   
CEO Picks - The best that international journalism has to offer!
 S16S40The Problems With Carbon Offsets Are Even Bigger Than You Might Think   When you go to buy something off Etsy, you’re assured that “Etsy offsets carbon emissions from every delivery.” Shopify offers a program like this too. You might run into the same thing buying an airplane ticket, by being given the opportunity to purchase carbon offsets to cancel out the emissions from your flight. Southwest even lets you earn extra miles when you do this.It’s great to see companies—and by extension the public—caring more about the environmental consequences of the economy. But unfortunately, whether you’re a consumer or a corporation, buying carbon offsets is far from a foolproof way to ensure the long-term well-being of the planet. The fact is, most of the offsets offered for sale don’t deliver on their promises. That’s because much of the system, like a house in The Three Little Pigs, is built out of sticks. Literally.
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S1Frikadeller: The classic Danish comfort food dish  At this time of year in Scandinavia, as nights grow colder and darker and people gather around fires and cosy tables, the meatball really shines. A classic comfort food beloved by all three Scandinavian nations – Denmark, Sweden and Norway – meatballs are simultaneously an easy weeknight meal for busy families and the kind of dish you'd see on the menu for a large gathering or celebration.
The origin of the meatball is more than a little unclear. According to food historian Nina Bauer, like the pancake, the meatball was invented simultaneously in many countries worldwide, so no one country can lay claim to it. It remains, however, a classic food across Scandinavia, though not without its differences.
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S44The Restorative Power of Small Habits  Over the last few years, there’s been a renewed focus on burnout, a serious physical and psychological condition that requires attention and care. But a narrow focus on burnout ignores another key part of wellbeing — the more subtle but equally important ongoing maintenance of one’s energy, especially through the daily challenges of leadership. The authors identify five key energy batteries: physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, and social. Once you identify which batteries are depleting and why, you can implement mini-habits to help you recharge.
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S39The Next Global War - Foreign Affairs (No paywall)  The post-Cold War era began, in the early 1990s, with soaring visions of global peace. It is ending, three decades later, with surging risks of global war. Today, Europe is experiencing its most devastating military conflict in generations. A brutal fight between Israel and Hamas is sowing violence and instability across the Middle East. East Asia, fortunately, is not at war. But it isn’t exactly peaceful, either, as China coerces its neighbors and amasses military power at a historic rate. If many Americans don’t realize how close the world is to being ravaged by fierce, interlocking conflicts, perhaps that’s because they’ve forgotten how the last global war came about.When Americans think of global war, they typically think of World War II—or the part of the war that began with Japan’s strike on Pearl Harbor in December 1941. After that attack, and Adolf Hitler’s subsequent declaration of war against the United States, the conflict was a single, all-encompassing struggle between rival alliances on a global battlefield. But World War II began as a trio of loosely connected contests for primacy in key regions stretching from Europe to the Asia-Pacific—contests that eventually climaxed and coalesced in globally consuming ways. The history of this period reveals the darker aspects of strategic interdependence in a war-torn world. It also illustrates uncomfortable parallels to the situation Washington currently confronts.
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S45A leading data scientist's journey from doomism to climate hope  In a global survey of young people's feelings about climate change, half recently told researchers that they believe "humanity is doomed". In other words, they don't believe that the needs of the current generation can be met without undermining the next. They worry that life as we know it is not sustainable.Data scientist Hannah Ritchie once believed likewise. As a teenager, she feared that humanity's ravaging of the planet – via everything from climate change to deforestation and overfishing – presented a series of unsolvable problems. Her undergraduate degree, begun at Edinburgh University aged just 16, only seemed to confirm these concerns. "I used to be convinced I didn't have a future left to live for," the now 30-year-old writes in her first book, Not the End of the World.
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S55Second Private U.S. Moon Lander Readies for Launch  Intuitive Machines’ IM-1 is aiming to be the first commercial mission to softly land on another celestial body—and the first to deliver NASA equipment to the moonIn the ancient Greek epic the Odyssey, Ithacan king Odysseus doggedly sails through treacherous waters to get back home. As soon as this Valentine’s Day, a spacecraft of the same name will attempt a dangerous journey of its own: the first U.S. soft landing on the moon since 1972.
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S34Renewable Power Set to Surpass Coal Globally by 2025 - Scientific American (No paywall)  The IEA’s Electricity 2024 report forecasts that renewable energy is set to overtake the world’s use of coal by early 2025 and will account for more than one-third of the world's total electricity generation. At the same time, nuclear power generation is forecast to reach record highs by 2025, rebounding from recent declines.By 2026, the report projects, renewables and nuclear will account for almost half of the world’s power generation. In 2023, by contrast, they were less than 40 percent. The outlook is key because the United Nations has said a move to clean energy will be key to limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius — or as close to that as possible — compared with the preindustrial era.
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S12How to write a love song - three tips for beginners from a songwriting expert  If you’re trying to write a love song for the first time, you might not know where to begin, or cringe at the thought of being schmaltzy. But love songs don’t necessarily have to be romantic. In the 2011 song Suck it And See, Arctic Monkeys frontman Alex Turner proposed that the ultimate compliment to bestow upon a loved one is to say they’re “rarer than a can of dandelion and burdock”. An even stranger example comes courtesy of Underneath This Lamppost Light (2008) by The King Blues where the singer expresses undying love and devotion through the line: “I’ll kiss you after you’ve thrown up in the gutter / I’d do anything for you”.
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S13Your unique smell can provide clues about how healthy you are  Hundreds of chemicals stream from our bodies into the air every second. These chemicals release into the air easily as they have high vapour pressures, meaning they boil and turn into gases at room temperature. They give clues about who we are, and how healthy we are. Since ancient Greek times, we’ve known that we smell differently when we are unwell. While we rely on blood analysis today, ancient Greek physicians used smell to diagnose maladies. If they took a whiff of your breath and described it as fetor hepaticus (meaning bad liver), it meant you could be headed for liver failure.
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S15Ukraine war: why propaganda doesn't work as well in Belarus as it does in Russia  Though Russia has accidentally bombed one of its own villages, implemented a harsh conscription policy, and already faced 315,000 casualties, Russian support for the “special military operation” in Ukraine has not wavered much. Throughout the conflict, levels of support have averaged about 75%.In contrast, Belarusian people are far more wary of being drawn into the conflict. Based on a survey conducted by the thinktank Chatham House in August 2022, only 25% supported Russia’s actions (if it meant not getting directly involved), while a whopping 97% opposed the deployment of Belarusian troops.
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S10Zone of Interest's striking depiction of Nazi banality - and other things you should see this week  Rudolf and Hedwig Höss are a couple who “strive to build a dream life for their family”, as Zone of Interest’s official synopsis goes. In the film, we watch the mundane patterns of their lives: the children being sent off to school, the family sitting down to meals, Hedwig tending her garden and Rudolf fishing. However, Rudolf Höss is not any man, he is the commandant of Auschwitz and these scenes of domesticity take place in a house bordering the camp.You never see any physical violence in Zone of Interest but it is always there pushing in on the periphery of frames, its sounds humming deeply under everything.
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S2311 Years Ago, Microsoft Reinvented Laptops With a Kickstand. But Now What?  At the time, in 2013, Microsoft’s foray into PC hardware seemed to confirm everyone’s skepticism of the company. While attractive, the original Surface RT and the limited version of Windows 8 that ran on it were deeply compromised.Microsoft came to tablets early, but never had a home-grown device (other than the Xbox) that could act as a counter to the growing dominance of the iPhone or iPad. Sure, there was Windows Phone, but its ecosystem always paled in comparison to iOS and Android, and that wasn’t changing anytime soon.
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S25'Overwatch 2' Healing Update Erodes A Key Part of the Game's Design  Stop me if you’ve heard this one: Blizzard Entertainment is making massive changes to Overwatch 2 that lessen the importance of healers, and Support players aren’t happy. This time, the revision comes in the game’s Season 9 update, which introduces some of the biggest changes to damage and health in Overwatch history.Starting with Season 9, most projectiles are growing slightly in size, meaning it will be easier to hit enemies. To balance that out, every Hero is getting a slightly larger health pool, which means that while weapons will feel more accurate, it won’t actually be quicker to take down targets. That’s all well and good, but Season 9 also gives every character in the game an automatic self-heal — which was announced in January — and they receive less healing from teammates while they’re being attacked.
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S46Why age matters when it comes to cancer  King Charles' cancer diagnosis may have sent shockwaves around the world over the past few days, not least because of Buckingham Palace's unusually candid disclosure. But many experts have taken the opportunity to raise awareness of the increased cancer risk that older people face.The steady march of time has long been known to be one of the greatest risk factors for developing cancer. According to the US National Cancer Institute, the average age of cancer onset is 66, while more than half of all new UK cancer cases are in those aged 70 and older.
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S48S61S65The most important idea in Zen Buddhism for today's world  Ask people what it means to be enlightened and you’ll get a wide variety of answers. But according to Zen master Robert Waldinger, permanent enlightenment rarely — if ever — exists. In fact, we should be suspicious of those who claim to be “fully enlightened” beings. Although some people claim to have acquired total enlightenment after experiencing some fantastic spiritual event, Waldinger believes this perspective of “acquisition” can be dangerous. Instead of viewing enlightenment as something you acquire, he believes it should be something you practice in each moment, like an activity or a habit.
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S53What Taylor Swift Conspiracies Reveal, According to Science  Taylor Swift performs during opening night of the Chicago Eras Tour at Soldier Field on June 2, 2023, in Chicago.America has always been a suspicious society, famed for its persecution of imaginary subversives, from witches to commies hiding under the bed. But that terrible history almost seems quaint today when disinformation experts agree we now live in the Golden Age of Conspiracy Theories. This movement has even swept up pop idol Taylor Swift and the 2024 election, as you may have heard, into only the latest reductio ad absurdum of the era.
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S6Love may be timeless, but the way we talk about it isn't - the ancient Greeks' ideas about desire challenge modern-day readers, lovers and even philosophers  Every year as Valentine’s Day approaches, people remind themselves that not all expressions of love fit the stereotypes of modern romance. V-Day cynics might plan a “Galentines” night for female friends or toast their platonic “Palentines” instead.In other words, the holiday shines a cold light on the limits of our romantic imaginations, which hew to a familiar script. Two people are supposed to meet, the arrows of Cupid strike them unwittingly, and they have no choice but to fall in love. They face obstacles, they overcome them, and then they run into each other’s arms. Love is a delightful sport, and neither reason nor the gods have anything to do with it.
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S36S58Jeanine Poggi, Editor in Chief at Ad Age  In this episode, Wharton experts speak with Jeanine Poggi, editor in chief at Ad Age, about Super Bowl LVIII trends.Wharton’s Barbara Kahn and Dr. Americus Reed speak with Jeanine Poggi, editor in chief at Ad Age, about Super Bowl ad trends, what goes into their ad ratings, the changes in Super Bowl commercial categories, the impact of Taylor Swift, branding around the Super Bowl, and more.
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S69London Underground is testing real-time AI surveillance tools to spot crime  Thousands of people using the London Underground had their movements, behavior, and body language watched by AI surveillance software designed to see if they were committing crimes or were in unsafe situations, new documents obtained by WIRED reveal. The machine-learning software was combined with live CCTV footage to try to detect aggressive behavior and guns or knives being brandished, as well as looking for people falling onto Tube tracks or dodging fares.
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S5S2Fondue Chinoise: Switzerland's Asian-inspired hot pot  While Italian-Americans may celebrate the holiday season with the feast of the seven fishes and Swedes and Norwegians spread the festive table with seafood to make their julbord (Christmas Smorgasbord), the Swiss gather around a fondue pot in an activity of unity and friendship. However, it's not the cheese fondue you might expect – instead, they celebrate the end of the year by preparing fondue Chinoise (Chinese fondue), an Asian-inspired hot pot made with a fragrant, salty broth in lieu of cheese, and tender, melt-in-your-mouth ribeye steak for dipping, instead of bread. Dating to the 17th Century, the history of cheese fondue, unlike fondue Chinoise, has been well-documented. It originated in western Switzerland, where farmers made hard cheese from a surplus of milk during the winter and it was ultimately eaten in the most delicious way possible: melted in a pot.
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S7Lack of access to health care is partly to blame for skyrocketing HIV rates among gay Black men  Over the past 20 years, people living with HIV in the United States have seen a drastic improvement in their overall quality of life. But the medical achievements that have made those lives better and created longer life expectancies have not benefited all communities. In fact, some communities still have higher rates of new cases of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. This is especially true for Black gay and bisexual men. Black queer men are six times more likely to die as a result of HIV-related complications when compared with queer men of different races.
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S8Love songs in Hindu devotion - the Tamil poets who took on the female voice to express their intense longing for the divine  Valentine’s Day often revives attention on romantic themes in literature. Stories are cited in media with the aim of helping people navigate the demands of the human heart on a day that has become intimately associated with romantic love. One literary tradition rarely highlighted is that of Hindu “bhakti” or ecstatic devotion, which birthed some of the most stirring mystical poetry composed in the world. The earliest bhakti poems were composed in Tamil, a classical Indian language, in praise of the two great gods of Hinduism — Shiva and Vishnu.
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S20Tucker Carlson's Putin interview gave Russian leader a platform to boost his own cause - and that of Donald Trump  Former prime time Fox News host Tucker Carlson – long known as a public cheerleader for Donald Trump – has conducted a wide-ranging two-hour interview with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin. Carlson, who has consistently argued Russia’s case for its invasion of Ukraine, posted his interview on both his own site and on Elon Musk’s X (formerly Twitter). There – according to Kremlin mouthpiece Pravda – it chalked up more than 90 million views within hours of being posted.As the pair faced each other in a large, virtually empty Kremlin office, Putin immediately put Carlson on the defensive, demanding: “Are we having a talk show or serious conversation?” He then gave his interlocutor a 25-minute history lesson – a mix of mythical and actual history going back over a millennium – to show both how Ukrainians and Russians were not really separate peoples.
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S2620 Years Ago, This Mind-Blowing Short Metroid Game Innovated on New Puzzles and Enemies  The Game Boy Advance had a truly incredible catalog of Nintendo platformers: Wario Land 4, Kirby & The Amazing Mirror, and Metroid: Zero Mission, to name a few. And seeing how both Kirby & The Amazing Mirror and the system’s previous Metroid offering Fusion, are both in the Nintendo Switch’s GBA collection, it doesn’t seem too far-fetched to imagine one day playing Zero Mission on a modern console. It’s a truly fantastic game: As a remake of the first Metroid, it captured the moody atmosphere and sci-fi action of the original while expanding on it in a variety of fun ways. It also proved that a game’s quality should never be defined solely by its length, meaning it’s a valuable example for an argument that’s become especially prominent in the past few years.When Metroid: Zero Mission came out, the first Metroid was almost twenty years old itself. Having appeared on the original Nintendo (and the Famicom Disk System before that), many players who would latch onto the Game Boy Advance had likely never played it. It didn’t help that the series existed under the shadow of Super Metroid, the Super Nintendo sequel that defines the side-scrolling adventures of Samus Aran to this day. It was vibrant, exciting and even a little bit spooky, which is a recipe that turned it into one of the most widely praised video games of all time. So a remake of the original game would have to live up to both Metroid and the standard set by its game-changing successor.
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S38Middle-age spread isn't down to metabolism, but we know how to beat it - New Scientist (No paywall)  The last of these is known as middle-aged spread, the commonly accepted idea that we start to pack on the pounds around the abdomen as we get older. This excess weight is said to be easy to put on and harder to shift than when we were younger, the thinking being that our once-perky metabolism gets sluggish with age. We can no longer get away with as much, and our efforts to ditch the belly with diet or exercise become a losing battle.So far, so miserable. But then, last July, a study of over 6000 people around the world blew the idea out of the water. It showed that metabolism stays remarkably stable as we age, at least until our 60s. “The amount of calories you burn per day from age 20 to 60 remains about the same,” says Herman Pontzer at Duke University in North Carolina. “We’ve shown that you have much less control over metabolism than we thought.” The idea that your metabolism is just as active as you approach your 60s as it was in your 20s should be welcome news for anyone nearing middle age – usually defined as the period from 45 to 65 years of age – and facing the dreaded spread. But it leaves a burning question: if metabolism isn’t to blame, then what is? And what can be done?
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S47How to Turn a Coworker into a Friend  Many people, especially those early in their careers struggle with how to develop friendships with the coworkers they like as they navigate a new and unfamiliar environment. What’s even more difficult is forming real friendships, those that last years after you’ve left the company. If you’re struggling to develop genuine friendships at work, here are a few things you can do to improve your situation.
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S59Andrew Sneyd, EVP of Marketing at Fanduel Wharton’s Barbara Kahn and Dr. Americus Reed speak with Andrew Sneyd, EVP of marketing at Fanduel, about the history of Fanduel, sports gambling, fantasy sports, marketing during the Super Bowl, and more.©2024 Knowledge at Wharton. All rights reserved. Knowledge at Wharton is an affiliate of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
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S62Ask Ethan: How does Hawking radiation really work?  For many good reasons, black holes are among the most studied objects in the entire Universe. Initially predicted back in the late 18th century in the context of Newtonian gravity, black holes were shown to arise in the context of general relativity as early as 1916. Astrophysically, they can be formed when gas clouds collapse, when the cores of stars implode, or when two neutron stars collide, among other mechanisms. They have been observed via numerous methods: from electromagnetic emissions that arise from matter around them, from the motion of stars or binary companions around them, and from the gravitational waves they emit when two of them merge together.But perhaps, most remarkably of all, it was shown in the early 1970s that black holes cannot endure forever, but will eventually evaporate due to the continuous spontaneous emission of radiation that emerges from them: Hawking radiation. But how does Hawking radiation truly work? Not as Hawking asserted, unfortunately, which brings us to the question submitted by Leif Koesling:
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S24S35What is the Lunar New Year? - History (No paywall)  Celebrated around the world, it usually prompts the planet’s largest annual migration of people. And though it is known to some in the West as Chinese New Year, it isn’t just celebrated in China. Lunar New Year falls this year on February 10, 2024, kicking off the Year of the Dragon. It is traditionally a time for family reunions, plenty of food, and some very loud celebrations.Modern China actually uses a Gregorian calendar like most of the rest of the world. Its holidays, however, are governed by its traditional lunisolar calendar, which may have been in use from as early as the 21st century B.C. When the newly founded Republic of China officially adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1912, its leaders rebranded the observation of the Lunar New Year as Spring Festival, as it is known in China today.
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S37Why Emotionally Intelligent People Embrace the 25-5 Rule - Inc.com (No paywall)  "It's all about focus. You're not going to accomplish 25 things in your life. If you really focus long-term you can do three to five big ones, maybe. And the impediment to your not having focus is numbers 6 through 25, because those are the things you're interested in. Those are your biggest potential distractions."The key is not the numbers (25 and 5)--it's the principle behind those numbers. Namely, that it's easy to come up with things you really want to do, but it's even easier to get distracted from actually making progress on those five things, because you get caught up in the excitement, the joy, the short-term gains of things that simply aren't as important.
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S19AI: a way to freely share technology and stop it being misused already exists  There are lots of proposed ways to try to place limits on artificial intelligence (AI), because of its potential to cause harm in society, as well as its benefits.For example, the EU’s AI Act places greater restrictions on systems based on whether they fall into the category of general purpose and generative AI or are considered to pose limited risk, high risk or an unacceptable risk.
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S28Can a wearable really make you less stressed, more energized, and better focused?  The ability to hack your mood on demand might seem like the premise of a new sci-fi show, but thanks to a team led by neuroscientists and physicians, that technology is already here — and it’s backed up by research. The Apollo wearable uses waves of vibrations in varying strengths and speeds to communicate with your nervous system, which puts you back in the driver’s seat when it comes to managing stress, boosting energy, or achieving deeper sleep. I’ve had The Apollo for about a year now, and it’s become one of my go-to tools for low-maintenance well-being. Using different vibration patterns, the Apollo was created by neuroscientists and physicians to help manage stress, promote deeper sleep, improve focus, and more. It might even strengthen your nervous system.
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