alignment with a common mission or shared vision is a key characteristic of high performing teams and organization. When looking to hire people, managers will naturally be drawn to the candidates who share their vision and goals. Understand how they communicate: Every organization uses a particular internal vocabulary or lingo — the words they use to describe their values, mission, or even themselves and how work gets done. Are there specific words they use? Observe what medium they use to communicate? Do they use a lot of visuals? See if you can include these in your interview responses. Dress appropriately: To prepare to meet with your interviewer, learn about what people are wearing in that industry. Look up profile pictures or media coverage, if available, of some of the leaders or employees of the company, specifically the department you’ve applied to. Or simply, ask the recruiter you’re working with or reach out to someone in the company via LinkedIn to understand what the most suitable dress code would be for an interview.
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S13The fastest-growing countries for software development, according to GitHub  For developers around the world, a busy GitHub profile is one of the best ways to land a programming job. The platform is one of the largest hubs for software development globally, split between public repositories (or repos) used for open-source collaboration and closed repos open only to project participants.But while GitHub has long been used to assess individual programmers, the platform’s data also shows the developer contributions of every country on Earth, painting an interesting picture of which nations are rising the fastest. GitHub releases the data quarterly as part of a project it calls the Innovation Graph, with the most recent batch of data released on January 18.
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S42Flu Shots Need to Stop Fighting 'Something That Doesn't Exist'  One type of flu virus has gone missing for so long, it doesn’t make sense to vaccinate against it.In Arnold Monto’s ideal vision of this fall, the United States’ flu vaccines would be slated for some serious change—booting a major ingredient that they’ve consistently included since 2013. The component isn’t dangerous. And it made sense to use before. But to include it again now, Monto, an epidemiologist and a flu expert at the University of Michigan, told me, would mean vaccinating people “against something that doesn’t exist.”
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S43Deadly Wildfires Rage Through Central Chile  Parts of central Chile have recently experienced unusually high temperatures and dry weather, sparking dozens of forest fires that have killed more than 100 people. Over the weekend, wildfires burned through several hillside neighborhoods in the city of Viña del Mar, destroying hundreds of homes. A state of emergency was declared by Chilean President Gabriel Boric, who also declared two days of national mourning, as firefighters work to contain the blazes and survivors return to their homes to recover what they can. An aerial view of fire burning through a neighborhood in the hills of the city of Viña del Mar in the Las Pataguas sector, Chile, taken on February 3, 2024 #
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S47Innovative three-year-olds expose the limits of AI chatbots | Psyche Ideas  is a staff writer at Psyche. Her science journalism has appeared in Vice, The New York Times and Wired, among others. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.When OpenAI released ChatGPT in 2022, many people were impressed and even a little scared. ‘We have summoned an alien intelligence,’ the author Yuval Noah Harari wrote, with colleagues, in The New York Times. ‘We don’t know much about it, except that it is extremely powerful and offers us bedazzling gifts but could also hack the foundations of our civilization.’
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S41Plenty of People Could Quit Therapy Right Now  About four years ago, a new patient came to see me for a psychiatric consultation because he felt stuck. He’d been in therapy for 15 years, despite the fact that the depression and anxiety that first drove him to seek help had long ago faded. Instead of working on problems related to his symptoms, he and his therapist chatted about his vacations, house renovations, and office gripes. His therapist had become, in effect, an expensive and especially supportive friend. And yet, when I asked if he was considering quitting treatment, he grew hesitant, even anxious. “It’s just baked into my life,” he told me.Among those who can afford it, regular psychotherapy is often viewed as a lifelong project, like working out or going to the dentist. Studies suggest that most therapy clients can measure their treatments in months instead of years, but a solid chunk of current and former patients expect therapy to last indefinitely. Therapists and clients alike, along with celebrities and media outlets, have endorsed the idea of going to therapy for extended stretches, or when you’re feeling fine. I’ve seen this myself with friends who are basically healthy and think of having a therapist as somewhat like having a physical trainer. The problem is, some of the most commonly sought versions of psychotherapy are simply not designed for long-term use.
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S50Rare Fossil Shows Trees Looked Very Different 350 Million Years Ago /https://tf-cmsv2-smithsonianmag-media.s3.amazonaws.com/filer_public/83/bc/83bc45d1-1ee5-41e6-87a6-a02ed8dfd0f1/ancienttree1.jpg) The newly discovered specimen looks like something from the imagination of Dr. Seuss, and it sheds light on a little-understood era of prehistoryScientists in Canada have discovered a 350-million-year-old tree fossil that could shed light on a little-known era of prehistory. The plant sports an odd, top-heavy shape that has been compared to both a Dr. Seuss doodle and an upside-down toilet brush.
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S8Brazil's mysterious tunnels made by giant sloths  In 2009, a farmer was driving through his corn field in the south of Brazil when he suddenly felt his tractor sink and lurch to one side, making the vehicle shudder to a halt. He jumped out and saw the wheel had sunk deep into the dry soil.Much to the farmer's shock, the tractor had broken through what looked like top of an underground cavity. Hearing about this unusual find, researchers came to investigate and were surprised to find a tunnel nearly 2m high by almost 2m wide and about 15m long running across the field and right under the farmer's house. Deep claw marks embedded into the walls indicated its past occupant was not human.
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S19S20How Digital Payments Systems Can Promote Adoption  A Wharton Future of Finance Forum roundtable underscored the need for digital payments technology to respond to consumer needs and build trust.Digital currencies are reshaping cross-border payment processing, offering advantages such as lower transaction fees and elimination of intermediaries. Despite such advancements, the global landscape regarding the adoption of digital transactions is markedly varied, according to panelists at a roundtable discussion titled “The Future of Digital Payments,” which was hosted by Wharton’s Future of Finance Forum in October 2023.
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S28New E. coli strain will accelerate evolution of the genes of your choice  Genetic mutations are essential for innovation and evolution, yet too many—or the wrong ones—can be fatal. So researchers at Cambridge established a synthetic “orthogonal” DNA replication system in E. coli that they can use as a risk-free way to generate and study such mutations. It is orthogonal because it is completely separate from the system that E. coli uses to copy its actual genome, which contains the genes E. coli needs to survive.
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S29S30S65The next generation of mRNA vaccines is on its way  I can hear the collective groan from here, but wait—hear me out! I know you’ve heard a lot about mRNA vaccines, but Japan recently approved a new one for covid. And this one is pretty exciting. Just like the mRNA vaccines you know and love, it delivers the instructions for making the virus’s spike protein. But here’s what makes it novel: it also tells the body how to make more mRNA. Essentially, it provides instructions for making more instructions. It’s self-amplifying.Self-amplifying RNA vaccines (saRNA) offer a couple of important advantages over conventional mRNA vaccines, at least in theory. Because saRNA vaccines come with a built-in photocopier, the dose can be much lower. One team of researchers tested both an mRNA vaccine and an saRNA vaccine in mice and found that they could achieve equivalent levels of protection against influenza with just 1/64th the dose. Second, it’s possible that saRNA vaccines will induce a more durable immune response because the RNA keeps copying itself and sticks around longer. While mRNA might last a day or two, self-amplifying RNA can persist for a month.
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S9How the codpiece flopped  Some time around 1536, Hans Holbein the Younger was finessing Henry VIII's crotch. With a fine brush in his hand and a palette of watercolour paints beside him, the master artist took pains to give his client's ornately decorated bulge its due prominence.In the resulting sketch – a full-size preparatory drawing for a mural that once covered an entire wall at Whitehall Palace in London – the king is, it's often said, majestic and virile. Henry VIII's feet are planted firmly apart, with both hands resting suggestively below his waist, clutching objects that seem to direct the viewer towards his ludicrously proportioned genitals. According to a contemporary account, the final painting left viewers feeling "abashed and annihilated".
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S33Google and Mozilla don't like Apple's new iOS browser rules  Apple is being forced to make major changes to iOS in Europe, thanks to the European Union's "Digital Markets Act." The act cracks down on Big Tech "gatekeepers" with various interoperability, fairness, and privacy demands, and part of the changes demanded of Apple is to allow competing browser engines on iOS. The change, due in iOS 17.4, will mean rival browsers like Chrome and Firefox get to finally bring their own web rendering code to iPhones and iPads. Despite what sounds like a big improvement to the iOS browser situation, Google and Mozilla aren't happy with Apple's proposed changes.
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