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CEO Picks - The best that international journalism has to offer!  S40Ukraine 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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S16Why Productivity Makes Us So Anxious  Our writers’ most helpful insights on getting things done without stressing about them too much.This is an edition of The Wonder Reader, a newsletter in which our editors recommend a set of stories to spark your curiosity and fill you with delight. Sign up here to get it every Saturday morning.
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S44AI: 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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S25The science and side effects behind the semaglutide weight loss drugs - New Scientist (No paywall)  Drugs such as semaglutide mimic the actions of a hormone called glucagon-like peptide-1, or GLP-1. These so-called GLP-1 analogues have several effects, including slowing stomach emptying, acting on the brain to reduce appetite and boosting the release of insulin, which helps to regulate blood sugar levels.For more than a decade, GLP-1 analogues have been used to help people with type 2 diabetes control their blood sugar and some users experienced modest weight loss. “These drugs augment a system that already exists within the human body, whose role it is to suppress appetite following meal ingestion,” says Simon Cork at Imperial College London.
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S39Modern slavery: how the UK government's 2023 reforms made it harder for victims to prove they are being exploited  As many as 130,000 people in the UK are trapped in modern slavery, according to the recently appointed independent anti-slavery commissioner, Eleanor Lyons. These people are forced to work in a variety of exploitative situations, ranging from cannabis farms to building sites to sex work. Lyons has been raising concerns that the government has cut her budget by almost a fifth, but there have also been serious issues with the system for assessing modern-slavery complaints. Known as the national referral mechanism, it was reformed by the government in January 2023 to try and take some administrative pressure away from the Home Office and speed up decision-making.
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S45Tucker 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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S13Marilynne Robinson Makes the Book of Genesis New  Marilynne Robinson’s novels always leave me with a visceral impression of celestial light. Heavenly bulbs seem to switch on at climactic moments, showing a world as undimmed as it was at Creation. “I love the prairie! So often I have seen the dawn come and the light flood over the land and everything turn radiant at once,” writes John Ames, the narrator of Gilead, an elderly preacher approaching death as if returning to the birth of being. “And God saw the light, that it was good,” the Bible says, and Ames sees that it’s good, too: “that word ‘good’ so profoundly affirmed in my soul that I am amazed I should be allowed to witness such a thing.”A primordial sun also shines upon Jack Boughton, the prodigal son of Robinson’s Gilead quartet (Gilead, Home, Lila, and Jack). In Home, Jack restores the broken-down family car, an old DeSoto, buffing its chrome detailing to its former resplendence. It’s the only time we ever see the shame-riddled Jack truly at ease. He proudly slides the DeSoto out of the barn and “[floats] away, gentling the gleaming dirigible through the shadows of arching elm trees, light dropping on it through their leaves like confetti.” He’s bathed in grace, and when he takes his sister and father for a ride in the countryside, the drab Iowa fields have become an Eden, bright and fertile: “The terraced hills glittered with new corn.”
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S17Trump's Republican Party  “The Senate is no longer this cooling saucer for the hot tea that’s boiling in the House.”The Supreme Court is set to play a pivotal role in the 2024 presidential election, as it weighs former President Donald Trump’s appeal to appear on Colorado’s Republican presidential-primary ballot. Trump is also expected to ask the Supreme Court as early as next week to overturn a federal appeals court’s rejection of his immunity claims.
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S23Fearing Russia, the Baltic states improve their defences - The Economist (No paywall)  FORTS ARE back in fashion. Ukraine’s counter-offensive last year was stymied by the so-called Surovikin line: a sprawling array of Russian minefields, trenches, anti-tank obstacles and old-fashioned barbed wire, among other impediments. As Ukrainian forces slowed down to clear mines, bridge ditches and bulldoze obstacles, they were observed by drones and hit with a hail of anti-tank missiles and suicide drones. So uncharted was this territory that Valery Zaluzhny, then Ukraine’s top general, asked his staff to dig out “Breaching Fortified Defence Lines”, a book by a Soviet major-general. It was published in 1941.
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S26Frikadeller: 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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S32Lack 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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S12What Biden's Critics Get Wrong About His Gaffes  On Sunday, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson went on television and mixed up Iran and Israel. “We passed the support for Iran many months ago,” he told Meet the Press, erroneously referring to an aid package for the Jewish state. Last night, the Fox News prime-time host Jesse Watters introduced South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem as hailing from South Carolina. I once joined a cable-news panel where one of the participants kept confusing then–Attorney General Jeff Sessions with Representative Pete Sessions of Texas. I don’t hold these errors against anyone, as they are some of the most common miscues made by people who talk for a living—and I’m sure my time will come.Yesterday, President Joe Biden added another example to this list. In response to a question about Gaza, he referred to the Egyptian leader Abdel Fattah al-Sisi as the president of Mexico. The substance of Biden’s answer was perfectly cogent. The off-the-cuff response included geographic and policy details not just about Egypt, but about multiple Middle Eastern players that most Americans probably couldn’t even name. The president clearly knew whom and what he was talking about; he just slipped up the same way Johnson and so many others have. But the flub could not have come at a worse time. Because the press conference had been called to respond to Special Counsel Robert Hur’s report on Biden’s handling of classified documents, which dubbed the president an “elderly man with a poor memory,” the Mexico gaffe was immediately cast by critics as confirmation of Biden’s cognitive collapse.
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S2The bees learning to fight off invasive hornets  This horror story is one that is playing out with increasing frequency, says evolutionary biologist Thomas O'Shea-Wheller. Invasive Asian hornets are spreading across the world, making bees their victims. After the attack, when the hornet is left with just the protein-rich flight muscles, it takes its kill back to its nest. Asian hornets are intensive predators of native bees and other pollinators. "You might have six or seven hornets waiting outside a colony of honeybees," says O'Shea-Wheller. "The bees stop foraging because the risk of being caught is so high. Then, because they're not foraging, they can't build up food stores. So, they die the following winter."
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S7How the brain responds to reward is linked to socioeconomic background  MIT neuroscientists have found that the brain’s sensitivity to rewarding experiences — a critical factor in motivation and attention — can be shaped by socioeconomic conditions.In a study of 12 to 14-year-olds whose socioeconomic status (SES) varied widely, the researchers found that children from lower SES backgrounds showed less sensitivity to reward than those from more affluent backgrounds.
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S36Taylor Swift-NFL conspiracy theories are the result of two sets of hardcore fans colliding  At Super Bowl LVIII, Taylor Swift will appear on the field at Allegiant Stadium after her boyfriend Travis Kelce’s team, the Kansas City Chiefs, wins the game. But she won’t be performing. Swift’s appearance will be a Pentagon-backed psy-op to turn the rigged game into a calculated political endorsement, to secure the 2024 presidential election for Joe Biden. Swift, Kelce and the NFL have all been targets of conspiratorial thinking before. Swift has been accused of queerbaiting (hinting at LGBTQ+ identity without coming out) and neo-Nazi allegiances after far right websites made memes out of her lyrics.
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S4811 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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S66How Early-Adopter Companies Are Thinking About Apple Vision Pro  The Apple Vision Pro marks the biggest experiment yet in the field of “spatial computing,” which its boosters argue has the potential to be the next era of tech — a shift on par with the emergence of mobile computing. But what are early adopter companies really doing with Apple’s new hardware, and what do they hope to get out of these investments? The piece examines efforts from Lowe’s, e.l.f. Cosmetics, Hanifa, and the PGA Tour to understand these companies’ strategies. And while there are certainly benefits to being an early adopter, there are also barriers to entry, including expertise, competition, visibility on what is now a relatively small platform, and platform lock-in.
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S33Love 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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S43This is how tobacco damages our cells  Catedrático del área de Biología Celular. Investigador asociado del Centro Andaluz de Biología del Desarrollo. Investigador en metabolismo, envejecimiento y sistemas inmunológicos y antioxidantes., Universidad Pablo de Olavide My father smoked a pipe for some time, and I vividly remember that sticky black substance – tar – which stuck to the device’s filter. Now imagine this stuff going into your lungs, and coating their walls. The picture is unpleasant, to say the least.
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S46US 'pause' on future liquefied gas exports throws doubt on fossil fuel's place in energy transition  Since the first cargo of American liquefied natural gas (LNG) left a terminal on the Gulf of Mexico bound for Brazil in February 2016, US exports of the fuel have boomed. In 2023 the US was both the world’s largest producer of natural gas and its largest exporter of LNG, with exports that year totalling 86 million tons. Natural gas (methane) is burned to generate heat and electricity. Cooling it to -162 degrees centigrade at an LNG plant turns it into a liquid that makes possible transport internationally using specialised ships, LNG carriers.
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S47How the Quirkiest Sci-Fi Movie of 2024 Took a Page From Star Wars  A classic romantic comedy set amidst hi-tech environments, Molli and Max in the Future is a unique accomplishment in the indie science-fiction genre. The feature writing/directing debut of Michael Lukk Litwak, the Brooklyn native brings his fully imagined future on four different planets to the screen with colorfully fantastical visuals and a surprisingly analog approach.Molli (Zosia Mamet) is cruising along in her personal spaceship when she literally runs into Max (Aristotle Athari); the movie announces its tone right away when Molli’s first line is to ask Max what his insurance company is. The clever, spiky banter that follows makes it clear they’re made for each other, but in time-honored rom-com tradition, it will take Molli and Max over a decade, and the rest of the movie’s running time, to figure that out. Periods of several years separate them, she becomes part of a weird quasi-religious cult overseen by a floating tentacled head, while he becomes a champion “super mecha fighter.” Yet all along, they keep finding their way back to each other, as the sci-fi trappings serve as an endlessly inventive backdrop to the “will they or won’t they?” between its protagonists.
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S65S1How to Spike a Super Bowl Sunday Boost Into Year-Round Sales  For food and beverage entrepreneurs, the big game is a major sales opportunity. The key challenge? Converting big-game shoppers into loyal fans.Continued here
S4S15The 'Unthinkable' New Reality About Bedbugs  The stories have become horribly familiar: houses so overrun by bedbugs that the bloodsucking insects pile an inch deep on the floor. An airport shutting down gates for deep cleaning after the parasites were spotted. Fear and loathing during Fashion Week 2023 in Paris, with bedbug-detection dogs working overtime when the insects turned up in movie theaters and trains.For reasons that almost certainly have to do with global travel and poor pest management, bedbugs have resurfaced with a vengeance in 50 countries since the late 1990s. But recently, the resurgence has brought an added twist: When exterminators swarm out to hunt these pests, they might encounter not just one but two different kinds of bugs.
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S34S55The Best Video Games to Play After a Breakup  What does one do after a breakup? You lean on friends and family of course, but then, inevitably, you find yourself alone and home and in need of distraction. The last generation had ice cream and Nora Ephron movies (still works!) but today probably the most poignant, cathartic, and feel-good experience is found in a great game. Whether for a few adrenalized hours mindlessly slaying demon, an otherworldly universe to explore for days, or settling in to relive somebody else’s centuries-old tragedy, these are experiences that take you out of — and help you cope with — your own pain. Whichever way you are feeling, Inverse has a recommendation.Few things are more satisfying than revving up a chainsaw and smashing some skulls after getting some personal bad tidings. The experience of blazing from platform to platform, razing your enemies, is only accentuated by a suspense-filled soundtrack that wouldn’t be out of place at an electronic concert or a workout playlist. If you’re in a kicking ass and taking names kind of mood, DOOM beckons. - Shannon Liao
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S57S67Building a Supplier Diversity Program? Learn from the U.S. Government.  Large companies are striving to increase their purchases from small, diverse-owned businesses (SDBs) — those that are 51% or more owned and operated by an individual or group that is part of a historically underrepresented or underserved group (e.g., women, racial minorities, veterans, LGBTQIA+, and people with disabilities). Despite their pledges, they are struggling to meet their goals. The practices of four federal agencies can help them make their programs more effective.
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S5Why Do Birds Have Such Skinny Legs?  The songbirds in your backyard hop around on such itty-bitty legs. Here’s why bird legs are so skinny and how they can support a bird’s weightA bird in flight is poetry; a bird on the ground presents a conundrum. Watch a sparrow or other songbird bobbing and scratching around the forest floor and it’s easy to wonder: How do they support their weight on such skinny little legs?
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S10S24Middle-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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S29Couple to Throuple: How polyamory is becoming a 'new normal'  "If you were given the chance at non-monogamy in paradise, what would you say?" That's the premise behind a new US dating show, Couple to Throuple, in which four couples arrive on a tropical island resort "to turn fantasy into reality". For each of them, that fantasy involves inviting one of 14 glamorous singles to join them in a throuple to see if the polyamorous lifestyle could be for them.More like this: – Could reality TV save your relationship? – The ménage-à-trois on screen – How the Bloomsbury group unbuttoned Britain
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S37How 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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S52Ford Could Beat Tesla in the Race To Make Affordable EVs in America  The race for an affordable EV is heating up. Ford revealed that it’s working on a “low-cost EV platform” that should lead to smaller EVs in its lineup. The automaker’s CEO, Jim Farley, said during Ford’s fourth-quarter earnings call that there was a “skunkworks” team created two years ago to devise this affordable EV platform. According to Farley, this platform would fit several types of vehicles but would also work with Ford’s software and services.This move represents a big shift for Ford, which has so far released EVs with much larger footprints. Unlike the F-150 Lightning, Mustang Mach-E, or even its E-Transit van, this upcoming EV platform could change Ford’s gears towards more compact, affordable all-electric options.
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S6S19Thich Nhat Hanh on true love and the 5 rivers of self-knowledge, a neurobiologist on the art of allowing change, Loren Eiseley on the miraculous ![]() For paleontologist, anthropologist, philosopher of science, and poet Loren Eiseley (September 3, 1907–July 9, 1977), it happened in an encounter with a bouquet of warblers during a fossil-collecting expedition. He recounts the experience in his essay “The Judgment of the Birds,” originally published in 1957 in the first of his many exquisite essay collections — An Immense Journey, which inspired Ed Yong’s excellent An Immense World — and later included in the posthumous collection of his finest writing, The Star Thrower (public library), in the introduction to which W.H. Auden so poignantly captures Eiseley’s core ethos: “The first point he wishes to make is that in order to be a scientist, an artist, a doctor, a lawyer, or what-have-you, one has first to be a human being.”It was a late hour on a cold, wind-bitten autumn day when I climbed a great hill spined like a dinosaur’s back and tried to take my bearings. The tumbled waste fell away in waves in all directions. Blue air was darkening into purple along the bases of the hills. I shifted my knapsack, heavy with the petrified bones of long-vanished creatures, and studied my compass. I wanted to be out of there by nightfall, and already the sun was going sullenly down in the west.
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S20Why to Start Considering Your Possible Selves  Posted January 10, 2024 | Reviewed by Monica Vilhauer Philosophers in the last century have often focused on "possible worlds": the many different ways the world could be. For example, we live in a world where there is oil in the Permian Basin, but we can imagine a world in which it contains only water. Psychologists have been more recently interested in a different notion, which is arguably even more significant: this is the idea of "possible selves."
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